His tone was very nasal and congested when he spoke. It seemed his cold had worsened. Chu Jian’s conscience had already been laden with guilt as she mumbled that sentence, and now, after he so resolutely interrupted her, she completely wilted.

It was not that her heart had never softened before. Twenty years. It began from when they were kids and, with her schoolbag on her back, she had trailed after his every step, to when they were a little older and she had sat at the back of his bicycle to go to primary school. At that time, she had not understood why he had removed the rear rack on his mountain bike so that every day, she had no choice but to scrunch herself up and sit closer forward.

Winter and summer breaks, New Oriental[1]?classes, remedial classes, the Senior High School Entrance Exam[2]—they had been together for all these things.

In the regional standardized physical education test, she had run a time of two minutes and thirty-odd seconds and was the best in the group. However, when she fell to her knees at the finish line from overexertion, her hands and feet numb, it was also he who had picked her up and carried her away in front of the entire region’s exam candidates. At the time, she had actually thought she was going to die and had burst into tears from fear.. She remembered all these things.

To say the truth, in this entire world, apart from his dad and her own parents, she was the person who most did not want to see him hurt or upset. She could support him—wholly and unconditionally support him—during his times of greatest difficulty, but there were some things..

Chu Jian avoided his gaze. Her head bowed, she glanced at the bag in her right hand and explained very sincerely, “When I signed for the delivery of this, my mom was also there. She even guessed that someone who likes me had sent it, and I didn’t explain. If I don’t throw it away, I’m scared she’ll pull it out for you to see. Once you tell her you were the one who sent it, she’ll definitely get the wrong idea.”

“Get the wrong idea about what?” He looked at her with an insipid expression.

“The wrong idea about.. you and me.”

Out of the blue, there was a deafening sound of an electric drill.

What great timing.

He frowned. Amidst this loud noise that roused short-temperedness and feelings of unsettledness in a person, he questioned, “If you’re worried about your mom getting the wrong idea, why don’t you take it to your nail salon?”

That was true. Her dad and mom had never been to the nail salon before. It definitely would not be seen if it was left there.

She nodded. “Oh, okay.”

In the end, when Chu Jian sat outside the Starbucks that was downstairs of her nail aesthetics training business, holding that bag of dolls and drinking her iced tea lemonade under a green sun umbrella, she still had not really figured out what the conclusion was from the morning’s conversation. Why had they switched from talking about such a very serious topic to discussing the childish question of where she could keep the dolls so that her parents would not discover them?

Why did it feel as if, every time she was around him, she would very easily slip back into her ways of thinking from when she was in junior and senior high school?

Chu Jian pulled her mind back with some difficulty. Looking at Tong Fei, she asked, “It doesn’t taste good? I bought it just for you.”

“Doesn’t taste good. It isn’t sweet, and it has no coffee flavour.” Tong Fei’s face had an expression that declared she had been duped.

“The young girls in our company have all been drinking this the last couple of days,” Chu Jian replied puzzledly.

From griping about the coffee, the two’s conversation topic meandered around and around until it arrived at the subject of that rich investor and hugely popular idol artiste whom they were going to be working with—Jian Bianlin. All these years, Tong Fei simply could not understand how Chu Jian could have such a person around her, and moreover, the two of them knew each other so well, but they had not managed to become a couple.

“What exactly are you thinking? Just what was it back then that you didn’t like about him?”

With a miserable face, Chu Jian looked across at that woman whose curiosity was going extremely strong.

This normally was somewhat of a taboo topic for her and very seldom did she talk about it. However, her mood had gone through some pretty big ups and downs today, so she provided a few sentences of explanation. “How can I say this? Let me give you an example. If you have a boyfriend, it’s quite normal to do some, um, intimate things together, right?”

“What a waste of words..”

“But I’ve tried to imagine it. If he and I were together and.. Even just thinking about it gives me the willies all over.”

Yes, that was the feeling. Even an action that was just slightly more intimate would not feel sweet to her; it only made her feel especially awkward and uncomfortable. She could not even think about it, much less?doing something like that in reality.. So, she felt that the relationship between them was more suited for familial love, not romantic love.

But she did mull this over carefully. All these years, Jian Bianlin had never done anything that went beyond the lines of propriety. She had been too rash this morning. In the world of adults, there were some things that were just better if you pretended?that you did not know. Stating them outright actually created awkwardness and would not produce any results. Love and relationships were such unpredictable things..

Who knows? Maybe one day, without any warning, Jian Bianlin would have some sort of romantic gossip about him circulating about. With a female celebrity? An assistant? An agent? Or maybe it would be a romance that arose out of a transnational collaboration? It could be any arbitrary one, and then, after a whirlwind courtship, he would get married.

A few days later, the Beijing branch of Chu Jian’s company was having its opening. The major shareholder of this subsidiary branch was Tong Fei, and it was considered her secondary asset and safeguard against going hungry in the future. Chu Jian was there simply to provide some guidance on routine tasks, such as how to supply and sort goods, how to arrange for Japanese nail aesthetics instructors and Korean permanent eyelining and cosmetic eyebrow tattooing instructors to come teach classes, etc., etc. While she was at it, she could prepare for the shop’s grand opening tomorrow and help take inventory.

None of these tasks were very important. The most important piece was to provide moral support for Tong Fei, who was starting up this business.

Because the business owner was a girl, a soft shaggy rug covered the floor of the inventory room, and shoes needed to be removed before going inside to take inventory. With her feet bare, Chu Jian stood behind the shelves of stock and inspected the artificial nail tips and forms that were in the several dozen little cube units of the shelves.

On the wall, there hung a small television, which was currently turned on and playing a random program.

The young girl who was doing the inventory count with Chu Jian seemed to have a specific program that she wanted to watch, and holding the remote control, she flipped through channels for a long time.

“Jian Bianlin!” The girl at last?found what she wanted to watch and let out an excited cry that gave Chu Jian a fright..

There, holding a small die-shaped nail charm in her hand, she looked up to see Jian Bianlin on the screen.

He was at the airport?

Jian Bianlin was not wearing anything to hide his countenance and merely walked with a completely deadpan face into the passageway. Another popular idol artiste was walking side by side with him, and compared to Jian Bianlin, this person’s dress—a hat worn with its brim facing backwards and black sunglasses—was much more like that of a celebrity. As he walked, he would smile and greet nearby fans.

Only in such instances was Chu Jian truly able to feel that Jian Bianlin was an artiste.

This scene only very briefly flitted across the screen, and then the picture quickly jumped to a television talk show. Oh, so this was the real point of the program.

He was sitting on a couch, leaning forward slightly as he listened attentively to the host of the program ask him what the meaning was behind his name.

“Is it a stage name? That’s why it is so awkward to say and sounds so strange?”

After he finished listening to her questions, he replied forthrightly, “When I was born, my father’s desire was very simple and honest. His hope was that, in the future, his son would guard this nation and would do so without recognition or being made known to anyone. And so, what he wanted was for me to be like the most ordinary of trees in the forest that stand guard at our borders. That is the meaning behind ‘Bianlin[3]’ [the?border’s forest].”

The host of the show laughed. “Your father’s wish and your current profession are vastly different. Was he disappointed at all?”

“In the beginning, he was a little.” He nodded. “Now he’s much better about it.”

The host seemed to feel that interviewing him was really quite pleasant since he spoke plainly about everything. As a result, she immediately tossed out a key question. “A lot of your fans want to know what your attitude is toward love and relationships. Just look, you’re so popular, but you still have zero scandals and romantic rumors attached to your name; you rarely accept projects that are romance films; and you don’t do TV dramas, so the number of scenes that you act opposite actresses is pathetically small. It’s impossible for people to?not?be curious.” The host grinned. “Do you have any special requirements that you look for when choosing your significant other?”

“The person I like..” These opening words of a sentence were blurted out completely unthinkingly.

And then, he stopped.

Chu Jian was also listening with rapt attention and ended up misplacing the miniature die she was holding into the shelf cube unit that was meant for feather charms.

Die and feather nail charms (image credit:?left?and?right)

This feeling of anxiety was too familiar.

Back then, when the teacher had called them into a small office to ask them whether they were early-age dating[4], he had also paused like this for a very long time.. Finally, he had shaken his head and said no. It had been in the frigid winter, but because of him, she had nervously broken out in a sweat all over, worried to death that her parents would be requested to go in for a parent-teacher talk.

Now, the expression of that person on the small television screen had become serious, and his eyes were fixed on a faraway spot on the floor. “I wish that she..”

Another pause.

Even the host was eagerly hanging?onto his words?because of?the suspense.

In the end, with eyes down, he unexpectedly gave a hard-to-come-by smile in front of the camera and shook his head gently, not answering the question anymore.

[1]新东方 New Oriental, which actually has the full name of 北京新东方教育科技 New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc., is the largest provider of private educational services in China. Services provided range from supplementary after-school classes school subjects, test preparation classes, kids programs and summer camps, online courses, consultation for international study, etc. See?http://www.neworiental.org/english/index.html

[2]?The Senior High School Entrance Examination is a compulsory examination in China, administered annually, taken generally by students in their final year of middle school as a pre-requisite for entrance into senior high school level education.

[3]?Jian Bianlin’s father wanted him to be like the most ordinary of 边防林木 “bian?fang?lin?mu” which literally means “the trees of the forest that guards the border,” and Jian Bianlin’s given name, 边林 Bianlin, is derived from the first and third characters of that.

[4]早恋 “zao lian.” What I have called “early-age dating” is, in China, dating under the age of 18 and especially when still in non-post secondary education. It is generally highly frowned upon.