“Then what happened? Tell me! Does Zhao Jin really know how to use that P, P…”
“Photoshop.”
“Right, right! He knows Photoshop, so he edited his photo to make himself look better!”
Qiao Yan gave a wry smile.
Sunlight filled the small room, its walls plastered with celebrity posters. A Chinese-made Jinghua cassette recorder played the most popular music among young people of the day without pause.
Rene Liu’s voice, still slightly unpolished back then, drifted from the cassette and filled the room.
“I want to ask if you dare to love me the way you said you would; I want to ask if you dare to be as crazy for love as I am…”
Accompanied by that cool, slightly husky voice, Qiao Yan unhurriedly revealed what had really happened that day.
“Photoshop wasn’t the problem. My mom was.”
“Your mom?”
“Yes. She pulled a switch on me. She never even notified Zhao Jin!”
“What?! She could do that?”
Ye Mengxue, who had been sitting at the desk with her head down copying song lyrics, had never imagined such a thing could happen.
She looked up, astonishment written all over her small face. “Haven’t arranged marriages been abolished?”
“Legally, yes. But in my family, my mom’s word carries more weight than the law,” Qiao Yan said.
Ye Mengxue immediately looked terribly worried. She stopped copying lyrics and listening to “Crazy for Love,” pressed the pause button with a click, and hurried over to her good friend.
“Then what are you going to do, Qiao Yan? Are you just going to accept your fate?”
Looking at her best friend’s tense little round face and plump, collagen-rich cheeks, Qiao Yan couldn’t resist giving them a pinch.
“Of course not! Do you really think your good friend gives in that easily?”
Only then did Ye Mengxue relax. Pressing a hand to her chest, she said admiringly, “I knew you wouldn’t give in, Qiao Yan. Back when we found out Chen Guangzong was married, I thought you had no chance. But you were so brave. You actually dared to keep pursuing him in defiance of what everyone would think!”
Qiao Yan: “….”
“Ahem, ahem.”
Qiao Yan pretended to clear her throat, deliberately avoiding the subject of Chen Guangzong.
“That’s all in the past. We’re not talking about Chen Guangzong today. Just yesterday’s blind date.”
“Yes, yesterday’s blind date.”
Suspecting nothing, Ye Mengxue continued eagerly, her large eyes innocent. “You discovered that the man had a square face. Then what?”
“Well, being as clever as I am, I immediately realized it was my mom’s plot.”
Of course, that was partly because Qiao Yan had seen the man’s profile the day before and remembered his face.
Still, recounting yesterday’s “heroic feat” clearly pleased Qiao Yan. Her pretty face was full of pride.
“But it wouldn’t have been a good idea to turn around and leave right then. Think about it. What if he decided I’d stood him up and called my mom to complain? Wouldn’t I get another scolding when I went home?”
“Exactly.”
“So I bit the bullet and faced the challenge head-on. I’m telling you, you should have seen how his eyes lit up when he saw me.”
“Wow, Qiao Yan, you’re that charming?”
“Of course! I spent over two hours showering and getting ready before I went out.”
Even though more than half a day had passed, Qiao Yan still couldn’t get over all the time and effort she had wasted.
Ye Mengxue said enviously, “You’re already pretty, Qiao Yan, and you’d made a special effort to dress up. I bet that square-faced man wanted to marry you the moment he saw you.”
“That’s what I thought too. But I soon did something that made him think twice about marrying me.”
“What did you do?”
“Do you remember the little shop near the park that sells ice cream?”
“Yes, yes! Their ice cream is so expensive! I remember one costs seven or eight yuan. My goodness, it’s just ice cream. How can they charge that much? That’s almost a whole day’s wages for me.”
The subject left Ye Mengxue feeling frustrated.
Her family was actually fairly well-off, and she was an only child. She also had a job herself. Normally, if she wanted something to eat, she could have it.
But the ice cream at that shop by the park entrance had made her back away after asking the price just once.
Seven or eight yuan…
Was that ice cream bar made of gold?
Qiao Yan smiled and gently patted Ye Mengxue’s dejected little head. “It’s a foreign brand, so of course it’s expensive. I’ve heard there’s even ice cream on the market that costs twenty or thirty yuan apiece.”
“What? Ice cream that expensive?”
Ye Mengxue was dumbfounded. Alarmed by the steep price, she waved her hands repeatedly. “I definitely wouldn’t buy that.”
“Let me finish,” Qiao Yan said. “I knew they sold ice cream there, so as soon as I saw him, I said, ‘It’s so hot today.’”
“Then he should have offered to do something!”
“Exactly. He was instantly captivated by your friend’s charms and offered to buy me a drink and some ice cream.”
Qiao Yan continued matter-of-factly, “That was when I announced that I only ever ate one kind of ice cream.”
“…The seven-yuan one?”
“You’re so clever, Ye Mengxue!”
Qiao Yan beamed.
Ye Mengxue understood. She couldn’t help feeling a little sympathy for the man she had never met.
It was easy to imagine how stunned he must have been when he found out that one ice cream cost seven yuan.
It wasn’t as though he came from a particularly wealthy family.
How could he afford that kind of spending every day?
Even if Qiao Yan were as beautiful as Rosamund Kwan, that square-faced man would probably still have to consider whether he could afford it.
“That was a brilliant move.”
Ye Mengxue gave Qiao Yan a thumbs-up and said with heartfelt admiration, “That must have scared him off straightaway, right?”
Unexpectedly, Qiao Yan shook her head. “Guess what? It didn’t!”
“What? He actually bought you that seven-yuan foreign ice cream?!”
Seeing the envy in Ye Mengxue’s eyes, Qiao Yan smiled and tapped her forehead. “Of course not. What are you thinking? But he still didn’t want to give up, so he came over and said, ‘Qiao Yan, couldn’t we have the fifty-fen kind from now on? Oh, the fifty-fen ice cream and the seven-yuan ice cream are all the same. Those fancy foreign brands are just out to fool young women like you. I teach at a school, so I know all about these merchants’ tricks.’”
“‘But I just want this brand of ice cream.’”
“‘Listen to me. I’m telling you, I saw it just now. That unscrupulous shopkeeper deliberately put cheap ice cream into the expensive wrappers.’”
“‘Really? That’s wonderful! I heard the government has been cracking down hard on counterfeit goods lately. There’s a reward for reporting them. Come on, let’s go to the Market Supervision Bureau and report it right now!’”
“‘What? Qiao Yan, wouldn’t that be inappropriate?’”
“‘What’s inappropriate about it? Only a fool would pass up money for the taking!’”
“…”
Qiao Yan vividly reenacted their conversation from that day, bringing every line to life.
Ye Mengxue almost thought the square-faced man really was standing in front of her saying those words.
“Pfft, hahaha!”
She burst out laughing, clutching her stomach. “Qiao Yan, you could become a crosstalk comedian!”
“I wish I were a crosstalk comedian,” Qiao Yan said. “At least I’d be making money, wouldn’t I?”
“Are you really short of money now, Qiao Yan?” Ye Mengxue asked.
Qiao Yan didn’t answer. She simply continued the earlier story. “Then his expression changed, and he started accusing me of being vain.”
“So I put on a cold expression and told him, ‘What’s wrong with being vain? It’s not hurting you. This imported ice cream is exactly what I want, and I can’t go a single day without it! Besides, when I get married, I expect a good life. I want a big room, a big refrigerator, a big color television, and…’”
“And?”
“‘I want a huge bride price! And in the future, I want to buy a fancy Mercedes-Benz and a BMW!’”
Ye Mengxue: “….”
After a long moment, she recovered and looked intently at her friend. “That must have scared him off for good, right?”
“Of course!”
In the brilliant sunshine, the corners of Qiao Yan’s lips curved into a smile.
Light filtered through the curtains and glimmered deep in her pupils, making her beautiful, large eyes look even brighter and more spirited.
For a moment, Ye Mengxue was mesmerized. She had felt a little indignant on behalf of that square-faced man she had never met, but now she felt that her good friend was so beautiful that she really did deserve everything she had mentioned.
“It’s just a shame that Auntie is definitely going to scold you again…”
Ye Mengxue sighed.
Qiao Yan lowered her eyes without speaking, her gaze flitting over the celebrity stickers in Ye Mengxue’s room.
Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Aaron Kwok, Leon Lai.
Hong Kong’s Four Heavenly Kings were still so young.
Nicky Wu, Alec Su… Why did Taiwan’s Little Tigers look so fresh-faced now?
In modern terms, this friend of hers was a devoted fangirl.
Actually, so had the original owner been.
Why else would she have devoted herself so completely to Chen Guangzong, who bore some resemblance to Andy Lau?
Returning to the conversation, Qiao Yan said firmly, “Let her scold me. A few harsh words won’t take a piece of flesh off me. If I marry someone I don’t like, I’ll be the one suffering, not her.”
“That’s true.”
Ye Mengxue nodded slightly, looking thoughtful.
With that matter settled, she turned the cassette recorder back on, letting Rene Liu’s voice flow out and fill the room.
“Then what are you planning to do next?”
“I knew I couldn’t rely on my mom, so I’d have to take care of this myself,” Qiao Yan said. “That’s why, after leaving the park, I didn’t even go home. I went straight to the matchmaking agency to find Aunt Liu.”
Ye Mengxue didn’t understand. “You still haven’t given up on Zhao Jin? You don’t necessarily have to go to a matchmaking agency to find a partner. Everyone advocates choosing your own romantic partner these days. You’re so pretty, Qiao Yan. Surely you could easily find a good man?”
Qiao Yan said nothing.
Actually, after Mother Qiao’s interference, her anticipation about meeting Zhao Jin had admittedly faded considerably.
There was no emotional bond between them.
She had only gained a preliminary impression of him through the written information at the matchmaking agency.
It would certainly be an exaggeration to say that Qiao Yan couldn’t bear to give him up or had fallen in love at first sight.
She was simply interested in his good looks, favorable circumstances, and potential for future success!
But…
A breeze blew through the window, tousling the wisps of hair over Qiao Yan’s forehead and rustling Ye Mengxue’s lyric sheets on the desk.
“My sister-in-law went for a prenatal checkup yesterday. She’s having twins.”
At the Qiao family home.
Mother Qiao grumbled and cursed as she spread the bedding in her hands over the folding bed in the living room.
The folding bed had an iron frame.
Father Qiao had picked it up at a secondhand market.
It had been somewhat rusty when he bought it, but through various repairs, Father Qiao had managed to make it usable.
With a thick mattress pad and a sheet laid over it, it more or less passed for a proper bed.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall, in the smaller bedroom, the wardrobe Qiao Yan had only just cleared out the morning before yesterday was already full.
Stroking her rounded belly, Song Zhenzhen gazed contentedly at the newly purchased double sets of baby supplies in the wardrobe and said happily, “I think it’s probably a boy and a girl, just like my younger brother and me.”
Author’s Note:
Don’t worry. Qiao Yan’s good days are just around the corner.