The Secret Realm of Time, His and Her Life Through the Changes

Life goes on. Wang Jie still spends half the morning at the training school as an English teacher and returns to her own school in the afternoon to assist professors in collecting data and doing research.

I usually take on tutoring jobs in the evenings. It's a busy day, and it's quite tiring.

This week, Jian Zheng had relatives visiting, and he was reluctantly assigned by his mother to be their local guide and tour leader, taking them sightseeing. He would occasionally send a message to Wang Jie to complain. Since there was nothing else to do, Wang Jie didn't reply. After almost a week without seeing Jian Zheng, Wang Jie finally had a few days of peace and quiet.

That day, Wang Jie returned home later than usual after finishing his tutoring job. As he passed the octagonal pavilion on the street corner, he vaguely saw a girl sitting in the pavilion under the dim streetlights. Her figure looked quite familiar.

He had walked past and then turned back, and sure enough, it was Zhou Yanruo sitting there alone, lost in thought.

"It's so late, why aren't you home yet?" Wang Jie said to Zhou Yanruo, who was sitting there in a daze, standing on the steps of the octagonal pavilion.

"Teacher Wang." Zhou Yanruo was lost in thought when someone suddenly spoke to her, startling her. Turning around, she saw Wang Jie walking into the octagonal pavilion.

"Hmm, what are you doing sitting here?" Wang Jie walked in and sat down opposite Zhou Yanruo, saying, "It's quite stuffy today, and the pavilion isn't cool either."

"I don't want to go home. I'll just sit here for a while," Zhou Yanruo said dejectedly.

"Is the training workload a bit too heavy? I heard Zhang Yang from your class mention that the acting and vocal classes are fine, but the dance classes are too demanding and physically exhausting," Wang Jie said.

"I started dancing relatively late, so keeping up with dance classes is a bit challenging compared to others who started as children and can adapt much faster. But it's alright, I did ballet when I was little, so I can still do basic stretching."

"That must be tiring. You should get some rest to recover."

"Okay, I'll stay for a while and then leave."

The weather was unusually hot and humid tonight. Wang Jie took out two exercise books from his bag and used them as fans, handing one to Zhou Yanruo.

As he fanned himself, he said, "Tell me, can I help you?"

Zhou Yanruo felt a little embarrassed when she realized she had something on her mind, but it was better to have someone listen to her than to keep it to herself.

“I just overheard my parents calling my grandma to say they’re coming here on a business trip tomorrow,” Zhou Yanruo said.

"Oh...that's great."

"I didn't tell them I was going to the training course. If they find out tomorrow, I probably won't be able to go."

"Don't they support you?"

"Yes, they think I should study hard and go to university."

"That's not wrong, shouldn't it be like this?"

"Do you think so too?" "It's always been arranged for me by others; no one has ever asked me what I want."

Wang Jie was somewhat surprised. Looking at Zhou Yanruo across from her with a disdainful expression, she seemed to see the former Shang Yibo.

So, Zhou Yanruo, who comes from a privileged family, also grew up in this way, striving to live the life others wanted her to live under the careful arrangement of her relatives.

He was able to empathize with Zhou Yanruo's feelings immediately.

In stark contrast to Wang Jie's current situation, Shang Yibo has enjoyed a privileged upbringing since childhood and has never had to worry about anything because the adults have protected him so well.

Sometimes, things were arranged for him even before he had thought of them, and he was happy to live according to other people's plans. He never imagined that he could have his own opinions.

This seemingly happy family was suddenly discovered by Shang Yibo one day to be a complete lie, a deception.

Everyone in this family has no connection to him; they're all surrounding him for their own benefit. Like a resilient net, they wrap him up layer upon layer, claiming it's out of love, care, and protection. But in reality, those nets are like sharp, soft knives, already slicing into his entire body, leaving him bloodied and mangled.

“Shang Yibo used to be a rich but pathetic guy,” Wang Jie thought to himself.

However, Zhou Yanruo's situation is different. She is luckier than Shang Yibo because her parents are her biological parents. Their love is both a burden and a warm one, because it is real.

"Have you tried talking to your parents about your thoughts?" Wang Jie thought. He thought that he should be able to communicate with his biological parents, unlike Shang Yibo, whose family was very polite and whose "it's for your own good" was enough to make him unable to refuse.

"My parents said that adults are doing this for your own good."

"..."

This is the standard answer from parents all over the world.

"Don't you think I'm ungrateful?" Zhou Yanruo asked Wang Jie.

"No, I understand." Wang Jie felt that her words were a bit too absolute, so she explained, "At your age, you always want to pursue individuality, and I've been through that age myself."

“Teacher Wang, you’re not really my teacher, so you don’t need to lecture me in such an old-fashioned way.”

"Teachers can distinguish between real and fake? Haha, if you talk like that, you really don't know what's good for you."

They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“What are we doing? We’re denouncing each other,” Zhou Yanruo said.

"Haha, it's you who's being disrespectful." Wang Jie was still laughing. "Seriously, I can tell you really love performing. You can talk to your parents properly, they'll understand."

"Sigh, it's not like I haven't said it before."

“When I was in my senior year of high school, I wanted to apply to an arts school. I told my parents, and they didn’t say they disagreed, but they took turns trying to persuade me. In the end, I didn’t know how to argue with them. They were just trying to do what was best for me, so what could I say?”

Normally, Zhou Yanruo wouldn't know who to say these things to, but today, grabbing Wang Jie, she wanted to vent her feelings.

Wang Jie was also a good listener; he listened silently to Zhou Yanruo's complaints.

"My parents are so well-mannered. They have never disrespected my ideas. Instead, they will use classical texts to reason with me until I admit defeat and give up my own ideas."

Zhou Yanruo sighed softly and said slowly, "My parents' love makes me feel so suffocated."

"Later, I stopped telling them and just did things my own way." Zhou Yanruo raised her head and continued, "Sometimes when I saw the disappointment in my mother's eyes, I felt quite sad, but I should be responsible for my own life. I just don't want to be designed or interfered with by others, no matter how close they are to me."

Wang Jie shook his head helplessly, letting out a soft sigh that went unnoticed. He thought to himself, "If it were Shang Yibo, he would join Zhou Yanruo in complaining. But now, he is Wang Jie, a young man who has to exert all his strength for a trivial dream, yet still can't achieve it. He even began to doubt the practical use of those supposedly unique traits. He even felt that he had been taking such good care of others before, and yet he still complained about it. It was simply overestimating himself."

Zhou Yanruo continued, "My college entrance exam results weren't good. My parents must be here to persuade me to retake the exam. I'm just not cut out for studying. No matter how many times I retake it, it won't make a difference. Why can't they just let me follow my own ideas and let me walk my own path in life?"

She became more and more agitated as she spoke, and her voice began to tremble.

"If you want to go to an art college, have you passed your professional exams?" Wang Jie asked.

"I took a professional exam before the college entrance exam, but it wasn't very successful," Zhou Yanruo said sheepishly.

Wang Jie said, "Well, generally the admission scores for art colleges are not high. As long as you can pass the professional exam, then even if your college entrance exam score is not good, you should still be able to get into the admission line."

"My college entrance exam score isn't high enough for admission," Zhou Yanruo said reluctantly, pouting.

Wang Jie was at a loss for words.

He could only gently persuade Zhou Yanruo to go home and rest, because it was already too late, and it wasn't good for a girl to stay out so late.

Zhou Yanruo followed behind Wang Jie, and they returned to Yangxi Road together.

The two did not speak to each other the whole way, and Wang Jie escorted Zhou Yanruo all the way to her doorstep.

This is an old-style Western-style house, a two-story red brick and wood structure with a high proportion of wood. It has white walls, black tiles, heavy black double doors, and a side door. It's clearly been carefully maintained and regularly repaired.

"See you tomorrow, Teacher Wang." Zhou Yanruo gently pushed open the side door and went inside.

"See you tomorrow."

Wang Jie walked back along the stone-paved road. The dim streetlights cast a long, slender shadow of him. The alley was quiet, with only the sound of Wang Jie's sneakers clattering on the stone slabs.