Passing Through Your World Chapter 3: First Love, Only One Person's Worries (1)

I used to make many promises, few of which I honored. We walked farther and farther face to face and disappeared quietly side by side. Tears trickled down your cheeks, each of which burned my skin. You should have stayed at home finis.h.i.+ng the exam paper instead of handing over the empty paper together with me. Sorry, I once loved you.

1

At 12 o’clock after working overtime, I went to a familiar bar for a drink. The women in the bar had been touched by other people, so I had no interest in touching Pastoral Dog, likewise.

Thus, I drank a lot.

Pastoral Dog said, “Do you know the Gossip of Dragon Palms emphasizes beating to the draw or the otherwise?”

I said, “f.u.c.k you. They’re not as good as the uniform temptation.”

Pastoral Dog immediately had a falling out with me. “Can you be also serious when I’m serious?”

I thought to myself, “How can the Gossip of Dragon Palms be serious? d.a.m.n it!”

Pastoral Dog said, “Hence, you have to pursue the other one first in a relations.h.i.+p.”

I said, “Holy c.r.a.p! I’ll lose my face.”

Pastoral Dog said, “You have to do so, because if you pursue her first, you’ll lose face only in the beginning, at most. If she becomes your girlfriend, it means that you’ve studied her hobbies and catered to her emotions and have permeated into her life. When you get sick of her, she can’t leave you anymore. As a result, when the relations.h.i.+p ends, it’ll be you who break ups with her first.”

I was so astounded that I lost my usual calmness. “It’s so mean and formidable. What is this?”

Pastoral Dog drank a gla.s.s of beer and said, “Master Sun's Art of War is to the war what Dog’s Art of War is to a relations.h.i.+p.”

I suddenly realized through the yellowish golden beer that each woman looked quite beautiful. Maybe, that was the so-called wine and women.

Being preemptive was way better than losing the initiative. When she could gradually rest a.s.sured and entrust you with her life, you already left her on your own initiative.

2

In sixth grade, Monitor and I were deskmates. At that time, Monitor always got the first place and was pointed as the Captain of Young Pioneers while I was second to her and was appointed as the a.s.sistant Captain.

The biggest difference between them was the moment when we held a ceremony. She would shout loudly, “Lining, we’re so proud of you!” Standing next to her, I saluted in good earnest. Not until she finished her words could I drop down my hand.

I couldn’t hate Lining more because of the salutation of Young Pioneers.

A new fat cla.s.s adviser came one day. She introduced herself on the platform while we discussed below.

Monitor said, “She’s so fat.”

I said, “She’s so fat that the soup stewing her must be delicious.”

Monitor said, “Are you hungry after you just finished breakfast?”

I said, “She’s so fat, so I must get her.”

The fatty cla.s.s adviser announced a new rule that each one took a nap at noon, and whoever didn’t sleep at noon would be written down by the monitor on a registration brochure.

Since then, my name was always on the brochure each day. Alas, I really wanted to change my name to Mao Lanqi, a name with many strokes. Then, each time she wrote my name down, she would spend much more time.

The more times she wrote my name down, the more I didn’t want to sleep. If I had earlier learned the physiological knowledge, I would have cut off her facial muscles and then her bra straps.

The reason why I knew she wore a bra in the sixth grade was that when she wrote my name down again, I pulled her braid, but she got away with it. When I tried to pull her again, I grabbed an elastic cord and shouted, “Wow, what is this? Why do you tie yourself up?”

As a result, she burst into tears, and I had to call my parents to school.

Mother told me that it was called bra, and boys couldn’t grab it casually.

I thought to myself, “I am taught to grab a good education. Since the bra is somehow related to education, how could I not grab her bra?”

When I grew up and grabbed a bra again, I sadly thought that I hadn’t grabbed a good education in my childhood, so now I ended up grabbing a size A cup instead of a size D cup.

3

In order to usher in the final examination, we didn’t need to take a nap at noon. Monitor brought an extrcurricular drawing book named Little Prince. She lent it to the whole cla.s.smates, but I held back my desire for asking her to lend it to me.

She was working on the blackboard newspaper when the whole cla.s.smates finished reading. I sneakily went over and asked, “Can you lend it to me?”

Monitor said, “No.”

I said, “If you lend it to me, I’ll buy you a bra.”

She bit her lips and refused to talk to me.

I was overwhelmed with anger and shame and thought that what the h.e.l.l I offended her!

The fat cla.s.s adviser settled the score before the final examination. All the students whose name were written down would be slapped on the back of their hands.

The students were slapped one by one. I even prepared myself for being slapped from the morning to the evening. But, she didn’t call my name in the end.

I thought to myself, “ Does this fatty really become mine?”

I graduated after the final examination.

At the graduation day, Monitor sent me a package where there were two things.

One was the drawing book named Little Prince.

The other one was the registration brochure.

After opening the brochure, I saw that a name among all the names was painted blue by a ballpoint pen each day.

I felt quite confused about why she sent me this.

Not until the junior middle school when my IQ was upgraded to 100 did I suddenly understand her behavior. It was definitely my name that she painted blue each day!

Before she handed the brochure over to the cla.s.s adviser, she painted all my names blue.

Having rushed home, I rummaged the drawers and found the brochure, the last page of which I saw her phone number.

When I dialed this number, I knew that Monitor had moved, and no one knew where her new house was.

Thus, Monitor had always remained a beauty in my memory.

More importantly, the age of my first love was upgraded from the sixth grade to my freshman year.

Alas! What a h.e.l.l gap!

4

When I was a freshman, Jiang Wei came to meet me from another place. She first gave me a bar of WRIGLEY’S DOUBLEMINT chewing gum.

I asked, “What is this?”

Jiang Wei replied, “Chewing gum.”

I asked, “Can it make me full?”

Jiang Wei said, “Can you call me when you have nothing to eat?”

I said, “I don’t have money to eat, so how can I call you?”

Jiang Wei said, “Then you can get this IP card.”

I said, “Since I can’t eat anything, why do I still need the IP card?”

Jiang Wei replied, “If so, you can use this bank card.”

Out of the blue, I burst into tears. f.u.c.k the IP card and bank card. I was hungry.

Later, I had been on the phone with her about more than half a year.

During the period, I realized a piece of important information that when girls missed me, they would cry on the phone; but when my mother missed me, she would cry after she hung up the phone.

Later, I found out a good friend of mine had a crush on her.

Thus, I borrowed 1,500 RMB from her.

I put this money under my pillow.

Neither did I use it when I didn’t have money to eat nor did I use it when I didn’t afford to go to the Internet Cafe.

I didn’t return the money even when she called me saying that she had to use it to pay for her tuition fee.

En, my friend helped her with the fee.

They got married in five years.

I sent them a red packet of 1,500 RMB that was pressed flat by the pillow without any wrinkles.

I finally returned the money, only leaving me a green wrapping paper of the chewing gum that was also pressed flat by the pillow without any wrinkles.

5

Instead of living in school, I lived in a two-story earth-house near the teachers’ building in senior three. I was upstairs while a retired old princ.i.p.al lived downstairs.

There was always electricity and water. I didn’t need to use a flashlight when I read martial arts books all night. I could come and go at my will. What a carefree and unrestrained life!

Did you lead such a happy life like me in senior three? Looking back, I was so happy that I wanted to turn a somersault.

My cla.s.s adviser was a lonely and grumpy old woman. Therefore, I was asked to have a chat with her out of her loneliness and was then rebuked by her because of her fury.

Driven by my indignation, I chose to act recklessly. Neither did I show up in the morning exercise nor did I attend the morning reading. If I was in a bad mood, I would even skip the morning cla.s.s.

What was this called?

It was called courage.