The_Dangerous_Wife

96 | China Book International Appreciation of Chinese Literature
When Lihua told me about the stormy waves in her life, I was testing the skin on my face inch by inch with my fi ngers. The fi ne particles that could be clearly defi ned by the touch of my fi ngers suggested that I was suffering an allergic event once in a century. After about half an hour, she left. I began to cook dinner. The house suddenly fell into quietness. In the crib, Xizai had learned a new game. When the crib pulleys were not locked, she could slide the crib from the bedroom to the dining room on her own. It was enough for her to see me cooking in the kitchen. She enjoyed this game of wandering. Sometimes, I looked back at her. Her small head was covered by thin and soft hair; her plump cheeks showed pretty radians. She smiled at me, revealing only a few teeth.
The backs of prawns were opened, and the black veins were removed, leaving some shrimp tails. After Zhu Jing Zhu Jing is a novelist and a doctor of Literature, an associate professor at the School of Arts, Nanjing Normal University, and a visiting scholar at Waseda University. She won the 7th Purple Mountain Literary Award of Jiangsu Province.
the oil was hot, I poured them into the pan. In the blink of an eye, they were curved and became shrimp balls, vivid, full, and fl eshy. They tasted good with green asparagus and broccoli. I steamed the perch and put onion balls on it. When dinner was ready, I would pour soy sauce over the dish. The cooking machine was working smoothly. In the mixers, the green was spinach, the yellow was sweet potatoes, and the red was carrots. I fried small pieces of salmon or cod with walnut oil in the pan. This was Xizai’s dinner.Over dinner, I said to Kun, “I seem to be allergic.”“Hum,” Kun replied vaguely. It seemed that he had answered me, or not. I was a little confused by why I suddenly became allergic, but I didn’t care too much. When I was feeding Xizai, I quickly swallowed some food.People Chosen by Cats Zhu Jing Shandong Pictorial Publishing House April 202356.00 (CNY)This book collects Zhu Jing’s 11 new short stories written in the last three years. These stories tell about the complex and destructive power in intimate relationships, as well as women’s contradictions and essential loneliness in this era as they grow up.
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The next day, the day after the next... On the seventh day, those fine particles remained. I began to feel anxious. I watched my face in the mirror. If I looked close enough, I could see the fine particles. But they were a red piece when I looked from a distance. I touched them with my hand, and it felt sensitive. The bad feeling rested on my fingers. At the dinner table, I repeated, “I seem to be really allergic.” “Oh,” Kun raised his eyes, “It seems a bit red.”
On the third afternoon, Lihua had a day’s break and visited me as usual. As undergraduate schoolmates
for four years, Lihua and I were originally not familiar with each other. As a native, she used to go back home on weekends, and our schedules were perfectly staggered. She was generous and keen on club activities, but I was a home girl who was haunted by the dormitory, the library, and classrooms. So, how did we become close friends? When I look back, she loved roller skating for a while. There was a popular skating rink in the city. Next to the rink was the largest book market in the city. For our own hobbies, we took a bus from the remote school to downtown. Then, she went to the rink, and I went to the book market. After that, we went back to school together on the rickety bus. I asked her, “Why did you choose that rink among so many other ones?” She
told me, “That rink is near my high
school. In the past, when I went back
home by bike from school, seeing
the fashionable boys and girls inside,
I would think about when I could
go there.” On the night bus back to
school, we hid in the corner of the
crowd as if we had been separated
from the outside world. After some
secret talks, we became bosom
friends. After graduation, we both
worked in this city. We got married
almost at the same time and attended
each other’s weddings. We had
children almost at the same time, too,
and they were pretty girls.
We put our children in a crib, and
they could work jointly to slide the
crib around the living room like
a pulley. Their laughter echoed in
the whole space like angels’ bells.
Lihua boiled coffee herself and took
some leftover cheesecake out of
the fridge. This kind of cake used
to be wildly popular, but suddenly,
nobody was interested in it. Now,
you could buy one and get one for
free, and the cakes were delivered
quickly to the door. Then, I gave
up the painstaking work of making
cakes. It was fine to have desserts
with bitter drinks. I put down my
work and poured a cup of coffee,
too. I sat next to her and had the
cake little by little. I only took a sip
at a time to control my dependence
on sugar. My responsibilities at
31 years old include keeping fit,
going on a diet, and teaching Xizai
numbers.
“I worked the night shift yesterday.
This morning, I went back and had
a check. As expected, he didn’t stay
at home for the night. The towel was
dry, and the toothbrush was dry.”
“The night before yesterday, when he
was taking a bath, I went downstairs
with his car key, and found a cell
phone in the trunk. But I couldn’t
open it without a password.”
Lihua told me about her husband’s
latest news as usual. It sounded like
a report from a private detective
agency. Recently, her statement has
been more of an intellectual contest
than sorrow. Lihua and her husband
Xiao, my husband Kun and I, used
to be a group of four connected by
Lihua and me. In the beginning,
we had a good time, dining and
singing together. Lihua has been
married for four years and they have
a three-year-old child. Her husband
has been unfaithful for three and a
half years. In the past three and a
half years, I’ve seen her collapse,
her despair, her complaints, and her
indifference. Now she gossips the
latest news of her husband’s affair,
which has become a regular part of
our talks.
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SEPTEMBER 2023 | 97。