He Told Me Not to Know

Yi Nanfeng is four years older than me. The day he came to my house, I was eight years old and he was twelve. My mother held his hand and asked me to call him brother. I called, but he didn't answer or look at me. He didn't like to talk at that time. He doesn't talk when he eats or walks. I peek at him doing his homework, but he doesn't talk either. I thought he hated me, but later I found out he did this to everyone. But he would leave a light on me. When I was in junior high school, I started attending evening self-study classes and got home at 9:30 every day. He went to high school a year earlier than me, and studied late at night. Logically speaking, he should have returned home later than me. But every time I opened the door, the light in the living room was on. I thought it was from my mother. Later I found out that he took time off from his first night self-study every day and came back half an hour early to turn on the lights. I didn't know about this until I was twenty-three. His mother told me after he left. "Nanfeng said you were afraid of the dark," she said. I was stunned for a moment. I don't remember when I told him I was afraid of the dark. Maybe it was when he was very young, maybe the first year he came to my house. One night when there was a power outage, I held the corner of his clothes and he looked down at me. Just that one look. He remembered it for fifteen years. When I was nineteen, he was twenty-three. That year he graduated from college and stayed in the city to work. I am still in my sophomore year and go home once a month. He wasn't home much, but every time I went back, he was there. I started paying attention to him. No, I had noticed him for a long time, but it was different starting that year. I found that he didn't like to smile. He is good-looking and should look even better when he smiles, but he doesn't smile much. I found him smoking. He hid in his room and smoked. I thought he didn't know, but the smell of cigarette smoke coming out of the crack in the door couldn't fool anyone. I noticed that when he looked at me, there was something in his eyes. I can't tell what it is. Like the sky before it rains, gray, stuffy, and very low. I was twenty-five and he was twenty-nine when he left. He was sick for two years, I don't know. During those two years, I studied in another city as a graduate student. He sent me a message, but I was busy working on my paper, so I was very slow to reply. He asked me if I had eaten, and I said I had. He asked me if I was busy, and I said yes. He said take care of yourself and I said I got it. His messages were getting shorter and shorter. From a paragraph to a sentence, from a sentence to an expression. I thought he was busy or he was finally annoying me. He doesn't know that I pin his dialog box to the top every time I reply to a message. I didn't know that he had to take a long break every time he finished sending a message - later his mother told me that his hands had no strength at that time and he had to use two hands to type word by word. After he left, his mother gave me a bag. Inside is a letter. He wrote it. I started writing from the first year I came to his house to the month before he left. The first letter is dated when I was eight years old. "A child came today. He called me brother, but I didn't answer. He was a little disappointed. But I saw his eyes, which are quite beautiful." The last letter was dated a month before he left. "He asked me today why I didn't reply to my message. I don't know how to reply. He sent a long list, saying he was busy, saying he was tired, saying he missed me. He missed me. He said he missed me." "I watched it for a long time. Then I deleted it." "I want to tell him that I miss you too. But what will happen if I reply? What will he do after I leave?" "He is afraid of the dark. Who will leave a light for him after I leave?" I squatted in the corridor of his house and read this letter seven times. I didn't catch him the day he left. I was in the laboratory when my mother called me. I took the nearest high-speed train and it was a five-hour drive. I thought about everything and nothing at all on the car. By the time I got to the hospital, he had been gone for two hours. Mom said he spent the last few days looking at his phone. Asked him what he was looking at, he wouldn't tell. My mother took a sneak peek and saw that he was looking at my chat history. I scrolled up for a long time. Turning to a bunch of crap I sent him during my first year in college. At that time, I talked a lot and told him everything. What did you eat today, what will be the test tomorrow, which teacher is annoying and which classmate is interesting. He kept them all. He didn't delete any of them. Mom said he sobered up for a while before leaving. I want to speak, but I can't. Mom gave him paper and he wrote three words. The opening strokes. Horizontal, vertical, horizontal fold, horizontal. Horizontal, vertical, horizontal. It's "I" and "Jiang". What he wanted to write was "I'm waiting for him." Damn guess. Because he fainted after writing these three words and did not write anything else. But I don't think so. I think what he wanted to write was "I'm waiting for Jiang Qiong". Or "I'm looking for Jiang Qiong". Or "I like Jiang Qiong." Or just "Jiang Qiong". He doesn't like to talk. I don't like to talk all my life. Those last three strokes were the longest words he had ever said in his life. After he left, I went back to his house. His room remained unchanged. There are still those books on the bookshelf and the same cup on the table. I looked through his drawer and found a photo. It's a photo of the two of us. I am fifteen and he is nineteen. That year when he finished his college entrance examination, he took me out to play. I stood next to him, and he put his hand on my shoulder. I smiled so much that my eyes narrowed, but he didn't smile. But when I look at that photo now, I feel like there is something in his eyes. His eyes have always been gray, dull, and depressed. But that year, that time, that moment, there was spring in his eyes. But I didn't see it at the time. He has been gone for two years. I am twenty-seven years old. If he were still here, he would be thirty-one. I sometimes wonder how he spent those last two years. He lives alone in that house, takes medicine every day, checks his cell phone every day, and waits for my reply to messages every day. He waited for my reply. He waits for me. He waited for me for two years. I waited for news from him for only two hours - during those two hours I was on the high-speed train and my phone had no signal. I didn't know he was waiting for me. He had already left when I arrived. I think of the first letter he wrote. "He called me brother, but I didn't answer. He was a little disappointed." I was disappointed at that time because he ignored me. Here he is now. When he left, I was on the road. He didn't know if I would make it in time. He had been waiting for me for so long. In those last few seconds, would he have thought whether his waiting was in vain. Was he disappointed again? I wanted to tell him no. I want to tell him I'm here. I wanted to tell him that I would keep the light on for him in the future. I want to tell him that his eyes are beautiful. It looks good when it's gray, looks good when it's dull, and looks good when it's pressed down very low. It looks best when it grows out in spring. But I can't say it anymore. He's gone. I went to see him during Qingming Festival last year. The cemetery is in the suburbs, a bit far away. I took the car for three hours and it was almost noon when I arrived. The sun was so strong that it made the tombstones turn white. I stood in front of his grave for a long time, not knowing what to say. Later I knelt down and wiped his photo with my hands. He is still the same in the photo, he doesn't like to smile, his eyes are gray, dull, and depressed. I just squatted like that and wiped it again and again. The sun made my eyes sore that I could hardly open them. I suddenly thought that he had left the lamp for me for fifteen years. How did he spend those fifteen years? He asked for leave half an hour in advance every night and ran back from school just to turn on a light for me. Did he look back when he ran back? Did I walk behind him? Not once did I. I never knew he was behind me. He has been with me for fifteen years. Wait for me to look back, wait for me to look at him, wait for me to find the spring in his eyes. On the way back, it was cloudy. It's raining. I didn't bring an umbrella, so I just walked. The rain was not heavy, it was thin, like something broken and sprinkled down. I thought of the last words of his last letter. "His eyes are so beautiful. I knew it the first time I saw him." I'm twenty-seven years old. Are my eyes still good? I can't see it. I only see the rain in front of me, and it rains year after year. Dappled, humid, endless rainy season. And on his side. Is the sun shining over there? Have spring grown in his eyes? －－－－－－ Jiang Qiong returned home with a box of cakes. The air-conditioning outside seeped in, causing bone-piercing pain through her skin. Jiang Qiong put the cake on the table in the living room. Today is his birthday. There is a photo of Yi Nanfeng on the TV cabinet. He is smiling brightly. Like the sun, like the warm wind from the south... "Brother, after this birthday you have to call me brother." Intention: Well, remember to bring an umbrella when it rains