Lin Qile never considered what her impulsive decision to travel alone to the provincial capital to see Jiang Qiaoxi might mean to others.
“Jiang Qiaoxi…” Lin Qile called out his name.
Perhaps due to the surrounding noise, Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t hear her clearly at first. Instead, the boys around him turned their heads.
One who had been talking incessantly glanced at Lin Qile. He likely assumed she was another classmate seeking a heart-to-heart with Jiang Qiaoxi. However, after examining her attire and face, the boy’s eyes suddenly widened. He stared at the characters on Lin Qile’s school uniform, then grabbed the person next to him, exclaiming, “Qun-Qunshan No. 1 Middle School??”
Lin Qile stood motionless as countless gazes suddenly turned towards her.
The name “Qunshan” was currently well-known at the Provincial Experimental Affiliated High School.
The boy shouted, pointing at Lin Qile and turning to Jiang Qiaoxi: “She-she’s come here looking for you—”
“Who?” a passing student asked.
“Fei Linge, who are you talking about?” someone inquired.
Others circled to Lin Qile’s front, glancing at her before whispering: “It’s that girl who wrote letters to Jiang Qiaoxi. She came all this way to the school—”
“Oh my god,” came the hushed laughter of a girl, “Is she crazy?”
Lin Qile gripped the straps of her backpack, feeling like a lamb thrown into a gladiatorial arena.
She had insisted on coming here herself.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood among the crowd, facing Lin Qile. Though separated by three to five meters, Lin Qile could see his features and expression. Jiang Qiaoxi had grown much taller, forcing Lin Qile to look up at him.
Despite the commotion around them making Lin Qile anxious, the air surrounding Jiang Qiaoxi seemed quiet, even lifeless.
Lifeless. For some reason, Lin Qile often associated this word with Jiang Qiaoxi.
Jiang Qiaoxi wore black sneakers. He had told Lin Qile he disliked black.
At that moment, Jiang Qiaoxi fixed his gaze on Lin Qile’s face, his picturesque eyes widening. After two years apart, he now had a visible Adam’s apple, which bobbed as he swallowed.
Fei Linge mustered the courage to approach Lin Qile, speaking sternly: “Are you Lin Qile?”
His voice was too loud, causing Lin Qile to unconsciously step back.
“Whatever you came here for,” Fei Linge said haughtily, “can you stop causing trouble for Jiang Qiaoxi—”
“Cen Xiaoman!” a girl called from across the street, “Jiang Qiaoxi’s mom’s car is here. Aren’t you leaving?”
The girl walking home with Jiang Qiaoxi was called Cen Xiaoman. She looked up at Lin Qile, seemingly at a loss in this situation. She tugged on Jiang Qiaoxi’s sleeve: “Let’s go. If Auntie sees this… The competition teacher will get impatient…”
Lin Qile turned to leave.
The gathered students from the Provincial Experimental Affiliated High School quickly made their way. Lin Qile walked through the crowd of onlookers, her pace quickening as she went.
“…Yingtao?” Du Shang’s voice came first.
“Lin Yingtao!” Yu Qiao suddenly shouted from a distance.
Lin Qile had been walking, but upon hearing familiar voices calling her name, she raised her arm to wipe her eyes, growing more flustered.
Darkness fell over the provincial capital.
Lin Qile stood panting at the roadside, her backpack strap slipping off her shoulder. A nearby ice cream shop was playing the animated film “Finding Nemo,” with the clownfish Marlin and the blue tang Dory searching for Nemo in the vast ocean.
Lin Qile stood at the shop entrance, mouth agape, staring up at the screen for a moment.
Exhausted, she sat down on the steps in front of the store.
Outside the ice cream shop, passersby of all types—men, women, elderly, and children—moved about, their dress and mannerisms vastly different from those in Qunshan. Lin Qile watched with wide eyes, her face flushed from crying earlier but refusing to cry again.
Jiang Qiaoxi seemed not to recognize her anymore. Lin Qile lowered her head, examining her red shoes in the streetlight. From fourth to sixth grade, Jiang Qiaoxi had been by Lin Qile’s side for two years. Now, nearly two years have passed since Jiang Qiaoxi returned to the provincial capital.
Two years felt so long, Lin Qile thought.
Everything was bound to change.
“Yingtao!” a familiar voice suddenly called from behind.
Lin Qile froze, momentarily afraid to turn around. The voice anxiously called again: “Yingtao!”
Lin Yingtao stood up, her backpack hanging forlornly. As her large eyes focused on the newcomer’s face, they immediately welled up with tears.
“Dad…” Lin Yingtao’s mouth opened wide as she burst into tears.
The electrician Lin, dressed in a plain dark blue work uniform, quickly approached and crouched down to embrace his daughter.
Yu Qiao’s mother opened the door, warmly welcoming Lin Yingtao and Electrician Lin inside. Team Leader Yu walked behind Lin Yingtao, his large hands covering his daughter’s tear-stained face.
Upon entering, Uncle Yu called out: “Yu Qiao, come find a pair of slippers for your Uncle Lin!”
Electrician Lin had rushed from Qunshan to the provincial capital in the middle of his workday. He wore his work uniform with an ID badge around his neck. Seeing Yu Qiao approach, Electrician Lin remarked, “Yu Qiao, it’s only been a year, but you’ve grown so tall!”
“Hello, Uncle Lin!” Another young boy came over, his voice still childish.
Electrician Lin bent down to change into slippers, then reached out to pat Yu Jin’s hair: “Our Yu Jin has grown taller too!”
Yu Qiao’s mother was frying meat in the kitchen and called out, “Yingtao! Put down your backpack and come eat first!”
Lin Qile still stood by the door, softly responding, “Oh.”
Electrician Lin entered the living room, intending to use the Yu family’s phone to report his safe arrival to his wife back in Qunshan. Lin Qile removed her red shoes but, lacking slippers, followed Yu Qiao into his bedroom in her socks.
“Just put it anywhere,” Yu Qiao said. He still wore the blue and white uniform pants from the Provincial Experimental Affiliated High School, with a basketball jersey on top. He watched as Lin Qile placed her dirty, dust-covered backpack on the floor.
Yu Qiao looked down at her, and Lin Qile, with red-rimmed eyes, looked back up at him.
Outside in the living room, the adults were chattering noisily, but with the door closed, the children couldn’t hear them.
Yu Qiao asked softly, “What are you doing here?”
Lin Qile, her voice still teary, looked at Yu Qiao and asked, “Who are you?”
Yu Qiao suddenly raised his foot to kick her.
Lin Qile instinctively dodged, then laughed.
Yu Qiao’s mother called from outside: “Yu Qiao! Yingtao! Du Shang is here!… Come in, Du Shang! Yingtao’s here, join us for dinner?”
Lin Qile stood at Yu Qiao’s bedroom door, watching Du Shang enter from outside. Du Shang also wore the Experimental High School uniform, his face covered in sweat as if he had run there desperately. Upon seeing Lin Qile, Du Shang broke into a wide grin.
The Yu family had moved to the provincial capital, and although their home was more spacious than the construction site dormitory in Qunshan, it was still cramped with everyone gathered around one table for dinner. Uncle Yu kept asking Lin Yingtao how she managed to buy a ticket and travel to the provincial capital alone: “Goodness! You’re small, but your courage is big! You wanted to scare your uncle to death!”
Beside him, Aunt Yu remarked that Yingtao had always been brave, recalling how she used to go on adventures in the mountains with Yu Qiao, Du Shang, and Cai Fangyuan.
Despite everyone’s cheerful demeanor, Lin Qile still felt deeply guilty.
No one asked why Lin Qile had come to the provincial capital.
After dinner, Aunt Yu pulled Lin Qile to sit beside her.
She told Yingtao she’d sleep in Yu Qiao’s room tonight, while Yu Qiao would sleep on the living room couch. “Yingtao’s gotten thinner,” Aunt Yu said, pinching Lin Qile’s cheeks and teasing her, “You still have to go back to school, so next time, wait for a holiday and come stay with Auntie for a few days with your parents!”
Lin Qile had missed a day of school, so naturally, she had no homework to do. Yu Qiao and Du Shang were in the bedroom, copying each other’s work to complete their assignments.
Lin Qile lay on Yu Qiao’s bed, flipping through his comics. After a couple of pages, Yu Qiao pulled her over to help with his Chinese homework.
At nine o’clock, Cai Fangyuan arrived.
He had been at a competition tutoring session all evening and looked exhausted. After greeting Uncle Yu, Uncle Lin, and Aunt Yu, his chubby figure entered Yu Qiao’s bedroom.
Upon seeing Lin Qile, Cai Fangyuan smiled: “Lin Yingtao, I’ve got to hand it to you. You’ve become famous among all the competition classes in our province—”
Du Shang started coughing heavily, sounding almost asthmatic due to its unnaturalness.
Lin Yingtao ignored Cai Fangyuan’s words, focusing on fabricating answers for Yu Qiao’s Chinese homework.
Once the homework was finished, Yu Qiao’s mother brought in freshly fried shrimp chips and crispy meat as a late-night snack for the children.
Lin Qile sat on the edge of the bed, looking through Yu Qiao’s report card.
“Yingtao,” Du Shang, who had grown considerably taller with more defined features, said, “It’s been a year since we last met.”
Cai Fangyuan, sitting opposite, stuffed fried meat into his mouth: “You don’t look like you’ve changed much to me.”
Yu Qiao snatched his report card back from Lin Qile, irritably saying, “What’s there to look at?”
Lin Qile had seen that Yu Qiao ranked 72nd in his grade. She asked, “How many students are in your grade?”
Cai Fangyuan replied, “Over five hundred.”
Lin Qile let out a “Wow.”
Yu Qiao had done quite well.
Seeing Lin Qile’s expression, Cai Fangyuan said, “Jiang Qiaoxi ranked first in the grade again this time.”
Du Shang’s asthma seemed about to flare up again as he drank cola, nearly choking.
Cai Fangyuan spoke directly to Lin Qile: “I came back with him today.”
Seeing Lin Qile’s silence, Cai Fangyuan continued, “Usually, he goes home with Fei Linge, Cen Xiaoman, and the others. I don’t know what happened today, but as soon as class ended, he called me to go with him.”
Only one piece of fried meat remained. Lin Qile, with red eyes, glared as Yu Qiao swallowed the last piece.
Du Shang commented unhappily from the side, “He didn’t even come to see Yingtao when she came all this way to find him.”
Cai Fangyuan replied, “What’s there to see? He was in his dad’s chauffeur-driven car with his mom. She’s like a plague god; didn’t say a word the whole way.”
Lin Qile and Yu Qiao fought over the remaining shrimp chips. Meanwhile, Cai Fangyuan chatted intermittently with Du Shang. Cai Fangyuan said that Jiang Qiaoxi’s mom was truly ill. Living near them, Cai Fangyuan recalled how shortly after they moved, one night, Jiang Qiaoxi’s mother suddenly tore up his math olympiad books and threw them out the window, causing a commotion the entire building could hear.
“Tearing books?” Du Shang didn’t understand. “Why?”
Cai Fangyuan hesitated, glancing at Lin Qile.
Yu Qiao had just given the last shrimp chip to Lin Qile. She crunched it loudly, seemingly oblivious to the conversation.
Cai Fangyuan left after half an hour. Now that he had grown up, he no longer enjoyed fighting with Lin Yingtao as he used to. Du Shang also had to go home. He told Lin Yingtao how much he missed Qunshan, but Uncle Yu had mentioned that the construction site dormitories were mostly demolished: “Yingtao, has the eleventh row where I used to live been torn down?”
After her friends left, Lin Yingtao went to brush her teeth alone. Yu Qiao came in shortly after, also grabbing his toothbrush and squeezing Lin Yingtao to the side.
With his toothbrush in his mouth, Yu Qiao asked, “When did your rabbit die?”
Lin Yingtao froze, looking at him through the mirror.
She hadn’t told anyone about this except Jiang Qiaoxi. But clearly, whatever she had written in that letter was now known to almost everyone, including Yu Qiao.
Yu Qiao was surely going to mock her.
Lin Yingtao finished brushing her teeth and bent down to rinse. She washed her face and, with water still on it, opened her eyes and said to Yu Qiao, “Just after starting junior high.”
Yu Qiao saw Lin Yingtao speaking with the corners of her mouth turned up as if about to smile.
“What’s so funny about that?” Yu Qiao frowned.
“Well, I can’t cry about it, can I?” Lin Yingtao made a grimacing face at him.
Yu Qiao grabbed a pillow; tonight, he had to make do with the sofa. Lin Qile wiped her face clean, also preparing for bed.
As she passed the kitchen door, Lin Qile could hear the adults talking and drinking inside.
Her father and Uncle Yu hadn’t seen each other in a long time either.
“It’s always the honest people who get the short end of the stick. Old Lin, you’ve taken too much of a loss here,” Uncle Yu said, tapping his cigarette ash.
Electrician Lin just smiled.
Team Leader Yu continued, “You don’t notice when you’re not here, but after coming, you realize the environment in the provincial capital does benefit the children…”
Yu Qiao’s mother chimed in, “Anyway, you’ve already secured your apartment. Once the construction site wraps up, your family of three should come right away—”
Before Electrician Lin could speak, Team Leader Yu preemptively said, “You two can come or not as you please, but let me tell you, Lin Haifen, Yingtao must come! Worst case, she can board at school! You can’t let her muddle through high school in Qunshan anymore!”
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In one more Our Generation – Chapter, Yingtao will come to the provincial capital for high school.
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Our Generation – Chapter notes:
“Finding Nemo”: An American computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures in 2003.