After breakfast, He Leqin called and asked if Bai Yang was going to celebrate Yan Zhihan's birthday today, September 7th.
He Leqin was Bai Yang's best buddy, a schoolmate since elementary school, middle school, and still in high school. His family has been in Nanjing for three generations and owns six properties, making him a typical second-generation rich kid—the so-called "housing rich second generation."
Bai Yang said the housing rich second generation is a new, rising group. As the saying goes, with a house in hand, one does not panic. At a young age, He Leqin was already living the life of a retired old man, with a peculiar love for taking birds for a walk in the park on the weekends—the kind with feathers, that is. He claims this decadent lifestyle of the "Manchu noble descendants" was learned from his great uncle, who used to take his birdcage out for strolls, corrupting young He Leqin in the process.
Since middle school, He Leqin's fixed shopping destinations have been the Golden Eagle stores in Xinjiekou and West River. Bai Yang never even set foot into those dazzling, golden buildings, but for He Leqin, it was like a vegetable market right outside his home. He often posted sophisticated photos on social media, captioned, "Actually, this French meal averaging two thousand per person doesn't taste as good as street food."
So corrupt, way too corrupt!
Bai Yang was deeply distressed.
If you think it doesn't taste good, you could bring some back for me to eat!
"Whose birthday?" Dad asked, "Yan something, right?"
"Yan Zhihan." Bai Yang replied.
Dad rummaged through his not-so-large hippocampus, barely located the name, then connected it to an image of a girl with long, fine hair and fair skin, "Oh," he said, "so it's her."
Bai Yang: You know her?
Dad: No.
Bai Yang: Then how do you know she's a girl with long, soft hair and fair skin?
Dad: Nowadays, girls like that are all over the streets.
Yan Zhihan was famously known in South Airline's affiliated high school as the class — grade — team flower. Yes, the flower of the group. Bai Yang's group consisted of eight people, seven boys and one girl, commonly referred to as "seven leaves and a blossom."
Among them, it was Bai Yang, He Leqin, and Yan Zhihan who had the closest relationship, a trio mockingly called the "plastic iron triangle."
With a spirit of philanthropy, rich kid He Leqin would give gifts to any girl in class on her birthday, not to mention Yan Zhihan, who was especially close. As the class representative, she often did He Leqin favors when handing in homework, saving him from trouble numerous times. A favor as small as a drop of water should be repaid with a gushing spring, and an 18th birthday is a significant rite of passage—how could it be taken lightly?
Therefore, He Leqin called up Bai Yang, seeking advice on what gift to give.
"Bai Yang! Little Bai Yang! What do you think is appropriate to send?"
"With your wealth, why not gift a Lamborghini," Bai Yang replied languidly. "Or a Bentley, Ferrari, Aston Martin would also do. Yan Zhihan likes cars, right?"
"Get lost, I'm being serious here."
"How about you set up a statue of her at the entrance of Xinjiekou subway station then?" Bai Yang suggested. "Have her posed like a Kamehameha wave or a Special Beam Cannon. Anyway, the large roundabout under Xinjiekou subway station was built by your family, so erecting a statue should be a breeze, right?"
"Then Yan Zhihan would have to kill you first, and then violate and kill me."
"Why am I directly killed, and you're violated and killed?"
"Because I'm handsome, OK?" He Leqin said over the phone. "If I die and lie there, people would feel at a loss if they don't dishonor my body. Alright, enough, hurry up and come over, stop talking nonsense. I'll treat you to lunch; I'm waiting for you here at Xinjiekou subway station."
"Where are we eating?"
"Let's go to Ke Alley."
Bai Yang hung up the phone, changed his shoes, and went out.
"Xiao Yang, are you coming back for lunch?" Mom poked her head out from the room to ask.
"Nah, I won't be back!"
"Then come back early in the afternoon! You still have two sets of papers to do!"
"I know, I know!"
Bai Yang opened the door, went downstairs, and his footsteps rapidly faded.
From Meihua Villa to Xinjiekou requires taking Line 2, boarding at Muxuyuan Station and alighting at Xinjiekou Station. Bai Yang walked out of the residential compound's main gate and headed towards the subway station along Muxuyuan Street, where the sidewalks were lined with camphor trees as thick as bowls.
It's said that Nanjing is filled with plane trees everywhere, but it's only camphor trees around Meihua Villa—short and thin. Walking a kilometer down the pedestrian path along Muxuyuan Street, reaching Zhongshanmen Road, one starts to see thick plane trees which you could wrap your arms around, with luxuriant branches and leaves, all ancient trees decades old, making Bai Yang's age seem trivial by comparison.
It's still hot in Nanjing in September. Bai Yang, wearing a white T-shirt and beige three-quarter casual trousers, was already drenched in sweat as he turned onto Zhongshanmen Street. The street bustled with pedestrians: it was a weekend, so no school, yet there were still students in uniforms riding bicycles in groups of two or three. Alongside were elderly men and women in short sleeves, carrying shopping bags or baskets from the supermarket, stuffed with eggs and spring onions, as well as young girls in short skirts and hot pants, showing off strikingly white long legs.
As Bai Yang moved through the crowd, he felt this was a youthful city full of beautiful legs everywhere.
But seeing the rough, white bark of the plane trees, he was also well aware of their age.
His phone buzzed. Bai Yang pulled it out and saw that He Leqin had sent another message on WeChat:
Are you there yet? I've been waiting so long that flowers have wilted.
Bai Yang looked down and replied to him:
I'm almost there!
To Bai Yang, no matter where he was, as soon as he left his house, he was "almost there."
He Leqin: Hurry up, I just saw a hottie that's incredibly beautiful!
Bai Yang: Coming, coming.
He turned off his phone screen and tucked the phone back into his pocket.
Approaching the entrance to Muxuyuan subway station, Bai Yang squeezed onto the descending escalator and soon disappeared into the vast crowd. Line 2 is one of the busiest subway lines in Nanjing City, the city's main artery. The crowds flow through it like blood in veins; they are the source of the city's vitality, and Bai Yang is just one of a million blood cells.
Nanjing, it's a giant heart.