This business didn't raise much of a ripple in Jiaming's heart. To him it was just one interlude in an ordinary life, and if there was any lesson in it at all, it was no more than the joke about how no matter how tough a girl is, once she's been pushed down, her martial arts are good for absolutely nothing. Still, had he known what an enormous wave this little interlude would stir up later on, whether he'd have given her that one push back then would be very much open to question.
All in all, after that match — the one that had Papa Ye laughing so hard he couldn't stop — our Huaisha MM began learning martial arts at the Ye Family Martial Arts School and marked Jiaming as her sworn enemy. Whenever he was around, he was her practice dummy.
This whole neighborhood was Sand Bamboo Gang territory, and the Liu house wasn't far from the Ye Family Martial Arts School, so once Huaisha and Lingjing became the closest of girlfriends, the number of people turning up for morning workouts became three.
Out on that grassy slope at the edge of town, Huaisha and Lingjing would practice against each other while Jiaming, as usual, stood around daydreaming or dozed off — though when they ran into the steamed-bun peddler in the mornings, it was Jiaming who ended up paying.
Once school started, Liu Huaisha naturally kept training at the Ye Family Martial Arts School, while Jiaming hurriedly begged off the daily set of fist forms. His heart wasn't in it, and the Ye couple weren't about to force him. Still, whenever Liu MM was around in the evening, he couldn't escape being called up for a good beating. According to Liu MM, it counted as pre-dinner exercise — nice and appetizing.
Outside the Ye Family Martial Arts School, Liu MM remained the model bad student, her reputation traveling far and wide, while Lingjing's grades kept marching on in triumph, now and then entering some competition or other and casually picking up a place. Jiaming's marks hovered forever between sixty and seventy.
When he had nothing to do he liked to sit and stare into space, and occasionally he read assorted junk; he became a thoroughly unremarkable decoration at school, neither distant nor close with his classmates.
Aside from spending every day beside Lingjing, if anyone remembered him at all, it was mostly because of the girl who always stood in front of him whenever there was trouble.
In late March of the lunar calendar, Jiaming's eleventh birthday arrived. He himself had no particular feelings about it; Lingjing spent her savings on a radio and gave it to him before he even realized what day it was. Liu MM, who bullied him as always, gave him a baseball bat — expensive, and quite enough to showcase her fearsome character. Neither girl could play baseball; in Liu MM's mind, the bat's purpose was probably for hitting people.
So the days passed, all ease and leisure. Lingjing's nature seemed carefree, but in truth she was a clingy one; at home and at school alike she was used to looking after Jiaming in the role of "big sister." To outsiders, of course, it simply looked as though Jiaming were Lingjing's shadow.
Sometimes, too, the two of them would cold-war over some small thing. Once, for instance, Lingjing got into an argument at school and was called a tomboy who'd never find a husband; Liu MM happened to be passing by and gave that person a thorough beating.
Only it would have been better if she hadn't — after the beating, little Lingjing felt even worse. That evening she sat in low spirits on the little grassy slope at the edge of town for a long while, Jiaming beside her, watching the sun go down.
"So what if I'm a tomboy? So what if I like hitting people? That guy doesn't even hand in his homework, and he's out there badmouthing people. Tomorrow I am definitely telling the teacher..."
She muttered on and on there with red-rimmed eyes for ages while Jiaming just listened quietly, now and then putting in a line: "Or how about I go beat him up for you tomorrow?"
Lingjing's tears turned to laughter. "Jiaming, you don't even know how to fight. And Shasha already did the beating for me anyway."
"Yeah — now Shasha, someone like her, she's what you call a tomboy. Honestly, terrifying."
"Shasha is, and so am I," Lingjing said miserably. "When I was little, back in the village, people always said I was like a boy and nobody would ever want me... Hmph. I hate it most when people say that about me."
Jiaming thought to himself, So that's where the childhood trauma comes from. Still, though this era still prized the sweet, gentle, delicate sort of girl, with Lingjing's looks the label "tomboy" was the last one that should have landed on her. Those fellows' next line is usually: "...so how about marrying her off to our family's so-and-so." At that thought he smiled to himself and tossed out, by way of comfort, "Actually, Lingjing, you're great just as you are. If nobody wants you, I'll marry you when we grow up."
That was a grown-up's joke, and hearing it, Lingjing blushed and lowered her head. Jiaming assumed she was moved and that her first kiss would be arriving the very next moment. Instead, when he turned his head, what he got was a slap — not hard, but loud, the kind that utterly humiliates a person.
"I'm your big sister! How can you say something like that? I'm not speaking to you anymore!"
The words came out in a clear, ringing shout; Lingjing turned and ran, leaving Jiaming there smiling bitterly to himself.
For the next two days, Lingjing truly didn't speak to him.
Training started at three in the morning as always; when Lingjing didn't come to fetch him, he rather enjoyed the peace and slept a while longer.
What he didn't know was that the little girl had run out to the grassy slope and waited a long time, just to give him a chance to apologize — while he was home, slacking off. In class that day, Lingjing sat bolt upright and ignored him, and Jiaming leaned against the window staring into space.
In the evening the two of them went back to the martial arts school one behind the other; Lingjing went in first and slammed the door shut hard, sulking, to keep him out. Jiaming knocked twice.
Lingjing stood by the door thinking, Just say you're sorry and I'll open it. But after she waited a while, the knocking didn't come again; when she opened the door and looked, the boy had already vanished into the dusk with his schoolbag on his back.
That night Lingjing was so angry she couldn't eat, and when Jiaming didn't turn up, the Ye couple found it strange and asked her about it. Naturally she couldn't possibly explain that it was because Jiaming had said he wanted to marry her and she wouldn't have him.
When she ran out to the slope the next morning, Jiaming was still nowhere to be seen; Lingjing sat there and cried her eyes out, and the grandpas and grannies nearby were so pained by the sight that they comforted her for ages.
If the shops hadn't still been closed, there would probably have been a whole pile of candy heaped up beside the little girl in no time.
That day happened to be Saturday. Lingjing went home with her eyes red from crying, and the Ye couple were all alarm and suspicion — a pity Jiaming couldn't see it, or he might have felt a twinge of guilt.
By the morning of the third day, as she ran past the Huang mansion, little Lingjing finally couldn't hold back; she ran in and knocked on Jiaming's window. A moment later Jiaming came out dressed and jumped down, and the two of them ran to the grassy slope as usual.
Lingjing said softly, "You're not allowed to say that ever again." Jiaming nodded and said, "I'm sorry." And just like that they were friends again.
In fact, that brief cold war had clarified a few things for Jiaming. Originally Lingjing had been nothing to him but a shield — the way a gay man will often take a pretty wife to show the world his tastes are perfectly normal. Lingjing was exactly that.
Since she liked clinging to him, he was happy to let her be his shield, shrinking behind this little girl in everything he did and letting her behavior mold him into something more like a child. After all, left to himself he would either sit around daydreaming every day, or start doing things no child would do.
And yet, in those two days, with no little girl circling around him, he found a certain emptiness in his heart; and when she came looking for him in that aggrieved way, deliberately making up, the sight of it actually warmed his heart. Could it be that if my body shrinks, my mind shrinks along with it? Or have I turned into some perverted child molester? The thought only flickered through his mind. Either way, he knew that somewhere along the line his heart had come to count this girl as someone very important.
As for Liu MM, besides coming to learn at the Ye Family Martial Arts School on her weekly day off, she made a regular habit of skipping class to come play with the two of them.
Now and then she'd turn up bruised and battered from a fight, and Jiaming and Lingjing would escort her back to the school for bruise liniment; after this had happened a few times, Jiaming's schoolbag permanently held gauze, liniment wine, ointment and the like, practically a medical kit.
Once Liu MM got hurt she'd come straight to him to be patched up, and never had to go back to the school and sit through Papa Ye's lectures about how martial arts are for strengthening the body and cultivating the mind.
In the autumn of '93, Jiaming and Lingjing entered fifth grade, while Liu Huaisha, whose conduct and marks were both too poor, had to repeat a year. The three of them were in the same grade now, and Liu MM wanted to transfer to their school, but her father wouldn't agree, so in the end she had to let it drop.
So that her good friend wouldn't be held back another year, Lingjing took the lead, and from then on the three of them often studied together. By the summer of '94, when fifth grade ended, Liu MM's exam results were genuinely good.
Her father had never expected much in the way of marks from his daughter; who'd have thought that after one round of exams her scores would drop the jaws of every last one of his underlings.
The boss came out of it with plenty of face, and in his delight he agreed to her request to attend the somewhat more distant Xinghui Middle School for junior high. It was one of the better schools in Jianghai City, junior and senior high rolled into one; it just wasn't inside Sand Bamboo Gang territory.
But after his daughter's pestering he finally gave in — also because Jiaming and Lingjing were planning to go to that school too.
To celebrate the three of them being at the same school from then on, Liu MM, fresh from getting her father's permission, proposed that the three of them go camping and exploring in the mountains over summer vacation.
In reality it naturally wasn't going to be three half-grown kids on their own — a certain travel company in Jianghai City happened to be running a wilderness survival summer camp, and charging a fortune for it. Back when Liu MM's grades were bad, her father had boasted that if she scored such-and-such he'd give her such-and-such an amount.
He'd said it in a fit of pique, and the bounty was absurdly high for a child; this time, happy as he was, his wallet took another heavy blow. With money in hand, Liu MM covered the costs for all three, and Jiaming and Lingjing naturally agreed.
With the plan settled, the three of them spent those days shopping all over Jianghai City for outdoor travel gear. That afternoon, when Jiaming got back to the Huang family's big mansion, he ran into a supernatural event.