Chapter 33.1 - A Beginning and an End (1)
For three nights in a row, Luo Zhi ran into Zhang Mingrui at the Third Dining Hall in the evening, and he was also waiting in line for the bread cakes just like her. Luo Zhi never brought up Sheng Huainan. She worried about him, but also felt some anger and frustration for being led around by him, even though she had been like this for a long time.
“By the way, Sheng Huainan caught a cold. These past couple of days, I don’t know what’s wrong with him—he won’t talk, ignores people, doesn’t eat properly, and is pretty sick... Actually, about you two... I’ve never really known if you’re truly together... but...”
Luo Zhi watched Zhang Mingrui struggling to find the right words, her gaze drifting toward the claypot restaurant’s counter in the distance.
A thought took root inside her. She suppressed it, but it resurfaced when she was doing homework at Building 1. She felt uneasy. The dense characters on the English original book looked like gibberish, and she couldn’t concentrate, so she shut the book, tidied the desk, grabbed her bag, and rushed out.
Standing at the entrance of Jiahe Yipin, she suddenly understood Jiang Baili, whom she had never really understood before. Even though Jiang Baili seemed foolish to outsiders, and even though Ge Bi wasn’t nice to her, standing here late at night clutching a steaming takeout she bought for the sick Ge Bi must be a kind of happiness.
Century egg and lean pork congee, sweet corn cakes, and stir-fried kale—something light for someone sick. Luo Zhi happily hugged the plastic bag to her chest and hurried forward. Suddenly, she tripped as a missing tile in the pavement caught her foot.
Her knee slammed hard onto the ground. At first, it only felt a little numb, but moments later, a stabbing pain spread from her knee throughout her body. She lowered her head and tried to endure it, but tears fell in big drops, wetting the tiles.
“Don’t tell me I’m... going to be crippled?”
She couldn’t move. Her back was stiff, but her legs felt weak. She tried to sit down but couldn’t, so she knelt, barely supporting herself with her hands on the cold ground. She looked at the white plastic bag lying limp not far ahead. The congee container had spilled out, its lid flipped over, steaming mockingly.
Luo Zhi smiled bitterly.
What kind of tragic drama am I acting out, and so convincingly?
The place where she fell was a rather quiet side street. During the day it had some foot traffic, but after 9 p.m., only the big neon sign of the internet cafe was still lit; all other shops were pitch black. If she stayed here kneeling all night, no one would even notice.
Get up. The heroine of a tragic drama is always like a cockroach—hard to kill. You get up. You have to put on a good show. She kept telling herself this and slowly shifted her injured left knee. It didn’t hurt as much as she imagined; it was more sore and weak. Using an awkward posture, she moved little by little until she could sit on the ground instead of kneeling. She noticed her hands had been pressed hard on the icy tiles, now stiff and cold. Even curling her fingers hurt.
After staring blankly for a while, she took a deep breath and stood up. She brushed the dirt off her clothes and slowly walked back to Jiahe Yipin.
Her earlier enthusiasm to buy a late-night meal for him had vanished. Her heart was as fleeting and bleak as the evening breeze. Now, everything she did was just an obsession — a proud obsession to complete the act even if no one was watching.
The hostess was still the same young girl from before. She was startled when she saw Luo Zhi. Luo Zhi smiled wryly and raised her hands. “I fell and spilled everything.”
The hostess was a pretty girl who smiled understandingly and seated her by the door. She handed her a menu and pencil for self-ordering, and after a while brought a steaming cup of water. Luo Zhi blew on it for a long time before taking a sip. When the waitress walked by, she took the opportunity to smile and thank her. After reordering, she slowly walked to the restroom to tidy herself up. The person in the mirror didn’t look too bad. Her pants weren’t torn, and it was as if the sharp pain earlier was a dream, leaving no visible mark.
