Alcohol can send your highs soaring, but the crash when you wake up is just as deep; starting from your physical functions, everything fails to keep up, leaving you feeling hollowed out. The sunlight was so bright it was impossible to fully open one's eyes.
Even the girl in front of him was a blur.
"Do you have any idea how much you drank?" she asked from beside him. "Almost two bottles of forty-percent liquor. We forced hangover medicine down your throat three times."
Lin Yiyang’s mouth was parched and his throat was dry, as if he had trekked through a wilderness for three days and nights. "Hangover medicine doesn't do much after the fact."
He was stating a common fact—this silly girl didn't understand anything.
"I know... but there was nothing else we could do."
Besides, he had vomited up all three doses; not a drop had stayed down.
Later, the others had discussed it and decided that if he still looked miserable by morning, they would take him to the hospital. Fortunately, Lin Yiyang had a high tolerance, and his body managed to process that massive amount of hard liquor on its own. His friends had poured water into him again and again, terrified that the alcohol would burn him up from the inside.
Yin Guo had gone to her match with a heart full of both heartache and irritation. Meng Xiaodong, who had sobered up first, looked at her and remarked, "She’ll probably play well today." Having watched Yin Guo grow up, he knew that the more frustrated or provoked she felt before a match, the better she performed—a sort of rebellious streak in her psychology.
Sure enough, she and another senior teammate had successfully fought their way into the final four.
"Do you remember taking a shower?" She propped herself up on her elbows, watching him.
He shook his head. He was lying; he actually remembered.
"Then you don't remember eating noodles either?" She had fed them to him, one mouthful at a time.
He shook his head again and sat up a bit higher.
He was wearing a shirt on his upper body, but all the buttons were undone. Yin Guo had unfastened them one by one, worried he wouldn't be able to sleep comfortably. The blanket slid from his collarbone down to his waist.
There was an unopened bottle of water behind the lamp on the nightstand. He grabbed it, twisted it open, and took a long, deep gulp. His body was so starved for hydration that he could truly feel the cool stream flowing down his throat, into his stomach, and seemingly seeping into his very organs.
He was coming back to life.
In truth, this was nothing. Back when he was in China and traveled to the west, the most brutal drinks were the "mounting the horse" and "dismounting the horse" toasts offered by the locals. The spirits were so harsh they scorched the throat; he had almost thought he was drinking pure ethanol. Then there was the raw draft beer produced across the country—easy to drink, but even easier to get drunk on, many times more potent than these foreign liquors.
This time, he had been drinking "sorrowful wine." He had expected to go down, and fearing he wouldn't go down hard enough or get thoroughly drunk, he had returned to the room to mix the dregs of the remaining bottles and finish them all.
A man shouldn't drink sorrowful wine too often.
Everyone lives for today and waits for tomorrow. Yesterday should be discarded; it is of no use.
He put the water bottle back. The girl in front of him seemed to be plotting something.
He waited to hear it.
"Then... do you remember what we did?" Yin Guo asked.
She felt guilty saying it, wanting to claim that Lin Yiyang had lost control of his inhibitions while drunk. But in the end, she was too thin-skinned. She hemmed and hawed for a long time, failing to land the joke, and instead let an uneasy silence fall over the room.
"What did we do?" he asked.
A man's hands—whether the pads of the fingers or the edges—are much rougher than a girl's. He stroked her lips. "Tell me."
He remembered when they first met; he had referred to her and her cousin as "kids" when talking to Wu Wei and outsiders. Kids who hadn't been tossed about by society, girls whose eyes held a certain clear, transparent quality.
He was undoing his belt, and the sound of a trouser zipper sliding followed.
Lin Yiyang gripped her wrist and pulled her left hand under the covers. Adrenaline surged. She felt the fabric of his dress slacks, and further up, the feel of cotton...
She panicked. "I was just joking."
Lin Yiyang held her small hand, interlacing his fingers with hers. "Did Jiang Yang and the others say anything stupid later?"
"No... they didn't say much."
Her heart was pounding so hard it vibrated against her eardrums. She should have been prepared the first time she saw that tattoo sleeve in the apartment—this was a beast wrapped in the skin of a gentleman.
The conversation continued, entirely dominated by Lin Yiyang.
"What day is it?"
"Sunday, noon."
"Is the tournament over?"
"It ended... this morning."
The two-week US Open 9-Ball Championship had concluded. The Chinese contingent had achieved brilliant results: the women's team had swept the silver and bronze medals, and the men's team had also performed admirably. Nine-ball was traditionally a discipline where the women excelled, and she had won the silver—the best result among the Chinese female players this time. But with him asking her in this setting, she had no mind for it at all.
She only thought: *Hurry up, just get it over with...*
When a room becomes quiet enough and a person's focus is sharpened to a point, they hear many sounds usually ignored: the weight and rhythm of his breathing, her own, and the friction of fabric against the duvet.
And finally, he said: "Come here, kiss me."
As if under a spell, she leaned over. Before she could touch his lips, he had already cupped the back of her head with one hand and kissed her deeply. There was a powerful tightening of muscle in his arm, and the scent of male hormones—unfamiliar and potent—filled the room.
The window was cracked open, but there wasn't a breath of wind.
The sun was fierce today, shining through the glass onto her back, making her feel uncomfortably warm.
Yin Guo panted slightly, meeting his gaze. She looked as if she were about to faint from the sun behind her.
Lin Yiyang’s Adam's apple bobbed slightly. For the first time, his thirst wasn't quenched; he only wanted to hold her more.
He whispered, "Go wash your hands."
He let her go.
Yin Guo dashed into the bathroom at a sprinter's pace. She lathered every inch of her skin with a small square of complimentary soap, wondering how she could have been so stupid as to make up such a lie. She just had to provoke him.
Milky white foam squeezed between her fingers as she scrubbed and scrubbed...
And scrubbed.
Lin Yiyang entered the bathroom carrying a set of clean clothes. Yin Guo didn't even have the courage to look at him in the mirror; she dropped the soap into the ceramic dish and bolted. She didn't even notice the soap sliding into the sink; Lin Yiyang was the one who fished it out.
Lin Yiyang came out wearing jeans and a pair of white hotel slippers. He came over and sat next to her, barely perched on the edge of the sofa. He thought he would be fine after a shower, but he still wanted to pull her onto the bed.
Especially when he looked down and saw her two bare feet resting on the edge of the sofa, her toenails trimmed smooth...
"Rest for a while. I'll take you to see the sunset," he said.
"The sunset?" It was only noon. Why talk about the sunrise?
"Yes, the sunset. In Hawaii." He went to gather his soiled shirt and slacks from the bathroom, bundled them up, and stuffed them into a hotel paper bag, planning to drop them off at the lobby for dry cleaning and pick them up later.
Hawaii?
Clearly, Lin Yiyang had made arrangements long before coming to watch the tournament.
He had gotten Yin Guo’s passport information from Meng Xiaotian and booked the flights and hotel, all waiting for the tournament to end.
He wanted to take Yin Guo to the Big Island to see the active Kilauea volcano, to see the seawater and lava at the heart of the Pacific. He wanted them to stand on a volcano that could erupt at any moment, to sleep in a tent in a place filled with the aura of death, and watch the sunset and the starry river.
He didn't want to waste these final three days of the countdown. Since Yin Guo was already in the US, it was very convenient.
And so, in early April, after Yin Guo had won her silver medal and received her prize, she followed Lin Yiyang on a long-haul flight from the city they were in. After a layover and over ten hours of flying and resting—essentially the same duration and distance as returning to China...
At 5:46 AM on Monday, Yin Guo emerged from the cabin door and followed the passengers down the long escalator, finally standing in the place Lin Yiyang wanted her to be.
Neither of them had brought any large luggage; he had only told her to bring heavy winter clothes. When they got off the plane, the sky was just beginning to brighten. Yin Guo held onto the strap of his backpack as he led her through the crowd, her mind still not quite catching up.
Zheng Yi’s WeChat messages were still lagging, asking about the previous city.
Zheng Yi: *Is he sober yet?*
Xiao Guo: *Yeah.*
Zheng Yi: *Is he good?*
Xiao Guo: *...*
Zheng Yi: *You buying condoms... are you planning to be a personal shopper for adult products?*
Xiao Guo: *Don't be in such a hurry...*
Zheng Yi: *I am in a hurry, thanks.*
Xiao Guo: *Didn't you say the faster you sleep together, the faster you break up?*
Zheng Yi: *I thought about it later—if you meet a top-tier guy, you have to sleep with him. Just in case the world ends tomorrow, you can't let yourself lose out like that.*
Xiao Guo: *I just got off a plane. Can't sleep.*
Zheng Yi: *????*
Xiao Guo: *He’s taking me to see the sunset.*
Zheng Yi: *????????*
Zheng Yi: *Does he have any brothers left? If not, I’ll settle for a sister.*
Xiao Guo: *Quite a few, I think... I'll introduce you if there's a chance.*
When they came out, he rented a dark gray car near the airport exit, tucked Yin Guo inside, turned on the GPS, and headed straight for the hotel to check in. To the left was a land covered in black volcanic ash, and to the right as well. The road ahead was the same, stretching endlessly.
In the orange-red light of dawn, she listened to the English navigation prompts and slowly began to doze off. When she woke again, it was to the sound of rain drumming against the glass. She turned her head and asked softly, "How long have we been driving?"
"About twenty minutes. You can go back to sleep," he said.
When Lin Yiyang drove, he habitually used his right hand alone to steer. On the outside of his arm, the sprawling nebula tattoo was intricate and beautiful. She had asked about it once in the apartment; he said a friend he knew had finished it in three sessions.
She stared at it for a while, then rubbed her eyes to clear her vision. Through the driver's side window, she saw a large cluster of red flowers—or perhaps red grass—appearing on the black, wild land.
It felt like a dream.
Last night at the airport, as she watched this man leaning one hand on a waist-high machine while checking in, she had wondered: *Is this a dream?* Since that day of the blizzard across the city, she had been in a long, incredible dream. A man named Lin Yiyang had pushed open a wooden door, his hand on a rough, old metal handle, his body and hat covered in snow.
That day was the end of January.
...
The rain grew heavier, turning into a misty shroud that obscured the road ahead.
"Let's talk about something. I'm afraid you'll get sleepy driving," she said softly.
The GPS prompted them to keep going straight. Of course, there were no turn-offs here.
Yin Guo looked at his hand on the wheel, his long fingers loosely gripping it. She thought of him pinning her hand down, sliding his fingers between hers; she thought of the soft white duvet, and of something flowing over their joined hands.
"Can we park here?" she asked.
She saw a sign for a lava flow path and a cave entrance with a few cars parked nearby; it should be fine. Many people did self-drive tours on this island, so there should be places to pull over and rest at any time.
Lin Yiyang stepped on the brakes, and the car smoothly turned into a safe roadside turnout. This was a place that seemed entirely covered in black volcanic ash, where nothing could grow, yet clumps of grass stubbornly poked their heads out from the roadside and any patch of earth they could find.
The engine remained running, vibrating slightly.
"Go down and look at the lava landscape, or see the volcanic flowers," he said, his thumb pressing the seatbelt release. The black strap snapped back into its red housing with a *clack*. It retracted as if to ensure it wouldn't get in their way.
"I want to talk to you."
"About what?" He leaned over and unbuckled her seatbelt as well.
The seat was slowly adjusting, reclining backward. His warm breath was right against her face. "Adult talk, or just plain talk?"
Since leaving the hotel, they had been on the move—on planes, in airports—never having a quiet, private space where they wouldn't be interrupted. Once physical contact had been established, kisses were no longer enough to satisfy the heart; there was an unstoppable sense of novelty and an unquenchable desire to know more.
It felt like he hadn't kissed her in over ten hours.
"Yesterday..." Yin Guo looked at him and asked in a small voice, "Did it feel good?"
She was truly curious. Was it any different from doing it himself?
She traced his collar, the cotton fabric bunching into small pleats under her fingertip before smoothing out again.
Rain hammered against the roof of the car with enough force to pierce through.
They didn't know who this car belonged to or who had sat in it before; only today and tomorrow belonged to them.
He answered readily enough: "It felt good."
"How was it different from doing it yourself?" Once the first "adult" question was out, the rest came much easier.
"Doing it myself?" He thought about the difference. In terms of the physical action, it was much the same, but the psychological satisfaction was entirely different. Looking at her face at that moment had given a tangible form to all the emptiness of his past; it was all her.
"It's hard to say," he smiled, dodging the answer she wanted. "About the same."
Yin Guo had satisfied a small part of her curiosity, but she felt a bit defeated. If it was "hard to say" and "about the same," then her efforts had been for nothing. Of course, she hadn't actually done much; he had been the one holding her hand and leading the way.
Her imagination began to wander again. "If it were someone else, would it be about the same too?"
The question Lin Yiyang had asked when he was drunk was very similar to the hypothetical in her mind. She also wanted to ask: *Lin Yiyang, since being with me, have you found that I'm not what you imagined? Will the novelty gradually fade?*
A sincere first love is agonizing; wholehearted devotion and the fear of gain and loss coexist. Before experiencing it, one doesn't know how to give; after experiencing it, one will never give in quite the same way again.
"Someone else?" The conversation had taken an unexpected turn.
...
Lin Yiyang buckled her seatbelt again.
He gripped the steering wheel with his right hand. Amidst the sound of the rain—sometimes loud, sometimes soft, sometimes near, sometimes far—he turned the car back onto the highway. He shot her a glance and said teasingly, "Tell me the truth, little girl—what do you take me for? Someone anyone can just reach out and touch?"
***
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 基拉韦厄 | Kilauea | An active shield volcano in the Hawaiian Islands. |
| 大岛 | Big Island | The largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. |
| 九球 | Nine-ball | A discipline of pool/billiards. |
| 解酒药 | Hangover cure | Refers to medicine or supplements taken to alleviate hangover symptoms. |
| 伤心酒 | Sorrowful wine | Drinking specifically due to sadness or emotional pain. |
| 花臂 | Tattoo sleeve | A full-arm tattoo. |
| 上马酒/下马酒 | Welcome/Farewell toasts | Traditional ceremonial drinks in Western China/Mongolia. |
| 火山花 | Volcanic flowers | Likely referring to the 'Ohi'a lehua, a native Hawaiian flower. |
