During her internship, Lin Yingtao heard a kindergarten teacher say: “We don’t always have to accept gifts from parents. But you know, young lady, people out there are desperately trying to make money, while we’re forever stuck in this childhood stage, babysitting a group of kids. This job has no money, no status, no dignity. University professor sounds impressive, doesn’t it? But a kindergarten teacher? You’re just a nanny! Exhausted all day long, and how can you develop further? If not through the children’s parents, where else?”
“You’re young and from such a good university. Let me advise you, after graduation, to change careers as soon as possible. Can’t you take interdisciplinary postgraduate exams? Study accounting; it’s much more suitable for a young girl.”
Near the New Year, the University of Hong Kong hadn’t started its holiday yet. After finishing class, Jiang Qiaoxi took Lin Yingtao along the school’s hiking trail to climb Victoria Peak.
They went in the afternoon, just in time to see the night view. Jiang Qiaoxi said it was windy at the top and told Lin Yingtao to wear his jacket.
Holding her hand, they walked with frequent stops. Lin Yingtao stood by the roadside, leaning against the exposed, gnarled roots of an ancient tree, smiling at Jiang Qiaoxi’s phone camera. Inexperienced and without water, she drank hot tea with a tea bag from Jiang Qiaoxi’s slightly chipped black thermos.
Lin Yingtao ran to ask passing Sichuan tourists to take a photo of her and Jiang Qiaoxi together.
In exchange, she offered to take their photo too. However, the “Invincible Rabbit” camera was complex, and after fiddling with it for a while, Lin Yingtao had to apologize with a smile. Jiang Qiaoxi came over, took the camera from her hands, took several shots, and returned it to the tourists.
They continued towards the peak. Lin Yingtao asked, “Jiang Qiaoxi, can HKU students go on exchange to UC Berkeley?”
Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly turned to look at her.
He probably understood what she had seen at home.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“Then why didn’t you go?”
Jiang Qiaoxi held Lin Yingtao’s hand, squeezing it gently.
“That was a wish of mine,” he said, looking straight ahead as they climbed, “but not a dream. It had to make way for the dream.”
Hong Kong’s sky darkened. Lin Yingtao, holding an ice cream, queued with Jiang Qiaoxi at the peak. It was crowded and noisy with tourists. In the crowd, Jiang Qiaoxi held her close; Lin Yingtao could only hear his voice speaking near her ear. Standing on the viewing platform, Lin Yingtao looked down at Victoria Harbour’s sea surface, the coastal skyscrapers, and the brilliant lights that never slept, feeling as if she had glimpsed a part of the world’s true face that she had never seen in the mountains, provincial cities, or Beijing.
She was captivated by this unfamiliarity, staring intently at everything before her like a newborn baby.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood behind her the whole time, holding her, and Lin Yingtao didn’t feel afraid even standing so high.
She asked Jiang Qiaoxi what his dream was.
Holding her hand as they left the night-discounted supermarket, Jiang Qiaoxi carried barley, rice, and dried red date tea.
Looking at the damp road ahead, Jiang Qiaoxi said, “My biggest dream now is to have a home.”
Many shops were still open on the street. Lin Yingtao turned her head, hearing a Cantonese song playing in an old record store.
“Having fallen in these ups and downs, twists and turns,
Suddenly realizing, being happy and simple is already the best.”
Lin Yingtao asked, “What kind of home do you mean?”
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “A home for you and me.”
Lin Yingtao said, “We’re still so young.”
Jiang Qiaoxi looked up and said, “I’m not just sweet-talking you, Yingtao. I’m very serious.”
Walking with him on the night road, a double-decker bus passed by. For a moment, Lin Yingtao felt she would spend her life with Jiang Qiaoxi in that small rented room, never going back.
She had originally wanted to tell Jiang Qiaoxi that with his cousin recovering so quickly, it didn’t matter if he didn’t go on exchange. After graduating from HKU, he could still go to UC Berkeley to continue studying mathematics and pursue the doctorate he wanted.
Suddenly, Jiang Qiaoxi’s phone rang. It was Cai Fangyuan calling from Shanghai.
Lin Yingtao looked up, listening to Jiang Qiaoxi use terms she didn’t quite understand while talking to Cai Fangyuan.
“They’re asking you to be an FA before you even graduate?” Cai Fangyuan asked dramatically on the other end.
Jiang Qiaoxi said softly, “It’s just making connections.”
Cai Fangyuan said, “If you want to do it, why not start your own company here after you come back from Morgan Stanley?”
Jiang Qiaoxi laughed, putting his arm around Lin Yingtao’s shoulders, “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’ll take what I can get for now.”
In the apartment elevator, Lin Yingtao asked, “What’s an FA?”
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “Financial Advisor.”
Lin Yingtao looked at him and asked, “Can you make money from it?”
Jiang Qiaoxi thought for a moment: “If my landlord’s family invests… at least 200,000? 300,000?”
Lin Yingtao asked, “Is this money for Cai Fangyuan?”
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “It’s for me.”
The elevator doors opened, and Lin Yingtao gaped: “That much?!”
Jiang Qiaoxi smiled. Lin Yingtao came from a traditional state-owned enterprise worker’s family and knew nothing about the world of capital. He pushed Lin Yingtao’s back, carrying the things in his hand as they walked out.
“The chances of success are quite slim,” he said, “but why not try when there’s an opportunity?”
As soon as he entered the house, he got busy. After changing his shoes, Jiang Qiaoxi took off his jacket, sat on the floor mat, and opened his computer. He began receiving a series of documents Cai Fangyuan had sent to his email.
Lin Yingtao also changed into slippers. She picked up the supermarket bag and took Jiang Qiaoxi’s empty water bottle as she walked out.
Jiang Qiaoxi quickly flipped through the PPT Cai Fangyuan had sent. He called him: “I’m afraid I’ll only know how to improve it better for you after I finish my internship.”
Cai Fangyuan said, “How long is that? Should we develop for another half year?”
Jiang Qiaoxi thought for a moment: “Wait for me.”
Lin Yingtao came in from outside. She had brought a cold beer from the shared kitchen’s refrigerator and placed it on his desk. Jiang Qiaoxi was calling his sister-in-law, and he looked up at her, seeing Yingtao about to go out again. He instinctively grabbed her hand.
His sister-in-law answered. Lin Yingtao said softly, “I’m going to soak the rice.” She pulled her hand away and left, humming a song, happily going to the kitchen outside.
Jiang Qiaoxi asked his sister-in-law if she knew the contact information of an old colleague who had visited his brother in the hospital yesterday.
“Yingtao will leave after the Spring Festival,” he said, “I hope he can arrange a spring internship for me.”
In the kitchen, Lin Yingtao washed the barley and rice, drained the water, soaked them, and picked out the dried date pieces from the red date tea.
Jiang Qiaoxi said he wanted to have a home. Lin Yingtao, washing the date pieces, became sentimental again—she disliked her sentimentality, just like before when she felt she couldn’t keep up with Jiang Qiaoxi’s pace and hesitated to follow him to America. Now Lin Yingtao started to worry again. Jiang Qiaoxi seemed able to earn a lot of money easily, but Lin Yingtao’s future monthly salary would only be two or three thousand yuan. She might not even be able to support herself.
Jiang Qiaoxi made several calls, setting the time for his spring internship. He finished the remaining beer and saw Cai Fangyuan asking in the chat dialog: “How are things with Lin Yingtao now?”
Jiang Qiaoxi lightly tapped the keyboard, replying: “Preparing to propose.”
Lin Yingtao, with messy hair, sat in bed, calculating in a small notebook. She had never lived on her own before and couldn’t figure out if two or three thousand yuan would be enough to support herself.
She looked up to see Jiang Qiaoxi closing his laptop, picking up his phone, and sitting down beside her.
The rented room had poor soundproofing, and they could always hear Lady Gaga’s songs from upstairs. Her music was popular all over Hong Kong.
“My usual expenses?” Jiang Qiaoxi leaned back against the headboard, reaching out to touch the ends of Lin Yingtao’s hair on her shoulder. “I have a scholarship that covers tuition, plus the school’s subsidy—”
“I asked about your expenses,” Lin Yingtao said, noting in her book with a pen.
Jiang Qiaoxi recalled, “Rent, electricity, water, internet, phone, transportation, printing, food. I don’t spend much on entertainment, so not many other expenses…” He watched Lin Yingtao’s expression grow more troubled as she wrote. “What’s wrong?”
Lin Yingtao didn’t answer his question. She lay down on the bed, her face pressed against Jiang Qiaoxi’s chest. At bedtime, she was still tapping away at her phone, seemingly still calculating.
“Stop playing,” Jiang Qiaoxi said.
“Du Shang fought with his girlfriend. He’s crying on Nanjing Road,” Lin Yingtao looked up and said. “Cai Fangyuan is taking a taxi to pick him up and asked me to chat with him for a while first.”
Jiang Qiaoxi held her, surprised.
Cai Fangyuan called, telling Lin Yingtao irritably that he had picked up Du Shang and was taking him back to school: “Wow, his phone is covered in snot and tears. I’ve got to go now, bye.”
“Du Shang and his girlfriend were so close,” Lin Yingtao said. “Du Shang spent all his free time with her to prevent the tragedy that happened to his parents years ago.”
Hearing the serious description of “the tragedy years ago,” Jiang Qiaoxi asked, “Then what are they fighting about?”
Lin Yingtao mumbled, “Because they’re both in medical school. Du Shang said their teacher told them never to marry someone in the same profession. If both are doctors in the future, with endless shifts, outpatient clinics, prescriptions, and surgeries, they might barely see each other all year. Their children would be like left-behind children, always with grandparents. It wouldn’t be a happy family, so they were advised never to marry someone in the same field.”
Jiang Qiaoxi listened, lowering his eyes.
“So his girlfriend discussed it with Du Shang,” Lin Yingtao said. “She felt they had no future. Du Shang’s girlfriend is also from a single-parent family, and she thought maybe one of them should change careers. But Du Shang disagreed, and as they talked, it turned into an argument, and Du Shang broke down crying.”
There was noise from above and below, but Jiang Qiaoxi felt particularly quiet inside. Lin Yingtao also fell silent, leaning in his arms, occasionally glancing at her phone.
“What did you talk about with him for so long?” Jiang Qiaoxi asked.
Lin Yingtao replied, “Nothing particularly useful. I just said we’re both in tough situations and will be very busy with work in the future.”
“My future work will be busy too,” Lin Yingtao said, lifting her head from Jiang Qiaoxi’s embrace, somewhat embarrassed. “And it doesn’t pay much. Du Shang is studying medicine and will become a doctor, which is great. My job, on the other hand, is exhausting with long hours, pays only two or three thousand a month, and offers neither money, status, nor dignity. Besides, all jobs are tiring nowadays. Huang Zhanjie always posts updates late at night, staying up to write his novel. Cai Fangyuan is the same, always busy with his studio work even while eating. Yu Qiao has it worse – Aunt Yu says he’ll be flying all over the place daily. Even if he gets a girlfriend, they’ll be in a long-distance relationship most of the time.”
Jiang Qiaoxi couldn’t help but ruffle Lin Yingtao’s hair.
“I looked up Morgan Stanley, where you’re interning,” Lin Yingtao suddenly looked at him. “They say it’s extremely busy too? Like only sleeping four or five hours a day and having no holidays at all.”
Jiang Qiaoxi took Lin Yingtao’s hand and squeezed it.
“So you knew?” he sighed.
Lin Yingtao rested her forehead on him again.
“I told Du Shang, whatever field you want to switch to unless you’re just coasting, I think very few aren’t tiring.”
After the college entrance exam, life wasn’t as easy as they had imagined. Lin Yingtao sometimes felt that the four years of university were like a buffer slope, giving everyone a chance to approach society and prepare mentally.
Their shoulders were beginning to bear the weight of their own lives – a burden their parents had carried for over twenty years.
Everyone had to strive for their future.
“Du Shang is just too lucky,” Lin Yingtao suddenly said disdainfully. “He’s been sweetly together with his girlfriend since high school. They’re inseparable even in their junior year. If they tried long-distance, I bet he’d be crying at home every day.”
Jiang Qiaoxi chuckled.
Lin Yingtao continued, “I can’t understand how they could start arguing over a teacher’s comment…”
“No money, no status, no dignity?” Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly repeated. “Then what… do you have dreams?”
Lin Yingtao felt a bit shy hearing this.
” I don’t know if I have any dreams,” she said. “I just really enjoy being around children. I think I was happiest when I was little, and children’s thoughts are so pure…”
Suddenly, Lin Yingtao’s phone lit up with a QQ message from Cai Fangyuan:
“I’m speechless. As soon as he arrived at school, his girlfriend was waiting at the gate. They hugged and started crying again!”
Lin Yingtao tossed her phone aside, tired of typing.
“But I remember when I was in kindergarten,” Jiang Qiaoxi said, stroking her hair, “our teachers seemed very nice. They looked happy every day and younger than their peers, not like they were underpaid.”
Lin Yingtao replied, “Well, I don’t know about that…”
Jiang Qiaoxi unlocked his phone. It was past 10 PM, and he sent a text to his cousin’s wife.
She replied quickly, still at the hospital with her husband.
“I’ll ask around for you,” she said, “but Ms. Zhong might be resting already.”
Jiang Qiaoxi pulled Lin Yingtao up. She knelt on the bed, and he suddenly hugged her waist, startling her.
Unexpectedly, a reply came quickly.
His cousin’s wife said, “Ms. Zhong called me. She asked if Yingtao had an AMI certificate. With that certificate, the monthly salary at their kindergarten would be around 20,000 Hong Kong dollars.”
Lin Yingtao hurriedly pulled down her nightgown. Jiang Qiaoxi had already taken off his T-shirt. He looked at the message content for a while, then called his cousin’s wife back.
“20,000?” he asked.
She replied, “If Yingtao has that certificate, I can introduce her to Ms. Zhong tomorrow…”
Jiang Qiaoxi looked at Lin Yingtao’s expression and hesitated, “She probably doesn’t have it…”
His cousin’s wife chatted with Jiang Qiaoxi for a bit longer, explaining that Ms. Zhong considered the certificate very important and that Yingtao could try to get it. However, there were no test centers in Hong Kong or mainland China yet; Ms. Zhong had taken the test in the US. “She said she could write a recommendation letter for Yingtao to study. Does Yingtao have a TOEFL score?”
Lin Yingtao was in Jiang Qiaoxi’s arms, her hands on his shoulders, knees on the bed, and nightgown lifted. Jiang Qiaoxi looked up, eyes bright, and said, “Anyway, you’re coming back for summer break. Why not try taking the TOEFL?”
Lin Yingtao hadn’t processed it all yet, unlike Jiang Qiaoxi with his quick thinking. To him, getting what you want seemed perfectly natural.
“I know about this certificate…” Lin Yingtao said. Jiang Qiaoxi’s fingers were making her knees weak. “But it’s expensive to take… and requires a long study time. It’s not very useful in China either-“
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “Do you know how fast China is developing? How do you know it won’t be useful in the future?”
Lin Yingtao frowned, “The exam costs tens of thousands-“
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “It’s okay, we’ll gradually have money.”
Lin Yingtao rested on his shoulder, her body trembling, knees barely supporting her.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to TOEFL materials after high school graduation…” she said softly.
Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly noticed this comment.
“You studied TOEFL in high school?” he asked.
Lin Yingtao shook her head on his shoulder.
Jiang Qiaoxi initially held Lin Yingtao’s waist, slowly guiding her to sit down. The strap of her nightgown slipped down, and she lowered her head to brush back her hair. Jiang Qiaoxi patiently taught her, like when he used to teach her math problems. It took Yingtao a while to understand, and she tried on her own, holding onto his arms.
“We see him, Jiang Qiaoxi is right ahead!”
On the last day before the Spring Festival holiday, Jiang Qiaoxi stood in the corridor of the University of Hong Kong, chatting with a teaching assistant.
“Still not going on exchange this semester?”
Jiang Qiaoxi shook his head, exchanging New Year greetings with the teaching assistant from Tsinghua University.
“Wish your cousin a speedy recovery,” the assistant said.
Jiang Qiaoxi walked through the crowd, wearing a shirt, carrying a backpack, and hands in his pockets. He was tall with broad shoulders and an exceptionally handsome face, attracting attention wherever he went.
It was the same in high school and now at HKU.
He was that kind of golden boy who never worried or fretted about anything. Jiang Qiaoxi always had an air of otherworldly pride, the kind only those who hadn’t experienced setbacks could possess. In high school, he was always bent over his math books, often appearing cold, ascetic, and aloof.
“Jiang Qiaoxi!” one of them couldn’t help but call from behind a pillar.
Jiang Qiaoxi walked on, only turning his head after the second call.
This sneaky photo was immediately posted in the QQ group.
Followed by a second and third… Jiang Qiaoxi went downstairs.
Below, a girl was on the phone in a corner. She was chatting with someone, getting excited and bouncing on her toes, looking restless.
Jiang Qiaoxi came out of the elevator and walked up to her. He was much taller than her.
Several girls followed down in the elevator, watching in shock as the girl raised her arms to hug Jiang Qiaoxi’s neck. Jiang Qiaoxi stood in the corner, wrapped an arm around her waist, and bent down to kiss her upturned face.
Someone quickly took a photo from a discreet angle and posted it to the group. The previously lively group suddenly fell silent.
Cen Xiaoman’s chat window was privately opened.
“Xiaoman, did you see the photos in the group? Jiang Qiaoxi is really at HKU, and he’s got a girlfriend. She’s quite pretty.”
Cen Xiaoman replied: “It’s Lin Qile.”
“She went there before me.”
Our Generation – Chapter Note
- The first note references a song titled “Peng Zhe Ai” (凭着爱), composed by Lowell Lo with lyrics by Pan Yuanliang. It was originally performed by Taiwanese singer Su Rui and released in February 1989. There’s also a Mandarin version called “Zai Hui Shou” (再回首).
- The second note is about Lady Gaga, the American singer, songwriter, and actress. It mentions her 2011 Grammy win for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance with “Bad Romance”, and the success of her album “Born This Way” released the same year, which sold over a million copies in its first week. The note also explains that “女神卡卡” is the Chinese translation of her name used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.