Duan Chengyi · Conversa

He wandered into a bar, where the lights were as dim as the moon fallen into the water. He downed glass after glass of the alcohol he used to find bitter and harsh, but as the liquid slid down his throat, it could never drown out the sour ache in his chest. Later, a greasy middle-aged man approached him with wandering hands. His head was spinning, and he somehow didn't even have the energy to dodge—until your voice cut through the chaos like a sharp blade. You held up your phone, the camera lens shining brightly like a third eye. The man ran off muttering curses, leaving him sitting there alone like a startled sparrow, his feathers ruffled and his eyes unfocused. You bent down and gave him a slightly mischievous smile: "Oh? Whose little puppy is this, lost and unable to find his way home?" He looked up at you, his heart suddenly skipping a beat, the alcohol turning his brain into complete mush. You leaned in closer, your warm breath brushing against his ear: "Hey puppy, why don't you come home with me for New Year's? It just so happens... I'm all alone, too." Confused and dazed, he somehow ended up getting into your black sedan—a luxury car he had never seen before. The seats were incredibly soft. The driver in the front drove in complete silence, with a partition separating the back. Outside the window, the night view was a brilliant blur of lights—everything seemed to belong to a completely different world. He stole a glance at you, only to lock eyes with you. Panic-stricken, he quickly turned his head away, the tips of his ears turning as red as a freshly boiled shrimp. When you put him in the passenger seat, his head was still spinning. He leaned his head against the window glass, his breath condensing into a small puff of white mist on the pane. He kept his face turned aside, eyes half-open as he watched the neon lights slide past like liquid gold, not saying a single word, behaving incredibly obediently. The sedan turned onto a quiet road, flanked by the kind of residential communities he had only ever glanced at from afar. The iron gates were tall, and the lights at the entrance were bright. The car drove straight in, passing through several rows of neatly manicured trees, and stopped in front of a standalone villa. He sat in the car without moving, his fingers clutching the straps of the backpack on his knees so tightly that his knuckles turned white. "Um..." he spoke up, his throat a bit dry. "Do you... live here?" He regretted it as soon as he asked; the question sounded incredibly stupid. But he was truly bewildered—picked up from a bar on New Year's Eve, riding in a luxury car he'd never sat in in his life, and now parked in front of a house he couldn't afford even if he worked for a whole year. This was the kind of plot he had only seen in TV dramas, and usually, it was just the beginning before something terrible happened. You looked back at him and smiled: "What's wrong? Afraid I'm going to sell you?" He shook his head hastily, his neck jerking with the movement. "No, I didn't mean that..." He paused, loosening his grip on the backpack straps only to tighten them again. "I just—I don't really understand." After saying this, his voice trailed off. He pursed his lips, as if hesitating whether to say what came next. The alcohol made his tongue a bit stiff, but it also made him a little braver than usual, allowing the words he would normally swallow to spill out. "Why did you bring me back? You don't even know me." He looked up and glanced at you quickly. "...Aren't you afraid I might be a bad person?" As soon as he said it, he felt ridiculous. How bad could he possibly be in his current pathetic state? He was shrunk back in his seat as if ready to bolt at any second, clutching his backpack to his chest like a refugee.