Fleeting Midsummer Chapter 17 (1/2)
Chapter 17: Returning Home (2)
Rapping in front of “Hiros.h.i.+ma, my Love”
Just as I was immersed in a slightly sorrowful and complicated mood, Fang Yu Ke said in a timely manner: “Let’s play cards” .
My recovery speed was akin to a dog, and I immediately recovered with vitality and agreed.
When it reached 6 to 7 o’clock, I was so sleepy that I could not open my eyes. The me who yawned towards the sky, repeatedly played wrong cards. I was not some gentleman who played the cards without looking back. Every time we finished playing a round, I would demand for a rematch.
Fang Yu Ke stuck out his lip and said unhappily: “It’s only 7pm and you already feel sleepy. Are you sure you remembered your zodiac correctly, you’re obviously a pig.”
I refuted: “Confucius said: if you don’t sleep in the early afternoon, you will collapse in the late afternoon. Mencius also agreed with Confucius. The saints have already agreed on the importance of naps. Today, I was rus.h.i.+ng for the train in the afternoon. Staying up until now has already been difficult for me.”
Xiao Xi brightened up: “ your saint is really too in touch with the spiritual world.”
Fang Yu Ke laughed and asked: “What other words of wisdom did your family’s saint give you?”
I laughed: “My saint also said that no matter how ugly you are, you should talk about love. Talk about it until the whole world is filled with love.”
I was extremely happy. Since confessing at Oolong, I could finally show off my real self in front of Xiao Xi. Even though I don’t know when I began to give up that hypocritical pretentiousness, but I hoped that even if he did like me, it would be the real me. Not the me who was putting on a mask.
However, if Julie knew, she would definitely beat me up because she treated these kinds of situations as a strategy and I was going to abandon this strategy to become a boorish person, heading into battle like this.
When we got off the train, I saw that my mother kept looking at her watch. The train had a little problem. While sighing that it would be wishful thinking to expect the train to speed up, I waved my hand to get my mother’s attention.
My mother walked leisurely towards me, (I had really never seen my mother walk in such a demure way before) and elegantly smiled at me, then turning her head towards Fang Yu Ke as she said: “ Yu Ke, I’ve troubled you to take care of my family’s Lin Lin.”
d.a.m.n! I’m your daughter. Shouldn’t you say h.e.l.lo to me first? No matter what, it’s been half a year since we’ve met, but your arm has certainly reached very far to hook somebody else in.
Fang Yu Ke smiled warmly: “It’s still okay, auntie. Lin Lin is well behaved most of the time, she doesn’t really stir up any trouble. If there’s any trouble, other people will tidy it up for her.”
I exaggeratedly fainted. Fang Yu Ke, you are definitely cruel alright! I pulled my mother’s arm and pointed towards Xiao Xi to introduce him: “This is Xie Duan Xi. The target of your daughter’s interest.”
I don’t think my mother understood what I meant by “interest”, but looking at how handsome he was, she elegantly nodded her head: “Nice to meet you.” However, she put him in the friend zone and added: “but my interest is Fang Yu Ke.”
Xiao Xi’s face was a bit red and he didn’t know how to continue the conversation.
On the road, my mother started interrogating people.
“There were no problems with your exams right?”
“The results have not yet been released. I have some modules that I could excel in.” I said frankly. I wasn’t someone who reported good news without the bad. In reality, there were some cla.s.ses where I had put in more effort and succeeded quite extraordinarily. My experience with school this half a year taught me that Peking University was hard to enter but easy to leave. If you only put in effort to study consistently and worked super hard at the end, it was not that easy to pa.s.s the exams.
As usual, my mother nodded her head unconfidentally. After that, as if she didn’t really care, she turned her head and said to the taxi driver: “The one sitting at the back is my girl. She entered Peking University last year.”
I couldn’t do anything about my mother. Even if her daughter had some glory, you couldn’t show off like this. Putting the taxi driver in such a difficult situation, wasn’t she forcing him to boast about himself as well?
The taxi driver really did especially play along with her, and said: “I really envy you, ah. My son is taking the college entrance examination this year. If he is able to be an undergraduate, I will really kowtow and give thanks to the heavens.”
My mother arrogantly and satisfactorily smiled, as if she were a queen that had been waited upon and carried by a bunch of eunuch manservants.
When we reached home, my mother solemnly said: “Yep, though that Xie Duan Xi is quite handsome, I still recommend Fang Yu Ke for your boyfriend. However, I never thought you would be so popular.”
I couldn’t take it anymore : “Do you think your daughter is Maggie Cheung or something? Not a single one of them likes me, it’s my unrequited love, alright?”
My mother said without hesitation: “If it’s unrequited love, it’s better to start from Fang Yu Ke. From the way I see it, you and Fang Yu Ke really have the aura of a couple.”
I decided not to care about her. I suddenly thought of Fang Yu Ke and the me who would be called an idiot whenever Fang couldn’t stand it anymore. Wasn’t he the split image of my mother?
I was just like a pig throughout the entire winter vacation. Besides eating and sleeping, at most, I would partic.i.p.ate in a few different gatherings for the sake of bonding. During these meetings, I would be like a pig on the chopping board. Because I had tested into Peking University, everyone felt the need to punish me. I would happily get slaughtered by my friends and sworn followers. My friends were those who would copy their work together, those who cheated during exams, and hanging out with them was particularly relaxing. And the so called gathering of elite students that was organized by the great people in the highest grade who were 29, was actually just a gathering of the students who did well in the examinations. Although Principle Fang had specially called me on the phone, hoping that during this period, I would think of reuniting with some 20 over people from my liberal arts cla.s.s, I still thought of other methods to find an excuse not to partic.i.p.ate. In my mind, this was just a meeting with people who used to say that I was in the background who would now say I was taking basking in the glory of others. Everything they said was just covertly criticizing how I got into Peking University, it was too much like a drama about the struggle of the giants on TVB. Also, all the words said during the toasts were toasting to his d.a.m.n school, toasting to his lessons, toasting to his future. It was totally not like a normal school gathering at all.
This gathering of demons buddies still had some benefits to be reaped because I had b.u.mped into my childhood neighbor Shan Shan.
Shan Shan was a super skinny guy from Lu Chai who used to be bullied by me when we were younger. He would always suffer hards.h.i.+ps while I enjoyed the fortune and blessings. Later on, in elementary school, Shan Shan’s father was building properties when he suddenly struck it rich and they moved to a wealth suburb in the city centre. Our mothers would regularly meet up and gossip while playing mahjong. But Shan Shan started to develop characteristics of a rich kid. Without finis.h.i.+ng Junior High school, he moved to Australia to study. That also happened to be my rebellious period, so everyday I would think about running away from home. So I really admired and envied Shan Shan. I always talked about how hards.h.i.+ps had finally come my way and blessings had gone to him.
However, could it be that the Shan Shan before my eyes had to request for two plane tickets? He had made me worry about him when he flew back on the plane, but I could not recognize him upon first glance and even wondered who this d.a.m.n fatty was. I didn’t expect that once Shan Shan saw me, he struggled to his feet and waved h.e.l.lo to me. When he shook his hand, the meat on his body shook along with him.
I laughed and ask : ”Did you eat all of Australia’s sheep? No wonder there’s a wool shortage.”
Shan Shan laughed: “Hehe, yeah, that’s why I’ve returned here to drink the milk from the motherland.”
Fortunately, Shan Shan was not someone who cared a lot about his appearance. He did not even bat an eyelid nor react coldly to this tasteless joke.
I would typically irritate people in order to expose them. I tugged at Shan Shan and said fiercely: “When you come back to your home country, you need to have some form of contribution. How can you just come back to drink the milk from our motherland? You should cut a little bit of fatty meat from Australia, only then can you contribute to our society.”
Shan Shan gave a smile that resembled Buddha: “So tell me, how do you want to cut me?”
And so, a party of us went to rent a play to sing karaoke very spectacularly.
The small town of ours truly was very small and everything was perfect. The speakers in the karaoke room were definitely enough to turn everyone into a super loud singer superstar. I covered my throat and began to rap the Jay Chou song called “In The Name of My Father”: All of us are sinners, we’re just guilty of different crimes. I can decide who’s right and who should be put to sleep. This argument has no solution, it’s a night that never ends. Turn your mouth off, it’s your only saving grace, the ones who block you at the front are all sinners-”. The ones who block you at the front really are sinners. Because once the one who blocked the front moved away, I saw Fang Yu Ke cooly walk in.
I couldn’t help but ask: “You followed me?” I said this sentence into the microphone, and it was endlessly amplified. It was uncomfortably inserted into Jay Chou’s rap, and there were feelings of longing……