WSL Chapter 9

Gu Jianian’s heart tightened when she heard He Ji Tong’s words.

No wonder Chi Yan’s mood was so bad today.

She remembered her grandmother saying that when Chi Yan was ten years old, he came back to Zhushan from Yunmo and had been living with his grandfather ever since.

She then asked, “Did he move to Yunmo because his grandfather passed away?”

He Ji Tong hesitated in his tone and replied ambiguously, “Perhaps. After the funeral last year, he said he wanted to move to the countryside in Yunmo. This house was left by his grandfather.”

He glanced in the direction of the second floor, then bent down and whispered beside her.

“Anyway, don’t mention this in front of him, pretend you don’t know anything. He’s got a bad temper and hates it when people ask him about those unhappy things.”

Gu Jianian nodded, wanting to ask further, “Then he…”

But she caught sight of Chi Yan coming downstairs.

She immediately fell silent, swallowing the unfinished sentence, the abrupt change in direction making it hard to ignore.

Chi Yan noticed it and frowned, asking them, “What were you talking about?”

Gu Jianian felt a bit embarrassed, hadn’t thought of an excuse yet, when suddenly someone put their hand on her shoulder.

He Ji Tong draped his hand over her shoulder and winked at Chi Yan in a very flirtatious manner, “A little secret between Jianian and me. Curious? Call me cousin, and I’ll tell you.”

“…”

Chi Yan gave him a disdainful glance and ignored him, walking straight out.

Then he turned back to Gu Jianian and said, “You stay here for now.”

Gu Jianian responded with an “Okay,” but her gaze involuntarily followed him.

He changed into an outfit for going out, a light blue shirt with grey trousers, and wore a grey baseball cap with a deep brim.

As he walked out of the house, the dazzling sunlight flooded in.

Chi Yan paused instinctively for a moment, then raised his hand to lower the brim of his cap.

Gu Jianian watched him walk outside, kicking aside the cluttered twigs and pebbles, hastily clearing a path.

A few minutes later, He Ji Tong parked the car properly and stood outside the courtyard, watching Chi Yan help Gu Jianian walk out.

He looked at the roughly cleared stone path and the garden next to it, which looked even more desolate with its pile of dead branches and leaves, and said in a very sarcastic tone, “Chi Yan, your courtyard is really unique, very tasteful. If a horror movie crew wants a location, I can recommend it to them.”

“…”

Gu Jianian looked up and saw Chi Yan’s face full of “you’re annoying.”

These two cousins were indeed strange, with completely different personalities.

Chi Yan hardly ever spoke, while He Ji Tong could say in two sentences what could be said in one by others.

Their combined words probably equalled that of an ordinary person.

He Ji Tong continued incessantly, “And do you think everyone is a mutated vampire like you? With you drawing the curtains all day long, smoking and drinking, making the house all gloomy, it’ll give people psychological shadows in the long run, especially for minors.”

“Isn’t that right, Jianian?”

Just when she was enjoying the spectacle, she found herself in trouble, involuntarily raising her head and meeting Chi Yan’s gaze.

He raised an eyebrow at her, his eyes carrying a hint of inquiry.

Gu Jianian lowered her head, keeping her voice steady without any trace of flattery, “Well… I think a quiet environment is quite nice. And when I’m around, he hardly smokes. As for the garden…”

She paused, not used to lying, and her tongue got a bit tied up, “…the garden looks nice, with a kind of casual beauty in its unkemptness. Yeah.”

As if to convince herself, she added a “yeah” at the end, emphasizing it.

Fortunately, no one noticed.

Gu Jianian caught a glimpse of Chi Yan’s mouth slowly curling up, then heard He Ji Tong dramatically accusing her, “…a little vampire.”

On the way, He Ji Tong drove while Chi Yan sat in the passenger seat.

Gu Jianian sat alone in the spacious back seat, her legs stretched out comfortably.

She rolled down the window slightly, letting the mountain breeze in. There was a fresh scent of bamboo in the wind, and a disobedient bamboo leaf drifted in with it.

Gu Jianian subconsciously toyed with the bamboo leaf, but her eyes sneakily assessed the person in the passenger seat through the rear-view mirror.

The sunlight filtered through the windshield, casting dappled shadows on his face.

He frowned, lifted a hand, and pressed down on his cap again, attempting to block out the bothersome sunlight.

Shielded by the back of the seat, Gu Jianian unabashedly stole glances at him, unnoticed by anyone.

In such a small and confined space, his every move seemed magnified, easily unsettling her.

Gu Jianian had read many books.

The downside was that she could easily immerse herself in her own world and wasn’t good at communicating with others.

The upside was her sensitivity, especially to her own emotions, often able to perceive them quickly.

Just like now.

In these past few days, all the vague emotions became clear to her.

She lowered her head, feeling confused and anxious, realizing that she was probably falling for someone on her escape route.

*

The town was not far from Yunmo Village, just over ten minutes’ drive.

He Ji Tong parked the car in the open-air parking lot of the central hospital in town.

It was Gu Jianian’s first time in town, and she looked around curiously.

Although the town hospital couldn’t compare to the size of city hospitals, it had all the essential departments, and there were several of them.

They followed the signs to the emergency room on the first floor. Upon entering, a nurse gave them a number – this simple registration method was completely different from the hospitals Gu Jianian usually went to.

The emergency waiting room was filled with many people, most of them covered with thin blankets and hanging IV drips. There was only one little boy waiting with Gu Jianian, who had fallen out of a tree and was being scolded by his mother.

“Which kid is as mischievous as you? Jumping around all day, lucky you didn’t hit your head too hard! I don’t want to raise a stupid son.”

The boy pouted and occasionally argued back.

Finally, when his mother went to the restroom, the curious boy moved closer, eyeing Gu Jianian’s feet, and asked hopefully, “Sister, did you fall from a tree too?”

His expression seemed to hope that Gu Jianian’s injury process was more outrageous than his, so he could stand up straight in front of his mother.

In fact, Gu Jianian’s injury process was not a textbook example – she got her foot caught by a crab she caught herself and had nowhere to cry out for injustice.

And, embarrassingly enough, it was extremely, exceptionally, embarrassing.

That was the point.

Gu Jianian glanced at Chi Yan beside her, hesitating whether to lie in front of this knowledgeable person. Then she saw him stand up, take out a cigarette from his pocket, and say, “I’m going out for a smoke.”

So Gu Jianian turned around and whispered to the little boy, “No, sister accidentally bumped into something and got cut by broken glass. Climbing trees is very dangerous, you should listen to your mom.”

“Oh…”

The little boy, unable to find a co-conspirator, dejectedly moved back to his seat.

“That’s better.”

After saying that, Gu Jianian couldn’t help but look outside, searching for a certain figure.

Through the hospital’s glass windows and the bustling crowd, she easily spotted him.

He stood in a secluded corner outside the door, leaning against the stainless steel railing on the roadside, his head lowered in thought.

He said he was going to smoke, but he hadn’t lit up yet, just idly holding the cigarette between his fingertips.

She watched him standing there for a long time.

Until an elderly man with white hair wheeled himself back and forth at the door, trying to see if there was a button to automatically open it.

Chi Yan walked over and helped him push the door open.

The old man turned back, thanking him gratefully.

He didn’t say anything and walked back to the corner.

Through the hospital’s glass window, Gu Jianian stared absently at his profile, feeling something sour and swollen crawling into her heart.

He and his grandfather must have a good relationship.

She thought of the pile of empty bottles and cigarette butts in Chi Yan’s house, the cold floor, the room filled with miscellaneous books, and the desolate courtyard.

She also remembered this afternoon when he woke up in a daze and asked her, “What’s the date?”

Apart from the pain in her toes, there was another kind of pain quietly flowing along with her blood, touching her nerves.

She felt like an audience in front of the screen, unable to touch the people in the story no matter how much she empathized.

Just then, she was startled by He Ji Tong’s question, “… What are you looking at? Why are you so lost in thought?”

Gu Jia Nian was taken aback, realizing that he was looking out of the corner of his eye in the direction of her gaze.

As if nothing had happened, Gu Jia Nian casually turned her head to block his view and said, “Just looking around, what’s wrong?”

Fortunately, He Ji Tong didn’t probe further, but instead curiously leaned over and asked her, “Little Jia Nian, I haven’t asked you yet, why are you at Chi Yan’s house?”

Gu Jia Nian breathed a sigh of relief and slowly replied, “I come to his house to study every morning. I had something to do this morning, so I came in the afternoon.”

Upon hearing this, He Ji Tong looked at her incredulously.

After a while, he put his hand to his lips and asked her as if whispering, “Um, does Chi Yan owe you money?”

Gu Jia Nian was puzzled, “No… why do you ask?”

He Ji Tong shrugged, “Otherwise, how could he let you study at his house? And today, he even went out because you were injured, which is rare for him to leave the house.”

He added, “After moving to Yunmo, he has never invited anyone to his house. It sounds good to say he wants peace and quiet, but to be blunt, he’s misanthropic and doesn’t want to interact with people at all.”

After thinking for a moment, Gu Jia Nian explained, “Maybe it’s because of my grandmother’s face. My grandmother and Chi Yan’s grandfather knew each other. When he transferred to Yunmo as a child, my grandmother helped take care of him for a semester.”

He Ji Tong nodded in understanding, “So that’s how it is.”

He muttered, “I thought he was unusually kind. Once, I brought people from a film and television company to his house to discuss a copyright contract. After it was over, a girl asked if she could read a book at his house, and he told her to go to the library. Can you believe that?”

But Gu Jia Nian’s attention shifted, “…Copyright contract? Film and television company?”

He Ji Tong was surprised, “You didn’t know? Chi Yan is a writer.”

Gu Jia Nian was stunned.

Thinking she might not have any concept, He Ji Tong added, “Little Jia Nian, have you read ‘Tilted Words’? Chi Yan has been serializing articles in ‘Tilted Words’ since high school.”

Gu Jia Nian couldn’t help but widen her eyes.

Of course, she had read “Tilted Words,” it could even be said that it was her literary enlightenment magazine.

From elementary school to junior high school, whenever Gu Jia Nian had the opportunity to go out, she would almost go to the bookstore every month to read “Tilted Words” monthly.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t had the chance to read it since high school.

As the largest literary magazine in China, in the age of short videos and fragmented reading, “Tilted Words” was the only literary magazine that persisted in serializing novels and continued to maintain popularity.

It was even praised by some people on literary forums as the last bastion of Chinese literature.

Many once-famous writers had serialized articles in “Tilted Words.”

Gu Jia Nian subconsciously turned her head to look outside.

Chi Yan was pushing open the glass door, walking in from the sunlight. With each step he took, the shadow on his body deepened, and the deeply furrowed brow gradually relaxed, as if he was entering a comfort zone.

As he walked over, Chi Yan interrupted their conversation, “Is it our turn now?”

Gu Jia Nian turned her head to look, and the small rolling screen at the door of the consultation room happened to display their number.

She was led inside, but her mind drifted tens of thousands of miles away.

She sat there absent-mindedly, watching the young female doctor ask questions with her lips moving, and listening to Chi Yan describe her injury in detail, as well as He Ji Tong’s laughter when he heard the reason for her injury.

She had always had a vague guess about his profession, and now the clues in her mind were falling into place where they should be.

So, he was a writer.

Gu Jianian remembered that every book she had read in these days bore his reading traces. Apart from some relatively easy-to-understand realistic works, in other metaphorical and obscure stream-of-consciousness novels, she occasionally saw his annotations and analyses.

These annotations usually bypassed the reader’s perspective and analysed the composition of the novel from the author’s standpoint.

Although it’s said that there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes, Chi Yan’s annotations always accurately touched her nerves, being very sharp and precise, subtly guiding her along the way.

Reading is a very therapeutic form of entertainment, but if you want to go further, you’ll find that reading actually has its threshold.

Over the years, Gu Jianian has read some books haphazardly and without any systematic approach. Often, she felt like a traveller walking in the desert, without experience, stumbling in the vast sand city of words, often blinded by the sandstorm, unable to find direction; or swept away in the desert storm, unable to make any progress.

Chi Yan’s sparse annotations, on the other hand, were like precious supply stations in the desert, replenishing her provisions and guiding her direction, giving her the confidence to continue.

In these past two weeks, Gu Jianian could clearly feel her reading ability progressing rapidly.

Sometimes, she could even spontaneously abandon the reader’s perspective and analyse the story, character development, and the meaning conveyed by every plot point from another angle — an experience far beyond the formulaic reading comprehension on high school exams.

This was also an important reason why Gu Jianian had been diligently coming to the ivy-covered villa to read books every day for so many days.

The gauze on her toes was gradually unwrapped, and the pain of the torn wound brought Gu Jianian back to her senses in an instant.

She raised her head and stared intently at Chi Yan’s clear profile.

He noticed her gaze and frowned, looking at her, “Is it painful?”

Gu Jianian pressed her lips together and shook her head.