Seventh Year Of Separation chapter 23
Gu Jiahe
“Gu Jiahe!”
Since Gu Jiahe was five years old, whenever he heard someone call his full name, he knew he couldn’t escape a beating. Sometimes it was a rattan, sometimes a ruler, sometimes just any stick that was at hand.
His name, these two words he was most familiar with, became a nightmare during his youth.
Gu Jiahe sometimes found it ironic.
His name was Jiahe. A harmonious family.
He didn’t know who gave him this name, and he didn’t want to ask. But occasionally, he would wonder if when they gave him this name, there was some element of blessing involved. It’s just that no one knew that later on, their family would become such a mess.
Early 2008, in the midst of a severe winter.
The entire East China region experienced a once-in-thirty-years snowstorm.
This snowstorm happened to occur at the end of the first semester of Gu Jiahe’s senior year.
At exactly three o’clock in the afternoon, Gu Jiahe handed in his completed English paper to the invigilator. The ink of one of the ballpoint pens had run out.
He straightened up, put the pen back into its transparent case, still pondering over the last question of the reading comprehension section he had just finished, wondering if his chosen answer was in line with the intended meaning.
The math exam was scheduled for half-past three. After using the restroom and returning to the exam hall, Gu Jiahe waited but did not hear the bell signaling the start of the exam.
Crackle—
After a burst of static electricity, the broadcast suddenly emitted non-standard Mandarin.
“Hello, everyone. Attention, teachers and students. Due to extremely severe weather conditions, the school is covered in heavy snow. The remaining final exams will be postponed until after the end of the winter vacation and will be rescheduled. Please teachers, quickly count the number of students and make arrangements for the winter vacation.”
Boom—The entire high school building erupted into what seemed like a mixture of celebration and surprise.
Gu Jiahe breathed a sigh of relief; he hadn’t finished reviewing math yet.
When he returned to the classroom, packed his bag, and was about to leave, Li Zhao suddenly appeared behind him and dragged him downstairs. Gu Jiahe didn’t even have time to sling his bag over his shoulder.
“Where are we going?” Gu Jiahe panted, following behind him.
“It’s such thick snow, it’d be a waste not to play in it,” Li Zhao stood on the next step down the staircase, turning back to answer him, his eyes sparkling.
The two of them walked to the playground one after the other. The playground, lower in elevation than the teaching building, was more prone to accumulating snow.
Looking around, Gu Jiahe saw that the football field, usually covered in artificial turf, was now blanketed in snow, with the goalposts on both sides submerged halfway.
The brightness of the white nearly blinded Gu Jiahe’s eyes.
He couldn’t help but blink.
Pingcheng had never seen such heavy snow. Even when it did snow, it was usually just sleet, which would melt quickly upon hitting the ground and eventually drain into the sewer.
This vast expanse of white was something he had only seen in Northern movies played in the school’s auditorium in his early years.
Li Zhao walked ahead of him, taking large strides, and stepped into the snow, sinking half a leg into it.
Only then did Gu Jiahe catch up, lifting his foot and stepping down, making a creaking sound. The soft snow left impressions of his shoes.
Bending down, Gu Jiahe studied the shape of the snowflakes, then rolled a small snowball with his palm, feeling the coldness on his fingertips.
“Hey!”
Gu Jiahe looked up at the sound, and Li Zhao had already formed a huge snowball and was throwing it towards him.
Bang—The massive snowball missed Gu Jiahe’s body and hit the trunk of a tree slightly off-center from him. The snowball exploded against the sturdy pine tree like a white firework.
Gu Jiahe also felt playful, pulled the hood of his cotton jacket over his head, squatted down, and seriously started making a big snowball.
Li Zhao stood straight in front of him, letting him throw it.
Slap—The snowball hit Li Zhao’s clothes, leaving a large white mark. Li Zhao shook his clothes, but couldn’t completely shake off the snow.
Gu Jiahe laughed heartily, then worried that he had hit too hard, hurried over to pat Li Zhao’s down jacket.
Li Zhao’s clothes were much thicker than his, and there was a small row of letters printed on the collar. Probably the English spelling of some brand.
Gu Jiahe couldn’t help but ask, “Isn’t this expensive?”
Li Zhao looked down at his down jacket, shook his head with a smile, and said, “Ah, it’s not expensive, just eight hundred yuan.”
Eight hundred yuan. Gu Jiahe looked up at the sky, then lowered his head again.
He didn’t say anything more. He turned to see the thick layer of snow piled up by the pond on the edge of the playground, thicker than the snow on the playground itself, and walked over.
Li Zhao stood behind him, tilting his head, and took out his phone from his pocket. Li Zhao’s phone had a camera function; he gently pressed the button and took a picture of Gu Jiahe walking into the snow.
When Gu Jiahe turned back and saw Li Zhao still standing there, he asked, “What are you doing?”
Li Zhao shook his head with a smile, “Nothing.” Then he followed him.
The snow here was indeed very thick. Li Zhao took large strides, pushing through the snow and then calling Gu Jiahe to help roll the snow into balls together.
The two of them worked together, finally building a huge snowman.
Li Zhao tilted his head to look at it, took out a black pen from his backpack, and inserted it into the center of the snowman’s head.
Then, a little proudly, he said to Gu Jiahe, “Its nose.”
Gu Jiahe looked at the brand new pen and asked him, “Don’t you want this pen?”
“Since there’s no more exams, might as well make the most of it.” Li Zhao clapped his hands, flicking off the snow crumbs on his fingertips.
They played in the snow for a long time that day. It wasn’t until it started to get dark that they packed up their bags, left the school, and took the No. 15 bus.
The air conditioner on the bus was very warm, and Gu Jiahe put his face close to the warm air vent, squinting his eyes to enjoy the heat. After a while, he stretched out his red hands to warm them under the hot air.
Seeing his appearance, Li Zhao found it amusing again, “Why do you look like a little monkey?”
“Hmm?” Gu Jiahe turned his head from the warm air, slightly displeased with this comparison. “Who are you calling a monkey?”
Li Zhao chuckled and changed the subject.
In the midst of the snowstorm, the bus was moving unusually slowly, stopping and starting, gradually transitioning from dusk to pitch black.
Gu Jiahe was swaying so much that he was almost falling asleep.
It wasn’t until the announcement reminded him that they had arrived at Chunhe West Garden Station.
Gu Jiahe glanced at the road outside and Li Zhao beside him, then still got off one stop earlier.
After running around the playground all afternoon, his sneakers were soaked through with snow, his feet ice-cold, yet he still had to walk on the slippery snow to the village.
The cold wind at night was piercing, and he tightened his hood, but couldn’t stop the cold wind from seeping into his body through the gap at the hem.
The snow was much harder to walk on than usual, and he had to walk for over half an hour before reaching home.
Before he could enter the house, he rubbed his hands together, warming his cheeks.
“Gu Jiahe!” A deafening shout came from inside the house, filled with annoyance.
Gu Jiahe instinctively raised his head, worried that the snow on the roof might fall off.
Gu Jianmin stood in the middle of the room, holding a dry rattan in his hand. “Do you know how much work there is to do at home? You didn’t even answer your phone!”
Gu Jiahe took out the old phone from the side pocket of his backpack, glanced at it, and saw five missed calls. He had kept his phone off during the morning exam, and in the afternoon, he got too engrossed in playing and didn’t think to check his phone.
Gu Jiahe didn’t know what had set his father off today. As soon as he entered the house, he understood.
The roof, originally covered in colored steel tiles, had half of it collapsed onto the floor of the living room. The cold wind whistled through the roof, emitting a chilling sound that made people anxious.
“Do you know there’s a snow disaster? The colored steel tiles collapsed, are you stupid?!”
“It cost eight hundred yuan to repair this roof! Do you understand?!”
Eight hundred yuan, eight hundred yuan.
While Gu Jiahe was still pondering this number, the rattan struck his back.
But his back had just been chilled by the wind, stiffening from the cold. Now, as the sharp rattan struck, the pain felt like it was tearing him apart.
He gritted his teeth and let out a muffled groan. Gu Jianmin, however, didn’t stop, hitting him once, twice, three times. He couldn’t dodge in time, and almost his entire back was burning with pain.
“I understand. Leave it to me.” Gu Jiahe pleaded softly, crouching in the corner.
Gu Jianmin finally gasped and let him go, walking back to his room and slamming the door shut.
That night, after Gu Jiahe put down his backpack, he climbed up to the roof of their house in the wind and snow.
First, he found a piece of waterproof cloth and covered the hole. Then he repositioned the collapsed colored steel tiles back onto the roof ridge, pressing them down with several heavy bricks, barely managing to cover the roof.
There was a thick layer of snow next to the roof. Gu Jiahe stretched out his frozen fingers, rolled a snowball, and threw it at the tree next to the house. One after another, they hit the trunk and exploded, like clusters of white fireworks.
He came down from the roof and boiled a pot of boiling water in the corridor, then washed his face with a mixture of cold water and snowmelt, unable to distinguish which was which.
After he finished everything, he returned to his cramped little room. His phone, which was almost out of battery, lit up.
Gu Jiahe’s hand was frozen and somewhat numb. He pressed the green button forcefully.
It was a message from Li Zhao, two in total.
“I had a great time today, how about you?”
“Let’s play together next time when it snows again ^^”
The ending was Li Zhao’s usual two symbols, indicating that he was really happy.
Gu Jiahe gritted his teeth, hesitated for five minutes, and then his fingers trembled on the keyboard.
In the end, he didn’t reply, letting the phone run out of battery completely, the screen completely dark.
Back in the room, he felt the unbearable pain on his back. Gu Jiahe rummaged through the small cabinet by the bed and found a bottle of expired safflower oil. He poured some into his palm and then turned his head to wipe his bruises with the safflower oil.
The places where the rattan had struck were all over his back, and he couldn’t reach the middle. He could only use both hands to rub wherever he could.
As he carefully wiped, he didn’t know why his eyes started to sting.
The snowflakes outside became more rampant, forming a semi-transparent mirror on the single-layer green glass.
Gu Jiahe couldn’t help but rub his eyes with his hands. As a result, the remaining safflower oil touched the inner corner of his eyelid, and he couldn’t help but shed tears.
These tears flowed for a long time. In the end, he couldn’t distinguish whether they were biological tears or some other kind of tears.