On the way home from school that day, Jiang Qiaoxi saw the crumpled portrait of “Jiang Chunlu,” which had been fought over by Du Shang and Lin Qile.
Lin Qile walked beside him, eating a small milk cake with her backpack on.
“Yingtao,” Jiang Qiaoxi said.
“Hm?”
Jiang Qiaoxi glanced at her and hesitated before saying, “Earlier, some aunties from the Qun Shan construction site told my mom…”
“Told her what?” Lin Qile looked at him.
Jiang Qiaoxi observed Lin Qile’s appearance. Even while eating a milk popsicle, she managed to smear it all over her cheeks. The melting popsicle dripped down the stick onto her fingers, but she didn’t seem to mind.
Jiang Qiaoxi shook his head, deciding not to continue.
“What did they tell your mom?” Lin Qile asked.
“You wouldn’t understand even if I told you,” Jiang Qiaoxi replied mysteriously.
The uncles, aunties, and grandparents at the Qun Shan construction site indeed loved to gossip. But it wasn’t just there. In the provincial capital headquarters, Jiang Qiaoxi had also heard neighbors repeatedly discuss and embellish the tragic story of him and Jiang Mengchu.
As June approached and the weather warmed up, Lin Yingtao started wearing floral dresses. She rode her bicycle in them, chased and played with Yu Qiao at the construction site, played computer games at home, and taught Du Shang how to complete the Black Water Town and General’s Tomb levels.
She sat next to Jiang Qiaoxi in her floral dress, its square neckline revealing a portion of her shoulders.
Lin Qile lowered her head to play with her Bobbie doll, attempting to color its hair with watercolor pens.
Jiang Qiaoxi turned his head to look at her from a peculiar angle, noticing a tiny brown mole on the back of Lin Qile’s right shoulder.
“Am I that good-looking?” Lin Qile suddenly turned her head, catching Jiang Qiaoxi’s gaze. “Why do you keep staring at me?”
Jiang Qiaoxi was taken aback.
“Yingtao,” he said, “the string on your amber is about to break.”
“Huh?” Lin Qile quickly felt the string around her neck. “No, it’s not.”
As final exams approached, Manager Cai locked the computer case at home to prevent Cai Fangyuan from playing games and neglecting his studies. Yu Qiao’s house was too crowded with old and young family members. So, a group of boys would rush to Lin Qile’s house to play computer games after school.
They gathered around the single computer, each taking turns to play for a few minutes, running through maps together.
Only Jiang Qiaoxi seemed disinterested. He sat in Lin Qile’s room, continuing to study his advanced mathematics.
Lin Qile asked why he didn’t play games.
Jiang Qiaoxi replied, “There are too many people.”
He preferred playing games when fewer people were around, like in the dead of night. After Jiang Zheng had fallen into a deep sleep, Jiang Qiaoxi would sneak out of the house. Under the cover of darkness, he would circle to the back of the row of brick houses and knock on a small window hidden by evergreen leaves.
It wasn’t just any window, but the small one by Lin Qile’s bed. Jiang Qiaoxi would knock three times, hearing someone inside wake up with a muffled “Mm” from Lin Qile.
Jiang Qiaoxi would then walk back along the small path, guided by the dim moonlight scattered across the factory area, to the front of the brick houses.
He would stand outside Lin Qile’s door, waiting for her to let him in.
With a month left until the final exams, Liang Hongfei called from the provincial capital, reminding Jiang Qiaoxi to pack his luggage early. As soon as the exams ended, Jiang Qiaoxi would return to the city to attend summer courses at the Foreign Language Primary School.
Jiang Qiaoxi felt that once he left this time, he would likely never return to Qun Shan.
He sat at Lin Qile’s family computer playing games, though there wasn’t much excitement left as he had mastered every map and level. Lin Qile marveled beside him, discussing techniques and storylines. They drank juice together and shared sweet jujube steamed buns that Lin Qile had broken apart.
Jiang Qiaoxi had nearly completed every game on Lin Qile’s computer: Red Alert, Freedom, and Glory, The Great Age of Sailing, The Legend of Sword and Fairy, Xian Jian Qing Yuan, Wind, and Fantasy…
“These games are all pirated,” Jiang Qiaoxi once told Lin Qile.
“What does ‘pirated’ mean?” Lin Qile asked, staring at the blue crystal on the screen.
Jiang Qiaoxi destroyed an incoming aircraft without responding. Lin Qile thought that Jiang Qiaoxi probably meant to say, “You wouldn’t understand even if I explained.”
Jiang Qiaoxi knew many things that Lin Qile didn’t. Sometimes, Lin Qile even felt that he wasn’t an eleven-year-old boy. In school, while Du Shang secretly drew portraits of Lin Yueru in his notebook and Cai Fangyuan carefully studied the strategy guide for “Wind and Fantasy” hidden in his textbook, even Yu Qiao was pondering over the planes, tanks, and Yuri in Red Alert.
Only Jiang Qiaoxi paid attention in class, and even when he didn’t, he read his books, completely unaffected by the allure of video games.
On Sunday, June 24th, Lin Qile’s parents were working overtime at the construction site, so she went to Yu Qiao’s house for dinner.
Qin Yeyun was there too.
The boys went outside to play soccer. Yu Qiao’s mother listened to Lin Yingtao’s speech at the table, titled “Why Jiang Qiaoxi is the Most Reliable Boy I Know.”
Yu Qiao’s mother laughed as she listened, while Qin Yeyun, with her newly permed wavy hair, looked at Lin Yingtao as if she were a fool.
Lin Yingtao said, “…He only plays each computer game once and doesn’t play again. He studies diligently during the day and doesn’t get addicted to games. This shows that he won’t become a smoker or a drunkard in the future.”
Yu Qiao’s mother laughed even harder at this point. Qin Yeyun interjected, “I think he’s more likely to be fickle with girls.”
Lin Qile was puzzled. “Why?”
“Because he never plays a game more than once!” Qin Yeyun replied matter-of-factly.
Lin Qile returned home late that night after her parents finished work. As she approached the door, she heard her father asking inside, “Is Qiaoxi going back to the provincial capital for sixth grade?”
Manager Jiang responded with a “Mm” and added, “His mother has arranged her work, so we’ll let him go back. Look at him, always coming here to bother you all day.”
The adults chatted in the small room while “Zheng Da Variety Show” played on the TV. The bedroom door was open, and Lin Qile saw Jiang Qiaoxi wearing a black short-sleeved shirt, packing the Hong Kong-sent advanced math books from Lin Qile’s desk into a box.
Lin Qile stood frozen, tears suddenly welling up in her eyes.
Jiang Qiaoxi hadn’t planned to tell Lin Qile so soon, perhaps knowing she would be upset. From late June to early July, Lin Qile was listless every day, her eyes red as if the sky had fallen.
Why was she so sad? She was only eleven; what could she understand?
Cai Fangyuan told Jiang Qiaoxi, “That’s just how Lin Yingtao is! She cries whenever anyone from the construction site moves away! She wailed like this when Chen Minghao left too. Don’t bother with her!”
Yu Qiao also said, “No need to comfort her. Just let her cry it out.”
On the way to school, Lin Yingtao walked with a pout, stomping her feet and not talking. After school, she crouched by the rabbit hutch in the backyard, sobbing. Her eyes were probably redder than the little rabbits’.
Jiang Qiaoxi thought for a moment, then walked over and crouched beside her.
Lin Yingtao ignored him even when she saw him approach.
Jiang Qiaoxi reached out and took the little rabbit that Lin Yingtao was hugging tightly.
“Why are you taking my rabbit…” Lin Yingtao choked out.
As if Jiang Qiaoxi were a villain.
Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t look at her. He placed the soft, lovable little white rabbit on the ground, flipped it over so its belly faced up, and gently stroked its white, fluffy abdomen.
Lin Qile watched in shock as the previously lively little white rabbit, now lying on its back, suddenly became still and quiet.
“Is it dead?” she asked, devastated.
“It’s asleep,” Jiang Qiaoxi said.
“How could it suddenly fall asleep when it was fine before?”
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “Guess.”
Lin Yingtao’s mother opened the backyard door. She heard that Lin Yingtao had stopped crying and sniffling. Lin Yingtao asked Manager Jiang’s son, “How am I supposed to guess that?”
The final exams at the Power Plant Primary School were scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, lasting two days. On Thursday evening after the exams, Jiang Qiaoxi came to Lin Dianggong’s house again.
Mr. and Mrs. Lin chatted with him in the living room, asking if he had packed his luggage, what time he would leave in the morning, and how long it would take to reach the provincial capital.
Having spent two years at the Qun Shan construction site and received countless kindnesses from Lin Dianggong’s family, Jiang Qiaoxi naturally felt grateful to Uncle and Aunt Lin.
Mrs. Lin smiled and said, “Yingtao is in the bedroom, probably reading comics. I guess she didn’t do well in the final exams again, so she’s hiding as soon as she got home.”
Jiang Qiaoxi opened the bedroom door and immediately heard the little girl’s sobbing.
Behind the large wardrobe was Lin Qile’s little world, with a small desk and a small bed. Through the thin, white mosquito net, Jiang Qiaoxi couldn’t make out what Lin Qile was doing inside.
He reached out and pulled the mosquito net open.
Looking down, he saw Lin Qile’s tear-stained face. She was wearing a nightgown, hugging her rainbow-colored Bobbie doll, and listening to music with headphones on.
The tape player was playing a cassette by a new female singer.
Jiang Qiaoxi crawled into the mosquito net, just as he had done every day at Lin Qile’s house over the past year. He sat in front of Lin Qile and asked, “Why are you crying again?”
The bed was already small, and with the mosquito net, it felt like a tiny tent where even the sound of a falling needle could be heard.
Lin Yingtao removed the headphones from her ears. Sniffling, she looked up with her big, wet eyes and said in a tearful voice, “Jiang Qiaoxi…”
Every time she pronounced the “xi” in his name, she dragged out the sound, seemingly able to convey infinite emotions.
“Why aren’t you sad at all?” Lin Yingtao asked.
Jiang Qiaoxi raised his eyes to look at Lin Yingtao’s face.
Her eyes were swollen from crying, and her nose was red. Lin Yingtao had cried so much that she was sweating, her long hair damp and clinging to her forehead and round cheeks.
Lin Yingtao was a little girl who had grown up surrounded by love, open and unafraid to express all her emotions.
“I’m leaving at nine tomorrow morning,” Jiang Qiaoxi said.
Lin Yingtao pressed her lips tightly together.
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “If there’s anything you want, I’ll go buy it for you now.”
Lin Yingtao shook her head.
“Then what do you want to do?” Jiang Qiaoxi asked.
He meant that he would accompany her in whatever she chose.
Lin Yingtao sat hugging her knees in front of him. In the small mosquito net, the two children were extremely close.
“Do you want to listen to the tape?” Lin Yingtao asked.
Jiang Qiaoxi remained silent.
Lin Yingtao opened the tape player she was holding and took out the Sun Yanzi tape Jiang Qiaoxi had given her, replacing it with Cohen’s tape.
Just as Jiang Qiaoxi put one earphone in his ear, Lin Yingtao, sitting beside him, asked, “Do you want to read ‘Mickey Mouse’?”
He obediently accepted the latest issue of “Mickey Mouse” that Lin Yingtao handed to him.
Lin Yingtao tugged at him. “Will you lie down to read it?”
Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t understand Lin Yingtao’s request.
But he still lay down on the small bed, resting his head on Lin Yingtao’s fragrant pillow, and opened the “Mickey Mouse” magazine in his hands.
Lin Yingtao knelt on the bed. The comic magazine blocked Jiang Qiaoxi’s view, preventing him from seeing what she was about to do.
Jiang Qiaoxi had just read two lines when he felt a pair of soft little hands rubbing his stomach through his clothes.
He put down the “Mickey Mouse” magazine in front of him, suddenly sat up from the bed, and quickly grabbed Lin Yingtao’s hand as she was about to withdraw it.
Lin Yingtao was so scared she held her breath.
“Yingtao,” Jiang Qiaoxi said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, “It tickles.”
Even if Lin Qile had “hypnotized” Jiang Qiaoxi by rubbing his belly like she did with the little rabbit, Jiang Qiaoxi still had to leave the next day.
Just as Jiang Qiaoxi knew that no matter how relaxed and happy he was in Qun Shan, he would eventually have to return to the provincial capital. He had to go through rigorous academic selections. If Jiang Qiaoxi wanted to leave, to get away from this “family of three” that had nothing to do with him, he had no choice but to do so.
Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t sleep well that night. The next morning, just after 7 AM, he got up and sat at his desk reading. He was pondering what to say to Lin Qile before he left.
He also needed to say goodbye to many others: Yu Qiao, his deskmate for two years; Cai Fangyuan, the chubby boy at the Qun Shan construction site who best understood his situation; Du Shang—Jiang Qiaoxi had always known that Du Shang disliked him.
Jiang Zheng came into the bedroom and asked Jiang Qiaoxi, “Have you packed everything?”
Jiang Qiaoxi was startled for a moment, then nodded.
Jiang Zheng glanced at the black watch on Jiang Qiaoxi’s wrist.
His tone softened: “Your uncle has some urgent business today, so he came early. Go say goodbye to your classmates now, and then we’ll leave.”
Now?
The lights were off at Lin Qile’s house, and no one answered no matter how much he knocked. Mr. and Mrs. Lin had gone to work. Jiang Qiaoxi turned a corner and walked towards Yu Qiao’s house.
Even Yu Qiao wasn’t home. When Yu’s grandmother saw Jiang Qiaoxi, she exclaimed in surprise, “Oh my! Yingtao dragged Yu Qiao to the city very early this morning before dawn even broke. She said she wanted to buy something for you!”
Jiang Qiaoxi was even more surprised and asked, “When did they leave?”
Yu’s grandmother couldn’t remember clearly. She stood up to get some fried shrimp chips for Jiang Qiaoxi: “Why don’t you wait here? They said they’d be back before 9 AM for sure!”
Lin Qile remembered July 13, 2001, very clearly. It was a Friday. She got up early in the morning, carrying all her pocket money, and went to the city with Yu Qiao and the others. Lin Qile hoped that when Jiang Qiaoxi returned to the provincial capital, he wouldn’t forget them, wouldn’t forget Qun Shan.
She and Yu Qiao wandered back and forth through the temple fair. It was crowded early in the morning, with people pushing against each other. Afraid she might get lost, Yu Qiao held her hand the whole time. Lin Qile stood on tiptoe, looking at every shop front.
Cai Fangyuan, eating a four-ring ice cream, said, “What doesn’t Jiang Qiaoxi have in the provincial capital? What can we buy for him here?”
Du Shang chimed in from the side, “Let’s buy some Qun Shan specialties!”
Yu Qiao frowned as he followed Lin Qile. She wanted to look at everything, wandering here and there, squeezing through the crowds. Suddenly, Yu Qiao said, “Lin Yingtao.”
“Huh?” Lin Qile heard his voice and turned around.
Yu Qiao stared at Lin Qile’s chest.
“Where’s your amber?” he asked.
Lin Dianggong rushed home during his lunch break. He knew that the son of the Jiang family next door was transferring back to the provincial capital for school and that his daughter would be upset. But she had been sad for so many days already, how could she still be this heartbroken?
Lin Qile sat crying on her small stool at home. As soon as her father returned, Lin Qile opened her mouth wide, crying as she walked over and threw herself into her father’s arms.
“…The amber is lost?” Lin Dianggong heard the young boys around him say as he reached out to support his daughter’s head.
Yu Qiao calmly said, “It was probably picked up by someone at the temple fair.”
Cai Fangyuan, sweating profusely, said helplessly, “Uncle Lin, we looked for it for a long time, but there were too many people! The place was so big, we couldn’t find it!”
Lin Dianggong said with difficulty, “That amber was so small, it would indeed be hard to find.”
Du Shang saw that Lin Qile was about to cry herself into hiccups. He said, “Yingtao, don’t cry anymore… it’s just an amber. We can buy another one in the future!”
In the afternoon, Lin Qile sat on the steps in front of her house, watching Du Shang walk back and forth on the small path, performing “Selling Crutches”: “Look, Yingtao, look, I’m limping!”
Lin Qile didn’t want to laugh, but seeing Du Shang trying so hard to be funny, she couldn’t help but smile through her tears.
She cried and then laughed, laughed, and then cried again. She turned her head to look at the door of the neighboring house.
Grandmother Yu said that Jiang Qiaoxi had left the construction site after 7 AM: “I wanted to keep him, but Manager Jiang was in a hurry and took him away.”
At dinner time, all the workers at the Qun Shan construction site rushed back as soon as they got off work. They gathered around the TV to watch the news broadcast.
Lin Qile stood beside Uncle Yu and heard a white-haired old man on TV announce: “…2008 are awarded to the city of Beijing!”
Uncle Yu was overjoyed and specially brought out his treasured white wine, wanting several families to have dinner together. Lin Qile sat on a small stool, looking very well-behaved. During the meal, Uncle Yu said, “You kids, by 2008, you’ll be just in time to take the college entrance exams, right?”
Uncle Cai used his chopsticks to pick up slices of beef, giving one to each child: “By then, all of you should study hard and get into Peking University or Tsinghua University! Then you can go to Beijing to watch the Olympics!”
Many big events happened in 2001, both happy and sad. Lin Qile waited the entire summer vacation at the Qun Shan construction site, but never received a phone call from Jiang Qiaoxi.
He seemed to have disappeared from Lin Qile’s life, just like all the older brothers and sisters who had moved away.
When school started in September, Lin Qile was about to enter sixth grade. On the way to school, Du Shang asked, “Yingtao, aren’t you happy that the Olympics will be held in Beijing in ’08?”
Lin Qile said, “It’s only ’01 now, isn’t ’08 too far away…”
She was only eleven years old.
For her, seven years later seemed like something that would happen in another lifetime.
“It does seem a bit far,” Du Shang mumbled, “Yingtao, are you still upset about Jiang Qiaoxi?”
Lin Qile shook her head.
“He doesn’t even call you!” Du Shang said indignantly, “And you still think about him all the time!”
Cai Fangyuan told Lin Qile that his father had sold all the “Qilu Software” stocks, keeping only 100 shares, saying it was for remembrance: “He kept them for you.”
“What’s ‘Qilu Software’?” Lin Qile asked, confused.
“‘Qilu Software’ is ‘Taishan Tourism,'” Cai Fangyuan said, “They changed the name!”
It took Lin Qile a while before she asked, “Can the names of stocks change too?”
Cai Fangyuan shrugged it off: “What’s there that can’t change? If they want to change, they just change it.”
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Our Generation – Chapter Notes:
- Heishui Town and General’s Tomb: Classic maps from the game The Legend of Sword and Fairy I (Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan).
- “Zhengda Zongyi”: A variety and quiz show produced and broadcast by China Central Television (CCTV). The show consisted of three segments: “The World is Wonderful,” “Variety of Things,” and “Famous Songs.” It first aired on April 21, 1990, every Sunday at 7:30 PM on CCTV’s Finance Channel.
- “Hypnosis”: A state of tonic immobility, where an animal enters a form of suspended animation or temporary paralysis.
- Yili Four Circles: An ice cream product by Yili that swept across China in 2001, with annual sales reaching 800 million yuan.
- “Selling a Crutch”: A comedy skit performed by Zhao Benshan, Fan Wei, and Gao Xiumin on January 23, 2001, during the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
- On July 13, 2001, at 10:11 PM Moscow time (6:11 PM Beijing time), IOC President Samaranch announced that Beijing, China, would host the 2008 Summer Olympics.
- On February 28, 2001, “Taishan Tourism” was renamed “Qilu Software,” but the stock code remained unchanged.