A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 036 – Childhood

As Though He Wasn’t Close To Anyone, As Though He Wasn’t Wanted No Matter Where He Went.

Boys at this age usually find themselves in an awkward situation whenever they wake up in the morning.
Sheng Wang subconsciously curled into a ball with the blanket. He blearily stared into blank space for a few seconds before he suddenly realised that something was wrong—he easily hogged the blanket, it did not feel like there was anyone tugging it on the other end.

Where’s Jiang Tian???
He was nonplussed, and rolled over to sit up straight. The cooling blanket cocooned him, the room was empty. He did not see the other person. He ran his hand through his hair that was slightly messy and curling up from sleep. Just as he was about to shed the blanket, someone opened the door to the room.

When Jiang Tian entered the room, he was slightly taken aback. He glanced at the wall clock before saying: “Up so early?”
It was barely six. The sky already brightened up, but the sunlight remained pale, vaguely hinting at the start of autumn.

The hair in front of his forehead was slightly damp, his eyes were clear. When he bent over to grab the school jacket at the foot of the bed, he had the cooling scent of mint. It was obvious that he just washed up.

Sheng Wang grunted, his voice was slightly hoarse, with the type of nasalness that came from having just awakened.
The hand about to lift the blanket from him stopped, and he silently covered himself with the blanket again.

Jiang Tian caught his movement, he seemed to slightly raise an eyebrow, but didn’t react any further. He went straight to the windowsill to pack his bag. Sheng Wang grabbed his hair again, and small-talked: “You really slept? Why didn’t I feel anything when you woke up.”
“I did.” Jiang Tian tossed the language book into his bag. He said without even looking up: “You can black out even without drinking?”

Sheng Wang argued: “Extreme drowsiness has the same effect as being slightly tipsy.”
“I learn new things every day.” Jiang Tian mused before he turned around to award him with a glance. “You call that tipsy?”
He even put special emphasis on the word “tipsy”.

“……” Sheng Wang brazenly brought his knee to his chest, the blanket settling around his waist. His elbows were on his kneecaps as he rubbed his face until it nearly went out of shape. “A little more than slightly tipsy then.”

Last night, someone resorted to unscrupulous means in order to sleep, the moment he touched the bed he collapsed, refusing to move another step. The way that he sprawled on the blanket was as if he was glued to it, nobody could tear him off even if they tried.
If he was being spoken to, he would cover his head with a blanket. Any more, he would add a pillow. Anyone could leave, as long as it wasn’t him.
He only knew what shame was when he woke up in the morning.

“How about you get amnesia.” Sheng Wang suggested.
“Impossible.” Jiang Tian was blunt with his reply.

Sheng Wang was sullen. His eyes, however, caught sight of the bedsheets and the pillow on the other side of the bed. There wasn’t a single crease on top, it really didn’t look like someone just slept on it.
“Where did you sleep last night?” He asked in bemusement.
Jiang Tian zipped up his bag and wore the school jacket before he replied in exasperation. “Where else.”

True.
Sheng Wang felt that his question was kinda dumb, they were both boys, there was no need to sleep on the floor. Besides, if there was really such a big fuss over it, there was no way he would have zero memory of it.
He said an “Oh”, and his head lazily drooped again.

Jiang Tian gathered the copybook, notebook and pen Sheng Wang used yesterday and placed them all at the corner of the table before straightening up. “Change and go eat breakfast?”
Sheng Wang moved his leg, saying, “Give me a moment.”

Jiang Tian glanced at him before looking away again. He didn’t say anything.
Sheng Wang then realised what happened, and wanted to seal his mouth shut.

In that instant, the room was dead quiet. It was as if the switch of the mixture of birds chirping and cars driving unique to early morning had been turned on, it flooded the room from outside the window.
The air condition automatically reactivated after resting for a long time, the temperature in the room wasn’t lowered yet. It was a little stifling.
The curtain swayed in front of the vent, it flew up and went down again.

“I left my phone at the sink.” Jiang Tian suddenly said that, and went out of the room with his slippers.
The bathroom door opposite opened and closed again. Sheng Wang finally stopped rubbing his face, lifted the blanket and hastily retreated back to his own bedroom.

Why is this even happening.
He scratched his head and went to brush his teeth in his ensuite bathroom. He was vexed as the electric toothbrush vibrated, and yet he felt that it was kinda funny.

They were 16, who hasn’t done anything stupid and said some stupid things before?
When he stayed in the forms back then, those idiots dared to do anything. The dorm leader, in order to get Crab that scoundrel to wake up for morning runs, would often stick his hand under the blanket, squeeze, and run away in Crab’s wails and howls, a bag in his hand. There was even one dormmate who would sit on his bed, and say, extremely composed, “You guys go ahead first, I catch up after I lower my flag.”

Therefore, no need to panic, everything is perfectly normal.
Young master told himself.

After he washed up and changed the short sleeved t-shirt he slept in into a clean one, he took his phone. He thought about it, and changed his personal info in WeChat again—the profile picture became a Hot Kid that was sprawled out, his personal nickname became “Sticker”, symbolising the him who tyrannically took over the bed last night, meaning that he was mocking himself.

As a result, the moment he stepped into the classroom in the morning he received Gao Tianyang’s questions. “Sheng-ge, you sure change your profile picture at a high rate recently.”
Sheng Wang put down his bag, and replied without even thinking: “What ulterior motive do you have by paying so much attention to me?”
Gao Tianyang justified, “I wasn’t the one who discovered it, this morning Little Chi—”

Before he could finish his words, his chair received a kick from Little Chilli beside him.
“Fine fine, ok.” Gao Tianyang raised both his hands to surrender. “I have an ulterior motive, I’m the one who’s keeping an eye on his WeChat, ok?’
Little Chilli already buried her head in her book, ignoring him.

Gao Tianyang was still running his mouth. “Sheng-ge is not only rich, he’s also so awesome, where else can you find someone as good as him? Ay, shit, the more I say the more this makes sense. Sheng-ge, how about you turn gay for a bit, and let me experience the feeling of puppy-love?”
Sheng Wang pretended to not see Little Chilli, whose ears were reddening, and calmly said to Gao Tianyang, “Get lost.”

The first two periods this morning was the homeroom teacher, He Jin’s physics. However, she did not rush to start her class, she took half a period to announce some things.

“There will be another election for the Tri-Quality, roughly the same as last time, anonymous votes. I’ll pass down the voting slips later, you guys promptly fill it up, and we can promptly tally it up. Don’t need to vote for the student picked last time round, ok?” He Jin’s tone was normal, at first listen one would think that there was going to be another nomination slot for Class A, and thus needing another democratic election or something.

Sheng Wang made eye contact with Jiang Tian, and went back to his usual expression as he received the voting slip.
He completely understood He Jin’s actions. Year two just began, even though Qi Jiahao did a bloody foolish thing, as homeroom teacher she still had to consider the general situation. She wasn’t going to point at him and say, “You have to alienate him, and turn him into an outcast.”

This type of student would forever be the kind that would give homeroom teachers the biggest headaches.

The students weren’t all idiots either, after some whispers here and there, they started filling up the slip.
Just as they were writing down names, He Jin suddenly dropped a 20 ton bombshell on them.

“Another thing, I will be holding a mini meeting for the other conditions for Tri-Quality, such as class comm eventually. The two other conditions are based on results and improvement, as everyone knows. It is also common knowledge that our class’ Jiang Tian has been taking up the spot of #1 in the year for ages, and you can see how quickly Sheng Wang improved too. Logically speaking, the two nominations should have gone to them. But—”

She paused, her gaze sweeping over Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian, “These two students are firstly more confident, and secondly, they wanted to give more classmates opportunities. As such, they willingly renounced their nominations.”

The classroom was dead quiet for an instant, and next it was followed by an uproar.
40+ pairs of eyes all shot towards them. For that moment, Sheng Wang really felt that he and Jiang Tian became living Samaritans.

He Jin continued, “With that, the nomination will go down to the next in line. Li Jia’s total score for the past two exams has earned her a second place in the level, her votes last time were quite high too. Anyone disagree with giving one of the nominations to her?”

Little Chilli looked up, utterly dazed.
She never ever thought that the nomination she so narrowly missed would end up back with her again. She made a long noise of questioning: “Huh?”

Gao Tianyang whistled, and led by slapping his desk, the other students started joining in, dragging their voices as they said, “No problem—”
There were a few voices saying “Damn, I just wrote her name!” in the tidy chorus.
And then the whole class was sent into a fit of laughter again.

“Why didn’t you say so earlier, teacher!” Song Sirui striked out the name on his slip.
“I am saying it right now!” He Jin said.

She was stern for quite a while, and finally smiled again at this time. She went back and said in all seriousness, “And also, Gao Tianyang has improved by 64 marks in total across these two exams, his level placement went up to 78th place this time, he’s the one with the second highest improvement in our class. Let’s give the other Tri-Quality nomination to him, alright?”

She especially liked to add an “alright” at the end of her sentences, her tone gentle and open for negotiation. Still, nobody dared to say “No, it isn’t alright.” Furthermore, Gao Tianyang was the one who got along with everyone the most in general in class. Naturally, no one objected.

Sheng Wang watched the person sitting in front of him heckling Little Chilli, losing himself more and more in the whistling. In the end, he choked half way through and nearly died.
He was stunned for several moments. He turned around to say to Sheng Wang, “Fuck?”

“Don’t fuck anymore,” Sheng Wang said, “clap.”
The other people gave a thunderous round of applause, the ones heckling started howling. Song Sirui even threw a pen cap behind that smacked Gao Tianyang back into reality.

His hand behind his head, his face red from heckling, he cupped his fist at Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian, saying with much gusto, “Thank you! Thank you for your graciousness!”
He Jin rolled her eyes on the spot, the entire class doubled over in laughter again.

Thanks to Jiang Tian and Gao Tianyang, Sheng Wang had never felt any particularly obvious discrimination and bullying as a newbie. It was only until this physics lesson then he realised that this group of people had long since treated him as one of them.
Wasn’t there a saying that goes like this, that when you and someone are no longer overly courteous, able to share both troubles and honour with them, you are friends.

In the end, there were four people who were nominated for Tri-Quality. Li Jia, Gao Tianyang, Li Yu out of the class committee, as well as Xu Tian Shu who was democratically elected (that was Small Mouth Xu’s proper name).
Dean Xu was barely holding in his joy as he placed the names of the Tri-Quality students up to the Wall of Honour. The moment the name list was announced, some people discovered that there was something off: Qi Jiahao’s name wasn’t there.

As such, rumours began to spread in the level; about Zhai Tao, about Qi Jiahao.
However, Sheng Wang didn’t care about these. He had never bothered wasting his energy on people he disliked. He wasn’t gracious either, as long as he knew the other person wasn’t living too comfortably, his mind was already at ease.

This noon, he went with Jiang Tian to Old Man Ding’s to freeload as usual. The old man’s mood was a little unusual, however, when he ate he kept zoning out, he seemed to be unhappy about something too.
It wasn’t the childish kind of peeved that old people tend to get into, it was the kind where he was clearly unhappy but still tried to act as if he was perfectly fine.

Sheng Wang was usually pretty heartless, but he was actually quite sensitive towards mood changes like this. He probed two times at the dining table, and both attempts were thwarted by Old Man Ding. Only when Jiang Tian was the first to finish his food and went to wash the dishes did Old Man Ding wave Sheng Wang over, his nose wrinkled.

“What happened?” Sheng Wang leaned over, softly asking.
“Nothing much,” Old Man Ding pointed his chin at the direction of the kitchen, and aspirated, “Don’t let him hear, it’s irksome.”

This has to do with Jiang Tian?
There was a little worry mixed with Sheng Wang’s puzzlement.

During the noon break, math teacher Old Wu came as usual to give out the half an hour timed practice. Jiang Tian ended up not managing to do it. He was only five minutes into writing when the teacher from administration came looking for him, after negotiating with Old Wu at the door, Jiang Tian was called away, something about the upgrading of the school’s internet.
Sheng Wang had never been this quicker in completing the practice. He handed it up in 20 minutes, and snuck out of the school’s west gate with the excuse of going to the washroom.

Ease and relaxation emanated out of Beyond Parasol Trees in high noon, the elderly gathered beneath the trees, drinking tea and chatting, or setted up a table and chairs, playing Chinese chess. Other than those spots, everywhere else was doused in the drowsy summer heat, the kind that signalled autumn is coming.
In this environment, any sort of accident would be extra noticeable.

Sheng Wang rushed to go to Old Man Ding’s house, his pace speedy. When he went around the corner, he nearly bumped into someone.
That was a tall man, due to his handsome looks as well as his immaculately dressed outer appearance, his age was a little indiscernible. Sheng Wang instinctively felt that he was roughly the same age as Sheng Mingyang, possibly because they had the same vibe, or perhaps it was the fatigue in his brows.

That person apologised to him, and walked away, lost in his own thoughts. He barely walked a few steps when he even shook his head, mumbling something to himself under his breath.
Sheng Wang pondered, and figured that he was saying something like “stubborn old man”.

He couldn’t help but turn around in curiosity, but that man already reached the other end of the alley. He disappeared around the corner.

Stubborn old man? Who was he talking about?
Sheng Wang muttered, puzzled, and continued to go straight ahead. When he saw the doorway to Old Man Ding’s courtyard, he suddenly realised that that man appeared to have come out from here earlier.

He stepped into the courtyard with questions on his mind, and just as expected, the old man was busy keeping to himself by the bedroom door.
That bamboo chair was ancient, any tiny movement and it would start creaking. Old Man Ding was wearing presbyopic glasses, and holding a vintage looking photo album, seemingly mumbling something under his breath too.

“Grandpa?” Sheng Wang tiptoed over.
Old Man Ding was startled. “Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be taking your nap in school?”
“I didn’t sleep, I handed in the paper early and came out first.” Sheng Wang said, “What are You looking at?”

His eyes lowered and gave a quick sweep. The page the old man was looking at had four photographs, one of which was a group photo. A few adults with 7-8 kids. The photo was exposed to moisture, the surface was blurred. It was hard to tell the faces. The three remaining pictures featured the same little boy.

“Old photos, these are from bygone times. You all don’t develop photographs anymore these days.” Old Man Ding grumbled.
Sheng Wang pointed at the three pictures. “Who’s that? Looks kinda familiar.”

“They are two people.” Old Man Ding said, a little annoyed.
“Ah?” Sheng Wang saw that he didn’t mind, so he bent over to take a closer look. He discovered that there was indeed a difference between the two boys, the boy in two of the pictures had lips that naturally turned up at the corners, looking a little like he was grinning all the time. The other picture featured a boy with his lips pursed into a straight line, and the photo did not belong to the same era either.

He stared for a while, and really did see a few traces of Jiang Tian in that straight line. He asked with much doubt in his voice, “Is this Jiang Tian?”
“Mn!” Old Man Ding grinned and nodded.

The boy in the photo was roughly five to six years old, he hadn’t grown into himself yet, but his features were already remarkably exquisite, especially his eyes. He was looking up while standing next to the door, his eyes on the cat lying down on the short courtyard wall.
Sheng Wang took a few more looks before he identified from the pattern that it was the cat in Jiang Tian’s profile picture, just that it was much tinier.

“He was still so small back then.” Old Man Ding said.

If this is Jiang Tian, then the other two with the boy that shared a resemblance with him……
Sheng Wang guessed: “Is that Jiang Tian’s dad?”

The smile on Old Man Ding’s face immediately vanished, his cheeks instantly sagged, his old age even more obvious. His eyes were lowered as he looked at the photo, and sighed, “Mn, his father, Ji Huanyu.”
Sheng Wang was a little sheepish, from his tone alone he could tell Old Man Ding didn’t like Jiang Tian’s dad.

The old man jabbed at the photo: “This Ji Huanyu, he’s a terrible person, Xiao-Tian was so pitiful as a kid.”
Sheng Wang’s heart skipped for some reason, he asked, “He didn’t live well when he was small?”

“Not well at all, he was no different from being homeless.” Old Man Ding said, “When he was a kid, Xiao-Ji…….Ji Huanyu and Xiao-Jiang were both busy, so busy that he barely even got to see them. So they just left him here to stay with his grandmother. As you know, when people are old, the body acts up in funny ways.”

He tapped his temple. “His grandma’s head wasn’t particularly right here, she had some dementia. Sometimes it was fine, sometimes it wasn’t. She would even forget to cook for the whole day. Xiao-Tian was so small back then, he didn’t particularly know how to cook either. Me? I couldn’t bear to see it anymore, I would try to coax him over every day, give him some food, and he can eat it together with his grandma.”

“Later on, his grandma’s dementia completely took over, she didn’t recognise him. She kept mistaking him for some other people’s kid, she would lock the door from the inside and refuse to let him in. She’s old after all, it’s hard to blame her. So Xiao-Tian just came here.”
“He didn’t have a thick skin, he was too awkward to say that he couldn’t go home. But I could tell, I knew all along.” Old Man Ding said, “I would just say that I need his help here every time, ask him to come over, and get him to sleep here.”

“Not even two years later, he was gone. He was sent to stay with his father.” Old Man Ding added, “His parents didn’t work together, they were separated in two different cities, they travelled back and forth. Whoever had more time on their hands, whoever took care of Jiang Tian. He didn’t stay for long anywhere he went.”
“I watched him bring his belongings to this house and that house over and over again, as though he wasn’t close to anyone, as though he wasn’t wanted no matter where he went.”

TO BE CONTINUED.