A Tumi Flower

From time to time I would receive something from my fellow boy students but I did not attach much sentimental value to them. It was not the case, however, with my friend Shi Song who had never been approached by boys with any present at all.
When the chime clock struck four, the congregation held in the Christian church on the hill was over. Boys and girls were swarming out, like sheep released from their pen scrambling for the first bite of grass on the hillside. A boy student was walking behind us. His full name slipped my mind and I only remembered that people called him Zongzhi. He had a tumi flower in his hand, sniffing at it as he walked along. As tumi flowers have no scent, he did it out of habit, I guessed.
"Miss Song, let me give you this flower," he said aloud, coming up from behind. Miss Song turned and Zongzhi, all smiles, was reaching out the flower to her. She hastened to take it and said: "Many thanks, many thanks." Zongzhi nodded with a smile and then, veering to the path on the west hillside, was off on his way home.
"What does he mean, giving me this flower?"
"He means what you think he means," I replied. And soon we parted; she went her way home and I went mine.
For the rest of the afternoon and the whole of that evening she kept fiddling with the flower as if it had some magic power to cling to her hands. Each time she was about to put it down she seemed to hear the flower murmuring: "Why are you letting go of me? Don't you know when Zongzhi left me in your hands he meant for you to take care of me?"
She was excited with the illusion that its stamens began to vibrate with Zongzhi's eyes, lips, teeth, hands, feet and every gesture, dancing on the petals of the flower. And then she said in her heart: "You the Adonis, what did you give me this flower for?" Reflecting on the sermon delivered in the church that afternoon she answered for herself: "For he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed."
Did she love the flower, or did Zongzhi love her? I could not figure out, but I remembered that one day Zongzhi and I were chatting under a banyan tree when someone of his family came running up and said to him: "Miss Song has eaten some flower and she says she had it from you and she is now feeling unwell. Her family want to have a word with you."
Zongzhi was bewildered with a spasm of shock. He did not know what to say except "When did I ever give her anything to eat? How incredible...!"
I said: "Think carefully." When I saw that he failed to have recalled anything, I brought it up to remind him: "About two months ago, along the path on the hillside you gave her a tumi flower. Remember?"
"Oh, yes! I did. But I did not tell her to eat it, did I?"
"But why did you give it to her in particular, not anyone else?" I asked.
He said frankly: "But I did not mean anything. I just picked it from the tree as I passed it and then gave it to her, that' s all. I have given many things to others and nothing has happened. Why should she have become infatuated with such a tiny flower?"
He was still sitting there, upset. I urged him to get up and go: "How can you still hang around here like this? Since you gave the flower to her, you should go and see her right away, either she misunderstood you, or you intended it."
"I did not intend it at all."
"Just go and see how things are with her. The oyster has no intention to cultivate pearls, has it? But when a sand grain happens to end up in its shells, it has to secrete mucus to wrap it up. True, you did not mean it, but don't you think it's probable that she fell in love with you the moment you put the flower into her hands? Who can doubt that she accepted the flower as a symbol of love from you and then began to cherish it with all her feelings from the bottom of her heart? She might not be expecting it, but when your well-intentioned 'sand' dropped in her 'shells of love', she had to act this way. Don't hesitate any more. Get going."
Zongzhi got up and, with a fleeting frown on his well-composed face, went with the one from his family out of the exuberance of the trees.