Chapter 23: Pinky Swear

Life is filled with an endless succession of difficult questions that plague us from beginning to end. From birth until death, doubt is a constant companion. For instance, when your parents take you out to dinner and tell you to wear something nice.

What exactly constitutes ‘something nice’?

An uncertainty is born in that instant. Should we seek the answer from within ourselves, or from others? Is it right to be true to yourself, or is it better to conform to the crowd? These are the kinds of questions we face.

If you delve deep enough, nearly every action can be judged as right or wrong, good or bad. Is this way better? Was that a mistake? Some decisions are as fleeting and insignificant as passing clouds, while others carry the weight of a lifetime. Sometimes, one wrong step can ruin everything, leading to endless nights of regret. In the quiet darkness, you replay it all in your mind, imagining another possibility.

It’s agonizing. Anyone who has experienced it knows the depth of that pain. And so, to soothe my own wounds, I devised a method to confront life’s ceaseless challenges.

My solution is to believe that these questions have no correct answers. Every query posed by the world, by society, by everyone else—none of them has a right answer. No matter what you choose, you are wrong. It starts from the moment you take your first faltering steps as a child. Your parents stand in two different spots, coaxing you to come to one of them, a test to see who you love more. If you choose your mother, you hurt your father. If you choose your father, you hurt your mother. In the end, any choice is a mistake. Better to just sit there, inert and helpless. That is the perfect solution.

No one gets hurt. No one makes a mistake.

****

“Shit, Brother Yi, we have a problem.”

The moment I stepped into the classroom, I saw Huang Zhouyu in a state of panic. To prevent myself from getting worked up over what was likely nothing, I first walked past him to my seat and took out the textbooks for the afternoon classes.

“Listen to me,” he said, chasing after me. “Old… Old Gao, he…”

“Gao Qinghong is screwed. You already told me that at lunch.”

“No, not that,” Huang Zhouyu stammered, which was rare for him. “Dammit, just listen to me…”

I said nothing more. He immediately draped an arm over my shoulder and turned my head toward the classroom window. Leaning against it was a tall guy grinning foolishly at his phone screen. The sight was a little nauseating.

“Old Gao got the Class Monitor’s QQ…”

“That’s great, isn’t it?”

“Great, my ass!”

Huang Zhouyu was practically jumping out of his skin. What on earth had him so worked up?

“No, Brother Yi, your EQ is too low to understand the implications,” he said, resting his face on my shoulder, his head popping into my peripheral vision. “Listen up. There’s no way the Class Monitor is interested in Gao Qinghong. If this keeps up, something bad is going to happen.”

“How do you know so much?”

“My EQ is high.”

What a concise, powerful, and self-assured response.

“So, what are you referring to,” I asked, glancing at Gao Qinghong’s sickening smile by the window, then at the Class Monitor’s still-empty seat. “This so-called ‘bad thing’.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not awesome enough to predict the future. But I’m telling you, something will definitely happen. Absolutely, one hundred percent, something will happen.”

****

Even after school, I could still recall Huang Zhouyu’s bizarre expression, like some grand prophet from a video game, and the cryptic warning in his words. Gao Qinghong had gotten Tang Xiaoxiao’s contact information, which meant their relationship had progressed. Romantically, that should be a good thing. So why did Huang Zhouyu react that way? Did he not approve of them? Or was there something else, some deeper, hidden story?

I had no way of knowing. Whether it was Gao Qinghong, Tang Xiaoxiao, or even Huang Zhouyu, I knew far too little about any of them.

My hand was already on the doorknob of the club room. As I turned it, the sound of a girl’s laughter drifted out. I pushed the door open, revealing the room’s layout and a group of girls sitting in various odd positions. At the same time, I was exposed to them.

There were about five of them. Yu Tianman sat furthest from the door, directly facing it. The other four could only be described as scattered—one was lying on the sofa, one was perched on a desk, and another was sitting on the windowsill.

“Who are you?” a long-haired girl with a high forehead asked with a frown, clearly annoyed that I had interrupted their lively conversation.

“Ah, this is my club member,” Yu Tianman explained before I could. “Yi Chang, from Class E. He joined two weeks ago.”

“Why’d you let a boy in?” a girl with pigtails that drooped like puppy ears chimed in. “And he’s only looking for a club in the second semester? He must have ulterior motives.” With that, she shot me a glare.

The glares from the other girls weren’t exactly friendly either. I had merely opened a door, and now I was being inexplicably threatened, distrusted, and judged… What a cruel world.

“Well, his homeroom teacher came and asked me at first,” she explained. “Then I checked him out myself and confirmed that he’s a well-behaved and perfectly normal boy, so I let him join.”

“You can’t be too careless, Xiaoman,” the girl on the windowsill said, hopping down to stand beside her. “No matter what kind of guy he is, if a girl shows him even a little bit of kindness, he’ll think he has a chance and start getting ideas. Especially with a beauty like you. What guy wouldn’t be mesmerized?”

“Alright, alright, stop saying bad things about him right in front of him. I know what I’m doing,” she said with a shy smile. “And please don’t call me a great beauty anymore. It’s embarrassing.”

While they were talking, I quietly found a spot at the corner of a desk, only to lock eyes with the girl lying on the sofa. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, looking like she had just woken up. Her hair, shorter than some boys’, seemed familiar.

“Aren’t you that guy from our class…” Her eyes darted around. “Sorry, forgot your name.”

“Yi Chang,” I said.

“Ah, right, right,” she said, tapping her forehead. “What are you doing here?”

“This is my club room.”

“Huh? I thought our Go club wasn’t accepting new members,” she said, looking toward the girl with the high forehead, who I now presumed was the president or held some other position.

“You must have slept your brain away,” the girl retorted. “We’re in the Leisure Club’s room.”

Just as she didn’t know my name, I didn’t know hers. But as a classmate, I had a vague impression of her. I seemed to recall her getting into an argument with a boy with a center-parted hairstyle and landing a couple of punches on him. I couldn’t remember the reason why.

“So he’s the new member you mentioned,” she said, turning to Tianman. “Isn’t it boring hanging out with such a quiet type?”

Yu Tianman offered a strained smile.

“Douya, he’s in your class?” the twin-tailed girl asked. “What’s he like? How many girlfriends has he had?”

“Haha, ‘how many’,” she chuckled. “He barely talks to anyone… Oh, wait, he seems to be hanging out with a few guys recently, but he’s still a total shut-in. If you don’t talk to him, he’ll never say a word.”

“Is he autistic?”

“…I don’t think so,” she said, glancing at me tentatively. “You’re not, are you? If you are, I’ll apologize right now. I’ll even kowtow if you want.”

“No,” I said. According to my aunt, who was a psychiatrist, I just had some kind of psychological barrier, not a mental illness.

“Phew, that’s a relief,” she said, breathing out.

The girl’s boisterous movements and the nickname ‘Douya’ jogged my memory. I think I had heard about that incident with her somewhere—in a corner of the restroom, or during a break in the classroom, overheard from the idle chatter of other girls…

“Hey, Yi Chang,” she said. “My friend wants to know how many girlfriends you’ve had. I couldn’t say, so why don’t you tell her?”

Douya, Douya. That name sounded so familiar.

“Come on, Yi Chang. It’s not often someone’s interested in you. Just answer her,” Yu Tianman chimed in for some reason, her own interest clearly piqued. “Even though I couldn’t care less about this sort of thing, since she asked, you should just tell them.”

Why were girls always so fascinated by such utterly boring personal matters?

“I’ve never had one. Not a single one.”

The moment the words left my mouth.

“See? Told you.”

“He looks the type.”

“Haha, no way someone like him has ever been in a relationship.”

“Seriously? Are there really people who’ve never dated? Don’t just believe him, Xiaoman.”

The girls chattered away, a cacophony of giggles, doubts, and gossip. Yu Tianman was caught in the middle, clearly a bit overwhelmed by them but, for some reason, also very happy.

Ignoring their noise, I tried to recall more about my classmate nicknamed Douya. I could have just asked, but it wasn’t essential. It wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t remember.

Well, of course, the moment I thought that, I remembered.

Her real name was Bai Rouya. ‘Douya’ was a pun on her name, and most of her friends in class called her that. As for the fight I mentioned, one of her best friends had confessed to that center-parted boy. He then spent a month without giving her a clear answer—no firm yes, no firm no—leaving her hanging while he went and found himself a girlfriend.

After listening to her friend cry her heart out, Bai Rouya was so furious she confronted the boy right there in the classroom. Words were barely exchanged before fists started flying. The boy, being in the wrong, was too ashamed to fight back, and a few other students tried to intervene. Still, it blew up into a huge scene. Bai Rouya’s tirade of curses could be heard down the entire hallway. She broke free from her classmates’ grasp several times to land a couple more punches, and they ended up wrestling, sending desks scattering across the room like shuffled mahjong tiles.

Yes, even I, who had been napping at my desk, was startled awake. I was about to go get a teacher, but the Class Monitor had already arrived with Brother Hai.

The outcome of that incident, if I remembered correctly, was that Bai Rouya was disciplined for fighting, while the center-parted boy, having not thrown a punch, simply had his parents called in for a lecture. The work of an educator is remarkably simple, I must say.

Afterward, everyone in class acted as if it never happened. Life went on. The commotion changed nothing and affected no one. The teachers were only responsible for standing at the podium and telling students to behave and focus on their studies. The incident became just another amusing story for students to tell over lunch. The center-parted boy remained as shameless as ever, while the girl who had confessed became much more cautious, her heart no longer so easily given away.

“Senior, I found the keys,” a girl said, pushing the door open.

“Great, go on and open the door,” the girl with the high forehead replied, then turned to Yu Tianman. “We’re heading back then. We’ll chat on WeChat later.”

“Okay, take care,” Yu Tianman said with a smile.

After the senior got up to leave, the others followed. As they left, each one turned to wave goodbye to Yu Tianman. The girl with the pigtails seemed especially reluctant to leave. The last one out was Bai Rouya, who looked just as sleepy as before, yawning as she went. Though she wore a placid expression, I had a feeling that deep down, she was still seething with indignation.

Once they were all gone, Yu Tianman spoke softly. “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes downcast. “They were just joking with you… I should have said more good things about you, told them you’re different.”

“Is that so? You should have?” What a strange choice of words. “Except for my classmate, I’ll probably never see those other girls again. It makes no difference whether they understand me or not.”

“That’s not the point.”

What was the point, then? I looked at her.

“I… as the club president, I should have stood up for my member, but I didn’t.”

“You already explained. It’s their problem they didn’t believe you. You don’t need to act like you owe me anything.”

“But…” She stood up and sat down beside me, her glistening eyes shimmering with gentleness and affection. “Yi Chang, didn’t it bother you when they talked about you like that?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Other people are just other people. Their thoughts, their prejudices—that’s all on them. I don’t feel a thing.”

“But I do.”

A sharp pang shot through my heart, a warning that I had done something wrong.

“Yi Chang, you always look so indifferent, so I hesitate to speak on your behalf. But if you had just shown a little reaction, I would have, I definitely would have stood by your side and spoken up for you.”

What would be the point of that?

“So, next time, you have to speak up, okay?”

I couldn’t bring myself to meet Yu Tianman’s gaze, but I could feel how close she was. I could feel the moisture of her eyes in the air, could hear the faint sound of her quickened breath. I felt a surge of irritation, an inexplicable discomfort in my chest.

“Okay,” I said, wanting to quell that feeling.

“Then pinky promise,” she said, holding out her little finger. “Promise me.”

I extended my own pinky and hooked it with hers, our fingers curling and intertwining.

“Pinky swear, hope to die,” we chanted in unison, the childish rhyme stirring a faint sense of nostalgia. “Stick a needle in your eye.”

“It’s a promise, then,” she said. “From now on, if someone says something bad about you, you have to argue back. And I’ll stand up for you, too.”

“Is that it?” I felt like something was missing. “Is there no penalty for breaking the promise?”

“No penalty,” she smiled. “I trust you’ll do it, and I trust I will too.”