Chapter 54

During that period of time, Jiang Huai still came from time to time, just like he did a long time ago. When Aunt Xu was busy in the kitchen, she would stick her head out and say to Zhou Yue who was playing the piano in the living room: "Mr. Jiang said you should come back at 7 o'clock for dinner." The voice was as clear as the rumbling sound of a pressure cooker.

Jiang Huai came back at seven o'clock and played with Tiantian first. He always brought new toys when he came. He sat on the carpet in the living room, holding the babbling Tiantian in his arms. Toys and picture books were spread all over the floor, which seemed a bit out of place in this empty villa and simple baby room.

This strange feeling can be summed up as his father's love only exists when he is here, but he himself does not seem to think there is anything wrong. He listens to Tiantian's "baby talk" with a smile and can understand it. He teaches him Cantonese and Shanghainese, sits cross-legged and claps his hands far away, asks Tiantian to crawl to him, and trains Tiantian to lift his head and grasp. Sometimes when Aunt Xu is busy preparing dinner, he prepares the milk powder himself and changes diapers neatly with a calm face.

During these times, Zhou Yue was either dragged into the quagmire by those things, staring at the white wall in a daze for hours, or playing the piano one piece after another when she was awake. Jiang Huai listened to the piano and held Tiantian on the balcony to watch the wind chimes in the courtyard swaying like little bells in the wind. Tiantian giggled and drank from the bottle until his forehead was covered in sweat. Occasionally, he would utter a sentence or two that was almost formed, similar to "Fa Fa" or "Piaopiao", but he still called "Dad" the most clearly.

At this moment, Jiang Huai's white hair, blown by the wind, would reveal a genuine smile, a smile that was lonely and helpless. Between the sound of the piano and the sound of the wind, he could be heard saying to Tian Tian while rocking him in his arms, "Your eyes are exactly like your mother's."

He talked much more to Tiantian than to Zhou Yue. In fact, he didn't talk to Zhou Yue at all.

He was even more taciturn than before, and his appetite was the same as before. He would eat a few bites of food on the table and then stop eating. He would drink tea and read the newspaper. During this time, he and Zhou Yue hardly even made eye contact.

Zhou Yue looked at him in between playing the piano. He was wearing glasses and frowning intently. From time to time, he would turn a page of the newspaper and shake it. The paper, which smelled of ink, made a soft rustling sound. Under the soft light of a floor lamp, the steam of tea separated him and Zhou Yue.

How could Zhou Yue describe the peace she felt? She wondered if this man, whose features and demeanor were as delicate as a tragic actor, was the same person she remembered, the one who had slaughtered the stars with a smile.

There was a crack in the ground between her and him, and underneath was a blood feud boiling like magma. The crack was getting thinner and thinner, and the roars and wails were buried underground, becoming distant and dull in the terrible "day after day".

Waking from a long nap, she blinked sleepily, realizing calmly that she was alone.

Only she remembered the hot autumn weather in 1995, when the door opened and she hid behind Zhou Tiancheng, ate her birthday cake and slept in her bed, was beaten and scolded by her in silence, and was forced by her to call her sister but she still called her "sister" in a hoarse voice.

Only she was moving forward, alone.

She looked at the man reading the newspaper under the lamp for a long time. The man murmured without raising his head, "Aren't you going to take a shower?"

She no longer struggled at night. When he was carried away, he would even untie her chain and take the thing out of her mouth. Once, he even carried her to the bathroom and forced her to look in the mirror. She leaned against the cold tiles of the sink, her hip aching as if it were broken. But the pain later turned to cold and numb, as if it was gone. She saw the glass in the corner clang against the edge of the marble countertop, fall to the ground with a loud crash, and shattered all over the floor. The sharp fragments glittered on the white tile floor in the moonlight.

Zhou Yue stared at the pile of small sharp weapons and heard Aunt Xu's footsteps rushing up and then stopping in the stairwell.

She relaxed her strength and indifferently withdrew her gaze, letting Jiang Huai's slender fingers rub into the roots of her hair and then clench them into fists. He held her head and forced her to look in the mirror. His eyes, as dark as a snake soaked in poison, shone with a focused and crazy light in the mirror. He was infatuated but gnashed his teeth, "Guaiyue, you be obedient, you forget about him, follow me peacefully, and give me a few more children. Isn't it for a wife and children that a man builds an empire? Look, my hair is all white, but I am willing. I am willing even if you chew me into bones."

But Zhou Yue's health was so poor that even the doctor shook his head.

Jiang Huai sat at the door of the clinic. After listening to the doctor's words, he said nothing. He stroked his knees back and forth a few times and nodded.

After that, Jiang Huai remained the same, except that he came more frequently, two or three times a week, and went in and out of the temple more often to burn incense and worship Buddha. Every time the door opened, before he even saw him, the quiet sandalwood scent would drift into his nose.

When he came, he didn't talk to Zhou Yue. He just played with her every day, had dinner with her, read the newspaper, and slept with her at night. A feminine man like him would appear clingy if he was not violent in that kind of thing, like the hot and sticky rain on a rainy day in the south of the Yangtze River.

Zhou Yue was still chained, but her hands and feet could move, and her mouth could speak. In the night, she stared at his rising and falling chest, which gradually calmed down, as if he had fallen asleep. But after a while, she heard his laughter, which was as soft as it could be. "What are you looking at?" He turned over and held her in his arms, burying his head in the crook of her neck and talking to her.

At such times, he would start to talk a lot. He didn't talk about how he could call the wind and rain and cover the sky with one hand outside. What he talked about most was his childhood. He said that he worked as a handyman in a medicine shop in Hong Kong. The weather was too hot and business was not good. The boss took a nap, so he sat on the stone steps at the door and used the herbal stalks in the shop to weave bags in the shape of puppies or kittens. Occasionally, he looked up. The sky was blue and the clouds were white. His mother promised him that she would make him osmanthus cake for the New Year. He thought about it and smiled happily. He stuffed the dregs of the blood-seeking angelica left over from the customers' decoction into the small bag he wove, took it home and put it under his mother's pillow. Smelling it would help stop the bleeding.

Every month, he would return a few coins from his boss to buy blood-thirsty herbs to boil for his mother. His mother's bleeding hadn't stopped since she gave birth to his sister, and it hadn't stopped even after his sister died. She had the same problem as Zhou Yue, and the doctors shook their heads. The leftover medicine residue was just a ridiculous wishful thinking of a seven-year-old boy. In the end, Jiang Huai's mother bled to death in the sweltering heat and humidity of Hong Kong. When she died, the blood on her mattress attracted a swarm of mosquitoes, flies, and leeches...

He hugged Zhou Yue and smiled half asleep, "That day happened to be the day when the wages were paid. I went home with my blood-stained face. My shadow was particularly long under the setting sun."

Zhou Yue was silent, and could smell a strange fragrance on him that was neither flower nor grass, faint and hidden under the sandalwood of the temple.

On those Monday mornings when she and Xiao Yuan were endlessly in love, she occasionally smelled this scent, which evaporated along with the sweat and the fishy and salty ambiguous smell, and permeated the humid air of the bedroom.

She asked Xiao Yuan what that strange fragrance was, but he didn't say anything, just smiled. He covered her eyes with his broken hand and spoke for a long time: "Do you want milk tea?" She nodded with a smile, and he smiled too. He kissed her lips, wet and bitter. His round, clumsy thumb rubbed her eyebrows back and forth. As if afraid he would forget, he coaxed her softly: "It's still early, get some sleep. When you wake up, I'll go buy some milk tea. After class, I'll take you to eat rice noodle rolls."

"I also want to go to the park to watch the sunset over the orange sea!"

She turned over and pressed against his sweaty, scarred chest, clearly hearing his heartbeat. She closed her eyes and smiled as she fell asleep. In her dreams, every day thereafter was as perfect as this one, bubbling with happiness.

"good."

…

The moonlight at the end of the bed was cold. Zhou Yue stroked the man's back. He must have really fallen asleep this time. His breathing was heavy, and his white hair shone softly like water in the night.

She clenched her fists tightly and then unclenched them, patting his back gently. He seemed to be awake and dreaming at the same time. He buried his face deeper in the crook of her neck, and rubbed his nose in her hair, which was wet with the scent of tears.

Zhou Yue didn’t know why someone like him would cry. Perhaps when a person lives long enough, the past will always become heavy.

But soon she had some space to move around and was even able to go around the kitchen.

When Aunt Xu was cooking in the kitchen, she would sit in front of or opposite Aunt Xu, pounding garlic, picking vegetables, and chatting with Aunt Xu. She said that when she was a child, she helped Dai Yan pound garlic. At first, the garlic cloves jumped everywhere in the garlic mortar and she could never pound them properly. She was so angry that she cried and rubbed her eyes. The more she rubbed her eyes, the more stinging they felt, and her tears kept flowing. Dai Yan would hug her, holding her two sweaty little hands, and teach her to first crush the garlic cloves with the garlic pestle, and then pound them until they were fine and dense. She liked helping her mother pound garlic the most, and she wanted to make her mother happy.

On the morning of Tiantian's hundred-day banquet, there was an endless stream of cars on the mountain road. Zhou Yue sat in the bedroom and looked out. The cars drove up the mountain road, looking like shiny black beetles in the sun.

The courtyard outside the villa was full of people all day long. Wooden tables and chairs were placed under red parasols. Gentlemen with their female relatives wore casual polo shirts or shirts. After lunch, they stood under the canopy of the ginkgo tree, holding glasses of wine and chatting happily.

Zhou Yue was led by Aunt Xu to the living room. There was no one in the living room, but it was filled with balloons and colorful lights. She sat on the sofa and looked out through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows. Occasionally, she saw Jiang Huai show up in the crowd. He was wearing a burgundy satin shirt and holding Tiantian, who was wearing a small red Zhongshan suit, in his arms. The Buddhist beads on his wrist turned in the sunlight, shining as brightly as his silver hair. From time to time, he turned his head and glanced at Zhou Yue with a smile, and was then led over by someone's topic. His hearty laughter was carried to Zhou Yue's ears by the wind across the courtyard, as if it came from a distant place.

Liao Jie was standing very close to Jiang Huai, but Zhou Yue looked back and forth for the third time before she saw him. That chilling feeling was like you are walking on an endless soft lawn, and in the interval of admiring the beautiful scenery, you lower your head and see a black mamba snake standing next to your leg.

She had seen enough of the outside, and looked at the kitchen. Aunt Xu and the Shanghai chef hired by Jiang Huai were busy in the kitchen like a top, and the aroma of crab roe wafted out. She thought of the gray crab meat soup dumpling restaurant in Shanghai. Xiao Yuan sat opposite her but didn't look at her. Instead, he looked outside the door. But he was so perceptive that he didn't need to look outside the door at all. Was he inferior to his own ugliness, or was he unable to accept that the hatred he thought was unforgettable turned out to be as light and soft as her hair blown by the old-fashioned air conditioner in the store?

She had so many questions she wanted to ask him, but where was he?

After lunch, I started preparing desserts. By the time the last box of peony cakes was served, it was already two o'clock in the afternoon and it was time to prepare dinner.

As night fell, some guests left on their own accord. Dinner was arranged in the villa to entertain Jiang Huai's truly close guests.

Zhou Yue watched Aunt Xu and the servants bustling around the dining table, setting the table: pristine bone china bowls and plates, chopsticks and spoons inlaid with flowers and birds...

Only a bread knife, serrated but with a pointed end, was placed on a silver platter in the middle of the table.

"Huh? How can this be..." A servant came out, glanced at the empty silver plate on the table, and ran into the kitchen again, saying in frustration as he ran, "Tsk, my brain is broken."

Aunt Xu came out in a hurry. Night had fallen and it was almost time to invite the guests in for dinner. Zhou Yue was still sitting at the piano playing "Starry Sky". With each note she played, the silver chain connecting her wrist to the sofa would make a soft rustling sound in rhythm.

Aunt Xu hesitated for a few seconds before stepping forward and apologetically saying, "Madam, are you feeling well enough? Can I take you upstairs to rest?"

"good."

There was no light on in the bedroom. The laughter of the guests downstairs came up through the spiral staircase, becoming even clearer in the darkness. Jiang Huai spoke much more quietly, but everyone fell silent as he spoke. "Look at my son, is he handsome?" He said with a smile, and everyone naturally cheered, "Wow, he's so handsome!" "You can tell he's so smart just by looking at him!"

"She looks just like you, Mr. Jiang!"

But the flattering compliment fell on deaf ears, like a kite with a broken string. No one picked up the phone, and a few seconds later, Jiang Huai's voice was heard: "She looks like Qu A Ma (like his mother)."

Another burst of decent laughter came from afar, like waves rising from under the water.

After listening to this, Zhou Yue took out all the pillow cores and hid the knife inside. The knife was very light and thin, and it could not be felt in the goose down.

A few days later, everything was calm and no one noticed that she had stolen another knife from the kitchen and hid it under the Western clock in the living room.

But she still failed.