Un cœur pur dans un pot de jade

Chapitre 10

He wrote: I am ready to compete with whoever it may be.

I was stunned. "What nonsense are you talking about? Who do you want to compete with?"

He didn't answer, he just looked at me and chuckled softly.

His smile made me understand. What should have been a taboo topic had been brought up so directly by him, and I couldn't help but feel delighted.

Could it be that he has a crush on me?

Could it be that I've really fallen for him?

“Savage,” I then asked, “which part of my body are you most interested in? Eyes, hair, eyebrows, nose, ears, lips, neck, chest, waist, thighs, buttocks, or somewhere else? Pick one.”

The savage looked at me strangely for a while, thought for a moment, and wrote: eyes.

"Eyes, right?" I raised an eyebrow. "Remember the person who chose the eyes... First of all, he's a womanizer, flirting with everyone but not being faithful. He'll say sweet words but doesn't mean them. He might say 'I give you my heart,' and the next second he can say to someone else: 'My body and soul will be with you.' And... oh!" I suddenly realized, pointing my finger forcefully at the savage. The savage was bewildered by my pointing and had no way to explain.

"You savage, you savage, do you know that the biggest characteristic of people who like eyes is that they like to hug and cuddle! Using this method to conquer women, no wonder you like to hug me so much, you're the real master of love, tsk tsk tsk... Unbelievable, unbelievable, I always underestimated you before, you savage!"

The savage was dumbfounded by my identification. He wanted to shake his head, but when he saw my serious expression, he ended up laughing and crying at the same time.

Then he wrote on my hand: It's you, which one do you choose?

“What’s there to choose!” I pulled my hand back and glared at him. “You’re all pretty much the same all over – your nose looks like an eyebrow; your butt looks like a shoulder; your shoulders look like a chin – what’s there for me to choose from? They’re all the same, I can accept that.”

The savage's face turned deathly pale.

“That savage,” I leaned closer to him and asked again, “if I give you the character ‘rain’ as its radical, and you’re asked to add a few strokes below it to form a new character, what new character can you write?”

The savage stared at me. This time he was smarter and looked at people with a wary gaze. After a long time, he wrote on my hand: "Are you trying to draw a circle for me to crawl through again?"

I pouted, "No way! I'm asking you seriously this time, so hurry up and answer!"

The savage raised his hand to write, but I stopped him again. "Wait, remember, this word is for me, not something you can just write down wherever your mind comes to mind!"

The savage nodded, then wrote on my palm: Fog.

"Huh?" I was dumbfounded.

This is really stupid. There are four characters: cloud, snow, thunder, and fog. There are other characters as well. With so many characters and such a slim chance, why did he choose the one with the lowest probability of falling in love instead of any other character? Does this mean that we are both blindly optimistic?

The savage patted me, looking at me with some unease as I suddenly seemed half-dejected.

I looked at him. "Wild man, I taught you about probability, didn't I? That question was a test of how high the inclination of two people to love each other. Yun Xue Lei's probability was higher than Wu's. Wu's was the lowest, which means we only have a superficial understanding of each other, and our future... is uncertain..."

The savage suddenly froze. He looked at me, seemingly bewildered by what I had said, but the light in his eyes remained clear and calm.

He suddenly grabbed my hand and quickly wrote on it: Who told you?

"No one told me this. It's a psychological test question. It was said by psychological experts, people who have studied a lot about this subject, and it's what they summarized."

The savage shook his head and wrote: Many, but not all.

"I know that, but we—"

Before I could finish speaking, the savage glared at me and I dared not say another word.

It turns out that our relationship has already reached 10% without us even realizing it.

Out of the Valley Agenda

The savage suggested: Let's leave the valley.

I stared at him in disbelief. "Did you eat the wrong mushroom? Did you change your personality?"

From then on, leaving the valley was put on the agenda.

...

I had placed all my hopes on the savage, so when he said he would leave the valley, I thought we could leave immediately. But who knew, it wouldn't.

There's no way out of this valley. If you want to get out, it's simple: rock climbing.

The savage led me to a narrow crevice in the cliff face, barely wide enough for two people to face each other, and wrote on my hand: "Twenty days from now, I will take you out from here."

Why twenty days? I will deeply understand the meaning of the next twenty days.

The savage was thin but strong, but he was too thin and not muscular enough. He was going to lead me out of the valley through that crevice, so if he ran out of strength, the two of us would surely die.

So the savage stopped paying attention to me and started meditating and practicing martial arts or exercising by himself.

I tried to flirt with him, but he remained unmoved.

The wild man who had always been so obedient to me suddenly became somewhat cold and distant after changing out of his wild man clothes and looking clean and refreshed.

Perhaps this is just my own wishful thinking, that I'm imagining the transformed savage as someone else entirely, and that his recent ignoring of me is probably just because he's afraid of accidentally throwing me off the cliff halfway up.

Halfway through, I insisted on teaching the savage how to do push-ups, and when he saw my stomach touch the ground on the first try, he almost burst out laughing.

I asked him if he knew martial arts, and he seemed a little disappointed, telling me that he had very little internal energy left, but his lightness skill was still passable. Otherwise, he wouldn't have needed twenty days of intensive training.

Then, after twenty days, I had my first argument with the savage since we met.

Imagine a person who talks a lot and someone who can't speak. How would they possibly argue?

But I really felt that the two of them were arguing quite intensely.

The reason was that I wanted to take my son's travel bag out of the valley, but the savage refused to allow it. I decided to stand with my son and fight him to the end.

Well, the things in this travel bag weren't easy to come by; they've been through the same ordeal as me, traveling thousands of miles. Who knows when I'll be going back? I can't lose these underwear, these feminine hygiene products, this sunscreen, I even have to keep the savage razor and blades... I only have one bottle of Coca-Cola left, and I can substitute biscuits with dry food, but I should always keep the coffee creamer, just in case I want to stay up all night someday...

After much deliberation, I decided that I couldn't lose a single thing in my bag; if anyone was going to be lost, it would be me!

Enraged, the savage grabbed my hand and wrote on it: "Human life is at stake, don't be ridiculous!"

"Who's messing with you? This travel bag is half my life. I'm either with it or I'm not with it!"

The savage stared, then wrote again: I'll buy it for you when I get out!

I rolled my eyes. "If you could buy it, why would you take it out? It's only because you can't buy it that you want to pack it all up and take it with you!"

The savage frowned, wanting to write again—this time I didn't wait for him to write, and withdrew my hand first.

"Are you even a savage? What kind of savage talks like that?! I've already said I'm going to live and die with this pack. Either I don't leave, or you leave, or we all leave together. There's no next option!!!"

The savage, exasperated, tried to pull my hand to write something more, but I quickly put my hand behind my back. We were arguing, so why should I wait for him to finish speaking? From a young age, I learned that the essence of arguing with someone is to preemptively interrupt.

therefore--

"I don't care, I'm taking it with me!"

Seeing that he couldn't grab my hand, the savage grabbed a twig and wrote the first word: You—

"What do you mean, 'you'! This time, nothing you say will work!"

The savage wrote again: I—

"I'm determined this time, and I mean it!"

The wild man had only written half of it: No—

"It has to work out! Otherwise, I'll never speak to you again, even if it kills me!!!"

The savage was speechless. He threw down the branch and grabbed me, pulling me in front of him.

I was startled when he grabbed me by the collar. Then he glared at me with his bright, black and white eyes and shouted silently, "Can't you just let me finish what I have to say?!"

I laughed because he was angry.

Actually, I'm not that unreasonable, it's just that I felt like he was suffocating me by leaving me alone in the valley for more than twenty days! He doesn't talk much normally. Looking back on those twenty days that felt like an eternity, he was only focused on practicing his skills and circulating his energy, and he didn't say anything to me. When I looked for him, he ignored me. Sometimes when he finally did talk to me, I could clearly tell that he was unwilling.

Well, that's how my dad was back then. According to my mom's account, he used to be a very quiet and reserved person. When he first married my mom, he wouldn't say more than ten words a day. My mom married him because he was honest, not because she wanted him to suffocate her.

Later, my mom couldn't take it anymore. She would pick fights with my dad all the time, and even the smallest things could escalate to the point of going to court to discuss divorce. Finally, my dad was pushed to his limit and, for the first time ever, flew into a rage. He stood in the street and yelled at my mom: "Can't you shut up for a minute? Either you get out now, or you come home with me and see how I deal with you when we get home!"

My mom immediately shut up and obediently went home with my dad; she didn't even dare to go to court.

Later, according to my father's oral account, that was the first time he had ever swore in his life. His family was an intellectual family, unlike my mother's family, which were capitalist small business owners. My mother's family was always filled with fighting and quarrels, while my father's family was always quiet and never even coughed.

At that time, my mom didn't really want to fight with my dad. She just felt that for two people to live together, my dad's repressed and brooding nature clearly showed that he didn't have any real feelings for my mom, and that their relationship wouldn't last long.

That was the first time my dad realized that there were people who liked to be scolded for no reason. This woman was just so stubborn; if you scolded her a couple of times, she would become your confidante.

Of course, this is just one example. My parents' relationship has been through many ups and downs over the decades. If we're talking about arguments and quarrels, I grew up in those chaotic years where they would pick fights for no reason. Until one day, my dad told me that if my mom stopped arguing with him, I should just wait and see the two of us, who were not young anymore, going to the Civil Affairs Bureau to get divorced.

So, I didn't mean to make trouble with the savage. I just felt that he wasn't born so dull. By arguing with him, I could turn this handsome savage back into the hideous savage I used to be.

Anyway, ever since he shaved, I've suddenly become a little afraid of him.

The savage couldn't argue with me, so he suggested that we tie the backpack to a vine, and then pull it up together after we both climbed up.

"Where can we find rattan?" I asked.

What if the vines aren't long enough?

"What if you fall off the vine halfway up?"

What should I do if I have explosive or fragile items in my bag?

What if the vine breaks halfway through pulling it?

I disagree!

Finally, an agreement was reached: he would carry me up through the narrow crevice in two separate trips. The first time, he would carry me up, and then he would return to the valley to retrieve my precious bag.

I happily agreed, unaware of how dangerous this action was.

Out-of-valley practice

The savage carried me out of the valley, actually by tying the two of us together with vines. He used his hands and feet to climb up, while I, on the other side, could step on the cliff to help him increase friction.

This first climb took a full four hours (I was wearing a watch).

The cliffs were indeed incredibly high. When we climbed up with him, we looked down into the valley, which was shrouded in endless clouds and mist.

He immediately went back to retrieve his bag, and more than three hours later, his figure appeared on the cliff face, seemingly exhausted.

The savage threw the bag up to me, then slipped and nearly fell. I lunged forward, half my body on the cliff edge and half dangling over the edge, and grabbed the savage's head tightly with both hands.

“It’s okay…” He looked up and mouthed to me, “Let go…”

My face turned bright red. If the situation hadn't been really dangerous, how could I have disregarded my own safety and hugged him like that?

"Let go!" he shouted at me again, his voice hoarse, making two "ah ah" sounds, and then he seemed to want to say something more—

"Shut up!" I yelled at him. "How can I let go now? Your head is in my hands!!"

He moved his shoulder, trying to break free from my hand. I couldn't help it and he pulled me outwards a little more.