Chapter 5

Death Barbie Pink

Unlike Ha Yue, who was startled and dropped her jaw in surprise,

Xue Jing remained calm when he saw Ha Yue for the first time. He only slightly furrowed his brow, almost imperceptibly.

It wasn’t that he wanted to show any emotion toward his ex-girlfriend, whom he hadn’t seen in years, but the fabric wrapped around Ha Yue’s head was just too eye-catching.

“Death Barbie Pink”—a color Ha Yue had once expressed strong disdain for in front of him.

Xue Jing remembered clearly. When they had been dating for just a week, it had coincided with Ha Yue’s birthday. He had gone to the cosmetics counter in the mall to pick out a birthday gift for her. At that time, social networking was not as developed as it is now, and relationship advice was still mostly passed along by word of mouth. He had received a piece of solid advice from a male roommate who had been in a stable relationship for years: “Girls love beauty, and the first thing they need is lipstick. Especially if it’s a set, and it’s from a brand that can be shown off with engraved initials on social media—those are the real deal.”

So, the day before, with a sincere heart, Xue Jing used his parents’ secondary card to buy ten YSL lipsticks, each engraved with Ha Yue’s Chinese name and English initials. He wrapped them neatly, sprayed them with perfume, to prove his sincerity.

However, the next day, when he took the gift out of the paper bag under the girls’ dormitory building, he didn’t receive the appreciation he had hoped for from Ha Yue.

She, like him now, lightly furrowed her brow, and her expression, though calm, revealed a hint of disdain. She opened one of the lipsticks and, with a reproachful look, said to him, “Xue Jing, can you not waste money like this? Look at this color of lipstick you bought! Ugh! Death Barbie Pink, even my mom wouldn’t wear it. The salesgirl probably just tricked you because you’re an ignorant young man.”

She not only called him small and clueless, but Ha Yue also suddenly shifted to criticizing him for his lack of thoughtfulness, her words sharp and logical as a robber’s knife.

“Besides, how old are you? Still using your parents’ card? I can’t accept a gift that’s neither proper nor well-intentioned.”

That was Xue Jing’s first romantic relationship and the first time he had used his parents’ card to purchase a brand-name product during his three years of college.

Naturally, after the gift failure, his face turned red, but the pride he held inside wouldn’t allow him to back down easily in front of the girl he liked. His eyelashes fluttered, and he clenched his fists, determined to argue stubbornly, “Who’s card I use is none of your business, anyway, I engraved the names on them so you can’t return them. How do you know they’re ugly if you haven’t tried them? Try it first, maybe you’ll like it. If you don’t like this one, how about this one? The salesperson said this one is called ‘Thinking of You color,’ it’s really popular in Korea this year.”

After much persistence from Xue Jing, Ha Yue did, in fact, try on one of the gold-wrapped YSL lipsticks on the spot. But as soon as the lipstick touched her lips, Xue Jing understood why Ha Yue called it the “Death Color.”

It was too pink, too purple. He watched as Ha Yue’s fair skin immediately took on a yellowish hue from the color, and her lips seemed like they might fly off her face. He understood—it truly was the color of death.

It was the kind of color that could scare away any lecherous man if a girl wore it.

That day, the two of them stared at each other for a long time, neither speaking. In the end, it was Ha Yue who couldn’t hold back, covering her mouth and laughing. Only when Xue Jing lowered his head and admitted his mistake did Ha Yue take a tissue from her coat pocket and wipe off all the color from her lips.

Then, with her lips now clean, she pressed a light, snowflake-like kiss on his cheek.

She said, “Xue Jing, this one’s good, but don’t buy it again next time. I’m begging you.”

The memory was clear. Ha Yue had always been quite awkward when it came to romance, but it was precisely this not-so-romantic girl who, from color to temperature, from gravitational acceleration to Euclidean space, had completed all his early lessons about women when he was nineteen.

But at this moment, Ha Yue was covering her entire face with a scarf in that very same color.

There was no need to describe her complexion—it was far from fair, with a bit of green mixed into the black. It was probably what they called olive color.

And on that face, which needed no further description, the lips that Xue Jing had kissed many times before were cracked, like the dry, fissured earth. A sound like tectonic plates shifting came from her lips as she uttered, “Xue Jing?”

If there was anything to blame, it was Ha Yue’s loud voice. Her shout immediately drew the attention of Old Huang, who had been squatting by the roadside smoking. He snuffed out his cigarette with the sole of his shoe and looked at the two of them, raising his head curiously. “What’s going on? Do you two know each other?”

It was truly amusing to think that a so-called “big writer” from the city, hired to write literary reports, knew a local woman who raised pigs. Could it be that there was some scandalous gossip between them?

Gossip wasn’t just for women—when men got chatty, it could be just as deadly.

All eyes were on this seemingly unrelated pair of men and women, and there was no pause before they each turned their heads and spoke in unison:

“Do you know each other?” 

“Know each other.” 

“Don’t know each other.”

Ha Yue said they knew each other, while Xue Jing said they didn’t.

Xue Jing’s face had already turned pale, and hearing Ha Yue’s definitive answer, his expression became even worse. His voice returned to its polite tone. He first gave a harmless smile while scanning his surroundings, then looked into Ha Yue’s eyes and politely asked, “Excuse me, may I ask if we know each other?”

Others might not be familiar with Xue Jing’s personality, but Ha Yue, having been in a relationship with him for 2.1 years, understood his nature very well.

Her first love, Xue Jing, was not only good-looking but also had one major characteristic: he was extremely “polished” in his dealings with others.

From the outside to the inside, he was always perfectly appropriate, like a social robot programmed to be flawless.

During their four years of university, from professors to classmates, Ha Yue never heard of Xue Jing having any disputes or arguments with anyone. If they had never dated, he would have been the type of gentleman who made people feel like they were basking in a spring breeze. He was always polite and considerate, with phrases like “Thank you,” “Sorry,” and “Excuse me” constantly on his lips.

But because Ha Yue had been in an intimate relationship with him, she had seen him without the “perfect person” facade, so she understood that for some people, their warmth could reach a threshold. They were so considerate and flawless that it was impossible to find fault, but in fact, that was also a way of maintaining distance and not wanting to easily offer their true feelings.

For example, now, he was using good manners to express cold indifference.

The moment Ha Yue saw Xue Jing smile at her in that fake, formal way, she immediately realized she had said the wrong thing.

Xue Jing had once written in his second published novel: The most dignified ex should voluntarily disappear from the face of the earth.

They should never appear in each other’s social circles. If they had been classmates, they shouldn’t attend class reunions. If they were coworkers, after ending their relationship, one party should resign. Even if fate was unfair and they ran into each other unexpectedly years later on the street, they should hurriedly leave, pretending they had never known each other, not even exchanging a glance.

That was the best way to preserve the regret and beauty of a lost love.

At the time, Xue Jing’s writing was rather dogmatic, full of youthful stubbornness. He wrote that, for couples who had parted ways, sitting down to chat and reminisce, or occasionally finding excuses to appear in each other’s lives, was the most vulgar and low-class thing in a relationship, because it only proved that the romanticism of the past had faded, and the old love had merely become a guise controlled by desire.

Reconciliation was hopeless; it was just an attempt to have an easy fling. This was a desecration of love and something to be scorned.

Ha Yue had speculated when reading this that Xue Jing probably wasn’t writing from imagination but was instead reflecting his own thoughts about love.

Thinking about the desecration of love, Ha Yue’s face turned red as she couldn’t help but recall some moments where she and Xue Jing had desecrated each other.

Their first time happened six months after they started dating.

In the second semester of their junior year, Xue Jing and Ha Yue’s relationship had grown increasingly close, almost to the point of being perfect. Even their gazes could spark electricity. Yet, despite this, their conversations were always lofty. Apart from academics, they talked about the four arts of the Song Dynasty, Greek philosophy, movies, songs, and life. When their emotions ran deep, Xue Jing would even read Keats’ sonnet to her in a genuine Oxford accent.

When he recited Bright Star and looked at her with his dark, clear eyes, they seemed to shimmer like bright stars, and she could see her own soul reflected in them.

They were a young couple, full of passion, and had plenty of opportunities to stay up all night together because they missed the dorm curfew. However, Xue Jing never once hinted at any desire to take things to the next level. He always had new ways of avoiding the awkwardness of them lying on a bed in a hotel room together.

They went to see the autumn leaves at Xiangshan, watched the winter scenery at Houhai, and even once, in the spring when everything seemed to be in heat, they bought tickets for a late-night cinema screening and watched six straight hours of Lam Ching Ying performing exorcisms and fighting zombies.

At first, Ha Yue thought his “goodness” was hypocritical and laughable. In her eyes, these were just tricks to mask his own desires.

But in contrast to the crude excuses that the other boys used to try to get girls into bed, Xue Jing’s “resistance with a hint of attraction” was, in fact, a bit clever.

Talking about love is a matter of relativity. Xue Jing maintained the posture of a good person, with a relaxed attitude, while the pressure fell on Ha Yue.

Ha Yue, confident in her open-mindedness as a modern woman, didn’t feel the need to bind herself with outdated notions. To consider chastity as the capital for love or even marriage was to objectify herself. In other words, she believed that, just like men, normal women had physical needs, and having a protected relationship with someone she loved was as healthy as anything, with no need to deny it.

Additionally, her intellectual idol in her freshman year was the French existentialist writer Simone de Beauvoir.

Since she wasn’t the type of girl who needed to be coaxed into having her first experience, Xue Jing didn’t need to play any games with her.

When the timing was right, and both of them were emotionally invested, she had tried to test him a few times, but Xue Jing remained a gentleman, not easily falling for her advances. He was as gentlemanly as if he lived on a cloud, having already severed his desires like an immortal Taoist monk.

So, on the day of the first snow, she decided to take matters into her own hands and booked a hotel room near Ji University, texting Xue Jing that she urgently needed him to come over.

However, it was also that day when Ha Yue, dressed in a special uniform, forced Xue Jing to retreat to the foot of the bed. His ears were flushed, his shoulders hunched, and he wrapped his arms around them defensively, quietly telling her that he wasn’t playing any love games.

The reason Xue Jing had been avoiding a relationship with Ha Yue was because he had no actual experience.

He was a novice just like her, but they both mistakenly assumed that the other person, being so excellent, must be experienced in the ways of love. He was afraid of showing any weakness and being mocked by Ha Yue, so he desperately tried to cover up his shortcomings in their relationship.

But in reality, that night, they worked together until the sun rose, proving that his shortcomings weren’t just in the physical realm, but also in the dimension of time.

He was truly the epitome of humility.