Chapter 2.2
I took out my mobile to message He Zhi.
He Zhi lives next door to my house. I know her since she used to wear bibs (however, she always said that she knew me since womb, sweat) Two children who have been together from elementary to high school, were in the same class, until college entrance, our bodies were glued together, right next to each other. If I were a man, both of us would have already merged into like “truc mai”*
T/N * Truc mai comes from the poems of Li bai and it refers to a pair of childhood sweethearts/lovers.
It was He Zhi’s working hours, so could not make phone call, so I sent her a text: “Honey, I got married.”
In less than a minute by clock, she called back: “small military officer (she always called me that, so embarrassing~),**you want to get married? How come you never mentioned this to me before….”
T/N: Xiao Guan means small military officer. For the sake of better understanding I am going to continue with her name “Xiao Guan” in further chapters.
I interrupted her: "to get married is not correct, is married, note the tense!"
The other end was like thunderstruck, not answering for a long time. I was really satisfied with this response, and wondered, if such frequent talk about marriage would scare her off than life will be full of pleasures.
At this point, He Zhi from the other end finally resurrected, screamed and shouted: “what did you say, you got married?”
My mobile phone almost fell, sweating and shaking due to the powerful outburst of her strong voice; if she starts working as a cheer girl, her career would be quite promising.
Later, she told me, at that time she was in a meeting, so she had to get under a desk to call, and thus, she also managed to catch the attention of everybody successfully.
Sichuan*** spicy hotpot really was a rare gem, delicious and cheap if you have to treat others, you could eat till you burst without getting bankrupt, it was so good.
T/N: Sichuan is a province in western China
While He Zhe was taking the train to rush to the hotpot restaurant, I was biting a string of mushrooms, seeing her, just raised my hand that held cauliflower to welcome her to sit down, looking at her threw her a “I am sorry, I can’t talk right now” smile.
She just directly grabbed my collar, pulled me from my seat, started to drag me, shouted: “Xiao Guan Yan, explain to me clearly, exactly what happened.”
Her extremely powerful vocals attracted numerous passerby’s’ eyes.
I calmly left behind my mushroom and cabbage dish, pulled out a tissue and wiped my mouth then puller her down to sit, nabbed her and earnestly said: “Young girl your mental strength of coping is not strong enough.”
At the moment He Zhi was basically not in the mood to joke with me: “do not give me this crap! I do not understand, why did you not tell me about your marriage? We know each other since we were in womb and I was not even aware that you had a boyfriend!"
I laughed: "Who says, one needs to have a boyfriend to get married?"
She mulled over what she heard numbly, without understanding any reason, “tell me from beginning to the end, exactly what happened!”
I cleared my throat and in a distant voice said: "a month ago, on a dark moonless night, the wind was…..”
But He Zhi smacked on the top of my head so I could not continue any further. She said: “you stay focused and give me a sincere reply.”
In fact what I said was
not wrong, that is because, it was exactly a month ago I got the invitation for a blind date that resulted in this marriage. So I was honestly telling her everything from the beginning to the end apart from one thing that Jiang was gay, which I omitted.
Although He Zhi and I were extremely close, but nonetheless it was a matter related to the privacy of others, so it was not mine to share.
I only told her, I just fell in love with Jiang Li at the first sight (felt like gagging myself).
She listened to my words, with wide-opened eyes looked at me disbelievingly and exclaimed: “you two got married on the first meeting?”
I nodded my head in agreement, in a “high-efficiency” focused society, speed is a skill.
She shook her head and anxiously said: "you take marriage too lightly!"
I grumbled looking at her: “we both fell in love with each other at first sight…..” damn it, even saying it made my skin crawl.
Actually I wanted to say marriage to me has always been a joke…
She clearly believed my words: “Being in love is not an enough reason to get married. Everyone says, marriage is a union of two separate families rather than two individuals, you don’t even know his background and you registered your marriage with him, you are really blinded by love….”
I bowed my head in silence. In my mind I could imagine my mother shouting and screaming.
He Zhi pulled me out of my reverie: "show me the marriage certificate."
I obediently obeyed.
She looked at the photos on the marriage certificate, evaluated for a long time, nodded before saying “he does not look bad. How much is his height?”
I shook my head: "Don’t know, roughly a head taller than me."
She nodded again and continued the interrogation: "What is his profession?"
Me: "Don’t know, heard he is an engineer." Later I learned that he was the head of an engineering division.....
He Zhi: "there are many kinds of engineers, what type of engineer is he, his designation, is he rich or poor? What kind of car does he drives?”
Me: "BMW, but don’t know the specific model.” It did look new. His ride was none of my business. Mother’s three words “don’t touch me”**** crashed in my mind.
T/N**** “don’t touch me” is English translation of bei ma wo(BMW)
He Zhi: "Or was it on rent?"
Me: "..."
Her thinking was really too deep!!!
She returned me the marriage certificate, eloquently said: "Xiao Guan, don’t blame me too much. I was afraid you were being cheated. These days, there are so many frauds.”
Me: "you corrected the vocative, I don’t blame you."
My words provoked her and she glared at me.
I just resigned myself to bring some mistiness in my eyes by riskily using the vermicelli bowl’s vapor, rubbed my eyes a little, said “He Zhi, rest assured, I know you care for my well-being.”
T/N she knew she had incited the wrath of He Zhi, so she resorted to bring out some fake tears in her eyes. she really is not that stupid.
With slightly reddened eyes, she patted my shoulder.... She liked this approach..
I was just about to open my mouth but did not expect that real tears will flow out: "over the years, I ....." Damn, I was really ‘self-defeated’; I really did not live up to my own expectations.
T/N: she did not expect that she would really get emotional while crying “crocodile tears”. so she got defeated by her own heart. I take back my words she really is stupid but a really sweet stupid.
She clutched my hand, choking back tears, said: "No need to say anything else, if he dares to mistreat you he would be really sorry because I will be the first person to cut his head off."
I did not know how but tears were dropping naturally, did not want to be held in. Today I realized the efficiency of vermicelli bowl and how dangerous it is to make full use of it?
Originally, it was an auspicious day since I got married, how stupid it was that both of us were sitting here, hugging and crying? Oh God!