Lin Qile dreamed of Hong Kong. She lay beside Jiang Qiaoxi, listening to the sound of trams passing outside the window. The cheap apartment building was crowded, with poor soundproofing. Any commotion from upstairs or downstairs could be heard clearly. Nestled in Jiang Qiaoxi’s arms, Lin Qile could distinctly hear his heartbeat.
Jiang Qiaoxi frequently changed into new T-shirts, as he liked to stay clean. However, Hong Kong was hot, and Lin Qile had been running a fever. The air conditioning in the room wasn’t set very high, so when they slept embracing each other, they would soon start sweating. Lin Qile quickly grew accustomed to the faint scent of Jiang Qiaoxi’s body and the feeling of being held by him. She repeatedly realized that Jiang Qiaoxi was a man, and they were no longer children.
On her first night in Hong Kong, Lin Qile was delirious with a fever. On the second night, she cried until she was exhausted. By the third and fourth nights, she could finally sleep well, but she often woke up.
Sometimes she woke up on her own. She would lift her face towards the window, listening to the nighttime sounds of Hong Kong, then turn back to look at him sleeping beside her.
They were no longer like children lying together just to listen to a cassette tape. Lin Qile would raise herself from the pillow, her long hair sliding down her shoulders, along with Jiang Qiaoxi’s arm around her waist. She would look down at Jiang Qiaoxi’s sleeping face and think, “He’s my boyfriend now.”
Other times, she would wake up in Jiang Qiaoxi’s embrace. Lin Qile would open her eyes to find her cheeks wet. Perhaps she had been dreaming, having some nightmare. But as soon as she saw Jiang Qiaoxi’s face, she would forget the dream. Jiang Qiaoxi, with sleepy eyes, would lean down to kiss her, and Lin Qile’s mind would go completely blank.
It wasn’t until she returned to Beijing that Lin Qile, in the middle of the night, lying in her dormitory bed, remembered her dream.
She had dreamed that he had left, leaving her alone in the tiny four-square-meter rented room.
“Jiang Qiaoxi,” Lin Qile wiped the tears from her face in the middle of the night. Her senior roommates had all graduated, and she was afraid of disturbing her new roommates. She turned over and sent him a message, “Did I find you?”
Jiang Qiaoxi was probably still asleep. Lin Qile placed her phone next to her pillow. As she lowered her eyes, tears fell onto the pillow again, making it uncomfortably damp. Lin Qile turned to lie on her back, closed her eyes, and recalled Hong Kong, remembering the times she spent with Jiang Qiaoxi.
It was strange. When Lin Qile was with him, she often felt shy without realizing it, wanting to hide away. But once they were apart, Lin Qile missed him terribly, missing everything about him.
She longed for his breath, brushing against her cheek when they kissed, exhaling onto her neck. She missed the strength of his arms. That night, downstairs at the apartment building, when the taxi drove away, Lin Qile felt as if he had fallen into a kind of reactive pain. All she could do was hold him as he held her, waiting for him to calm down.
Lin Qile suddenly sat up in her dormitory bed. Her hair was disheveled. She reached up to grab it, pulling it back behind her head. She turned to look through the gap in the curtains at Beijing just after 5 a.m.
Lin Qile remembered how, after Jiang Qiaoxi had disappeared, she had been so regretful that she hadn’t spent more time with him during the Beijing summer camp, or even agreed to go to America to study with him.
“What a coincidence,” Jiang Qiaoxi replied, “I couldn’t sleep either.”
Lin Qile lowered her head, her hand extending from her pajama sleeve to pick up her phone.
Jiang Qiaoxi sent an inexplicable message: “Cherry, how can I sleep when you’re on my mind?”
On a weekend in late October, Lin Qile visited her aunt’s house, bringing Hong Kong-style dim sum and Tiger Balm as gifts. Her aunt had prepared a large feast at home, including Peking duck, and candied pork knuckle, and had even bought Lin Qile’s favorite desserts, aiwowo and ludagun. Sitting at the dining table, Lin Qile finally explained what had happened to the hundred thousand yuan.
“Who did you give it to?” her aunt asked from across the table.
Her cousin understood and explained, “Mom, it’s that young man who came to our house in 2007, surname Jiang, quite tall and handsome, right?”
Her uncle said, “Oh, Jiang Zheng’s son!”
Her aunt said resignedly, “You’re not even married yet, and you’re already like water poured out!”
Lin Qile sat across from them, mumbling, “It was too much money for my cousin to transfer to me! I was scared to keep it in my account!”
“Such a lack of ambition!” Her aunt rolled up some Peking duck for Lin Qile to eat. “Didn’t I tell you to go to Hong Kong and buy yourself a handbag? Consider it a gift from your brother.”
Lin Qile ate the Peking duck, sauce at the corners of her mouth, and asked puzzled, “Are there handbags that cost a hundred thousand yuan?”
Everyone at the table laughed.
“You’re so inexperienced, cousin,” her cousin said, wearing a flashy shirt.
Her aunt said, “The bag your brother bought for your sister-in-law last week cost seventy thousand!”
Lin Qile’s expression suddenly changed, “Eh?”
Her uncle, sipping his wine, said in a refined manner, “It’s a brand name, called, um, Hermes—”
“Hermès!” her cousin corrected him.
Lin Qile wasn’t interested in what they were talking about. Her cousin’s blue cat came over and jumped onto Lin Qile’s lap, trying to lick the aiwowo on her plate. Lin Qile hugged it, not letting it lick. Her aunt asked again about the hundred thousand yuan, as it wasn’t a small amount after all.
“That Jiang boy, I heard from Haifeng before that he had gone missing? Lost contact?”
Lin Qile, hugging the cat, briefly explained to her aunt about Jiang Qiaoxi’s current situation and the accident in his cousin’s family.
“So you went to Hong Kong this time to find him?” her cousin belatedly realized.
Lin Qile admitted somewhat shyly, saying, “He’s studying at the University of Hong Kong now, doing a double degree in Business and Law.”
Her uncle put down his chopsticks: “That’s impressive, the University of Hong Kong?”
Lin Qile happily told her uncle, “He just told me a few days ago that he passed some kind of… Morgan Stanley phone interview?”
Her uncle said that Jiang Zheng was a credible person, so lending money to his son shouldn’t be a problem, and the boy seemed very promising.
But he repeatedly warned Lin Qile that it was very dangerous for a young girl to go so far away to find someone: “I’ll have to call and criticize Lin Haifeng next time.”
Lin Qile was now a third-year student majoring in Early Childhood Education. In November, she had her first real internship at a kindergarten for half a month.
Lin Qile loved children, and the children loved her too. They would gather around her, calling out, “Teacher Lin, hello Teacher Lin!” They would grab her sleeves and hug her, saying, “Teacher Lin, you’re so pretty!”
Just these simple words were enough to make Lin Qile happy for the entire day.
The internship days were busy. During the day, Lin Qile barely had time to drink water, running back and forth like a nanny taking care of the babies. She also had to endure criticism from the principal, who said her voice was too soft and gentle when speaking to the children: “You need to speak louder. With your slow and gentle manner, you won’t be able to lead the class! The children won’t obey!”
Lin Qile began to notice some discrepancies between her ideals and the reality of the job.
In the evening, back in her dorm room after showering, she video-chatted with Jiang Qiaoxi on her computer because her phone was out of battery.
“Today, there was a little boy who kept crying,” Lin Qile said to Jiang Qiaoxi while wearing headphones and drying her hair. “He couldn’t get the performance moves right, and the more the lead teacher yelled at him, the harder he cried on stage. He even made the children next to him who had been doing well start crying too. I had no choice but to carry him off stage. The child was quite heavy. I originally planned to hold him for a while and then put him down, but he clung tightly to my neck and wouldn’t let go until his father came to pick him up after work.”
Jiang Qiaoxi used to study in the library, but now he returned to his rented room at 9 p.m., studying while chatting with Lin Qile on screen.
He looked up, seeing Lin Qile’s tired eyes but smiling lips. Despite the troublesome task of caring for dozens of children and being clung to by a little boy for so long, she still seemed quite happy.
“That little boy trusted me. I felt like I was his mother!” Lin Qile looked up and told him as if playing house.
Jiang Qiaoxi said unhappily, “Why did you choose such a major?”
Lin Qile applied face cream in front of the camera. Her big eyes suddenly closed as her fingers rubbed around her eyes, cheeks, and nose bridge, then opened again. She said, “I think it’s quite good.”
Lin Qile taught the children in her class to dance. She still didn’t speak very loudly, not wanting to frighten them or use adult authority to make the children fear and obey. Of course, this had its drawbacks. The children she taught varied in skill level, happily jumping and dancing, each in their way, not very uniformly, as not every child was good at dancing. Some parents who came to watch said that Teacher Lin was biased and didn’t teach their child well, while others said this intern teacher wasn’t competent, look how well the teacher in the next class led her students.
Communicating with children was joyful, but dealing with parents and the principal was a completely different matter.
The day before the performance report, there was a rehearsal at the kindergarten. Lin Qile stood below the stage, taking a video to send to Jiang Qiaoxi later, to show him the first batch of children she had taught during her internship.
But during the rehearsal, another child had problems. This was a performance that all parents would come to watch. The lead teacher, furious, berated the crying child on stage, pulling and ordering him to stand properly. Lin Qile quietly put away her phone in the corner.
After graduating with a master’s degree, senior Zhang Lijun went to the United States for doctoral studies. She laughed on the phone, “So you see why everyone in our dorm went on to graduate school. Working in a kindergarten is tough! You only get two or three thousand, maybe three or four thousand yuan, and you still feel so guilty.”
Lin Qile said, “The teachers there are all advising me to change careers.”
Zhang Lijun laughed heartily on the phone.
When she was young, her parents enrolled Lin Qile in various interest classes at the Children’s Palace, but she always quit after learning for a while. Especially dance – after falling on her bottom under the horizontal bar in public, she didn’t want to go anymore. Now, because of her major and to get certifications and pass exams, she seriously practiced dancing, piano, and painting. Lin Qile picked up everything she had dropped as a child.
At the end of November, Lin Qile posted a photo on her campus album of herself practicing the splits on the dance studio floor. She wore a light pink sweater, and when she leaned forward to touch her leg, a necklace dangled from her collar.
Du Shang and others quickly liked the post. Du Shang commented, “Those trips to the Children’s Palace weren’t wasted after all!! Worth it!!” He also took the opportunity to steal all of Lin Qile’s crops in the farm game.
Yu Qiao, with his profile picture showing him standing on a snowy mountain against a blue sky, commented from Canada where it was morning: “I’m proud!”
Cai Fangyuan said, “Wow, Lin Yingtao can do the splits now!”
Qin Yeyun replied, “Quick, send it to Jiang Qiaoxi to see!!”
Jiang Qiaoxi was in class when a message suddenly popped up on his phone. He put his phone under his book and opened it, finding a photo sent by Lin Yingtao.
Jiang Qiaoxi stared at the phone screen. This class had difficult points and required careful listening, he thought. He looked up, but his eyes couldn’t help but look down again at Lin Yingtao’s legs pressed against the floor, her arched back, and the necklace that had fallen out of her sweater collar. Jiang Qiaoxi raised his eyes, telling himself to listen attentively to the lecture.
In December, Jiang Qiaoxi called Lin Qile and mainly talked about two things.
First, he had officially passed Morgan Stanley’s four rounds of interviews and could start an internship next summer. Second, his cousin had suddenly been able to move his fingers a bit recently.
Lin Qile listened, momentarily stunned.
Before… his cousin couldn’t move his fingers?
Jiang Qiaoxi spoke quickly: He hadn’t told her immediately because they weren’t sure if it was temporary or if some other issue had arisen. Today, they had just finished the examination, and the doctor confirmed that there were indeed signs of recovery. The next step, if needed, might involve another surgery to see if further improvement was possible.
“He can only move his hand a little now,” Jiang Qiaoxi laughed, genuinely happy, “He still can’t hold anything!”
Lin Qile listened, holding the phone to her ear. She lowered her head, suddenly wanting to hug him very much.
At the end of December, the University of Hong Kong welcomed the Christmas holiday. Jiang Qiaoxi called Lin Qile. Lin Qile said, “You’d better not come. I still have classes, and the plane tickets are so expensive. Spend more time with your cousin. I’ll come over during the winter break!”
Jiang Qiaoxi asked, “You haven’t been dancing lately?”
Lin Qile went to the music school to practice piano in the evening. She could now play many nursery rhymes, which she would use to accompany the children when she worked in kindergarten. She picked up her phone and learned that Jiang Qiaoxi was at the hospital spending the holiday with his cousin. She played “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” for them to hear.
“I can also play ‘Tian Hei Hei’,” she secretly told Jiang Qiaoxi, as if sharing a little secret between just the two of them, “I found the sheet music online…”
She played it for him to hear. There was no one else in the music school. Christmas Eve was a date night for college couples. Even single people went out to shop, watch movies, gather for meals, or simply stayed in their dorms watching TV series.
Lin Qile played and sang. She seemed to be someone who didn’t need anyone else’s company, but knowing that Jiang Qiaoxi was listening in Hong Kong made her feel even happier.
In January, Lin Qile started her winter break.
On the high-speed train, she read the relationship advice column in a women’s magazine. The column said that in ancient times, people lived in the same village, men farmed and women wove, sharing the same fate from birth to death, rarely separating for life.
But in modern society, advanced technology allows everyone to enjoy their own life. People are destined to part, and only those who need each other more can somehow find their way to each other.
Lin Qile had booked her flight ticket and would fly to Hong Kong in four days. Her mother was initially very unhappy because Lin Yingtao had always spent the New Year with her parents since she was a baby, never having been apart from them.
Lin Dianggong consoled his wife, “This day was bound to come.”
“Yingtao is only twenty…” her mother said reluctantly, full of concerns, “Jiang Zheng and his wife don’t even go to see their child during the New Year, but Yingtao, the silly girl, is going there all by herself.”
Lin Dianggong rolled up his sleeves, helping his wife knead the dough with brown sugar and chopped dates. He said, “How do you know Mr. Jiang doesn’t want to go?”
“You think you know everything,” his wife said with a playful smile. “Jiang Zheng doesn’t even work here anymore, yet you still call him ‘Manager Jiang.'”
Lin Qile sat on the floor of her small bedroom, packing her suitcase. Her laptop was open beside her, and she had been video chatting with Jiang Qiaoxi.
“I’m going to have dinner with Cai Fangyuan and the others tomorrow,” Lin Qile said, looking down as she folded clothes. “Yu Qiao is on family visit leave and has come back from Canada with difficulty, so we’re getting together before I leave.” She stood up and went to rummage through her shoe boxes at the bottom of the wardrobe. She wanted to bring an extra pair of sneakers but unexpectedly found a pair of roller skates from her childhood.
“Look at my roller skates!” she turned around, holding up the bright yellow skates towards the laptop camera.
She mumbled again, “Qin Yeyun said she’d take me shopping the day after tomorrow. I’ll buy some things then, so I can’t pack the suitcase too full.”
On the other end, Jiang Qiaoxi was struggling with his homework, making little progress. He said, “What do you want to buy? I’ll get it for you.”
Lin Qile, with her back to him, as she chose shoes, didn’t turn around. She shyly said, “I’m not telling you.”
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Our Generation – Chapter note:
“Casually stole all the vegetables from Lin Qile’s farm”: Happy Farm, a social networking web game focused on farming, launched in 2008 and ceased operations in August 2013.