Chapter 9: P. The Ant’s Escape

The school gate was bustling with coming and going crowds. Ning Yixiao stood clutching his cigarette box, watching Su Hui laugh and say goodbye. Then, like a bird taking flight, Su Hui left his side and sprinted toward a car parked by the curb.

The chauffeur in the driver’s seat specifically got out to open the door for him. The coddled young master slipped into the car, lowered the window, and looked back at him—staring continuously—until he finally disappeared into the stream of traffic.

Ning Yixiao quietly stowed away the cigarette box and boarded the bus to his tutoring student’s home.

Inside the car, Su Hui had turned his head away, no longer looking out the window. He began staring at the face of his new driver in the rearview mirror. The man looked to be about forty, sturdy, with a thumb-sized blue birthmark on his forehead.

The driver seemed to sense Su Hui’s gaze, stealing a glance before squeezing out an obsequious smile. “Young Master, would you like something to drink? I brought juice, you…”

“Please, just call me Xiao Su,” Su Hui said with a polite smile, then immediately asked, “I haven’t seen you before. Where is Uncle Zhang?”

“He had some trouble at home. It seems his elderly parent had a stroke, so he had to take extended leave to care for them. Mr. Xu introduced me.” He remembered something. “Oh my, look at me—so flustered I forgot to introduce myself. My surname is Feng, Feng Zhiguo. Just call me Old Feng.”

“I’ll call you Uncle Feng. Sorry to trouble you with picking me up.” Hearing the mention of “Mr. Xu,” Su Hui’s mood soured.

A moment later, Su Hui asked, “How do you know Uncle Xu?”

Feng Zhiguo laughed. “That’s a story from twenty years ago. We’re from the same hometown, grew up together. But Little Xu… oh, excuse me, Mr. Xu—he was smart and a good student. Even back then, I said he’d make something of himself. Look at him now, step by step, he made it to the capital and found his success.”

Like many middle-aged men, once Feng Zhiguo started chatting, he was unstoppable.

Su Hui played along, skillfully asking the questions he wanted answers to, including where Xu Zhi grew up and the middle school he had attended.

Su Hui’s father had passed away in a car accident when he was thirteen. Three years ago, Xu Zhi began dating his mother; they had been married for a year now. In these years, Su Hui had never once heard his mother speak of Xu Zhi’s past.

He wanted to know. From the moment Xu Zhi appeared, from the moment he intruded into his home, Su Hui had felt uneasy.

So, Xu Zhi’s background was even humbler than he had imagined—and yet, even so, he had managed to gain his grandfather’s approval.

“Our little fishing village was small and backward, but it produced quite a few talents. It’s quite a coincidence—my own son is actually fairly promising; he attends the same university as you, Young Master Su.”

Feng Zhiguo’s face creased with pride as he rambled on about his son, saying the boy studied Computer Science—a very popular major. He said his son had felt very insecure when choosing his major, but fortunately, he had been accepted.

Computer Science.

Su Hui thought of Ning Yixiao.

“What is your son’s name…” Su Hui asked.

Feng Zhiguo, thinking Su Hui’s curiosity meant he wanted to be friends with his son, was delighted. “Ah, he’s called Feng Cheng. The ‘Cheng’ from ‘Feng Chengcheng.’ I used to love the show The Bund, and I loved the female lead, so I named him that.”

Su Hui nodded.

Not the same person.

For some reason, he felt a sense of relief.

“One day, I’ll bring my son over for you to see and say hello.”

Su Hui smiled but didn’t respond.

As they approached the Su family mansion, Feng Zhiguo slowed down. “Almost there, Young Master Su. Is this speed okay? Is anything uncomfortable?”

Every driver asked this question before he got out—provided he was still capable of getting out on his own.

“It’s fine.” Su Hui kept his smile and stepped out, walking with a light gait. “Thank you for your hard work, Uncle Feng.”

Unlike the usual dead air, Su Hui felt the presence of people the moment he opened the door. Walking inside, he saw Auntie Chen carrying a bottle of red wine up from the wine cellar.

Su Hui’s tone carried a hint of playfulness. “Auntie Chen, what kind of wine is that?”

“Xiao Hui is back?” Auntie Chen smiled, showing him the bottle. “Madam wants to drink it, so she had me take it out to breathe. You’re home so early today; are you tired?”

Su Hui shook his head. “Auntie Chen, I’m craving scissors-cut noodles. The spinach kind.”

“Alright, I’ll make you a bowl later—tomato and spinach noodles.” Auntie Chen smilingly took the decanter and headed inside with Su Hui.

In the parlor, Su Hui’s eyes immediately caught Ji Yanan. She was leaning on the sofa with her long curly hair loose, holding something and examining it closely.

Perhaps due to a pathological “giddiness,” or perhaps because he hadn’t seen his mother in a long time, he felt a surge of excitement. His steps quickened. He wanted to talk to her, to share what happened at school, to talk about the person he met—Ning Yixiao.

“Mom, I’m home.”

Ji Yanan didn’t look up. “Mm, you’re quite early today. You didn’t eat anything outside, did you?”

“No, just ate something at the cafeteria.” Su Hui didn’t intend to mention the soda. He walked over with a smile. “Why are you home so early today? Isn’t the company busy, or are you on leave?”

“Your grandfather’s seventieth birthday is in two weeks. I have to prepare. I’ve pushed my work back these past few days, stopped seeing clients, just to handle this for your grandfather.”

She placed the guest list on the coffee table, pressing her index finger against her temple. “Just this guest list gives me a headache. All these big names—their seats, their preferences—it all has to be handled perfectly.”

This didn’t sound like a birthday celebration; it sounded like an organizing committee meeting for a high-level summit.

Su Hui had wanted to tell her he’d been chosen by Professor Wang to write a paper—for someone who dropped out as often as he did, this was worth sharing.

But Ji Yanan likely had no patience to listen right now.

Moreover, Su Hui feared social gatherings, especially those with such powerful people. Several past lapses in his composure made him subconsciously avoid such things.

“Then please take a rest, Mom. I’m going to go to my room and put my bag down.”

“Hey, wait a second.” Ji Yanan called him back, looking him up and down. “Youyou, you’ve been taking your medicine on time lately, right?”

“Youyou” was his childhood nickname, but Su Hui didn’t feel any affection in it.

“Mm.” Su Hui looked at her, his tone gentle, even carrying a small smile. “Mom, do I look like a normal person right now?”

The tension in Ji Yanan’s expression relaxed slightly. “Passable. I’m telling you now: from today on, you must take your medicine properly. Not a single dose skipped.

“Your grandfather’s birthday party is a major event. Every guest there is an official of importance. If something goes wrong, you don’t need to attend your classes this semester. I’ll hire tutors for you to study at home—you spent high school that way anyway, and you turned out fine.”

Su Hui listened calmly. He didn’t look like a mentally ill patient at all; he even nodded obediently, without saying anything else.

“Okay.”

His bubbling desire to communicate ebbed away, like a soda that had sat open for too long, its bubbles vanishing, leaving it flat and tasteless.

“Don’t overthink it. Mom is only reminding you because I want you to be able to attend the birthday banquet normally.”

Seeing his silence, Ji Yanan felt a twinge of pity and walked over, pulling Su Hui into her arms. “Mom only has you as a child, and Grandfather only has you as a grandson. I’m counting on you to cut the cake for him. Perform well and put everyone at ease, okay?”

Everyone?

Su Hui desperately wanted to know when they would ever be willing to tell other people about his illness.

Probably never. Which high-level official would want to hear their old leader announce at his birthday banquet that his only grandson was a psychiatric patient?

“I will take my medicine properly.” Su Hui felt stifled and pulled back slightly from Ji Yanan’s embrace. “If I really don’t feel well, you can just say I’m sick—say I have the flu and can’t make it.”

It wasn’t his first time lying about an illness to escape such an occasion. Most of the time, his mother was the one who initiated the lie, to prevent him from embarrassing the family.

“That won’t do. This is a vital occasion; you cannot be in a bad state.” Ji Yanan said somewhat to herself. “Oh, right, Uncle Xu even helped you find a very famous psychology expert. He’s a clinical doctor, a specialist in bipolar disorder. Uncle Xu has already made arrangements. I can take you for a consultation tomorrow. They say it’s very helpful—maybe this time you can be cured.”

Su Hui nodded, walked through the stuffy, empty parlor, and said nothing more.

From the age of fourteen until now, five years had passed.

Approaching hope over and over, relapsing over and over—he had no hope left for a cure.

Pushing open the glass door in the corner of the parlor, Su Hui walked into the back garden. He bypassed a pebble path surrounded by trees and shrubs, reaching his room.

He stood outside, took off his shoes, slid the glass door open, and walked in barefoot. The room was kept spotless. There were no dangerous items; anything deemed “harmful to him” had been cleared away without his permission—including the books he’d just bought, which he hadn’t even had the chance to flip through.

Outside the glass door, the hydrangeas in the garden were in full bloom, great swaths of blue rising and falling amidst the green. The chirping of cicadas was everywhere, and the sun was brilliant. But Su Hui felt like he couldn’t breathe.

He tried to shed all his burdens—the heavy backpack, the tight top clinging to his skin—throwing them onto the floor. Facing the mirror, Su Hui stared for a while at his protruding ribs. He raised a hand and traced the pale pink scar below them.

He could faintly see his heart, pressed against that thin layer of skin and muscle, beating in small, steady pulses.

This is the proof that I am alive.

In his daze, the phone vibrated, breaking the cicadas’ song. It was brief, cutting off quickly.

Su Hui felt curious. He knelt down, fished his phone from his bag, and saw a missed call from an unknown number.

For no reason, an image flashed before his eyes: Ning Yixiao sitting on the bench, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

Su Hui held his phone and took two steps before collapsing onto his bed. He rolled over halfway, burying his face in the soft quilt, and dialed back.

The crackle of the signal stirred his heart. It rang for ten, maybe fifteen seconds before the other end picked up.

“Su Hui?” On the phone, Ning Yixiao’s voice was deeper than it was face-to-face. In the background, there was the voice of a young boy saying, “Teacher Ning, I don’t quite get this problem.”

The voice moved further away. Su Hui heard Ning Yixiao say, “Wait a moment,” letting the boy work on his problems, before finally speaking to him, calling his name again.

“Mm.” Su Hui’s voice, muffled by the electronics and the quilt, called his name with a sticky, lingering tone: “Ning Yixiao.”

The person on the other end was silent for a while.

Seemingly finding a quieter spot, Ning Yixiao’s voice grew louder and clearer. “I called you because I wanted to ask for that paper Professor Wang mentioned today. He said you had it. But after I dialed, I found I could download it myself, so I was just going to hang up…”

“Ning Yixiao.”

Su Hui called his name again, interrupting the explanation.

“Mm?”

Su Hui lay in the quilt, feeling both suffocated and safe.

“Do you ever have moments when you really want to escape?”

The question caught Ning Yixiao off guard, triggering a flurry of unpleasant memories.

Did he ever want to escape? Often.

Even while standing on the balcony of his student’s house, he suddenly smelled the faint, briny scent of the sea.

In that instant, Ning Yixiao seemed to transform back into that helpless child, trapped in the days and nights of that small fishing village, walking down the road only to be blocked by boys a few years older, pushed around, insulted as a “bastard” or worse.

Back then, he had no choice. One person’s fists couldn’t beat a gang. He couldn’t escape that place, so he had to return home with a bruised face, watching his mother hug him and cry.

Su Hui was patient; he didn’t rush him. Ning Yixiao walked out of his memories on his own.

“Yes.” He was honest for once, rather than pretending to be a sunny person without wounds.

Su Hui on the other end seemed to take a deep breath, pausing for several seconds. His voice remained muffled in the quilt, ethereal and illogical.

“Where can we escape to?”

Su Hui would spout strange things at any moment. Ning Yixiao thought he had grown used to it, but hearing him sigh “we,” his heart still stirred.

“I feel like an ant.”

While Ning Yixiao was still stunned, Su Hui jumped to the next sentence. “An ant trapped in a glass jar. As long as I stay inside properly, I’m safe. But the moment I want to leave, to climb to the edge of the glass, human fingers press down on me. I can’t move.”

It was a strange sort of telepathy. Through this phone call, Ning Yixiao actually felt the man’s misery and frustration.

He was the type of person entirely incapable of comforting others, lacking empathy and only skilled at hiding. But at this moment, Ning Yixiao actually had the impulse to comfort Su Hui.

Su Hui’s voice was very soft. “I don’t want to be a kept ant.”

Even if he knew his life wouldn’t have a very happy process or a very perfect ending. But at least he wanted freedom—even if it was a painful freedom.

“You aren’t.” After struggling, Ning Yixiao opened his mouth. “You aren’t an ant.”

He was someone who didn’t know how to comfort people, someone who believed comfort was the most useless thing in the world. Ning Yixiao only did things of value, things that helped his future and career. Unless it benefited his advancement, he wouldn’t be affected by anyone’s feelings.

And yet, what was he doing now? Even Ning Yixiao didn’t understand.

It seemed absurd, and a simple negation felt meaningless. So he added an explanation. “I mean, although I don’t know exactly what happened to you, one day, you will break free from all of this.”

There was silence on the other end for a long while.

He couldn’t help but think his words sounded weak, completely unhelpful.

But these were the things he relied on to survive.

Suddenly, a laugh came from the other end of the line. Following it was Su Hui’s light, amused voice.

“Ning Yixiao, you are an ant outside the glass jar.”