A Little Boat

"It... it hurts... be gentler..."

"You can't bite people... you're a puppy..."

"Wife... you're my wife now, right...?"

"..."

The howling night wind outside swallowed those tearful murmurs, leaving only the creaking of the old bed frame.

The little boat stopped rocking.

Bai Congming lay on his stomach on the bed. Before sleepiness came, his mother's smiling face appeared in his memory.

"When Mommy's gone, our little Bai will be so pitiful all alone..."

"Save up your money, and get yourself a wife when the time comes. Then the house will be lively."

"It's all right if you're a little slow. Just treat them well and make a good life together."

"..."

Bai Congming was not actually all that bright.

As someone with a mild intellectual disability, he could not understand what his mother meant by getting a wife. The moment he heard that she would be gone, he burst into heartbroken sobs.

His mother never tried to stop his tears with comforting words. She simply cried along with him.

"Mommy can't stay with you forever. Get a wife... get a wife to keep you company..."

Later... his warm mother became a cold gravestone, sleeping deep beneath the earth like the bougainvillea planted in spring.

Bai Congming took good care of himself. Just as his mother had told him, he saved his money and lived well, waiting to get a wife.

His mother really had not lied to him. The wind was strong tonight, and a wife had descended from the sky and rescued Bai Congming from the flower nursery where he had been trapped.

The night wind made the old window frame creak, but the room was quiet, so quiet that he could hear only the steady, long breaths of the man beside him, carrying the smell of alcohol and mingling with Bai Congming's own scent.

Spending every day in the flower nursery, Bai Congming always smelled of flowers, a scent that seeped through his pores into his very bones and blood, fragrant inside and out.

The bedside night-light was on. Its dim yellow glow lit the face beside him, lending a layer of softness to contours that should have looked cold and hard.

It was a very handsome face.

His eyebrows were dark, his nose high and straight, leading down to sharply defined yet somewhat pale lips.

He looked like someone Bai Congming had once seen in a pictorial, only more handsome.

As Bai Congming gazed at him, he began to smile and reached out a finger to trace the face so close to his own. Had the man beside him been awake, he surely would have been moved by the joy in those eyes.

"Wife..."

Bai Congming lowered his voice as far as he could, afraid of disturbing the peaceful sleep beside him.

"I'll definitely treat you well!"

The little boat reached shore.

A hangover was like having all the water in your body replaced with alcohol. After a night's sleep, the alcohol evaporated, leaving a dried-out walking corpse, slow in both thought and movement.

Daylight dazzled his eyes. The man in bed was already awake, yet still reluctant to open them.

His memories of last night were fragmented. A thirty-year-old drinking himself into oblivion to escape reality-it really was embarrassing when he thought about it.

Getting drunk was one thing. People said lust came with a full belly and warm clothes, but Ding Ding had neither these days, so how had he ended up having such a pathetic dream? It must have been because he had been single too long... wait!

The movement of someone turning over beside him was slight, but it gave Ding Ding a very real fright.

He opened his eyes. Everything he saw was unfamiliar.

Through a small window, he could see swathes of bougainvillea. Sunlight slipped past the white curtain, illuminating a wardrobe beside the window with one door that would not close, and cardboard boxes stacked neatly in the corner.

He looked down at the rumpled sheets, then around the shabby little room.

A human-shaped mound rose beneath the quilt. The person's head was completely covered, with just a few fine, soft hairs poking out onto the pillow.

"..."

I'm screwed. It wasn't a dream.

While he was still reeling, at a loss, the person beneath the quilt moved.

An arm emerged first, feeling its way toward Ding Ding little by little. Only after the hand caught the edge of his sleeve and rubbed it did a head peek out from beneath the quilt.

His eyes were still misty from waking, like a small animal in the forest, timidly watching this person who had unexpectedly intruded into his territory.

The little animal blinked, then suddenly broke into a wide smile. He wriggled into Ding Ding's arms and nuzzled his arm with a familiarity he seemed to take entirely for granted.

"Wife, did you sleep well?"

A little animal indeed. Even without biting when he opened his mouth, that barbed tongue could scrape someone raw.

Goose bumps rose all over Ding Ding, all because this man had opened his mouth and called him "wife."

"No, don't go calling me that. You..."

His gaze fell on the man's body. Somehow, he had grown up with fair skin in a city with so much sunlight. Little red marks dotted it like red plum blossoms in the snow, every one reminding Ding Ding of last night's crimes.

Not many thirty-year-old men had kept their chastity intact. Ding Ding was one of them.

Drunkenly tumbling into bed with someone was a first for Ding Ding. He had no idea how to handle it or what to do about it.

"Well..." Clearing his throat, Ding Ding looked away. "I drank too much yesterday. Look, we're both adults, and you..."

At that, Ding Ding went rigid and stared wide-eyed at his face.

This man really did not look very old. Fair skin and soft hair aside, his eyes were utterly clear, without calculation or a past, as though the dust of the world had never touched him.

"You are an adult, right!?"

"An adult..."

Bai Congming tilted his head and thought for a moment, recalling what his mother had once said as she stroked his head. He nodded, imitating her tone from back then, and said, "Our little Bai is an adult now. He's a big boy."

"..."

Only then did Ding Ding finally notice that something was not right with him.

The good news was that he said he was an adult.

The bad news was that this man... did not seem quite normal.

Ding Ding took a deep breath. "What's your name?"

"My name is Bai Congming. I'm twenty-two years old, and I live at 23 Wuxu Alley, Hongfang Street."

"..."

What a name to give him... Ding Ding did not know what to say. Pressing his lips together, he got up, picked his clothes off the floor, and put them on.

"Are you... feeling uncomfortable anywhere?"

"Comfortable!" Bai Congming answered quickly. "It's just that you're a little fierce, wife."

"..."

Once Ding Ding registered that answer, he nearly bit his own tongue off. He stopped talking to him and surveyed the room. Its owner kept it very clean, and there were no unpleasant odors in the air, only faint threads of floral fragrance.

It was just empty. Never mind clutter, there were hardly any belongings at all. A table, a bed, and a wardrobe were the entirety of it.

There was an open doorway on the other side. Only when he walked over did he realize there was no door at all. A lone doorframe marked off the cramped bathroom beyond.

Ding Ding went in and washed his face, trying to clear his head with cold water, but it was no use. His mind was still dazed when he came out.

After thinking it over, Ding Ding decided to sort out what had happened before deciding what to do.

"You... how did I end up here?"