Chapter Fourteen: Helping with the Move
Page (1/3)
December twenty-first. As the year drew to a close, the weather in the capital had grown ever colder.
“Drip, drip…”
Wutong Courtyard.
A fine, steady rain fell, filling the drainage ditch that ran around the quadrangle with water. A few withered yellow leaves floated on the surface, circling lazily in the current.
Beneath the eaves, the rain hung like a string of pearls.
A young man sat in a chair with a book in his hands. At his right, a pot of tea hissed gently, sending up wisps of steam.
Listening to the soft white noise of the rain and gazing through the heavy curtain of water, Cheng Kaiyan felt exceptionally peaceful.
The past few days had been remarkably quiet. The people who liked to gossip around him had disappeared—or at least, they no longer dared do it to his face as they had before.
The letter he had mailed to Liu Xiaoli yesterday was already on its way. If nothing unexpected happened, Liu Xiaoli, who would be on holiday by the weekend, would be able to read it.
As for anything else weighing on his mind, there was only work.
Ever since the day his aunt Jiang Ting had come to formally break off the engagement, she had not visited again.
“Could she have run away?” Cheng Kaiyan wondered as he turned another page.
The book in his hands was *Scar*. Lu Xinhua had published the novella in the middle of last year, and by now it had been discussed for a full year. The literary world had held countless symposiums and discussion meetings about works such as *Scar*, *The Class Teacher*, and *The Window*.
Many believed that, although these stories had pioneering significance in their subject matter for what was known as “scar literature,” they were artistically quite immature. They were inferior to the works written by educated youths, such as *The Sacred Mission*, *The Noble Pine*, *The Struggle of the Soul*, *Dedication*, and *The Match Made by Fate*; to the prison-wall literature of educated youths, such as Cong Weixi’s *The Red Magnolia Beneath the Great Wall*; and to Feng Jicai’s relatively accomplished early works of scar literature, *The Winding Road Strewn with Flowers* and *Ah!*—not to mention Zhou Keqin’s *Xu Mao and His Daughters*.
Even so, these works had established the arrival of the age of scar literature. They were regarded as the first tragic climax in the history of modern Chinese literature.
In terms of ideas, they had made a historic contribution to the thorough repudiation of the turmoil of the past.
Artistically, they had brought a tragic consciousness to the contemporary literary world for the first time.
This consciousness could be called one of the “original colors” of literature in the new era. The mournful tone that pervaded the entire period of literature arose from it.
That was the significance of scar literature in the history of modern literature. To a great extent, it influenced an entire generation, and traces of that underlying tone could be seen in many writers of the new era.
Works such as the later *To Live* and *Chronicle of a Blood Merchant*…
Cheng Kaiyan had no intention of following the trend. In another two years, the wind would have died down, and by then he would not even be able to drink a mouthful of hot broth.
Suddenly, he remembered the mother and daughter, Shang Cui and her child, whom he had met on the train. They had come from a farm in the southern frontier.
Why not write about educated youths?
The term “educated-youth literature” first emerged in 1983. At the time, a community of educated-youth writers appeared: a group of writers from educated-youth backgrounds entered the literary world by writing about their lives in the countryside.
Page (1/3)
Page (2/3)
An idea began to take shape in Cheng Kaiyan’s mind.
Let me usher in the age of educated-youth literature and sweep scar literature into the dusty archives of history!
“Tap, tap, tap!”
Just then, footsteps approached. Rubber rain boots slapped against the wet ground.
Hearing the noise, Cheng Kaiyan looked toward the doorway. A woman in a black raincoat raised one hand to shield herself from the rain and hurried beneath the eaves.
“Auntie, why did you come out in this rain?” Cheng Kaiyan asked with concern.
At the way he addressed her, Jiang Ting’s brows drew together, but she ignored him.
She simply wiped the rain from her face, stamped her feet, and shook the water from her raincoat, leaving a puddle beneath the dry eaves.
“I have something to tell you. Your position as a teaching assistant has essentially been confirmed.”
Only after straightening herself up did Jiang Ting smooth back the damp strands of hair beside her ear and continue.
“Really? That’s wonderful.”
Cheng Kaiyan felt both delighted and vaguely conflicted at the thought of benefiting from another’s connections.
A university teaching-assistant position was not something just anyone could obtain. Had he not been Liu Xiaoli’s betrothed in name, securing it would have been exceedingly difficult.
Well, if he was going to live off someone else’s favor, so be it. At least there was money in it. Once he became a permanent employee, he would earn fifty-six yuan a month.
“Yes. Get all your identification documents ready. In a couple of days, I’ll take you there and help you get everything done. Also, you no longer need to follow Xiaoli and call me Auntie. Since the two of you have now ended your engagement amicably, you should address me according to your relationship with Sister Yuxiu and call me Aunt Jiang.”
Jiang Ting looked at Cheng Kaiyan with a serious expression.
What a precise, exacting woman. No wonder she had become an associate professor before the age of forty.
Perhaps she was worried that he still harbored improper designs on Liu Xiaoli?
Cheng Kaiyan could not quite make sense of it, so he simply said, “Understood, Aunt Jiang. Since Xiaoli and I have agreed on the matter, our engagement is naturally void.”
“Good. The only people who know about this are the three of us. Don’t mention it to anyone else.”
Seeing that Cheng Kaiyan was being cooperative, Jiang Ting’s expression softened somewhat.
Her impression of him was that he was fairly handsome and possessed a calm, rational temperament.
After all, had he been another man, the engagement would not have been broken off so easily. Most people would have been unable to see the matter clearly; they would only have felt humiliated at being rejected.
That was why Jiang Ting had prepared herself to be cursed out when she came to his home that day.
Marriage was far too weighty a word. As someone who had been through it herself, she did not want her niece to repeat her mistakes.
Yet when Jiang Ting saw Cheng Kaiyan reclining in his chair, brewing tea and reading in such leisurely comfort, she inexplicably felt that the young man did not seem young at all. He was even more relaxed than the old gatekeeper.
Page (2/3)
Page (3/3)
He certainly had the temperament for marriage… It was just that he had little education, little ability, and was an utterly ordinary man.
At that thought, Jiang Ting shook her head with some amusement. They had already broken off the engagement—why was she still thinking about such things?
Collecting herself, she looked at Cheng Kaiyan’s lean, upright figure and asked calmly, “You don’t have anything to do today, do you? I’m moving today. Come and help your aunt.”
“No problem. Leave it to me.”
Cheng Kaiyan was speechless. No wonder she had come running over in the rain—it turned out she was looking for free labor!
Still… who could blame him? She was his superior, after all.
Speaking of the rain, he now noticed that although Jiang Ting was wearing a raincoat, her hair, face, and trouser cuffs were still thoroughly soaked.
He poured her a cup of hot tea and handed it over. “Have some tea. I’ll find you a few clean towels. Otherwise, you’ll catch cold later.”
“All right…”
Jiang Ting froze for a moment, then nodded silently. She had not expected the young man to be so considerate.
After she finished the tea and dried her clothes and face, Cheng Kaiyan found himself a raincoat, took a large umbrella, and followed Jiang Ting out.
At the gate of the courtyard stood a brand-new Phoenix bicycle.
Tsk. No wonder she was a professor earning more than a hundred yuan a month. A Phoenix bicycle was the ultimate status symbol of the seventies and eighties.
There was a popular rhyme:
“Phoenix in front, Flying Pigeon behind,
And in the middle, our mighty Forever.”
“Ride a Forever, and your life will last forever.”
“Phoenix or Flying Pigeon—hop on and ride away.”
A young man with one could make his classmates green with envy. Even riding down the road, he would have the wind at his back.
Within Wutong Courtyard, only the Zhan family owned a bicycle.
Looking at that Phoenix, Cheng Kaiyan could not help feeling intensely envious. One reason he stayed cooped up at home was that transportation was inconvenient and he had to go everywhere on foot.
If he had a bicycle, Cheng Kaiyan would never stay indoors.
Page (3/3)