My Darling (我的曼达林)

Untitled Part 9

We learn about something crucial that happened in the past.

Chapter 3.1 — You and Me, Together (1)

The hallway was already empty of students.

As Jian Bianlin stepped swiftly out from the teaching building, from behind, someone suddenly called out rather hesitantly to him. "Jian Bianlin?" It was a man's voice.

Jian Bianlin took two slower steps, then came to a stop. Behind him, the man holding books and lesson plans had a rather subtle, but remarkable expression on his face, and sighing slightly over the absurdity of the situation, the man said, "It really is you."

Right this moment, both these people, be it Jian Bianlin or this excellent third-year high school math teacher, were caught in a bit of a daze. It was as if that incident that winter had occurred only yesterday, but actually, in just a twinkling, nine years had already slipped by.

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After Chu Jian strolled a couple loops around, her mother called her, telling her to hurry home to help Uncle Jian grab a couple of large couriered packages and, while she was at it, feed the dog. She said there was no one answering Jian Bianlin's phone.

Chu Jian waved down a taxi and rushed home. Huffing and puffing, she jogged up to the fourth floor, but when she saw the treadmill and four boxes of fruit, she gawked in shock. From the top of her own home's refrigerator, she grabbed the key to the Jians' home, opened the door, and directed the delivery persons to move the items out to the balcony.

When the people left, Chu Jian wiped away the footprints on the floor as well as the dust tracked in by the cardboard boxes and then hung up the cleaning cloth to dry. As she walked by the bedroom, she once again saw that photograph of the two of them.

Since they were little, the number of photographs that had been taken of her and Jian Bianlin together was simply too many to keep track of, but this particular one was the very last one from their student days. There had been nearly half a year, from when that year's New Year's Gala ended to the day this photo was taken, where the two had not spoken a single word to one another.

That year, a seldom-seen snowfall had fallen during the New Year's Gala. In a secretive manner, one of the boys in her grade had asked her to go downstairs to the bicycle storage area. The entire school building was alive with noise and excitement. That boy from the class next door, who would always coincidentally bump into her in the school cafeteria or basketball courts, stood at the end of a row of bicycles.

At the time, while the boy spoke in low tones, Chu Jian had been so nervous she had continuously wiped away at the thick layer of snow that had accumulated on the back rack of the bicycle next to her. Suddenly, that person had taken her hand in his.

"Then... let's give it a try." That had been her answer.

But before three days had even passed, in front of all the students of all the grades, Jian Bianlin gave a fierce thrashing to that boy after school was dismissed. Evening self-study had just ended, and tides of students were moving about, some people walking, some people pushing their bicycles. Everyone surrounded the edge of the bicycle storage area, watching this clash that had suddenly erupted. Off to the side, Chu Jian was stupefied with shock and fear. When her eyes took in the blood on the ground, she was terrified that something horrible would end up happening. Rushing into a classroom, she grabbed a water bucket, filled it halfway with cold water, flusteredly raced back, and tossed the water onto Jian Bianlin, who was rising unsteadily to his feet and about to pounce onto his opponent again.