Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

She was amazed when she finally recovered her senses. She remained motionless while the wind blew wildly against the branches outside.

Once you meet someone, it seems that you’re always running into each other. That is exactly what happened to Yuyang and Chu Tian. They ran into each other over and over—in the cafeteria, on the athletic field, and, of course, in the library. But mostly it happened when they were headed somewhere. It was invariably accidental, but to Yuyang, the repeated encounters began to take on a special meaning and became a secret that she buried deep in her heart. Girls of her age are good at keeping secrets; they keep a tidy record of neatly categorized secrets in a corner known only to themselves, with a tender wish for two hearts to beat in unison. Like I’m a part of you and you’re a part of me.

To Yuyang, the campus seemed to have shrunk now that it felt as if there were only the two of them. Life on campus had a miniature quality that enabled her to manipulate it. For instance, she might be walking along on campus when she’d have a sudden premonition that she would run into Chu Tian. So she’d turn or look around and there he’d be.

There was even an extreme example. One day when she was in her dorm room, she was suddenly restless and felt an urge to go out for a walk. She went downstairs and had barely taken a dozen steps before—there he was again. He wasn’t looking at her, but she was overwhelmed, yes, overwhelmed, nearly to the point of tears. She was positive that heaven was on her side, secretly helping her; otherwise, how could such coincidences take place? Chu Tian was intentionally keeping his eyes averted, which had to mean that he was thinking about her. She knew she wasn’t pretty, but he was a poet, and poets have tastes that cannot be judged by ordinary standards. His attitude toward her only confirmed the fact that he was different from everyone else.

Every encounter felt blissful to her and constituted a moment of sheer joy. The feeling could even be characterized as intoxication, though that is an uncommonly vile thing that always stands in opposition to you. Intoxication is invariably brief and disappears before you know it. Then comes the endless, bottomless waiting while you yearn for it to happen again, like an addict.

And so intoxication is a void, a boundless entanglement and a lingering that accompanies a sense of loss and heartache, as well as an unending anticipation and waiting. Intoxication is essentially a different kind of suffering, a dull torture.

But for Yuyang defeat was nullified by patience, and even more by a sense of excitement.

She asked herself what was happening to her. It took a long time, but she finally realized that what she felt for Chu Tian was, simply stated, tender affection. She was attracted by his chicken-feather hair, his solitude, his knitted brows, and the way he walked. Everything about him demanded that someone bestow tender affection on him and cherish him. Yuyang knew she was the only one who could do that. If a rock were to fall from the sky and threaten Chu Tian, she would shield him with her body. She wished she could find a way to let him know that she was prepared to stop at nothing to make sure nothing happened to him.

Yuyang had never thought that she could be so daring, that she could act improperly, shamefully even. Where had she found the courage to be so bold? On this particular evening, she followed Chu Tian with her eyes until he entered the library. Then, after hesitating in the doorway for a moment, she walked in and found him seated on a bench in the reading room. Sitting down next to him, she took out a book and pretended to be engrossed in it. It did not matter what she was reading; what mattered was the reality that she was sitting beside him, shoulder to shoulder.

Since they were in the library, no one could spot anything unusual, especially because she sat with her eyes lowered, as if everything were perfectly normal. But her face burned red the whole time, and that made her very unhappy. Whoever said “The eyes are the window to the soul” was an idiot. For a person in love, it is the face, not the eyes, that is the window to the soul. Her window was bright red, as if the character for happiness had been painted on her face. How could she hide her feelings from anyone? She couldn’t. Chu Tian turned his head when she gave a dry cough. She knew he’d done that, which instantly changed everything in her—body and soul. Her heart skipped a beat before it began to sink, darkly and slowly, to an indescribable place, while her body turned strangely light and drifted upward.

The air in the reading room compressed, yet the light felt moist as it caressed and gently stroked her. She felt like crying, but not out of sadness. No, she wasn’t sad; she just wanted to cry and cry until her body fell apart, which was the only way she could explain how she felt inside. But she composed herself, then took out from her bag the brand-new hardbound notebook that she’d recently bought. Opening it to the first page, she began to copy in neat handwriting the poem Chu Tian had posted on the bulletin board.

She added a dash and his real name, Gao Honghai, and conferred on his name the sort of significance one associates with names like Gorky, Shakespeare, and Balzac. Unsure if the “Hong” in his name was the character for “red” or for “flood,” she eventually settled on the latter since it was more common for a boy to have “flood” in his name. After finishing the task, she wrote her name in the lower right-hand corner of the cover followed by, after a moment’s reflection, her year and class, as well as her dorm room number. Originally she’d thought she’d be nervous, but she wasn’t and, in fact, was uncharacteristically calm. With a somber look, she pushed the notebook away from her before getting up and walking out. It was at that moment, when she was leaving the library, that a panicky feeling began to spread through her body, all the way to her fingertips. But there was nothing she could do about that now, so she ignored it.

Two days later Chu Tian returned the notebook to her—in the library, of course. He didn’t even try to be discreet; instead, he walked up and set it down in front of her. No one noticed. She opened it to see his autograph. She’d been wrong; it was “red,” not “flood.” As she hurriedly shut the notebook, a mysterious door in her heart was broken open, and in rushed a flood of unreasonable things. Scared and nervous, she felt she might faint then and there. I must be in love, she thought, this has to be love.

She was in love—Yuyang was sure of it. After that secret exchange, her chest always tightened when she ran into Chu Tian, while he, too, appeared awkward, tossing his hair repeatedly to fling it off of his forehead. That was totally unnecessary. Why are you tossing your hair? Yuyang wondered. You don’t have to do that; your hair will never be too messy for me. Will you still be Chu Tian if your hair is neat? He didn’t have to do that, and she’d tell him so when she got a chance.

Yuyang might not have been articulate, but she wasn’t stupid. She quickly figured out his daily routine, including his tendency to stroll along the athletic track at least once a day, usually after morning calisthenics or before the evening study period. With fewer people at those times, the field was more spacious, a perfect place for a poet’s solitary walk and an ideal spot for the pursuit of romance.

Twelve minutes before the study period began one evening, Yuyang finally mustered the courage and pretended to go for a walk, arriving at the field only to find it empty. Puzzled, she looked around, convinced that she’d seen him head this way after dinner. Where could he have gone?