WF | Chapter 14

University of Tokyo did not have on-campus dormitories. Even the closest housing was still some distance from campus. Shen Lian had not applied for a dorm room. Rather than spend money on dorm fees, she would rather use it for commuting.

After classes began, she started the daily, never-ending routine of shuttling between Bunkyo Ward and Shinjuku Ward.

University of Tokyo waived half of her tuition, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology also approved her JASSO scholarship application, granting her a monthly scholarship of 48,000 yen. Combined with the additional 190,000 yen monthly scholarship she had won from a private foundation, in terms of living expenses, aside from being unable to make up the other half of the rent that should have been paid by Zheng Tingyu, she could finally manage basic self-sufficiency and no longer be such a burden on Zheng Tingyu.

But in order to pay back the money she had previously borrowed from Zheng Tingyu a little sooner, and so that her cash on hand could be a little more comfortable, so that when she went out to relax with Zheng Tingyu on holidays she would be able to shoulder a bit more, at least cover her own share, Shen Lian still insisted on studying and working part-time.

She had classes five days a week. Aside from the necessary evening club activities, at least three nights a week she would spend at her part-time job.

As a result, the two of them did not have much time together on weekdays, only three or four brief hours after work and before sleep. But neither of them ever complained, and neither thought the other’s company was too little, life too dull, or work too hard.

There were days when they were so tired they wanted to sleep even while standing on the subway, but every day after work, when they got home and looked up by the roadside to see the light spilling from the windows, the light that could only be on once the other had arrived home first, all their exhaustion would melt away and they would be refreshed again.

Even if they were only sitting at their desks together doing homework or work summaries, neither saying a word, dozing off for a moment while resting and propping their cheeks on a hand to quietly watch the other’s profile, they still felt happy, steady, and fulfilled.

That August, Xia Yun’s daughter had a birthday, and Xia Yun invited the two of them to dinner at her place.

Before they left, Shen Lian was thirsty and went to drink water in the living room, while Zheng Tingyu leaned beside the dining table waiting for her.

“Can I tell Xia Yun about our relationship?” Zheng Tingyu asked suddenly.

Shen Lian was caught off guard. She held the water glass, head slightly tilted back, for two seconds, her lashes trembling. Then she set the glass down and hesitated. “Would that be all right?”

She still felt lingering fear from what had happened in the past.

Zheng Tingyu did not understand and asked, “What do you mean, what aspect of the relationship?”

Shen Lian’s fingertips around the glass went a little pale. “Sister Xia Yun, would she object, or... or after she knows, would things between her and you become bad?”

She knew that to many people, their love was no different from going against the grain, something to be criticized.

Relationships between people could be strong, strong enough to keep a promise worth a thousand pieces of gold; they could also be fragile, so fragile they might fall apart over a single sentence. And in the Chinese community in Japan, it was not exactly small, but it was not exactly large either.

She did not want to affect Zheng Tingyu, and she did not want Zheng Tingyu to be affected because of her.

Zheng Tingyu smiled, stepped closer, and took the water glass from Shen Lian’s hand. Calm and unruffled, she said, “If she’d stop being on good terms with me just because of that, then it means our relationship to begin with wasn’t that good. Isn’t it also a good thing to see someone clearly early on?”

Shen Lian’s eyes suddenly lit up, her heart pounding, as if the clouds had parted and the sky had opened all at once.

Zheng Tingyu reached out and gently wiped away the lipstick Shen Lian had stained onto the rim of the glass from the corner of her mouth. In a soft voice, she said, “Shen Lian, it’s fine. I’ve always felt that our love is not strange, and it is not lower than anyone else’s.”

“I’m proud, and I’m honored, that my lover is you.” She looked into Shen Lian’s eyes and said with admiration, “Such a beautiful, such an outstanding you.”

Tenderness welled up in Shen Lian’s heart. Her eyes could not help filling with moisture again, as if in Zheng Tingyu’s appreciative gaze, in her affectionate words, in the little by little nourishment of love, the spine that had once been broken by insults and cold disdain had grown flesh and bone again, and straightened back up.

She lowered her head and lightly kissed Zheng Tingyu’s fingertips, her voice slightly hoarse as she promised, “I’ll always work hard to be your pride.”

Zheng Tingyu’s smile deepened. “No need, Shen Lian. Just be yourself.”

She blinked, a little mischievous. “You do yours, I’ll be proud of mine, and we won’t interfere with each other.”

Shen Lian could not help breaking into laughter through her tears. With one hand she held Zheng Tingyu’s, and with the other she drew her into an embrace, lowering her head to blur both their lipsticks completely.

That day, they restrained themselves with just the right amount of propriety, stopping at a light taste rather than going further. They were not late. After the meal, while chatting idly and Xia Yun once again jokingly told Zheng Tingyu to find a partner, they naturally confessed their relationship to Xia Yun.

Unexpectedly, Xia Yun was actually not surprised.

She was only a little startled, and soon calmed down, letting out a sigh with an expression that said, as expected, I knew it.

“I thought I was the one overthinking it,” she said, glancing sidelong at Zheng Tingyu and teasing, “You kept talking about some little sister you really clicked with, subsidizing her and letting her stay at your place, and I was thinking, what, are you running a charity?”

Zheng Tingyu’s ears turned red. With an embarrassed smile, she explained, “At the beginning, I really only thought of her as a younger sister I found pleasing.”

Xia Yun snorted a laugh, clearly not believing that in the slightest. But she did not make things difficult for them. She only reminded Zheng Tingyu in a serious tone, “The road is the one you chose yourself.”

Zheng Tingyu nodded solemnly.

Then Xia Yun said, “All right. You’ve always been someone with her own mind and good judgment, so I won’t say much more. Just live well.”

She shifted her gaze rightward, landing on Shen Lian, who was sitting upright and proper beside Zheng Tingyu, and changed tone, suddenly fierce. “I only have this one younger sister. If you bully her and let her suffer, I can’t do anything about things far away, but as long as you’re still in Japan, I definitely won’t let you off.”

“You’re a scholar. You should care more about your reputation than I do.” Half warning, half threat.

Shen Lian was not angry. On the contrary, she was very happy. Rarely, in front of an outsider, she broke through her own cold reserve and showed a genuine smile, answering, “I won’t. I’ll always be good to her.”

Xia Yun gave another huff of laughter.

She speared a piece of apple and handed it to Shen Lian. “Eat.”

Shen Lian took it with both hands and lowered her head, smiling faintly.

Zheng Tingyu, holding Xia Yun’s daughter, also smiled.

The lights were dim and yellow, the electric fan buzzed as it spun, and that was one of the beautiful summers in Tokyo in Shen Lian’s memory.

That November, on Shen Lian’s twentieth birthday, Zheng Tingyu booked another restaurant with a view of Tokyo Tower at night. After dinner, while they were taking in the scenery, she gave Shen Lian a Chopard watch.

The world was before her eyes, her lover was beside her, and the road underfoot could stretch toward any future they wanted. Shen Lian actually wanted for nothing else, and already felt that she had received the best birthday gift of all.

She did not want to accept the watch. It was too expensive. She did not deserve it.

Zheng Tingyu herself only wore Citizen.

But Zheng Tingyu said, “Turning twenty is an important and special birthday, of course I have to give you something a little special.”

“Maybe from twenty onward, you’ll gradually find that time starts passing very quickly. Cherishing time, keeping time, those are precious qualities for an adult.” She unfastened the watchband, took Shen Lian’s hand, and gently put it on her. Looking up at her, she said, “Shen Lian, I buy mechanical watches because I want them to stay with you a little longer. Buying Chopard, buying a slightly more expensive watch, is the same idea. After all, from here on, my little Shen Lian will be a real adult, becoming a big doctorate, a big researcher, a big scientist. I hope that by then, this watch will still suit you, still flatter you.”

Under the brilliant lights, the tiny diamonds inside the watch sparkled brilliantly. The sapphire crystal face refracted dazzling light, but none of it could compare to the brilliance and beauty of her lover’s eyes.

Shen Lian’s heart was as soft as water, her eyes stinging.

She said hoarsely, “I’ll wear it for the rest of my life, until I die of old age and am buried in the grave with it.”

Zheng Tingyu’s eyes rippled with amusement. She laughed and lightly patted the back of Shen Lian’s hand. “You’re being way too dramatic. It’s not that serious, there’ll still be chances to change it later.”

Shen Lian could not help laughing too, though her vision had already gone a little misty. She wrapped her arms around Zheng Tingyu and murmured against her ear, “I won’t change it. I’ll change yours instead, okay?”

In her heart, she swore that she would work very, very hard. In the future, she would definitely earn a great deal of money and change Zheng Tingyu’s Rolex, her Vacheron Constantin, her Patek Philippe.

Zheng Tingyu did not ask what she planned to change it into. She simply leaned in her arms, nuzzled her cheek, and smiled in response, “Okay.”

At that time, they were standing in the cold wind of a Tokyo winter night, feeling each other’s body heat, and neither of them doubted that the future they wanted was a future they could reach.

Life became so happy that Shen Lian sometimes felt as if it were unreal. Occasionally, when she woke from a nightmare in the middle of the night, she would turn her face and look at Zheng Tingyu without blinking, confirming again and again that she was the precious thing Shen Lian truly possessed, truly held in her arms. Only then, listening to Zheng Tingyu’s breathing and the tick of the bedside watch, could she finally close her eyes in satisfaction and sink back into sleep.

She had not really been a person of faith before, but after being with Zheng Tingyu, every New Year’s, she was willing to go with Zheng Tingyu to pray at Senso-ji Temple and ask for blessings, only hoping the Bodhisattva would be responsive and hear her sincere wish.

If everything she had suffered in the past, all the possibilities that had been taken from her, were all so that in this life she could meet Zheng Tingyu, then she would gladly accept it.

She had promised to always be Zheng Tingyu’s pride, and she really did work hard, very hard.

Every year, by a landslide, she earned scholarships that were enough to cover her daily living expenses, and never again added any financial burden to Zheng Tingyu.

In spring, summer, and autumn, on days off, they liked exploring around Tokyo and taking day trips. On holidays, they went to Disneyland together to ride roller coasters and Ferris wheels, searching for the childhood each other had missed in that fairy-tale world. They went to Hakone together to soak in hot springs, sketching their lover’s features and outlining visions of the future in the steaming mist. They went to Kobe together to see the sea, walking, splashing through waves, and dancing along the Suma Coast, enjoying the sea breeze, the quiet sunlight, shoulder to shoulder, listening to the tide rise and fall, watching glittering light float on the water.

In winter, they were devoted to watching winter fireworks.

Zheng Tingyu had explained it before. “Actually, summer fireworks are the real norm in Japan. They’re what people all across the country look forward to, more passionate, magnificent, and grand. Winter fireworks are more like an out-of-season limited event, and every year only a few places have them.”

But the two of them happened to prefer winter fireworks more.

Zheng Tingyu said with a smile that maybe it was because they were both people with rebellious spirits, so they preferred those clusters of bloom that rebelled amid all things withered away, and also preferred those brief flashes of warmth between people that could only be glimpsed at the moment the fireworks rose into the sky, those brief heartbeats one could hear amid the bitter winter wind.

Summer fireworks were too crowded, too noisy. Everything seemed to be swallowed up in the huge press of people.

Winter fireworks, though brief, were magnificently beautiful, tragically beautiful, and full of life.

But Shen Lian said, “I only have one reason.”

Zheng Tingyu asked, “What?”

Shen Lian’s gaze was blazing. “You that day were very beautiful.” It was the most beautiful scenery she had seen in her meager eighteen years of life at the time.

Of course, the one who kept refreshing her idea of beauty afterward was still Zheng Tingyu.

Zheng Tingyu was momentarily speechless, then laughed and covered Shen Lian’s eyes.

“A top student from Todai is this at a loss for words?”

“Sincerity often doesn’t need embellishment.” Shen Lian, still under the hand covering her eyes, kneeled forward to Zheng Tingyu’s front and found her soft lips.

For Zheng Tingyu’s birthday in 2012, they watched the sunrise outside Mount Fuji, watched fireworks in front of Lake Kawaguchi, and in an inn where they could see Mount Fuji’s snow peak, they tirelessly explored the rhythm of life and the heat of each other’s souls.

Peach blossoms bloomed one after another across the snowy plain, and the warm river of winter melted over and over again. Shen Lian lightly kissed Zheng Tingyu’s tearful, sweat-damp lashes and, unable to restrain herself, blurted out, “Wife.”

Zheng Tingyu’s already dazed eyes grew even wetter.

Almost the next instant, she could no longer control herself and tightened her hands on Shen Lian’s back, burying her head against Shen Lian’s shoulder as she cried reflexively.

Shen Lian loved Zheng Tingyu’s reaction so much. She wanted so badly to call her “wife” a few more times, as if only then would the love that was overflowing inside her, so full she did not know where else to put it, finally have a new outlet, and their souls would be able to come closer still, their life paths merge more fully.

But she was embarrassed. She was afraid it would be too frivolous, too casual, too unfair to Zheng Tingyu.

Her treasure deserved every grandeur and every tenderness.

She held Zheng Tingyu, patted her lightly, kissed her lightly, and soothed her.

It was as if the east wind had blown early into the plains of Shen Lian’s heart. Between their tightly pressed heartbeats, she heard the sound of ten thousand butterflies flitting.

She heard, from the bottom of her own heart, a crazily spreading new desire.

At night, when Zheng Tingyu was asleep, she carefully measured Zheng Tingyu’s ring finger and kissed it softly. When they went to the mall, she unobtrusively figured out Zheng Tingyu’s preferences and decided on the brand and style of the matching rings she would buy.

Coincidentally, they were also Chopard.

Zheng Tingyu liked them, and Shen Lian liked them very much too.

So Shen Lian locked onto her goal and began saving money to buy a wedding ring, wanting to propose to Zheng Tingyu after everything was settled and her post-graduation path was confirmed.

She wanted, as a matter of course, to be carved into Zheng Tingyu’s life, so that from then on, when people knew her, they would know Zheng Tingyu, and when they knew Zheng Tingyu, they would know her.

Author’s note:

Today is sweet too

It will end tomorrow or the day after tomorrow