Chapter 26
Next day after breakfast, Kai showed Bing about the campus, a place with more space and buildings than Shangwai. However, at this time of chaos, litter and debris dirtied its paths, and posters smeared the noticeboards, and the students, like in emergency, were rushing back and forth. And more students simply loitered about, in knots, at corners and verandas. Their souls had been lost, it seemed, and they were anxious or careless about regaining them.
As planned, after lunch, they went straight to the Summer Palace. It was beautiful. The lake, the willows, the temples, and the marbled bridges were pretty. But for a reason Bing couldn’t enjoy it as much as he had wished. Was it too clean, too ancient and traditional? Or too orderly and organized?
Of course, it looked to be natural, but every bit and element in it seemed to suggest the opposite. The whole place, in fact, had been so fastidiously designed that no natural things were left unscathed by human’s pervasive fingers. Among everything, Bing had a particular aversion to those gold-ridged, crook-roofed, purple-surfaced temples, established here and there, that spoke little more than the corrupted lives of Chinese emperors and their associates, and that represented merely the emblems of lasting decadence, of anti-nature, of oppression, of sickness and rottenness in all those diabolical years of Chinese history. Even the water was confined and tamed and half dead, losing its active and sparkling character. And look at those big and fat fishes, golden ones, so called, weren’t they just ugly, obese and clumsy? Hadn’t they sucked enough shit and dirt into their body? But then, they were still eating, their bodies twisting, writhing, as if dying but never died!
‘Do you often come here?’ he asked Kai.
‘No, I’ve only been here a couple of times, accompanying friends or classmates like you.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘Of course, this is the palace, the best of China’s gardening art.’
‘But it looks too slow, the water still, far away from the real nature.’
‘What do you mean? Everybody likes that, it is a sort of art.’
‘Then, perhaps, all arts are against the nature. Really I wish I could swim in the water, even drink it, like we can do in our village.’
‘Haha, look at those boats in the lake, you can board one and drink the water if you want.’
‘Haha, if only you try first.’
They strolled on, and very much like a pair of well-fed, hypocritical scholars, debating the nonsense.
‘If you come here in winter, you may have a different impression,’ Kai said, ‘that is when snow covers the trees and the temples.’
‘Oh, that must be fantastic, snow drifting over. Tell me then why it is called the Summer Palace in English?’
‘Honestly, I don’t know. We only refer to the Chinese name.’
‘If the winter is so splendid, it should be called the Winter Palace.’
‘Well…’ Kai shrugged, ‘Winter Palace, not too bad.’
Some time later, feeling tired, they sat on a bench. Bing was listless. A boredom seemed to strain his limbs, and his mind. Then his eyes, meandering, suddenly secured an object, coming from the far left. He blinked swiftly to make sure he was not in some illusion. But it didn’t go away. So he arose immediately and ran to her.
‘Vivian,’ he called at the group of three.
She turned, and her eyes staring wide at him, ‘Why, Wang Bing, what…’
‘I can’t believe it, I thought I saw the wrong person.’ Bing’s delight was all over his face.
By this time, Kai, who must have been puzzled by Bing’s sudden behaviour, had also come over.
Vivian turned to her friends, ‘This is Wang Bing, my classmate, with a title of prince of guitar in our university,’ she then attended to another girl, ‘Yang Yang, remember I ever mentioned to you about my classmate who plays guitar? It is him.’
The girl Yang Yang said loudly, and brightly, ‘Really? I am also learning guitar, I should learn from you.’ Then she turned to Vivian, ‘So he is good at guitar, and you at piano, I reckon you two should play together on stage.’
Bing was surprised. ‘You play piano?’
‘Just a little,’ Vivian replied. ‘Yang Yang is exaggerating. I don’t often play now.’
But Yang Yang pursued, ‘No, I am not exaggerating, she has earned many awards at piano competition, haven’t you, Vivian?’
‘Well, that was all past, in the high school, I can’t pay a piece now,’ Vivian replied, unusually modest.
Then Kai was muttering, ‘Prince of guitar, no wonder…’ but his words was curtailed by Bing’s introduction, ‘This is my childhood friend, Liao Kai, from Renmin University.’
‘Ah?’ the third girl, whose name was not yet revealed, found her turn to be surprised. ‘I am also from Renmin University.’
‘Really?’ Kai said, evidently gratified, and went straight to conduct their own conversation about their campus.
All this time Bing’s excitement was overwhelming, although he himself was not very much conscious of it. It was, indeed, the first time Vivian had directly, and in front of others, expressed her personal opinion or appreciation of his guitar skills. Whether or not she said this out of her true admiration or just a courtesy, he didn’t have to analyse, at least for now. And to think she had even praised him, mentioned him to her friend before! And to discover that he was not as if nobody in her mind!
Now, Vivian turned to him and said, ‘Yang Yang and Lily are both my schoolmates. Yang Yang is from Shanghai Medical University. We took the train together three days ago and came here.’
‘Oh, really?’ he said, smiling, or even flushed, frankly exalted by the significance of her attention. From that time on, the Summer Palace in his eyes was transformed into a joyful place. Everything he had previously regarded as negative and unnatural, were now animated full of life. The water, rippling, under the sunset, glittered like scales of fish; the willows, in the breeze, were rustling like the skirts on the girls walking beside him; the slender bridge was again the best human creation in history; and even the angular, purplish temples, with their arches and hooks and steeples stuck out, appeared to be elegant and stylish, and glorious.
Beside him was Vivian, who had never been so close to him, who had never been so happy in his presence, and whose captivating eyes had never so frequently, and adequately turned to look at him. It was the first time he had felt himself being her equal, after almost two years of sharing the same classroom.
And Kai and Lily, side by side, were chattering intimately as if they were alone, in the suspicion of others that they might soon talk into a couple of lovers. Bing was most of the time between Vivian and Yang Yang, but the latter was not at all ignored in the new composition of society, because Bing had to reply to her frequent queries about guitar-playing. She said Vivian had told her a long time ago about him, about his performance, and that she hoped he would teach her after they went back to Shanghai.
Bing’s pride, thus inflated by Yang Yang’s praise, and especially from Vivian’s favourable comments, remained vigorous for the rest of the trip. He seemed, involuntarily, to have accredited himself with the title of ‘prince of guitar’, which he had always been uneasy, and unwilling to be referred to.
Approaching the dusk, a dinner for the group was proposed, and happily received by all. The two from Renmin University recommended a hot-pot Sichuan style restaurant close to their campus, and the fact that Vivian and Yang Yang could both stay the night in Lily’s dormitory made the choice the most agreeable.
‘But do you three prefer spicy food?’ Bing said to Lily, soon after they were seated on the bus.
‘No problem, Vivian and I are very fond of it,’ Lily replied, ‘and Yang Yang can try it too, can’t you, Yang Yang?’
‘I can only try a little, we will order plain and hot in two halves, a yuan-yang pot, won’t we?’
‘No, all red and hot and numb this time, absolutely Sichuan Style,’ Kai said playfully.
‘Poor Yang Yang,’ Lily laughed, so did the rest of the group.
At the Sichuan Sister’s Hotpot, a waitress led them to a table for four. So with an additional chair the five sat close to each other.
Kai, a granted host in his territory, took the menu and began to pore over it. ‘All red?’ he asked, his eyes scanning around, then on Yang Yang, ‘Or?’
Thus challenged, Yang Yang replied, with her face glowing as red as chilli, ‘Fine, fine, all red.’
‘Excellent, then, all red,’ Kai chuckled, ticking on the items. Then he passed it over to Lily. ‘I have done mine, you all look and add your favourites.’
The girls, in the happiest mood that can be found in the pleasure of dining out, then proceeded to have a fair bit of discussion, licking their lips, making their selections.
In Bing’s turn, he saw on the order sheet, the ‘rolled beef’, ‘white tofu’, ‘brown tofu’, ‘fish head’, ‘mushroom’, ‘pig blood’, ‘cow stomach’, ‘live loach’, ‘bamboo shoots’, and ‘lettuce’ were all ticked, which were enough for him, but he might at least tick something. He frowned, turning the page, undecided for a while. At last, without ticking anything, he said, ‘Well, you have already done for me, it seems. My favourite is snake, but I can’t find it.’
They all laughed. Indeed, in his best state of mind, he could be very humorous.
When the waitress came over, Bing asked for five beers.
‘Beer?’ Yang Yang tightened her eyebrows.
Kai was answering, but turned to Lily, ‘Beer is a must with the spicy, isn’t it, Lily?’
‘Yes… don’t worry, Yang Yang, I know you can drink,’ Lily encouraged.
Vivian, her eyes in radiance, nudged at Yang Yang yet addressed all, ‘I give you my word, Yang Yang can drink, and more than me.’
Evidently alarmed, Yang Yang exclaimed, ‘Vivian! Why?! Will you carry me if I get drunk?’
Laughing, Vivian said, ‘No, no, we have two boys here who will be more than happy to carry you, hahaha, to, to anywhere…’
Yang Yang’s face was now crimson. ‘You, Vivian…careful, or I will tell your dad about your mischief.’
Her reference to her dad raised Bing’s curiosity. He recalled early last year when the terrible outbreak of a liver disease affected the whole of Shanghai, when she had been confined at her home by her parents. ‘Is Vivian afraid of her dad?’ he asked.
‘Yes, she is an exact lamb in front of him,’ Yang Yang answered quickly, taking the opportunity to allay her embarrassment, and make a timely revenge against Vivian’s tease.
‘All right, Yang Yang, I will drink for you if you can’t finish it,’ Vivian decided to console her ruffled friend, patting the back of her head. ‘But the two gentlemen should drink more than one bottle?’
Bing said, ‘No, why? Chairman Mao had a fair policy, man and woman should halve the sky.’
Apparently he was winning the case, because Vivian, only laughing, couldn’t find words to counter him. Kai, chuckling, added, ‘Yes, yes, equality, freedom, democracy are what every soul seems to want, that is what the students on the Tiananmen Square want.’
But his flippant allusion had brought a shadow over the table. Their laugher faltered. The faces of the hunger strikers seemed to go live in their minds. And it was not until the waitresses had carried over the hot pot, and the plates, and drinks, that the subdued atmosphere was restored to its previous gaiety.
Then the gas was lit, the chilli-crowded soup began to boil. The air smelt good. Five bottles were lifted and met and clinked. The diners’ faces were shining, their spirits warming up, their tastebuds awakening, their stomachs ready to crush anything that dared to come down to them.
Then, the beef slakes on the chopsticks were twisted in the soup. The silence was falling, saving for the sounds of eating and puffing. At this time they were like five piglets, who, after a time of restless seeking and grunting, have finally settled their muzzles upon the udders of their mother. Each piece of food was picked, dipped in the pot, dipped again in the saucer, before it was hotly crushed in their mouths. But the girls ate cautiously, with their greased lips sipping at their beer frequently though only a little, in order to suppress the spiciness that must be too much to their Shanghainese limit of chilli-tolerance.
Bing was eating his share, slowly, and observing. Though his expression was placid, focused on the food, as did the others, he mind was rather conscious of Vivian, who sat immediately to his left, and of the way she enjoyed the food and beer. And somehow, he had a sensation that his body fluids and nerves seemed to rebalance their weight to favour his left side, so that his left face, left arm, left flank, left hip, left everything, were charged with more electrons than his symmetrical right counterparts.
‘This is my favourite.’ Vivian broke the silence, while dipping a mushroom into the red-hot spicy mix.
‘Mushroom, so you like it the most?’ Kai asked, and picked one himself and poked it into the pot.
‘Yes, I liked it better than meat, and once cooked, it looks and even tastes like meat, doesn’t it?’ She said, waiting for her mushroom.
Oh, how gorgeous was she, in her soft purple wool-sweater! Affected by both the beer and spice, her face was pink, her lips shimmering, her large eyes concentrating on the subject of her interest. Then she said, ‘It has the shape of an umbrella,’ which came out as a mere accessory of her delicious moments of patient waiting.
She picked out the mushroom, crumpled and shrouded with sufficient red substance from the soup, and thrust it into her mouth.
Bing took a moment to attend to his bottle.
Then all of the sudden, she started choking; each cough more fierce than the last. She bent her back severely, her hands trying to grasp the beer bottle, but before she could reach it, another one had already begun, forcing her hand to withdraw immediately in her effort to cover her mouth.
Bing was stunned, as much as other three, who had all at once ceased their motion and regarded her with a concern as big as their eyes. But they couldn’t do much but wait for her to settle down. Yang Yang laid her hand on Vivian’s back, and patted gently in a manner to assist one who is vomiting.
But Vivian was not vomiting; she only choked because of the substantial spice she must have taken with the mushroom.
She kept on coughing; it seemed to take much longer than the others had thought. The rest of the table stared at her with increasing concern, muttering, ‘Vivian’, except Kai, who was calling the waitress, ‘Hey, can you bring us a glass of water?’
Then, Vivian, as if desperate, gave a hacking, frightfully violent. Her head bent deep down, with one hand hovering over her mouth, and the other placing on Bing’s left leg for an instinctive support.
This was a suspense, or, a time of three seconds during which he was feeling her touch on him. In the brief mental context, he couldn’t adequately think about it, but he sensed it acutely with all his faculties. Moreover, there rose a strong urge in him to touch her hand, to comfort her. But, before his urge had a chance to escalate into the gesture, she had already withdrawn her hand from him.
At last her coughing eased, tears wavering and brimming in her eyes. She took the drink, not from the water cup brought for her, but from the bottle of beer. She wiped her eyes with the provided tissue, and sniffled a number of times, and then, by declaring ‘All right now,’ she resumed her grace and nobility. Nevertheless, on Bing’s leg where she had touched, the softness and the force that came with her grasping pressure, seemed to stay; and the sweet memory of her finger imprints would surely last long, even forever.
Yang Yang made the first comment, after her worry was lessened enough for a speech, ‘See, you are not better at spicy food than me, you were boasting.’
‘No, just a bit rough, the mushroom ran too quick over my throat,’ she explained and clearing her throat, sipped the beer.
‘Yes, even I would choke if not taking it cautiously,’ Bing said to water down her bafflement.
‘Well, eat slowly and carefully,’ Kai added, genially. ‘Come on, cheers.’
All five bottles clanged again; and soon the two Sichuan boys needed one more bottle for each. For now, no equality was required any more, they would go mad if they had to stick to Chairman Mao’s policy.
‘So, when will you go back to Shanghai?’ Vivian asked Bing, between food and drink.
‘The day after tomorrow, after I visit the Great Wall,’ he answered. ‘Better not stay long in case the university becomes aware of my trip.’
‘I want to go back earlier as well, or my father will suspect something,’ Vivian said, ‘but Yang Yang wants to stay here longer. She had some relatives to visit, she said.’
Yang Yang raised her head, swallowing before speaking, ‘Now you have company, you can go earlier with your classmate if you want. I will spend a couple of more days here.’
‘But will you go back alone? Are you not afraid in the train?’ Vivian smiled curiously, implying something unsaid. ‘Are you sure?’
Yang Yang caught her hint, and perhaps under influence of beer replying boldly, ‘I can certainly go back by myself. I can even run into an easier romance by myself. You go, otherwise you dad will come to Beijing to drag you back.’
A wave of laughter went around the table.
Kai asked, ‘Have you guys visited Great Wall yet?’
Vivian looked at her friends, and replied to him, ‘We planned to go there the day after, but,’ she turned to her friends again, ‘maybe we can change it to tomorrow so we can all go together?’
Lily gave her immediate consent, ‘No problem, we can go tomorrow, and actually, if Vivian goes back the day after, she will have only one day left. The Great Wall is the must-go place, Xiangshan Park can be left to another time? Vivian?’
‘All right.’
Approaching the end of the meal, Bing was somewhat concerned with how much it was to cost. He didn’t want Kai to pay the entire bill. In his wallet, he had thirty Yuan I had brought for the trip. It wouldn’t possibly exceed that amount, he thought.
But upon Kai’s persistence, he didn’t have the chance to pay, nor did Lily. And moreover, he didn’t even know how much it was, for Kai had paid and refused to tell him the amount.
On their way to their residential building, after seeing off the three girls to their own dormitory, Kai made a comment that Vivian was very beautiful. But, from what Bing could have understood, Kai had a high regard for Lily. Admiration was oftentimes a very strange notion, it didn’t seem to rely on solely a certain aspect of so-called beauty. The timing and the mood of particular moments played as much as one’s superficial appearance, especially for the first impression. Had he not seen Vivian at the right moment, and spent some minutes contemplating her on the registration day at the university, could he have been so much attracted by her? Could she have possibly cast such a lengthy spell over him, and even inspired him so much in his efforts in bettering himself by either reading or perfecting his guitar skills? He was sceptical.
At any rate, it was such a gratifying day, such a great anticipation for the following day, and such a good and true surprise that Bing found it hard to sleep later at night. To think tomorrow and, almost certainly, the day after as well, he would be with her, with a starry girl who had seemed so remote, so high, so unreachable for him.
