Chapter 6 Part1 (2/2)
Put in a hard spot with this, Jia He looked at him and declined, ”I don't know how to play Hong Kong mahjong.
It was apparent that Wu Zhilun's enthusiasm was soaring. ”No problem. I can teach you.”
Yi Wenze did not seem to really consider his feelings and only carried on asking, ”Should I arrange for a car to take you home?”
Jia He took a quick glimpse of Wu Zhilun, then decided that Idol still took precedence. ”There's no need, thanks. I drove over here myself.”
And so, that sunny, handsome man's invitiation to play mahjong, just like that, was ignored…
<>Copyright of Fanatical, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Translated with the express permission of the author for hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com only
Jia He was stepping out the front doors before she realized that rain was already hammering down, and she could not help sighing over how Shanghai's rain was so abundant during the season of plum rains[6] that it made people gawk. Simply by observing the strength of the rain, she knew the extent to which the traffic on the elevated roadways would be congested, so she decided that she might as well, driving her little MINI Cooper, just inch and squeeze her way into the sea of cars on Huaihai Road[7].
In boredom, she was looking down and adjusting the radio when her car lurched. Immediately, her body slammed into her steering wheel.
In the pouring rain, on bustling West Huaihai Road, tragedy had befallen her: her car was rear-ended.
Heavy rain, traffic jam, and a car accident.
Having brought no umbrella, Jia He had no choice but to hide out in her car for a while and then run out again for another while to cooperatively a.s.sist the traffic police with whatever they needed from her. By the time everything was dealt with, she was already totally drenched and in a horribly wretched state. She was a new driver in the first place, and after all this kerfuffle, even more so did she not dare get back on the road again. Pulling out her mobile phone, she planned on having someone come to pick her up so she could first change into some clean, dry clothes and then worry about other things after that.
To her surprise, in just this short while, the display on her phone was already showing three missed calls.
Two were from Gu Yu and one from Yi Wenze.
Hesitating for a moment, in the end, she still decided to first resolve this predicament of hers. However, Qiao Qiao's phone number was constantly returning a busy signal. After dialing it seven or eight times, she could do nothing except silently curse Qiao Qiao for putting loves.h.i.+p before friends.h.i.+p and then toss down her phone.
The front winds.h.i.+eld wipers had come to a stop for a long time already. Rain continuously flowed down, encasing the car within a curtain of water and making the pedestrians outside appear blurry. The radio was giving traffic reports, stating that traffic was backed up at this location or a car accident had occurred at that location. Even more vexed from listening to all this, Jia He flipped through the radio, from love and relations.h.i.+p talk shows to song-request programs, changing channels several times but still not finding one that satisfied her. Therefore, she could only go back and continue listening to traffic reports.
It was quite some time later before she once again pulled up those missed calls and tapped Yi Wenze's number to call it back.
On his end, the phone was answered very quickly. Even the sound of Wu Zhilun's laughter could be heard.
”You're home now?”
She replied, ”No, I'm still on the road.”
After a slight silence, he unexpectedly asked, ”Did something happen?”
Jia He paused briefly in surprise, not expecting that he would so easily deduce that this accident had occurred. ”It's raining hard outside. I was rear-ended just now. My home's too far from here and I don't dare drive back, so I can only wait for Qiao Qiao to come pick me up.” She did not dare tell him about her sorry plight of being completely sodden from head to toe. Honestly, such bad luck.
”About how long until she gets there?”
Jia He did not know whether she should cry or find this funny. ”I don't know yet. She's been doing a marathon phone call this whole time. All I can do is pull over to the side of the road and wait for her.” When she finished saying this, she remembered that she still had not asked Yi Wenze what he had called her for. ”Did you call me for something?”
Not answering her, Yi Wenze carried on asking, ”Which intersection are you at?”
Jia He took a look out the window and stated a location.
Then, she heard him speaking in Cantonese, but his words were not directed at her and rather were to Wu Zhilun beside him. In a laughing tone, Wu Zhilun berated him, saying something along the lines of, if he got photographed, she might become his rumoured girlfriend. Very soon, though, things became quiet again on that end of the call.
Only now did her mind catch up enough to react, and she hurriedly said, ”You guys don't need to go to the trouble. I'll just wait for a bit. I'll be fine.”
His tone was completely unbothered. ”It's no problem. He's just chitchatting here anyway and doesn't have any real, proper business.”
Jia He's words were choked back into her throat. This was her first time discovering that her idol seemed very unreasonable…
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The radio continued talking about the horrible traffic. He appeared in no hurry to hang up the phone, and the two of them conversed idly about this and that and did not hang up until Wu Zhilun arrived.
Tossing his umbrella into the back seat, Wu Zhilun pulled up the hood of his hoodie and looked at her with a broad grin. ”Let's go. Where is your friend's house?”
Jia He handed a box of tissues to him, motioning to him to first wipe the water off of himself. ”Let me make a phone call first and ask.”
With such traffic, it would have taken at least half an hour to get here from Xujiahui. She had actually, just like that, chatted with Yi Wenze for half an hour and not even had a chance to call Qiao Qiao… Fortunately, the phone only rang a few times before Qiao Qiao answered it. The instant Qiao Qiao heard about her situation, she began firing question after question but did not give Jia He a chance at all to get a word in. While Jia He was feeling stifled with frustration, the person beside her had already taken her mobile phone out of her hand.
Squeezing the phone between his ear and shoulder, Wu Zhilun started the car. ”Beautiful lady, how about you please tell us the address first? When we get there, you can keep asking.”
Qiao Qiao was given a shock at this, and her address blurted from her mouth. And then… he hung up the call on her.
”Actually, I really shouldn't have troubled you to come. If you get photographed by the media, that will definitely cause problems.” Jia He truly was overflowing with guilt.
”That's true. I'm guessing that, in order to lose the reporters, my a.s.sistant is going to be stuck in traffic on the elevated freeway for an hour.” Wu Zhilun joked, ”Since Ze is ordering me around like I'm his lackey, I should purposely let the media follow me. Think about it; if you and I get photographed together, he'll still be the one with the most troubles.”
Jia He was speechless. This was truly the same Wu Zhilun who had always been reticent when facing the media?
Only when they were driving onto the main road did he finally show a more serious expression. ”Actually, he just signed the divorce papers, so it's better to be a little more careful.”
<>Copyright of Fanatical, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Translated with the express permission of the author for hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com only
[1] 徐家汇. Xujiahui is a commercial area and business centre in Shanghai and is known as one of the shopping destinations of the city with its several large, modern shopping malls. The area also contains many restaurants.
[2] 儿化音 Erhuayin refers to adding an 儿, spoken as an ”-r” sound, to the end of certain words when speaking Mandarin. Erhuayin is particularly prominent in the Beijing dialect.
[3] 调虎离山. The idiom ”luring the tiger away from the mountain/away from its lair” means to create a diversion and lure the enemy away.
[4] Often returned to as Peking duck or Peking roast duck.
[5] 家和万事兴. This saying translates to ”a harmonious family prospers in all things.” In Mandarin, the first two characters of the saying 家和 ”jia he,” are h.o.m.ophonic with the characters of Jia He's name, 佳禾. However, they are not the same. (Note: In Cantonese, Jia He's name 佳禾 is p.r.o.nounced as ”gaai wo” and is not quite h.o.m.ophonic with the first two characters of the saying, 家和, which in Cantonese is ”gaa wo.” Only the second characters sound the same. Hence, if they were speaking in Cantonese, Wu Zhilun would not be so confused.)
[6] 梅雨季节”mei yu ji jie.” This term literally translates as ”plum rain season” and is also the term used in English to refer to the rainy season in China. They are so named because they occur between late spring and early summer, which, in the areas south of the Yangtze River, are also when the plums ripen. This season is also called the 霉雨 ”mould rain” season (梅 ”plum” and 霉 ”mould” are h.o.m.ophones) as the long period of moisture more easily induces mould.
[7] Huaihai Road is a major road in Shanghai. It is actually divided into West, Middle, and East Huahai Road. It is not an elevated roadway.
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