Welcome to a bonus episode of roundtable.
As chinamark's national reading week, we at roundtable have been sharing recommendations from some of the country's most celebrated writers.
If you missed them, those earlier episodes are waiting for you, and today we delve a bit deeper.
We don't just talk about these books, we step inside them.
Join us as we open two very different stories and let you see what lives within.
First Dinner for Six by Lu Min, a novel that has already traveled to readers in many other countries like Hungary and Serbia.
In this episode, we share an excerpt from its English editions.
Marina walked through the air of the old factory zone.
With every step she took, time groaned and creaked backwards.
The leaves grew back on the trees, the road became muddy again, and tears streaked her cheeks.
In fourteen years, Crossroads had changed beyond recognition the shop signs, the interiors, the shopkeepers, Marina's own reflection in the glass as she walked past.
Everything was different.
It was a completely new era.
There was new life in those shops, just as there was new life in her belly, the baby that would never know its father.
But all she could think about was getting to the other end of Crossroads, where she knew Victor would be waiting for her.
She hadn't told him she was coming.
Of course not.
In all the time they had known each other, they had never arranged to meet.
Their relationship was nothing more than an unreliable accumulation of memories, like the grapes that took so long to ripen on the cross-roads vines.
But that would change soon.
Today she hoped, in a few minutes time, in the glass house, when she and victor would finally taste their sweet bunch of grapes.
Marina smiled as she walked through the air of the old factory zone.
Although eight months pregnant, she felt as light as a cloud.
The closer she got to Victor's glass workshop, the more she felt like a little bird about to take flight.
She was giddily oblivious to everything else, even failing to notice the unusual smell, the pungent aroma that was drifting in the air, like a vat of rich soup bubbling away with a handful of black pepper tossed in for seasoning.
30-year-old Xiaolan walks in the air of the field, like walking 14 years ago.
This cross-street with a full face is like a time axis.
Every step she takes, time is going back and forth.
Crying.
Leaves go back to the beginning.
The road is full of thorns, the tear marks are clear as knives.
The signs on both sides of the crossroad symbolize the little boss and the self seen from the glass on the street.
Everything is different from 14 years ago.
The shopkeeper changed his clothes and changed his face.
He gained a lot of weight.
He had an eight-month-old baby in his belly.
As soon as he was born, he lost his father.
他只管往街的那一头走,丁成功一定在那里等他。
Of course, this is not a promise.
In the past 14 years, there has never been any agreement between them.
All they have is unreliable, continuous memory, like grapes that have never grown, hanging on the branches of the cross, hard and sour.
There has never been a sweet taste.
不,快要有了,也许就在今天,几分钟之后,就在丁成功的玻璃屋,他与他之间,那最好的一算葡萄,终将来到。
小兰微微地笑着,走在场区的空气里,向着被云朵所托举,随着玻璃窝的临近,她感到自己这臃肿的身子快要像小鸟一样飞起来了,简直有些轻浮,往复所以了。
他丝毫没有闻出来,十字街的空气有点不同寻常,像是接近沸腾的一大锅浓汤,老天爷又往里面撒了最后一把黑胡椒粉,味道越来越浓郁。
Then we turn to Dear Feng Mi by Di An.
Unlike the first, this story hasn't yet traveled beyond Chinese.
So here we bring you a specially adapted glimpse, one that resonates with our own past.
When I was in the second grade, a great swath of evening primroses grew beside the school playground.
I had heard they only bloomed at dusk, and so I decided that if I lingered after school just a little longer, I might be lucky enough to watch them in full bloom before my eyes.
It sounded simple, but far less so in practice.
In those days, we had to leave in lines, names called one by one, before being marched out through the school gate.
I had to follow the line obediently until we reached the corner, as the line dissolved into the evening street.
I slipped away and quietly found my way back toward the school gate.
Why could I not simply tell someone I wanted to stay and watch the flowers bloom?
I do not know.
It was not quite embarrassment, yet somehow it seemed to turn into something unspeakably shameful.
Had I known Cheng Feng Mi then, perhaps I would have told her.
As the light dimmed, I clutched my school bag and ran toward the flower bed.
The setting sun ran after me, as if the world had emptied itself until only the two of us remained.
I stopped before the flowers, breathless.
They had already bloomed.
Almost every evening primrose stood wide open, some in tender lavender, some in luminous yellow.
I bent closer, unwilling to believe it.
Every petal was already spread in perfect stillness, without a quiver, as though they had never known the moment of becoming, as though they had always existed so.
I had meant to be their first witness.
Instead, I had arrived too late and the primroses, even if they had come to know me over those past few days, were never going to wait.
That's all for this bonus episode of Roundtable.
We hope these brief encounters with the page spark something curiosity, reflection or simply the urge to keep reading.
Because sometimes, all it takes is a few lines to begin a journey.
Before we go, I'd like to thank Lu Ming and Di An for reading the excerpts on the show.
And also I'd like to thank you for tuning in.
Remember, you can find us on Apple Podcast at Roundtable China.
I'm Fei Fei.
Bye.