赵晓青与赵飞在中国咸阳。赵晓青与赵飞在中国咸阳。 Zhao Xiaoqing

When Zhao Xiaoqing first met Zhao Fei on a blind date, the sparks didn’t really fly.

赵晓青第一次跟赵飞相亲时,并没有擦出什么火花。

When they met for a second time at his home in northwest China in December, it lasted longer than they both expected.

去年12月,两人在中国西北部赵飞家中第二次相见时,都没预料到这次见面会持续这么久。

Facing a new outbreak of coronavirus cases, the health authorities announced a lockdown so sudden and severe that she didn’t have time to scurry home.

面对新一轮新冠疫情暴发,卫生当局突然宣布严厉封锁,以至于她没有时间赶回家。

So for nearly four weeks, Zhao Xiaoqing has lived in the city of Xianyang, in Shaanxi Province, with the family of Zhao Fei, a man she had barely known. (They share a last name but are not related.)

所以近四个星期以来,赵晓青一直与赵飞的家人一起住在陕西咸阳,她对这个男人几乎一无所知。

“Initially, I was quite worried about things being awkward,” said Ms. Zhao, who is from Baoji, about 93 miles away, or a two-hour drive by car. “But I got along well with his family.”

“一开始,还是挺担心会尴尬,”赵晓青说,她来自大约150公里以外的宝鸡,相当于两个小时的车程。“但我跟他家人相处得蛮好的。”

Chinese officials have employed swift lockdowns across the country as one of its top strategies to rapidly stamp out infections. Last month, officials locked down 13 million people in the city of Xi’an, which borders Xianyang, for mass testing after an outbreak. The scale and the length of that lockdown led residents to complain about running out of food and their treatment by the authorities. A pregnant woman lost her baby after she had to wait for hours at a hospital because she was unable to prove she did not have Covid-19.

中国官员已在全国范围内迅速采取封锁措施,作为快速消灭感染的首要策略之一。上个月,官员们在与咸阳接壤的西安市封锁了1300万人,以便在疫情暴发后进行大规模检测。持续时间过长的大范围封锁导致居民抱怨食物短缺以及得不到医疗服务。一名孕妇因无法证明自己没有感染新冠肺炎而不得不在医院等待数小时,最终流产。

But at Mr. Zhao’s house, a romance was blossoming. Ms. Zhao spent her days working on her family’s business, promoting her father’s fresh apples on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.

但在赵飞的家里,一段恋情正在绽放。赵晓青每天都忙着她家里的生意,她在中国版的TikTok抖音上宣传父亲的新鲜苹果。

“Sometimes I lost track of time when working; he would remind me to take a break,” she said of her date.

她谈到她的相亲对象时说:“有的时候我可能工作起来就忘记时间,他会提醒我休息。”

His consideration impressed her.

他的体贴打动了她。

Mr. Zhao, who runs his own e-commerce business selling hair products, sometimes cooked fried rice for her. She, in turn, encouraged him to take online lessons in his free time.

赵飞经营着自己的发饰电商业务,有时会为她做炒饭。而她鼓励他在空闲时间参加网络课程。

He said that because circumstances forced them to spend time together, they got to know each other better. “We were able to move forward in a speedy fashion,” he said.

他说,疫情迫使他们在一起相处,他们对彼此有了更多的了解。“我们才能进展迅速,”他说。

When the authorities lifted the lockdown on Friday, Ms. Zhao was free to leave. Instead, she plans to stay until Lunar New Year, and that’s not the end of the story.

周五,当局解除封锁,赵晓青可以自由离开。然而她计划待到农历新年,而这并不是故事的结局。

“Lots of friends were curious about whether the blind date was a success,” Ms. Zhao said beaming in a video on Douyin last week. “Of course, it was.”

“很多朋友都好奇我有没有相亲成功,”赵晓青上周在抖音上的一段视频中笑着说。“当然相亲成功了。”

She announced that they planned to get engaged in two weeks and hoped to marry in the summer. Her parents were supportive, she said.

她宣布他们计划在两周内订婚,并希望在夏天结婚。她说,她的父母很支持。

As for Mr. Zhao, he said he had found true love.

至于赵飞,他说他找到了真爱。

“I’m quite happy,” he said. “We basically found each other by an accident of fate.”

“我比较高兴,”他说。“我们基本上是靠着意外的缘分才能找到彼此。”

翻译:明斋

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