Lin Qile loved saying “Jiang Qiaoxi” these three words. She said them from morning to night, from school to home, from sunrise to moonset, from early autumn to deep winter. In the blink of an eye, 1999 was ending. As Jiang Qiaoxi walked home, he heard Lin Qile, who had just finished fighting with Yu Qiao, chasing after him, calling out “Jiang Qiaoxi” these three words.
At first, Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t understand: What was so special about these three words?
But Lin Qile seemed to love them.
When playing house, she would mumble, repeating this name to her Bobby doll. Without the doll, Lin Qile would say the name to the air beside Jiang Qiaoxi.
Lin’s father and the surrounding uncles and aunts teased her, but Lin Qile felt no shame. The next time she saw Jiang Qiaoxi, she would say it again.
Jiang Qiaoxi once noticed that the “xi” in his name sounded like a crisp laugh when Lin Qile said it, and even her mouth formed a smile as she spoke.
Every time Lin Qile said his name, it felt as if she was laughing. The more she said it, the happier she seemed.
Jiang Qiaoxi entered Electrician Lin’s home, almost as if he were their son now. Electrician Lin first praised Jiang Qiaoxi for his “quadruple crown” in the exams, then asked, “Did your father say when you’ll return to the provincial capital for the holiday?”
“Not yet,” Jiang Qiaoxi replied. Lin Qile, who had just entered, heard this and stared at them blankly.
Jiang Qiaoxi went to the backyard to feed the rabbits. Through the screen door, he heard Lin Qile’s faint sobs from inside.
“Qiaoxi will go back to the provincial capital for winter break and Chinese New Year, but he’ll return when school starts,” Uncle Lin said.
“That’s what you said last time…” Lin Qile cried intermittently, her voice full of grievance. “Chen Minghao, Brother Minghao went to the provincial capital and never came back…”
“Cherry,” Lin’s mother comforted her softly, “don’t cry. Qiaoxi might hear you. Aren’t there other children at the construction site? Yu Qiao and the others haven’t transferred away, have they?”
Lin Qile cried harder: “Yu Qiao, Yu Qiao will leave too…”
Electrician Lin said, “When some children leave, new ones will come. Alright? Don’t cry.”
Whether Lin Qile was comforted by these simple words or for some other reason, she quickly wiped her face and stopped crying. Jiang Qiaoxi finished feeding the rabbits for her, washed his hands, and sat down to eat with her.
After eating, Lin Qile went to her small bed for a nap. Jiang Qiaoxi entered her little bedroom and sat down on the bamboo mat in the passageway beside her bed, lowering his head to continue working on his math olympiad problems.
Outside the wardrobe, Mr. and Mrs. Lin were also asleep.
That noon, the bedroom was exceptionally quiet.
Only the sound of Jiang Qiaoxi’s pen tip making a light, persistent scratching noise on the scratch paper could be heard. Only Lin Qile’s soft breathing after crying could be heard as she slept.
If Lin Qile had woken up then and seen what Jiang Qiaoxi was doing beside her, she would have thought he was solving some complex, difficult problem. But only Jiang Qiaoxi knew that he was just writing meaningless numbers.
The heating was intense. Lin Qile woke up from her nap and went out to drink water, wearing her little rabbit-shaped cotton slippers. She returned with a plate of fruit and sat down beside Jiang Qiaoxi.
“Have you been working on problems all afternoon?” Lin Qile asked drowsily, looking at his scratch paper.
“How many points did you get on your final exam?” Jiang Qiaoxi asked.
Lin Qile’s eyes were already large, and after crying, her eye sockets were red, making it impossible not to focus on her eyes.
Lin Qile shook her head, her ponytails brushing against her shoulders. It was clear she hadn’t done well.
“Then why were you so happy after school?” Jiang Qiaoxi asked.
Lin Qile lowered her head, turning over a small bunch of bananas on the fruit plate, changing them from “sitting” bananas to “lying down” bananas.
“Look, now their bottoms won’t hurt,” Lin Qile said to Jiang Qiaoxi.
But Jiang Qiaoxi kept staring at Lin Qile’s face.
Lin Qile’s first attempt to change the subject had failed.
“Du Shang said I’m distracting you from your studies,” Lin Qile admitted honestly. Then she asked, “Shall we go to Cai Fangyuan’s house to play ‘The Legend of Sword and Fairy’ this afternoon?”
“Then why were you crying before dinner?” Jiang Qiaoxi asked.
Lin Qile’s second attempt to change the subject hadn’t even begun before it faced a crisis.
Lin Qile forcefully pulled out a very large iron box from under her small bed.
“Jiang Qiaoxi, if you’re going to move away too,” Lin Qile opened the box lid and showed Jiang Qiaoxi what was inside. She wasn’t crying, “Will you give me something too?”
The box contained nothing but a messy assortment of small trinkets and pictures, looking like unwanted junk.
“This Mickey Mouse bookmark was given to me by Brother Chen Minghao,” Lin Qile picked up a thin, yellowed transparent plastic bookmark to show Jiang Qiaoxi.
She rummaged through the iron box again: “This flower fairy hair clip was given to me by Sister Zheng Xiaochen. You might know Sister Zheng Xiaochen, she also moved to the provincial capital for school…”
Lin Qile had followed her parents from one construction site to another across different cities since she was little. Power plants were springing up across China’s landscape. Whenever a new power plant was completed, all the power construction workers would move with their families to the next place that needed development.
Lin Qile was used to moving. Each time, she would lose many things, not just her toys and books, but also her schoolmates and the uncles and aunts who lived nearby…
She had only known Jiang Qiaoxi for half a year, but for Lin Qile, this was already quite long. Lin Qile was used to greeting every stranger with the greatest enthusiasm.
“Will you move away?” she asked.
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “Yes.”
Lin Qile’s eyes widened. Perhaps she still couldn’t face it: “When will you move?”
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “When I grow up.”
Lin Qile was stunned: “What do you mean?”
Her bedroom was tiny, less than ten square meters. With the two of them sitting side by side on the bamboo mat, Lin Qile could almost feel a light breeze brush her cheek when Jiang Qiaoxi spoke.
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “You asked me before what I plan to do in the future, right?”
Lin Qile nodded.
“I plan to go to America in the future,” Jiang Qiaoxi, sitting in this extremely isolated place, told Lin Qile in a tone that didn’t match his age, “and never come back.”
America. Lin Qile was startled by this word.
She had originally thought Jiang Qiaoxi meant moving back to the provincial capital from this small place called Qunshan.
“America…” she was momentarily confused, “Is that… the America that bombed our South… South something?”
“Yes,” Jiang Qiaoxi nodded.
Lin Qile stared at Jiang Qiaoxi with her cherry-like big eyes.
“I heard Americans are all bad,” Lin Qile said.
Jiang Qiaoxi smiled.
“What are you smiling at?” Lin Qile asked.
“Who isn’t bad?” Jiang Qiaoxi said.
Lin Qile was startled again by Jiang Qiaoxi’s words.
Jiang Qiaoxi glanced at the shabby large iron box Lin Qile was holding. For a moment, he felt that Lin Qile was indeed just a little girl from a small place, without much knowledge of the world.
Of course, she was cute. She had a pair of docile little white rabbits, her voice was pleasant to hear, and her two ponytails always swung back and forth, making people want to see her angry. She was surrounded by a group of boys, but she didn’t seem to understand why they liked to play with her.
“Whatever you want,” Jiang Qiaoxi made his promise to Lin Qile, “I’ll give it to you before I leave in the future.”
After dinner, the adults and children of the Qunshan construction site dormitory all went out for entertainment. Jiang Qiaoxi sat on the steps in front of the Workers’ Club, talking with Yu Qiao and Cai Fangyuan.
Lin Qile was dragged to the lawn by Du Shang to “practice martial arts” with him.
Lin Qile was preoccupied. While halfheartedly dealing with Du Shang’s “Six Veins Divine Sword,” she kept glancing at Jiang Qiaoxi sitting on the distant steps, using the construction site’s street lights.
“Du Shang,” Lin Qile asked, “do you know where America is?”
Du Shang was steadying his horse stance, accumulating internal energy in preparation to break through Lin Qile’s “Ambidextrous Swordplay.” When Lin Qile asked him a question, he lost focus, and his internal energy dissipated.
“America?” Du Shang said, “Why are you asking about that?”
“Do you know or not?” Lin Qile pressed.
Du Shang walked to her side, wracking his brain to recall the world map he had seen at school: “I think it’s on the opposite side of the Earth?”
“Anyway, it’s very, very far from us!”
When Jiang Qiaoxi first transferred to their school, he didn’t look like an ordinary child. Lin Qile realized this early on, but she still hadn’t expected that the things Jiang Qiaoxi thought about every day were so different from theirs.
“Do you need to be good at math olympiads to go to America?” Lin Qile asked.
Jiang Qiaoxi shook his head.
Lin Qile asked, “Then why do you still study so hard?”
Jiang Qiaoxi looked a bit helpless and told Lin Qile, “I can’t not study.”
Lin Qile sat beside him for a while, then asked, “Does it take a lot of money to go to America?”
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “My cousin’s family will pay for it.”
Lin Qile asked, “Doesn’t Uncle Jiang know?”
Jiang Qiaoxi looked up at her: “Don’t let him know.”
Lin Qile’s mind didn’t work that quickly. She couldn’t understand why there would be parents who had no interest in nurturing their child, yet were unwilling to let the child leave their side.
Jiang Qiaoxi continued working on his math olympiad problems. Lin Qile brought bananas and cola from outside, then sat back down beside Jiang Qiaoxi, hugging her Bobby doll.
As soon as the Bobby doll was switched on, it screeched at Lin Qile: “Mama! Mama!”
Jiang Qiaoxi looked up briefly. Lin Qile pressed another switch, and the Bobby doll asked Jiang Qiaoxi, “What’s your name?”
Lin Qile waited to hear, but Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t speak.
Lin Qile answered for him: “Jiang Qiaoxi!”
The Bobby doll then screeched, recording Lin Qile’s voice: “Jiang Qiaoxi! Jiang Qiaoxi!”
Lin Qile giggled. Jiang Qiaoxi smiled but complained: “It sounds awful.”
At that moment, Lin’s father pushed open the door. Seeing the two children playing happily, he said, “Qiaoxi, your father is here. Come out for a moment.”
The smile that had just appeared on Jiang Qiaoxi’s face vanished. Lin Qile sat in place, watching Jiang Qiaoxi put down his book and walk out of the bedroom.
Jiang Qiaoxi’s mother, Liang Hongfei, said on the phone that she had already registered him for a competition class in the provincial capital. They would leave Qunshan City tonight, arriving just in time for the first lesson early tomorrow morning: “Neither Dad nor Mom will be in the provincial capital. Will you be all right to attend the tutoring class by yourself? Your former classmate Fei Linge has invited you to stay at his house, so you should go there.”
Lin Qile hugged her Bobby doll, watching as her parents suddenly entered the bedroom and picked up Jiang Qiaoxi’s half-finished math olympiad problems and the math textbooks sent from Hong Kong.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Electrician Lin said, “Cherry, Qiaoxi is leaving soon. Help him pack his books. Look, which books are his?”
Jiang Qiaoxi went home first. He took out his clothes and packed his luggage with the driver’s help. When he came out, the sky was completely dark, with only some light shining from under the eaves. Jiang Qiaoxi shouldered his square backpack and saw Lin Qile still hugging that Bobby doll, standing in front of him.
Jiang Qiaoxi said to her, “I’m leaving now.” He walked past Lin Qile, following the driver towards the car parked at the end of the row of brick houses.
Jiang Zheng had to stay at the Qunshan construction site to continue working. He watched his younger son’s departing figure, licked his lips, and didn’t go to see him off.
Instead, it was Lin Qile who chased after him: “Jiang Qiaoxi!”
Jiang Qiaoxi reached the car and put his backpack inside. Standing outside the car door, he could see the main road of the Qunshan construction site, where old people and children were chatting and playing, all enjoying this evening harmoniously.
Jiang Qiaoxi took the Bobby doll from Lin Qile’s arms and pressed the switch.
“Jiang Qiaoxi! Jiang Qiaoxi!”
Although this Bobby doll was called a “fairy,” it only had simple recording and playback functions. In other words, the “Jiang Qiaoxi” sound it made wasn’t speaking, but just Lin Qile’s voice recorded earlier and digitally processed.
“I’m taking it,” Jiang Qiaoxi said, holding the doll.
Lin Qile was stunned: “Huh?”
By the time Lin Qile came to her senses, Jiang Qiaoxi had already gotten into the car, holding the doll that called Lin Qile “Mama,” and left the Qunshan construction site.
The year 2000 arrived. After waking up, Lin Qile first looked around her room, then at the empty small cushion by her bed.
“There’s no such thing as the end of the world. Cai Fangyuan is a liar,” Lin Qile said bitterly while brushing her teeth.
Our Generation – Chapter Notes:
- “Xianjian”: A standalone RPG game called “The Legend of Sword and Fairy,” with the first installment released in July 1995.
- “Bombed our southern… southern something American”: On May 8, 1999, a U.S. B-2 bomber launched three precision-guided bombs, hitting the Chinese Embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (then known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), resulting in the deaths of three Chinese journalists—Shao Yunhuan, Xu Xinghu, and Zhu Ying—and injuring dozens more, with severe damage to the embassy building. This incident is referred to as the “May 8 Incident.” (The bombing and its aftermath led to a sudden deterioration in the relations between China and the United States, which had been improving due to reciprocal visits by the leaders of the two countries. By the end of 1999, relations began to recover, with NATO providing financial compensation to the victims and repairing the damaged Chinese embassy. The Chinese government also compensated for the damage caused to American diplomatic properties by protesters.)
- “Six Veins Sword”: A supreme martial art from Jin Yong’s wuxia novel “Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils,” associated with the Dali Duan clan.
- “Dual Cultivation Technique”: A martial arts technique from Jin Yong’s novel “The Legend of the Condor Heroes,” created by the eccentric character Zhou Botong on Peach Blossom Island. The key to this technique lies in “divided attention,” where the user simultaneously employs two different sets of martial arts techniques with enhanced power.