Chapter Text
The Luo River flows easily into one of China’s wealth-provided, historical provinces; Henan. Though, the word ‘flow’ does not constitute this river’s upbringings.
This river starts out in the Huashan Mountain, somewhere in the province of Shaanxi— another culturally packed and ideal place to call home for its people.
Gentle, frigid wind blows past the clothes hung to dry which had been only a few days ago.
These did not seem to be drying any sooner, as given the climate of Shaanxi, its wide range brought its people an unexpected climate throughout the year.
“Ai! Get in here, you don’t want me to pay for more hospital visits, do you?” a rich, golden voice bellowed from the near window, “We’ll barely have enough for when we stop for snacks later!— eh?”
The young boy sat on the dirt unfazed as the wind continued to don its force on his exposed legs, his trousers were rolled up from washing clothes on the river despite the cruel weather.
He washed and hung, washed and hung, washed and hung until he could go inside to dry and fold, dry and fold, and dry and fold…
But this was all but lightwork for the youth.
It was their last day to spend here in their home at Shaanxi, and he made sure to work down every last second of it.
That same familiar voice only made its way closer and poked the back of the youth’s head
“Son, have you really not had enough of this? You’re like a dog doing all this work!” a light scoff, “no good for a young man like you.”
“This is the last time I’ll be able to wash clothes for ma!” the boy stressed out, not wanting to shift his attention anywhere else.
“And what of it? She can manage perfectly fine to me.”, he shrugged.
“She’s sick, she’s been sick ever since…She always cries now— I don’t know where we went wrong, papa.” he slowed down his scrubbing and shivered lightly as he brought an arm up to scratch his eye.
“I always feed her, bathe her, talk to her, its…its…” he started to stumble over himself.
The man’s demeanor seemed to have suddenly changed as he shoved the basin of remaining clothes on the ground to catch the boy’s attention.
“I haven’t washed those yet, pa—”
“Does my son deserve to wash clothes around like a mutt in the mud?”
“...”
“Binghe” he seemed to relax himself a little and smiled with his eyes, “Get inside.”
Without having much to do or say, poor little Binghe could only oblige as he got up and walked past that tall, burly figure which he called as his father.
He could only look past his shoulder at the glum scene that was once a happy memory of helping his mother wash clothes in the sun.
He could only expose himself for the last time to the cold air of Shaanxi province, despite how harsh it could be.
He could only listen to his father’s words without his mother being there to tally his side.
He could only…
He could now only ever bid goodbye to his bedridden mother to be left alone in the house, their house.
Luo Binghe silently padded his way over to where his mother stayed and kneeled over to her sleeping figure. He would have the wish to wake her, but when was the last time she’s ever gotten a peaceful sleep? Who was he to take away one of the last good things she’d have left from her?
He gingerly took her wrist in his hands and monitored her pulse for a bit. She seemed to have been steady like that for a while, which was good. After all, making another scene would only irritate his father after all.
That annoying ‘tsk’ he’d make, the little laughs of pity that came out of his mouth, his backhanded promises and empty words of affection— all towards his mom, made Luo Binghe’s head twist in all directions. For now, all he could do is grip the frail hand in his tighter and only hope for the best. Why did his father have to be the man he was? Is this really…
“Have you packed your stuff yet, son?” a faint voice called from the doorway and peeked through, “we could always buy you new ones there, y’know.”
“I want to buy a hairpin for ma, then, she liked the ones with— uh, no wait, she wanted that oven on the commercial last night, right papa?”
Silence
“Papa?”
“The weather’s rough on the way. Best we get going soon." With that, the tall man made his way out of the room again.
Luo Binghe scoffed at this pathetic exchange.
He pulled out a creased but neatly folded little note and buried it under the pillow where his mother’s sickly face lay. On the front of the note was only just a little drawing and some scribbles that were supposed to be in the form of words.
Luo Binghe sighed and stood to hover over the sleeping figure and place a gentle kiss on her forehead. He brushed away a few strands of her hair until he got carried away and started to smooth it out to comb.
“We’ll be away for quite some time, papa says.”
the wind chimes swayed with the cruel wind,
“I don’t know when we’ll be back, though.”
the neighbour’s dog starts to bark,
“I’ll text you everyday,”
a car engine starts somewhere outside,
“Where’s your phone? Here, have it, you can… you need to text me everyday too, okay??” he gently reaches over and tucks an overbeaten phone next to the woman’s legs.
”Binghe!”, a call from outside is met with—”
“I made your favorite congee again. It's on… on the table. Please call me, please—”
choked out sobs that were never there before.
“The oven, don’t forget okay? I’ll even get you one with a toaster and a blender and…”
“Luo Binghe!”, another unpleasant call from the man waiting in the car.
Luckily enough, Luo Binghe stopped the tears from staining his mother’s quilt. It was her favorite one. This was the exact same quilt that the three of them had slept under, but that was way too long ago for him to remember. He still could not wrap his small head around as to why his father had left that morning in such a fit as well.
He placed another light kiss to her hand as he cradled her head and said a little prayer before finally closing the lights.
Luo Binghe soundlessly closed the door behind him and forced himself to walk away.
This was the equivalent to stripping away his everything, for him, at least. Every step felt excruciating.
His father waved to him from the driver’s seat with a pleased grin when he made his way outside. The man had already put some shades on along with a ballcap to compliment his so-so-whatever look. Has this man lost his mind?
Luo Binghe glumly slouched over and pulled the door to the back seat before his father’s voice catched him again, “ah ah”, he tilted his head and pointed over to the passenger’s seat instead.
“...”
Luo Binghe slammed the back seat’s door shut and groaned.
It took a while for him to feel alright after some time in the passenger’s seat, having to put up with his father's terrible habit of banging the steering wheel when humming or singing to a song on the radio. Given what had just happened, this was all too much…
Luo Binghe looked over to the back of the car. He could think of easily climbing over to the back, since it was a spacious six seater anyway, but all he could do was look with his seatbelt restraining him. Fortunately, his father managed to catch on in the midst of his horrible singing
“I packed your stuff last night, actually. I don’t know why I kept on telling you to pack earlier, heh, kids these days!” He continued tapping and humming.
Luo Binghe only stared half in silence and half in disbelief. How could this man be so happy? Leaving home, his mother, their entire lives behind them all in a snap! Perhaps he was too young to understand any of this… But was he really?
Having had enough of this ridiculous string of events, Luo Binghe reached over to the head unit and changed the station hoping to knock some sense into this crazed man.
As much as he hated the news, he would have to make do with this for now.
A female voice rang out;
“---However the current director of Bashu Publishing, Tianlang—”
“What a freak show! Son, at this age, you don’t go around listening to news like that, hm? Especially the fake ones.” Tianlang Jun reached over to ruffle his son’s hair beside him. Just like that, he switched back to his detestable music station.
“Was that you??” Luo Binghe countered, displeased, his finger reached back to the head unit and started lowering the volume bit by bit.
“Mm…was me. But nothing much to do with me. We’re headed there, anyway.” he winked at the lady in the toll gate before continuing, “tsk, don’t be so glum… There’s plenty of stuff in Sichuan, just like our Shaanxi, ha?”
“...” Luo Binghe leaned his head against the car window to relish the cool, faint feel of the rain outside. The soft pitter patter providing him with some relief in contrast to the noise from inside the car.
However, Tianlang Jun had different plans.
“Like, what’s that subject you’re always so nitty about? That one with the old people and stuff? Forgive your father, his son is always so into the absurdities of life.”, he grinned.
‘...’
“Come on! You know it, the one that sounds like— ai, your old man’s forgotten!”, he pressed on further.
“...Philosophy?” Luo Binghe replied with his brows furrowed and eyes closed.
“Yes! That one! Precisely! I’ll have you know that there are a lot of game plans set out for you once we’re there.” Tianlang Jun’s eyes smiled in spite of himself again.
Luo Binghe could only hope his father would get tired of running his mouth anytime soon.
He decided to shift his thoughts elsewhere.
No fourteen year old would recover anytime soon in the event of being pulled away from a place called home.
But what is a home?
A home is where the people you love are in.
Luo Binghe thinks that he would never be able to find another place to call ‘home’.
Luo Binghe is a simple child. Work hard for even the tiniest bit of rewards, share it to those you love, then repeat no matter the process— show him a tiny drop of gratitude and he will be sure to return it with an entire ocean.
He never really understood why his menace of a father just needed to drag him along in the first place. In reality, it was rare for Tianlang Jun to speak about work since the family was well off anyway. Their life back at Shaanxi was perfect.
Luo Binghe received a decent education despite being a bit slower than his classmates, their house could be called more than comfortable, his father provided them with a stable income,— why did he need to go at all? Life was perfect the way it is.
Perhaps it was the way he and his father saw life differently.
Perhaps it was his lack of experience outside home.
Perhaps it had something to do with his own person.
Perhaps it had something to do with his parents that he knew nothing about
All these thoughts made Luo Binghe spiral into a rabbit hole he shouldn’t even be in at this age. A young boy shouldering himself with a problem he didn’t even know the cause of felt a bit too deafening for him. Is this what real adults think about everyday? Questioning the “what ifs” on his own, brought the young boy back to the same answer.
Moving out of Shaanxi definitely had something to do with him; Luo Binghe just couldn’t put his finger on it.
This action will have consequences.
🎋
It was approximately an eight hour drive from Shaanxi to Sichuan. With the changing and unexpected climate, that did not make things faster either. Luckily, it's nothing Tianlang Jun can’t handle. The man had taken pride in indirectly bragging on how a BMW X7 carried him greater distances from home to work and vice versa with little worry for any stopovers for gas.
Luo Binghe found his limbs aching everywhere when he woke up from his nap, he also found that the car had stopped moving and was parked somewhere, his father was also out of the driver’s seat.
He peered through the heavy tint of the window and concluded that they had stopped at some gas station. Luo Binghe felt around his sweatpants for his phone to text his father to at least buy some snacks for him, but found all four pockets empty.
Without Tianlang Jun to pry in on his business, he unbuckled the seatbelt and climbed his way to the rear seats where all the bags were.
To his surprise, there weren't even much things to begin with— all he saw was his father’s luggage and his duffle bag. This sparked worry at the back of his head as to how they were going to settle in a new city, but given his father's status, it shouldn’t be that much of a challenge.
Luo Binghe opened every inner and side pocket, he reached the bottom compartment of the bag and finally pulled his phone out. He opened it and was met with a low battery warning.
Luo Binghe didn’t have many friends at school given his pacing. He wasn’t the fastest, but he could be considered one of the smartest. Because of this, his classmates would frequently avoid picking him in a group project which results in the teacher having to group him along with the other students who didn’t get picked. Luo Binghe would often refer to them as ‘weirdos’ (himself excluded, of course) since nobody wanted them either. To be frank, he wasn’t ‘liked’, but he wasn’t exactly hated at school either.
This entire situation didn’t take Luo Binghe long to pick up on, so he sought out in making online friends instead. He didn’t have many either, but he was okay with it.
Once he unlocked his phone, Luo Binghe was bombarded with text messages from one of his friends he made a few months ago on a xianxia game—Ning Yingying.
“A-Luo, I’ve convinced ma to get me the new weapon for my birthday! Isn’t it pretty?”
“A-Luo, are you there? I couldn’t play much cuz of school!! Plz log in for me ( •̯́ ^ •̯̀)”
Today, 5:23 PM
“U’ve been offline 4 nearly a month, is everything haohao thereeeee?? (‘’❛ - „)ᕗ”
“A-Luo, reply plzzzzzzzzzzzzz”
“A”
“Luo”
Luo Binghe scoffed, this was the first time he’d gotten a handful of text messages in a week. He wasn’t exactly the type to mingle with girls, but he found Ning Yingying bearable, so he found her okay-ish.
Ever since they had started talking, it did not take long for Ning Yingying to open up first. Two years ago she had expressed that this was her second online friend, so she had been excited to meet someone else. Eventually, the two had shared bits from their real life as well as in-game on a frequent basis.
And so, he started typing back;
“jus a lil bz recently. old man’s gone cuckoo again…”
“😵💫”
“A-Luo! We’ve been looking 4 uuuuuuu!”
“its a long story… but we’re going to sichuan? i think”
“Huh? Sichuan??”
Luo Binghe started to type out where he currently was, when that same loud boisterous voice rang his ears again.
“Binghe! What are you in the back for? Come, come, I got some snacks—your favorite!” Tianlang Jun threw a small packet of dried seaweed to the back for him.
He hastily caught it and climbed over to the middle row, where he inclined back and propped his feet up on the driver seat’s headrest. Tianlang Jun responded in a chuckle.
“We have six more hours to go before we reach Sichuan,” Tianlang Jun hummed as he started to reverse the car, “There’s a small hotel we can stop b—” a loud ringtone resounded the car and caused Luo Binghe to shift his attention away from his phone.
“No no- A-Luo, I live in Sichuan!!”
“Maybe we could meet 2gether OMGEE!!”
“\(^o^)/”
—Were the last text messages he’d read before reading the name of the caller on the head unit.
Tianlang Jun disconnected his phone from the car’s bluetooth and transferred it to his work phone.
“Ai, calling in the middle of a trip— give me a few minutes, Binghe.” Tianlang Jun greeted the man on the other side of the call and started providing him with unfamiliar locations and details to Luo Binghe.
However, he could hear the other person’s faint voice from the phone. It seemed familiar but not at the same time, he was sure that he had heard his father mention this name multiple times under his stead.
Tianlang Jun was talking about… a school? In Sichuan, too. Along with more unfamiliar jargon far too advanced for the little boy to think about.
Before finally ending the call, his father teased the man on the other end:
“Shen Yuan, you don’t always need to dignify every joke I make, ha?" Tianlang Jun talked through his smile, "You'll be fine."