ch 3 The Legendary Li Bala
Of course I don’t remember the events right when I was born. In fact, there are many things I don’t remember. I’m a master of forgetfulness. When I first started at the vocational school, they had us fill in a form. The first item asked for your specialty. In big, flamboyant letters, I wrote “forgetting.”
The teacher stared at me with big eyes, and bitingly said, “Do you not know what the word ‘specialty’ means?” I bit my pen, put on an idiotic face, and just stared back at her. She shook her head and walked away.
I took the pen from my mouth and gave a lively laugh.
It was at that moment that a tall boy abruptly jumped in front of me. He was very tall, blocking all the sunlight from me. It made me feel unhappy. He stared at me and asked, “Are you the legendary Li Bala?”
Sitting on the desk with my legs swinging, I said, “I didn’t know I was so famous.”
“I’m Blackie,” he announced, head held high. “From the moment I found out you would be coming to our school, I decided to pursue you.”
On a weekend evening, Blackie wanted to fight with Tian High’s basketball team captain. They’d been making trouble for several days. Blackie envied the luck of the Tian High kids, the way they never gave up. It was only 10 in the morning, and I was still sleeping when Blackie called. My whole pillow vibrated, so I pressed the speaker b.u.t.ton. As if he were holding a loudspeaker, I heard him excitedly call out, “Wifey, come see! See how I took care of them!”
The technical school’s basketball court was, indeed, very run-down. But there was an incandescent lamp there, sort of like a handheld lantern. It hung above the basketball hoop, and when the wind blew, the light flickered. It was very interesting. No one bothered you in this place, so during the school holidays, kids would show up to play ball at night.
I stopped at the edge of the basketball court. No one paid me any attention. Blackie’s head was bare. He liked wearing a sleeveless black shirt and white earring. He was very muscular. Not long after I’d first arrived at the school, I heard a rumor that there were two pregnant girls who’d made a move on him, because they wanted to marry him. But I didn’t mind, because I wouldn’t get pregnant for him. When I think of how out of date Blackie’s clothes that day were, I can’t help but to laugh. G.o.d help me, won’t you?
Seeing that I’d arrived, Blackie looked very excited. He kissed my hand. And as he breathed, he said, “Missus, thank you for coming.”
I really wanted to trample him. He continued to say to the guys behind him, “Take care of your sister-in-law. Go and bring a stool!” That’s when I saw two golden-haired kids behind him. They had monolids and drooping mouths, with youthful, innocent and foolish looks. As if their lives were on the line, they ran off quickly.
I was both very angry and very amused. Then I turned, and I saw a boy standing against the basketball hoop. He wore a hat, the brim pulled low so that I couldn’t see his face. But I could tell that he was chewing gum, his cheeks moving back and forth.
The spot I stood at wasn’t actually very far from them. Blackie threw the basketball cleanly to him and said “Start.”
He caught it and started dribbling. With his left hand, he threw off his hat, which landed at my feet.
When he lifted up his head, under the shining incandescent light, I saw his chiseled face. Even long after that, I would often recall that moment, recall the way my heart felt then. It was like a container that was filled with water, but then was suddenly emptied out. As if the world were turned upside down. Something like that.
Usually, I’m the most uninterested in that kind of sports compet.i.tion. But that day, I sat there on a hard stool and watched the whole game.
The final score was 1-3. Blackie and them actually lost. He wiped away his sweat, and with a loud voice, “TMD, you win. Zhang Yang, you’re really something.”
(t/n: TMD is an abbreviation for 他妈的 (tā mā de), which is like a curse. Sort of the way people will cry out “d.a.m.n it” or “f.u.c.k,” I guess.)
After the guy called Zhang Yang slowly packed up his bag and slung it over his shoulder, he walked over to me. He didn’t seem to take notice of my flower-print skirt or my green eyeshadow. In fact, he didn’t seem to notice me at all. He just bent down and picked up his cap, placing it back on his head. And just like that, he left without a word.
As you would expect, I followed Zhang Yang as he left. After I pa.s.sed the school gates, I took off my shoes. That way, he wouldn’t hear my footsteps. He was about 150 meters in front of me. It was a bit far, but I could still follow him. I’m not sure of my motive. I just really wanted to find out where he was going. Little Yang, what a cute boy. There was a strange sort of softness in my heart, even as my soles of my feet were aching. It made me feel so alive.
I held my shoes with my left hand and my skirt with my right hand. In the quiet of the night, I was on my tiptoes, following a boy I’d never seen before. Luckily, there weren’t many people on the path he was taking. Otherwise, I wonder how many people would stare at me with a curious looks. I don’t know. Actually, my mind was completely blank at the time. I just knew that I’d be willing to chase in this direction.
To be honest, my following tactics that day weren’t actually successful. After turning a few corners, I completely lost sight of Zhang Yang. A bit discouraged, I squatted down on the road, rubbed my aching feet, and put my shoes back on. While I was in the midst of thinking about what to do next, someone tapped my on the shoulder.
I heard a very nice male voice say, “Why are you following me?”
I turned and saw Zhang Yang.
“Hi!” I jumped up, “So you were here!”
“You’re Li Bala,” he said. “I recognize you.”
“Ha!” Pleased with myself, I tossed my hair. “Is it because I’m so pretty, so I left a very deep impression?”
He looked at me. Maybe he was trying to figure out if I was pretty or not. But instead, he said, “There’s a lot of broken gla.s.s on this road. If you walk without your shoes on, it’ll be very dangerous.”
I was really suspicious about whether or not he had eyes on the back of his head. He was really, really too handsome. Too out of the ordinary. I really couldn’t help myself.
I put a finger in my mouth and bit down gently, to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
“Go home, it’s not early anymore.” When he finished speaking, he smiled, and then turned around and left.
The second time I saw him was inside the noodle shop.
I really liked the noodle shop by Tian High. The noodles there really suited to my tastes. Right when I walked in, I saw him. He was sitting near the window that faced the street, at a two-person table. Across from him was a little girl. She had two pigtails and wore a white T-shirt with small dolls printed on it. They looked just like a pair of lovers, but they seemed to be trying really hard to pretend as if there was no relation between them. I suddenly wanted to laugh a bit. He pulled out a cigarette case from his jeans pocket, and lit up his Double Happiness (cigarette brand) with a match the shop provided.
I laughed.
“Hi, hi!” I shouted out mischievously. “Hi, hi, hi, Little Yang! How are you?”
Zhang Yang stood up and left. The girl also got up and followed him. I realized that Zhang Yang had payed for two bowls of noodles when he was at the counter. The girl obediently walked in front of him. When they walked out of the noodle shop, he lightly patted her back. She turned back to see his smiling, doting face.
You have to believe me. At that moment, I didn’t feel even a tiny bit of jealousy.
I don’t know what jealousy is. But as you might suspect, I took him to be a present that I had commissioned. No matter how many people admired it, he was mine.
I was determined to make it happen.
Dearest Little Yang, you’re mine.
I asked the lady boss for some paper and a pen. I quickly wrote down my phone number and ran outside. I saw Zhang Yang’s back, and he was already almost inside the school gates. I rushed to stop him and pressed the paper into his hands. He took it and walked away without a trace.
Looks like he was even more of a sly fox than I was.
Zhang Yang’s text came three days later. At the time, I was with Blackie at an internet cafe playing Ragnarok Online. An alert rang out from my phone. It was a number I didn’t know, and the text said, “I’m at the noodle shop.”
I pretty much jumped up from my seat, and told Blackie, “Something’s come up, I have to go.”
I left the internet cafe, sprinting to the noodle shop.
I ran to the entrance of the noodle shop and saw Zhang Yang stand up and walk outside. I understood and followed him. He walked to a small street near the shop. It was really hard to walk there, because houses were being constructed on both sides. Basically, there weren’t any people there. I followed him for nearly 200 meters. He stopped in a dark corner, leaned up against the wall there, and lit up a cigarette.
I walked up to him, and wanted to say something. But I realized that I couldn’t use the same satirical tone I used with Blackie.
He made me feel all sorts of clumsy and awkward.
I could only stand there and watch as he smoked.
He pulled out his cigarette case, handed it to me, asking, “You want one?”
I took one, and then realized I didn’t have a lighter on me. So I put the cigarette in my mouth and leaned over to him. Without any hesitation, he very cooperatively helped light me up. There was very little distance between us. His eyes were like stars, blinking in the sky. Suddenly, my eyes were wet for some reason.
He placed his hand on my cold face, and softly said, “Li Bala, you’re very famous.”
“Really?” I winked at him. “You’re chasing a famous girl. Soon, you’ll be famous too.”
He pulled me into his arms, and I could very clearly hear his heart beating. And my heart ridiculously followed along, beating fervently. Zhang Yang put his lips onto my ear, “I can chase you, but you have to promise me three things.”
“Hm?”
What Zhang Yang said then was very methodical, as if he’d gone over it in his mind many times before. He said, “One, you have to finish things up with that big and tall boyfriend of yours. Two, go pursue a boy named Xu Yi. No matter what methods you use, you have to catch him in your hands. Three, before you finish the first two things, no one is to know what’s going on between us.”
“No problem,” I said.
“You’re not going to ask why?”
“No.”
“Good.” He tightened his arms, and said, “___” I listened and closed my eyes.
(t/n: I didn’t translate what he said there because I have no clue what it means. Probably not important, right? Haha. (Original text: 你把劬Ρ掌鹄础))
“Your eyeshadow… It’s green?” he said.
“Mm.”
“I like it. You’re really a very out of the ordinary girl.”
“Woman.” I opened my eyes to correct him.
He laughed cooly, and then he kissed me. I knew then, I was done for. I’ve kissed a lot of boys before, but Zhang Yang… He was different.
Zhang Yang was definitely different. Using a very old-fashioned phrase to describe it: If he were a flame, I would be the stupid, reckless moth.
The evening after I left Zhang Yang, I went to look for my cousin.
My cousin was the only one who could take care of Blackie. Maybe he got bored after being in the internet cafe for too long, but Blackie had already called me several times. I just didn’t want to answer the calls. Zhang Yang was the only thing on my mind. My mouth smelled like a fragrant smoke, Zhang Yang’s scent. I was a rippling pond, with no way to calm down.
In order to gain all this, I was willing to pay any price.
Eyes red, I told my cousin, “Blackie messed with me.”
He looked at me and asked, “So what do you want to do?”
I told him, “Make him stop bothering me from now on.”
The second day at school, Blackie would walk around me when he saw me. His crew was the same. When they saw me, they quickly tried to avoid me, just like a rat to a mouse.
I felt a calm I’d never felt before.
Of course, it was a bit lonely too.
I sat on the cla.s.sroom windowsill and texted Zhang Yang. I told him that Blackie was easily taken care of, and asked when I should start on the second task. He didn’t respond, and I was restless until the start of cla.s.s.
I saw one of Blackie’s subordinates, who said to me with a frightened voice, “Blackie bro wants to see you.”
“But I don’t want to see him,” I said.
“Please, Bala sis. Just go see him, otherwise he’ll beat me up.”
“What’s that got to do with me?!”
“Rather than hitting my body, why not just hurt in your heart,” the boy said glibly.
I couldn’t help but laugh. Alright, maybe I should go see Blackie once. I owed him an explanation. But I couldn’t suffer any losses, so I said I’d meet him at Forget It bar.
At 8 o’clock, Blackie showed up. He was, strangely, dressed very properly. He wasn’t wearing any of those nonsensical things. He took a seat in front of me, and I pa.s.sed him a cigarette.
His hand was shaking, and it took him forever to light it. We kept silent. After his cigarette was halfway gone, tears showed in his eyes. And then he leaned on the table and started to cry. He beat his fists onto the tabletop, like a low-grade TV drama actor. In order to keep him from a fool of himself, I pushed him to a small room behind the bar. He came to embrace me, and I pushed him away.
Bala,” he pleaded, with tears running down his face. “Don’t leave me. You know, I really like you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said with a cold face. “I don’t like you anymore.”
“All along, I haven’t touched you. It’s because I really like you. Can you really not tell? I can’t be without you.”
G.o.d, he was actually so nauseating.
“Blackie,” I walked closer to him and said. “Forget it, forget me.”
With bloodshot eyes, he looked at me in despair.
Someone came and knocked on the door. I told him it was nothing, implying that he should go. Blackie wiped away his tears. As he made his way to the door, he turned around. In a very loud voice, he said, “Li Bala, remember this. I’m not afraid of your cousin. I’ll still wait for you to give me another chance. I’m going to conquer you.”
When he finished speaking, he made a clean exit.
It was the first time, in all the time that I’d known Blackie, that I’d felt he was kind of cute. His tears, his confidence all pointed to him being a real man. It was the first time I felt respect for him. But, he wasn’t the kind of guy I liked. I liked someone like Zhang Yang. That was set by fate, and no one had any way to change that.
I calmly waited for Zhang Yang’s news.
Then one day, he told me to get online.
I went on, and we added each other on QQ (instant messenger). He sent me a photo of the boy named Xu Yi. He also sent me the boy’s daily schedule. He said, no matter what, I had to find a way to make this boy fall for me.
I asked him, “How are you going to thank me?”
He told me, “You think I don’t know what you want? Don’t worry. When the chance comes, I’ll make your wish come true.”
I responded, “Chances are created.”
And he said, “I don’t like speaking about terms with others, especially girls.”
You see, I’ve searched mountains and rivers, and I finally found someone who was more bad than me. If I don’t sacrifice my life for him, who would I sacrifice for?
In all my years, it was usually boys chasing after me. I had never so carefully and deliberately gone after someone. That’s to say, this Xu Yi kid would be pretty happy. It was after I starting “chasing” him that I understood, that I found out that he and Zhang Yi were the same. They were both very influential at Tian High. Or in other words, they were enemies. But there was a lot that was different between them too. That is, Xu Yi was really a very good kid.
I was like a cloud of disaster, slowly swimming into his life. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel any guilt for what I was doing, but for my Little Yang, I had no other choice.
I thought up many plans to get close to Xu Yi. I would follow him after his evening self-study cla.s.ses. Once, I even got a bicycle to ride around after him. Soon after, everyone knew that there was a bad girl, Bala, who was pursuing him. One time, he pulled another girl to walk along with him. He was trying to tell me he was already taken, but I didn’t pay any care to that. I even flashed him a smile and gave a whistle. I shrugged and walked off to the side, no longer watching them.
On the weekends, I would go to the gym to watch him play ball in the afternoon. I’d always sit there the whole time, no matter how hot it got. When he scored a point, I’d shout loudly, “Xu Yi, I love you!” Actually, I was there to watch Zhang Yang. What I really wanted to say was, “Little Yang, I love you.” Sometimes Zhang Yang would go there to play, but he’d never pay me any attention, as if he didn’t even know me. When students from the other schools came to play and heard my shouts, they’d cry out with ambiguous laughter. Xu Yi must have felt embarra.s.sed, his face a bit red. But there was nothing he could do.
One time, I was following him and suddenly started singing out, “Hey, boy in the front! Look over here, look over here!” That scared him quite a bit, and he ran away. Later, I found out that when he walked alone, he would nervously look around a bit before he felt a.s.sured.
Sometimes I would write him a letter and leave it in his mailbox. I’d just talk about whatever, like my family’s cat, the flowers on the balcony, etc. But he never responded.
But I knew that I’d disrupted his life greatly.
He told me later that I was like a sweet-smelling plant that enchanted him. He wouldn’t know how to stop if he got caught in it, so it was best to just ignore it.
But finally, he gave into temptation. It was on the weekend, after school, when he came up to me and said, “Let’s go see that cat of yours!”
Hoohoo, I succeeded!
I really wanted to tell Zhang Yang about this news, but I didn’t have the time. I brought Xu Yi to the river bank. That was the only small river we had. Though there wasn’t a great view, it was very peaceful there. I saw a very good girl sitting on the river bank, reading. Maybe it was a novel or something. But when she saw us, she quickly put away her book and ran off.
I’ve seen this girl numerous times. She was very cute. I didn’t ever want to be that cute in this life.
Xu Yi asked me, “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” I looked away, “Have you finally fallen in love with me? So, chasing after guys was this much work, huh.”
At that side of that small river, Xu Yi walked away until he stood 5 meters away from me, his back to me. I also didn’t walk closer to him.
In the final moments of sunset, the sky was painted a l.u.s.trous red. The wind was very strong. I’d left home in a hurry that day, so my hair was tied into a messy bun. My hair now flew and stuck to my face. I said loudly to him, “So, you’re not even willing to talk to me?”
“I’m really pretty, right? I know I’m really pretty.”
“Xu Yi, my friend, I like you.”
He clenched his fist, as if he wanted to punch a hole into something.
Eventually, I squatted down by the river, without another word. This surprised him, so he turned around, thinking I’d already left. Seeing me still there, he started to rub his eyes.
I muttered, “There’s sand in my eyes.”
I lifted my head up and said to him, “There’s sand in my eyes. Come and help me blow it out, won’t you? It really hurts.”
He didn’t move.
I said again, “It really hurts, okay? Come over and help me.”
Xu Yi finally made up his mind, and he walked over and crouched down, wanting to see how my eyes were. When he saw the way my eyes were smiling, it was already too late. I reached out my hand, quickly and gently lifting up his face, and I kissed him. He was surprised by the kiss, but he didn’t try to escape.
He was so wonderful, I was touched. In that moment, I really felt I wasn’t a person.
I was tricking him, this wonderful child.