Qin Yeyun moved to the provincial capital before starting middle school. She said, “Lin Yingtao, you’re the happiest little girl I’ve ever seen.”
Is that so? Lin Qile, wearing the uniform of Qunshan No. 1 Middle School, took the bus to school with her backpack. Last night, there was a cold rain, and her parents were working overtime again. Lin Qile went to the backyard and saw her little white rabbit lying in its cage, its feet twitching slightly before becoming motionless.
Lin Qile didn’t understand the cause of death. It was as if she could no longer comprehend her current life.
She wanted to call her homeroom teacher to ask for a morning off to find a burial spot for the rabbit in the mountains. But the teacher said she had never heard such an absurd reason for taking leave: “If you keep thinking about skipping class like this, you’ll end up in Class B!”
At that time, Lin Qile’s understanding of the world was quite shallow. She thought “Hey Jude” was a song by Stefanie Sun, and had never heard of Paul McCartney. The worst nightmare she had ever had was walking on the streets of the provincial capital, unable to find her transferred schoolmates anywhere, or her little rabbit dying when she wasn’t there to care for it, becoming a cold, stiff body.
In the past, at the Zhongneng Power Plant Elementary School, the “Little Four” gang would cover Lin Qile. They would make mistakes together, and it wasn’t a big deal. But at Qunshan No. 1 Middle School, no one was interested in “making mistakes” anymore. Lin Qile upset the teachers repeatedly from the start of the semester, making her somewhat unpopular.
Only her deskmate, Geng Xiaoqing, would occasionally sympathize with her. This girl would often pretend to do her homework while quietly saying to Lin Qile, “Quick, lower your head, the teacher just looked at you!”
After class, Lin Qile no longer wandered around or played on the playground. She would play word games from girls’ magazines with her deskmate Geng Xiaoqing and another girl, Dai Lixin.
Dai Lixin was Geng Xiaoqing’s “bestie.” They had grown up together, lived in the same neighborhood, and entered middle school together. “Lin Qile, don’t you have any ‘besties’?” asked the outgoing and straightforward Dai Lixin.
Besties? Lin Qile answered honestly, “No.”
Geng Xiaoqing turned to tell Dai Lixin, “Cherry’s former best friends were all boys, and they’ve all transferred to the provincial capital!”
Hearing this, Dai Lixin asked, puzzled, “All boys?”
For them, this was a very strange thing.
Dai Lixin said to Lin Qile, “Then from now on, we’ll be your ‘besties’!”
Geng Xiaoqing liked to confide in Lin Qile during the ten-minute breaks about her morning disagreements with her parents. She also urged Lin Qile to tell her about the boys.
It was evident that Geng Xiaoqing had rarely interacted with “boys” throughout her life.
Whether it was Cai Fangyuan, Yu Qiao, or Du Shang—they were just a group of ordinary boys, but in Lin Qile’s exaggerated and random recollections, each seemed to have extraordinary talents and unique skills.
Especially Yu Qiao, whose name came from “fishing, woodcutting, farming, and studying.” Lin Qile once told Geng Xiaoqing, “He said his future wife should have the surname Geng or Du, so it would match perfectly with his name, Yu Qiao—”
Lin Qile paused here, belatedly turning her head. She stared at Geng Xiaoqing’s delicate eyes and soft short hair: “Your surname is Geng!”
Geng Xiaoqing nodded vigorously at this point.
“This is the first time I’ve met a girl with the surname Geng!” Lin Qile exclaimed in surprise.
That day after school, Geng Xiaoqing, carrying her backpack, took the bus with Lin Qile to “visit” the Qunshan construction site dormitory complex.
Now, apart from a few rows of single-story houses still occupied, the rest of the complex had turned into ruins, even the streetlights had been removed.
Lin Qile ran through the gate without a guard, stood in the middle of the widest road directly facing the gate, turned to Geng Xiaoqing, and shouted, “This is ‘Yu Qiao Street’!”
Yu Qiao Street, Du Shang Street, Cai Fangyuan Street… Lin Qile walked home along the familiar street names. When she reached the row of houses where her family lived, she stepped on the bricks on the ground and said softly, “This is Jiang Qiaoxi Street…”
“What?” Geng Xiaoqing turned her head; this was a name she hadn’t heard before.
Lin Electrician and his wife were exceptionally welcoming when they saw Geng Xiaoqing. Lin Electrician said it had been a long time since any of Cherry’s little friends had come to play.
The two little girls ate together and then sat on the edge of the bed playing with Barbie dolls. Geng Xiaoqing’s mother called Lin’s house, asking Geng Xiaoqing to return home early.
Lin’s mother packed a bag of jujube steamed buns for Geng Xiaoqing to put in her schoolbag, as Geng Xiaoqing had praised them as sweet and delicious after the first bite.
It had been a long time since Lin’s mother had made jujube steamed buns for anyone.
Lin Qile went to see her classmate off. The two little girls walked in the evening at the Qunshan construction site, through Lin Qile’s kingdom, along those streets named “Du Shang Street” or “Cai Fangyuan Street”… The workers’ club had been abandoned for a long time, its doors tightly shut but not yet demolished. Lin Qile, wearing her school uniform, climbed the weed-covered stairs. She pressed her eyes close to the door crack and peered into the pitch-black club for a while.
“Once during a New Year’s party, Yu Qiao sang in the club,” Lin Qile turned back and said to Geng Xiaoqing at the bottom of the steps, “He sang so badly! He was deliberately singing off-key! Du Shang and I unplugged his microphone—”
Geng Xiaoqing laughed at this, her narrow shoulders shaking slightly.
Seeing her so happy, Lin Qile laughed too, even though the construction site was so desolate, without a single person in sight.
“What song did he sing?” Geng Xiaoqing asked.
“‘Until the End of the World,'” Lin Qile said.
Geng Xiaoqing said the person she had secretly liked since childhood was “Mitsui Hisashi.”
“Why?” Lin Qile asked.
“Because I dreamed about him,” Geng Xiaoqing held onto her backpack strap. She looked shy and introverted, with a timid gaze, but her words were unusually bold and firm, “I feel it’s a kind of destiny.”
Lin Qile saw her first “bestie” off at the bus stop. How strange, Lin Qile thought, she used to always end up fighting when she met Qin Yeyun, but not with Geng Xiaoqing. Before the bus arrived, Geng Xiaoqing asked, “Is Jiang Qiaoxi also someone’s name?”
Lin Qile saw the bus coming and, afraid the driver might not notice them, quickly waved her hand. In the darkness, as the headlights swept over, only Lin Qile’s shadow remained by the roadside.
Dai Lixin said during PE class that her dream lover was “Domyoji.”
The students were forming a large group, running laps around the playground. Geng Xiaoqing, panting in the group, said to Dai Lixin, “Domyoji is a hooligan! His only advantage is being rich!”
“How is Domyoji a hooligan?” Dai Lixin retorted, still running, “He protected Tsukushi several times! He likes her wholeheartedly, such a man gives the most sense of security!”
After finishing the run, Geng Xiaoqing bent down to tie her shoelaces, wiped the fine sweat from her neck, and came over to tell Lin Qile: “Girls just tend to like boys like Domyoji and Rukawa—handsome and rich,” she grumbled, clearly looking down on the shallowness of these people, “But how could such boys exist in the real world? Look at Rukawa, his skin is too white. How could someone who plays basketball every day be so white? Someone like Mitsui is more normal!”
Lin Qile stood at the entrance of the small shop on the sports field, cooling her forehead with a bottle of iced mineral water. She felt a bit dizzy from the heat.
Du Shang called from the provincial capital, saying that after several small tests, he had finally caught up with the learning progress. He had transferred to the top class, in the same class as Jiang Qiaoxi: “Oh man, I suspect half the girls in our grade might have a secret crush on him!”
Lin Qile held the receiver, sitting by the radiator and flipping through her “Manga Party” magazine. Du Shang chattered on the phone, saying he and Jiang Qiaoxi were now in Class 1, Cai Fangyuan in Class 3, and Yu Qiao in Class 7, all in the top classes. Du Shang suddenly took the phone away and called out, “Yu Qiao! Do you want to talk to Cherry!”
Du Shang was calling from a public phone booth on their campus. Yu Qiao came over, sounding a bit out of breath, probably from playing basketball during the break.
“Hello?” Yu Qiao picked up the phone and said.
Lin Qile was immediately stunned.
“Lin Yingtao?” Yu Qiao asked.
“Who are you?” Lin Qile couldn’t help but ask.
Now it was Yu Qiao’s turn to be stunned.
His voice had indeed become deeper now, his voice change coming early. After not seeing each other for a while, he sounded unfamiliar.
Du Shang asked from outside the phone booth, “What’s wrong?”
Yu Qiao said in disbelief, “She asked who I am.”
A burst of laughter erupted from behind, and Lin Qile knew immediately it was fatty Cai Fangyuan laughing.
Yu Qiao brought the receiver back to his ear, wanting to say, you can’t even recognize my voice anymore.
Before he could speak, he heard a very faint sound of deep breathing, slightly trembling, coming through the receiver.
Having heard Lin Qile cry all the time at the Qunshan construction site before, Yu Qiao was already used to it.
What he wasn’t used to was hearing Lin Qile trying to hold it back.
“Yu Qiao! Come play ball!” Some classmates called out loudly from the playground.
Yu Qiao said into the phone, “Regretting it now, aren’t you? You didn’t come to the provincial capital when we asked you to.”
Lin Qile, holding back her tears, said, “What about my mom and dad?”
Yu Qiao said with exasperation, “Your parents aren’t kids.”
Lin Qile pursed her lips.
She still couldn’t bear to leave home, to leave her mom and dad. Even though hardly anyone lived at the Qunshan construction site anymore. After school, Lin Qile would still walk past rows of empty dormitories, watering this patch of sunflowers, that patch of strawberries.
She went to school alone, came home alone, talked with Geng Xiaoqing and Dai Lixin at school, and then stayed at home alone after school. No friends came to play at her house anymore.
Du Shang and the others couldn’t call every day either. Her parents no longer subscribed to “Mickey Mouse,” and the children’s magazines piling up at home started to become “Manga Party.” Lin Qile read them while eating while keeping an eye on the washing machine for her mom, and even after lights out, she would lie in bed re-reading them many more times: she was always happy when reading manga, completely focused.
In the corner of “Manga Party,” there were several consecutive pages printed with readers’ self-introductions and postal addresses. Lin Qile looked carefully and realized it was a pen pal section.
Lin Qile quickly got up from the bed. She turned on the desk lamp, opened her pencil case, spread out the magazine, and carefully tore out the reader reply form.
“I am the super invincible little space ranger Lin Qile, living in the beautiful scenic city of Qunshan,” Lin Qile wrote under the lamp, one word at a time, “I want to make friends with children from all over the country, to be good friends—”
A month flew by. One day after work, Lin Diangong brought home a manga magazine delivered to his workplace and placed it on his daughter’s desk.
During a class break, Dai Lixin exclaimed in surprise while looking at the manga magazine, “Lin Qile! It’s you! It’s you!!”
Lin Qile stared in disbelief at the pile of letters in her hands. She had used the class mailbox as her return address, never expecting so many people would write to her.
The next morning, the class life committee member responsible for managing the mailbox brought in over forty more letters, announcing in front of the whole class, “Lin Qile, why are all these letters for you?”
Geng Xiaoqing asked, “Yingtao, are you going to reply to all these letters?”
Dai Lixin chimed in, “How long will that take?”
As Lin Qile opened a letter during the break, a photo accidentally fell out. She picked it up and glanced at it. Beside her, Dai Lixin’s face suddenly turned red: “Even boys are sending photos!”
That day, Lin Qile returned home with her backpack full of letters, each one heavy with enthusiasm. During dinner, she suddenly asked, “Dad, do you know the postal address for the provincial headquarters?”
Lin Diangong replied, “Yes, why?”
Lin Qile hesitated, then said, “I want to write a letter to Du Shang.”
Her mother, placing a pork rib on her plate, suggested, “Why not just call? Isn’t writing a letter too slow?”
Lin Qile opened her diary, which contained several phone numbers. The first one was Jiang Qiaoxi’s home number.
Since starting middle school, she had sporadically tried calling this number a few times. Only once did someone answer – Jiang Qiaoxi’s mother.
Her tone was harsh and cold: “Qiaoxi isn’t home. He’s busy studying. Please don’t call him anymore.”
Then she hung up.
Now, Lin Qile called Du Shang and asked, “Do you have Jiang Qiaoxi’s home postal address?”
Du Shang replied, “Why, Yingtao… do you want to write him a letter?”
Lin Qile said, “I’m just asking…”
Du Shang warned, “If you send it to his home, won’t his mom see it again?”
Lin Qile paused, “Oh, right…”
Du Shang thought hard, then suggested, “How about… Do you send it to our class? I’ll give you the address right now—”
Lin Qile often reminisced about a few years ago, eating ice cream and walking to and from school with her best friend. Back then, Jiang Qiaoxi always walked beside her, quietly listening to her talk.
Under the lamplight, she began to write:
Jiang Qiaoxi,
This is Lin Qile.
The little rabbit died. Do you remember it? It was four years old…
As Lin Qile wrote, her vision blurred, and she wasn’t quite sure what exactly she was writing. She wrote whatever came to mind – memories, her current life, how she had been calling him for two years: “Don’t you miss me? Why don’t you ever call me? Cai Fangyuan says you’ve changed in the provincial city. How have you changed?”
Lin Qile also mentioned that a few days ago, she found an old, wrinkled drawing of “Jiang Chunlu” while looking through her old textbooks.
“Do you remember Jiang Chunlu?” Lin Qile put down her pencil, opened her watercolor set, and began drawing “Jiang Chunlu” on the letter paper.
After finishing the drawing, she continued writing with her pencil: “If you’ve forgotten, look at this to remember.”
Though her homework was always messy, she wrote this letter with great care, one stroke at a time. After finishing, Lin Qile felt it wasn’t enough. She used watercolors to decorate the margins with stars, moons, small flower petals, cola cans, black watches, and little rabbit heads to fill all the blank spaces.
She wondered when Jiang Qiaoxi would receive the letter and when he might reply. Ultimately, Lin Qile didn’t believe what Cai Fangyuan and others had said: “Jiang Qiaoxi isn’t close to us anymore. We can’t talk to him!”
A week later, after school, Lin Qile was idly watching “I Love to Sing” at home when her phone suddenly rang.
Lin Qile picked up the receiver, expecting it to be Du Shang.
“Lin Yingtao!” It was a girl’s voice, startling Lin Qile. It was Qin Yeyun. “Are you crazy? What kind of letter did you write to Jiang Qiaoxi?”
※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※
－－－－－－－－－－－－－
Our Generation – Chapter Notes:
“Hey Jude”: A song written by Paul McCartney, covered by Stefanie Sun in 2001 and included in her album “Start.”
“Until the World Ends”: A single by the Japanese rock band WANDS, used as the ending theme for “Slam Dunk,” released on June 8, 1994.
Dao Mingsi: In 2001, the Taiwanese idol drama “Meteor Garden,” adapted from a manga, became popular across the strait. Dao Mingsi is the male protagonist of the show.
“Manga Party”: A magazine launched on January 15, 2001, also known as “Student Wide Angle.” It was officially renamed “Manga Party” in April 2006.
“I Love to Sing”: A 52-episode animated series produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio and Shanghai TV, aired in 2001.