Chapter 21: Unfillable

Wan Kun came back to find Wu Yueming's room already loud.

He pushed the door open. Three boys, a game running on the old desktop in the corner — greasy screen, decent enough performance still — and Wu Yueming at the keyboard doing something with considerably more enthusiasm than the game required. Wan Kun had no particular interest in games, but Wu Yueming always had. About a year back, when Wan Kun was working at an internet cafe and Wu Yueming had been coming in to use the wifi without paying, he'd eventually gotten tired of the arguing and just put a machine together for him from spare cafe parts and a few new components. Wu Yueming had then started dating the girl next door and gotten free wifi that way too.

They were playing King of Fighters. No controller, just keyboard, which shouldn't have worked at all but Wu Yueming didn't seem to notice. The room was maybe seven or eight square meters and the three of them had managed to fit themselves into the front half without Wan Kun registering any of them on the way in.

He didn't say anything. He got a cigarette out and leaned against the wall.

Wu Yueming felt the draft on his back, turned, and saw Wan Kun at the door, which had come partway open.

"When did you get back?" He frowned. "You move like a ghost. Not a sound."

Wan Kun took a few steps in. "What are you playing?"

"You can see, can't you." Wu Yueming turned back around.

They played a few more rounds and eventually decided they'd had enough. Wu Yueming went to the bathroom and came back and closed the door and said, "What else can we do."

Wan Kun sat on the edge of the bed with his cigarette. Han Lin stretched out and said, "Anything's fine. I thought we had a big night ahead — I was ready to stay up — but who knew it would fall apart that fast."

Wu Yueming gave a short laugh. "It's not that you thought so, things were actually planned. Li Ying told me before that the idea was dinner, then karaoke, then pool. Plans just don't always hold." He nudged Wan Kun as he said it. Wan Kun swayed but didn't respond.

"Your Brother Kun ruined it. I don't know what got into him. Girls care how they look in front of people, and Li Ying is usually glued to him, loud and everywhere — I've never seen him come at her like that before." Wu Yueming dropped down next to Wan Kun on the bed and leaned back. He was almost as tall and his head hit the wall with a thud.

"Damn it." He sat up holding the back of his head. Tang Zheng, across the room, started laughing. Wu Yueming kicked at him. "Laugh, laugh, keep laughing."

"Seriously though, Kun-ge," Tang Zheng dodged the kick and looked at Wan Kun. "Why not just give Li Ying a little face?"

"Right," Han Lin said. "It's her birthday. Can't you at least try?" He yawned through the last part. "Who's paying for karaoke now?"

Wan Kun looked up at Han Lin slowly. "That what you're good for? Going to live off women from now on?"

Han Lin laughed without shame. "I'd need someone willing to put up with me first. If Li Ying were with me I'd make sure she had a good time every single day."

Everyone in the room knew Li Ying's situation — family with money, completely fixated on Wan Kun, following him around at school every day trying to get him to eat lunch. Several of Wan Kun's friends had ended up benefiting from this, getting pulled along to meals and karaoke and bars.

Wu Yueming made a sound of amusement. "Li Ying with you. That's something. She wouldn't be with me either, but she definitely wouldn't be with you." He shifted, put an arm around Wan Kun's shoulder. "But look — I know you don't like her."

"You figured that out," Wan Kun said.

Wu Yueming got his own cigarette out and lit it and looked at Wan Kun with an expression of performed thoughtfulness. "You like women."

Wan Kun gave him the look that meant: if you say something stupid I'm going to put you into the wall.

Wu Yueming continued, serene: "Not girls."

"Oh, I get it!" Han Lin said. "Brother Kun likes them older, right?"

Wu Yueming grinned. "Ask him yourself."

Wan Kun kicked him. "You three have fun. I'm going." He pinched out the cigarette butt between two fingers.

"No way." Wu Yueming grabbed him. "What are you going back to by yourself? Where were you before, anyway? I called you a bunch of times."

"Nowhere." The last of the smoke came out of Wan Kun's nose and mouth. "What are you all sitting here for. Go do something. We could meditate."

Wu Yueming snorted, pointed at him with the cigarette hand. "Wait here." He reached under the bed and dragged out a shoebox. "Dark night, good wind, perfect atmosphere. I've got something."

Tang Zheng went to look. "What is it?"

Wu Yueming just smiled, and the smile said something about what it was.

"Wow." Tang Zheng picked up the stack of DVDs and started going through them. "Wu Yueming. Where did all this come from."

Han Lin came over and crouched beside Tang Zheng. Wu Yueming didn't usually have money to spare, but for his collection he had always been generous — two full boxes of DVDs now, accumulated over the past year or two with real dedication.

Han Lin made a sound. "Foreign ones too."

Wu Yueming got up and closed the door and the window. "Don't get too caught up in the foreign ones. Production quality, sure, slightly better. But you can't only look at the surface. You need spirit. The domestic ones — when it comes to both form and spirit, that's where you have to look."

"Can you recommend one?"

"What kind do you want?"

"There are different kinds?"

"Yes." Wu Yueming went over, shoved Wan Kun further toward the wall, and sat beside him. "Move. Do you want something purely technical, something with a story, or something in between?"

They were all seventeen or eighteen and Han Lin and Tang Zheng were already going through the covers with the focused attention of people who hadn't eaten in a while, so they said quickly: "Just pick one. Something with a story."

"In that case." Wu Yueming dangled the cigarette from his lips, produced a DVD from the pile, and held it up with the gravity of a ceremonial announcement. "Night Visit to the Widow's Door."

Han Lin and Tang Zheng leaned forward.

Wan Kun made a quiet sound and leaned back against the wall and got out another cigarette.

The film did, in fact, have something resembling a story. A thief looking for money, finding a widow bathing instead, a door kicked open, and then a film that took seriously Wu Yueming's criterion of both form and spirit for an extended period.

Wu Yueming, having seen it before, spent the first part talking to Wan Kun in a low voice.

"See, that's the principle," he said when the thief produced the relevant item for inspection. "If this were some romance drama aimed at girls, it'd be like lifting off a mask. This is like dropping the pants. Entirely different statement."

Wan Kun's cigarette moved in the dark with his breathing, glowing and fading.

The film arrived at its main business. Even Wu Yueming, familiar with the material, got into it by degrees. The room filled with sound. The widow had smooth, heavy-looking skin, something solid and unambiguous about the way she was photographed. Han Lin and Tang Zheng had gone red in the face.

Wan Kun stood up.

Wu Yueming looked over and whispered, "Where are you going?"

"Toilet."

Wu Yueming's eyes went briefly to Wan Kun's school uniform trousers, where the situation was self-evident. He nodded. "Go on."

---

The toilet was empty. Wan Kun went in, pulled the door shut, put the lid down, sat, got his belt undone with one hand, and pulled the zipper.

He sat there with the cigarette still going, his hand moving, not thinking much. Old dark blue tiles on the floor, the grout lines almost black. The window was open — they were high up and the wind came through steadily, making a sound against the frame.

His breathing changed. A few more moments, teeth pressed together, head back, one long exhale into the too-bright light overhead.

After, he sat on the closed toilet seat without moving. Lit another cigarette. Watched the smoke move into the lamplight. There was an emptiness that had no shape to it, no bottom.

He cleaned up, washed his hands, and didn't go back inside. He went to the communal balcony.

It was wide out there, open view, a cold wind coming through. He walked to the far railing and put his hand on it. The wind moved his hair back from his forehead. He got out his phone — two unread messages.

Both from Li Ying. The first one scolding. The second trying to walk it back.

He read them without much investment, then went through his inbox several more times. Nothing else.

He put the phone back and went to the desk and turned it off.

---

He Lizhen sat in her office the next day with the homework pile in front of her and her mind somewhere else.

She had said she'd hand it in, and she actually had.

She opened the book. Yesterday's assignment: copy famous lines from classical poems. Wan Kun's started out reasonably neat and then deteriorated, each character spreading over two lines toward the end.

She thought about what he'd said the night before. The certainty in his voice, like he already knew she would text him.

"Teacher He. Teacher He?"

She looked up. Hu Fei was at the door.

"Come out here for a moment."

He Lizhen went. Hu Fei walked her down to the corridor and said, "Your phone was off last night?"

"Battery died. Did you try to reach me? Is something wrong?"

"Not me — Li Changjia wanted to talk to you."

"About the tutoring center?"

"Yes. Everything's basically set up now. Teacher Li wants to have a meal — get all the teachers who'll be working there together so everyone knows each other before it starts."

"That's good," He Lizhen said. "When?"

"This weekend. Is that all right for you?"

He Lizhen opened her mouth. "This weekend — Saturday or Sunday?"

"Either. Depends on your schedule."

"What do most of the other teachers prefer?"

"Most said Sunday. More free time that way."

He Lizhen nodded. "Sunday works then."

"Great. Location is Jinhua Hotel. I'll take you."

"Okay."

"I'll let Li Changjia know."

He Lizhen said okay and walked back.

Sunday was taken, which meant Saturday was the remaining option. She was thinking about this in a practical, administrative kind of way when she noticed she didn't feel quite right about it. A Sunday meal wouldn't last that long. So why did she feel like Sunday was somehow the worse day to lose?

She was still working out the answer when Peng Qian came at her down the corridor with the particular energy of someone with a lot to say.