The autumn was getting to the end, but it remained very hot. Riding in a cabriolet with her hair flying up with the wind, she felt very cool and classy. Especially when they passed the downtown area, they met boys whistling at them. The boys had hedgehog-like hair, wore earrings, and a long T shirt and wide legged trousers that could be used to mop the floor.
Even if you were just an average pretty girl, a cute and unique car could give you some extra points, Jiang Youyou thought, if they were two ordinary-looking girls riding on the bikes slowly, no one would whistled at them.
There were so many vehicles on the road that they had to ride slowly. Jiang Youyou asked, “You got the job finally, didn’t you?”
Xu Nuo nodded happily, “Yes, of course. I have attended many interviews with foreign companies, but I don’t want to stay at home, depending on my parents or work for family business. I’d like to find a job of my own.”
“Oh, I’m not so lucky as you. But it doesn’t matter, I would have another try in employment market tomorrow.”
“Shall we go to dinner together?” Xu Nuo parked her car in the underground parking lot of a shopping mall. “It was predestined for us to meet each other. Now that there are so many people and cars on the road and I can’t drive at this moment, I’ll just drive you home later.
Jiang Youyou took the elevator to the western restaurant on the ninth floor of the mall with Xu Nuo. The waiter bowed politely to welcome them. “Good evening, Miss Xu. Please come in.”
“Three of us.” Xu Nuo even didn’t look at him. “Has Mr. Xu been to the restaurant today?”
The manager hurriedly came up. “He came here this morning.”
This was one of her father’s high-end western restaurants in this city. She asked whether her father had been here this morning because once he’d already been here today, it would less likely to meet him this evening, for her father hated to see her dating different people in his restaurant.
As soon as they were seated, Xu Nuo told Jiang Youyou that her boyfriend would come for dinner.
She was such a lovely and rich girl, and her boyfriend must be very handsome. Jiang Youyou suddenly felt a little bit peculiar. She didn’t know whether it was an inferiority complex or envy. Perhaps to choose a rich parent before birth was also a technical job.
The restaurant had a very pleasant atmosphere. A girl in white long dress was sitting in the middle of the hall playing the piano. The guests here were all speaking in a very low voice. The scented candles on the table were emitting an appetizing sweet smell, which resembled the fragrance of ripe mangoes.
“Good evening!” a familiar voice interrupted Jiang Youyou’s disorderly conjectures.
Could it be…?
Xu Nuo introduced him gracefully, “Youyou, this is my boyfriend, Bai Zhehan, a doctor.”
Jiang Youyou slowly raised her head, with her heart almost jumping up to her mouth. No mistake. It was he, Doctor Bai, the first man in her life. But was she going to cry right now? It would only turn herself into a laughing stock.
There was a bit surprise in Bai Zhehan’s eyes but he calmed down quickly. “Xu Nuo, you haven’t introduced your new friend to me, have you?”
Xu Nuo immediately said, “This is Jiang Youyou. We got to know each other at the interview today. She has a strong sense of self-sacrificing spirit. It’s a pity that she didn’t get the job.”
After saying this, she lowered her head to read the menu. Jiang Youyou clenched her fist with the fingernails pinching into the flesh of her palm. Blood oozed out but she couldn’t feel pain, and she only had violent twitches in her heart. Why did God have her meet this man again? Should she try to flee out of the door?
Xu Nuo started talking about today’s interview and Bai Zhehan listened with interest. He listened attentively, but showed no expression on his face. When his eyes met with Jiang Youyou’s he looked as if he had never met Jiang Youyou before.
Should he have forgotten all about those sweet and sentimental nights, those tender love oaths and sexual intercourse they had? And he said coldly on the phone that how she could spend the one hundred thousand yuan so soon when the robber was pointing at her. “It’s so puerile of you to cheat me in such a foolish way.” This was what he said, which almost made her turn into a corpse in the street.
Could money buy everything? At least Bai Zhehan had really believed that money could buy most of things in this world. At least other medical guineapigs never came back and bothered him after being paid, except Jiang Youyou, who even tried to gang up with a man to cheat him, pretending to be too naïve to know the world. She had a very high opinion of herself and underestimated him too much. At that time, he had the sexual intercourse with her only for the sake of clinical trial, and he arranged the four men to have the sexual intercourse with her for the same purpose. During the intercourse he could observe whether her G point area would become larger after taking the medicine. The medicine might make those women who had never achieved orgasm enjoy that joy. They had an abundance of money and a thirst for joy, or, to be more exact, they longed for sexual orgasm.
“I’m going to the restroom, and are you going with me, Jiang Youyou?” After she finished ordering, Xu Nuo felt in great need of going to the ladies.
Jiang Youyou shook her head.
“Will you please help me to take care of Jiang Youyou, Zhehan? May I be excused for a moment?” Xu Nuo Left.
“Are you all right?” Bai Zhehan thought she was prettier than before. When she was in the hospital, she was as pale as a piece of bleached paper.
“I thought you couldn’t recognize me any longer.” Jiang Youyou wanted very much to rush to him and beat him up. While at the same time, she had a sudden impulse to cry in his arms. In a state of ambivalence, her whole palm was reddened by blood, her fingernails were pinched deep into the flesh and her heart sank.
“You are really quite capable to find me in such circumstances. But I already had a girlfriend. Let bygones be bygones. Don’t immerse yourself in memories. That’ll be no good to you.” Bai Zhehan said to Jiang Youyou seriously, “I won’t talk about your previous experience to anyone, ’cause this is my minimum professional ethics. And what’s more, you’ve got what you want, have you?
Jiang Youyou nodded. “Yes. Let us pretend not to know each other, from now on, is that OK? Let’s take it as if nothing happened.”
“It couldn’t be better that you have such mentality. Xu Nuo’s a good girl, I hope you won’t influence her with your extreme notions or take any extreme measures to hurt her, otherwise, I won’t let you off.” A murderous look flickered in his pupils behind the lenses.
When Xu Nuo went out of the restroom, she found Jiang Youyou’s palms were bleeding. She hurriedly took some tissues to wrap her hand. “What have you done to yourself?”
Jiang Youyou said with a numb look, “Oh, nothing serious. Only that I liked this knife but cut my hand by accident.”
While having the dinner Xu Nuo kept acting like a spoiled little girl, constantly asking Bai Zhehan to feed her with steaks cut into even pieces in a purely Miss Rich style. She smiled to Jiang Youyou while eating, “They surgeons are really very good at cutting meat. But of course what they do best is to sew a cut in people’s body. They could tie a very beautiful knot, very quickly.”
Bai Zhehan looked at Xu Nuo dotingly and forked up a slice of steak to stuff her mouth. “Even delicious food cannot stop you speaking!”
“The mustard is really spicy.” Jiang Youyou was having salmon sashimi in her mouth and tissues in her hand, “Look, I’m tearing because it’s so hot.”
Xu Nuo giggled, “Don’t hesitate to cry, I don’t mind.”
Jiang Youyou didn’t ride Xu Nuo’s car back home after dinner. She said she was going to wander around alone.
“All right. I hope you can find a better job.” Xu Nuo waved her hand in the car while Bai Zhehan sat there without any expression.
In the car, Bai Zhehan stroked Xu Nuo’s shoulder and asked, “How do you get missed up with such a girl?”
“It’s nothing. I just think she’s really stupid. It’s so funny to get along with her. Otherwise, how can I realize I’m so happy? Give me a kiss!”
“Well, well, just be cautious when driving, my princess.” He leaned over to put his lips on Xu Nuo’s cheek to give her a kiss.
Jiang Youyou took a casual look. She stood numbly in the middle of the road, then turned around slowly.
When she raised her hand, she was wiping off tears from her cheeks.
Being fooled by someone who was the one she both loved and hated, she felt she had no real friends nor any kin in this huge city, being a loner among the passers-by.
“Twenty-one years had passed but where were my parents? Why were you unwilling to have me? What does it matter even if I would have a poor family and live a harder life? If I had a family, at least I had a place to hide when I wanted to weep. No job. I made every effort in vain in several days, but I lost my opportunity.”
By the road there was a little girl wearing a bow on the head and a short skirt. In her left hand she was holding her daddy and in her right hand her mummy and with every step she would jump three times. A helium balloon of Big Grey Wolf was tied on the collar of her dress. She was humming a song, “The Joyful Sheep, the Sweet Sheep, the Lazy Sheep, the Fit Sheep, the Slow Sheep, the Tender Sheep. Wolnie and Wolffy, don’t you think I’m just a sheep…”
Jiang Youyou sobbed her heart out, and because she had overeaten, she made a big burp and it was so noisy that she felt it very funny, so she laughed.
If someone was crying with laughter, she must be a lunatic, or a person in love. She had no money, no job, no boyfriend, but it didn’t matter! Everything was possible if only we were alive.