In the blink of an eye, an eternity.
She said “Thank you Zhou Luo.”
A promise for a lifetime.
He said “You are level-headed, gentle, faultless. The road ahead is filled with obstacles but you are my motivation.”
Her life is tattered and wretched as some would scornfully remark. She had always expected that this would be her lot in life but the heavens have taken pity on her by allowing her to cross paths with that reckless, vibrant youth. Life can never be the same again.
If we were meant to be two parallel steams that never meets, I will meander as long as it takes until I find you again.
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This is easily one of the loveliest book covers ever. And it's also pretty without the book jacket! This also happens to be one of Jiu Yue Xi's shorter works. It's an easy addictive read that can be finished in one sitting.
In summary, this is a story of how the town's teenage scholar Zhou Luo meets and woos the adult Nan Ya. Nan Ya is not only a mother to an adorable toddler but also the wife of an abusive husband. Disaster just seems to tail Nan Ya wherever she goes as the story opens with her step-brother's unusual death.
This isn't an epic love story but I admittedly cried buckets at one of the scenes which I have translated below. Cried once while reading and cried again while translating because the emotions are so raw. The set-up is believable and I really liked that the author addressed the age issue proper.
[spoiler]Zhou Luo studied the landscape before him and after making some quick mental calculations, drove off the road into the forest. Gnarly twigs in his way snapped from the impact and sheer velocity. Soon, the motorcycle reached the main road again and swerved to an abrupt stop, narrowly missing the pastry van.
The pastry van slammed to a halt and the driver sat aghast at the near mishap.
Zhou Luo rushed forward and pulled upon the back door and found Nan Ya ashen pale with fright.
“Uncle Zhou Luo!” Little Wan Wan reached out to him chirpily.
Zhou Luo tucked Wan Wan firmly in one arm and tried to drag Nan Ya down with the other. Nan Ya tried to resist but she was no match for his strength and she came stumbling out ungracefully.
Zhou Luo placed Wan Wan gently on the ground before reaching over to slam the door that Nan Ya was in the midst of re-opening.
“Where are you going?!” He roared. “Is this your final decision after all your careful deliberation?! Abandoning me and running off? This is your answer?”
He stared at her in disbelief at her blatant betrayal. Yet Nan Ya was surprisingly calm “I don’t want to live in this town anymore ..”
“And I said I would take you …”
“I don’t want to be with you either.”
Zhou Luo’s heart shattered “What do you mean?”
“I have no confidence in you.” It was a simple statement but the gravitas was too much for the youth to handle.
His eyes started to glisten and he buried his face into his hands. Suddenly, he laughed aloud before kicking the van. “You’re lying.”
Nan Ya kept her calm and composure.
Little Wan Wan stood between them with wet puppy eyes. She could sense the tense atmosphere but she couldn’t understand why her two favourite people were fighting.
“Nan Ya” Zhou Luo touched his forehead to hers and locked her shoulders in his grip “You are a coward. You hurt others but you don’t dare love them.”
He lowered his voice to a whisper “What are you afraid of?”
“Nan Ya, take a good look now. I’m not drunk and you’re not dreaming. Everything I say I mean wholeheartedly. Listen well. I’ve made my choice. No matter what you’ve done, my choice is still you. Your virtues, your flaws, I want them all. Whatever your decision is, I will respect it. But you cannot simply steal off like this.”
Nan Ya gazed tenderly at his big clear eyes. She stared for as long as she could, wanting to etch him into her permanent memory. Eventually, she shook her head.
Zhou Luo despaired. He had given his all, yet it was not enough.
“Why?”
She looked away “You know my darkest secret.”
Zhou Luo couldn’t believe his ears “What am I to you?”
“Have you ever loved me? Nan Ya? Even a little bit?”
At her stony silence he screamed “Say something!”
Chen Jun finally reached them and dragged Zhou Luo off her “Ah Luo ..”
He shook him off easily and stared fiercely at Nan Ya “You don’t mean it do you? Did my mom look you up? What did she say? If you want to leave, let’s go together. Everything will be alright once we leave this place. Let’s go together.” He repeated.
Nan Ya stopped him from boarding the van “Zhou Luo I meant what I said about not having confidence in you. You are so young. You don’t know what love is …” she stopped mid-sentence at the sight of tears coursing down his face.
“What must I do to prove my love? Haven’t I done enough? Is it my fault that I am 18? How old must I be for my feelings to be taken seriously? 28? 38? So what if you’re older than me? Does that mean only your emotions have value?”
Both of them were crying at this point.
“You keep emphasising my youth, that I don’t know real love. That if I sleep, I’ll forget this infatuation. Dammit I wish I were an old man right now so I can prove to you that my feelings are genuine and they will never go away.”
Nan Ya was about to reply when the sound of screeching tyres on asphalt could be heard. Zhou Luo’s parents and uncles disembarked and immediately started dragging him into their car.
“We’re going home!”
Wan Wan started crying and toddling after Zhou Luo so Nan Ya quickly picked her up in her arms.
“Don’t go!” Zhou Luo was terrified at the beckoning reality. “Trust me, everything I’ve said is true. Tell me how to prove it to you?!” He struggled valiantly in the grips of all the men. “Do you want to see my beating heart? If I could I would take it out for you!”
It was a mess as the adults tried to distance the lovers. Chen Jun begged desperately “Ah Luo, don’t be like this.”
How could he? He had already envisioned the perfect future but today everyone was threatening to forcefully remove the single most important factor. She had promised to stand with him in building this future, why was she giving up now?
“Have you ever loved me?” He was bawling piteously “Tell me, have you ever loved me!”
Nan Ya’s face crumpled in sorrow.
“This is enough! Take him away.” Lin Gui Xiang (Zhou Luo’s mom) ordered the men. Then, she turned and whispered fiercely “If you make him give a false testimony, you’ll ruin him.” Finishing which, she shoved her roughly.
Zhou Luo made a frantic last-ditch grab at Nan Ya’s arm and refused to let go. He glared hatefully at her and warned her “You will regret this. You will definitely regret this. Do you think escaping to a place no one knows you will be the solution? No. You will never trust another man. Because you will never tell them about your past, about everything that has happened here. In this world, only I have loved and accepted all of you. Only I choose to love you despite all your shortcomings.”
She was a tragic mess of heaving tears.
“You’re not like this Nan Ya. You’re not destined to have an easy life. And I, I am one of the difficult choices you have to make in your life. So why not choose me? Why!” His voice dripped with bitterness “I am that decision that you will regret forever. Nan Ya you will be haunted by today for the rest of your life. You will never cease to think about me, about how I’m doing, about what we could have been!”
His death grip was wrenched free by the adults. He could no longer reach her and the berth widened as she boarded the van without so much as a glance back.
“Go, GO!!” Lin Gui Xiang implored the van driver.
Wan Wan’s frantic crying was cut off with finality with the slamming of the door.
“Nan Ya, NAN YA!!!” He shouted and pleaded “Mom, don’t let her go. Mom please! I will die mom, I will die.”
But that van never stopped.
He arched his neck until he could see the van no longer. He didn’t even get to see her face one final time.
He would never forget that crushing emptiness.
He had been abandoned, betrayed, deceived, let down. All his achievements, his scholarship, wasn’t enough for her.
All he had, she did not care for.
Before he collapsed, he remembered seeing the vastless blue sky and thinking nothing in this world had any meaning anymore. Having known her yet lost her, he could die now.
If not, how could he survive the rest of life as it shuffled by?
At that time, he truly thought he would die of heartbreak. But he didn’t.
Many times in the face of great despair, people often think they would be unable to overcome their grief but as with all days, the sun will continue to rise and set. Life goes on. The pain seared a lasting scar on his heart, one that would torment him for the rest of his life.
From that day on, Zhou Luo was a changed person. He never loved another again. [/spoiler]