Chapter 43
"Sunset over the Orange Sea." Zhou Yue pointed to the sea and said, on a chair in Shenzhen Bay Park, under a huge Nanyang tree, she and Xiao Yuan sat together, sitting in the afterglow of the sunset, their bodies bathed in the golden sunset.
"Yeah." Xiao Yuan sat in the shadow of the tree. He was afraid of scaring people who came here for a walk, but Zhou Yue could see the left corner of his mouth turned up. He was smiling.
"You asked me how much I love you, how much I love you... My heart is true, my love is true, the moon represents my heart..." Zhou Yue sat on the chair and hummed a song, her legs swinging back and forth, her hand reached into the shadow, holding the warm hand wrapped in black leather.
"How am I going to live in the future?" She lowered her head, and the circles made by iodine on her knees grew bigger and smaller as her legs swayed.
"Isn't it good to be like this now?" He laughed hoarsely, opened his palm and clasped his fingers with hers, "I take my wife to school and pick her up after school. If my wife opens a shop, I will go to the shop to help her and take you home. When my wife has a child..." His mouth opened wider and his smile became more hearty, "Then I will be very busy. I have to protect my wife and her children, play with them, and take them to and from school..."
"What about your life?"
"My lady's life is my life."
She turned her head away, wiped away her tears, and turned to smile at him, "Will you always stay with me like this?"
…
"meeting."
Zhou Yue squeezed his hand tightly, her knuckles turning white, but he smiled as if he didn't feel any pain, looking at the orange sea. His thumb gently stroked the back of her cold hand until she suddenly let go and whispered, "It's half past four. It's time to go home."
"good."
But Jiang Huai didn't go home that night.
When Zhou Yue got home, only Wu Ma was preparing dinner. "Madam, it's time to eat." She put the dishes on the table with a smile. The endless table was filled with dishes, including drunken shrimps, steamed grouper, and crabs, but in the end she was the only one eating.
Zhou Yue sat at the dining table on the first floor, holding a bowl. It was dark and the courtyard lights were dim. She squinted and looked out the floor-to-ceiling window. There was not a single person in a black suit in the yard. There were only strange shadows of trees and the sound of water flowing in the lighted fountain.
"Auntie Wu..." She looked into the kitchen tentatively, "Where's Mr. Jiang?"
Wu Ma, as usual, only smiled at the pots and pans in her hands, never looking at her. "I don't know, ma'am."
Zhou Yue slept on the first floor at night. She was afraid of the painting at the corner of the second floor. The woman in the painting had misty hair, fluttering sleeves, and slender eyes that were sad and sorrowful, as if she would look up at you if you looked at her again. But the most frightening thing was not this, but that she looked exactly like Jiang Huai.
In fact, she really liked this small guest bedroom on the first floor. It had a single bed, a desk, and an antique green tourmaline table lamp. Jiang Huai told her in disbelief that it was for the servants, but he had a lot of things to do and was too lazy to argue with her about these details. He just let her move all the jewelry she had collected and put them in a rosewood wardrobe. This wardrobe alone took up most of the room.
When he was not around, she would secretly sleep alone in this room. For example, today, she placed the moon hairpin in a mother-of-pearl jewelry box, along with many other jewels, inconspicuously. The jewelry box was also placed in the bottom drawer of the rosewood cabinet.
Then she climbed into bed and went to sleep, lying on the pillow and looking at the cabinet door in the gentle moonlight. It seemed as if the diamond on the moon hairpin penetrated the thick rosewood, sparkling in the dark night, revealing the secret bitterness and sweetness in her heart.
She looked at it for a while, feeling uneasy, so she got up again, opened the drawer, took out the jewelry box and put it in another drawer. She was busy with this for most of the night.
The blank cell phone screen was dazzlingly bright in the dark night. The text messages had been deleted cleanly and thoroughly. She looked at the only string of numbers in the blank space, her fingertips hovering over the dial button, her joints stiff from hanging there, and in the end she didn't press it.
"Xiao Yuan," she muttered to herself, throwing away her phone and looking at the stars outside the window, "Ape, are you asleep?"
She stayed awake all night and dozed off for a while when the sky was getting light. The scar rubbed her face, making her feel both painful and itchy. Her chapped lips became moist with tears. He kissed her lips and neck... But when she opened her eyes, she still saw the Jiang family's decadent and luxurious Roman columns and dark patterned silk curtains.
Zhou Yue sat on the bed until the sun rose, listening to the rustling footsteps of Wu Ma as she came out of the door and entered the kitchen. The gurgling sound of boiling water and the glutinous fragrance of rice drifted in through the crack of the door. She looked at the slippers beside the bed, floating to the left and right, like small boats anchored in a dream. She sighed and got out of bed.
There was still no one in the yard, so she walked out tentatively and saw two people standing outside the iron gate with their hands behind their backs from a distance.
She couldn't leave. She had been to school yesterday and couldn't go back for the whole week. She stood in the middle of the yard in her nightgown. The vines of the huge ancient banyan tree drooped to the ground, making it more desolate than a desert. That was until a figure appeared, strode to the iron gate, flicked a cigarette butt with a frown, and patted one of the men on the shoulder. The two petrified men moved at the same time, lowered their arms, bowed to him, and said respectfully, "Brother Shouyue."
"Yeah." He nodded. "Go ahead." He squinted his eyes in the smoke, and the scar at the corner of his mouth was faintly visible. He replaced the two people and stood alone outside the door.
Zhou Yue looked up and saw a dark green sunbird jumping around on the branches of a banyan tree, chirping and hopping. It was too fat and could not fly high.
She chased after it with a smile, and came to the back of an ancient banyan tree that was so big that even three people couldn't hug it. She saw clusters of hibiscus flowers blooming among the dark green leaves, like flaming red firecrackers. Butterflies were dancing on the cluster of flowers closest to her.
"Butterfly cocoon." She whispered, squatting on the ground to look at the pearly white cocoon. The cocoon broke with a poke of her fingertips, and a pair of wet blue wings were revealed. They flickered and reflected the colorful sunlight like a rainbow.
Zhou Yue took out her cell phone to take a picture. The butterfly broke free from its restraints, spread its wings, fluttered a few times, and flew up. It circled gracefully in front of her nose a few times before flying away.
Afterwards, she took many photos of butterflies resting on flower petals and green leaves. Inadvertently, she turned around and saw Jiang Huai.
He sat in the villa, looking at her through the floor-to-ceiling window. He didn't know how long he looked at her. When he found that she saw him, he flicked the ash into the ashtray with a smile.
The villa was under the shadow of the trees that blocked out the sun. He tilted his head, and the pale gray sunlight flowed on his gold-rimmed glasses, as pale as his face. There was only an ashtray on the small round table in front of him. She took a quick glance and saw that there were already two cigarettes in it.
She didn't see him when she came out. In fact, she couldn't see him at all, because he was sitting in a raised corner of the villa, separated from the door of her bedroom by an entire hall and a huge carved Roman column.
Zhou Yue lowered her head, holding her phone as she walked through the bushes and tangled vines on the land into the villa. She walked around the pillar and stood behind him, her hands behind her back, her palms clammy and cold. "Mr. Jiang, good morning."
"Yeah! Okay." He turned around and smiled at her, his eyes swept over her body and stopped at his knees. Without saying anything, he stretched out his hand to her, motioning her to come over, "Your hands are so cold, put on more clothes." He smiled and pulled her to sit on his lap.
He was wearing a white bathrobe, and there were water droplets on his body and hair, but she could still smell a hint of blood, lingering in the hot and humid air.
"Mr. Jiang." Zhou Yue lowered her eyes and played with her mobile phone back and forth, leaving a trace of sweat where her palms passed.
"Um?"
"My teacher refused to see me and kicked me out of the office, but I really fell on my knee because I didn't stand firmly. Xiao Yuan can testify to this, as can many other teachers and classmates."
"Did I ever say I was going to cause trouble for your teacher?" He put his arm around her waist and looked up at her with a smile. His hair was wet and stuck to his eyelashes. In the blink of an eye, the water droplets slid down, like a pale wax figure melting.
"No," she said. "I'll just tell you the situation."
"Yeah." He nodded, his feminine eyelashes drooping as he absentmindedly looked at the butterfly photo on her phone. "Were you happy yesterday?"
"Happy," she said.
"Xiao Yuan has always been with you."
"Yes," she joined him in watching the colorful butterflies on his phone, their lifeless wings. "Xiao Yuan took me to eat rice noodle rolls and bought tea for the teacher. It's the one in Nantou Ancient Town. He said you've been there before. We got back to school after ten o'clock. I stayed with the counselor for a while, then went to the teaching office. They said classes wouldn't resume until next week. When I came out, I saw a piano in the auditorium, so I played for a while... and then came back."
"Yeah." He was still absent-minded. "He's always been with you?"
Zhou Yue was confused after he asked her twice in a row. "Yeah..." She looked at him blankly, her face flushed. "He...he hasn't even been to the bathroom." He smiled when he said this. "You figured it out so clearly."
"...You told me to follow him closely," Zhou Yue lowered her head, her fingertips gently stroking the scar on her palm, "so I followed him all the way."
"Yeah, I see." He nodded, took her hand, and gently stroked the scar on his palm. He hadn't mentioned a word about this scar, as if he knew the reason, but also seemed to be unconcerned. He rubbed it for a while and sighed, "Yesterday I sent Ah Fei away. He was with me the longest, but in the end he still betrayed me. Oh, I thought about it for a long time. Everyone thought of it, but I didn't think of him."
"I was the one who gave his daughter her name. When she couldn't even speak clearly, she would call me goddaddy whenever she saw me. She would stumble over to me and ask me to hold her. His mother has leukemia and her life depends entirely on imported medicine..." He hugged Zhou Yue and swayed slowly, speaking slowly. His eyelids drooped, and his expression could not be seen clearly, but the fine lines spreading at the corners of his eyes were visible. His bloodless skin made the dark circles under his eyes even darker. He was older than before and had many more white hairs.
"I can't understand it. I bought the imported medicine, I hired the expert, and he's been with me for thirteen years. And those poor government-paid idiots from mainland China have only known him for a few days? How much money can they possibly give him?"
"I really hate betrayal," he smiled helplessly and leaned back, dragging Zhou Yue heavily into his arms. "You're a dog that can't be fed. Why don't you talk about the interests of your country when you ask me for money?"
"So I asked his mother and daughter to go on the journey with him!"
Zhou Yue stared blankly at the intricately patterned but faded roof. She felt like vomiting when she swallowed a mouthful of saliva, but he seemed completely oblivious. He just held her in his arms and rocked her in the rocking chair. After a long while, he slowly stopped and looked at her with a faint smile, "Will you betray me?"
"No." Her voice was hoarse and she swallowed quickly, "No."
He chuckled twice and kissed her forehead lightly. "If one day my time comes, will you be willing to go with me?"
“…” Her throat hurt like a needle prick.
"willing."
He chuckled even more, his chest heaving. He paused for a moment, a cold smile still on his lips. "You told me not to lie to you. How many times do you have to tell me that?" He patted her face and sat up. He sighed as he lit another cigarette, exhaled a puff of white smoke, and stared into the distance in a daze. When the ash was about to burn his fingers, he suddenly said, "Xiao Yuan said you really like Nantou Ancient City."
"yes."
"Why don't you tell me if you like it?" He leaned forward to dust off the cigarette ash, and subconsciously spoke Cantonese mixed with Jiangsu and Zhejiang dialects, which made it difficult to listen to.
"I... dare not say," she said with a drooping brow.
"Heh," he smiled, pinching the cigarette and twirling it in circles at the bottom of the ashtray. He stopped after the third twist and whispered, "Blame me. I don't spend enough time with you." He threw away the cigarette butt and hugged her, raising his eyelids to study her face. "You're not happy studying either, are you? You can only go once a week."
"I'm not unhappy. It's good enough that I can go back to school!" She sat up straight and looked into his eyes eagerly. "I don't blame you for not accompanying me. You're busy, you..."
She suppressed her fear and disgust and carefully stroked the soft and curly white hair at his temples. He didn't show any signs of anger, but just stared at her hand. He saw everything her hand touched. This emboldened her, and she put her hand on his shoulder, patted his back, and whispered, "You have a lot of white hair."
At that moment, his face was blank for a moment. He tilted his head and stared at her gloomily. After looking at her for a long time, he lowered his eyes and said tiredly, "Okay, I get it. Go ahead. He said you want to open a shop, so just open it. It's up to you to do whatever you want." Then he pushed her off him and said, "Go wash up. You stink like a dead rat."
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