Crush - episode 3

(Continued from episode 2 )

Beijing

At the end of August, my parents took me to Chengdu, and I transferred at the North Railway Station to go to Beijing. When the train started moving, my mom cried, wiping her tears vigorously. My dad only said, "Take care of yourself," and couldn't say anything more.

I waved at them from the window, and Mom waved back ceaselessly, while Dad leaned against her, his expression solemn. Their figures grew smaller and smaller, and soon they were out of sight.

More than thirty hours later, the train jolted into Beijing. I took my carry-on bag down from the luggage rack and joined the crowd to exit the platform. It was my first time out of Sichuan. Coming to a big place like Beijing made me both excited and nervous.

It was the beginning of the school term, and I quickly found Renmin University among a bunch of college signs. I walked over, feeling a little disappointed as I didn’t see Xiao-Hui.

A couple of upperclassmen helped me with my luggage and carried it onto the school's truck. I boarded a bus chartered by the school. The bus started, taking a bunch of freshmen quickly through the streets of Beijing. I greedily watched the changing scenes outside the window.

This is the city of me and Xiao-Hui, where I will spend four extraordinary years.

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I checked the map, watching the bus pass by Yuyuantan, Baishi Bridge, and Weigong Village, turning from Baiyi Road into the east gate of Renmin University. The bus stopped, and a group of excited freshmen pushed their way off the bus. I was a bit at a loss, looking around for the truck carrying my luggage.

"Wang Si!" A familiar female voice called out. I was startled and looked up. Wasn’t it Xiao-Hui? Excited, I blurted out in Sichuan dialect, "Why are you here?"

Xiao-Hui smiled at me and answered in Mandarin, "I got your letter. I've been too busy with social practice to reply. I heard you were arriving today, so I came to pick you up and will show you around the school after you rest."

Only then did I notice a tall fellow with glasses standing next to her, wearing a T shirt with a print of rock star Cui Jian. While Xiao-Hui was talking to me, he was watching us. After Xiao-Hui finished speaking, the young man said, "Hello, Wang Jianxin, right? My name is Xu Yong, from the Student Union’s Arts Department. I've heard a lot about you from Xiao-Hui. The talented young man from Neijiang, nice to meet you!" His Mandarin was very authentic, but it was a little different from the way they talk in the movie. It was permeated with a sense of confidence, and I didn't know that it had a hint of Beijing accent until I had been in Beijing for a long time.

I was struggling to switch to Mandarin, and nervously blurted out a half-Sichuanese, half-Mandarin greeting: “Comrade Xu, howl are yolk?” The fellow laughed heartily, "You're really funny. Sichuan people are naturally humorous!" I blushed up to my ears. How’s this humor! He continued, "You can just call me by my name, or Lao Xu."

Xiao-Hui accompanied me to get my luggage and took me to the dorm to settle down. She told me that the school has a few cafeterias, the one in the east district is good, if I go out of the east gate and turn right, I’ll find a California Beef Noodle King, where the tomato beef noodle soup has a good portion, and I need to go to the study halls early in the evening or there won’t be seats.

Xu Yong accompanied us the entire time, and even a fool could see that they were more than friends. I felt like a third wheel and was almost at my breaking point. Why had it come to this? After all the effort to get to Beijing, Xiao-Hui had been taken away by someone else. I felt like a complete fool.

Later, I seemed to hear not anything they were saying, lost in thought. Xiao-Hui said I must be tired from the train ride and should rest early. Xu Yong said they would take me out to dinner sometime.

I snapped awake and took out a plastic bag of Sichuan sausage to give to Xiao-Hui, saying it was made by her mom. She was overjoyed, thanking me and saying it had been so long since she'd tasted home. She addressed me as Wang Jianxin.

In just a short time, had she forgotten my nickname was Wang Si?

They had just left when the other three roommates crowded around me: "Nice one, bro! Just arrived and already a beautiful girl is with you, how'd you hook up?"

I told them not to get the wrong idea; we were just high school classmates. Then I felt I had misspoken: now everyone would know I had repeated a grade.

They didn’t pursue the matter but teased me about being a childhood sweetheart of the girl, asking me to help them befriend Xiao-Hui's dormmates in the future.

～～～～

Gradually, I confirmed my suspicion: that Xu Yong was indeed Xiao-Hui's boyfriend. He was a junior and was in the English Department, a close relative to the Journalism Department. I heard he wrote poetry and was the president of some bullshit Wild Grass Poetry Society at the school. They often posted notices in the school and organized poetry recitation events. When Xiao-Hui first entered the school, she participated in one of the activities and caught his eye. He sent her several crooked poems, claiming they were written specifically for her. God knows to whom he had sent these poems before. One thing led to another, and the two of them got together. Xu Yong took Xiao-Hui to mingle among a group of literati, looking up at the stars, denouncing the times, utterly incompatible with reality.

Though Xu the Poet acted idealistic among the literati group, he was quite scheming. He was a student union cadre, and he knew many classmates whose parents were minor officials in Beijing, fraternizing with them. Xiao-Hui's social practice in Beijing was also an opportunity he found through his connections.

My university life was lackluster. Besides studying for exams, nothing else motivated me. Sometimes, I would see Xiao-Hui and Xu Yong together on the road from a distance, but I would always pretend not to see them and walk in another direction.

Two years later, Xu Yong graduated and found a job with the State Science Committee, dealing with some big shots. A year later, Xiao-Hui also found a job in Beijing, staying with her Lao Xu.

I graduated a year after Xiao-Hui and started working at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing, also in Beijing.

I heard that Xu the Poet had become even more adept after starting work, with rapid promotion to section chief. Xu, the section chief, was raking in big money. He no longer wrote poetry; there were too many dinner meetings and no time to gaze at the stars.

They got married at Quanjude, a restaurant renowned for its roasted Peking ducks.? Many of their classmates in Beijing went. I also received an invitation. I asked Lao San from our college dorm to pass along my share of the gift money, asking him to tell Xiao-Hui that I had to work overtime on a foreign project and couldn't make it but wished her happiness.

A couple of days later, I received a pager message from Xiao-Hui, asking if I was angry with her, since I didn't attend her wedding. I reassured her, saying that she was always my good middle school classmate and friend, and that I would come to apologize once our project wasn't so busy.

I knew that was just an excuse. I couldn't bear to see Xu, the section chief, looking triumphant with her.

(Continue to episode 4 )