Peaches and Plums Don’t Speak – Chapter 45
by Little PandaThe Child is Already Quite Big
After the group summary meeting, Liao Chengyu invited everyone to dinner. The group of seven or eight people went to a newly opened private kitchen nearby.
They entered a private room and took their seats. The restaurant was called “Taohuadu Private Kitchen,” and its decor was exceptionally simple and elegant, with a quiet atmosphere.
Lin Wei had been a bit sullen lately, not at all her usual self who could get along with everyone.1 She felt that her colleagues had been keeping her at arm’s length2 for the past few days. Her relationships with the female colleagues were already average, and now it seemed the male colleagues weren’t as enthusiastic toward her as before either.
She said, “Director Liao, the name of this place is quite interesting.”
Liao Chengyu smiled. “This restaurant was opened by a married couple. The husband is the head chef, specializing in Chinese cuisine—his Hunan dishes are especially authentic. His wife makes Western-style desserts. The ladies should give them a try.”
Before anyone else could speak, Lin Wei laughed. “Then I won’t be polite, since Director Liao is treating. Let’s see, what should I get…”
While everyone was ordering, someone asked Yan Xi, “Xiao Yan, what are you having?”
Yan Xi smiled. “You all can order. I’m not a picky eater. I can eat anything.”
She gestured that she was stepping out to make a phone call. Liao Chengyu happened to be sitting next to her and watched her figure as she left.
When she returned, he leaned over and said to her, “I ordered a mango pancake for you. You can see if it’s good later.”
Yan Xi was surprised. How did he know she liked mangoes?
“Uh… thank you.”
Liao Chengyu smiled at her, his dimples deep.
Lin Wei’s gaze drifted between the two of them. “Director Liao really favors Xiao Yan, doesn’t he? There are so many ladies here, but you only ordered dessert for her.”
Liao Chengyu paused for a moment before saying, “Didn’t I say this meal is on me? Everyone, feel free to order whatever you like.”
During the lull in ordering, the group started to chat. The youngest person on the team was already 25 or 26. In front of the station’s senior veterans, they were young, but most had reached the age where their families were pressuring them to get married. It was inevitable for young people to complain when they got together.
One started talking about being single since the womb.3
Another mentioned being in a romantic hiatus.4
Someone else said they wanted to be alone, but their parents’ relentless pressure to marry was unbearable.
Everyone sighed and then started teasing each other.
Lin Wei used the topic to ask Liao Chengyu, “What about you, Director Liao? We’ve all been working together for so long, but we’ve never seen your girlfriend.”
Liao Chengyu took a sip of his wine and shook his head. “I’m single.”
“No way???” Lin Wei exclaimed. “Someone with your qualifications is single too, Director Liao?”
Yan Xi was genuinely a little hungry, so she had been eating ever since the dishes started arriving. One of them was a cold-dressed beef salad. The beef was sliced thin, with a texture that was tender yet chewy. The dressing was savory, fragrant, and numbing, with black sesame seeds, green cilantro, and several types of chili peppers that gave the spiciness multiple layers. It looked as good as it tasted.
The server happened to be nearby, so Yan Xi asked, “Can this cold-dressed beef be made mild?”
The waitress replied, “I’m sorry, the sauce is specially prepared by the owner. You could try our soy-braised beef. It’s not as spicy as this one and is also very good.”
Yan Xi nodded, mentally planning to bring Anzhi here to try it sometime.
Lin Wei glanced at her. “What about Xiao Yan?”
Yan Xi gave a faint smile. “What about me?”
Resting her cheek on one hand, Lin Wei tapped the glass in her other. “I’ve always been curious. Someone like you, Xiao Yan, from such a good family, so beautiful, with a great job… how can you have been single for so many years…”
She had asked this privately before, at which time she had suspected Yan Xi of liking women, but Yan Xi had ignored her. Asking it now in front of everyone, it seemed she wouldn’t be satisfied until she forced some kind of admission.
Yan Xi relaxed and met her gaze. “Being in a relationship isn’t a mandatory question for me.”
“Oh?… But I heard something else. That your child is already quite big… I’m just curious, don’t take it to heart.” Lin Wei put on a slightly awkward smile, as if she had truly brought it up by accident and had intruded on someone’s privacy.
The others at the table fell silent, a palpable awkwardness hanging in the air.
If they were colleagues who had just started working together, they might have thought Lin Wei’s comment was unintentional. But this team had spent nearly every day together for some time now, and they all knew each other’s temperaments.
One of the female colleagues present pursed her lips. A woman could see through that kind of trick in an instant.
Liao Chengyu was about to smooth things over, but on second thought, he held his tongue.
Yan Xi smiled, replying openly and gracefully, “Yes, the child is already quite big.”
Liao Chengyu was secretly stunned. Lin Wei hadn’t expected that response, and her face stiffened. A female colleague, unable to watch any longer, jumped in with a smile. “You mean little Anzhi, right? I remember she’s eleven or twelve?”
“She’s almost thirteen,” Yan Xi said, a hint of pride in her voice. “She’s already in her third year of junior high.”
“Wow, right, right! I remember you said she skipped two grades. I haven’t seen her in a long time.”
Yan Xi passed her phone over, swiping the screen open. “She’s already 1.6 meters tall now.”
Several colleagues gathered around to look. Liao Chengyu glanced over as well. On the screen was a photo of Yan Xi and a young girl with a dimple on her right cheek, their faces pressed together as they smiled at the camera. Their cheeks were rosy from smiling, and their eyes seemed to sparkle with the same starlight.
“So cute!!!”
“Can we look through your photo album?”
Yan Xi smiled and nodded.
Lin Wei watched her, bewildered. “Thirteen? Doesn’t that mean you were fifteen when you…”
The female colleague shot her a glare first. “It’s a child from Yan Xi’s relatives. Who knows who’s been chewing the root of the tongue5 behind her back… People should just live their own lives. Instead of always fearing the world isn’t in chaos…”6
Lin Wei gave an awkward laugh. Liao Chengyu took a sip of wine, feeling an inexplicable sense of relief.
After Yan Xi got her phone back, the female colleague teased her, “Xiao Yan, I hear there are signs when people start getting old. One of them is using their kid or their pet as their lock screen…”
“And their photo album is full of their kid and their pet…” another colleague added, laughing.
Yan Xi didn’t mind. She thought about it for a moment. “That seems to make some sense.” Then she started to laugh.
Her eyes crinkled when she laughed. For convenience while eating, she had tied her hair back loosely, and her makeup-free face was even more radiant, her skin like congealed fat7 under the lights.
As they were chatting and laughing, the ladies’ desserts were served.
The mango pancake in front of Yan Xi rested on a green leaf. A small, wrapped portion was cut open, revealing the tender, yellow, and delicious mango pulp inside.
Yan Xi forked a piece into her mouth. The cream was rich, the mango sweet and fragrant. It was delicious.
Anzhi never cut hers open. Sometimes, she would mischievously hide durian, which neither of them liked, inside the crepe. Yan Xi always knew before she even took a bite, but she would still feign surprise and put on an annoyed expression.
At those times, Anzhi’s dimples would be filled with a sly smile.
Yan Xi continued to eat, a smile on her lips.
Liao Chengyu had been watching her. Sometimes he felt it was too obvious and would quickly look away, only to find his gaze drifting back again moments later.
“Is it good?” he asked, his chest feeling hot.
“Mhm,” Yan Xi murmured with a smile, her head lowered.
Liao Chengyu looked at her, his heart in turmoil.
Exam preparations for the advanced class were always in full swing.8 During self-study period, the teacher graded papers at the podium while the students worked on their own exam sheets below. Yang Mengmeng wore a pained expression, staring at the letters on her test paper. Reading comprehension was such a headache. And also… she secretly glanced at her little deskmate.
Could her little deskmate really be into lily?9
The other night, just before bed, Anzhi had come over to see if she was missing anything. Wringing her fingers, Anzhi had lowered her head and asked, “Mengmeng, besides Jinjiang, are there other places to read lily books?”
“Yeah…” Yang Mengmeng thought, you can find them with a simple online search, why is she asking me?
“I wanted to ask… are there any… with a bigger age gap…” Anzhi’s head was bowed, her voice barely audible.
Yang Mengmeng froze. Before she could answer, Anzhi’s ears had turned so red they were impossible to look at. Without daring to meet her eyes, Anzhi had run out.
Yang Mengmeng’s stomach was in knots from the dilemma.
The two of them had been awkwardly silent with each other for the past two days. People around them thought they had fought.
Ugh. She wanted to tell Anzhi that it was okay, that even if she was into lily, she herself was a veteran rotten girl.10 Besides, it’s not like being into lily really means anything… but, but, her little deskmate was so sensitive. What if she said something and Anzhi couldn’t get over it…
Sigh, lily stories with a bigger age gap…
Age gap… bigger…
Age gap??!!!
Huh?!!!!!
In an instant, Yang Mengmeng seemed to have discovered an incredible secret.
A heaven-shaking roar suddenly erupted in the dead-silent classroom where everyone was buried in their work!
After school, Yang Mengmeng was cleaning the classroom with a long face.
She’d been punished.
Anzhi was helping her. They had already finished cleaning the classroom and were now arranging the desks and chairs.
“An’an…” Yang Mengmeng started, but then trailed off, wanting to speak but stopping short.
They leaned against the hallway railing for a break.
Anzhi turned her head to look at her, knowing what she wanted to say.
She lowered her head, her hands gripping the railing. “Mengmeng, if I really am… would you still be my friend?”
“Of course!” Yang Mengmeng replied without a second thought.
Anzhi looked at her, slightly shy but visibly happy.
Yang Mengmeng let out a long, internal sigh, feeling like a grown-up. Her little deskmate had had such a difficult childhood, and this home wasn’t her real home either. She felt that the Anzhi at the Yan Family Old Residence was a little different from the Anzhi who was by Yan-jiejie’s side.
At first, she thought it was just because she was closer to Yan-jiejie, but she never imagined there was this other, unspoken reason.
What is she going to do…
When reading BL novels, Yang Mengmeng’s heart would sometimes ache for the conflicted characters. She was feeling that same ache right now.
And as her little deskmate stood there, staring at the distant sky, lost in thought, she exuded a sense of solitude, as if she stood alone, aloof from the world.12
She suddenly felt that perhaps her little deskmate would still have to go through many, many more things.
Her heart grew even more sour and heavy.
“Mengmeng, let’s get into the Affiliated High School of the University of Science and Technology together.”
“Ah, huh?” Yang Mengmeng snapped back to reality, saying hesitantly, “But, I probably can’t get in.”
“There are still a hundred days left. You can do it. I’ll help you.”
Yang Mengmeng stared at Anzhi’s confident and determined face and suddenly felt full of confidence herself, because her deskmate knew the gaps in her knowledge for every subject even better than she did.
“Okay!” Yang Mengmeng leaned in and hugged her. “We’ll go to the same school!”
And we’ll be best friends for life!
The distant, orange-red horizon was as beautiful as a painting.
Footnotes
- Original phrase: 到处逢源 (dàochù féngyuán). An idiom for being popular and well-received in all situations.
- Original phrase: 若即若离 (ruò jí ruò lí). An idiom meaning to be hot and cold or to keep someone at a distance.
- Original phrase: 母胎单身 (mǔtāi dānshēn). Literally ‘single from the mother’s womb,’ a popular slang term for someone who has never dated.
- Original phrase: 空窗期 (kōngchuāngqī). Literally ’empty window period,’ a term for the time one is single between relationships.
- Literally ‘to chew the root of the tongue,’ an idiom for spreading malicious gossip.
- An idiom, 唯恐天下不乱 (wéikǒng tiānxià bù luàn), describing a troublemaker who loves to stir things up.
- An idiom, 肤如凝脂 (fū rú níng zhī), used to describe exceptionally smooth, fair, and beautiful skin.
- Original phrase: 如火如荼 (rú huǒ rú tú). An idiom describing something that is proceeding with great intensity and momentum.
- Original term: 百合 (bǎihé). Literally “lily,” a slang term for the Yuri genre (girls’ love). In this context, it implies being a lesbian.
- Original term: 腐女 (fǔnǚ). Literally “rotten woman,” a term borrowed from Japanese (fujoshi) referring to female fans of Boys’ Love (BL) content.
- Original term: 卧槽 (wòcáo). A common and versatile expletive, similar in usage and intensity to ‘fuck’ or ‘holy shit’.
- Original phrase: 遗世独立 (yí shì dú lì). An idiom describing a sense of profound, transcendent solitude.
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