Peaches and Plums Don’t Speak – Chapter 5

Belonging to the Rabbit¹

In late September, the great winds rose in Beicheng City. Yellow leaves fluttered through the streets and alleys, over the footbridges, and across the entrances to bus stops and subway stations. Occasionally, you could still see the flowers of a late summer that had yet to wither. Their outer petals were curled and dry, but their centers remained tender, possessing a kind of cute stubbornness.

During the Friday evening rush hour, Yan Xi got a call from Liu Yiyi, her childhood friend and ride-or-die.² She was asking her to go mountain climbing tomorrow to see the maple leaves.

Yan Xi happened to be stopped at a red light. Hearing this, she smiled. Maple leaves? The same ones I’ve been looking at since I was a kid? And I have to go on a weekend when it’s most crowded? It was obvious the drunken old man’s intention wasn’t in the wine.³

She said, “If you have something to say, say it. If not, then forget it. I only have one day off this weekend, and I don’t want to go out.”

Liu Yiyi laughed. “Hey, I just miss you, that’s all! How’s your internship going? If you get a permanent position, does that mean I’ll be able to see you on TV in the future?”

Yan Xi replied, “That’s a long way off. The first stroke of the character ‘eight’ hasn’t even been written yet.”⁴

“I have faith in you, anyway. I’ll definitely support you. But you really shouldn’t host the news. It’s so old and autumnal,⁵ the content is boring, and no one even pays attention to what you’re wearing. After half an hour, the only thing anyone remembers is ‘Good evening, viewers…'”

“…Do you have some kind of misunderstanding about the television and media industry? It’s not like just anyone can host the news, okay?”

On the other end of the line, Liu Yiyi laughed so hard like branches of flowers were trembling.⁶

Yan Xi chuckled. “I’m just an intern right now. I don’t have a fixed position.”

She drove through the intersection and glanced at her watch. It was just a quarter past five.

Liu Yiyi said, “Why work so hard as an intern? Just have your dage⁷ say a word to the director at your station. You could get into any department you want, join any channel you want…”

Yan Xi cut her off. “My dage would never let me do that. Besides, I want to rely on my own efforts. If I make it, I’ll work. If not, I’ll go back to school and take the postgraduate entrance exam.”⁸

“…Alright, fine. You’ve already thought it all through…”

“Just say what you need to say. Stop turning corners and skirting edges.”⁹

Only then did Liu Yiyi tell the truth. “Okay, fine. It’s about Gao Jiming.”¹⁰

Yan Xi slowed down. The traffic ahead was starting to get congested. A taxi was in front of her Chopster. She eased off the gas even more, smelling the faint citrus fragrance in the car. Only then did she speak. “What about him?”

“Are you really breaking up with him?”

“He decided to go abroad, and I’m staying in the country. It’s better to gather well and scatter well.¹¹ A peaceful breakup.”

Gao Jiming was her shixiong¹² from the same university. When they first met, he was a second-year graduate student, and she was a sophomore.

The Beicheng University campus had the perfect scenery for young love. The flower-lined paths of a spring morning, the deep blue lake on a summer afternoon, the rustling sweet osmanthus of autumn, and the library in winter. They had witnessed, marveled at, and enjoyed it all together. For those two years, they had truly and genuinely loved each other.

“I’m just afraid you’ll regret it… Gao Jiming is the best of the best at your school, and… you two were really good together. You never even fought. It’s such a shame to end it like this.”

Before hanging up, Liu Yiyi added, “He’s in Seattle, you know that, right? He said he called you several times but you never picked up. Then he started blowing up my phone… I’m in London, okay? The time difference! He couldn’t even check the time difference before calling!”

“Anyway, I’ve passed on the message. It’s your decision.”

Yan Xi didn’t respond. After passing through the congested section, the road began to clear up. She stepped on the gas and accelerated.

Gather well and scatter well. That’s how she saw it. Besides, she had seen him off at the airport.

The airport was dense with travelers, and the noise was deafening. Gao Jiming was tall and thin, wearing a long, khaki trench coat that made him look gentle in manner and appearance, and he stood out in the crowd.

He had asked, “Do we really have to break up?”

Yan Xi had smiled and said, “I can do a long-distance relationship, and I’m sure you’d say you can too. But we both know you can’t stick with it.”

Beicheng University was one of the top ten universities in the country, and Gao Jiming’s programming major was one of the best. He was a good student and good-looking, so his romantic luck—his peach blossoms¹³—never ceased at school.

Gao Jiming said, “Yan Xi, that’s not fair. I worked really hard to win you over. I still want to be with you.”

He had a pair of soft eyes. Even when he was just looking at someone normally, his gaze felt focused and deeply affectionate. This was his assassin’s mace,¹⁴ the thing that women found most attractive. Even when he already had a girlfriend, other girls would confess their feelings to him right in front of her.

She hadn’t minded in the past, but that didn’t mean she could keep ignoring it.

Yan Xi shook her head and patted his shoulder. “You know that what I’ve decided won’t change. If we break up now, there won’t be any hard feelings. We can still see each other again years from now.”

She rolled down the car window to let the wind in, cutting off the memory. Once she made a decision, she refused to waver. Yan Xi had a powerful intuition when it came to life’s choices.

For example, she chose journalism as her first major and Chinese as her second. She chose photography as her hobby, not her profession. She gave up a postgraduate recommendation¹⁵ to find a job, choosing to enter a television station. She accepted Gao Jiming from among her many suitors in college, and now, she had chosen to break up with him.

She relied on her intuition and never gave herself the chance to regret. Once she decided, she gave it her all. Then, she left the rest to fate.

Liu Yiyi said she was too rational. It was one thing for other matters, but how could she be so logical about feelings? It wasn’t a faucet you could just turn on and off.

“I saw you two together. No one would doubt that you were in love. Aren’t you sad about breaking up with him?”

Am I sad? Of course, she was sad. He was her first love, after all. She had known the joy and pain of love, the anxiety of worrying about gains and losses,¹⁶ the sleepless nights of tossing and turning. Love and the lack of it were strange things, sometimes decided in a single moment. She had decided to let go and forget. She wasn’t willing to waste any more time thinking about it. Besides, work was really busy.

Yan Xi glanced at her watch. It was already six o’clock. The sky seemed to lower, the clouds tinged with orange at the edges. At another red light, a Cadillac pulled up beside her. In the passenger seat, a little kindergarten-aged girl was chattering away. “Daddy… that pizza was so yummy! Can we play outside a little longer? Don’t go home so fast.”

“Sweetie, it’s been over an hour. We have to get home…”

Tao Anzhi’s face suddenly flashed through Yan Xi’s mind.

A month had passed. Tao Zhenzhen had already gone abroad. I wonder how that little girl is doing now?

Yan Xi still remembered the way she had looked back.

The wind was soft, and the autumn leaves danced. The little girl’s hair was a mess, her face like a small flower bud, her eyes watery. From a distance, under the reflection of the light, there seemed to be a shimmer on her lower eyelids, like a teardrop.

Yan Xi’s heart had stirred. It would have made a great photograph, but she didn’t take it. Not because she didn’t have a camera, but because she just couldn’t.

That day, for reasons she didn’t understand, she had asked Tao Zhenzhen for Chen Muqi’s phone number. A few days later, she called to ask about Tao Anzhi’s situation. Chen Muqi assumed she was asking on behalf of Tao Zhenzhen and said carelessly that she’d been sent to kindergarten. What else would she be doing?

Yan Xi didn’t deny it and even asked which kindergarten. She could hear a woman’s teasing voice on Chen Muqi’s end of the line. He had to think for a long time before he finally said the name.

That kindergarten happened to be nearby, but school would have ended long ago at this hour.

Yan Xi hesitated for a moment, then turned the steering wheel and drove toward it.

She used her GPS to find the kindergarten’s address. Her eyes scanned the area, then froze.

It was past six. The kindergarten had long since closed for the day, and the gates were shut. Sitting on the edge of a flowerbed by the entrance was a small figure, along with that familiar rabbit backpack.

At dusk, the sky hung even lower. The tiny figure was thinly dressed, curled up against the evening wind, staring at the ground.
Like a small, unclaimed animal.

Yan Xi’s heart tightened. It was another picture-perfect scene. And yet, she still…

She got out of the car and walked toward her.

Just then, an old man who looked like a security guard beat her to it. He called out to the small figure, “Kid, it’s six o’clock. Is no one coming to pick you up again today?”

The small figure didn’t move.

The old man sighed. “Good kid, you should go home. I’ll walk you to the bus stop…”

Tao Anzhi nodded, turned her face to smile at him, and her gaze met Yan Xi’s.

She froze, her eyes widening.

Yan Xi’s lips curved into a slight smile as she walked up to her.

“Are you here to pick her up? That’s great! The kid’s been waiting for over an hour… aish…” The old man finally left, relieved.

“Do you remember me?” Yan Xi glanced at the ground and saw “H(1) He(2) Li(3) Be(4) B(5) C(6) N(7)….”¹⁷ written in chalk.

Is that the English alphabet? No, that’s not right…

Yan Xi was surprised to realize they were the symbols for the first few elements of the periodic table. Did she write this?

“I remember you… Your name is Yan Xi,” the little girl said in a soft, childish voice.

The smile on Yan Xi’s face deepened as she looked at her with amusement.

After saying it, Anzhi realized it was impolite to call an adult by their full name. She mumbled three more words: “…Dajiejie.”¹⁸

Yan… Dajiejie?

What kind of seniority is that… Yan Xi pressed her forehead. If her mother wasn’t her former classmate, then the title “Jiejie” wouldn’t be wrong.

Well, as long as she remembers.

She hesitated for a few seconds but ultimately didn’t ask, “Why didn’t anyone come to pick you up?” The answer wasn’t hard to guess.

So she asked, “Are you hungry? Want me to take you to get something to eat?”

Only after leading Anzhi into a KFC did Yan Xi realize, a bit slow on the uptake,¹⁹ that this unhealthy fried food probably wasn’t suitable for a small child. After her last experience giving ice to a toddler who hadn’t lost their baby teeth, she had originally planned to take her somewhere healthier.

It was only because she had asked one more question in the car: “Is there anything you want to eat?”

Tao Anzhi pointed. “Grandpa White.”²⁰

Yan Xi followed her finger and saw the kind, smiling face of the white-haired, white-bearded Colonel Sanders not far away.

Alright then…

“I’m going to order. You sit here and wait for me,” Yan Xi told her, then went to get in line.

Tao Anzhi pressed her rumbling stomach, which let out a gululu²¹ sound, and gave a little nod, sitting obediently. It was the dinner rush at KFC, and the place was crowded and noisy. There were couples, families, and a few people eating alone.

Tao Anzhi was very happy. She watched Yan Xi’s back in the line. She was tall and slender, wearing a grayish-blue shirt and jeans. A thin waist and long legs.

Anzhi struggled to describe her with her own meager vocabulary, only feeling that she was incredibly beautiful. She looked around at everyone else eating, and no one was more beautiful than her.

After ordering, Yan Xi took her to wash her hands before they sat down.

She had ordered a Kids’ Meal A—mashed potatoes, an egg tart, small fries, and a small Nine Treasures Fruit Juice.²² She also got her the meal toy. For herself, she just got a burger combo.

The moment Anzhi saw the toy, she forgot all about her hunger, her eyes shining. Yan Xi helped her open it.

It was a little white rabbit with a small blush on each cheek, holding a drum. When you pressed it, its paws began to beat the drum. Dong dong dong dong.

Anzhi’s little face was flushed red under the lights. She wiggled excitedly in her chair, a little disbelieving. “Is this for me?”

Yan Xi watched her with a smile. “Of course it’s for you. Are you a Rabbit?”

Anzhi cupped the rabbit in both hands, the dimple²³ on her right cheek deepening. Her round, dark eyes curved into crescents. “Mhm!”

---

---