Four-Faced Buddha [To My Shore] - Chap 86
Chapter 86 Blood from the Fingertip
2024-10-13 07:33 Category: Four-Faced BuddhaTurn off the lights
You Shulang adopted Tiantian, and he and Wu Yuping agreed that the adoption procedures would be completed after Wu Yuping passed away.
You Shulang considered adopting Tiantian for three days.
His experiences of hardship have repeatedly lowered his expectations and desires for life. He rarely has the idea of possessing anything or anyone. The last time he had such an idea was because of Fan Xiao.
It was You Shulang’s suggestion to adopt Tiantian. Inside his sleeve, his fingertips rubbed together, a mixture of trepidation and anticipation.
The woman was filled with gratitude, but You Shulang shook his head.
“Actually, I have a selfish reason. I am also an orphan. This world is too lonely. I hope that Tiantian can keep me company.”
Academic certificates, employment certificates, and bank statements were all laid out in front of the woman.
“There is another very important matter, Ms. Wu, which you need to consider carefully.”
Yu Shulang patiently explained, “I am TXL. If you feel that my sexual orientation will have a negative impact on Tiantian’s growth, you can refuse me.”
The woman was silent for a while, then a look of worldly wisdom appeared in her sickly eyes: “I did find a man, but what happened in the end? When faced with life and death, you just let go of some things.”
As I left the hospital, fireworks lit up the sky directly above the residential area across the street. With each booming explosion, people bid farewell to the old year and welcomed the new, looking forward to a bright future.
You Shulang turned to look at the window that let in light, where a woman’s slender figure stood, her shadow flickering in the fireworks.
Was she seeing him off, or witnessing the final, brilliant moment of her life? You Shulang didn’t want to guess, and took a step into the deep, cold night.
It was difficult to hail a taxi during the Chinese New Year holiday, so he walked forward along the road and glanced at the map on his phone. The nearest subway station was a 20-minute walk away.
Most of the shops along the roadside had closed, with only a few grocery stores still having their signs lit up.
You Shulang planned to buy a pack of cigarettes, but as he got closer, he discovered that there was a small dumpling restaurant sandwiched between two brightly lit shops.
The dumpling restaurant is still open, but the storefront hasn’t been replaced with a glass open kitchen, and the signboard isn’t a lightbox style, so it’s not very noticeable from a distance.
After buying cigarettes, You Shulang took one out, lit it, held it between his teeth, and then put on gloves.
He took a few steps, then turned back. “It’s the Lunar New Year, we should eat some dumplings,” he told himself.
The dumpling shop was indeed busy. A man in his fifties was sitting at a long wooden table at the far end, stuffing dumplings into his mouth.
Hearing a noise at the door, he looked up and loudly called for help from the kitchen.
“Bai Ting, we have a guest.”
Bai Ting? You Shulang was taken aback.
The curtain at the back of the kitchen was lifted, and a young woman wearing an apron came out.
She greeted people with a smile, but when she saw You Shulang, her eyes were filled with shock.
“Brother You?”
You Shulang took off his gloves and picked up his cigarette.
“Bai Ting, I couldn’t get through to you on the phone. What are you doing here?”
A plate of steaming dumplings sat in front of You Shulang, and Bai Ting broke off a pair of disposable chopsticks for him.
The chopsticks were of poor quality, with splinters of wood sticking out. I replaced them with a different pair, but the problem persisted.
“This will do.” You Shulang took the chopsticks but didn’t touch the dumplings. “What’s wrong with you right now? Can you tell me?”
The man in his fifties had finished eating his dumplings and left eight yuan on the table. Bai Ting carefully put the money into the wallet tied around her waist, and said with her head down, “I guess I’ve… reformed.”
She said apologetically, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just wanted to… cut ties with everything that happened before.”
“Are you worried?” Bai Ting’s plain face looked a few years younger than before, like a girl who had done something wrong, revealing her unease at the prospect of being reprimanded. “I should have told you.”
“I understand.” You Shulang smiled gently. “I would have done the same.”
He picked up a dumpling, took a bite, and raised his eyebrows in approval: “It tastes good. Did you make it?”
Bai Ting, who used to have a melancholy and worldliness in her eyes, now blushed slightly and, as if she had received a great compliment, softly hummed in agreement.
You Shulang ate several dumplings before putting down his chopsticks: “Don’t worry, I won’t come looking for you again.” He leaned forward slightly and patted Bai Ting’s head like an older brother would with his younger sister, jokingly saying, “This player, please start your life anew.”
The woman’s eyes reddened, and her voice was nasal as she said, “Thank you, Brother You. If you have the chance, please thank Mr. Fan for me as well.”
You Shulang, who was tearing wood shavings off his chopsticks, froze upon hearing this: “…Thank whom?”
The girl, unaware of what was going on, asked, “Fan Xiao, is Mr. Fan’s name Fan Xiao?”
A sharp pain shot through my fingertip as a splinter of wood embedded itself in my flesh.
“About half a year ago, I didn’t want to take those dirty jobs at the nightclub, and a small boss there threatened me. He had investigated me and knew about my family. He threatened to call my family, but when he saw that I still disagreed, he didn’t make things difficult for me anymore. I thought the matter was over, but a few days later, my dad and brother came looking for me.”
“They had been detained before, and this time they were afraid I would call the police, so they only followed me from a distance and didn’t harass me. When I was at work, they were guarding the front door and the back door, so I didn’t even have a chance to run away.”
The woman glared at him, her teeth itching with hatred: “Later I found out that they had somehow gotten hold of sleeping pills and planned to drug me as soon as they had the chance, and then take me back to my hometown under the pretext of taking my daughter to see a doctor.”
“How did you escape later?” You Shulang hesitated for a moment before asking again, “How did this get involved with Fan Xiao?”
Even as she recalled the events, the woman’s face turned pale: “I really had no other choice but to ask you for help. But I couldn’t get through to you, so in the end I could only call Bai Sanmiao. He and I were really close back then, and he even said he wanted to marry me after drinking.”
You Shulang recalled that he had just joined the project team at that time. In order to adjust his mindset and also to avoid Fan Xiao, his phone was almost always turned off.
Mentioning Bai Sanmiao, the woman scoffed: “Not only did he not help, he also made sarcastic remarks, saying that I had earned so much money that I could build a villa back in the mountains.”
“At the time, I suppressed my anger and asked him how I could contact you. He said sarcastically, ‘You can contact Mr. Fan.'”
His knuckles stiffened as he gripped the wood, the splinter digging deeper, and a bead of bright red blood welled up from You Shulang’s fingertip: “Did you contact Fan Xiao on your own initiative?”
Bai Ting nodded: “I wanted to contact you through him, but he said you were doing some research and were very busy. He said there was no need to bother you, and he could handle it.”
“After Mr. Fan intervened, my dad and brother left three days later. Fearing they might come back, Mr. Fan told me to hide out there for a while. Once I started hiding, I was living a normal life and didn’t want to go back. I bought this dumpling restaurant with all my savings, and now I feel quite at ease every day…”
You Shulang was somewhat dazed; he heard the woman’s next words but couldn’t quite grasp their meaning.
Almost cutting the woman off, You Shulang asked, “Fan Xiao is helping you? What did he do?”
Seeing the man’s unusual expression, Bai Ting dared not delay and told him everything.
“My younger brother loves to gamble. After Mr. Fan found out about this from me, he pretended to be careless and dropped a few large sums of casino chips in front of him. My brother picked them up and thought he was lucky. He took the chips and tried every means to go to Mr. Fan’s place to gamble. In the end, he lost so much that he gambled away everything he had and even borrowed a lot of money from loan sharks.”
“Mr. Fan said he was beaten up in the end, and he called my dad crying with his little finger under the kitchen knife, asking my dad to pay for his ransom.” Bai Ting snorted. “At that time, Mr. Fan arranged for me to go into hiding. My dad couldn’t find me, so he had no choice but to spend all his money to save his precious son.”
A drop of blood slid from his fingertip, and You Shulang said in a calm voice, “That’s like Fan Xiao’s style.”
You Shulang had no recollection of how he left the dumpling restaurant, how he said goodbye to Bai Ting, or how he got to the subway station.
He held his gloves in his hands, and a gust of cold wind made his fingertips, which were sticking to the wood shavings, ache slightly.
All he could hear were the woman’s last words: “I want to thank him, but he said he was doing something for the Bodhisattva. If you want to thank someone, thank the Bodhisattva. There’s no need to thank him.”
What was Fan Xiao’s last sentence to himself?
“Bodhisattva, you are free.”
