What Are Your Tastes? chapter 51
Can I Go with You?
If drinking too much on Lantern Festival night caused misjudgment, Zhou Yanchuan realized over the next few days that his bad premonition was becoming a reality.
He wasn’t a young man experiencing first love anymore. This feeling wasn’t new, even though he was more rational now, he couldn’t dismiss the emotions that had already taken root and were growing.
This change was like bubbles forming on the surface of water, and after some heating, the bubbles emerged one after another, becoming denser, swelling, and eventually boiling over, becoming impossible to ignore.
He recalled an incident where he discussed with Mo Ziyang when he thought Lu Yunchu had a crush on him. Mo Ziyang assumed he was talking about a girl and suggested he give it a try.
His first reaction wasn’t, “I can’t have feelings for him,” but “Lu Yunchu is a man.” The obstacle to further development was orientation and gender.
Did this mean that if these confusing premises were removed, he could fully consider a relationship with him?
But how could he ignore orientation? Was homosexuality contagious?
Zhou Yanchuan wished for a machine that could monitor hearts, freeing him from these indescribable thoughts.
If some absolute authority could tell him, “You just like men now, you’ve changed,” he would accept it.
But now, no force could tell or help him analyze these feelings; he had to judge for himself.
He placed the pair of “chubby dolls” Lu Yunchu had given him on the sideboard and occasionally stared at them in a daze when he was alone at home.
A week after the party, during which he saw Lu Yunchu several more times, he finally defined his feelings.
Liking a man wasn’t that big of a deal. Lu Yunchu liked men too; that alone was worth celebrating.
But then he remembered the misunderstanding caused by the sketchbook and couldn’t feel happy.
If only that misunderstanding were true.
But Lu Yunchu had said, “You’re not my type.”
Zhou Yanchuan’s first relationship began when Liu Qingru confessed her feelings to him, so he had no experience pursuing someone. How to cater to someone’s preferences, how to cultivate feelings… his mind was blank. He didn’t even know what type of person Lu Yunchu liked.
Was it someone like Chen Mingxuan?
If that were the case, unless he reincarnated, he could never meet Lu Yunchu’s tastes.
But he didn’t want to cater to Lu Yunchu’s preferences deliberately. He wanted the other person to accept his true self, not a distorted, pretended shell.
Just like he could see all the traits in Lu Yunchu that were different from his own and truly cherished them.
Understanding this point, the hesitation in his heart almost vanished.
At worst, they could always remain friends.
With no suitable breakthrough in matters of the heart, Zhou Yanchuan devoted more of his energy to work. He even began to personally handle tasks that he usually didn’t worry about. His assistant almost thought he was dissatisfied with her and asked him about it, feeling relieved after receiving a negative response.
Recently, Zhou Yanchuan had been leaving work around six in the evening, and this Thursday was no exception.
The days in March were getting longer, and it was still bright in the evening, displaying a cool, bluish tone. He had just driven to the park exit when a security guard stopped him.
“What’s the matter?” Zhou Yanchuan rolled down the window and leaned his head out.
“Mr. Zhou, an elderly person has been waiting for you for a long time.”
The security guard said that the elderly person only mentioned his name, asking if he worked here. She refused to register as a visitor and declined the offer to rest in the security room, choosing to sit outside by the flower bed.
“Okay, I’ll go check it out, thank you.”
Zhou Yanchuan drove out the gate and indeed saw a white-haired figure with a slightly hunched back sitting by the flower bed. The person had their head lowered and was facing another direction, making it difficult for him to see her face. He slowly drove around and stopped the car in front of her, sensing the elderly person lift her head. Their eyes met.
“Yanchuan.”
“Auntie, is that you?” If not for the distinctive tone of her voice, Zhou Yanchuan would hardly recognize Liu Qingru’s mother.
Her changes over the past ten years were much more drastic than Liu Qingru’s. Though she was just over sixty, she had aged so much that her old appearance was hard to discern.
“Ah,” she sighed, wanting to speak but stopping herself, “I…”
“Did you come to see me?”
She nodded but still didn’t speak.
Zhou Yanchuan glanced at the traffic ahead and signaled to her, “Get in the car first, don’t stay here.” Whatever she had to say, the entrance of the park wasn’t the right place for a conversation.
Liu’s mother now lived with Liu Qingru, and after confirming the address, Zhou Yanchuan drove in that direction. Once they arrived, he had no intention of going upstairs. The elderly woman seemed nervous, so he accompanied her to a stone bench in the garden of the residential complex.
Streetlights began to light up as people returned home, passing by them one by one.
It was only after seeing Zhou Yanchuan and walking with him that Liu’s mother realized the deep estrangement between them. The more courteous and attentive Zhou Yanchuan was, the stronger this sense of distance felt.
When Zhou Yanchuan met Liu Qingru, she had just graduated from school. Once, Liu’s mother fell ill and fainted, and Zhou Yanchuan, a stranger at the time, carried her to the hospital and took care of her, quickly earning her love with his pure and kind heart. However, Zhou Yanchuan was just a laborer from a small town, with lesser education and job prospects than Liu Qingru, facing strong opposition from the Liu family.
Later, Liu’s mother was convinced, genuinely believing her daughter would be with Zhou Yanchuan forever, treating him like a son and confiding in him.
Things didn’t go as planned, and now, meeting again, she found it hard to even utter a simple greeting.
“Auntie, is there something you want to tell me?”
Zhou Yanchuan’s words pulled her back from the edge of her hesitation, forcing her to speak. “Yanchuan, I heard from Qingru that you two met again.”
“Yes,” Zhou didn’t intend to hide it, nor did he think it was worth mentioning, “we happened to meet twice and also saw your granddaughter, who is very cute.”
Liu’s mother’s face changed, her hands rubbing together as if she was once again at a loss for words, unable to utter a single syllable.
However, this time Zhou Yanchuan didn’t speak either, quietly waiting for her response. He didn’t want to force this difficult elderly person but also didn’t want her to misunderstand that he had any intention of bringing up the past.
“Did Qingru tell you… that she has divorced?”
“No, she didn’t,” Zhou Yanchuan replied calmly, not surprised by this news, “I heard it from your granddaughter.”
“I knew it, my daughter… couldn’t bring herself to tell you… I thought I should let you know, Yanchuan,” she frowned, deepening the wrinkles on her forehead, “Qingru has always loved you. She only agreed to have a child three years into her marriage because she couldn’t forget you. This led to constant conflicts and arguments with my son-in-law.
“My husband was in poor health, and Qingru didn’t want us to worry. After her father passed away last year, she decided to get divorced.”
“Auntie,” Zhou Yanchuan had roughly guessed her thoughts, “the past is not very meaningful to bring up now.”
“Not meaningful…” Liu’s mother repeated to herself twice, shaking her head and turning away, “Yanchuan, I thought you also deeply loved Qingru because you were the one who made us change our minds. Even her stubborn father said… Yanchuan is a good boy.”
“When I was with Qingru, I was never insincere,” Zhou Yanchuan pursed his lips lightly, “I also had a period of depression after our breakup. I never deceived you.”
“I’m not blaming you,” she said hurriedly, “so do you resent Qingru for abandoning you?”
“No, I’ve never resented her.” He had told this to Lu Yunchu and didn’t mind reiterating it to Liu Qingru’s mother.
“Then can you… give her another chance? I heard you met again and thought it was fate,” Liu’s mother said incoherently, “Qingru is in so much pain, she has to take care of the child… Do you mind Lingling? I can help take care of Lingling so you can start over—”
“Auntie, don’t say that. The child is innocent,” considering she was an elder, Zhou Yanchuan didn’t take offense at her rude request. However, dragging the child into this made him somewhat angry, “If I was really willing to reconcile with Qingru, how could I mind the child? The issues between Qingru and me are only related to us.”
His words not only implied his attitude towards Liu Qingru’s daughter but also subtly reminded Liu’s mother not to interfere.
“Auntie,” he said to the expressionless elderly woman, “if Qingru has any thoughts, I’ll talk to her. You should just live your life without worrying about these things, alright?”
Liu’s mother could tell that he was trying to evade her, and the gap between them did not close but rather expanded into a chasm more difficult to bridge than that between strangers.
As night fell, Zhou Yanchuan drove home. The first spring rain quietly descended, accompanied by a chilly breeze.
He had broken up with Liu Qingru on a rainy day.
He had seen Liu Qingru at his workplace back then, thinking she had come to wait for him to get off work. Happily, he rushed over, saying he hadn’t been to Mr. Lu’s place for a while and was craving duck noodles, wanting to go with her.
Liu Qingru calmly said, “I plan to marry him.”
Both of them understood who “him” referred to. This news was not a discussion but an announcement.
Zhou Yanchuan had no umbrella. When he turned to leave, Liu Qingru tried to hand him hers.
He said, “No need.” Without looking back, he walked step by step toward the station through the puddles, his T-shirt completely soaked and clinging to his back.
Liu Qingru disappeared from his world, never returning to their shared apartment.
Since then, he had always disliked rainy days. Even though his feelings had faded, he still hated the damp, moldy smell.
As Zhou Yanchuan’s car approached about a hundred meters from the entrance to Blue Bay, he stopped.
In the rain under the streetlight stood a young man holding an umbrella, quietly looking at the ground, lost in thought.
He got out of the car and approached Lu Yunchu, noticing a cat under the dense leaves of the bushes. There was a plate full of cat food in front of the cat, and its head was buried in the food.
“Are you feeding the cat?”
Lu Yunchu heard his voice and turned around in surprise. Seeing the parked car not far away, he quickly realized Zhou Yanchuan had just come back from outside.
“I wasn’t the one feeding it. It was eating when I passed by,” Lu Yunchu said, moving his umbrella towards Zhou Yanchuan. “Don’t you have an umbrella in your car? Why didn’t you use it?”
“It’s fine, it’s not that heavy.” Zhou Yanchuan stepped closer, subtly pushing the umbrella back a bit.
In the night rain, only where the light touched could the raindrops’ paths be seen. The washed ground was bright like a mirror, reflecting the city’s multicolored lights.
Zhou Yanchuan suddenly felt that the rain had a gentle power, enveloping his turbulent emotions, undisturbed and unnoticed. No wonder artistic youth liked to sing about rainy days.
He was not artistic at all and couldn’t come up with poetic lines, but the rain gave him a strange sense of security.
The cat was probably a stray from the neighborhood; several could often be seen inside and just outside the Blue Bay complex. They didn’t lack food, as residents liked to buy cat food for them.
The cat finished the food on the plate, licked the clean dish, stretched lazily, and knowing they weren’t the ones who fed it, didn’t spare them another glance before disappearing into the bushes.
“Have you had dinner?” Zhou Yanchuan asked.
“No,” Lu Yunchu replied, “I was too lazy to cook today, so I came out to find something to eat.”
“Any ideas?”
“I didn’t have any…” Lu Yunchu glanced at him, “Now I want to go to the duck noodle place you mentioned.”
The fine rain fell on the black umbrella fabric, like the noise from an old TV with faulty reception.
Zhou Yanchuan’s voice pierced through the rain: “Can I join you?”