He cleared his throat and strummed the zhongruan's strings gently. There was a lot of practice in those fingers, and the soft tune that came from the instrument reassured him that he had everything under control.
Whether or not the girl would like what followed was another matter entirely, however.
Yun Jieshi began:
"Owls meld in the flaky snow,
Scant trees creak brittle caution,
Allied with the burning, cold wind.
All points backward – even the bitten moon.
Man alone, blood boiling to freeze,
Casts his die against freezing earth."
The last high-pitched cluck of the string noted the end of the poem, but Yun Jieshi could still feel it pulsing through him. He looked hopefully at the girl sitting next to him on the bench.
Li Chyou looked much paler today, but even then, her skin contrasted magnificently with her silky black hair which barely teased her chin. Needles fallen from the white pine above them lazed over it, somehow enhancing her beauty. Her small dark eyes stared at Yun Jieshi's ruan as though expecting it to cough up more estranged tunes.
"Well? What do you think? I call it, Into The Frost Bizarre. It teeters gently between poem and song," Yun Jieshi said nervously. That bit of commentary didn't seem to urge Li Chyou to review his piece any quicker.
She blew into her hands and hid part of her chin down her thick, purple turtleneck.
"It's alright. I don't think it's your best one. You do much better when you're not trying to mix a lot of elements into one," she said a little meekly.
Yun Jieshi deflated.
"I… see. What do you think I should fix about it? Besides not trying to make it a song," he said, eager.
But Li Chyou only gave him a weird, distant look. She slid an inch away while pretending she was adjusting the way she sat on the bench. Yun Jieshi didn't miss that.
"Listen," Li Chyou said, and she hissed out a long, warm breath. "I asked to meet you because… I need to tell you something. You said you prefer it when I'm being completely honest, right?"
Yun Jieshi weathered the cold current that had just raced through him.
'When did I ever say that? I always encourage lies, especially if they spare my ego!' he thought.
"Yes, I did," he said to the girl.
Li Chyou didn't shy away from his gaze, which lost its will of fire as the seconds went by.
"I'm moving away. I've been relocated. At work, I mean. It's… a promotion, really. I'm supposed to move by the end of the week."
"Oh. Congratulations!" Yun Jieshi smiled while wishing it was a curse he congratulated Li Chyou with. He plucked the strings on his ruan by mistake. The distorted tune that staggered out, matched his emotions. "W-where are you being relocated to?"
For a second, Li Chyou looked horror-struck by the question. She then took a deep breath, and at once, Yun Jieshi knew she wouldn't tell. He secretly dried the sweat budding on his palm with his pants. The more Li Chyou played this sick game of cat and mouse, the angrier he got.
'Just say it! You know you want to!' he urged her secretly.
And Li Chyou finally did.
"Look, Jieshi. I've tried to put up with this trend you're on, but honestly, it's really getting on my nerves," she began boldly. Yun Jieshi swallowed an angry lump of saliva mixed with venom. "I get that you want to challenge yourself or whatever, but why can't you just stick to one thing?"
'It's not about challenging myself!' Yun Jieshi barked inwardly, but his face remained impassive.
"You never keep a job. Somehow, it's not entertaining enough, or thrilling enough, or perfect enough. You spend all your money on all these different instruments, and courses that you eventually give up on, and… I bet you haven't even noticed how these whims of yours have started to affect how you treat me."
Li Chyou was frowning. Yun Jieshi suspected she could sense his internal tide shift from displeased to offended.
'I treat you perfectly fine! My interests have never bled into our relationship!' he wanted to say, but the look on Li Chyou's face forced him to save it.
"This isn't going to work for me, Jieshi. I… Goodbye."
Whether she only wanted to look sorry or truly felt it, Yun Jieshi would never know. He did, however, know the look a girl would don when she was over it all. That had been it.
Li Chyou left him, mixing into the growing stream of passers-by.
Yun Jieshi slumped against the backrest of the bench and stared at the swaying branches and needles of the white pine above him. The sound they made when the warm wind beat against them might have been a slow, mocking laugh.
"It was bound to happen sooner or later. Dad's curse strikes again," Yun Jieshi said and he stood up, strapped his ruan around his shoulder and began towards the park exit.
He massaged the eyelids over his thin, ocean-blue eyes, and scratched the annoying itch somewhere under his wild black hair. He might have been looking for a better way to stifle his misery.
'Yeah. It's definitely your fault, dad.'
Yun Muyang, Yun Jieshi's father, had gone to work in the United States of America back when he was younger. After many trials and tribulations that only an immigrant could spell in dark tales, he had found himself a good, stable job, a house, and a wife: a woman by the name Jane Stock. She was Yun Jieshi's mother. Though, at the best of times, Yun Jieshi didn't know if he prided himself on being her son, not after what she did to him and his father.
In any case, Yun Jieshi and his father had come back to China eight years ago, and that was when his father's curse had blossomed in all its glory. Yun Jieshi had witnessed it all. He couldn't understand how his father could have such terrible luck with women.
He dated three different women who either left him for another man who hailed from America, took them to America after their wedding, or owned disgustingly valuable assets in America.
It was no wonder Yun Muyang had discarded his previous name, Yun Fu Yu. He no longer saw the shower of luck his parents had promised.
Yun Jieshi didn't really think he had the same bad case as his father, but he was already on strike two with a girl calling to meet him in a public place only to dump him.
He groaned.
'Maybe dad is much better off. If it's some curse, maybe it's already been lifted by his friends. As for me…Well, pluck my life.'
Thankfully, Yun Jieshi met the perfect distraction. On the way home, he always passed through the local market, which was always bustling with activity till midnight.
The ripe aroma of savoury, cooked meats was the first to tickle Yun Jieshi's nose and for a moment, Li Chyou's face ceased possession of his mind.
'Duck.' Indeed, it was duck that the young man smelled first, and his mouth watered. Then it was beef in discount qualities of wagyu at best, rendering its rich fat over fire, and at worst, hard muscles roasting over coals; they garnered fewer customers.
The smell of noodles drowning in rich broths for the poor and the rich alike also tempted Yun Jieshi, as did the robust scent of sugars packed in different creative candies.
The goods were as varied as the customers, crowding, chatting, and pointing at the stuff they wanted. Their counterparts – sellers of all kinds – sweating as they hurried production or smiling as they tolerated the experienced haggling of regulars, were equally as energetic.
Yun Jieshi was already reaching for his wallet by the time he decided how he wanted to fill the furious void in his heart. His eyes sparkled when he spotted Buddha's Secrets from a stall he regularly bought from. They were special kinds of steamed buns filled with combinations of ground meat and vegetables. He loved them to death.
He had romanced them more than he had Li Chyou.
But suddenly, Yun Jieshi was forced to grimace and hunch over while pressing his hand over his nose. He dropped his wallet.
'Urgh! What is that smell?' he thought angrily and held his breath.
Something or perhaps someone passing by was packing an atrociously rancid odor.
The smell was akin to a mix of blue cheese, durian, sulfur, and perhaps the truly agitating, yet sweet scent of rotting fruit… raised to the power of two.
The stench faded almost as soon as Yun Jieshi had detected it. Oddly enough, no one else around reacted the same way he did. The stench might have been his own imagination. He frowned.
'That's… strange.'
After the shock of the foul smell had forced him to drop his wallet, Yun Jieshi had had enough sense to press on it with his foot in case some keen, reverse businessmen swiped it. He grabbed it while searching for the possible cause of that foul smell. He found none.
Shrugging, he proceeded with the purchase of his goodies, completely oblivious to the decision on his fate made just now.