Fleeting Midsummer

Fang Yuke’s Outside Addition

Author's Note: This sheet of additional time comes before the summer vacation time. If you didn’t read the whole book in one breath, then you better review or recall some past happenings, in relation to the reading.

———————————————My very pesky dividing line———————————————

The first time I met her, she was catching little green bugs and secretly putting them in the hats of her little child classmates. When she was discovered by me, she opened her eyes wide like she was about to threaten to me. I didn’t pay attention to her, and I didn’t warn those poor unfortunate people.

At that time, my parents were arguing over a divorce. To let me be less influenced by all this, granny especially sent me to a different kindergarten in a little town. I was very precocious. Perhaps it had come out from an environment where the adults were always fighting. I am someone who likes peace and quiet, and who will stay in a place where no one else is, like playing with rocks or looking at the sky. Mother always said I had mild signs of autism, and tried to make me happier. But wasn’t she the person who- no matter how much she looked into the mirror and coaxed herself to be happy, no genuine happiness had bloomed?

I was a transfer student, so I could safely enjoy other people being strange and cold to me. Because I was unfamiliar, no one said I was a freak. They only left me more alone, that’s all. I unexpectedly assimilated into this noisy big environment, and enjoyed my peace.

The second day, she came to seize my clothes. She wanted me to be one of her soldiers. The reward was that I could borrow her most precious submachine gun and touch it for a moment. I still ignored her. I was not fond of noisy people.

The third day, she put bugs into my rice bowl and proudly looked at me and laughed. I grabbed the bugs and put them into her bowl, trying to agitate her, but I still didn’t speak to her. I’ll admit that at the time, I was provoking her. After I finished, I also felt that I was a pretty boring person. She didn’t speak and only glared her food and stared blankly. Then, she lifted her fat hand: “Reporting to the teacher!” I thought she would tell on me, so I coldly looked at her. Girls loved to tattletale the most, so she might as well be a little more idiotic and accuse me in the moment. The teacher who wore sharp pointy high heels slowly walked over and sweetly said, “Zhou Lin Lin classmate, is anything wrong?”

“Reporting to the teacher, today, the uncle that made the food didn’t clean the rice properly. There are bugs in it.” As she said this, she clasped the bugs in her chopsticks and waved them around in the air for the teacher to see. The teacher was a young woman who had just graduated from school. When she saw the live bugs, she got so scared that she became pale. The classmates around us still hadn’t understood the circumstances, so when they heard the screams, they all began to cry.

Unintentionally, we became a team, messing with the teacher and our classmates~~

Original and most updated translations are from volaretranslations. Please read this from volarenovels.com

Before school got out, I waited for my granny to come pick me up. I remember the weather on that day exceptionally clearly. It was the rainy weather that typically came before a typhoon. The communication around the whole little town was paralyzed.The kindergarten teachers notified all the parents they could notify. This meant that the school vacated the students’s beds and lodging, and crammed them together, so that the parents would not have to come and take the risk to pick us up.

But I still stubbornly stood in the eaves of the school entrance and waited for my granny. When I was little the person I was most dependant on was my granny because I thought my parents had abandoned me, and did not want me anymore. If my granny, who loved me the most also did not want me anymore then I had nothing else to recall fondly.

The rain fell extremely hard. It penetrated the thick hanging screens, as I anxiously waited. The teacher urged me to return, and said that she had already informed my granny, and that it would be too inconvenient to come over. So she wanted to make me feel at ease and live here for a night. I suddenly became unruly and cried while calling out for my grandma. Because I was afraid.

She walked over, and hugged me: “All right, all right. Tonight, I’ll sleep with you. Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid.” When she finished, she suddenly hummed a nursery rhyme: Rockabye, rock into the grandma bridge, grandma calls me a good darling…...I gradually stopped crying, and wiped my face as I crouched under the eaves and watched the rain. Her soft and immature clear voice was like that rain. In my heart, holes one after another were chiselled.

At night, sure enough, she lay with me on the same bed. She definitely didn’t think that after a certain numbers of years when I entered her life again, we would begin again from the same room. But at that moment, she ran to the outskirts of the dorm and told her friends that she had fallen in love with a boy. It was a pity it was not me.

On the bed, she hugged me like she was hugging a doll. I smelled a hint of perfumed soap, that was just as fresh and clean as she was. She pouted and told me that in fact, she was not here to accompany me. She was also afraid, especially of typhoons that could cause power outages and water shortages. With someone that would let her hug her, she was no longer afraid too.

She even secretly thanked me, and said that in the future, if she could change into a man, she would marry me. I did not know if the “change into” meant in her next lifetime, or if she had mistaken my gender. Could my eyelashes that were a little long and my eyes that seemed big really confuse people into being unable to distinguish myself between a girl and boy? It was only that I had never thought that ten years later, she still had her own unique methods to propose to me. I still didn’t know how to face this. Everytime, when she would carelessly say those kinds of things,I would really envy her. I wasn’t someone who was very sensitive, but every time I heard her say these things, I would always get extremely nervous. As for her, she lived in her own happy world, free and unfettered. She easily controlled my thoughts and made me feel very out of control. Thus, I envied her. Wen Tao wasn’t wrong. I was a coward. I had too many misgivings, and I worried too much about personal gains and losses which made many opportunities slip by, one by one. If only I could learn from her bizarreness. When she proposed to me, I should have immediately agreed and then pulled her to the civil administration office to register our marriage. This way, she would never joke in front of me randomly, and provoke me, right?

At night when we slept, she was very peaceful, but it was just that she drew me towards me. Being with her after she had tugged at the quilt so much was not quite the same. I didn’t know if she had been more obedient because she had someone to hug. But, in the morning when we got up from bed, her hair still stood up like a bird’s nest. She confusedly looked at me like she was looking at an alien.

In the next few days, I didn’t enjoy the delight of being a loner anymore. I followed behind her, watching her fume towards the toy gun that she stole from the neighbor that she had broke. At that time, I wanted to grow some more abilities to eliminate many malfunctions. Later, I fell in love with computers, and when I helped others fix bugs one after another, I would think of her at that time, when she was thwarted. I had prepared for so many years but only now did she want me to help her buy a computer. At that time, she held a lofty A disk in front of the computer, so dumb she didn’t know what to do. Later, she would toot her horn and pretend she was an experienced person now. In fact, I was worried whether the thick-skinned her would investigate when I had begun this, and so on. Fortunately she didn’t, and we could probably wait to discuss this until after marriage. Hehe. In hindsight, the trembling appearance she had towards Ru Ting when she treated me to a meal at the canteen, made me really mad. Everytime she would yell that she was a fearless and unequalled King Kong beautiful maiden, but in front of other beauties, she would display an inferior attitude. This type of self-abasement made her meticulously curry favor with other people, as she catered to the other person. I didn’t like her like that. No matter what she became, I did not care. Even if a big bump grew on her head, she was still the girl in my heart. I didn’t even mind whether she grew up to become an immortal deity or a country bumpkin. When we were on the bus, she stubbornly said to emphasize the beautifulness in one’s heart and to furthermore, detest bogus people and things. I really wanted to assist her, but every time I was on the verge of speaking my mind, it changed into jeering. Maybe I had also become stupid. When I was with her, my IQ was also reduced to the very lowest. With that said, ever since I bought her that computer, she did not find me to fix her computer or whatnot. This made me feel very rejected. If I had known it would be like this earlier, I would create some bugs in her computer. As I thought like this, I wondered if I was becoming an idiot just like her...

I stayed at this kindergarten for only a month. My mother felt that there were not enough qualified teachers at the kindergarten, so she transferred me back to the original kindergarten. Adults will never understand what little kids want. There were no differences between the ‘80s kindergarten. She only wanted to create some affairs. At that time, my mother was too lonely. She always thought of weird things to do.

In the beginning, I wouldn’t agree no matter what. I had already adapted to this area. Suddenly, the idea of a sociable life was a novelty to me. Capturing the bugs with her and making mischief, and charging into battle with her, I was very content. This was to the extent that I no longer relied on my granny so much. Every time my granny came to pick me up, I would always feel a thread of reluctance. Contrarily, when her parents came to pick her up, she would always drop everything and throw herself into their embrace. Being with her in this place was just as trying as getting imprisoned. She was indeed not fit to stay within a fenced area. Thus, when I was in high school, and saw that her performance result would unexpectedly go up to the top 20th place, I felt like a mishap had occurred. Had I underestimated her, or underestimated God’s power?

The strength of adults will always be stronger than that of children. Not a lot of time had passed after I transferred schools before I moved again. Now we were even farther away from that kindergarten district. I was in a new kindergarten and I also slowly began to learn how to fit in. I learned how to talk to other children, but I couldn’t seem to be as delighted as I had been in the past. But no matter what, I gradually grew up, and I also gradually became more open and optimistic, as I became willing to make friends with others. For example, my neighbor Xiao Xi, and Ru Ting who moved in later. Xiao Xi was a sensible big brother. As a child, he knew what he wanted to study and what he wanted to become. Our ideals as children were tricking the adults into thinking that we all wanted to become scientists, mathematicians and so on when we grew up. Actually, not even we could distinguish definitively between a scientist and a mathematician. Xiao Xi had already decided he wanted to become a doctor, a surgeon especially, an angel clothed in white who helped the dead and healed the injured. However, the day before the Gaokao, because of his beloved girl, he gave up on his dream of going to a medical school,and chose to go into economy. He only wanted to fight alongside her. In the end, this woman flew with another boy towards America, leaving behind a lonely soul, who recalled the past fondly, laden with grief. Would I be like Xiao Xi?

Ru Ting had always loved to follow me around ever since she was little, just like how I had been willing to follow her backside [Lin Lin] around in the past. Even though children should begin to mature in elementary school, I still mischievously put bugs into her [Ru Ting] bowl. She was so scared that she began to cry incessantly, her throat almost going hoarse. I didn’t want to apologize either. This was the first time granny hit me because of her. She said that our family owed their family a great deal. If it hadn’t been for their help, maybe I wouldn’t have a father. I hated the way adults handled these kinds of things. We engrave another person’s goodness in our memory, but we cannot allow this to make us petty and low. Every time we had dealings with them, and treated them as an honored guest, it all made me exhausted. Putting bugs into her bowl was the only way I had to challenge her. If she was like her, who met the enemy head-on, perhaps we would really have hope of becoming relatives by marriage just like how granny had always thought. Thus, my girl was unique and unmatched. In the first year of university, she and Ru Ting fought in my dorm. Ru Ting hysterically cried, while I only sympathized with her. However, when I saw Lin Lin stubbornly wiping her tears, I felt that my heart had sank. I really wanted to imagine her hugging me when we were little and telling me: “All right all right.” Unfortunately, in front of everyone, she said she liked Xiao Xi. When her candid expression looked at Xiao Xi, with such purity, it made me fall into an abyss. She was always more courageous than me at expressing her feelings, so I still envied her. Actually, when I was helping her cram for computer class, I really wanted to tell her that the few days I had with her were the happiest days of my twenty years. I saw her glare at me, offended and half confused, as she asked me another question very carefully. After that, beaten and exhausted, she fell onto my bed. When she fell onto my bed, her right hand would still grasp her pen tightly. When I forgot to take it out for her, her pen would fall onto my bed and draw an ink and wash painting. Unfortunately, she could not see her masterpiece, because I had never dared to let her see it. If I let her see it, perhaps I would be unable to stop myself from confessing to her: The ink on the blankets can no longer be washed out, just like how the deep marks she had left on my heart could no longer be wiped away. When she pretended she had an extremely lofty manner and told Xiao Xi, she wanted to be his sunshine, and she wanted to dispel the shadow in his life, I could only shudder and ask them to leave sooner, including Ru Ting who had just cried, completely smashed. Because if this were to continue on, I was unable to ascertain if I would cry, emotionally unrestrained.

When I was in elementary school, I didn’t see her at all. I thought that I would never be able to see her again in this whole lifetime. When I thought of her facial features, it became more and more blurred. I was no longer sure if she had a small birthmark on her forehead or if she liked to pout her mouth. I only kept remembering that scene when she hugged me and said, “It’s okay, it’s okay”. Basically, I had even thought that I would forget this history. I thought this was only a long theatrical interlude in my long life. But how come every time I heard someone sing “Rockabye, rockabye onto the treetop”, I would still be laden with grief and expectations for no reason?

Original and most updated translations are from volaretranslations. Please read this from volarenovels.com

In middle school, my parents became reconciled with one another. Our whole family moved into a new neighborhood. Even though my next door neighbor, Shan Shan was older than me by quite a few years, he still became one of my good friends. He liked to collect every kind of submachine gun. He even said that when he was little, his guns were always getting stolen. Whenever he saw a gun now, he would strangely want to grab it back. He always blamed his neighbor from his childhood for being too powerful which made him grow this eccentricity. At the time, the first person I thought of was her. She had a unique state of mind towards guns. I blurted and asked what that person was called. My heart began to move emotionally, like I had buried something inside extremely deep that suddenly wanted to break out and see the light again. Whan Shan Shan spoke her name, my heart beat like a drum. I insisted on making him let me see that person’s picture. Shan Shan looked at me like he was seeing a weirdo. I knew I was abnormal, but there was no other way. She was right. Maybe emotions were a type of obsession. For the sake of this obsession, I was trapped in a quagmire. Until now, it had not been pulled out. I looked at the simple smile in the picture, still dressed in the uniform of elementary school. Her incisors had just fallen out, and her new teeth hadn’t grown in yet. She laughed wantonly towards Shan Shan whose face was covered in mud. Great, great, I took the photo away like I had discovered a baby. Then, I put it in the innermost pocket of my wallet. When I was feeling very bad, I would always pull it out, just like a sedative, just like chicken soup. After I looked at it, my heart would be at ease.

From Shan Shan, I found out about all the schools she had on her list for high school. I stopped myself from secretly going to find her. I thought of this for so many years. I definitely could no longer recognize her, but I still took a leave of absence from my school, and stubbornly went to her school. I worriedly searched in her classroom. At that moment, class dismissed so the classroom was full of heads that were clumped together. I nervously scanned everyone’s figure in my line of sight, but I still did not find her. I sadly thought, could it be possible that I was pursuing a phantom? Maybe she was no longer the person she was from a long time ago and I was only living in my own created dream. When the class bell rang, I prepared to disappear from this place. Outside the classroom window, I saw a sleeping face that faced me. The breeze blew past as her bangs lightly swayed. The lines on her face were not as resolute as before, with a few additional gentle curves. The class bell didn’t influence her at all. Her eyelids only slightly trembled. I worried that she would wake up soon, but she was still just as quiet as she slept like an angel. I emotionally stood to the other side. That distant dreamland was so real in a flash, almost as if I could reach it if I reached out my hand. Her desk-mate suddenly woke her up and she woke up, frightened. When she saw that everyone else was standing, and greeting the teacher, she also stood up, panicking. After she sat down, she began to overturn trunks and boxes to seek her textbook. I really wanted to laugh, and come closer to her to touch her hair. I wanted to hug her in my embrace. This was the first time I soberly understood that this was called a stirring heart. This was love.

As I wandered aimlessly in her school, I suddenly felt that the whole sky had become sunny and cloudless. The whole school had become close and dear as if the places where she had been had become like paradise, emitting golden rays of light. Later, every week I would ride my bike to her school. Sometimes I could watch her from afar. Sometimes I could only stroll around in the school. My emotions towards this school far surpassed my emotions towards my alma mater. I clearly knew when the first magnolia bloomed in this school and which tree had a newly constructed swallow nest on it, as well as when she would laugh heartily to her heart’s content, as well as when she would be alone and distressed. Occasionally, I would go to their canteen to eat and meet her mumbling to herself as she gorged herself like hungry African people** who cut a sorry figure. Everyday, she would eat a chicken leg and a small platter of red braised pork. Thus that time when she invited me to eat at the canteen, I ordered these few dishes. She cleared it all off, like always.

The sad thing was that she had not recognized me, despite the fact that I stood in front of her, watching her. She only silently walked past and then secretly said, “Wow, did you see that hot guy?” to the person beside her. After the person beside her nodded, she said, “How can you be so calm when you see hot guys? I was practically on fire.” I laughed. She always had ways to make me laugh. Later, when her brains made a sudden turn, and she spoke corny jokes to me, I always wanted to laugh a lot. But I still pretended I was very angry . She restlessly admitted to committing a mistake. Even though I would admit that her ways were a little strange, she indeed had her own exclusive means. She forever had no ways to make me angry, even if she had explained the kissing matter in a hideous mess. I threatened her and told her she could not drink in front of anyone else. I was afraid after she lost her self-control, she would kiss someone else. I could not indulge her in this. I stared blankly watching her get drunk two times. Every time she got drunk, she would torment me. The first time after she got drunk, Ru Ting made me help her go to the supermarket to get something to drink, but I didn’t think that we would meet her. At that time, she and Xiao Xi would eat together every week. I knew that it was impossible for them to be together. Sooner or later, she would have to face this reality, but I had no way to let her know. I obviously knew the feeling of heartache. But I still envied Xiao Xi. Jealousy is a terrible thing. When I saw her rush towards Ru Ting and get angry, I also ignited. Perhaps, anger in the midst of bad things is contagious. I persevered in telling her to apologizing without backing down, as if her retreat could make me feel better. However, when she really retreated and bended down literally to apologize and pay the bills, I stayed where I was. I saw the beeront he counter and I watched as she hurriedly sought her wallet. I saw her dim-wittedly crying. I saw her weirdly dashing out. Then I knew that I could never think of harming her. Because at the same time that I hurt her, I also hurt myself. Maybe I was not yet conjoined with her, but she was my heart.

Original and most updated translations are from volaretranslations. Please read this from volarenovels.com

I tried to call her again and again. The ringtone rang over and over. But she didn’t pick up. I bumped into the wall out of my anxiety. When I thought of her sorry manner, the uneasiness I felt was stirred yet again. So much so that I even called Xiao Xi and asked him if he knew where she was. Xiao Xi was at a loss and said he did not know. My heart became more panicky. At that moment, I had begun to expect that she would find Xiao Xi and cry to him. And this was better than being alone. When the phone connected, my voice trembled as I asked her where she was. I could only repeat my question. She was right. I had changed into a recording machine. Ever since I met her, I had lost my logic, and I could not clearly ponder over everything. This was really a bad habit. I accompanied her in drinking cans of beer. I heard her speak of her romance, and her love at first sight as well as her disappointment and frustration at her failure. As for me, I could only be the audience, as my heart trickled blood, and yet was incapable of emitting a sound. When I took her home, she laid on the bed and would not stop crying. One moment she would call her mommy, and the next, she would ask to return home like a little child having tantrums. I could only hug her: “It’s okay, it’s okay. At the most, I’ll accompany you and go to sleep with you.” Then, I sung “Rockabye, Rockabye onto the treetop” to her. I was really like a fool, only knowing how to use what she had given to me before to comfort her. I already had no other methods.

The second time she got drunk, the scene was already controlled. I did not think that she would wantonly kiss me. After the kiss, she laid on the table, like she had done nothing. Only me, the idiot was left, standing for a long time where I was. I could smell that soapy scent from our childhood. I could smell that fragrance, despite the initial alcohol scent that almost concealed it. She was like a monkey that hung on my body, lightly speaking words of endearment that only I could hear. The instincts of a man made me feel a bit impetuous, but she wanted to take off my clothes, completely lost. Shan Shan stood at the side, shocked. I let Shan Shan go home by himself and then cajoled her, as I took her out of the seafood restaurant. Besides the seafood restaurant was a guest house. The secretary enthusiastically walked towards me, causing me to be in a difficult situation as I carried her and ran. If there weren’t any cab drivers that would pick us up, I wanted to call a friend to ask them to pick us up, but I was afraid that she would get hyped up in front of an audience. We walked like this, the summer breeze billowing. She laid on my back. I was very blessed. Occasionally, she would nibble my ear, and seize my hair. I was suffering from her ill treatment, so I could only yell at her: “You’ll regret it if you continue on like this.” She foolishly laughed and patted my face and said, “I feel like I know you. Maybe from a long long time ago. Before we had memories, we knew each other.” My heart became gentle and warm. No matter what she did, I no longer cared. Originally I wanted to pamper her. If she didn’t make a fuss how could I pamper her?

When we reached the dorm, she was singing and hopping loudly, as she told the whole world that she had found a hot guy and they were about to sleep on the same bed. I didn’t mind her saying such things. I even wished I could make that into a reality. However, I only wanted her to be sober so that this could really occur. When we were going into high school, I was determined on going to visit my grandfather’s school because I was sure that she would go there. Finally, we were underneath the same blue sky. She chose liberal arts. I chose the sciences. I knew that high school was not the time to get into a relationship and I did not wish to influence her, and I did not hope for myself to get too influenced either, despite the preparations I had done to go to the same university with her. One day, I saw her rant about my honor rolls and notices in front of my achievement reports as if she was reading from an obituary. I really wanted to laugh. She was always someone who played down everything and was extremely witty. At the canteen, I saw her eating meat in big bites. Then, the next day, pimples grew all over her face. She didn’t care about fat in the least, so it seemed like it had grown on someone else’s body. I thought that she had prepared to walk towards a spoiled direction. If this were to continued to be spoiled, no one would want her. Then, I could only collect her and return home.

Original and most updated translations are from volaretranslations. You should be reading this from volarenovels.com!

In high school, she helped someone else write a love letter, and the target just happened to me. She planned to keep this matter secret forever. Because her love letter had been full of vague erotic references. When she entrusted the letter to my friend, I laughed. At the time, I thought she really wrote me a love letter, but when I opened it, I didn’t only find that someone else’s name was on it, but the handwriting was also not her’s. If I got an opportunity, I wanted to read this love letter and tell her not to be so proud of herself, thinking that only she knew about this matter.

In junior year, her grades were extremely unstable. Every time before the test, she would grab little decks of cards and try to guess what her grade would be. The best time, she got 20th place. The worst time when she got a high fever, she got 120th place. That day, her dad told her not to test anymore, but she still wanted to. Her impulsiveness had probably been stimulated by the teacher. Everyday when she studied, and crammed for computer class, her expression was the same. After the Gaokao finished, I didn’t think that she would test so well and actually get into Peking Uni. I thought God was definitely helping us.

After the Gaokao, her mother called me, and I didn’t even know what to say. I only knew how to say yes. I was very grateful to Auntie for letting me take care of my daughter, secretly hoping that she could give her daughter to me for a lifetime.

On the train, I was so nervous I didn’t dare speak. I dumbly twirled my pen and dumbly looked at a National Geographic magazine, and dumbly acted like a cold refrigerator. I didn’t know what kinds of words I should use, or what kind of an attitude I should use to talk to her. Thus I pretended that I was so high and cold, just like the way she was when I first met her. In uni I was still waiting for her, waiting for her to put down the armor that she wore with her exclusive means.

She happily said, “Hello, are you Fang Yuke?”

Original and most updated translations are from volaretranslations.You should be reading this from volarenovels.com! Please support the poor translator and not pirating websites! As the translator, I'm not making much money from this anyways, so please support >_<<<

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I have been waiting for that day for 14 years. I have been waiting for her to call my name for 14 years. From the old ignorant me to the unyielding me, it has always been me alone on the stage. But now, I formally invited her to walk alongside me onto my stage. I invited her to dance with me. The song would be neverending, the curtains would never close.

Even after my life ends, my dancing partner will still be her.