On the day of the gathering, the two of them, holding the idea of ’old friends reunited, can’t be shabby’, dressed carefully and left early. Yu Jingyi even put on makeup for the first time—unlike meeting someone as insignificant as Wen Di, meeting her close friend required more effort.
When they arrived at the Japanese restaurant, the two of them found a seat and sat down. After a short while, You Jun arrived. She waved at them from the entrance, and Wen Di smiled at her.
After entering university, Wen Di realized one thing: there were many perfect people in the world.
T University gathered a group of intimidating individuals. They had superior looks, brilliant minds, excellent academic achievements, and were thriving in social work. In addition to that, they had exceptional interpersonal skills, flawless personalities, and, most terrifying of all, they were even good at sports.
You Jun was one of them.
“Long time no see,” You Jun put down her bag and looked at them with a bright smile. After sitting down, she immediately busied herself with pouring water and ordering food, every move showing the efficiency of a capable professional. “Jingyi, you’re still so thin. I’m so envious.”
“You envy me?” Yu Jingyi said, “Do I have any other advantages besides being thin?”
“I can’t even fit into the pants I bought during undergrad,” You Jun waved her hand dismissively. “I’ve gained at least ten pounds since starting work, and I barely have time to exercise.” She then looked at Wen Di and gasped, “How do you look even younger? You used to look like a college student, but now you look like a high schooler.”
“You haven’t changed much,” Wen Di replied, “still as pretty as before.”
“Look at my dark circles before you praise me,” You Jun pointed to her head. “I’ve lost almost half of my hair. It’s only thanks to a good perm that you can’t tell.”
“Is work that exhausting?”
“Exhausting is one thing, but it’s the stress that’s the real issue,” You Jun said as she pushed the curls by her collar behind her and placed her phone face-up in a visible spot. “I just submitted my IPO application. If I get a call later, I have to run right away.”
You Jun had a typical planning personality. She knew where her career would end, so she started to build her network, do internships, and take exams in her freshman year, leveling up and fighting monsters step by step. In her senior year, she successfully switched fields to pursue a master’s degree at the neighboring university, all while securing an offer from a top investment bank, which surprised no one. In Wen Di’s eyes, You Jun was born for a life dressed in Roland Mouret, with Prada heels on her feet, where everything goes smoothly, and a bright future lies ahead.
But after sitting down, weariness seeped into everything she said.
“What?” You Jun laughed dumbly, “Prada? When I was close to applying, I didn’t even bother to put on makeup. I wore a T-shirt, jeans, and a pair of Nikes. You go to the Computer Science Department next door and you’d see me looking the same as when they rush their final assignments.”
She was called by her boss on New Year’s Eve to update the materials, her vacations and dates were suddenly canceled, and she had to prepare a presentation on her computer while on a plane—and sitting right next to her boss.
“I dressed up specially to see you today,” she said solemnly.
“Is it really that hectic?” Wen Di asked.
“Last year, when my grandfather had surgery, I was outside the operating room when I got a call asking me to revise a PPT,” You Jun said. “The operating light was still on, so I ran to the restroom, put the laptop on my lap, and worked.” Her uncle still didn’t speak to her.
Wen Di shuddered. “Is it really that scary?”
You Jun took a small bottle out of her bag and placed it on the table: “Metoprolol.”
A common medication for high blood pressure and heart disease.
She then took out another small bottle: “Zopiclone.”
“You started taking that in college,” Yu Jingyi remarked.
You Jun was a prominent figure in the department, leading the A-Team with her left hand, winning the Ma Cup Championship with her right hand, running around major financial institutions for internships, and the founder of the school’s microfilm club. She could go to bed at 2 a.m., wake up at 6 a.m., and still be full of energy and determination.
Everyone thought she was a natural-born leader and workaholic, but only Yu Jingyi knew that You Jun had been struggling with anxiety and insomnia since her sophomore year.
“That was melatonin; it has been useless a long time ago,” You Jun pointed to the small bottle. “This is real sleeping medication, but I can’t take it too often.”
After complaining for a few words, You Jun, like someone who strictly adhered to social etiquette, stopped herself and handed the menu to her old classmates across the table. “Forget it, let’s not talk about it anymore. Come on, come and eat. Take a look at what you want to eat.”
“Isn’t this a welcome dinner for you?” Wen Di said, “You order it.”
“You guys order first,” You Jun said. “I need to eat less tonight; I’m trying to lose weight. Ugh, this crappy job, when will it ever end?” She then looked at Wen Di. “You seem to be in good spirits. School life must be nice; I should’ve gone for a PhD.”
Wen Di’s eyebrows were raised to the sky. He was in good spirits? If it weren’t for his fear of heights, he would have jumped off the balcony while hanging laundry. “Don’t envy me. You’re the only one in our class who could become a capitalist. The department’s counting on you to donate a building someday.”
“What kind of capitalist am I. Song Yuelin is the capitalist,” You Jun said. “You guys can count on him.”
As soon as the name came out, the two people across the table stopped moving at the same time. Song Yuelin was their undergraduate classmate and You Jun’s ex-boyfriend. The two had fallen in love at first sight on the day of freshman orientation, attended the freshman dance together, and co-starred in promotional videos. But in their junior year, their relationship fell apart, causing a huge chaos.1鸡飞狗跳 (lit. chickens flying and dogs jumping (idiom)): to be in a turmoil, chaos
They still remember the tragic breakup of this golden couple. You Jun cursed hundreds of times in the class group chat, which frightened the whole class into silence —no one dared to speak up for days. She even took a photo of the diagnosis certificate issued by the psychiatrist and threatened to take the scumbag to court. But because the Song family was influential, the matter eventually fizzled out.
You Jun had already been under extreme stress, and that breakup nearly broke her. One late night, the police came to their dorm, saying she had called them and then suddenly left, scaring her three roommates half to death. Yu Jingyi ran across half the campus before finally finding her by the lotus pond.
This state was almost the same as Wen Di’s after his own breakup.
“I saw him at a cocktail party not too long ago,” You Jun said, obviously still not letting go of her resentment. “I heard he’s already married to a well-matched second-generation official. He was standing next to a chocolate fountain, and I nearly shoved his head right into it.”
These words spoke to Wen Di’s heart, and he nodded with deep feeling.
“I always said he wasn’t good enough for you,” Yu Jingyi chimed in. “What was wrong with you when you fell for him back then?”
“Just youthful ignorance,” You Jun replied. “Who hasn’t loved a couple of jerks when they were young?”
Wen Di joined in: “Yes ah. And compared to me, your taste wasn’t even that bad.”
You Jun suddenly straightened up. “Really?” she said. “Every time we argued, Song Yuelin would just disappear. He wouldn’t reply to WeChat messages or answer my calls. I had to go down to his dorm building and take the initiative to find him and make peace.”
Wen Di put down the water cup in his hand: “In high school, He Wenxuan broke his leg playing basketball. I brought him food and water, massaged his back and legs. He liked to eat crab meat soup dumplings, so I’d stand in line every day to buy them for him. In the winter, I was afraid they’d get cold, so I’d tuck them inside my down jacket and run back. My chest was burned red.”
Yu Jingyi’s eyes moved between the two of them, speechless: “What are you two doing? Competing?”
“When I was interning at BCG, I went on a business trip to Shanghai. When I came back, I found out he’d been having dinner and watching movies with a female junior,” You Jun said. “When I confronted him, he got furious and accused me of being paranoid.”
“When I was in college, I worked as a tutor for half a year and saved up money to buy him a watch,” Wen Di added. “He acted really touched in front of me, but behind my back, he complained to his friends, saying it was a tacky brand that only tasteless nouveau riche would wear.”
Yu Jingyi covered her ears, unable to bear listening to these two top students compete over their love brains: “Can you channel your competitive spirit into something else? What’s there to say about this? It’s embarrassing.”
You Jun ignored her friend’s disdain. “When we were together, he never took photos with me or introduced me to his friends or family. He claimed his family had strict rules and that we couldn’t go public until we were married.”
Wen Di took a deep breath and sat up straight, his expression was as solemn as a martial arts master revealing their ultimate move. “He told me that he would always be with me, so I followed him and applied to T University. But, after I got my acceptance letter, he suddenly told me he wanted to go abroad.”
“Wait,” You Jun frowned. “Weren’t the results for overseas applications announced in February?”
“Yes,” Wen Di said. “He got his results long before that but didn’t tell me. He hid it from me for six whole months.”
“You didn’t question him? What did he say?”
Wen Di shrugged. “He said the computer science program there is the best in the world, and he was thinking about his future. He also said that same-sex marriage is legal there, so he would work hard and when I graduate, he’d bring me over and we’d officially get married.”
You Jun looked at him as if he were crazy: “You actually believed that? If he really had that intention, he would have told you before applying to schools abroad, not wait until graduation to tell you. He was just afraid that if he told you earlier, you would argue with him. He didn’t want to deal with your emotions or have to comfort you, so he waited until the last moment to say something. If you could accept it, great; if not, he’d just disappear. Until the very end, you were still holding on to him, and he was perfectly comfortable.”
Wen Di fell silent. She was right, but it was a pity that when he was in love, even the Dragon King could not take away the water in his brain.2Dragon King (龙王, Lóng Wáng) refers to mythological figures in Chinese folklore. These are powerful deities or spirits that rule over bodies of water, like rivers and seas, and are believed to control weather and other natural phenomena.
“Then what?” You Jun asked, “Did you break up?”
“No…”
You Jun rolled her eyes: “You didn’t break up over that? Are you the second lead in an old melodrama or something?”
Wen Di hesitated for a moment before firing back: “You’re so clear-headed, why didn’t you break up with Song Yuelin earlier?”
You Jun’s eyes wandered briefly before she changed the subject: “So what was the reason for the breakup in the end?”
“Oh,” Wen Di said, “he got engaged to the daughter of a Silicon Valley tycoon while he was abroad and I only found out just before the wedding.”
You Jun raised her hands in surrender. “You win.”
Yu Jingyi looked like she was about to spit out her lunch: “You two are really…How can such smart people end up handling love like this?”
Wen Di had no idea, either. If he did, he would definitely go back to that afternoon of military training in high school and slap himself hard.
When you were too invested in a relationship, the consequence was that even after breaking up, the aftermath lingered, affecting the rest of your life.
For instance, he originally wanted to go to Shanghai, but He Wenxuan said he wanted to go to Beijing, so he followed suit and applied to T University. He was a science student in high school, so there was nothing wrong with applying to T University. But when the college entrance examination score line was announced that year, he knew he was doomed.
In previous years, even if he couldn’t get into popular majors like computer science or automation, he could still manage materials science or chemical engineering. However, that year, the scores for all science and engineering majors shot up, and he ended up being transferred to the English major.
There were two tragedies in the world: pure humanities students studying science, and pure science students turning to literature. Before he turned eighteen, Wen Di, as the textbooks described, was ‘too poor to afford books,’ and his literary literacy was worrying. He relied on rote memorization for words, standard templates for essays, and hard work to get good grades. He learned mute English, and his spoken language sounded like it came straight from a construction site. After entering university, he woke up early every day, practicing with BBC morning readings on the balcony, and spent hours in the library cramming English literature, barely managing to climb up from the bottom ranks.
Love, something that harmed people greatly.
He had invested the most carefree, fearless years of his youth into it, only to end up with a completely derailed life.
His first love had ended so tragically that he didn’t dare to try to love a second time.
Until just over a month ago.
Maybe the wound had healed and the pain had been forgotten, or maybe it was because the window period had been too long and the desire had become strong, and the longing in his heart that was banished to the cold palace had begun to stir again.
With the tragedy in the past, Wen Di thought that with the lesson learned, he wouldn’t stumble again. Stay calm, stay sensible, love still has a beautiful side.
Besides, he had been relying on toys and movies to solve his problems for the past five years, and it was driving him mad. He was a young man with good conditions in all aspects and was in the prime of his youth. Did he have to rely on his hardworking hands to solve problems for the rest of his life?
He thought of the professor’s long, slender fingers holding a piece of chalk, the muscles bulging under his shirt, and suddenly tightened his grip on the water cup.
His luck couldn’t be so bad that he’d run into two scumbags in a row, ba.
The professor seemed obsessed with academics, not good with words, and didn’t look like a scumbag who was good at sweet talk and flirting with other women.
Then, as if to slap him in the face, Yu Jingyi reached out and tapped him: “Isn’t that the math professor?”
Wen Di was startled and looked in the direction she was looking—sure enough, it was Bian Cheng.
He was dressed as he usually was for class, in a suit and tie, with a cold expression on his face. Sitting across from him was a young man, handsome with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. The two of them were chatting happily, looking like they were quite familiar with each other.
He recalled the few encounters he’d had with the professor, all of which were filled with catastrophic silence.
So this is what the professor looked like when chatting with someone he was familiar with?
Then, the young man sitting opposite the professor suddenly showed a shy smile that was inconsistent with his muscular body. He stretched out his hand, placed it on the professor’s hand, and held it tightly.
Wen Di’s eyes almost fell out.
Wasn’t that guy supposed to be just a friend?!
Could the professor actually be gay?!
And already taken?!
His emotions took a rollercoaster ride from heaven to hell, twisting through several turns. The waiter arrived with an okonomiyaki, the bonito flakes dancing in the rising steam, but his eyes were still fixed on the person across the hallway.
And then, something strange happened.
The young man opposite the professor suddenly turned his head and looked over here, his eyes fixed on Wen Di’s face. His expression shifted from shy to stormy in an instant. Then, with a sharp clatter, he slammed the teacup in his other hand onto the table. Wen Di had seen scenes like this in TV dramas; if this were a show, the next moment would have the water in the cup splashed across the professor’s face.
He was just thinking about it for fun, but who knew that the next second, the young man actually picked up the cup. With a loud splash, tea drenched the professor.
The author has something to say:
Life is but a walking shadow, a clumsy actor gesturing on the stage, appearing for a few moments and then quietly retreating in silence; it is a story told by a fool, full of noise and commotion, but without any trace of meaning.
——Macbeth
T/N:
Title but this is from Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5
Life’s but a walking shadow,
A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more:
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.
