363: Chapter 363 It Doesn't Hurt, It's Just Because It's Numb—Bonus Chapter of "Yu Xi Is Not Open for Business Today"

These words crashed into the air of the balcony without an echo.

The wind seemed to have stopped at this very moment.

Lin Que froze in place, his feet seemingly rooted to the tiles.

He opened his mouth, his throat tight, unable to make a sound for a long while.

He had written too many lines about parting and thought he was long immune to such emotions.

But the moment the words "two pairs of chopsticks" fell from his father's mouth,

all that experience turned into scrap paper.

Silence persisted between the two men for a long time.

Long enough for a late-shift bus to drive smoothly along the road downstairs,

its red taillights piercing through the shadows of the trees and tracing a fleeting halo across the glass railing of the balcony.

Lin Jianguo didn't say anything more, nor did he turn to look at Lin Que's face.

He maintained his posture, leaning against the railing with both hands, his back slightly hunched, his shoulders rising and falling with each breath.

After a good while, Lin Jianguo straightened his back, turned, and faced Lin Que directly.

He didn't reach out to pat his son's shoulder, nor did he offer any kind of elder's embrace.

He simply reached into the pocket of his gray trousers.

Those hands, covered in callouses with rust-colored stains embedded in the crevices that could never be washed clean, solemnly pulled out an envelope and handed it over.

It was a most ordinary kraft paper envelope with a crease at the corner from repeated rubbing,

its surface tinged with a slight yellow from being soaked in sweat.

It was clear at a glance that it had been kept in the owner's inner pocket and stroked countless times by his palm.

Lin Que reached out with both hands to take it, his thumb and index finger naturally giving it a squeeze.

There was cash inside.

The thickness wasn't exaggerated, but the sensation against his fingertips was extremely flat.

Every banknote had been stacked perfectly, without a single wrinkle.

This flatness wasn't the work of a bank counter machine; it was smoothed out one by one by a pair of rough hands.

Lin Que's throat bobbed.

He knew the weight of this money wasn't in the numbers. Just as he was about to speak,

Lin Jianguo spoke first, cutting him off.

"Don't say you don't want it."

Lin Jianguo's voice suddenly hardened,

carrying a forceful strength developed from shouting over the roar of machinery in factory workshops in his early years.

He stared intently into Lin Que's eyes.

A very thin layer of moisture surfaced at the edges of those bloodshot eyes.

Lin Jianguo blinked hard, forcibly suppressing that moisture.

"How much you have in your account is yours, but this is from your Dad."

"Be frugal at home but generous on the road. Keep this money on you; it'll give you peace of mind."

Lin Que looked at his father's face, etched with the furrows of time and toil,

his gaze fixed on those slightly reddened eyes.

He suddenly remembered the day he left home in his previous life.

He had dragged his suitcase into the ticket gate without looking back, the platform behind him empty—

it was he who hadn't let Lin Jianguo come to see him off.

At the time, he felt that at eighteen, men didn't need those mushy goodbyes.

Later, as he struggled in the screenwriting industry, he wrote hundreds of father-son scenes.

Crying, shouting, weeping in each other's arms—he had composed every kind of sentimental trope.

But he had never written about a father smoothing out several thousand yuan note by note with his palm,

carrying it in his inner pocket until the envelope was yellowed with sweat.

Because he thought that kind of pain would naturally stop hurting once he grew up.

He was wrong.

It didn't stop hurting; it was just numb.

He didn't decline again.

Lin Que folded the kraft paper envelope and tucked it properly into the inner pocket of his jacket.

Then, he raised his hand and gave the outside of the pocket a heavy pat with his palm.

There was a soft "thwack."

He patted it firmly, deliberately slowing down his movements,

letting Lin Jianguo see clearly that he had put the money away, keeping it closest to his heart.

"Dad."

Lin Que finally spoke.

His voice was very low, softer than at any other time, so soft it would be scattered if the wind grew slightly stronger.

"I'm just going to school. The capital is only a few hours from Jiangcheng by high-speed rail.

Winter break, summer break, National Day—every day that I can come back, I will."

He looked into Lin Jianguo's eyes, using no flowery rhetoric,

simply giving his promise word by word in the most plain tone.

"In this home, there won't just be two pairs of chopsticks. In the future, there will be three pairs, maybe even more."

The corner of Lin Jianguo's mouth twitched uncontrollably.

He quickly looked away, turning his face completely toward the night sky.

The light from the streetlamps below cast upward, cutting a distinct line of light and shadow across his profile.

There weren't many stars in Jiangcheng's night sky, but the lights of ten thousand homes below were blindingly bright.

Lin Jianguo stared at those lights, his rough palms gripping the railing tightly.

A very low grunt escaped his nose, as if something heavy were pressing against his chest.

Relying on this brute force, he suppressed the emotions that were about to burst forth back into his gut.

The wind on the balcony picked up again, carrying the chill of an early autumn night.

After a good while, Lin Jianguo finally turned his head back.

His eyes were still red, but his voice had recovered its coarse stability.

"Little Que."

The tone this time was completely different from before; it was no longer an outpouring of heartfelt emotion,

but a father's clumsiest yet most practical advice to his son before his departure.

"Dad isn't very educated, I don't have much ink in my belly, so I can't say the pretty words you say on stage."

He paused, his rough fingers tapping twice on the railing, making a "thud-thud" sound.

"Just one thing."

"When you get there, call your mom more often."

Lin Que nodded vigorously.

The range of his nod wasn't large, but the muscles in his neck were extremely tight.

The father and son stood side by side on the balcony, neither speaking again.

The streetlights below lit up row after row, illuminating the road they had walked for over a decade until it was white.

Occasionally, a large truck rumbled across the overpass,

the dull sound traveling from afar before being swallowed by the night.

Lin Que didn't move.

He stood in place, his gaze extending far out along the direction of the railing,

before slowly pulling it back, passing through the floor-to-ceiling glass doors of the balcony, and into the brightly lit living room.

In the center of the living room, that huge suitcase was still open.

More than half of the circle of sorted transparent plastic bags on the coffee table were gone.

Wang Xiulian had squatted back into her original position at some point.

She stubbornly stuffed every item into the gaps of the suitcase.

Her movements were very light, her head slightly lowered, most of her face hidden by her hanging hair.

She only stopped after finally stuffing that pair of cotton socks into the side.

The back of her hand quickly brushed across her cheek, and then, as if nothing had happened, she continued to pick up the next bag.

Separated by a layer of glass, Lin Que couldn't hear the sounds inside.

He also couldn't tell if his mother was exerting herself from bending over,

or if she was secretly wiping away tears.

...