He didn’t understand.
He couldn't make sense of it.
Why did it happen?
Pei Cangyu thought about it constantly, over and over, but there was no explanation. Look, why did this thing happen in the first place? Was it because Pei Yueshan was a bad person? There had never been any warning signs, so why did it happen? There had to be a reason. If a werewolf transformed because of the moon, then what was the catalyst for this? Was it the alcohol he drank that day? Was it the scent of the shampoo he used to wash his hair? Was it because Pei Cangyu was too careless with his clothes? Was it because Pei Cangyu had bumped into him while sleeping?
There had to be a reason.
It couldn't have just happened out of nowhere.
He thought about it day after day, but he could never find the cause. He was like an antelope crashing into the walls of a maze, nearly snapping the horns off its head.
Nothing had truly happened on Monday night. They had made too much noise, and Grandma had woken up. She knocked on the door, asking what was wrong and if something had fallen.
Pei Yueshan was pinned on top of him. He turned his head to glance at the door, then stared straight into Pei Cangyu’s eyes.
Pei Cangyu began to tremble violently. Pei Yueshan’s expression was exactly the same as usual—unhurried, almost indifferent. His breath puffed against Pei Cangyu’s face, hot and damp. In that moment, Pei Cangyu suddenly felt that Pei Yueshan wasn't human; he was some kind of reptile, a lizard, with a lizard’s face, cold eyes, and a slimy torso.
Pei Yueshan watched him for a while, making sure he wouldn't go crazy and jump up to fight again, before letting him go. He stood up to open the door and told Grandma he had just moved the bed.
Pei Cangyu sat up abruptly. From his position, he could see the silhouette of the increasingly shriveled, small old woman under Pei Yueshan’s outstretched arm. She looked exceptionally aged in the night, yet whenever she looked at her son, she was always full of hope.
Pei Cangyu watched her. Grandma spoke in a hushed voice, unaware that Pei Cangyu was awake. She told Pei Yueshan that the boy’s exams were coming up and he should drink a glass of milk every night from now on. Pei Yueshan nodded in agreement and saw the old lady out.
Pei Cangyu sat on the bed, watching as Pei Yueshan closed the door, came back in, pulled back the covers, and went back to sleep.
Pei Cangyu sat there clutching his head, unable to understand.
Throughout that week, he wondered if he should tell someone.
His first thought was a teacher—after all, they were adults.
But the moment he stepped into the office, he realized something was wrong. Sister was no longer his homeroom teacher. The current one was a substitute who taught English; he wore thick glasses that betrayed his impatience with taking over a graduating class.
There was no one else in the office. The English teacher told him to sit down and continued grading homework, sparing him a glance. "What is it?"
Pei Cangyu looked at him and didn't move.
The English teacher graded a paper with a score of 80. The score wasn't high, the handwriting was sloppy, and the student had tried to sneak pinyin into the essay, thinking the teacher wouldn't notice. It was truly annoying.
He turned to look at Pei Cangyu. The kid had a blank, dazed expression. He put down his pen, crossed his legs, and picked up the hot tea on his desk. "Is it because of your grades?"
Pei Cangyu looked up at him but didn't speak.
"Your grades are like a roller coaster, up one minute and down the next." He dug Pei Cangyu’s paper out of the stack. "You did quite well last time. Look at you this time—why did you leave this blank? We’ve done this reading comprehension so many times. Honestly, you should have the answers memorized by now. Look at this 'has done' option..."
Pei Cangyu’s mind began to wander.
"...Right? Why didn't you write it?" The teacher pushed up his glasses and snapped his fingers in front of Pei Cangyu’s face. "Look at that, spacing out again."
Pei Cangyu snapped back to reality and glanced at him.
The English teacher was very young, perhaps twenty-six or twenty-seven. He spent all his money on headphones and was the kind of new teacher whose voice rose at the end of every sentence, radiating youth. He always wore bright red T-shirts and was overly responsible yet lacked sensitivity. He was still riding the waves on a surfboard in the sea of life; it was hard to say if he had even touched the water.
He held Pei Cangyu’s shoulder and spoke earnestly. "It’s normal for grades to fluctuate. The key is to adjust your mindset. Think about it—you’re still young. You don't have any real troubles. When you get to be my age, you’ll realize how good you have it now. Carefree, with nothing to do but study."
Pei Cangyu listened blankly, stood up blankly, said his goodbyes blankly, and left.
He didn't know what to say, what to think, what to do, or what he wanted. He knew nothing at all.
Someone bumped into him in the hallway. The person apologized and ran off. Pei Cangyu didn't even bother to turn his head. A few students were fooling around in the corridor, running around the pillars. One of them happened to swerve right next to Pei Cangyu. Several younger students ran back and forth around him. For some reason, it suddenly made Pei Cangyu feel incredibly irritable. He wanted all these people to stay far away from him.
He was suddenly very angry.
He didn't know why.
When he went to Ms. Shang’s place, Pei Cangyu couldn't bring himself to go inside. The woman who opened the door was extremely aggressive; she was a weapon in human form, the complete opposite of what a psychiatrist should look like. A normal person would lose all trust in her the moment they saw her and leave such a clinic. Pei Cangyu was no exception.
She looked at Pei Cangyu and asked with a smile how she could help. Her eyes carried the intent of "solving a problem," but what Pei Cangyu brought wasn't necessarily a problem—he didn't even know what it was himself. A doctor in this field who saw their professional duty as "solving problems" was likely not a good doctor.
So Pei Cangyu continued to wander the streets. School felt too suffocating for him.
He saw a small church on Flute Street, nestled low in front of a park. There was a bench by the entrance, and the walls were covered in ivy.
Driven by some inexplicable impulse, he walked inside. As soon as he entered, he saw the crucifix on the altar—the Son of God in twisted agony—and the eerie light and shadows cast by the stained glass on the walls. He sat in a row of chairs at the back. The chair was exceptionally cold. When he leaned forward, his hands rested perfectly on the back of the row in front of him, allowing him to assume a prayer-like posture.
A blond, blue-eyed priest was rolling up his sleeves, explaining special discounts for holding a wedding there to a young couple. He talked about what new offers were available and how it was a steal if they grabbed it now. The businessman-priest used a crucifix to point back and forth at the wedding package brochure, occasionally wiping sweat with his arm. There were other tourists wandering the church, mostly couples scouting locations for their weddings. Only those who were truly interested would go to the priest to discuss prices.
Pei Cangyu felt it was pointless to stay and stood up to leave.
At the door, he saw a familiar figure sweeping the floor.
Lu Mingban also noticed Pei Cangyu. He slowly raised his hand and gave a greeting, then turned his head, thinking that if Pei Cangyu was here, the others must be too.
Pei Cangyu walked over to him and pointed at the clothes he was wearing. "You're working here?"
Lu Mingban nodded. "Twenty yuan a day."
Pei Cangyu looked at the crucifix around Lu Mingban’s neck. "Does this thing work?"
"Huh? What use is God?" Lu Mingban straightened up slightly, but realizing he was much taller than Pei Cangyu, he hunched his back again. "Business has been good here lately."
Pei Cangyu glanced back at the priest who was sprinting down the path of commercialization. "Is he a priest?"
"Give me a break." Lu Mingban chuckled. "A place built like this... as long as the Vatican doesn't find out, we're just here for a good time."
Pei Cangyu noticed that Lu Mingban was very different outside than he was at school. He turned to look at Lu Mingban, but Lu Mingban was clearly uncomfortable being looked at seriously. He shrank back, and his voice dropped, as if the person who had been talking freely just a moment ago wasn't him at all.
Pei Cangyu kicked a pebble on the ground, wondering where to go next. Lu Mingban cautiously struck up a conversation. "Anyway, it’s all about practicality. You pray to the God of Wealth for money, and to Guanyin for a child. Do you want to believe in Christ?"
Pei Cangyu shook his head. "Do you believe in this?"
Lu Mingban also shook his head.
"Then that." He pointed to the crucifix around Lu Mingban’s neck.
Lu Mingban picked it up to look at it. The letter 'S' was engraved on the back. He had joined the faith on a whim a while back, but later he felt like laughing whenever he read the Bible. Knowing he couldn't truly believe, he now just treated it as a job. The 'S' stood for Bai Shi. After looking around, he realized that only Bai Shi was trustworthy. Bai Shi was incredibly steadfast; Lu Mingban felt he truly lived up to his name—steady as a rock, with nothing able to shake him. At least until Lu Mingban found something else to believe in, he planned to keep listening to Bai Shi.
Lu Mingban took off the crucifix. "You want it? Ten yuan for three."
Pei Cangyu shook his head and walked away.
Pei Cangyu drifted around until he went home that evening. He hadn't even taken his schoolbag.
It was strange; sometimes he would suddenly forget what had happened and interact with people normally without any issues. But there was always a specific moment—for instance, when he felt a bit relaxed, or heard some good news, or was praised, or when an expectation was born, or when the sky was particularly dark, or when the surroundings were especially quiet—at those times, he would remember. It was like being stalked, followed until someone struck him with a club.
Pei Yueshan was flipping through a newspaper while eating. He had been working overtime lately and coming home late. Seeing Pei Cangyu come in, he moved a stool over and gestured for him to come eat, saying he had bought him milk.
The milk was fresh, Grandma added happily. Pei Yueshan had gone quite a distance specifically to buy it and had ordered a year's supply.
Pei Cangyu sat down and drank it expressionlessly, looking at no one.
Grandma was somewhat reproachful of his lack of gratitude, but just as she had no say in anything here, she could no longer control either Pei Cangyu or Pei Yueshan.
Pei Yueshan had injured his hand doing heavy labor today and could only use his left hand to eat his porridge. He chatted with Grandma while eating, and midway through, he said flatly to Pei Cangyu that he was planning to buy him a larger desk. He said the boy was always hunched over while doing homework at the current one, which was bad for his spine.
Pei Cangyu’s hand froze. He couldn't even finish the milk.
What was this supposed to be?
If Pei Cangyu didn't understand the "lizard," he might have thought Pei Yueshan felt a shred of apology or was reflecting on this monstrous act. But Pei Cangyu felt that lizards didn't reflect. Pei Yueshan simply lived according to his own whims because he was a desperate man who cared about nothing. He could be a brute at one moment and willing to be a good father at another. Pei Cangyu didn't doubt that if a truck were barreling toward them right now, no matter how dangerous it was, Pei Yueshan would leap to save him.
It was disgusting.
Pei Cangyu poured out the milk, slammed the door, and went back to his room.
He was startled when he saw the other bed. Two beds, two sets of blankets.
—That meant...
Pei Cangyu checked them over and over in disbelief, confirming that they would sleep separately tonight. Since the lingering agony had mostly dissipated because of this, Pei Cangyu even suddenly thought that he could just forget it. Everyone could forget it. Let it be. Just let me go.
He was trembling slightly, no longer even thinking of Pei Yueshan as a lizard; he was almost moved to tears of gratitude. It was terrifying. When he realized this, he shuddered.
After all, Pei Cangyu was a male. Perhaps some things were destined to rot in one's stomach. As long as it wasn't mentioned, no one would ever know. If no one knew, then it was as if it had never happened.
Let it be. What else could he do?
Was he supposed to report Pei Yueshan? How was that possible? If it went to court, everyone would know what had happened to Pei Cangyu. From then on, he would be defined as a "victim," not to mention the nature of their relationship. How could he live? He wouldn't be able to live like that. Pei Cangyu had never met such a person, but he had heard the gossip—those people who lived forever in the shadow of rumors. No, no, he couldn't. He couldn't say it. If he said it, it would truly have happened.
Pei Cangyu sat on the chair, biting his fingernails. He thought, it's already over, it will never happen again, so just don't say anything.
Everyone in this world has to suffer grievances. It’s fine. Act as if it never happened.
He could do it. Pei Cangyu could do it.
Clinging to this thought, he lay down on the bed. Pei Yueshan lay down on the other bed.
In the pitch-black room, Pei Cangyu still couldn't sleep peacefully. He told himself over and over that it was over, urging himself not to overthink it. Just treat it like being bitten; one still has to grow up.
He stared with open eyes, counting the seconds. He couldn't sleep. To be honest, he was furious.
Just furious.
The thought that "one of them, either him or Pei Yueshan, had to die" always became particularly vivid in the dead of night. To be blunt, Pei Cangyu could not forgive him at all.
His eyes were bloodshot as he gritted his teeth. Truly, he just hated him so much.
He wanted to die, or he wanted the man to die.
It felt disgusting.
He couldn't take it.
The bed over there moved.
Pei Cangyu flinched. He didn't dare move a muscle. He felt a heavy weight come onto his bed, sinking abruptly beside him.
That was the moment Pei Cangyu broke.
He couldn't control himself and began to cry. He cried and cried, unable to stop. He couldn't win a fight, so what use was anger? He felt like vomiting, but he couldn't. He felt pathetic, useless, like he should just die.
He cried as he retreated toward the wall. He pushed at the tall man with his arms, sobbing, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I was wrong... I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."
He didn't know why he was saying it. He didn't know what use it was. He was too afraid, too desperate. He was begging him.
Pei Yueshan stopped in front of him and said, "Keep it down."
Pei Cangyu lowered his voice and continued to apologize over and over. He curled into a ball in the corner of the wall, his limbs tucked tight, shivering violently. He didn't dare look up, clutching his clothes with all his might, apologizing mechanically, his face covered in tears.
Pei Yueshan watched him for a while, then turned and went back to his own bed.
Pei Cangyu watched as the dark shadow the man cast over him suddenly vanished. It felt like a divine reprieve. He hurriedly pulled the blanket over himself, his tear-filled eyes wide as he whispered to the man, "Thank you... thank you..."
Pei Yueshan looked up at him from that bed with a complex gaze. He lit a cigarette, took a drag, and said to him, "Go to sleep."
Pei Cangyu scrambled into his covers and forced his eyes shut.
