Love Story in the 1970s

On Saturday, payday arrived. Twenty yuan came with one industrial coupon, and Fei Ni received two industrial coupons.

During lunch in the cafeteria, Sister Liu handed Fei Ni a letter. "I saw this while picking up my mail, so I brought it along for you."

"Thank you." The sender's name was Ye Feng. Fei Ni only glanced at it before stuffing it into her pocket and lowering her head to eat.

"No need for such politeness. Scoot over a bit and make some room for me." Before Fei Ni could move aside, Sister Liu had already squeezed out a spot for herself.

Sister Liu's husband worked at the slaughterhouse, which gave her considerable status in the workshop. Even the workshop director's son had asked Sister Liu to help procure extra pig trotters and offal for his wedding. Sister Liu had meat dishes with every meal. Now, she pushed her lunch box of braised pork toward Fei Ni, urging her to try her cooking.

Sister Liu's braised pork was as generous as she was, glistening with oil.

"I've heard all those rumors about you. Those women only pick on young, shy ones like you. Next time they say something, especially that Wang Xia, talk back. Ask her why she sends her kids away every Sunday, buys turtle to stew soup for her husband, and stays indoors all day without stepping out. Make her feel ashamed. And that so-and-so... We shouldn't indulge their bad habits."

Seeing Fei Ni remain silent, Sister Liu moved the lunch box closer. "You're so thin—eat more meat. I just made some sausages and forgot to bring them for you today. The cafeteria will have meatball soup for dinner tonight, so come early to line up." After saying this, she moved on to the next topic. "I want to knit myself a four-leaf clover sweater. I'll come to your place tomorrow so you can teach me how."

The aroma of Sister Liu's braised pork attracted others from the workshop, and soon their table was crowded.

A female worker at the same table whispered her discovery: "When we got paid, I saw that new college graduate in our workshop, Feng Lin—she got two and a half industrial coupons. Her salary must be over fifty yuan. I've worked all these years and never made fifty yuan a month."

Sister Liu said, "We should look at things dialectically. Don't just see one side of the issue. Even if you didn't go to college, you've earned several more years of wages than her, haven't you?"

"Whatever extra I earned those years, she'll make back in just one. Sister Liu, you make sixty yuan a month—you don't understand our hardships."

Sister Liu encouraged everyone to view things with a developmental perspective: "You think I started out earning this much? I began as an apprentice too, making only about twenty yuan a month at first. We all have to endure slowly..." She swallowed the word "endure" and changed it to "work hard gradually."

When discussing work, Sister Liu always spoke scientifically and paid attention to her influence.

"I'd like to go to college too, but no one recommended me. I don't think that college graduate is any better than me. The workshop assigned Fei Ni to assist her with the blackboard newspaper, but Fei Ni ended up doing all the work while she just stood around giving orders. Fei Ni, isn't that right? It makes me angry just watching. Only someone as patient as Fei Ni would put up with it.""Nowadays, college students don't even attend classes after entering university. They either have meetings or participate in agricultural and industrial labor every day. Some of them are even less educated than middle school students. There's nothing Fei Ni can do about it either. What can she do about her bad temper? That person's father is a leader in the Labor Bureau, and he calls our factory director 'uncle' all the time. Haven't you seen how attentive our director is to her?" The voice grew increasingly lower. "A man in his forties smiling obsequiously at a girl in her twenties—I feel embarrassed for him."

Fei Ni quickly finished her meal, leaving behind the lively chatter at the table, and stood up, carrying her lunch box as she walked out.

She opened the letter Ye Feng had given her in a quiet spot.

Inside the letter was an invitation, asking her to attend his wedding banquet next Sunday. Along with the invitation was a thank-you note. Before expressing gratitude, he first apologized—for his previous rudeness toward Fei Ni's husband, for forgetting that everyone is equal. Since he could respect scavengers, he should also respect Fei Ni's husband. After the apology came the thanks: he thanked Fei Ni for making him understand that people with vastly different levels of education and family backgrounds cannot live together, and he thanked Fei Ni for marrying someone else early on, giving him the chance to make a new choice. His fiancée was a university graduate, now working at a foreign affairs service school, and got along well with his parents...

Throughout the entire letter, Ye Feng was telling her that he had found a girl with far superior education and career than hers, and that she had been reaching above her station when they were together.

Fei Ni's fingers clenched tighter and tighter. She felt Ye Feng had no need to do this at all. If she had found someone far better than her ex in every way, she would probably have even forgotten her ex's name.

"Fei Ni!" Someone called her from afar.

It was none other than Feng Lin, the one mentioned at the cafeteria table. She was about the same age as Fei Ni, wearing a grass-green cardigan over her shirt and silver wool trousers, with her hands in her pockets. Because Fei Ni had been assigned by the director to help Feng Lin with the blackboard newspaper, Feng Lin directly treated Fei Ni as her subordinate.

"Fei Ni, didn't I tell you to come help me with the blackboard newspaper right after lunch? What are you doing here?"

Fei Ni said word by word, "My job is to make hats. Right now is my break. During this time, I can do whatever I want."

"You're also a workshop employee. Don't you have any responsibility for the workshop evaluation?"

"The part of the blackboard newspaper I'm responsible for is already done."

"But there are too many mistakes in what you did. Even a middle school student wouldn't make such outrageous errors."

A surge of anger rose in Fei Ni's heart. She wanted to see just how outrageous her work really was.

Feng Lin pointed at the words on the blackboard, "xx brand cashmere hat just launched" and said, "Why did you write 'cashmere hat just'?" Please don't make such low-level mistakes in the future."Fei Ni tried her best to speak in a calm tone, 'Just launched' means 'just launched'."As she explained, she demonstrated the pronunciation—it was 'fu yi' not 'pu yi'."

Feng Lin's face fell, her eyebrows twisting upward in anger: "Then write 'just released'!" The blackboard newspaper is for everyone to read. If one word can explain the situation, why use two words that are unclear and ambiguous? Using 'just' is both concise and easy to understand."Fei Ni even felt that this sentence spoken by Feng Lin was the most accurate among all the things she had ever said, so she remarked, "You have a point. Let's change it to 'just' then." Compared to her other opinions, this one could even be considered valuable. After all, the blackboard newspaper needed to be understandable to everyone, and Feng Lin was one of "everyone."

"What do you mean, 'you have a point'? Look at what you've written—I've helped revise every single line. You’ve really disappointed me. It’s fine if your skills are lacking, but you need to have the right attitude. I told you to come right after lunch—what were you doing? If I weren’t worried about saving your face, I would have asked someone else to help me long ago."

Fei Ni directly picked up the blackboard eraser and began wiping away what she had written, saying as she erased, "Don’t bother revising anymore. Let’s just rewrite it from scratch."

"You..."

After wiping away her own writing, Fei Ni brushed the chalk dust off her hands and said, "Don’t worry about my face. Go find someone else to help you right away."

"Aren’t you afraid I’ll report this to Director Wang?"

"Please go ahead and report it immediately." Without another word, Fei Ni turned and walked away. There was a five-yuan subsidy for managing the blackboard newspaper each month, but she no longer wanted it.

"What do you, a factory workshop woman, have to be so arrogant about?"

Hearing this, Fei Ni froze in place, turned around, and stared at Feng Lin, delivering her words one by one into her ears: "If you have the courage, go to the broadcasting room and repeat that sentence so everyone can hear it."

Feng Lin realized she had misspoken. If Fei Ni escalated this and accused her of looking down on the working class, she would be in trouble.

Fei Ni gave Feng Lin a contemptuous glance, then turned and walked toward the workshop.

It had been a day of setbacks for Fei Ni, but the one stroke of luck was that she managed to buy meatball soup in the cafeteria. Since Fang Muyang hadn’t accepted the money she returned, and considering he might not have enough to buy a meal, she also bought two steamed buns for him.

Fei Ni had intended to eat first but found she had no appetite. She sat on the chair Fang Muyang had made, reading a book she had picked up from the scrap collection station—an English book about currency.

By half-past eight, Fang Muyang still hadn’t returned.

This was the first time since they had started living together that Fang Muyang had come back so late. At first, she thought he might be eating in the cafeteria because of their argument, but how could one meal take this long? Perhaps he had gone to someone else’s home for dinner and was still chatting there—that was entirely possible. Still, she couldn’t shake her worry. She took a flashlight and went downstairs to wait for him. At first, she checked her watch every few minutes, but it soon became every few dozen seconds. She thought about going to the training class to look for him but was afraid she might miss him if he returned, so she could only wait.

She thought to herself, could her luck really be this bad? Being mocked to her face was one thing, but was something also happening to Fang Muyang?

When Fang Muyang was making chairs downstairs, she would often come to check on him with a flashlight. Later, when he took it upon himself to make a sofa, she stopped coming. Now, she would rather he stood there making the sofa she disliked.

Fang Muyang felt that although the clear-broth shark fin soup in front of him wasn’t particularly flavorful, it had the advantages of being generously portioned, made with quality ingredients, and, most importantly, not costing him anything. Teacher Yuan from the training class had sought him out, asking him to draft the initial sketches for sequential pictures and handle the foundational work. He would split the payment with Fang Muyang, but the credit had to go to Teacher Yuan. Teacher Yuan was quite famous in the world of sequential pictures, which was why he had approached him.With too many illustration commissions to handle, he couldn't refuse them all, but his creative energy was limited and he couldn't personally complete every painting. This required assistance from others. The remuneration for half of Teacher Yuan's book far exceeded Fang Muyang's entire payment for one book. Since Fang Muyang's previous sequential pictures hadn't been published yet—meaning he essentially had no published works—Teacher Yuan felt offering him half the payment was already generous.

Fang Muyang didn't directly agree or refuse. Instead, he mentioned wanting to try the clear-soup shark fin at the city's foreign affairs hotel. Entering the foreign affairs hotel required a passport, and payment had to be made with foreign exchange certificates—neither of which Fang Muyang possessed.

After Teacher Yuan paid the bill, Fang Muyang took out his lunch box from his bag and, under Teacher Yuan's watchful eyes, packed the untouched fruit platter from the table into it.

After packing the fruit, Fang Muyang added that he regretted not having abalone and asked if Teacher Yuan could use foreign exchange certificates to buy him an abalone can from the nearby store.

The esteemed Teacher Yuan, suppressing his impatience, bought Fang Muyang an abalone can. Fang Muyang said he would consider the sequential pictures project and give Teacher Yuan an answer by Monday.

Ignoring the other's displeased expression, Fang Muyang stepped onto his bicycle.

From a distance, Fei Ni's flashlight beam shone toward him. At first, Fang Muyang shielded his eyes, but then he looked directly into the light.

He confirmed that Fei Ni was waiting for him—Fei Ni was actually waiting for him.

He smiled at the person holding the flashlight, and a hint of a smile appeared in her eyes as well. But just as he caught it, she deliberately tilted the light away, making Fei Ni's face blurry.

Fei Ni had been standing outside for over half an hour; her hands were as cold as the flashlight.

"How long have you been waiting?"

"Not long."

Fei Ni confirmed that Fang Muyang had returned completely unharmed and asked him, "Have you eaten?" If not, there were meatballs and congee.

"I have."

Fei Ni hummed in acknowledgment, her tone flat. Fang Muyang hadn't encountered any trouble; he had simply gone off on his own to eat. This made her wait seem unnecessary.

"You've eaten too, right?"

Fei Ni hummed again.

She quickened her pace, no longer speaking to him. The faster Fang Muyang chased, the quicker she walked.

She unlocked the door, but unlike usual, it didn't open easily this time.

Fang Muyang grabbed her hand. "Why are your hands so cold?"

Fei Ni shook off his hand. This time, the lock opened, and she hurried to the sewing machine, intending to move the lunch box on it to a less noticeable spot. But Fang Muyang snatched it away before she could.

Lifting the lid, Fang Muyang saw half a lunch box of neatly arranged meatballs, with two steamed buns beside them.

On the sewing machine was also a thermos containing congee Fei Ni had brought from the cafeteria—it was still warm.

"Were you waiting for me to come back and eat?"

"I just went downstairs to look around; I wouldn't call it waiting." Fei Ni turned her face away from him. "As for the food, I didn't have much appetite today."

Fang Muyang reached to pinch her cheek, but she dodged. Still, his hand touched her cold skin. "How long were you waiting outside?"

"Didn't I say? Not long." Fei Ni reached to take the lunch box back from Fang Muyang. "Give it to me."

Fang Muyang refused to let her have it. "I love boiled meatballs. I didn't get to eat any earlier, so I'm going to have some more."

"Let me warm your hands."

"No need."Yet Fang Muyang paid her no mind, holding her left hand between his palms and rhythmically rubbing it. Fei Ni grew annoyed and wanted to step on his foot, but whether out of concern for his shoes or his feet, she ultimately refrained.

"How can you be like this?"

"I've always been this way. It's not like you're just finding out now."

Fei Ni's hand grew red from his rubbing, and then he moved to her face. Her cheeks were no longer as cold as before; they even felt a bit warm.

"Can you take your hands away?"

"If you think my hands are dirty, I'll wash your face for you later."

Fang Muyang kept his hands pressed against Fei Ni's face, his eyes fixed on hers. "Why are your eyes red? It's my fault—I should have called you earlier." In truth, he had noticed her red-rimmed eyes the moment he entered.

"It's not your fault." She wasn't entirely sure whether it was his fault or not. There had been many small, unpleasant incidents that day, but while she felt angry, she didn't feel particularly sad.

"Then what is it? Who upset you?"

"No one upset me." Ye Feng and Feng Lin's words had indeed stirred something in her, but it was only because they had triggered her anxieties about the future. As for them personally, she didn't think much of them.

Because of them, she felt that marrying Fang Muyang might not be such a bad idea. If she were still in her old home, she would have had to hide her emotions.

"Really, no one?"

"There is."

"Who?"

"You."

"Me? How did I upset you?"

Fei Ni bit her lip. "You know."

"Then, however I upset you, please do the same to me."

Fang Muyang's eyes remained locked on Fei Ni's, his fingers wandering around her lips. "I mean it. However I upset you, please use the same method to upset me."

Fei Ni tried to push away the fingers Fang Muyang had placed on her face, but her pinky ended up entangled with his. His other hand stroked the corner of her lips, and in her anger, Fei Ni tried to bite it. Just as his finger reached her lips, she lost her earlier courage. She wanted his finger out, but he insisted she keep it there—fair was fair, and he wanted her to upset him properly.

Seeing her unwilling to retaliate, Fang Muyang felt somewhat disappointed and asked without a hint of self-awareness, "Why are your eyes avoiding me?"

Fei Ni ignored him, so he said, "If you really don't want to see me, just close your eyes."

Even as Fang Muyang tilted his head and gently brushed her upper lip, Fei Ni's eyes remained wide open.