Somewhere only we know / Exclusive Memory

Epiloge 5: "Begging for a change 3"

On the first day of the new year, we headed to City B to greet our mothers for the new year.

I have been driving for more than two months, but I have not driven on a highway yet. Originally, Mu Chenge decided that I would drive this time, so he sat in the passenger seat, and I drove. The plan was a success.

However, after a while, Mu Chenge turned blue and insisted that I stop at a gas station and switch seats. Then, in a loud voice, he ordered me that while I was alone, I wasn't even allowed to drive into town, and that he would confiscate all my car keys.

I muttered angrily, "How can you be so overbearing? Putting me down just for being a rookie on the road, who do you think you are?" I've been doing great, I haven't messed up in two months, my teacher even praises me, I drive much better than my senior who almost sank the car in a pond last week..."

Before I could finish speaking, I was slapped by his grim expression. This was the first time he had seen me drive, and he was probably intimidated by my "incipient and informal" driving skills.

After two days in city B, we return to city A to rest.

On the fourth day of the lunar month we flew to Russia. *Russian territory is as big as Pluto's.

This trip was planned a long time ago. However, I saw Mu Chenghe so busy that he had already given up all hope.

Unexpectedly, he took a vacation and insisted that we have to take this trip.
It was the first time I had flown in an airplane. Everything was new to me, from the reclining table in front of my seat to the small TV screen on top of it. The emotion overwhelmed me.

After a while, the pilot announced on the radio, first in English, and then in Russian that the hatch would close in a few minutes. We were preparing for takeoff. My gaze darted to study the wing outside my window.

Next to us was a fat, smiling Russian man who couldn't contain his laughter at my shocked reactions. He turned his head, ignored Mu Chenghe sitting in the middle, and asked me in broken Chinese if he was traveling to Russia.

I nodded and replied in Russian: "Да".
Hearing me answer him in Russian, surprise flashed across his face, and then he continued to speak to me in Russian not caring that Mu Chenghe was in the way. He was talking extremely fast, with a thick, guttural, nasal voice, and my mind immediately clouded over.

Once I finish speaking, he gives me a smile. My level of Russian was still very poor. My mind was blank.

I looked to Muchenghe for help.
As usual, Mu Chenghe very kindly translated for me: "He asked you where you learned to speak Russian, because it is very rare to hear it spoken in such young people."

I am very familiar with the sentence "I studied Russian at university xxx for xxx years", When I was studying in the Foreign Languages department of my degree, I used it to make many sentences. Then, when I gamely decided to open my mouth to answer him in Russian, Mu Chenghe sent me a menacing look: "Don't say that I taught you Russian. Shame on you." His gaze was full of warning.

I despised his pride, and I prepared to answer the kind gentleman's question.
Later, the gentleman's eyes shone and he answered me with an even longer sentence.

I was stunned, and in my desperation, I had to ask my handsome i again for help.

Simultaneous interpreter sitting right in the middle of the two.

However, he refused to help me and raising an eyebrow he told me: "You can ask him if he can speak Chinese."

My interlocutor surely realized that he had already reached my limit, and he glanced at Mu Chenghe, perhaps fearing that the trip would be too boring. I am more than sure that they talked about me in their conversation, because at a certain moment Mu Chenghe turned his head towards me and looked into my eyes with a half smile peeking out of the corner of his lips, and said to the man: "Это моя девушка."
This time I did understand.

"Ella Это моя девушка" means "She is my girlfriend". Even though it is a very simple phrase, it made my heart race with emotion.

Just at that moment, the plane's engine roared and we started moving faster and faster across the runway. As the plane began to rise and the pressure to compress my stomach, I felt Mu Chenghe's hand gently rest on mine. He had me clinging to the armrests like a nervous cat.

After visiting Moscow, we went to St. Petersburg, and then continued to fly north. Our last stop was the port of Murmansk on the Arctic Ocean.
I had never heard of this place before.
Mu Chenghe smiled and said: "You will fall in love with this place."

* Before the year 2015, the size of the dwarf planet was estimated at 16,647,940 square kilometers. Russia, by comparison, is 17,125,191 square kilometers in area. Therefore, it was an accepted fact that the surface of Russia was larger than that of Pluto. https://es.rbth.com/technologies/83551-pluton-russia-space-exploration