【凯源】Mountains and Rivers [GCA2019X]

第十二章 // Chapter 12

On the day when Wang Junkai returned to Shanghai, it was raining heavily. He pushed his chin deeper into his scarf and walked in the rain. The wind was bitter and cold, like a knife against his cheeks. He walked in the bustling crowd, feeling as if he was in a dream.

Everything felt ethereal, like how he felt when he first returned home after his second meeting with Yuan, and he heard the news of the newsboy drift past his ear:

"Front page of People's Daily, the large passenger ship carrying high-ranking Japanese officials sank in the Chongqing section of the Yangtze River -"

"Front page of People's Daily, the large passenger ship carrying high-ranking Japanese officials sank in the Chongqing section of the Yangtze River -"

"Let me see."

"— okay."

He flipped through the newspapers, and the report of the sunken ship was splattered across three pages, the ink wet and beginning to run under his frozen fingers. The black characters on the dirty grey paper listed the names of the passengers on the ship. The Japanese army suffered heavy losses. The shipping company claimed that the explosion occurred suddenly, for unknown reasons.

"Unknown reasons…" he read: "Unknown reasons…"

"Hahahahaha…” He suddenly laughed, bending forward. The newspaper boy stared at him like he was mad.

“Unknown reasons…" He smiled, tears beading at the corner of his eyes, and they slid down his cheeks, and gradually he quietened.

After a long time, Junkai finally calmed down. Putting on a black wide-brimmed hat, he hid his face underneath it, pushing his hand in the pocket of his gray coat, he bowed his head and continued to move forward.

He kept going, almost numb from the cold. While he walked forward, his shoulders suddenly began to tremble, and tears unconsciously ran down his cheeks, trickling down his chin into his neck, not hot, perhaps even colder than the December rain.

He trembled, and he cried, and he walked away.

Wang Junkai fell gravely ill after returning to Shanghai, lying in bed for a week. He kept dreaming in his sleep, and to his distaste all his dreams were in an awful disorder, not methodical at all. They were either of a banquet, the food savoury and plentiful, the walls dressed in different tinges of green and blue, or of quiet and silent alleys, flames licking at a window above him and silence below, or he dreamed of a cold, iron-like gun pressed against his side, dreamed of a lingering kiss, dreamed of blood, burning and darkly red, sliding down a slim body, dreamed of unacknowledged tears that fell on his neck.

He dreamed of the thousands of mountains and rivers in his motherland. The fertile land covered thousands of miles, the snow fell and covered the land with a thick blanket of white, the wheat covered the dirt and continued over the rolling hills, the grey smoke hung over the fire in contrast to its blazing flame, the mountain was the scenery for the picturesque sight, and the river was the blood, flowing and running and never stopping, not until the end of time. His bones were buried in the riverbanks and mountains of his motherland, and they were blown green by the spring breeze.

In his last dream, Wang Yuan was lying with him on the endless riverbank, the grass outlining his figure. The sand was white until it looked like snow, the sun was shining, and everything was tranquil. There was no war, no fighting, no arguments. Unconsciously, he extended his index finger and drew two characters on the soft sand.

When he wrote it, he wasn't very sure what the end product would be. After he finished writing, he found out that he actually wrote their names.

He stared at the name he wrote, and Yuan turned and leaned over him, looking over his shoulder to see the characters he wrote.

Suddenly, he exclaimed, as if he found something important, and he pointed at the characters: "Did you realise, your name has a mountain character, and my name has a water character."

Wang Junkai looked at it and replied, "So it is."

Wang Yuan smiled, and he looked as innocent as when he was Ma Siyuan, and Junkai felt something in his heart settle.

It was only then did Junkai completely awake from this string of dreams. He touched his forehead, and found it no longer burning hot. His mind, who had long been muffled by sickness, was gradually waking up.

Wang Yuan did not allow him to fall as sick another time.