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Like
many of the young people in the South, Shi Tou and I are filled with
aspirations toward Taipei, this big city. Perhaps it is because we are
baffled by the flourishing ideals that it represents. Perhaps we are
hoping for even more, even better work opportunities that would be able to
let us show our skills. Or perhaps, it was merely because of a simple
dream that we have as kids. We packed our bags, said goodbye to our family
and our hometown, boarded the train, and placed ourselves in the middle of
this unfamiliar, yet well-known metropolis.
My name is Luo Mei Li, 26 years old, just got recruited
as an intern doctor by a large scale comprehensive hospital. Shi Tou is a
good friend that I grew up with, is the most kind-hearted, most
intelligent and most considerate boy that I have even seen. It's just that
he treats me as one of his buddies that he can talk about anything with.
Yet, I see him as the guy that I've had a secret crush on all these years.
I have a strong personality, but with regards to love, I just don't have
enough courage.
Actually we have a couple of friends that have been
developing their careers in Taipei already. Yang Bao Le, Polo, because he
has a solid and firm financial representative as a mom, therefore he could
always advance toward his "In 5 years, make 300 million dollars." ideal
without having to worry about much. Heard that in his three years in the
North, he has already invested in Portuguese custards, bubble tea, Spicy
hot pots, and the hottest thing around now, Internet Café. Although, in
the end, we found out that for each business it never survives more than 3
months. But Polo is honestly a good person, he is always enthusiastic in
helping his friends, never emphasizing on the small details, has a
personality that is very easy-going. So easy-going that when he hears
through the telephone about a room at the place called "Gao Ji Apartments"
are out in the market for rent, without even going to see the run-down
room, he immediately helped us pay the down payment for it, making us not
even able to regret it in time.
Wei Shu Zhi, I think that the people in Taipei all
calls her Gigi. She came to Taipei after graduating from High School. In
less than a couple of years, she became the most well-off person within
our group of friends. Advertising, spokesperson, famous people social
interaction, very quickly she became the so-called Famous Woman. Heard
that she has more than a 100 pairs of shoes, went to America to collect
clothing designs in the past. Also heard that her dad is a ship company's
big boss. But the Shu Zhi that I truly am acquainted with is still this
pretty girl that ties her hair in two braids. Of course, we also know
about her dad's job at the salt field. The family background that she
claims in front of the media is merely a kind of necessary protection that
one needs while living in Taipei. But I also know that she is the only
person that Shi Tou likes. Shi Tou met Shu Zhi at the five star hotel
during the Diamond Viewing Show. But busy interacting with the reporters,
Shu Zhi didn't have a chance to have a long talk with Shi Tou, and only
hurriedly left a sheet of paper with her cell phone number. As it happens,
at the same time that Shi Tou was so enthusiastically helping a person, he
managed to get the piece of paper wet. After a couple of weeks, he was
finally able to get in contact with Shu Zhi. During this time, because Shu
Zhi got involved in a extramarital affair, it was the time when she was
feeling the most depressed. Shi Tou's appearance became her greatest
dependence in her time of indecisiveness and helplessness. That's how I
stood by and just watched as Shi Tou sinks into love until after Shu Zhi
was cured and her pain relieved and she suddenly left. I once again acted
and played the role as his buddy and encouraged and supported Shi Tou.
We also have a good friend that left us very early on
to go to Taipei, Chen Feng. He doesn't look quite the same as us, very
dark, very handsome. We later found out that it was because he had the
lineage of the original nationality. Chen Feng has a very sorrowful heart
but we have never seen his tears before. During High School, his father
was killed by a bus. We all believed that that should be Chen Feng's most
sad matter but the outcome was that it wasn't. His sadness had existed way
before this. From the song that his mother taught him to sang, you were
able to hear it. After his mother was sold to his deaf and mute father by
her tribe, in order to take on the responsibility of the whole family's
living, she sold her body. In the end she died tragically on a bed in an
ugly room inside a motel. That's how Chen Feng carries along with him his
sister, Chen Zhen, who inherited her father's defect and that unbearable
past, treading weakly into and out of our lives. Yet in the heart of my
best friend, Yan Ru, he has left behind memories that were regretful and
sweet.
Yan Ru is Shi Tou's older sister, because of her health
problems, she was behind a year in studies and as a result, she was in the
same class as Shi Tou and I. Even though her health is weak and have lots
of illnesses, but I still believe that within this group of friends, there
is no one as strong, as brave as she. Yan Ru didn't come with us together
to Taipei, because she took into consideration that her mother died early
and in order to keep her father company, she chose to remain in the
hometown. Father and daughter together looked after their small bookstore.
Before she passed away, Yan Ru's mom was a music
teacher. She discovered Chen Zhen's musical talent and was willing to
teach Chen Zhen how to play the piano, free of charge. Thence, Shi Tou and
Polo were missing an opponent down at the basketball court, yet it gave
Yan Ru a partner in playing instruments and chatting with. The two of them
even secretly had a love relationship like that of an idol drama. Until
the senior year of a certain summer afternoon, Chen Feng didn't come to
class. Yan Ru hurried over to Chen Feng's home and finds out that there
was no one there anymore. On the other hand, Chen Feng is in front of Yan
Ru's home, anxiously waiting for her. In the end, at the urging of his
father, he could only squeeze the letter that he had in his hand through
the mailbox and left hastily. But, the door to the mailbox - don't know
who forgot to close it - this small letter slipped onto the ground and was
carried away by the wind - further and further away. Thence from then on,
just like the brother and sister, disappeared from the face of the earth.
Good thing we came to Taipei; Good thing that Chen Feng just happened to
be a worker at the amplify shop; Good thing that Yan Ru came to Taipei for
her check up and also to pay us a visit; Good thing that the place that we
live in has a Pang Zi, who's amplifier broke (The only thing that is
rather not good is that he is my boss and also fancies himself in love
with me. What's even worse is that I fell in love with him in the end!)
Thus, the six of us who has been best friends for more than 10 years,
eventually, in a distance several hundred kilometers away from our native
hometown, meet once again in the city of Taipei which possesses more than
2,000,000 people in population. Chen Feng and Yan Ru, Shi Tou and Shu Zhi,
perhaps I should add in myself who is by Shi Tou's side and Polo who is by
Yan Ru's side, our love relationships that have been sealed away would
once again begin anew…
But, 10 years is after all not a short time and us,
entering into the adult world, unconsciously started changing.
Chen Feng's personality seems to be deeper than before.
He is keeping himself under the control of an unaccountable tragedy, can't
come out of it and can't escape from it. For the past 20 years or more, he
has only learned to numb himself toward everything, including the musical
gift that God has bestowed on him and as well as feelings. He has several
times declined a music professor's professional guide, only for the
purpose of dealing with the present pressures in life. He still deeply
loves Yan Ru, but because he couldn't let go of this inferior feeling of
himself, having to protect his sister from a record of harming people
before, and the girl that has always been silently waiting by his side -
An Qi, he was willing to let this love relationship get increasingly
tangled up.
Their love was bringing the three of them so much pain
and Polo, who was loving Yan Ru from the side was also suffering - just
like me. Toward Shi Tou, Shu Zhi has always been "coming and going",
actually, strictly speaking, it should be that she has never accepted Shi
Tou's love all along. But Shi Tou doesn't mind, he's still willing to
wholeheartedly do anything for her. I don't know if I'm envious or what. I
just know that I'm always following the ups and downs of Shi Tou's moods.
Sometimes during the examinations or check-ups, I would just start crying
for no reason at all - frightening the nurses and Pang Zi on the side. But
this kind of situations don't always happen. After all, we are intelligent
people and will not, because of emotions, let it get to our heads and
forget about our real objective for coming to Taipei. After a couple of
exams, I used my abilities to prove to the hospital that females can still
use attentiveness and willpower to overcome the lack of physical strength
and become a necessary role in the surgical room. Shi Tou entered into an
ideal enterprise and used his consistent sincere-ness and intelligence to
break through the darkness of struggling for power within the
organization. In the end, Polo also saw through to his own ability. He no
longer sinks into this unrealistic investment fantasy and works together
side by side with Shi Tou (That's actually putting it lightly, cause there
was a time when the two of them actually insists on each of their own
standpoints and almost turned against each other.) Even though there is a
big contrast from Shu Zi's famousness and the reality of her
accomplishments, even if she chose a marriage that was full of violence
later, she is still everyone's focal point. As for Chen Feng, under the
encouragement of Yan Ru and Chen Zhen, he eventually faces his own
abilities and gradually released his brilliant rays over the music
industry.
Because of Chen Feng, Yan Ru also came to Taipei later,
but at that moment, she discovers a secret that has been hidden for more
than 26 years in her life.
Hua Lian Prison, 21468, Wu Yong Sen is released from
prison. The glamorous blossoming of the lotus flower tells Wu Yong Sen
that he is finally free. 26 years and he is finally free…
Recalling back to a night 26 years ago, that year Wu
Yong Sen was only 22 years old and in another few days, his wife would be
giving birth to their first child. Every day they are very happy, very
joyous, but happiness cannot solve their problems. He is an illiterate
farmer in the South. After getting married with his wife, they moved to
Taipei, hoping to give their future child a better environment so that
they won't have to continue living with hardships. But because of one
accident, Wu Yong Sen, who was going to his friend to borrow money, got
mistaken for a murderer. When he fled back to his home, before he even
have the time to explain everything to his wife - the police have arrived.
In order to prevent him from escaping, the leader of the group of police,
opened fire once and accidentally killed the wife that was thinking about
protecting her husband.
In the confusion of the judicial world, after being
mistakenly behind bars for 26 years even when there was not enough
evidence and after finally being released from jail, Wu Yong Sen
wholeheartedly wants to find the policeman who opened that one shot and
kill his whole family to revenge for his wife. Learning how to read while
he was in prison, Wu Yong Sen investigated all the clues and eventually
found out that policeman who is named Lin, has already resigned, moved to
the South and now has one son and one daughter in Taipei. But what he
didn't know was that the child that was in his wife's belly had
miraculously been saved and is now alive. Moreover, the child has been
secretly taken away by the guilt-ridden policeman named Lin. Because he
didn't wish the girl to grow up and find out that her father is a
murderer, he unlawfully took her and moved far from Taipei and changed her
name to Ru Yan…
Wu Yong Sen left for Taipei, meticulously plotting his
revenge operation and relying on the friend that is like his son for two
years while in prison, Chen Feng…
I'm unable, in such a short essay, to account in detail
all the suffering and painful entanglements that happened in this period
of time. But I can tell you that we are like everyone else. When we are
experiencing the setbacks in relationships and work, after succeeding or
failing, we will still grow up, mature, and will also gradually realize,
through experience, the different tastes in life - doesn't matter if the
ending is bitter or sweet. But this is our story, my friends. I will
forever remember these friends, these times, and also this one phrase that
Shi Tou, who has later became a CEO, always uses as the first sentence of
his speeches: "I'm not a particularly successful person. If you want to
ask me what kind of person I am? I think, I am merely a Southern child
that would never give up!"
translated by mandy
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