The Fading Away of Our Youth (So Young) Chapter 21

Zheng Wei returned to school and just happened to catch a hot pot party, the six people went to the hot pot restaurant by the school, and ordered a full table of raw foods, the cost conscious Zhu Xiao Bei even especially bought a set of discounted beer.

After eating the hot and numbing hot pot, a few people’s teeth and mouths grimaced in pain, Zheng Wei was so spicy that she drank the beer like her life depended on it, and used the napkin to wipe at her tears. Even though she gave her usual lively laughter, Ruan Ruan observed that after she had come back from the bookstore with Chen Xiao Zheng, she was a little off, but in front of so many people, she didn’t ask her immediately.

Their so called “Six Great Empresses”, besides He Lu Ya, they had a great alcoholic intake, they had already drank half of the beer set, when they drunk the last bit they became the Six Great Quackish Girls. When it came to noisiness, Zheng Wei and Xiao Bei did the best in public, Zhu Xiao Bei said some racist jokes and they all laughed hard (ok come on, who hasn’t done that before).

“Pig Bei (Zhu Xiao Bei’s name begins with “Zhu”; in Chinese a h.o.m.onym for that means pig, so I could have technically put “Zhu Bei”), you’re so p.o.r.nographic!” Zheng Wei leaned heavily on Ruan Ruan and couldn’t stop laughing.

Zhu Xiao Bei said, “What, someone like me, is like a banana, my skin is yellow, and my heart is white, when one bites it, it’s even tasty, unlike some other people who have a smooth appearance but are in fact a rotten egg, when you open the skin, stinky to death.”

“Who are you talking about.” Zheng Wei pointed at Zhu Xiao Bei, laughing and scolding, “I think you’re just a durian, you’re the stinkiest one!”

“Some people think durian is stinky, but some people think it’s the most fragrant.” Zhuo Mei reminded, “For example, I think it is the most fragrant, haha.”

“What doesn’t taste good to you?” Li Wei Juan rolled her eyes at Zhuo Mei, “I like pomegranates, you peel it, layer by layer to the inside, women ah, need to grow their conscience.”

Zheng Wei clutched her bright red face, and smirked, “Then I must be a red apple, pretty and tasty, Lu Ya is a persimmon; you can’t pinch her even if she’s ripe, Zhuo Mei is a rambutan(something similar to a lychee)……”

“Why?” The uncaring Zhuo Mei was done.

“You’re like a rambutan, with one glance you look like you’re from Southeast Asia.” Everyone laughed, Zheng Wei said, “Our Ruan Ruan is a ginseng fruit, we all want to eat it, but no one can eat except for the advantageous Zhou Yu Yong, that rascal.”

Ruan Ruan laughed, “You are weird, I’ll say, it doesn’t matter what women are, they should be afraid they meet their Prince of Onions. You want to look into his heart, but you can only peel off his layers one by one, and throughout this process, he constantly makes you cry, the last thing you know, the onion happens to have no heart.”

Zheng Wei was thrown off, “A heartless Prince of Onions…… but if you never tried it, if you never cried, how do you know it has no heart?”

Li Wei Juan stood up, and pressed down with her hands, “Everyone listen up, I think, the best guy is like the most expensive fruit in the store, tasty, but you have to see if you have the ability and the strength to eat it, everyone are children of normal people, no one is the offspring of n.o.bility, so, this is a game, the key is who you want, your hands must be fast, using the most reasonable price to gain the best thing. Don’t stare at that most expensive one, we can’t buy it, wait until it’s discounted and it’ll be rotten; and don’t save money to buy the cheapest one, after you eat one bite, there won’t even be enough time to puke, the correct choice is to conduct extensive market research to understand the market, when it’s time to make your move, then make your move, exhaust every penny possible and buy the most worthwhile things.”

Zhu Xiao Bei applauded half-seriously, “Teacher Li, this is your wisdom, we have been educated again.”

Zheng Wei was slightly confused, “Li Wei Juan, I think you are wrong, what we don’t like to eat the most worthy fruit, I think we should still find the ones we like.”

Li Wei Juan disagreed, “This is the place that you don’t understand, even if it tastes better, even if it’s easier to buy, all of them are about the same taste. Look at you, you obviously pocketed the money, and you could buy the fruit of Xu Gong Zi but you just had to buy the Chen Xiao Zheng fruit that is made in China.”

He Lu Ya was speechless, “Isn’t Chen Xiao Zheng okay, I think he’s good, he just ignores people, I hear that many girls secretly love him.”

“What do you understand, comparing the value, Chen Xiao Zheng is good, but he is something that many of us cannot afford, but under Zheng Wei’s rich circ.u.mstances, she could have gotten something better, like Xu Gong Zi, look at Ruan Ruan, she was smart, isn’t her Zhou Yu Yong from a high family?” Li Wei Juan asked.

Ruan Ruan said, “You can’t say it like that, I looked for Yu Yong, because I like this type of fruit taste, I think Zheng Wei picking Chen Xiao Zheng is the same thing, and besides background, Chen Xiao Zheng doesn’t have anything incomparable to Xu Kai Yang, as long as guys put their heart into it, you can see the potential of the stocks, he’s so smart and talented, in the future he will definitely thrive.”

Li Wei Juan shook her head, “Ruan Ruan, don’t forget, to the end, all the girls are lychee, fresh for only a few days, don’t use your limited youth to wait for a man’s unpredictable future, you can’t wait forever, and the person who eventually cannot afford it in the end is yourself.”

When she finished, no one spoke. Ruan Ruan spoke after a long time, “You are right, youth will eventually be corrupted, when has time been fair, everyone is only fresh for these few years, and no one can afford to lose.”

They were all 20 years old girls, who didn’t know that youth was precious, they all thought about their own things. Zheng Wei naturally thought of A Zheng, when they came back on the path, she swore to ignore him, but she began to regret it again, she wasn’t supposed to be walk so quickly, if he turned around to find her, what would she do? He wasn’t as good as she was to him, maybe that was because he didn’t love her as much as she loved him, but love could not do business, if it must be one person who was to love more, then that was her, if she paid 20 points and he only returned 5 points. Then she would give him 20 points and wouldn’t he be able to give her a complete 10 points?

A Zheng loved her; he never said anything, and thus she didn’t know how many points this love could receive, but she believed in his steadfastness.

Maybe it was because she was too silly, she couldn’t understand Li Wei Juan’s great principles, but she vaguely knew, some things weren’t calculated like that. It was her own decision to go love, no one had forced her, then only serious people could love, and wasn’t the price also happiness? Youth was limited, this was true, but that meant that she even more couldn’t hesitate and waste her time, because she didn’t know if they would like each other several years later, or if she would have the same bravery she now had, then why not take time now, while she had everything she needed, and do everything she could to love?

She didn’t know how other people loved, but as for her, Zheng Wei’s love was like this.

Thus, she put her hand on the beer cup and placed it on the table, “Go to h.e.l.l, what rotting youth, I bet once, and bet for all eternity!”

The few people got back to the dormitory, Zheng Wei was the first person to go bathe, she felt a little tired, she had gone through many emotional ups and downs today, and only wanted to securely lie in bed, tomorrow, no matter what her att.i.tude was, she would help him explain it clearly.

When they had just finished bathing, Ruan Ruan hugged her pajamas and went to the bathroom, she smiled to Zheng Wei and said, “Wei Wei, I drank a little more, and feel a little thirsty, but I don’t want to drink tap water, can you do me a favor, and help me go buy a bottle of milk at the small canteen downstairs.”

How hard was this, Zheng Wei agreed quickly. She put on a casual piece of clothing and grabbed some money and ran down the stairs, when she came to the bottom of the stairs, she saw Chen Xiao Zheng, waiting under the tree.

She walked towards him, raptly, standing in front of him, forgetting what she was going to say or do.

Even though he had bathed, Chen Xiao Zheng was still sensitive of her alcoholic air, he said, “You drank alcohol again, I hate it when you drink.”

Zheng Wei laughed, “Don’t annoy me, say it once that you like me.”

He looked down and didn’t say anything.

She began to shake his hand shamelessly, “Say it say it, you’ll make me cry today, just say a bit and make me happy, just one sentence.”

Chen Xiao Zheng answered her by hugging her tightly, he hugged her so tightly, that she thought she was going to suffocate, she thought in a silly way, that she was willing to die like this in his embrace.

When the two people sat in the quiet statue garden of Mao Yi Sheng, she put her head on A Zheng’s shoulder, and he asked her, “Everyone is obviously independent of everyone else, how can one person be so attached to another, that you can’t separate from him and will never forget him.”

She said, “Then change into me, and have my thoughts, live my life, even one day is good, then maybe you’ll understand.”

After a while, she got up and said, “Why don’t you ask who the person in the photo is?”

Chen Xiao Zheng looked far away, “I don’t know why, yesterday and today I’m afraid of knowing the answer, and now I only wonder who he is, but that isn’t the important part.”

He could not want to know but she wanted to say, “The person in the picture is Lin Jing, he’s someone I liked since I was young, later……he went to America, A Zheng, right now I love you, but I can’t tell this to you, I will forget him, he is only a part of my memories, I treasure my memories.”

He lowered his head to kiss her and when her face reddened in his chest, he lowly said, “Did he kiss you before? Is he better than me?”

Zheng Wei said, amused, “You’re so stupid!”

After calming down, he hugged her, “I didn’t tell you about what happened in my home before, I have a single parent, I don’t have a dad……”

Zheng Wei interjected, “I am also a child of a single parent!”

Chen Xiao Zheng shook his head, “That’s not the same, at least your mother is still here. My dad died early on from sickness, my birth was posthumous. My parents were workers of a large scale machinery factory, my dad was very talented, when he died he was the head of the work, but it’s a pity that he died early, my parents were very good together, when he left, I was only in my mother’s stomach for 3 months. When people heard this, many people wanted to kill her child, she wouldn’t kill it and said that  only with this child would she continue to life on, everyone couldn’t do anything, so that’s why the world has me.

You have no way to understand a widow’s heart to her son, for my mom, I was her entire world, she was very pretty, and when I was young, there were many guys who would do anything to get her, and were willing to marry her, she flatly refused them and they all said that there were many people lining up in front of a widow’s door, I knew it wasn’t easy for her by herself, after so many years, for me, she cut off the idea of companions.h.i.+p in life. She would always say, ‘Do you know, A Zheng, seeing you, I feel like your dad is still here, he is by my side, but I can’t see him, and no matter how much I search, I must raise you, make you into a talent, and I’ll be satisfied’. My dad was never there, the fact that she raised a child was not an easy thing, year after year at the machinery factory, for me, she would break one penny into two halves, and basically paid for my education through her teeth, to give me a better life, and tighten my own belt. Really, I am her everything, some things you can’t understand, until I was in elementary school, she still picked me up no matter the weather, after middle school, at my protest she was afraid to come, but she calculated a good path from school back home. If I was even late by ten minutes, she would be frantic at home, and say that if anything happened to me, her whole life would be over.

She taught me to become a talent like that, and hoped that I would become someone like my father. As a child, it was just all fun, but when I was ten years old, because of some fun, I came home very late, and I didn’t do my homework, she was waiting for me on the sofa, the lights off, the moment I came home, I was. .h.i.t all over, with her hands, with a whip, at that moment, bloodstains were all over my back, it was the first time I hated her, but it wasn’t just then, hadn’t I just played that one time, just one time, but she actually used such a fierce hand to hit me. Later she hugged me and cried, cried a million times worse than I did. She repeatedly stressed, A Zheng, you are my everything, you are my hope, you can’t miss one step, not even one step! She cried so much that my clothes were almost transparent, that time I understood, when someone hurts another person, he/she will definitely be more hurt then the person he/she hurts.

She almost humbly pleased my teachers, from elementary school to middle school, it was a very simple idea, she hoped that they could teach me well, and only then would I amount to anything. Thus, when it rained, she would especially take a break from work and send my teachers an umbrella and me an umbrella, she would also give my cla.s.smates a little something during cla.s.s, she didn’t have any money, and only sent some staplers, wipes for the blackboard, the teacher was very embarra.s.sed and all the cla.s.smates would laugh at her, it was indeed very funny, but I couldn’t laugh, because I understood her heart. She loved me too heavily, so tightly that I couldn’t breathe, but without her there wouldn’t be me, so I cannot disappoint her, I can only walk forward, and do everything well, I must become something great, I must amount to something, I cannot fail her, I cannot!

Wei Wei, I said this, not because I want your sympathy but, I only hope that you know that I am someone like this, some things are determined when you are born. I know the path I must walk, and I also know I must reach that place, but I don’t know if there will be you.”

Zheng Wei had never heard him say so many things, he described a world unknown to her, and she could only snuggle with him, “I am not an obstacle for you to reach your goals.”

He used his chin to rub his hair, “I hope so, Wei Wei, I hope so.”

“What happened today, you were wrong!” She accused.

His face suddenly reddened and said somewhat haltingly, “I didn’t think so much then, I just felt uncomfortable, then I’ll apologize.”

“Who doesn’t know how to apologize, hit me with a big stick, and only give a tiny piece of sugar, can you just leave it like that?” She didn’t let him off.

“Then what do you want.”

She said, “A Zheng, give me a future.”

He had no choice, closed his eyes and lightly nodded.

“How long have we been together?”

“Almost a year.”

“13 months, how is it only 13 months.”

She heavily sighed, she felt that she had been with him for almost half of her life, but it had actually just been 13 months, now she felt, what was the use of youth, she hated that she couldn’t grow old with him together in one night, instantly white haired, then everything would have an end, and it would a real forever. Nothing would change, no one, and nothing would separate them.