Last night Dr. Su and I had a long, intimate talk until 5 in the morning, after which she high-spiritedly patted my a.s.s and said, “I’ll go prepare the endors.e.m.e.nt for the next s.h.i.+ft, I’m off-duty today.”

By the time I hit the hay, I didn’t know if I was asleep or awake. In my drowsy state, there seems to be a person standing right in front of me, I even asked him if he was a ghost. It also seems as though I’ve explained to him about the karmic relations.h.i.+p of involving third parties when settling things.

This kind of sleep akin to being in a trance is the worst, my brain is running rapidly with past memories, not even neglecting the smallest of details. I couldn't tell if I was dreaming or remembering the past. Many people would say there's no worth looking back at the past, but my past is very worthy. It’s the most proactive, lively, cheerful, morale booster, inspiring, reverse pursuit in history, and can be called the "The Successful Story of a Bright Girl*". (T/N: referring to Jang Nara's 2002 drama)

I had a crush on Jiang Chen that time. It was after one week of careful deliberations that I combined information from novels, manhwa, and dramas, and was able to come up with three plans: a love letter, by pa.s.sing it on, and a direct confession. It took yet another week of conducting a comprehensive a.n.a.lyses of these three plans. The disadvantage of letters: first, I’m not good with words, and second, Jiang Chen often receives letters but he almost never reads them. The disadvantage of pa.s.sing it on: first it’s easy to pa.s.s on the wrong message, and second, from what I've gathered in the numerous love conspiracies in novels and dramas, I found out that the person who would pa.s.s on the message will end up with the protagonist; so in the end, I was left with only this road to confession.

We always think that there are countless possibilities in life, afraid of this, afraid of that, in the end there would still be only one remaining possibility.

I flipped through the Yellow Calendar*, and picked an auspicious burial date to confess to Jiang Chen. He was on student duty at that time, so I was following him from behind and then I called him. He turned around, along with the broom he was holding, giving me a mouthful of dust from the action. (T/N: a special calendar which gives information whether a particular day is propitious)　

I said: "Jiang Chen, I like you, puh, puh, puh."

At first, he gave me a blank stare, and then furrowed his brows saying: "puh, what?"

I was very vexed and hurriedly explained: "I'm not puh-ing at you, I just ate a mouthful of dust, I said I like you."

He continued the act of furrowing his brows, two creases were scrunched in between his brows, really good-looking.

He said: "I don't like you."

It was an era where everyone loves to engage in ambiguous relations.h.i.+ps, and also at that time, there wasn’t a song that tells about the grievances suffered by people involved in such, so even though it's not really what they feel, most of the people would still say: “I’m not suitable for you, you deserve someone better.” or, “We’re still too young, we should study well and enter a good university first.”, and such nonsense. Jiang Chen’s chop the nail and slice the iron* rejection made me think that his ruthlessness really stands out from the rest. Hence I’ve decided to become even more determined in liking him. (T/N: firm and resolute)

So Jiang Chen was pestered by me. Every day, I’d wait very early in the morning in the mouth of the alley between our houses. When Jiang Chen comes out, I’d put on a bright smile with the radiance of spring, and say, “What a coincidence, I’m on my way to school too.” I’d pack my things as well before the dismissal bell would start ringing, so when it rings I’d rush to the stairs, wait for Jiang Chen to walk past me, and then I’d say, “What a coincidence, I’m also leaving school.”

I was so muddleheaded that I choked on my own saliva, I woke up, blinked at the ceiling a few times, and began to get in a trance again. I saw myself on the stairs, smiling at Jiang Chen. In a blink of an eye I was pulling on Jiang Chen’s bag, pleading. “Wait for me for ten minutes, okay? I’m going to hand over my work to our English teacher.”

He pulled back his bag: “What were you doing in cla.s.s? Li Wei is waiting for me downstairs.” After a pause, he added: “We’re going to buy some things for the cla.s.s meeting.”

Maybe, my heart made a little rebound because I’ve been disguising as someone virtuous and submissive for a long time. Maybe, I was just mad with anger. In short, I aimed for his s.h.i.+ns and gave him a kick: “Go find your Li Wei!”

He probably didn’t expect it, and yelled while hopping on one foot: “Chen Xiaoxi you lunatic!”

I leaned on the railings afterwards, watching Jiang Chen and Li Wei walk towards the school gates. It was nearly dusk, an orange sheet was draped in between heaven and earth looking as if someone knocked over a bottle of Sunkist in their hurry, and dyed everything in orange.

I was only 16 years old at the time — the first time in my life when I felt utterly sad.

The scenes in my dream were switching over very casually. This time, I'm standing on the cla.s.sroom door blocking Jiang Chen, "I have something to say to you."

He gave me a quick glance with his arms folded across his chest: “Speak.”

After kicking him on his leg, his responses to me were less than before. I let love and pride battle it out for a few days. Later on, Love annihilated pride. So I came over to apologize.

I bowed my head and said softly like a whisper: “I shouldn’t have kicked you that day, I’m sorry.”　　

He didn’t give me an answer for a long while, so I looked up and saw him looking absentmindedly at the basketball court downstairs. I got angry again and shouted loudly: “Jiang Chen!”

He lowered his head to look at me, “I’m not yet deaf, you said sorry right? It’s nothing.

After saying that, he turned around and walked away.

I was looking at his back, my heart was suddenly filled with a deep sadness, like how my mom burnt the braised chicken wings, with the thick smoke irritating my nose leaving it with a tingling sensation.

I subconsciously rubbed my nose and called him: "Jiang Chen."

He looked back.

I said with a bitter laugh: “Hehe. Do you think, I like to be unlucky?

He stared dazedly at me for a moment, and replied: “I just wanna go down to play ball.”

I said nothing, there’s a deep sadness in my heart that it would be better for this heart to die from such sadness.

He seemed to stand in front of me a long time, and finally said with a slight anxiousness: “I really didn’t mean any of that, our team is losing very quickly.”

I nodded in understanding, “Go quickly, jiayou! (T/N: lit. add oil, it’s the equivalent of hwaiting in Korea and ganbatte in j.a.pan)

He turned around and ran, after running a few steps, he suddenly stopped and called me: "Chen Xiaoxi."

"Why?"

"Help me go to the corner store and buy a bottle of water." He said with a smile, his dimple was filled with the rays of the setting sun.

Before I could respond, he took three steps and then two steps*, and ran down the stairs. (T/N: means walking hurriedly lit. describing the manner of walking where three worth of strides becomes two)

I still went to the corner store, torn between Yi Li water and Nongfu Spring water for quite a while but eventually picked Nongfu Spring as it is 50 cents cheaper.

There were a lot of girls at the sides of the basketball court, I even saw Li Wei. She was holding a bottle of Mai Dong which is more expensive than my Nongfu Spring by two and a half bucks.

During halftime, Li Wei called Jiang Chen so that she could hand over her drink, I blankly followed her from behind, sighed as she was walking at lightning speed, scurrying like she’s about to fly.

Jiang Chen didn’t accept her drink, instead, he gave me a quick glance and said a bit awkwardly, “I already told Chen Xiaoxi to bring me water.”

"I bought a sports drink with added electrolytes. If not you then who else would be able to drink it, quite wasteful." Then she smiled softly and tenderly.

I thought I couldn’t let her be this embarra.s.sed, so I placed the Nongfu Spring on Jiang Chen’s hands and gave them a squeeze, s.n.a.t.c.hed the Mai Dong from Li Wei’s hand, twisted the lid open, took one big gulp, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand saying: “Not wasted, not wasted. I just ran over from the corner store and sweated a lot, thank you very much.”

She bowed her head in shame, like Xu Zhimo’s writing about that very shy lotus flower and so on. I like reading that poem, it's truly a masterpiece.

"Xiaoxi, Xiaoxi, Xiaoxi!" My mom's continuous shouts roused me from my shy lotus flower dream. I rubbed my eyes and yawned. "Mom, making loud noises is prohibited in the hospital."

My mom gave me a sideways glance, "Just now you were talking about losing face in your sleep."

"What did I say?" I asked her while removing the eye gunk at the corner of my eyes.

"Lotus, shy or something." She replied.

"'The tenderness when you bend your head low, is like a lotus flower too shy to stand the cool blow.’ A poem* by Xu Zhimo. Indeed, our Xiaoxi is like me, possesses the sentiments of a poet." My dad gave his input while lying on the hospital bed, looking immensely proud.

I turned to look at him, and talked nonsense: “I dreamed of my language & literature teacher in high school, she asked me to recite ‘Second Farewell to Cambridge’.”

My dad's face suddenly turned black, "This is not 'Second Farewell to Cambridge'! This is 'Sayonara'!" (T/N: Both are poems by Xu Zhimo)

My mom chimed in, "Jang Nara right? I know her! A Korean, bangzi, bangzi*.

(T/N: The pinyin for Jang Nara is Zhang Na La while Sayonara is Sha Yang Na La so her mom misheard. Bangzi lit. means long, st.u.r.dy stick in Chinese, a term referring to Koreans, in the olden days during the j.a.panese invasion in China, they give Koreans stick instead of guns to beat the Chinese with, hence the origin of the term.)

I looked at my mom in a different light, she puffed out her old chest, “Ever since our home has been installed with the internet, the housewife has become liberated.”

As a member of the lurking club for a long time, I was prompted by a sudden impulse and logged in to Tianya Club. I discovered that I actually replied to a lot of forum posts, not only that, most of them were about handsome guys. I thought that I was honestly confronting my inner desires while sleepwalking, only to find out later on that I accidentally enabled our home computer to automatically log in to Tianya. The saddest thing in the world that nothing can surpa.s.s is to have a Tianya Club mom. (T/N: Lurking means someone who reads forum posts but never replies or comments. Tianya Club or End Of The World Club in English is a popular internet forum site.)

After eating lunch, my Tianya Club mom shoved on my arms a bag of fruit my dad’s colleague brought over this morning, and forced me to look for Jiang Chen to express grat.i.tude. I think that by sentiments and by logic, I ought to earnestly and seriously thank Jiang Chen, so I went out and carried the large bag of fruits.

When I got to the doctor’s office, only then did I begin to get a bit nervous. This is Jiang Chen and I's exclusive and first official meeting after not seeing each other in over the last 3 years.

I knocked on the door, the reply coming from the inside was, “Please come in.” I pushed the door open and found Jiang Chen buried in his desk writing on something, he also raised his head to give me a quick look, and said dully, “Find a chair to sit on.”

As an ex-girlfriend, in the face of such a generous* ex-boyfriend, I feel immense pressure. (T/N: idiom used is not literally about being generous but to describe someone’s open-mindedness, natural and carefree manner not being the slight cautious.)

I placed the bag of fruits on the table, pulled a chair to sit face-to-face from him across the table, and pleasantly said, “My mom asked me to bring some fruits for you.”

He looked at the bag of fruits and said, “Thank auntie for me. I went to take a look at Uncle Chen this morning, his condition is very stable. I reckon that he can be discharged in two or three days. He can come back after a week to get his st.i.tches removed.”

When he was done talking, he bowed his head down to write some things with an “I am very busy.” look. I awkwardly sat for around two minutes and then got up to leave, and also to conveniently express my gratefulness to him. In the end, I hypocritically and politely said the lines, “Thank you for your help this time, I really don’t know how to repay you.”

He actually stopped twirling his pen, smiled at me and said, “Introduce me to a girlfriend.”

I carefully observed his expression, he really wasn’t joking. I feel depressed. This action of asking an ex-girlfriend to introduce a new girlfriend is a bit inhumane. Like when you’re fired, your boss would still write you a recommendation letter; or when cheating, your teacher would give you the answers; or when remarrying, you’d ask your ex-wife to be one of the bridesmaids……

All sorts of feelings were welling up in my heart, like in his mind, just how great does he think my personality really is…….

I heaved a deep sigh, and gave him a hollow laugh, “What kind of girlfriend do you want?”

He sized me up for a while, my heart was caught in my throat as countless lines were flas.h.i.+ng through my mind like, “Someone who is just like you would be good.” Otherwise, “Actually, I’ve never forgotten you…..”

“A little taller, and thinner than you would be good enough.” He said.

My unrequited, little precious heart quickly resumed its normal beating, I smiled stiffly, "Your requirement isn't very high, I'll help you look around."

The pen on his hand was twirled beautifully between his fingers as he said, "Then, I'll thank you in advance."