Bars are always livelier the later it gets. The singer on stage in a ripped shirt was singing the chorus with all his might. After Chi Qing took that sip, his fingers resting on the glass instantly stiffened. The taste of alcohol spread bit by bit between his lips and teeth.
This drink Xie Lin ordered looked bland in color, but the alcohol content was actually not low; it burned like fire going down the throat.
Chi Qing felt that not only was his throat burning now, but his ears suddenly exploded. The alcohol spread through his limbs and bones, and even his brain was burning along with it.
Actually, under normal lighting, one could tell the contents of the two glasses were different. After all, no matter how light the color of the alcohol, it couldn’t be as transparent as pure water. However, these subtle differences couldn’t withstand the mischief of the constantly changing lights in the bar.
Seeing their reaction, the waiter realized something and proactively explained, “I’m sorry, I might not have paid attention when I was wiping the table just now, I accidentally swapped them…”
Chi Qing couldn’t hear any of that at all. He couldn’t even bother with the fact that he had drank from the same glass as Xie Lin; his ears were entirely filled with another kind of sound.
[Hurry up and get off work, I’ve been working for two weeks straight. My girlfriend even blames me for not paying enough attention to her, but where would I find the time? She even asked me yesterday if I’ve thought about marriage, but right now I have no money and no house… And then there are all those aunts and relatives…]
The young waiter was too bored at work, idly thinking about trivial matters.
It wasn’t just this young waiter. The moment he swallowed that sip of alcohol, countless voices from the entire bar assailed him.
Not far from the bar sat a middle-aged man. The woman beside him was very young and exquisitely dressed. The two seemed to be talking and laughing without any abnormalities.
Yet among the countless voices, a distorted middle-aged male voice was saying: […I lied to her saying I’d divorce my wife. How is that possible? She’s after my money, and I’m after her youth. It’s a relationship with clearly marked prices, what nonsense about love.]
[…]
There were too many voices like this. Reality intertwined with another kind of “truth” buried deep in their hearts, hard to speak of.
The two types of voices mixed together, making his head ache from the noise.
Amidst the clinking glasses, the expressions on everyone’s faces were cast into an illusory mold by the lighting. Both smiles and sorrow were coated with an unfathomable filter, leaving only countless voices murmuring in low whispers.
Finally, a voice very close to him rang out clearly.
“Pay a little more attention when you’re working,” Xie Lin said. “Can you afford to misplace something like a wine glass? If someone who can’t drink gets into an accident, who’s going to take responsibility?”
The waiter saw that the customer who had been smiling all along had suddenly become difficult to talk to.
He put away the rag in his hand, wiping his hands nervously on his apron: “I’m sorry, how about… I pour you two new glasses.”
Xie Lin’s gaze swept past him: “No need.”
Xie Lin then looked at the person next to him who was allergic to alcohol. The bar was too noisy, so if he wanted to communicate, he could only try to get as close to the other person’s ear as possible. And because of this close distance, his voice temporarily overpowered all the other noises.
Chi Qing heard him ask: “How much did you drink? This alcohol content isn’t low. I didn’t react in time just now and couldn’t stop you.”
Taking advantage of the occasionally sweeping lights, Xie Lin leaned in to see how his allergic reaction was doing, checking if any red rashes had broken out on his neck. Finally, his gaze landed on Chi Qing’s collarbone. He noticed that Chi Qing happened to be wearing the exact same sweater from their first meeting at the clinic, faintly revealing half of his collarbone.
Even in a place with such chaotic lighting, one could tell he was several shades paler than others. His collarbones dipped in, casting a small shadow.
Xie Lin suddenly looked away, not looking anymore.
He noticed that although Chi Qing didn’t have any rashes, the person was indeed acting a bit strange. This strangeness stemmed from the fact that the person—who should have immediately told him not to get so close if there was nothing going on—actually hadn’t said a word.
Chi Qing merely lowered his eyes and put the glass back, not responding to his words.
Distorted voices continuously converged from his surroundings.
Chi Qing couldn’t respond.
The heartbroken girl from earlier had stopped crying and was chatting with Su Xiaolan. A distorted voice similar to the girl’s timbre was saying:
[Fuck him, I’m going to find someone way better than him in the future!]
[…]
“Where do you feel uncomfortable?”
“…”
“Speak,” Xie Lin asked again. “Where does it hurt?”
Noisy.
Too noisy.
Chi Qing thought.
The first time he touched alcohol was when he was filming his first drama.
At a certain dinner gathering, the producer didn’t order beverages and poured red wine for everyone at the table. As a supporting villain with only two or three scenes and a single line of dialogue in the entire show, Chi Qing was also among the invited.
After drinking that glass of red wine, he also reverted to his deaf state, just like now.
That state lasted for more than half a month at the time. He tried it once more later and found that alcohol indeed affected it.
When Chi Qing didn’t answer, Xie Lin turned his head and asked Ji Mingrui, who was busy helping the heartbroken girl up, “What symptoms does he usually have when he’s allergic?”
Ji Mingrui was stunned: “He drank alcohol?”
Ji Mingrui carefully searched his brain for any information related to Chi Qing and alcohol: “He doesn’t drink. As for allergies, I’m not very clear either, but he seemed to have mentioned before that after drinking… he feels it gets very noisy.”
Xie Lin: “Noisy?”
Ji Mingrui also didn’t quite understand what this ‘noisy’ specifically referred to: “Maybe tinnitus? Some people’s heads easily buzz after drinking, right?”
Xie Lin: “How much longer until you’re done?”
Ji Mingrui was just about to say, ‘I’ll be done right away.’
However, when Xie Lin said this, he had absolutely no intention of giving him room to respond. He picked up his jacket from the side and immediately added: “Seeing as you’re quite busy, I’ll take responsibility for him. After all, he drank my alcohol, so I’ll take him back.”
There were far fewer people outside the bar, and at this hour, there were also very few people wandering the streets.
But where there are roads, there are cars, and where there are cars, there are people. Unless he immediately went to a place with absolutely no one within a ten-mile radius, these voices in his ears wouldn’t stop.
Taking into consideration that there was an alcohol-allergic “patient” in the car—even if the symptoms this patient was currently displaying were just an unwillingness to talk to anyone, looking less like an alcohol allergy and more like an allergy to people—Xie Lin still asked the designated driver to slow down.
He had also drank tonight and couldn’t drive.
The two of them rarely sat together in the back seat. Xie Lin sent Wu Zhi a message indicating he was leaving first. Wu Zhi replied: Sure, sure, sure, let’s hang out another day. I have a premonition that my romance will arrive again very soon.
Xie Lin turned off his phone screen and asked Chi Qing, “Is it still noisy?”
Chi Qing half-closed his eyes: “A bit.”
If the designated driver wasn’t driving while internally calculating how to seamlessly take a long detour to run up the meter, he probably would have had a bit more peace and quiet right now.
The designated driver: “Please fasten your seatbelts. I will definitely get you home in the fastest time possible.”
[I’ll seamlessly turn into Yan’an Road in a bit.]
[If I can avoid the elevated highway, I’ll avoid it. If they notice, I’ll just say I took a wrong turn and that I’m not very familiar with this route since it’s my first time taking it.]
[…]
[Money is hard to earn, I’m just struggling for a living too.]
Xie Lin was used to being choked back, it had become second nature. Plus, with almost no other sounds in the car besides him and the driver talking, he proactively said: “For your next sentence, isn’t it about time you told me to shut up?”
But he guessed wrong this time. Among the multitude of voices, his voice actually sounded somewhat pleasing to the ear.
…Because he couldn’t hear the distorted voice from the bottom of Xie Lin’s heart.
Other people’s voices were double-layered, mixed together and giving him a headache, while only his words were always very clear.
Chi Qing still said: “It’s good that you know.”
The driver: “This is my first time driving this stretch of road too…”
[Miscalculated, Yan’an Road isn’t far enough. Why didn’t I notice there was an even longer route just now…]
Chi Qing couldn’t bear it any longer. His fingers wrapped in black gloves clasped together loosely, his entire person half-hidden in the shadows, as he said coldly: “Why don’t you just drive in a circle around Huanan City from south to north, that way you can detour until dawn.”
[…]
Hearing this, the designated driver almost stepped on the gas instead of the brake. Every thought in his mind completely vanished.
Xie Lin: “You’re quite familiar with this area.”
Chi Qing sensed Xie Lin looking at him: “The navigation changed the route three times. It’s not like I’m blind.”
Chi Qing didn’t get peace for more than a few minutes. Because the driver, in his brilliant scheme to detour, had also factored in traffic jam times and specifically picked a road that was perpetually congested, their car, unsurprisingly, got stuck in traffic.
The surrounding cars gradually increased.
Several lanes were packed with cars, and the sound of car horns was endless.
Chi Qing really wanted to applaud this designated driver.
All the way from the bar, Chi Qing had heard far too many voices, far exceeding his capacity. He opened his eyes and looked at Xie Lin sitting beside him.
Considering his physical condition, Xie Lin had been very quiet the whole way, not annoying him like before.
Xie Lin’s hand was resting right beside him. Chi Qing suddenly thought of the previous two times he had accidentally touched Xie Lin’s hand.
If he touched his hand in this current situation, would it be like before?
…
Chi Qing suspected that Xie Lin wasn’t just a psycho, but possibly also a sound blocker.
He really wanted to verify this guess, but this brought him to another dilemma: choosing between “germophobia flaring up” and “being annoyed to death alive.”
And it was very hard to decide which of these two options was better.
In the end, as if possessed by ghosts and gods, Chi Qing took off half of a glove.
The second he touched him, all the voices receded entirely. The distorted voices were as if they had never existed; the only things left in his ears were the car horns and the lazy, smiling voice next to him.
“Poking me again,” Xie Lin said. “Or do you just like to poke people when you drink?”
“…”
Although for a germophobe, touching others was hard to accept no matter how many times it was done, finding an excuse could indeed make it ‘unfamiliar the first time, familiar the second.’
Chi Qing: “There was something on your hand.”
Xie Lin: “Where?”
Chi Qing: “I saw it wrong.”
Finally, Chi Qing got out of the car after Xie Lin instructed, “Contact me if anything comes up.” He lay down near midnight and didn’t fall asleep until almost everyone in the building had gone to bed. Even so, it was hard to maintain eight hours of sleep.
Because the elderly couple downstairs woke up precisely at 5 AM without fail.
Chi Qing opened his eyes at 5 AM.
The old man and woman were bickering early in the morning: [I was the beauty of the factory back in the day, I must have been blind to marry a decrepit old man like you!]
After taking a trip out to the wet market, the topic changed again.
The wet market never lacked conversation topics. Whatever happened in the neighborhood, whatever was going on with whose family—you could hear it all at this massive transit station.
Thus, Chi Qing clearly heard the old woman sighing in her heart: [Someone died in the neighboring residential complex. A young girl, still so young too, sigh. I even saw her before. She just arrived here a while ago, hadn’t settled down yet, and was looking for apartments everywhere.]
