During the National Day holiday, at 4pm, Jiang Qiaoxi left his student's home in Tsim Sha Tsui. Before he left, the student's parents asked if he could still come to teach during the winter break at the beginning of next year: "She doesn't like the tutors in the regular Olympiad class and the cram school, and she insists that we ask Teacher Jiang to continue teaching her math next year."
Jiang Qiaoxi took the salary, put it in his pocket, and apologized, "I don't have time anymore."
There is always a low magnetic tone in his voice, and his tone is light and cold, but this coldness is gentle and it is hard to find fault with it.
It seems that he is just a person with a weak sense of emotion, which makes it impossible for people to get closer to him. He is not cold, but just has a bit of arrogance of an excellent student. From the way he looks when he is alone, he doesn't look like a Hong Kong University student who comes from a poor family and can only sell his time to work as a tutor.
Jiang Qiaoxi carried a schoolbag and a bag of candied apples given to him by his students' parents before they left. He got on the Tsuen Wan Line, and a group of college students from the hockey club sat in the empty seat next to him. When the train passed through the long tunnel, Jiang Qiaoxi looked out the window, but could not see anything. He could only hear his peers laughing around him.
After getting off the bus, Jiang Qiaoxi took out two apples from the bag in his hand and stuffed them into his schoolbag. Taikoo Place Station was full of tourists. He walked past the crowded shopping crowd and headed to the bus station.
The paper bags carried by the tourists are red, from Chanel to Salvatore.
Jiang Qiaoxi got on the city bus with the bag of apples. He looked down at the time on his watch and took out a few PPTs from his schoolbag. These were the lecture notes he had missed because of his part-time job. After more than ten minutes, he finished reading them and put them away. He stood up and got off the bus quickly.
It has been nearly three years. For three years, Jiang Qiaoxi walked into the door of the hospital ward building every day. In the corridor, several children were running and playing happily. Jiang Qiaoxi stopped at the door of the ward and saw the nurse turning his cousin over and patting his back. When his cousin's wife saw him coming, she put down the basin. Jiang Qiaoxi handed her the apple. Jiang Qiaoxi turned around and glanced at the empty bed next door: "Are they gone?"
"He was taken home by his youngest son to be taken care of." said my cousin's wife.
While his cousin's wife was busy in the house, Jiang Qiaoxi went to settle the bill. The hospital stipulated that the bill should be settled every five days. The receipt was printed out, and the room fee, needle and medicine fee, examination fee, treatment fee... every item was listed very clearly. Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his head and checked it roughly. He took off his schoolbag, took out his wallet, and took out the cash inside to pay the bill.
When he returned to the ward, Jiang Qiaoxi put the salary he had just received in his trouser pocket on the table in front of his cousin's bed and pressed it with a lunch box containing an ice towel. He leaned on the shelf beside the bed and asked, "Brother, are you in a good mood today?"
My cousin has finished turning over and having his back tapped. He lies on his back with a feeding tube and an oxygen tube connected to his mouth and nose. His body is so skinny that his hospital gown is sunken. His cheeks are also sunken. He is only thirty-six years old, and the former banker has gray and sparse hair. He should have a haircut.
His eyes were open, his eye sockets were deep, and his eyeballs were very wet. He moved his gaze over and focused on Jiang Qiaoxi's face. He slowly blinked at him.
Jiang Qiaoxi reached out to hold his cousin's hand. Nearly three years of bed rest had made the skin on the back of this man's hand as loose as wrinkled rice paper. The hand joints were also soft, and in Jiang Qiaoxi's hands, there was no strength. When he was a child, these hands often held the steering wheel outside the cuffs of a decent shirt. At that time, his cousin was a senior in college. He excitedly left Central every day and drove to pick up Jiang Qiaoxi, who was sixteen years younger than him, from school. The cousin sat high up in the driver's seat. He described so much to Jiang Qiaoxi with great excitement, not caring that his little cousin actually didn't understand a single word. Jiang Qiaoxi just looked at him, looking at the golden arc left by the setting sun on the front window of the car. The impression of that scene was too deep. Jiang Qiaoxi still had this impression many years later: I also want to be a person like my cousin.
Jiang Qiaoxi sat on a bench outside the ward, opened the folder in his schoolbag, and continued to look at the PPT. His cousin's wife came back and handed him a washed apple. Jiang Qiaoxi unscrewed the water cup and filled it with water. He wrote something on the paper with a pen. His cousin's wife came over again and wanted to return the stack of money on the bedside to him.
"I don't need it." Jiang Qiaoxi looked up at her.
"You are a college student and this is the time for you to spend money. How come you don't need it-" said my cousin's wife, frowning.
Jiang Qiaoxi said, "I'll ask you for it when I need it."
My cousin's wife asked, "Can't you keep your own accounts?"
Jiang Qiaoxi said as a matter of course: "No."
My cousin's wife smiled bitterly, and the corners of her once beautiful eyes were already wrinkled: "Then you should go on a date soon and find a girlfriend to help you manage your money. How can such a handsome brother still be single?" She wanted to stuff the money into Jiang Qiaoxi's schoolbag.
Jiang Qiaoxi said, "I'll ask you for it when I find it. Please save it for me first."
When the accident just happened, my cousin was rushed to the hospital by his former colleague. My cousin's family had already lost tens of millions in the stock market and was in debt. Those days were like adding fuel to the fire, with no end in sight. On New Year's Eve in 2009, my cousin's wife took the children and two elderly people to move to avoid debt. Jiang Qiaoxi was alone in the hospital ward, accompanying my cousin who had not yet woken up. The TV was playing the Chinese New Year Gala. Jiang Qiaoxi remembered that it was a skit about the Beijing Olympics. He muted the TV because he knew that my cousin couldn't hear it.
There were always other patients and their families coming and going in the hospital. Sometimes they collapsed, sometimes they knelt on the ground and cried, begging the doctors for mercy. Jiang Qiaoxi heard it, he raised his head, looked at them, and then lowered his head to continue studying.
When Jiang Qiaoxi left, he said to his cousin's wife, "I'll go for an interview in a month or two."
My cousin's wife asked, "Which one did you apply to?"
Jiang Qiaoxi said: "Go and try them all."
My cousin's wife said, "Your suit has been well kept in your brother's closet. I'll go back and iron it for you."
Jiang Qiaoxi walked back to his cousin's bed.
The doctor here once said that my cousin might not live for more than three years.
This year is already the third year.
Jiang Qiaoxi shook his cousin's still motionless hand. "See you tomorrow, brother." He said in Cantonese. Although his cousin didn't say anything, his eyes looked at him steadily, just like the firm response he had given him on the other end of the phone for so many years.
The night subway was crowded. Jiang Qiaoxi sat in his seat and continued to read a book on the way.
He raised his head and looked out the window again. It was dark. Jiang Qiaoxi's face was reflected on the window glass. He saw himself.
Jiang Qiaoxi sometimes thought of things from the past, as if they were something he had imagined. He thought of the two ponytails that fluttered slowly in front of him, the smell of formaldehyde trapped in the new car, Lin Yingtao walking under the small white building in a short skirt, the desks in the competition class, the test papers for the winter camp, and the moment he walked out of the train platform—
It started to rain when he got out of the subway station. Hong Kong's weather is like this, hot and muggy, with unpredictable weather. Jiang Qiaoxi wore a gray short-sleeved T-shirt, which would dry quickly even if it got wet, so he didn't care about the weather. He walked through the mall and the crowds. Young students were eating, drinking and having fun in the snack street, and hugging each other on the side of the road to take photos.
He walked into a small shop and used the remaining change to eat cart noodles. Jiang Qiaoxi put his schoolbag on the seat next to him, took out his mobile phone, checked tomorrow's class schedule, replied to several parents about the time he could work recently, and once again received an apology letter from a female student, who said, "I'm sorry, teacher, I shouldn't have posted your photo on the Internet."
The noodles were served and Jiang Qiaoxi received a new email.
It is a confirmation letter from Morgan Stanley, confirming that it has received Jiang Qiaoxi's application for an internship in Hong Kong next summer.
Chain supermarkets were selling discounted food. Jiang Qiaoxi was already familiar with the discount rules of these stores. He walked into a bookstore that was still open, and took out the book "Algebraic Surfaces and Holomorphic Vector Bundles" that he had read halfway last time from the bookshelf in the corner and continued reading it in the last half hour before closing.
The bookstore had some new math books. Jiang Qiaoxi looked down at the covers, occasionally picking up a book, glancing at the price, and then putting it down again. On the wall of the bookstore was a huge poster, which showed the upcoming release of the movie version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The publisher was promoting the latest campaign to promote Harry's final battle with Voldemort. The bookstore was about to close, so Jiang Qiaoxi walked out.
At around ten o'clock in the evening, double-decker buses dinged by on the roadside. Jiang Qiaoxi could occasionally hear a familiar accent from mainland tourists.
It turns out that he also has a "local accent".
Jiang Qiaoxi couldn't help but wonder, where exactly did he belong
Jiang Qiaoxi was standing in front of the steps of a cheap student apartment. He saw Lin Yingtao sitting on the steps in front of him, her head tilted, curled up in a ball in the Hong Kong night.
Land in Hong Kong is very expensive, and the stairs are narrow and steep. Lin Yingtao's suitcase and schoolbag were left at the door of the administrator on the first floor. Jiang Qiaoxi held the burning Lin Yingtao in his arms, and no matter how he pressed the elevator button, she would not come down, so he took the stairs up.
Lin Yingtao didn't know how long she had been feverish. Her cheeks were abnormally flushed, and her whole body was limp. She was sunken in Jiang Qiaoxi's arms, looking pitiful. She didn't know how long she had been sitting downstairs. Her skirt was so dirty. Jiang Qiaoxi arrived at the door of his rental house. He put Yingtao down and fumbled for the key in his pocket. The door opened, and inside was a rental house of four square meters. The lights were off, and the curtains were closed. Because the air conditioner was not turned on, it was very stuffy.
Lin Yingtao was carefully placed on the 1.2-meter-wide bed, her eyes closed, her shirt tightly clung to her body, her skirt hanging down over her legs. Jiang Qiaoxi wrapped her whole body in a blanket, and he stood by the bed. Because the ceiling was low, he had to lower his neck slightly, looking at her in a daze.
There was a buzzing sound coming from the corridor outside the door. Jiang Qiaoxi was going out in a hurry to buy antipyretic medicine. He gave all the money he had with him to his cousin's wife, and there might be some money left in his Octopus card. He saw the cell phone that had fallen to the floor.
The screen showed, Caller: Dad.
"Uncle Lin," Jiang Qiaoxi went downstairs. He tried hard to remember where there was a 24-hour pharmacy nearby. He stuttered into the phone, "Cherry has arrived in Hong Kong. She, she came to see me. She has a fever..."
Uncle Lin Haifeng was silent for a while on the other end of the phone.
"Oh, this silly girl in our family..." he sighed softly.
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his head.
"Uncle Lin, I'm sorry..." Jiang Qiaoxi said in a trembling voice, feeling extremely ashamed.
"Jiao Xi."
"Why."
"How are you doing in Hong Kong?" Uncle Lin Haifeng asked him softly, "Are you, are you okay?"
Jiang Qiaoxi stood at the crossroads. He swallowed down the emotions that were rising up and choked up, "I'm fine."
The author has something to say: －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
Notes to this chapter:
* "Jiang Qiaoxi remembers that it was a skit about the Beijing Olympics": "Beijing Welcomes You" was one of the skits in the 2009 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, performed by Guo Da, Cai Ming, Zhao Qi, Jermyn, Yu Heng, Huang Yang and Song Yang. The skit tells the story of Guo Da and Cai Ming competing to be Olympic volunteers, but they made a lot of jokes when giving directions, but finally successfully helped a bride find her groom.
* "Algebraic Surfaces and Holomorphic Vector Bundles", by Robert Friedman. Jiang Qiaoxi read the English version in Hong Kong.
＊Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a fantasy film directed by David Yates and starring Daniel Radcliffe and others. The film is based on the seventh book in the Harry Potter series. The first book was released on November 19, 2010.