Over time Zhang Yonghong came to prefer dragging Weiwei along when she went out on her dates. Weiwei was there to serve as a “light bulb”—the current slang for an unofficial chaperone — but she could also be the audience and turn the date into an exhibition, which was just what Zhang Yonghong wanted. Other girls wouldn’t have agreed to serve as the “light bulb” so readily, but Weiwei didn’t mind. She enjoyed having a good time and even repeatedly thanked Zhang Yonghong for bringing her along. She was also at the age when she was beginning to notice boys. Boys and girls at her school didn’t speak to one another. They put up a front of being reserved while secretly hoping for interactions with the opposite sex. Weiwei could hardly contain her excitement whenever Zhang Yonghong brought her along on her dates, and, often forgetting her role as the “light bulb,” would get into the conversation, but Zhang Yonghong never got upset with her; in fact, she seemed pleased. At first the boy thought Weiwei was too pushy and calling too much attention to herself; Zhang Yonghong seemed to be deliberately pushing her toward him, and he felt frustrated that his solicitude was being wasted on the wrong girl. Gradually, however, he came to realize that he was getting nowhere with Zhang Yonghong. Facing the pain of rejection, and prompted by Weiwei’s bubbling enthusiasm, he unconsciously began to shift his interest onto her. He was aware that he was settling for second best — but then young people are adept at finding things to be cheerful about. This did, however, lead to a subtle change in the ranking of the girls in his estimation. How could Zhang Yonghong fail to notice? As soon as she became conscious of what was happening, she immediately dumped him. It is always best to be the first to act. That way she could console herself with the thought that Weiwei’s boyfriend was one of her rejects.
Weiwei was surprised and delighted whenever she was asked to go out on a date alone with the boy, although she feigned reluctance. That wasn’t because she was worried about selling herself short by picking up one of Zhang Yonghong’s rejects; this was simply the way a girl was supposed to respond when a boy asked her out, or so she thought. This much she had learned from Zhang Yonghong. She also learned from her about switching boyfriends, but all of her boyfriends came only after Zhang Yonghong culled them out of her herd. Still Weiwei continued to admire Zhang Yonghong deeply, following her every move and observing her dating strategies, and could not wait to put them into practice. But no matter how hard she tried, what she learned from Zhang Yonghong was all very superficial, and she could not change who she was deep down inside. First, unlike Zhang Yonghong, she had trouble resisting the kindness of others; moreover, she herself was naturally inclined to treat people with courtesy and warmth. She didn’t have the heart to chew men up and spit them out the way her friend did, and she was never good at putting on airs. Being in the position of the observer, moreover, she was able to judge whom she really liked with detachment. And so, after a succession of dates, she found herself a steady boyfriend. He may not have been a raging bull of passion, but he appeared stable and there seemed to be a future between them. They saw each other once or twice a week, going window shopping or out to the movies. Their good-byes were never drawn out, but neither of them ever blew off a date. It was the kind of love that could preserve its purity all the way up until their wedding night. You say it sounds boring; well, perhaps it was. But that is how countless happy and harmonious marriages begin. By this time Weiwei was already interning at a local city hospital, where she was a surgical nurse.
Weiwei’s Boyfriend
Weiwei’s boyfriend was named Lin, and he was three years older than she. His father, an engineer at the gas company, wasn’t that old, but he had suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution and had taken early retirement because of his poor health, letting his son, working under him as a repair technician, take his slot. Xiao Lin worked during the day and studied on his own at night. He had applied to college but unfortunately didn’t make the cut. He was now preparing to reapply the following year. Because he had failed in his pursuit of both higher education and his first love, Zhang Yonghong, he tended to look gloomy and subdued — a perfect complement to Weiwei. Her lively and uncomplicated nature was without doubt exactly what he needed, while his silence toned down Weiwei’s impetuousness, making her more sedate. They were a perfect couple and couldn’t have gotten along better.
Girls like Weiwei may not be the most sophisticated thinkers, but they know how to follow that voice inside them. This instinct never deceived her and seldom let her down, leading her to reap unforeseen benefits. Instincts do not work for girls with the intelligence and sensitivity of Zhang Yonghong, yet their intelligence and sensitivity are insufficient to prevent them from making mistakes. The truly wise know how to transform instinct into its own breed of logic; that way they can still follow their inner voice. The way this works is like a double negative coming out as a positive. Maybe Weiwei was better off not having to go around in circles.
The first time Wang Qiyao saw Xiao Lin, she couldn’t help thinking: Now this is what you call, “a fool ends up with a fool’s luck!” Weiwei did not need to tell Wang Qiyao that Xiao Lin had been one of Zhang Yonghong’s boyfriends. She didn’t think there was anything necessarily wrong with that, and actually felt sorry for Zhang Yonghong, wondering how she could have been so unperceptive as to spurn such suitable husband material.
Xiao Lin lived in an apartment on New Happiness Road, a quiet, shady street, one of the rare places in the city where you could hear the sound of birds, chirping in a nearby garden that had belonged to a tycoon back in Shanghai’s glory days. This endowed Xiao Lin with a serenity and clarity of mind lacking in his peers, who were stamped by the agitation and restlessness of the noisy city. It was plain from his face that he came from a good family. Just by looking at the copper street number sign hanging outside their apartment, Wang Qiyao could guess the kind of lives that were lived behind that door. Life in such a place should have been solid as a rock, but even a place like that could not withstand the passage of time and was showing a tendency to disintegrate. Some of the pressures came from without, such as the forced accommodation of additional families into the building during the Cultural Revolution. Others were internal, such as dissension between brothers leading to the establishment of separate households. If it had been spared those two kinds of catastrophes, life there probably could have continued for at least one more generation — and it would have been a good life, filled with happy, healthy, and peaceful days without harassment, the kind of life so many people struggle for and never achieve.