Chapter Eighty-Six: Cry Out

After leaving Sister Rose’s cold drink shop, I did not hail a taxi at once. Instead, I wandered along the roadside, took out my phone, and stared at the contact she had given me, wondering what approach I could use to persuade that strangely peculiar person, in Sister Rose’s eyes, to join in.

After a moment’s hesitation, I told myself that however odd she might be, she was still my only lead. If I did not try, how could I know the result?

I dialed the number. I waited a long while, but after the call had rung for several dozen seconds, there was still no answer. A moment later, a recorded voice informed me that the number I had dialed was temporarily unavailable.

Silently looking at the number on the screen, I called again. The ringing went on and on, yet still no one answered.

“Forget it. Maybe she didn’t bring her phone with her,” I comforted myself, then turned and took a taxi away.

Seated in the taxi, watching the scenery slide past the window, my mood grew extraordinarily complicated. There was longing for the future, but also fear of that very longing. In the end, it all came down to my lack of confidence in my own ability. I had many ideas, and during these days I had thought of quite a few novel ways to strengthen publicity and sales, but before they were carried out, they were still nothing more than empty talk. Marketing and success are decided by consumers, not by my own subjective imagination. What everyone calls excellence is true distinction; what only one’s self calls excellence is arrogance.

Though Sister Shi Yu had said she would support me from behind, and she truly had done so, that was by no means capital I could squander. Her help was the almost selfless support an elder sister gives a younger brother. It was my driving force, yes, but even more it was my burden. If I failed, what I lost would not merely be the money, but the trust I could never afford to lose.

“Driver, take me to West City Park,” I said suddenly, looking at the shops of all sizes outside the window, some open for business, others shut in rest.

I raised a hand to shield my eyes from the bright sunlight and looked toward the park’s center, where couples were happily rowing boats. Something indescribable stirred in my chest. I wondered: if the one standing beside me now were Luo Qing, would I have been overjoyed to take her by the hand and buy tickets, to go and play? But the moment I saw the glittering lake, my chest tightened again, and I could not help recalling what had happened before when I rowed with Sister Shi Yu. I sighed and shook my head.

I found a stretch of level, firm grass and sat down. Looking up at the blue sky and its ever-shifting white clouds, I let my thoughts drift. How wonderful it would be if I could be as free as those clouds: no pressure, no right or wrong, no goals and no direction, only following the wind as it carried them along. No love or hate, no place to go, only peace and quiet, taking each day as it comes.

Just as I was lying back, entranced by the sky, a delicate and lovely face suddenly appeared before my eyes, looking down at me with a hint of playful amusement at the corners of her mouth.

“Hi, handsome. Out here by yourself?” The girl met my astonished gaze without the least hint of shyness, smiling sweetly.

I straightened up and looked at Zhang Jiaxin, who had lightly gathered her skirt and sat down beside me. In a low voice I asked, “Aren’t you in class?”

“It’s a holiday,” Zhang Jiaxin said with a smile, though she did not follow my gaze toward the couples on the lake. Her beautiful, bright eyes were fixed on me without blinking.

“Nonsense…” I muttered under my breath. Little girl, at the very least I graduated from this university. Would I not know whether there was a holiday or not?

“Hehe.” Zhang Jiaxin smiled sheepishly, then pointed toward the ticket booth by the lake and said excitedly, “Yang Chen, let’s go row a boat!”

Following the direction of her finger, I saw young men and women lining up for tickets, and I could only smile bitterly inside. Did she want to go on as before? But I could no longer row a boat... Between us now there was too much unfamiliarity. Friends or lovers, neither of us was still that fool who lived for love and died for love.

I shook my head under Zhang Jiaxin’s disappointed gaze and did not bother explaining why. Unusually, she did not press me for an answer.

“Does this count as a chance meeting?” After a while, I turned to her, low-voiced, as she sat beside me with her knees drawn up in her arms.

“Of course it does.” Zhang Jiaxin thought for a moment, then smiled again. “Do you remember what you once told me?”

“What did I say?”

Zhang Jiaxin leaned a little closer to me, and facing the warm breeze, she said softly, “Though we may never find each other in the past life, brushing shoulders in this one is already fate.”

I froze, but did not answer. Of course I had not forgotten those words, as if they had been carved into my very bones. Yet a line given to one person, once lost, does not return. She had left my world, and that sentence seemed to vanish with her from my memory as well.

“So, if there is fate between us, even if you were ten thousand miles away, I would still meet you, still see you... Wouldn’t that count as fate?” Zhang Jiaxin seemed not to care about my silence, still smiling brightly.

I nodded. I had no reason to refuse.

“Yang Chen, you don’t even carry your guitar with you anymore when you go out?” Zhang Jiaxin looked at me, as if remembering something. A trace of pain flashed through her eyes, then vanished in an instant.

“I don’t carry it anymore. After all these years of playing, I still don’t amount to a damn thing. Maybe I won’t be playing or singing anymore in the future.” I spread my hands, then stood up, stretched, and pointed toward the path in the distance, asking if she wanted to walk a little.

Zhang Jiaxin pouted and held out her hand to me.

I pulled up the unhappy girl with little effort, then took the lead along the path beside the grass. She quickly followed after me.

“Do you still keep that guitar?” Zhang Jiaxin asked casually, as if she had little interest in walking.

I nodded. In truth, during the period right after our breakup, I really had felt an urge to cut off all contact with Zhang Jiaxin. Sentiment grows from things seen, and keeping it would only make me sadder. I threw away all the photos we had taken together, and I also carried all those little keepsakes that symbolized our love out to the trash and discarded them. But that guitar—I alone did not throw it away. Because I knew how much effort Zhang Jiaxin had spent buying it for me, how long she had taken on odd jobs, until at last, on my twenty-second birthday, she took it out and gave it to me. I still remembered clearly the look in her eyes when she watched me open the gift with such expectation. That feeling of being moved, I would not forget. At least for now, I still could not forget it.

“That’s good...” Zhang Jiaxin murmured softly.

I paid her no mind. Looking at the neatly lined trees around us and feeling the freshness and beauty of nature, I also wanted to take the chance to release the gloom and pressure I had suppressed for far too long. I drew a deep breath and shouted toward the depths of the woods, “Yang Chen, no matter how hard it is, you damn well have to succeed, do you hear me!”

My sudden and inexplicable cry startled Zhang Jiaxin, who had been following along beside me in small steps. Then, to my surprise, this graceful girl actually mimicked me too, cupping her hands around her mouth and shouting loudly, “Zhang Jiaxin, no matter whether he still loves you, you cannot give up, do you hear me! In this world, only you know what is in your heart, and what you must do is tell him. You will be happy, for sure!”

After shouting that out, Zhang Jiaxin was still not satisfied. She took another breath and called, “Whether or not he will be with you, you must tell him how you feel. You, definitely, will be happy!”

Watching her finish shouting with her cheeks flushed red, I could only shake my head and smile bitterly.

Just as I felt the atmosphere turning a little awkward, Zhang Jiaxin suddenly tugged at my arm, beaming as she pointed behind me.

I followed her gaze and saw that not far away, a couple had also begun shouting their feelings into the woods just as we had done.

“Brother Guang, I’ll definitely be the one who stays by your side for a lifetime. I will, I promise!”

“Xiao Mo, I’ll love you forever too!”

After shouting, the couple looked at each other and laughed, then embraced tightly and slowly kissed.

And then, to my astonishment, many couples in the distance began to imitate us as well, shouting their hearts out along the forest path.

“Baby, you will always be my beloved baby!”

“I love you, husband!”

“Zhang Haoran, you idiot, why can’t you understand how I feel!”

“We will, definitely, be, together!”

...

“They all look so happy...” Zhang Jiaxin said as she followed me out of the woods, glancing at me from time to time. “They’ve all kissed too.”

I smiled. “Because they’re couples.”

“We are too!” Zhang Jiaxin blurted out anxiously.

As soon as the words left her mouth, both Zhang Jiaxin and I fell silent at once. We deliberately turned our eyes elsewhere. Her slip of the tongue was our wound.

Just as I was about to make an excuse to leave, my phone rang at the perfect moment. I looked at the number; it seemed vaguely familiar, though I did not recognize it.

I answered, but there was only silence on the other end, and I did not rush to say anything either. Once the call was hung up, another round of awkwardness would only follow, so it was better to use this chance to let the tension ease a little.

Neither side spoke. After about a minute, a strange woman’s voice finally came through the phone. “Looking for me?”

At those words, I instantly remembered: was this not the number Sister Rose had just given me, the one I had called twice and no one had answered?

“Oh, yes,” I replied somewhat stiffly, thinking how I might draw a little closer to her.

“Need something?” Her voice remained cold and distant, impatient in tone.

“Yes. My name is Yang Chen. I called because I wanted to discuss some future cooperation with you.”

“I don’t know you. You have the wrong number.”

Before I could explain, the call had already been cut off. In my near despair, I saw Zhang Jiaxin covering her mouth and laughing delightedly at my embarrassment.