At 4 PM on the National Day holiday, Jiang Qiaoxi left his student’s home in Tsim Sha Tsui. Before he departed, the parent asked if he could continue teaching next year: “She doesn’t like the regular Olympiad Math classes or tutoring centers. She insists we ask Teacher Jiang to continue teaching her math next year.”
Jiang Qiaoxi pocketed his pay and apologized, “I won’t have time after this.”
His voice carried its usual low magnetism, his tone light yet cold, but a gentle coldness that was hard to fault.
It seemed as if he was simply born with diluted emotions, making it difficult for others to get close to him. He wasn’t cold, just slightly arrogant like a top student. Observing him alone, he didn’t resemble a HKU student from a poor background who had to sell his time tutoring.
Jiang Qiaoxi wore a backpack and carried a bag of sugar apples given by the student’s parents. He boarded the Tsuen Wan line, and a group of university hockey club members sat in the empty seats beside him. As the train passed through a long tunnel, Jiang Qiaoxi gazed out the window, seeing nothing but hearing the laughter of his peers nearby.
After disembarking, Jiang Qiaoxi took two apples from the bag and put them in his backpack. Pacific Place station was crowded with tourists. He navigated through the shopping throngs towards the bus stop.
Tourists carried red paper bags from Chanel to Salvatore Ferragamo, bumping into Jiang Qiaoxi as they passed.
Jiang Qiaoxi boarded the bus with his bag of apples. He checked his watch, then took out some stapled PPT handouts from his backpack – lecture notes he’d missed while working. He finished reading them in about fifteen minutes and put them away. He quickly got off at his stop.
Almost three years had passed. For over a thousand days and nights, Jiang Qiaoxi entered the hospital ward building. In the corridor, children were running and playing. Jiang Qiaoxi reached the ward door to see the caregiver turning and patting his cousin’s back. His cousin’s wife greeted him, and Jiang Qiaoxi handed her the apples. He glanced at the empty bed next door and asked, “Did they leave?”
“They ran out of money. The younger son took them home for care,” she replied.
While his cousin’s wife was busy in the room, Jiang Qiaoxi went to settle the bill. The hospital required payment every five days. The invoice listed room fees, medication costs, examination fees, treatment fees… Jiang Qiaoxi briefly checked each item, then took out his wallet and paid in cash.
Back in the ward, Jiang Qiaoxi placed his newly received wages on his cousin’s bedside table, weighing it down with a lunchbox containing ice towels.
Holding the bed rail, he asked, “Brother, are you feeling good today?”
His cousin had finished his turning and back-patting session. He lay on his back, connected to feeding and oxygen tubes. His body was skeletal, causing his hospital gown to sag. His cheeks were sunken, and at just 36, the former banker’s hair was sparse and graying. He needed a haircut.
His eyes were open, deeply set in their sockets, and very moist. His gaze shifted to Jiang Qiaoxi’s face, focusing there. He slowly blinked once.
Jiang Qiaoxi reached out to hold his cousin’s hand. Nearly three years of bed rest had left the man’s skin as loose and wrinkled as crumpled paper. The joints were soft, without strength in Jiang Qiaoxi’s grasp. In childhood, these hands often gripped the steering wheel, emerging from crisp shirt cuffs. Back then, his cousin was about to graduate from university and would excitedly leave Central every day to pick up Jiang Qiaoxi, sixteen years his junior, from school. Sitting tall in the driver’s seat, he would animatedly describe so many things to Jiang Qiaoxi, not realizing his little cousin couldn’t understand a word. Jiang Qiaoxi just watched him, observing the golden arc the setting sun left on the windshield. That scene left such a deep impression that years later, Jiang Qiaoxi still thought: I want to become someone like him.
Jiang Qiaoxi sat on a bench outside the ward, opened his backpack folder, and continued reading the PPT. His cousin’s wife returned and handed him a washed apple. Jiang Qiaoxi unscrewed his water bottle, filled it, and took notes. When she came back again to return the money from the bedside, he said, “I don’t need it.”
“You’re a college student, this is when you need money most. How can you not need it?” she frowned.
Jiang Qiaoxi replied, “I’ll ask for it when I need it.”
She asked, “Don’t you save money yourself?”
Jiang Qiaoxi matter-of-factly answered, “No.”
His cousin’s wife smiled wryly, wrinkles lining her once-beautiful eyes, “Then you should go on dates, and find a girlfriend to manage your money. How is such a handsome young man still single?” She tried to put the money in his backpack.
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “I’ll ask for it when I find someone. Keep it for me for now.”
When the accident first happened, his cousin was rushed to the hospital by a former colleague. The family had already lost millions in the stock market and were in debt. It was like adding fuel to the fire, with no end in sight. On New Year’s Eve 2009, his cousin’s wife moved in with the children and elderly parents to escape creditors. Jiang Qiaoxi stayed alone in the hospital room with his still-unconscious cousin. The TV was playing the mainland Chinese Spring Festival Gala. Jiang Qiaoxi remembered it was a comedy sketch about the Beijing Olympics. He muted the TV, knowing his cousin couldn’t hear anyway.
Other patients and families came and went to the hospital. Sometimes they broke down, kneeling and crying, begging the doctors. Other times they sat slumped against the wall, eyes vacant and silent. Jiang Qiaoxi would look up at them, then lower his head and continue studying.
As he was leaving, Jiang Qiaoxi told his cousin’s wife, “I’ll have interviews in a month or two.”
She asked, “Which companies did you apply to?”
“I’ll try them all,” he replied.
She said, “Your suit is still in your brother’s closet. I’ll iron it for you when I get back.”
Jiang Qiaoxi returned to his cousin’s bedside.
The doctors here once said his cousin might not live three years.
This was already the third year.
Jiang Qiaoxi squeezed his cousin’s still-immobile hand. “See you tomorrow, brother,” he said in Cantonese. Though unable to speak, his cousin’s eyes fixed steadily on Jiang Qiaoxi, just like the firm responses he’d given over the phone for so many years.
The night subway was crowded. Jiang Qiaoxi sat reading his book.
He looked up, gazing out the window into the darkness, seeing his reflection in the glass.
Sometimes Jiang Qiaoxi would recall past events, almost as if he had imagined them. He remembered two ponytails swaying before him, the unpleasant formaldehyde smell in a new car, Lin Yingtao walking past the white building in her short skirt, the desks in the competition class, winter camp exam papers, stepping out of the train station platform—
Exiting the subway station, it began to rain. Hong Kong weather was like this – stuffy and unpredictable. Jiang Qiaoxi wore a gray short-sleeved T-shirt that would dry quickly if wet, so he didn’t mind the weather. He passed through markets and crowds, young students eating, drinking, and having fun in the food street, embracing for photos by the roadside.
He entered a small shop, using his remaining change to eat cart noodles. Jiang Qiaoxi put his backpack on the adjacent seat and took out his phone. He checked tomorrow’s schedule, replied to parents about his upcoming tutoring availability, and received another apology from a female student for posting his photo online.
As his noodles arrived, Jiang Qiaoxi’s email inbox pinged with a new message.
It was a confirmation from Morgan Stanley, acknowledging receipt of Jiang Qiaoxi’s application for a summer internship in Hong Kong next year.
Chain supermarkets were selling discounted food. Jiang Qiaoxi knew their discount patterns by heart. He entered a bookstore that hadn’t closed yet, using the last half hour before closing to continue reading “Algebraic Surfaces and Holomorphic Vector Bundles” from where he’d left off last time.
The bookstore had new math texts. Jiang Qiaoxi looked at the covers, occasionally picking one up, checking the price, and then putting it back. A huge poster on the wall advertised the upcoming “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” movie, promoting Harry and Voldemort’s final battle.
As the store was closing, Jiang Qiaoxi left.
After 10 PM, double-decker buses clanged by. Jiang Qiaoxi occasionally heard familiar accents from mainland tourists.
He realized he had a “hometown accent” too.
Jiang Qiaoxi wondered where he truly belonged.
Standing on the steps of his cheap student apartment, Jiang Qiaoxi saw Lin Yingtao sitting before him, her head tilted, curled up in Hong Kong’s night.
Hong Kong’s land is precious, and its stairs are narrow and steep. Lin Yingtao’s suitcase and backpack were left at the ground floor management office. Jiang Qiaoxi carried the feverish Lin Yingtao, unable to summon the elevator, so he climbed the stairs.
Lin Yingtao had been feverish for an unknown time, her cheeks unnaturally flushed, her body limp in Jiang Qiaoxi’s arms. She had sat downstairs for who knows how long, her dress badly soiled. Reaching his rented room, Jiang Qiaoxi set her down and fumbled for his keys. Inside was a four-square-meter room, dark with curtains drawn, stifling without air conditioning.
Lin Yingtao was carefully placed on the narrow 1.2-meter bed, eyes tightly shut, her blouse clinging to her body, skirt draping over her legs. Jiang Qiaoxi wrapped her in a blanket. He stood by the bed, the low ceiling forcing him to slightly bow his head, staring at her in bewilderment.
A buzzing sound came from the corridor. Jiang Qiaoxi rushed out to buy fever medication, having given all his money to his cousin’s wife, hoping his Octopus card still had funds. He saw the fallen phone on the floor.
The screen displayed: Incoming call – Dad.
“Uncle Lin,” Jiang Qiaoxi descended the stairs, trying to remember where the nearest 24-hour pharmacy was, stammering into the phone, “Yingtao came to Hong Kong. She, she came to find me. She has a fever…”
Uncle Lin Haifeng was silent for a moment.
“This silly girl of ours…” he sighed softly.
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his head.
“Uncle Lin, I’m sorry…” Jiang Qiaoxi’s voice trembled with shame.
“Qiaoxi.”
“Yes.”
“How are you doing in Hong Kong,” Uncle Lin Haifeng asked gently, “Are you… are you alright?”
Jiang Qiaoxi stood at the intersection, swallowing the emotions surging up, his voice choked, “I’m doing fine.”
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Our Generation – Chapter Notes:
“Jiang Qiaoxi remembered it was a comedy sketch about the Beijing Olympics”: “Beijing Welcomes You” was one of the comedy sketches in the 2009 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, performed by Guo Da, Cai Ming, Zhao Qi, Jeremy, Yu Heng, Huang Yang, and Song Yang. The sketch tells the story of Guo Da and Cai Ming competing to be Olympic volunteers but making jokes while giving directions, finally successfully helping a bride find her groom.
“Algebraic Surfaces and Holomorphic Vector Bundles” by Robert Friedman. Jiang Qiaoxi was reading the English version in Hong Kong.
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” is a fantasy film directed by David Yates and starring Daniel Radcliffe. The film is based on the 7th book in the Harry Potter series. Part 1 was released on November 19, 2010.