Xiaoqian's eyes lit up. Just a moment ago, she had been a picture of utter exhaustion, looking like a dead fish, but the moment gossip came up, she seemed like a completely different person, radiant with energy.
"Look at that dopey face of yours. What's there to tell?" Xu Ruoping raised her eyebrows in a mock display of anger.
She took the bowl from Xiaoqian, gently placed it on the bedside table, kicked off her shoes, and hopped onto the bed. Crossing her legs in a lotus position with her arms folded across her chest, she lifted her chin slightly, losing herself in sweet, blissful daydreams.
"I can tell you, but you mustn't breathe a word to anyone else, or I'll never let you hear the end of it," Xu Ruoping said, then reached out with her right index finger to lightly scratch Xiaoqian's cheek.
"Alright, alright, that tickles! Stop it already!" Xiaoqian couldn't help giggling.
"Waa," came two soft cries from an infant in the corner, though they stopped almost instantly, startling the two women so much that they froze and didn't dare to move a muscle.
Xiaoqian pressed a finger to her lips and whispered, "The baby just fell asleep. He cried the entire night, and that man slept like a log and completely ignored it, leaving me with half my life wrung out of me. Now that he's finally quiet, let's keep our voices down."
"Mm," Xu Ruoping acknowledged, picking up the thread with keen interest. "Xu Jun and I were classmates all through elementary and junior high. In middle school, our grades were neck and neck; almost every exam, we'd take turns coming in first place. Before we knew it, we started secretly competing against each other. Somehow, we inexplicably developed some ineffable feelings for one another."
At the tender age of fourteen or fifteen, right at the blossoming of youth—which young girl's heart isn't stirred, which young man isn't smitten, and who doesn't have a period of youthful, clueless innocence?
Xiaoqian listened quietly, her thoughts drifting far away.
"Whenever I arrived early at the classroom and didn't see him there, it felt like something was missing from my chest. That was when I realized I must have fallen for this guy."
"If you like him, you like him, what's the big deal?" Xiaoqian interjected dismissively, cutting her off.
"Wrong. Between two people competing, whoever falls for the other first loses," Xu Ruoping said.
"Who says?"
"Books say so."
"Oh please, you've been reading too many romance novels," Xiaoqian said, giving Xu Ruoping's head a firm tap with her finger.
"Quit interrupting me. Do you want to hear this or not?"
The bedroom light was dim and soft, as if the Milky Way had spilled its clear brew, evenly bathing Xu Ruoping's fair face. Xu Ruoping forcefully lifted her heavy eyelids, hugged a pillow, and said half-deadly, "If you don't want to listen, then forget it. I'm so sleepy, I just want to catch some shut-eye."
Missing out on gossip was a crisis of the highest order. Xiaoqian's eyes widened, and she gave Xu Ruoping's shoulder a kick. "Hey, no, no! Go on, hurry up and tell me!"
Having taken a flying kick straight out of a martial arts movie, Xu Ruoping's sleepiness was instantly banished. With no other choice, she resumed her endless chatter to satisfy her best friend's curiosity: "So I took up sports—table tennis, basketball, playing everything, working up a heavy sweat every day just to keep myself from thinking about her—him! And you guess what? A few days later, I actually received a love letter from this guy, rambling on forever in a long essay before suddenly confessing his feelings at the very end."
At this, Xu Ruoping flashed a triumphant smile, revealing half her gleaming white teeth, making her expression as bright and radiant as a spring day.
Catching Xiaoqian's enraptured, expectant look out of the corner of her eye, Xu Ruoping grew even more enthusiastic. "My heart felt so sweet at the time. I never expected this guy felt the exact same way I did, so I just went with the flow and accepted him."
"And just like that, you fell in love," Xiaoqian said.
"That's right!" Xu Ruoping replied.
"That's so lame!" Xiaoqian said.
"Big sis, ordinary people are just ordinary! Where are you going to find all these earth-shattering love stories?" Xu Ruoping retorted, somewhat annoyed.
"Then how did you guys end up breaking up later?" Xiaoqian asked cautiously. "Don't tell me someone else stole him away from you."
Xu Ruoping bit down hard on her lip, her expression darkening as she slowly said, "No, it was because of his mother. His mother advised me not to get into an early relationship."
"And you just agreed without a second thought?" Xiaoqian said, looking thoroughly disgusted. "Tsk tsk, that doesn't sound like you at all."
Xu Ruoping raised her head to look at her, her dark-and-white defined eyes emitting a soft, restrained light. "What else could I do? Both of our grades were slipping at the same time. Besides, what his mother said made a lot of sense: if we're fated, we'll surely meet again down the road. Look at us now—after turning in a big circle, I've ended up right back where I started."
"From what I know, when teenagers date early, it's usually the girl's mother who gets all high-strung. How is it that in your case, the one putting a stop to your puppy love was his mother? Hey, how could someone as meddlesome as your mother stay completely indifferent?" Xiaoqian asked.
She rested one elbow on her crossed feet, cupping her chin in her hand, utterly engrossed in the story.
Xu Ruoping rolled her eyes inwardly. A tiny flake of latex paint peeled off the yellowed, blackened ceiling, falling soundlessly onto her face with a tickling sensation.
Casually pinching the debris, she primly crushed it into dust, patted her hands as if brushing away years of hazy past events, and replied with total nonchalance, "My mom? She wishes I'd get pregnant out of wedlock and marry into the Xu family early! Not only did she keep it a secret from my dad, but she also constantly drilled me on how to make babies. Ugh!"
"Ah, you can even do that? I'm dizzy!" Xiaoqian gave a thumbs-up.
"It's just because Xu Jun's father is our village's contracting foreman, the most famous multi-millionaire for miles around," Xu Ruoping said.
Her expression was flat, seemingly tossed out as a casual brush-off, but Xiaoqian knew that deep down, Xu Ruoping had always held a cup of bitter tears.
Xu Ruoping's mother, Ge Qiuhua, was a born slacker whose laziness was invincible. Day in and day out, she played mahjong and tiles with a crowd of gossiping neighborhood women, refusing to farm or work. The family's main source of income was the meager earnings her father, Xu Dalang, brought home from working as a mason!
If her older sisters hadn't chipped in one after another to put her through university, Xu Ruoping probably would have had to drop out of middle school early to get married and have babies, with zero personal life goals of her own.
"My mother is greedy for money, but that's her business. I'm different. I have my own ideals and ambitions. I want to become an outstanding doctor, saving lives and healing the wounded," Xu Ruoping said, straightening her back with a proud, spirited posture.
Xiaoqian let out a low snort of laughter and asked, "So, have you achieved your dream now?"
"Just a tiny bit off!" Xu Ruoping said, holding up her pinky finger to measure.
"Ideals are plump, but reality is skinny!" Xiaoqian said seriously.
She had given birth right out of graduation, and Zheng Wenqiang's family was similarly dirt poor. Now she also had to take care of a breastfeeding infant, while the resumes she sent out sank without a trace, and she still hadn't received a single notification for a trial shift from any employer.
"Anyway, let's not talk about that. Hurry up and keep going—after his mom talked to you, what happened between you two?" Xiaoqian asked next.
"Later on, I cut things off with him."
"What? You were the one who brought it up?"
"What else could I do? I'm not like him. He's had a privileged background since childhood, with his parents saving up huge piles of cash for him to squander so he'll never have to worry about food when he grows up."
"Ever since I started dating him, I couldn't settle down to read and study at all. My grades plummeted all the way, and I was terrified too. If things kept going like that, forget getting into a key high school, even getting into a decent vocational school would have been difficult."
"In modern society, a woman has to be independent and can't rely on a man for everything. All those solemn oaths and vows to share weal and woe are complete bullshit. His mother was right—take a step back, and the ocean and sky are vast. We still have a long road ahead of us, and at such a young age, we simply aren't equipped for romance. Thinking about it now, the decision I made back then was the right one."
Xu Ruoping shrugged, rattling off her long speech in one breath, yet treating it as if it were the most mundane thing in the world.
"You're something else. I never took Xu Jun for a romantic fool, and running into a block of wood like you just leaves me speechless," Xiaoqian said.
Suddenly, she reached out, gently pressed the back of Xu Ruoping's hand, and spoke in the earnest, lecturing tone of an elder addressing a junior: "Forget Chen Kunfeng, and live a good life with Xu Jun."
Unaccustomed to that kind of expression and tone from her friend, Xu Ruoping let out a long breath from her nose and nodded solemnly.