Evening Stars Chapter 41
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 41
When Xu Nanheng slept, his phone was on silent with no vibration. It was a habit he had changed after being in Tibet for a while. Now it was on silent with vibration.
But it was of little use. His phone was practically vibrating itself off the edge of the pillow, yet Xu Nanheng was still soundly asleep.
It was Fang Shiyou who noticed the vibrating phone when he came into the on-call room to get something. The caller ID showed ‘Mom.’ He nudged Xu Nanheng's shoulder, but he didn't wake. He used a bit more force, and finally, Xu Nanheng opened his eyes.
“You've got a call,” Fang Shiyou said.
“Oh.” Xu Nanheng closed his eyes again and went back to sleep.
Fang Shiyou: “……”
The phone stopped ringing. Teacher Xu turned over to face the wall, a clear sign that he didn't want to talk.
Fang Shiyou sighed quietly. The call still needed to be returned, so he tried again. “Teacher Xu, wake up.”
It was the day after the senior high school entrance exam. They had just returned from the county the night before. For the past three nights in town, Xu Nanheng, like the other teachers, had been sleeping in the county school's empty offices, either lying across chairs or napping on desks. So when they got back last night, he had gone straight to the small hospital to sleep in Fang Shiyou's bed, while Fang Shiyou slept in another empty room.
Teacher Xu was even hugging the Doraemon blanket. He had been so tired when he got back last night that he fell asleep holding it. Fang Shiyou hadn't taken it away. The coral fleece blanket was genuinely conducive to sleep. It was soft and fluffy, the kind that made you drowsy just by rubbing it between your fingers.
Seeing that he couldn't wake him up no matter what, Fang Shiyou reached out and pulled the blanket away.
The man on the bed stirred with a scowl. “What are you doing?”
“Your mom called,” Fang Shiyou said just as the phone started vibrating again. “She already tried once. Answer it. Don't make her worry.”
Xu Nanheng slowly pushed himself up and answered the call. “Mom.”
Now that the entrance exam was over, Xu Nanheng was supposed to return to Beijing. His mother was calling to ask when he'd be coming back. He had been away for a whole year, and now that he was due to return, he wasn't answering her calls.
She just wanted to ask what day he'd be heading home and whether she should fly over directly so the two of them could take turns driving back, making it less tiring. Xu Nanheng told her not to bother. If he could drive here, he could drive back. If she came here and suffered from altitude sickness, it would be very troublesome and not worth the effort. Besides, it was not that serious.
Looking at the dates, the exams had ended on the 4th, and today was the 5th. His home school had a meeting on the 13th, so it really was time for him to get on the road.
“Damn.” After hanging up, Xu Nanheng exclaimed in surprise. Checking the time, he realized he had slept until two-thirty in the afternoon.
He said good bye to Fang Shiyou before heading back to the school. The weather in the Southern Tibet in July was very comfortable, around a dozen degrees. This was the mountain-lake basin region at the northern foot of the Himalayas, where nine snow-capped peaks rose over six thousand meters high and never melted year-round.
From the window of his dormitory, he could see endless snow-capped mountains and grasslands. Seeing the herds of yaks, sheep, and horses on his way here, his heart had been troubled, but now that he was leaving, he felt a bit regretful that this year had rushed by and he hadn't properly taken a look at the place.
He began packing his backpack and suitcase. Over the year, he had accumulated quite a few things. He decided to leave some daily necessities behind for the small kitchen or for Teacher Tsering's dorm. When Fang Shiyou had first taken him to the county, they'd brought back two carloads of supplies, including three to five thick quilts alone.
He couldn't take all of it with him. His gaze fell on the coffee machine. Frankly speaking, the brand this young master had chosen wasn't cheap, and it only accepted capsules from its own brand, which were pricey too. After some thought, he decided not to leave it behind. This coffee machine had shared many late nights with him. While Xu Nanheng was struggling through exam paper revisions, it had been whirring and sputtering right alongside him.
Then there were the textbooks. He didn't pack those for now, and he planned to ask Principal Sonam later whether the school needed them.
After sorting his clothes, Xu Nanheng carried the chair from his desk to the window, opened it, and sat down. He looked out at the endless stretch of white peaks.
Xu Nanheng was not usually one to be overly sentimental. He had never gone through any heavy farewells growing up. He'd always been a carefree sort of person. This was the first time in his life he was experiencing a true farewell.
He tried to tell himself that he'd be back someday, perhaps on a holiday in the next few years. He would visit the principal, the village, the meadow where he'd ridden a horse, and even the little yak he'd once wrestled to see how it had grown.
But none of that could dull the feeling he had right now.
And besides, he was also saying goodbye to Fang Shiyou. Even though he knew Fang Shiyou would return to Beijing on August 1st as well, parting was still parting.
He truly didn't want to leave, but he had to go back to Beijing. He loved Tibet, but after a year here, he still hadn't quite adapted. Xu Nanheng admitted he was an ordinary person. He missed home, missed the fried chicken near Yonghe Temple, missed his mother and his family cat. He even felt he didn't dislike that chubby tabby as much anymore. After all, wasn't there always room to sit down and talk things out?
The next morning, everyone gathered in front of the school for the graduation photo.
The photographer was Fang Shiyou, who had borrowed a camera from a colleague. Everyone cheerfully got into position. Xu Nanheng had initially planned to sit right on the edge, but he was still placed next to Principal Sonam.
After the photo was taken, Principal Sonam announced the date for checking exam scores. The result would be released at the end of July. Then she mentioned that Teacher Xu would be returning to Beijing. Everyone had known this from the start. Volunteer teachers always left eventually. But now that the day had really come, their faces were filled with sadness and reluctance.
Xu Nanheng didn't dare look too closely at their expressions. He simply smiled. Standing beside the flagpole, in the same spot as on the first day of school, he said, “I…… I have to go back to Beijing for a meeting, so I won't be here when your results come out. But that's alright. Teacher Sonam will let me know how you all did.”
He cleared his throat. “Regardless of your scores, your ranking, or whether you get into a key school, I hope you all remember to never stop learning. I don't mean textbooks, not math or English books. I mean real learning. People once thought it was impossible for a place as hot as Africa to have snow, but Kilimanjaro, on the south side of the East African Rift Valley, is a volcano covered in perpetual snow. There's a saying that goes, ‘The roads you've walked and the books you've read will never betray you.’ If you can't travel the world, then read. Reading will take you everywhere.”
He didn't look at the students' faces or eyes. After finishing his words, he just smiled and said softly, “Happy graduation.”
After that, he packed up his things and got ready to leave. On the morning of his departure, Fang Shiyou came over to help him move. There was a waterproof backpack, a large suitcase, and the coffee machine in his arms.
Principal Sonam and several teachers came to see him off. They draped a khatag around his neck to bless his journey, gave him a bag of dried yak meat, tsampa flour, cheese curd cakes, and a lunch box of yogurt. They also filled his thermos with sweet tea.
Xu Nanheng left all the Polaroid photos with them. Finally, he took a picture with Principal Sonam. Two shots were taken, one for him to keep and the other for the principal. After hugging everyone lightly one by one, he went to the small hospital to get his car.
“You don't have to see me off,” Xu Nanheng said. “The road's rough, and there's no need to go back and forth.”
Fang Shiyou shook his head lightly. “I'll see you off.”
“How are you even going to see me off? Drive me all the way to Shannan and then take a bus back yourself?” Xu Nanheng chuckled. “Really, it's fine. I can handle the drive.”
But Fang Shiyou still shook his head. “I'll see you out of Nagqu.”
Xu Nanheng's smile froze. Standing beside the car, he asked directly, “Out of Nagqu? You're really going for the literal ‘seeing a friend off for a thousand miles’? Don't even think about it. From here to Nagqu, it's 600 kilometers and an eight-hour drive. Don't be ridiculous.”
He wasn't actually angry. There was no way he'd let their farewell turn into something unpleasant. But Fang Shiyou was firm. “Not to Nagqu. Just out of Nagqu. There's a repair shop that sends cars to Lhasa every day. I'll ride one of those back.”
Xu Nanheng understood immediately. Fang Shiyou planned to see him off all the way to where they had first met, that repair shop on National Highway 109. Fang Shiyou hadn't said it outright, but Xu Nanheng just knew.
Eight hours later, the sun was setting, and late stars were suspended in the twilight, lake-blue sky.
The Qinghai-Tibet Highway was still crowded with heavy trucks. The weather was better in July, so besides the trucks, there were quite a few self-driving travelers. China's roads had improved a lot over the years. Sitting in the passenger seat, Xu Nanheng leaned back and looked out the window. “Before, no one dared come to Tibet without an all-wheel-drive SUV. Now the roads are so good even electric cars can make it.”
“Mm,” Fang Shiyou said, keeping his eyes on the road.
Xu Nanheng turned his head to look at the driver's seat, observing Dr. Fang's profile. He had looked at him this way before, but at that time, he just thought the doctor was quite handsome, the kind of campus heartthrob everyone noticed.
The thought made him suddenly ask, “Hey, when you were in school, did a lot of people have a crush on you?”
“Me?” Fang Shiyou hadn't expected that question. “Not really. Studying medicine is tough. After choosing your specialty, every year feels like going through the college entrance exams all over again. That's medicine for you.”
“That's true.” Xu Nanheng nodded.
Fang Shiyou turned the question back at him. “What about you, Teacher Xu? With your looks, you must have been featured on those confession walls quite a bit, right?”
“No idea. I'm pretty much a homebody. I don't like going out,” Xu Nanheng said lazily. “And my looks are…… just average, right?”
Fang Shiyou couldn't help but laugh. “Come on, don't be modest. That night I stopped you on the road, thirty percent of the reason was because you were handsome.”
“Really,” Xu Nanheng stared at him, “You waited all these months to say that?”
Holding the steering wheel, Fang Shiyou said, “Didn't you ask me back then? You said I approach you because I saw your car had a Beijing license plate too. Seventy percent was because of your Beijing license plate, and thirty percent was because you are handsome.”
Xu Nanheng laughed for a long while, then said, “Alright then. For what it's worth, I only gave you a ride because I thought you looked pretty good too.”
National Highway 109 stretched nearly 3,900 kilometers. Every day, countless vehicles entered and left Tibet, countless people passing one another in opposite directions. And yet, by chance, a volunteer teacher had met a Tibet aid doctor. That day, Xu Nanheng had been in a foul mood, driving off the Beijing-Tibet Expressway into the thick, miasma-like fog of National Highway 109. He'd stopped to smoke, but had no lighter. Then Fang Shiyou had walked over, striking a spark from a flint. As the cigarette tip caught the twisting orange flame, he and Fang Shiyou looked into each other's eyes for the first time.
By the side of the highway in front of the car repair shop, Fang Shiyou parked the car and got out.
The plateau wind was unrestrained. Herders were driving their yaks and sheep home, vendors by the roadside lit up electric bulbs, and birds called as evening fell.
Standing beside the car, under the late stars and in the evening breeze, the two embraced and kissed.
It wasn't a deep kiss, but it lingered for a long time. Before Xu Nanheng got into the car, Fang Shiyou handed him the windproof lighter from the day they first met.
“See you next month in Beijing,” Xu Nanheng said.
“See you in Beijing.”