"Auntie, I'm going..." Le Xi interrupted them, afraid that if she didn't speak up, the two of them would get into a fight. She glanced at Shi Lu, smiled at him, and then was led away by several old ladies.
When the potential for being gay
The senior citizens' art troupe performed "Yellow River Dance," an adaptation of the famous Irish dance "Riverdance." The elderly ladies danced with great skill and focus. However, after watching, Lexi felt something was lacking. She frowned, thought for a moment, and finally voiced her thoughts.
The problem lies in the costumes. The elderly women planned to perform in long black dresses, but due to their age, their figures were somewhat out of shape, and the long dresses didn't match the power and beauty of tap dance, affecting the overall aesthetic. When they stood on stage, the black dresses would appear too monotonous due to the lighting.
Lexi offered to help them find a solution, which surprised the old ladies—what could a little child possibly do? Buy new costumes? The arts troupe didn't have enough funds. Make improvements? Who knew how to tailor?
The answer is yes, Yuexi does. Yuexi said he learned tailoring from his godmother since he was a child and knows a little bit of the craft. But in fact, it's not just "a little." A simple black leotard with jewel-blue trim, and a pleated skirt made of the same color silk tied at the waist, not only makes up for any shortcomings in his figure but also makes him stand out.
Thus, the important task of modifying the clothing of more than twenty people fell to Lexi.
"Xiao Le, come here and rest for a while. Try Auntie's chilled watermelon." Shi's mother walked over to Le Xi with a fruit platter and said to Le Xi, who was buried in a pile of clothes.
"It'll be ready soon, Auntie." Lexi turned around and smiled at Shi's mother, then looked at the fabric again. Luckily, Shi's mother had an old-fashioned sewing machine, otherwise Lexi would have really been "a skilled cook without rice to cook".
"Huh? I didn't realize you were so skillful!" Shi Lu also came over to watch the spectacle. He couldn't believe his eyes when he saw Le Xi sew together the haphazardly cut fabric with a sewing machine and it took shape. He picked up a piece of fabric incredulously and examined it closely. How could such irregular fabric be transformed into something magical?
“Here, Salt. Let him make you one to tie around your waist too. To cover your barrel waist.” Shi Lu teased Yan Shuang, holding up a strip of cloth.
"Get out!" Yan Shuang roared at Shi Lu, reaching out to snatch the thing from Shi Lu's hand. The two almost came to blows over a mere word.
"Crash!" Someone knocked over the small wooden table next to him, and the toolbox on the table fell to the ground, with buttons and threads scattered all over the floor. Shi Lu accidentally stepped on it.
The two of them were stunned for a moment, watching as Lexi almost jumped up and rushed over to look at his precious toolbox.
The rusty tin box was the kind used to store White Rabbit candy in the last century. Shi Lu thought, "Le Xi probably wasn't even born when these kinds of boxed candies came out, were they? This old-fashioned thing, so rustic." But seeing Le Xi's eyes redden with anxiety, silently staring at the dented box in her hand, Shi Lu began to have some doubts.
Apologize and try to get leniency.
It's just a box; even if the tools inside are broken, I should be able to buy more. Two voices were arguing back and forth in Schru's mind.
“Um…” Shi Lu began, but found himself feeling a little guilty because of Le Xi’s silence.
Lexi looked up at him, and there was a hint of tears in his eyes. Shi Lu wondered if he was seeing things.
"Lexi, don't be angry! We were just joking!" Yan Shuang was quick-witted and saw that Lexi's expression was off, so she quickly smoothed things over. "Is the tool broken? If it is, we'll buy you a new one. Don't worry!"
Lexi smiled. "Buy it? Where can I buy it?" "This is Aunt Lan's keepsake. Aunt Lan used this for so long; even if the fabric and decorations of the cheongsam she made were incredibly valuable, she still liked to use this box as a toolbox. Aunt Lan said, 'Lele, when Aunt Lan can no longer work, I'll pass this on to you. Xiaohui can't inherit it! It's all up to you now!'"
How can something broken be restored? How can someone who has left ever come back?
He said softly, "It's okay, nothing's broken."
The sound was like a sigh.
"What are you two doing here, making such a mess!" Mrs. Shi shouted angrily from the doorway. She had just turned around to tidy up the coffee table when she returned to find the floor a complete mess. What was most infuriating was that, with the deadline for modifying the clothes so tight, the two of them were oblivious to their own urgency and made things even worse.
"Auntie, don't worry, we'll just pack our things up," Lexi said, standing up to comfort Shi's mother.
“That’s right, that’s right, we’ll take it right away…” Yan Shuang said to Shi’s mother with a big smile.
Unexpectedly, before he could finish speaking, something unexpected happened.
The person who was just laughing and saying he was fine suddenly collapsed, catching everyone around him off guard.
"Lexi!" Shi Lu hurriedly reached out to support Lexi's suddenly limp body.
Schru grabbed Lexi's arm to prevent him from falling, but still felt the body in his arms sliding down uncontrollably. Schru simply slipped his hand under Lexi's armpits and lifted him up, placing him on the sofa. Lexi's face was pale, his eyes half-closed, his eyebrows furrowed, and he leaned against Schru's chest, breathing heavily.
"What's wrong?"
"The medicine, in my pants pocket..." Lexi said breathlessly, clutching her clothes to her chest.
Shi Lu didn't dare to be careless and reached into his pocket to pull out a small medicine bottle. He felt his hand trembling as he poured the medicine into it.
“Two…” Lexi gasped, grabbing Shilu’s sleeve as she spoke to him.
"Here." Shi Lu held out his hand, which held the pill, to Le Xi's mouth and fed it to him. When the cool lips touched Shi Lu's palm, Shi Lu felt his heart pounding wildly.
"Should we go to the hospital?" Shi's mother came over, covered Le Xi with a blanket to keep him warm, and squatted down beside him to ask with concern.
Lexi shook her head and smiled weakly, "It's nothing, I'll be fine in a bit. I just got up too fast..."
Yan Shuang said to Shi Lu, "I think you have a lot of potential to be gay." Shi Lu was a little confused, so he went to ask her why. But Yan Shuang just frowned and looked at him with an expression as if she had discovered a rare animal, then sighed and shook her head.
Shi Lu was a little stunned, unable to understand why he seemed more like a gay man. To prove he wasn't gay, Shi Lu brought home a few BL (Boys' Love) comics and novels from Yan Shuang's bookstore. Lying in bed, he flipped through a few pages before getting bored and wanting to sleep. Half-asleep, all he could see was Yao Lexi's clear, innocent face. That face was full of expressions: a bewildered look, a dim gaze, a smile, a frown and panting... and of course, Yan Shuang's gloating look... Distracted by these bizarre images, Shi Lu was wide awake, helplessly reflecting on his 26 years of life: he broke up with his girlfriend, yet he felt no sadness at all. After so many years together, the most they'd ever done was hold hands; kissing was rare. No wonder his girlfriend broke up with him... And then there was the fact that, when he thought about it, the first friend he held hands with in kindergarten, the first child he slept with, the first person he blushed with—all of them were actually boys...
"No!" Shi Lu pounded her pillow in frustration and buried her head under the covers. She was being led by the nose by Yan Shuang. Thinking back, the first person she held hands with as a child was her cousin, when she and her mother went out to play. Her mother was afraid he'd get lost, so she made them hold hands. The first child she slept with was the chubby boy who used to live across the street. Their parents had gone to study in another city, so they were forced to live with him. That fatso took up two-thirds of the bed, stole the blankets, snored, and drooled—it was disgusting! And the first person she blushed with was even more embarrassing: she mistook his twin brother for his sister, tugging at his sleeve and telling her mother how pretty he was and that she wanted to be her wife. This made the adults laugh, which was why she blushed!
19-year-old old man
Shi Lu thought Le Xi's voice was very pleasant. This judgment came from a conversation Le Xi had with Xiao Xiao one day when they were learning a nursery rhyme in the L city dialect.
Xiao Xiao sings: Big head, big head, no worries when it rains. Others have umbrellas, I have a big head.
Le Xi followed, singing in dialect: "Break through, break through, Xia Yu Bu Chou. Ren Jia You San, Wo You Da Tou." His roundabout way of speaking made him look distressed, which was quite comical.
Xiao Xiao was already laughing so hard she was doubled over, and insisted that Le Xi repeat it in the C City dialect. But Le Xi frowned and refused, while still muttering in the L City dialect: "Da tou da tou, xia yu bu chou..."
To make new costumes for the senior citizens' art troupe, Lexi and Shilu have been running around looking for materials for the past few days. Lexi wanted to add some decorations to the skirt, and Shilu said he could help buy whatever was needed, but Lexi looked incredulous: "You're quite knowledgeable about tailoring materials, aren't you?" Shilu was speechless.
Fortunately, the mornings in L City weren't too hot, so the two of them took advantage of the morning to shop around, comparing prices and strolling the streets with bags full of things. Shi Lu noticed that Le Xi seemed to particularly enjoy shopping, especially for items with ethnic characteristics, which she seemed quite fond of. However, he also noticed that Le Xi's spending habits weren't very good; sometimes she was quite extravagant. Seeing that Le Xi was dressed in high-end clothes from head to toe, he thought her family must be quite wealthy. But then Le Xi told him that all her clothes were handmade by herself. Shi Lu's eyes widened, looking completely incredulous.
"What's wrong? Is it strange?" Lexi held a cup of apricot juice and took a happy sip.
"N-nothing..." Shi Lu said with an awkward smile.
"Hehe..." Le Xi shook the cool apricot juice in her hand. "Hmm, this juice is so delicious. I wonder how it's made?"
"Oh, it's just the leftover bits and pieces of apricots that someone ate."
Le Xi frowned, stared intently at the cup in her hand, subconsciously moved it away slightly, pursed her lips, and seemed to feel a little nauseous.
Schlu chuckled: "Why do you believe everything I say?"
Lexi was speechless. But she vowed never to drink that apricot juice again.
They were supposed to go back for lunch to eat Shi's mother's cooking, but they wasted a lot of time wandering around the streets. By the time they were starving, they realized it was well past lunchtime. Shi Lu called her mother and dragged Le Xi around looking for a place to eat.
Shi Lu stood in the middle of the pedestrian street, deep in thought, before finally slapping his forehead and saying, "Come on! I'll take you to eat beef noodles!"
"Beef noodles? What's so good about beef noodles?" Le Xi said with dissatisfaction. "I don't like noodles."
"It's delicious! Come on, follow me!" After saying that, he pulled Lexi and walked through several alleys before finally arriving at a rather inconspicuous shop.
The shop wasn't big, but it was packed with people eating there. However, to Shi Lu's embarrassment, he found he didn't have any change when he went to pay.
"Hehe, I didn't borrow the money for nothing!" Lexi waved the change in her hand, looking at Shilu with a hint of schadenfreude.
"You're so stingy! You should at least bribe me a little. How can you be so inconsiderate?" Shi Lu pretended to shake his head and sigh. "What's the point of me helping you carry all these bags?"
"That's because you're not popular!"
"How am I unpopular? I'm the most popular, handsome, and promising young man in history!" Shi Lu patted his chest vigorously.
"Ugh..." Le Xi made a vomiting face, her eyes narrowing into slits as she teased, "You're really not modest!"
"Don't you know that humility makes one fall behind while pride makes one progress? Do you know which famous person said that?" Seeing Le Xi shake her head, Shi Lu continued smugly, "Remember this! I won't say it a second time. The person who said this is... Hey, hey, don't go! Let me finish!... Hey, wait for me!"
The waiter asked Lexi how thin the noodles she wanted, which made Lexi hesitate for a while. Later, with Shilu's explanation, she understood that there were many kinds of beef noodles, such as wide, thin, medium, and extra thin, with many different variations. Lexi nodded as if she understood, and seeing that Shilu ordered medium thin, she also ordered the same. When it was served, the soup was clear, the noodles were white, and the aroma was irresistible, making her mouth water.
Shi Lu slurped down his food before noticing that Le Xi was still taking small bites of half of it, and he was startled. At first glance, he thought Le Xi didn't like it, but seeing his graceful movements and the sweat on his brow, Shi Lu asked curiously, "How was the taste? Don't you like it?"
"Isn't it too hot?" Le Xi exclaimed, wiping away her sweat. It took Shi Lu a while to understand that he meant "Isn't it too hot?" He almost laughed himself to death.
"Hey Lexi, even though you're paying for this meal, you don't have to torture yourself by eating so slowly! Beef noodles are meant to be eaten in big bites. I'll feel guilty eating like this." Shi Lu suppressed a laugh as he looked at Lexi sitting across from him, his lips twitching slightly.
"What's wrong?" Le Xi looked up, chopsticks still in her mouth, looking at him with utter innocence.
“As a guy, it’s shameful to eat so slowly and be so skinny,” Shi Lu said mysteriously, leaning down to Le Xi’s ear. “There are two girls peeking at you from three o’clock behind you! They eat so much, with meat and eggs in their noodles. How can you expect girls who are interested in pursuing you to feel embarrassed?”
Le Xi smiled, buried her head and took a bite of noodles, chewing slowly and deliberately, then said slowly and deliberately, "What's wrong with being slow? Chewing slowly is a good habit. Swallowing food whole is like Pigsy eating ginseng fruit."
Shi Lu's smile froze on his face, and he twitched his lips awkwardly.
Shi Lu discovered that he was increasingly showing signs of becoming a detective. Every time he saw Le Xi, he would follow him as if his feet had a mind of their own. Sometimes, he would follow him from a distance like a voyeur, watching what he was doing and what he liked to do. After a period of "tailing" him, Shi Lu realized that Le Xi's life had prematurely entered an old age. As a male, especially a male college student in the new century, life should be colorful, but Le Xi's life was quite boring.
Every morning around eight o'clock, he would go to the breakfast shop outside to buy breakfast, which would invariably be a bowl of porridge and a steamed bun. He would only eat two kinds of porridge and steamed bun: red bean paste and wild vegetable (note: a kind of wild vegetable in Northwest China) steamed buns, corn porridge and wheat porridge. His love for these two kinds of steamed buns and two kinds of porridge had reached a rather abnormal level.
After breakfast, he would go to Yan Shuang's shop to read, always sitting on the sofa by the window, always reading magazines related to clothing. Occasionally, he would buy some snacks for Yan Shuang, but he would only eat soda crackers himself, hardly anything else. Then he would continue reading, and afterwards go back to buy groceries and cook. He only ate rice, not noodles or steamed buns. When asked why he didn't eat noodles, he exclaimed, "So steamed buns can be eaten with vegetables for lunch? We usually only eat them in the morning!" Shi Lu rolled his eyes at this.
After lunch, he would take a nap at home, then go out to chat with the elderly ladies in the community who loved to dance, or idly chat with the ladies who enjoyed crafting, watching them work. The afternoons were relatively free; occasionally, he would go to the small shop outside Yan Shuang's store to buy yogurt or ice cream. The way he ate his ice cream was quite comical; he liked to eat the outermost layer of chocolate first, then slowly savor the ice cream inside. Sometimes he would sit on the bench outside the shop, stretching his legs out, swinging his toes back and forth, looking down at his shadow in the sunlight, or chatting with the old man at the shop, laughing carefree.
These details about Lexi's whereabouts were compiled by Schlue over a week. According to Schlue's own words, the level of detail was "a massive undertaking, breathtaking, unprecedented and unparalleled," and could be considered "laying a solid foundation for further in-depth understanding." However, Schlue felt at the time that if he lived like Lexi, he would definitely go crazy, but Lexi seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it. This made Schlue curious, and he wanted to poke Lexi's head to see if the wiring was wrong—how could a 19-year-old boy be as quiet as an old man?
Be strong
"Your heart rate is only 42 beats per minute," the doctor said to Lexi, pointing to the electrocardiogram. "Have you experienced any temporary blackouts or sudden fainting spells recently?"
“…Yes, I have…” Le Xi bit her lower lip, looking at the fluctuating curves on the electrocardiogram, and subconsciously clenched her fist, but unexpectedly her hand was trembling.
"The situation isn't good." The doctor pushed up his glasses and continued expressionlessly. Le Xi watched his lips move, but she couldn't quite hear what he said next.
"Surgery?" Lexi repeated the doctor's words, raising her head to stare into his eyes, as if that would change his opinion and her current situation.
"This disease becomes quite dangerous in its later stages. Initially, there are no symptoms, just like before, when you seemed perfectly normal and healthy. But by the time symptoms appear, it's already very dangerous. Surgery is the best solution. After having a pacemaker implanted, you can basically live like a normal person again."
A normal person? Hah, a normal person, isn't that exactly what I've been hoping for? My mother and grandmother both passed away because of this disease. And my father… he also abandoned them because of my mother's illness… My mother always hoped she wouldn't get this disease, but this hereditary disease still found its way to her. And everything I've done so far, hasn't it all been because I wanted to live like a normal person?
How much will the surgery cost?
"It's hard to say, it depends on the materials used in the pacemaker. Usually it costs around 60,000 to 70,000."
"Heh." Le Xi couldn't help but laugh out loud. Sixty to seventy thousand? She had a full one hundred thousand yuan in her account, which she hadn't touched since leaving City C. She never expected it would finally come in handy. And there was even some left over after the surgery. It seemed pretty good. It turned out she had been quite prescient.
Lexi leaned back wearily in her chair. The smell of hospital disinfectant filled the room—a smell she'd encountered countless times over the past year, yet never quite gotten used to. If she had surgery, could she escape this place forever? Could she abandon her past and become a normal person again?
"Let me think about it," Lexi said softly.