After we finished eating dinner, Wu Bosong suggested that we hang around at that unlucky restaurant to drink the instant milk tea which we could have unlimited refills of. He originally suggested drinking the instant coffee that similarly had unlimited refills, but I thought that this act was very shameless, and furthermore, was shameless in a very bourgeois way, so we changed to drinking milk tea.
However, after the fifth time that we got the waiter to help us refill our milk tea, we both didn"t dare to drink it, for we kept on suspecting that that waiter who looked very sour-faced had spat saliva into it.
I watched the sky outside the window darkening slowly, felt for my mobile phone in my pocket, and interrupted Wu Bosong who was vividly describing just how fresh, tender and succulent the lamb chops in New Zealand were. "I think you must be tired, you had better go back home and get over your jet lag."
He cast a glance at me. "I"ve returned for a week, what jet lag is there to get over?"
I spoke again, "Didn"t you say that you hadn"t yet acclimatised and had diarrhoea? This proves that though you think you have gotten over the jet lag, the jet lag is not letting you off."
Wu Bosong snorted. "You want to go and deliver food right, I"ll go together with you, I can conveniently go to the hospital for a return checkup at the same time."
This person sure was shameless, he had the nerve to go for a return checkup for diarrhoea, this type of illness that had never seen the world*, he truly was wasting our homeland"s medical resources. (T/N: "seeing the world" - a phrase usually used to refer to people undergoing experiences, getting familiar with the ways of the world, enriching themselves with life experiences etc)
I swept at my hair, held up the milk tea and drank one mouthful, then recalled how this milk tea possibly had been spat at with saliva, immediately I felt incomparably indignant. "Who said I was going to deliver food! Do I not have dignity*, do I!" (T/N: the original phrase "犯贱" is a slang/modern phrase which refers to when someone insists on doing something while knowing that they will get hurt/it is not right/it will take away their dignity; stooping to a new low, bringing on himself humiliation, cheapening themselves)
He nodded his head, and expressed appeas.e.m.e.nt, "If you"re not delivering, then don"t deliver, what are you getting so stirred up for? He won"t die by not eating one meal."
A hundred claws were scratching at my heart as I watched the sky darken little by little. One moment I was fantasising about Jiang Chen getting a stomach haemorrhage and collapsing on the operating table; the next I fantasised about him getting so hungry till he gnawed on his own fingernails to satiate his hunger; then I fantasised about his stomach being so painful till he turned mad, and used the surgical knife to cut open his own stomach……
In my brain dwelt a horror movie director, I was suitable to dwell in a mental hospital.
I gazed at Wu Bosong sitting opposite me who was unperturbedly and calmly watching me be bra.s.sy and restless, and suddenly came to a realisation. If I were to be looked at like a laughing stock, this old woman* would also reserve (herself) for Jiang Chen to look at, staying on here to amuse this chap who was now being sold domestically despite being initially produced for exports*, just how severely ill was I exactly? (T/N: colloquial slang which can refer to yourself) (T/N: a Chinese business term, referring to products that were meant to be sold overseas, but now are sold domestically [these products can"t be sold in the international market for whatever reason, and hence must be sold domestically to minimise losses on the businessmen"s end])
Hence I slapped the table and shouted, "Waiter!"
The waiter feebly strolled over, he was even clutching a gla.s.s pot of milk tea in his hands. With waning enthusiasm, he asked me, "Refill the milk tea, right?"
"One seafood baked rice, one chicken soup, takeaway." I glared at Wu Bosong as I spoke.
He whistled loud and clear, and teasingly said, "You are still able to eat?"
I watched as he lifted that cup of milk tea that was plausibly spat at with saliva and drank a mouthful. I said, beaming, "I"m delivering food to go and give to Jiang Chen."
He put down the cup and smiled. "That"s more like it, all who make life difficult for themselves are fools."
His smile inexplicably caused me to sense a trace of sorrow, it was as if he had experienced the impermanence of time*. (T/N: original phrase - 沧桑 - short form of the idiom "沧海桑田" which literally means "blue seas, mulberry fields" - how over time, the blue sea turned into cropland for mulberry trees, and how the cropland for mulberry trees turned into sea. The idiom refers to great changes, how things of the world are fickle and change easily, etc)
I stretched my hand over to pat the back of his hand. "If you love me, you have to let me know, only then can I reject you."
He glared at me, and slowly spat out two words*. "Get lost." (T/N: Okay tbh in the original text it is one word, I"m adapting it to English :P)
I ignored him, and continued speaking, "Really, some people are like me, comparatively more stupid and comparatively having a greater inferiority complex. If you don"t make it clear, she won"t know."
Wu Bosong turned his hand over to pat my hand. "Not everyone is as lucky as you are, to have the opportunity to start afresh."
After he finished speaking, he smiled bitterly. His gaze seemed to have penetrated through me, and was looking at a faraway place.
People like me who aren"t often melancholy and moody are very scared of these sort of scenes which require sighing and lamenting. Often I would be at a loss of what to do, and often I didn"t know how to comfort people. Thankfully we were very good friends, even if our separation had caused us to no longer be familiar with each other"s stories, but we weren"t scared of this type of awkwardness.
I carried the bento box and walked towards the hospital, Wu Bosong stood across the road waving his hand at me, looking like the lucky cat* in a display window. (T/N: for those not in Asia (?), this is referring to the j.a.panese lucky cat (a cat figurine which has a paw that moves back and forth) that is often placed at the display windows of shops and restaurants in Asia, meant to bring about good fortune)
I still remembered the location of Jiang Chen"s office. Even though I"d only been there once, and even though I was a person who a poor sense of direction, but I could just remember it, I knew I had to turn left, turn right, go up the stairs, and see a fire hydrant.
It was just that I stood at the entrance, fixing my gaze on "Doctor Jiang" on the door plate for a really long time., so long till a sanitation worker auntie came up to use a wet rag to wipe the door plate and even said, "You aren"t sent here by the supervisors to inspect hygiene, are you? I actually wipe these door plates everyday."
I thought that I couldn"t let the auntie be overly terrified, so I could only hurriedly smile at her, and say, "No, no, I"m here to find Doctor Jiang."
The auntie let out a breath and said, "I"ve dwelled in this hospital for so long, I haven"t yet seen anyone who goes through the back door by bringing a bento box."
I said, "No, no, my bento box is actually all filled with hundred-dollar notes."
She said, "Your bento box is only that big, how much money can you pack in? Nowadays, other people are all giving credit cards, you truly don"t know to keep up with the times."
I still wanted to say something when the door opened. Jiang Chen expressionlessly said to me, "Come in."
The moment I entered the door, he seized over the bento box in my hands. He said, "Do you want to starve me to death."
Jiang Chen swept out a little corner of his office table and placed the bento box on the table, and then began to eat self-absorbedly. I was left hanging at the side. I watched as he wrinkled his brow, picking out the onions in the rice. He said, "Chen Xiaoxi, why did you order a meal with onions!"
I wanted to say, "How can you be so shameless, I bought food for you and you"re still despising it," I wanted to say, "Go on being arrogant, see if I"ll still bring food for you next time……"
But I did not, I thought about how very long ago, when we were still attending university, I brought his clothes and blanket back to my dorm to wash and dry. In the hostel, washing and drying kept me fully busy for almost three days, yet when I went back, he told me, "Chen Xiaoxi, you got dye onto my clothes." Back then I already said, "How can you be so shameless, where else can you go to find such a considerate girlfriend, don"t think that just because it was I who chased after you, you can take advantage of me."
He said, "Are you nuts, I"m using the standards of my future wife to make requests of you, if you"re not willing, then forget it."
I pasted myself onto him and shook his arm, saying, "No, no, where is it dyed? You tell me, I"ll change the next time round."
Huh, that time.
"Chen Xiaoxi." Jiang Chen brandished the chopsticks, waving it a few times in front of me. "What are you in a daze about?"
I shook my head, and said laughingly, "I thought of that shameless mouth and face of yours, always despising this and that when I helped you wash your clothes in the past."
He picked up a piece of squid and stuffed it into his mouth, and said unclearly, "How can I compare to you in terms of shamelessness."
I stared blankly at him, yes, how could he compare to me in terms of shamelessness, coming as soon as I said I would come, leaving as soon as I said I would leave, and actually daring to look back despite being like this.
Jiang Chen suddenly lifted his head, and fixed his gaze on me while saying, "I"m talking about that matter of the library."
Oh, so it"s actually about that, caused me to deprecate myself for a moment there. (T/N: if this sentence is unclear, basically Xiaoxi thought Jiang Chen calling her shameless was about her breaking up with him after being the one to chase after him, so she was self-deprecating herself, but turns out that he was just talking about something else.)
That seemed to have been the winter of our third year in university, everyday I was accompanying Jiang Chen as he studied in the library. Libraries in southern schools had no such thing as central heating, I was scared of the cold, but yet I also wanted to keep him company by his side, so I could only dress myself slightly thicker.
My basic outfit was one thermal underwear, one hoodie, two woollen sweaters, one jacket, one thermal pants, one pair of jeans, two pairs of socks, one pair of ankle-length boots, one scarf and one pair of gloves. I remember that when I wore all these clothes on myself, my wardrobe appeared very much to be completely empty.
This slightly thick outfit of mine caused my movements to appear somewhat inconvenient, and the most prominent manifestation of this inconvenience was on the issue of reading novels. That thick woollen gloves caused my fingers to be extremely clumsy, I always could not accurately rub out one piece of thin paper such that I could then advance into the action of turning the page.
And I don"t know if fellow student Jiang Chen was frozen to the point of foolishness or frozen to the point of stupidity or frozen to the point of enlightenment, in any case, after he discovered that that I had been staring blankly at the same page of the novel for ten minutes, he took the initiative to help me flip that page over. After that, we slowly built up a strange rapport - I would quietly read my book by his side, and when I read till the point that I needed to flip the page I would then use my arm to b.u.mp against him, he would then, without even lifting his head, stretch out his arm to help me flip the page of the book.
This matter actually was not shameless at all, and basically could even be considered as warm. The shamelessness was an accident that extended from this warmth.
As we were conducting this daily activity of "b.u.mping and flipping" in the library everyday, a certain reporter from our school paper was just sun tanning idly on the lawn outside the library. Through the large gla.s.s window of the library that reached the ground, she unintentionally discovered the interactions between Jiang Chen and I, and furthermore believed that this interaction was extremely suitable for a theme that she was going to plan out next - "The little beauties in the school campus". Hence, she laid in wait for us in the library for many days, and with complete disregard for our rights of publicity carried out a 360 degree omni-directional secret photo-taking of us. What was shameless was that, after she finished taking the photos, she had to do post-production editing of the photos, upon hearing that I was from the arts faculty, she directly called on me, and what was even more shameless was that, under her continual and persistent persuasion of how we shouldn"t leave blank s.p.a.ces in our youth, I gladly agreed to do post-production editing with Photoshop and the like for this set of photos at no cost. Moreover, I edited it such that the resulting effect was extremely dreamy and aesthetically-pleasing, extremely like a storybook couple of immortals, extremely like a pair of birds flying together*, extremely like a pair of mandarin ducks frolicking in the water*…… (T/N: "A pair of birds flying together" - refers to a couple that is very loving, that accompanies each other and doesn"t leave) (T/N: In Chinese language/culture, mandarin ducks are a symbol for a couple as the mandarin ducks often stick together as a pair when you see them in ponds. Mandarin ducks are often used in songs/poetry/etc to describe/be a.n.a.logies for beautiful romantic love.)
That series of photos caused a very huge sensation after it was published on the school paper, the school paper and school forum took advantage of this to act together and launch a comparative evaluation of "school campus lovers", Jiang Chen was chosen to be one of the top three contestants. Competing side by side with him was a certain dear friend from the Chinese faculty who jumped into a river to fish out a ring for his girlfriend and another dear friend from the History faculty who personally made a set of hanfu* for his girlfriend. Compared to them, Jiang Chen"s performance seemed to be comparatively more insignificant, but it was worth mentioning that the dear friend from the Chinese faculty looked like Tao Yuanming* in our Chinese language textbooks, and the dear friend from the history faculty had looks that were very much characteristic of academia - he looked like the restored sculpture of the Peking ape-man*. Hence, fellow student Jiang Chen from the medical faculty who didn"t look at all like a medical specimen bravely seized first place with a poll count that remained high throughout, and was honoured with the t.i.tle of "School Campus Lover". This result tells us that you need to depend on looks to make a living in society. (T/N: hanfu - traditional Han Chinese costume/dress) (T/N: Tao Yuanming - a famous and great writer and poet from the Jin dynasty) (T/N: Peking ape-man/Peking man - h.o.m.o erectus pekinensis, of human lineage, his fossils were discovered near Beijing in the 1920s)
I felt that as the only science student in this compet.i.tion, Jiang Chen had really gained honour on behalf of science students.
So I didn"t know why Jiang Chen upon knowing the entire sequence of events of this matter was so angry that he nearly whirled me to go hit the wall.