When Wen Di first entered T University, there were 19 cafeterias on campus. By the time he reached his fourth year of his PhD, there were 23 cafeterias, (including the staff cafeteria). From roast duck to durian pastry, from mutton soup buns to spicy hot pot, there was enough food to last for 8 years without getting tired of it. So, even after moving out, Wen Di rarely cooked for himself. The cafeteria meals were 70% subsidized by the government, making it much more economical than buying your own food.
If he really wanted a quiet dining environment, he would pack it up and bring it back to eat. With a pot and a microwave at hand, even in winter, it wasn’t much trouble.
It was a very rewarding day. At noon, he met his crush and arranged a meal together. In the evening, he received a rejection letter from Foreign Literature Review—while a rejection wasn’t a good thing, it was a relief to be turned down quickly if there was no hope. The fast response was a pleasant surprise. Wen Di and Old Liu argued with each other and finally persuaded him to give up on aiming for a C Journal and instead submit to S University’s journal. Seeing the dawn of hope for the publication of the paper, Wen Di was in a good mood, so he splurged on a 30-yuan feast, buying Hainanese chicken rice and roast duck, and then headed to the fourth floor to buy fried milk and pumpkin puffs. Back in the community, he put a full table of dishes and poured a glass of juice. He felt that life was beautiful and the future was bright.
The kitchen was filled with a mouthwatering aroma, making people’s fingers tingle. Wen Di picked up a piece of duck and was just about to take a bite when something outside the window caught his eye…
…What was that?
He put down his chopsticks and looked more closely… Smoke?
At first, it was just a thin wisp, but it quickly grew thicker, drifting in through the kitchen window and enveloping the dining table.
The smoke carried a strong, spicy, and burnt odor that shot straight from his nose to the top of his head, jolting his brain cells to shudder and tremble collectively. Wen Di started coughing violently, his eyes welling up with tears. His chronic pharyngitis, worsened by Beijing’s air pollution, was on the verge of turning acute.
He rushed to the window, slammed it shut and locked it, then flung open the bedroom door and dashed to the balcony, taking deep breaths of fresh air.
He had barely taken a breath before goosebumps covered his skin— the balcony was also filled with the burnt smell!
Wen Di sneezed, pinched his nose, and dashed back inside. He hurried to the kitchen window to flung it open, and stuck his head out, angrily searching for the source of the smoke.
It didn’t take long for him to find it— thick white smoke was billowing out of the neighboring kitchen, drifting over to his side with the wind. The smoke was so dense that it obscured the view outside.
What the heck! First, this person assaulted his hearing, now his sense of smell? This person wouldn’t stop until his internal organs were burned, right!
Wen Di pulled out his phone, found his neighbor on WeChat, and brought them him out of his blocklist, tapping the screen furiously as he typed: [Is your place on fire??]
Neighbor: [?]
Wen Di: [Why do you get so much smoke at your house?]
Neighbor: [Just a little mishap while cooking.]
Wen Di: [A little?]
Neighbor: [I’ve already opened the windows to ventilate.]
Wen Di: [Yeah! And all the smoke is coming straight to me! Maybe think about the wind direction before you open your windows!]
Neighbor: [My house has a Western-style kitchen, no range hood.]
Wen Di: [Then maybe don’t cook things that create so much smoke! You’re a terrible cook with way too much confidence!]1人菜瘾还大 is actually a slightly mocking phrase used to describe someone who is not good at something but still insists on doing it or is overly enthusiastic about it. It is often used in games. 菜, literally ‘vegetable’ meaning ‘bad’ or ‘incompetent’ in this context, and 瘾还大, meaning ‘has a big craving’.
The argument distracted Wen Di, and he accidentally took a deep breath, which made him cough violently again. He shook his head in anger, and closed the window again. How could someone be this bad at cooking? This wasn’t just burning food; this was roasting charcoal!
Wen Di: [I used to think you just had no talent in music, but now I see you’re incompetent at everything]
Neighbor: [You’ve never burned anything before?]
Wen Di: [Your level is not called burning, it’s making a biochemical bomb!]
Neighbor: [Your exaggerated style is exactly the same as your idol.]
Wen Di: [If you have a good sense of hearing or smell, you’d know just how realistic I’m being.]
Then, Wen Di began to wonder again; aside from the burnt smell, there was also a strong spicy and foul odor. He questioned the other party: “What on earth did you burn to make it smell this bad? A fish that’s been dead for three months mixed with chili peppers?”
Neighbors: [Toads, beetles, bats. ]
Wen Di was startled and looked around suspiciously. Did this person have the ability to read minds? How did he know that I am cursing him? Then he became furious again – this sarcastic answer, as always, was infuriating: [Would it kill you to stop being so snarky?]
Neighbor: [Aren’t you a big fan of Shakespeare? How can words of the one you love be considered snarky?]
Wen Di sneered and replied: [You say you hate him, but you remember Shakespeare’s lines clearly and know the plots like the back of your hand. You are not a Shakespeare hater, but a closeted fan, right?]
Neighbor: [The handwriting on the note was so ugly that it left a deep impression on me.]
Wen Di stared at the phone screen, reached out, tapped the top right corner, blocked the contact, and turned off the screen.
What did he care about this psychopath for!
He angrily put down his phone and looked dejectedly at the table. After enduring the toxic fumes and silently nursing his frustration, the worst part was—he lost the argument yet again. Staring at the now-cold food, Wen Di dejectedly picked up a piece of chicken, took a bite, and then put it back down.
Even with the windows closed, there was a strange smell in the house, so pungent and acrid that it made people feel nauseous and lost their appetite.
Grinding his teeth, Wen Di picked up his phone and opened WeChat. He needed to find someone to vent about the mental trauma he’d just experienced.
After flipping through the address book, he clicked on the profile picture of his old classmate Jiang Nanze. Wen Di and Jiang Nanze had attended the same high school, but he knew Jiang Nanze through his ex-boyfriend, He Wenxuan. Jiang Nanze and He Wenxuan were childhood friends, both belonged to the circle of the second generation of the rich2fu’er dai – I literally translate it to this. When Wen Di was with He Wenxuan, he mingled in their circle and met many of the elite. After their breakup, the only one who stood by his side was Jiang Nanze. Although this was partly because Jiang Nanze was considered an outlier—others thought he was crazy3he here was referring to Jian Nanze. Personally, I also thought he was crazy but the best kind of crazy hahaha—Wen Di was still grateful.
The label of ‘crazy’ was both harsh and impolite, but it is appropriate to put it on Jiang Nanze. Just last year, Wen Di heard that he had jumped into a pool full of Irukandji jellyfish—one of the most venomous jellyfish in the world, where the venom of a single jellyfish could kill fifteen people. After being stung, Jiang Nanze was rushed to the hospital and spent two whole days convulsing on the bed, writhing in agony. Yet, the day after he was discharged, he caught another jellyfish with his bare hands, watching its three-meter-long tentacles flail around, occasionally brushing against his lips.
His peers recorded the video and uploaded it to YouTube, causing quite a stir. Jiang Nanze not only didn’t mind, but also forwarded the video link to Wen Di.
Everyone said that his rebellious behavior was a way to get his parents’ attention. Jiang Nanze’s parents were both from prominent families, and their early years were marked by noisy and dramatic arguments. After their difficult divorce, they continued to marry and divorce repeatedly, as if in a competition. Jiang Nanze had a bunch of half-siblings and step-siblings, and the time each of them could spend with the parents was only a few days. Without some extraordinary measures, it was hard to attract the wild bees and butterflies flying among the flowers.
However, Wen Di was skeptical of this explanation—at least partially skeptical. After the jellyfish incident, he asked Jiang Nanze why he didn’t approach it more scientifically. Why didn’t he take a white mouse, place it belly-up on a workbench, secure it with tape, inject the venom, and then observe its convulsions until it died to study the effects of the venom.
Jiang Nanze shrugged and said, “I love marine life, and I also love terrestrial life.”
The tone seemed to be a joke, but also seemed not to be. Anyway, Wen Di couldn’t quite figure him out—not even why he was friends with himself.
After graduating from high school, Wen Di and Jiang Nanze both were admitted to T University and were alumni for four years. During his doctoral studies, Jiang Nanze went to Princeton, but they frequently chatted online and and often got together during the summer and winter holidays in China, so they maintained a good friendship.
Not long ago, during a complex geometry class, Wen Di had been bothering Jiang Nanze with a series of math questions that Jiang Nanze couldn’t answer but Jiang Nanze remained patient. After years of understanding him, Wen Di had come to believe that, although Jiang Nanze was a bit of a madman, he was still understanding.
Wen Di carefully considered his words, exaggerated the annoyance caused by his neighbor by fifty percent and sent Jiang Nanze a long message, ending with three exclamation marks: [Is this person crazy!!]
After five minutes, Jiang Nanze replied: [Yes.]
Wen Di scratched his head. Was minimalism the trend these days? How come both his crush and his friends couldn’t even say three words in a sentence?
Wen Di continued to seek validation: [He even disrespected Shakespeare. How can I tolerate that?]
After a while, Jiang Nanze replied casually: [People have different preferences.]
Damn, Wen Di had forgotten that Jiang Nanze wasn’t into fictional works. He thought novels and dramas had too low an information density, and those thousand-page masterpieces were full of nonsense.
Wen Di thought for a moment and typed a sentence: [Jellyfish don’t even have brains, what’s the point of studying such low-level creatures?]
As soon as he sent it, a video call came through. Wen Di smiled and pressed the answer button.
In an instant, a furious voice came from the other side: “What did you just say? Say it again!”
“You see ba.” Wen Di said gravely, “Isn’t this the kind of bastard who attacks someone else’s research is evil and deserves to be punished?”
There was a brief pause before the other person responded grimly: “He should be thrown into Iruka’s tank.”
Wen Di was puzzled: “Who’s Iruka?”
“My Irukandji jellyfish.”
Wen Di didn’t comment on the fact that he gave the jellyfish a nickname. Instead, he nodded with satisfaction. “Throw him in!”
Having found his comrades who shared the same hatred for the enemy, Wen Di felt a bit better, and the hunger in his stomach started to surface. He pulled out his earbuds, put them in, and freed up his hands to dig into his roasted duck with relish. At the same time, he casually asked his old friend about his recent activities.
Jiang Nanze had strong academic ability. He started scientific research in his sophomore year and won the championship in the Xinghuo Project, a school-level scientific research competition at T University. Naturally, unlike Wen Di, he had no worries about graduation. He mentioned that he recently discovered box jellyfish in another bay, noting that their range of activity had expanded. With global pollution worsening, marine life was being squeezed, populations were either declining or going extinct, and only jellyfish were becoming more active.
“What about personal life?” Wen Di asked.
“It’s the same as before,” Jiang Nanze replied, “people come and go.”
Jiang Nanze’s romantic history was as extensive as Don Juan’s, but it was all just fleeting encounters. If true love existed for him, it was probably only for jellyfish. If any country in the world ever legalized interspecies marriage, Wen Di was convinced Jiang Nanze would be the first to go and get a marriage certificate with jellyfish.
“Why were you in the bathroom for so long?” Jiang Nanze asked suddenly.
“What?” Wen Di was confused.
“Not talking to you,” Jiang Nanze clarified. “I’m talking to Thomas.”
Wen Di didn’t ask any further questions.
Jiang Nanze continued to mutter a few more things, “Don’t order fried chicken, I don’t want any,” and “Move over, you’re blocking my view of the TV.” He was probably talking to Thomas.
After Jiang Nanze finished talking to the man on his side, he turned around and continued chatting with Wen Di. Without any preamble, he dropped a bombshell. “By the way,” Jiang Nanze said, “I ran into He Wenxuan a few days ago.”
After that, the other side fell into silence. Wen Di knew exactly what that silence meant—Jiang Nanze was the first witness to the disastrous breakup back then.
It seemed that five years wasn’t enough to wear away the hatred for a person. The moment he heard the name, Wen Di felt a wave of nausea and put down his chopsticks. After contemplating how to respond, he ended up simply saying, “He’s still alive?”
Jiang Nanze quickly reported his childhood friend’s current situation. “Alive and kicking. He’s got an AI company in Silicon Valley called Fango, specializing in unmanned delivery. It went public on NASDAQ last August, and now it’s valued at over $6 billion. By the way, has the exchange rate hit 7? How much is that in RMB?”
“Why are you giving me so many details!” Wen Di felt the anger rising up his esophagus, burning away his appetite and rationality. “Who asked you to tell me about his wonderful life? Tell me about something unfortunate that’s happened to him! Hasn’t he run into any disasters or misfortunes?!”
Jiang Nanze let out a hiss and went silent for a long time. Wen Di wasn’t sure if he was off talking to Thomas again or if it was just that hard to find some misfortune in He Wenxuan’s life. Finally, Jiang Nanze said, “He got divorced.”
Wen Di was silent for a moment before suddenly jumping up. “How is that any kind of misfortune?” he said. “For someone like him, divorce is freedom! Why didn’t you just push him into a pool of Irukandji jellyfish?”
“He’s my childhood friend, after all. You want me to commit murder for money?”
Wen Di sighed, feeling a bit disappointed that even a madman had moral limits.
Then Jiang Nanze dropped another bombshell. “Oh, and he’s coming back to China soon.”
The implication was clear. Wen Di sneered, “And what does that have to do with me?”
“His new company is in Zhongguancun,” Jiang Nanze said. “He even asked about you.”
Wen Di rolled his eyes. “What does he want now?”
“He missed you a lot and asked me how you were doing,” Jiang Nanze said, “and he mentioned wanting to talk to you.”
Wen Di sat up, sneered, and reached out to tighten the earphones a little.
“Tell him this,” Wen Di said, “The day he goes bankrupt, he can come find me and make me happy. Until then, he should get away from me, the farther the better.”
“Oh, that might be a bit late,” Jiang Nanze replied. “He already knows your address.”
“What?” Wen Di was shocked. Living in the faculty apartments wasn’t exactly by the book, so he hadn’t told many people. How could He Wenxuan possibly know?
“Remember when I sent you that package? He showed up when the package was at the door and happened to see it,” Jiang Nanze said casually. “Just thought I’d give you a heads-up.”
The call was hung up immediately, and it was obvious that the other party was guilty and afraid that Wen Di would come to question him. Wen Di stared at the black screen with bloodshot eyes —okay, after five years, the past was catching up to him.
Couldn’t his wonderful life last more than five minutes!
Translator Notes:
The title is from Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5.
哦，格特鲁德，格特鲁德，当困难来临时，它们不像间谍那样一次只来一个，而是像军队一样一股脑全来。(Oh, Gertrude, Gertrude, when troubles come they do not come one at a time like spies, but come all at once like an army.)
The original version would be:
O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies
But in battalions.
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