The man bent down to enter, fully exposed under the light—fair-skinned and youthful, like a celebrity. The tattoo artist looked at him with envy and whispered in Ye Meng’s ear: “Damn, you’re lucky. Another young guy?”
Ye Meng ignored her and said to Li Jin Yu: “Tell this lady what you want to tattoo. Just call her Sister Shi. ‘Shi’ as in lion. Sister Shi’s skills are excellent; the swelling will go down in two or three days at most.”
“Snap!” Sister Shi turned on the light of the tattoo station and gestured for the man to sit down. “What do you want to get tattooed?”
Li Jin Yu placed his wrist on the table: “Just cover this scar.”
Sister Shi had seen all kinds of scars and calmly glanced at them before confidently suggesting: “How about an EKG line? The length is just right.”
He didn’t care much about the design: “Whatever, as long as it covers it.”
“Alright then.”
Sister Shi was very efficient, without unnecessary talk, and got straight to work. Li Jin Yu had wanted to cover the scar with a tattoo before, but couldn’t stand how chatty tattoo artists were, always curious about his scar and about him as a person. He found it too annoying, so he never went through with it.
But unexpectedly, this Sister Shi, despite seeming like a gossip, was serious and efficient when working.
She stared at his hand without moving for two or three hours, her gaze never straying from the spot, showing her genuine passion for her craft.
“Sister Shi.”
Perhaps not expecting the man to speak, Sister Shi looked up at him with some surprise, then continued working. “What is it?”
“What does Ye Meng’s collarbone tattoo mean?”
Sister Shi smiled and gave him a meaningful look: “You want to know if it’s related to an ex-boyfriend, right?”
Li Jin Yu coughed: “Just curious.”
“Don’t worry, she’s outside and can’t hear us. She’s probably asleep by now,” Sister Shi explained. “She used to bring young guys here for tattoos often, but don’t misunderstand—she was just helping my business. That tattoo is her mother’s name, not some ex-boyfriend, so relax.”
“Her mother’s name is Wyatt?”
“Your English is pretty good. When I heard that pronunciation, I thought it was from some American TV show I watched,” Sister Shi looked at him with surprise, then continued, “Everyone has an English name these days. This name translates to something like ‘smart’ or ‘mysterious.’ Ye Meng gave it to her mother. She liked a movie at the time, and coincidentally, there was a mysterious and powerful character with this name, so she tattooed it on herself.”
After finishing, Sister Shi returned him exactly as he was to Ye Meng, who was sound asleep on the sofa.
Ye Meng could truly sleep anywhere. Half her face was imprinted with marks from pressure. She sat up and collected herself for a moment before standing up and saying to Li Jin Yu: “Let’s go. Did you pay?”
“Sister Shi wouldn’t accept payment. She said it’s on your account.”
Ye Meng sighed, not bothering to argue. “Let’s go then.”
Outside the door, there was a bandage wrapped around Li Jin Yu’s thin wrist, giving him a somewhat yandere look. He unwrapped a milk candy for himself, chewing it casually as he took out his phone and said to her: “Add my WeChat, I’ll pay you back.”
Ye Meng reflexively refused: “Forget it, it’s just a small amount. Keep it for yourself.”
Ding—
The trees stood motionless, and everything around was exceptionally quiet. Several small birds perched on the eaves, leisurely looking down at them in a row. Perhaps disturbed by a fleeting thought in Ye Meng’s mind, a cat on the wall was startled. Like a flowing shadow, it swiftly leaped onto the eaves, frightening the birds into spreading their wings and flying away.
A loud rustle.
Ye Meng, like a startled bird herself, looked at him, trying to grasp that fleeting inspiration: “What did you say? Add your WeChat?”
Li Jin Yu had already put his phone back in his pocket and was holding his bandaged wrist as if in pain, half-smiling as he walked away: “Too bad, big sister refused.”
Ye Meng melted at the way he called her “big sister.”
She instinctively reached out to grab him, eager to explain but accidentally caught his bandaged wrist. Li Jin Yu sucked in a sharp breath of pain and hissed, “Are you trying to cripple me?”
Ye Meng quickly apologized, but her hand seemed possessed and kept holding on, with an expression that said “How could I do that, my precious”: “I couldn’t bear to hurt you, baby.”
Li Jin Yu let out a muffled laugh, in considerable pain, his handsome face contorting unusually: “If you don’t let go, it’s going to get infected.”
Ye Meng finally came to her senses and quickly released her grip, looking concerned: “How is it, baby? Should we go back and check it?”
“Call me ‘baby’ one more time, and I’ll throw you in the lake,” Li Jin Yu said through the pain.
“Fine, if I could be held by you before dying, I’d be satisfied,” Ye Meng said shamelessly, without any sincerity.
“Are you mentally ill?”
Ye Meng looked at him directly, her expression unchanging as she said: “Li Jin Yu, I stayed here for you. If I hadn’t met you, I would probably have returned to Beijing by now.”
The pain finally subsided, and Li Jin Yu straightened up. Ye Meng had to look up at him again. He regarded her coldly and said: “Don’t think I don’t know. Fang Ya En said you couldn’t make it in Beijing anymore.”
Her sweet talk exposed, she sighed: “…Fine. There are other reasons too, like Beijing being a truly anxiety-inducing city. What about you? Why did you leave Beijing?”
Li Jin Yu was stunned, “Who told you I came from Beijing?”
Tattoos now require real-name registration, with ID verification.
“I just saw your ID card and the address—Chaoyang District, Beijing.”
Ye Meng had even memorized his ID number.
Li Jin Yu seemed lost in thought, gently twisting his wrist, as if mocking himself or perhaps avoiding something. After a long while, he said: “Because there, no matter what I did, I couldn’t gain anyone’s recognition, no matter how perfectly I did it.”
His gaze was profound but like a dead pond. This look stayed with Ye Meng for a long time, so much that later when she was in Beijing, she would often recall that there was such a person trapped in the small town of Ning Sui. A person who caused immense heartache.
“Li Jin Yu, I’ll take you somewhere,” Ye Meng suddenly said.
“Where?”
“A bar,” Ye Meng turned around to borrow Sister Shi’s car. Sister Shi threw the keys from inside the shop, and she caught them steadily. “Thanks, I’ll bring it back later.”
Sister Shi’s car was small and old, a manual transmission for running errands. It was a tight fit for a tall person like Li Jin Yu in the passenger seat. He nervously fastened his seatbelt and said, “Are you sure you can drive? Maybe we should just call a car.”
“Sit tight,” Ye Meng commanded with authority, forcing him to comply with a single order.
Li Jin Yu sat motionless, a tall guy of over 1.8 meters sitting like an elementary school student, waiting for her to start the car.
Ye Meng didn’t move for quite some time.
Li Jin Yu glanced at her and saw her frowning, lost in thought. He meekly reminded her: “I’ve fastened my seatbelt.”
Ye Meng suddenly became impatient: “Just be quiet for a moment.”
“…”
“…”
The twilight was vast and lonely, with no one around except for the cats occasionally lying on or scurrying along the walls. The only remaining living beings at the alley entrance were the two of them.
Li Jin Yu finally couldn’t bear it anymore and turned his head to look out the window. “It’s been ten minutes. If we don’t leave now, I’m going home to sleep.”
Ye Meng slowly relaxed her furrowed brow and pointed at the driver’s seat floor: “I haven’t driven a manual transmission for a long time. Is that the clutch or the accelerator in the middle?”
Li Jin Yu glanced indifferently: “That’s the brake.”