Together Forever Chapter 19.3 – During That Season of Time (3)

Chapter 19.3 – During That Season of Ti (3)

Pingfan’s mother patted her on the shoulder. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Tong Yan did not even know what had happened; why would she need consolation? But within her, she had the foreboding feeling that sothing very bad had occurred upstairs. This sort of conjecture was quickly confird. When the sound of footsteps coming downstairs was heard, she and Pingfan’s mother simultaneously raised their heads. Alone, Gu Pingsheng stepped down the staircase. On his forehead was a very obvious gauze pad that soone had hastily applied for him.

White gauze applied on with white adhesive tape.

So white it was a horrible sight to see.

She stood in that spot, almost stupidly, watching as he ca down, walked toward her, and ca to a stop in front of her. “Yan Yan, let’s go ho.”

Tong Yan stared into his eyes, suddenly unable to speak. In the end, she simply gave a nod of her head and without asking any questions, followed him toward the front door.

A mont ago, when Gu Pingsheng was walking down those stairs, the lighting had suddenly seed starkly white and cold. It called up in her mory the “him” from their first eting long ago, an extrely young man sitting on the floor, his back leaning against the snow-white wall, his one arm draped across his knees, and his hand holding a thin sheet of white paper.

At that ti, it had also been this sa feeling.

The expression in his eyes when he looked at her was as if the entire world had nothing to do with him. Only she and he were the sa.

For reasons unknown, her heart began beating at an increasingly faster rate, as if it was releasing the shock and fright from earlier on.

Normally, from their ho to workplace, they only needed to take the bus. Therefore, other than that ti she had taken the tro here late at night to find him, it had been many years since she had truly ridden it.

Today, however, they opted to take the tro.

It was not a work day, and there were not too many people. The train car they were sitting in even still had so empty seats. Their seats were on the far right of this particular train car, and leaning against its wall, she every now and then would allow her gaze to wander over to him.

Gu Pingsheng sensed her eyes on him. “Just now, there was so unpleasantness between Grandfather and . His spirits have not been very good these last couple of years, and his temper has been a little bad.” He finally pointed at his own forehead and in a rather resigned tone, said, “Luckily, the house is always prepared with these things, and luckily, as well, there’s Pingfan, the still-not-graduated doctor.” His tone was very casual as he downplayed everything.

It was more or less as she had presud. Wordlessly, she gazed at him, and only after so ti did she say, “Was it because of ? Earlier, on the way over, Pingfan said that your grandfather is sick. It’s been so long and you never ntioned it all this ti. Back when you were teaching in Shanghai, you would frequently say that you had matters in the family. Was it because of your grandfather?”

She ran through the timing of everything in her mind. They had all overlapped: her family matters, his own matters, and the matters in his family. Basically, it had been one successively after the other …

“He doesn’t like ?” Tong Yan asked another question.

The tro train happened to co to a stop at that mont. It was a transfer station, and many people, with large and small bags in hand, flooded onto the train car.

No matter how noisy his surroundings were, he still only ever remained within his own envelope of silence. He fixed his gaze on her. “Yan Yan, this whole thing has no direct relation to you, personally. Because of what happened with my mother, Grandfather is very much against relationships between teacher and student, and sotis his reaction is a little on the extre.”

None of the answers were very unexpected. That was, aside from the wound on his forehead.

Fortunately, since the two of them were heading on vacation, Grandmother had risen early, left the house with them, and then went to Tianjin. Otherwise, when they returned ho, it would only lead to another scare.

Possibly for the reason that he had once been a doctor, Gu Pingsheng kept a simplistic first aid kit readily available at ho. Following his instructions, she step by step helped him treat his wound. Listening to him caused her heart to quake, and though the wound was not considered deep, that purple-red cut still caused her heart to ache dully when she looked at it. With her head down, she asked him, “Do you need to go get a tetanus shot?”

“No,” he chuckled, “the object that hit was very clean, and when Pingfan treated it, she was very clean and sanitized about it as well.”

She made a pout with her lips and carefully secured a white gauze pad over his injury. “My beautiful one, your face has been marred. But trust , regardless of what your appearance may beco, beautiful one, I will never find you repulsive.”

Saying this, she leaned in and gently kissed that layer of gauze on his forehead.

She changed the position she was in and took a seat. Face to face, the two sat with legs crossed, he looking at her and she staring back at him. In between them was a first aid kit that had not yet been closed.

Because she was to et his grandfather today, Tong Yan had specially put care into her dress and adornnts. She wore a delicate, blue hair ribbon and her long hair flowed over her shoulders, framing her face so that it appeared even slimr. Her complexion was milky, her fra slender. She had always been one who, no matter how much she ate, would not grow chubby.

“Yan Yan, you are very beautiful today,” he said very slowly.

Her eyes curved into crescents as she smiled, “To be one of the school’s master of ceremonies, you have to have the makings of a beauty. I’ve just have been by your side all this ti, so the radiance of my beauty has been temporarily overshadowed.”

He stretched out his hand, bent his finger, and flicked her on the forehead. “So that ans, in the future, my daughter should be very beautiful.”

Tong Yan unabashedly nodded her head vigorously. However, she imdiately beca a little disheartened as she looked at him and said, “How co it’s been so long but we still haven’t conceived a baby? …” She was, after all, still young, so when she ntioned this, she nevertheless felt very embarrassed and straightaway stuck out her tongue lightly, unable to carry on any further.

“It’s because of ,” he stated forthrightly.

Tong Yan’s mouth fell open in an “ah,” and she stared wide-eyed at him. “Your aftereffects from SARS also include not being able to have children?”

He paused in surprise, then suddenly broke out in a laugh. “Don’t let your thoughts go the wrong way. I just didn’t want you to have to bear such pressure, so I’ve been using contraceptive asures.” Before Tong Yan had recovered from this, she felt a weight on her head. Reaching over, he patted her lightly on the head. “We’re lucky that was the case. Otherwise, if Grandfather found out today that you were pregnant before getting married, I reckon he probably would never see us again.”

The weight was lifted from Tong Yan’s mind. The topic, though, had returned back to the unpleasant situation of today. Setting her elbow on one of her knees, she propped her chin on her hand and looked at him. “It’s no big deal. So many things have already happened and passed. This is just ‘another thing,’ that’s all.” She took the words he had once told her and repeated them back to him. “You said before that these things need to be resolved, and it is just a matter of sooner or later.”

He smiled, “You are a good student, indeed.”

Their flight to Saipan for their vacation was at night.

The original plan had been, on Lunar New Year’s Day, to have dinner at the ho of Gu Pingsheng’s grandfather, then return ho to get their luggage and rush to the airport. The timing of their arrival would have been just about perfect. Now that this incident had occurred, the entire dayti of Lunar New Year’s Day was unoccupied. Tong Yan changed out all the window curtains and bed sheets to new ones and then, without stopping to rest, began to do the laundry.

It seed as if only in such busyness was she able cease thinking about what happened this morning.

As she stood beside the washing machine with nothing to do, she decided to take out their clothes that they normally did not wear and soak them in a washtub. Using this way to fill her ti, she managed to exhaust an entire bottle of laundry detergent.

The ssages coming into Gu Pingsheng’s mobile phone had not stopped the entire ti. She could roughly guess that Pingfan was discussing with him their family’s matters. While her mind was thinking too much on everything, Gu Pingsheng suddenly ca to the door and handed the phone to her: “Pingfan wants to wish you a happy Spring Festival.”

Wiping her hands dry, Tong Yan took it from him.

“Yan Yan?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“No one expected what happened today. My [paternal] granddad was truly hurt too deeply by what happened to my little [paternal] auntie[1]. But yet, by such coincidence, you and TK were once teacher and student, too, so it’s not unexpected that he cannot accept this. I originally wanted TK to tell a fib in regards to this, but you’ve been together with TK for so long; you should know that he can sotis be so stubborn that it’s quite annoying.” Gu Pingfan gave a resigned laugh. “But it’s okay. None of these are big problems. I will slowly work on the elderly one’s mindset and thinking.”

“Mm, I understand.”

“Yan Yan, I really especially like you. Honest. Since we were kids, TK and I have been particularly close. The first ti I saw him, it was his first ti in China, when he was five years old. Back then, his spoken Mandarin was really bad, let alone his Beijing dialect, and he had such handso looks as well, so all the kids in our family didn’t like him. But as luck would have it, I was learning English, so I especially liked being around him, the fake Arican boy …”

She had never heard Pingfan speak of these things before and was sowhat surprised.

Gu Pingsheng leaned against the doorfra and watched her talk on the phone, not saying anything himself. Hearing an alert sound out from the washing machine, she pointed in that direction. Soon, he had stridden over, and following her gestures, he very unfamiliarly opened the lid and pulled out the window curtains that had finished washing.

“Sotis he could be so annoying. As long as it was sothing he liked, he wouldn’t let anyone touch it at all and absolutely would not share it. But as you ca in contact with him more often, you discovered that it was sothing you could accept because the number of things he actually liked was very few. For example, he liked to eat broccoli, and for the entire al, he only ate rice and that one dish of broccoli. As long as you avoided it, you could eat however much fish and at and the good stuff you wanted. He would only eat his broccoli and would not even bother looking at you.”

Tong Yan could not help giggling. From Pingfan’s words, she could imagine that when Gu Pingsheng was young, he must definitely have been a kid who was so annoying it was cute.

“So, Yan Yan, he loves you so much; that ans you will undoubtedly be happy and blessed.”

Tong Yan answered with an “oh,” and joked, “As happy and blessed as broccoli?”

Pingfan also broke out into chuckles. “Definitely more happy and blessed than broccoli.”

Gu Pingsheng did not know why she was laughing and gazed at her in amusnt. At once, Tong Yan pointed at the balcony, indicating that he should go hang out the curtains to dry. Waiting until he had left the bathroom, she at last asked Pingfan, “Is it really because of his mother that he’s refusing to wear a hearing aid?”

An unexpected silence fell over the other end of the telephone receiver.

After quite a long ti, Pingfan finally replied to her. “He especially loved his mom. That’s why, in this lifeti, he may never forgive himself about that incident. I only ever heard him talk about it at Little Auntie’s funeral. That day, it was because he initiated an argunt with Little Auntie and said so very hurtful words that my little auntie committed suicide.”

Tong Yan listened in stunned silence.

“My little auntie had a very serious ntal illness and would frequently declare hysterically that she was going to commit suicide. Actually, each ti, she would just be bluffing, doing it only as a cry for attention and care from people. That day, after TK had finished quarreling with her, he was in the room next door to her bedroom. He heard noises in her room but didn’t go to check, thinking the whole ti that it was another lodramatic act. But who would have thought? It really did beco reality.”

And hence, he was unwilling to let himself hear any more sounds — any more sounds of this world …

Pingfan afterwards said so more words, trying to comfort her. Tong Yan, however, could only think about his mother’s suicide. The complete truth of the whole story. She finally understood why soone like him, on that day of their first eting, had involved himself in her matters and had actually raised his hand to strike a young girl who had no relation to him in any way …

At the ti, had he not also been filled with extre despair, treating her as if she was himself?

As she set the mobile phone down beside the sink, her mind was sowhat unfocussed, but she still continued stuffing the dirty bed sheets into the washer drum. The light and shadows in front of her seed to shift slightly, and she looked behind her. She did not know how long Gu Pingsheng had been leaning against the side of the door, simply watching her quietly like that.

Beside her ear was the rumbling sound of laundry washing, its rhythm distinct.

And in this way, her gaze seed to intertwine with his, unable at all to ever separate again.

“Just now, your big sister [cousin] said that you used to have a really bad temper. Why, later on, did your personality suddenly change?”

Discovering that she had already completely squandered away the laundry detergent, Tong Yan pulled out a new bottle from the cabinet beneath the sink. Then, she heard him say, “My mother passed away, and then very shortly following, I experienced a situation where I was confronted with life and death. I suddenly saw the light and accepted many things. Since my life was already so terrible, the only thing I could do was to treat other people well.”

As he spoke, he approached her.

After Tong Yan had set the wash cycle ti and heard the washing machine begin its normal operations, she turned around once again and slipped her arms around his neck. “When I was on the phone earlier on, I rembered a saying. It was spoken by ncius[2].” She eyed him with a look of playful mocking. “You know who ncius is?”

He gave a low “mm-hmm.”

“Then you must have heard this saying before.” She put on a stern face and one word, one sentence at a ti, spoke it for him to see. “Thus, when Heaven is about to bestow Tong Yan upon Pingsheng, it first exercises his mind with suffering, and his sinews and bones with toil; it exposes his body to hunger, and subjects him to extre poverty; it confounds his undertakings. By all these thods, it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies.[3]”

Gu Pingsheng carefully watched her every word.

When she finished speaking, he smiled and, supporting her from the underside of her thighs, lifted her up so that she was like a koala bear, clinging to him as he held her in front of himself. “That saying is pretty good. But back when I heard Pingfan say it, it seed like there were a few words that were different?”

Tong Yan poked his dimple with her finger. “Just rember my version. This is our family maxim.”

[1]小姑姑 “xiao gu gu.” 姑姑 “Gu Gu” ans paternal aunt, i.e. the sister of one’s father. The 小 or “little” added in front implies that she was the younger sister of Pingfan’s father.

[2] 孟子 “ngzi.” ncius (372-289 BCE) is a famous Confucian philosopher.

[3] Reference: Legge, J. (1861). The Chinese Classics : With a Translation, Critical and Exegetical Notes, Prolegona, and Copious Indexes. Retrieved from. Tong Yan modified the very beginning of the saying. The original text is “Thus, when Heaven is about to confer a great office on any man, it first exercises his mind with suffering …” (Jas Legge, 1861).