“And you smell, too,” Jǐ Yi replied softly.
“Let me go have a shower first, and then I’ll come find you.” Jì Chengyang chuckled.
“Mm.” Loosening her hold on him, she pulled herself away from his embrace. At last, she realized what sort of surroundings she was in. Upstairs, Jì Nuannuan was incessantly making an expression that declared, “Awesome!” while looping her arm through her maternal grandpa’s arm and bringing the elderly man back into the dining room to continue eating.
Jì Chengyang was too exhausted.
His return journey here would not be considered smooth. Many of the roads and bridges were in the midst of carrying out rushed, emergency repairs. After parting ways with his two journalist friends, he had proceeded on foot for seven, eight hours before finally finding a place where transportation had not yet been halted.
The he of the past had often trekked busily about like this for news stories. This, though, was his first time doing everything possible to get back “home” as soon as he could.
When he had finished showering and lain himself down on the couch in the study, Jǐ Yi nestled up beside him and also lay down. Her frame was dimuntive, and to him, she was more like an extra-large throw pillow, so very soft.
“Are you sleepy? Do you want to go sleep? If you want to sleep, why don’t you go into the guest room? It’s not comfy here.” Jǐ Yi tossed out these several questions in succession, seeming like a nagging little mother.
“I’m not sleepy, just tired,” Jì Chengyang answered her, his voice quiet. Right now, every single joint in his entire body felt swollen and aching. Lying quietly like this was the most comfortable and was much better than expending effort again to move to another place.
Squeezing her hand, he sighed, “How is it you’ve all of a sudden grown up so much?”
“Huh?” Jǐ Yi was a little anxious at this and lifted her head. “Am I old?”
A laugh sputtered out from Jì Chengyang. “Grown up, not old.” He did not really understand how she managed to associate that with the word “old.” Based on her age, she should be considered a grown adult, but in his eyes, she was still a little girl.
As he simply held her hand in his like this and then thought back to the size of her palm when she was a child, he found it quite inconceivable.
For a moment, Jì Chengyang’s emotions were somewhat stirred.
Jǐ Yi did not know what he was thinking and merely thought he was tired and did not want to speak. After a while, she sat herself up straight and began gliding the palm of her right hand over and over again from his thigh to his ankle. Though the material of his pants acted as a barrier, this repeated action actually caused Jì Chengyang’s entire body to relax quite a bit. Squinting his eyes in comfort, he asked, “What are you doing?”
“Back then when Zhao Xiaoying was tired, her mom would massage her like this. She tried it on me before, too. It feels pretty good.”
It did feel pretty good.
Jì Chengyang stretched out his arms, then crossed them and placed them like a pillow behind his head.
<>Please support this translation by reading it at its actual site of posting, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com, instead. Thank you very much.
Of those two journalist friends with whom he had gone on the journey to Dazhou, one was a father already, while the other’s wife was pregnant and they were anticipating the arrival of the baby. When the two men chatted, the topics were very amusing. The one who was already a father would speak with great familiarity about child development and parenting, and even about the kindergartens near his residential area. And also baby formula, diapers… All of this experience, he passed on, one by one, to the dad-to-be, and in excitement, the dad-to-be had pulled out a notebook and begun taking notes.
At the end, the one who was already a father had even sighed feelingly, “Before she was born, I didn’t know I liked her so much. A couple years have passed, and I honestly feel happy just looking at her. I truly get now what other people have said before, where in the future, if any man dares to hurt her, I would totally kill him.” And furthermore, this grown man had very naturally used sappy words like “cute, little princess” to describe his own daughter.
Jì Chengyang likely would never have the chance to experience this feeling.
However, the little lady who was beside him now had appeared in his life from the time she was only several years old. At first, he had played the role of half a guardian to her and would even carry her to the medical clinic to have her finger bandaged and get a tetanus shot. This type of experience was also very remarkable.
He felt that he actually was not someone who was suitable for marriage.
His character, family background, and financial situation were still passable, but he was someone who thought too much on things. When a person is too greedy and insatiable in his inner and mental world, he will become dissatisfied and unwilling to be bound by the practical world’s issues of basic necessities. If there were no Jǐ Yi, he would probably have been someone who very firmly did not believe in marriage for himself.
It was still the case now.
Were it not for Jǐ Yi, he, as someone with such experiences and health, should not let himself become a hindrance upon someone else.
<>Copyright of Fanatical, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Translated with the express permission of the author for hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com only
Earthquake casualties from Pengzhou, Shifang, Mianzhu, Dujiangyan, Beichuan, Wenchuan, Qingchuan, etc. were continuously being sent to the General Hospital of Chengdu Military Region. The number of people with serious or critical injuries rose relentlessly. Large numbers of military troops headed to the frontlines of the disaster relief efforts to provide aid…
In the beginning, there were more incoming telephone calls, inquiring and expressing concern aboutthe elderly one’s situation. Later, though, more calls were being dialed out from the home. There was not a moment where the elderly man was not trying to understand the current situation from his former subordinates in the military.
Nuannuan’s maternal grandpa was originally going to go back to Beijing with them, but as a result of the earthquake, he changed his travel plans.
Nuannuan and her mother also decided to stay here for the time being to be with her maternal grandpa, and so in the end, the only ones returning to Beijing were Jì Chengyang and Jǐ Yi.
On the night before Jì Chengyang left, he and Nuannuan’s maternal grandpa talked in the study until late into the night. Jì Nuannuan puzzledly asked her mother, “What’s there to talk about between Grandpa and Little Uncle?”
Nuannuan’s mother stated something that was very profound and meaningful. “With the person that your little uncle is, his future father-in-law may not necessarily like him, because he will feel that your little uncle will hinder his daughter from having a happy life. However, those elderly ones, one generation removed, who have gone through war and turbulent times will feel that they have common, relatable experiences with him.”
Jì Nuannuan relayed these words to Jǐ Yi.
<>This is a copy, taken from hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Please support the translation by reading it there instead. Thank you.
The next day, as Jǐ Yi leafed through a newspaper on the airplane, she curiously asked him, what would he chat about with an elderly man?
“We chat about… natural disasters and man-made calamities, chat about the current state of international affairs, chat about people and their livelihood and wellbeing, chat about the past and bygone days.” Jì Chengyang tilted his head down slightly and told her quietly, “And we also chat about love.”
Jǐ Yi’s eyelashes gave a couple of flutters, and she did not try at all to conceal the inquiring look in her eyes.
“He told me some of the romantic and sentimental stories of the war era. I had no way of repaying this kindness, so I could only tell him the story of you and me.” Putting on an act of resigned helplessness, Jì Chengyang sighed, “Don’t judge Nuannuan’s grandpa by his normal stern exterior; if he wants to delve into the love life of us in the younger generation, he’s got his own way.”
“You told him” Jǐ Yi’s hand nervously gripped the newspaper. “How did you say it?”
What would he tell him?
What was their story like in Jì Chengyang’s eyes?
Girls will forever be like this, tirelessly wanting to know, in the other person’s eyes and heart, what is she like, and what sort of position does the love between them occupy? …
Of course, Jì Chengyang could not possibly understand women to this degree.
He knew only that Jǐ Yi very much liked listening to him talk about such things.
“I said… I’m a thirty-something-year-old man whose health is poor, whose temper is just average, and who sometimes is pretty self-absorbed. I’ve got quite a few faults, and my good qualities I’ve squandered away completely as well. But you are still so young. If you had not known me since you were little, or if you were a little smarter, you would realize that this person called Jì Chengyang is actually just so-so and is very unsuitable to marry. So, in summary, it’s really my good luck that we can be together.”
An unexpected answer.
Jǐ Yi was somewhat unable to process this. “You really said that?”
“Really.” He laughed. “A few words might have been different somewhere between the beginning and the end, it’s not a one-hundred-percent reiteration, but that was the meaning.”
In all honesty, he was not someone who was especially good at analyzing himself, and it was even more exceptional that he could actually convert these types of thoughts into words and express them. At this time, the flight attendant happened to come by and inquire with them about their lunches, hence interrupting this brief conversation.
To his surprise, after the flight attendant left, Jǐ Yi was still staring unblinkingly at him.
“The food on the plane isn’t very good. Just eat a bit. Once we get off the plane, we’ll find a place to have lunch,” he told her.
“Jì Chengyang.”
“Hmm?” He could detect that there was something different about her. In his memory, she almost never addressed him like this.
“Nuannuan wants me to be her maid-of-honour.”
“She told me that.”
“I’m undecided…”
“What’s wrong?” He made a reasonable conjecture. “You don’t like that boyfriend of hers?”
“No.” This was a huge misunderstanding; what she wanted to express was not this at all. However, after choking over the words for a long time, she still did not end up saying them aloud and merely hurriedly brought the discussion to an end. “She wants to get married in the early fall. That’s too late.”
There were still another four or five months; it was still a long time from now.
But she wanted to marry Jì Chengyang before that. How could someone who was already married be a maid-of-honour?
It was apparent Jì Chengyang did not catch the meaning within her words. Seeing that she was having a little temper tantrum and looked unwilling to continue saying more, he simply smiled and did not probe further.
<>Copyright of Fanatical, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Translated with the express permission of the author for hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com only
After returning to the newspaper agency, Jǐ Yi wanted to take the initiative to talk to her team director about the matter of being a foreign correspondent. After all, for something like this where she was taking up an assignment slot, if she did not want to go, she should make her intentions known early on so as to not hold things up for other candidates.
However, before she had found an opportunity to speak about it, her team director arranged to have a lunch with her. During lunch, she mostly asked about Jǐ Yi’s situation in Chengdu and sighed with feeling over this type of sudden catastrophe from Heaven. As the lunch drew to a close, her director all of a sudden asked her, “I wasn’t familiar with your family situation before. I heard that you’re working here just to gain some experience but you’ll soon be going abroad to study?”
Jǐ Yi mind had not yet caught up with these words, and she paused blankly.
Her director carried on, saying warmly, “Working here is really good experience. In the future, if you need any sort of recommendation letter, you can just contact me directly. It’ll be no problem at all. Also, the foreign correspondent slot that I talked to you about before will definitely have to be given to someone else.”
The team director wore an expression of “I heard from someone,” yet Jǐ Yi was in no position to ask her about this and could only say, “I was just planning on coming to find you to talk about this. For the time being, I don’t want to be stationed abroad anywhere, because someone in my family is ill and needs to be taken care of.”
This outcome was actually in harmony with each of their desires, despite having no previous discussion between the two of them. The process, though…
She vaguely had a bad feeling about this, but she did not dare tell Jì Chengyang.
The results of his medical check-ups upon his return this time had not been very good. A time for surgery had already been scheduled; it was next Monday, seven days from now.
Before this, nothing else mattered.
“And you smell, too,” Jǐ Yi replied softly.
“Let me go have a shower first, and then I’ll come find you.” Jì Chengyang chuckled.
“Mm.” Loosening her hold on him, she pulled herself away from his embrace. At last, she realized what sort of surroundings she was in. Upstairs, Jì Nuannuan was incessantly making an expression that declared, “Awesome!” while looping her arm through her maternal grandpa’s arm and bringing the elderly man back into the dining room to continue eating.
Jì Chengyang was too exhausted.
His return journey here would not be considered smooth. Many of the roads and bridges were in the midst of carrying out rushed, emergency repairs. After parting ways with his two journalist friends, he had proceeded on foot for seven, eight hours before finally finding a place where transportation had not yet been halted.
The he of the past had often trekked busily about like this for news stories. This, though, was his first time doing everything possible to get back “home” as soon as he could.
When he had finished showering and lain himself down on the couch in the study, Jǐ Yi nestled up beside him and also lay down. Her frame was dimuntive, and to him, she was more like an extra-large throw pillow, so very soft.
“Are you sleepy? Do you want to go sleep? If you want to sleep, why don’t you go into the guest room? It’s not comfy here.” Jǐ Yi tossed out these several questions in succession, seeming like a nagging little mother.
“I’m not sleepy, just tired,” Jì Chengyang answered her, his voice quiet. Right now, every single joint in his entire body felt swollen and aching. Lying quietly like this was the most comfortable and was much better than expending effort again to move to another place.
Squeezing her hand, he sighed, “How is it you’ve all of a sudden grown up so much?”
“Huh?” Jǐ Yi was a little anxious at this and lifted her head. “Am I old?”
A laugh sputtered out from Jì Chengyang. “Grown up, not old.” He did not really understand how she managed to associate that with the word “old.” Based on her age, she should be considered a grown adult, but in his eyes, she was still a little girl.
As he simply held her hand in his like this and then thought back to the size of her palm when she was a child, he found it quite inconceivable.
For a moment, Jì Chengyang’s emotions were somewhat stirred.
Jǐ Yi did not know what he was thinking and merely thought he was tired and did not want to speak. After a while, she sat herself up straight and began gliding the palm of her right hand over and over again from his thigh to his ankle. Though the material of his pants acted as a barrier, this repeated action actually caused Jì Chengyang’s entire body to relax quite a bit. Squinting his eyes in comfort, he asked, “What are you doing?”
“Back then when Zhao Xiaoying was tired, her mom would massage her like this. She tried it on me before, too. It feels pretty good.”
It did feel pretty good.
Jì Chengyang stretched out his arms, then crossed them and placed them like a pillow behind his head.
<>Please support this translation by reading it at its actual site of posting, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com, instead. Thank you very much.
Of those two journalist friends with whom he had gone on the journey to Dazhou, one was a father already, while the other’s wife was pregnant and they were anticipating the arrival of the baby. When the two men chatted, the topics were very amusing. The one who was already a father would speak with great familiarity about child development and parenting, and even about the kindergartens near his residential area. And also baby formula, diapers… All of this experience, he passed on, one by one, to the dad-to-be, and in excitement, the dad-to-be had pulled out a notebook and begun taking notes.
At the end, the one who was already a father had even sighed feelingly, “Before she was born, I didn’t know I liked her so much. A couple years have passed, and I honestly feel happy just looking at her. I truly get now what other people have said before, where in the future, if any man dares to hurt her, I would totally kill him.” And furthermore, this grown man had very naturally used sappy words like “cute, little princess” to describe his own daughter.
Jì Chengyang likely would never have the chance to experience this feeling.
However, the little lady who was beside him now had appeared in his life from the time she was only several years old. At first, he had played the role of half a guardian to her and would even carry her to the medical clinic to have her finger bandaged and get a tetanus shot. This type of experience was also very remarkable.
He felt that he actually was not someone who was suitable for marriage.
His character, family background, and financial situation were still passable, but he was someone who thought too much on things. When a person is too greedy and insatiable in his inner and mental world, he will become dissatisfied and unwilling to be bound by the practical world’s issues of basic necessities. If there were no Jǐ Yi, he would probably have been someone who very firmly did not believe in marriage for himself.
It was still the case now.
Were it not for Jǐ Yi, he, as someone with such experiences and health, should not let himself become a hindrance upon someone else.
<>Copyright of Fanatical, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Translated with the express permission of the author for hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com only
Earthquake casualties from Pengzhou, Shifang, Mianzhu, Dujiangyan, Beichuan, Wenchuan, Qingchuan, etc. were continuously being sent to the General Hospital of Chengdu Military Region. The number of people with serious or critical injuries rose relentlessly. Large numbers of military troops headed to the frontlines of the disaster relief efforts to provide aid…
In the beginning, there were more incoming telephone calls, inquiring and expressing concern aboutthe elderly one’s situation. Later, though, more calls were being dialed out from the home. There was not a moment where the elderly man was not trying to understand the current situation from his former subordinates in the military.
Nuannuan’s maternal grandpa was originally going to go back to Beijing with them, but as a result of the earthquake, he changed his travel plans.
Nuannuan and her mother also decided to stay here for the time being to be with her maternal grandpa, and so in the end, the only ones returning to Beijing were Jì Chengyang and Jǐ Yi.
On the night before Jì Chengyang left, he and Nuannuan’s maternal grandpa talked in the study until late into the night. Jì Nuannuan puzzledly asked her mother, “What’s there to talk about between Grandpa and Little Uncle?”
Nuannuan’s mother stated something that was very profound and meaningful. “With the person that your little uncle is, his future father-in-law may not necessarily like him, because he will feel that your little uncle will hinder his daughter from having a happy life. However, those elderly ones, one generation removed, who have gone through war and turbulent times will feel that they have common, relatable experiences with him.”
Jì Nuannuan relayed these words to Jǐ Yi.
<>This is a copy, taken from hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Please support the translation by reading it there instead. Thank you.
The next day, as Jǐ Yi leafed through a newspaper on the airplane, she curiously asked him, what would he chat about with an elderly man?
“We chat about… natural disasters and man-made calamities, chat about the current state of international affairs, chat about people and their livelihood and wellbeing, chat about the past and bygone days.” Jì Chengyang tilted his head down slightly and told her quietly, “And we also chat about love.”
Jǐ Yi’s eyelashes gave a couple of flutters, and she did not try at all to conceal the inquiring look in her eyes.
“He told me some of the romantic and sentimental stories of the war era. I had no way of repaying this kindness, so I could only tell him the story of you and me.” Putting on an act of resigned helplessness, Jì Chengyang sighed, “Don’t judge Nuannuan’s grandpa by his normal stern exterior; if he wants to delve into the love life of us in the younger generation, he’s got his own way.”
“You told him” Jǐ Yi’s hand nervously gripped the newspaper. “How did you say it?”
What would he tell him?
What was their story like in Jì Chengyang’s eyes?
Girls will forever be like this, tirelessly wanting to know, in the other person’s eyes and heart, what is she like, and what sort of position does the love between them occupy? …
Of course, Jì Chengyang could not possibly understand women to this degree.
He knew only that Jǐ Yi very much liked listening to him talk about such things.
“I said… I’m a thirty-something-year-old man whose health is poor, whose temper is just average, and who sometimes is pretty self-absorbed. I’ve got quite a few faults, and my good qualities I’ve squandered away completely as well. But you are still so young. If you had not known me since you were little, or if you were a little smarter, you would realize that this person called Jì Chengyang is actually just so-so and is very unsuitable to marry. So, in summary, it’s really my good luck that we can be together.”
An unexpected answer.
Jǐ Yi was somewhat unable to process this. “You really said that?”
“Really.” He laughed. “A few words might have been different somewhere between the beginning and the end, it’s not a one-hundred-percent reiteration, but that was the meaning.”
In all honesty, he was not someone who was especially good at analyzing himself, and it was even more exceptional that he could actually convert these types of thoughts into words and express them. At this time, the flight attendant happened to come by and inquire with them about their lunches, hence interrupting this brief conversation.
To his surprise, after the flight attendant left, Jǐ Yi was still staring unblinkingly at him.
“The food on the plane isn’t very good. Just eat a bit. Once we get off the plane, we’ll find a place to have lunch,” he told her.
“Jì Chengyang.”
“Hmm?” He could detect that there was something different about her. In his memory, she almost never addressed him like this.
“Nuannuan wants me to be her maid-of-honour.”
“She told me that.”
“I’m undecided…”
“What’s wrong?” He made a reasonable conjecture. “You don’t like that boyfriend of hers?”
“No.” This was a huge misunderstanding; what she wanted to express was not this at all. However, after choking over the words for a long time, she still did not end up saying them aloud and merely hurriedly brought the discussion to an end. “She wants to get married in the early fall. That’s too late.”
There were still another four or five months; it was still a long time from now.
But she wanted to marry Jì Chengyang before that. How could someone who was already married be a maid-of-honour?
It was apparent Jì Chengyang did not catch the meaning within her words. Seeing that she was having a little temper tantrum and looked unwilling to continue saying more, he simply smiled and did not probe further.
<>Copyright of Fanatical, hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Translated with the express permission of the author for hui3r[dot]wordpress[dot]com only
After returning to the newspaper agency, Jǐ Yi wanted to take the initiative to talk to her team director about the matter of being a foreign correspondent. After all, for something like this where she was taking up an assignment slot, if she did not want to go, she should make her intentions known early on so as to not hold things up for other candidates.
However, before she had found an opportunity to speak about it, her team director arranged to have a lunch with her. During lunch, she mostly asked about Jǐ Yi’s situation in Chengdu and sighed with feeling over this type of sudden catastrophe from Heaven. As the lunch drew to a close, her director all of a sudden asked her, “I wasn’t familiar with your family situation before. I heard that you’re working here just to gain some experience but you’ll soon be going abroad to study?”
Jǐ Yi mind had not yet caught up with these words, and she paused blankly.
Her director carried on, saying warmly, “Working here is really good experience. In the future, if you need any sort of recommendation letter, you can just contact me directly. It’ll be no problem at all. Also, the foreign correspondent slot that I talked to you about before will definitely have to be given to someone else.”
The team director wore an expression of “I heard from someone,” yet Jǐ Yi was in no position to ask her about this and could only say, “I was just planning on coming to find you to talk about this. For the time being, I don’t want to be stationed abroad anywhere, because someone in my family is ill and needs to be taken care of.”
This outcome was actually in harmony with each of their desires, despite having no previous discussion between the two of them. The process, though…
She vaguely had a bad feeling about this, but she did not dare tell Jì Chengyang.
The results of his medical check-ups upon his return this time had not been very good. A time for surgery had already been scheduled; it was next Monday, seven days from now.
Before this, nothing else mattered.
