Chapter Fifty-Seven: "Just Watch"
Su Manshu’s cheeks flushed suddenly. She lowered her head, folded up the last page of annotations, and said, “I need to submit some materials to the department soon. You take a look at these first.”
“If there’s anything you don’t understand, mark it. I’ll come back tonight.”
As she hoisted her canvas bag onto her shoulder, something seemed to occur to her. She fished a White Rabbit milk candy from her pocket and set it on the desk. “For energy—keep fighting.”
Xu Chengjun picked up the White Rabbit, its sugar paper transparent. He smiled.
Yes, White Rabbit candy had already existed in 1979. Its origins traced back to 1943, when the Shanghai ABC Candy Factory produced “ABC Mickey Mouse Candy.” In 1950, after the factory was merged with others under public-private partnership, it became the Aimin Candy Factory within Shanghai Guanshengyuan. In 1959, the “White Rabbit Milk Candy” debuted, with the rabbit as its emblem, a tribute for the tenth National Day. When Nixon visited China, White Rabbit candy was even presented as a state gift to the distinguished delegation. This year, White Rabbit won the National Silver Award for its outstanding quality, cementing its status as a beloved national brand.
He watched Su Manshu’s hair sway as she turned away, and suddenly thought of the phrase “Thought and the realm as one.” Without thinking, he scribbled it in his notebook.
“Thank you,” he murmured toward her retreating figure, his voice drifting.
Su Manshu paused mid-step, didn’t turn back, but waved a hand in the air. She fled, as if escaping.
The wooden door closed with a gentle creak, wrapping silence around the archives once more, leaving only the soft scratch of his pen across manuscript paper.
Xu Chengjun unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth. The milky sweetness spread across his tongue.
Yes, it was very sweet.
He lowered his head and examined the annotations; Su Manshu’s handwriting was delicate and neat. Beside the section on “The Beauty of Harmony,” she’d written, “Can be compared with ‘On Established Patterns’ in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons.” A tiny pencil arrow pointed toward the location of the iron cabinet in the archives.
“Quite thoughtful,” he chuckled and shook his head.
On the last blank page, he noticed she’d drawn a tiny orchid with pencil, its petals fine but distinctly rendered.
Hidden quite deeply.
Xu Chengjun sorted the annotations by chapter and slipped them into his thesis, remembering Su Manshu’s mention of the typewriter on the third floor.
He gathered his manuscript and headed down the corridor. The wooden stairs creaked under his feet. As he passed the conference room, he peered inside.
The long table was draped in blue cloth, an old-fashioned standing fan stood in the corner, its blades coated with a thin layer of dust.
The typewriter was tucked away in the utility room at the end of the corridor, its iron casing stamped “Made in Shanghai.”
Xu Chengjun tried a few keys; the clatter startled the sparrows on the windowsill.
It was a mechanical printer.
In those days, printers were “valuable office equipment,” not easily accessible. This one was an aging relic about to be retired.
Clearly, Su Manshu had opened a small back door for him.
From her Shanghai wristwatch to her not-so-plain attire for the era, and her familiarity with knowledge and the Chinese Department—
This girl was far from ordinary.
Though the machine was old, it worked, more or less.
He spread out his manuscript and began typing, the mechanical sounds echoing down the empty corridor, making the words “Modern Transformation of Traditional Literary Theory” ring particularly clear.
He only stopped when dusk crept into the hallway.
Actually, the logic of using a mechanical typewriter was quite simple, even more “intuitive” than early computers.
In his previous life, while inventorying the warehouse at work, he and a colleague had handled one of these old machines from the eighties.
The typewriter’s keyboard mirrored modern layouts; pressing a key sent the hammer striking the ribbon, imprinting the character onto the paper—the logic exactly like “typing” with a keyboard.
The only thing to watch for was the line-feed knob on the right; after finishing a line, you’d turn the knob and the paper would advance.
He hadn’t expected to be actually typing a thesis on one, someday.
From afar, the cafeteria whistle sounded for dinner. He pulled out a cornbread from his canvas bag and took a couple of bites, washing it down with tap water.
His gaze returned to his thesis beside the typewriter.
The evening breeze slipped through the window, carrying the scent of grass from the sports field.
Xu Chengjun stacked the finished pages neatly.
Once again, he passed the mirror in the first-floor lobby.
This time, someone seemed to have cleaned it—it looked much clearer.
...
When he pushed open the wooden door, the dim yellow light revealed someone already seated.
Su Manshu was leaning over the table, writing something, her hair trailing onto her manuscript. Beside her hand sat an enamel cup.
She looked up as he entered, surprise quickly melting into a smile. “Finished typing so quickly?”
“All thanks to you,” Xu Chengjun said, placing his thesis on the table. He smiled, “Just noticed the orchid you drew—hidden quite deep.”
Su Manshu’s ears flushed red. She hurriedly stuffed her manuscript into the drawer. “Just a doodle… So you’ve finished your research?”
He wasn’t one for teasing, so he let her change the subject.
It was best not to expose a girl’s little secrets—otherwise, in the end, you’d only make things awkward for yourself.
“More or less,” he said, pointing to the thesis, “but the section on the ‘tradition of analogy and allusion’ still feels a bit lacking.”
Moonlight spilled in from the tall window, landing on the manuscript between them.
Su Manshu picked up her fountain pen and circled a passage; Xu Chengjun leaned in to look, their hair brushing together inadvertently.
She suddenly looked up and smiled. “Look at the moonlight—it falls on the manuscript like ink that hasn’t dried. The ancients said ‘there’s painting in poetry,’ and it turns out literary theory hides scenes like this too.”
Xu Chengjun followed her gaze to the window frame. Moonlight filtered through the wrought iron lattice, casting a delicate pattern onto the manuscript.
The night breeze drifted in, carrying the scent of camphor wood.
It stirred Su Manshu’s hair as it fell over her shoulder. When the ends brushed his hand, both recoiled as if scalded.
The air suddenly grew so quiet that they could hear each other’s breathing, mingled with distant, scattered laughter from the sports field.
Xu Chengjun looked at her reddening ears, then at the orchid hidden at the page’s edge. He felt that this moment deserved to be recorded.
Not textual evidence for a thesis, nor a term from literary theory—but simply this moonlight, this evening breeze, and the faint ripple at the tip of his heart.
When those ripples spread, it was as if he could hear the distant sound of waves.
He picked up a pencil and wrote “Look” in the corner of the blank manuscript.
The tip paused, and he added in smaller characters, “For you.”
...
“Look”
—For You
By Xu Chengjun
Look,
the waves sweep over the sandbank,
footprints growing shrouded in mist.
/
Look,
the flecks of gold in the wind
drift from the ends of your hair toward the stars.
/
Look,
our gazes overlap on the same tide,
shadows rocking with the oars of the evening breeze.
/
Look,
our heartbeats untouched by the waves,
let us gather the amber brilliance forged from light.
...
Xu Chengjun gazed at the line “gather the amber brilliance forged from light,” lost in thought. A sudden itch brushed the back of his neck.
He instinctively turned his head, his nose buried in a soft warmth scented of her hair.
He hadn’t noticed when Su Manshu had come close; the cuff of her moon-white blouse grazed his ear, her breath carrying a hint of mint as she stared at the poem in his hand.
Breath met breath, their exhalations mingling in the air, steaming on their faces.