Chapter 4-6

6

Unfortunately, they couldn't go to Penn the next day. As soon as Qiao Ruo opened her eyes in the morning, she felt something was wrong with her stomach. She rushed to the bathroom and, sure enough, her period had come early.

Her dates are usually very punctual, never more than two days off. This time, however, she arrived almost a week early. It's likely either because she suddenly changed environments and her body couldn't adapt, or it was the ice cream she ate yesterday at noon that caused the problem.

When she finished washing up and came out, the stomach pain had become even more severe, and she realized she had forgotten to bring painkillers. For many years, she had suffered from menstrual cramps, which usually passed on their own, only occasionally causing her to writhe in pain in bed. She had been to the hospital many times, but never received a definitive diagnosis. The doctors' advice was usually limited to avoiding staying up late, keeping her lower abdomen warm, avoiding spicy and stimulating foods, and avoiding depression. Some even went so far as to advise her to get married and have children as soon as possible, saying that menstrual cramps could affect fertility and that sometimes menstrual cramps disappeared after childbirth… Except for the last point, she had basically followed all the others, but to no avail; the pain still returned when it struck. Finally, she simply started taking painkillers, taking one pill before her period each month, which helped alleviate the pain considerably.

When He Yajun came out of the bedroom, she saw her sitting on the sofa in a daze, her hair casually tied back, messy yet charming.

He moved a little closer and noticed that her eyes were red, but her lips were white.

He frowned: "Qiao Ruo, what's wrong?"

"I'm on my period," she sniffed, looking listless, her voice thick with a nasal tone. "I think I also have a cold, and I feel a bit weak."

He sat down next to her and touched her forehead: "Do you have a fever?"

She shook her head: "I don't think so. I don't feel cold at all. Except for my lower abdomen, I don't feel any pain anywhere else on my body. It's just that my throat hurts, my nose is itchy, I keep wanting to sneeze, and I feel a little dizzy."

"I'll go get the thermometer; I'll take my temperature just to be on the safe side."

When he returned with the thermometer, she had just sneezed and was rubbing her nose with a tissue. Seeing her red nose, his heart softened for no reason.

He first turned up the temperature of the heater a little, then asked her to unbutton the top two buttons of her pajamas so that he could put the thermometer under her armpit.

“I can do it myself,” she said in a rough, hoarse voice as she busied herself inserting the thermometer and pushing him away. “Ya Jun, stay away from me. You’d better go to the bedroom and close the door. Be careful not to catch it from me.”

"My immune system has always been strong, so you don't need to worry about me."

She put the thermometer down, sighed, and said dejectedly, "Sigh, I guess I won't be able to leave the house today, let alone go to Penn."

He put his arm around her and let her lean against him: "It's okay, we still have time. We can go again next weekend."

"But... I'm a little scared."

"What are you afraid of?"

“I’m afraid that if I can’t go today, I’ll never be able to go again. I feel like everything is going too smoothly, whether it’s dating you or this trip to America, it’s all so perfect that it doesn’t seem real. I’m afraid that too much joy will turn into sorrow.”

He paused, then forced a smile: "I'm pretty sure you do have a cold. The fact that you even have this thought means your brain is completely fogged up. You need to get it treated properly."

She smiled somewhat embarrassedly: "Isn't it because you've been too gentle with me these past few days? Can you believe that He Yajun, who used to be so distant and treated me like I didn't exist, is now being so gentle with me?"

He pretended to think for two seconds before saying, "I don't remember ever treating you like you were invisible."

She chuckled, and perhaps because her mind was a jumble of thoughts, she spoke without much restraint: "In short, what I'm trying to say is that if something is too wonderful, it's often hard to hold onto in the end."

He was both amused and exasperated: "First of all, I'm not an object... no, I mean, I'm not an item, I'm a person, your boyfriend. Secondly, whether something can be captured has nothing to do with how beautiful it is, the key is whether it's worth it, and how the person capturing it does it."

She fell into thought and muttered, "It seems you're different from me."

"?"

She paused for a while before continuing, "You are someone who believes in human effort, but I am someone who believes more in fate."

"The saying 'Man proposes, God disposes' is relatively easy to understand, but what about fate?"

“Fate…” she thought for a moment, “Fate is both the beginning and the end.”

"...To put it more simply."

"A person's life is half-determined from the moment they are born: family background, gender, personality... these are all fixed and have very little chance of being changed. These various factors can be combined to form different outcomes, and each combination, along with personal choices and luck, will lead to different results as the person grows up. However, personal choices are also influenced by family background, gender, personality... The only thing that seems uncontrollable is luck, but good luck that can change one's fate is extremely rare and almost impossible to encounter; in most cases, bad luck is more likely to come."

He asked patiently, "So do you think your reunion with me was due to fate or human effort?"

“That must be fate,” she replied without hesitation.

"Then how did you come up with the idea of ​​going to that island?"

“When we were freshmen, we were chatting online. I asked you where you most wanted to travel, and you answered that island.”

His smile deepened: "I see. I was living with Yan Tao back then, and he kept telling me how beautiful his house was. You just happened to ask me, so I just answered casually. In that case, your going to that island wasn't really fate."

"But I didn't know you were on the island at that time."

He nodded: "That's true. So, do you think your being with me was predetermined by fate, or a result of your own actions?"

She was about to open her mouth to answer when she seemed to remember something and closed her mouth again.

“If you hadn’t called me out that night, none of this would have happened, so it wasn’t a predetermined fate.” He smiled, answering for her. “Calling me out was your choice. According to what you just said, your choices are influenced by your family, gender, and personality. But apart from gender, your family is actually an obstacle in this matter, and your personality… after getting to know you over this period, I don’t think you’re the kind of person who’s particularly bold. But you still called me out and told me you liked me. So, please allow me to be a little shameless here: it was your love for me that gave you the courage to let your unrequited love come true. And it is precisely because of your courage that I can have this happiness. So, whether my fate is in my own hands or not, it doesn’t matter. What matters is accepting and cherishing what you have in the present.”

She lifted her head from his embrace and asked incredulously, "Did you already have this view, or did you only develop this idea after we got together?"

He looked directly into her eyes and said frankly, "Qiao Ruo, actually, I rarely think about fate, and I rarely think about what kind of person I am, or what kind of person I should be. Living to the age of twenty-eight, my attitude towards life has always been: don't worry too much about what the future will bring, just live each day to the fullest and that's enough."

She didn't argue with him, but listened quietly. Although her breathing was a little uneven, as if she was holding her breath and couldn't exhale, her expression was very calm.

"However, I seem to be a little different lately."

"What?"

He stroked her eyebrows and said, "I think I'm a little worried about the future."

Perhaps because she couldn't breathe properly, her heart was pounding wildly: "Why?"

His gaze shifted forward, then after several seconds, he looked back at her: "I don't know either, I can't quite explain it."

"Oh." She snuggled back into his arms, her ear pressed against his chest, where the pounding heartbeat was so strong that she couldn't tell whether the heartbeat she heard belonged to him or to herself. "Ya Jun, I'm probably just having my period and that's why I'm thinking about these things. Don't let me lead you astray."

“However, there’s one thing I do know,” he continued, not ending the conversation, “that it’s because of you that I’ve started thinking about the future.”

She opened her mouth in astonishment: "What do you mean?"

"I'm thinking, what if one day in the future you no longer like me and want to leave me, or we still like each other but can't continue to be together for some reason... then what will I become? Can my life go back to the way it was before we started?"

"Can I take that to mean..." Her stomachache seemed to have subsided, her voice was no longer hoarse, and her dizziness had subsided, "that you don't want me to leave you?"

"If I wanted you to leave me, why would I have asked you to come to America?"

"Don't ask me that, Ya Jun," she pulled away from his embrace, straightened her back, raised her face to look into his eyes, and asked softly with a coaxing tone, "Do you want it, or don't you want it?"

"Hmm..." He hesitated, pursed his lips, and said, "I don't want to."

She was so happy she almost screamed. If it weren't for her cold, she would have cupped his face and kissed him passionately.

"I don't want to either. Ya-jun, I promise you, as long as you don't want to be separated from me, I will never leave you, unless I die..."

She wondered if it was just her imagination, but his eyes also looked a little red.

He flicked her forehead with his finger: "I know that you girls' emotions are a bit unstable during these days of the month, and you're prone to feeling down and depressed, but you can't just casually talk about 'dying or not.' Also, it's best not to think about fate anymore. If you really believe in that, you'll only become more and more pessimistic, which won't do you any good."

"Oh." She humbly accepted his criticism.

"After all this rambling, do you still remember why we're sitting here?" He leaned back, crossed his arms, and kindly reminded her.

She didn't understand.

He held out his hand to her: "Take out the thermometer."

She was extremely embarrassed. She fumbled inside her clothes for a while before finally finding the thermometer at her waist: "It's fallen."

"Then let's measure it again."

Fortunately, her body temperature was normal and she did not have a fever.

He Yajun made pasta again. After the two finished breakfast, he asked her to sit on the sofa and then found a blanket to cover her with.

"When I have a cold, I rarely take medicine; I usually just tough it out on my own. Your symptoms don't seem too severe. Would you like to take some cold medicine?"

Not wanting him to catch her infection, she nodded repeatedly: "Do you have any medicine? I'll take some."

He went to the bedroom, and when he came out, he had a box of cold medicine in his hand.

He brought her a glass of warm water: "Judging from your symptoms, this medicine is suitable. I just checked, and it can also be taken during menstruation."

She took the water and obediently swallowed the pills.

"Does your stomach still hurt? Is it any better?"

"It still hurts a little, but it's better now."

“Then go lie down and rest,” he said, glancing at his phone. “I’m going to the supermarket, I’ll be right back.”

She threw off the blanket and said in a muffled voice, "I want to go too."

“No,” he refused her without hesitation. “It’s cold outside, and you’re not feeling well. If you catch a chill, you might not be able to go to Penn next weekend. You’ve taken your medicine, so you should get some sleep. You’ll feel better faster that way.”

She reluctantly admitted that he was right and listlessly went to the bedroom.

Just before leaving, he came in and asked her what she wanted to eat: "Ordinary, simple dishes, I don't have any major problems, you can tell me."

"I want to eat sweet and sour pork ribs."

"Ah, that might be a bit difficult."

"You gather all the ingredients, and I'll make it. I see you have soy sauce, light soy sauce, salt, ginger, etc. in your kitchen, so buy some spare ribs, sugar—preferably rock sugar, and scallions." Her voice was soft. "Oh, and buy extra scallions, and some noodles too. I want to make scallion oil noodles for breakfast tomorrow."

Do you like scallion oil noodles?

“Yes,” she said with a smile, “I’m not a great cook, but my scallion oil noodles are amazing. I’m not bragging, but everyone who’s tried them says they’re delicious. I believe that even if you don’t eat scallion oil noodles, you’ll love them after you try mine.”

He didn't comment, grabbed his phone and car keys, and went out.

She lay in her warm bed, her heart warm too. Perhaps the cold medicine was working, because soon she started to feel sleepy. Just as she was drifting off to sleep, she heard her phone ring.

She answered the phone; it was He Yajun calling: "There's something I forgot to tell you earlier."

"What?" She felt like her body was about to float away.

"You must get some sleep and are not allowed to use your phone. After lunch, we will officially begin practicing your spoken English."

She snapped back to reality in an instant: "Are you kidding me?"

"When did I say I was joking?" He laughed smugly on the other end of the phone. "You'll be coming to America to see me again, so it's essential to practice your spoken English. Okay, that's all for now. Go to sleep, I'm hanging up."

She stared at his name on her phone screen and for the first time had the urge to punch him.