Clear mud lotus flower

Author: Ji Xia
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-01-01
Features: The author, Ji Xia, is a woman from Heilongjiang who studies Chinese. She is a typical "386" and currently resides in Beijing. 1. They are like adhesives, able to stick together broken things and also bring distant relationships much closer. Through the car window, Qingni Lianhua watched Lianhua, tears brimming in her eyes, unsure whether to laugh or cry. Four years ago, Qingni Lianhua came from a small town called Qingni in southern Sichuan to this ordinary university in the Central Plains to study Chinese. Lianhua had no chance to retake the exam and had to suppress her tears and come to the school. Coincidentally, there was another Lianhua, also recruited from a small town in Northeast China. It seemed she wasn’t very interested in this school either. Later, it was found out that she had actually applied to this very school. With two Lianhua in the same class, from the far ends of the country, it was quite a coincidence. Thus, whether classmates or teachers, they called the Lianhua from southern Sichuan "Qingni Lianhua," with the nickname "Qingni," while the Northeast Lianhua remained just "Lianhua." Qingni and Lianhua were roommates, both with the same name and gender. As newcomers, they naturally spent every day together. The autumn in the Central Plains was still sweltering, and there were many night owls in the campus, so until the dead of night, there were still spirits wandering around. There was a railway next to the campus. Walking about two or three miles along the railway, there was a pond filled with lotuses. Late at night, the pond would echo with frog croaks and the fragrance of lotuses. Qingni Lianhua and Lianhua often sat here until late, only to return to school. Lianhua, who grew up in the Northeast, had only known lotuses from books. When she stood in the real ten-acre pond, she was so excited she almost fell in. If Qingni hadn’t been quick, she would have become a "drenched lotus." Lianhua was a beautiful Northeastern girl, who could be considered a lady that would keep gentlemen tossing and turning. She had very fair skin, black hair, and inward-looking eyes, giving her a somewhat mixed-race look. Once, when Lianhua was looking at Xiao Dong’s mirror in the dorm, she couldn’t help but say, "Look, how beautiful I am! Such big eyes, such fair skin, such a tall height, and such a slender figure." Lianhua’s self-praise left Qingni and her friends utterly astonished. Xiao Dong stepped forward and flipped the mirror hanging in front of her own bed upside down, "Don’t look at my mirror. If you want to show off, go back to your own dorm and do it there."