Lin Yingtao is a person who does not bear grudges.
When Jiang Qiaoxi was a child, she often saw her crying. She coughed while crying, hunched her shoulders while crying, and when she was tired of crying, she would sit in her parents' arms with her eyes downcast.
Soon, Lin Yingtao's attention was diverted. She watched the big windmill puppet show on TV, played with Bobby the Elf and Pretty Barbie, ate big, thin fried shrimp chips, and as long as Jiang Qiaoxi was willing to play with her, she would soon be able to laugh.
Lin Yingtao still cries now. When she is tired of crying, she curls up beside Jiang Qiaoxi and buries her face in his arms. She doesn't even have any guard. You know, Jiang Qiaoxi and she haven't seen each other for three years. Three years of separation is enough to make a man completely become another person.
Jiang Qiaoxi slept very deeply and woke up naturally at around seven in the morning. Normally, he would get up and wash up, and go to the hospital to help his cousin's wife if she needed him. If not, he would go to Zhihua Hall to make up for his homework, or go out to work.
Jiang Qiaoxi turned his head. He was lying flat on his back, taking up most of the bed. Cherry was sleeping inside, her eyelashes drooping, lying on her side in his arms. This morning was different from the past three years, the past ten or twenty years. Jiang Qiaoxi was not alone. He felt Cherry's legs draped over his left leg under the blanket. His left arm was a little numb, but he was still holding Cherry's back, and through a layer of soft nightgown fabric, he could hold her waist.
Jiang Qiaoxi leaned over slightly, and Lin Yingtao fell asleep on the pillow. Her cheeks were red, and she didn't know if it was because Jiang Qiaoxi was too hot. Lin Yingtao's nose was slightly upturned, her eyes were red, and there were some bite marks on her lips, which were the marks left by her crying and quarreling with him in the middle of the night last night.
Lin Yingtao's hair had grown longer, perhaps she had deliberately grown it long to make her look more "feminine". Her neck fell along the curve of the pillow, a rose gold chain emerged from her messy hair, crossed her slender collarbone, and the jewel cherry hanging on it sank into the soft and seductive shadow on the chest of the girl's nightgown.
Jiang Qiaoxi looked down at her, and somehow, he bent down to kiss her lips. Lin Yingtao always loved to act like a spoiled child, to play tricks, to cry, to laugh, and to say some wild and irrelevant silly things, but it was also with these lips that she said yesterday, Jiang Qiaoxi, if you continue to ignore me and don't want me for those unimportant reasons, I will forget you.
Lin Yingtao muttered softly, "Hmm... It's so prickly..." She was still asleep, mumbling, but she couldn't avoid Jiang Qiaoxi's stubble and kisses in the early morning. Her hands pushed Jiang Qiaoxi from below, and then were pressed to the side of the pillow. Lin Yingtao's lips were slightly curled, and were kissed open. Her head tilted back and sank into the pillow.
Lin Yingtao raised her hands and hugged Jiang Qiaoxi's neck completely subconsciously. She was a young woman who had just turned 20, hugging her man. This was the man she chose, the man she liked, the man she was attached to, and the man she could never forget.
Jiang Qiaoxi kissed her neck and the chain. His breathing became heavier on her and he couldn't help but move down.
Lin Yingtao was still awake, still lingering on the Angry Birds she had played on Jiang Qiaoxi's phone before going to bed. She turned over in the blanket and continued to sleep on the young man's bed.
Even the intimacy in the early morning seemed like a dream, and Lin Yingtao didn't know if it really happened.
When she woke up, it was already noon. Lin Yingtao sat on Jiang Qiaoxi's bed with her hair disheveled and eyes downcast. She suddenly felt the superiority of the mainland compared to the special administrative regions: there must be a seven-day holiday for the National Day! Jiang Qiaoxi actually went to the University of Hong Kong to attend classes.
There was a note on the pull-out table next to the bed, and next to it was a medicine bottle cap with various pills inside. Jiang Qiaoxi said that he had a class at 9:30 in the morning, and came to pick up Lin Yingtao for lunch at noon: "I put breakfast in the refrigerator outside, you heat it up, and take the medicine obediently."
"Take the medicine obediently."
Lin Yingtao unfolded the handwritten note from Jiang Qiaoxi and fell into bed with her legs raised to the sky. Lin Yingtao was secretly happy. She turned over and lay on the bed, carefully reading the handwriting from Jiang Qiaoxi on the note: Is this what it feels like to have a boyfriend by your side
She got out of bed, opened her suitcase, and changed into the clothes she wanted to wear on the third day. Lin Yingtao didn't notice it when she changed clothes, because Jiang Qiaoxi was a single man and there was not even a mirror in the rented house. Lin Yingtao took her travel toothbrush to brush her teeth. She stood in front of the mirror in the public bathroom and suddenly noticed a red spot on the front of her neck.
Lin Yingtao didn't know what it was at first. She lifted her hair from her shoulders and touched it with her fingers, which hurt her.
Late last night, in a hotel on Victoria Harbour, with bright lights and crowds of tourists outside the window, Lin Yingtao squatted on the ground crying and figured out how to change her flight ticket. She packed her suitcase and left resolutely. For a few minutes, she was even ready to say goodbye to her entire adolescence.
But now, Lin Yingtao stood downstairs of the Zhuang Yueming Building of the University of Hong Kong. She faced the sun, squinted her eyes, and raised her hand to wave. Jiang Qiaoxi, carrying a schoolbag, walked towards her from a distance in the crowd. The weather in Hong Kong was good, and even Jiang Qiaoxi's face had a rare glow. He smiled and looked down at her. Under the short sleeves of his white T-shirt, the young man's muscular arms were exposed. Jiang Qiaoxi took her hand and took her to Maxim's for dinner.
While eating teppanyaki, Lin Yingtao asked him, "Doesn't your school have dormitories? Why do you want to rent a house outside?"
Jiang Qiaoxi said that there are few dormitories but many conditions: "The school will subsidize a little rent."
"Then why don't you rent a bigger house." Lin Yingtao bit her milk tea straw and looked at him.
Jiang Qiaoxi smiled.
"The room I live in," he looked at her, "is already the largest in the building."
"Ah?" Lin Yingtao asked in surprise.
"Hong Kong is just so small," Jiang Qiaoxi held her hand and took her to walk around the HKU campus, "Look, isn't HKU very small?"
"I used to think that people in Hong Kong lived in big villas," Lin Yingtao turned around and said to him, "They are all very, very rich!"
Jiang Qiaoxi put his arm around her shoulders.
In his third year at HKU, Jiang Qiaoxi had never brought a friend to visit the campus. He also had little time and energy to notice all the beauty.
Lin Yingtao suddenly ran to the other side of the road. She pointed at the tiles on the ground and said, "I stood here that day and asked passers-by if they knew you! But it was a holiday that day, so there were a lot of tourists!"
Jiang Qiaoxi stood opposite and looked at her. A car drove by, and there were many students, everyone was enjoying their college life casually. Jiang Qiaoxi walked in front of Lin Yingtao, and he hugged Lin Yingtao to his body, as if no one could see her.
Lin Yingtao did not mind it. Jiang Qiaoxi never confessed his love to her, never asked her if she was willing to be his girlfriend. From holding hands, hugging, kissing, from childhood to adulthood, many things seemed to happen naturally. None of them asked why they did this. They just did it, as if the two of them understood each other.
Last night, Lin Yingtao was playing with Jiang Qiaoxi's iPhone and saw various English class notes, bills, and hospital trivia in the memo.
There was a note in it called "Cherry". Lin Yingtao clicked it and found that the first sentence was about the housing prices of six residential areas near the provincial city center in 2009, followed by the surrounding housing prices in 2010.
Jiang Qiaoxi kept a sloppy record of all the things that required money, with many abbreviations. He probably wrote them down whenever he thought of them, and he has never sorted them out in such a long time.
Lin Yingtao stood next to the ice cream truck and said, "I don't want to stay in a hotel."
She took the ice cream cone from Jiang Qiaoxi, lowered her head and took a bite, her mouth full of the taste of milk.
"The place I rented is too small." Jiang Qiaoxi frowned.
Lin Yingtao said, "No, the hotel is so expensive, save your money."
"What can we do with the money we save?" Jiang Qiaoxi said.
Lin Yingtao raised her big cherry-like eyes to look at him and took another bite of the soft serve ice cream cone. She just smiled and didn't say anything, looking like she was thinking about something bad.
Jiang Qiaoxi reached out and pinched her face.
"Save the money to treat your cousin's illness," Lin Yingtao said to him, with milk on her lips, "and then we'll go home together."
Jiang Qiaoxi, once a child of destiny, now lives in such a miserable state. It is only natural that he does not want anyone to know about his current situation. He does not desire help from others. He learned to bear everything on his own at a very young age. He immerses himself in mathematics, using it as a sword and shield to defend himself.
But the major he is currently studying and the life he leads are not what he once wanted.
"Jiang Qiaoxi, you know what," Lin Yingtao sat in front of him with her knees hugged, "idiots have their own lives, and poor people have their own happiness. Just because you're poor doesn't mean you can only make money in life and not be happy."
After Jiang Qiaoxi finished taking a shower, he sat cross-legged on the bed and listened to teacher Lin Yingtao, who was wearing a nightgown, giving him "a lesson".
As he listened, he couldn't help but want to laugh because of Teacher Lin's serious tone and expression.
But he knew that Cherry's feelings were genuine.
"I think you have always had a very wrong concept," Lin Yingtao held Jiang Qiaoxi's face like she was touching the big head of a three-year-old baby in kindergarten and taught him, "You always think that you have to persist, endure, get through the competition, go to the United States, cure your cousin, make more money, and live your previous life again before you can live and enjoy happiness. It's wrong for you to think this way!"
Jiang Qiaoxi said: "Okay, okay, I understand."
His cell phone was still next to him, the screen still on, showing the angry fat birds that Teacher Lin had just been playing with.
Lin Yingtao looked him in the eye and observed his true thoughts. Lin Yingtao knew that Jiang Qiaoxi had been pampered since childhood. His father was a senior executive of the power group, and he was very talented in mathematics and was highly sought after. He had never been poor, and had never lost his self-esteem. He had no buffer, and when he was about to grow up, he fell into a desperate predicament. His pride made him not ask for help or show weakness to anyone.
Even now, even though Jiang Qiaoxi has begun to try to be honest with Lin Yingtao, he is still trying to act nonchalant, as if many things are just the smallest waves and accidents in life. "I know." He always promised Lin Yingtao.
"Jiang Qiaoxi."
"Um?"
The lights in the rental house were off, with only some light coming in from the window. Lin Yingtao rested her head in Jiang Qiaoxi's arms. He held her and asked, "What happened to your cousin back then?"
Jiang Qiaoxi was silent for a while and did not answer.
Lin Yingtao said: "Can't you tell me?"
Jiang Qiaoxi said: "My brother was pushed down the stairs by his subordinates."
Lin Yingtao looked up at him: "Subordinate?"
Jiang Qiaoxi said lightly: "The financial crisis and the subordinates who were laid off."
Lin Yingtao asked, what about your brother
Jiang Qiaoxi blinked and said, "My brother was also laid off, but he didn't know it at the time."
Lin Yingtao looked at him.
Jiang Qiaoxi reached out and rubbed Lin Yingtao's hair, smiling at her comfortingly.
These things happened a long time ago.
Lin Yingtao turned over in the blanket and hugged Jiang Qiaoxi's waist. She felt Jiang Qiaoxi hug her tighter.
"Jiang Qiaoxi." she said.
"Um?"
Lin Yingtao looked up at him: "I want to go to the hospital to visit your cousin."
Jiang Qiaoxi hesitated.
Lin Yingtao said: "He gave me so many gifts before, but I have never thanked him in person!"
Jiang Qiaoxi said, "Can you bear it, in that kind of ward?"
Lin Yingtao buried her face in him. "Why can't I bear it? I used to go to the workers' hospital with Du Shang to spy on people who were injured on the construction site and were often sent there," she told Jiang Qiaoxi. "Du Shang would cry out of fear every time, and I would wipe his tears."
She felt Jiang Qiaoxi lower his head and kiss her hair lightly.
The author has something to say: －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
Notes to this chapter:
* Angry Birds: A casual puzzle game developed by Rovio, first released on iOS in December 2009. The game is based on the story of a bird taking revenge on a fat pig who stole its eggs, and tells a series of stories about the bird and the fat pig.