CH 11.2

The Eleventh Cup of Coffee Part 2

Her life was in a modern city and her heart was in all parts of the Jianghu1. This was Jiang Ying.

She learned to smoke with Shen Xuan at 19. At the age of 21, she had a planet and a rose tattooed on her left shoulder.

One second she was complaining on Moments that her boss had caught her making changes to her vacation, and that capitalism was inhumane; and the next she was cheerfully writing a small entry on her personal Weibo, recording that she ran into an unnamed singer at three o’clock in the morning at the seaside and received a special moonlight concert by the beach.

— “At the cheapest venue with barely any audience, the smell of malt beer was mixed with the salty sea breeze. I was listening to music that had a steady tempo and I suddenly thanked myself for going crazy the night before: I spent ten minutes buying a plane ticket and booking a hotel to escape to Erget Island.”

Jiang Ying was just an ordinary girl, but she was also the most romantic person in the world. Even if the adults in the world always lived in fragmented ways and her life and work were boring and dull, she still had to draw a few colorful, but perhaps abrupt lines in her book.

Jiang Ying picked up her eyeliner. She leaned towards the mirror and raised her chin slightly. She said, “I really want to travel somewhere with you. We haven’t been out in such a long time.”

Shen Xuan touched her stomach and replied with worry, “Me, too, but I’m afraid I don’t have a chance to do that.”

“Why would you not have a chance?”

“The mother of the child is not free.”

Jiang Ying looked at Shen Xuan through the mirror. It was like she was seeing who they were eight years ago through the glass in a trance.

When they first met, they had a similar loneliness and drifted out of the crowd.

It was like that was the reason they became friends.

Jiang Ying applied lipstick and finished her makeup. She picked up the perfume on the table and sprayed it on her wrist— Luo Yiwei’s romantic perfume that was full of desire and gentleness, which lingered from early morning to the next day’s dawn.

She got up with a smile, her face as bright as spring. “But you will always be Shen Xuan, your name is not someone’s wife and not someone’s mother.”

Shen Xuan once told her this.

Every time she was doubting herself and her self-esteem was low, Shen Xuan would not say any words of encouragement. She would only say this sentence—“But you will always be Jiang Ying.”

So just be yourself, you are unique.

Now, Jiang Ying said this sentence back to her.

While being a wife and mother, Shen Xuan was still Shen Xuan. She could always be her fresh and bright self.

Shen Xuan looked at her and smiled. It might be because she was emotionally sensitive due to her pregnancy that she breathed in deeply. Her eyes were twinkling and she said, “Jiang Ying, why do I feel so much better now that my daughter has just grown up?”

Jiang Ying giggled at her, “Let’s travel to Western Sichuan next year. I heard that the starry sky there is beautiful.”2

Shen Xuan clapped her hands together and cheered, “Hey! I want to see a Khampa3 man!”

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Shen Xuan had been to Xi City twice. Each time she was here, she would go to the wonton restaurant that was on the street opposite Jiang Ying’s middle school.

Pregnant women’s tastes were fickle. This time, Shen Xuan put down the spoon without eating two bites.

Jiang Ying worried about her and asked her if she wanted anything else to eat.

Shen Xuan put her hands to her chin and deeply wondered, “Hm…I want to eat cake.”

“Cake? It looks like there’s a bakery nearby. I’ll go buy it,” Jiang Ying said as she was about to get up.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Shen Xuan grabbed her and smiled with intent, “What I mean is, I want to eat the cake from your Xiangqin’s shop.”

Jiang Ying understood what she had in mind and sat down. “Were you waiting on me this morning for this? No wonder you asked me to dress up today.”

Shen Xuan shook her hand. “Let’s go, let’s go. I’m looking forward to seeing how handsome he is that he blew you away!”

Jiang Ying thought about it and described it, “Let’s put it this way. Every time I go to the break room to get water, I can hear the girls in our company talking about what he is wearing today. He is going to be a celebrity in the technology community.”

Shen Xuan smacked her lips and reminded her, “Then you have to hurry and not let him be caught by another woman first.”

“No way.” Jiang Ying shook her  head. “As far as I know, the beautiful photographer downstairs of our company hasn’t even asked for his Wechat.”

Shen Xuan narrowed her eyes on her slightly and asked, “Then how did you get it?”

Jiang Ying was so happy with herself and drank the soup. She smiled with delight and replied, “He gave it to me first.”