Yang Yajing felt her life was utterly worthless—single at 36; meager salary absolutely insufficient to cover her mother's medical expenses.
Her best friend not only stole the man she...
"Well... I just feel it's a bit impolite. Shouldn't a gentleman be forgiving when he can?" Zhou Pengfei, who also came from a scholarly family, was very bookish, so why was Chen Jiaoyun so shrewish?
"A gentleman?" Chen Jiaoyun pointed to herself from head to toe. "I'm a little woman! Don't you understand what a little woman is? Isn't there a saying, what's it again?... Sister, what's that saying again?"
"Women and petty men are the most difficult to deal with!"
"Yes, yes, that's it. Am I a petty person, or a petty woman! What kind of person is 'jun'?" In Jincheng dialect, "petty person" means a child.
"Naughty!" Yang Yajing tapped Chen Jiaoyun's forehead.
"That's for sure! Look at how stupid he is!" Chen Jiaoyun pointed at Zhou Pengfei. "Zhou Pengfei, let me tell you, politeness depends on the person! You'll suffer for that Confucian idea of repaying evil with kindness!"
“Uh… actually Confucius never said such a thing…” Yang Yajing added, “You didn’t study Chinese well, so you took things out of context.”
"Huh? Why didn't you say that?" Chen Jiaoyun felt that she hadn't said anything wrong.
"Confucius' original words were: 'How shall we repay kindness? We shall repay injustice with justice, and kindness with kindness.'" Yang Yajing recited.
"Speak like a human!" Chen Jiaoyun put her hands on her hips, and Zhou Pengfei blinked and nodded.
"It means: repay evil deeds with integrity and selflessness, and repay good deeds with good deeds." Yang Yajing then resumed her teaching mode.
"Hey! Didn't I use it correctly?" Chen Jiaoyun rolled her eyes. "Didn't you hear that! If someone's talking nonsense to you, just straighten it out! Let everyone here smell the stench of shit and pee that's practically oozing out without any bends!"
That explanation... is brilliant!