AUS Chapter 51: I Want the Real Liu Jiang

The snow that had been holding back all night ultimately never fell.

Just before noon, the sky began to clear up. As I stood at the bustling entrance of the club, my phone suddenly vibrated.

Only then did I remember that I had arranged to meet someone.

On the other end of the phone, the woman whose name I didn’t know sent a message.

[***: Brother Yang, where are you?]

I shoved my phone into my pocket and quickened my pace toward the designated meeting spot. I had a strange feeling in my heart, but if you asked me what was so strange, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

To be honest, I no longer needed to worry about him getting jealous over me. He was so outstanding, so flamboyant; I should be happy for him.

In contrast, there was me.

The things that had once made me proud, that had filled me with self-esteem, that had even given me a secret thrill for having bested others, no longer seemed so precious.

The campus was crowded at noon. I kept my head down as I hurried along, bumping into a female student’s shoulder. She was part of a group of freshmen rushing to the cafeteria. I had hit the one on the edge, nearly knocking her off balance.

I steadied her and quickly apologized.

The girl was fine. Just as she regained her footing and was about to say something back, I had already turned and walked away.

Because I was in a hurry to confirm something—to confirm that there was nothing wrong with my memory.

My own self-doubt was one thing, but Haozi’s questioning had plunged me into extreme uncertainty. Was I really mentally ill? Wasn’t that just a lie I had blurted out to trick Liu Jiang many checkpoints ago?

I stopped myself from fantasizing, because the statue we had agreed to meet at was just around the corner of the academic building.

The sky was a hazy-bright. I stood in the shadow of the building, students streaming past me. I could hear the wind whistling between the buildings, the rustle of trees that hadn’t yet lost all their leaves, the distant sound of voices and car horns. Just around the corner, I could prove whether this was all a figment of my imagination.

I took a deep breath and stepped out from between the buildings.

To my surprise, however, there was no one beneath the statue.

What?

The structure was next to the library, an abstract human sculpture typical of universities—a woman reading a book, a white dove perched on her shoulder. I circled it three times but saw no one.

I opened my phone. Another message had come through from her.

[***: I’ll wait five more minutes for you, okay? If you’re not here, I’m going for lunch.]

The coquettish tone made my skin crawl. There was genuinely no one here.

I replied, asking her to confirm her location, and then I took a photo of where I was.

I was in no mood for jokes. I just wanted to see her and confirm that this wasn’t all something I had imagined.

My phone vibrated again. She replied quickly, her tone equally puzzled.

[***: That’s weird, I’m here too?]

With that, she sent a photo as well. It was taken from a different angle but was also of the statue. Judging by her photo’s perspective, we were practically standing in the same spot.

So…

I turned around in silence. In the wide, bright square in front of the library at noon, I felt a chilling cold seep through my body.

Where was she?

My heart began to race, each beat harder than the last. I could feel the voice that had been clamoring inside me from the very beginning growing louder, breaking through my reassurances and my optimistic hopes for the truth.

That voice was telling me—something was wrong.

But I had no clue what the problem was or where it would lead. I had always hated this feeling of uncertainty about the future; it made me despise myself to a certain degree.

Right now, that self-loathing was thundering toward its peak, growing more intense by the second.

I slowly lowered my head, suppressing the urge to run. In the square, passersby had already started looking in my direction. Everything made me dizzy, and I felt the urge to retch.

Wait, hold on!

My gaze shifted toward the sports field, and I suddenly realized what the problem was. In my memory, around the first semester of my sophomore year, the university had funded the construction of a symmetrical statue on the other side of the library.

It had been an odd and amusing gesture. The idle university students had joked about it for half a semester. But just like all the other uneventful days of university life, the matter was soon forgotten by everyone, including me, vanishing in an instant.

So, I had forgotten there were two statues, and she was waiting for me under the symmetrical one on the other side.

I turned my head to look toward the other side. Across the empty square in front of the library, I saw the person whose name I couldn’t recall.

At three in the afternoon, I returned to the apartment.

The weather in the capital could be fickle at times. After I left the university and got on the subway, dark clouds had once again gathered over the city.

Before I left, I had opened a small window in Liu Jiang’s apartment. By the time I returned, the wind had picked up. The curtains were billowing, making it look as if someone was standing by the French windows.

To dispel my own skittish, overactive imagination, I immediately closed the window. When I turned back to face the empty room, I slowly sat down on the sofa.

The truth was actually simpler than I had imagined.

We had a mix-up, standing at different statues. The long staircase of the library separated us, and neither of us had looked in the other’s direction. After realizing the mistake, I quickly crossed the square to the other side and met her.

She had a round, plain face, one that wasn’t particularly memorable. But her name wasn’t ordinary; theoretically, I should have been able to remember it.

Her name was Wen Ni. It sounded like something out of a romance novel. If it weren’t for the utterly astonished look on her face when I asked for her name, I might have praised it for having a nice atmosphere.

Yes, a nice atmosphere, but I hadn’t remembered it.

Wen Ni wasn’t the type to treat romance as a life-or-death matter. Although her pursuit of me bordered on being relentlessly persistent, she responded politely after realizing I didn’t even remember her name, her words making it clear that she understood my meaning.

I didn’t think she completely understood, so I said it plainly.

“I have a boyfriend,” I said. 

“I won’t cheat, and I will never leave him. Absolutely not.”

She remained relatively calm, offering a neutral reply. 

“You do have a charm that appeals to both men and women.”

I had no intention of continuing the conversation, so I took my leave. Before I left, she said to me, “Well then, I hope you continue to stay clear-headed on your path forward.”

I don’t like using pretentious quotes in daily life, so I just nodded in agreement, maintaining my composure until I was gone. Now, sitting on the sofa, her words bothered me a little.

Did I not look clear-headed?

No, I feel very clear-headed right now.

She does exist. For some reason, I couldn’t remember her name, and for some other reason, Haozi didn’t know about her. It was just a misunderstanding. I’m clear-headed. There’s nothing wrong with my memory.

I fell back, sprawling onto Liu Jiang’s sofa.

Although the season was different, I felt like I was back in high school, back in Liu Jiang’s two-story house in Liancheng.

I wonder if he ever misses those days?

The stuffy summer days, the evenings with the sea breeze, the sports equipment storeroom, the smell of the rubber track, the listlessly spinning fan, the day we skipped out to go to a live music show.

I sighed deeply. No matter what, we’ve made it to today, haven’t we?

But this self-comfort failed to take root in my heart. The thought was like a beef ball forgotten outside the ladle in a Chaoshan hotpot—isolated and seemingly never to be brought up again until it’s swept into the kitchen waste when the bill is paid.

There was always an unexplainable unease in my heart.

Was it because I had too much free time?

I had always been a person who couldn’t stay idle. In high school, I buried my head in books. In university, I practically lived in the library. When I got tired, I’d sign up for competitions. I was the first to get an internship. After graduation, I had even less time to be idle.

Getting off work at nine p.m. was a regular occurrence. Sometimes, I’d get back to my rented apartment only to spend another hour dealing with unfinished work details.

The apartment I rented was a bit far from the company because my mom had her eye on a villa in that area and wanted me to rent nearby so it would be easier to move when she bought the house.

Thank goodness she hadn’t bought it yet. Otherwise, the world would end after just a few years of mortgage payments, with no time to enjoy it at all.

At this thought, I actually let out a carefree laugh.

But my smile quickly vanished as I realized that if I continued living like this, my timeline would one day converge with the future.

That is, the day the world ends.

But before that, I needed to consider the present—the reality I was in, the reality that sustained all of this, and the problem of resource depletion it would face.

I abruptly sat up from the sofa, only to hear the sound of the lock turning.

Then, the door opened, and my dazzling bassist boyfriend appeared behind it.

—Yes, that was my thought at this very moment, because Liu Jiang looked different from when he left. He had clearly been to a photo studio. He had makeup on, his hair was styled. I couldn’t imagine the number of heads he must have turned on his way back dressed like that.

And I, Yang Pingsheng, who had gotten into a prestigious university in the capital as a top-ten student in my school, was sprawled on the sofa looking like I had just woken up.

My head was askew, my body was limp, and my crotch was pointed right at the door.

Liu Jiang was speechless. So was I. Then, I quickly sat up.

I cleared my throat, stood up, and said, “You’re back?”

He closed the door and replied, “You could’ve just stayed lying down. Why bother getting up?”

After he spoke, we both fell silent.

Then, he broke into a grin, revealing a row of perfect teeth. He kicked off his Doc Martens, padded across the floor, and stumbled into an embrace around my waist.

“I’ve thought about it,” he said, his voice muffled against my neck. 

“You don’t have to go to work. Just stay here in my home, so I can keep you by my side. Forever.”

It was a sweet nothing.

But to me, right now, it sounded unspeakably creepy.

I pulled him up. We stood in the unlit room, our eyes meeting.

He wanted to kiss me, but I stopped him by cupping his chin.

His hands were still looped around my shoulders. With his chin held by my hand, his eyes were full of astonishment, which quickly turned into a look of being wronged.

“What’s wrong?” His voice became softer. 

“You don’t like me anymore?”

I sighed, then my hand shifted from pushing his chin to gripping it, pulling him closer to me. Our breaths were so near we could smell each other’s scent.

It felt like it had always been this way.

I was always the one who appeared to be in control of him. I enjoyed the control itself, and he was happy to be controlled by me. It seemed our balance would never be broken.

We were close, but I never kissed him. His eyes began to glisten with moisture. I ignored it, pressing the tip of my nose to the side of his face and lowering my voice to say, “You’re great like this.”

Liu Jiang smiled. 

“When have I ever not been great?”

“But what if I don’t want this you?” I asked. 

“What if I want the real you?”

The real you.