Resolution in the Land of Tenderness

Yun Jingheng squatted down and placed his two hands into her palms on the blue bricks in front of her.

Ya Li's palms were warm, and there were very shallow calluses on her fingertips. When those calluses rubbed against the skin on the back of his hand, they brought a slight roughness, exactly the same feeling he remembered.

Her thumb gently drew a circle on the back of his hand.

"How did you lose so much weight?"

She frowned slightly, the wrinkle was very shallow, like a fingertip tracing across the surface of calm water before immediately spreading out, leaving only a very faint trace.

"Do you not eat properly at school? You have so much homework and you don't get enough sleep. You were like this when you were little, you can't take care of anything when you're busy."

She drew a circle on the back of his hand with her thumb.

"Do you remember when Mom helped you with your homework? When you were in second grade, the teacher assigned three essays, and you didn't finish them until 11 p. m., so you fell asleep at your desk."

"I went over and carried you to bed. When I came back, I wrote the remaining two essays for you. The next day, you got an A and came home jumping for joy, saying that the teacher praised your writing."

Yun Jingheng's lips twitched slightly.

He remembered this.

In second grade, his Chinese teacher asked him to write three observation diaries. By the time he wrote the second one, his eyes were already too tired to open, and the tip of his pen drew three crooked lines on the paper.

When I woke up the next morning, the notebook was already in my schoolbag. The handwriting on it was my mother's, neat and elegant, almost exactly the same as his.

Was he happy then?

Happy.

I'm extremely happy.

He ran around the house holding the notebook above his head, while Ya Li stood at the kitchen doorway, smiling at him, a spatula in her hand.

"You learned to be lazy after that."

Ya Li looked down at him, her smile deepening slightly, and the fish's tail swayed more noticeably in the warm light.

"Later, when you had homework you couldn't finish, you would deliberately dawdle until very late, waiting for me to help you with it. Did you think I didn't know?"

Yun Jingheng let out a very soft laugh.

"You knew that, yet you still helped me write it?"

"Because you are my son."

Ya Li's thumb stopped moving on the back of his hand, and her hand tightened slightly, gathering his fingers in her palm.

"If you're tired, I'll carry you; if you're sleepy, I'll keep you awake; if you don't want to write, I'll write it for you; if you don't want to walk, I'll carry you. Isn't this what a mother does?"

Her words were like an extremely soft brush, brushing in from his earlobe, along the curve of the inside of his skull all the way to the back of his head. That soft, unconditionally accepted feeling made him sink half an inch.

Yun Jingheng squatted down in front of her knees, turned his face to the side, and pressed his forehead against her knees.

The coolness of the blue brick floor seeped up from under his knees, but his upper body was enveloped by the warmth of his mother's palms and the warmth coming from his legs. The interplay of cold and warmth made his eyes sting slightly.

"Mom."

"Um?"

"It's nothing, I just called you."

Ya Li lifted her hand from the back of his hand and placed it on the crown of his head. She spread her fingers and ran them through his hair, slowly combing it back.

"Silly child."

She combed his hair three times, and his shoulders relaxed by half an inch.

"Alright, where's your homework? Let me see it."

Yun Jingheng raised his head.

For a fleeting moment, a thought flashed through his mind: What homework? What school is he even in now? How old is he?

This isn't right. This isn't how he is right now. When did he ever do his homework?

But the thought only flashed through my mind for a moment.

Like a match that blazed for a fleeting moment in a gale, before going out before it could even reach the wick beside it.

Because at the very instant that thought flashed through his mind, a stack of notebooks appeared out of thin air on the desk behind him, with "Fourth Year of the Sea God Academy" printed on the cover, the corners of the pages slightly curled, and the top one was half-open, with messy penmanship covering most of the page.

Ya Li leaned over to his side, took the stack of notebooks, placed them on her lap, opened the first page, glanced at half a line, and a smile curved her lips.

"Your handwriting is still like a dog's scribbles."

She took a fountain pen from the pocket of her plain white blouse, unscrewed the cap, held the nib above the paper for a moment, then lowered it and began to write.

Her wrist moved with remarkable steadiness, the pen tip leaving line after line of neat and elegant handwriting on the paper, even more meticulous than the handwriting in the notebook she kept for herself, each stroke clean and crisp.

Yun Jingheng squatted down beside her knees, watching her write with her head down.

Warm light streamed in through the window paper, falling on her lowered eyelashes, which were outlined with a pale gold edge in the light. The curve of her nose was gentle, her lips were slightly pursed, but a hint of a smile still lingered at the corners of her mouth.

It seemed like... he hadn't looked at her like that in many years.

He remembered that the last time she sat by the window was in spring. The wisteria outside the window was in full bloom, with clusters of flowers hanging down from the window frame, the pale purple blossoms trembling gently in the wind.

She sat in the same spot, holding a needle and thread in her hand, also sewing something that wasn't finished.

He was about to leave that day, but after reaching the door, he turned back, stood behind her for a while, and watched her. She didn't turn around, but simply said, "Be careful on the road."

That was the last time he heard her speak.

The wisteria withered before he returned.

My father said that there was little rain that year, and the vine roots couldn't get enough water, so they slowly dried up.

But Yun Jingheng remembered that when he returned, the vine's branches were still hanging on the window frame, the branches as hard as iron wire, and there were no leaves left, only a few dried flowers hanging at the very end, which would crumble into powder and fall down when the wind blew.

The wisteria in front of him was still alive.

The leaves of the asparagus fern in front of him were so plump they seemed to drip water.

His mother was still sitting in the wicker chair, writing his homework stroke by stroke, and even her tone of complaining about his ugly handwriting was exactly the same as he remembered.

"Mom," he called again.

"Hmm?" Ya Li didn't look up; the pen tip was still moving across the paper.

"Aren't you tired? Take a break, don't write anymore."

"Not tired at all. It's only a few words. Back in second grade, I wrote three essays for you in an hour. This is nothing."

Her pen paused for a moment, she turned her head to look at him, her gaze lingering on his face for two seconds, the gentle light in her eyes seeming to be struck by a pebble and then ripple away.

"Go sit over there, don't squat here, your knees will hurt."

Yun Jingheng stood up and sat down on the edge of the bed.

The mattress was exactly the same firmness he remembered. The curve of his buttocks sinking in perfectly supported him. As he leaned back, the back of his head touched the edge of the folded bedding, and the faint scent of soap from the off-white fabric filled his nostrils.

He leaned against the blankets, watching Ya Li write.

Her silhouette curved into a gentle arc in the warm light, her shoulders slightly forward, and the pen made a very soft scratching sound on the paper.

The light outside the window was slowly dimming, and the warm yellow light gradually seeped in through the window paper. The temperature in the room dropped a little, but it wasn't cold; it was the kind of cool that made you want to wrap yourself in a blanket and curl up.

His eyelids began to feel heavy.

Things that he had suppressed for a very long time began to surface little by little.

He's so tired.

He wanted to sleep right there.

No need to think about what to do tomorrow, no need to watch the confrontation between the two groups in the future, no need to think about those unnecessary crises.

He just wanted to close his eyes.

Right here on this bed, leaning against this off-white quilt, listening to the scratching of the pen on the paper, smelling the scent of soapberry and the slightly pungent aroma of asparagus fern leaves after being dried in the sun, I can sleep soundly.

His eyes were half closed.

When his vision narrowed to a slit, he saw Ya Li put down her pen and stand up.

She walked to the bedside, bent down, lifted a corner of the blanket, reached out and supported his shoulders, leading him toward the pillow.

"If you're sleepy, take a nap."

Her voice came in close to his earlobe, as soft as ripples on water, spreading deep into his ear canal in circles.

"Mom has finished your homework. We'll talk about tomorrow's stuff tomorrow. That's all for today. Stay here with Mom and get some sleep."

Yun Jingheng's body slid down along the force of her hand.

The back of his head sank into the pillow, the softness of the pillow filling perfectly supporting the weight of his head. His body, from neck to shoulders to waist to legs, every bone and every muscle was comfortably wrapped by the mattress and blanket.

His breath slid out of his chest very lightly and slowly, like a feather being pushed by the wind, falling from a high place to a low place, never reaching the bottom.

Ya Li sat back in the wicker chair, but didn't pick up the pen. She just turned her head to look at him, the smile still on her lips, the light in her eyes still there, as gentle as the golden fuzz on the edges of the asparagus fern leaves on the windowsill, outlined by the evening sun.

Yun Jingheng's eyes closed completely.

Darkness descended.

The darkness was very light, unlike the oppressive heaviness of a dream; it was as if a very light and thin black veil was covering his eyelids.

His consciousness slowly rose from his body, ascending half a foot, hovering not far from the top of his head, neither falling back nor drifting away, just suspended there.

Then he heard a voice.

The sound was very far away.

It came from the farthest reaches, still within his consciousness after he had drifted away, like a thread being pulled through layers of mist from the direction of that Reef Island, so thin it was almost about to break.

It was the sound of metal clashing.

It made a very soft sound, like a welding rod slipping from your hand and bouncing on a rock.

Then came the sound of breathing.

Heavy, stifling, with the rough, guttural wheezing that comes only after pushing to the limit, scraped up from the very bottom of the lungs.

Ye Xinglan.

When those three words surfaced in his mind, the darkness beneath Yun Jingheng's closed eyelids seemed to have been ripped open, and the light shining through the crack was not warm yellow, but cold white, the kind of dazzling, scorching white that comes from the tip of a welding torch when it's at its brightest.

His eyelids twitched.

"Go to sleep."

Ya Li's voice drifted over from the wicker chair again, soft and gentle, like a warm, damp towel on his forehead, "No rush, no rush to think about it. We'll talk about it after you wake up."

The slit under Yun Jingheng's eyelids closed again.

The cold white light was replaced by warm light, and the softness of the bedding drew him in from his joints, pressing back the weariness that seeped from between his bones.

But the gasp he had just heard felt like a thorn stuck in his throat; he couldn't swallow it down or spit it out.

He rolled over.

As he lay on his side, his ear was facing the windowsill. The leaves of the asparagus fern swayed slightly on the windowsill, casting shadows on the window paper that gently swayed in the evening breeze.

His consciousness began to drift upwards again, his body sinking deeper and deeper into the mattress, as if some heavy object was pressing down on his bones and causing him to fall.

He is sinking.

He heard another sound when he was halfway down the road.

It wasn't Ye Xinglan panting anymore.

It's another voice.

It came from an extremely distant place, even farther than the Reef Island, so faint it was as if it were coming through a dozen layers of water. But he heard the three words clearly.

"... In your heart..."

The word that followed was covered by something—it could be wind, it could be waves, it could be something else he didn't want to think about.

Something was stirring within him.

Something was constantly stirring within him.

Yun Jingheng sat up in bed.

The movement was so fast that he didn't even have time to react. The force with which he pulled his upper body out of the covers made the mattress tremble, and the off-white blanket slipped down from his chest and piled up around his waist.

Ya Li turned around from the wicker chair to look at him.

Her gaze was still warm and gentle, and the smile on her lips was still there, but there was something new in her eyes.

The substance resembled a thin layer of oil floating on the surface of water, gleaming faintly and somewhat unnaturally under the warm light.

"What's wrong?"

Yun Jingheng did not answer.

He stood up.

His feet were already on the ground, on the blue bricks, when the edge of the bed was still a fist's distance from his knees.

He took a step toward the door.

Ya Li stood up from the wicker chair. The pen in her hand had been capped and placed on the desk at some point. As she stood up, the hem of the plain white dress beside her swayed slightly, causing a ray of warm yellow light to ripple gently in the room.

"Where are you going?" Her voice was still soft, but the ending tone no longer rose.

The string that had been gently plucked by the wind is now still, as if someone has pressed it down to prevent it from making a sound.

Yun Jingheng took another step.

He turned his head and looked at Ya Li.

His gaze lingered on her face, from her eyebrows and eyes to the bridge of her nose, from the corners of her mouth to her chin.

The face was exactly the same as the one in his memory, every detail was identical.

But when he looked at that face now, what echoed in his mind wasn't Ya Li's voice, but another sentence.

That's what Sloth said.

"... Your heart has always been stirring."

His heart was constantly racing.

"Mom."

He spoke.

Ya Li looked up at him, the smile still on her lips, the light still in her eyes.

But beneath that layer of light floating on the surface, something was moving, moving extremely slowly, like a sleeping fish turning over in deep water.

"Um?"

"I still have things to do. Once I'm done, I'll come back to you and spend time with you, and also..."

Yun Jingheng looked at the notebook on the table and smiled as he spoke.

"I've never done homework since I was little, let alone had you write any essays for me."

He smiled gently, then turned and placed his hand on the door.

He pushed open the door and stepped out.

Warm light enveloped him from behind. The door wasn't closed, but the moment he stepped out, the light in the room slid off his back, like a thin, warm veil being pulled away from his shoulders.

He didn't turn around, nor did he see the warmth fading behind him.

After all, the sea breeze was waiting for him.