Eternal Burning

Chapter 19 – “As Everybody Should.”

This ice-sculpture-like trophy means the world to him, but to me it is, at best, a… decorative object.

This is his achievement, his happiness. I do like stars, but the ones I like are those that adorn the night sky, out of reach and beyond my ability to catch. Not like this; decorated in a base, exaggerated in shape, and blindingly bright…

I should not accept it.

“Will you accept it?”

Shang Muxiao bends over because he wants to point the star in the base to me, and his face is close to mine, so close that I can easily smell the tobacco in his hair.

Perhaps owing to the race, he is not wearing the stud earring in his right ear today, and that tiny black mole is extra conspicuous, appearing before my eyes and causing my mind to be shaken more than even the diamond star in the base of the trophy.

My fingers clench slightly, and I smile stiffly at him and say, “Thanks, I will take care of this.”

His expression immediately softens and he smiles with a little smugness mixed in. “I knew you would like it.”

Well, aren’t you amazing, I myself didn’t know I would like it.

–

Shang Muxiao and I then talk about tonight’s race, about the Six-Eyed Demon’s accident, and there is no fear on his face, only excitement. He loves the sport, loves the thrill; the feeling when you’re walking on a tightrope, and the adrenaline rush it brings him.

I think of that night he took me to the mountains to stargaze, and how he jumped onto the narrow brick wall of the scenic lookout despite the danger. It may have seemed irrational to me, but to him, it was probably a normal pursuit of ‘excitement’.

“Why are you guys still dilly-dallying here, aren’t we going for drinks?” The door of the box is once again flung open, and Zhou Yanyi swaggers in, his blonde hair standing out.

The first thing he sees is Yin Nuo at the bar, and he smiles as he grabs the glass that the latter is holding, downing the sparkling wine in one gulp before looking towards the floor-to-ceiling window where I am to be seen.

Poof! And then in shock, he spits the wine out of his mouth.

He chokes and coughs, his face turning red. Yin Nuo rushes to hand him a tissue, which he takes and holds over his mouth, bending over and coughing so hard.

“Gross.” Even though Shang Muxiao is quite a distance away, he looks as if he has caught the froth spat by the other party, taking a few steps back and shaking off his garb in disgust.

Zhou Yanyi coughs and looks over here, one moment at Shang Muxiao, the next at me.

He finally stops coughing and turns to Shang Muxiao, and in a hesitant manner he says, “You two…”

The following unsaid words really leave a lot to the imagination.

I am about to tell him that there is nothing there between us when I see that he is not even looking at me, but at Shang Muxiao, with an expression that is both speechless and surprised.

“For real?”

It is as if the combination of Shang Muxiao and I is more unbelievable to him than when the world comes to an end.

Shang Muxiao, who had just been in a bright mood like a sunny day in spring a moment ago, now faced with his friend’s questioning, looks like a different person, his tone cold and impatient.

“Zip it.”

Zhou Yanyi raises a brow but takes no offence, instead he makes a zipping up action to his mouth.

“That’s enough, aren’t we going to celebrate? I already booked a place. Let’s head over there now, I haven’t had dinner yet…” Yin Nuo steps in and rounds up the conversation.

“Is it the one from last time? We can place our orders now so that we can eat straight away when we arrive. I’m also hungry.” Zhou Yanyi puts his arms on Yin Nuo’s shoulder and walks out, and his head down on the latter’s phone. “Order this meat, I like it tender… Not spicy, I don’t like spicy… I also don’t want mutton meat…”

Yin Nuo tosses his phone directly to him. “You’re so annoying, just order it yourself.”

The door slowly closes, leaving me and Shang Muxiao.

He clears his earlier gloomy tone and asks softly, “Do you want to come along?”

I look at the time and see that it is already almost eleven o’clock.

“I can’t, it’s very late, and I have class tomorrow.” That, and it’s too odd as well.

It is already odd that I accepted his trophy, and to go to a celebration dinner with him and his friends is something I do not have to think twice that it is utterly out of place.

“Eleven o’clock is very late?” He heads for the door, and though he says so, he makes no attempt to force me. “Forget it, you go home and rest.”

He pulls the door open and holds it against his body like a dedicated doorman at a luxury hotel, making a ‘please’ gesture at me.

I thank him in a low voice and exit the box.

He sends me downstairs. I look at him still in his racing suit and figure he’ll have to change, so I tell him to just go ahead and not worry about me.

“It’s pretty dark.” He gives a quick look at the dark surroundings outside and says, “I’ll walk you to your car.”

This circuit is built in the middle of the countryside and is quite isolated. There is almost no other light source in this area except for a few nearby searchlight towers that are still operating. It is indeed dark, but not so much so that one cannot see the surroundings.

The parking lot is at least five hundred metres from the exit, and while it does not take much time for me to speed up with the wheelchair, it will take at least ten minutes for me to travel to keep up with his speed.

“There’s no need, Yin Nuo and Zhou Yanyi are still waiting for you, I’ll be fine going to the car myself.”

Shang Muxiao, without even looking at me, puts his hands in his pockets and proceeds to walk to the parking lot. It seems that he does not need anyone’s acknowledgement to do anything as long as he has made up his mind.

I stare at his back, feeling really irked but can do nothing, and when I see him walking further and further away, I call for him to stop.

“To the left.”

Hearing it, he stops and walks back like nothing, and then makes his way to the left.

One after the other, walking leisurely. The night is chilly, and it is even chillier with the countryside being less populated, and white fog can be seen when we talk.

“Do you drink?” Shang Muxiao asks.

“I do.”

“Can you hold your liquor well?”

“I can handle it fairly well.”

When it comes to alcohol, my tolerance is surprisingly good, and I have never been drunk all my life. Once I went to a seminar in a far-off place and there was dinner afterwards, a professor from another school, which ranked below ours every year, took a dislike to some of us from Qingwan University, and with reliance on his good alcohol consumption, he constantly persuaded us to drink.

The Dean, Dong Li, was my teacher back in the day, and it can be considered that I was one of his favourite students. He was always very protective of me, and at first, he wouldn’t let me drink, which resulted in him almost vomiting. I was so upset that I challenged the professor one-on-one, until I finally managed to get him passed out drunk on the table, thus ending with flying colours for us. After that, the rumour that I couldn’t get drunk spread around the school.

“You don’t look like it.” Shang Muxiao turns his head to look back at me. “I was under the impression that you were one of those people that exercised extreme restraint and abstained from alcohol. “

“‘Restraint’ is the idea of knowing where your limits lie and being able to stop when you should, not inhibiting what you desire.”

His gaze wanders over my face for a moment and then looks back in front. “So you exercise restraint after all.”

“As everybody should.”

“I don’t like it, I hate restraining myself.” In this night scene, his voice is extra low, but not so low as to be inaudible, “If I want something, I must have it. The limit is there, but I won’t stop. I’m going to pull out the stops and go beyond it.”

Not everyone has the courage to go beyond their limits, nor does everyone dare to indulge what their heart desires. When Shang Muxiao says ‘I’m going to pull out the stops and go beyond it’, if before I was only somewhat envious of him, from this moment on, I became jealous of him.

Jealous of his rashness, of his arrogance, of his dazzlingness; the infinite vividness of life given with the use of instinct.

I am well aware that I cannot be like him and that jealousy or envy will not change my established outlook of the world, but it does not stop me from thinking that he is… shining.

I guess, this is what it means to be young. As my fingers brush against the hard edges of the trophy in my arms, I think to myself that if reminiscing about my youth is a sign that I’m ageing, then perhaps I’m ageing prematurely.

Shang Muxiao walks me to my car and puts the trophy in the passenger seat for me. As I start the car, he just stands on the roadside and watches me silently.

I have driven some distance away and when I look in the rearview mirror, he is still standing in the same place, still in the same posture.

–

Arriving home, I search around to find no suitable place for the decorative object… I mean the trophy, so I am left with no other option but to place it on the bookshelf next to my collection of books.

Before I sleep, I click on my phone’s message app and find our department’s group chat. I hesitate for a while before typing a message and sending it.

[I discover that Bergson’s theory of intuition might be true, that instinct is naturally superior to reason.]

At this message, the quiet group chat instantly blows up.

[The Esteemed Sir Socrates’ dog: ??? Bei-ge?? Bei-ge, if you’re being kidnapped, blink!]

[Descartes in Black: Congratulations on seeing the light. The concept of traditional rationalism is inherently flawed, and a high degree of objectivity does not exist at all.]

[Descartes in Black: Wait, Bei Jie? This is Bei Jie? Have you lost one of your marbles? Aren’t you and Director Dong both staunch supporters of rationalism?]

[Qingwan’s Aristotle: …My disciple! You have failed to appear here for who knows how long, and now that you have appeared, you give me such a big surprise?]

[Anti-Rational Vanguard: Director, you are now the last remaining rationalist at Qingwan University.]

[The Esteemed Sir Socrates’ dog: So sad.]

[Qingwan’s Aristotle: Crying!!]

I ignore their banters and simply exit the app, then I turn off the lights and go to bed with a clear mind.

–

The following morning, I open my phone again to find a lot more messages. There is the one from Dr. He messaging me about the dog’s recent condition, one from Yu Xixi, who sends me a direct message asking in a prudent manner about what happened, and one from… my mother who, every once a month, asks me to come home for a meal.

I look at the last message, and it still is that of asking me to ‘come home for a meal’. On the same day last month, it is also like this, not a single word is missing. It is almost as if she has set an alarm specifically to remind herself once a month so that she will remember to ask me, her eldest son, to come home for a meal, so as to avoid looking like they are too indifferent.

I stare at the words; instead of it being stiff, it becomes cold to me. I want to refuse. I sit on the bed for ten minutes, and eventually reply with an ‘mhn’; a reply that is no different from the last month, or the last to last month, or every month of the years that have gone by.

As I leave my bedroom, my eyes are suddenly dazzled.

It might be because the window is close by and the sunlight pours in and falls on the trophy on the bookshelf. Both the trophy itself and the diamond on its base shine brilliantly, and its presence cannot be diminished through the glass.

How blinding.

I think about it, and once again search around for a place to put the trophy. Then, I take it down from the shelf, deciding to just put it inside the drawer.

I click on our department’s group chat, and since I cannot retract my message from last night, I have to type a new one and send it out.

[Calm down, I feel rational again.]

[Everyone: ????]