Finally, Quiet

'Boss He, there's a first-aid kit in the cave on the island — second shelf has a few boxes of condoms. If you need any, just look in the box. And when you've used them, don't forget to send me a red envelope…'

He had just finished composing the message and hit send when a voice came from behind him.

'Young man.'

The black-market Upperclassman's guilty conscience nearly sent him pitching sideways into the water.

The other man was quick — he steadied the boat in one smooth motion and laughed. 'Did I startle you, young man?'

'Ah — no, n-no.'

The Upperclassman looked up. Standing before him was a stubble-faced man, somewhere in his thirties or forties, wearing a tank top and flip-flops, looking thoroughly disheveled — the sort of person you couldn't easily place — but his eyes were sharp and bright.

Flip-flops asked with a grin, 'You using this boat?'

'Oh, the boat.' The Upperclassman improvised without missing a beat. 'Boat's broken.'

'…Broken?'

'Yeah, there's a hole in the hull. Can't take it out, can only leave it in the shallows.'

Flip-flops said, 'What a coincidence. The rope bridge to that island of yours seems to be broken too.'

'Yep.' The Upperclassman was utterly unabashed. 'I ch— ahem, probably got cut by someone. Who are you, anyway?'

Flip-flops grinned, showing his teeth. 'Electrical maintenance worker for the school. Got a notice to go check out the island. See — brought my whole toolbox.'

Hearing it was a school worker, the Upperclassman felt his nerve slip a little. He cleared his throat a couple of times, glanced left and right, then leaned in. 'Look, big bro, I'll be straight with you — there's a loaded student on the island today, rented the whole place out for a confession. You think about it: are we really the kind of men who'd wreck someone's love life and get kicked by a donkey for our trouble? Didn't think so.'

Flip-flops had an enlightened look come over him, eyes lighting up, equally nosy. 'Oh, renting out the island for a confession? How romantic — you young people really know how to have fun.'

'Tell me about it.' The Upperclassman slapped his thigh and rubbed his fingertips together in the universal sign for cash. 'Mainly though — money.'

Flip-flops just smiled, and proved surprisingly understanding about the whole thing.

'All right, fair enough. So when's this boat of yours going to be working again?'

'Probably the middle of the night at the earliest. Mostly I'm worried about these two lovebirds — they confess, one of them loses control, first taste of the forbidden fruit, can't stop once they start — running late is definitely on the table.' The Upperclassman, sensing the older man was easy to talk to, happily indulged in a little gossip of his own.

Men gathered together on this sort of topic — you couldn't help but get a certain gleam in your eye.

The Upperclassman said with a shameless smirk, 'How about you come back tomorrow morning, uncle? They'll definitely be gone by then. One of them's a top student — there's absolutely no way he'd skip class.'

Flip-flops burst out laughing. 'Ha, not even a pretty face can slow a top student down once class is in session.'

'Exactly — that's what makes him a top student.'

The older man bantered with the Upperclassman for another minute or two, then picked up his toolbox and left.

When he was out of earshot, he stopped, lit a cigarette, and fished a phone out of the toolbox — one of those old brick handsets, extinct in the market for years. 'Hello. Captain Zheng, give me a few more hours — can't get onto the island tonight. …Problem? No problem, just two students out there renting it out for a confession. Yeah. Yeah, got it. I'll head up first thing tomorrow morning.'

He flicked the ash off his cigarette and let out a resigned sigh. 'You know our informant is just a little too careful — won't even send messages, every single time they've got intelligence for us they absolutely have to write it in some student guestbook. And then the explanation is that it's the least conspicuous method… Forget it. I'm heading back to the bureau. I came all this way to pick up a piece of intel and instead a bunch of kids fed me a mouthful of secondhand romance. Is this any way to live as a cop…'

Flip-flops grumbled his way off into the dark.

.

Inside the Neverland Cave.

The cave wasn't large, and it was dark inside. If not for the sudden downpour, Xie Qingcheng doubted anyone would normally want to visit — but when he ducked inside, he found he'd been wrong.

By the dim glow of a phone screen, he could make out several pieces of common outdoor gear stowed in the rocky hollow: a lantern, a tarpaulin, a folding camp stool, a tactical flashlight, and even a compact camp cookset.

'Secret Utopia.'

'What?' Xie Qingcheng turned around.

He Yu trained his phone's flashlight on the cave wall. 'It's written right here.'

Only then did Xie Qingcheng notice that the damp surface of the artificial rock was covered in the collected handiwork of every bold spirit throughout history — which was to say, graffiti left by students who had stumbled into this hidden place.

And the largest inscription of all read: Secret Utopia.

Xie Qingcheng had no interest in the graffiti. He gave it two seconds of his attention and went to sit at the mouth of the cave to watch the rain.

He Yu, though, was studying film — and text put in front of him was text he generally wanted to read.

'O Great Buddha, who once saved all sentient beings and crossed over to the other shore — why hast thou not ferried me from this sea of textbooks?'

'Mr. Zhou is the love of my life, yet when we met he was already someone's husband. I cannot have him. I think of him until I lose my mind; losing my mind, I have no words; with no words, I can only keep vigil.'

He Yu held the lantern up to the wall, reading aloud as he went, and shook his head. 'So literary. All these hopeless yearnings.'

He turned to the other wall.

That side was livelier — all kinds of things. He read on: 'Advanced Mathematics should get the hell out of the university curriculum.'

'Almost graduating. I hope I make it as a great director someday. Keep going.'

'Sheltered from the rain in this place, we…'

He Yu's voice went quiet. He didn't finish the line.

Xie Qingcheng was curious despite himself. 'We what?'

'…Nothing.'

Xie Qingcheng didn't believe him. He turned and looked — and immediately had nothing left to say.

'Sheltered from the rain in this place, we fell in love. Grateful for this heaven-given bond.'

Below it, the two lovebirds had left their names, enclosed together inside one enormous heart.

Given the circumstances, the awkwardness was unavoidable — no wonder He Yu hadn't read it aloud. Xie Qingcheng said flatly, 'A few years apart and you've developed dyslexia, have you — you have to read everything out loud now.'

'Don't you find it interesting? These people — who knows where they are now. They've probably long forgotten they ever carved something like this here.' He Yu reached up and ran his hand over a patch of faded characters. 'Some of them might already be dust and ashes by now, and yet these words are still here.'

Xie Qingcheng said coolly, 'So are you going to leave your own masterpiece for future generations to admire?'

He had meant it as a jab, but He Yu actually bent down and picked out a thin chip of stone, found a blank spot on the wall, and said, considering: 'Fair point. What should I write, do you think?'

As he said it, He Yu glanced over at Xie Qingcheng — a flicker of undisguised disdain in his eyes. Right… sheltered from the rain, fell in love, grateful for this heaven-given bond — how many timeworn, achingly romantic stories began exactly like this: the White Snake smiling at Xu Hanlin from the small boat in the rain, offering a borrowed umbrella; Bernini laying down an entire red carpet in the downpour so Nicoletta could descend the long steps in it.

If the person here with him were Xie Xue, the night might have been rather pleasant — perhaps they could even follow their predecessors' example and carve beneath those rain-blessed upperclassmen's characters: us too.

A pity that the one stranded on the island was Xie Qingcheng.

Two straight men trapped together was dull enough on its own, and on top of that, they weren't exactly on good terms.

Xie Qingcheng caught the look and returned something worse. 'What are you staring at?'

'Sorry — there's no one else to look at.' He Yu tossed the stone chip a couple of times and scratched a few casual characters on the wall: Dreams come true.

A fine dust of rock powder sifted down.

He Yu finished, tossed the stone aside, and turned around. 'Doctor — care to be childish just this once?'

A brief light moved through Xie Qingcheng's eyes, then his gaze drifted back out to the driving rain. In the soft, fog-diffused warmth of the lamp, his profile was as thin and fragile as a sheet of mulberry paper in a gust of wind.

'No need. Mine are daydreams.'

'Oh.' He Yu was easy about it. 'Tell me then — what kind of daydreams? Can I ask? Am I out of line?'

Outside, the wind drove hard and the rain came harder. Xie Qingcheng said nothing for a long time. Just when He Yu had concluded he couldn't be bothered to answer, Xie Qingcheng looked out at the rainwater channeling together in streams at the cave mouth and said, quite calmly: 'I didn't used to want to be a doctor.'

'You aren't a doctor anymore.'

'What I mean is — from the very beginning, I never intended to study medicine.'

That caught He Yu off guard. His eyes — those slightly wide, almond-shaped eyes — lifted. 'Then what did you want to study?'

Xie Qingcheng stood and moved back into the cave, fixing his gaze on the four characters He Yu had carved into the wall — Dreams come true — and said: '…It was too long ago. I can't remember.'

The lie was utterly without conviction — offhand, barely bothered — and he hadn't even cleared the wistfulness from his eyes, leaving He Yu half-convinced he was being casually insulted to his face.

Xie Qingcheng turned away, visibly done with the subject. Back inside the cave, he asked He Yu: 'Anything to eat?'

It was, in fact, around dinnertime. The only food He Yu had brought to the island was a slice of Mango Mousse — something he had originally made for Xie Xue.

But now it seemed it would have to serve as rations for the two of them.

He Yu had no particular interest in Xie Qingcheng; since Xie Qingcheng had no intention of discussing his earlier life plans, He Yu had no intention of pressing.

He took out the cake and passed a piece to Xie Qingcheng. Xie Qingcheng, apparently quite hungry, didn't even look at it — just took it and ate quickly.

'Do you have any tissues?' Xie Qingcheng was fastidious by nature; when he finished, he turned to He Yu's assistant role and asked for something to wipe his hands with.

He Yu's assistant glanced around and spotted a first-aid kit on the canvas camp stool — those kits sometimes had tissues or something similar — so he went over and had a look.

The light was too dim. He found something that seemed roughly the right size and tossed it to Xie Qingcheng.

Xie Qingcheng caught it and was about to open it when he noticed the packaging felt wrong — why was it a cardboard box?

He looked more carefully.

Xie Qingcheng: '…………'

'What's wrong?'

Xie Qingcheng wordlessly hurled the Durex back at He Yu.

'Are you blind?'

He Yu looked at it. A few seconds of silence. Then he quietly put the box back in the first-aid kit.

Absolutely something else.

The ribbed, delayed-pleasure kind, no less.

Not that either of them was easily rattled about that sort of thing — He Yu had a generally high tolerance for life's surprises, and this was just a mix-up, nothing worth making a scene over.

As for Xie Qingcheng: he was steady by temperament and not prone to large emotional swings, and besides, he was a divorced man — not especially interested in such things, but hardly going to be scandalized by the sight of an adult product.

Xie Qingcheng just frowned. 'What is wrong with students these days.'

'Could be worse,' He Yu said evenly. 'You haven't seen the half of it.'

As he said it, he noticed a small notebook sitting beside the first-aid kit.

Utopia Guestbook.

Books like this were essentially confessional tree-hollows — visitors would add entries continuing from whoever had written before, even knowing the earlier writers would never see it; but those who came later could read the whole chain, and it made for absorbing reading.

Of course, most of these books eventually devolved into a record of romantic encounters and personal ads, so the content was probably pretty vivid.

A thought crossed He Yu's mind. He picked up the notebook and turned to Xie Qingcheng. 'Doctor, care to broaden your horizons? There should be plenty in here — might help you understand young people a little better.'

…

With nothing else to do, they settled in and read it together.

Sure enough, the notebook was filled cover to cover in a dozen different hands, mostly love declarations, personal ads, and secret confessions.

Leafing through it, He Yu suddenly made a sound — 'Hm?'

'Xie Qingcheng — someone in here mentions you.'