Chapter 20: Brown Sugar Steamed Rice Cakes

“Me?” Yue Zhishi slowly blinked. “I’m waiting for Senior Song Yu.”

The girl’s face was full of curiosity. “Are you guys really brothers? Do you live together?”

“We’re not blood related.” Yue Zhishi replied only to her first question, then looked down and opened his workbook. He said, lightly, “We should study..”

“Oh, yes, that’s right,” she answered in awareness. She glanced over at a senior who was facing the corner of a wall trying to memorise her studies and said to him very softly, “I’ll go back now, I won’t disturb you any longer. Let’s talk next time!”

‘Next time’? Does that mean she studies here every day?

After two seconds of thought, Yue Zhishi slightly enviously unlocked a new place in his map of self-study locations. He tried to focus, but it felt too different studying in this room compared to his usual classroom.? Whether he stayed behind in his classroom to work on his questions or paced back and forth in the corridor reciting his lessons while waiting for high school year 3 to finish — no matter what he did, they were all his own one-sided actions. It couldn’t even be called ‘waiting’, because waiting required two people: one to wait, and one to be waited for.

It was different this time. It was no longer an unauthorised, arbitrary waiting.

As he thought this, Yue Zhishi lifted his eyes and looked across at the girl. She was messaging on her phone, smiling very sweetly. She should be chatting to her boyfriend. He was about to bite his pen while being lost in thought, but he suddenly thought of Song Yu’s face and managed to hold back.

He and Song Yu.. they weren’t quite the same as those two.

The bell rang just as he finished his last question. Afraid Song Yu would need to wait for him, Yue Zhishi packed his stuff as quickly as he could, but next door seemed to be delayed with no one coming to the door. Yue Zhishi stood at the rear door of class 3-5, peering inside, and saw Song Yu reading a book with his head lowered, a silver pair of glasses perched on his nose. He was slightly near-sighted and usually didn’t need to wear glasses, putting them on only when he needed to use his eyes for a long amount of time.

Yue Zhishi really liked Song Yu’s occasional squints and frowns when he wasn’t wearing his glasses. He couldn’t explain why, but he liked it when Song Yu looked like that.

The students sitting near the back door noticed the junior high student standing near them, and they turned their heads to look at him as they whispered. Yue Zhishi didn’t notice anything at first until he heard someone softly say, “Isn’t that Song Yu’s little brother?” He remembered once again and immediately covered his bruised eye. He felt like standing there with his hand over his eye was also very strange, so he dodged away from the door.

“Why do you look more afraid than I do?” The girl from before stood openly outside the classroom, looking as if she wasn’t worried at all about being caught by a teacher or a fellow student. “This place is part of Peiya. I’m a Peiya student, so it’s perfectly reasonable for me to be here.”

Yue Zhishi thought about it. “That’s true.” He moved to stand next to her. Before two seconds passed, he took one step to the right and widened the distance between them.

Since the class was technically over, the teacher soon came out and specifically gazed at Yue Zhishi’s face. The students inside the room were all very enthusiastic about finishing class for the day except for Song Yu, who took his time packing away his things. A few senior sisters came out hand-in-hand and surrounded Yue Zhishi.

“You must be the little brother living with Song Yu.”

“Are you mixed? You’re very cute.”

“Are your eyelashes real?”

Yue Zhishi was used to being surrounded by people and didn’t think too much of it, answering their questions one by one. “Yes, I am. Yes. Yes, my eyelashes are real.”

A large crowd gathered outside the classroom windows, Qin Yan looking at them with interest. He started teasing Song Yu again. “Your brother’s just as popular as you are, interesting both senior and junior sisters alike.”

Song Yu didn’t say anything and merely walked outside with his bag. Yue Zhishi saw him come out as he stood by the window frame and immediately lifted his arm and waved, eyes bright. He squeezed past the senior sisters surrounding him. “Excuse me seniors, I’m going home now.”

It was already late autumn, the cold wind twirling unavoidably around their necks and feet like a little human-shaped genie. As they went down the stairs, Yue Zhishi noticed the girl from earlier walking side by side with a short year 3 senior brother, leaning against each other as they descended the crowded and dim stairs. They even sneakily held each other’s hands before quickly letting go.

He looked at Song Yu as they left the stairs. He wanted to say something, but it was very strange — he couldn’t think about what he should say. He eventually asked, “Is my eye still really ugly?”

Song Yu stared at him and stayed silent. Yue Zhishi covered his right eye again in embarrassment and then heard Song Yu gently laugh.

So weird.

There were many people leaving the school. They separated to look for their own bikes at the bike parking area, and Yue Zhishi noticed something wasn’t right when he took out his key to unlock his bike. Song Yu rolled his bicycle over and saw him kneeling and fiddling with his bike on the floor. He didn’t look the slightest bit surprised. “Something wrong?”

“The tire’s been slashed.” Yue Zhishi knelt there, finger poking the flat tire a few times. He then tilted his head to look at Song Yu. “Even though this is a bit cynical, I think Wang Jie and his friends did this.”

Something so obvious wasn’t cynical at all. Song Yu got on his bike. “Get on.”

“Then what about my bike?” Yue Zhishi may have opened his mouth and asked, but he had already locked his bike again.

“We can talk about it when it’s daylight.”

Yue Zhishi obediently sat on the backseat and actively offered to help Song Yu carry his bag. Song Yu’s bag was much heavier than he expected, the weight of it almost breaking his thighs. Perhaps his legs would be completely numb after a while and would immediately give way if he tried to walk. He would stumble into Song Yu’s arms, and then Song Yu would carry him on his back like he used to as a child.

As the bicycle travelled out of the school, Yue Zhishi hid behind Song Yu’s back and laughed, his brain full of imagined scenes.

The late-night food stalls near the school entrance looked almost like a little night market, each of them set up with stoves and furnaces to heat up the cool late autumn night. The fried rice stall owner had a cigarette in his mouth while he tossed his wok back and forth, the grains of rice flying up and down as the tantalising scent arrowed straight into people’s noses. Duck necks covered in chilli oil were also strung together and tossed over an open fire after being stewed full of flavour. Once the spices were added, the duck necks came alive with taste. A claypot even simmered with a?three combination flavour vermicelli noodle soup, aromatic clouds rising up to the nose once the lid was lifted.

As he sat at the back, Yue Zhishi thought of something and asked, “Song Yu gege, did you finish the roasted chestnuts?”

Song Yu leisurely replied, “Yes.”

“Actually, you could’ve given some to Qin Yan gege if you didn’t finish them.” Yue Zhishi heard the sound of wood knocking against each other and tried to look for where the sound came from. He said, “He’s always giving me snacks.”

Song Yu didn’t reply.

Yue Zhishi found it. “Steamed rice cakes!” He excitedly patted Song Yu’s back a few times, asking him to stop the bike.

Song Yu pressed the brakes and stopped where he requested, right in front of a very simple stall. A large square steamer held a delicate wooden device made of two separate parts, a common cylinder below and a long-handled lotus shaped wooden cover with a hollow centre sitting on top. The stall’s old grandfather warmly welcomed them. “Are you here for some rice cakes? Three yuan for two, they’re very sweet.”

Yue Zhishi nodded. “I want two, please. Can you add a bit more brown sugar?”

“Of course I can.” The old grandfather’s movements were quick, scooping out a large spoonful of flour mix from a container, a combination of rice flour, glutinous rice flour and sugar. He poured it into the bottom of the cylinder before sprinkling on a thick layer of brown sugar, creating two layers before covering it with the wooden cover and placing it into the steamer to cook.

As they waited, Yue Zhishi heard Song Yu speak. “You almost burned yourself the first time you tried this.”

“Really?” He twisted his head, entirely no memory of it whatsoever. “I don’t remember.”

“You never remember.” Song Yu kept his eyes on the device. The warm yellow lighting from the night market and the rising puffs of steam softened his profile. “Dad was carrying you, and you were saying the toy looked fun. You reached out to touch it and started wailing from the hot steam.”

It sounded vaguely familiar. “Then what were you doing?”

The cakes finished steaming as they spoke. The old grandfather opened the device and pressed the long handle against the cylinder to push out the rice cakes. The steaming cakes popped out and were wrapped inside a plastic bag.

“Me?” Song Yu took the rice cakes. “I was laughing at you.”

Yue Zhishi was a bit depressed and said seriously, “If you were crying because of a burn, I wouldn’t laugh at you.”

Song Yu gave him the cakes. “You would cry instead.” He walked towards his bicycle.

“I wouldn’t cry these days.” Yue Zhishi followed behind him and then thought about the afternoon. He then added, “..unless you make me cry.”

“I don’t have that kind of hobby.”

Since he was always crying as a child, there must’ve been a reason behind it.

He decided it was all Song Yu’s fault.

The steamed rice cakes in the bag were almost hot enough to burn his hands. Yue Zhishi wanted to try some, and so looked inside the bag. The layer of brown sugar was indeed thickly applied and was shaped like a heart. He bit down and almost spat out his bite from the heat. But he couldn’t help but greedily chew a few times, the cooked rice flour stretching and melting as the brown sugar inside started to dissolve. It was a heavy yet uncomplicated sweetness. In Yue Zhishi’s heart, melted white sugar was just like dew drops on top of lotus leaves. When he was younger, he’d thought those little beautiful, transparent drops of dew must definitely be sweet, while brown sugar was like the stickily sweet outside skin of a roasted sweet potato, the pleasure of it doubling during cold days.

Song Yu noticed he wasn’t catching up, so he looked back and saw him standing in his original spot with his mouth open, white fog coming out of his mouth and looking like a human-shaped humidifier.

“Is it good?”

Yue Zhishi nodded and ran over, stuffing the other cake into Song Yu’s hand. He said, words unclear, “Hurry and eat yours.”

Song Yu took a bite, thought it was too sweet and chucked it back to Yue Zhishi. He took him back home on his bike.

“Can I study in your activity room tomorrow too?”

“If you want to come, then come.”

“Will the teachers check?” Yue Zhishi suddenly remembered and grasped Song Yu’s clothes. “A girl from my next door class also studies there. She’s dating one of the boys in your class. She’s dating before university.”

“That’s not your fault at all.”

“True.” But he was still a bit scared. “Can I say I’m your little brother? If people ask.”

Song Yu didn’t reply. They were almost at their neighbourhood when he said a single “yes”. The two of them went up together, Lin Rong and Song Jin still out on their business trip. Yue Zhishi changed his shoes and collapsed onto the sofa, pulling the cat onto his knees and flipping him onto his back to rub his stomach. The cat squinted at him. “Orange, are you sleepy?”

Orange let out a comfortable grumble in his arms. Yue Zhishi continued stroking him. “I ate too much, and now I’m not sleepy anymore. Song Yu gege, can I watch two episodes of One Piece before sleeping?”

Song Yu picked up the little Pomeranian frantically circling around his legs to bring him upstairs with him. “Wake up 15 minutes earlier tomorrow. I’ll take you to school.”

Yue Zhishi jumped up and forgot about the cat. “Then I’ll clean up and go to sleep now.”

Meow——

The brutally abandoned master of a cat stretched out his paws and fiercely swiped in the air at Yue Zhishi’s retreating back to show his authority.