The moment the clear sound of the doorbell rang, Wen Di almost threw the clothes he was holding.
He calmed himself down, holding the long-sleeved jeans in his arms and quietly slipped into the living room. He crouched down by the door, sneaking around like a thief caught by the homeowner returning unexpectedly.
This behavior was pointless; he had no idea why he was huddled in the corner, as the person outside the door couldn’t see through walls.
The doorbell rang twice more, and Yu Jingyi opened the door slightly to peek out. They were illegal residents, so no one ever visited them except for deliveries. At this hour, even the delivery guys had finished work.
And, looking at Wen Di’s behavior, it didn’t seem like he was waiting for a package, but rather hiding from someone.
“What’s going on?” Yu Jingyi asked. “Who’s outside the door?”
Wen Di put his index finger to his lips and waved at her. Yu Jingyi, as if possessed, walked over and crouched down beside him for no apparent reason.
Wen Di lowered his finger, cupped his hand by his mouth, tilted his head and whispered: “Neighbor.”
Yu Jingyi was confused: “Why are you hiding from the neighbor?”
“You must be joking. He’s a 1.9-meter-tall strong man. I’ve been arguing with him for so long. What if he’s here to settle the score and knocks me out with one punch?” Wen Di lowered his voice. “Besides, we’re renting illegally. What if we get exposed? Do either of us look like professors?”
Yu Jingyi was usually straightforward when talking with friends and classmates, but she was one of the rare introverts in the Department of Foreign Language. Unless absolutely necessary, she wouldn’t go out, socialize, or meet strangers. Already feeling guilty for living here illegally, she was infected by Wen Di’s cautious expression and started to panic: “Why is he here? Did you provoke him?”
“It wasn’t me,” Wen Di said. “It was the wind from Beijing.”
The doorbell rang for a while and then suddenly turned into knocking. Wen Di unnecessarily held his breath, and Yu Jingyi, infected by his reaction, also held hers. They sat side by side by the door, not daring to make a sound.
After a few knocks on the door, it suddenly became quiet outside. Both of them pressed their ears to the door, listening intently. After a moment, Yu Jingyi whispered, “Is he gone?”
Wen Di stood up, with one trouser leg hanging from his elbow. Yu Jingyi caught it before it hit the floor and draped it over Wen Di’s shoulder. Wen Di peeked through the peephole and shook his head.
“He didn’t leave?”
“Can’t see anything,” Wen Di said. “The Spring Festival couplets on the door haven’t been torn down, right? The peephole is blocked by that ‘double happiness’ character.” He paused, then started shifting the blame. “Didn’t I ask you to tear it down last month?”
Yu Jingyi pursed her lips. “You should ask the senior why the New Year decorations are still up after the holiday.”
Before she finished speaking, Wen Di suddenly felt his phone vibrate. He followed the sound, found it in a hoodie pocket, and saw a message pop up on the screen: [Why aren’t you opening the door?”]
He couldn’t help but shiver. Could this person be standing right outside, texting him?
He thought about replying with ‘I’m not home’, but he had just sent a picture of the clothes to the neighbor, so it was obvious that he was back.
He tapped his phone a few times with his fingernails, gritted his teeth, and sent: [In the bathroom.]
He regretted it as soon as he sent it. What if this person came back in ten minutes? So he quickly added: [You go back first, I’ll put it at the door for you later.]
Neighbor: [When?]
Why was he asking so many questions? Was he waiting to catch him in the act?
Wen Di: [Just check outside before you go to bed.]
Neighbor: [It takes you two hours to drop off a shirt?]
Wen Di glanced down at the clothes, thought for a moment, and quickly made up an excuse: [I already washed it; I have to wait for it to finish.]
Neighbor: [Why did you wash my shirt?]
Wen Di: [My clothes fell on the floor too, so I figured I’d wash them together. It’s no big deal to toss a few more in the washing machine]
Neighbor: [Take it out! That shirt can only be hand-washed, not machine-washed]
Great, even his random excuse backfired. After a two-second pause, Wen Di replied: [Okay, okay, I took it out. Don’t worry, it hasn’t started spinning yet. I’ll wring it out and bring it to you. You go back first.]
Neighbor: [Hurry up, I need that shirt for tomorrow. ]
Wen Di glanced at the shirt. With Beijing’s dry air, it would be mostly dry by morning, and a quick blast with a hairdryer would make it wearable. But was it really necessary to be this obsessive? [Can’t you wear something else tomorrow?]
Neighbor: [That’s my Friday shirt. I have to wear that one.]
Wen Di stared at the screen, with an expression like a bewildered elder on the subway. He tried to imagine someone arranging their clothes by the day of the week in their closet and got goosebumps. Ugh, obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Wen Di gritted his teeth: [Okay, okay, okay, you go first, I’ll bring it back to you in a bit.]
The neighbor didn’t reply for two minutes. Wen Di turned to Yu Jingyi and said: “He should be gone.”
Yu Jingyi let out a long breath and stood up, feeling a wave of numbness in her thighs. She massaged her legs with her hands and looked down at Wen Di, puzzled. “Why are we doing this?”
Flustered, disheveled, panicked, and acting suspiciously.
Wen Di replied: “Because of poverty.”
With that, he stood up and walked into the kitchen. The washing machine was next to the sink. He pulled out his own clothes, tossed them inside, and then picked up the large shirt.
“What are you doing?” Yu Jingyi watched him grab a plastic basin and start filling it with water.
“A single lie needs a lot more lies to cover it up,” Wen Di replied.
He had spent the entire evening doing chores, starting with sweeping the floor and ending with laundry. The only difference was the smile that gradually faded from his face.
What bad luck, Wen Di thought to himself as he wrung out the soaked shirt, always running into this jerk when he was in a good mood.
Yu Jingyi eyed the shirt suspiciously, leaning against the wall as she watched Wen Di shake off the water from his hands while muttering to himself. She twirled her phone between her fingers and asked, “Are you free Saturday night?”
“This week?” Wen Di quickly ran through his schedule in his mind. “I should be. Why?”
“You Jun is back and said she wants to have dinner with us,” Yu Jingyi said. “Are you going?”
Wen Di stopped what he was doing and rubbed his suddenly itchy forehead with his hand: “Where?”
“A Japanese restaurant in Zhongguancun.”
Wen Di started calculating in his mind; Japanese cuisine has a wide price range, from eighty to eight thousand per person. If his memory served him right, the taxes You Jun paid were higher than his salary.
Yu Jingyi patted his shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, it’s 120 yuan per person, we can afford it.”
Wen Di let out a sigh of relief and his tone lightened, a change he didn’t even realize himself. “Okay, let’s see what a proper T University graduate is like.”
They were all once other people’s children1别人家的孩子 basically mean good, exemplary children you always get compared to. In short, model children, but other people’s children came in different tiers. There were industry elites like You Jun, who dominated the finance sector, and then there were people like them just holding things up.2“后腿” (literally “hind legs”) metaphorically refers to those who are less successful or who hold back progress. So, this sentence can also be translated as ‘and there were also people like them, who were just lagging behind.’
As a child, Wen Di often heard that ‘education changes destiny’ and he firmly believed it, working tirelessly and striving toward a bright future.
However, by the time he was twenty-six, he suddenly realized that the bright future seemed as elusive as Kua Fu chasing the sun,3A famous mythological story from ancient Chinese folklore. It tells the tale of a giant named Kua Fu who was determined to catch the sun. According to wikipedia, in modern Chinese usage, it is used to describe a person who is brave and optimistic and willing to overcome all the obstacles to reach the goal. However, on baidu, it means to overestimate oneself and try to do sth. beyond one’s ability. always hanging in the distant, unreachable horizon. Ordinary citizens still remained ordinary citizens, and the spoiled daughter of heaven still remained the spoiled daughter of heaven.
He folded the damp shirt and rummaged around the house for a while, finding the leftover packaging bags from online shopping and putting them in. He never threw away these bags, instead, he would put them in a large shopping bag. Every three months, there was always a miraculous moment when they came in handy.
Wen Di sneaked to the door, listened carefully and after confirming that there was no movement in the corridor, he slowly turned the doorknob with his hand and slipped out.
He tiptoed and placed the clothes on the doormat across the door, then turned and went back home. Before entering, he made a small hole in the “福”4this is Fu character character on the door and exposed the peephole. He then sent a message to the neighbor saying the clothes were left at the door.
When Yu Jingyi walked back into the living room, she saw Wen Di crouched by the door, squinting with one eye, with both hands braced against the door panel, resembling a gecko hanging on the door.
She rubbed her eyes and stared at Wen Di. “What are you doing?”
“Wait by the tree for the rabbit,” Wen Di said. “I want to see what kind of person lives next door.”
The pose of clinging to the door was getting a bit tiring, and after a while his muscles became stiff and his eyes became dry. He stretched his neck and blinked.
Yu Jingyi sighed and decided not to participate in this game that would reduce her IQ.
Wen Di believed that if ten years of hard study had left him with anything, it was a tenacity that wouldn’t bend. Even if he had to wait until the seas dried up and the rocks wore away, he was determined to see what kind of oddball lived next door.
After waiting painfully for five minutes, the door finally opened with a distant squeak.
Wen Di took a deep breath and widened his eyes.
The door was partially open, and a figure emerged, leaning sideways with his head down, and only his black hair could be seen on both sides. The hair was stiff and each strand stood upright.
It didn’t look like a middle-aged uncle with a potbelly, nor an old scholar with thinning hair. The figure was slim, and…
This couldn’t be a man who was 1.9 meters tall.
Even accounting for the distortion from the peephole and the fact that the person was looking down, a 1.9-meter-tall person wouldn’t have left so much distance from the doorframe. This person was under 1.7 meters.
Wen Di squinted his eyes, trying to see the man’s face clearly.
Unfortunately, after the person picked up the clothes, the door slammed shut in an instant, and no clear view of his face was revealed.
Wen Di stared at the closed door for a long time and let out a ‘fuck’. It was all for nothing again.
He returned to the bedroom, full of suspicion, and pondered this strange thing: Why would someone who was about 1.6 meters tall need a 1.9-meter shirt? Was it now fashionable to wear oversized clothes? Or did hanging a 1.9-meter shirt help deter thieves?
Listening to the humming sound of the washing machine and looking at the empty hooks on the balcony, he felt a sense of regret: If he had known the neighbor was built like that, he would have faced him face to face; perhaps he could have won.
The phone started to vibrate, Wen Di originally thought the neighbor might be complaining about how he wrung out or packaged the clothes, but when took it out and saw it, it turned out to be an issue with the scholarship defense that had come to light.
Trouble never seemed to stop.
After the scholarship review results were announced, there was a three-day public announcement period during which objections could be submitted to the defense committee secretary—the secretary would usually be the assistant of the management, that would be Wen Di. Smart people often couldn’t stay put, and it was common for someone to come forward with a protest. This year was no exception.
Wen Di glanced at the note and saw that the person contacting him was a second-year doctoral student who had won the second-place scholarship. She was dissatisfied with the result and was very emotional late at night. She sent him a lengthy, impassioned message to Wen Di: [Senior, if we follow the old rules, purely based on research achievements, my number of conference and journal papers, as well as my academic exchanges and performances, are all higher than hers. At the doctoral forum, I received an excellent paper award, which she did not. In terms of comprehensive evaluation, apart from research, my achievements and performance in the other four dimensions also surpass hers. We were both candidates for the ‘Artistic Star’ award, but I was selected; I won the Ma Cup Championship in sports; in social work, I served as a counselor, led the A team, and was fully responsible for the Department Foreign Language’s student research recommendations, was named an outstanding student leader at the school level. Overall, I excel in every dimension compared to her. Why is she awarded first place while I am only second?]
Wen Di sighed and replied: [It’s not that you can win just by having good hard indicators.]
The student replied with a large question mark and then added: [I request that the scoring sheet be made public with real names.]
Wen Di grimaced at the screen. He knew the inside story of this year’s scholarships. The student who won first place was Zhao Professor’s student, and before the defense, her advisor had already spoken to the other judges. Originally, everyone’s qualifications were similar; the defense was largely about face. If there were acquaintances among the judges, the scores would naturally be higher. Experienced people, like him, could glance at the list of judges and know whether they were just there to make up the numbers.
The judges’ score sheet was anonymous, meaning you didn’t know which professor gave which score. If it were made public with real names, it would be clear at a glance who was doing the favor.
How could it be made public!
Wen Di spent a long time trying to explain to her, saying things like ‘the score is related to the performance of the defense’ and ‘judges’ preferences are personal’, but the girl remained unconvinced. Wen Di checked the time; it was almost midnight, he was sleepy and tired, and his headache was terrible. He was just a management assistant, not responsible for the scores—why was she making things difficult for him?
Wen Di sent her a message: [If you have objections to the scores given by the professors, then file a complaint. This year’s scholarships are handled by Professor Zhao; you should go directly to her.]
The student actually agreed. What was this kid thinking?
Wen Di quickly added: [You will definitely encounter Professor Zhao during your final academic report; she is also the chairperson of the degree evaluation committee.]
After a moment of silence, the student replied: [Forget it.]
This was what Wen Di expected. When students faced professors, the difference in battle power was one-sided. How could someone offend a professor over a few thousand yuan in scholarship money? Moreover, those professors were experienced in many battles and had even dealt with cases of self-harm and jumping off buildings so how could they be afraid of a scholarship dispute?
He turned his phone over and felt a pang of sympathy for the student. Hopefully, when the evaluation committee was replaced next year, she might be able to get back this year’s money.
Thinking of the money, his heart trembled for a while.
He remembered the seven hundred dollars that had been stolen.
The author has something to say:
Shakespeare’s nonsense literature: wrong is not very wrong, just completely wrong.
T/N:
Sorry for not updating last week! I’ve been so busy and usually Friday after 11 am, I’m free but last week I was occupied so I didn’t have time to work on this. Anyway, I’ll be busy again until end of September so update will be so slow, but there’ll be another update for tomorrow and thursday!
For this one, I’ve given up looking for the English version of it, so here is the literal translation of the title
