Evening Stars Chapter 43 (Part 2)
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 43.2
On the fourth day, Dr. Fang really had to leave. Teacher Xu still had summer vacation, but Dr. Fang didn't. The rest of the medical aid team had returned, and those who remained were heading to other counties in August to assist with surgeries. They had borrowed Fang Shiyou's car for the trip, and now, after two and a half days of taking turns driving back to Beijing, he had to go pick it up.
It was noon when they left the hotel. Xu Nanheng stretched lazily by the roadside. The taxi Fang Shiyou had called was two minutes away, but Xu Nanheng wasn't going with him. He planned to take the subway home.
“Your car needs maintenance, right?” Xu Nanheng asked.
Fang Shiyou nodded. “Yeah, it needs a full service. What about yours? Is it burning oil since you got back?”
“Don't even mention it,” Xu Nanheng said. “When I got back, I took it for maintenance, plus repairs, and the bill was three pages long.”
Fang Shiyou gave him a helpless look.
Then Xu Nanheng added, “Three pages printed on both sides.”
Fang Shiyou: “……”
“Oh, right,” Xu Nanheng said. “Let me know when you're free in a few days.”
“Hm?” Fang Shiyou looked puzzled.
Xu Nanheng said, “I still owe you a birthday gift, but it's not done yet, so you'll have to wait a few more days.”
Fang Shiyou, holding onto his suitcase, looked at him. “It's not something expensive, is it? Don't go overboard.”
“It's not,” Xu Nanheng said with a small smile. “Just made from scrap materials.”
“……” Fang Shiyou couldn't do anything with him. Just then, the taxi arrived. He nodded and said, “Thanks in advance, Teacher Xu. I'm off.”
“Go on.”
They'd said ‘I'm off’ and ‘Go on’ countless times back in Tibet. Both of them were busy, and their work wasn't ordinary, but maybe that was why they were more considerate of each other. After the taxi drove off, Xu Nanheng exhaled softly and started walking toward the subway.
After three days and three nights away from home, the moment Xu Nanheng stepped through the door, he ran into Aunt Shang, who was on her way out. She'd been their live-in housekeeper for over ten years. Seeing him, she smiled and said, “Oh, you're back! I'm just heading to the supermarket for some oatmeal.”
Xu Nanheng stepped aside to let her pass. “Yeah, I'm back. Be careful on your way, Auntie.”
“Eh?” Aunt Shang glanced past him toward the door and asked, “Didn't you bring your partner home?”
“……” Xu Nanheng froze for a second. “How did you know I……”
“Oh, besides the one-year-old in Feifei's arms, the whole family knows you were out dating for the past three days!” Aunt Shang said excitedly.
Well, there was no getting around that. Xu Nanheng scratched his head and laughed awkwardly. “No…… I didn't bring him. Maybe next time.”
When he walked farther in, his grandmother was in the courtyard watering the flowers. She glanced him over and asked, “You came back alone?”
“Yeah.”
Pangpang, by Grandma's feet: “Meow?”
Xu Nanheng bared his teeth at it in mock threat. What the hell are you meowing for? It's not your turn to comment.
Turning another corner, he saw his grandpa coming out with a broom. “Where's your male wife?”
Xu Nanheng: “……”
Honestly, Xu Nanheng hadn't expected his grandparents to take it so well. At first, only his mother knew. But she'd said they had to tell the elders, because, like him, his mother couldn't hide things on her face. They would surely figure it out at a glance.
As it turned out, just before Xu Nanheng returned from Tibet, his mother specifically waited until the elders had finished checking their blood pressure, then told his grandfather that Xu Nanheng had found a male wife.
His grandpa had brightened up in sudden realization. “Oh, a Southern wife.”
His mother corrected him, “No, a male wife.”
His grandpa had frozen in confusion. “Another man's wife?”
Truly, the ‘demolishing the roof’ effect never lied. Under the cover of an even more outrageous event, the originally somewhat outrageous matter seemed much easier to accept.
No wonder, Xu Nanheng thought, when he casually said, “I'm going away with a friend for a few days,” no one at home had objected or asked questions.
Really……
Grandpa said, “Oh, look at you blushing. I've known you for twenty-six years, and the only other time your face was as red as it is today was the day you were born.”
“No way, you're exaggerating.”
Fang Shiyou, on his end, met up with the colleagues who had returned from Tibet, first drove home to drop off his luggage, and then made an appointment for maintenance at the 4S dealership. The meeting at the hospital was on Monday, meaning he would officially return to work in two days. After getting home, he turned on his computer and sent the duty roster to Xu Nanheng.
The next day, Professor Gu and Fang Shiyou went to visit Fang Minshu's grave, bringing flowers and pastries. Since it wasn't a special date, the cemetery was nearly empty.
Over the past thirty years, Fang Shiyou had never felt his mother was distant or unfamiliar, because Professor Gu often spoke of her, not just in front of him, but in front of other relatives too. Professor Gu was afraid people might forget her.
When Fang Shiyou was in college, the eldest aunt, who was closest to Professor Gu among their relatives, had tried to persuade him to remarry. She'd said, ‘It's been so many years already. You've been widowed long enough. The child lives at school now, and you come home every night to a pitch-black house, with a cold stove and cold pots.’
Her reasoning wasn't wrong. At the time, Professor Gu was in the prime of his life, and had a respectable job and a decent income. Under these conditions, finding a new partner would be easy. But both the father and son were romantic.
After bowing, Fang Shiyou stood up and softly told his mother that he was in a relationship with a man, a teacher of exceptional ability and integrity.
After a long moment, once Professor Gu had walked toward the steps with his hands behind his back, Fang Shiyou looked at the gravestone again and said, “Mom, I want to be with Xu Nanheng for the rest of my life.”
He believed his mother would agree. After all, looking at Professor Gu's back on the steps, he thought, ‘You two are one body and soul, right?’
About an hour later, after finishing his day shift, Fang Shiyou changed clothes in the locker room and walked out of the hospital, checking his phone as he went.
Xu Nanheng had sent him a location pin, telling him to take a cab since there was no parking. About thirty minutes later, Fang Shiyou arrived. It was a small tailor shop with an unassuming storefront.
He pushed open the glass door. The wooden floor and faint scent of sandalwood gave the place an air of quiet sophistication. Two mannequins dressed in Prince of Wales suits stood by the entrance, and the walls were lined with various suit designs. It was clearly a custom-tailoring shop.
A moment later, the fitting room door opened. Xu Nanheng stepped out wearing a deep navy-blue suit. As he adjusted his cufflinks and lifted his gaze, their eyes met.
Hearing movement, the shop owner came out from behind the curtain, first giving Xu Nanheng a once-over before saying, “This one suits you perfectly.”
Then the owner looked toward Fang Shiyou, smiling and nodding politely. Fang Shiyou returned the gesture.
Xu Nanheng turned to the owner. “Thank you. Oh, could you please bring that tie for me?”
The owner, an older craftsman with graying hair, blinked as if reminded. “Ah right! I forgot what I went to the back for. My memory, honestly.”
Fang Shiyou couldn't take his eyes off Xu Nanheng in the suit. Xu Nanheng walked over to him with a smile. “Zoned out from work?”
“No,” Fang Shiyou said. “You are just too handsome.”
“My cousin's baby is having a first birthday banquet in a few days. My mom insisted I come get a new custom-made suit.”
The shop owner lifted the curtain and came out holding a tie. This tie was the same dark navy-blue color as the suit Xu Nanheng was wearing, made of the same fabric with the same subtle pattern.
Xu Nanheng took it from the owner and handed it to Fang Shiyou. “Your birthday gift. It's made from the leftover fabric of this suit. I know you were worried I'd send something expensive. This one isn't.”
Fang Shiyou recognized it at a glance. He was genuinely surprised. He had worried that Young Master Xu might give him something outrageously expensive, or worse, try to handmake something himself, which was a concern only because he was afraid the young master might injure himself in the process.
But a tie made from the same fabric as his partner's suit carried a quiet, intimate romance, like giving someone a piece of himself.
“It is precious,” Fang Shiyou said.
That evening, Xu Nanheng told him that back in university, as an education major in a class full of women, he once overheard them talking about a saying: if a woman gave a man a tie made from the same fabric as her cheongsam, it was the most romantic gesture of all. That was where he got the idea for this gift.
But since he was a man, he had a piece of the suit fabric made into a tie for Fang Shiyou.
Fang Shiyou said he liked it. He liked it very much.