Read Online Leave Me Alone by Murong Xuecun - Free Book Online Page A

of the steam room to report on how they’d held hands, how they’d kissed, how Li Liang had used his hands to ‘climb Mount Tai’. He held nothing back.
    Li Liang was a brilliant talent in those days and threw himself into things with passion. Every day he’d write a few ‘against the current, hold you in my arms’ type of romantic poems, which caused philistine Bighead Wang to despise him. When no one was around Bighead would ask: ‘Has this asshole Li Liang got water in his brain?’
    When the summer holiday came that first year of college, Mount Tai returned to her home town of Nanjing. We saw her off at the train station. The two of them held hands and stared tearfully into each other’s eyes. I found this scene hilarious but restrained myself. When the train started, Mount Tai waved forlornly from inside the carriage but no one could have foreseen what happened next. Li Liang suddenly sprang forward like a leopard, sprinting after the train, slamming his hand against the window and shouting himself hoarse: ‘Little Zhu, I love you. I LOVE YOU!’
    His voice boomed across the platform. Finally, about a hundred metres away from where I was standing, he threw himself to the ground with a dramatic thud. I ran over to where he lay completely motionless, blood trickling from his head.
    When ten thousand people share your dream
    Your dream will grow wings.
      — Li Liang, ‘Love’
    Surprisingly, they broke up straight after the holiday. Li Liang wouldn’t say why, just smoked cigarettes and looked depressed. The next few girlfriends all went the same way — none lasted more than three months. Secretly I started to wonder whether Li Liang had a sexual problem. Once, in the dormitory, I had stayed up all night reading a book, then at dawn stealthily climbed onto Li Liang’s bunk to filch a cigarette. He’d seemed to be asleep, but when he heard me he jumped abruptly. His face was very white and he looked startled. I realised that he’d been wanking.
    Some people, like Li Liang, can make sacrifices for love. I both respect and despise these people, because my own feelings are more complex. I have always viewed love as a game. No one
really
loves another; or, to put it another way, we only really love ourselves.
    After he split with Mount Tai, Li Liang became mentally unstable. Sometimes he’d go missing for half the night. Bighead Wang and I searched the campus for him once, and eventually found him sitting in a small wood opposite the female students’ dorm. He was facing Mount Tai’s window, and whistling a tuneless melody. I was about to call out to him, but Bighead put his hand on my shoulder. At that moment the moonlight shifted like water, sprinkling the wood with silver, and we saw two fat tears navigating the contours of Li Liang’s face.
    Li Liang probably still missed Mount Tai, I thought, all these years later as I accelerated through another red light Nevertheless, his life was definitely better than mine. He earned good money, he had status and he understood all the big questions of life. Whereas deep inside I was still stuckwhere I’d been years ago: a shy first-year student wearing a 5 yuan T-shirt.

    At the wedding banquet I tried my best to lighten the atmopshere. I asked Ye Mei, ‘Are you willing to accept Li Liang as your husband?’
    Ye Mei nodded. I continued: ‘Are you ready, come wind, come rain, thunder or lightning, come warm winters or cold summers, to always love him, comfort him and screw him?
    Everyone else laughed but Ye Mei looked angry. I thought of that wild night in the hotel at Leshan when she had given me the silent treatment.
    The bride and groom went around the tables and toasted all the guests. Bighead pointed to the wontons and asked Ye Mei about the fillings.
    There’s pork, and prawn, and chicken,’ he said, ‘but tell me: how many stuffings have you had?’
    She considered carefully. ‘Seven stuffings,’ she said.
    The whole table laughed at the