Juan's Diary

Years ago, at a school, there were two girls named Juanjuan.

She and the other girl became best friends, but one of them left this world first. She never even got the chance to grow up.

Fat Juan was the pathetic girl who kept on living. When she was little, people called her Chubby. She was always making a fool of herself in class to make everyone laugh, thinking that if she was easygoing enough, the others would accept her.

But there was always a voice nearby that butted in: "Li Juanjie, why are you treating yourself like this?"

Fat Juan pushed her away. "How would you know how I feel? And what's it to you? We're not even friends!"

The other girl replied, "Who says we can't be friends? Girls don't choose their friends based on their weight or looks. As long as we're both girls, that's enough."

Fat Juan believed her.

In the years when they depended on each other most, Fat Juan gradually stopped seeing herself as a worthless chubby girl. She decided that she would lose weight once school started that year, then take a commemorative photo with Lin Meijuan.

But in the year they were about to graduate from junior high, the two of them made plans to visit the food court and spend the noisy summer together.

"Lin Meijuan, what do I do? I snuck a snack last night. I failed at dieting again, again, again! Hahaha!"

"Li Juanjie, it's okay. Let's go eat and watch a movie. And even when we go to high school, let's stay the way we were before, okay?"

"Okay! Lin Meijuan and Li Juanjie are the best friends in the whole world."

Fat Juan remembered that promise. But she never imagined that Lin Meijuan, who was rushing out when a car hit and flung her into the air, would fail to keep it.

In the blink of an eye, many years had passed. Fat Juan was still Fat Juan. Wherever she went, she was the butt of the joke. Her boss, coworkers, and family all disliked her. If she wasn't at work, she didn't socialize. She lived on in a numb daze, and if she didn't go outside and feel the sunlight, she could barely remember that she was alive. Eating was practically her only pleasure.

Lin Meijuan's sudden death was the irreversible turning point in her life. It was as if, after her best friend died, she had lost the courage to live, too.

Then, one day, magic appeared in the secret diary she had shared with Lin Meijuan. Li Juanjie, whose soul was now in her thirties, woke up and saw her best friend in the row ahead, still alive.

That summer, the wind blew, and fourteen-year-old Li Juanjie was still in the same class as Lin Meijuan.

The diary fell from a desk, revealing the rebellious, sensitive words she had written as a girl.

I hang suspended in the air, unable to see the vastness of the buildings.

Rain clouds gather in my heart. I can't find where my dreams are.

It turned out that Li Juanjie's dream was for Lin Meijuan to be alive, so they could finish taking that photo...

With tears streaming down her face, she heard the gears of her numb life being turned in another direction by the wrench of fate.

"Li Juanjie, if you can do it all over again, please save her. And save the person who died in 2003, too: yourself."

Content note:

A friendship-focused story with no romantic pairing, two female leads transmigrating through time, and no real-life inspirations. A complex youthful friendship between an insecure girl and a girl as bright and volatile as white phosphorus.

Hello, teachers. This is Shi Tou Yang. Fat Juan's Diary is a first-person novel written in diary form. I originally planned to finish it at 100,000 words, and the whole story was going to be free. But I had some problems in my life during the second half, so I put it on hold for now. I have no intention of abandoning it.

If you click in, you can take a look and add it to your collection. If I start feeling better, I'll come back and finish writing it.

I also want to talk about the inspiration behind this book: my mom, Lao Yang.

Like Juan in the story, Lao Yang and I are an East Asian mother and daughter. We've both gone through our own growing pains and menopause.

I spent a long time thinking last night.

Over the past few years, Lao Yang and I have grown closer. Maybe it's because I've reached a certain age and my long rebellious phase is over. Maybe I've also made it out of what people call the Odyssey years.

I keep remembering things my mom said and did. When I first discovered literature, I sympathized with countless fictional characters in books. I thought they were beautiful and fragile, mothers, and projections of my own feelings. But I rarely took the time to think about the hardships Lao Yang had told me about.

That's because she always talked about them like they were jokes, over and over, telling everyone as if they were funny stories.

But she really has told people many times that I was her third child, and that she had miscarried two others.

After I was born, my mother gained weight. There was a time when she tried hard to exercise. Back then, she signed up for an aerobics class and wrapped plastic film around her belly button. She pushed herself through the sweltering heat, but in the end, she gave up.

At her age, she no longer has the courage to do many things over again. She has started making fun of herself in front of others, telling stories from her youth as if they were jokes.

But when I look back and hear those words, I truly feel the life she lived, and her regrets.

People say we shouldn't always focus on the joys and sorrows of distant places.

We should listen to the voices close to us.

The voice closest to me is Lao Yang's.

So I hope I can stop ignoring her feelings.

I want to encourage my mother, and be there to listen to her, just as I have encouraged the friends I trust most, the students I used to teach, and all the vulnerable people in this world whom I have felt compassion for.

Theme: A tribute to all girls