CH 3.1

The hallway was already empty of students.

As Jian Bianlin stepped swiftly out from the teaching building, someone from behind suddenly called out rather hesitantly to him. “Jian Bianlin?” It was a man’s voice.

Jian Bianlin took two slower steps, then came to a stop. Behind him, the man holding books and lesson plans had a rather subtle, but remarkable expression on his face, and sighing slightly over the absurdity of the situation, he said, “It really is you.”

Right this moment, both these people, be it Jian Bianlin or this excellent third-year high school math teacher, were caught in a bit of a daze. It was as if that incident that winter had occurred only yesterday, but actually, in just a twinkling, nine years had already slipped by.

After Chu Jian strolled a couple loops around, her mother called her, telling her to hurry home to help Uncle Jian grab a couple of large couriered packages and, while she was at it, feed the dog. She said there was no one answering Jian Bianlin’s phone.

Chu Jian waved down a taxi and rushed home. Huffing and puffing, she jogged up to the fourth floor, but when she saw the treadmill and four boxes of fruit, she gawked in shock. From the top of her own home’s refrigerator, she grabbed the key to the Jians’ home, opened the door, and directed the delivery persons to move the items out to the balcony.

When the people left, Chu Jian wiped away the footprints on the floor as well as the dust tracked in by the cardboard boxes and hung up the cleaning cloth to dry. As she walked by the bedroom, she once again saw that photograph of the two of them.

Since they were little, the number of photographs that had been taken of her and Jian Bianlin together was simply too many to keep track of, but this particular one was the very last one from their student days. There had been nearly half a year, from when that year’s New Year’s Gala ended to the day this photo was taken, where the two had not spoken a single word to one another.

That year, a seldom-seen snowfall had fallen during the New Year’s Gala. In a secretive manner, one of the boys in her grade had asked her to go downstairs to the bicycle storage area. The entire school building was alive with noise and excitement. That boy from the class next door who would always coincidentally bump into her in the school cafeteria or basketball courts stood at the end of a row of bicycles.

At the time, while the boy spoke in low tones, Chu Jian had been so nervous she had continuously wiped away at the thick layer of snow that had accumulated on the back rack of the bicycle next to her. Suddenly, that person had taken her hand in his.

“Then… let’s give it a try.” That had been her answer.

But before three days had even passed, in front of all the students of all the grades, Jian Bianlin gave a fierce thrashing to that boy after school was dismissed. Evening self-study had just ended, and tides of students were moving about, some people walking, some people pushing their bicycles. Everyone surrounded the edge of the bicycle storage area, watching this clash that had suddenly erupted. Off to the side, Chu Jian was stupefied with shock and fear. When her eyes took in the blood on the ground, she was terrified that something horrible would end up happening. Rushing into a classroom, she grabbed a water bucket, filled it halfway with cold water, flusteredly raced back, and tossed the water onto Jian Bianlin, who was rising unsteadily to his feet and about to pounce onto his opponent again.

That look he had given her when he turned around had been terrifying—she remembered it very clearly.

This had been a vicious fight on the school grounds where one of the parties involved had suffered quite serious injuries, and fractures and broken bones were inevitable. Hence, dealing with and settling this incident was quite troublesome. On the one hand, Jian Bianlin was the class prefect of a key class and was also the student with the best grades, so the teachers wanted to minimize the impact and consequences of the incident. On the other hand, the other boy’s parents were not willing at all to let this go, not accepting compensation and only demanding that the school take severe disciplinary action.

During those several days, Chu Jian had felt as if she were living in darkness—the guilt that she felt toward her boyfriend, the rumors and stories that buzzed around between the students of their grade, the incessant sighs of her parents, the terrible anxiety that plagued Uncle Jian… In the end, Chu Jian had secretly gone alone to the hospital where the boy had been admitted. Sobbingly, she had apologized for the bodily harm she had brought upon him. And she had pleaded to the boy to help her, to intercede with his family to back down and allow Jian Bianlin to escape this trouble

She was not certain whether it was because her pleading had worked or the teachers had worked hard to protect Jian Bianlin, but ultimately, the matter was played down. In regards to that violent incident on New Year’s Day, the two families, in the end, never did learn the reason for its occurrence. The three individuals involved did not tell the true story to the school or their parents.

Nevertheless, all kinds of rumours still ended up following Chu Jian about in her daily life, and she was excluded to the point that she had no friends.

Those were the darkest six months of her student period. Hence, she had purposely underperformed in the National College Entrance Examinations[1] and ended up going to far-off Hainan for university, far away from Jian Bianlin, who was studying in Beijing.

Hainan (circled in blue) is a province of China and also an island. The distance between Beijing (circled in green) and Hainan is more than 2700 km. (image credit)

This continued until second year of university, when she returned home for the Spring Festival[2]. Her mom informed her that Big Brother Jian had been in a long-distance relationship with a girl but had broken up, and unable to handle this blow, he had fallen into a lifestyle of dallying his days away outside the home. It was as if he had become a completely different person. Her dad and mom both told Chu Jian to go across the corridor to his apartment to talk to him and advise him against his ways. For two whole days, she wavered and found various excuses to avoid the task.

However, when she ran into a haggard-looking Uncle Jian downstairs, her heart softened and she caved. In the year and a half of university, she had grown up a lot.

That Spring Festival, she had knocked and opened his bedroom door. Seeing that person sitting on the windowsill, asleep, she had wanted to step back out, but he suddenly startled awake.

It had merely been the small action of opening his eyes, but it had frightened her to the extent that she had taken two steps backward.

……

From that day onward, over all the years, Jian Bianlin never again expressed his feelings for her.

His grades gradually recovered back to his normal standards, and he received all first-class scholarships. He formed a band, was later signed by a record label, and then, when the market for recorded music was in a slump, was recommended by his agent to become an actor. Combined with the fact that he did indeed possess what it took to be an idol artiste, his career in this business was going increasingly well.

In addition, Chu Jian herself was in the midst of forming her own business, so the two did not have much time to even see one another.

Even a dozen or so days ago, she had been very optimistic, thinking that maybe his feeling for her had long since drifted away and one day, he would suddenly be married…

But after going around and around in circles, they had completely returned back to the starting point.

Behind her, someone opened the security door. This was soon followed by the sound of approaching footsteps.

Exhaling lightly, Chu Jian silently reminded herself to not provoke him. This was a big hurdle in his life. Uncle Jian was just recovering, and now he needed to go for surgery. She could not excite him.

Jian Bianlin leaned himself on the doorframe, his gaze passing over her to land on the man in that photograph of two people.

“I came to help Uncle Jian collect some delivery items.” Chu Jian’s tone was light, as if nothing had happened earlier on. “Did you buy that treadmill? The soundproofing in old buildings like this one isn’t very good. The treadmill can’t be used; otherwise the whole building will be able to hear you running.”

Jian Bianlin remained wordless, as if he had not heard her.

In fact, he knew the reason why she was here. Just now he had specifically made a phone call to her mother.

“Once I put the fruit away in the fridge, I’ll head back to the hospital.” She pondered for a moment. “They might not all fit. I’ll move some over later to put in my fridge and also pack some up to take to the hospital.”

Jian Bianlin’s eyes were still indifferent, and he did not provide any sort of response.

“But I don’t really know how to feed dogs. What does he like to eat?”

Chu Jian had wanted to walk around him, but right as she brushed past, he unexpectedly blocked her way. Still feeling lingering nervousness from earlier, she instantly moved to dodge him. With a loud bam, the back of her head slammed fiercely into the doorframe on the other side.

The entire world fell into silence.

A large white dog, hearing the noise, came dashing over with his tongue hanging out, bounding circles around the two and licking them.

……

“Does it hurt?” He lowered his head and touched the back of her head, breaking the stalemate between them that had existed since he stepped in the door.

More than just hurt! That had been too brutal a smack that even her tears had sprung out from her eyes. The sullenness she had been feeling rose up again. “Earlier, you asked me…”

“That was spoken in anger,” he interrupted, rubbing his palms back and forth together. After sensing some heat from them, he was about to use his palms to cover the place on her head that she had bumped, but she sidestepped him.

If she had not managed to knock her brain silly just a moment ago, she probably would have evaded him.

“Jian Bianlin.” Her manner was solemn.

She must not have known that every time she wanted to seriously discuss something with him, she would always first say his name. Jian Bianlin lowered his eyes, taking in her face as well as that little canine tooth that she had licked until crooked when her permanent teeth were coming in. As a child, she had always said the tooth was ugly, and whenever she had nothing to do, she had kept trying to push it back into place with her hand, pressing on it like crazy, even when she went to sleep, but to no avail. Actually, what Jian Bianlin loved most was that canine tooth.

“You asked me earlier—”

“Pretend I never asked.” With a frown, Jian Bianlin once again cut her off.

Bending down, he scooped up with one arm that big, white shepherd dog that had been panting nonstop and left the room.

He did not want to talk, nor did he want to listen.

Earlier, he had indeed wanted to force her hand, had wanted to use his father’s and his own difficulties to make her give in and agree to try being his girlfriend. But, the results were contrary to his wishes.

However, he was also fortunate that her compassion once more saved the relationship between the two of them. Ultimately, she still did not have the heart to state to him during such a time that she was only acting as an ordinary friend.

“I had thought that that year in second-year uni, things were fine after we had our talk.” Chu Jian chased out after him. “If you want to talk about it again, though, let’s wait until after your surgery, how about that? I don’t want to negatively affect you in this time.”

For several seconds, he was quiet. Then, turning the cold metal doorknob, he walked out with the dog in his arms. Only after the door had slammed shut did he toss back a sentence through the metal of the door. “I’m going downstairs to buy something for the dog.”

A feeling of frustration seemed caught in Chu Jian’s chest with no outlet, and gloomily, she pulled out all the fruit in the boxes and began to place them one by one into the refrigerator.

Fruitless in her wait for Jian Bianlin to return, she locked the door and headed down the stairs. In the pavilion downstairs of their building, she saw him sitting alone and holding several skewers of lamb kebabs that had long grown cold, quietly feeding the dog.

She was uncertain whether it was because his attire, from his hat to his sneakers, was completely black that he seemed especially slight and frail in the blowing wind.

But, observing him carefully, she found that he was indeed thinner than when they had been in Macau.

[2]春节 “chun jie.” In China, the Lunar New Year period is also called the Spring Festival and lasts from the first to the fifteenth day of the new lunar year.