This is the first time I write a literary composition in English but not an academic argumentation. Anyway, I really put my heart into writing it. I would like to appreciate Professor Fan for his encouragement as well as his respectable work in correcting my expression faults. It makes me confident because I am going to translate some parts of my personal web page into English and work out an English version. Anyway, this is the first step. Wish you like it.

A Love Story

Do you have any experience chasing a person you love? Or any experience being chased by a person who loves you? It is lucky for somebody to meet the right person at the right time, and then the relationship could be navigated into the real thing. It would be a true love story. However, unfortunately, somebody else may meet the right person at the wrong time or meet the wrong person at the right time.

In the autumn of 1999, one day, when I was netsurfing, there was a voice from my ICQ. I found a stranger named Raino who had added me to her ICQ friend list. Anyway, we became net-friends but I didn't know who she is.

At that time, I was chasing a girl. One midnight, after a phone call with that girl, I was very excited and went online. Raino was also there. So, I told her that I felt thrilled because I just had an intimate phone call with my girl.

Her reply surprised me; she said, "Ray, I am very disappointed." "Why?" I was puzzled. "Because I like you." At that time, I was amazed, "Are you kidding? We are net-friends, and I even don't know who you are. Actually, I don't believe in cyber love." However, she asserted positively that she understood me deeply because she had learnt much about me from reading my essays on my personal web page and that my personality was revealed between the lines. At last, she left me a sentence, "It is unfortunate for me to be hurt by Cupid's arrow without mercy."

Actually, I didn't consider how serious she was because I had not expected that we could have known each other and she could have possibly fallen for me. In fact, I had no awareness that we had met before, until we dated in the summer of 2000.

In the summer vacation of 2000, I went to Beijing to take up a part-time job concerning a B to C business project. It happened that Raino was in Beijing also. We made an appointment and I was really curious about what kind of a real person she could have turned out to be. When we met at a bus station, I was shocked, "Oh, my God. It is you!" And I began to recall episodes in my memory…

When I was a sophomore in college, I began to write something concerning my feeling and my experience about my life as sections of diaries or essays, and put them on my personal web page. Because I thought it is a good way to jot down some words about my life and to share them with my friends.

In the summer of 1999, with my personal web, I attended a web-designing intercollegiate contest among students in Guangzhou. I met her during the contest. She was another representative of our college and designed a web page on the subject of environmental conservation. She was a charming girl with smart eyes and a confident smile. In my opinion, the content of her web page showed her human touch on serious topics and wide spectrum of knowledge.

Being alumni, we encouraged each other. I performed strongly with humor in my presentation and impressed the audience. Although the content of my home page was very special, I failed because of the relatively poor technology I applied to my web-editing. Anyway, when we had to say goodbye, I told her my ICQ number and e-mail address.

During the next half a year, we just said hello to each other when we met on campus, without any other in-depth talk or contact. But I couldn't believe that she could be Raino. I had just expected she was a stranger to me. How foolish I was.

We saw interesting sights and dined together. She told me her traveling experiences and I talked about my work. Walking along the street in another city, we relished our romantic time together. In the evening, we went to the stadium to watch a soccer match. Fortunately, our team won the game and everybody was excited and even hugged each other tight. I was attracted deeply by her beauty and confidence. Eventually, it was late and I saw her home all the way back to her relative's house by subway.

The rhythm of the train hummed like a melody. We sat closely and she began sleeping against my shoulder quietly. My mind went blank because I had been going steady with the girl whom I told Raino about last time on ICQ. I had to keep faith to my girlfriend.

Raino wrote to me via email after she was back to Guangzhou, "I was pretending to fall asleep and I just wished the subway romance would not end up so briefly. Few people like milk shake because it is too sweet, but I like it anyway." My eyes were wet but I had to reply, "I prefer water to milk shake, because you would be bored with milk shake although you like it currently."

More than two years have elapsed, but I still remember her words vividly:
"Your personal web pages and essays are a mirror in which a shadow of my feelings and thoughts are truly reflected. Reading them is just like reading myself."

In fact, I had no choice to see whether she would be my mirror too, whether she would be my eternal lover and whether she would be the right person to me other than to be faithful to my former girlfriend. That's an irretrievable regret in my life, but time cannot flow backwards and God would not rearrange our life again. I might have missed my girl in my life.