The Silence of Men and the Tears of Women

The phone rang a few times before it was picked up. I pretended to be concerned before Mi Cai and asked, "Have you taken the fever medicine and cough medicine I bought for you?"

"I have." Mi Cai replied calmly. Although she was calm, she seemed to have lost her previous disgust.

"Are you feeling better?"

"Better." Mi Cai coughed again.

"Put on more clothes. You'll be fine soon." I still asked with concern.

"I'm not going out. Why would I wear so many clothes?"

Seeing that Mi Cai was successfully brought into the conversation, I said, "I really have to trouble you to come out. That... I'm at the police station now. I got into a fight with someone and I don't have enough money to pay the fine. Can you come over and help me pay it?"

"You fought with someone?" Mi Cai asked after a pause.

"That's right. That grandson really deserves a beating. I beat him up to teach him not to live too freely!"

"I think you live as you please!" Mi Cai choked on my words. She didn't say whether she would come or not.

"Are you coming or not? Can you give me a definite answer?" I asked anxiously.

Mi Cai was silent. This silence seemed to be intentional.

I asked anxiously, "Can you come? ... They're about to punish me!"

As soon as I finished speaking, Mi Cai didn't answer, but the police officer was furious. He said angrily to me, "We're the People's Police. Do you think we're gangsters? What do you mean by using the law?"

I quickly covered the phone and whispered, "Calm down, calm down… I'm just exaggerating to describe this matter. I want her to quickly help me pay the fine. That way, I'll be free and you'll save yourself the trouble, right, Police Brother?"

The policeman made a gesture for me to quickly settle it and did not say anything else. I was a little nervous as I waited for Mi Cai's reply. If she was unwilling to come, I really had no choice but to trouble Fang Yuan and his wife.

Mi Cai seemed to have made a very difficult decision before asking me, "Which police station?"

I quickly answered, "Guanqian Police Station."

Mi Cai hung up the phone with a "hmm". This kind of ambiguous attitude made me feel uneasy. Combined with the fact that she left me in a wasteland 30 kilometers away from the city, it was not impossible for her to trick me again.

The police had already left, but I was still in the interrogation room. To me, the cold walls around me and the words on the walls that represented the dignity of the law, "Leniency to those who confess, severity to those who resist", more or less made me feel depressed. I couldn't wait to leave this place as soon as possible, but as time passed, I started to suspect I had been scammed again!

...

Half an hour later, the door that had been tightly shut was finally opened. This time, it was a policewoman. She said to me, "Zhao Yang, right? Someone has paid the fine for you. Take your ID card and register!"

This sentence made my tense nerves relax. When I stood up from the chair, I was actually a little exhausted, but my heart still got rid of the heavy and depressed feeling. She really came to save me from the sea of suffering!

...

Mi Cai and I left the police station side by side. I actually felt as if a lifetime had passed. Even the air outside with the car exhaust seemed to be fresher.

Mi Cai tucked her messy hair behind her ear and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. She coughed again. She came to help me solve this troublesome problem with her illness.

I said to Mi Cai, "I've troubled you today. That fine and the money I owe you before..." I scratched my head and said in embarrassment, "It seems it won't be enough even if I get my salary next week!"

Mi Cai didn't care about paying back the money. She stopped and said to me, "So you know that you've caused me trouble. Don't cause such trouble in the future."

I laughed self-deprecatingly, "You said I was a scum. Fighting, playing with women. I'm only qualified to be a scum if I do everything!"

Mi Cai looked at me and didn't say anything. The disgust in her eyes resurfaced. Perhaps she only thought this was a crazy statement that didn't fit her logic, but she didn't understand this was self-deprecating, and I was feeling a little down.

Mi Cai continued to walk forward. I followed her footsteps and discussed with her in a gentle tone, "Actually, when I get my salary next week, and with the money my dad left me, I can pay off the money I owe you, but I don't have any extra money to rent a house… Look, why don't I return the money to you first and you let me stay for another month? When I recover financially, I'll move out."

Mi Cai looked at me with a gaze that made me unable to guess her emotions…

As Mi Cai and I stared at each other speechlessly, a taxi that seemed to have been injected with stimulants stopped not far away from us. Then, the door was hurriedly opened and we saw Le Yao hurriedly getting out of the car with a handbag.

...

Le Yao came in front of me and stood face-to-face with Mi Cai. The two of them were similar in height, and although their dressing styles were different, they both had a different temperament. They were also rare beauties in the true sense. Even the two male police officers passing by couldn't help but size them up.

"Why are you here?" I asked curiously.

Le Yao's tone was filled with concern and nervousness as she said to me, "Robben called me and said you were sent to the police station for fighting in a bar!"

"It's fine now," I replied in a relaxed tone.

Le Yao didn't reply to me, but she said to Mi Cai, "Miss, can you please leave for a moment? I have a private conversation with Zhao Yang."

Mi Cai wasn't interested in staying by my side. She just nodded and walked to her car before driving away.

...

This seemed to be a very troublesome night. I was a little irritated and lit a cigarette for myself out of habit.

Le Yao looked at the place where Mi Cai disappeared and asked, "Did she help you pay the fine?"

"Don't ask about obvious things, okay?" I said impatiently.

"What's your relationship with her?"

"Whatever relationship you think I have with her," I said perfunctorily.

My perfunctory and impatient attitude made Le Yao look a little down, and she fell silent.

After smoking half of the cigarette, I finally said to Le Yao, "You should go back. It's windy now. You just finished surgery, so your body can't take it."

Le Yao shook her head to indicate that she wouldn't leave. She then asked me, "Why did you fight? Is there something uncomfortable in your heart?"

I was stunned for a moment. After Le Yao asked this question, I couldn't help but wonder why I had to fight. I had been playing in the bar for two years. I had been drunk and throwing a tantrum. I had met all kinds of people. In the past, I had chosen to ignore them. Why wasn't I willing to endure it today?

Even though I didn't want to admit it, this was indeed related to the news that Jian Wei was coming back. In the past, she was far away, so the pain had been lurking. When she was about to return to the country, these pains suddenly erupted and stimulated my fragile nerves.

I looked at Le Yao and wiped my face with my hands, "I'm begging you, can you stop asking?"

"Zhao Yang, do I make you so impatient?" Le Yao said to me with tears in her eyes.

I didn't say anything and just smoked. I stood in the cold wind with Le Yao and put on a classic scene where the man was silent and the woman was crying.

After a long time, Le Yao finally said to me, "I'm going to Heng Dian next week, the production team will start filming early."

"Is that so? I wish you great success in advance!"

Le Yao looked at me with a complicated expression and said in a very light tone, "The reason why I told you this is not because I want you to give me your blessings. I just hope you can live well in the days when I'm not around."

I continued to remain silent, but my heart was filled with all sorts of emotions. I couldn't figure out where these emotions came from.

Le Yao took out a pen from her handbag and said to me, "Give me your hand."

Although I didn't know what she was going to do, I still reached out my hand in front of her like a robot.

Le Yao wrote a string of phone numbers on my hand and said to me, "I'm going to stay in Heng Dian for a long time. If you're in a bad mood or have something on your mind, just call me at this number." After a pause, she added, "This number is on 24 hours a day."

I didn't know what to say, so I just looked at her in silence.

Le Yao put the pen into her bag and smiled at me, "The next time we meet, we should say that we haven't seen each other for a long time… Bye-bye, Zhao Yang!"

...

Looking at Le Yao's back, I don't know why I suddenly felt sad about parting. Perhaps even if we were friends with benefits, after a long time, we would still have some feelings, even though most of the time, I was very tired of the trouble she brought me one after another.

...

It's late at night. I should go back, but where should I go? Even though I still live in that old but warm house, I still have to be thick-skinned to live in it. If Mi Cai insists on letting me leave, where should I put the melancholy, loss, and loneliness that plagued me? Am I really going to hand it over to this endless night?

No, I don't want to leave. It's time for me to have a good talk with Mi Cai. Even if I have to beg her to take me in, I only want to properly put away my melancholy, loss, and loneliness!