Fu Pei was in his office, venting out his spleen*, the reason being he purchased a new photocopying machine a while back but has never been used. Situ Mo was holding a cup of tea, humming a tune in her seat, watching with glee as Fu Pei blows his top off, this kind of scenario has always been especially delightful to her. (T/N: In China, the spleen is counted as the seat of one's temperament, hence 'venting one's spleen' has become an expression to 'getting angry'.)

The business has been slow these days, we were idling as our everyday work only revolved around killing time, but to show consideration for our Boss Fu Pei's self-esteem, we would often a.s.sume an air of being very busy, this truly makes a person physically and emotionally exhausted.

There was a banging sound as Fu Pei was done wrestling that thing, afterwards, he told us he'll be heading out to talk business, as he was walking out, Situ Mo slid her chair next to me wearing a filthy smile, "Who was that handsome little fella yesterday?"

"Who?"

Situ Mo said, "When I knocked off work yesterday, I was stopped downstairs by that handsome little fella. At first I thought he took a fancy on my beauty and wanted to coerce me into doing it…..okay, get rid of that look in your face, my husband always think I'm as pretty as a flower. Yesterday, that handsome fella asked me for your address, did he go look for your afterwards?"

I put away my expression of restraining myself from throwing up, and said indignantly, "You don't know him yet you gave him my address, what if he was a pervert?"

"Stop fussing over nothing, from his mouth, he called me 'little beauty', not only did I gave your address to him, he asked for my help to drug you.

I said, "The thing you're mainly happy about was the word 'little' before 'beauty'."　　

Situ Mo laughed mischievously, "You're really clever, so who is he?"

"The younger brother of Jiang Chen's colleague."

I gave her a rough run-through regarding our situation, as Situ Mo has always felt like her charming points have reduced a lot from being a married woman, hence I, in order to not get on the ‘jealous, envious, and hateful*’ nerves of a married woman, have to specially belittle myself. I said, "I feel strange, I am such an average person, I don't understand what our motherland's flower boys have really seen in me. (T/N: In 2009 Zhang Weiping posted a blog post concerning criticism of Zhang Yimou's recent film "A Simple Noodle Story". He wrote on his blog, "You guys are just jealous, envious, and hateful." It has became an internet meme afterwards.)

She comforted me saying, "You don't have to unduly humble yourself, the younger a person is, the harder it is to pin down their thoughts, even my son thinks that the prettiest female in the world is Mei Yang Yang." (T/N: The Chinese character for beautiful/pretty is 'mei', Mei Yang Yang or Tibbie is a cartoon character, a whole goat lol.)

Why do I feel like her words are indirectly implying something else………

She added, "Actually, I think he's not bad, 'an old cow eating tender gra.s.s*', good for the teeth." (TN: This proverb fiddles with the phenomenon of one partner being significantly older than the other — in English, a craddle robber.)

I glared at her, "Go to h.e.l.l."

She said, "It's better than you looking at your phone 10-20 times a day, always waiting for your man's phone call that never comes."

I fished my phone out again and made sure it was working, "I'm willing."

She looked askance at me, then suddenly uttered in all seriousness, "I was thinking about something, right, when you get married, can my son become your page boy, that way I don't have to prepare a red packet?

Would you look at this woman, whenever she opens and closes her mouth, it's always about money, I feel lonely, we have no common topic to talk about.

My righteous words indignantly rebuke her, "Even if your husband turns out to be my groom, you would still not want to hand out that red packet."

Fu Pei never came back till afternoon, hence an hour before getting off work, Situ Mo and I made our stealth escape. For fear of Fu Pei checking up on us the last minute, we've let all office calls transfer to our phones, even though we don't look like we're adept in escaping from work, actually we really…….very often escape from work.

Before, every time I'd escape from work early, I used to sit around the subway station near my home. After arriving in my station, I'd be sitting on the waiting chairs, listening to my MP3 as I watch the peak hours of the subway, get packed with ever-changing office workers knocking off work, just like a conveyor belt in a factory, transporting somewhat a can of human beings to various places.

It brings me pleasure to watch while I sit at one corner. I was thinking that I really got a deal by escaping the office crowd.

But now that I'm somebody with a boyfriend, I have to abandon this lowlife hobby, when I get off work early, I have to go to the hospital to rub my ear against his shoulders*. (T/N: An idiom meaning 'act intimate' describing exactly how close one is to the other in proximity. )

Since I've been wasting 3 years in this matter with my virgin boyfriend, so my heart generally feels a little guilty, this tiny guilt is probably a part of being in a business I'm unfamiliar with.

When I was finally at the hospital's lobby, I gave Jiang Chen a call, when the call went through but of us spoke simultaneously, "Where are you?"

I said, "I'm in the hospital lobby."

He said, "I'm on my way to your office."

I said, "Ah! Then what should we do?"

He said, "If you turn right after you get out of the hospital, you can find a drink shop, you can drink something there while waiting for me."

I thought about it for a moment and told him, "I'll just wait for you in the lobby."

Mainly because Fu Pei already delayed two months worth of my salary, and also, the consumption around the hospital were certainly more expensive than in other places, the last time I bought tea eggs around here, they were 50 cents pricier than anywhere else……look at my state of poverty……

"Then you stay in the lobby, and don't run around. I'll be there soon." Jiang Chen said. "Okay, drive carefully."

Half an hour later, when Jiang Chen found me near the hospital entrance, I sat trembling under the shade of a tree by the roadside.

To be born, to grow old, to get sick, and to die. This world is very unpredictable, the occurrence of incidence in the hospital is also unpredictable, I was in the hospital lobby for thirty minutes, and already encountered an unpredictable moment in time.

Half an hour back, I hung up my call with Jiang Chen, with a nauseating smile on my face distinctive to that of people who were in love, I looked for a place to sit down.

About ten minutes later, there was suddenly a woman's scream from upstairs, accompanied by banging, messy, and hurrying footsteps, then before I could react, a woman with disheveled hair came tumbling down from the second floor, and landed heavily in front of me, just about five paces away.

I looked at her frightened eyes, filled with tears.

I looked at her twitch like a dying fish on the ground, and then became still.

I looked at the foam, slowly coming out from the corner of her mouth.

I looked at a group of doctors and nurses who were rus.h.i.+ng downstairs, yelling, "Quick! Give her a sedative."

I looked at the thick needle, going into her arm.

I wanted to say, "Are you guys f*cking crazy?! She's already not moving yet you still want to shoot her with some sedative! Why do you f*cking love to give injections so much?! You're f*cking doctors not wasps!"

However, forgive me for not being able to say a single word.

"Chen Xiaoxi? Chen Xiaoxi?" Jiang Chen crouched right in front of me. He was waving his hand before my eyes, he looked deeply worried, "What's wrong with you? What happened?"

I looked at him in horror, opening my mouth to speak, yet nothing would come out.

Jiang Chen reached out his hand to grab mine, then looked me in the eye, his voice was unusually calm, "Xiaoxi, look into my eyes, don't be scared. I'm now going to ask you questions, just nod or shake your head. Got it?"

I nodded.

He said, "Are you hurt?"

I shook my head.

He squeezed my hand, "You saw something which really scared you?"

I nodded.

He paused for a moment, and asked softly, "A car accident?"

I shook my head.

Then he said, "That person……."

He delayed asking me. He simply hugged me, and gently patted my back saying, “This is a hospital, no matter what you see, don’t be scared, they just get sick, or get injuries, or…..”

Or their time is up.

In the scorching summer of July, Jiang Chen hugged me so tightly, when added together, it actually made me feel very hot.

He hugged me for a while, and probably also felt hot, he pulled me up from the ground, and led me to sit inside his car, he said, "I'm going outside to make a phone call, I'll be back soon."

I gave him a brief nod, I've actually calmed down a lot, it's just that I looked scared out of my wits in front of him a while ago, if I suddenly return to normal, it's going to be a bit embarra.s.sing, so I had to continue putting on a delicate front of being terrified.

When Jiang Chen came back, his complexion looked a lot more relaxed, he said, "I know what happened, that patient is fine, just suffered a fracture and concussion, not life-threatening."

I let out a sigh, I think that a doctor's life is really tranquil, so long as no one dies, it's no big deal.

I nodded my head in understanding.

Jiang Chen didn't start the car, he sat sideways and looked at me, "Still scared?"

I shook my head, I'm a bit hooked in this kind of silent communication.

He reached out to ruffle my hair, "She was in a break-up, she attempted suicide in front of her ex-boyfriend by swallowing laundry detergent, the ex-boyfriend sent her to the hospital to have her stomach pumped, she refused to be saved, her struggling caused her to tumble down from upstairs."

Jian Chen knows me too well, he knows that I love gossip, so he used gossip to pique my curiosity, to distract me, and to somewhat lessen my fear.

I blinked my eyes, and said, "Then, what was her ex-boyfriend's reaction?"

Jiang Chen pinched my cheeks, "How should I know? You can talk now ah."

"I really was scared before." Then, somewhat carrying a tone of a spoiled child, I said, "Who asked you to leave me alone in the hospital."

He didn't argue that, 'I told you to go out but you insisted to stay inside the hospital.' He just said, "No more next time, also, I will take you along to visit that patient in two days."

I said, "I don't want to be near the hospital anytime soon."

Jiang Chen said, "It's not a good habit to run away from your fear."

I wanted to demonstrate my infamous 'brat stomp'', but because of the inconvenience of sitting down, I could only pout and say, "But I really dare not."

Jiang Chen said, "In the future, don't also come as you wish."

My face sank, my heart felt aggrieved and indignant, he has always been like this. Back when we were on our third year in high school, he tutored me in Math, I got 9 and a half answers wrong in a 10-item test, the other correct half was for a quadratic equation in one variable which has considerably the easiest solution. There was a time when I was writing and got angry, I threw my pen away and said, “I won’t write.” My Math teacher said, "It's not good to make multiple choice and fill in the blanks questions in Math."

Jiang Chen said, “Do as you wish, but later on, don’t say anything about testing for the same university with me, our grades are different.”

He spoke words that were so hurtful when my heart was so immature, of course I had to bury my head on my desk and cry. When I thought I have cried enough, I lifted my head, Jiang Chen was still next to me, so absorbed in correcting my test paper.

I moved closer and craned my head to get a look — the little writings were densely packed and multi-colored, black for the correct solution, blue for the rationale behind the solution, red for the formula, words in yellow highlight was added to understand the method of 1st solution, 2nd solution, 3rd solution……….

I wiped away my tears and said, "What do you see my test paper for by scrawling unto it to this state. There are too many solutions, I can't remember."

Later on, a lot of students have been borrowing every single one of my Math test papers to get it photocopied, I found it precious. I was then considering charging the people who kept on borrowing from me, and at the same time, was also considering how to best repay Jiang Chen. In the end, I drew a woman with a G.o.ddess-like beauty on his Math textbook. On the first page, the beauty was wearing a cotton-padded jacket, in every flip of the page, she would take off one clothing item, from hair accessories, jewelries, clothes, shoes, socks, finally, taking into account the standard problem, I covered her chest and gave her hot pants. And in order to prove that I’m doing something meaningful, I would occasionally combine it with teaching content, for instance, next to the Pythagorean Theorem, I would draw the beauty exposing her b.u.t.t crack…….I think this thing reflects that I’m a person who returns a favor when helped, in this world where people would usually bite the hand that fed them, this wasn’t likely.

Jiang Chen started the car, I was sulking on the side, I wanted to quarrel with him, I wanted to curse him 'son of a b*tch', but I dare not……….

I'm a coward.

Translator's Corner:

Even though Jiang Chen’s words are sharp,  but he just wanted Xiaoxi to become better, right? Right? Anyways we have good news and bad news for you. GOOD NEWS = We’re halfway through the novel *shakes booty* but BAD NEWS = We’re skipping a week’s worth of updates starting Monday next week because of Chinese New Year *stops shaking my booty*. So yeah! That is all folks – Dolly