As soon as Lu Xiaoying returned to Xianghe, she learned that Secretary Liu of the County Party Committee had returned home in glory and worshiped his ancestral

    grave.

    For a time, the men and women of Xianghe village, old and small, met in the lane, worked on soil together, talked about the Signior Liu Anran’s grandson— the young man from the family of Liu Chunyu and Yang Xuehua. For several consecutive days, people bustled in and out of the entrance of the Liu family’s home.

    Some were happy about the Liu family complimenting away; some knew that Liu Chengyin had become a great courtier and would like to ask him for help from a business. Anyway, all villagers were bound to see much of each other. Both Liu Chunyu and Yang Xuehua greeted the guests with smiling faces. Naturally, they knew that whether their son could do what the village people asked him to do or not was up to their son to decide. Therefore, it did honor so much to offend no man against his will. They promised to note down the matter and then tell their son. As for the result, they could not vouch for it.

    Lu Xiaoying also knew that the county party secretary Liu also visited her mother. One alone, without wife, son, pastry or tea. However, he left hundreds of yuan before leaving. But how could Lu Xiaoying’s mother possibly accept his money?

    To be honest, Liu Chengyin came to see the surprisable Wang Xiaoqin, because Liu Chengyin should have hated her. In those years, he and Lu Xiaoying fell in love, and it was Wang Xiaoqin who fought to the death against them that they sundered painfully. Now Liu Chengyin was visiting her house. Did it mean to tell her what she had done wrong? Or to take the rule, for she had given up a son-in-law of the county party secretary. Wang Xiaoqin sunk on every hideous thought. Who would tell her torment?

    Liu Chengyin repeatedly begged Wang Xiaoqin to accept the hundreds of Yuan.Anyway, Wang Xiaoqin was his elder. Liu Chengyin, as younger, came to visit in a hurry and didn’t bring a box of cakes as a present. Anyway, please forgive his impoliteness. Finally, he said that if Wang Xiaoqin didn’t accept the hundreds of Yuan, he would be letdown less gently the secretary of the county party committee. Lu Xiaoying’s mother had no choice but to accept it reluctantly. However, she made it clear to Liu Chengyin that she would ask her daughter Lu Xiaoying to return the money to him later.

    “Mom! Look what you did. You took his money, but asked me to pay him back. I won’t for you!” Lu Xiaoying said angrily, thumping the money her mother handed her on the bedside cupboard.

    When she returned to her own home, and sat down by the side of her own bed, not usually sleep in,and listened to her mother tell all this, she felt so sick inside that she shuddered all over.

    Maybe even Lu Xiaoying herself didn’t know that she was feeling resentful towards Liu Chengyin. The unexpected encounter in front of the county committee and government office embarrassed Lu Xiaoying, who was the deputy secretary of the Yu Duo town Party committee. After learning that Liu Chengyin had returned to Chu County as the county Party secretary, she had imagined various scenarios of meeting him in her mind, but she never expected that she would meet her former lover, now the highest leader in Chu County, with a group of petitioners. She couldn’t imagine how embarrassed she was at the time. Compared to her own embarrassment, County Party Secretary Liu was very adept at controlling what should have been an awkward situation in Lu Xiaoying’s eyes. He even seized the opportunity to showcase his ability to resolve public grievances in front of Lu Xiaoying and established a good image before the group of petitioners. She couldn’t see her own place in Liu Chengyin’s heart. Were the couple who had once loved each other really lost their trace of feelings for each other? Could Liu Chengyin be really drained of all the past so easily?

    It is often said that women are as delicate as a strand of hair. However, this statement was  not always entirely accurate and it got down to specific cases. Lu Xiaoying felt resentful towards Liu Chengyin’s confident behaviour before the former lover. Being usually observant, she didn’t notice Liu Chengyin’s slight tremble when their eyes met. This trembling undoubtedly touched a deepest hidden part of Liu Chengyin’s heart and caused a bitter pain for him and Lu Xiaoying. In fact, Liu Chengyin’s thoughts were not understood by Lu Xiaoying. He had been trying to protect her and keep her from harm, but Lu Xiaoying did not perceive his protection and instead misunderstood his intentions. This made Liu Chengyin feel resentful, and also made him start to reflect on his behaviour and whether he should be more honest about the past and present. He knew that he could not continue to avoid the situation and must face his true thoughts and feelings.

    Her anger had not yet subsided, and when she returned home, her mother gave her another difficult task: returning the money to the secretary. Liu Chengyin’s high- profile return to Xianghe Village also put Lu Xiaoying a bit into temper. She and Liu Chengyin had not been in contact for several years. Yes, she was still single, but Liu Chengyin not only got married but also had a son. It was meaningless to talk about their emotions now. Moreover, after several years, Liu Chengyin should have turned into Lu Xiaoying’s highest leader. This reality seemed to have wiped out the last bit of nostalgia in Lu Xiaoying’s heart.

    Lu Xiaoying was furious when she saw the hundreds of yuan on the bedside table. Wasn’t it intentional to revolt at my mother? Liu Chengyin, even if you were higher, our family didn’t need your money! You acted like that at the gate of the county party committee and the county government, now you visited my house and gave us money, out of pity? Was it charity? Or was it……whatever you were, for me, Lu Xiaoying, it was not necessary.

    Now, only Lu Xiaoying and her mother were dependent on each other in the Lu family. Lu Xiaoying had become the deputy secretary of the town party committee, really a stunning display remarkable for the villagers. The simple villagers thought that as a girl without any background made it to this point by herself, which was truly far from simple. As the saying went, there were no officials without related people in the court. Lu Xiaoying was a true Xianghe Villager, and naturally there were no “people” in the “court”, but she became an official, and even the deputy secretary of the town party committee. This respectabilized the neighbourhood. Having a capable daughter like Lu Xiaoying, Wang Xiaoqin, who was a middle-aged widow, did not feel scrabbling a living.

    Lu Xiaoying’s father, Lu Genshui, was an agricultural technician in Xianghe Village in his early years. He was an expert in agricultural production technology. Whether it was selecting seeds and nurturing seedlings, fertilizing and pest control, or field management, as long as it was related to agriculture, Lu Genshui was truly skilled. In the words of the villagers, he was quite a screamer in this field.

    Such a screamer should have been bad. After she growing up to be capable of ordinary occurrence, Lu Xiaoying heard rumours from the villagers that her father had raped her mother, Wang Xiaoqin, at a large-scale water conservancy construction site before they became entangled in marriage. Before that, Wang Xiaoqin was cherished by another man. This is an open secret in Xianghe village.

    The villagers talked about the parents of Lu Xiaoying and gave her father, Lu Genshui, a nickname: “Humped-over-by-Tyrant.” The implication was that if it weren’t for Lu Genshui’s rammed hump, Wang Xiaoqin would never have married him. With this move, what else could a rural girl do? If she didn’t marry Lu Genshui, she would have to marry her beloved object, but that would be a distemper that couldn’t be affected. If the couple could live happily together, it would be in a breathless calm. If things went rugged or felt uncomfortable, this regret would ferment, and it might even turn into a disaster. Perhaps, at that point, they wouldn’t be able to live together as a couple anymore. It’s better to avoid it altogether. Some say that even though Wang Xiaoqin got into trouble, she still refused to marry Lu Genshui, and it was her brother and sister-in-law who made the decision for her. She had no choice but to submit. When all of this reached Lu Xiaoying’s ears, she didn’t take it to heart. As a young girl, what could she do about her parents’ affairs? In her memory, since she came into the world and came to the Lu family, her parents would jar on, part bass rags all day long. The wordy battles between the two adults always visited on the young Xiaoying. What was most common was her father, Lu Genshui, grabbing her by the pigtail and dragging her along while keeping wondering profanely like, “You bane of existence, reincarnated into the Lu family, lay your blame!”

    When her grandmother was alive, sometimes she couldn’t bear to watch it and would pry the young man’s hand off Xiaoying and pull her into her arms. While comforting Xiaoying not to be afraid, she would scold the young man, “You fool, stuffing your belly with anger and treating your own daughter like a non-person, making others laugh at us.”

    As her grandmother’s actions showed, she must have witnessed her father to have been beatening up her mother and daughter, which she couldn’t bear. However, most of the time, her grandmother couldn’t shield Xiaoying from taking his customary scoffs and abuse. Therefore, from a young age, Xiaoying had the idea that even though she had been born into the Lu family, Lu Genshui was not her real father, and her grandmother not her real grandmother. Whenever she suffered from and thrashed by the man of her family, the only one who would protect Xiaoying was her mother, the only true family member in Xiaoying’s heart.

    Not long after she went to college, her grandmother died of illness, yet she was not very sad. Later, her father Lu Genshui drowned in a water conservancy project accident, and she was not broken down into tears. Some said that Lu Genshui had met a due reward. He had committed such knavery to Lu Xiaoying’s mother, and then scalded his mother and daughter for so many years. Finally, God could not wait for him and asked the Water Dragon King to take him away.

    No matter how little emotional attachment Lu Xiaoying had towards her father and grandmother, she always felt that they shouldn’t be so cold-hearted towards her daughter and granddaughter. Especially after she grew up and became a college student, every time she thought of her father and grandmother, she had an inexplicable confusion in her heart, that had been persisting until her dearest mother strongly opposed her marriage to her beloved Xizi, and then Lu Xiaoying seemed to understand something.

    Liu Chengyin and Lu Xiaoying’s three years at Guangling University were wonderful. Some might say that universities usually take four years. How could Liu Chengyin and Lu Xiaoying only have three years? Four years were usually true, but Liu Chengyin did not pass the entrance exam to Guangling University with Lu Xiaoying, who had passed it in her first year after graduating from highschool. Liu Chengyin failed to pass the exam in his first year and had to study for another year before he could be enrolled by Guangling University.

    Located by the Little West Lake, Guangling University was well-known for its Chinese Department in China. Liu Chengyin pursued his love interest in the Chinese Department at Guangling University for Lu Xiaoying. However, their relationship underwent some new changes.

    They grew up together since childhood, starting from the first grade in Xianghe Village Primary School, then to Yanwu Middle School, and finally to Chu County High School on the outskirts of the town. They were stuck like glue to each other. Especially when Liu Chengyin was called Xiaoxizi and Lu Xiaoying was called Xiaoyingzi, Xiaoxizi almost became Xiaoyingzi’s protector. When they played with a group of village children, there would inevitably be spars or rumbles. Sometimes someone wanted to bully Xiaoyingzi, and she would naturally run to Xiaoxizi and said, “Xizi, Sloven Zhang bullied me, he pulled my pigtail!”

    Sloven Zhang, whose real name was Zhang Weidong, was a few years older than them. He became the monitor as a retardate, but his grades were not very good, always with a runny nose, so Chengyin and Xiaoying looked down on him. When they played together, they never called him Zhang Weidong, but always referred to him as Sloven Zhang. They even made up a doggerel to taunt Sloven Zhang.

    Sloppy Zhang, pagoda climbs.

    How high? Ten zhang and eight feet.

    How high? High up into the sky.

    What’s in the sky? Chang’e is there.

    Is Chang’e pretty? Sure prettiest.

    What use of pretty? Be your bride.

    At this point, Xiaoxizi (Liu Chengyin), quickly responded and didn’t hesitate to criticize the Sloppy Zhang: “As a monitor, how dare you bully a girl? Why don’t you bully others? Come on, I bully you instead, bully you.” As he spoke, he pushed and shoved Zhang with an air of dominance. Despite Zhang’ block of a man, he was but a pushover by Xiaoxizi (Here is to say that the sloppy Zhang can’t beat Xiaoxizi), who was known for being despotic. He had no choice but to run away, offering Xiaoying and several other girls a laughing-out of it: “Oh, oh, Sloven Zhang ran away. Catch the bad egg!”

    Such incidents were not uncommon. Today it was Sloven Zhang who bullied Xiaoying, but tomorrow it could be someone else. The key was that Xiaoxizi always stood up for Xiaoying whenever she needed help. Over time, Xiaoying, who lacked warmth and care from her family, developed a stronger attachment to Xiaoxizi, also got used to taking care of Xiaoying. Whenever Tan Saihu the Fish-feeler went fishing or catching shrimp, Xiaoxizi would always ask, “Can we bring Xiaoying with us?” But the fishing boy didn’t like to be with girls because he found them slow and unable to keep up with his pace, so he didn’t want to bring her along. At this time,Xizi would rather not go by himself and bring Xiaoyingzi to shovel grass to feed pigs. Although he preferred fishing and shrimps, it was fun to wade along the creek, and there will always be amusing, rampageous fish and shrimps in the net. Not only that, but the next meal will be fish and shrimps on the table. Their childhood was still a little bitter.

    From innocent playmates to growing up gradually, Lu Xiaoying and Liu Chengyin were always so close in a devoted attachment. When they were studying in junior high school in Yanwu, their food was not very good, and Xiaoying’s was even worse. Liu Chengyin would often add food for Xiaoying, sometimes it was braised pork cooked by the school canteen, usually it was arrowhead①-braised pork. Although there was little meat and more arrowheads, the few cuts of oily, saporous braised pork she took a snap at satisfied her appetite.

    Sometimes, it was steamed mud loach or other similar dishes that Liu Chengyin brought in his lunchbox. These were not things that Liu Chengyin asked his family for. They were all harvested on his way to and from school along the canal. With a hemp rope and an iron wire crab hook, he could carry a string of crabs into the school after a trip to the canal. Then, he would talk up with the chef for a portion of braised pork. If he was lucky enough to catch a long fish or something, he would ask the chef to process it a little, add some soy sauce or other seasonings, and steam it directly in his lunchbox on the canteen’s steamer. After it was cooked, Liu Chengyin would ask Xiaoying to inform the other classmates from their village to share a scruffy meal together. Because catching long fish always involved Tan Saihu, known for his fishing skills, Liu Chengyin didn’t want to eat alone and felt obliged to share the catch with Xiaoying. Moreover, there were only five of men from their village, and Liu Chengyin always looked out for Xiaoying. They didn’t want any gossip to reach their families and cause trouble. In Liu Chengyin and Lu Xiaoying’s eyes, it seemed that their families were not on good terms. In particular, Xiaoying’s father, Lu Genshui,and Liu Chunyu, Liu Chengyin’s father, were not on good terms, and as the villagers said, they couldn’t even pee in the same pot.

    The two junior high pupils started to perceived the differences between the two sexes.

    What truly made Liu Chengyin and Lu Xiaoying aware of love was when Liu Chengyin became a re-take student and received an admission notice from Guangling University. At that time, Lu Xiaoying was already a student in the Chinese Department of Guangling University and had been living there for a year.

    The year when Liu Chengyin was admitted to Guangling University was a big event in Xianghe Village. For re-taking of a year before he passed the entrance exam, in the eyes of the villagers, this was the pride of the Xianghe villagers who had been farming for generations. Their next generation could also attend a higher education institution. It’s strange, wasn’t Lu Xiaoying the first person from Xianghe Village to university? She was the real first person to enter a university, right? However, the people of Xianghe Village did not think so. After all, girls should not betaken in the rough for they would eventually wed. Only young men could carry on the family name. Therefore, Liu Chengyin, as a university student, was even more valued by the villagers. At that time, the elderly Signior Liu Anran, who had once taught at a private home-study school, had not passed away yet and grinned even more from ear to ear by this news.

    To bring honor to the ancestors for the family lines gave its studied acceptance to the adults. What Liu Chengyin was thinking about was to be able to meet his sweetie Xiaoying every day and study together. Originally, the vague feelings between them were like misty vapours when they were studying together. After separated for a year, Liu Chengyin’s heart was like a little seething cannibal, for his rotten jaw to be crammed with more. As a man of pubertal phase, his woo lost confidence. She is now a college student, and during her year as a re-taker, she might have found someone she likes.

    Wasn’t it all said that college was the high noon of love? After ten years of hard study, the pressure could shake off at college. Life should be sweeter, but why to be stressed?

    Lu Xiaoying, who came out of the water town, exuded a delicate charm that everyone would love and nobody knew that Liu Chengyin was keen on her. As a dinky young girl, it’s normal to have more suitors. And, after all, in the past, to study together, to see after each other, and both sewed up, but never expressed true feelings or confided in each other. At this stage, he still needed to understand what Lu Xiaoying was thinking. In the past, in Xianghe Village, at first glance, Liu Chengyin could be the first stringer. But at Guangling University, so many male students before Lu Xiaoying, would she still like him? Out of contact with him much this year, she knew he was retaking the study when the days could be said to be unbearable, but she never offered any comfort. As they said, a young girl’s heart is like the clouds in the sky, floating and unsettled in giddiness and inconstancy.

    At this critical moment when Liu Chengyin was uncertain, Lu Xiaoying came to his side. She was happy that he had finally been enrolled, and even more, enrolled to the same university. She urged concessions on it, and the Lu family, like many others in the village, invited Liu Chengyin to have a dinner together. Lu Xiaoying’s mother would definitely support her, while her father would surely object. At this time, her grandmother stood up to support her granddaughter, saying that when Xiaoying was admitted to university, the Chunyu family had also invited them over for a meal. So they should also invite this dinner against a primarily visual joke.

    Such a dinner was not for dinner’s sake, of which Liu Chengyin made no deed at all so naturally not for that sake, both the youngsters had been staffing a preoccupation with concerns out of sight. After dinner, to stroll round the grounds, it was the most usual thing.

    They walked quite in sync to the side of the Xianghe river, among the clusters of drooping willows by the sleepy river below the crescent moon just rising above the tips of the willows, that embodied the scene of “Appointed after dusk/ the moon above willows.”

    “Xizi, congratulations on finally passing the exam.”

    “Also into your university, expect that?” Liu Chengyin didn’t answer Lu Xiaoying’s question, but asked back.

    Lu Xiaoying knew that Liu Chengyin was blaming her for contacting him less after she entered university, as if she had forgotten about him as her “Xizi.”

    Liu Chengyin couldn’t possibly know Lu Xiaoying’s intentions. Lu Xiaoying understood how crucial and important this year of retaking the exam was for Liu Chengyin, and she didn’t want to interfere with his studies. If he always had someone bothering him in his mind, he wouldn’t be able to study well, and that would not be beneficial to him. Lu Xiaoying had a deep understanding of this.

    How difficult it is to restrain oneself from germinated emotions. During the earlier days of university, Liu Chengyin’s image always lingered in Lu Xiaoying’s mind, and she couldn’t shake it off. Lu Xiaoying was quite distressed; she couldn’t even focus on what the teacher was saying in class and didn’t know where her mind had wandered off too. After class, she walked aimlessly along the long bank of the Little West Lake alone. She couldn’t have imagined that love would be so tormenting. However, she could only keep everything in her heart, unable to tell anyone, not even her family, let alone her mom, or even her brother Xizi.

    How many lovers in the world could fail to complete their marriage? The reasons for this were under every possible variation, but of one that they hid their true feelings from each other and try to test each other in every possible way, resulting in tragedy. The history had such examples even to satiety, as in the case of Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu.

    “Really forget about me? Any idea what I think about?” Lu Xiaoying didn’t answer Liu Chengyin’s question, and asked, in reply.

    “Never a letter till now, how I know what you change this year?” Liu Chengyin sounded a bit reproachful.

    “For your own good!”

    “For my own good?”

    “Yes.”

    “I don’t understand.”

    “Really no, or pretend? All my pains feed a dog?”

    “You pain? What pain? In college, no face washed with cold water. Heard campus close to Little West Lake, take a walk together under the moonlight, by the green willows along the long bay,——poetic beauty——What pain?”

    “Heartless, you think me such as one? Yes, I took a walk to the Little West Lake. Miss you so much, I couldn’t get through class. I went there alone. But my heart was snapped by a dog, a heartless dog, I can’t find it back,” Lu Xiaoying said, refraining from snitching, as though about to go.

    “Why not tell me? Tell you miss me, I’m in your heart, you like me, love me!” Liu Chengyin dragged Lu Xiaoying over with one hand. Lu Xiaoying felt the strong  arm of a man, and it would probably be difficult to break free in this lifetime.

    Liu Chengyin didn’t want to wait any longer. He pressed his hot lips onto the lips of the girl he loved. A tingling electric current ran through the bodies of the two youngsters. Lu Xiaoying met him, without any hesitation. She knew that she had been waiting for this moment, shedding too many tears, paying a ghastly spoony effusion. She couldn’t retreat anymore. Before her was the man she loved, for whom she had been talking night after night, for whom she was willing to give everything. At this moment, she felt her blood rushing through her veins, her chest swelling, and she pressed herself even closer to Liu Chengyin’s body.

    On the tree-lined path of Guangling University, next to the flower beds, Liu Chengyin and Lu Xiaoying would occasionally go in couple. In the eyes of onlookers, they were enviable lovers. Of course, they were not the only couple on the campus. Most of the couples strolling together were boys taking to their girlfriends. Liu Chengyin and Lu Xiaoying were a little different. Most of the time, her Xizi became the favourite target.

    Likeways for her, Lu Xiaoying had entered Guangling University a year earlier and was already familiar with its layout. Teaching buildings, dormitory buildings, libraries, lecture halls, as well as bathrooms and cafeterias, and so on, were all familiar to Lu Xiaoying, who led Liu Chengyin to taste one after another. The Little West Lake, adjacent to the campus, was also the favorite spot by Lu Xiaoying with her Xizi.

    They strolled along the long willow bay, gazing at the water in the crystal lake, looking up at the sky, so pure blue. Occasionally, a few unnamed birds would chirp and fly by from the willow bushes or above their heads, and their chirps were so pleasant to the ears.

    “Xizi, really different from when I came here before.” Lu Xiaoying happily nestled him.

    “Sure thing,before, I, a shadow in your heart; now a living person by your side.” Looking at his beloved lass, Liu Yin occasioned tacit pride.

    For Liu Chengyin,university life is novel. Being able to study with his beloved girl again swarmed him with exhilaration. Although he was one year behind Lu Xiaoying, they were in the same major and could attend many big classes together, even though they couldn’t attend some small classes together. Besides, the amount of time one can freely manage in university was many times more than in middle school. As a result, they became regulars at the library. Occasionally, they would sneak out to a video hall outside the school gate to watch some popular videos. Not only that, Xiaoying cleaned the dormitory where Liu Chengyin lived with five or six other male students every other week, which made the other male students feel embarrassed. Everyone was unwilling to let a beautiful girl do dirty work for them, so each and every lazy lout became a hardworking little bee.

    As a result, Liu Chengyin was not doing well again——becoming the main target of attacks from the whole dormitory. The other roommates envied him so much that they gritted their teeth. Why did such a beautiful, diligent girl have to be Liu Chengyin’s girlfriend? No, let you have it all, no, no. As long as you two were not just right for a match, we had equal opportunities. We brothers also had the right and freedom to pursue Xiaoying.

    The way these bitter tares spoke sounded like a joke, but who could guarantee that they didn’t really mean it? Liu Chengyin suddenly felt a sense of crisis.

    “Yingzi, let’s get engaged,” Liu Chengyin solemnly proposed to Xiaoying when he entered his second year of college.