Ruo Chujian always loves walking home from school with Wu Jianguo.
(I)
Every time on the way home from school,
Ruo Chujian would bouncily tell Wu Jianguo about what he’d seen and heard at school,
and Wu Jianguo always listened silently.
Ruo Chujian said today they had a Chinese exam,
and the teacher gave an extra question he particularly liked.
Wu Jianguo asked what the question was,
Ruo Chujian said the extra question was to explain the meaning of your name:
“My name is Ruo Chujian (若初见),
which comes from ‘if life were like the first meeting’ —
what a simple yet handsome name.”
“Isn’t it a bit chuunibyou?”
“Chuunibyou comes after others react,
but anyone meeting me for the first time will definitely think I’m super handsome.”
“Though this depends on the person — if you took this question you’d fail.”
Ruo Chujian said, looking at Wu Jianguo who was earnestly watching the road as he walked.
(II)
Ruo Chujian had many friends,
but Wu Jianguo didn’t have many.
Yet Ruo Chujian would say to Wu Jianguo:
“You’re fine this way, just be yourself.”
Wu Jianguo asked: “How do you get everyone to like you?”
“Very simple, just be yourself.
I can talk with them from Elvish languages in Lord of the Rings to political correctness in South Park,
from the strong anthropic principle to Qie Geweila (a Chinese internet meme thief),
no one doesn’t like me.”
Wu Jianguo sighed:
“Right, you know a lot,
I feel like I know less and less.
Maybe school is making me more and more narrow as I go up.”
“How could that be?”
Ruo Chujian said while circling around Wu Jianguo,
“Look, as the saying goes ‘mountains, rivers, winds and moons have no fixed master,’
as long as you have heart, this walk home from school is all scenery.
For instance, look, this tree is actually smiling at you,
but pragmatic humans don’t know.”
“Look again, the faintly visible moon at the horizon,
from its perspective we and our friends in Taiwan are all in one field of view,
the view of seeing.
This is what’s called the smallness of humans and the kinship of those at the world’s edge.”
“For another, there’s a saying called ’looking back, there is only void,’
this sentence I made up, but the word ‘made up’ is inherent to the Chinese language.”
Wu Jianguo listened to a whole pile of stuff from Ruo Chujian,
seemingly contemplative yet seemingly indistinct.
(III)
Wu Jianguo, like us ordinary kids,
thought school was a place for serious study and strict discipline.
But every time walking home,
Ruo Chujian would complain to him about all sorts of school absurdities.
“Our math teacher set this terrible rule,
where exam points exchange for prizes at end of term.
First, I don’t even need to say that I think material rewards actually weaken the spiritual return of learning,
this system clearly has problems:
getting first place in class once gets 20 points,
but each rank of improvement gets 1 point;
our class has 48 students,
so getting first place twice is worse than getting last place once and then first place once — maxing the improvement award?”
Said and done.
Ruo Chujian, who usually scored full marks,
deliberately got a 0 on the next exam.
To make sure he had the ability,
Ruo Chujian shifted all his answers one position to the right —
A became B, √ became ×, 42 became 43.
After hearing this operation,
Wu Jianguo was stunned.
But Ruo Chujian proudly and disappointedly added:
“But the teacher still gave me full marks on that paper,
and cancelled the unreasonable point reward system.”
Wu Jianguo heard the disappointment in that sentence:
“Why do I feel like you got an unfulfilled feeling?”
Ruo Chujian shrugged, indicating he didn’t care.
(IV)
This day on the way home from school Ruo Chujian was very sad.
The person he loved didn’t love him.
Wu Jianguo heartlessly consoled him:
“It’s fine, ugly people like me don’t have such worries.”
“Yeah, you don’t get it.”
One sentence again silenced Wu Jianguo.
After walking a few steps,
Ruo Chujian still couldn’t help continuing to sigh:
“I feel like,
friends who initially liked me,
the emotional connection always slowly fades,
in the end everyone discovers I’m actually not a consistently interesting person.
Wu Jianguo, with so many cold-outside-warm-inside people in the world,
is it possible there exist warm-outside-cold-inside people?”
“You know? I think this is caused by your current knowledge structure.”
Wu Jianguo stopped his steps,
thought a moment about wording:
“From what I know about you, you’ve always pursued fresh, unrotten knowledge.
Whether it’s your ’trees can also have life’ or ‘one can observe Earth from the moon’s perspective,’
all their value is absorbed in the instant of hearing.
Just like your name ‘Ruo Chujian (if first meeting),’
all the wonder is reserved for the first meeting.”
Seeing Ruo Chujian’s mood gradually sinking,
Wu Jianguo quickly added:
“But there’s also no problem with this.
Like just now I said, I’m ugly.
But loving me when I’m ugly is what real love is.
You don’t need to love me when I’m handsome, everyone loves me when I’m handsome.”
(V)
Ruo Chujian always loves walking home from school with Wu Jianguo.
(End)