In any case, that was how the relationship between the two little girls settled into shape in Jiaming's mind, though it struck him as a little odd when it crossed his mind now and then. After all, he had more than once imagined the possibility of spending his whole life with Lingjing or with Shasha. In his fantasies, of course, it was mostly Lingjing; Shasha... Shasha was a little frightening.
Still, now that he had the two girls pegged as lilies, the three of them got along even better day to day. Jiaming could now and then crack an adult joke without restraint, teasing Lingjing and Huaisha until they were both embarrassed and annoyed—only the trio's relationship was looking more and more like that of same-sex buddies, or sisters.
At the time the two girls naturally couldn't sense how strange it was; only a year or two later, once their hearts had matured, would they notice how awkward that friendship had been. But that is a later matter, and we won't go into it here.
All three of them were in high spirits that morning. Shasha had withdrawn a sum of money from the bank near the villa, meaning to hand it to the foreign mother and daughter under the bridge so they could at least fly home. But once they got out of the car, they found the pair already gone. They felt a touch of regret, though not enough to dwell on it.
Back at school there was no escaping a thorough dressing-down: written self-criticisms, a school-wide notice of criticism, parents summoned... The whole place was turned upside down and everyone had a fine old time of it. Of the three, Shasha was a repeat offender and didn't take it seriously at all.
Jiaming wore a face of deepest grief and remorse while not caring in the least inside: his self-criticism was copied, his parents were nowhere to be summoned, and the notice of criticism he simply didn't see. Only Lingjing—model student that she had always been—got really put through the wringer.
Luckily, Jiaming and Shasha joined forces to keep it from Papa Ye and Mama Ye, and when that catastrophe of a denunciation meeting finally ended, Jiaming and Shasha meant to comfort Lingjing for her grievously wounded soul. What they got in return was the little girl sticking out her tongue with a grin: "That was so exciting.
Let's do it again next time..."
When all was said and done, beneath that model-student exterior, our classmate Lingjing had never been a girl who liked to follow the rules in everything. Her rebellious streak was always hidden behind that pure and adorable face.
After about a month of skipping class, summer set in, and on the midterms Jiaming once again landed a thoroughly middling score. Every weekend the three of them would head over to the Liu family villa to get together: Jiaming would go online on the computer, and they'd play DOS games like Monopoly, The Four Little Warriors and Emperor.
Whenever they played Emperor, Shasha would spend most of her time on the harem, then rate the concubines with Lingjing and decide which was prettier, until in the end the people were left in utter misery and she got killed by an assassin who slipped into the palace.
In these discussions Jiaming usually butted in with jokes from the sidelines while Lingjing went faintly pink in her pretty face—though now and then she'd get into a red-faced argument with the two of them over her own likes and dislikes.
The three split the work: Lingjing did the shopping and the cooking of rice, Jiaming did the stir-frying, and Shasha handled the odd jobs. And so they took up that strange life of living together two days a week.
Jiaming was still put up in the slightly masculine room that had originally belonged to Shasha, while Shasha and Lingjing slept in one bed just like the first time.
As the weeks went on, and with Jiaming's obvious indifference, the two girls would shriek and wrestle in their room every night without end, and then bump into Jiaming the next morning bright red in the face.
After a few rounds of this, the three of them gradually got used to it.
In the mornings Jiaming would buy breakfast and wait for the two girls to come clattering downstairs to eat. Once, while he was on the toilet, a half-asleep Shasha wandered in to brush her teeth, leaving Jiaming mortified; and only after Shasha had rinsed her mouth and washed her face right there beside him did an exceedingly shrill scream come ringing out of the bathroom.
In the mornings they'd go out to the vegetable market and the supermarket, the three of them weaving through the city's streets and alleys laden with shopping bags.
At lunch the division of labor was cooperative and spirits ran high, the music of the noon news drifting in from the TV, Lingjing and Jiaming bustling around in little aprons with a Doraemon on the chest, while Shasha faced the little sink, frantically washing and trimming vegetables.
In the afternoon they played games and went online; now and then Jiaming taught the two computer illiterates some very basic computer knowledge, and was then chased and pummeled by both of them for his contemptuous tone.
After dinner the three would walk along the road to the hilltop or the seaside, bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun, imagining what the future would be like.
In the evenings the two girls would put on their bathrobes and curl up with Jiaming on the long sofa to watch TV, the tea table covered in little snacks, the three of them rolling about and fooling around, pillows flying now and then. Everything was so warm and cozy it was like a close-knit family of three.
Not long after the midterms, Jiaming was idly wandering the sports field when he ran into those five high schoolers again.
In the last incident, Jiaming and the girls had aired the fact that the five of them, with the fat boy at their head, ran with gangsters and threw their weight around at school, so while Jiaming and the other two were punished, the five were also given a school-wide public criticism.
They had kept their heads down for over a month; now that enemies had met, their eyes burned with hate, and with a wave of his hand from the fat boy in the lead, the five of them closed in.
It was the last class of the afternoon. Jiaming's class had Phys Ed, which amounted to an early dismissal in all but name. He had to wait and walk home with Lingjing and Shasha, which was why he had come out to the field to kill time. It seemed, though, that some distinguished visitors from other schools were coming to observe and study, so a lot of people had been assigned to tidy up the field. These five high schoolers were among them. Seeing them close in, Jiaming rolled his eyes and put on a helpless expression.
"Kid, don't you run..."
"I'm not running, bosses. It's been ages since that last business—why are you still holding a grudge? And with so many people around, if you beat me up, that wouldn't look good for you either." As he spoke with a helpless air, he looked at the ugly scar on the bridge of the fat boy's nose and felt a little urge to laugh.
"Damn it, not remember you? I'm telling you—I've got you memorized!" The fat boy unconsciously touched the bridge of his nose, his face hideous. "Hmph, there's no teacher here, so just see whether I dare hit you. You remember this: not just today—as long as you're at Xinghui Middle School one day, I'll make sure you don't have one good day."
The fat boy raised his hand, about to hit him, when Jiaming suddenly pointed off to one side. "Brother Fatty, look—what's that over there?"
The boys all turned their heads, and who should they see but a group of teachers coming in through the field entrance: the principal of Xinghui High School, the discipline director of the middle school division, and several fairly senior teachers mixed in among them, along with a number of young men and women in gorgeous clothes—evidently the visitors come to observe and learn.
"Hmph, lucky you!" The fat boy withdrew his hand with a resentful look. The teachers over there saw five tall figures surrounding one short one with unfriendly faces and immediately shouted, "You, over there—what do you think you're doing!?"
"N-nothing..." the fat boy said hurriedly, while glaring viciously at Jiaming to stop him from saying anything bad. But Jiaming was at that moment looking at those teachers with a slight frown, and as he turned to leave he heard a crisp female voice call out, "Wait."
Jiaming stopped helplessly. The fat boy took in the people walking over and his eyes lit up. "Huh? It's Teacher Zhang." He said to the boys beside him, "See the prettiest teacher there? That's Teacher Zhang from the elite academy. I even went with my dad to visit her a few days ago. Look, she still remembers me—she's saying hi to me, haha..."
As the group of teachers came over, the great beauty in their midst, the moon among the stars, was none other than Zhang Yahan MM, who had once shared hardship with Jiaming. So today's visitors were the elite academy's people. Jiaming knew she was only twenty, yet her hair had now been permed into waves, a big pair of non-prescription glasses sat on her face, and with a fitted working skirt suit she looked like a sharp, capable career woman—which reminded him of the uniform seduction in Japanese AVs, her outfit an exact match, and he snickered to himself.
He was inwardly laughing at her, but nobody else saw it that way. Zhang Yahan had a pretty face and a graceful figure, and she managed to look sharp without losing the tradition and gentleness of a Chinese woman; the several male teachers who had come along kept stealing glances at her, and the fat boy, eyes shining, went up to meet her and bowed like a good little boy: "Teacher Zhang, were you calling me?"
"Huh? Ah... you are...?" Zhang Yahan had been heading for Jiaming and was suddenly blocked, so she was a little taken aback. The fat boy's face looked somewhat familiar, but she simply couldn't place him, and while she was still a bit muddled he said, "Teacher Zhang, my dad brought me to see you a few days ago! My dad's name is Ma Guangzu—I'm Ma An. In a few days I might even be coming to study at the elite academy."
The moment he said that, several of the teachers around him turned dark in the face. He was planning to transfer, and he had to bring it up right now? Wasn't that cursing the bald donkey to a monk's face? By now Zhang Yahan remembered the matter too, and she fobbed him off with a few ha-ha's. Then, seeing Jiaming with both hands in his pockets about to slip away again, she hurried over. "Jiaming! I came looking for you. Just try running off again, I dare you." Her gaze was full of mischief.
Her form of address was intimate, her tone less than friendly; either way, it sounded like a couple bickering. After a moment Jiaming helplessly turned back, and his face bloomed into a pure, adorable smile like a white lotus. "Sister." He spread his arms and charged at Yahan.
Thump—the two of them hugged affectionately... Of course, "the two of them" may not be quite the right way to put it: more accurately, Yahan was helplessly caught around the waist by Jiaming, and while her face went crimson he shamelessly buried his head in the waves of her chest, rubbing his forehead round and round and round...
"Sister, I missed you sooooooooo much..."
What a moving scene—sister and brother, reunited.