Li Li thought to himself: If it really is a fire pit, just let her jump in! Maybe that’ll teach her a lesson. With that thick skull of hers, if I try to reason with her, I’m just playing music to a cow — and I’ll end up driving myself mad with frustration.

——No matter what he said to her, the two of them always ended up in a fight.

Thinking about it just made him tired. Let her do as she pleased.

Li Li switched off his phone, turned over, and went to sleep.

……

He slept dreamlessly through the night.

The next morning he woke up, reached for his phone out of habit to check the time, and caught sight of two more messages from Wu Xinghai, sent after he’d fallen asleep. The gist of them was asking him to find out where Su Man had bought the outfit she was wearing — apparently Wu Xinghai’s girlfriend liked it.

Li Li pretended he hadn’t seen them. He got up straight away and washed up.

Breakfast was already ready downstairs. On the table sat pan-fried buns, rice cakes, small deep-fried dough sticks, and five-grain soy milk.

Li Li’s mother was lifting a watering can and tending to the cymbidium orchids in the dining room. Seeing her son come downstairs, she said softly, “You’re up. When are you heading to the Research Institute today?”

“This afternoon.” Li Li walked to the dining table and sat down, picking up a rice cake.

“Oh, so you have nothing on this morning?” his mother asked.

“Nothing.” Li Li ate his breakfast and said, “The report the professor needed has been ready for ages. I’ll go in this afternoon to check it over one more time. Why, is something the matter?”

Li Li’s mother thought about it, set down the watering can, and came over to discuss something with him: “If you have nothing on in the morning, go to the hospital to visit Su Man’s father. He’s been admitted for several days now and you still haven’t gone — it’s not very appropriate.”

“Alright, I’ll go in a bit.” Li Li nodded.

His mother added, “Don’t go too early though. The patient needs to rest in the morning. Aim for around ten o’clock.”

Li Li replied, exasperated: “I’m not an idiot. I know.”

His mother knew her son didn’t like being nagged, so she said no more and went back to watering her plants.

Li Li ate his breakfast for a while, still thinking about the Su Man situation, still uneasy about it. He suddenly said: “Mum, I see other families arranging blind dates for their kids. How come you and Dad haven’t made any moves?”

“You’re not that old yet. Why would you need a blind date?” His mother gave him a puzzled look, then turned back to tend to her potted plants. “…Though you do have a heavy research workload and you’re quite busy. It’s true there haven’t been many opportunities for you to meet girls outside. And at the Institute, all the female seniors are older than you — no one your age to consider.”

His mother couldn’t help but sigh, slowly shaking her head. “Hmm, maybe we really do need to ask someone to make introductions. But you don’t need to rush. You’re only 23 — we’ll look slowly. The right person will come along eventually.”

Hearing this, Li Li felt oddly unsettled.

From the sound of it, his mother had given absolutely no consideration to Su Man? She used to keep saying she wanted Su Man to marry into the Li family as a daughter-in-law. How was it that not a single word of that now?

“Ahem, Mum…” Li Li cleared his throat and tested the waters: “Didn’t you used to keep bringing up that childhood engagement between me and Su Man? Now that I’m talking about blind dates, how come you’re not mentioning it?”

His mother paused, then immediately defended herself: “What do you mean ‘keep bringing it up’? I mentioned it maybe two or three times total. After that, when I saw you weren’t happy about it, how would I dare bring it up again?”

Li Li quietly took a sip of his soy milk.

His mother grew alert. She put down everything in her hands, walked a few steps to the dining table, and asked, “What’s going on with you today? First you say you want a blind date, then you bring up the childhood engagement.”

“Nothing.” Li Li said casually. “I just thought your reaction was a bit strange. I expected you to strongly oppose the idea of a blind date and persuade me to marry Su Man.”

—