CH 7

Chapter Preview: He gave Jiang Jun roses, hugged her, and said, “I love you.” Everything was beautiful like a fairy tale.

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To a woman, sixteen is really the most beautiful age. When Jiang Jun was sixteen, she also had pink cheeks that didn’t need any rouge, like jasmine buds about to bloom. Just like in all cheesy romance novels, the carefree princess in the castle, at the beginning of her love affair, fell in love with someone who was destined not to belong to her.

Yin Zhe was the tutor of her classmates and spoke very good English. He was motivated to learn English because he wanted to go to America to find his beloved girl after graduation.

He said that his beloved girl had received a full scholarship for three consecutive years in a university abroad. He said that before she had gone abroad, the girl had washed all of his clothes. When he said this, his eyes were full of sweetness and pride.

He treated Jiang Jun as his sister and showed her a picture of them. They were leaning their heads together in the sunlight, their smiles dazzling.

Jiang Jun looked at the woman very carefully. It wasn’t that she was petty or envious; the woman was small, thin, and not at all as good-looking as herself.

Although Jiang Jun was young, she had big ideas, and she didn’t want to be Yin Zhe’s sister, but rather, his girlfriend. She wanted Yin Zhe to also have the same kind of light in his eyes when he talked about Zhong Jiang Jun.

When thinking about it, the only thing in which she was inferior to that girl was her grades. Other than being good at math, Jiang Jun was bad at all the other subjects, especially English, which was her Achilles’ heel. But all of that didn’t matter—however things used to be, now it wouldn’t be, because as long as she wanted to do it, it could definitely be done.

She shamelessly threw tantrums and tried her utmost to coax her grandparents into letting her take half a year off school, and then she ran off to the United States to find Yuan Shuai.

Yuan Shuai came from a family of generals. His grandfather and father were generals, his aunt was a major general, and his uncle was a lieutenant general. As for himself, he said that other than playing mahjong well and loving to eat fried noodles in soy bean sauce,* he had no interest in anything else and in fact hated the discipline of the army. In order to completely get out from the “rule” of others, he abandoned the military arts for business, taking his full scholarship and going off alone to the United States to study at business school. [T/N* General is jiang in Chinese, which is also the jiang of mahjong and which sounds like the jiang in the noodle dish zha jiang mian.]

Jiang Jun showed Yuan Shuai a photo of her and Yin Zhe, and told him happily that this boy was her boyfriend, who studied as well as he did, and was studying at the best university and most popular department in the mainland. She felt so proud that tears came to her eyes when she said those words.

“Look at my eyes carefully, what’s different?” she asked Yuan Shuai.

Yuan Shuai looked carefully and earnestly. He finally frowned and stretched out his hand to wipe the corner of her eye, and said very disdainfully, “Eye booger.”

“Who’s this? Looks familiar.” Yuan Shuai grabbed Jiang Jun’s hand that had reached out to pinch him. He lifted his chin to indicate the girl who was clinging to Yin Zhe in the photo.

This was a photo that Jiang Jun had secretly retook from the group photo that Yin Zhe displayed on his desk. If it weren’t for the fact that Yin Zhe looked handsome enough to make a goddess weep in that photo, she would never have wanted it.

“That’s his…ex-girlfriend…named Qiao Na…who is also in America.”

Yuan Shuai looked at Jiang Jun and could only shook his head. “Are you stupid or something, why do you keep this? Why don’t you cut this woman out?”

Jiang Jun also sighed. “Of course I don’t want to, but I need motivation. I have to face reality to prove that I’m better than this woman. When the time comes, I’ll take this same picture with Yin Zhe and compare to see who’s really more suitable.”

She hugged Yuan Shuai’s waist and pouted, “Yuan Yuan-gege, please help me.”

Yuan Shuai hugged her with one arm and pinched her nose hard. “Let’s talk, what do you want?”

“I want to learn English.”

“Don’t tell me that you flew all the way to America to learn English?”

“Right.”

Yuan Shuai stared at her and inexplicably laughed. “You’re crazy too.”

Jiang Jun admitted that she was crazy, crazy for love.

A year later, she got into the best university and the most popular department in the mainland. No one knew what family she was from. She lived in the school’s six-person dormitory like everyone else. She bought four white shirts for 100 yuan with her classmates, ate lamb skewers for five cents each, washed her own clothes, and strained to carry two thermos bottles to the water room to fetch water.

The first time she went to the public bathroom to take a bath, Jiang Jun was deeply shocked, finally understanding what was called a mountain and what was a high mountain. Her classmates jokingly called her Princess Taiping.* She wrote a letter to Yuan Yuan-gege and gloomily told him about it. Not long after, she received an express mail from him containing a few Wolford padded bras in just the right size. So the following summer, Jiang Jun wore beautiful long dresses all day, flaunting her chest and showing off everywhere. [T/N* A Tang dynasty princess known for her beauty and political power, but her name is a homonym for very flat, as in flat-chested]

Jiang Jun began to have her own friends and a life of her own. Of course, she could not forget the purpose of coming to university—to pursue Yin Zhe.

Her roommate Xu Na’s sister stayed with Yin Zhe. Jiang Jun begged her to help her find Yin Zhe’s class schedule, followed behind him secretly like a spy, and memorized his habits.

She timed it so that she was frequently at the places where Yin Zhe often went, until Yin Zhe exclaimed in surprise, “Junjun, what are you doing here?”

Jiang Jun turned her back to him and controlled her expression as much as possible, keeping the grin off her face.

After that, she appeared squarely in Yin Zhe’s life, inseparable from him.

“This is my sister, isn’t she beautiful?” Yin Zhe introduced Jun Jiang to classmates and friends like this. So Jiang Jun played the role of his sister, listening to him talk about the separations and reunions in the relationship between him and Qiao Na, sharing with him all the joys and sorrows.

Jiang Jun began to like Faye Wong.* At that time, the woman had just changed her name from Wang Jingwen back to Faye Wong. For her beloved Dou Wei, she would willingly line up to go to the public toilet at the entrance of the alley. As for Jiang Jun, for her beloved Yin Zhe, she would squat in the laundry room and scrub the boys’ stinky socks. She felt that she and Faye Wong were the same and could give up everything for love. [T/N* Wang Fei, or Faye Wong in English, is a super famous HK pop singer, her relationship with Dou Wei (a Beijing rock musician) was heavily covered by the paparazzi, including the photos where she went to dump a chamber pot in the public toilet]

When Xu Na looked at the latest “Contemporary Songbook” and told her that Faye Wong was going to have a concert in Hong Kong, Jiang Jun immediately emailed Yuan Shuai, telling him to go to Hong Kong to watch Faye Wong’s concert and hear her love in person.

Yuan Shuai quickly replied with a simple line: In one glance, you can tell Dou Wei is not a good bird, such a good woman has been ruined.

Jiang Jun got angry and stopped paying attention to him.

Within a few days, Yuan Shuai asked someone to come to her school and send word that he would return to China in a few days, so Jiang Jun could wait for him to see it together.

Wang Qian, her roommate, also liked Faye Wong, and her family had relatives in Hong Kong who were selling fashionable clothes and bringing in the latest CDs and magazines from time to time. Jiang Jun and Wang Qian spent their days with headphones on, playing Faye Wong’s CDs day and night, with various magazines about her by their beds. They would sing every single one of Faye Wong’s songs. Jiang Jun’s favorite one was “Reserved.” She would listen to the song, thinking about her and Dou Wei’s breakups and reunions, and in her heart she would pray to God that Dou Wei had to love her. It must be love.

There were many people who knew about Jiang Jun’s thoughts, and they all unanimously opposed it, telling her he’s not worth it. In Xu Na’s words, besides being handsome, what else is there? Why do you like him so much? It really was an instance of fine cabbage being eaten by pigs.* [T/N* Common expression when someone’s lovingly raised daughter end up with someone seen as unworthy of her.]

Jiang Jun also felt wronged in her heart: Why, why him?

Every day, apart from class and studying, Yin Zhe just played ball. Jiang Jun cooked for him, washed his clothes, and waited behind him like a little maid, docile and diligent, with a lowered gaze. Yin Zhe had no qualms about enjoying it and he liked to touch Jiang Jun’s head and say, “Little Sister, if you have anything that’s wrong, tell Brother and I’ll help you fix it.”

Even later, Dou Wei got together with another woman in the band, and Qiao Na fell in love with someone else. Yin Zhe was lying drunk downstairs in the girls’ dormitory, yelling Jiang Jun’s name loudly, when the old lady guarding the door splashed him with cold water. The result was that he got pneumonia. He laid on the hospital bed and asked with great pain: “Jiang Jun, do you love me?”

Afterwards, Jiang Jun went off campus to call Yuan Shuai, and she asked him, “Do you think Dou Wei ever asked Faye Wong whether she loves him?”

Yuan Shuai said, “If that kid asks you that, don’t tell him that you love him. No matter what the outcome is, it won’t be what you want.”

Jiang Jun said, “Do you think I’m stupid? Of course I won’t say it.” In fact, she was lying to Yuan Shuai. At that time, she had said to Yin Zhe without thinking: “I love you, I’ve always loved you.” But what Yin Zhe said back was, “Why is it that the one I love isn’t you?”

At that moment, Jiang Jun was not heartbroken, but instead felt a sense of relief.

If love could be a choice, she definitely would not have loved Yin Zhe. But love really is blind like this, and it’s not that she doesn’t want to choose, it’s that she can’t choose.

Yuan Shuai wrote an email to Jiang Jun: You are a fool, when will you understand that the three words “I love you” are not a confession, but a lifelong vow!

Later, Wang Fei and Dou Wei were still together, and Jiang Jun and Yin Zhe also finally became a couple.

The first time Yin Zhe took Jiang Jun on a hike, they were halfway up the mountain when Jiang Jun pouted and asked him to carry her. Yin Zhe really carried her to the top of the mountain and was so tired afterward that he fell asleep in her arms, cuddling with her like a child. Jiang Jun entered Yin Zhe’s life fully, washed all his sheets and covers as his girlfriend, and then waited for him to feed her ice cream spoon by spoon with her mouth open.

Like all couples in love, Jiang Jun and Yin Zhe were together every day. They ate together and studied together. Yin Zhe organized the key points of his ACCA review, while Jiang Jun did her own complex variable function homework.

Yin Zhe often said, “Why didn’t I find you so cute before?” The tone of his voice was so corny and he sounded so whipped that it made people blush to hear it.

He gave Jiang Jun roses, hugged her, and said, “I love you.” Everything was beautiful like a fairy tale.

Jiang Jun called Yuan Shuai and told him that she had finally succeeded and that Yin Zhe was hers. The signal was bad that day, and she didn’t know if Yuan Shuai heard her, but the phone was disconnected. No matter how many times she called, she couldn’t get through again.

She wrote many letters to Yuan Shuai, waited for a long time without hearing back, and then called. A girl answered the phone and said, “I am Yuan Shuai’s girlfriend.”

Jiang Jun was a little melancholy. Her Yuan Yuan-gege had a girlfriend, and their life trajectories were getting further and further apart.

When she went home during the weekend, Jiang Jun’s grandmother noticed her little depression. She asked her grandmother, “Yuan Yuan-gege has a girlfriend now, but why am I not happy?” Grandmother said, “You’re so old now but still just like a child, wanting all the attention and love for yourself, unable to tolerate the least bit of neglect or sharing.” Jiang Jun was even more depressed; she felt that she was old enough to be a mature woman. Yuan Shuai did not contact her, and she stopped looking for Yuan Shuai, devoting herself wholeheartedly to her passionate love affair with Yin Zhe.

Faye Wong was still continuing her bitter love affair with Dou Wei. One was a celebrity queen, and the other is a downtrodden singer with personality. The combination of clouds with mud was a fated calamity.

Jiang Jun would not let this kind of thing happen to herself. Yin Zhe only knew that her parents had worked in Shanghai for a long time, and that they now live near Lingjing Hutong* with her grandparents. [T/N* hutong = street/neighborhood]

Jiang Jun and Yin Zhe met his parents when they were dating. It was obvious that they didn’t like Jiang Jun, and Jiang Jun didn’t like them either. Wearing a cheap old T-shirt, she straightened her back and calmly accepted the cold treatment.

Afterwards, Yin Zhe hugged her and said he was sorry. Such a snobby family made him ashamed.

In fact, Jun Jiang had known early on that there would be such a situation.

There was a folder on her bedside table about Yin Zhe’s life. Grandmother said Yin Zhe was a good boy, but it was a pity that he was from such a family. [Quick T/N: The implication from all this is that her family background is actually much better than his, but his family scorned her because they thought she was poor.]

She liked Yin Zhe more and more. He grew up in such an environment but had clung to his inner innocence, like a newborn baby. Jiang Jun fell into the smile of an angel and couldn’t help herself.

She couldn’t wait to share the sweetness of the fruit of love with Yin Zhe, but she forgot the existence of God. It wasn’t until the moment that she fell from the clouds that she suddenly realized that the most forgetful and heartless person in the world is a baby.

“What are you thinking about? You’re so absorbed. My feet are swollen from being stepped on by you again.” Yuan Shuai lifted Jiang Jun’s face and stared into her eyes, “What bad idea are you thinking about again?”

Jiang Jun blurted out without thinking, “I was thinking that when I saw Qiao Na for the first time, she told me that she was your girlfriend. At that time, I could even still laugh.”

Yuan Shuai’s eyes darkened, and Jiang Jun regretted not knowing what to say, but she just let him hug her tightly. The dance music stopped before Yuan Shuai finally spoke. “If I told you that everything I did was because I love you, would you believe me?”

Jiang Jun nodded without hesitation and moved closer to Yuan Shuai. His body was so warm and it all smelled of home. For all these years, he has been by her side. Jiang Jun understood that in fact, Yuan Shuai didn’t owe her at all, he didn’t know anything, it was fate. “I understand, really. In the past, I didn’t know any better, I thought I was the sun and everyone should revolve around me. Now it’s different, I’ve grown up, and I won’t be so stupid that I still can’t tell who really cares about me.”

“Jun’er.” Yuan Shuai pressed against her forehead, his nose burning, “Actually, I’ve always wanted to tell you, let’s be together.”

Jiang Jun never ever expected that Yuan Shuai would choose to say these words at this time. She panicked and was at a loss. “Don’t be blind, don’t you see what kind of place this is.” She patted Yuan Shuai’s back, “If you don’t let go, tomorrow all our colleagues in Hong Kong will know that we are having a scandal.”

Yuan Shuai stubbornly hugged her. “Who cares about others. I just want to be with you, let’s go home together for the New Year this year.”

Jiang Jun turned her head away, refusing to look at him. “Grandpa will beat me.”

“You changed your last name and haven’t been home in eight years. Tell me, do you think he should beat you?”

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Translator’s Notes : Most people who responded said that they prefer in-line translator’s notes, so I’ve continued to do so. I think the first couple chapters I still have them at the end of the chapter, and eventually I might go back to fix them. I’m trying not to leave too many notes so I won’t interrupt the flow so much, but I’m also afraid that people might be left wondering what is going on, so I’m definitely erring on the side of being more helpful to people that have no background/language context. I figure that it’s easier for those who know to ignore the notes, than those who are left confused to figure things out on their own.

I hope you guys are still reading! Please let me know your thoughts! Hopefully it isn’t too confusing for readers that they’re still in the club at the alumni party, while Jiang Jun is thinking of her past. Also…Jiang Jun was and still is so oblivious…