WF | Chapter 10

In June 2010, Shen Lian took the EJU, the Japanese university entrance exam, for the first time in her life.

Although she had a solid foundation in subjects other than Japanese thanks to her studies back home, the differences between Chinese and Japanese exam questions, the lack of real study time, and inadequate preparation meant she did not do very well. She fell short even of the safety schools she had planned for.

After the July results came out, Shen Lian was hit hard, and her mood inevitably sank.

Zheng Tingyu saw it all.

Unlike Xia Yun, who had no idea how to comfort her after hearing her score, that was already very good, better than so many people she had known over the years. She simply indulged Shen Lian’s unhappiness and listlessness over those few days in silence, accepting all of her emotions, then in mid-July, on the day Shen Lian’s language school summer vacation was about to end, she talked with Shen Lian about the matter as casually as ever.

That day neither of them had class. After going grocery shopping together at noon, Zheng Tingyu cooked and made a lavish dinner.

After they were full, they sat together on the stairs in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and looked at the moon.

It might have been the fifteenth day of the lunar month, or maybe not, but the moon was so round, so round, hanging high in the sky and falling between the buildings, like the silver lighthouse every traveler aboard an ocean night crossing could dream of reaching.

At some point, when they had forgotten what they were even talking about, Zheng Tingyu asked, “If you hadn’t messed up the college entrance exam back then, what major would you have wanted to study?”

Leaning against the stair, Shen Lian looked up at the moon and said, “Maybe something in biological science.”

Zheng Tingyu turned to look at her, her eyes clear and soft. “Why?”

Shen Lian said, “To be precise, I actually wanted to work in something related to biopharmaceuticals someday. Partly because I’m interested, and partly because I wanted to do something useful, something that could help people.”

As if she had already understood how naive and overreaching that reason was, she let out a very soft laugh when she finished, sounding self-mocking, and somehow bitter too.

Zheng Tingyu’s eyelashes trembled slightly.

In a low voice, she asked, “And now? What major do you want to study now?”

“Now…” Shen Lian lowered her lashes a little and smiled. “Now I’ll study whatever major I can get into. I just hope it’s one that makes finding a job easier.”

Zheng Tingyu’s gaze fixed.

After a moment, she said, “Shen Lian, why don’t we try challenging it together?”

Shen Lian did not understand. “Hm?”

Zheng Tingyu said, “How about trying biological science again? You don’t have to work. Just focus on studying and prepare for the second exam in November. I’ll lend you the living expenses and tuition.”

Shen Lian was stunned and turned her head to look at her.

Zheng Tingyu met her gaze with a smile, her eyes shining in the night, her expression gentle yet resolute, as if she were only saying something no big deal at all.

Joy and pain surged through Shen Lian’s heart. She shook her head. “No.”

She was glad that Zheng Tingyu trusted her, and pained by her own incompetence and helplessness.

Zheng Tingyu asked, “Why not?”

Shen Lian said, “I can’t let you take such a huge risk. And besides, I already know people have to be realistic.” From the moment her emails with Ning Xin were seen by a third person, her life had already gone off course, and she had already lost the qualification to have dreams.

She simply refused to accept her fate, and so she had continued dreaming in this foreign land for another half a year.

But Zheng Tingyu frowned, puzzled. “Why isn’t a biological science major realistic?”

Shen Lian said, “Compared with other majors that make it easier to find work, a biopharmaceutical-related undergraduate degree has a hard time matching me with the kind of job I want. If I want to do the kind of meaningful research and development work I once dreamed of, I’d have to keep studying higher and higher. At minimum, a master’s degree, maybe even a doctorate.” And the reality of her financial situation had already taught her to compromise with life and bow her head to reality.

“So when you said that earlier, that you didn’t have to stay in Japan and might want to go to another country for graduate school, that’s what you meant, right?” Zheng Tingyu hit the nail on the head.

Shen Lian’s silence confirmed Zheng Tingyu’s guess.

Zheng Tingyu understood. She relaxed her brows and eyes, her expression softening, and asked Shen Lian, “Do you really not want to try? Compared with this short half-year, which may have been nothing more than a futile waste of time, the rest of your life is so much longer.”

At that moment, she seemed once again like an older sister, steady, weathered, and seasoned by hardship.

“Shen Lian, from my point of view, I think this investment is worth it. It’s not that you can’t get in. You’re just too busy right now, and you don’t have time to study properly. As long as you get in, then no matter which country you apply to for a master’s or doctorate later, you may be able to get a full scholarship. Even if you can’t get a full one, there will definitely be other ways. A road is always made by people walking it. So those follow-up things are not something you need to worry about right now. The biggest problem now is that if you keep going like this, it’ll be very hard for you to get into the university you want, and later on it’ll also be hard to have the kind of life and future you once dreamed of.”

“Shen Lian,” she said from the heart, “I’ve regretted things before, but it was too late. I didn’t have time to turn back.”

“But you still have a chance. Are you really going to give up without even trying?”

Shen Lian was moved. Of course she was not without hesitation, but what right did she have to place the cost of chasing her dreams onto Zheng Tingyu?

Zheng Tingyu only found it amusing. “You make it sound like you’d never pay me back.”

Shen Lian had nothing to say.

Zheng Tingyu simply would not let her off. She leaned in a little, smiling at her, and asked knowingly, “Would you not pay me back?”

At such close distance, Shen Lian drowned in the mischievous brightness of her eyes and heard her own heart thundering again at the most inopportune moment.

Her throat moved. Just as she was about to avert her gaze without making a fuss, Zheng Tingyu moved back a second faster than her, smoothly putting some distance between them.

Shen Lian’s gaze fell into empty air. She steadied herself and replied, “I would.”

Even if it killed her.

Zheng Tingyu acted as though nothing had happened and smiled. “Then isn’t that enough?”

She said earnestly, “So, Shen Lian, you don’t need to consider me. You only need to think about whether you yourself want to pay this money and spend this half-year pursuing that possibility. Whatever you decide in the end, I’ll support you. I just hope you won’t regret it later.”

At that moment, the moon was too far away, and its light did not reach them, but Shen Lian’s life seemed to be illuminated once again in Zheng Tingyu’s eyes.

She could hardly resist the expectation and trust in Zheng Tingyu’s gaze at that moment, nor could she resist all the longing that flashed through her mind in that instant, all the beautiful futures with Zheng Tingyu in them, inside that tenderness. It was as if all the dreams and life she had once lost, all that had been taken from her, had returned to her life in that one look from Zheng Tingyu.

That night, after thinking it through again and again, she finally nodded solemnly and accepted Zheng Tingyu’s kindness.

Much later, she asked Zheng Tingyu, “Aren’t you afraid I’d really never pay you back?”

She knew Zheng Tingyu seemed soft and polite on the outside, but in truth she was resilient and clear-eyed within.

When they had once talked deeply about family background and childhood, Zheng Tingyu had mentioned the grandmother from a relative’s family who had taken care of her for several years when she was young. She said that grandmother had later gone abroad again to work illegal jobs well into her sixties in order to support the family. After Zheng Tingyu’s own life improved and she had some spare energy, she kept in touch with that grandmother. She sent her red envelopes for holidays and birthdays, but she never loaned her money, nor did she support her living expenses. Because she knew that grandmother’s family was not something she could bear, and that a little kindness could breed gratitude, but too much could breed resentment. They each had lives of their own to live.

Shen Lian did not know how, on that night when they could only see each other clearly by moonlight, Zheng Tingyu had gotten so carried away, so blinded by emotion, that she was bold enough to lend her money and support her for half a year.

At the time, Zheng Tingyu was leaning back in her arms, admiring the effect of the little stereo they had just bought together, and said with a smile, “Feelings come from willingness, and once things are done, there’s no regret. I’m not afraid.”

“Besides,” she turned around and pecked Shen Lian’s chin, then said, “I know your personality. I believe you.”

“I believe that someone with your personality would, even if she had to sell everything she owned, definitely find a way to pay me back. If you really couldn’t pay me back, then on your gravestone after a hundred years, it would probably say: ‘Shen Lian owes Zheng Tingyu this much money, and she must repay it in the next life.’”

She said it so gently and playfully, yet with such seriousness that Shen Lian laughed. She tightened her arms around her and, unable to control herself, rubbed against her again and again, kissed her again and again, never getting enough.

After that night, Shen Lian quit her part-time jobs at the barbecue restaurant and the Chinese restaurant, borrowed money from Zheng Tingyu, wrote her an IOU, and began preparing with all her strength for the second EJU in November.

But every night, she still insisted on going to the barbecue restaurant to pick Zheng Tingyu up after work.

Zheng Tingyu had told her there was no need, that it was a waste of time and taxi fare, but Shen Lian had said, “One reason you convinced me to move in back then was so that I could walk this stretch of road with you at night. I can’t even fail to do that much anymore.”

“Besides, I can listen to lesson audio on the subway too.”

“After studying all day, I also need this walk to clear my head.”

It was that last sentence that truly moved Zheng Tingyu.

Shen Lian was too diligent and self-disciplined a person. Aside from the classes she had no choice but to attend at language school, in order to improve her Japanese quickly and give herself more time to adapt to Japanese exam questions, after school every day she would still study unwaveringly for another seven hours, squeezing two days out of one. It was too hard. Zheng Tingyu truly felt that her wanting to clear her head was necessary, so she let her do as she pleased.

Besides that, whenever there was a day off, she would invite Shen Lian to go out together, taking a breather in nearby suburbs, scenic spots, even tourist districts, balancing work and rest.

Shen Lian appreciated it.

They had never had any physical contact ambiguous enough to be mistaken by the other, and Zheng Tingyu had never once teased Shen Lian with her words. She remained, just as she had on their first meeting, like a spring breeze, like the warm sun of winter, like a friend, and like an older sister, warm, bright, and clean.

But Shen Lian became more and more certain that those subtle ripples of feeling she had once sensed in Zheng Tingyu, those hidden emotions she had once caught, were not illusions, whether in Zheng Tingyu’s refusal to accept any more blind dates arranged by others, in the way they would bump into each other by chance and then awkwardly avoid each other’s eyes, in the breakfast and lunch Zheng Tingyu deliberately got up early to prepare for her day after day after taking over the kitchen, in the tacit understanding of searching for each other after laughing and making a racket in a crowd, wanting to know how the other was feeling, in the sunset, in the open night, on the street, on the steps, in the smiles they exchanged with their shadows overlapping.

Those feelings were even stronger when she accidentally realized that the day they had watched fireworks together last year on December 28 was Zheng Tingyu’s lunar birthday.

Shen Lian was certain they had once had moments when their hearts trembled together and their souls quivered together.

Even though Zheng Tingyu had always been very restrained, hiding it very well.

At the end of September, they went to Kamakura with the Chinese restaurant owner Xia Yun and Xia Yun’s six-year-old daughter. In the pedestrian street, Xia Yun’s daughter suddenly wanted the ice cream they had just passed. Zheng Tingyu took her to buy it, while Xia Yun and Shen Lian stayed behind in line for other snacks.

After Xia Yun finished her own line, she came over to wait beside Shen Lian and asked how things had been lately. During their idle chatting, Xia Yun accidentally let something slip and told Shen Lian that, actually, 200 yen of the hourly wage the Chinese restaurant had given her before had always been a subsidy from Zheng Tingyu. Zheng Tingyu had told her not to tell Shen Lian, but every time she heard Shen Lian thank her, she felt embarrassed, embarrassed.

“It’s not really something that can’t be said, anyway. Nobody’s really big on doing good deeds without leaving a name attached anymore, and besides, she takes such good care of you. You’re not an inconsiderate person either,” Xia Yun said with a faint smile.

Shen Lian could not tell whether Xia Yun had really let it slip by accident, or whether she had intentionally wanted to tip her off to something, worried that if Shen Lian did not know how good Zheng Tingyu had been to her and then became rich and successful later, she would forget gratitude. But none of that mattered.

All she felt was heartache, guilt, and confusion.

Back then, they had not known each other for very long. Zheng Tingyu should still have only thought of her as a friend, right?

But with a friend, did you need to do that much?

And yet if Zheng Tingyu had already liked her enough at that time to help her like this, Shen Lian felt like she was being far too full of herself.

Could it really be, as Xia Yun said, that Zheng Tingyu truly treated her like a younger sister and looked after her?

Shen Lian looked at Zheng Tingyu, who was holding Xia Yun’s daughter’s hand and being more attentive than the child’s own mother all the way, and suddenly panicked.

That night, after saying goodbye to Xia Yun and her daughter, they walked on through the night wind and toward the stars and moon, side by side with less than half a step between them.

Shen Lian thought to herself, it’s still different, isn’t it?

Zheng Tingyu had never held her hand, not even once, and had never even done something like looping an arm through hers the way she occasionally did with Xia Yun.

Zheng Tingyu sensed how unusually silent and absentminded she was, and asked what was wrong.

Shen Lian was not someone who could hide things from Zheng Tingyu. After only a few seconds of hesitation, she confessed that she already knew Zheng Tingyu had been subsidizing part of her hourly wage.

She asked Zheng Tingyu, “Why help me like this?”

Zheng Tingyu froze slightly, then curved her lips. “Maybe because seeing you reminds me of my past self.”

Was that all?

Shen Lian could not tell whether she felt disappointed. “There should be lots of people like me in Tokyo. The other people you’ve met wouldn’t do that?”

Zheng Tingyu lowered her eyes. Her long lashes were like butterfly wings, fluttering lightly in the light.

“I haven’t met anyone else.” She looked up and joked, “And no one else is as pretty as you.”

At that moment, she looked straight into Shen Lian’s eyes, openly and without reserve.

Shen Lian understood, but she could not see through it.

Maybe that was the truth. Maybe it was only one corner of the truth. If Zheng Tingyu did not want to say, then she would never be able to learn the whole story.

She could not figure out why Zheng Tingyu was unwilling to leave even the slightest ambiguous space in her words, or any possibility of further development. Was it because Zheng Tingyu actually had not realized her feelings for her yet? Or had she realized them, but was unwilling to accept them and had no intention of taking that road? Or perhaps she simply felt the timing was wrong and did not want to affect her studies, so she wanted to put it off for the time being?

Shen Lian worried over every possibility, torn in a hundred directions.

No matter what the reason was, she did not dare to be the first to make it plain and ask Zheng Tingyu for an answer.

She did not want to lose Zheng Tingyu, did not want to lose even friendship, and did not want Zheng Tingyu to think she was someone who could not tell what mattered and who lacked self-awareness.

She knew very well that her top priority now was to study hard and prepare for the EJU.

Everything else, she had no right to talk about.

She forced herself to compose her mind and focus on her studies.

But inevitably, once she relaxed, her entire heart and mind were still filled with Zheng Tingyu.

She would be happy when she felt even a little tenderness Zheng Tingyu had accidentally let slip, and sad when she sensed Zheng Tingyu seemed to be avoiding her feelings.

At times she could soberly counsel herself that Zheng Tingyu had already been good enough to her, and no matter what position Zheng Tingyu wanted to place her in, she should accept it with a smile and thank her sincerely; at other times, she would still fail at the last moment, collapsing under the possibility that Zheng Tingyu liked her too, but still would not choose her because of all sorts of other reasons.

She would feel guilty, would blame herself for being greedy and pushing too far, yet she would also be unable to resist indulging, unable to resist sinking into it.

Wanting to advance but unable to, wanting to retreat but unwilling to.

She had never known that she was not, in fact, as emotionally indifferent and lacking in desire as she had once believed. Love, so this was what love tasted like.

Author’s note:

Worried Xia Yun: She really does treat you like her own little sister

Open-minded little Zheng: The kind of little sister you want to kiss?

Reserved little Shen: The kind of little sister you can’t kiss?