The heavy rain of midsummer drenched the young boy’s sky.
The departure of Shi Tingsong, to the Shi family, was like the passing of a stray kitten in the garden, stirring no ripple in their lives.
Only the boy who had just lost his father fell silent, not going out for three days.
He took a photo of his father from among his belongings, carefully put it in a frame, and placed it in the empty room of his father.
He set up a simple altar for him, with a brass incense burner in front of it, candles lit on both sides of the burner.
The candle flames burned long and bright.
After Shi Tingsong’s death, no one entered his room; the housemaids didn’t dare to go in and clean during these days.
This conveniently allowed the boy to do as he wished.
Shi Wangyue offered incense for his father, then sat cross-legged in front of the altar and concentrated on reciting the Rebirth Mantra.
His sister had said, "If you complete two hundred thousand recitations, the seed of Bodhi will sprout. With three hundred thousand, you are not far from seeing Amitabha Buddha face to face."
He intended to recite it a million times for his father.
It didn’t matter if no one else in the family memorialized his father, he would recite scriptures and eat vegetarian to help his father through these forty-nine days and remember to worship him during the holidays.
...
A few days later, the boy stepped out into the morning light, carrying his backpack to school.
In the cool morning breeze, he wore black earphones, from which a woman’s soft and coquettish voice streamed: "I’ve been so scared these days, haven’t been sleeping well at all, keep recalling that fool’s look before he died, it was terrifying."
"What are you afraid of? Death is like a light extinguishing, you just think too much because you’re soft-hearted." Responded a man’s unfamiliar voice, tender yet passionate.
"I’m just anxious and worried. Even though he was a fool who was not much use, he was still a person. Now that he’s gone, I’m in a panic, not knowing how to live from now on. The Shi family is so cold-hearted, who knows how they’ll treat us mother and child in the future..." At this, the woman began to sob softly.
"Alright, alright, things will only get better now, won’t they? You have me, don’t you?"
"Get lost, I’m already upset, and you still think about other things..."
Then the phone began to play the sounds of the woman and man half-jokingly wrangling, along with delicate rustling sounds of clothes being removed.
The boy quickly turned off the phone.
He felt short of breath, stopped to lean against a tree by the roadside, covered his chest and coughed hard before suppressing the surge of nausea from his stomach.
The heavy panting gradually subsided, and the boy lightly laughed, morning light filtering through the dappled shadows of trees, casting finely onto his pale face.
In the bright daylight, the boy’s face was ghostly pale, appearing as cold and fierce as if a vengeful spirit summoned from the underworld.
He leaned against the tree, tightly shut his eyes, and after a long time managed to breathe evenly again.
He no longer had a father, or a mother, or a home.
He was alone.
He was only by himself now.
He used to think that as long as he didn’t speak up, his mother would still be his mother, no matter how much she despised his father; she was the one who had given birth to him, nurtured him, was his father’s wife, and would still come home to be with his father and him.
Anyhow, his father knew nothing, so let him continue to live in oblivious happiness; a complete family was all he cared for.
As long as his mother could stay peacefully by their sides, he could pretend none of this had happened, for her bearing and raising him and caring for his father, he was willing to take good care of her in old age, to see her off and not let her be left with no one to rely on...
But now...
He couldn’t control the incessant growth of rage and violence in his heart, flooding like a sea; he didn’t want to have any ties with her anymore, it was too nauseating.
Not pushing her into the grave to be buried with his father was already his last bit of mercy.
Since the family was gone, his father was gone, he didn’t need his mother either.
Everything was so laughable, everything was meaningless.
"Thanks to your ruthlessness, I’ve become indifferent to you."
On the night of July 10, 2012, Weibo.
"Someone who likes the ordinary" posted their first Weibo after registering for more than a year:
A row of three, neatly aligned candles.
...
Ning Youguang sat in her seat and a heaviness of worry flashed across her heart as she saw the boy walk into the classroom.
In just a few days, the boy had lost more than ten pounds; he was already skinny before, and now he looked like a walking skeleton, expressionless and exuding indifference.
Previously, although he didn’t like to talk, he would still respond when classmates greeted him.
Today, he walked to his seat with his head down, not even saying hello to classmates as he passed, and his presence made everyone fall silent involuntarily.
The boy seemed like a fierce wind from the Antarctic, coldly roaring as if a lost child.
Teenagers at fourteen or fifteen were perceptive enough to notice that something must have happened at Shi Wangyue’s home during these days he was absent from school, otherwise, he wouldn’t look so severely thin and exude such a deep despair.
"Wangyue," called out Youguang gently after the boy sat down.
Wangyue turned his head to look at the girl beside him, his eyes bloodshot with circles as dark as a panda’s.
"Did you have breakfast?"
The boy silently shook his head.
"I have soy milk here, would you like some?" She handed over the soy milk she had just opened for herself.
Although the classmates around didn’t know what exactly happened to Shi Wangyue, when Ning Youguang spoke, they seemed to have their power switch turned on and started moving busily.
"Shi Wangyue, I have bread here for you."
"I have a corn sausage."
"I have instant noodles."
"I have lollipops..."
In an instant, the boy’s empty desk was piled high with various snacks.
Usually, this would never happen to him.
Shi Wangyue looked up, his eyes sweeping over the circle of youthful, cautiously probing faces, then lowered his head and said, "Thank you."
The thanks were very light, almost inaudible, but some sharp-eared classmates caught it.
"What are you thanking for? It’s just a pack of instant noodles." A boy with acne scratched his head.
"Yeah, hurry and eat, have more, class is about to start."
"If it’s not enough, I have more."
After eating the breakfast his classmates gave him, the boy lay on his desk and fell into a deep sleep, so deep that he didn’t wake when the bell for class rang and the teacher walked in. 1314