When Xie Lan arrived home, his eyes were still a bit red, but his mood was much lighter. While changing shoes, he even discussed the next video plan with Dou Sheng.

The house was brightly lit, and the steam from the hot pot spread the scent of tomatoes throughout the room.

Zhao Wenying’s long hair was pinned up, and she had changed into loungewear made of the same material as Dou Sheng’s.

She put a whole bunch of freshly cooked meat into Xie Lan’s bowl. “Lan Lan, eat more.”

Dou Sheng’s chopsticks grasped at nothing, fished around for a long time, and finally pulled out a slice of radish.

Completely tasteless.

Zhao Wenying frowned and said, “Put it back for your mom! Every time, before it’s cooked soft, you eat it.”

Dou Sheng sighed deeply. “Then please tell me, what am I worthy of eating?”

“Eat whatever you like!”

Xie Lan felt a bit embarrassed by the care. He stood up to help but was pressed back down before he could straighten up.

“You eat yours. I heard you study particularly hard, so rest well when you get home.”

Xie Lan was stunned. “Heard?”

Zhao Wenying explained, “Auntie doesn’t mean to spy on you. Just returned to the country, I was worried you wouldn’t adapt and would be too embarrassed to say so when you came back, so I had a few calls with your homeroom teacher.”

“I don’t feel spied on.” Xie Lan shook his head immediately. “I just didn’t expect you to contact the teacher even while on a business trip.”

“Making a phone call is no trouble.” Zhao Wenying smiled. “All the subject teachers like you very much. Needless to say for math and physics, even the chemistry and biology teachers say you are smart. Especially the Chinese teacher, who praised you for being serious and cute, paying special attention even to small classroom quizzes, and writing answers yourself for questions not on the test.”

Dou Sheng was holding his bowl beside them, grinning foolishly.

Xie Lan’s face felt a bit hot from the steam of the pot.

Xiao Langjing had been gone for two years, and he wasn’t quite used to this kind of occasion where he sat and listened to adults praise him.

But he still hummed vaguely and buried his head to eat meat.

Zhao Wenying laughed. “Lan Lan is so cute. Sigh, why couldn’t I give birth to a son like you?”

“Tsk.” Dou Sheng put down his chopsticks. “This is meaningless now. Why the praise and step back?”

Zhao Wenying’s face changed instantly. “You shut up. I was embarrassed to talk about you. Taking Lan Lan to skip evening self-study and playing with phones! Teacher Hu told me, Lan Lan is bound to succeed, the premise being he stays away from you!”

Dou Sheng sighed deeply. “Fine, you guys chat, I’ll eat mine.”

Zhao Wenying opened a bottle of sparkling wine and mixed it with a bottle of peach-like juice, asking Xie Lan, “Want to try?”

Xie Lan paused. “Underage…”

The bottle tilted, pouring out more than half a glass.

“Drinking a little wine will make you feel relaxed.” Zhao Wenying also poured herself a glass and glanced at Dou Sheng. “Are you drinking?”

Dou Sheng shook his head calmly. “Can’t outdrink you, alcoholic.”

The alcohol taste was quite strong, but not hard to swallow. Stronger than the alcohol was the peach flavor; the bubbles burst in the mouth, very refreshing.

“It’s pretty good.” Xie Lan took several sips in a row.

Dou Sheng looked like he wanted to say something but stopped.

Zhao Wenying’s bottle came over and refilled the two mouthfuls Xie Lan had just drunk.

“Drink. It’s the weekend, relax and have a good sleep.”

As soon as the bottle was put down, another chopstick-full of meat arrived.

Xie Lan couldn’t keep up with eating at all, so he could only bury his head, humming in agreement while eating quickly.

Inexplicably, he thought of Wutong squatting in front of the food bowl, frantically gnawing on cat food.

The peach sparkling wine was clear, sweet, and cold, becoming more addictive the more he drank. After one glass, Xie Lan really began to relax.

The sorrow lingering in his heart peeled away bit by bit, and his brain became light and airy. Taking a deep breath, his nose was filled with the clear sweetness of peaches.

Zhao Wenying chattered on alone. Xie Lan felt dizzy and was pulled by Dou Sheng.

“Are you okay?”

Xie Lan was confused. “What’s wrong?”

“Afraid you drank too much.” Dou Sheng whispered, “This wine has a strong aftereffect. Don’t listen to her teasing you; she can drink a thousand cups without falling, trained at the wine table.”

Xie Lan looked at Dou Sheng strangely.

He didn’t feel the alcohol was strong; he just felt very relaxed.

“You can’t talk about your mother behind her back.” He frowned.

Dou Sheng: “…Okay.”

After eating and clearing the bowls, Xie Lan went back to his room and lay on the bed, feeling a bit spinny.

The mattress dipped, and Wutong jumped up from below, meowing at him.

“Shh—” Xie Lan tapped its nose tip. “Dou Sheng, shut up.”

The kitten quieted down.

Xie Lan lay back on the bed. He felt his chest starting to get a bit hot, the heat rushing to his forehead.

He looked at the ceiling, pondered for a while, and asked, “What time do you and Dou Sheng usually swap identities at night?”

Wutong jumped next to the pillow and stared at him indifferently.

“You started staring at people too, worthy of Class 4.” Xie Lan sighed with emotion, rolled over to poke the kitten’s belly, and raised his voice to scare him, “Dou Sheng!”

The room door was suddenly pushed open, and Dou Sheng poked his head in. “Calling me?”

Xie Lan was startled.

He looked innocent and blank. “No.”

“I heard you… forget it.” Dou Sheng hesitated, “Are you really okay? I really think you’re a bit floaty from the drink.”

Xie Lan’s cheeks were red, his hair messed up from rolling on the bed, staring at Dou Sheng without making a sound.

He just felt his brain was a bit light and chaotic, a very complex experience.

After a long time, he suddenly asked, “How’s the new video?”

“New video?” Dou Sheng paused, instinctively pulled out his phone and tapped. “700,000 views. Oh right, you already have 180,000 fans. I estimate within these two days you’ll have at least…”

Xie Lan frowned. “Don’t count these numbers, my head is huge. I just want to say, as long as the video is made well, the fans are happy, and you are happy too. Like this persona submission, and that dialect barbecue before, they are all good proof.”

Dou Sheng nodded in agreement, hesitated, then whispered, “It’s dialect medley.”

“Sigh, stop teaching me these metaphors.” Xie Lan’s face was hot. He fell onto the bed, rubbed his cheeks, and sighed deeply. “I really can’t understand them.”

After getting drunk, the world became very quiet. The ceiling, furniture, floor—those lines had their own ideas, jumping happily in his vision.

Xie Lan heard Dou Sheng’s low laughter, very light and low, like tickling his heart.

He sat up suddenly again. “I remember now, your video TAGs are messy, very disadvantageous.”

“Hmm?” Dou Sheng sat down beside him. “Then please instruct me, Senior.”

The two were very close. Xie Lan focused on his face for a long time. “Senior… doesn’t count. I just have a, have a…”

Dou Sheng softly said for him, “A friend with three million fans on the foreign net.”

Xie Lan nodded. “Yes, that’s him.”

Dou Sheng hooked the corner of his lips. “He watched my video? What did he say?”

Xie Lan glanced at a point in the air, thinking hard, and fixed his gaze for a while before saying, “He thinks your video is very good, very thoughtful, and the camera language is not bad. He hopes you make videos happily and don’t care too much.”

The room was subtly quiet for a while.

Xie Lan didn’t hear a reply after speaking, turned his head, and looked at Dou Sheng in confusion. “Do you have any questions?”

Under the influence of alcohol, he felt the pair of black eyes opposite him were profound and somewhat gentle.

Xie Lan was looked at by Dou Sheng for a good while before seeing Dou Sheng withdraw his gaze and whisper, “No questions, Senior is right about everything.”

Xie Lan let out a long breath, put his arm around Dou Sheng’s shoulder, and buried his forehead there too.

Dou Sheng’s shoulder stiffened. With his forehead against Dou Sheng’s collarbone, Xie Lan could feel the rise and fall of his breathing. Under the thin skin, the boy’s young life was vibrant and pulsing.

Xie Lan inexplicably felt a bit restless.

“I’m a little bit dizzy.” He whispered, “How strong is Auntie Zhao’s wine exactly?”

Dou Sheng hummed. “She mixed in home-brewed fruit wine, hard to say the degree.”

“What is home-brewed¹?” Xie Lan murmured. “Niang? How to write?”

Dou Sheng didn’t explain further, just raised his hand and brushed Xie Lan’s hair. “Sleep if you’re sleepy.”

“Okay.” Xie Lan requested calmly, “Can you send me back to my room? I can give you two coins.”

Dou Sheng: “…”

Xie Lan was drowsy, feeling someone holding the back of his head, laying him flat, head landing on the pillow.

Wutong walked past the pillow from above his head, from one side of the bed to the other, tucked its small paws, and lay down.

In his dizziness, Xie Lan heard a low voice say, “He’s left to you then.”

That voice seemed to be addressing him, yet also seemed to be addressing the cat lying on the side.

Xie Lan closed his eyes and patted the cat’s head. “Big cat, don’t be noisy.”

A moment later, the light filtering in from the door slowly disappeared. The room returned to quiet darkness, and footsteps faded away.

Xie Lan dreamed of Xiao Langjing.

But this time it wasn’t by the hospital bed. It was when he was very young. Once he bumped his forehead, and Xiao Langjing forcibly pinned a hairpin on him and took him to the park.

He was very unhappy. When asked to smile under a pine tree, he stared at the camera with an unhappy face.

He hated hairpins, and hated passersby smiling and praising him as “lovely” even more.

Xiao Langjing took the photo, unable to put it down, and told him in Chinese, “Too cute. Mom wants to send it to Mom’s friend to see. She also gave birth to a son, said to be very naughty.”

Little Xie Lan couldn’t even understand “naughty,” just continued to sulk. He walked angrily in front, and Xiao Langjing followed behind holding an ice cream.

When he woke from the dream, Xie Lan sat up and stared blankly for a long time.

Xiao Langjing’s departure also took away his ability to dream. In these two years, at most, he only dreamed of the hospital bed at parting. But since returning to the country, strange dreams occurred every now and then. This time, for the first time in two years, he dreamed of his mother when she wasn’t sick.

The alcohol had worn off, and his head was a bit heavy, but his consciousness was very clear.

Xie Lan stared blankly for a while, then fished up his phone and swiped unconsciously.

02:18.

He browsed Bilibili roughly, then casually tapped open Twitter.

QZFXR’s chat box was at the top as usual, lit with a red number 2, time was two hours ago.

Xie Lan clicked it open.

QZFXR: Actually, I can also imagine that there must be a reason for your departure for two years. You’ve worked hard.

QZFXR: Also, if you don’t want to come back, it’s fine. In life, look forward, happiness is enough.

Xie Lan stared at the phone for a while, a feeling he couldn’t describe in his heart.

He slowly typed a line “Maybe I will still go back,” paused, and deleted it character by character.

He indeed didn’t really want to go back.

Returning to the country, changing platforms, changing video types, trying new, unchallenged content.

Only these could drag him out of that drowsy, deathly still state. And at the very least, he wanted to accompany Dou Sheng to make videos properly first, wanted to see Dou Sheng get a Top 100 award.

Xie Lan sighed, lifted the quilt, and got out of bed to find water.

He opened the door only to find Dou Sheng’s door ajar. In the darkness, only the light of the computer screen shone through. The moment he pushed the door open, Dou Sheng closed the webpage.

A red and white colored page, a bit like YouTube.

Xie Lan paused. “You watch YouTube too? Why staying up late suddenly?”

Dou Sheng took off his headphones. “Sobered up?”

“Oh.” Xie Lan suffocated for a moment. “I didn’t do anything strange, did I?”

Hearing this, Dou Sheng smiled. “No, just told me about your friend with three million fans, saying he tags videos properly.”

Xie Lan breathed a sigh of relief. “Mn. I’m getting water, you watch yours.”

Saying so, he turned to leave, naturally closing Dou Sheng’s door.

When closing the door, he realized Dou Sheng’s sign seemed to be flipped to the wrong side today. It was midnight, yet it was still “Open for Business, Insert Coin Before Knocking.”

He casually helped Dou Sheng flip it to “Closed,” suddenly remembered something, and pushed the door to enter again.

Dou Sheng just happened to turn off the computer. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Xie Lan lowered his eyes to look at the liquid level in the water cup. “I just suddenly remembered what you said this afternoon.”

Dou Sheng paused, stood up, and looked at him.

“Thank you.” Xie Lan said in a low voice, “Can’t say I’ve let go, but I suddenly feel I can really move forward.”

“And, I dreamed of her.”

__

Author’s Note:

Late at night, the keyboard smash opened the fridge, sensing something wrong.

A bottle of wine was missing from home.

She was silent for a moment and barged into the Egg Nest: How dare you steal the fridge! Hand it over!

Lazy Egg and Dou Egg stood in a row.

Dou Egg looked indifferent: Don’t understand.

Lazy Egg shook his head with a red eggshell: Right, didn’t drink your wine!

Dou Egg: …

__

NOTES:

1. Niàng (酿) means to brew or ferment. It is a relatively complex character to write.
   Niáng (娘) means “Mother” or “Lady.”
   While they have different tones (4th vs. 2nd), to a drunk Xie Lan (who grew up abroad), they sound very similar. ↩︎