YHTD 14

Chapter 14

Atypical Long-Distance Relationship Survival Rules

Chapter 5: Atypical Long-Distance Relationship Survival Rules

From the time we somehow muddled our way into a relationship in our freshman year of college until now—me in graduate school and him already working—these years we’ve always been in a long-distance relationship, meeting rarely and being apart most of the time. Fortunately, with all kinds of modern communication devices, whenever I wanted to show him my new hairstyle from every angle, we could video chat. But many times—especially after an argument—dozens of phone calls and hundreds of messages couldn’t compare to the reality of a single hug.

1

After Third Master agreed to my “confession,” he immediately called me. At that time, I was working on assignments in the self-study room. When I felt my phone vibrate, I actually panicked for a moment—the sudden change in our relationship made me a little unaccustomed.

I ran with my phone to the lobby of the teaching building, pacing in circles around that white stone pillar as I talked. It was early winter, and the doors of the lobby were wide open. Every now and then the wind would blow in. I stamped my feet to keep warm, my voice trembling as I spoke.

Third Master asked, “Are you very nervous?”

I said, “No, I’m just cold.”

So he said, “Then you should go back to the classroom.”

I replied, “Alright, I’ll go back then.”

We didn’t even say goodbye before I was chased back into the classroom by the wind. Only after sitting down did I realize—this was our very first phone call after officially getting together, and we hadn’t said a single meaningful thing.

That night, after returning to the dormitory, I called him. He hung up and then called me back. The only person who had ever treated me like that before was my mom. When he did that, I suddenly felt really warm inside.

In front of my friends, I was the “tough girl” who could carry six thermoses of hot water up to the fifth floor by myself to share with the entire dorm. But in Third Master’s eyes, I was just a little girl who even struggled with opening bottle caps. All those little details of his thoughtfulness made me feel that, when I was with him, I didn’t need to put up any kind of façade—I could simply be myself.

That night we talked for more than an hour. We chatted about our high school classmates, our college classmates, and our new lives.

Thus began our “telephone romance.”

2

Every night before bed, Third Master and I would lie down and talk endlessly on the phone, sometimes for one or two hours, as if we never ran out of things to say.

Finally, one day, I felt that something was off—after such long conversations, it wasn’t just me talking. Third Master also talked a lot.

I asked him, “Have you always been this talkative?”

He told me a story: “When I was about six or seven years old, I was at my aunt’s house. During dinner, I kept talking nonstop. My cousin asked me, ‘Where do you get so many things to say?’ I don’t know why, but I suddenly blurted out, ‘I have a chattering mouth.’”

I pictured little Third Master sitting at the table among a group of adults, earnestly saying “I have a chattering mouth,” and I was instantly overwhelmed by how ridiculously cute the image was.

After this story that completely confused my judgment, the quiet, pure boy I remembered was gone forever, replaced by someone who acted deep and serious in front of others but with me turned into a nonstop, playful chatterbox.

3

One day, I was in the dorm reading. The wind was howling outside, banging the window back and forth, accompanied by the whistling sound of air rushing through cracks.

Suddenly, Third Master called me: “I just walked under a row of tall trees. The leaves are so green, the sunlight so bright.”

I said, “It’s so windy in Beijing right now.”

Third Master said, “With the sunlight shining on the leaves, you suddenly came to mind.”

I didn’t understand the logic and asked suspiciously, “Huh?”

He said, “It suddenly hit me—I really like you.”

At that moment, staring out at the withered branches outside the window, nearly torn apart by the wind, I was completely stunned.

That was the first time he told me he liked me.