T/N: Everything in bold are written as is in English.

Happy New Year! I wish you all will be happier, healthier, wealthier this year!

After a few days, Zhuang Dong Na who had returned from her business trip made a phone call to express her grat.i.tude, the general idea being that she had come to know that Jiang Chen did not properly express his thankfulness towards me, and she felt that her family's* Jiang Chen was too unthoughtful. Her original words were, "You know this, our family's Jiang Chen doesn't really care for the ways of the world*, but this is also his strong point, I kinda like it, hehe." (T/N: "our family's" is kind of an intimate way to refer to someone, meaning something like "our") (T/N: "ways of the world" - i.e. how to be diplomatic, how to establish relations.h.i.+ps and connections, how to conduct yourself in society etc)

Zhuang Dong Na graduated majoring in English, she always liked to intersperse her speech with English, in the past, she also loved to mix English in when she chatted online, for example, "I'm going for a business trip this weekend, we'll have a meeting when I'm back", she will type, "I'm going for a business trip this weekend, we'll have a meeting when I'm back."

Later on there was once when Situ Mo said that she simply could not stand it any longer, so she innocently and guiltlessly asked Zhuang Dong Na, "You are always switching between input methods, are you not tired?" Zhuang Dong Na readily accepted good advice and corrected this foible of input methods, Situ Mo was deeply gratified about this.

Zhuang Dong Na suggested that to express their grat.i.tude and to make amends, they would like to treat me to a meal. I rebuffed the offer tactfully, but perhaps I was too tactful, to such an extent that she was totally unable to understand my unwillingness. In short, she self-involvedly announced the time and place and then hung up the phone at once.

As I was going to be forced into being treated a meal, I was therefore in a very bad mood. Hence Fu Pei and Situ Mo being my colleagues were unfathomably insulted by me quite a few times, causing Situ Mo to be so angry that she said that she wanted to resign and go home and have her husband support her. I keyed in to this matter of her moving out her husband as a backer and reviled her once again, and finally forced her to admit that she herself was unworthy of the cultivation/training/education that our motherland gave her, and that she was a parasite utterly devoid of a heart and a conscience. Only then did my mood grudgingly improve.

Before I got off work, I received a phone call from Su Rui. After the banquet, we somehow inconceivably became friends.

I had thrown the dress for that banquet into the was.h.i.+ng machine, and after it came out, no matter how I looked, I felt that it looked like a ma.s.s of rotten vegetable leaves, hence I carried the dress to go and find Su Rui. He used a machine that looked like a vacuum cleaner to iron the dress back into its original light-green floaty appearance. He told me that that machine was called a garment steamer, I told him that in my mind that was a vacuum cleaner. After that, we then got into an argument, he said I wasn't respecting him, I said he was making a mountain out of a molehill. We argued till it was time to eat, and as such he then brought me out to eat. After we finished eating I paid the cash, he then announced that we had now become friends through fighting*. (T/N: the original phrase is 不打不相識 which literally means if you don't fight, you won't become friends.)

Su Rui said that he was running errands near our office, and asked if I wanted to eat together after I got off work. I told him that I was going to have a meal with Jiang Chen and Jiang Chen's girlfriend. He expressed his sympathy towards me, and volunteered to accompany me there. He said that he wanted to go to help me boost my courage, I felt that he wanted to go to scrounge a free meal.

I considered it for a while, and thought that it was really a little desolate to go and meet the 'husband and wife' pair of my ex-boyfriend all alone by myself, so I brought Su Rui along.

When the two of us reached the restaurant, they had not yet arrived. We chatted for a while till we discovered that we couldn't see eye to eye and nearly ended up in a fight. Hence Su Rui then borrowed two pens from the waiter, we both separately unfolded paper napkins to draw designs, he drew costume designs, I drew ill.u.s.trations. After we finished drawing, Jiang Chen and co still hadn't arrived, therefore as such we then exchanged our drawings for evaluation. Su Rui said my ill.u.s.trations were childish, and were for little children to see; I said his clothes were ugly, and weren't for mankind to wear…… Thankfully Jiang Chen and Zhuang Dong Na arrived before we broke out into a terrible fight.

"You guys have come at long last." I smiled as I reproached, forcing myself to move my eyes away from those five claws that she had tucked into Jiang Chen's arm. "If you were any slower you would be just in time to collect my dead body."

Zhuang Dong Na laughed as she explained, "I said we were to come here separately, but he insisted on making a detour to the office to pick up me, so we went on a longer roundabout route, sorry." After she finished speaking she paused, looked to Su Rui and asked, "This person is?"

"I am Su Rui, Xiaoxi's friend, my older sister and Doctor Jiang are colleagues too. I originally wanted to arrange to have a meal with Xiaoxi today, she said she had already made arrangements with someone else, I then shamelessly followed along to come and scrounge a meal, you guys don't mind, right?" Su Rui fought to reply before I did.

"Of course no, it's more lively when there are more people," Zhuang Dong Na replied and turned her head back to smile sweetly at Jiang Chen who was in the process of helping her to pull out her chair.

After we all were seated and had finished ordering our food, suddenly n.o.body opened their mouths to speak again, the scene solidified/condensed for a moment. I looked towards the two persons opposite me, it seemed like they didn't have any intent to rescue the situation. As someone whose back would turn numb when faced with awkward silences, I could only look at Su Rui pleadingly for help.

Su Rui easily grabbed the paper napkin on the table top and pa.s.sed it to Zhuang Dong Na, saying, "This is the drawing of the design I customised for Xiaoxi according to her measurements."

Zhuang Dong Na took it, looked at it in detail for a while and praised, "You are so talented, this dress is very beautiful and fits Xiaoxi very well." After she finished speaking, she even pushed it till it was in front of Jiang Chen and said, "What do you think."

Jiang Chen's gaze swept over it indifferently. He nodded and said, "Mm, not bad."

As someone who had just insulted this dress a few minutes ago saying that it was not for mankind to wear, in the face of such compliments, I could only tearfully give a hollow laugh and echo in agreement.

Su Rui rubbed his head and laughed bashfully, "I drew this at random. I don't know why, but Xiaoxi is really suited to the fas.h.i.+on style that I design, I discovered this already the last time when Doctor Jiang brought her to my place to buy clothes. However back then I thought that they were a couple."

I hurriedly explained to Zhuang Dong Na, "That was the time when you had me accompany him to the banquet on your behalf."

Zhuang Dong Na smiled and didn't answer, instead it was Jiang Chen who lifted his head and swept his gaze over me. This was the first time he had looked at me directly since he came in till now, probably I was accustomed to being bullied by him for many years, for the moment I saw him look at me, I hastily gave a fawning smile. After my smile was returned with his apathetic gaze, I then thought, why was I so f***ing subservient……

The dish that Jiang Chen ordered was the very first to be served. The medium-well steak sizzled on the slate plate. He took a fork to p.r.i.c.k and break open the poached egg that was still undulating by the side. The egg yolk slowly flowed into the plate that was giving off smoke, and the hot oil spurted once and crackled and splattered all over. Jiang Chen smoothly picked up the paper napkin beside his hand to block the splattering drops of oil, and after it was all over he even used the napkin to wipe the edge of the plate all around.

I knew that that paper napkin was Su Rui's design drawing, seeing Jiang Chen conveniently knead that paper into a wad, I inexplicably felt a sense of satisfaction in my heart.

Su Rui and Zhuang Dong Na were chatting about everything under the sun, I would also join in and say a few sentences from time to time. On the other hand, Jiang Chen was practically silent, even if the topic of conversation s.h.i.+fted to be about him, he would also flatly divert the topic of conversation away.

However, eating this meal was still incomparably depressing* for me. Even though Jiang Chen didn't talk, yet Zhuang Dong Na from time to time would lean beside his ear to whisper privately, as she did so her eyes would spinningly gaze at me and it seemed like she was smiling yet not smiling at the same time. (T/N: original phrase is 堵心 which literally translates into stifled/suffocated heart)

Su Rui was so upset he couldn't stand it, and imitated her by leaning beside my ear to speak softly, "It's obvious she's provoking you. She really has no moral character."

I pushed him away with a slap. "Don't speak while leaning into my ear, it's disgusting."

Su Rui laughed good-naturedly. "Don't tell me that you even know how to be embarra.s.sed?"

I held up the corn puree. "You can give it a try and see if my shame will turn into anger*." (T/N: original idiom refers to when one is so humiliated and embarra.s.sed they fly into a rage)

Su Rui hastily waved his hands. "I was wrong, okay?"

I arranged the bowl back to its original position, satisfied. Only then did I discover that Zhuang Dong Na was just watching us attentively, smiling with a face full of interest. I cast a glance at Jiang Chen out of the corner of my eye, he was cutting up his steak nonchalantly. Silent, skilled, graceful.

His expression suddenly made me recall how back during our university times, I often accompanied him at the hostel as he used pig skin and pig intestine to practise suturing and tying knots. That silent and serious energy he had always made me feel like I was watching a movie about a perverted surgeon murderer or something along those lines.

"Xiaoxi, I feel that Su Rui is quite good to you," Zhuang Dong Na smilingly said, and she even turned her head to ask Jiang Chen as if she was seeking a.s.sistance, "Isn't that right?"

Jiang Chen ran his eyes over us once with a look of examining a patient, and flatly spat out a word, "Right."

Su Rui didn't know to have the slightest degree of shame at all, and he parroted while gesticulating joyfully, "Chen Xiaoxi, you see, they all say that I am good, you are the only person who isn't discerning."

I don't know why I suddenly lost interest in bickering with him, I replied him dispiritedly, "I also think that you are really good."

I don't know if it was that my tone of voice had warped as it transmitted through the air, or if the obstructive items such as earwax in Su Rui's ears were too numerous causing distortion of sound. In short, he seemed to have taken it seriously, he first stared blankly, then he suddenly gazed at me with both eyes soft and gentle like water. He smiled at me bashfully, his face unreasonably reddening all over.

I was so shocked that my four limbs went cold, I rubbed my neck and said, "Why are you blus.h.i.+ng for no reason, don't smile at me, it's ridiculous, the way you are smiling."

Su Rui smilingly watched me be at a complete loss of what to do. I watched as the red flush on his face mystically disappeared in a flash just like the ebbing tide, and asked suspiciously, "You're playing with me, right?"

He glanced at me, not saying a word, lowered his head and began eating the seafood paella quietly.

His sudden shyness made me feel uneasy from head to toe, it was like a crowd of ants climbing slowly in military formation from the soles of my feet up my body, climbing to my scalp……

I practically wolfed down the remaining pasta in swallows, and even nearly choked while doing so. Su Rui very kindly patted on my back and said, "You be careful, don't be choked to death."

I was just about to say, "Is that the way to talk?", when Jiang Chen suddenly opened his mouth. "Don't worry, she won't die, even when noodles spout out of her nose, she still won't die."

I waved aside Su Rui's hand and glared at Jiang Chen viciously.

He was talking about something that happened during our first official date. At that time, we had gone to the only Western restaurant near our school. Back then, I was feeling especially nervous in my heart. There were feelings of luckiness that the pie pasty that dropped from the heavens* had just so happened to be picked up by me, and there also was apprehension due to fear that that person who had thrown the pie pasty into the mortal realm would regret and come and ask me to return it to them. (T/N: reference to a Chinese idiom referring to one enjoying readily available things without putting in effort for it - to reap where one has not sown. The idiom alludes to Exodus in the Bible where G.o.d provided manna for the Israelites)

Lost in thought, I ordered a plate of pasta, and after that just kept on engrossing myself in eating the pasta. Just as my eating was in full swing, Jiang Chen who was sitting opposite me abruptly said a sentence - "Chen Xiaoxi, accompany me tonight." Excessive fright caused me to choke till my tears and mucus overflowed, and most frightfully, a violent cough resulting in me spouting out the noodles in my mouth from my nose……

I looked at the strand of noodle that was wobbling on the edge of the drinking gla.s.s, every hope in my heart turning into dust, and begged Jiang Chen to break up with me as I wept, further promising that I would never pester him ever again in the future.

Jiang Chen used a paper napkin to help me wipe my tears and mucus while he comforted me, saying, "I didn't see anything, I really didn't see anything……"

I cried and collapsed into his embrace. We forsook holding hands, laying hands on each other's shoulders, holding waists and such other incremental steps to directly leap into hugging each other on the first date, this could also be considered as a gain.

Later, Jiang Chen said that he had merely wanted me to accompany him to the overnight cla.s.sroom to study, because they were very soon to sit for one of the "Four Famous Resits" of the study of medicine - the Pathology examination. This matter was always used for a very long period of time after as evidence for Jiang Chen to accuse me of having dirty thoughts.

I glared at Jiang Chen fiercely, Jiang Chen glanced at me coldly, it was as if there were flames in the air crackling as they burned.

"I'm sorry, our family's Jiang Chen is joking." Seeing that the atmosphere was amiss, Zhuang Dong Na hurriedly came out to smooth things over.

"No worries, our family's Xiaoxi won't mind." Su Rui said, seemingly to help me strive to vindicate myself.

…… The corners of my eyes spasmed. There, even becoming one family.

I suppose, there was only one patriotic song that was popular when we were young that could explain the degrees of familiarity and distance in this section of conversation of theirs - "We all have one family, its name is China…… Our large China, one really big family……*" (T/N: Lyrics of a patriotic song "Large China"/《大中國》 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPkOUfhUHMY)