The taxi was still waiting across the street; the driver had probably agreed on a time with Lin Yingtao. Lin Yingtao entered the elevator, carrying her backpack and pulling her suitcase. At first, Jiang Qiaoxi wanted to help her, but seeing Lin Yingtao lowering her head and not letting him carry it, he reached out to press the floor button instead. After pressing it, he took a deep breath and stood beside Lin Yingtao in the elevator.
The atmosphere was as if a layer of ice had formed. Jiang Qiaoxi had thought the night view of Victoria Harbour would cheer Yingtao up a bit, but it seemed not to have worked. Yingtao appeared completely uninterested in Hong Kong’s beauty and prosperity. When the elevator reached the eleventh floor, Lin Yingtao carried her suitcase out herself. Her arms were so thin, yet she dragged her luggage through the unfamiliar, cheap apartment building in Hong Kong without fear, moving forward resolutely.
Jiang Qiaoxi exited the elevator behind her. The corridor lights were dim, and he watched her back.
The door to the rented room opened, and Lin Yingtao walked in. The room was just as they had left it that afternoon. Jiang Qiaoxi entered, turned on the light, and hung the suit and shirt his cousin’s wife had ironed on the cabinet door. He took off his backpack, threw it on the floor, and then closed the door behind him.
Lin Yingtao held onto her suitcase, unable to resist looking around the small, stuffy old room where Jiang Qiaoxi had lived for three years, at the narrow bed where Jiang Qiaoxi slept.
She turned around and saw Jiang Qiaoxi standing behind the door. He was tall with broad shoulders, blocking most of the doorway.
“Why are you leaving so soon after arriving?” Jiang Qiaoxi looked down at her, asking wearily.
Lin Yingtao heard a “beep” in the rented room as Jiang Qiaoxi turned on the air conditioning.
She let go of her suitcase handle. Lin Yingtao looked up; the ceiling was low, making even the light seem oppressive, but this environment seemed to not affect Lin Yingtao.
“I… I never forgot you,” Lin Yingtao looked at Jiang Qiaoxi, her voice still choked with tears. She said softly, “That’s the first thing I wanted to tell you.”
Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly heard this confession. He stood by the door without moving.
Lin Yingtao looked at him.
“Then, although I don’t know exactly what happened to your family when you left and answered that phone call, I think I heard a bit,” Lin Yingtao thought for a moment, swallowing. “You’ve been at the hospital late at night, right?”
Jiang Qiaoxi raised his eyes to look at her, his eyelashes trembling before lowering again.
“I came to Hong Kong this time,” Lin Yingtao looked at him, “just to find you, to know what happened to you, why you suddenly left after high school graduation without telling anyone and stopped answering my calls. Your parents divorced and moved away, and I couldn’t find you anymore. Jiang Qiaoxi, I want to hear you talk about what happened, and then…” She swallowed again, “I originally thought, if I couldn’t find you this time, I’d come again during the winter break—”
“Yingtao, I’m sorry…” Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his eyes, speaking with shame.
Lin Yingtao’s eyes immediately reddened again as she looked at him.
“You do owe me an apology…” She cried, “Now I’ve found you, but you still won’t tell me anything… You live in such a run-down little room, yet book such an expensive hotel for me by Victoria Harbour. What do you want me to do? Enjoy Hong Kong as if nothing’s wrong, then go back, continue thinking about you, continue not being able to find you, continue waiting, continue not being able to forget you?”
“No, I…” Jiang Qiaoxi said.
“Aren’t you afraid at all that we might just part like this?” Lin Yingtao asked him through tears, “What does it matter if I remember you?”
“I want to be in love too… I want someone to be with me…” Lin Yingtao said, hurt, her nose red from crying, looking at him with teary eyes, “If you don’t like me, I won’t call numbers that no one answers anymore, I won’t send messages that no one replies to… After all, Jiang Qiaoxi, you’re not the only person I’ve ever liked from childhood. I can like someone else…”
Jiang Qiaoxi stood rigid, saying nothing.
“Before, we couldn’t date because we were in school. Now your cousin is sick and in the hospital,” Lin Yingtao looked at him, “So what about the future? What reason will it be next time? Even if I keep waiting for you, how long do I have to wait?”
“…When it rains in Beijing, I always worry if you have an umbrella. During typhoons, I worry if it’s safe for you to go out. When I see car accidents on the road, I wonder what would happen if you got into an accident outside, and I don’t even know where you are…” Lin Yingtao cried, her mouth open, “I don’t want, I don’t want to keep being like this anymore, thinking about you alone, without even a phone call. I don’t care where you study, I don’t care if you have money or not. Before, when you wanted to go abroad, I thought, okay, I can wait for you for eight or nine years. What does it matter if we don’t have money? My parents are workers, my family doesn’t have much money either. Your cousin is sick, but who doesn’t get sick? Whose family doesn’t have relatives who get sick? Why do you ignore me and reject me because of these reasons? You even said not to forget you, but what’s the point of remembering you even if I do? If I fall in love, if I get married, if I have my own family, and I still remember you, Jiang Qiaoxi, what’s the meaning of that??”
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his head, standing by the door, gasping for air just like Lin Yingtao.
“Jiang Qiaoxi, I will forget you,” Lin Yingtao said softly, tears on her cheeks, “When I was ten… I thought this way when I was ten… But we were still very young then… Now we’re already twenty, we can’t be children forever, we can’t keep doing foolish things forever…”
Before she could finish speaking, the doorbell suddenly rang.
In the middle of the night, the only person who could be ringing the doorbell was the taxi driver waiting downstairs.
Lin Yingtao took off her backpack, lowered her head, opened it, and took out an Olympic Mathematics book, placing it on Jiang Qiaoxi’s bedsheet. She turned around, put her backpack on, and said, “I spent quite a bit of money coming to Hong Kong this time. I guess you wouldn’t accept it even if I gave it to you. I don’t want to burden you too much, so I’ll transfer it to your landlord.”
She reached for her suitcase handle and walked to the door.
Jiang Qiaoxi was still standing behind that door. He was so tall, but in front of her, his figure seemed thin. He had almost no ability to shelter her from wind and rain. He could barely take care of himself, let alone give her a proper home or a hopeful future that would reassure their families.
“Move aside, I’m leaving,” Lin Yingtao looked up at him and said softly.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood behind the door for a moment, then moved aside. He lowered his head, standing by the door, not even saying a word of goodbye.
Lin Yingtao turned the doorknob, holding back her tears, and walked out pulling her suitcase.
Jiang Qiaoxi’s shoulders drooped, and suddenly he leaned back against the wall.
Lin Yingtao held onto her suitcase as she walked out the door, passing through the corridor, lowering her head to wipe the tears falling on her face with the back of her hand.
The doorbell continued to ring. Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly picked up the receiver and said in Cantonese, “You can leave. No one is going.”
Lin Yingtao held back her tears in the elevator. As soon as the elevator doors opened, she went out with red eyes and immediately saw the taxi driver blocking the entrance. Upon seeing her, the driver became agitated and started ranting in Cantonese, occasionally pointing at his watch, his face red and spittle flying.
Lin Yingtao was stunned.
A tall young man came down from upstairs. He exited the apartment building and saw Lin Yingtao stumbling through explanations in English and Mandarin to the driver on Hong Kong Street late at night.
Jiang Qiaoxi hurried over, took all the money left in his pocket, and shoved it into the driver’s hand.
The driver cursed, looked down at the money in his hand, then glanced at the young couple in front of him. He waved his hand and got into the car.
Jiang Qiaoxi hugged Lin Yingtao tightly and said, “Yingtao, I beg you, don’t go…”
On the streets of Hong Kong in the early hours of the morning, there were still occasional pedestrians. Homeless people sat by the roadside, dozing with newspapers covering their heads. Tourists carrying shopping bags walked in groups of three or five, drinking beer and laughing loudly.
More often, there were ordinary people busy making a living. They moved goods, prepared stock, working from early morning to late night, from dawn to dusk, only able to return home and reunite with their families at this hour.
Lin Yingtao turned around and was desperately embraced by Jiang Qiaoxi, held in his arms without even a sliver of space between them. Lin Yingtao could barely breathe, her chin resting on Jiang Qiaoxi’s shoulder. She closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. She felt his embrace was incredibly warm. Jiang Qiaoxi’s shoulders were shaking as he said desperately, “I beg you, don’t go…” Lin Yingtao raised her head and was kissed by him.
At first, it was just a salty kiss. Jiang Qiaoxi breathed deeply, holding Lin Yingtao’s waist tightly. Lin Yingtao’s hands were on his neck and back. Lin Yingtao mumbled into his shoulder, “In the future… I never want to forgive you again…”
When Cai Fangyuan called at four in the morning, Lin Yingtao was bending over to wash her face in the public bathroom at the end of the corridor. She had cried too much today, crying until her head hurt, and she felt her eyes would be swollen the next day.
Jiang Qiaoxi sat in the rented room, on the edge of the bed, facing the small room, looking at Lin Yingtao’s suitcase and backpack by the wall. Yingtao said she had canceled her hotel room. Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his head, inevitably feeling regretful again. He didn’t want Yingtao to stay in a place like this.
Jiang Qiaoxi still had his pride and self-esteem, but his pockets were empty.
They had grown up and had to learn to stand on their own feet.
Cai Fangyuan asked on the phone, “Sis, why did it take you so long to answer? Are you at the airport?”
Jiang Qiaoxi was silent for a moment, then said, “It’s me.”
Cai Fangyuan suddenly went quiet on the phone.
“My goodness, long time no see!” Cai Fangyuan said, his tone immediately rising.
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his eyes and smiled.
“What’s going on?” Cai Fangyuan asked, puzzled. “Lin Yingtao called me in the middle of the night, crying and asking how to change her flight ticket!”
Jiang Qiaoxi listened to Cai Fangyuan’s familiar tone. His old classmate hadn’t changed a bit after all these years.
“I’m sorry,” Jiang Qiaoxi said apologetically.
“Don’t be,” Cai Fangyuan hurriedly said. “Lin Yingtao and I are close—no, Jiang Qiaoxi, why are you being so polite with me?”
Lin Yingtao came back after washing her face and saw Jiang Qiaoxi with his head lowered, holding her phone in one hand and writing down a number on his phone with the other.
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “Later then, you want to take the CPA exam too?”
Cai Fangyuan said on the other end, “Forget it, I could never pass that—”
Jiang Qiaoxi looked up and saw Lin Yingtao standing in front of him. He took her hand and said, “Cai Fangyuan.”
Lin Yingtao took the phone. Jiang Qiaoxi held her wrist, and she sat on Jiang Qiaoxi’s knee, being hugged tightly. Cai Fangyuan said in a strange tone on the phone, “Lin Yingtao, did you sleep with Jiang Qiaoxi??”
Lin Yingtao was stunned. Afraid that Jiang Qiaoxi might hear, she said, “What nonsense are you talking about? No!”
Jiang Qiaoxi held her waist tightly, burying his head in Lin Yingtao’s shoulder, breathing deeply as if he hadn’t heard anything.
Cai Fangyuan said, “Then why did you run out of the hotel crying so late to go to his place?”
Lin Yingtao mumbled, “I went to talk to him, is that not allowed…”
Cai Fangyuan said, “All right, all right, go enjoy your time with your boyfriend in Hong Kong. I’m going to sleep.”
Jiang Qiaoxi’s eyes were red. He went into the bathroom, closed the door, and quickly took a shower. He changed into a new T-shirt and long pants and dried his hair.
He walked into the rented room, closed the door, and saw Lin Yingtao kneeling on the bed. The girl had changed out of her T-shirt and short skirt into a light blue nightgown with soft lace. Her long hair fell, and she was playing with his phone.
Jiang Qiaoxi turned off the light.
The bed was only 1.2 meters wide, with just one pillow. Jiang Qiaoxi took out a spare blanket and folded it to use as a makeshift pillow. He slept on the outside, not minding if he fell off in the middle of the night. Lin Yingtao lay on her side on the inside, and Jiang Qiaoxi reached out his arm so she could lean against his chest.
On the autumn night, it was hard to tell whose face might be red. Jiang Qiaoxi pulled the blanket over to wrap Lin Yingtao well, considering she had just recovered from a fever.
“Isn’t the iPhone very expensive?” Lin Yingtao asked, her small face illuminated by Jiang Qiaoxi’s phone screen.
Jiang Qiaoxi’s hand held her under the blanket: “My landlord upgraded to an iPhone 4 and sold this to me at a discount.”
Lin Yingtao leaned against Jiang Qiaoxi, playing with the phone. She always seemed to quickly forget unhappy things.
“The screen is locked,” she said softly.
“Your birthday…” Jiang Qiaoxi mumbled drowsily.
He hadn’t slept well yesterday, and today he had made two trips to the hospital, morning and night, for Yingtao and his cousin. As soon as he lay down, holding Yingtao, he could no longer resist sleep.
Lin Yingtao could hear his breathing, very light. She entered her birthday, and the screen indeed lit up.
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Notes for this Our Generation – Chapter:
Jiang Qiaoxi’s phone: iPhone 3GS, Apple’s third-generation phone released on June 9, 2009. It was discontinued on September 5, 2012.
iPhone 4: Apple’s fourth-generation phone was released on June 8, 2010. It is considered one of Steve Jobs’ most classic works. The operating system “iPhone OS”