Chapter 181: Visit of a Youth

Spring departs and autumn arrives; by now, no one remembers when Fang Pingxi first came to live beneath the overpass.

It seemed he had been there ever since the overpass was completed.

He had become a spiritual symbol for the homeless. As long as one could still see the mute washing his face with rainwater in the morning, it meant the world was still functioning as usual.

Like the world itself, he was silent, untouched by anything, watching the moon rise and the sun set in his own detached rhythm.

The wanderers eventually discovered that the mute could actually speak. When drunk, he would murmur in a rambling tone, recounting a tragic story.

In the story, there was a man of terrible fortune. Misfortune dogged his entire life; his family property was usurped, he nearly lost his life, and while other children studied in school, he was wandering the streets.

He had once faced life with great optimism, eager to seize control of his own destiny.

Yet failure met him at every turn.

And so, he exiled his own heart. From then on, it no longer mattered where he lived, or how he survived.

He had become a walking corpse.

Among the vagrants, some guessed this was the mute's own lived experience, and sighed deeply for him.

Others did not believe it, feeling that such a tempestuous and wandering life only belonged in storybooks, and that the mute must have read it in some old magazine.

Yet whichever guess they favored, it did not diminish the skill with which the mute told his tale. In the ethereal cadence of his voice, the vagrants felt as though they were listening to the mournful strains of an erhu.

Because of this, the vagrants often shared their liquor with the mute, knowing he would only remember how to speak once he was drunk.

Gradually, the reputation of the Overpass Mute spread through the murky corners of Luzhou.

Reporters and writers had even sought out the mute for material, but to such people, the mute never accepted a single drop of liquor.

Despite how those fellows loudly professed that they would expose his experiences to the world and demand justice from society for him.

Yet the mute never believed them. In their eyes, he never saw the certain something he longed to catch a glimpse of.

All he could ever spot was the ambition to get ahead, and a condescending pity for the marginalized.

With his silence, the turbid air beneath the overpass, the buzzing flies, and the pungent odors, he would turn such visitors away.

Nor could these visitors ever stay long beneath the overpass; anyone who managed to endure an entire afternoon was considered to possess astonishing willpower.

And so, the tranquility of the mute's life continued.

Until the arrival of that person.

It was a fiercely scorching morning, and the oppressive heat beneath the overpass had already lasted for a week or so.

Many vagrants beneath the overpass left, unable to bear the torment. They would go to camp near the reservoir until the temperature dropped, returning only when the weather cooled.

The mute did not go with them; for him, going anywhere was the same, and being drenched in sweat mattered little.

He felt as though he no longer possessed a physical body, letting it endure the scorching heat and biting cold at will.

Even death was a matter of indifference to him.

The only reason he was still alive was that dying required effort, and he was too lazy to bother.

Thus, the space beneath the overpass grew much emptier, save for a few elderly folk too frail to move who remained behind, whose helpless groans the mute heard often.

Logically, he ought to have helped them with something—at least fetched some water for them—but he was too lazy.

Everyone dies in the end anyway; sometimes, suffering a bit of thirst is just how things go.

The mute turned over on the corrugated cardboard where he slept, thinking thus.

It was at that moment that the person appeared.

He appeared to be a youth of seventeen or eighteen, his face still bearing an unmistakable scholarly air.

He stepped into the shadows beneath the overpass, gazing at the vagrants lying on the ground.

In turn, the mute sized him up, suspecting the fellow had lost his way and blundered into a place he shouldn't have, because he looked absolutely nothing like a vagrant.

Though the youth wore plain garments, they were washed clean and neatly pressed, showing him to be a person who valued neatness.

Moreover, he possessed quite a handsome appearance; with looks like that, he would never be reduced to vagrancy.

Yet what did any of that have to do with the mute? Beneath the overpass was a place where anyone could come and go as they pleased; it was none of his business.

Yet, after a moment of observation, the youth walked right up to the mute and asked, "Are you the Overpass Mute? I have some things I'd like to ask you. Do you have a moment?"

Ah, another reporter, it seemed. The mute rolled over, treating this sort of person with his customary indifference.

Faced with the cold shoulder, the youth showed no sign of discouragement.

He hesitated in place for a moment, then turned and left the shelter of the overpass.

Reporters these days are getting less and less patient, the mute thought to himself.

Yet he did not dwell on it, sinking into a deep sleep. In such blistering heat, slumber was an effective way to dissipate the heat.

When he awoke, he discovered that the youth had returned beneath the overpass.

From somewhere, he had procured a sheet of corrugated cardboard and laid it not far from the mute, looking as though he intended to settle down right there.

This was something the mute had not anticipated; no reporter had ever done such a thing before.

Yet he paid it no mind, honestly doubting how long the youth could hold out.

Perhaps after being tormented tonight by mosquitoes the size of thumbs, he would bolt in panic.

Yet, to his surprise, the youth did not flee in defeat as he had imagined.

Instead, he firmly spent the night beneath the overpass.

The next day, he asked the mute the exact same question: "I have some things I'd like to ask you. Do you have a moment?"

The mute ignored him just as before.

Unfazed, the youth did not pester him further. Imitating the vagrants, he washed his face with rainwater caught from the edge of the overpass and brushed his teeth with his finger.

He helped the elderly vagrants fetch water—a trek of four or five kilometers to a park with a public restroom where water could be obtained for free.

With a broom he had scavenged, he swept up the piles of casual litter the vagrants had left scattered beneath the overpass.

By nightfall, he burned mugwort gathered from nearby patches of brushwood to drive away the mosquitoes.

The youth's diligent hands and feet earned him the acceptance of the vagrants, who began to regard him as one of their own.

The following morning, the youth asked the mute that question once more: "I have some things I'd like to ask you. Do you have a moment?"

With his back turned to the youth, the mute stared blankly at the wall before him, offering no reply.

Still unfazed, the youth went out to purchase some medicine, applying it to the strange, festering sores on the bodies of the vagrants.

From somewhere, he produced needles and thread, mending the tattered clothes of the vagrants.

Thus he busied himself through another day.

When the next day came, the youth asked the mute the same question again.

This time, the mute responded, "What is it you want to ask me?"

The youth looked rather pleased. He told the mute that he had sought him out after hearing the stories of the Overpass Mute.

The youth wanted to accuse the security bureau, and he hoped the mute would be willing to identify the security officer who had tortured a false confession out of him.