I Don't Like The World, I Only Like You

007

I told Guan Chao that I felt that Mr. F had changed.

“How so?”

“When I was young, he was extremely good to me – he helped me copy my homework, brought me cake, when I fell asleep in class he helped me not to get caught by the teacher, and whenever I got bullied he would always be the first to stand up for me. But now, he just thinks of new ways everyday to bully me, tease me, and use his high IQ to oppress me! I’m not as smart as him, so I can’t win any arguments, and I don’t even earn as much as him. Even if he brings a young and beautiful lady home, I won’t be able to outfox her and can only pack my luggage and come back to mum’s home.”

Guan Chao interrupted me, “That would never happen.”

“Don’t comfort me, the current situation is very severe.”

“What I meant was, mum and I would never agree to keep you.”

I was so angry I went to tattle to my mother, and confirmed whether Guan Chao was truly my real brother, and that I wasn’t a baby that was given for free when she was topping up her pre-paid mobile card?

My mother thought about it extremely seriously, and said, “Your situation… is actually more akin to buy one get one free.”

008

I was quarrelling with Mr. F – although I forgot what we were quarreling about at that point in time – and I confided in Guan Chao.

He was delighting in my misery at the other end of the phone, “I told you not to get married so early, but you insisted! If you two had broken up before marriage, you would still have been a cute and innocent young lady who just experienced a break up; but if you two break up now, you’d just be an old divorced woman.”

I was so scared I immediately returned home and made up with Mr. F.

Guan Chao was extremely proud of himself, claiming that he had special techniques and powers.

009

When I was in Primary School, the Water Margin Heroes cards were the rage. People born in 1990 ought to remember this, because everybody was collecting these cards. At that time, Guan Chao and I both didn’t have much allowance. However, Guan Chao’s memory was incredible – it was as though he could memorize something at first glance – as such, having read The Water Margin once, he was able to retell the story to the students in school the very next day. For every story that he told, he managed to obtain a Water Margin Hero card in exchange, until he gradually assembled the whole set of 108 cards.

Subsequently, I found this set of cards under my bed. I gave a call to Guan Chao, and Guan Chao sighed, reminiscing that the cards were a huge part of his childhood.

Guan Chao: “Do you know why I did what I did then?”

Me: “Wasn’t it because you wanted to showcase your shocking memory skills?”

“No, it wasn’t. Do you remember at that time you liked Lin Chong, but in our entire class only Cheng Jia Jia had that card? Even though you asked her to let you take one glance at the card, she adamantly refused and asked you to purchase your own card. I was quite upset, but I had no money, so I could only resort to this method.”

I was extremely touched, and immediately promised to buy the keyboard that he had been admiring for the longest period of time.

At night I told Mr. F this incident with tears in my eyes, and whilst recounting the story I suddenly slapped my thigh, “Shit! I’ve been had!”

Mr. F raised his head and asked me why. I grit my teeth in anger, “I just remembered, Cheng Jia Jia transferred out in Primary Two!”

The Water Margin Heroes cards had only started trending in Primary Four!

010

Once, when Guan Chao was accompanying me during shopping, I saw a cup I really liked, with a price tag of 35RMB for one. I tried to bargain, “Boss could you give it to me cheaper? How about 80RMB for two?”

The boss laughed heartily, “Little lady, you even helped me to increase the price.”

I realized my mistake, “Oh oh, I calculated wrongly.”

Guan Chao then interjected, “I’m sorry, my sister had an operation to remove her appendix when she was ten years old.”

The Boss asked what relation this piece of information had with the cup.

“The Doctor also removed her brain by accident.” He slowly replied.

… f𝘳𝚎𝐞we𝐛𝑛𝐨𝘃e𝘭.co𝘮

That night, I complained to Mr. F, pleading, “Emperor, you must obtain justice for your humble consort.”

Mr. F replied, “Okay, I, the Emperor, will help you bully him in return.”

That night, two of that shut the doors of the study room and played a night of XBOX.

The next morning, Guan Chao appeared before me with bloodshot eyes, and sighed, “Your husband tyrannically oppressed me for one whole night.”

Although what he said wasn’t inaccurate, why does it nevertheless sound so odd?

011

On the 30th December, I went to the airport to pick him up.

After one year of having not seen him, Mr. Guan Chao was still as good looking as ever. With his sunglasses, he confidently strode ahead whilst I jogged behind him, dragging the luggage.

On the car, I said, “You’re not even going to hug your real sister? In order to come and pick you up, I’ve been up since 6 this morning!”

Guan Chao: “Why should I hug you? Unless you’re offering to pay for my airplane ticket.”

Me: “Get lost!”

When we reached home, he lay on the chair and starting shouting at the top his lungs, “Mum, I’m hungry!”

I slapped him on the head, “If you want to eat, go and cook something yourself.”

My mother was in the kitchen, and replied that lunch was soon to be ready. I started shouting at the top of my lungs as well, “Mum you’re biased!! Ever since we were young you always condone his nonsensical behaviour!”

“If you’re so great, you can always choose not to eat.”

“Pei! The person who only comes home on 30th December has no ability to say this to me.”

“Then why would the person who doesn’t bother calling home for one entire month have the ability?” As the new year was approaching, I was extremely busy and kept forgetting to call my mum to update her. This person is always so updated with the recent news.

My mum brought the dishes out, smiling, “Don’t bully your sister.”

I immediately started complaining, “He just has a nasty mouth!”

He crawled up immediately, and said in an extremely serious tone, “Mum, if you can put up with an unfilial daughter, why can’t you put up with a son with a nasty mouth?”

My mother’s destiny appears to be quite depressing….

012

Once we went to Lao Feng Xiang to buy bracelets for my mother and my grandmother, and the two that we selected weren’t cheap. Whilst paying for the bracelets, I suddenly remembered that Mr. F’s niece was about to celebrate her 100th day birthday, and thus I bought a longevity lock for her.

I instantly felt my wallet become much lighter. Thus, I told my brother in a pitiful tone, “Brother, can we split the cost for mother’s bracelet?”

“You’re still not awake?”

“Are you truly my real brother?”

“No, you were picked up from the dump, but we were afraid that you would feel inferior so we never told you so.” He spouted rubbish in a righteous tone.

“Pei, you were a free gift that was given when mother was topping up her pre-paid mobile card.”

“You’re the worst prize that is given when one wins the lottery.”

“You’re the free gift that comes along with the purchase of toothbrushes.”

The cashier laughed aloud, “You guys have such a good relationship.”

“Who has a good relationship with him/her?!” Both of us shouted out unanimously.

013

When I was in Primary Six, I contracted a very strange type of illness, called scoliosis,. Normally, the average person’s spinal cord would be straight; however, my spinal cord was most unfortunately shaped like an S. It was a sudden illness, and till today we haven’t discovered the cause of the illness.

Although I am able to now talk about this incident with a smile on my face, I felt a total loss of hope at that point in time. Because I was sick, my whole body became extremely contorted, and my heart was constantly squashed – I may even have had been paralyzed should the illness continue to worsen.

However, we would be required to fork out a lot of money in order to undergo the operation, and my family wasn’t able to fork out that type of money.

During that period of time, I remember hiding in my blanket everyday and sobbing, while being extremely careful not to generate too much noise. After crying, I would then get up the next day and continue my cheerful pretense and acted without a care, as I was afraid that my mother would feel sad and guilty – she was already blaming herself for my plight.

I experienced insomnia every night, and my thoughts were all centered around the idea of suicide. One night, Guan Chao suddenly crawled onto my bed, and told me very seriously, “Do you know, committing suicide by jumping from a high-rise building would not result in instant death unless your head is positioned downwards and your brain matter successfully explodes out? Instead, many people simply experience a mere breaking of bones and injury to their internal organs – and are thus left to struggle on the floor for a long period of time while being forced to look at their life bleed away before they actually die.”

He then continued on the whole night, talking about the problems with drowning to death, slitting my wrist to death, and hanging to death…

As a result, I chose to bear the extreme mental and physical stress that resulted from my illness for two years. I only managed to successfully lie on the operating table after my mother scraped enough money together by borrowing from all sorts of people.

I heaved a sigh of relief, without knowing that the operation actually entailed a huge amount of risk; the doctor even said that there was a distinct possibility that I would have died on the operating table. My mother had signed the operation agreement with tears flowing down her cheeks.

After my operation, I stayed in ICU for 8 hours. Guan Chao subsequently said that those 8 hours were the hardest 8 hours he had to endure in his entire life. Whilst standing in the hospital corridor, he thought very seriously – if I had not been able to come out of the operation alive, he would change his name to mine and continue living my life for me.

Luckily, the operation was very successful, and I am still able to jump and run today.

There was a minor incident that I remember very clearly. In order to drain the dirty blood that was left subsequent to the operation, the doctor inserted a 30cm long tube next to my spinal cord, only to be removed ten days after the operation ended.

As I have always been able to tolerate pain, I simply grit my teeth and endured the pain when the tube was removed. I was able to feel the tube rubbing against my bone as it was removed inch by inch; it was so painful that my entire body was shuddering in pain. Guan Chao stood by my side and held my hand. After ten minutes, the entire tube was finally removed. As Guan Chao was still holding my hand, I asked him to loosen his grip to no avail. I then raised my head, and the very first thought that flashed through my mind was that I must have seen wrongly.

He was crying.

His head was lowered, and his shoulders were heaving as he cried silently. His hands continued to hold mine as he refused to let go.

Subsequently, I mocked him over this incident – I said that he was too embarrassing as he was crying in front so many people.

I thought he would retort nastily as per usual, so it was to my surprise that he said, “Well, who asked my sister to insist on putting up a brave front? As a brother I’m unable to help her with anything, so the only option I have left is to help her to cry.”

Despite being able to endure the huge amounts of pain without dropping a single tear, tears started to form in my eyes because of that single reply.