Yang Yi looked at his phone in confusion.
"What do you mean 'gone'? It went bust?"
Yang Yi had considered this. Those people went there every day and only ordered a cup of lemon tea; they wouldn't spend a cent beyond the basic minimum. The other drinks and food on Wufang's menu had probably rotted away by now.
Ah Shui's latte art—supposedly inherited from a coffee master—had never been seen, forced into "cold storage."
Wufang's proprietress also had her own small art exhibition in the Artists' Village. When she chose Wufang's location in Tianbei's most populated neighborhood, she had likely deliberated for a long time.
But between the locals and the migrant workers, those with time couldn't afford to spend, and those with money had no time for leisure. A 35-yuan latte would only sell one or two cups a day.
To get them to buy a latte, the coffee itself would have to be able to sing.
"All-nighter. The police came. Second warning. Even the proprietress showed up this time," Xiao Lin replied via text.
"And then? They arrested you all for gambling?"
"Not quite. They just won't let us play cards at Wufang anymore."
So that was what "gone" meant. Yang Yi wanted to confirm something and added: "Which day did it happen?"
On the other end, Xiao Lin didn't reply again.
On the subway home, having just missed the evening rush, Yang Yi began to doze off. He had walked at least seven or eight kilometers today. Not only did his whole body ache, but the little food he'd managed to eat had brought on a wave of sleepiness.
Ding. A text notification.
Yang Yi checked the message: 1,000 yuan deposited into his bank card. Payer: Yang Xiaohua.
Xiao Hua had promised 200, but she transferred 1,000 instead.
Seeing the text, whether it was from the drowsiness or the pent-up frustration of the past few days, his vision grew blurry. The last time things were this blurry was in middle school when he skipped class to go to the arcade and got thrashed by Old Yang. That day, Old Yang broke a leather belt.
The snitch that day was Xiao Hua. Both siblings grew up in their hometown through high school until they both tested into colleges in Nanjin.
When Yang Yi was in kindergarten, Xiao Hua was in elementary school. Back then, their parents split up after work—one to pick up Yang Yi, one to pick up Xiao Hua. Later, when Yang Yi reached elementary age, Xiao Hua just happened to reach middle school age.
Consequently, they had never attended the same school. He remembered when he started elementary school, Xiao Hua went with their parents to drop him off. Standing at the registration office door, the teacher told them the name "Yang Dawei" already had six kids in this year's grade—did they want to change the child's name?
His parents backed out of the crowd; they hadn't prepared a backup name.
"How about 'One Hundred Points' (Yibai Fen)? So he gets first place in every exam!" Xiao Hua's innocent suggestion managed to settle the first step of Yang Yi's life.
Whenever this was mentioned, Xiao Hua was very proud. Yang Yi was also eternally grateful; as long as it wasn't "Yang Dawei," truly, anything was fine.
It was also during Yang Yi's elementary years that his parents stopped picking up Xiao Hua. Their home was at least three or four kilometers from the city middle school. Before she learned to ride a bike, Xiao Hua walked there every day.
In the dead of winter in the North, with snow falling all night, Xiao Hua would head out at six in the morning in the dim light, tramping through the snow with her backpack.
"Pick a good path," was their parents' only advice.
No one knew if there actually were any good paths on that route to school; only she knew.
Usually, in movies or novels, something dangerous would happen during such a commute, but Xiao Hua was like a character in a script who lived through a healthy, worry-free childhood until she graduated high school and left that small county town.
Yang Yi, on the other hand, once had a terrifying escape from under a car. He never mentioned it to the family and didn't take it seriously as a kid, but thinking back now, it was truly a narrow escape.
Not only did she look after herself, but sometimes on weekends when they had art classes, Xiao Hua would take Yang Yi on her bike. Once, Yang Yi got into a tiff with her and intentionally stalled, refusing to leave until the bell was about to ring.
Xiao Hua stomped her feet in anxiety, eventually pointing at the clock on the wall:
"Look, it's time for class. Mie Mie, let's go."
Yang Yi still sprawled on the ground. "That clock is ten minutes slow. I'm not stupid—ten more minutes!"
Yang Yi always kept this incident in his heart. Even when he grew up, he never apologized to her.
Xiao Hua also made Yang Yi hold a grudge. Yang Yi had bad teeth; he was born with a calcium deficiency, and his teeth chipped easily.
As a kid, he loved lollipops. He liked to tuck the candy by his molars, puffing out his cheek, then take it out a bit later to lick the sugar stuck to his teeth.
Over time, his teeth were ruined. At such a young age, he had four teeth drilled—the left and right upper molars and the left and right lower molars.
He still remembered when it was time for the drilling, the dentist said they needed anesthesia. Xiao Hua whispered with the doctor for a while, and then they put Yang Yi straight onto the operating table.
Yang Yi only remembered that drilling teeth was the most painful surgery in the world. The miserable electric drill ground his teeth, followed by bone-piercing pain.
Though it only hurt for an instant, it left a permanent shadow.
He never dared to see a dentist again.
The year Yang Yi was in ninth grade, Xiao Hua was a sophomore in high school and still came home every day after class. Sometimes their parents didn't come home for lunch, so Xiao Hua would cook for both of them. During holidays, Yang Yi would watch her mop the floor, water the flowers, do homework, bustle in the kitchen, bring him a plate of shredded potatoes, then wash the dishes, do laundry, and do more homework...
"Why don't you move the bowl?" Xiao Hua scolded him many times.
Whenever she served the rice in front of him, no matter how far away it was, as long as Yang Yi's mouth could reach the rim, he wouldn't move the bowl an inch.
During his tenth-grade year, his parents were involved in a lawsuit and went far away; Yang Yi lived at school. Xiao Hua would just eat whatever was around. Half a month later, when the adults returned, a whole sack of peanuts on the balcony was gone.
Upon their return, his parents blamed Xiao Hua for not buying groceries to cook. During that period, vegetable prices had risen by a few cents.
"You silly child, are you really that short on two cents? Just buy it and eat," was how his parents appraised her.
Indeed, a few extra cents really wasn't much. Yang Yi also felt Xiao Hua didn't need to save there; it was money for food, it should be spent.
"A few cents more per meal becomes several yuan after ten meals. I am short on those few cents!" Xiao Hua's eyes were filled with stubbornness.
"Is this child stupid?" After hearing that, his parents' eyes also filled with tears, both angry and amused.
"Your lawsuit costs money. Money must be spent where it counts (on the blade's edge)," Xiao Hua's eyes began to shimmer with tears, mostly out of a sense of being wronged.
In his memory, his parents never hit Xiao Hua, but Yang Yi was a handful. In their small county town, there were both bungalows and residential buildings. Opposite their home was a row of bungalows. When he was seven or eight, Yang Yi somehow found leverage, and by the time his parents noticed, he was already on the roof opposite practicing "lightfoot" (Qinggong). Rows of tiles were crushed to pieces as he ran from one end to the other, miraculously unscathed.
"Three days without a beating, and he's stripping the roof tiles"—the saying lived up to its name.
"Lightfoot" could ensure he didn't get hurt while leaping over walls, but unfortunately, he had never practiced "Qigong." Yang Yi's flesh-rending wounds all came from Old Yang's "Seven Wolves" brand leather belt.
Near the time of Xiao Hua's high school graduation sprint, the teacher notified the family:
"Xiao Hua is in a relationship at school."
Xiao Hua sat by her parents' bed crying her eyes out. Yang Yi even added insult to injury from the sidelines, blabbing out every bit of evidence, real or imagined, that he'd overheard.
That day, Xiao Hua didn't say a word. She just sat at the head of the bed with a handkerchief in her hand. She'd cry, wipe, then fold the handkerchief, cry, wipe, then unfold it, cry, wipe...
That year, Xiao Hua was admitted to Nanjin Institute of Technology. That year, Yang Yi was being tracked into vocational school. His homeroom teacher was the first to recommend he try it. Before Xiao Hua left for Nanjin, she repeatedly told Yang Yi absolutely not to go to a technical school.
Because the whole family listened to the "College Student," on the day of Yang Yi's graduation, the homeroom teacher reluctantly tossed a high school admission notice to him. That was something Old Yang had secured through connections and tens of thousands of yuan.
Included in those tens of thousands were Xiao Hua's savings—years of frugality, all pulled out after Yang Yi's middle school exams.
Even though they were buying the admission, Xiao Hua was very happy, as if Yang Yi had actually earned it himself.
"As long as he can go, spending a little money doesn't matter," Xiao Hua had said.
In high school, Yang Yi's grades remained at the bottom. He frequently skipped class to play games at internet cafes, but Old Yang never hit him again. In Old Yang's words:
"Old-Old Yang stopped hitting Old Yang when he turned eighteen, so Old Yang won't hit Little Yang anymore."
In his sophomore year, Old Yang held Yang Yi's report card and asked:
"Weren't you second to last before? Why are you dead last this time?"
"The dead-last guy went to study art." Yang Yi's high school had an affiliated arts academy used to take in "problem youths" who wanted to go to college but lacked the strength—though it didn't lack for kids truly interested in art. Yang Yi clearly belonged to the former group. He remembered that day Xiao Hua called home, strongly suggesting Yang Yi try the path of the art entrance exams.
Art exams simply meant the academic score requirements were lower, as long as the professional skills passed muster.
Yang Yi had a great talent for drawing, especially portrait sketching. His depiction of details was lifelike. When classmates asked him for advice, he would point to a model's face and detail numerous subtle shadow transitions.
Many people couldn't see those details, let alone draw them.
However, Yang Yi's coloring was relatively poor. Still-life colors were okay, but if it were a color portrait, he didn't know how to mix the palette.
Strange patches of color would always appear on his color portraits. When the teacher asked, Yang Yi said he simply painted exactly what he saw.
Later, through manual adjustment—memorizing the color mixing of a few model paintings—he passed the art exam smoothly.
That year, Yang Yi's professional score was first at the Nanjin Academy of Fine Arts. When the report card was placed in Xiao Hua's hands, it felt like he had finally repaid the favor of her naming him.
Subsequently, Yang Yi was admitted to the Nanjin Academy of Fine Arts as expected, and Xiao Hua graduated from Nanjin Institute of Technology as expected. The whole family happily watched as Xiao Hua graduated in Nanjin, fell in love, got married, and started a thriving clothing business.
Every holiday, the siblings and the brother-in-law would return to their hometown to gather. Today's happy Xiao Hua was dignified, gentle, prosperous, and a good homemaker. Yang Yi was very happy for her.
It was just that the Yang Xiaohua of his childhood memories—the one with the bob cut, who loved wearing denim overalls, who skipped away into the snowy day with her backpack, who rode her bike dripping with sweat, who shouted for him to eat while disheveled and holding shredded potatoes, who sat at the bed crying like a pear blossom in the rain...
She had, after all, become a memory.