Unbridled - Chapter 13
After third grade, nobody patted Ding Ji’s head anymore, not even his own grandparents.
This was because he had solemnly warned his grandparents that he was a grown man now, and this was a grown man’s head; they shouldn’t just be patting it so easily!
Whoever patted it would get a taste of his anger!
However, Lin Wuyu suddenly patted it; not just a pat, he also gave it a couple of tugs.
Although Lin Wuyu did it naturally, Ding Ji could sense the meaning behind it – “I know you couldn’t predict it, you were trying to deceive me, thanks for comforting me.”
Ding Ji still protested out of habit.
“Don’t think that just because someone called you ‘Dad’ a few times, you can act all high and mighty,” he turned his head, looking at Lin Wuyu’s hand, “Acting all benevolent like a grandpa…”
“So, I can’t pat your head, right?” Lin Wuyu retracted his hand and chuckled.
“Definitely not,” Ding Ji said.
“If that’s the case, when you threw a stone at my head the other day, I didn’t even go after you,” Lin Wuyu took a bite of his mixed ice cream.
“That was a pebble! Just some debris!” Ding Ji corrected him, “If I threw a stone at your head and you didn’t go after me, you’d be a fool, okay!”
Lin Wuyu laughed and paused when he saw the ice cream in Ding Ji’s hand, “Do you have to imitate everything I do?!”
“What the heck?” Ding Ji looked down, then raised his head, “Who’s imitating you? My grandma always says I eat disgustingly, like I don’t want to share with others…”
As he turned to look at the ice cream box Lin Wuyu held, he froze, “I didn’t expect it, a supposed study genius like you turns out to be a stingy person! No wonder you always snatch my drink.”
“Just because of this, I’m considered stingy?” Lin Wuyu asked.
“You don’t even want to share it with others, according to my grandma’s logic, that’s stingy,” Ding Ji said, “But I’ve never seen anyone eat ice cream the way I do, until now.”
“I just think that it’s really yummy,” Lin Wuyu said.
“Yeah,” Ding Ji nodded, put down the small spoon, and extended his hand.
Lin Wuyu glanced at him and shook his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Ding Ji said.
“…Nice to meet you,” Lin Wuyu said.
The electric scooter took a while to charge, and Ding Ji slowly enjoyed his ice cream, contemplating whether to message his mom and let her know he would be home late.
Lin Wuyu stood up and walked toward the trash bin.
“Are you done eating?” Ding Ji asked.
Lin Wuyu didn’t say anything but just shook the empty box in his hand.
Ding Ji watched him finish shaking the box. He sat back down next to him and asked, emotionally and sincerely, “Are you hungry? Do you not have the money to get something to eat at school?”
“Yeah, I don’t have any money for food, so it’s easier for me to just save ten or twenty bucks1 to buy ice cream to stave off my hunger,” Lin Wuyu said.
“Eating too many cold things too fast is bad for your health,” Ding Ji sighed. “If my grandma saw this, she’d scold you for three days and three nights, and then make you hot tea every day.”
Lin Wuyu laughed, “I’m kinda jealous.”
“Jealous of what? In the summer, I’ve gotta hug a boiling hot bottle of water and even after two hours, I can’t take a single sip. I literally scream from thirst.”
“Then do you want to go to my house?” Lin Wuyu smiled. “No one cares, you can hug the toilet and drink from it.”
“Watch what you say,” Ding Ji glared at him.
Lin Wuyu smiled and didn’t say anything more.
He hardly ever talked to anyone about his family, nor did he have any comments about his parents. Since elementary school, when writing essays about family and parents, he made up a perfect family.
He wasn’t very concerned about sharing this with Ding Ji; after all, he’s already asked Ding Ji to help him find someone.
Ding Ji was quite a relaxing person to be around, and also very smart.
“Actually, I don’t have a good relationship with my parents,” Ding Ji slowly ate his ice cream. “They ran away to Germany after they gave birth to me, and they occasionally came back for a few days during the New Year. I don’t remember too much about them.”
“So,” Lin Wusu looked at him, “now they’re back?”
“Well, they’ve been back for two or three years,” Ding Ji frowned. “I wasn’t at all prepared, and they still think I was too surprised …… One day, they suddenly said that I would live with my parents now. I was so angry that I couldn’t eat. They just handed me over to an old man and old lady for over a decade, gave me some money, said hi in a video, and then they turned around and got a ready-made son. It’s too idealistic.”
“Do they care about you?” Lin Wuyu asked.
“More than just care,” Ding Ji’s face was unhappy, “and they still complain that my grandparents didn’t take good care of me. ‘You should have been great, great from the beginning. Why aren’t you as great now…’ they say.”
“If that’s the case, you should come to my house,” Lin Wuyu laughed. “They’ll tell you that you’re not even close to being good enough, that you’re just garbage.”
“This just goes to show that your parents are even crazier.” Ding Ji licked his spoon.
Maybe.
He had never understood what children meant to some parents; whether they were enemies, or whether they were tools for them to achieve their ‘ideal’.
“Your brother. Why did he disappear?” Ding Ji finally finished his ice cream. Since Lin Wuyu ate too fast, it affected his slow pace of eating and he ate faster than usual. He could feel the coolness in his stomach now.
“One night, he asked me, ‘Do you like to travel?’” Lin Wuyu thought for a moment. “I said I liked it, and then he said, ‘I’m going to travel.’”
“And then?” Ding Ji asked.
“The next morning, he was gone when I woke up,” Lin Wuyu said.
“…He just left after being angry?” Ding Ji said. “Your brother’s got some character.”
Lin Wuyu was stunned. He had never thought of it this way from Ding Ji’s perspective before. Now that Ding Ji said so, he suddenly felt like laughing.
“I never thought about it,” Lin Wuyu sighed and smiled. “Since you said that, I really want to ask if he was angry with me or something.”
“You’ll find out sooner or later,” Ding Ji said. “I predicted it, it’s accurate.”
“Okay,” Lin Wuyu glanced at him.
“Don’t mention it, and don’t pat my head,” Ding Ji immediately looked at him.
The battery, which was said to be able to run two round trips in the suburbs without any issue, was finally charged up by one bar.
When Ding Ji started the scooter, the battery suddenly became two bars.
“Hurry, hurry,” he waved to Lin Wuyu. “Take advantage of the two bars.”
“Is this virtual electricity2?” Lin Wuyu asked. “It was just one bar before.”
“I know,” Ding Ji patted the handlebar. “Come on, take advantage of it before it realizes that it’s virtual electricity, let’s go a few hundred meters first.”
“Take advantage of what?” Lin Wuyu asked.
“My scooter!” Ding Ji said.
“…That’s really a good idea,” Lin Wuyu quickly got on the scooter.
Ding Ji’s scooter was a bit slow. After driving for several hundred meters, he realized that he had an extra bar of battery, but he was already close to the watermelon stand. When he arrived, the scooter ran out of battery again.
The watermelons weren’t all sold yet. It was already dark, and Liu Jinping, the swindler’s assistant, was still sitting on a stool next to them, poking a stick and using an emergency light.
Ding Ji got out of the scooter and spoke to him for a bit. Liu Jinping kicked the old leather purse on the ground, looking smug.
Lin Wuyu watched, feeling a little sad.
“Let Peng Peng pick two for you,” Ding Ji said. “He’s really good at picking watermelons.”
“Okay,” Lin Wuyu looked around and there were no bags on the stall. “How do I carry them?”
“With a rope,” Liu Jinping said.
“A rope?” Lin Wuyu was puzzled.
Ding Ji picked up a red plastic rope from the ground and tied a few knots skillfully. He pulled it horizontally, and a few ropes turned into a net with very large holes, suitable for carrying watermelons.
When Ding Ji handed the watermelon net to Lin Wuyu, he immediately regretted it.
He should have let Liu Jinping do the rope tying. He was already a skilled watermelon vendor now.
Lin Wuyu also didn’t say anything, just took out his phone and scanned the code, without giving him a chance to explain.
“The payee is Liu Chapeng?” Lin Wuyu asked.
“Yes,” Liu Jinping nodded beside him. “I am Liu Chapeng.”
Ding Ji also nodded.
Yes, he’s my boss.
After Lin Wuyu paid, he carried the watermelons and prepared to call a car back to school. Ding Ji stood beside him.
Behind them was a yellowish light… Even though there were those white and dazzling emergency lights now, they somehow still managed to get a particularly miserable yellow light. It shone on Ding Ji, making him look even more destitute.
“What are you going to do after you sell all the watermelons?” Lin Wuyu asked Ding Ji.
“I don’t know,” Ding Ji said. “Let’s just do this for now, and wait until summer vacation.”
They had to wait until after the college entrance exams.
“Are you still planning to do summer work?” Lin Wuyu was a little confused.
“……Ah,” Ding Ji sighed.
“Okay, take your time.” Lin Wuyu didn’t say much. “If you can’t find a suitable job and want to find a decent one, you can look for me.”
“Oh,” Ding Ji raised his eyebrows. “You, a runaway student, are actually capable of something? You just live in a student dormitory, right?”
“I have been financially independent since junior high school,” Lin Wuyu said.
If someone else had said something like this, Ding Ji would have had more than 800 sarcastic rebuttals, but when Lin Wuyu said it, he inexplicably felt that it could be trusted and there was nothing to refute.
“Then I’ll come to you if I can’t find a suitable job,” Ding Ji promised.
“Okay,” Lin Wuyu nodded.
After watching Lin Wuyu get in the car and leave, Liu Jinpeng came over. “When did you become so close to him?”
“Close?” Ding Ji asked, “You can chat with anyone online to this extent every night.”
“That’s me,” Liu Jinpeng said. “You can’t even bother with Da Dong, you’ve known Chen Laosi for several years because he begged you before you read his palm, and we’ve known each other for ten years and have sold watermelons together…”
Liu Jinpeng didn’t get to finish his sentence before two black and green things suddenly appeared on his face, dripping.
“What the hell?” Liu Jinpeng was startled, pointing to his face. “What is this? It’s still hot!”
“Bird droppings,” Ding Ji looked closely.
To be able to receive two droppings on one face at the same time; even if Liu Jinpeng’s face was bigger than others, was still a very magical thing.
And the trajectory of these droppings…
When Liu Jinpeng took the tissue to wipe his face, Ding Ji grabbed his hand and stared at the bird droppings on his face. “Wait.”
“Are you kidding me? Why do you still want to fortune-tell in this situation?” Liu Jinpeng, being a childhood friend, immediately understood. “Okay, okay, can you predict for me…”
“Shut up.” Ding Ji glanced at the time on his phone, then squatted on the side of the road to fortune-tell.
In general, when encountering such things, his grandma would say, “This is so magical, let me fortune-tell with it.”
Ding Ji also liked to do this, but he wasn’t very good at it and usually just foretold whether something was possible or not.
Now he is predicting whether to go east or west.
His grandma’s house was in the east, and his parents’ house was in the west.
“What are you fortune-telling? Did you figure it out?” Liu Jinpeng asked.
“I figured it out,” Ding Ji gave the key to his electric scooter to Liu Jinpeng. “Charge it up and help me drive it to my grandma’s house tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Liu Jinpeng nodded. “Are you going home?”
“I’m going to my grandma’s house,” Ding Ji said, sweeping away a rental bike next to him.
Liu Jinpeng hung a watermelon on the head of his scooter.
When he rode his bike to his grandma’s house, he was in a very good mood. He even wondered if he hadn’t really calculated it and just gave himself an answer to go east.
Although he had already decided not to argue with his parents before the college entrance examination, he suddenly wanted to visit his grandparents just now, even if it meant sitting there for only half an hour before leaving.
Moreover, he had sent a message to his mother saying he would be late but hadn’t received a reply.
He hadn’t had dinner yet, so he was deciding on whether to have his grandmother cook him some noodles or dumplings, and he decided on noodles.
As he turned the corner at the intersection of his grandmother’s street, a gust of wind blew by and Ding Ji suddenly felt a chill.
He instinctively squeezed the brake and touched his own arm, and felt his hair standing on end.
Something didn’t feel right.
Maybe it was because he had been influenced by his grandmother, who believed in “premonitions,”. However, she hadn’t talked about it much in the past two years because his parents disapproved and didn’t think it was a good influence on Ding Ji.
Ding Ji was also annoyed by this, not because he believed in it, but because he thought his parents had no right to criticize his grandparents who had taken care of him for over a decade.
He kicked the pedals hard and sped off.
The sudden cold wind had disappeared, replaced by a dry warm wind that made him uncomfortable when he rode too fast.
He was only a few dozen meters away from his grandmother’s building when he saw his uncle’s car parked downstairs.
He immediately became anxious.
His uncle visited his grandparents almost every weekend, but rarely during weekdays because he had to work and lived far away.
If even his uncle had come at this time, something must have happened.
Ding Ji rode his bike to the building and threw his bike and watermelon to the side without bothering to lock it, and rushed to his uncle’s car, sticking his face to the window to look inside.
There was no one there.
He turned around and ran up the stairs.
As soon as he reached the second floor, he heard his neighbour, Mrs. Yang, say, “The ambulance should be here soon. They usually arrive within five minutes.”
Ding Ji felt like he had been suddenly thrown into an ice cave and froze in place.
“Grandma!” He shouted as he ran up the stairs, yelling “Grandpa!” at the same time.
“Ding Ji?” came the voice of his aunt from above. “What are you doing here?”
“What’s going on?!” Ding Ji shouted.
His aunt didn’t answer.
Ding Ji didn’t need her to answer. As he turned up the stairs, he saw the open door and his grandmother lying on the ground.
“Grandma!” Ding Ji’s legs went weak with fright, and he almost crawled over to her. “What’s happened to my grandma?”
“She fell down.” His uncle grabbed him and said, “Don’t move her, don’t move her!”
“I know, I know, I know,” Ding Ji answered repetitively. “I won’t move… Grandma?”
“You’re bothering me.” His grandma lay on the ground with a wrinkled brow, “Why did you come again?”
Grandma’s voice was low and trembling, and Ding Ji felt sorry for her, “Where did you fall?”
He looked up at his aunt again, “Where did my grandma fall?”
“Her hip. She says her hip and leg hurt,” his aunt said. “We called 1203 and they’ll be here soon.”
Ding Ji turned his head and saw his grandfather sitting by her side, so he asked, “Is Grandma okay?”
“She’s fine, she’s fine,” Grandpa waved his hand. “Don’t worry.”
“At first, your grandpa called me and said your grandma was dizzy,” his aunt said. “So we hurried over. We called your dad halfway, and they came over right away. But your grandma wanted to get up and pour water and then she fell…”
“You should have let Grandpa pour the water for you,” Ding Ji said in a low voice with a wrinkled brow, kneeling beside his grandmother, and holding her hand.
“He’s panicking too, and I’m afraid he’ll fall when he goes to pour water,” Grandma said. “He can’t even stand now.”
“But you should have let me fall,” Grandpa looked at her and smiled. “I’m healthier than you.”
Grandma’s hand was cold and trembling, and Ding Ji was about to see if she had bumped or hit anywhere else when footsteps came up the stairs. He quickly turned his head, “Is it 120…”
It was his dad and mom who came up, and his mom was surprised to see him. Her first sentence was, “What are you doing here?”
Before he could answer, his dad frowned at Grandpa, “Didn’t I tell you not to tell Xiao Ji? He’s still reviewing!”
“I didn’t say anything,” Grandpa quickly waved his hand.
Ding Ji looked at his dad and felt like he couldn’t speak out of shock.
It wasn’t until his dad walked over to Grandma and squatted down that he shouted at his dad’s face, “Are you still human?”
Everyone in the room was stunned.
Dad took several seconds to react and shouted back, “What did you say?”
“I asked if you were still human!” Ding Ji jumped up, his voice almost hoarse, and he felt his nose was sore too. “My grandma fell like this, and you’re spouting this bullshit?!”
“Little Ji!” Grandpa came to his senses and quickly pointed at him. “Don’t talk nonsense!”
“Ancestors,” his younger aunt hugged him and pulled him aside, saying. “Don’t talk about these things for now…”
“How is what I said just nonsense?” His father was very angry. “Are you about to take the college entrance exam? You didn’t review well, you shouldn’t have known about this in the first place!”
“You dare? You dare to withhold this from me?” Ding Ji roared. “Do you believe that I won’t…”
His younger aunt covered his mouth and said, “You’re crazy!”