City Love Story 1
The alleys were paved with blue stones, the hutongs of Beijing flattened the red bricks, and even the layers of wind and sand in the northwest buried the ancient roads. After circling around, I still remember the wall at the end of the shaded path, with crooked carvings: “The alley / is long and winding / without doors or windows / you hold an old key / knocking on the thick wall.”
That was the poet Gu Cheng’s “The Alley.”
20xx: My Love for You Was Written in the BCE
In 20xx, Ge Bei was 12 years old, in the final year of elementary school, studying in a classroom on the top floor of the teaching building. The rows of poplars swayed like turbulent youth at the end of August.
From the sixth floor, beyond the tall poplar grove, the entire green playground was in view. Including the two soccer teams whose average height didn’t exceed the fence, all the boys wore loose uniforms, running wildly on the field.
Ge Bei’s class played a friendly match against Class 61. As the top student in the grade, Ge Bei didn’t need to attend PE class and could stay in the classroom, doodling with a compass and solving math problems. The shouts from outside came in waves with the swaying poplars.
The circles on her paper grew larger and larger. She folded her paper and hid behind the classroom curtain, just in time to see a boy from Class 61 kick the ball into the face of a boy from her class.
Tempers flared, and soon a brawl erupted. Ge Bei’s paper, like a paper airplane, drifted down. She watched from afar as the PE teacher swooped in like an eagle, grabbing a boy and dragging him away, still flailing in anger.
The fight was serious, and the boys from both classes were punished by being made to stand in the hallway. The narrow corridor was crowded. Ge Bei was the only girl.
Her discarded paper was a special assignment from the class teacher, who demanded she be the last to leave. Amid the high decibel scolding of the Class 61 teacher, she pointed to the “hero” Xue Tingkai, saying he couldn’t go home unless he admitted his fault.
As the classrooms on the entire floor sequentially turned off their lights, locked their doors, and emptied, the green emergency lights glowed faintly. Ge Bei stretched her sore legs and heard someone singing softly, “My love for you was written in the BCE / Buried in the Mesopotamian plain / Unearthed centuries later / The writing on the clay tablets still clear.” It was Xue Tingkai, bruised and swollen, singing unclearly through the pain.
Listening, Ge Bei began to laugh. Suddenly, the hallway where they stood together wasn’t so scary.
20xx: The Rain Hadn’t Stopped, Yet You Held Up Your Umbrella to Leave
In 20xx, Ge Bei was in the second year of junior high at the city’s top school.
Behind Ge Bei sat a beautiful girl. Since the start of junior high, boys had constantly peeked into the classroom. Each time, the girl would pretend to organize her desk, and the boys would fold their love letters into paper airplanes and throw them, often hitting Ge Bei or flying over her head.
Xue Tingkai would say, “Come on, make way.” He didn’t peek or write love letters. On a sunny day, he solemnly walked to the podium and said to the beautiful girl, “From today on, I want to take you to every class on my bicycle.” In the bustling break time, Ge Bei and many others heard it clearly. The beautiful girl didn’t respond, but Ge Bei saw her nod while pretending to organize her desk.
No more boys lingered at the classroom door. The paper airplanes landed quietly. During the busy exam preparations, Ge Bei always hurried, yet she would see Xue Tingkai’s bicycle everywhere in the large campus, with the beautiful girl on the back, her long hair flying, and her skirt swaying. On graduation day, the school radio station sobbed with them.
Ge Bei still heard clearly, “Turn off the hallway lights / put down the backpack / look out the window / recalling the just-purchased book / a book called Peninsula Iron Box.”
Xue Tingkai sang that song at the graduation party, imitating Jay Chou, “The rain hadn’t stopped, yet you held up your umbrella to leave.” That was 20xx, and Ge Bei, in the auditorium, had tears in her eyes. The boy who once couldn’t stop talking about Jay and the time they spent together were leaving.
20xx: Drawing You with Handfuls of Sand
The small town had only two high schools, one in the east and one in the west. The main road from east to west was lined with tall white streetlights and straight rows of locust trees, blooming with clusters of white flowers all summer.
From Ge Bei’s home, heading west, the 108th locust tree marked a wide intersection. The entire campus faced south, stretching along the east-west road. Standing outside the campus, Ge Bei saw the towering teaching buildings, ivy climbing over the walls, and students in loose uniforms coming and going.
Ge Bei heard that Xue Tingkai was attending this high school, and he was the basketball team captain. Not the tallest, not the best at rebounds, his basketball skills were average, yet many people followed his lead on the court. Ge Bei believed it.
The students at the western high school loved to play and joke. They weren’t from the elite school, didn’t want to do thick problem sets, and could balance books on their fingers like circus performers. On the eastern school’s basketball court, they cleanly defeated the “top students,” with precise shooting and elegant jumps.
Xue Tingkai and his team won the hearts of the eastern school’s cheerleaders, who collectively switched sides. They were so pleased that they ordered three dozen beers at the eastern school’s cafeteria. Ge Bei, wearing her cafeteria uniform and a little white hat, emerged from the kitchen, “Here’s your bill.”
That was 20xx when Jay Chou and his junior, Cindy Yen, released the single “Painting Sand.” During breaks, Ge Bei listened to it repeatedly, “Drawing you with handfuls of sand / What we promised won’t be erased / My youth began with noise / And hoarse from loudly saying I love you.”
Ge Bei silently stored away such bold and extravagant words throughout her youth, never uttering a single one.
20xx: The Most Beautiful Isn’t a Rainy Day
According to the timeline, born in 1990, starting school in 1997, graduating from elementary school and entering junior high in 20xx, smoothly entering university, by 20xx, Xue Tingkai should be in his senior year of college.
Ge Bei counted on her fingers repeatedly. The cool September breeze scattered locust flowers everywhere. The new girl helping out in the cafeteria was always chattering. She waved a knife while cutting vegetables, “Ge Bei, you were so good at studying, why did you stop?”
Yes, why did she stop?
In high school, Ge Bei’s grades in science and math deteriorated, but her writing improved. She once wrote an article about how wonderful her hometown friends were, how beautiful the green mountains and clear waters, how long the alleys, but no one would take her back to those alleys.
In her broken family, even living expenses were saved bit by bit by working in the cafeteria. The poet Gu Cheng wrote, “You hold an old key, knocking on the thick wall.”
Ge Bei tried to use the old key of life to knock on her parents’ hearts, but the door eventually closed. In 20xx, Ge Bei failed the college entrance exam. When she moved out of the school, she stood under the bulletin board. The article that had been passed around and finally displayed in the window was taken away by someone who shattered the glass.
Ge Bei shook her head but still cried.
The cicadas in July were loud. Ge Bei went south to work, drifted, and returned to the small town. She took over a cafeteria window near the western school, the last to close every day, making fresh soy milk for the late basketball players, smiling warmly, the soy milk delicious.
When it wasn’t busy, she liked walking along the tree-lined path by the playground, where the wall at the end was still scribbled with “The Alley.” Such haphazard writing, she had seen years ago, and he hadn’t improved.
At 12, standing as punishment for the first time, it rained heavily in the evening. In the dark corridor, a boy hummed Jay Chou’s song. He said, “Don’t cry, I’ll sing for you and give you an umbrella to take you home.”
At 15, holding her report card, seeing the declining grades, the boy said, “I don’t understand if those boys are chasing the girl behind you or you, how come all the paper airplanes hit you?” He had just fought with students from another school for his friends, hiding in the campus woods, and saw Ge Bei crying.
At 19, under the warm spring sun, facing the pressure of the college entrance exam, he said he would teach the “top students” of the eastern school a lesson. He had learned not to use his fists. Boys have many ways to win. Like a knight, he learned to be a gentleman but still broke the school window and took an article when he left.
In 20xx, Ge Bei was a bride-to-be in the small town. At a matchmaking event, she hugged all of Jay Chou’s albums. The groom-to-be said, “Back in school, we always hummed his ‘Nunchucks.'” Ge Bei laughed out loud. That day, the café played a slightly sentimental song, “The
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