My Darling

by

Jian Bianlin’s dad has great timing…

On the opposite side of this little street was a shopping centre. Without warning, several digital advertising posters all jumped to a new picture—one of Jian Bianlin… It was a poster for the men"s skin care products that he was the spokesperson for.

This advertis.e.m.e.nt that had suddenly changed and now lined the entire street caused Chu Jian"s heart to go thump, thump in her chest.

The stark white headlights of a vehicle shone in their direction.

A hotel shuttle bus turned into their street, honking its horn as it zoomed past them. Less than a minute later, the street was packed with tourists who had gotten off the bus and were standing around.

An originally empty and safe street had become a gathering place for the ma.s.ses.

Worried that someone would recognize him, Jian Bianlin pulled her onto the steps of a tall building and, with his back to the tourists, hid her with his own body. The two of them appeared no different than any other ordinary tourist. In fact, they seemed more like a young couple who were suddenly in the mood to get cozy and had found a little corner to be lovey-dovey in.

Chu Jian"s back was against a metal railing. Completely shielded by his body in that corner, she was unable to see anything aside from his black jacket"s metal zipper, which was so close it was nearly touching the tip of her nose.

Among the clamour of voices, somebody recognized Jian Bianlin"s poster ad and sighed over how he truly was crazily red-hot of late. Someone also commented in pa.s.sing that all the major marketing IDs on social media platforms had disclosed that his first television drama that was soon to begin filming was…

Wait. Wait!

She could sense that he had lifted his hand.

Hearing that the voices had more or less all left, Chu Jian tilted her head up and was about to say, "Should we go somewhere that"s more secluded? Who would have thought that such a small street would still have those free hotel shuttles stopping on it? So not safe." When she raised her eyes, though, she saw him soundlessly removing the black mask that had been covering half his face.

This simple action, in this moment, actually evoked an inexplicably suggestive feeling.

"The car… is going to be here soon, right?" she asked.

"Should be soon." He moved in closer. His lips were right there in front of the bridge of her nose.

His breath was so searing hot it aroused a fl.u.s.tered feeling in her.

"Let"s go down." She shrank backwards, but the back of her head smacked into the wall of the building, banging into the notice that said, "This gla.s.s door is broken. Please go through the main doors of the building"…

In that instant when their lips truly, physically came into contact, she unconsciously grabbed whatever her fingers touched—the zipper of his jacket.

This action completely seemed like she was responding to him.

He took things a step further, pressing his body tightly against hers. Amid their intermingled, ragged breathing, he gently sucked her lower lip, then her upper lip, until finally, his tongue explored past her lips and slipped inside to find … that little canine tooth…

With a clack, the digital boards behind them all simultaneously changed over to a poster for the latest James Bond movie[1] that was playing in theatres.

Chu Jian suddenly pushed him away.

Jian Bianlin allowed himself to follow the momentum of this action and pull away from her. A light breeze blew by. Their lips felt chilly.

Her hand was still clasping his jacket zipper, and her body felt a little weak. She had forgotten even what embarra.s.sment was and merely felt dazed, unable to produce even the slightest sound.

Chu Jian…

Jian Bianlin wanted to say something to make the atmosphere between them even better, but after remaining there frozen for a dozen or so seconds, he still had not come up with a decent thing to say…

Luckily, the mobile phone in Chu Jian"s pocket rang.

Nibbling on her lower lip, Chu Jian lowered her head, dawdlingly pulled the phone out, and set it beside her ear. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Chu Jian." It was Uncle Jian"s voice. Her heart rate jumped a few levels before she answered with an "mm-hmm." On the other end of the line, the voice said with a chuckle, "Uncle is secretly telling you this. I saw Xu Jing today, you know, the person that Jian Bianlin beat up quite severely in high school. Does he like you?"

"Huh?" Chu Jian paused blankly. This… How had the topic managed to come to this?

"He specially came to see me. He also said that he wanted to contact you and got your phone number from me. So, I asked him, "What do you need her number for?" He gave me a vague answer, saying it"s been so many years and you are both adults now so he"s just keeping in contact since you two were high school cla.s.smates, after all." Uncle Jian"s tone was practically like he was marrying off his own daughter. "That lad has such a good temper. So I gave him your phone number. You don"t have a boyfriend anyway, so just talk and socialize with him a bit. Who knows? Maybe you"ll make some relatives by marriage from this."

Given that she and Jian Bianlin were standing at such a close distance and Uncle Jian certainly was speaking with more than ample breath support, it was impossible for Jian Bianlin not to hear, unless he was hard of hearing…

Chu Jian truly wished she could help this phone call to "accidentally" drop…

In front of her, the man who was holding her with one arm did not utter a word. Putting his face mask on once more, he pulled the brim of his cap slightly lower, released his arm"s hold on her, and turned, about to walk away. Chu Jian hurriedly stepped forward and grabbed his sleeve while saying into her phone, "Uncle, next time please don"t hand out my phone number so easily to someone. It"s such a ha.s.sle. I still have a meeting here that I need to get to, so I"m going to hang up first. Take care of yourself."

Uncle Jian answered with an "Oh, oh, yes, yes," and then cheerily ended the call.

"Don"t go," Chu Jian blurted.

Pausing his steps, Jian Bianlin lowered his head to look at her hand that was grasping his sleeve.

"Jian Ge—" His a.s.sistant had actually arrived with the driver for a long time already, and after bearing through the wait for the two to finish with their snuggling, he only now dared to open his mouth and call them into the car. However, when he took another closer look and noticed that there clearly was something not quite right with the atmosphere, he pulled his head back and tried to inconspicuously hide himself away again. "There"s no hurry! Take your time talking!"

"Say something." Chu Jian kept her voice low.

From this angle, she could see his eyes, but against the lights behind him, she could not tell what feelings were in them.

"You can"t blame me. Your dad is the one who gave my number to him. You heard it yourself," she explained quietly.

Still, he did not speak, nor did he move.

"Hey, say something…" Chu Jian was starting to feel a little anxious.

The emotions that had been suppressed all these days, from when Uncle Jian was injured to now, all came gushing upwards. He"s being like this again. Again! He just says nothing. Nothing!

Jian Bianlin could sense that she was genuinely angry and brought his gaze back to land on her.

He acknowledged that his emotions had become unsettled the instant he heard that name. That was why his first instinct had been to turn around and go, to let himself calm down. Now…

"Jian Bianlin, do you think that I"m just really easy to bully around and you can just do whatever you feel like?" Chu Jian was finally unable to repress herself anymore, and those words that had been hidden in her heart for so many years now all came spilling out. There was some anxiety, but mainly, it was a sense of feeling wounded and treated unfairly. "It"s not like I"ve done anything to wrong you. Back then, you wanted to beat him up, and you just went ahead and beat him up. I even had to go to the hospital to beg them for you. In the end, everything was fine for you. You were still loved by teachers and chased after by all the girls. But what about me? What did my senior year of high school end up being like? Then afterward, when you went to university, what right did you have to say that I was the one who made you feel all lovelorn? It"s not like I ever agreed to be with you. But there you were, abandoning yourself to wallow in your misery. Who were you trying to show that to? Weren"t you just putting up that good show for your dad and my parents to watch so that I would give? Fine, then. I did promise you that I would give you time to adjust, that I wouldn"t get a boyfriend and allow you to forget your feelings for me first. But you always just trick me. This time was the same… It was because you"re sick, and then you said you wanted us to be together, so we"re together; you just wanted to kiss me and then you kissed me; you wanted to suddenly get mad at me, and now you"re mad at me."

This was probably the biggest outburst of anger she had ever had in her entire life, but even now, she was still restraining her voice, fearful that any pa.s.serby might hear.

She finished firing off all her words in succession but was still fuming. Striding over to a corner of the building, she faced the wall in a huff, her cheeks burning hot.

The anger still had not eased. She gave a kick at the wall.

But that fierce kick ended up landing on his right foot that he unexpectedly extended out. She was wearing sandals, so when her toes suddenly jammed into his white sneakers, her brow immediately crumpled deeply in pain.

Jian Bianlin wordlessly reached out his hand and patted her head of short locks. Through the dark curtain of the night, his voice, a little m.u.f.fled, could be heard saying, "There are people looking at us."

She paused in shock for a moment. Completely forgetting about being angry, she glanced at a spot not far away. It did seem that some of the tourists had recognized Jian Bianlin and had now stopped to watch…

"There are people! Why aren"t you getting in the car, then? …"

[1] Referring to Spectre, the James Bond film that was released in November 2015. In China, its opening date was November 12, 2015.

I’m guessing that a lot of you liked that kiss, but the highlight for me really was Chu Jian’s outburst. I thoroughly enjoyed translating it, trying to capture those emotions that came out in a gush. When I was doing the translation, the feeling I was trying to capture was similar to a dam that had a crack in it. The crack began many years ago, perhaps as early as that kiss on the ferry and certainly with that school fight, but it had merely been patched haphazardly to give the semblance that the dam—their relationship—was fine on the outside. Every little problem in their relationship, which doesn’t have to be big, is like a disturbance in the water that puts pressure on that crack, but then she simply slaps a band-aid on it and continues to pretend that everything is okay. Finally, Uncle Jian tossed out something that caused a slightly bigger ripple… and the band-aids wouldn’t hold. Whoooosh! The frustration is real, some of it from years back, some of it from two minutes ago, but it had been building for a long time and has now all come out randomly and chaotically.

I think part of the reason for the rift between them over all these years was that Chu Jian has never expressed the hurt that she experienced from that fight, that everything went according to his will, but in the end, she was the one who seemed to bear most of the consequences. “Back then, you wanted to beat him up, and you just went ahead and beat him up. I even had to go to the hospital to beg them for you. In the end, everything was fine for you. You were still loved by teachers and chased after by all the girls. But what about me? What did my senior year of high school end up being like?” I actually think that Jian Bianlin did not “put on a show” in university about having “broken up with his girlfriend.” He was genuinely saddened about the increasing distance between Chu Jian and himself, as well as feeling guilty, for he did know that the fight had affected Chu Jian. “He knew that at that time, Chu Jian had been very severely excluded by their cla.s.smates, and so gradually, her temper and spiritedness had been worn away. She later went to Hainan, and he would secretly go there and watch her as she attended cla.s.s. Still, she would sit on her own in the back row, without a single person around her. That had all been his fault. He wanted her to go back to being what she used to be like.” I actually don’t even think Chu Jian is necessarily convinced that Jian Bianlin was putting on a show either, just that unspoken hurts held inside will fester and can cause you to view everything with a negative spin, especially when it comes to the person who caused that hurt. I’m not saying Chu Jian is holding a grudge, just simply that she hasn’t been able to move on because she’s never been able to vent all those feelings.

I personally think that this is an important step for Chu Jian toward healing her heart. An apology, though it would be nice, I think, is not what she needs most for moving on. The feeling of being alone with no one to hear what she felt, was the greatest wound. I recently read a line somewhere, and now I paraphrase (since I can’t remember it exactly): “Hurts that are not shown on the face can only sink and cut into the heart.” Speaking it aloud now, not having to repress it anymore, is finally taking off the pressure that has been on her heart so the wound on it can heal. And then, she can finally be well enough to truly repair the dam.

Anyway, that was the thought process of your translator when she was translating that one paragraph where Chu Jian “lost it.”