The two Qilin have been crouching at the entrance of the shopping mall for twenty-four years.
I don’t know what material they’re coated with, but they are entirely jet-black and haven’t shown a speck of rust all these years.
At first, Manager Wang from the property management department told Lin Song that the two statues at the main entrance were Qilin. So, Lin Song called them Qilin. In any case, Lin Song had never seen a living Qilin, and Manager Wang was always exceptionally serious and responsible in his work. His words were worthy of Lin Song’s trust.
One time, when Lin Song went to the Wangyuxia pastry shop on Jiqing Street to buy snacks for his great-grandmother, an artisan who claimed to be a prized disciple of “Wuhan Clay Figurine Master Hu” said that he had made this pair of 2.68-meter-tall bronze “Fire Qilin.” Well, that settled it. The creatures crouching at the mall entrance were a pair of Qilin.
Unlike the stone lions in front of a palace—with the male on the left playing with an embroidered ball and the female on the right tending to her cub—these two Qilin at the mall both had a pair of horns on their heads, making it impossible to distinguish male from female. Lin Song had examined them countless times from every angle; they looked as if they were cast from the very same mold.
Previously, the Qilin crouched on concrete pedestals that were about half a person’s height. Looking up at them against the glaring sun, the pair truly looked quite majestic.
Later, the mall went out of business and sat abandoned for many years. The open square in front of it was used by nearby residents as a free parking lot. The local traffic wardens would come twice a day to issue tickets, their timing unfixed, as if they were playing a game of hide-and-seek with the car owners.
Later still, a new owner took over, and the mall reopened. The two massive concrete pedestals on which the Qilin crouched happened to be straddling the driveway of the newly planned paid parking lot.
The new owner understood feng shui. A crouching Qilin’s duty is to guard the house and ward off evil, not to attract wealth. The new owner didn’t believe in warding off evil; he only wanted to attract wealth. Therefore, to him, these two driveway-blocking Qilin were less useful than the single Pixiu displayed on his desk.
Presumably, the new mall had spent a fair bit of money acquiring this pair of Qilin, and it seemed a pity to discard them. So, the new owner demolished their pedestals and squeezed the two Qilin right up against the mall’s entrance, tucked under the lintel.
Just like that, the Qilin’s imposing aura was diminished in an instant.
The Qilin weren’t actually much taller than Lin Song himself. Being looked at on eye level like this, the divine beasts seemed to be afflicted with a heavy sense of loss.
Originally, Lin Song had always felt that his home was accompanied by divine beasts, capable of warding off demons and expelling evil spirits. Now, in Lin Song’s eyes, these two Qilin looked more and more like a pair of huskies squatting at the mall entrance.
Recently, the stray white cat in the underground garage seems to have found a new territory. There have been no paw prints on the windshield of Lin Song’s car for several days. That cat seems to recognize the new Peugeot logo; I wonder if it also classifies itself as a type of lion? It always leaps up from the hood, climbs onto the roof for a nap, and then jumps back down the same way after waking up. As a result, four distinct rows of paw prints would be left on Lin Song’s windshield.
In the morning, the building manager from property management sent a message in the residents’ group chat, announcing a three-hour water outage starting at 2:30 PM. Lin Song decided he might as well not stay at home. He planned to go out for a bite to eat and find a cool place for a cup of coffee.
Passing by the local elementary school, the playground was quiet. There were no children in gym class, nor the sound of reading from the classrooms. They were already on summer vacation, and there were no parents waiting at the school gate to pick up their kids.
In the elevator, Lin Song ran into the younger of the twins from upstairs, who was on his way to the mini-mart for snacks. He was holding his wrist up, talking to a classmate on his smartwatch, arranging a time to play basketball that evening. Lin Song could now tell the twins apart at a glance—the younger brother always has a hint of defiance in his eyes.
Lin Song’s deskmate in junior high was also a twin. He once went to his deskmate’s house, and the brother was the one who answered the door. He opened it only halfway, blocking Lin Song outside, and asked, “Who are you looking for?”
Lin Song could only stare back, baffled. “You…”
The brother understood. “Oh, he’s not home.”
After that incident, Lin Song specifically went to their house when he knew both twin brothers were home and, from then on, mastered some techniques for telling them apart.
Lin Song likes to get to the bottom of things. Whenever he sees a headline like, “Two things you don’t know about idiots,” he is reminded of something a proud car owner once said:
“I never yield to idiots.”
Lin Song would silently say to himself: I yield to idiots.
In the community’s green space, there’s a footpath paved with cobblestones, and on it sits a narrow pavilion. In summers past, his mother often went there to cool off in the morning.
Now, the cobblestone path in the pavilion is littered with cigarette butts discarded by old men, old-timers, and young guys. Every time Lin Song sees it, he thinks, These fellows would surely never bother to hang their clothes on a hanger at home. They are destined to live different lives.
Late at night, Lin Song lay in bed, staring at the shadow of the chandelier on the ceiling. Over time, he wondered, will the shadow stain the white ceiling black…?