A Book Dedicated to Our Youth - Volume 3 - Chapter 10

V3C10 What is Love
Due to Xiao Bo, Brother Li, and We Zei’s influences, my understanding of friendship was like that of a Wuxia novel: to treat others with truth, to place honor above all, and to help others in times of need, even to the point of death.

I always thought I had done well in this aspect, never mistreating and never owing anything to any of my friends, but Guan He had dealt a heavy blow to that belief. I saw her as a friend because of how kind she was, yet I was jealous of that kindness.

This disparity between my actions and my beliefs tormented me, and because of the shame, I would often consciously choose to be nicer to Guan He, trying to make up for that inner darkness. But Guan He didn’t know any of this. All she knew was that I was nice to her, so she would return my kindness with the same. Our friendship grew deeper, but I still couldn’t help being jealous of her, and this deepening bond only made my guilt grow stronger.

Because of guilt, I acted nicer to her; because I was nice to her, she would be nice to me, deepening our bond; because our friendship kept developing, my guilt increased. I was stuck in a strange cycle.

Because on that day we went bowling and roller skating, I had created that gloomy train of thought that tarnished Guan He and I’s friendship, I felt apologetic to her and hateful to myself. Seeing that she had a hidden wish to be able to skate like the other students, I decided to teach her roller skating. 

Zhang Jun had laughed at me. “You’re going to teach with your skills?”

“What’s wrong with my skills? I’m perfectly capable of teaching someone who can’t skate at all. As for the other tricks like backward skating, she can learn it herself after learning the most basic moves.”

“I’m not doubting you, I’m worried for you. When you’re teaching someone roller skating, if your own skills aren’t good enough, it’s very easy to trip and fall. I’ll go find someone who’s good at roller skating to teach her.”

“I doubt Guan He would be interested in falling face first onto the ground in front of a guy. If you don’t believe me then call her.”

Seeing how careful and tense Guan He was that day, I had understood immediately that no man would be able to truly teach her how to roller skate.

Zhang Jun called immediately and the answer was exactly as I had predicted. He looked at me in surprise.

In reality, it wasn’t hard to guess her thought process at all because it was the exact same as mine, but amplified. Back when I was learning roller skating, I also hid in the shadows, unwilling to let the rest of the class see my clumsiness. The only difference was that mine was due to my need for dignity because of my lack of self-esteem, whilst her reason was a lot more complicated.

Hence, twice a week, Guan He and I would go on a private ‘date’.

I was patient with her and although Guan He never thanked me because of pride, I could still feel her gratitude. Our friendship grew as steadily beside the flying wheels of our skates.

Before the end of the summer holidays, Guan He had surpassed me in skill. If she wanted to, she could have chosen to wear a miniskirt on the rink and become a lovely view for others.

As thanks, Guan He invited me to eat Malatang.*

*A type of street food that is similar to hotpot 

On the way there, I saw a familiar face – the Enchantress.

Under the burning sun, a man wearing a cap drove a three-wheeled cart with the Enchantress sitting in the back, cardboard boxes piling up around her. She kept her eyes on her cargo, not distracted by her surroundings.

Was this plain woman really the glamorous Enchantress?

A box suddenly fell to the ground, revealing a small pile of headbands and hair clips. The Enchantress immediately hopped down the cart to pick them up whilst the man stopped it to help her. He probably thought that the sun’s glare was too harsh and placed his cap onto her head. The Enchantress smiled at him before busying herself packing the cargo. There was a natural closeness between the two. 

I stood far away from them, a cold sorrow running through my heart, flooding like a river. It had barely been a year and she had already forgotten- forgotten about Wu Zei, about their vow to always be together, about their promise to grow old with each other.

How many people in this world were willing to dance with shackles after all? The tale of Wei Sheng* was indeed shocking, but if he had let go, it wouldn’t have been remiss of him. Few people were willing to walk with that heavy weight, and rather, the world didn’t support people who chose to carry it, so letting go was the natural thing to do. Even understanding that, I was unable to avoid feeling sorrow.

Guan He saw that I had suddenly stopped walking like roots had grown from my feet and asked, “What happened?”

I shook my head and smiled at her, a facade of calmness. Guan He held my hand and took me straight towards the food stall.

We ordered our Malatang and were just about to dig in when I heard someone calling out for me. 

“Luo Qiqi!”

I looked up. It was Lin Lan.

She walked over, elated. “I haven’t seen you in ages. I’ve heard so many little rumours about you ever since summer holidays.”

I was also very happy at this reunion and couldn’t help but hug her. “Are you well?”

My enthusiasm surprised her. “I’m fine. There are only two more years before graduation, so I came back to find some companies to work as an intern. You’ve changed from before.”

I placed my hands on my hips and said cheekily, “Of course, I’m getting prettier!”

She stared at me in shock, as if unable to connect the person in front of her with that cold, silent person from back then.

“Eat with us, I’ll pay,” I said.

She smiled and shook her head. “Next time. I came with my mom today.”

She pointed at another Malatang stall not far away. When I saw her mother, I was hit by shock. Was this thin and haggard woman really Lin Lan’s mother? Back then, she looked younger than my mother by more than ten years, but now she looked older by at least a decade, but that wasn’t the most dismal part. She was trying her hardest to dress up as youthful as possible and it was this unfitting clothing that truly emphasized her age.

Because of how shocked I was, even though I was used to hiding my emotions, I wasn’t able to conceal them in time. Lin Lan seemed to understand completely and said coldly, “That man said that he couldn’t stand the pressure and left. Now, her love is dead. Look at her now, sometimes I pity her, but I also think that she deserved it. Everyone was trying to talk her out of it, and I was begging her, crying, but she only had that man in her heart. In her eyes, both me and my dad weren’t enough compared to her great love, so now she’s finally reaped what she sowed.”

“What are your plans?”

“I’ve decided to come back here after graduation. She’s only got me now. It’s funny, isn’t it. I ran away from here because of her, and now I’m returning again, also because of her.”

I watched her, unsure of what to say. It was impossible for me to say anything. 

“My dad has remarried already and his son with his new wife is old enough to call me ‘sister’. My dad’s new life has barely started but my mom’s has already ended,” Lin Lan mocked coldly. 

“Men are different to women. They can make mistakes, but even if they’re forty, they can still return to shore- it’s never too late for them. But if a woman makes a single mistake, she regrets it for her whole life, and age doesn’t even matter either, even if she’s just fifteen, and it’s one mistake, she’ll regret it for her whole life.”

Lin Lan didn’t say forteen or sixteen, but fifteen deliberately. Remembering Xiao Fei, my face darkened. Lin Lan knew that this was a sore spot for me yet she still prodded right where the wound was festering. I stared at her but she played dumb, raising the corners of her mouth, looking exactly like a normal, pretty girl of her age.

“I will never trust love. Men are only capable of adding onto what’s already there. They will only love you when you are beautiful, and when you are ugly, in hardship, they will run away faster than anyone. Qiqi, you must remember, you have to always love yourself because there will be no one else if you don’t.”

Lin Lan clutched my hand, true worry in her eyes. It was only now that I realized she was hinting at something. She had probably heard about the rumours of Zhang Jun and I, and with the reputation that Zhang Jun upheld, she was afraid that I would suffer.

We rarely contacted each other but perhaps it was true that the friendship between people of noble characters was as light as water, otherwise someone as cold as her would never reveal their heart to an outsider.

I held her hands back. “I understand, thank you.”

“Keep studying. Back then in our group, I thought that only Ge Xiaofei and I were smart enough to get into a good university, but now it’s just you…” Lin Lan smiled and shook her head, shaking away the dark clouds in her eyes. “I’ll be waiting for the news of you getting into Tsinghua or Peking.”

I smiled and sighed. “Only the top of the grade would have a chance of getting into those two. I’m not even at the top of my class.”

“I have faith in you.”

Lin Lan left, her silhouette lively as she walked, but underneath that youthful appearance was a heaviness that only she knew. 

I returned to the stall with a smile on my face but Guan He was very empathic and asked, “What did you say to Lin Lan? It looked like there was something wrong.”

“Nothing.” I ate my Malatang in silence for a while before I was unable to hold back and asked, “Say, just what is love? All the poems and songs, myths and legends, books and shows all sing praises of it, as if it’s the most beautiful, most sincere thing of humankind, but why can’t I see it in the real world? It’s so easy for the people around us to say ‘I like you’ but they could write a love letter to you today and chase another girl tomorrow. Not to mention the world of adults. They’re so easily changed but they’re also so realistic. One of my dad’s coworkers broke up with his two-year long girlfriend the moment he got offered a PHD course at the Academy of Science, as if their relationship would hold back his future.”

Guan He laughed, until she was unable to catch a breath. “You’re asking me? Who am I supposed to ask? You’re the one who’s dating right now, so if even you don’t know, then how would I know? But compared to love, I prefer to trust familial affection. I know that my mom loves me and that her love would never change, even if she saw another pretty girl, so that’s why I can be bold and love her back wholeheartedly.”

I laughed. Guan He was truly a special person. Real or fake, she decorated her life with flowers and magic. If she treated herself as a princess, others would also see her as a princess. This was probably another method of self-love. If one didn’t see their miseries as pain, then no one would dare to look down on them.

Guan He asked me curiously. “Qiqi, what does it feel like, to like someone?”

I returned the question. “There are so many boys that like you. Have you truly never liked anyone back?”

Guan He shook her head. “I’m different to you guys, I don’t have time to think about it. I have to study as hard as I can, otherwise I’ll be wasting the sacrifices my mom made.”

I was relieved and grinned. “It’s a good thing that you don’t like anyone. To like someone is to give your whole heart away to be controlled by that person. To let someone else control all your emotions isn’t a good thing.”

Guan He smiled. “Then how did you manage to like Zhang Jun? How much do you like him? I mean…” she thought a little. “Maybe I’m a more realistic person, but have you ever thought that your grades might fall because you’re together with Zhang Jun? The teachers aren’t completely correct, but it’s true that dating could potentially affect your study. For other students, dropping several ranks might not be that important, but for us, it’s the difference between getting into Tsinghua and Xi’an University.”

Her question wasn’t easy to answer. I thought about it and asked, “Have you read Lev Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina?”

“Yeah but I didn’t really like it. The guy was selfish and the girl was cowardly. I preferred Resurrection.”

“Anna Karenina was one of my favourite books and I found it in the summer holiday of last year of middle school. I read it three times consecutively and, well, it completely shifted my view of love.”

Guan He made a confused face as I continued. “Vronsky really loved Anna, so much that he didn’t mind that she was already married with a child, or that his reputation would be tarnished. You can say that since they got together after so many turmoils, they definitely had the most sincere love in the world. But what was the ending? When Vronsky truly had Anna, when their brilliant and passionate love was realized in real life, day after day, Vronsky realized that love was only a small part of life after the passion died. He started to crave the other parts of life. Even though Anna was still the same Anna that had made him fall head over heels, he started regretting letting go of those other parts of life for her, like his family and social status, to name a few, and he started to become dissatisfied with Anna. She eventually chose to take her own life by lying down on the rails and using her death as a way of revenge against Vronsky so that he would never be able to sleep soundly for the rest of his life. But was it worth it?”

“You dislike Vronsky?”

“No, I don’t dislike Vronsky. He wasn’t despicable, or a villain, otherwise his soul would not be tormented for the rest of his life because of Anna’s death. His thoughts and behaviors were just the same as any other man, Tolstoy simply exaggerated what others would have done. Men might be able to live for love for a single moment, but never their whole life. In their life, career, family and social status are all more important than love. If he didn’t think that those things were more important and chose love over them, then believe me, it would have been an illusion!”

Guan He listened intently. “What about Anna? Do you pity her?”

“I don’t pity Anna either. There’s nothing wrong with loving someone. A woman’s life only becomes colourful because of love, but to love someone to the extent of losing themselves, then that is definitely the wrong thing to do. Women always like to sacrifice themselves for love, but they don’t know that when they have sacrificed everything until they have nothing left but love, it won’t be long before love leaves them as well. Men can never see love as their entire life, so women should never see men as their whole life. Anna saw Vronsky as her life, but she ended up killing herself and made Vronsky depressed for the rest of his life. Her love was a failure.”

Guan He nodded. “That was the reason why I didn’t like this book. There was no character in it that I liked but I have to admit, Anna was the exaggerated version of the reality of women. There are so many Annas in this world. I think I understand what you mean now; you won’t become Anna, and you will never give Zhang Jun the chance to become Vronsky.”

“Yes! When ten years, twenty years have passed, I don’t want for Zhang Jun to reminisce about high school only to say with regret, if only I didn’t date Luo Qiqi back then, I could’ve gotten into a good university, study a good course and I wouldn’t end up like this, and so on.”

Guan He laughed. “Yeah, because men deciding love is more important can only be an illusion and one day, he’ll wake up from the illusion and mourn the things he had lost because of love.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m too serious and logical for my own good, constantly measuring between love and reality,” I said, lightly mocking myself.

Guan He looked at me. “You’re wrong, Qiqi, you really like Zhang Jun, so much that you’re scared that he would have regrets ten years later. You don’t want him to regret ever liking you.”

*The story of Wei Sheng goes like this- a man named Wei Sheng waited under a bridge for his lover to arrive. He waited until the people had passed, and the sun went down, but still, the lady did not arrive. Even when the tide rose, he stayed there, waiting for her as the water swallowed up his feet, then his knees, then his chest. And late at night, the moon high in the sky, shining on the reeds by the river, the tide carried his body out to sea, and his spirit slipped out of his body and ascended calmly up into the heavens.