The Sound of Rain at Two in the Morning

The house I live in is inside the Third Middle School area. To be precise, it’s rented by my classmates. Because I was too busy with work to find a place, I moved in with them without really knowing what it was like. Before arriving, I had fantasies—floor-to-ceiling windows, good lighting, a large balcony, and so on. It wasn’t until the day I moved in that I woke up to how real life actually is. There’s no chance of lazily brewing tea on a flower-filled balcony while quietly reading a book. First of all, the entire apartment has no balcony, not enough flowers, let alone a comfortable chair. My bedroom only has a computer desk. In my ideal home, there should be a 140cm wide, 80cm deep, about 72cm high Manchurian ash desk with a laptop on it, a few books casually placed beside it, and a plant I’ve been growing for two years. I should be sitting at the desk seriously flipping through two books… Even though this ideal doesn’t exist, I’ve accepted the current situation. I can’t strongly protest to anyone that life shouldn’t be this crude, because I could have chosen differently but gave up the opportunity. If there’s still dissatisfaction, it must be that my brain is playing tricks on me.

An elderly couple lives downstairs. They seem to specialize in collecting scrap. They often pile several bags of waste in the corner downstairs, and whenever heavy rain comes, they always cover the scrap with tarps. Sometimes when I come back from work, their door is open, and the room inside is cluttered with all sorts of things. A 21-inch TV sitting on a small box is constantly playing news programs. In many households, TV sound exists as background noise, just like how a sports meet can’t go without the Radetzky March. No matter how major the national political news is, pragmatic Chinese people can completely ignore it. For the elderly, besides serving as household background music, news programs might also remind them that this is a real world.

A few days ago, when I came back from hiking, I happened to run into the old man downstairs sorting through junk. I told him we probably had dozens of plastic bottles upstairs and asked if he wanted them—I’d give them all to him. The reason I offered wasn’t out of pity, but because some time ago I heard someone downstairs shouting “Scrap collection~”. I leaned out the window and asked if he collected dozens of plastic bottles. He very straightforwardly said, “No!” I felt my confidence was hit. In this era that emphasizes economic efficiency, even scrap collectors aren’t as diligent as before. Indeed, times are progressing, and every industry is undergoing earth-shaking changes. If you’re not careful, your economic mindset falls behind. How inspiring. Since I couldn’t get rid of those bottles, the first thing I thought of was giving them to the couple downstairs—do unto others as you would have them do unto you. When the old man heard I wanted to give him the bottles, he immediately pulled out a snakeskin bag and followed me up to the third floor. He stuffed the bottles into the bag one by one. Some still had unfinished purified water inside. He quickly unscrewed the caps. Before I could tell him to pour the water in the toilet, he had already stuck his hand out the door and poured the water gurgling into the stairwell. I didn’t say much. I just watched him pour another large bottle of water in the hallway—“It’ll evaporate,” he said. Luckily there was no sweet and sour juice inside. Maybe he considered that water evaporates, but he didn’t think someone might slip on the puddle or dirty their shoes and track it onto the floor. He seems like a rather ill-tempered old man. He said this apartment only cost 120,000 yuan in 2007. He thought it was too expensive so he didn’t buy it. Our landlord bought it, and now it’s worth over 300,000 yuan. He feels it’s a pity. I’ve heard similar stories more than once. Betting on housing prices is gambling with the government—who can guarantee they’ll always win? If you had over 300,000 yuan in hand right now, would you still dare to place a bet? I really wanted to tell that old man, “Stop complaining, just focus on collecting garbage! And remember not to pour water in people’s hallways.” In the end, I only said to him, “Alright, take care! In a couple of days I’ll have more for you!”

An old lady who sells things lives upstairs. Sometimes we buy beer from her. We haven’t interacted much, but a few days ago when we ran out of electricity, she passed by and gave me tips on buying electricity—always keep a few hundred yuan worth of credit on your electricity card for emergencies. This is the art of her living, I guess. I suspect she has at least two children.

Speaking of no electricity, it’s indeed a very annoying thing. We delegated the responsibility of buying electricity entirely to Weige, but Weige lives in another time zone—we have a time difference. Every morning when I wake up to wash, Weige is about to go to bed. When I get off work in the evening, Weige gets up. But the electricity department uses Beijing time, so our refrigerator hasn’t been running for almost a week. The ice melted into water all over the floor, and the water turned into steam spreading throughout the entire room…

If young people say their days are “boring,” it naturally means they’ve been online until their eyes hurt, their phone data is used up, and Hunan TV is running ads. So during this period without electricity, I was very “bored,” but actually lived quite fulfillingly. When night fell and the house was pitch black, I lay in bed with nothing to do. Suddenly a bright place appeared in my mind, and it had sufficient 24-hour lighting. After hesitating for a moment, I grabbed the recently purchased River Town and went there. On the way, I chatted with Juan’er on my phone for a bit, seeking some comfort so I wouldn’t get kicked out by KFC. Sure enough, they didn’t kick me out. Was it because I bought 9-yuan black tea that actually cost less than 1 yuan to make? Thinking this way, I suddenly felt righteous— if it weren’t for the fact that I could sit here for a while, who would bother spending 9 yuan here to buy a cup of water? Later I told Juan’er, “Actually, I quite enjoy this period of time. Besides work, everything else is very comfortable.” I couldn’t help but think of a book title—A Perfect Day for a Single Person. I don’t intend to live forever in a city without friends, but now I have this opportunity. Setting work aside, the rest of my time I can live entirely according to my own wishes. It’s much better than being in a city with parents who criticize “this isn’t good, that isn’t good,” or having relatives and friends who trouble you with “help me with this, let’s eat there.” But no matter how much I like living alone, no matter how much I show how comfortable I am being alone, when the entire city is submerged in the sound of rain at two in the morning, I know—I can’t leave them.