Lin Yingtao, having spent years with children, understood the rules of the adult world but retained a certain innocence.
“Why did I work so hard to get into medical school?” Du Shang grumbled, eating noodles during his night shift while on the phone with Lin Yingtao. “We earn cabbage money but stress like drug dealers. Look at Wei Yong, never studied hard, yet he’s so successful. How?”
Lin Yingtao, lounging on the sofa and peeling pistachios while watching “Boss & Me,” replied, “How would I know? Some people are born with golden blood types and meet big CEOs. Just luck, I guess!”
“What’s the point of all these years of study?” Du Shang fumed.
“Well… you can’t say that,” Lin Yingtao reasoned. “For ordinary people like us, if we hadn’t studied hard, we’d be worse off now…”
Du Shang pondered, “You have a point.”
“Besides,” Lin Yingtao continued, lowering the TV volume, “Didn’t you always want to be a doctor? Your dream came true, Du Shang. Isn’t that lucky?”
Du Shang fell silent for a moment.
“You’re right,” he said softly, then added, “But…”
“What is it?” Lin Yingtao asked.
“It’s just… being in this profession feels so different from what I imagined before,” Du Shang explained.
Lin Yingtao turned her head, hearing Jiang Qiaoxi on a conference call in the study.
“I understand,” Lin Yingtao said quietly. “But… everything’s different from what we imagine.”
“Our childhood ideals were based on limited understanding,” she continued. “When I first interned in college, I felt crushed too, realizing how different reality was from my expectations.”
“But,” she added, “This is what we chose. We have to face it.”
“My daily life now,” Du Shang said softly, “feels like your internship days… In school, we mostly interacted with people like us. But out here… since that violent incident against a doctor in our hospital, my colleagues and I now focus on memorizing escape routes…”
Lin Yingtao heard him mumble, “Why did I become a doctor?”
“Is it that serious?” she asked.
“Very serious,” Du Shang replied resignedly. “Think about it. We study for eight years and work hard, and suddenly a random person could paralyze us. Who wouldn’t be scared?”
Lin Yingtao suggested building police stations near hospitals.
Du Shang said, “It’s not that simple.”
“If they hit you, hit back,” Lin Yingtao proposed.
“Then it becomes a ‘mutual fight.’ Can we afford to hit back?” Du Shang explained.
“Good thing I wasn’t like kids today,” Du Shang suddenly reflected. “If I’d been beaten by my dad and then saw doctors getting beaten at the hospital, where would the normal people be? Why can’t people use their mouths for talking and communicating instead of just hitting?”
“Some people don’t know how to communicate,” Lin Yingtao suddenly said. “I’ve seen parents who love their children deeply but still hit them because they don’t know how to communicate. Du Shang, can you believe not everyone can express themselves like you and me?”
“Are you saying,” Du Shang scoffed, “that those who hit us respect us? They don’t want to hit us?”
Lin Yingtao licked her lips, choosing her words carefully. “I mean, if they understood some science, had more education, knew how to express themselves, maybe they wouldn’t act this way.”
“You’re too naive!” Du Shang couldn’t help but say.
He stirred the last of his noodles and slurped them up.
“Yingtao,” Du Shang said, “when you see someone do something bad, you always think they lack education or help. Yes, you’re a teacher, you can think that way. But do you know that some people in this world do bad things simply because they’re bad? What’s the education rate now? Why do these people commit crimes when others don’t? There were illiterates everywhere before, but not everyone was bad!”
He continued, “No matter how hard you teachers try, you can’t educate all the bad people, just like we doctors can’t cure all patients no matter how hard we try!”
Lin Yingtao pressed her lips together, falling silent.
“Look at us…” Du Shang calmed down after a while, his emotions subsiding. “You studied education, I studied medicine. We’re both busy, tired, scolded, and underpaid… Cai Fangyuan’s big boss, Yu Qiao flies big planes. I can only share these frustrations with you.”
Lin Yingtao had always known that she and Du Shang had much in common, regardless of gender.
“You’re better off now, at least you’re at a good kindergarten,” Du Shang said. “Still teaching kids, doing what you want. Look at me…”
Lin Yingtao suggested, “Du Shang, have you thought about going to a private hospital in Hong Kong—”
Du Shang interrupted, “What are you thinking? If people like me go to private hospitals, who’ll treat patients in public hospitals? Besides, private hospitals have fewer patients, and I’m still a novice.”
Lin Yingtao lay down on the sofa. The TV played a dreamy idol drama, but the reality they faced was far from dreamy.
“Du Shang,” Lin Yingtao mused, “do you think our daily lives have value?”
Du Shang thought for a while.
He told her about a patient, a young boy in elementary school, who always clung to Du Shang during check-ups since seeing their chief physician.
“He said he wants to be a doctor when he grows up,” Du Shang wondered. “I told him to think it over. I was tricked into this as a child too, with no one to warn me!”
Lin Yingtao laughed over the phone.
Du Shang laughed too, then sighed.
“This might just be fate,” he said.
“I think it’s quite good…” Lin Yingtao murmured.
Du Shang asked, “What’s good about it?”
“Whether it’s you or me,” Lin Yingtao said, “we’re not the type to go into business, play the stock market, or make big money.”
Du Shang laughed.
“With our personalities,” Lin Yingtao mumbled, “we’re not suited for those things. Even if we tried, we wouldn’t be happy. We probably wouldn’t make money, might even lose money, and could get scammed—”
“It can’t be that bad!” Du Shang said.
“Why not?” Lin Yingtao replied. “If I hadn’t had the dumb luck of meeting Jiang Qiaoxi, I’d probably be making three or four thousand a month now, crying every day when I got home, worse than you…”
“Oh, no…” Lin Yingtao reconsidered, “If I hadn’t met him… I might still be in Qunshan. Because I didn’t study hard in middle school, just played around, I wouldn’t have gotten into a good high school… Who knows what I’d be doing now!”
Du Shang immediately said, “You wouldn’t be.”
Lin Yingtao asked, “Why not?”
Du Shang explained, “By that logic if I hadn’t met you all if Uncle and Auntie hadn’t taken care of me back then, wouldn’t I have been beaten to death by my dad?”
Lin Yingtao was taken aback.
“There’s no such ‘what if,'” Du Shang said. “Yingtao, everything you have today is because you worked hard, and used your wisdom and sweat. You deserved it. Luck played a part, but you seized the opportunity. It’s the same for me. If there weren’t other uncles and aunties, would I never have been able to overcome my dad in my entire life? Wouldn’t there be other ways to change my fate? Couldn’t I have found other opportunities to beat him?”
Lin Yingtao agreed, “Of course, it wouldn’t be forever—”
“Exactly, just like me now,” Du Shang said. “I won’t be making this little salary forever. In our field, we just need to persevere. When I become a chief physician someday, I’ll hire two bodyguards to stand at my office door. Let’s see who dares to hit me then!”
Lin Yingtao burst out laughing.
“You understand all this so well!” she said.
She hadn’t known how to comfort him before.
“But if something happens, you better run fast,” Lin Yingtao said. “After all these years of study and hardship, in case you haven’t become a big shot yet—”
“Of course,” Du Shang stood up, taking his noodle bowl to throw away. He said, “I still have to be the MC at your wedding…”
In the late-night hospital corridor, patients and family members occasionally passed by. This place could be considered one of the cruelest in the human world.
Du Shang tiptoed, “What song do you think I should sing at your wedding?”
In July, the international kindergarten where Lin Yingtao worked was about to start summer vacation, and a group of children were about to graduate. Lin Yingtao had been working overtime for several consecutive days. The kindergarten had arranged a graduation ceremony, featuring children’s talent shows, parent-child activities, and interviews with local TV stations and newspapers. Lin Yingtao also had a series of complex paperwork to complete, juggling between the older children’s graduation and fielding inquiries from relatives and friends about admission conditions for the new school year. Teacher Lin hadn’t been home for dinner for several days, instead eating with colleagues in the office before continuing work.
Busy until eight or nine at night, colleagues who lived far away would pack up to catch the subway or bus. Lin Yingtao lived nearby, so she stayed in the office to finish up, checking commemorative stationery for students and answering late-night calls from parents. Often, when she looked up, Jiang Qiaoxi would already be waiting outside the office door, having been there for who knows how long. He’d bring his chair, drinking a small paper cup of coffee from the office machine. He’d be looking at his phone, perhaps checking the night futures market or work emails.
He didn’t disturb her, just sitting at a distance. When she looked up, she could see the outline of his shoulders in his shirt at the doorway.
After hanging up a call with a parent, Teacher Lin stacked up the remaining unfinished teacher’s messages and the children’s graduation artwork, planning to continue at home. With graduation approaching, everyone hoped to leave the children with good memories, wishing for their healthy growth. This was also Teacher Lin’s first year leading a class. She turned off the computer and air conditioning, then got up to close the lights and windows.
Jiang Qiaoxi hugged her, and they went downstairs together.
Not everyone finds a sense of belonging easily when first entering the workforce. Lin Yingtao had also felt lost, sitting in her small Hong Kong rental, facing Jiang Qiaoxi’s daily early departures and late returns, her future seeming bleak. She’d flip through her textbooks, holding her various certificates, recalling those overwhelming internship experiences—how did those admirable career women in TV dramas manage to live such enviable lives?
Many had joked with Lin Yingtao, or perhaps seriously suggested, about being a full-time housewife, relying on her husband’s income. Jiang Qiaoxi’s sister-in-law and aunt had been housewives in Hong Kong, while Lin Yingtao’s mother had worked on electrical machinery maintenance at the Qunshan construction site in her youth, a job not typically associated with women.
Lin Yingtao equally enjoyed working; she liked the feeling of labor and craved that sense of value. Witnessing her cousin’s family’s situation in Hong Kong made Lin Yingtao feel that Jiang Qiaoxi couldn’t be the sole pillar of their future family.
She had to do something.
Jiang Qiaoxi had never mentioned anything about her being a “full-time housewife.” Many times, when Lin Yingtao was overwhelmed on the phone with their parents in the office, she’d look up to see Jiang Qiaoxi appearing outside the window, coming to take her home—his silhouette, his gaze towards her from afar, always made her feel she could work even better.
The corridor was long and empty, with some delivery boxes piled in the corner and half-finished display boards where teachers had been teaching children about summer plants. Lin Yingtao stood by the stairs and said, “Look, the sunflowers in our garden have bloomed.”
Jiang Qiaoxi, arm around her shoulders, stood on the second-floor platform looking down. In the garden’s small flower bed, a cluster of sunflowers had quietly bloomed in the night.
Lin Yingtao descended the stairs, still holding Jiang Qiaoxi’s hand. She walked over and, in the moonlight, leaned in to look at the sunflower’s disk for a moment.
Her cheeks were round, her big eyes sparkling. She still loved these plants as she did in childhood, though back then, workers planted fields of sunflowers at their doorstep simply because they were easy to grow and provided edible seeds.
Even the security guard at the gate recognized Jiang Qiaoxi now, nodding and greeting Teacher Lin. Lin Yingtao, arm in arm with her husband, stood in the long queue at the bubble tea shop. In front of them were many college couples and high school girls laughing together, discussing the latest viral internet jokes with great energy. Lin Yingtao, tired and with a headache, leaned on Jiang Qiaoxi. As she leaned, Jiang Qiaoxi embraced her to keep her steady.
A high school girl turned back, catching a glimpse of them from the corner of her eye, and quickly turned away. She remained silent for two seconds, then suddenly reached out to tap her still-laughing classmate beside her.
The girls pretended to glance back casually. Their eyes sparkled with interest, gently swaying.
Huddling together, they burst into soft, shy giggles. Perhaps noticing Jiang Qiaoxi had caught their gaze, the girls, bashful as they were, dared not look back again.
“When do you officially start work?” Lin Yingtao asked, accepting the milk tea from him.
Jiang Qiaoxi pocketed the change and watched as Lin Yingtao inserted the straw. She took a sip, pursed her lips, then looked up at him.
“The office is still being renovated,” he replied, observing her contented expression. “Next week, probably.”
The girls who had been queuing in front of them now gathered at the street corner, chatting over their milk teas. Clad in school uniforms, they stole another glance at Jiang Qiaoxi and Lin Yingtao beside him.
Since getting together with Jiang Qiaoxi, Lin Yingtao has become accustomed to such gazes over the past four years. Jiang Qiaoxi, however, had grown up under this kind of attention. Lin Yingtao recalled being one of those “little girls” herself when she was nine.
The street-side food stalls were bustling with business, leaving even Jiang Qiaoxi indecisive. Amid the aromatic scents wafting through the air, nearby residents sat in small groups, enjoying beer, clams, and edamame while engaged in lively conversation. Lin Yingtao smoothed her skirt and took a seat at an empty table. Jiang Qiaoxi sat across from her. Despite having a face better suited for Michelin-starred restaurants, he sat there with her, savoring street food in the warm summer night breeze.
Sometimes, Lin Yingtao felt a sense of surrealism, as if those years in Hong Kong had been an illusion.
After ordering, Jiang Qiaoxi glanced behind him and asked, “Which stalls on this street serve the best food?”
They might end up living in this neighborhood for many years to come.
Lin Yingtao inquired, “Once you start working officially, will you still have time to pick me up?”
Jiang Qiaoxi nodded, his expression serious.
Lin Yingtao watched him.
“I’ll pick you up as much as I can now,” Jiang Qiaoxi said earnestly, “so my wife knows it’s not that I don’t want to come.”
Lin Yingtao smiled.
She took out her phone and opened a playlist Du Shang had sent her that afternoon. “Du Shang says he wants to sing these songs at the wedding. He’s asking if you have any objections.”
Jiang Qiaoxi took the phone and glanced at it. Just then, the waiter brought their noodles. Jiang Qiaoxi chuckled, puzzled, “Can he finish all these songs?”
Jiang Qiaoxi picked up a fish ball from his noodles. It reminded him of the cart noodles he often had for dinner during his university days in Hong Kong. He listened as Yingtao chatted on her phone across the table. She suggested, “How about this: we’ll eat downstairs while you sing on stage! That way, you’ll finish all the songs!”
Before Du Shang could respond, Yu Qiao chimed in on the group chat: “You’re making him sing while you sit and eat?”
It was past nine, and their old friends were all online, bantering and joking in the group chat. Jiang Qiaoxi’s phone buzzed with an email from Feng Letian.
“I went up the mountain to take photos today,” Feng Letian wrote. “I asked a photography enthusiast from our office to help. We’ve taken shots from various angles. Let me know if you’re not satisfied with any, and I’ll ask him to retake them. The mountains look stunning after two summer rainfalls, perfect for photography…”
“Jiang Qiaoxi!” Lin Yingtao suddenly called from across the table.
Jiang Qiaoxi looked up.
Lin Yingtao continued, “Cai Fangyuan wants to sing too, and he’s dragging Huang Zhanjie along—”
Jiang Qiaoxi nodded with a smile, “Let them sing.”
The last line of Feng Letian’s email read: “I can’t wait to attend your and Lin Tong’s wedding ceremony!”
Jiang Qiaoxi downloaded an attached photo and opened it on his phone. The screen displayed verdant mountains with a splash of red, resembling a blooming camellia.
Yingtao’s laughter filled his ears. After a long day at work, her face had been weary from overtime, barely able to stand. Now, she was doubled over with laughter, chatting with friends. Jiang Qiaoxi looked up at her, put away his phone, and said, “Finished eating? Shall we head home?”
The principal of Lin Yingtao’s kindergarten was a domestic expert in Montessori education. The old lady, in her fifties, had just returned from a conference in Shenzhen, making it back just before the graduation ceremony.
Lin Yingtao was playing the piano in her classroom, leading the children in a music game. She encouraged the shy, introverted children who were reluctant to participate in group activities to join in singing and dancing.
Jiang Qiaoxi came to pick her up after work and met the principal at the door. The old lady seemed to have heard about this employee’s spouse. They chatted briefly by the window about Shenzhen and Montessori education in Hong Kong kindergartens. It turned out the principal’s son had returned from overseas and was working in a Hong Kong investment bank. “Little Lin originally wanted to find work in Hong Kong,” the principal looked at Jiang Qiaoxi, “We were lucky to have her stay.”
Jiang Qiaoxi smiled.
The principal looked Jiang Qiaoxi up and down, then glanced through the window at Lin Qile, who was playing the piano in time. Little Teacher Lin always seemed cheerful, spreading happiness to the children. The principal nodded approvingly, “It’s good to give back to your hometown.”
However, outside, not everyone understood the value of Lin Yingtao’s work.
While dining out before Lin Yingtao had to rush back for overtime, they encountered Jiang Qiaoxi’s former classmates from the experimental junior high school.
As a child, the provincial capital had seemed vast. But as an adult, the city felt small enough to bump into acquaintances after just a few steps.
Several junior high classmates approached, warmly greeting Jiang Qiaoxi. He no longer gave people the cold shoulder as he once did. Upon hearing “experimental junior high,” Lin Yingtao unconsciously put down her chopsticks, picked up her bag, and moved to sit beside Jiang Qiaoxi. The classmates immediately brought their friends over to join the table.
“Jiang Qiaoxi, is this… your girlfriend?”
“My wife.”
“You’re already married? Congratulations!”
Lin Yingtao felt a bit disconnected. She lowered her head to sip the vegetable and seafood congee from her small bowl, resting her face on her hand as she listened to the strangers chatting at the table. They talked about junior high school reunions, mentioning that Jiang Qiaoxi hadn’t attended any since graduation, though he had always been a loner, and people couldn’t contact him even when they wanted to see him.
“We were hesitant about coming over to say hello,” the classmates laughed, then apologetically added to Jiang Qiaoxi, “Glad we did… We were worried you might not even remember who we were.”
“We heard you’d returned from Hong Kong, but what a coincidence to run into you today…” another classmate said nervously, his eyes darting. “Wow, how am I sitting so close to you and chatting?”
Everyone at the table laughed. Even Lin Yingtao smiled, glancing at Jiang Qiaoxi, who lowered his head to look at her.
Lin Yingtao ate some shrimp, peeled one, and dipped it in vinegar before offering it to Jiang Qiaoxi. The others discussed their current situations, junior high experiences, former teachers and classmates, and the rumors about Jiang Qiaoxi—national math Olympiad winner, early admission to Tsinghua, University of Hong Kong, Morgan Stanley… Suddenly, someone across the table asked about Lin Yingtao, inquiring how to address her, where she was from, and how she met their junior high “male god” Jiang Qiaoxi.
Lin Yingtao hesitated.
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “Our parents know each other.”
“Oh! Childhood sweethearts?”
Lin Yingtao lowered her eyes, accepting a wet wipe Jiang Qiaoxi had taken out to clean her fingers.
“What do you do for work?”
Jiang Qiaoxi answered for her, saying she was a kindergarten teacher.
“Oh… a preschool teacher?” someone said, their tone changing.
Only after further discussion, when Jiang Qiaoxi mentioned Yingtao’s study in America, her rare teaching credentials, and that her kindergarten was the only legitimate Montessori school in the provincial capital with high fees, did those worldly gazes gradually shift.
They then talked about former female classmates, like Cen Xiaoman, who was said to be hosting cultural programs.
Lin Yingtao lowered her eyes over the leftover dishes. Suddenly, under the table, a large hand grasped hers resting on her skirt. Lin Yingtao looked up to hear Jiang Qiaoxi ask beside her, “Still working overtime at noon? Shall I drop you off?”
Lin Yingtao nodded amidst the surprised glances from across the table.
In Jiang Qiaoxi’s memory, Lin Yingtao was often still that lively little girl who loved wearing small dresses and had chubby little hands. Back then, when unfamiliar uncles and aunts visited their home, or new peers arrived at the construction site, she was always the most excited, curiously circling people, often to the point of annoyance, though she didn’t realize it.
Now, she could understand those unspoken implications and had learned many rules of the secular world. She was guarded and silent in front of strangers she disliked, only occasionally raising her eyes to meet Jiang Qiaoxi’s gaze.
Marriage was like a city; it could bring pain, but also provide a sense of security within one’s comfort zone.
The car arrived at the parking lot. Lin Yingtao felt drowsy but still had to go to work. She reached to unfasten her seatbelt. Jiang Qiaoxi suggested, “Want to sleep for a while?”
“Aren’t you busy?” Yingtao turned to look at him.
“A little longer won’t hurt,” he said with a gentle smile.
The opened car door closed again. Jiang Qiaoxi sat in the back seat, taking the cushion and tossing it to the front. Lin Yingtao came over, leaning against him. She lay down, resting her head on Jiang Qiaoxi’s lap, closing her eyes. Her cheek nuzzled against his trousers like a cat, and she fell asleep in that position.
When she was little, Lin Yingtao always took a nap after lunch. Unlike Jiang Qiaoxi, who never felt sleepy. He would sit on the bamboo mat beside her bed, marking his books, seemingly focused on studying.
Lin Yingtao felt light breaths brushing against the hair on her forehead, then her eyelashes. Taking advantage of her sleep, he came very close to her forehead. Lin Yingtao wanted to open her eyes but was too sleepy to do so. Her hand was grasped, feeling warm.
His palm stroked her hair, so steadily. She fell asleep in his familiar scent, completely unguarded.
The world seemed so small as if it were just half a Mercedes car cabin. Yet it was also so vast.
News notifications from various places kept popping up on Jiang Qiaoxi’s phone screen.
At that moment, hundreds of kilometers away, in a Shanghai hospital, a chief physician was beaten until his head bled, slumping against the corridor wall. Emotional family members of a patient surrounded him, also grabbing and beating two young nurses by their hair.
At the end of the corridor, a group of young doctors and nurses who had initially run away to hide suddenly stopped in a corner. One of them hesitated for less than a second, then suddenly took off his white coat and ran back.
The chief was still surrounded by angry family members when the young male doctor rushed over and hugged him tightly. He immediately received a kick from someone nearby. He pulled the stethoscope from around the chief’s neck. Suddenly, all the family members took a step back.
The young male doctor began to dance wildly in the center of the crowd, holding the stethoscope like nunchucks. With a fierce expression, he screamed and howled, constantly changing poses. He alternated between standing on one leg and spreading his wings like a white crane, adopting Wing Chun stances, and even mimicking the Kamehameha from Dragon Ball. Although he didn’t touch anyone, he truly frightened the surrounding family members and patients, leaving them dumbfounded.
The other young doctors and nurses seized the opportunity to run back, with two of them quickly dragging the chief into a nearby department.
A family member came to his senses and shouted, “The doctor is attacking people—”
Before he could finish, the hospital security team arrived upstairs. The young male doctor, terrified, collapsed to the ground, pretending to faint.
Cai Fangyuan’s company was holding an anniversary event for their flagship online game today. They had not only launched an advertisement featuring a childhood goddess but also spent money on Weibo promotions. However, upon seeing the video news trending, Cai Fangyuan’s face turned pale.
“Holy shit…” he gripped the mouse of the company’s art designer, dragging the video progress bar back and forth, watching the all-too-familiar figure. “What’s going on?!”
Yu Qiao, eating in the airport food court while checking his phone for news, almost spat out his food when he saw Du Shang’s face in the video.
He sent Du Shang a WeChat message: “Are you okay?”
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—
Our Generation – Chapter Notes:
“Boss & Me”: A contemporary urban romance drama adapted from Gu Man’s short novel “Come and Eat, Shan Shan.” It premiered on Jiangsu Satellite TV’s evening Happy Drama slot on July 8, 2014.