Work Text:
To Wang Yibo at 23,
I’m not gonna start with “hello”, not gonna be polite with you, I know you’re doing pretty well. Can’t recognize me by the writing, right? Who would have thought, I would even continue to refine myself after retirement; writing a little calligraphy with Zhan-Ge everyday, almost got two big boxes full of practice papers now. Zhan-Ge asked me to write this letter, he said, maybe, a me in a parallel universe might actually get this letter.
But Zhan-Ge didn’t think about it, the 23 years old you never really cared about me. You said in interviews before, you’ll choose neither the future nor the past, only the present. So… you might not like me spoiler things for you, just wanting to experience things yourself, trying it out. So, I’m not going to spoil the fun of life experiences for you, just here to jabber a bit.
Now, it’s been a year since The Untamed finished airing, your acting career has started already, I’m not worried at all. Although it’s not perfect, but you worked hard. Still can dance, still can act, and also skate, ride the bike; honestly, I’m actually a little envious of young people’s liveliness. The bikes had been collecting dust and rotting in the garage for a few years now, but still all limited edition, and racing bikes from my youth. Still can’t bring it over me to sell it, so I can occasionally wipe it a little.
So after retirement, you could say I finally lived the life you always wanted - fortune, love and freedom. Only, not much energy left for hobbies, except Legos. I even kept a room just for Lego shelves, still getting the latest stuff, but sometimes I’d fall asleep when building it, and Zhan-Ge had to wake me. And he would scold me, like not putting away the Legos properly, or I would step on it and fall flat on my face.
Are you just as speechless as I am? 80 years old and still being told off like a child. But actually I think Zhan-Ge is more of a child than me. Like last time, I told him I was going for groceries, he was sipping on his tea and nodded, but then he forgot right away; called me three or four times in a rush, wanting to know where I went and if I got lost. I have never gotten lost before, okay? I was once the eagle-eye of Hengdian, forever the human GPS. It’s always me taking care of routes when we travel, how could I get lost on a familiar route?
After we retired, Zhan-Ge picked up cooking even more. Actually we do have help with cooking, but since we’re doing not much else at home, taking care of our daily meals, trying out something new is pretty good. We don’t just cook Chinese, we also got ourselves a set of pastry utensils, like electric scales exactly down to the grams, kitchen thermometer, or eclectic egg shaker, lots of it. Recently we wanted to try to make ice-cream, then got that cream maker from the supermarket, but then we got the wrong brand, the chocolate ice-cream turned out to be hard as stone, couldn’t even cut it with a knife, or poke it with the chopstick. A huge black lumb, with cold air coming off it. Guess it would break your teeth if you tried to bite it.
Once I saw a recipe, wanted to show Zhan-Ge how to make Egg-fried-purple-rice, but it coloured the eggs, ham and veggies black… another black dish. But it didn’t taste bad, totally up to egg-fried-rice’ standard. Zhan-Ge praised me all the time, said it was light and not too heavy and asked me to make it more for him. See, I’m not the same cucumber-murdering, over-vinegared Wang Yibo anymore.
Of course we did succeed at some stuff, like apple pie. Zhan-Ge’s apple pies are the best in the world! When kids and juniors come over, he usually plates the pies in little pieces, but if it’s for me, he would give me a huge one.
But both of us don’t like to wash up, mostly the help would wash up after meals, and we go sunbathing a bit in the winter garden. Zhan-Ge would sit on a chair, lifting one of his legs and slowly rock back and forth. If it’s sunny in winter, he would turn his chair to the west, put his legs up on the window sill and enjoy the sun. And read, whatever we bought recently, he’d read them in piles, from the afternoon to sunset. Sometimes I’d pass by him, see that he’d fallen asleep, the book half covering his face.
And about me, I like to take out our previous dramas, project it on the screen, binge it on the sofa. And I would get Zhan-Ge over to watch The Untamed with me; watch it and remember what happened when we filmed it. It’s pretty weird when you think about it, human memories always fade with time, sometimes we can’t remember what we ate the day before, but the memories of our youth were so clear, like it was yesterday.
Zhan-Ge’s Wei Wuxian is really good-looking. Men get hotter with age, Zhan-Ge is like this as well. Every time I say it, Zhan-Ge would give me a glare, say, hot my ass, how can an 80 years old fossil still be handsome? But everything I said, I meant it. I think he gets it. Every time someone talks about Period handsome men, we both would still make it to the leaderboard. Little idols nowadays have come and gone, and we recognize less and less of them.
I don’t only watch The Untamed, I also watch The Wolf. The first time I watched was when it went online, roughly around where you are now. I’d watch it after shooting, rewind, slow down and take screenshots. It was really fresh. Zhan-Ge wasn’t that thin at that time, but still very handsome on screen. That little beard and the tough guy Ji-Chong pretending to be cute. Cute in any shape and form.
And I also watched The Oath of Love and Wang-Pai. So there is something I must say. Too many kiss scenes in Oath of Love, I skipped it every time. Oh, right. Where you are, Oath of Love hadn’t aired yet, well, then let me tell you now where the kiss scenes are: EpiX, XX:XX; EpiX, XX:XX, EpiX, XX:XX…. Remember to skip it. A glance would rob you ten years of life!
When a person gets old, not only does one have plenty of time to reminisce, but also discover the interesting traces at home. Like, I once opened an old notebook, a nicely folded piece of paper fell out. The writing was yellowish but still clear. It was something he wrote 30 years ago.
I forgot why we fought, I was so angry I dropped some heavy lines and left. I was waiting for him to text me, but didn’t get anything after I walked around the block four or five times. Then I noticed… I didn’t bring my phone, so I snuck back, a bit deflated. When I got to the front door, I saw there was a piece of paper left at the handle. “Spare key is under the doormat, come back early. It’s time to sleep, I’ll be in bed first.”
Oh I felt so wronged there, turned out, that was mid-life-crisis hitting hard? Like, Zhan-Ge didn’t care about me anymore. When I left before, he would call my friends to ask about me. And if there was no news, he would worry especially and even go look for me. And when he noticed I was just walking around the block, he got mad and turned around and left. I couldn’t just let him go there; I’d drag him to walk around the block with me. Two people, beneath streetlamps, circling the block a couple times, and we’d make up.
Heavens, this happened already 30 years ago. I remember the age you were, you hated watching old people reminisce about ancient quarrels and courtships in dramas, things that start with “30 years ago…” Please! It’s been 30 years, time to let it rot or bury it, why still bother? But I turned into one of those fossils as well, a little piece of note could be from 30 years ago… Time is really a scary thing.
I didn’t want to say too much, don’t want to destroy your life experiences, but it’s rare I have someone to tell the truth to, so let me be an old man for once.
A month ago, Zhan-Ge passed away.
I actually didn’t really grasp it yet, just that feeling of emptiness in my heart, until some friends my age or younger came for a visit, holding my hand, comforting me, I suddenly felt it was an inevitable reality. They seemed to be more mournful than I was, the little friends cried a river, the older friends sobbed in group hugs, and it got to me, and I cried a few times as well; my swollen eyes even hurt a bit. Since the beginning of the year, we have said goodbye to many old friends. So, if I may honestly advise you on something, then it’s, have some friends younger than you.
As people above 80, passing any day could be considered normal; Zhan-Ge and I talked about it a few times, we’ve prepared. But I still laid at home for a couple weeks, not wanting to go out, not wanting to do anything. Younger friends worried about me, they came over in turns to stay with me, and talk to me. But I really didn’t like to listen to words of comfort, meeting people also takes a lot of energy, so I send them all away.
Until I finally decided to get up again, I’ve tidied up the whole place on my own, and put Zhan-Ge’s things back where they belonged. Toothbrush, tea cup, chopsticks and bowls, tank tops, pillows, like nothing changed. But occasionally I would find his traces among my things. Misplaced socks, mixed up clothes, a single house shoe left somewhere, and the diary, that won’t be updated again.
I have no interest in cooking anymore, also not much interest in eating either, kind of no energy left in anything. Whatever the help cooks, I’ll eat it. Today, I fell asleep again while playing with Legos, but this time it wasn’t Zhan-Ge who woke me, it was the help after they washed up. I went to sit in the sun in the winter garden, still having the unfinished book Zhan-Ge was reading.
Wang Yibo at 23, if you ever get this letter, make sure to spoil Zhan-Ge more, even if he thinks you’re annoying, insist on calling him Bao Bao. Boy, actually, I’m proud of you, because you kept your word. Whatever you decided to do at 21, you’ll continue onto 81. You fell in love at 21, and you loved him your whole life.
Oh, right. I remember, stuff like time capsules or time travel letters were quite popular. Please write more to me, and ask Zhan-Ge to write more for me. Without him at my side, it’s really a little lonely.
Wang Yibo at 81.
The End.