Reading#
During this time, I mainly read two books, "The Golden Age" and "Madame Bovary."
I had previously read two books by Wang Xiaobo, one is "The Silent Majority," and the other is "Loving You is Like Loving Life," which he co-wrote with Li Yinhe. His writing is humorous and easy to understand, making it effortless to read. Reading his books feels like chatting with a very sincere, straightforward, and humorous person.
I just started reading the first part of "The Golden Age," which depicts Wang Er's youth, filled with many direct and frank descriptions of sex.
On that day, I was twenty-one, in the golden age of my life, I had many extravagant desires. I wanted to love, to eat, and to transform into the half-bright, half-dark clouds in the sky in an instant.
As for "Madame Bovary," what impressed me the most was the author's artistic language. There are so many finely crafted descriptions of the characters.
Moreover, the widow was thin, her teeth long, and she wore a small black shawl all year round, with her pointed head resting between her shoulder blades; a bony figure, draped in a robe, like a sword entering its sheath.
Podcast#
The following excerpts are taken from a podcast I listened to a couple of days ago1 and a previous episode I had saved2. They are all letters from readers, and this hazy feeling that has yet to break through the windowpane is particularly captivating.
Unsent Moonlight#
It’s like this, he said, I’ll just call you L. I don’t know why I’m writing this letter that you won’t understand anyway. For the person writing a love letter and the person reading it, which is more important? Moreover, as a middle-aged man, I want to write a piece of excitement. I don’t know when it started, but you became dazzling among the crowd. I can’t find the moment of my budding feelings no matter how I try to recall, but when I close my eyes, it’s all about you. When a group of people goes out to play, you always take on the role of navigator, so every time we take the escalator, you stand at the top, and I always follow at the back. I bet you would look back, and then our eyes met, and I fell into your smiling eyes. Once, when I had a fever on the road, you rubbed your hands to warm yourself before gently touching my forehead,
Every time we had a meal together, you sat next to me and finished the super spicy shredded potatoes I cooked in one go. One time, I bowed to thank you for taking me home, and you said only Japanese people would do that. I said this is the highest expression of gratitude in our great China, and so we began to bow to each other on the subway. Unable to join in the small talk, I stepped on the dry leaves on the ground. You asked me what I was doing, and I said I was killing a piece of dry leaf, so you became an accomplice. There was also talk of cats, books, Miyazaki, and Mishima, but nothing more. After all, we only spent two weeks together. Last year, I watched a movie called "Past Life," and from the moment the male and female leads reconnected, I longed for a passionate kiss after a long separation, a thrilling sexual encounter; something had to happen to sacrifice such feelings, but nothing happened. This blank space made me feel utterly embarrassed because something did happen between us after all. The night before we parted, we met unexpectedly, exchanging fragments of our lives, each fragment attracting us. Ice cream melted in the summer night, the air was a bit sweet, the moon at four o'clock had magic, enchanting and mysterious, your lingering embrace, and I pretended to bloom calmly, the moon withdrew its eyes, secrets and unspeakable secrets. Now, we look up at the moon in different places, and I understand that one can continue living with another person who is no longer in contact.
A part of life has completely changed; you and summer will forever remain in SG. If there’s a chance to see you again in this life, I will respond to you with silence, while also telling you how beautiful the moonlight was that night. I wish you well, better than me, wanting to stay in the past S.
You in the Corner of My Eye#
Hello, LMS, I’ve known you for quite a while, and I’ve developed some special feelings for you through our chance encounters. The first time I noticed you was in Teacher Zhou's English class, during your speech when you ran for class representative. Your name is LMS, such a nice name.
At that time, my impression of you was that you spoke very well, a very cool boy, giving me a different feeling. After that, I began to pay attention to you, intentionally or unintentionally. I later realized that I had seen you before. In PE class, you distributed number tags, and after running 800 meters, you came to ask me for a number tag. Hey, classmate, give me the number tag. My impression of you was that you had a smile on your face at that time. Gradually, I recalled that you had participated in the election for the grade leader. You appeared inadvertently, leaving traces in my letters. At that time, I thought this feeling was just a momentary whim.
However, later on, the frequency of meeting you decreased, but your name appeared more and more in my diary. I began to frequently hope for a meeting with you. Recently, I encountered you twice on the bus, and I was really excited and happy, so I wrote some words. That day on the bus, I saw him; he looked just like him, just like my impression of him, the one I was infatuated with. Later, I often reminisced about that morning. He sat in the seat diagonally in front of me, and the head of the girl next to him just blocked my view of him. When the bus stopped and jolted, I vaguely caught a glimpse of his figure out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t dare to look directly at his face. After each encounter, I regretted not looking a little longer. I still remember that after getting off the bus, I deliberately slowed down my pace, but I couldn’t wait for him to walk in front of me. At that time, I kept thinking, slow down, slower, faster, faster. Today, I encountered him again, and just as I was about to reach school, I found out he was on this bus too. I had already prepared myself for not meeting him, and I was busy eating breakfast and enjoying the scenery. When I reached Shida subway station, halfway through, I suddenly looked up and saw him. His demeanor seemed like him, confirming his face made me so happy. I got off behind him, but he walked so slowly that it was obvious I was following him. When I brushed past him, I felt so shy. No matter how slowly he walks next time, I will follow his pace. Every time I meet him, I feel so joyful and will reminisce about the you back then. My heart unconsciously races, and I keep confirming my feelings for you.
I am certain this is liking. I have never been a confident and brave person, so I hesitated for a long time about whether to express my feelings to you. I thought I shouldn’t disturb his life, but I really don’t want to give up without trying. I want to be honest with myself and not hide this real feeling that exists, so I still want to give it a try. Today might be a bit presumptuous; I’m sorry.
The Meaning of Confession#
I want to share the story of my first love with you. It was my one-sided, long, and so far the only time I liked someone. Let’s call him Q, as he has always appeared in my diary like this.
In middle school, we attended the same school, and our homes were not far apart, so we often took the same bus. It was during the transition from spring to summer in the second year of middle school that I began to pay attention to him (his name abbreviation started appearing in my diary). He had excellent academic performance and was a candidate for a key high school, while I was just an average student in my class.
However, the moment I truly developed a crush on him happened in an instant. It was a rainy day, with the faint sound of spring thunder in the distance. The camphor tree was shining from the rain, and the air was filled with the cool fragrance of camphor. I sat in the back row of the bus and caught a glimpse of him waiting for the bus by the roadside. He held an ordinary blue checkered umbrella, still with his head down, carrying his black backpack stuffed with books, wearing a blue checkered shirt, standing under a camphor tree. I actually never got a clear look at his face (partly because I was nearsighted at that time, but I thought wearing glasses looked bad, so I didn’t wear them when I wasn’t reading; partly because I didn’t dare to look at him directly, even when he was chatting with me, I didn’t dare to keep my gaze on his face for too long, afraid he would find out, afraid others would discover my feelings). At that time, I began to frantically do exercises, even fainting at home from low blood sugar, wanting to get into the same high school as him. I also started secretly writing poetry, writing about the boy under the tree that day, writing about the rain, writing about the camphor tree, writing about myself, writing about the boy's uncertain future. I still stared blankly at the street trees outside the bus window every day, but my ears were filled with more than just the sound of the wind. His cough, his footsteps, his laughter... I collected them all. Soon it was time for the high school entrance exam. But I still didn’t tell him the words “I like you.” Fortunately, that summer, I received the same admission notice as him. At that time, I thought we would have more opportunities to meet, but we didn’t.
High school was busy with studies, and I was dizzy among physics problems and magnetic fields, spinning in the whirlpool of inferiority. In the monthly exam results, he was in the top fifty, while I lingered around four or five hundred. I still searched for him secretly in the morning exercises and the crowd after school, but I never took the initiative to speak to him again. Two years passed, and it wasn’t until the third year of high school that I first mentioned him to my good friend during a chat, talking about the small moments related to him that I had described in my diary.
Perhaps it was because I knew that the days left to see him were few. “Go confess! You’re good-looking and talented, so good, there’s no need to feel inferior!” (My friend said this because the poems and novels I wrote had received a lot of recognition, and the rest was due to the filter effect, haha.) Hesitating, I finally walked to his classroom door with my friend, but my heart was racing, and I started to stutter while speaking, so I fled in a panic, hiding around the corner of the corridor, throwing a letter to my friend and asking her to give it to him. She thought the letter was a confession, but it only contained “Long time no see” and “Good luck in the college entrance exam,” wishing him “all the best.” In fact, at that time, I was already saying goodbye to him. Did you think the story ended here, or that there would be a big twist like he also had a crush on me or that I confessed and we ended up together? Haha, no, none of that happened.
I drew a perfect period for this crush, but the timing of that period was super funny, on the night of the Qingming Festival in my first year of college. That night, my friend and I lay in bed watching a horror movie, and after finishing it, it was almost dawn, but we still couldn’t sleep, so we started talking about him again. Maybe it was the dopamine kicking in, or maybe I wasn’t clear-headed from watching the horror movie, without much thought, I edited a long message and sent it to Q, completing the confession I had planned several times. Did I become brave and confident? Not really; I just understood the meaning of confession. It’s not about the result, but about explaining my feelings that had been dormant for years. Finally, on a spring night like that, like the camphor tree in my memory, shedding old leaves in spring and welcoming new ones. That night, I didn’t dream; I slept very soundly. When I opened my eyes and checked my phone, as expected, I was rejected. But his reply was very gentle; he thanked me for my feelings for him, and he really didn’t understand my feelings. We began to talk about the past and the present. He wished me all the best too. Such a confession was the best ending I could give myself. I am very grateful for his presence, which helped me slowly become better, but I also feel sorry for the me in that unrequited love, the bitterness, the tears, which only I know. But fortunately, I have those joyful times, those words, that boy hiding from the rain under the camphor tree, and the resilient yet sensitive me today.