A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 090 – Blunt Knife

His Words Finally Managed to Cheer Jiang Tian Up, and Jiang Tian Laughed Briefly.

Jiang Tian did not have a good sleep, but he still had several dreams anyway.
He dreamt of Du Cheng sticking his head out behind a cloud of smoke, saying, “Huanyu, he’s already this big? The last time I saw him was 10 years ago.”
He dreamt of Ji Huanyu saying to Jiang Ou, “Your son likes boys too, happy yet?”
He dreamt of Jiang Ou s c r e a m i n g, and as for him, he stood at the long alley in Wu Tong Wai. Leader, aged and elderly, was unmoving as it laid before his feet. Old Man Ding took a look at the cat and him, saying, “What a difficult situation, there’s no reviving. Leave.” And then closing the door to the courtyard right in front of his face.

He stood at the same spot, feeling both tired and ridiculous. He definitely wasn’t holding anything at all, but he wanted to prop his hands on his knees and rest for a bit.
He tried a few times, but no matter what he couldn’t bend over. All he felt was fatigue and agitation, and then he was startled awake from his dream.

Jiang Tian wasn’t sure where he fell asleep at the point his eyes shot open — all he saw was Sheng Wang sitting before him, a gentle light reflected in his eyes, his gaze focusing solely on him.
“Ge,” Sheng Wang breathed, and then he leaned closer, resting on a single elbow. He kissed the centre of his brows, the corner of his eyes, and his lips. He softly said, “You’re 18 now, I love you.”

Those feelings of agitation and sadness caused by his dreams instantly vanished; like someone had temporarily unloaded the steel plate pressing on his back, allowing him to bend over and catch his breath.
Jiang Tian turned the tides, grabbing the back of Sheng Wang’s neck wanting to kiss him back. However, he suddenly recalled that they were still in the living room — the most dangerous place in the house with people chancing upon them at any moment.
He stilled, and released his hand.
“What time is it?” Jiang Tian asked in a low voice. He had already sat up straight before he discovered a woolen blanket covering his body, only that it slid to his waist with his movement just now.
“Around 1.20am+.” Sheng Wang reported the time without even looking at his phone.
Jiang Tian felt his heart melting into a puddle. He reached out, and touched the other person’s face. He asked, “Have you been waiting all this time?”
“Nope, I’ve gone up and down the stairs quite a few times, and checked the time N number of times impatiently.” Sheng Wang pointed at the remote control on the coffee table, “I was just considering if I should hit you awake and pretend to be changing the channel. You probably felt the murderous vibes, so you woke up by yourself.”
Jiang Tian laughed, and just as he wanted to say something, someone opened the door to the bedroom in the distance. A pale white light leaked out from the gap, a long slanted line, directly cutting the sofa into two.
The two on the sofa broke apart in a hurry.

Sheng Mingyang shuffled over in his slippers, and softly asked, propping himself against the sofa, “Xiao-Tian’s awake? Hungry? Sun-jie’s white fungus soup is still being kept warm in the pot.”
“I’m not.” Jiang Tian lifted the blanket, and glanced towards the direction of the bedroom.

He was no good with being warm with people and getting along with them, he did not like to express goodwill. However, that did not mean that he was irrational. He knew no matter if it was Ji Huanyu or Du Cheng, no matter the trauma they’ve caused to Jiang Ou and him, none of that had anything to do with the Sheng household. Sheng Mingyang could have totally chosen to not bear with any of this, but he accepted everything without a complaint.

This gave Jiang Tian a rather odd feeling — it was as though the burden he had been solely shouldering was suddenly taken upon by Sheng Mingyang. He was supposed to be a little more relaxed now, but the truth was he didn’t feel that way at all. This was different from what he had long since been used to for many years, but rationally speaking, he knew he should either thank him or apologise.

“Today—”
Jiang Tian was momentarily silent. The second he opened his mouth again, he was interrupted by Sheng Mingyang, “What happened today was an accident, it has nothing to do with the both of you. Even if there’s something, that is up to us adults to communicate. I initially didn’t want to let you two visit the hospital……Whatever, things have already turned out like this, so don’t think too much about it. It has already been years.”

Those were indeed his words, but his brows were knitted. Perhaps it was the fact that he wasn’t asleep this late into the night, weariness was all over his face. Maybe for every person that said “Whatever, don’t think about it anymore”, they were simply expressing their wishful thinking aloud.
Jiang Tian watched his complexion, and was silent once more.

Sheng Wang glanced at his Ge, grabbed the blanket and started folding it, changing the topic. “And the reason you’re out, dad…?”
“Oh,” Sheng Mingyang looked at the empty mug in his hand, “your Auntie Jiang is slightly feverish, I’m getting some water for her later.”
“She got a fever?”
“Don’t worry, she already took some medicine, just that her sleep is slightly fitful. She freaked out the moment the lights were off. After receiving such a blow today, anyone would be out of sorts. If it was me, I’ll probably fall apart for quite a well. She isn’t someone who likes to get angry in the first place, she would bottle up whatever unhappiness inside of her. It might be a good thing that she’s letting it all out today, actually. I got a friend to book an appointment with a doctor, I’ll be bringing her there after the new year for a little chat. As for now……please pardon each other a little more.”

“Okay, it’s getting late. Tonight has been difficult, do hurry up and get some sleep too.” Sheng Mingyang patted the back of the sofa, and suddenly turned his eyes towards the muted television. He pointed at Sheng Wang, seemingly joking, “You said you wanted to watch a movie for a bit here, you’re telling me that it’s a silent film you’re watching?”
For that split second, Jiang Tian felt Sheng Mingyang’s gaze sweep past him too. Whether it was intentional or casual was up to anyone’s guess.
Sheng Wang’s lips moved, saying, “What else was I supposed to do? My Ge’s asleep, should I have blasted him awake with the stereo sound system?”

Sheng Mingyang urged them again, and went to the kitchen with the mug. Soon after, there was a creak, and he closed the door and returned to the bedroom. Only, the door wasn’t fully shut — the light went from a slab to an extremely thin line, still landing on the sofa nonetheless.
The two boys sat at the extreme ends of the sofa, becoming two lonely, distinct islands with the cut of that line.

A while later, someone passed through that line, and grabbed Jiang Tian’s hand, waving it. He said, “Wanna head upstairs?”
“Mn.” Jiang Tian glanced at the direction of the bedroom, and pulled him back to the second floor’s bedroom.

After that fitful sleep he had gotten on the sofa, Jiang Tian wasn’t actually sleepy. Sheng Wang’s eyelids were the ones that threatened to close any time soon instead. Yet, he kept hovering behind him non-stop, like he had done something wrong or something.
As he washed up, Sheng Wang leaned against the door. He made his bed, Sheng Wang was helping by the side, holding a corner of the quilt. He took out that stack of learning material from Chu-ge, Sheng Wang took a book and said he could help a bit.

“What’s up with you?” In the end, Jiang Tian had no other choice but to turn and catch him.
Sheng Wang stared at his fingers. He was momentarily quiet before he held them from the back, saying, “I’ll never pull my hand away again.”
Jiang Tian was briefly startled before he realised what exactly was Sheng Wang referring to. Initially, he kind of did not know if he should cry or laugh, which was closely followed up with a surge of even more complicated emotions within him. He suddenly didn’t know what he should say in reply.

A long while later, he finally blinked, saying, “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
Of course he knew why Sheng Wang reacted that way — if he didn’t do so, with the onslaught on disgusting people Ji Huanyu was bent on going on, he might say something even much more insane. He would have probably targeted every single word at him; he was the last line of defence for Jiang Ou, if even this line collapsed, then she wouldn’t be too far off from full blown insanity.

Except……he was indeed rational, he indeed understood why those things happened. He completely understood all the reasons, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t feel upset the moment the space between his fingers was emptied. This was the helplessness between him and Sheng Wang, which they had no solutions to for the time being.
Hell, even if they argue, they clash with each other, they keep disagreeing on certain issues, or if they start to feel boredom, ennui, dullness after the test of time, at the very least all the causes of conflict stemming from normal circumstances aren’t as hard to accept. Because when people stand at the finishing lines of arguments, they would be more fed up than they are in love, so they wouldn’t feel too sad about it.

However, they had none of that — only rationality forcing their hands. Just like what he was doing right now.
“I’m the person of highest risk right now.” Jiang Tian was slightly mocking himself, but he gradually turned grave. “My mom and your dad likely took what Ji Huanyu said to heart.”
“I don’t think so, everyone could tell that he was a cornered rat at that time,” Sheng Wang said.
Jiang Tian shook his head. “They heard him — can’t change that fact.”

They might think that it was absurd, they wouldn’t really believe that. However, words are like blades, leaving a mark in the heart no matter what, and then rear its head in some random moment that nobody saw coming.
No matter if they were doing it intentionally, they would definitely, subconsciously become more sensitive and paranoid.

Sheng Wang lowered his eyes, and tightened his grasp on Jiang Tian’s fingers. Time ticked for a while before he spoke, “My dad is half open and half old-fashioned, I still remember a long time ago, someone mentioned……”
He paused, and then continued, “a topic related to homosexuality. He did not react badly to it, he didn’t say anything about person ABC being disgusting because of that, or that they are screwed up or something. Last time, when they were talking about that case in the hospital, what happened with the old man with the rest was just quickly following up with the conversation. You know my dad’s personality, he was just playing along with what other people say, it doesn’t necessarily represent his own stand on the issue.”

Sheng Wang actually omitted some details. Sheng Mingyang was indeed a fifty-fifty of being open and being traditional. He was accepting of who other people’s son liked, no matter if female or male, no matter if human or non-human . He would even sincerely bless them with a big red packet. It was because he did not like to gossip, it wasn’t like it was any of that was under his purview.
However, things were different when it came to his own son.

Sheng Wang did not intend to bring those up, he only wanted to let Jiang Tian hear the nice things. “As for Auntie Jiang……it’s because of her own personal baggage. After the new year, the doctor will chat with her, she’ll move past it, and then everything will be much easier after she no longer has any prejudice towards this group of people because of that scum.”

“High school is too close to here, but it’ll be different in university. They can’t reach us there, unlike Fuzhong, where the teachers more or less know both my dad and your mom.” Sheng Wang said, “I’ll work harder, get into the same school as you, and then rent a house, bringing our cat son along. There’s a saying that goes ‘distance makes the heart fonder’, and when their hearts grow fond enough of us, we can slowly whittle this out with them. There has to be a day when they’ll finally accept this.”

“My dad dares to transfer me out of school at the drop of a hat, he wouldn’t be able to do that once we get to uni. No way he could still say ‘Leave, in order to stop you from dating, we’ll change schools’ by the time I’m already in Tsinghua and Peking U, right?”
His words finally managed to cheer Jiang Tian up, and Jiang Tian laughed briefly.

Sheng Wang was instantly in the mood, and fiercely kissed him for a long time after throwing himself onto him on the bed.

When it came down to it, it was simply an issue of it not being the right time. Sometimes, Sheng Wang would wish for time to fly faster, the best case was him lying down, closing his eyes, and waking up to already being an adult, in university, or even working. Only, if he met Jiang Tian during those times, he dreaded that things would turn out differently entirely.
So they merely needed to wait, to endure past these two years.

When they chatted, words like “high school” and “university” were over in a matter of a few syllables, spending less than two seconds. Yet, when they opened their eyes, the days were still slowly trudging on ahead.

The easing of tension they worked so hard on last night was utterly demolished in the early morning next day — Jiang Ou was truly in a terrible state. She did try her best to get herself to calm down, there was mirth in her voice, she got Auntie Sun to be busy with her in the kitchen, wanting to prepare a delicious birthday meal for Jiang Tian.

She fully occupied her time, leaving no room for idling as she found one task to do after another. However, all it took was a line from Jiang Tian, saying that he was heading out with Sheng Wang, and she accidentally broke an entire claypot.
The entire boiling hot pot of stewed vegetables spilled all over the kitchen floor, scalding her feet bright red.

“Auntie, we’re just retrieving his birthday cake, it was pre-ordered from before,” Sheng Wang explained, bewildered. He didn’t know what was on her mind, nor could he tell if she didn’t manage to catch the second half of Jiang Tian’s sentence.
“I know, I know,” Jiang Ou softly repeated that several times. She sat on the sofa, and ointment was applied on the scalded area. She then apologetically said, “Auntie is fine, I accidentally zoned out just now, that’s all.”

With that, neither of them brought up leaving the house, and got the cake shop to deliver the cake instead.
There were two cakes, both of which Sheng Wang had ordered quite a while ago. One was for eating, the other was a fondant that could be kept. He actually got this particular idea from a WeChat group chat — Carp and Chili were inviting each other to go learn how to make that during the winter break, saying that it could be preserved for a long time upon completion.

The fondant cake he customised for Jiang Tian consisted of a little house. Before a little house was an entire group of chibi people — Jiang Ou, Old Man Ding, Gao Tianyang, Zhao Xi, Lin Beiting, himself, and a cat, all surrounding the tiny figure that represented Jiang Tian. It was rich and lively. He hesitated for a long time, and seeing that they were father and son after all, he pulled strings and added Sheng Mingyang too.
There was a sign by the house, saying: The Best 18th Year.

However, by the time the cake arrived, the kitchen was a mess, and there was nothing but dead quiet in the house.
The cake was in a transparent box. It looked extremely pretty from afar, but a closer look would reveal flaws. Sheng Wang got the shop to use the best sugar they could find, so that the cake could be kept for many years. However, maybe it bumped into something along the way or something else happened, but there were a few cracks in certain areas.

Sheng Wang was a little frantic, the delivery man kept apologising. It was Jiang Tian who took over the cake in the end, saying, “I’m bringing it upstairs.”
This was the 18th year of his life, given to him by the person he liked. Everyone he cared about was around him, everything was perfect, he had to treasure it. Even though reality was the complete opposite.

In lieu of how Jiang Ou’s fever was on and off and was in an unstable state each day, Sheng Mingyang had no choice but to indefinitely postpone the banquet that was already arranged, and even had to give an explanation to everyone invited.
Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian helped him take on a significant portion of trifle tasks, that was the reason why he wasn’t up to his neck in stress.

This was what Sheng Mingyang said to other people on the phone: “Thank god I have two easy sons.”
He was actually quite nice towards Jiang Tian, but he kept the distance he ought to keep anyway. It was because he knew that Jiang Tian just wasn’t anyone that would easily open up to people. In the past, he had never used “my son” to describe Jiang Tian, but he constantly brought these words up for the past two days.

These words, to Jiang Tian and Sheng Wang’s ears, became a form of emphasis. A reminder. Just as what Jiang Tian said before, Ji Huanyu’s words were like a blunt knife, carving out a mark in their hearts. Not to the point that it would bleed, but enough for it to vaguely throb in pain.
To the extent that no matter if it was Sheng Mingyang or Jiang Ou, they would constantly subconsciously observe Jiang Tian, watching out for his every move.

Under that kind of supervision, the situation of someone abruptly tearing his hand away had happened a lot of times. So frequent, that even they themselves were a little numb.

Hence, the last day of winter break, Sheng Wang went downstairs for a meal with a phone in his hands, and sat at the most left corner of the sofa as he waited. A moment later, Jiang Tian also came downstairs, and sat at the most right out of habit. The line of light in the middle that leaked out from the bedroom was already gone, but the distance between them was like the mountains and seas.

Sheng Wang stared at that empty area, and a strange thought occurred in his mind.
If there wasn’t that rented apartment waiting for them in the distance, if the environment he and Jiang Tian were in all day long was like that, if sitting at two ends, clearly drawing up boundaries between them reflexively was already a part and parcel of their daily lives, then could they still be considered lovers?

It was as though a circle of people with unclear features stood around them; when he spoke, they’d stab Jiang Tian. When Jiang Tian spoke, they’d stab him.
If this carried on long enough, will they one day be unable to clearly differentiate who was the one behind their pain?

TO BE CONTINUED.