It seemed everyone got what they wanted, but Jia Yi was the most troubled. Zhou Yuqian’s divorce had kept him restless for days. Rarely did he sleep through the night, but when he did, he dreamt. He dreamt of a gray sky, with Lai Hui and Xiao Yu trapped in a mud pit, their bodies covered in yellow mud. Xiao Yu was sinking, almost to her chin, shouting, “Jia Yi, save me!” Lai Hui also waved to him from the other side. He stood at the edge of the grass, watching them sink deeper. Lai Hui’s hand reached out to him, her face full of hope, while on the other side, a few strands of black hair floated on the mud. In shock, he jumped into the pit, pulled Xiao Yu out, and turned around to see Zhou Yuqian carrying Lai Hui away. He chased after them, with Xiao Yu calling out to him from behind, “Jia Yi, Jia Yi!… Wake up!” Xie Jia Yi opened his eyes, Xiao Yu handed him his phone, saying, “Here, your call!” She wiped his sweat with a tissue and added, “Even with the AC turned all the way down, you’re still sweating all over. Really!” Her soft hand touched his forehead, the warmth close to his skin bringing him back to reality. He sat up and answered the call. “Oh, Xu Ya… No, just woke up… Coming next week? What about your job?… Got it!” Xiao Yu went to take a shower, and Jia Yi flopped back onto the bed, slapping his cheeks. It was just a dream, but there were more pressing matters – Xu Ya was coming to City A next week. That kid was serious! Jia Yi’s anxiety grew, hoping Xu Ya might change his mind in the next few days and not come. He waited and waited until Monday noon when he picked Xu Ya up at the airport, finally accepting the inevitable. Xu Ya, wearing a slate gray shirt and carrying a black suitcase, his hair neatly combed, showed no signs of travel weariness. Upon seeing Jia Yi, he eagerly patted him on the back, saying, “Hey, I’ll be relying on you until I find a job!” Jia Yi just smiled and took his suitcase.
Xu Ya had heard of Jia Yi’s success back home, but seeing Jia Yi’s sports car was still a shock. Back at Jia Yi’s apartment, Xiao Yu was sleeping in the bedroom. Xu Ya wanted to avoid meeting her, lest he feel indignant on behalf of Lai Hui. He always remembered how much hardship Lai Hui had endured with Jia Yi, and in his straightforward way of thinking, he felt Jia Yi’s current girlfriend was reaping the benefits of Lai Hui’s past struggles. At the welcome dinner that evening, Xu Ya was polite to Xiao Yu but couldn’t warm up to her due to his preconceived notions. After dropping Xiao Yu off, Jia Yi took Xu Ya to a quiet bar where Xu Ya immediately said, “I can’t see what she has in common with Lai Hui!” Jia Yi just smiled and said, “Do you need to see it?” Then, he pulled out a set of Toyota keys and added, “I rarely use this car; you can use it while looking for a job!” Xu Ya took the keys, muttering, “You’ve got to be worth tens of millions; why don’t you go find Lai Hui?” “Would that mean I have to dump Xiao Yu?” Jia Yi asked. “Aren’t there enough couples who break up in this world? Just look at me; I’ve had a few girlfriends, and we all broke up!” Xu Ya took a swig from his glass, silently cursing himself for being weak-willed, especially since his purpose in coming to City A was for Lai Hui, yet he was now encouraging Jia Yi, like Chen Shimei, to go back to Qin Xianglian. Jia Yi remained silent, thinking if he were that kind of person, he wouldn’t still love Lai Hui. He said calmly, “Don’t be prejudiced against Xiao Yu; whatever happens between us has nothing to do with her!” Xu Ya was just indignant but wouldn’t really try to break them apart. Xiao Yu was just unfortunate to be compared to Lai Hui, and in his heart, no woman could ever be better than Lai Hui. So, to say he had no prejudice wasn’t entirely true; he just spoke a bit more than necessary.
Although he thought this way, his words still carried a hint of sourness: “Don’t worry, I won’t be foolish enough to offend the lady of the house before I find a job!” Jia Yi found the words grating and changed the subject, asking, “What kind of job are you looking for?” “I’ll take any job for now and then wait for the civil service exam!” Jia Yi nodded. “The agencies here might be better than those in the mainland!” Xu Ya didn’t respond but asked, “Where is Lai Hui staying? Is it far from here?” “A forty-minute drive!” Jia Yi was quite annoyed, as the conversation kept circling back to Lai Hui. “Give her a call!” “What?” Jia Yi pretended not to hear. Xu Ya moved closer to him and said loudly, “Call her, I want to see her!” “How about tomorrow? It’s too late now, and she’s not exactly free to come and go as she pleases!” Jia Yi said irritably. Xu Ya didn’t say more, suppressing the urge to see Lai Hui immediately. In his mind, he sketched her current appearance, but all he could conjure was a vague image: a loose, hand-knitted yellow sweater, her straight hair cascading like a waterfall, adorned with a pale white hairpin. A large coin-sized patch of sunlight fell on her forehead, glistening as she slowly lowered her eyelashes. He stood not far away, so he could see, see Jia Yi leaning in to kiss that coin-sized sunlight…
Chapter 23
Xu Ya once said to Lai Hui, “If you hadn’t met Jia Yi, if you hadn’t fallen for Jia Yi, you would always be mine. Maybe not for one, two, or three years, but after five or ten years, one day you’d look back and realize I still love you. Would you then love me out of gratitude?” Lai Hui replied, “Those ‘ifs’ of yours are meaningless. Unless Jia Yi isn’t in this world, there’s always a place where I’ll meet him again and fall in love with him.” At that time, Lai Hui was in her final year of high school, deeply in love with Jia Yi. She never considered breaking up with him. Occasionally, after studying, she would rest her chin on her hand under the desk lamp, pondering: what if she and Jia Yi couldn’t be together in the future? But she quickly dismissed her own assumptions. How could she and Jia Yi ever part? Her grades were as good as his, and they had agreed to attend university in the same city and return here to work after graduation — the beauty of youth lies in this, always treating current love as eternal love. No one thinks about breaking up when they’re deeply in love; they believe love now will last forever. When Lai Hui spoke with such certainty, four years later, upon seeing Xu Ya again, her only reflection was that the love she once thought would last a lifetime, the love she once thought she couldn’t live without, when truly separated, seemed no more significant than a poorly done final exam in the grand scheme of life.
