程夫和女教師譯

待改初稿，先湊合看著吧！最喜歡的翻譯是 beat black, sing red, sweep yellow。 借用網上高手的，因為是中國特色，就照搬了！

Cheng Baosong has always been a highly motivated political cadre. She was assigned to lead the “Moral Campaign - beat black, sing red, sweep yellow” because she was well-known as a moral person in the council. She was by no means the kind of hypocritical person that was typical of some of her colleagues, who didn't put words into actions.  She didn't even use double standard between work and her own home.  She held her husband to the same high standard. The two never talked about sex. She felt that sex was dirty from both an action and a psychological point of view. And told her husband to stop having it.  If she came across someone who spread dirty jokes, no matter where it was, even if it was none of her business, she would rush up and accused the person of being guilty.  So she was cut for the job. Although the husband agreed with her 100% in public, he had always been bitter in private.  There was no place for him to complain. After all, he was a body of flesh and blood, and like other bodies of flesh and blood, he had a need for a fleshly body.

On his fiftieth birthday, he realized that he had spent more than half of his lifetime. He felt suddenly awakened and said to himself that it was time for him to have some well-deserved pleasure after all those years of asexual life with his wife. He actually wanted to get a divorce from her so it would be fair and square. But he knew that she would definitely not agree to a divorce. All along, she set up a perfect image of a happy family for the people around her and the public to see, an image of a model couple in perfect harmony. And he had been willing to cooperate with her for the sake of their daughter and family for so many years. Now that their daughter had grown up and started her own life, he thought that it was the right time to take care of his own need  for a bit. And if he had to do it clandestinely and be guilty to her, so be it.  

Even with the thought in mind, he did not start to look for a lover right away. He wanted to have a poetic encounter. It would have to be as romantic as that described in an ancient poem: “She was standing right there under a dim light away from the crowd when I turned my head”. The opportunity finally came on a breezy and beautiful spring day when he was taking a train home from a business trip.  He was sitting across from a middle-aged woman of on the train. They did not speak at the beginning. The woman looked at him a few times. Every time when she looked at him, she would stroke her shoulder-length hair. It gave out a demeanor of the tenderness and longing of a woman. Her stares and little acts made him a bit uncomfortable and warm at heart at the same time. When the other people who were sitting with them left briefly, he took the initiative to talk to her. Soon he knew that she and her husband were not living in the same city. She was a teacher at a primary school near his home. He was curious about why she didn't move to the same city as her husband, telling her that it should be quite easy to find a job as a teacher there. She smiled and said she had gotten used to living by herself now. There was a bit of helplessness in her voice. She seemed to be saying: you understood! Yes, he understood.

The train soon arrived at their stop. He asked if he could help with the two heavy bags that she was trying to carry. She looked at him and agreed without much hesitation. She gave him the two heavy bags, and carried two small bags that belonged to them. She led the way to the gate of the station. He called a taxi there, and offered to not only share it with her, but also drop her off first.  She got in and sat right beside him.  It didn't take much time for the taxi to get to the elementary school where she worked and lived.  The school had no special place for housing. All the other teachers had their own houses. She was given two small connected rooms in the school yard to live in. The kitchen was a make-shift type of temporary structure, but it was good enough for a simple person like her.  When they arrived, she asked if he would go in and sit for a bit. It was a Sunday and there were no other people there. He paid the fare before entering the room with her.

Although the place was small, it was well organized. There wasn't much furniture. The outside room was filled flowers that she planted. She asked him to wait when she went to prepare some tea. While she was busy outside, he peaked into the other room through the curtain and saw a large bed in the middle of it. Soon she came in. The two chatted as they drank tea. An hour soon passed. He told her that it was time for him to go home. She asked to be added to his WeChat contact list before he left. She patted on his back when he was doing it, telling him that she was trying to rid him of the dust he collected on their way here.

Since then, Husband Cheng had started a good routine of taking a long walk after dinner. Cheng Baosong sometimes followed him, but most of the time she didn't because she was either too busy, or afraid of not being able to keep up with him!