Wu Bosong’s arrival instilled a new force into the male students of our remotely located school. For a point in time, the female students were also falling over each other in their eagerness to spread the news: Class 6 of first year high school came out with a fresh good whose style was considerably unconventional, and a smile which resembled that of Chen Guanxi’s.
Wu Bosong’s limelight has overshadowed Jiang Chen for a short while, I’ve endlessly felt so sorry for Jiang Chen, Jiang Chen on the other hand, only commented that there was something wrong with my brain.
In order to express my support for Jiang Chen occupying the number one male position in the entire campus. I kept on showing my disdain towards Wu Bosong’s appearance, and on more than one occasion, has publicly made high criticisms with regards to his look. Included among these, was his brown hair which countless of girls have beautified as that of a Japanese hairstyle, together with his Western-style stud earring — I said a yellowish hair was naturally due to malnutrition, and that wearing stud earrings, was naturally effeminate. I’ve also said, he made himself look like a bad boy, his performance in school must be very poor, and that surely he isn’t a good person, a delinquent, and perhaps is someone who takes drugs and kills people.
I don’t know why the younger me must have to shamelessly slander Wu Bosong this way, perhaps all the exam-oriented education was wrong. If at that time I committed murder and arson, perhaps it’s also the mistake of this education. In short, a thousand mistakes, were all my mistakes.
However, Wu Bosong in my unflagging efforts of slandering him, showed magnanimity that was rare within people of our age. Whenever our gazes would meet, he would give me a faint smile, his eyes filled with mirth, as that of a father watching a mischievous son.
With regards to this matter, it was Jiang Chen’s behavior which surprised me. There was a time when he suddenly called me over to a dusky corner, I was thinking that he either wanted to confess his love, or collude in scheming with me. Hence, my heart was anxious from too much excitement.
It turned out that, he only gravely and seriously gave me a warning, “Chen Xiaoxi, I don’t want to hear you speak ill against Wu Bosong again.”
I tried to suppress my frustration and asked him, “Why?”
"Making rumors is wrong." He simply said so.
I could only nod like pounding garlic* and express regret for my past deeds. (T/N: The expression pounding garlic refers to nodding one's head (also commonly kowtowing) lots of times as though one's head looks like a pestle pounding a garlic.)
At that time, I had some kind of a very inexplicable tendency to worship Jiang Chen. Even if he’d say that the sky is green, the clouds are blue, the color of poop is that of a rainbow, I would only nod and say, 'Yes, you are right.'
Of course, I’m also quite fortunate that I’ve worshipped such a person during my moronic phase. He’d point out to me some things that were wrong, and indeed those things were wrong.
So as to convince Jiang Chen that I've sincerely repented and mended my mistaken ways, I ripped a page from my desk mate’s notebook which has a photo of F4 at the very top, and wrote a very touching apology towards Wu Bosong on this tiny slip of paper during our Math class.
I’ve long forgotten what I wrote word per word, but I remember receiving his reply which was written on a scrap paper, “It’s alright, but my name is Wu Bosong, not Wu Songbai.
(T/N: The characters for Wu Bosong's name is 吴柏松 with 柏 'bo' being an identical character to 'bai' which means cypress, and 松 'song' meaning pines individually, but when interchanged will become 松柏 'songbai' which is a collective word for 'pines and cypress' in Chinese.)
His correction has made me realize that his name was extremely confusing. This reminded me of a topic in my homework during the summer vacation of grade school: 'Write down words that have similar configuration* as the following words 'bee (蜜蜂 mifeng) – honey (蜂蜜 fengmi)'. And the reason why this was so deeply ingrained in my memory was because my answer made Old Chen give me a ruthless beating – flow downwards (流下 liuxia) – vulgar/ obscene (下流 xialiu).
(T/N: The question was to come up with words that can be reversed and still come up with a word that is closely related to the original word, another example would be cow (奶牛 nainiu) – milk (牛奶 niunai) but of course Xiaoxi’s mind doesn’t work like that.)
After this matter has passed through, my favorable impression towards Wu Bosong has naturally increased significantly, I felt that he was truly a virtuous man who requite evil with goodness, furthermore I thought that the stud earring on his ear was truly sparkling, especially attracting affection.
But strangely enough, Wu Bosong was surprisingly so good to me. He would buy me all sorts of snacks from the corner store. He would teach me English and Math ( I guessed it right, his grades were indeed very poor, besides English and Math of which he is unexpectedly ranked first in the entire school, his scores on the other subjects were of single digit.) He would give me his jacket when it suddenly gets cold……There was once I was left behind after dismissal to update the bulletin board, he even cooked instant noodles for me and carried it over to the classroom ( he’s the only student in school who stays at the teacher’s quarters), and that bowl of noodles even comes with an egg. The steam from the noodles made my eyes sting, I was slurping noodles while asking Wu Bosong who was helping me color on the bulletin board, “Why are you so nice to me?”
I'd drawn a girl on the bulletin board, the girl was virtuously holding a book with both hands, at that time, Wu Bosong was coloring the cover of the book yellow, he said that it was called 'a girl looking at a yellow* book'. (T/N: Porn is literally yellow book in Chinese.)
Wu Bosong didn't turn his head when he replied, "There are plenty of reasons why."
I gave it a thought, this guy shouldn’t have taken a liking to me, right? But I believe that it might also be possible, after all, he isn’t blind…….Actually, my self-confidence had long been spooked away by Jiang Chen, leaving it to scatter into pieces, that I reckoned a senior monk who has already achieved the Dao could never beckon it to come back.
Hence, I just simply ate the noodles while he continued coloring, with chalk dust flying about. Occasionally, I would also ask him a question or two, “Where did you study before? Why did you transfer to our school?”
He was already coloring the girl's skirt pink, "X province, my dad wants me to study second year high school abroad. He has already contacted the school and planned everything, so I said I wanted to go back to grandfather's hometown to have one last look."
“Ah? Then aren't you leaving soon?” I suddenly felt quite disappointed that he was going to leave. Who’s going to fill up my stomach which has just been going through puberty in the future?
He threw away the chalk, and turned around to sit on the desk facing me, “Why? You can't bear to part with me?”
I reached out my hand and patted his legs that were shaking in front of me, “Stop shaking, it’s making me dizzy, it's just that I’ll go through starvation when you’re gone.”
He didn't say anything, just looked pensively out the window, I also foolishly followed suit, and saw Jiang Chen standing by the window. Shrouded by the faint light of the coming evening, he was using his extraordinary temperament to aptly convey the ghost part in 'A Chinese Ghost Story'.
I don’t know why, but watching him, because he was situated in a poorly lit area, as well as his sorry lump of a figure, I suddenly had a feeling of being caught, like a maiden guilty of being defiled on the bed. As I was holding the bowl of steaming noodles with both of my hands, I was itching to knock my head unto it.
Jiang Chen raised his knuckles and knocked on the glass window, "Chen Xiaoxi, I bumped into Uncle Chen at the alley just now, he asked me to call you home for dinner."
After he was done saying it, he left without another word.
I placed the bowl on the desk and hurriedly ran out. Wu Bosong was calling me from behind, a few words and ‘Chen Xiaoxi’. When I made it to the door, I heard him say, “You haven’t finished eating yet.”
I replied in one breath, "You can throw it, I’ll eat at home."
I ran out, but I couldn't find Jiang Chen, obviously because his legs were surely a lot longer than mine.
I spent a few minutes idling in the playground, and returned to the classroom to retrieve my bag. I stood in front of the classroom door watching from afar, Wu Bosong was still coloring the girl’s skirt, the golden hue of the twilight was pouring forth to the room, from the windows, the door, as well as all the little gaps, the chalk dust was dancing in magical flurry as the light catches them, the hot steam visible in the light was rising slowly from the bowl of noodles. I thought that the back view of a person, surrounded by the fluttering chalk dust, and the hot steam looked really nice.
I walked over to where he was, “I forgot my bag, and I also haven’t eaten the egg in my noodles.”
He turned around and smiled, showing a perfectly eye-catching set of pearly whites, “I’ve eaten the egg.”
I was astonished, "You're really too fast."
He grumbled with much grievance, “You told me to throw it away ah, an egg is wasting an extra 50 cents.”
He wasn’t done talking but I’ve long seen the poached egg lying on top of the noodles, so I rolled my eyes and said, “You’re too bored.”
He shrugged and turned around to continue coloring, I took the chopsticks and poked through the egg with it, when I was holding it to stand upright it looked like an umbrella, so I very excitedly told him to take a look at it, “Hey, do you think this looks like an umbrella?”
He glanced sideways with a very scornful look, “If you won’t eat it then I’ll eat it.”
He suddenly went silent, and then the egg that was skewered on the chopstick was snatched away by him using his mouth. I was holding my now empty chopstick, stunned. He must have been trained to snatch things with his mouth, right…..
Perhaps, that day when Jiang Chen left hurriedly, it has briefly took away my infatuation for him, and perhaps knowing that Wu Bosong was going to leave so soon, it made me cherish the friendship between us even more. In short, I no longer hovered around Jiang Chen all day long, and instead suddenly became very close to Wu Songbai, as though he was an old friend of many years. But in the eyes of our schoolmates, we already looked like young sweethearts. I also don’t know if we thought it was something not worth doing, or just because we wanted to uphold the principle of ‘a clean hand needs no washing*' but we didn’t do so much as explain ourselves. Anyway, things like 'feeling like old friends at first meeting*' was something too profound that these brats who only got into high school would never understand. (T/N: The entire saying is 清者自清，浊者自浊 literally 'one who is pure is naturally pure, one who is impure is naturally impure' which means no matter how much an innocent person is implicated, they're still innocent. And no matter how much a vile person denies their wrongdoing, they're still vile, as such that they are both innocent then it will show, or in this case, let the truth speak for itself.)(T/N: Means they clicked/ hit it off right away.)
He only studied in our school for one semester, and went abroad summer vacation of first year high school. He had to ride the sleeping bus to go to the city, and then transfer on a train for X province, and from X province he would fly to New Zealand. I sent him off to the bus station, tugging on the strap of his backpack with reddened eyes, “You must remember to send me snacks back from New Zealand……”
He patted my head, cupped his fist with the other hand, and then winked at me, "I'm sure we'll meet again someday."
When the bus started moving, I waved my hand as hard as I could, he opened the window and stuck his head out, "I'll send you snacks from New Zealand."
I tearfully tried my hardest to nod, “You have to send the most expensive and delicious. Also, we will always be best friends.”
He smiled and then shouted, "Alright."
I remember running into Jiang Chen at the mouth of the alley on my way home, his back was against me, standing in front of the electric meter box of their house. He was using a screwdriver to pick the wires, the back of his white t-shirt was soaked in sweat, and the cottony material was softly clinging to his back, showing a faint skin colour.
I couldn't help but be curious and ask him, "What are you doing?"
He inclined his head towards me, and said a bit distracted, 'You cried?"
I rubbed my eyes and replied, "Wu Bosong left."
He let out a grunt, and faintly said he also knew, and then whipped his head back to pick on those red, yellow, white, and green wires.
I asked again, "But what really are you doing?"
Jiang Chen suddenly thrusted the screwdriver into the pocket of his jeans, and snapped at me, "Counting the wires, couldn't I?
I was confronted by such temper which was a bit ridiculous so I yelled, "Alright! I just thought you were repairing the fuse or whatnot."
His face became livid and then blanched, it took him a long while before he softly mumbled, "I'm crazy." After which he turned around and went inside their house.
I closed the electric meter box that was opened widely for him. In fact, I also thought that his action of counting wires really did make him look a little bit crazy.
We’re about to head out of the drama plot soon so I’m gonna stop putting in header photos. (and not because I was too lazy to look for one hahaha *nervous laugh*)