"I'm almost mad. Not quite, sadly."
She smiled. "Are you feeling okay? Not feverish?"
"37 degrees. Normal."
Then I said, "You don't know, do you? I'm an orphan."
Then I truthfully told her all my background, my childhood, my adolescence. I had been preparing this "weapon" for ages. I watched her eyes … Sometimes honesty can be a weapon.
Even at night, a beauty is a beauty. In the hazy moonlight, Mei Cun looked like a fairy Immortal, manifesting faintly on Earth as a beauty, in an effortlessly graceful, shapely body, with a simple elegance that belonged in a dream or a storybook. The sound of her breathing poisoned me. I felt like I was in a fantastical mirage. Her footsteps followed an enchanting rhythm, a farewell lament. I took a deep breath in. I knew I didn't have a chance, but I wanted to make one last push. I had decided that even if I couldn't get her, I could at least keep this beautiful memory.
The two of us walked on the sports ground in the moonlight. I told "my story" very calmly, as if I was talking about someone else. She listened quietly, but sometimes she would suddenly turn around, take a step or two backwards, gazing at me in surprise, as if to say, "This is you? This is really you?" Sometimes she smiled knowingly. It was a smile full of meaning, betraying passion and motherly radiance. The best way to touch girls from good families is to make honesty your weapon.
"When you were a child, all your school copybooks were made of cardboard cigarette boxes?" she said.
"Yes."
"In the middle of the blizzard, you slept alone in a hay bale?"
"Yes."
"For three days, all you ate was one sweet potato?"
"Yes."
"Hugging a brick hot from the kiln?"
"Yes."
"You asked the brick, 'Mummy, can you warm me up?'?"
"Yes."
I saw her tears shining in the darkness.
"I'll tell you the truth," I said, "I'm a poor man. All I have is thoughts."
"You want me to wait for you," she said, "for three years?"
"Yes."
(I didn't dare to say five, five was too many. I feared she couldn't wait. But I could tell her, after a certain amount of time, give me two more years. Then if she'd really waited three years, she wouldn't mind two more. Don't you think?)
"So you're saying, you'll come back to marry me in three years? With ninety-nine Abyssinian roses. What are 'Abyssinian roses'?"
"The most beautiful roses in the world."
Actually, at that point I didn't know what "Abyssinian roses" were. I read the name in a foreign novel. What they expressed were my feelings: I love her. That was also the limit of my imagination. I didn't know if I would come back in three or five years. Would I be able to? If I came back, if she waited for me, then I would definitely have ninety-nine roses!
She didn't give me a promise. She said, "Let me think. I have to think about it."
I looked at her in the moonlight. I couldn't bear to take my eyes off her. We gazed into each other's eyes, and I almost went crazy. I felt like a desperate madman. I said, "Okay. Goodbye." And then I turned around and left. I told myself, go, right now. You've said what you had to say. If you don't go now, you'll lose control.
I'll tell you honestly now, the truth I told that night was only part of the truth. I did have a tough background, but it wasn't like nobody looked out for me. My "honesty" was a bit of a cheat.
