Chapter 28
Zhou Yue walked through the deep marble corridor towards the heavy black-brown solid wood door at the end. There were Roman columns and angel patterns every few steps. The Baroque murals above her head were more exquisite than the "Along the River During the Qingming Festival", but they did not have the artistic conception of the "Along the River During the Qingming Festival". They were too dense. When she looked up at night, it seemed as if the whole heaven was pressing down on her. Compared with the part of Blue Ocean open to the outside world, this place was too luxurious. They almost wanted to carve all the elements of the European court on the wall, but this was Aunt Liu's "office", and Zhou Yue had to come.
It has been three months since she left Blue Ocean, and Aunt Liu has never contacted her once, so she thought she disappeared. But she couldn't just assume Aunt Liu disappeared, because she had to say hello. So she took advantage of this period before going on stage to apologize to Aunt Liu and explain the situation.
When she was almost at the door, it opened. She stopped and stood aside. Two men came out, wearing black trousers and white shirts, buttoning their clothes as they walked out. They looked exactly the same and were even more beautiful than the woman, with eyebrows like ink paintings and faces like peach petals. Zhou Yue was reminded of the historical records of a pair of beautiful twin girls that Emperor Taizong of Tang got when he raided Hou Junji's house. They had never eaten human food since they were young, and only drank human milk. They were favored by Taizong for a while.
However, no one knew how long these two people would be favored by Aunt Liu. Zhou Yue had never seen them before, and they had never seen Zhou Yue before. They walked towards her under the dim ceiling light, with the corners of their eyes and cheeks flushed like a drunk. They were so tired that they didn't even bother to open their eyelids. A pair of half-open blue eyes under their crow-feather eyelashes paused on her face for a moment, and then left.
So compared to being favored, they are more like having their essence sucked away by the snake demon. How long they can be favored depends on how much essence they have left to absorb.
"Women's supplements are two different things: money and men!" Aunt Liu said this as she put on her bathrobe with her back to Zhou Yue. They were both women, but Zhou Yue took a step back when she saw the red and swollen finger and tooth marks at the base of her legs, avoiding her gaze. In doing so, she saw herself. It turned out that there was another bedroom in Aunt Liu's office. The bedroom door fitted tightly against the wall, so it was usually invisible. Now the door was open, and inside, four mirrors surrounded a large circular bed in the center. The bed was like a stage, with steps. Next to it was a gorgeous crystal dressing mirror, filled with colorful bottles and jars like a seven-sided prism. Zhou Yue appeared in the mirror, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, and she looked out of place here.
Seeing that she didn't say anything, Aunt Liu turned around and glanced at her. It seemed like she hadn't seen her for three months and was looking at her again. She was holding a long and thin water pipe in her mouth, and her expression couldn't be seen clearly in the white mist, but Zhou Yue always felt that she was smiling.
"A pretty face attracts corrupt scholars, a bright face attracts politicians and businessmen, a clever smile amuses talented men, and a tender face teases country bumpkins." Aunt Liu was indeed laughing, her voice was full of laughter. After laughing, she asked her, "Which type do you think you are?"
Zhou Yue was bewildered, and Aunt Liu was too lazy to tease her. She just walked to the desk in her bathrobe and sat down. She crossed one leg and stepped on the boss chair with her legs crossed, lying on her back in the chair. This posture exposed her erotic image, but she didn't care. She swayed back and forth, her voice slow and leisurely: "Recently, a boss got drunk and made a scene in the store. He asked me where Zhou Baoqi had been? Tsk!"
She sneered, completely ignoring Zhou Yue's instantly pale face, "Country bumpkin, do you dare to cause trouble here?" She waved her hands, and the gold and jade bracelets jingled, "Don't worry, I'll let them chase him away!" When the bracelets stopped ringing, she put her legs on the desk, her bathrobe slid up, revealing a large part of her snow-white thighs, quite heroic.
"That's why he's called a country bumpkin!" She looked at Zhou Yue and shrugged, "He doesn't know the rules and he's so stingy, he wants to buy one and play with two! He won't even look at him!"
"But politics and business are different." She put out her cigarette in the ashtray, smiled mysteriously, and her seductive snake eyes caressed Zhou Yue's face. "Are you 1.7 meters tall?"
"No," Zhou Yue, even if she was a fool, understood what Aunt Liu meant. She lowered her head and said, "1.68 meters."
"Oh," Aunt Liu laughed when she heard it, and fell back on the chair with her eyes closed. "At first glance, you are a beautiful woman who is 1.7 meters tall. Standing in a banquet hall with hundreds of people, you are a stunning figure. Those high-ranking officials must love you to death!" After she finished speaking, she opened her eyes, her eyes lingering greedily on Zhou Yue's face, and she whispered softly as if to persuade her:
"Yueyue, there's no difference between selling it once and selling it many times. Aunt Liu is also a woman. Which woman doesn't have a man she can't let go of? But a woman's value lasts only a short time, and a man's love is also short-lived! When you become his wife, do you think he will still love you? Ha, don't dream! By then, you'll be left with nothing..." She pushed a blue velvet box in front of Zhou Yue, "Women should treat themselves well!"
Zhou Yue never knew what was inside. She confiscated it, and Aunt Liu just smiled and lay back in her chair and continued to turn around. At the end, she sighed, "If you don't eat oil and salt, you will be poor all your life!"
Her punishment for Zhou Yue's disappearance for three months was also very simple: work for a year for nothing, and get out if you don't accept it.
Later, on New Year's Eve in 2010, Zhou Yue received the so-called politicians and businessmen for the first time. There were only two or three people in the group, wearing neat trousers and suits. An old man impressed Zhou Yue the most. He looked like a foreigner, with an aquiline nose and falcon eyes, white skin, but black eyes and hair, just like he did on TV, except that he did not wear the Bauhinia badge on his suit that night.
That day, Zhou Yue had asked Aunt Liu if she should sing "Pearl of the Orient," but Aunt Liu glared at her and called her a "wretched woman." Later, she sang "First Love" and "Moonlight Serenade," and everything went on as usual. When it was time to see the guests off, everyone in Blue Sea gathered at the door to see the three people off. Standing with Aunt Liu was Blue Sea's top performer, while Zhou Yue stood behind them, exhausted and distracted. Her calves and waist felt numb, so when the eagle-like, mixed-race old man snapped a white moonlight jade bracelet around her wrist, she could only look up at him blankly and listen to him speak in clumsy Mandarin: "Miss Zhou, Lin Laiquan Yun, this small gift is my honor."
When Zhou Yue returned the bracelet to Aunt Liu, Aunt Liu was playing mahjong in the morning tea shop she often went to. Zhou Yue called her softly several times, but none of the four people looked up at her or spoke. Finally, Zhou Yue put the bracelet on the mahjong table and left.
That night Zhou Yue found that she had no place to put on makeup. She originally had a small table in the corner of her dressing room, where she could not only put on makeup but also eat. There was a square mirror on the wall that was just the right size for her face, but now the mirror and the table were gone.
But she didn't think there was anything worth being sad about. She just felt tired, extremely tired, the kind of tiredness that kept coming out from the bottom of her heart.
But Aunt Liu and the others weren't tired. Those heartless, heartless people with no moral compass weren't tired. Zhou Yue later learned that Aunt Liu had a fifteen-year-old daughter. Whenever she saw her daughter, Aunt Liu was like a different person, following her closely, handbag in hand. She wanted to scold her but didn't dare, so she could only smile shamelessly, "Why are you wearing makeup if you're not eighteen? This skirt is too short! You can't wear it!"
Zhou Yue thought that people always treat their family differently. When she thought of her family, she thought of Dai Yan, and then her heart ached, a heart-wrenching pain, like a scar being torn open. It was a small black face with furry eyes. It was originally expressionless, but when it saw her, it laughed, and its laughter made her heart tremble.
Home, she wanted to tell them that she didn't want money, she wanted home, but saying this in Shenzhen, in Lanhai, it would be ridiculous.
But Aunt Liu changes her attitude as quickly as turning the pages of a book. She may look at you coldly today, but change her attitude tomorrow. That was what happened that day.
"Zhou Yue! Zhou Yue!" That day, Aunt Liu was still wearing a light green cheongsam, twisting her slender waist as she rushed into the dressing room in a hurry, muttering and cursing, "Where did the little girl die?"
"Look," the person who had finished putting on makeup and was walking out raised her chin towards the corner, "over there!"
Seven o'clock in the evening is the busiest time in the dressing room. At least two people are huddled together in front of the makeup mirror with the light on, drawing their eyebrows and lips. There is a third person standing on the chair behind them, standing on tiptoe to put on black stockings.
The dressing room has the same style as the club, with Roman columns, an arched ceiling, and carved chairs and tables. However, fourteen or fifteen people are crammed into a space of less than ten square meters, and there are no windows. Even the prettiest faces will inevitably smell when squeezed together like this. Expensive perfume cannot cover the sour stench of stockings and high heels. In addition, these girls come from all over the world and have different tastes in food. The sour, spicy and salty food is mixed together, which can make people feel suffocated as soon as they enter the door.
If she had a choice, Aunt Liu would definitely not want to come here to suffer, but today she had no choice. She craned her neck to look into the corner over the heavily made-up faces and vaguely saw a person squatting there, in the very back. Wasn't this a life-threatening situation?
She frowned, covered her mouth and nose, and squeezed through the crowd, cursing as she squeezed: "You're dead, go take a shower! What man can stand you?" After finally squeezing behind the crowd, she immediately put on a smile, "Yueyue?"
Zhou Yue was squatting in a corner, eating intently. She heard someone calling her. She turned around and saw Aunt Liu's delicately carved, snake-like face. She was bending over, kneeling, trying her best to force a carefree, broad smile at her. She said softly, "Want to eat?"
"Well, let's eat, Aunt Liu." Zhou Yue wiped her mouth and stood up, holding a bowl of vegetarian spicy hot pot in her hand. But she always felt that the spicy hot pot in Shenzhen was only hot, not numb or spicy. If it didn't have a few drops of oil floating in it, it would be just boiled vegetables.
Aunt Liu glanced at the plastic bowl in her hand and happened to see her jeans wrapped tightly around her. Her brows knitted together, but it disappeared in an instant. She took a step forward and said earnestly, "Eat well, Yueyue." Her pointed nails gently pinched Zhou Yue's arm, "You're so thin..."
Zhou Yue was a little uncomfortable with her sudden concern. Holding the spicy hot pot that was less than half eaten, she asked hesitantly, "What's the matter, Aunt Liu?"
"It's okay, come and take a look!" Aunt Liu shook her hair with a smile, and took a half step back with the sound of her high heels clicking. She put her hands behind her back and glanced around nonchalantly, and saw two little girls craning their necks and holding mascara brushes, blinking their eyes at them.
"What are you looking for? Hurry up and melt, you poor girl!" She felt uneasy and glared at him, then turned around and pinched her ear absentmindedly, smiling helplessly at Zhou Yue, "Yueyue, can we talk outside?"
When they got to the corridor, Aunt Liu had clearly relaxed a bit. Under the ambiguous blue spotlight, she lit a cigarette, puffed away, and studied Zhou Yue's face. She said in a gentle voice, "It's nothing serious, actually. There's just a physical exam tomorrow, and Yueyue has to go too."
"Physical examination?" Hearing about a physical examination in a place like this was a bit unsettling, but Aunt Liu was so smart. Before Zhou Yue could even open her mouth, she started to give her earnest advice: "It's a routine company physical examination, everyone has to go... and it's not just that! The heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys all need to be checked. As a person, health is the most important thing when you're out there!"
"But..." Zhou Yue wanted to say that even if the physical examination showed something bad, she would not spend money on treatment. She would never forget what Zhou Tiancheng's situation was like in the end. She had thought about it early on that if she really had a serious illness, she would use her last days to look for the stars. If she found them, she would die beside him. If she couldn't find them, she would just go wherever she wanted. She had no attachment to her hometown. He was her hometown.
But after thinking about it, it’s always good to have an idea of yourself.
Seeing that her attitude was softening, Aunt Liu quickly struck while the iron was hot and shook her arm, "Don't tell anyone."
Zhou Yue tilted her head in confusion when she heard this: "Don't we all have physical examinations? Why don't you tell others?"
Aunt Liu almost couldn't catch her breath, and the smoke choked her, causing her to cough violently. After she finished, she hurriedly tried to make amends: "They have so many illnesses, whether they are treated or not! But you are different," she smiled, "You need to get checked carefully."
That was Zhou Yue's first physical examination. When she was a child, physical examinations would be done by a few uncles and aunts in white coats coming to the school. Most of them were very fierce. They would wear stethoscopes and draw blood from her. After that, they would ask her to blow into a funnel to measure her lung capacity, and then measure her height, weight, etc. It would take more than a whole morning.
But that physical examination made Zhou Yue feel like a chicken or duck in a slaughterhouse. They stripped her naked and tortured her body, even though there was no feather to pluck. The CT machine scanned her back and forth, and she drew four or five tubes of blood, which made her dizzy. In between, there was a meal with meat and eggs. In the afternoon, she lay on the examination bed. The doctor in a white mask and blue hat was as expressionless as a bionic man. He poked his disposable-gloved fingers into her, causing her to bite her lip in pain, and the most he could say was coldly, "Relax."
But what about them? She sat in the corner of the empty cafeteria, carrying her food tray, wearing only two pieces of pink cloth in front and back, with a sign on her wrist. Occasionally, she would see someone who was dressed like her, but with a calm and elegant demeanor.
After the physical examination, she was completely sick, perhaps because too much blood was drawn. She lay in bed at home all day. The next night when she went to work, Aunt Liu said she had to go to Shekou Wharf for an event and wanted her to sing.
That was her second time meeting Jiang Huai.
The lights at Shekou Wharf were dazzling, and the neon lights were so gorgeous that it was hard to take it all in. She had never been on a boat, nor had she seen such a dreamy night view on a boat. The musical fountain changed its shape and color. After the hazy purple light disappeared, it turned into a melancholy blue, and then an enchanting red. Beams of water bloomed in the night sky like flowers, accompanied by the huge sound of rushing water, which was magnificent and breathtaking.
In the distance are brightly lit bars, restaurants and high-end residential areas. When they reach the seaside, all the lights turn into stars swaying on the water.
She leaned on the railing of the boat and looked at the distant shore. She had seen the Minghua when she first came to Shenzhen, but that ship was not the Minghua. It was even bigger than the Minghua. The people who came with her went to the first floor, and even through the thick cabin glass they could hear the noisy laughter and hazy music inside.
She turned and looked down, seeing through the glass a girl dancing in the center of the stage. The tassels of her silver slip dress danced nimbly with her swaying movements, as if from another world. The shimmering tassels were particle lights and data tubes, gradually disappearing to reveal a large expanse of white back, waist, and hips...
There were several security guards in black clothes on the deck with Zhou Yue. The one closest to her was a tall and strong bald man. She had looked into his eyes for the third time, but each time he slowly looked away without saying a word.
Where on earth was she supposed to go? No one remembered her anymore. I looked up at the second and third decks, but I couldn't see anything above. It was strangely quiet, with only the orange light streaming out.
"What a waste." She whispered. The bald man looked at her again. She quickly leaned back on the railing. The water was covered with broken and swaying lights.
If Kang Xingxing was here, if she had a little say, she secretly thought, she would take him upstairs, drink delicious orange soda, drink blue cocktails, and give him layer upon layer of big cakes. Because of her, he hasn't eaten cake in all these years.
"Hello!" A familiar voice called out from behind her, very close. Just the sound of it sent a chill through her, her neck stiffening and unable to move. But the person calling her was clearly relaxed and happy. They walked over and stood behind her, as if calling a child, their voice laced with a smile, "Hello? Can you hear me?"
Being so close, Zhou Yue couldn't help but hear him. She lowered her head, her heart pounding for a long time, and finally turned around with a stiff neck. He still loved to laugh and wear shirts, but today he was wearing a black shirt. His gold-rimmed glasses were brand new, and a soft metallic luster like satin flashed across his glasses when he moved his head slightly. There was no trace of scratches on his cheekbones, as if everything before was just her nightmare.
"Hmm," Zhou Yue looked up at him for a moment, then smiled uncomfortably, "Hello, Mr. Jiang."
"What?" He seemed not to have heard clearly. He lowered his head and moved closer to her, smiling and asked, "What did you say?" A fresh fragrance came over, very cool, making the suffocatingly hot air at the seaside flow.
Zhou Yue gripped the railing, her hands sweating, and whispered again in a hoarse voice, "Hello, Mr. Jiang."
He was so close to her that under the bright lights, he could see fine lines at the corners of his eyes. When he heard the words "Mr. Jiang," the smile on his lips faded, but the moment he stood up, his expression was filled with surprise. "You know my last name is Jiang? That's amazing!"
"I saw you on TV when I was a kid." Zhou Yue looked at him and said.
"Oh?" He stood with his hands behind his back, full of interest. "What am I doing on TV?"
"During the SARS epidemic," Zhou Yue stopped looking at him and lowered her head to look at the shimmering water, "you donated 10 million to sick children."
He fell silent. She didn't know what he was feeling. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his hand resting on the railing. It was slender and bony, and she didn't recognize the brand of watch on his wrist. His fingertips tapped the whitewashed railing. "It seems I've disappointed the kids in front of the TV." He shifted his hand from the railing to hold her loosely from behind. Feeling her body stiffen, he whispered in her ear, "It's far from the shore here. If you fall in, the fish will eat you up and you won't be able to get out."
"Um."
"Are you not afraid?"
Zhou Yue shook her head.
He hugged her, looked at the top of her hair with a smile, studied it for a long time and came to the conclusion: "Two whorls, a stiff neck." Then he let go of her hand and stood beside her, holding the railing and looking at the lights on the shore. The evening breeze blew his hair.
"What color do you like?"
Zhou Yue looked up and saw that he squinted his eyes due to the wind, with a slight curve on his lips. It seemed that he had no intention of throwing her away for the time being, so she answered honestly: "Blue."
"Okay, I'll show you." He smiled when he heard it, bent down with his head close to hers, stretched out his arm and snapped his fingers, and the magnificent musical fountain not far away suddenly stopped. The water column dripped for a while, then suddenly gushed out, transforming into a huge blue rose that soared into the sky.
He turned to look at her triumphantly, "See! You keep your word."
Zhou Yue leaned on the railing and couldn't take her eyes off, but she was still stubborn, "No! It's just a coincidence! You just happened to find the rule..." The unfinished words were like a kite that had lost its string, flying away to who knows where. One minute, two minutes... The blue rose bloomed as always and never changed color.
Zhou Yue lowered her eyes and turned her back to the fountain.
"Don't like it?" He smiled unsurprisingly, his hands behind his back as he looked down at her. "Then let's go see if there's anything else fun. But I'm a little hungry. Could you please, Miss Zhou, do me the honor of having a simple meal with me first?"
"You know my last name is Zhou." She looked down at her own shadow. The moment his shadow overlapped with hers, she moved to the side, but he didn't seem to notice.
"Of course I know everything."
…
When we arrived at the restaurant, it was empty except for one table with food on it. The long table was covered with white lace cloth, and white bone china plates were placed from one end to the other.
The waiters stood far away, just like in the high-end restaurants on TV. The men wore black suits, trousers and bow ties, and the women wore black suits and high heels. But both men and women had no expression on their faces, and they looked down at the red velvet carpet.
Zhou Yue looked around, but there was no movement on the spiral staircase. "It's just the two of us."
"Yes," he walked over, moved a chair away, and sat in another chair next to it. "Today's meal is to entertain my little benefactor."
After saying that, he picked up the bowl and chopsticks with a normal expression, completely forgetting that he had just said he would throw her down to feed the fish. Seeing that she didn't move, he patted the chair beside him and said, "Come, sit down!"
Zhou Yue walked over and sat next to him.
It was either crab or shrimp; that was her only impression at the time. It was much later that she could fully recognize these dishes: steamed red crab with scallion oil, cooked and drunken prawns, and boiled snow clams that were still bleeding...
The chilled pickled winter melon drizzled with sesame oil can be eaten directly. She glanced at the plate of winter melon from a distance, and when she turned back to look at him, he had already stood up and brought the plate to her. "Winter melon reduces dryness, eat more."
"These don't seem to be Cantonese food." Zhou Yue picked up a piece of winter melon and put it in her mouth, and it melted in her mouth.
"Yes." He held up a small blue and white porcelain bowl and filled it with Mingyue Snow Velvet Chicken Soup. The shredded tofu bloomed like a chrysanthemum in the soup. He placed it in front of her, "My ancestors are from Zhejiang."
"oh……"
The meal was eaten in silence. Zhou Yue was hungry and ate several pieces of Dongpo pork and a bowl of rice. He liked her good appetite and put down his chopsticks at the end. He propped up his chin and watched her eat with a smile, occasionally picking up a piece of vegetables for her with his chopsticks and asked, "Why don't you eat crab?"
"I can't eat it." She was very honest and wiped the sweat from her head. If she had a full meal, she could save several meals later. Of course, if he let her go back alive.
He listened without saying anything. He placed his chopsticks on the edge of the bowl and picked up a hairy crab. His slender fingers slowly but deftly removed the crab shell in a few seconds, pried open the crab legs, shaved out the greasy crab roe and crab meat and put them in her bowl. She tasted it and found it unfamiliar and she couldn't say she liked it.
After dinner, he took her to the second floor, which turned out to be a concert hall, the kind of concert hall where the noble gentlemen and ladies in the British novel "Vanity Fair" used to play the piano and dance waltzes.
He let her go and play by herself, and Zhou Yue paced back and forth leisurely on the magnificent marble tiles. Like a little ghost, she ran to the empty stage, picked up the microphone, and sang "Late Night Harbor" to the rows of non-existent audience below:
The black scarf is filled with loneliness in the wind
Drifting into this harbor
I stand alone in the wind with thousands of neon lights
Watching the ferry drifting with the waves
The north wind is blowing around me, and I no longer feel cold
The coldest place tonight is my heart
…
She put her hands behind her back and when she looked down she saw her confused and dull face. She looked at it for a long time before she took a step forward and walked to the piano.
The tripod piano with its graceful streamlined body made the piano that her mother smashed into scrap metal in her memory even lonelier and sadder.
She still remembered the day when Kang Xingxing pounced on the piano, and Dai Yan held the broom handle, and every time she hit his spine, the keys made a low-pitched sound, ding-dong, ding-dong, playing fiercely, as if the devil was happily watching a small animal being brutally abused. Just because he was weak, just because he loved her, the whole world could bully him at will.
The noise of "dong dong dong" rang in her ears again and again, and her head was full of the thudding of piano keys, but the piano was clumsy and old-fashioned, and it couldn't even play the right notes. It was worthless, and neither her life nor his was worth anything.
"Do you like it?" He always asked her "Do you like it?" when he came in. When he gave her brand-name bags, clothes, shoes, luxury cars and houses, he would always ask "Do you like it?"
Every time she said "I like it", she felt sad. The easier he gave these things, the sadder she became.
"I like it." Her voice was hoarse and choked with sobs. He hugged her from behind again, this time tighter than the last time, "I finally found something you like." His face was pressed against the top of her head, and his voice was muffled, like he was acting coquettishly and feeling aggrieved.
"Is it important that I like you?" She wanted to laugh, but her tears came out when she smiled, and they fell into his hands. He was still not surprised.
"If it wasn't important, you would have turned into a little ghost, floating around..." He smiled and stroked her neck with the back of his hand. "Where do you want to float to?"
“There’s nowhere I want to go.”
"Home?"
"I have no home."
"Oh..." He held her and swayed her, and suddenly thought of something. He pulled her to sit next to the piano, "What song can you play? Play it for me."
Zhou Yue bit her lip, looking down at the 88 black and white keys, her palms soaked on her knees. He waited until she raised her hand and reluctantly played "Für Elise." He listened quietly, pondered for a moment, and then commented cautiously, "The basic skills are okay, but they lack a bit of poetry. Poetry is more important than technique."
He took her arms and placed them on the piano keys. He had just helped her play one note when he realized something was wrong. He smiled speechlessly at her profile and said, "Breathe! You don't have to hold your breath when playing the piano!"
Zhou Yue took a deep breath, her eyelashes fluttering rapidly, tears still hanging on her lashes, sliding down her cheeks. Looking at the marble tiles in front of her that reflected her face, her heartbeat was so strong that her voice trembled: "I haven't played the piano in too long."
He looked at her, and smiled meaningfully when he lowered his head, still without saying a word. He just led her to play the entire "Für Elise". After the song, the whole concert hall was silent.
"You're beautiful but poor, like a child carrying gold across the street, with passersby all looking like thieves," he whispered, his smiling eyes caressing her face. "Do you want to spend your whole life clutching your belt, on guard against those hungry wolves, only to be pounced upon and devoured by them?" He caressed her cheek with his fingertips, leaving a delicate warmth wherever he touched. "Or do you want to stay by my side and find peace?"
She didn't say anything, just stared blankly ahead.
"How is Yueyue's mother? Is she feeling better?"
She moved her eyes, and he smiled, brushing her short, curly hair away, revealing her fair, slender neck. "What a coincidence! My brother also became a vegetable due to a car accident. He lay in bed for almost ten years, ten years..."
He leaned over and kissed her neck lightly. "How much will it cost?"
"For a man like me, you can't be the only woman. So I won't bother you often. Just pretend I don't exist. But you will be safe. Whatever matters may seem big to you, they won't be a big deal to me. For example, your mother's illness. How about it? Do you want to exchange?"
That was Zhou Yue and Jiang Huai's first time together. She didn't know how to describe her feelings. Fear, disgust, unfamiliarity—all mixed in, but none of them were accurate. She felt like it was a blank, as if she had truly become a ghost, floating above her body, watching her rinse in the bathroom. The jets of water made her skin red and numb with pain...
When she finally appeared in the bedroom, she was only wearing a pure white bathrobe, with nothing underneath. A green tourmaline table lamp was on at the head of the bed, and next to the lampshade emitting a shimmering green light was a man's gentle smiling face. "I'm coming." He wore a black bathrobe, put down the newspaper, stood up and walked to her, holding her face as if he was appreciating a good work of art, and rubbed her chin and neck with his fingertips, making a red spot, the same red as the corners of his eyes.
"I'll ask you one last time," he said, hugging her body, rocking gently in the moonlight, his lips pressed against her ear, "Is there anything unfinished?"
She floated on the ceiling, and saw herself in the soft light, her mouth opening and closing, saying, "No, I have no unfinished business."
"good."
He kissed her mouth gently, eyes open, while she closed them. She felt a chill on her body, and instinctively hugged her chest. He gently grasped her wrist and pulled it away. His hand moved over her body like a snake, warm and delicate, like snake skin, slowly wrapping around her...
"Relax." She thought back to the physical examination. His fingers were long, with distinct joints. One of them could have made her lose her mind. He was stunned when he saw the soaked sheets. He smiled and licked her ear, whispering, "No wonder that kid called you a treasure."
Her hands were tied to the head of the bed with a belt. She looked at the ceiling, enduring the pain of swelling and tearing. Her tears soon soaked the pillow. She could no longer see the ceiling. She could only see a pair of smiling eyes, staring at her intently like a snake. His cold gaze slid across her skin, as if he saw through everything. "You are so good at sucking. How many men have you eaten?" She shook her head. She didn't say that she didn't know, but she still didn't want to say it. He didn't ask again. He would only ask many questions once.
The tip of her nose hit his collarbone again and again, the collision getting harder and harder, causing her to cry in pain.
There was a scar on his chest, which swayed into a bloody afterimage in her tearful eyes, dancing on his pale skin.
She desperately felt the bone-chilling electric shock that made her shiver like a sieve. His sighs, half painful and half joyful, echoed in her ears, but before her eyes there was only a pair of black, furry eyes. Two chubby black hands supported their cheeks, looking at her infatuatedly, smiling innocently and calling her "Yueyue"...
Tears streamed more and more, and as the white light burst, she thought sarcastically of the line from her middle school Chinese textbook: "The silver bottle suddenly cracked, and the water spurted out." The Chinese teacher always stayed after class, holding up the textbook and reciting poetry with an intoxicated look on his face, walking from the podium to the last row, and then from the last row to the podium. The afternoon sun shone on the desks, birds chirped outside the window, and Kang Xingxing stood at the small window at the back door, looking in. His dark face smiled when he saw her...
"Focus." He gritted his teeth, pinching her neck and pressing it into the pillow. He pressed hard a few times before stopping. The muscles on his chest convulsed and the scar tightened and stretched. Sweat fell from the ends of his soaked hair, dripping onto her face and flowing into her salty, bitter mouth along with her tears...
"It's so painful." He collapsed in her arms, buried his head in her neck, panting and laughing, his palms covering her eyes.
These were the last words he spoke to her that night.
When she woke up, he was gone. Outside, the boat was calm, the sun shone on the water, and the waves sparkled. She sat on the bed, hugging her knees, lost in thought. The aches in her body, the red marks on her wrists, and the bruises all over her body told her this was no dream. There was only a bank card and a white pill by the bed. Someone knocked gently on the door, and a polite female voice came through: "Good morning, Miss Zhou. Breakfast is ready. You can come to the restaurant anytime. Mr. Jiang told you not to forget to take your medicine."
She took the medicine, soaked in the bathtub in the room, rubbed her skin over and over again, rubbing it until her skin was broken and strands of blood flowed into the water. Finally, she sat in the water that had already turned cold, hugging her knees, burying her face in her arms, calling "Stars", "Stars", "Stars"... But the only answer she got was the cold mechanical dripping sound of the faucet.
She didn't go to the restaurant and got off the boat directly. She put all the money Jiang Huai gave her into the bank account she opened with Kang Xingxing. The card was with her, and the matching passbook was with Kang Xingxing.
After that, a young girl wrapped tightly in long sleeves and long pants came to the bank near Shahe Street every few days to check the balance. Every time, the balance did not change. She was unwilling to accept it and said that she had remembered it wrong. She pestered the bank staff to print out the bank statements, but the results were the same. Every deposit and every withdrawal was hers.
"Crazy girl..."
"But she's pretty..."
"Rich people are lovers, when will it be your turn (rich people's lovers, when will it be your turn)?"
After saying that, everyone laughed together, looked at the girl's back from afar as she hurried away with her head down, and then went about their own business.
One day, the same woman in the royal blue dress and pearl earrings came to see her. She stood at her door. She was wearing a snow-white dress, a small handbag slung across her back. She stood straight, like an elegant red-crowned crane. Zhou Yue wondered if she wouldn't go home. Would she just stand there like that forever? The weather in Shenzhen was always suffocatingly humid, but not a single hair had fallen from that woman's bun.
"Hello."
"Hello, Miss Zhou." She bowed slightly, stretched out her hand and shook hands with Zhou Yue. Her respectful attitude was the same as before, and the instructions she gave were also the same as before, ridiculously simple.
One was to let Zhou Yue grow her hair. "Your hair," she tilted her head and looked at Zhou Yue's short hair appreciatively, as if it was already impeccably beautiful. "Can it be grown longer?" Then she smiled apologetically. "It doesn't need to be permed or dyed, don't worry. It just needs to be longer." Zhou Yue felt that her Mandarin had also improved greatly.
Another one is real estate. A house was transferred to Zhou Yue's name. The address is in Futian District. Apart from the good location, it is an ordinary residential building with an ordinary area.
But Zhou Yue still didn't go to live there. She had lived in Shahe Street for a long time. What if he came to find her?
So Zhou Yue's life really didn't change. She went out to sing at night, slept during the day, cleaned the house, and read... The clumsy guests came over with wine glasses, but were taken away before they reached the stage. But these people were all from Blue Ocean, and the rules were also Blue Ocean's rules. There was no difference.
She would go out to buy groceries in the evening when it was cooler, and cook a meal with more vegetables than meat. By the time she was full, it was already night, and it was time to go to work.
On her days off, she would stroll around Shahe Street. The jewelry store had everything, including makeup puffs and brushes, as well as mascara, eyebrow pencils, shower caps, and the like. Sometimes she would see some novel gadgets she liked, such as blingblingbling rings and necklaces, which were very beautiful in shape and she would wear them for fun; they were not expensive.
When she came out after buying things, she stood under the telephone pole covered with advertisements, looked up at the blue sky which was cut into pieces by the crisscrossing wires, and took out her Nokia sliding phone inlaid with rhinestones. She had never changed her phone, and the numbers on the keyboard that she often touched were already blurred.
The sound of "beep-beep-beep..." never ended. Her pounding heart became slower and slower, and colder and colder, like the flickering cigarette butt in the hand of an old man lying in the street to enjoy the cool air, which was completely extinguished in the falling night.
Change always comes little by little.
At some unexpected moment, she came back with the vegetables, and the crowd dispersed as soon as she looked up. Or sometimes she got up early in the morning and met Aunt Lou on the way to the bathroom with her toothbrush holder. She was about to say "Good morning, Aunt Lou" with a smile, but she turned around and went somewhere else.
When she went to bed in the early morning, she could still hear the old ram in the public corridor hoarsely retching and brushing his teeth, and the Cantonese opera "The Flower of the Imperial Concubine" on the radio was sung in a tragic and helpless manner. But when she went out at dusk, the doors of the houses along the street were all closed.
She never saw the little copper bean again.
A group of children were running back and forth in the tube building, but there was no sign of Little Tongdou. Once she grabbed a little girl and wanted to ask her, but the little girl pushed her away and ran away without looking back.
One day, Aunt Lou came again and felt very uncomfortable sitting on the sofa. Every time Zhou Yue poured her tea, she had to stand up. Zhou Yue felt sorry for it after so many times.
"Baby Yueyue..." Aunt Lou still wore her gorgeous South American-style silk shawl wherever she went, but now she couldn't care less. She pinched a corner of the shawl and twisted it into a ball. "What about this apartment? I want it back! There's no other way. Ah Zi is getting married!"
Aunt Lou didn't have a son, she forgot she had told Zhou Yue.
So Zhou Yue stood at the foot of the towering tube building, looked through the patio at the dark sky at dusk, watched plane after plane flying to the north, and moved to the apartment that Jiang Huai gave her that night.
Before leaving, she made another call and left a message after the busy tone:
"I'm in Shenzhen, my address is Room …… in Futian District. Come find me." After a long pause, she said, "Don't leave me."
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