intellectual norms

Qiao Yu returned to China at the beginning of June, and she hasn't been back for more than five years.

He got his green card in the United States a long time ago, and his work and life have been going smoothly. Before this year, he didn't think about coming back.

From a young age, the parents of Hongda University’s Teacher’s Families College said, “Look at the children of Professor Qiao’s family”. He was a top student all the way, and went to the United States for his undergraduate degree. Whether he studied architecture or switched to bridge design, he studied all the way. , All of them are famous teachers, and the projects they operate are well-known in the world, until he himself became a famous teacher. Over the years, Qiao Yu's world only has four words: fulfilling one's wishes and fulfilling one's wishes.

Except at the end of last year, he broke up with his lover on his birthday, which was mentioned by the other party.

This incident did not show any symptoms at the beginning. After all, he is in his thirties. He is not a young boy with a heart. He can't figure out angina after breaking up. The other party is the same age as him, two middle-aged mature men Breaking up can be described as gentle and drizzle, decent.

Oh, by the way, his ex-lover was not only his age, but also the same sex as him.

The two have not publicly come out, but they have not deliberately hidden it. On the one hand, it is due to the personalities of the two parties, and on the other hand, because the attitude of the United States towards the LGBT group is quite polarized. The position of teaching, with such a heavy identity, should not be too high-profile.

Mutual friends who are acquainted with each other know about it, but those outside the circle who are not familiar with each other keep their distance. Foreign countries are more concerned about privacy protection, and few people deliberately explore and gossip in person.

Compared with Qiao Yu, Lin Zhihua is the more enthusiastic one. He is an authentic ABC. Before he fell in love with Qiao Yu, he could not speak Chinese very well. Later, he made rapid progress and was able to write love letters in Chinese.

Lin Zhihua comes from a prominent family, and his father is a tenured professor at the Princeton School of Architecture. However, he was rebellious when he was a teenager, and he avoided his father's halo without saying a word. Qiao Yu, a foreign student who came here.

Qiao Yu was not familiar with the place where he was born, and he couldn't get along with the group of rich second-generation foreign students from China. Only Lin Zhihua, who had a Chinese face, was close to him.

The two started from a young friendship, one was unfamiliar with everything, and the other grew up in such an environment like a fish in water. Lin Zhihua naturally helped Qiao Yu build a bridge to integrate into the local campus and social life.

Soon they became inseparable, but it was after graduation from university that they truly determined each other's intentions and established a relationship.

The process of being together was not smooth, and I also experienced back and forth temptations. Qiao Yu took a little time to make sure that he liked men and liked each other, and then they stayed with each other for a long time. When they broke up, they had known each other for 15 years and fell in love for nine years. .

Why did you split up?Qiao Yu is not a sentimental person. He thinks how a building or a bridge collapses must have been experiencing invisible and neglected erosion, water flow, sediment, termites and rats in the long past. , are the chief culprits that caused this behemoth to collapse in the end.

It's just that these traces are too slight. During the process of occurrence, they are so slight that they can't be ignored at all. By the time they are discovered, they are irreparable.

Lin Zhihua is different from him in everything, with a different growth environment and a different temperament. Even in the School of Architecture at Columbia University, Lin Zhihua has been studying architectural design, while Qiao Yu has changed the bridge halfway. The two even had a fierce argument about this .

At that time, Qiao Yu said the most extreme and regretful sentence in his life, "Today's architectural design is just a plaything for the rich!"

After finishing speaking, I regretted it, "I'm sorry, Zhihua, I didn't mean that..."

Lin Zhihua stared at him in disbelief for a while, then slammed the door and left without saying anything.

That was the closest they had to breaking up. Lin Zhihua moved out and ignored him for three whole months. Qiao Yu's original meaning was that he thought he should be more pragmatic and build bridges and pave the way. He is too simple and down-to-earth, but he thinks he should do this. This is a discipline where the high-level design sinks enough to serve the general public.

But he was speaking in the wrong direction, throwing the most narrow and extreme point of view in the face of his lover, it was his fault.

In the end, they reconciled, and Lin Zhihua also took a step back, and turned to support Qiao Yu's change of major. He hugged Qiao Yu: "I can't bear to see you working hard."

Majoring in roads and bridges, designers have the same fate as workers, and they are ashamed in the wind and sun. How can they compare with the great architect who designed the library of the Opera House? Qiao Yu finally chose to abandon this brilliance.

After so many years, the two have made great achievements in their respective career fields, but their relationship has gradually come to an end.

Two designers, either you are on a business trip or I am on a business trip, either you are on the construction site or I have gone abroad, and it is not a short-term, because once the project is gone, it will last for a year or a half. If you get together less and leave more, no matter how strong the relationship is, it will change. Got to be crumbling.

Even though the foundation of their youthful friendship was solid, after nine years of wind and rain, it finally collapsed.

Qiao Yu understands Lin Zhihua's choice and respects his decision. He has always felt guilty towards his lover in his heart. He travels a lot on business trips, and they are all in places with high mountains and far away. Lin Zhihua stayed in school to teach most of the time. Work and life are very regular, it is he who makes Lin Zhihua live a life where having a lover is equal to having no one, always waiting, it is his fault.

After the breakup, he began to reflect on himself and reduced his workload. In half a year, he only designed a small project that was not complicated, and stayed on campus for the rest of the time.

He and Lin Zhihua teach at the same university and belong to the same university. Except that they don't live together, they look the same as before.

But Qiao Yu gradually felt what a breakup was.

That kind of dull pain came slowly and persistently. Every road I walked every day, every restaurant I ate at, every tree and grass, all kept the memories of my lover in the past, like knives ubiquitous.

After two months, Qiao Yu couldn't bear to talk about getting back together with Lin Zhihua. He felt that the relationship was still there. The reality is that people can change and become better. He is willing to make any changes for this.

However, Lin Zhihua refused. He said, "Joe, the problems between us are not limited to the ones we talked about. There are too many problems that cannot be changed. I'm sorry."

Qiao Yu felt a real dull pain in her heart at that time, and everything seemed to be still for a moment, breathing, heartbeat, and the world turning.

Another month later, he saw Lin Zhihua and his new boyfriend walking towards him on the boulevard on his way back to the office after class.

He was a tall man with brown hair, brown eyes, white skin, Eurasian mixed race, the two exchanged English quickly, and when they passed by Qiao Yu, Lin Zhihua nodded generously to him.

Qiao Yu also speaks English when he is with him, and switches to Chinese when talking about love. Over time, Lin Zhihua also has this habit.

"It's useless to go straight to lovesickness, but it's okay to be insane." He once read this poem in Lin Zhihua's ear.

Qiao Yu finally let go at this moment, lovesickness has a time limit.

At this time, his parents conveyed to him again the news that Hongda School of Engineering and Engineering invited him to return to China to teach. This time, the old principal came forward in person and offered him an extremely generous salary and a high-level administrative position. In the past, Qiao Yu had refused, but this time he did. Think seriously.

He didn't know how much of his stay in the United States these years was for himself, and how much was for Lin Zhihua. Lin Zhihua had said earlier that it was impossible to go to China with him, but now this reason no longer exists.

Qiao Yu accepted the sincere job offer, and returned to Denghong City, where he was born and raised, but has become unfamiliar.

Everything has to be adapted again, the hot weather in midsummer, the hustle and bustle of the market, the only thing I don’t have to adapt to is the Chinese food for three meals a day. After going out for so many years, I still have a stubborn Chinese stomach.

The two old professors of Qiao's family knew their son's sexual orientation well, and even met Lin Zhihua once. The cultivation of senior intellectuals prevented them from expressing strong opposition, but they did not agree with it. The older generation still believed that this could be changed. As long as Qiao Yu meets the "right" woman.

They were very happy that their son was finally separated from that man. Taking advantage of the summer break, they began to work like ordinary parents and urged him to go on a blind date.

For Lin Zhihua in the early years, Qiao Yu always firmly rejected all requests from his parents when it came to love and marriage, but now he feels that at this age, he should not act rashly. Parents have difficulties with their parents, so he can completely adopt a softer approach. processing method.

For example, go on a blind date obediently, and then tell the other party frankly that he actually likes men.

Now that I'm back, I have to make a long-term plan to let my parents accept my sexual orientation. Qiao Yu has his own insistence, but he can't bear to look at his parents' gray hair.

Qiao Yu's mother, Ms. Su, the retired former dean of the Hong Kong University School of Medicine, took the initiative to release the news and wanted her son to go on a blind date. Within a few days, she received a lot of information about the woman. The old lady wanted to make a schedule for Qiao Yu and let him go out to meet two people every day.

Qiao Yu didn't know whether to laugh or cry, feeling that she couldn't just follow the old lady, so she resolutely put forward her request, only seeing one, only meeting once.

For this reason, the mother and son were stubborn for a while, and it was still the old professor Qiao who mediated. In the end, Ms. Su made a concession, and met one first, and said it later if it didn't work out.

Seeing who Qiao Yu chose by himself, Qiao Yu looked at a bunch of photos one by one. He had his own ideas in his mind, and he thought that those beautiful and gentle ones were not good enough. Finally, he saw a cool girl in leather jacket and boots with short hair. .

"It's her, I want to see her." Qiao Yu made a decision.

Ms. Su and Professor Qiao's eyes widened at the same time. They didn't notice how a kid got mixed into this bunch of girls?After a closer look, it is indeed a girl. This...why is there no distinction between men and women.

My son's taste is really indescribable.

I had previously agreed to let Qiao Yu choose by herself, and it would be hard to go back on my word. Ms. Su gritted her teeth and agreed, "Okay, you go to see her, if it doesn't work, Mom will choose for you next time, sure."

The author says:

Qiao Aojiao: Hmph, I have very good taste