Chapter 3

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After that, Lin Che had a few other pleasant conversations with Chen Ruobing, and of course I was there too. If a boy that I had had a good impression of until now hit on another girl, and that girl was Chen Ruobing, my feelings for him were unlikely to return to what they were before, even if this hitting on may have been a false impression on my part.

Later on, another incident occurred. After school that day, my cousin left first because he was busy, and I played basketball with a few others as usual. After playing for over an hour, I was exhausted. During a defensive emergency turn, my right leg weakened, twisting my ankle in an instant. I instinctively shouted and held back tears. My right foot hurt to the point that I couldn’t touch the ground.

Lin Che was the first to rush over to support me, and after he saw that my injury was serious, he held onto my right shoulder.

I hopped off the court and saw Chen Ruobing run over as well. She knelt down and carefully helped me remove my shoe and held my foot. After resting like this for over twenty minutes, my foot showed no signs of improvement and my ankle was completely numb.

Lin Che said we should go to the hospital. He lifted me onto his back, and I was covered in sweat at the time, so I instinctively propped up my upper body with my hands as I laid on his back.

Chen Ruobing and Lin Che went with me to the hospital. Although it was closing time, there were many people in the emergency room, and it was past eight o’clock when we finished taking care of everything. I took the next day off at home, and Chen Ruobing came to see me in the evening. She saw my highly swollen ankle, and the large amount of tissue fluid collected under my skin was visible to the naked eye. Chen Ruobing smeared ointment on her hand and placed a few fingers on my ankle, very gently circling them, and she even spoke gently.

“Does it hurt?”

“If I don’t strain it, then it doesn’t hurt.”

She lowered her head and stared at my ankle, then softly asked, “Are you and Lin Che close?”

“We’re okay,” I said.

Chen Ruobing raised her head and said with a bit of a mischievous tone, “Then, what do you think of him?”

“He’s… a nice guy,” I said honestly. When I had gotten injured the day before, he had been running around for me, which I was very grateful for. But because Chen Ruobing also treated him differently from ordinary people, which was something I was sure of, my mind was a mess at the moment. I instinctively told her how I really felt. If the next question she asked me was whether I liked him or not, I thought that I would say, “I can’t say I like him, but I think well of him.”

I had even long since imagined the worst possibility, which was that Chen Ruobing really did like Lin Che. If that was the case, I figured that I would continue adjusting my mindset and help her if necessary, although it would be difficult.

The brilliant Chen Ruobing didn’t ask further and only said an “Oh.”

I took four days off at home before returning to school and returned to the basketball court a month later. During that time, I played basketball every evening without fail. Not only those in my cousin’s grade at school, but even the young junior high boys playing basketball knew me. The joy of being able to move freely was wonderful. The best things were those that were recovered after having lost them.

A week passed by like this, and when I found out that Chen Ruobing no longer went to the basketball court after school but rather waited for me in the classroom, I knew that she and I happened to have made the same choice.

This trivial matter passed in the blink of an eye. Lin Che and I continued to play basketball casually, and Chen Ruobing never mentioned him again.

When the weather turned cold, the female lead in our story finally revealed her feelings to the person she liked. As for how the scholar would confess, what the female lead’s expression would be at the time, and other specific plot details—Chen Ruobing and I discussed them for a long time. We disagreed at first, so we went back and each wrote a chapter, then brought them the next day and looked at each other’s. At this point in the story, we had finally reached the rewarding stage. An author was happiest when a romance novel’s protagonists had gone through hardships, solved numerous misunderstandings, and finally communicated their feelings. If there could be those one or two readers who said “This was written very well,” the author would then be overwhelmed with a great sense of accomplishment. If at this time there were readers who said “They’re finally together. Only this male lead can fit the female lead; they’re the most suitable for each other,” then the author could absolutely sprout a pair of wings on their back and fly to the heavens.

Chen Ruobing and I each had one reader, which was each other.

Then came the midterm exams, and to everyone’s surprise, a boy in our class named Yang Xu surpassed Chen Ruobing by three points and won our grade’s second first place.

Others saw little change in Chen Ruobing, but I knew that this incident impacted her greatly. It seemed that all powerful people had their own weakness. What she did best was often what she cared about the most.

On Friday, I invited Chen Ruobing to hang out at my house on Saturday after her supplementary classes. Because our houses were far from each other, I added that she could stay over for the night. Chen Ruobing readily agreed.

Chen Ruobing seemed quite happy and even specially prepared a small bag for a change of clothes. She said it was the first time she had ever stayed over at a classmate’s house.

In junior high, I often went to hang out at friends’ houses, and there were several girls I got along well with that had come to my house. But since I entered high school, I would only talk on the phone occasionally.

Friendships, especially those between girls, were strange. They were stuck to each other like glue when together, but oftentimes once they were separated, there was no attachment. I was unable to understand this and could only attribute it to them not being destined for each other. I’d always believed that friendship was something that couldn’t be controlled by people.

On Saturday afternoon, Chen Ruobing and I watched Brokeback Mountain at my house. This was my third time watching it, and this time tears only brimmed my eyes but did not spill out. Chen Ruobing cried beginning from the middle section of the movie when the two first separated. I secretly wiped my eyes and handed Chen Ruobing a roll of toilet paper. We didn’t talk much the entire time, and the atmosphere was quite depressing.

I began to regret getting this film. I originally wanted to let her have a bit of fun for a change, but I had forgotten that Chen Ruobing once told me that whenever she came up with an exciting scene for the protagonists in her stories, she would often suffer from insomnia for a long time because she was so excited that she couldn’t fall asleep. She said she lived in a colorful fantasy.

For the entire afternoon, Chen Ruobing laid on my bed and didn’t speak, unable to pull her thoughts away from the man named Jack.

I’d had a similar experience many times, so I didn’t disturb her. We idly chatted about the story of those two men. By this time, the sun was about to set, and the sunlight fell onto my bed. Chen Ruobing held her head on my pillow and rested her legs up on the wall, leaving elongated shadows.

Translator’s Notes

1. Brokeback Mountain is an American movie about the relationship between two cowboys, Jack and Ennis. Back

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