In the first semester of her freshman year, Lin Qile joined the school's English Association. She originally just wanted to make up for her shortcomings out of habit. In her impression, her English was always poor.
But after going there once or twice, Lin Qile found that she could actually remember most of the high-frequency TOEFL vocabulary. On weekend mornings, she held a toothbrush in her mouth and flipped through the vocabulary book in her dormitory, covering the words one by one with her hands.
Without her realizing it, these words popped out of her mind one by one.
While having dinner with Yu Qiao, Lin Qile suddenly asked: "Tell me, from childhood to adulthood, will a person be changed unconsciously by many people and many things, even if those people and things have already passed."
Yu Qiao said: "Isn't this nonsense?"
Lin Qile took a deep breath. If Du Shang and the others were not there, she would never have fallen to the point of telling Yu Qiao such things from her heart.
"Yes, yes, nonsense!" Lin Qile scooped a piece of cooked carrot with a spoon and quickly scooped it into a small piece of carrot puree.
The boyfriend of the senior student in bed No. 2 is studying for a doctorate in physics at Beijing Institute of Technology. It is said that there are a lot of single men in the entire department. The senior student found a few tourist photos from Lin Yingtao's campus account and sent them to her boyfriend, saying that she wanted to introduce a high-quality boyfriend to Lele: "Otherwise, you will be hung up on your male god who went abroad all day long. What's the point? It's a waste of youth!"
Lin Yingtao stood under the bed and muttered: "Sister, I don't want to find a partner..."
Meng Lijun lowered her head from the upper bunk, her black hair hanging down. She said, "Do you still want to remain a virgin for your male god?"
The senior student in bed No. 3 was wearing a facial mask and turned around to ask, "Le Le, do you want to be Xiao Fang for him?"
Lin Yingtao looked at her: "What Xiaofang?"
Several seniors started laughing. They sang an old song in a scattered manner. Lin Yingtao had heard it when she was a child, but she didn't know what it meant. She only vaguely thought it was a love song. The senior said, "The stinky man is going back to the city from the countryside, and is going to the United States from China. He slept with Xiaofang and made love with her. Before leaving, he said, "Thank you, I will never forget you!" Then he left with a clear conscience!"
Meng Lijun lowered her head from the upper bunk again and said, "Le Le, don't wait for men. They will never be grateful to you!"
After a while, Lin Qile was painting her toenails with some seniors in the dormitory. Her instep was white, and she painted her toenails red. Suddenly, a senior said from the opposite side: "Lele, my man has a junior who saw your photo and wanted to meet you, but... "
Lin Qile raised his head.
The senior student frowned: "He said he came to our school to play basketball last week, and heard from his teammates that there is a guy from Beihang University who often comes to the school to have dinner with you. Is that true?"
Lin Qile was stunned.
She had never mentioned Yu Qiao to her roommates.
And for more than a year, the senior students haven't run into them.
"That was my former classmate," said Lin Qile.
"What classmates?" asked another senior.
Lin Qile thought for a moment and said frankly: "Kindergarten classmate, elementary school classmate, high school classmate."
"LeLe, this is not right," the senior student in bed number 2 couldn't help laughing, "We thought you were always thinking about your boyfriend, but it turns out you're secretly hiding a handsome guy from Beihang University!"
The next time Yu Qiao came, he found that in addition to Lin Yingtao, who had an awkward expression sitting opposite her, there were three senior schoolmates sitting next to her.
"Two other people had activities and didn't come," one of the sisters explained to him.
The other older sister, with long straight black hair and wearing lipstick of a strange color, supported her face with her hands and looked at Yu Qiao from the opposite side with a smile.
Yu Qiao asked Lin Yingtao unnaturally: "What are you doing?"
He was not obedient at all, did not understand romance, did not know how to nod and flatter the pretty senior schoolmate, and did not even smile. Meng Lijun could not help but sigh in Lin Qile's ear: "This guy is too Beihang!"
From then on, the senior students in the dormitory rarely mentioned the "math god" anymore, and instead asked Lin Qile what it was like to have a boyfriend from Beihang University.
"No! No!" Lin Qile hurriedly explained, "Our two families have lived together since we were young, and we often ate together..."
But it was no use. The seniors started chatting on their own: "I heard that the men in Feiyuan are very busy, and it's like visiting them in a different place."
Lin Qile thought that she might as well send a text message to Yu Qiao, asking him not to come over for dinner in the future.
If there is anything, just call and tell me. There is usually nothing to do anyway.
The senior students started chatting animatedly in the dormitory again.
"Based on my years of experience reading this romance novel," said the senior in bed number 2, "it's very likely that Lin Lele, the American idol, will transform into a domineering CEO many years later and come back in a BMW or Mercedes-Benz to chase our Le'er!"
The senior student in bed number 1 was reading a book called "Montessori's Scientific Methods of Early Childhood Education" and commented: "Your plot is too tacky."
“That’s not right!” The senior in bed No. 3 muted Kangxi Comes Here. She turned her head and said, “It can’t just be Lele and the American male god—”
The senior student in bed number 2 slapped the bed and said, "I figured it out. Lele has lost his memory!"
"Ah?" Meng Lijun was plucking her eyebrows with a small mirror in her hand, and turned around and asked in surprise.
The senior student in bed number 2 said, "She lost her memory, and then she quickly married the handsome guy from Beihang University. She might even have a child!"
The atmosphere in the dormitory suddenly became more exciting. Not long after, the story had evolved into a story about Lin Lele being forcibly taken away by a domineering male god who returned from China, having a miscarriage, getting pregnant, and having another miscarriage, getting married first and then falling in love, recovering her memory, and reuniting.
"Why don't you write a novel?" Meng Lijun asked Bed Number 2.
The senior student said sadly: "It is the great cause of education that has delayed me!"
Bed No. 3 turned around and said, "Hey, where's Le'er?"
Bed No. 1 was reading a book and said leisurely, "When you make people lose their memory, they will go out to wash clothes when they have children."
Lin Yingtao put a basin of laundry on the steps. She squatted beside it, thought for a while, and sent a text message: "You'd better not come to eat with me in the future. It's so far, and we always quarrel over meals anyway."
"Lin Yingtao," Yu Qiao replied half an hour later, probably just seeing her, "We won't have many opportunities to get together in the future."
Lin Yingtao looked at the text message and suddenly felt very sad.
The high heels hit the ground, getting closer and closer to Lin Yingtao. Lin Yingtao turned her head, then raised her head again. It was senior Meng Lijun who came out of the dormitory.
"What are you doing? Texting your idol who's abroad again?" Meng Lijun also squatted down, hugging her knees next to Lin Yingtao.
Lin Yingtao quickly turned the phone screen towards herself and turned it off.
"I used to watch 'The Mansion Gate'," Meng Lijun said to Lin Yingtao, "There was a woman in it, played by Jiang Wenli. She liked a man, but the man didn't want to marry her. In the end, she married the man's photo."
Lin Yingtao asked, "Photos?"
"You're not going to marry a cell phone in the future, are you?" Meng Lijun asked her softly, with a hint of pity in her eyes.
During the summer vacation of her freshman year, Lin Qile sat next to Yu Qiao on the high-speed train on her way home. In the past, they often sat together on the way to and from school, but this was the first time that Lin Qile felt so uncomfortable. She turned her head and kept looking out the window with her headphones on.
Yu Qiao was taking a nap in his seat, and when he woke up he asked her which stop they were at. Lin Qile answered, but avoided his gaze. Yu Qiao turned around and looked at her, but said nothing more.
Lin Qile sat on the bed sheet, fiddling with the Barbie doll with short hair in her hand.
"Cherry, don't forget me." Jiang Qiaoxi said.
Lin Qile lowered her head deeply, she didn't make a sound, and suddenly tears began to fall one by one.
During a summer gathering, Lin Qile suddenly asked Duchamp, "Do you think there are feelings in the world that will never change?"
Duchamp had grown a beard, which made his usually thin face look more mature. Duchamp didn't even think about it: "No."
Lin Qile looked at her.
"Do you say that in front of your girlfriend?" Lin Qile asked him.
"No, no..." Du Shang said hurriedly, "I can't tell the truth to my girlfriend. I have to coax her."
Cai Fangyuan came over with a small bowl of condiments. He asked Lin Qile and Du Shang if they wanted some dry sauce: "What's wrong with Yu Qiaoer? Why hasn't he come yet?"
Du Shang was separated from Lin Qile by a steaming pot, so it was difficult for him to talk to her. He simply stood up, took his bowl of sesame sauce and sat down next to Lin Qile. He turned around and said, "Cherry, your parents have a good relationship. Let me tell you about mine..."
"Before I was transferred to the construction site in Qunshan, my mother told me that she and my father had a good relationship," Du Shang recalled, looking at the wolfberries floating on the pot. "Later, my father went to the construction site in Pucheng and my mother stayed in Qunshan. They grew further and further apart, and had more and more conflicts and misunderstandings. Whenever my mother talked to other uncles and my father heard about it, he would get angry and beat her. He still refused to divorce."
This was the first time that Lin Qile heard Duchamp talk about his parents' past and the reasons for the disputes among the adults back then.
"So now when I have nothing to do during the holidays, I go to Shanghai," Du Shang told her directly, "If we can avoid separation, then we should do it. If we can avoid being apart, then we should do it. We are all ordinary people, and we may not be able to continue our relationship anytime soon. If we are apart for a long time, no one knows what will happen."
Qin Yeyun came, and she came with Yu Qiao. Cai Fangyuan was very surprised and asked Qin Yeyun: "What a rare guest, why are you here!"
Qin Yeyun scolded him: "What kind of guests are you looking for? You never invite me when you invite guests!"
Cai Fangyuan smiled and spat out the melon seed shells, saying, "I wanted to call you, but I wasn't afraid that you would start a quarrel with Yu Qiao at the dinner table again."
Qin Yeyun snorted, and she directed Du Shang to go aside, and she sat down next to Lin Qile.
"What's going on? Without Jiang Qiaoxi and I in between, you and Yu Qiao are not talking to each other?" she asked her in her ear.
Lin Qile couldn't stand it and said, "What? I didn't stop talking!"
Cai Fangyuan was sitting next to him, eating sunflower seeds. Suddenly, everyone at the table was very quiet. This was mainly because Yu Qiao looked unhappy and was about to lose his temper. Cai Fangyuan broke the silence: "Order, what do you want?"
Then he said to Qin Yeyun: "Okay, okay, stop teasing her. It's not easy to be a single girl."
At the beginning of her sophomore year, Lin Qile went to the English Association to practice speaking with international students every day except for attending classes. She didn't know why she practiced, and it didn't seem to have any effect.
During the National Day, she went to her aunt's house for dinner. Her aunt had a British shorthair cat, gray-blue, very fat and clingy. Lin Qile hugged it wherever she went, feeling that she was especially needed by it.
In the summer, my cousin accompanied his girlfriend to Japan and bought Lin Qile a few sets of skin care products at the duty-free shop. Lin Qile looked at the logo with a circle on the left and a circle on the right and didn't recognize it. She smiled and said, "Flip the two circles over and it's Chanel!"
At the end of the year, Lin Qile finished the Level 6 exam. Qin Yeyun called and told Lin Qile that she was in love in college.
Lin Qile was not prepared at all.
"Are you in love?"
Qin Yeyun said: "I can't wait for the person I like, but I can wait for someone who is willing to buy me Ferragamo."
Lin Qile asked, “Is he nice to you?”
"It's not bad," Qin Yeyun said nonchalantly, "It's much better than Yu Qiao anyway."
After his sophomore year, Yu Qiao never came to the Normal University again.
He was very busy. He was going abroad in his junior year at the Aviation Academy. If he could schedule early, he could leave early in his sophomore year. He had already finished his IELTS test and was preparing for the aviation school interview when school started.
In December, when Cai Fangyuan called Lin Yingtao, he said, "Yu Qiao is going to Canada, and will leave in March or April next year."
After hearing this, Lin Yingtao said "Oh".
"He didn't tell me anyway." Lin Yingtao said.
Cai Fangyuan sighed: "When you have a partner in the future, he might tell you."
Lin Yingtao lowered her head and said nothing.
Cai Fangyuan started talking about another topic. He said that Jiang Qiaoxi's father withdrew the last sum of money that was deposited in Cai Fangyuan's family's stock account a few days ago.
Lin Yingtao's heart suddenly tightened.
"I asked my dad," Cai Fangyuan said, "Maybe his dad might want to change jobs."
Lin Yingtao said, "Uncle Jiang will not work at the Power Group anymore?"
"Yeah." Cai Fangyuan said.
Cai Fangyuan heard Lin Yingtao stop talking: "Hey, what's wrong with you?"
Lin Yingtao's voice trembled: "Cai Fangyuan..."
"What are you doing?" Cai Fangyuan was shocked.
Lin Yingtao cried, "Now you are the only one who will tell me about Jiang Qiaoxi..."
Cai Fangyuan was extremely helpless: "What's the matter? Do you think we have all forgotten him?"
Cai Fangyuan said: "Du Shang said some time ago that he might go to Hong Kong for exchange during his junior summer vacation. He wanted to find out which hospital Jiang Qiaoxi's family was in after the accident. He also wanted to give Jiang Qiaoxi a taste of his own medicine."
When you reach a certain age, it seems that it is difficult to have "pure friendship between opposite sexes". Even good friends who grew up together will gradually become different. Lin Yingtao gradually realized this.
She mustered up her courage and took the initiative to call Yu Qiao during the break. When Yu Qiao didn't answer, she sent a text message: "Why didn't you answer my call? You are so arrogant!"
Yu Qiao didn’t reply to the text message until the evening, saying he hadn’t seen it: “Busy! What’s wrong with you? If you have something to say, fart quickly.”
During the summer vacation after my sophomore year, at the end of August, something happened that spread throughout the 2005 Experimental High School alumni group.
Cai Fangyuan kept calling Lin Yingtao on QQ, but found that she was not online. He called Lin Yingtao's cell phone, but no one answered. Finally, he called Lin Yingtao's home phone. Uncle Lin Haifeng picked up the call and asked Lin Yingtao, who had just finished taking a shower, to come over and answer.
"Hurry up and check QQ, Jiang Qiaoxi's photo is online!"
A female high school student from Hong Kong posted a group of photos on her MSN space.
"Isn't my new math + Mandarin teacher very handsome?! There must be no more handsome tutor in Hong Kong! How can I not get full marks in math with him?"
Someone asked in the comments: "Is this Jiang Qiaoxi from Experimental High School?"
The blogger replied: "I don't know. He is a top student in the Department of Finance at the University of Hong Kong. He also has a double degree in law and is my sister and I's tutor!"
Almost all the replies below are in simplified Chinese. It seems that too many viewers have flocked to this blog in a short period of time, whether they are students studying Olympiad mathematics in mainland competition teams or alumni of the 2005 class of Experimental High School.
"This is Jiang Qiaoxi, the winner of the 2007 National Mathematical Olympiad who gave up admission to Tsinghua University. I heard that he went to Berkeley to study statistics. Did he choose HKU?"
The blogger replied: "Is he famous in mainland China? He comes from a poor family. My daddy met him in the hospital and invited him to come."
"Impossible. Jiang Qiaoxi's family is very rich. He used to have a driver to pick him up when he went to competition classes. A pair of Jordans he casually wore cost three or four thousand yuan."
"In 2007, he was a math genius on our provincial team. He won first prize in the country and could have entered the world competition. I thought he went to the United States to do research, but he ran off to Hong Kong to be a tutor."
"Little sister, study math well."
"Jiang Xueshen explains questions more thoroughly than our competition teacher. How much did your father pay him?"
The photo was secretly taken from the gap above the book, just like the sight of a little girl peeking out secretly. The young man opposite was lowering his head at the desk, holding a fountain pen, and explaining the spelling of Mandarin Pinyin to another little girl who looked only seven or eight years old.
He didn't notice the camera, and his face was expressionless. In addition to the books and stationery used by the two little girls, various fancy snacks and toys, there was also a black, slightly peeling water cup with Eisenhower's quotations printed on it, and a tea bag hanging from the mouth of the cup.
The last comment in the comments read: "Sister, please delete these photos quickly. It is illegal for students to secretly tutor in Hong Kong. Jiang Qiaoxi will be expelled from the University of Hong Kong and will be deported. Please delete them quickly."
As soon as the junior year started, Lin Qile went to Beijing. She took advantage of her free time to get the necessary certificates at school. On Thursday afternoon when she had no classes, she stood in the immigration reception hall. There were so many people, Lin Qile lined up to fill out forms and take photos. She took the order number, but while waiting, she couldn't help but start crying again.
The author has something to say: －－－－－－－－－－－
Notes to this chapter:
＊"Xiao Fang": A folk love song written, composed and sung by Li Chunbo, included in the album "Xiao Fang" released in June 1993.
＊“The one played by Jiang Wenli”: Jiang Wenli played Bai Yuting in “The Mansion Gate”. She held a wedding ceremony with a photo of an actor and stayed with the photo for the rest of her life.
*MSN Space: A shared space service launched by Microsoft, which was closed in March 2011.
*Cherry's mood swings are more frequent during this stage and she cries more easily.