Chapter 10 – and
A flood of memories came rushing in, surging past in a great, murky mass.
Looking back from the dull, monotonous grayness of her life now, those days had been dyed in brilliant colors.
But she vaguely remembered that back then, she had also felt bored, felt miserable, felt stifled.
There were days when she had run hand in hand with Meng Ou, and there were days when she had been crushed beneath piles of books until she could barely straighten her back.
Every time the countdown tore away another day, it was like the tolling of a funeral bell.
Now that she remembered it, how had everything become so good?
Perhaps life's greatest regret was that a person could never possess both youth and the feelings that came with being young at the same time.
Looking at Meng Ou in front of her once more, Xiang You felt somewhat dazed.
The Meng Ou in her memories was brimming with youth, unrestrained and carefree.
The wind would lift the hem of his white T-shirt, and his smile was more radiant than the noonday sun.
But the Meng Ou before her now, she could not say exactly what had changed, yet he somehow felt different.
Perhaps the childishness had completely faded. Perhaps it was his eyes. Perhaps his cheeks had become leaner, their contours more defined.
Even though he still lifted his chin slightly as he had in the past, looking at her through lowered lashes with a smile that was neither quite a smile nor not a smile, he was simply
different.
“Hey...” Meng Ou smiled and tapped his fingers against the tabletop. “Don't trail off halfway through talking and then space out. You're making things awfully quiet for me.”
“Oh...” Xiang You answered dully.
“What did Teacher Zheng say to you?” Meng Ou tried to pick up that topic again.
Xiang You lowered her head and stirred the coffee, which was gradually growing cold, with a small silver spoon.
Her voice was somewhat muffled, too. “Just... asked what I'm doing now, where I'm working.”
“What did you say?” Meng Ou asked.
“I answered honestly.” Xiang You thought the question was rather pointless.
“What else did she ask?” Meng Ou's questions suddenly became numerous.
Xiang You's hand stirring the coffee paused. “Nothing else.”
“Nothing else?” Meng Ou echoed.
“Nothing else.”
Meng Ou did not press her any further. He lifted his glass and lowered his head to take a sip of his drink.
Xiang You instinctively lifted her own cup as well, but before it reached her lips, she inexplicably felt that drinking at the same time would be awkwardly deliberate, so she could only lower the cup again.
No matter how slowly and lightly she moved, the ceramic cup still struck the glass table with a sharp dang.
Even more awkward.
She had lied.
She believed Meng Ou had seen through it, too.
At the end of that day, Teacher Zheng had asked her, “Are you and Meng Ou still together?”
The smile on Xiang You's face stiffened for a moment. She shook her head. “No.”
The corners of Teacher Zheng's eyes drooped slightly, and she looked somewhat regretful. “That's a little unfortunate.”
Xiang You did not dare look at her. She simply watched as the wind sent fallen leaves swirling and fluttering through the air.
“Yes, it's such a shame,” she said with a smile.
Such a shame.
•
“The weather in your Changrui is really much more comfortable than in City A.”
Meng Ou put down his glass and pretended to be casual as he started another topic.
“What do you mean, ‘your Changrui’...” Xiang You muttered softly. “I'm not even from Changrui.”
Meng Ou was momentarily stunned by this strangely sharp point she had chosen to argue over. In the end, he laughed. “If it's not yours, then could it be mine?”
Couldn't it belong to neither of them?
A city was not exactly Mount Fuji, something that could be privately owned by someone.
But after thinking about it, she still did not argue back. “All right.”
Meng Ou looked at her for two seconds before continuing, “It's autumn now, and you have no idea how dry City A is. The two humidifiers are practically about to work themselves to death, and every morning when I get up, my face still hurts from how dry it is.”
“...” Xiang You was a little speechless. “Did you forget that I went to university in City A too?”
The air fell silent.
Meng Ou's attempt to make conversation had been mercilessly exposed by her.
Fortunately, his skin was thick enough. “Then you don't know that this year is drier than usual.”
Without such thick skin, he probably wouldn't have been able to survive in City A.
Xiang You surrendered. “I really don't know.”
She had not been back to City A since graduating from university. It was too far away, and there was no need to go.
Besides, she had a perfectly good reason not to go: Meng Ou was there.
Because of that, she had turned down both class reunions held after graduation.
“There are plenty of other things you don't know. You know that theater they were building near your school before? It finally finished construction this year. Did you know?” Meng Ou said.
“You mean that construction site where ‘there are 300 days of vacation a year, and even among the 65 working days, they still get full weekends off’?”
Only after saying it did Xiang You remember that this had been Meng Ou's assessment back then.
Because it had been so vivid, she had remembered it for a long time, and had let it slip out without thinking.
There was a region in Xiang You's brain that had stored a great many pieces of nonsense like this.
She had never intended to remember these things, but her brain had never listened to her.
She would memorize things she needed to know only to forget them later, while these words were locked into that region after hearing them just once, remembered firmly.
And in many a moment, her brain would be reminded of certain words by what was happening around her.
When heavy snow fell, her brain would say: “Heaven must want you and me to grow old together, so why are you holding an umbrella? You're making people so mad their noses are huffing and puffing.”
And right at that moment, a gust of wind would sweep in on cue and flip her umbrella inside out.
Xiang You would then stand there indignantly, her head turned white, but with no one else beside her.
When she bought some terrible-tasting food, her brain would say: “Once is unfamiliar, twice makes you familiar. Who told you to tempt fate a third time when you already knew better? Of course it turned out rotten.”
Xiang You stirred the paste-like mess in her bowl, wanting to say, Don't go throwing idioms around all day.
Who was she supposed to say it to?
Her rebellious brain, of course.
•
Presumably remembering that they were words he himself had once said, Meng Ou smiled knowingly. “Yeah, you still remember that.”
She did not know what exactly he meant by “remember.” She would just take it as referring to that construction site.
“I don't have amnesia...” Such a huge construction site, she could see it every day while hanging clothes in the dormitory.
She had looked at it for four years. It had barely changed in all four years. How could she possibly forget?
“Last month the company gave me a ticket, so out of the goodness of my heart, I went to help people suck up some formaldehyde,” Meng Ou said.
“Psychopath...” Xiang You muttered.
This man loved to talk nonsense all day long. It was really a shame he had been born in the south. Now that he was in City A, he was practically a fish in water.
Still, constantly shooting people down wasn't very nice, so Xiang You tried to be a little more encouraging. “What show did you see?”
Meng Ou raised a brow very obnoxiously. “Les Misérables, the one you've always wanted to see but never managed to.”
Seriously!
Why had she bothered encouraging someone like this?!
Xiang You pursed her lips unhappily. During university, an overseas theater company had come to perform Les Misérables. Once, she had failed to get tickets, and another time happened to fall during final-exam week. Thinking about her dangerously precarious GPA, she had given up.
And the second time, Meng Ou had managed to get tickets. After learning that she was unavailable, he turned around and sold the ticket.
After she finished her last exam, he took the money from selling the ticket and treated her to a private cinema screening of Les Misérables, barely making up for half of a dream.
Seeing how annoyed she was, Meng Ou, even more shamelessly enjoying the spectacle, started humming:
“Do you hear the people sing, singing the song of angry lady...”
“Could you stop ruining the song?!” Xiang You couldn't help kicking him under the table.
Her foot happened to land right on his shinbone. Meng Ou bent over with a muffled groan of pain.
Xiang You felt a little guilty and was just about to apologize when Meng Ou lifted his head and smiled at her.
It was that especially obnoxious, smug little smile of his from before.
Who smiled after getting hit?
And besides, the moment he smiled, it made Xiang You's apology seem particularly unnecessary.
Without apologizing, Xiang You did not know what else to say, so she could only stare at him uneasily.
A little embarrassed, a little at a loss, and a little bewildered.
Slowly, Meng Ou stopped smiling. He merely bent down and lowered his hand, rubbing the spot a little.
His brows were drawn tightly together, and his expression was somewhat serious, too.
Xiang You unconsciously tightened her grip on her coffee cup.
But the seriousness was only because it hurt. After a short while, he relaxed.
He took a sip of his drink. His Adam's apple bobbed once, and only after patiently clearing his mouth did he speak. “Actually, it wasn't that good. It's a new theater company, and their singing isn't particularly good.”
“Old theater companies were new theater companies once too. Maybe they'll get better after building up some experience.” Xiang You tried hard to put on a relaxed, casual-conversation sort of manner.
“Not necessarily. Some theater companies are different from the moment they first take the stage.”
This time, it was Meng Ou who killed the conversation.
Xiang You rubbed her thumb against the side of her cup, struggling to figure out how to respond.
But soon, she no longer had to think about it.
Meng Ou threw an even harder question at her.
“Wasn't the theater company you'd always wanted to see like that too?” Meng Ou paused. “I heard they're coming to tour China again at the end of the year. The opening stop is in City A. Still want to see them?”
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