Chapter 14

  He was Lu You. Wearing a black down jacket, with a deep gray plaid scarf around his neck. His skin was fair and smooth, with short hair that was neatly combed back, and a pair of light brown-framed glasses perched on the end of his nose, which he pushed up awkwardly before clearing his throat softly.

  I quickly let go of him and apologized: "Sorry. It's probably a bit cold in the carriage... I'm really sorry."

  He was still blushing and said: "Otherwise, you and I will swap positions. Inside, you can sleep on your stomach."

  I was wide awake and shook my head saying: "No need. You sleep, I'm really sorry just now, I might have thought you were the wall of the car."

  He smiled lightly: "I've already slept during the day, you sleep for a while. Otherwise, it's going to be tough around 3 or 4 o'clock."

  No wonder I didn't notice his existence during the day, it turned out he was sleeping all that time.

  "I thought for a moment and replied: 'Alright then, thank you so much.'"

  The long night was dragging on, and after all this commotion, I couldn't sleep at all, but instead became more and more awake. I turned my head to look at Lu You, who was quietly flipping through a GRE vocabulary book, with a notebook next to him that had a prominent "B" logo on it.

  "Are you also from B University?"

  He looked up at me: "Uh-huh."

  I'm delighted: "So we're alumni! I'm a senior at B University, majoring in Business Administration from the School of Management. What about you?"

  "I'm also from GuanYuan, I came here this year to study for a master's degree in finance."

  I and Lu You started chatting like this, talked all night until the next day when other classmates woke up one after another, I actively introduced him to fellow friends.

  In fact, he didn't say much, and many times it was me asking him questions or lightly laughing in silence. But even so, I still got a good grasp of his personal information. Lu You's hometown is in Jiahe County, Hunan Province, adjacent to Xinjiang County where we were going for volunteer teaching, he majored in economics at Central South University in Hunan Province, and was admitted as a graduate student majoring in finance at B University, in the same college as me.

  The finance major is the most popular in the School of Management because of its good employment prospects. To put it bluntly, the graduates from this department have salaries that far exceed the average salary of our school; therefore, the competition for graduate school places is very fierce. I think: Lu You is probably one of the best students at Central South University.

  There is no direct train from City B to Xin Tian County, we have to get off at Changsha and then take a long-distance bus to Xin Tian. Lu You and I are traveling together, along the way, he occasionally translates for me, telling me what the Hunan people on the bus are loudly chatting about.

  Outside the car window are fields and hills, with large tracts of rapeseed flower fields, the scenery is very good. The car has been driving for about an hour or so, and snowflakes have started to fall outside the window, it's starting to snow.

  It's rare to see snow in the south, and such a big snowfall is even rarer. The Hunan fellow passengers on the bus were all excited, pressing their faces against the window to watch the snowflakes dancing in the sky, their joyful expressions uncontainable. Due to the snow, the bus had a hard time driving, and our journey was delayed by several hours. What normally takes 9 hours took much longer today.

  The next morning, with a shout from the driver, I opened my eyes in a daze and arrived at Jiahe County.

  Lu You patted his backpack and waved goodbye: "I'll leave first, you guys have fun in Hunan."

  "Then when are you going back to school..." My words hadn't finished, he had already gotten off the bus and left, from my angle I could only see his back, clearly making people reluctant to forget.

  The car slowly started, driving through the urban area of Jiahe County. The snow had stopped the night before, and Jiahe County was still sleeping in the accumulated snow, peaceful and quiet. Later when I traveled to the UK, I often thought of Lu You's hometown, although it couldn't compare with the exotic atmosphere of European towns, but Jiahe Town always existed in a corner of my memory.

  Years have passed, and this small town has preserved every trace of Lu You's life from birth to adulthood.

  His hometown I have been there three times. The first time was passing by, the second time was staying for a while, and the last time was going there gladly.

  The time interval between the second and first was not long, because after finishing the winter aid teaching, we returned to Changsha along the original road, and then went back home separately. On the way, I still passed through Jiahe County, and suddenly felt very hungry, feeling that if I didn't get off the bus at this station to eat a meal and stroll around, I would be very regretful.

  None of my classmates agreed with what I did.

  Finally, I bid farewell to them and got off the bus alone. From the moment I stepped onto Jiahewei Station, I started to feel nervous, as if there was a promise at every turn or intersection, expecting that kind of "unexpected encounter" would really happen.

  Ordered a few stir-fries at the roadside restaurant, Hunan cuisine is really spicy, even the tomato and egg soup seems to have chili peppers in it. Eating it in winter is indeed warm and cozy, after finishing one meal, I was sweating profusely from the spiciness.

  Jiahew County is not big, from the head of the small town to the other end, it's just an hour's walk. Near the Spring Festival, the small town has a stronger festive atmosphere than B City, this metropolis. Every household and business unit at the door posted couplets, children wearing cotton-padded jackets covering their ears on the road set off firecrackers, in the bustling area of the town center, there are New Year's goods stalls, hanging all kinds of Spring Festival lanterns.

  Many townspeople have come out to buy New Year's goods, and the streets are bustling.

  I don't understand my own behavior, seeing every person wearing a black down jacket can't help but take a few more glances, but that kind of "destined to meet in the vast crowd" plot is always fabricated.

  Since this plot cannot occur naturally, I had to let it happen passively. Without even thinking of an excuse for why I came to Jiahew County, I gave Lu You a call.

  Listening to the long beep on the phone, my heart felt like it was being pinched, tightening and loosening. Actually, I wasn't very sure if he had remembered my name correctly when I told him my phone number.

  After it rang for a while, no one answered. I hung up the phone and felt a little disappointed in my heart, but also thought that this was good, this was the best: otherwise, how would I bring up the topic of meeting with him, as someone who had only met on a train?

  Fu An Dong often says I'm shameless. When we go out to eat and sometimes order gelatinous pork skin, he'll use his chopsticks to poke at the pork skin and tease me saying: "Xu Shen Shen, your face skin should be used to make pig skin jelly, it's definitely more than this serving size."

  But even if I was bolder, when Lu You's phone call came back, I still jumped in fright and stood tensely on the spot.