Heartbeat of Innocence

Slight TW: panic attack

Sometimes, Shen Dongyu would feel very troubled. He wanted to ask Shen Shuran why, why that if jiejie isn’t happy, then he would also be unhappy. 

Even though people are obviously different from each other.

But the moment that the phone rang, and he heard Shen Shuran call him A’Yu along with the sound of the New Year’s bell, Shen Dongyu didn’t want to ask anything anymore.

In order to at least keep the current tranquility, and to not disturb one of jiejie’s rare happy moments. It was also the peace that Shen Shuran tried hard to maintain for him.

“A’Yu, are you feeling unhappy?” It seemed like Shen Shuran had walked from the lively area to a quieter location, with the sound of the bell also abruptly stopping.

“I’m not,” Shen Dongyu, with his back against the wall, slowly slid down and sat on the floor. He bit his hand to suppress his sobs, then spent a few seconds to make sure his voice was normal before saying to Shen Shuran, “Just missing you.”

“Then you should return to Shanghai first.” Shen Shuran could hear that his mood was off, then patiently instructed, “I already left the key with your aunt1阿姨 – A’Yi, the general term to refer to older women, not necessarily related Jiang Yuan. Wear more layers when you return, Shanghai is snowing again.”

Shen Dongyu lightly bumped the back of his head against the wall, trying to relieve the pain in his nerves. Breathing through his mouth in an attempt to calm the suffocating bitterness, while suppressing the chaos inside to talk to Shen Shuran, “Okay.”

His head feeling severely painful, his throat feeling as if he was being choked, his tears sliding down uncontrollably. Old and new bite marks were left on his thin, pale arms, one after another. Shen Dongyu didn’t dare to cry, tightly covering his lips, breathing silently, being in so much discomfort that it felt like he was about to die, and leaned his body forward to try to lay on the floor. 

Shen Shuran still hadn’t hung up the phone, and comforted him in a trembling voice, “A’Yu, don’t feel bad, okay? Jiejie is here.”

In the dark and humid corner sat a thin young boy, leaning against the wall. He was like someone forgotten by the new year, isolated and irrelevant to the fireworks and colorful lights. 

All that was left were the suppressed cries of sorrow. 

That night, Shen Dongyu finished packing up. Quietly leaving the house, it was only when he got on a taxi that he felt freedom, and the pressure on his chest was completely lifted.

It was already daybreak when he arrived in Shanghai, and he aimlessly wandered until dusk.

The bright orange clouds behind the skyline were reflected by the glass windows on the trolley bus, and the concrete telegraph pole holding up the black wires were like music notes. When sparrows or some other birds rested on them, they made it look even more like an old, composed music sheet. 

Shen Dongyu didn’t have much luggage, and wasn’t in a hurry to retrieve the key from Jiang Yuan, so he wandered around Shanghai’s streets with no destination in mind.

While enjoying the atmosphere brought by the nightfall, the snow on top of the trolley bus slowly melted, and Shen Dongyu stuck his hand outside the window. The very last bit of warmth brought by his down jacket was taken away, and the melted snow dripped down through the top of the bus, falling into his palm. 

Shen Dongyu left the bus to go buy a pair of earrings and a headband from the jewelry store near his house. He wanted to surprise Shen Shuran with a present once she returned from Australia.

Holding the pink shopping bag forced on him by the jewelry store owner, he sat in a small milk tea cafe on Nanjing Road, spacing out.

 

After staying at home for four days straight, Chen Jingchuan started wishing that school would begin early.

These past few days after New Year’s, Jiang Yuan would start calling him into the living room at five in the morning to meet the relatives that came early for New Year’s greetings. As soon as they saw the relatives off, Jiang Yuan would drag him out to visit their own aunts and uncles.

Now that the busiest period had passed, he finally had the chance to go find friends and relax on the fifth day.

Li Muxu was waiting for Chen Jingchuan on the bridge near his house. Who knew that even though the sun was shining bright in the morning, it started snowing again in the evening. Jiang Yuan definitely wouldn’t let Chen Jingchuan go out now. Just as he was about to call Chen Jingchuan to reschedule to another day, he glanced at the railing of the opposite bridge.

Someone stood there without an umbrella, and it doesn’t seem like they were waiting for anybody either.

The call didn’t go through, so he didn’t bother calling Chen Jingchuan again.

That person stood there motionless for more than 10 minutes. Li Muxu leaned against a lamp post with an umbrella in his hand, watching for a couple seconds before glancing down and continued playing with his phone.

When Chen Jingchuan returned his call, he was in the middle of a game. Cursing in a low voice, he irritably answered, “Coming or not?”

“I’m on my way, hold on.”

His in-game character was killed, and the resurrection timer counted down. He originally wasn’t too good at this game anyways, so he exited the game, turned off his phone, waiting for Chen Jingchuan to arrive.

The snowfall became heavier. Falling on the river, mixing together with the currents. 

On the surface of the turbulent river, snowflakes disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Shen Dongyu reached out his hand, the snowflakes stayed on his palm for two seconds before quickly melting away.

The white snow stained his eyelashes, wetting his eyes. At this moment, he thought that the river’s temperatures might not be too bad.

The old buildings hidden in the dark appeared discolored and deadly compared to the main city areas of Shanghai further away. The highways laid in among the buildings, and within the stream of cars, the snowflakes fell consistently in front of the lights. 

From Li Muxu’s perspective, he was only able to see a figure from the back. While he made countless wild guesses in his mind, patiently suppressing his curiosity, came Chen Jingchuan’s voice from below the bridge.

“What are you looking at?” Chen Jingchuan snapped his fingers at Li Muxu, causing Li Muxu’s gaze to turn towards him.

“A person.” Li Muxu pointed his chin in the direction he was looking at.

Chen Jingchuan didn’t bring an umbrella, so he could only hide under Li Muxu’s, looking past the edge of the lowered umbrella.

But the person looked somewhat familiar, Chen Jingchuan vaguely had a guess on who it might be. Under Li Muxu’s questioning gaze, he took out his phone, typed in a name, and made a call.

On this quiet winter night, Shen Dongyu’s ringtone sounded particularly abrupt. But the person on the other bridge took out his phone, and stared at it for a long time before finally answering.

“Chen Jingchuan?” Shen Dongyu’s voice was clear and bright, like a river in the freezing winter. 

After just saying those three characters, the call hung up inexplicably. He didn’t understand the purpose of this strange call, but was afraid that Chen Jingchuan needed him for something, so he called back.

“I’m behind you.” Chen Jingchuan said.

Chen Jingchuan’s voice, transferred through the microphone into electric signals, then transmitted to Shen Dongyu’s phone. Overlapping with the voice behind him. 

It sounded different from the voiceline next to his ear. In the void of night, under the rain and snow of winter, Shen Dongyu felt softness and sincerity, pulling his mind back to reality.

“What are you standing here for?” Chen Jingchuan took Li Muxu’s umbrella to stand by Shen Dongyu’s side, shielding him from the neverending snowflakes.

Shen Dongyu wore a sweater and hat. There were small droplets of water sticking on the fuzz of his sweater, and his wet eyelash casted a shadow below his eyes. The bit of redness around his eye corner appeared pitiful, as if he just cried.  

He might’ve been crying. Chen Jingchuan guessed, looking at him.

“Enjoying the breeze.” Shen Dongyu answered simply.

He didn’t expect the answer to be so funny.

“Enjoying what breeze? It’s so cold out.” Chen Jingchuan approached Shen Dongyu, raised a hand to pat off the snowflakes on his shoulder, and lowered the umbrella a little. The distance between the two of them decreased, then Shen Dongyu heard him say, “Are you stupid?”

Shen Dongyu stood there in a daze. His brain lagging behind, it took him some time to respond. “Why are you also here?”

Chen Jingchuan frowned lightly, trying to understand the slow reaction from Shen Dongyu, then pointed towards Li Muxu who was in the snow behind them, “I’m going to the Bund with him.”

“En.” Shen Dongyu quickly glanced over Li Muxu, and said in a strangely slow tone, “Then I might as well go home.”

After saying this, Shen Dongyu just hung his head low, as if waiting for Chen Jingchuan to leave first.

“What is it?” Cheng Jingchuan asked him.

Shen Dongyu raised his head again to look at Cheng Jingchuan, with tears still in his eyes, he gently smiled at Cheng Jingchuan, “You should go quickly then.”

Chen Jingchuan didn’t know how to interpret his smiling but tearful expression, and frowned. Thinking of his disjointed sentences, Chen Jingchuan couldn’t help but worry about leaving him alone, and could only sincerely invite him, “Come hang out with me.”

“No need.” Shen Dongyu shook his head, taking a glance behind Chen Jingchuan, explaining, “You guys can go, I want to go home and sleep.”

Chen Jingchuan switched the umbrella into his other hand, then hooked an arm around Shen Dongyu’s shoulders, letting Shen Dongyu lean into himself, and directly decided for him, “It’s still early. Let’s go home together at night.”

The heavy snow covered every corner of the city, and the two walked under one umbrella while Li Muxu walked to the side, occasionally taking an observational look over Shen Dongyu.

The karaoke in the old alley started operating at eight. In the old fashioned private room sat people in Chen Jingchuan’s friend group,with Shen Dongyu near the TV monitor, spacing out while watching them and resting his chin on his hand. 

His sight was always fixated on Chen Jingchuan, as if only seeing Chen Jingchuan can give him a bit of calmness and sense of security.

The lights in the private room were bright and colorful, and Chen Jingchuan shone in Shen Dongyu’s sight. He knew how to sing all types of songs, and always sang emotional songs with a sense of melancholy. But when Chen Jingchuan looked at him with a smile, the songs didn’t seem so sad anymore. 

The party ended at around midnight. Li Muxu was very drunk, and ended up being carried away by his friends. Chen Jingchuan drank a lot too, but not to the point where he needed Shen Dongyu to help him walk. They saw that some street food vendors still had their lights on, and just realized that they hadn’t eaten for a long time. Chen Jingchuan’s stomach started to slightly ache.

They bought some tang yuan, and Shen Dongyu began to feel sleepy after eating a few. Seeing this, Chen Jingchuan quickly finished the last one, then, holding onto the collar of Shen Dongyu’s shirt, led him out of the alley.

 

TL: Poor Shen Dongyu T^T that first half really hits hard. The author has a really poetic writing style in the raws, so I hope I was able to convey at least part of that feeling in the translations.

On a side note, I spent most of my childhood in Shanghai and the total number of times it snowed was less than 5 lmao ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Now that the first 3 chapters are out, I’ll slow the releases down to a weekly schedule, probably every Friday. Thanks for reading!

1阿姨 – A’Yi, the general term to refer to older women, not necessarily related