Song Qing shut the door, took down the cloth bag hanging by the entryway that had a dirty patch. After washing it clean, he hung it in the laundry room, then returned to the kitchen and scooped out the small remaining portion of rice porridge.
Yesterday’s leftover rice was also reheated by him together with lettuce and meat. The vegetable broth soaked into the rice— even the rice was fragrant.
There was meat, there was oil and water— he ate very satisfyingly. After drinking the porridge, with a full stomach, he went to refill the cat’s food and change its water.
While at it, he also washed the cat bowl and the thermostatic water dispenser. The litter box was also cleaned spotless before he brought his book and scarf, ready to head out.
Once the thick iron door opened, the corridor wind and the windows formed a convection— a gust of cold wind blew in.
Song Qing went back again to put on a hat, first, afraid Nan Zhi would suddenly come to check. If he had already gone out, it might end up with him having to come back just to put on a hat.
Second— it was indeed cold.
It was already close to winter; with each passing day, the temperature lower than the last. Song Qing looked at his phone— just a bit over ten degrees.
The wind was strong too. Normally at this time, he should be riding the electric scooter, taking his uncle and aunt’s youngest son to school. Pick up in the morning, drop off at night.
The kid sat behind him, only he himself froze. In winter, his hands would be greenish-purple, the joints would even crack open, then scab from the bleeding, his face also frostbitten— needing a long, long time to heal.
One spring, one summer— several months. After finally healing, winter would come again. Then frostbite again, over and over.
This year, the cold air hadn’t fully arrived yet, but he already had warm clothes, thick cotton quilt, and a tightly sealed place to live.
The previous house was ventilated on all four sides, couldn’t even keep out mice— let alone the wind. When winter came, inside and outside weren’t much different.
He couldn’t sleep without clothes on, or else he’d definitely fall sick the next day.
His headaches and neuralgia were also because he lived in that kind of room day in and day out. At night, the wind would blow directly onto his head. Accumulated over time— his head couldn’t be exposed to wind anymore.
The place he lived in now had windows, lots of them. But they were double-glazed. At night, close the windows, and in the morning open them again, pull open the curtains and bask in the sun— that was enough.
She had brought out an extra quilt for him, saying the weather changed too quickly around this time, so it was placed in the corner of the sofa bed for him to use as backup.
When cold, he could just pull it over to cover himself— no need to rely on sheer righteous energy to resist the cold anymore.
The clothes he was wearing now were new— the outer fabric very wind-resistant. Even sitting in the draft, he wouldn’t feel cold.
Song Qing had never told anyone— since he was little, almost all his clothes were hand-me-downs. Actually, he very, very much wished to have a set of his own— new, clean, well-fitting clothes, worn at the right time, in the right weather, just right.
Didn’t need to be too good, just suitable for the season, not too big, not too small— that was enough.
He never told Nan Zhi— but Nan Zhi gave them to him.
He knew that this set of clothes originally wasn’t bought for him. But after she found it was too big, she didn’t think first to return it. Instead, she had him try it on. After it fit, she cut off the tags and kept it, told him to just wear it like that.
Actually, it was no different than buying it just for him. She also bought him other clothes— also new.
He was very easily satisfied, felt that this was already so good it couldn’t get any better.
So actually, him cooking for Nan Zhi and so on— it was entirely willing from the heart. He even felt he’d done too little. It was a pity he couldn’t go upstairs to the second floor. Otherwise, he’d definitely clean that floor too.
Song Qing went out. The wind outside blew so hard it even pushed his wheelchair backward a bit. He pressed down on the handrims, used some strength, and rode into the wind.
The weather was still that hard and cold, but he was wrapped up tightly— no longer afraid of the cold.
—
Nan Zhi’s luck today wasn’t good. As soon as she arrived, she got busy. Only around a bit past nine in the morning did she get a bit of free time and drank that cup of millet porridge.
The millet porridge was cooked just right—not too watery, and also not overly thick—exactly at the stage where it could be used as breakfast.
The portion was also just right for one meal of hers, could be completely finished without any waste.
Only been here a few days, and already grasped her so accurately?
Speaking of which, she used to always think he was quite obedient, even a bit too honest—probably the type to get bullied, huh.
But now it looked like he actually had quite a bit of opinion of his own. When he said he wouldn’t listen, he really wouldn’t listen, and he even knew to run away.
A little bit like when she was a kid and did something wrong, and her grandma silently appeared behind her with a rolling pin in hand. Even though she knew her grandma probably wouldn’t hit her, she still felt guilty, walked around the table, not letting grandma get close.
It made grandma laugh out loud. This morning, she also almost couldn’t hold it in—nearly laughed in front of Song Qing. Fortunately, she held herself back.
Nan Zhi finished the millet porridge, and the heavy-headed, light-footed feeling lightened a bit.
In the morning, she’d felt full of energy and thought that as long as sleep quality was good, it could offset the problem of short duration—didn’t expect it was just temporary.
Only a little more than an hour had passed, and she was already feeling dizzy and seeing spots. The teacher knew about her condition and let her go eat something first.
It was just over an hour, and the millet porridge was still warm. Drinking it was just right, warm in the stomach.
Today was too busy, and there was a high chance it would go on like this for a while. Nan Zhi, afraid she’d be so busy her feet wouldn’t touch the ground and she’d forget, edited her reminder before heading out.
[To remember: Get Song Qing’s temporary school card handled, and pick up his delivery]
Today, another two sets of his clothes had arrived—one thick sweatshirt, one thin.
Although when he received the clothes yesterday, he didn’t show much emotion, and only wore them because she forced him, but—wearing new clothes, probably anyone would be happy, right?
She’d bring them home today too, let him be happy. And also the debit card.
In the morning he brought it up—if she forgot, even if he didn’t say anything on the surface, he would definitely feel very disappointed inside. Because she herself had been the one who was forgotten before.
It’s really hard to describe that kind of disappointment at the time.
Also, she knew how precious it was to bring something up the first time. If one didn’t keep their word, next time he wouldn’t speak his true thoughts again.
Because she herself was that kind of person, so she knew very well—Song Qing was probably 70-80% the same.
After Nan Zhi finished writing it down, she went back to work, kept at it until noon. Her whole body was already feeling light and floaty, like she was going to faint. Fortunately, it was break time. She didn’t even eat, just went straight to the break room to sleep.
Only after waking up did she have time to send Song Qing a WeChat message to ask how he was doing.
—
Song Qing had just finished eating—cooked by himself. In the morning, when he was cooking, he got caught by Nan Zhi, so he didn’t order takeout. At that time, he had already expected it—too stubborn. Nan Zhi no longer wanted to interfere in this regard. Most likely wouldn’t order takeout at noon either, so he came back early to cook.
Boiled two packs of instant noodles—ate till he was full. Because he knitted four and a half scarves in the morning—converted, that was around 36 yuan. He planned to make five more in the afternoon, that would be 80 yuan a day. Though not much, he could balance it with studying. He had already finished reading the C programming book.
He wasn’t a computer major, but he was in the sciences, math. In this area, he was quite sensitive. Memorizing and rote learning—he had some impression of the book. After reading a few more, once he had a bit of foundation, he could start practicing.
Now he had picked up another book, wrapped it tight, brought along his yarn ball, planning to go study the slightly harder corn stitch. But hadn’t made it yet—first received Nan Zhi’s message.
[I also want to inhale Hakimi: Take a nap at noon, don’t tire yourself too much.]
Nan Zhi had thought of him on her own. She held out until past 1 PM and ended up like that. Song Qing woke up even earlier than her. Even if he didn’t have a stomach problem or low blood sugar, if he didn’t sleep properly, he’d also feel terrible—so she specially reminded him.
—
Inside the apartment building, Song Qing thought she would ask things like “have you eaten?” or “what did you eat?” and had already prepared his answers early on—didn’t expect this instead.
One sentence messed up all of his planning, but he still answered honestly.
[Green Grass: Okay.]
Song Qing closed the just-opened door, wheeled himself back into the small living room. Once the glass door was closed, he took off his clothes, crawled under the covers, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
He wasn’t someone who kept things inside. To put it simply—his standards for quality of life weren’t high. Even in an environment with broken beds, run-down houses, and cold wind howling through, he still slept soundly. Let alone here. He had just touched the pillow, and he had already fallen into a deep sleep, all the way until past two in the afternoon.
Slept for more than two hours—made two fewer scarves.
But after a nap, he really did feel much more comfortable.
Song Qing got up. The first thing he did was check her messages. When there were none, he got dressed, sat properly in his wheelchair, and brought his book, continuing what he hadn’t managed to do at noon.
—
Past five in the evening, Nan Zhi got off work after working overtime for a bit. While driving halfway to handle the temporary school transfer card, she received a call—it was from another nurse on duty. Similar to yesterday—not calling to look for her, but to look for Song Qing.
Because Song Qing had been picked up by her, they indirectly got in touch with her.
At first, Nan Zhi thought it was Song Qing’s uncle and aunt and got nervous for a moment. After hearing that it was the police handling Song Qing’s case, she then told the caller to give her own phone number to them—
—have them contact her directly.
After communicating a bit over the phone, Nan Zhi learned it was about the same as last time. After work, someone came to check on Song Qing, only to find that he wasn’t there. His phone was out of credit, and WeChat wasn’t getting any replies. They were a bit worried and tracked it to here.
The first time his classmates contacted her, she already thought it was a little strange. It couldn’t be that everyone didn’t have Song Qing’s contact info. Turns out it was because his phone had no credit.
He didn’t have the money to pay, so once he was outside without Wi-Fi, it basically meant losing contact.
Yesterday, he must’ve borrowed someone’s Wi-Fi to post the video. Today, maybe he didn’t borrow, so he didn’t see any messages.
Nan Zhi topped up 100 yuan of phone credit for him. After confirming the line could be reached, she told the other side. They hung up to contact Song Qing directly.
Nan Zhi continued to handle the school transfer card, also bought milk tea and duck offals—because she liked eating them, of course, she didn’t forget to get a portion for Song Qing too.
After starting the car again and continuing home, another call came—it was still the officer handling Song Qing’s case.
After Song Qing’s traffic accident, the driver fled the scene. The case had already been filed. Though the person hadn’t been caught yet, from time to time they’d update Song Qing on the progress.
Originally, this wasn’t something standard; one needed to reach out themselves. But because of his special situation, both the police and traffic officers hadn’t dropped the case till now.
Besides the case, there was also a bit of new development about Song Qing. They hoped to come visit and talk to him about it in person.
Nan Zhi agreed, though to be honest—having both traffic police and civil police come together was still a bit intimidating, even for a law-abiding good citizen.
Nan Zhi bought more fruits and snacks, also picked up his deliveries. Carrying big and small bags, she returned home.
On the other side, Song Qing was already home early, waiting for people to come to the door.
Over the phone, they briefly explained—while looking into his case, they unexpectedly uncovered something related to his parents from a few years ago.
His parents died in a car accident. The ruling determined full responsibility on the other party. Compensation was owed to their family. But the other side was too poor. The driver was already suffering from cancer, and because his wife was disabled, he worked desperately hard—wanting to cure his wife’s leg illness. In the end, from fatigue driving, the car lost control and harmed their family—also harmed himself.
Not long after, he died from internal bleeding and cancer. He left behind a malnourished, still-disabled wife, two crying babies, and two skinny, dried-up elderly people in their nineties.
The whole family couldn’t even afford to eat—let alone pay compensation. When the police took him there, the home was bare of everything. The children were so skinny they were all bones, only their bellies were big. The police said it was because they had nothing to eat, so they ate whatever they could, which caused it.
In the end, he didn’t have the heart to take it, but the other side acknowledged the debt. The two elders both sold vegetables and went up the mountain to dig for ginseng and medicinal herbs. The wife also went into the fields to work, and usually did odd jobs here and there—scraping together bits and pieces.
A few years ago, one of the elders slipped while up the mountain. The other went to save him, and fell too—both gone together.
The wife, carrying two small children, picked through trash, and bit by bit, piece by piece, they still managed to hand over quite a bit. All that money was with his uncle and aunt.
If collected now, it would add up to at least tens of thousands.
They wanted to ask him—
If he didn’t want it.