Thank you for patiently waiting! Let’s welcome Wu Bosong.
Hanging up the phone, I felt that there was a need for me to sort out my own state of emotions properly. Hence I clasped a cup of tea and sat by the window, constructing an artistic mood of me being deep in thought.
Having broken up for three years, I really wasn't waiting for Jiang Chen. I wanted to find a person, perhaps his eyes would resemble his, perhaps his dimples would resemble his, perhaps he would like to drink Nongfu Spring just like him, and yet perhaps he wouldn't resemble him in any way…… Then we would have a romance, get married, and rely on each other for a long time. I would love him, just like how I loved Jiang Chen, not in the least holding back.
Yet that Jiang Chen whom I was not waiting for, mistakenly via a combination of unexpected random factors, had returned in front of me again. Furthermore, it seemed like he was unlike me, he was waiting for me. If he wasn't, I also decided to continue misunderstanding it as such, for who asked him to find a shill*? In television drama serials, the male and female leads' shills were all used to stir up the other party's jealousy, even though the remuneration he offered Zhuang Dong Na made me suspect that it was more probable that he was actually helping the hospital to solicit customers. (T/N: shill - "an accomplice of a confidence trickster or swindler who poses as a genuine customer to entice or encourage others" [Definition from Oxford Dictionaries])
In my heart, I silently fashioned Jiang Chen into a person who was painfully awaiting my return and who would stop at nothing for me, moreover feeling that upon analysis, this matter was quite entertaining. For a while, I also didn't know how I ought to evaluate Jiang Chen's IQ for doing such a childish thing. But Jiang Chen's IQ when it came to relationships had always not been very high, I had profound experience in this aspect.
For example, our first kiss.
At that time, Jiang Chen and I had been dating for the greater part of a month, our progress had always stopped at the kind of superficial stage such as holding hands to exchange the perspiration on our hands. Occasionally Jiang Chen's male hormones would be in excess, and he would kiss my cheek, it was very pure and of small beauty.
However, after Lin Xiao from our dorm who had ample experience in romance pointed out that such progress was severely lagging when compared to the general romances of young men and women, I was very vexed. I thought that it was because I myself had insufficient charm that was not enough to cause Jiang Chen to generate towards me the urges that young men ought to have. For this reason, I called the entire dorm over to inspect my shortcomings together, and finally the conclusion of the inspection that we arrived at was that I was not feminine enough. And for us, this group of humankind who had never left our ivory towers, femininity equalled wearing a dress, and it had better be a low-cut one.
Actually, this was a prejudice, femininity really had no relation to whether you were revealing your two bare legs or the two pieces of flesh in front of your chest.
My omnipotent roommates helped me find a dress that revealed my chest, I twirled around a few times showing it off in the dorm, one after another, they expressed that they did feel my feminine fragrance assail their nostrils. (T/N: in Chinese, femininity translates directly to "woman smell", hence assailing nostrils)
After that, I went off alluringly to go on a date with Jiang Chen. As we sat on a long bench beside the sports field, Jiang Chen indeed appeared to have a heart of a monkey and the mind of a horse*, I felt very accomplished, hence I also pulled the hem of my skirt up, only to see a few red bumps that came from mosquito bites lying side by side on my thigh. I could only pull the hem of my skirt back down. （T/N: idiom describing someone with disorderly messy thoughts that are as uncontrollable as monkeys/horses, means something like being frisky/capricious etc）
Jiang Chen told me about the interesting anecdotes of their medical faculty. He said that there were a few senior guys in the cohort before his who stole a sheep leg after finishing their experiments to bring back to the dorm and cook hotpot, after they were done eating the entire dorm drowsily slept for two days, it turned out that that sheep had been injected with a great amount of anesthesia; he also told me about a time when their faculty's dorm caught a thief, the whole group of them surrounded the thief and beat him up wildly, the thief really couldn't endure it any longer and hence pretended to be dead, someone produced a stethoscope from their dorm and diagnosed that this person's heartbeat was strong and powerful, hence everyone beat him up even more happily; he also said……
In short, Jiang Chen suddenly became a chatterbox, and being his girlfriend, I could only laugh with him, moreover, I laughed till I was like a blossoming sprig trembling disorderly*, if not it appeared like I wasn't giving him face*. (T/N: a Chinese idiom describing the physical movement of a beautiful/wanton woman laughing heartily) (T/N: 'giving face' is a phrase that is a direct English translation from Cantonese which means showing someone respect and honour. This whole concept of 'giving face' is really important in Chinese culture - e.g. if your employer says something wrong, even when you correct him, you have to be tactful and ensure you are 'giving face' to him at the same time.)
He talked and talked, then he suddenly asked me, "Did you spray perfume?"
I didn't, so I firmly shook my head.
He looked at me suspiciously, took a deep breath and said, "I definitely smelled something."
I with great exertion took a few breaths, then with a sudden epiphany said, "Oh, you are talking about this? This is the smell of eau de toilette, my thigh was bitten fiercely by mosquitoes."
He skeptically said, "It doesn't smell like eau de toilette."
I took a moment to recall, scratched my head and said, "Eau de toilette wasn't cooling enough, I applied some medicated oil as well."
He didn't say anything more. I also didn't know what I had said wrongly, but I roughly guessed that he did not like the smell on myself at all, hence I quietly shifted myself to the furthest end on the bench. Half my butt was hanging in the air.
Just like this, we remained in a deadlock on a stone bench beside the sports field.
Finally, he suddenly said angrily, "Chen Xiaoxi, come over here."
I thought, "He isn't going to beat me up, is he?" I had heard of a type of boyfriends who derived enjoyment from beating their girlfriends. However, I still shifted my butt horizontally across while asking him, "Whatever for?"
"Give me a kiss," he answered.
I turned rigid at the one-third position of the bench, not knowing what to do. Even though it was my final goal to have him put forward this request, but I still failed to live up to expectations and was scared out of my wits. I most likely am that sort of people they talk about who has the heart of a thief* yet has no guts of a thief. (T/N: meaning evil intentions)
"Hurry up," he urged.
"Oh." I subconsciously shifted to his side quickly. The stone bench was a little ice-cold at the region by his side, I rigidly sat up straight, it was like there was a slab of stone vertically erected on top of a slab of stone.
Jiang Chen turned my shoulders over with immense strength, causing me to have to sound out an "Aiya!" to remind him to not wring and dislocate my shoulders.
He said, "What are you saying "Aiya" for, why are you so unromantic*?" (T/N: the original Chinese idiom means to not understand when the other party has romantic intentions towards you, to be unromantic/insensitive)
As soon as he finished speaking, his lips came over and pasted against mine, I thought, "You can't do this, you can't not give me time to defend myself after criticising me and just block my mouth, it's not like you are paying me hush money over here."
Later on, I asked him if he was attracted by my swaying, elegant appearance when I wore a dress, he said, "No, your calves are quite thick,"; I then asked him if it could be that he was attracted by the smell of eau de toilette combined with medicated oil, he said "No, it smells like Formalin,"; I refused to drop the matter and asked if it could be that the calling sounds of the insects at the sports field had awakened his animalistic side, he said, "Are you nuts?"; I said, "Then what is it exactly?", he said that he just wanted to kiss and see if the tactile sensation of the skin tissue of the lips was any different from that of normal skin.
That flower-petal like romantic dream about my first kiss of mine was ruthlessly defiled by him just like that, I might as well have given my first kiss to someone else……
Just as I was vexing about not having given my first kiss to a stranger back in the day and recalling the most handsome stranger I had seen in my life, the doorbell rang. My heart dropped as it thumped a few times, like the feeling of weightlessness you get in a descending elevator. I took a deep breath, and prepared to deal with Jiang Chen with the face of a cold stepmother*, perhaps I could get a few pleading cries in exchange from him, to make up for the many years of hardship chasing him when I was young.
It was just that I was too happy, my hand as I reached out to wring to door handle was trembling as if I was holding a cheque for 20 million RMB.
I tremblingly opened the door, before I saw clearly who had arrived, I was almost strangled to death by a bear hug. I thought that it was Jiang Chen erupting with passion, and gratifyingly patted his shoulder and said, "Don't be emotional, don't be emotional."
Just as I finished speaking, I smelled a strong scent of Eau de Cologne, hence I with great force pushed away the person who was hugging me.
The person who was standing before my eyes had slender eyes, the outer corners of his eyes were slanting up, he was giving a lopsided smile, from the corners of his mouth were two arcs, it was really devilish with a hint of uninhibition.
He was Wu Bosong.
I have to admit, I have never been a brave or persistent person, in my entire life, the most brave and persistent thing I have done was to chase after Jiang Chen, but even with regards to this matter, the evaluation that Jiang Chen gave of it was not good. He said, "You are like a cat who has only ever eaten cat kibble, when you see a rat, you only know how to pursue it based on natural instinct, but if you see a fish, you would also be enticed away very quickly by it." In this inspired and masterful analogy of his, I was the cat and he was the rat, and Wu Bosong was - that fish.
In other words, Wu Bosong was a brief interlude in the thorny road of me having unrequited love for Jiang Chen, I described this brief interlude as another small beauty I picked up enroute of not being able to obtain love. Jiang Chen's description was more direct and hard-hitting, he used two idioms involving plants to describe it, he said, "Temperament like water, like a poplar tree*; the red apricot tree growing over the garden wall*." I felt that he truly was mistaken. (T/N: the first idiom describes a woman who is fickle minded and frivolous and who is not single-minded in love) (T/N: the second idiom describes a wife who is having an affair/illicit lover)
Wu Bosong transferred to our class in the second semester of Senior Year 3 from another part of the country. Carrying his schoolbag on his back, he entered the door following behind the form teacher's back. With our creepy/wretched form teacher whose forehead was balding and who foamed at the corners of his mouth when speaking serving as a foil, the transfer student's appearance with a thick head of chestnut hair that grew past his ears, smiling with the corner of his mouth slanted was very stunning, just like a celestial being.
He smiled as he nodded, saying, "Hello everyone, I'm called Wu Bosong."
The moment he lowered his head, I felt like there was a ray of light flashing, only then did I realize that there was a shiny reflective object on his earlobe, it was most likely a stud earring.
Towards a transfer student of unknown origin, everyone's hearts were all surging with curiosity, and towards a transfer student of unknown origin who was wearing a stud earring on one year and yet was not forced by the teacher to chop off his ear, everyone's curiosity was surging even more turbulently to the maximum possible limit.
As the head of the "Curiosity Sect", I was pushed forward by the flowery, elegant words of everyone who was shameless and had placed all their hopes and expectations on me to have a chat with the transfer student.
Hence, my opening words were, "Classmate who has just arrived, let's have a chat."
He was in the process of shoving books into the belly of the school desk, when he heard my words, his hands paused for a moment, and he lifted his head to take a look at me. "Chat about what? Handing in protection fees?"
I scratched my head and asked unknowingly, "What protection fees?"
He stuffed the last stack of books in his hands into the desk, straightened his body, and laughed while crooking the corner of his mouth, "I'm joking, I'm called Wu Bosong, what about you?"
I could clearly hear a few sounds of people sucking in breaths from behind my back, and noises of "Chen Guanxi"…… The more I heard, the more angry I was, I turned around , put my hands on my waist and shouted at the female classmates behind me, "What Chen Guanxi! I'm called Chen Xiaoxi, how many times must I tell you guys, this is not funny, not funny not funny not funny!"
Even though back then Edison Chen's great and noble pioneering work of the "gate" series* had not yet happened, but there were still quite a few senseless people who liked to repeatedly use our names to make jokes, I was often pressured by this till it drove me mad, it wasn't funny, it wasn't funny, what exactly was so funny about this…… (T/N: mentioned in an earlier chapter was Edison's photo scandals, because it was so far-reaching and so widely publicised, it's often called the "Gaudy Photos Gate" in Chinese media, like how scandals are often labelled with the -gate suffix)
A group of classmates were baffled by me shouting at them, only after quite a while did someone faintly say, "We were saying that he looks like Edison Chen when he smiles, you are too sensitive……"
I, that… I don't want to live.
Wu Bosong behind me laughed as he asked, "You're called Chen Xiaoxi?"
With my back facing him, I nodded. "Yes, welcome to our class."
After I finished speaking, I escaped back to my seat without looking back, leaned forward and laid down on the desk pretending to be dead. Just as I was pretending to the point of perfection, till even I myself thought that I had really died, something poked me from the back. I turned my head around weakly, Jiang Chen who was sitting at the desk behind mine was dangling a ballpoint pen that was sandwiched between his thumb and index finger. "Your pen dropped."
I took it easily. "Oh."
"Meddling in other people's business, right." Jiang Chen's whole face was rejoicing in my misfortune. "Edison Chen is staring at you and smiling."
I inclined my head and took a look at Wu Bosong, indeed he was looking at me while smiling, I could only squeeze out a smile reluctantly in response. Turning my body around, I collapsed my upper body on Jiang Chen's desk and wailed in anguish, "It's so embarrassing, I'm not going to live."
He used the practice book in his hand to tap me on the head. "Serves you right, if you think it's embarrassing, in the future, don't go and join in the fun blindly."
I had since long ago trained my entire body to be completely impervious to Jiang Chen's blows, I could even shamelessly ask him, "If I were to look for him to play*, would you be jealous?" (T/N: meaning to hang out)
He looked askance at me. "I'll thank him."