Chapter 3

Fu Siche jolted at my kick. He sat up, grabbed me, and cried, “What happened? What happened, honey? An earthquake? We have to get out!”

I stayed where I was and glared at him. Only then did he settle down. Hair sticking up, eyes heavy with sleep, he asked, “What’s wrong, honey?”

I looked at the enormous dark circles under his eyes and couldn’t bear to keep him up. I pinched his impossibly soft cheek.

“Never mind. Go back to sleep.”

He tried to say something, but the constant overseas business trips and red-eye flights had kept him from a single full night’s rest lately. He couldn’t stop himself from sinking back into a deep sleep.

I returned to the post. The numbers kept climbing. More comments kept coming.

Now that she had started, the poster couldn’t seem to stop talking.

“His research wasn’t going well. He was practically living in the lab, working day and night, and his ex would call just to yell at him. The junior students were all there. Someone asked if he was okay. He only smiled and said it was fine, he’d been neglectful.”

“He was finishing his master’s and preparing for a PhD. But his ex demanded that he buy a house and car in this city. He seemed so low back then.”

“At the time, I was stuck on one small part of my own project. He said his girlfriend worked in that area. He wanted to help, so he called her. But when I asked my question, she gave this scornful laugh. She said she wasn’t on a volunteer teaching assignment, and if I couldn’t understand even that, I should go home and farm. I was terrified.”

“But I was more worried about him. She’d humiliated him in front of the whole lab. He must have felt even worse than I did.”

The comments erupted again.

“Seriously, does his ex have some kind of manic disorder? If she doesn’t want to answer, fine. Why attack her personally?”

“Thank God he escaped.”

“Being with someone like that would make you question yourself endlessly. I’m glad he found his sweet junior labmate.”

The poster kept replying.

“He was the moon in the sky. I was just an ordinary little star, loving him from afar. I never imagined his moonlight would shine on me, too.”

“He has a wonderful job now, with wonderful pay. My little boat has sailed beyond ten thousand mountains.”

The commenters rushed to reassure her.

“You went to the same university and had the same master’s advisor. You can’t be doing badly yourself!”

“Don’t sell yourself short. Stars belong with the moon!”

“Besides, you might be his sun.”

She answered that one cheerfully.

“He has said I’m his sun, actually!”

Reading about her girlish crush took me back to the days before Jiang An and I broke up.