Extra: Birthday

I was looking at the calendar on my phone. If it weren’t for the message my mom just sent, I would never know my birthday was coming up. Speaking of which, my mom hadn’t really been passionate about my birthday when I was in my early twenties. At that time, she seemed more anxious about her own days, but now she finally seemed to come to her senses and began caring about these special days.

I had long forgotten how to celebrate my birthday, but I remembered that I had spent a lot of them in the mountains back in the day. Deep in the mountains, no one really kept track of the date. Instead, they only focused on how many days we had spent there. As a result, when I left there, my birthday had already passed. Under that kind of pressure and confusion, birthdays didn’t really matter.

Now that things had settled down this year, my mind suddenly froze when I saw the date. For me, getting older now was merely the sound of the second hand of a clock moving forward. It seemed reasonable to ignore it.

I locked my phone, turned around, and asked Fatty, “Fatty, do you still remember how you celebrated your birthday when you were little?”

Fatty was picking at his feet while holding a cigarette in his mouth, “Birthday my ass. The earth gave birth to me and the sky raised me, I can celebrate the date whenever I want. Shit like that is just for our own amusement, so who the fuck obeys such rules?”

I thought of his age and realized that it was too hard to imagine people from his generation having a strong concept of birthday celebrations. Fatty turned around and asked, “Why? Do you feel lonely?”

“What do you mean?” I didn’t know why mentioning birthdays would make one feel lonely.

Fatty released a mouthful of cigarette smoke, “You don’t have to use your birthday as an excuse to find whores. I have connections. Sister Wang from across the street isn’t bad. She even makes red braised pork belly at night.”

“Sister Wang?” There was a Sister Wang working part-time at Panjiayuan? Across the street from where? We had literally just come back and Fatty was already whoring around? “If you’re calling her sister, should I call her auntie? Did you guys meet while square dancing (1)?”

Fatty put down the nail clippers, placed his feet in the foot bath, shuddered comfortably, and said, “I’m calling her sister to respect her occupation. Fine, if you really want to celebrate your birthday, what do you want to do? Do you want to get dinner? We can call Black Glasses and Xiao Hua together, my treat. And then after that, we can get a foot bath and massage and go listen to a xiangsheng (2).”

I looked at him. Poker-Face had also gotten tricked into taking a foot bath and was sitting right next to him. They were both leaning back in the wickers chairs as the water steamed around their feet. I sighed, took out my own basin, and poured hot water into it.

“I want to go see a play.” The idea had suddenly popped into my head when I put my feet into the basin. “Yeah, let’s go see a play.”

<Break from a Thousand Years of Rain><Table of Contents><A Day in the Life of Xie Yuchen>

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TN Notes:

(1) It’s an exercise routine normally done after dinner. It’s popular among middle-aged/retired individuals (usually women). More info here.

(2) It’s a crosstalk or comic dialogue; a type performing art. More info here.

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Guys!!! Guys guys guys!!! Tiffany and I are pleased to welcome Yvette to the team!!!! She’s volunteered to help us out with some of these extras and Wu Xie’s Private Notes 2. Give her lots of love because this is her debut!!!! Woohoo!!!!!

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Translated by: Yvette
Edited by: merebear226