Loess Epoch

Those two months after graduating from university were perhaps the busiest I’d ever been. I hardly had a single idle day—busy finding people to help me with my thesis, endless farewell parties, settling four years’ worth of debts, breaking up with my girlfriend… In fact, I probably accomplished more in those two months than I did in all four years of college.

Though I was the sort of student who wasted his degree, reflecting on everything that happened in those four years, I truly felt as if it had all been a dream.

“Hey, Young Master Yuan, what’s this performance? Pretending to be all deep and philosophical?” The voice belonged to my best friend at university, Tan Wei—everyone called him Old Tan. He spotted me smoking alone out on the balcony and came over to tease me.

“You don’t know anything. This is called artistic temperament. No wonder you haven’t managed to find a girlfriend before graduation.” Old Tan and I had the kind of relationship where we could say anything to each other; when we met, it was routine to start by cursing each other’s ancestors just for fun.

“Don’t talk nonsense. Hey, listen, your old man called last night.”

“My dad? Why didn’t he call my cell?”

Old Tan grinned, “Call your cell? You were out having fun last night, you think you’d hear your phone?”

That’s when it hit me. Last night, I was with my girlfriend. The breakups among college couples are always much the same, and though it wasn’t quite what Old Tan imagined, I really did spend the whole night holding her and staring into space. In that moment,