Situ Jie instinctively felt that Yao Qiyun was hiding something, and with her personality, she wasn’t about to let it go without digging to the bottom of it. After the “photo” incident, once she’d recovered from the shock, she pestered Yao Qiyun about it again and again, both openly and slyly, with questions like “What exactly were you thinking when you looked at my photo? What was going through your mind?” or “Which is better looking, the photo or the real me?” And more often than not, she went straight for the truth: “Why won’t you just admit you like me?”
At first Yao Qiyun would just look awkward and stay silent, dodging whenever he could, but eventually he grew numb to the badgering and simply cut her off the moment she opened her mouth on the subject. “Situ Jie, you narcissist. I already told you, I don’t like you, I don’t like you, I don’t like you…”
Situ Jie refused to believe it. “Then why were you holding my photo, lost in thought?”
“When I was holding your photo, there was only one thing on my mind — whether your skin could possibly get any darker.”
That was what he said, but he never once brought up returning the photo, and Situ Jie never asked for it back either. From then on the photo vanished, never again appearing before both of them at the same time, while their bickering, inseparable days went on as before.
Situ Jie felt more than a little indignant in the face of Yao Qiyun’s stubbornness — his mouth was harder to pry open than a dead duck’s beak. She often declared that even if Yao Qiyun had no taste, there were plenty of others lining up to like her; after all, Lian Quan was already gone, and she had no shortage of choices.
Yao Qiyun always brushed this off, acting like he couldn’t care less who she chose. And yet every time she grew close to one of those “people in line,” within a few days she would inevitably hear some seemingly offhand remark from him: so-and-so’s way of talking was ridiculous, so-and-so had a terrible reputation, so-and-so liked any girl who happened to be a bit good-looking…
Situ Jie would listen, laughing and making faces, and when she couldn’t hold back any longer, she’d dig her nails hard into his palm while he held her hand crossing the street.
In those days, the two of them had fallen in love with jaywalking. A stretch of only a dozen or so meters, glancing left and right, fingers laced tightly together — no words needed, no promises needed, nothing to do with status, nothing to do with the future. Only that hand held in her palm, and she wished the crosswalk could stretch on forever, never reaching the other side.
The college entrance exam results came faster than their romance ever would. After the scores were posted, neither child had disappointed the adults — especially Situ Jie, who thoroughly shattered the old belief that pretty girls couldn’t study and that kids from well-off families never did as well as everyone else, bringing great pride to Situ Jiu’an and his wife.
Ignoring Xue Shaoping’s advice to keep things modest, Situ Jiu’an threw a lavish appreciation banquet for the children at the best restaurant in the city, inviting not only every one of their teachers and the school leadership, but also a great many relatives, friends, colleagues, and clients. By then Jiu’an Hall had grown considerably, having become a well-known enterprise locally, a major private taxpayer, and a name recognized even within the domestic pharmaceutical industry. Well-wishers poured in, many of them people of influence. Situ Jiu’an even arranged chartered transport to bring over relatives from both his own hometown and Yao Qiyun’s, covering all their food and lodging. The whole affair was unprecedented in scale, and the Situ family’s success in raising both a son and a daughter so well became something many people held up as an example.
As one of the guests of honor, Situ Jie herself felt little of the excitement everyone else seemed so caught up in. To her, no matter how well she’d scored, it hardly mattered, because Yao Qiyun hadn’t gone along with her plan to apply to a university in another city, the two of them slipping free of their parents together and heading off toward freedom. Instead he’d obediently followed Situ Jiu’an and his wife’s advice and listed clinical medicine at a local medical university as his first choice. Frustrated as she was, Situ Jie had no choice but to fall in line with her family’s arrangement and applied to the pharmacy school at the very same university. Unsurprisingly, they were both admitted without any trouble.
Xue Shaoping was greatly relieved that they wouldn’t need to study far from home and could stay close by — especially where Situ Jie was concerned. If she’d been left to go off to some other city alone, she’d have been like a wild horse slipping its reins, impossible to ever rein back in. Now that both children had been accepted into good schools nearby, where they could still keep an eye on each other, it was, to her mind, simply the best outcome all around.
And so Situ Jie’s “dream of freedom” came to nothing. The school wasn’t far from home at all — she probably wouldn’t even get to live in the dorms — which meant more years under her parents’ watchful eyes. Setting aside her mother’s grand plan for her to eventually take over Jiu’an Hall after graduating, Situ Jie was, at least, genuinely interested in the field itself, and the school she’d gotten into ranked among the very best medical universities in the country, both in faculty and research strength, so she couldn’t really complain. More importantly, that fellow Yao Qiyun would be there too, and among her future schoolmates was Wu Jiang, who was about to start her sophomore year — which, all things considered, was a stroke of good luck amid the disappointment.
The summer before college was the most tedious kind of idle. Textbooks could finally be tossed aside, the shadow of the entrance exam was gone, and yet there was nothing but boredom in its place. Xue Shaoping told Situ Jie to use the break to settle down and prepare herself for the new Wo Zai Hui Yi Li Deng Ni – Chapter of university life, but Situ Jie felt that if she “settled down” any further she’d turn to dust. What she loved most was going to every kind of classmate gathering she could find, though those gatherings so often doubled as farewells, since so many old friends were about to scatter in every direction.
Partway through the break, Wu Jiang called her out of the blue, brimming with excitement, to invite her to a summer camp. At first Situ Jie scoffed — summer camps were for children. But Wu Jiang said this one was different: it was being jointly organized by the university she was about to attend and the city’s Communist Youth League, aimed mainly at incoming freshmen, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, with the goal — besides fostering friendships — of something like “mutual aid through compassion.” But Wu Jiang knew Situ Jie’s temperament well enough; she wasn’t from a poor family, and she had zero interest in this kind of official event, so Wu Jiang quickly pulled out her trump card: the camp would be held on an island in a reservoir over seventy kilometers outside the city, with an overnight camping trip included, and there was something very mysterious she wanted to show her when they got there.
Sure enough, the promise of camping and Wu Jiang’s “mysterious something” hooked Situ Jie’s curiosity at once. Camping in the wild, over seventy kilometers from the city, was something she’d never experienced before, and ever since starting college, Wu Jiang had taken every opportunity to lord her status as a university student over Situ Jie, describing all sorts of fun new things — Situ Jie was itching to find out just what was worth being so mysterious about.
When Situ Jie brought up the camping trip to her parents, Xue Shaoping had her reservations, but Situ Jiu’an thought it was a good thing for his daughter to take an interest in this kind of charitable, community-building summer camp — it would give her a chance to help out classmates who genuinely needed it — and so he agreed at once, even suggesting Yao Qiyun tag along too. Situ Jie was secretly delighted.
After signing up, they finally counted down the days until departure. For once, Situ Jie didn’t sleep in — she and Yao Qiyun arrived early at the meeting square, planning to find the main group once Wu Jiang showed up and check in together. But after getting off the bus, Yao Qiyun suddenly realized that, having been rushed out the door so hard by Situ Jie that morning, he’d completely forgotten the mosquito repellent. Situ Jie was practically a mosquito magnet — leave her out in the wild for even a minute and she’d be devoured alive.
It was still just after dawn, and most of the nearby shops and supermarkets hadn’t opened yet. Checking the time and seeing they still had some to spare, Yao Qiyun decided on the spot to catch a cab home and grab it. Situ Jie told him not to bother, said the round trip wasn’t worth the trouble. Yao Qiyun just shook his head. “Compared to you getting bitten half to death and then driving me half mad complaining about it, it’s more than worth it. When Wu Jiang gets here, you two go ahead and check in — I’ll be right back.” With that, he flagged down a car and left.
Situ Jie was left waiting alone near the bus stop, at the spot they’d agreed to meet Wu Jiang. Before long, someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around, thinking to herself that Wu Jiang’s touch had never been this gentle before — only to find a girl dressed very plainly standing there instead.
The girl was a head shorter than Situ Jie, carrying a homemade cloth bag, and asked Situ Jie timidly for directions. Her accent was even thicker than Yao Qiyun’s had once been, and clearly from out of province. Situ Jie had to ask her to repeat herself several times before she understood the girl was looking for the statue in the square.
That was, in fact, the very meeting point for the camping trip. Judging the girl to be around her own age, and given the timing, Situ Jie guessed she must also be here for the camp, and happily gave her directions. She even considered walking the girl over herself, but worried she might miss Wu Jiang if she wandered off, and since the statue wasn’t hard to find anyway, she gave up on the idea and instead carefully repeated the route and directions once more.
The girl bowed several times in thanks before hurrying off, and not long after, Wu Jiang arrived. She and Situ Jie found the main group together, checked in, and boarded the bus. Situ Jie saved a seat beside her for Yao Qiyun, then chatted with Wu Jiang, who was sitting in front of her.
Nearly an hour passed, the sky grew fully bright, and it was already past departure time — but Yao Qiyun still hadn’t shown up. Situ Jie started to worry. Under normal circumstances, a round trip like that should have given him plenty of time to spare. The bus, now packed full, began to stir with restlessness, everyone asking why they still hadn’t set off. An upperclassman up front, apparently one of the group leaders, explained to the grumbling crowd that they were still waiting on a couple of stragglers.
Realizing that an entire busload of people was waiting on Yao Qiyun alone, Situ Jie couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt. Watching the group leader glance anxiously at his watch again and again, she couldn’t just sit there either, so she went up and apologized, explaining that the latecomer was her companion and that he’d be there any moment — she was terribly sorry for the delay.
Situ Jie had been the center of attention from the moment she stepped onto the bus, and seeing her approach, the young man had no room left to complain. He assured her it was no trouble at all, and eagerly asked which department and class she was in. Situ Jie gave vague answers while anxiously watching out the window. A grueling fifteen minutes passed, and still there was no sign of him. The other passengers’ irritation kept mounting, and the group leader’s reassurances of “it’s fine, it’s fine” grew more and more strained. Situ Jie’s own anxiety climbed toward its peak — what if something had happened to him on the way? Her thoughts spun in a tangled mess. She was just about to ignore Wu Jiang’s attempts to stop her and get off to call home, when at last Yao Qiyun came hurrying onto the bus.
A great weight lifted off Situ Jie’s chest. The moment she saw him, she grabbed his arm and murmured, half scolding, “Where on earth did you go? You worried me to death.”
The group leader, who only a moment before had been sympathetically fretting alongside Situ Jie over her missing companion, now saw that companion turn out to be a boy — and one whose easy intimacy with her was unmistakably natural. Stung by disappointment, his sympathy curdled instantly into righteous indignation toward the tardy Yao Qiyun. He raised his voice with great solemnity. “Classmate, I really think your sense of time needs some serious work. As Lu Xun said, wasting someone else’s time is the same as robbing them of their life — and you’ve just committed murder against an entire busload of people.”
Faced with this alarming accusation, Yao Qiyun offered no defense. Knowing he was in the wrong, he apologized quietly and followed Situ Jie to their seats.
Once Situ Jie sat down, she realized Yao Qiyun hadn’t been the only one running late — there was a girl trailing silently behind him, eyes red, her build and manner of dress oddly familiar. Looking closer, she realized with a start that it was the very girl who’d asked her for directions by the bus stop. That made even less sense — even walking three laps around the square, the girl should have arrived long before now. So why had she shown up so late, and together with Yao Qiyun of all people?
Situ Jie knew perfectly well that Yao Qiyun was an exceptionally reliable person — the idea of him being so late that an entire bus had to wait was almost unthinkable. Even though he offered no explanation, there had to be a reason. She couldn’t wait any longer and asked, “You still haven’t told me what happened.”
Yao Qiyun just smiled and said nothing until the bus was moving again, and the girl had taken a seat some distance away. Only then did he lean in and explain quietly to Situ Jie, “I went home, got the repellent, and everything went smoothly on the way back. When I got to the square I decided to cut through, and while I was passing that alley off to the side, I saw this girl crying, with two men just disappearing around the corner ahead. There was no one else around, so I asked her what was wrong. Turns out she’d run into scammers — one of them pretended to find a big wad of cash near her and told her they should split it in that alley, and right after, another one showed up claiming the money was his and demanding she return it. She said she hadn’t taken it, but the two of them ganged up and took every bit of cash she had in her bag.”
“No way. She really shouldn’t have been so greedy for a little windfall. But if it’s already been taken, what could you possibly do about it?” Situ Jie found the whole thing baffling. The square did draw a lot of transient people, and it wasn’t unusual for scams to happen in a place like that, but the “found money” trick was so blatantly crude she’d never believed anyone would actually fall for it. Today had opened her eyes — it seemed her parents’ constant reminder that “nothing falls from the sky for free” held truer than ever.
Yao Qiyun kept his voice low. “That’s exactly what I thought at first. I told her if the amount was significant, she should just report it to the police. But she grabbed onto me and begged me to go with her to find those scammers…”
“Are you an idiot? And you actually agreed?”
Yao Qiyun gave a wry smile. “I didn’t know what else to do. She kept crying, saying reporting it wouldn’t help — it was only sixty-some yuan, the police wouldn’t bother looking for it.”
“Sixty yuan — the problem is, could you even find them? Those types know the area better than anyone, and even if you did find them, you’d be the one who ended up worse off.” Situ Jie’s tone sharpened. She knew nothing had happened to him in the end, but the thought of what could have gone wrong still made it feel not worth the risk.
“Just let me finish. She cried so much I gave in — and when I heard she was here for the same camp, I walked around with her nearby for a bit. We never found the scammers, of course, and I realized we were going to be late, so I just quietly gave her sixty yuan myself. It took a lot of convincing before she’d take it, and then we rushed straight over here. That’s the whole story.”
By the time he finished, Yao Qiyun noticed Situ Jie’s expression had gone cold. She shot him a fierce glare. “Now I understand completely. That girl fell for a scam because of greed — and you fell for it because of a pretty face.”
Yao Qiyun said nothing, turning to look out the window instead. After a moment, Situ Jie reached over to turn his face back toward her, only to catch him quietly trying to hide a grin.
“Oh, so now you’re laughing? What’s so funny!”
“I’m laughing because you fell for the word ‘pig’ instead,” Yao Qiyun said, trying to hold back his amusement. “Honestly, from the look of her, she probably doesn’t have much, and it makes sense she’d be more sensitive about money — I get that. That’s part of why I felt for her. And besides, she’s from out of town — after getting off the bus, no one gave her directions for a good while, so she ended up going the wrong way and ran into those two scammers…”
“Wait a second… no one gave her directions? Is that what she told you?” Situ Jie’s expression turned distinctly odd.
“Yeah. It’s not like I made it up,” Yao Qiyun said, laughing as he shot the question back.
“She’s lying through her teeth — am I not a person? Right before she ran into you, she asked me for directions! I explained it to her so clearly I practically drew her a map. How could she say something like that!” Situ Jie was already halfway out of her seat. “I’m going to go ask her myself. And another thing — she was the reason you were late, so why didn’t she say a single word when that guy was scolding you? What kind of person is that.”
Yao Qiyun quickly caught hold of the blunt, argumentative Situ Jie. “Come on, it’s a small thing. Why bother?”
“It’s exactly because it’s such a small thing that she’d lie about it so casually — that just proves something’s off with her character. It makes it worse, not better.”
Situ Jie managed, with Yao Qiyun’s coaxing, to swallow her anger for the moment. The bus left the city behind and stopped for five minutes at a gas station along the way. Many passengers got off, some to use the restroom, others just to stretch their legs. Situ Jie, Yao Qiyun, and Wu Jiang stayed on the bus, laughing over the “essential rules of wilderness survival” her mother had drilled into her the night before. Just then, the girl came back onto the bus, and her gaze happened to meet theirs. Unsure whether the small, apologetic smile was meant for Situ Jie or Yao Qiyun, Situ Jie pretended not to notice and turned her face away.
Once the bus was moving again, they discovered the camp was bigger than they’d expected — several forty-seat coaches full of people their own age. Besides local students and some specially invited students from difficult backgrounds, there were also freshmen who’d traveled in from neighboring provinces, making for quite an impressive turnout.
The camp’s destination was a scenic, green island in the middle of a reservoir on the outskirts of the city. The moment they stepped off the boat, they were struck by the lushness and coolness of the air, which seemed to wash away all the restlessness of high summer. Situ Jie closed her eyes, savoring the breeze off the water, so different from the city air, and declared over and over what a wonderful place it was. Yao Qiyun, who’d grown up in the countryside and was used to this kind of scenery, teased her for being so easily impressed — though even he couldn’t help feeling his own spirits lift.
After a brief rest, the organizers gathered everyone into a large circle in the only open clearing on the island. Once they’d gone over the ground rules, it was time for the usual routine of introductions. Everyone simply gave their name; with so many people, no one was likely to remember anyone else anyway.
Afterward, they broke off for the picnic portion of the day. The organizers had rented a large supply of cookware from the reservoir staff and prepared plenty of ingredients, letting everyone split into groups, each with its own set of cooking equipment, to fend for themselves.
Since most of the attendees were freshmen who didn’t know one another, the scene quickly dissolved into chaos, everyone pulling each other this way and that as if it were some group tug-of-war. Situ Jie naturally stuck with Yao Qiyun and Wu Jiang; the fourth member of their group was the boy who’d sat with Wu Jiang on the ride over.
That boy’s name was Wei Yougen, also from the countryside, small and a little shy, but with a friendly smile for everyone. When Situ Jie and Wu Jiang first heard his name, they nearly burst out laughing — “Wei Yougen” sounded almost exactly like the phrase for “hasn’t got roots,” and they had no idea whether his parents had considered that when naming him. They both agreed the name sounded a bit odd to say out loud, so they simply started calling him “Xiao Gen” instead. Xiao Gen quickly grew comfortable with them.
Situ Jie rarely cooked at home, so outdoor cooking was a novelty to her, and she eagerly threw herself into every task. Being the only girl in their group, everyone deferred to her, and Yao Qiyun helped her wash and cut the vegetables, walking her through a long list of tips before finally trusting her to take the wok.
The first dish she ever cooked was the beginner’s classic: tomato and scrambled egg. The process from raw ingredients to finished plate went by without major incident, and aside from the tomatoes turning a bit too mushy, it turned out reasonably respectable.
Wu Jiang bravely took the first bite and immediately declared it too bland, teasing, “Situ, with cooking skills like these, I’d be shocked if anyone ever agreed to marry you.”
Situ Jie was thoroughly wounded by the remark. Just then, Yao Qiyun came over meaning to try her “maiden voyage” of a tomato-and-egg dish, but she absolutely refused to let him, turning instead to ask Xiao Gen to add a bit more salt to it first. Fumbling, Xiao Gen had just opened the paper packet of salt when a sudden gust of wind blew through, scattering the salt everywhere — leaving nothing behind but Xiao Gen’s own bewildered expression. Situ Jie had no choice but to swallow her pride and borrow salt from the group next to them, seasoning it again and again until she tasted it herself and was satisfied, only then carrying it back.
This would be the first time Yao Qiyun ever tasted something she’d made with her own hands. She knew it wasn’t perfect, but she’d put real effort and care into it — she absolutely could not give him any excuse to complain, and even less could she let him choke it down and be left with some lasting trauma over it.
She carried the plate of tomato-and-egg back with excitement, watching Yao Qiyun already sitting at their campsite, smiling as he waited for her — and just then, someone came rushing out from behind her at an angle, knocking straight into her. Situ Jie gasped as the plate she’d been carrying tipped over completely, the red tomato sauce and yellow scrambled egg soaking straight into the gray hoodie she was wearing. She didn’t even dare look down at herself.
The other party looked even more shaken than she was, and after half a beat of stammering, the apology died halfway in her throat as tears began streaming down her face. Yao Qiyun and the others rushed over at once.
“What happened, Situ?” Wu Jiang, seeing the state Situ Jie was in, hurried to dig through her bag for tissues.
Yao Qiyun glanced over at the crying girl.
“You again?”
“It’s all my fault, I wasn’t careful… I actually came over to thank you, for helping me back at the square.”
Situ Jie let out a cold laugh. That “thank you” had clearly been aimed at Yao Qiyun — it seemed the girl truly hadn’t even registered Situ Jie, who’d given her directions, as a person worth acknowledging.
Not that Situ Jie cared about that right now. All she cared about was that plate of tomato and scrambled egg — for which she’d even gotten a few drops of hot oil splashed on her hand, a burn that was still stinging — and Yao Qiyun hadn’t gotten to taste a single bite of it. Not one!
The girl turned toward Situ Jie, tears still welling in her eyes. “I really am so sorry, Situ…”
Situ Jie was startled by how naturally the girl’s tongue rolled around her name, and without thinking, she shot back: “My name is Situ Jie. ‘Situ’ is what my friends call me.”
“Forget it, A’Jue,” Yao Qiyun said, worried the situation would spiral further if the girl grew any more distressed. “It’s just a dish, that’s all. Go change out of those clothes.”
“You two haven’t eaten yet, have you? Let me cook something for you instead — go ahead and take that off, I’ll wash it for you.”
Situ Jie sucked in a sharp breath at that. “Just a dish” — he said it so lightly, and she said it even more lightly, but even if this girl who’d suddenly barreled into their lives made a hundred more plates of tomato and egg, how could that ever make up for what Situ Jie had meant by it?
Wu Jiang came back with a fistful of tissues and handed them to Situ Jie, who shook her head and didn’t take them — wiping wouldn’t help now. Luckily, her mother had told her to layer up before heading out to the countryside, so she had a small T-shirt on underneath the hoodie. She yanked the hoodie off forcefully and threw it to the ground.
The girl bent down to pick it up.
Yao Qiyun beat her to it. “I’ll take it.”
His conciliatory attitude only fanned Situ Jie’s anger further. Had it been anyone else, she might have let it go — annoyed as she’d be, she’d have known no one meant any harm. But this was that same girl again, and given everything that had happened already, Situ Jie had grown deeply suspicious of her character. If there was one thing Situ Jie couldn’t stand, it was people who acted one way and were really another — and on top of it all, he was defending her!
“What’s it got to do with you, Yao Qiyun? Did you ruin my clothes? Give credit where it’s due — go be a good Samaritan somewhere else!”
By now, quite a few classmates eating nearby had turned to look. The girl held back her tears, lowered her head, snatched the hoodie out of Yao Qiyun’s hands, and forced a smile. “Thank you. I’ll take care of it myself.”
She walked off with the clothes, and Yao Qiyun let out a sigh as he looked at Situ Jie, then walked silently back to where he’d been sitting.
Situ Jie’s anger had reached such a peak it circled back into something almost funny. She pointed at the girl’s retreating figure as she headed toward the water and said to Wu Jiang beside her, “Look at her — doesn’t she look just like some wronged little servant girl? And I suppose that makes me the wicked landlady.”
Wu Jiang looked her up and down with exaggerated appraisal and said, grinning, “Not bad, for a landlady’s figure.”
“You’re asking for it.” Situ Jie swatted at her irritably, and the two of them laughed together, deliberately ignoring Yao Qiyun and the thoroughly confused Xiao Gen.
After a while, Yao Qiyun came over, turned Situ Jie’s hand over to check it, and asked coldly, “Not burned, is it?”
Situ Jie kept up her sulk and refused to answer.
Just as things had barely settled, a startled cry rang out from the direction of the water, shattering the calm at once. Many people rushed over to see what had happened. Yao Qiyun was still holding Situ Jie’s hand, and he used the moment to pull her up along with him. “Come on, let’s go look too.”
Before they even got close, they could hear the classmates on the outer edge of the crowd saying that a freshman washing clothes by the water had accidentally stepped on broken glass and cut the sole of her foot.
Among the hundred-odd people there, all either current or future medical students, Wu Jiang and several of the upperclassman leaders pushed their way through and gave the girl basic first aid for the wound. Fortunately, the medical kit they’d brought was well stocked, and although the girl had lost a fair amount of blood, it turned out not to be serious, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief before dispersing again.
Afterward, Wu Jiang told Situ Jie that the girl really was something else — she herself had been the one to pull the glass out of the girl’s foot with her own hands. Earlier, over some small matter, the girl had cried as if the world were ending, and Wu Jiang had half expected her to faint dead away the instant the glass came out. Instead, the girl hadn’t so much as flinched, and even managed to smile and thank everyone around her.
“If it were me, I honestly don’t know if I could’ve handled it that well. Sometimes I think people with different life experiences must have a different sense of what pain even means — and maybe the same goes for what feels sweet, too. What do you think, Situ?”
Unbidden, Situ Jie found herself thinking again of Yao Qiyun’s scarred hands from all those years ago.
“Are you saying we’re just soft, or that they’re superhuman?”
Wu Jiang spread her hands. “I don’t know. Either way — four words: not our kind.”