Chapter 18 I didn’t get married, I eloped with someone…

After a tiring day, Tang Ke returned home and immediately brushed her teeth, took a shower, and went to bed. She sank into the soft quilt with her legs spread out. Although she looked like she was dead because of her motionless appearance, in fact, it was the opposite. She was coming back to life little by little.

She had to pick up Xue Jiayin at the high-speed rail station tomorrow, and she didn't want to go there with a mountain of work to do, so the wheels of her Tang Ke carriage were churning extra loudly today. The root of this all started when she was one of those "Three Good Students" students who absolutely had to finish her summer homework before going on a trip. Her condition had improved after college—but she had never felt any real satisfaction from it. She also knew that using common sense like wiping your butt after taking a shit to illustrate the need to complete tasks ahead of time was overkill.

She finally realized that laziness could sometimes be a kind of nourishment, but once she realized that she was about to cause havoc in Heaven, she still had to resolve all her worries before she could feel at ease.

Fatigue made her fall into a deep sleep quickly. The cell phone under her pillow may have vibrated twice. She noticed it but didn't take it seriously. Whether it was a late-night greeting from her leader or a message from someone else, to her it sounded no different from the sound of the wheels and tracks shaking against each other under the train berth.

The next day, Tang Ke got up as planned, with plenty of time. While washing up, he had the leisure to browse his social media. He liked the photo of Xue Jiayin attending an academic conference, and taking advantage of the fact that there were not many PhDs on the list, he commented: "Xue Bo, fly with confidence, your fans will always be with you!"

This led to a full thirty seconds of verbal abuse.

Hiss, the mint toothpaste this morning is particularly spicy.

In addition, Tang Ke also noticed that Fu Yu withdrew a message at around ten o'clock last night. It was as strange as her father suddenly snoring on the sofa and then suddenly falling silent.

"I patted Fu Yu."

She held the electric toothbrush in one hand and typed with the other, a little slowly. Before she finished typing the question, Fu Yu typed out the question mark first.

ForU: "?"

ForU: "What's wrong?"

Just send a voice message. Tang Ke chewed the foam and said vaguely: "I'm going to ask you, what did you withdraw last night?"

ForU: "accidental touch"

ForU: “It’s okay”

"Tsk, I thought there was some big news to be revealed - bah!" Tang Ke spit out the foam, drank some water to rinse his mouth, looked up at the chat interface again, he didn't reply, and packed up his clothes to go out to pick someone up.

The high-speed rail station exit was mostly filled with taxi drivers soliciting passengers. Tang Ke stood out among the older men, her lack of a fuss about hailing her, making her seem like an amateur. From afar, Xue Jiayin, dragging her suitcase and swiping her card, exited the station. She took off her sun hat and mask, raised her arms and waved.

"Sister! Where are you going to carve it? Can I rent a car?" Tang Ke asked the visitor where she came from with a smile in the local dialect.

Xue Jiayin nodded repeatedly, hiding here and there as if to avoid suspicion: "Go, go, go, go, go..."

The two of them got on the bus, and Xue Jiayin found an opportunity to scold her. Even if you slap someone in the face, you still need to use some strength. She has no car or house. Oh, she recently got a house, but she has no car, no car, so why is she yelling?

Tang Ke shrugged innocently: "Isn't it enough to just talk about it?"

"I thought," Xue Jiayin took out her phone to check her mentor's message and said casually, "you would drive your husband's car to pick me up."

"Wow, I didn't expect that. Otherwise, you would have gotten a PhD." Tang Ke changed the subject. "But he and I are now very respectful. It's not good to always take advantage of him. But maybe I can really ask him next time. My dad's car smells like old man's cigarettes. I get dizzy when I sit in it. It's caused me to not drive for a long time. Forget it, forget it. It makes me look like I'm a materialistic person."

"With the price of gold rising so much, who wouldn't worship?"

"That's true." Tang Ke hugged her with a smile.

Xue Jiayin knew Tang Ke well. If she put him in a sheep farm, the next day, not a single wool would grow. She thrived on collecting sheep. At the market, she'd offer extra scallions if she could get them from vendors. If she couldn't get the discount during a shopping festival, she'd pool her money with friends, making sure to hit the discount price exactly, not a penny more. She was also a shrewd person who understood how to allocate resources according to need, rarely wasting money. She said she worried about being struck by lightning.

The bus route was within Tang Ke's calculations. The high-speed rail station took no more than half an hour to get to her home, unaffected by traffic jams. Aside from the harder seats, it was no worse than a private car. Xue Jiayin had stayed at her house many times, and all her belongings were still there. Sometimes they even swapped clothes.

At lunch, they ordered two bowls of seafood noodles. Xue Jiayin showed Tang Ke more photos she'd taken in Suzhou, mainly of gardens and ancient towns. She'd also attended a conference in Australia earlier this year, and flipping through her photo albums was filled with either conference photos or screenshots of papers. Tang Ke admired the former but stayed away from the latter.

The two chatted all afternoon about the sun setting, and when they were hungry again, they went out hand in hand for a barbecue.

With a beer and a plate of skewers, they were transported back to the summer after the Gaokao (National College Entrance Examination) when they, too, went out in slippers, bare-faced, enjoying the evening breeze. Tang Ke, while a capable alcoholic, wasn't a glutton. She loved to act like a spoiled child after drinking, so she usually avoided it unless she was around close friends.

"Yinyin, take me with you to the next meeting. I also want to travel on public funds—" Tang Ke stretched out six fingers and made a kitten whisker on his face, and his voice dragged along wherever he sang, "Seductive eyelashes, sweet-as-honey mouth, I'm a sexy little wild cat—can't pets be checked in? Take me with you—"

Xue Jiayin was amazed: "Sister, do you call this acting like a spoiled child? Have you forgotten that there is a word called "Sapo" in the dictionary?"

Tang Ke laughed heartily, sucking on a skewer carefreely. The street stall was crowded, and the owner of the barbecue stall had set up a large fan next to a wooden table, its whirring air cooling much of the street. She was wearing shorts, her bare legs covered in sweat and mosquito bites. She slapped her legs with each suck of the skewer. The owner, with a smile on his face, called out to her through the smoke, "If it's delicious, give me some more!"

Across the street, in the square, a square dance group was dancing to the rhythm with vibrant enthusiasm. Xue Jiayin pulled out a tissue to wipe her sweat. Seeing that Tang Ke's mouth was covered in greasy streaks from her eating, she offered her one too. She just clutched the tissue, preferring to keep it dirty. She only bothered to tidy up after finishing a whole skewer of meat, and when she was enjoying it, she would even move to the music.

It was as if Tang Ke, who was hiding in the corridor and crying on the phone to her, was just an illusion.

It was a long time ago, and Xue Jiayin couldn't remember exactly what Tang Ke was crying about, but the sound of her laughter and tears on the phone was more unforgettable than her tears alone. Tang Ke couldn't express her unhappiness in an unhappiness-filled way. She would only tell others about her unhappiness as a joke, and if no one laughed, she would laugh to brighten the mood.

During her postgraduate entrance exam failure, she claimed that Wenquxing hadn't favored her because it looked down on the Wangwang gift bags she'd offered. She also claimed that the tens of thousands of yuan her parents had spent on cram schools should have gone to the Confucius Temple. Ultimately, it was all her fault, a skill that had been completely shattered the moment she played with firecrackers in the hallway on the last day of the exam. Tang Ke didn't mention how much she valued that exam, nor how guilty she felt toward her parents after failing, nor how resentful she was of missing out on her ideal university by just one or two points.

She would never tell anyone unless they asked.

"Do you think life will change after getting married?" Xue Jiayin brought up the topic of marriage very abruptly.

Tang Ke sighed and shook his head. "Nothing has changed. I still have to go to work, eat, drink, poop, urinate, and sleep. Oh, my parents have calmed down a bit, and they even bought me a house, hehe."

"If your parents ask you to take the postgraduate entrance exam, you should take it. If your parents ask you to take the civil service exam, you should take it. If your parents ask you to get married, you should get married." Xue Jiayin suddenly uttered a harsh parallelism with a look of disappointment.

"No, no, no, I will never eat shit if my parents ask me to." Tang Ke always gets carried away when talking about shit, piss and fart.

Xue Jiayin said sternly, "Tell me, do you hate this?"

Tang Ke, under the guise of alcohol, propped up his chin in a crooked manner and said, "It's okay. This is the path I chose myself. I know how to control the risks."

"Really?"

"Hey, don't feel sorry for me. Even if I take a step back, Fu Yu wasn't chosen by my parents, I chose him myself."

"At our age, it's too early to say 'life is just like that,' but lately you've been giving me the feeling that you've lost all your principles at such a young age." Xue Jiayin naturally has a scholarly air when discussing theory, with a complete logical chain from phenomenon to essence. "For someone who even tastes the saltiness of West Lake vinegar fish and Beijing soy milk, the bitterness of love is just given up. Don't pick up random mushrooms on the ground when you go to Yunnan, okay?"

Tang Ke was amused, "So you're feeling sorry that I got married without dating!"

"It's a shame to need me? Three B-games and eight husbands. I'm buying millet for you in Shanghai. People think I'm a scalper."

"She doesn't understand that your heart is pretending to be calm, she doesn't understand that love is just a game..." Tang Ke's music library search engine has far surpassed artificial intelligence.

"Alright, alright." Xue Jiayin ordered another beer and said, "By the way, Shi Bohuan asked me a few days ago when you got married."

Tang Ke was confused: "A few days ago? I just got married a few days ago, so why don't you post on WeChat Moments?"

Xue Jiayin: "I guess he asked because he saw your circle of friends. It's strange, why didn't he ask you directly?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's a bit awkward to ask his ex-girlfriend directly." Tang Ke didn't care. "Besides, not everyone is like him, showing off their affection on WeChat Moments every day."

"That was in the past. Now I can't even find him." Xue Jiayin recounted the chat history. "He asked me why you didn't invite him to your wedding. I said, you didn't invite me either."

"Hahahahaha!" Tang Ke slammed his hands on the table and laughed wildly, "This is so funny. I feel like I'm not getting married, I'm eloping with someone."

After that circle of friends post went live, many former classmates privately messaged Tang Ke to congratulate her, including her high school boyfriend, who simply wished her a happy wedding. She politely accepted the greeting and reciprocated, wishing him a happy marriage. She thought that was the end of it, but she didn't expect a follow-up from Xue Jiayin.

The effect of alcohol grew stronger as Tang Ke walked home. He held Xue Jiayin's arm tightly and leaned on the giant's shoulder to look down at the earth. Why did the zebra crossing become crooked?

When she got home, she was immediately pushed into the bathroom to take a shower, and it took her three songs to wash off the smell of barbecue and alcohol.

While getting dressed, Xue Jiayin's long voice came from outside the bathroom: "Tang Ke! There's a phone call!"

"Who is it?"

"Your husband!"

"Then hide quickly!"

Xue Jiayin opened the bathroom door with a bang, stuffed the phone into her hand generously, and left.

Tang Ke was putting on her underwear when she suddenly froze. She was stunned for two or three seconds, not knowing which had higher priority, answering the phone or pulling up her pants. So she answered the phone while pulling up her pants with one hand.

"Hello?"

The wet curled edges are the hardest to lift.

"What are you...doing?" The volume of the receiver was neither loud nor soft, but the question was particularly clear in the mist.

"I just got out of the shower and am getting dressed."

"Sorry...I'll call you back later."

"It's okay, I've fixed it, go ahead."

Tang Ke walked out of the bathroom and gestured for Xue Jiayin to go take a shower. When she heard no response, she repeated, "I'm fine now, go ahead."

"...This is a video call, hold your phone away."

“…”

Tang Ke didn't hold the phone far away, so he hung up.

-----------------------

The author has something to say: The next update will be on Wednesday.