Chapter 17 He Cares Too Much About You
In the bathroom, a moth fluttered around the lightbulb by the sink, casting tiny specks of dust on the white tiles. Li Wenjing turned off the light. It rested on the mirror, on the pimples on either side of her cheeks. The overhead light shone down, revealing more and more wrinkles on her face, reminding her that she was getting older. She was twenty-nine, hurtling towards that mysterious age of thirty. Once you pass that age, it's like food past its expiration date: even if it still looks fresh, people won't buy it anymore.
Before she turns thirty, she wants to be rich and leave Africa.
"Wenjing, are you okay?"
Yu Di knocked on the door and she quickly answered.
"I didn't hear your voice. I was afraid you fainted again."
"How can you get dizzy so easily?"
"That's right. Doctor Gu sent a message saying you have anemia. I have to pay more attention to it."
"When did you two meet?"
"The last time he came to our company, I added him on Instagram."
"You, you locked onto the handsome guy at first sight, right? What should Brother Feng do?"
"Brother Feng is Brother Feng. I didn't snatch it from you. Why are you protecting your food and not allowing you to look at handsome guys? How stingy!" She walked into the bathroom. The two of them squeezed in front of the mirror. She tapped her gently with her elbow. "I'm almost suffocating. I want to go to the toilet. Let me go first."
"Hurry up, I have something to ask you." Li Wenjing went out first, turned back and asked through the bathroom curtain, "Gustav also asked me to eat, what does that mean?"
"ah?"
There was a flushing sound in the toilet, and she came out before a minute had passed. "His father wants to date you?"
"Ah! How can it be called a date? Isn't it just because of his son? They're arguing with each other. Besides work, I've become a community mediator. Oh, and don't tell anyone at work about this."
"Awesome!" Yu Di gave a thumbs up. "We haven't gotten Doctor Gu yet, so let's get his dad first. The son is good, but the dad is even better. If we work harder, we can become Doctor Gu's stepmother and no longer have to work like a slave for the boss all day long."
"Stop talking nonsense. I'm really fed up with these people."
Yu Di sat beside the sofa and asked her what was wrong.
Dr. Gu and Gustav, their figures always hovered before her eyes, occasionally overlapping. She couldn't explain it, but she said that Dr. Gu hated her interactions with Gustav, even if they were just work-related. But she just thought Gustav was a good person. Yu Di laughed at her, saying that it was so hard to choose between father and son.
"I didn't think about love..."
"I know. Don't think too much about it. French men are all like that. They're sweet-talking and flirting with girls everywhere. Don't overthink it. Just let it be. You keep asking me, maybe you have a crush on Gustave?"
Wen Jing didn't say anything, Yu Di just smiled, "You philandering woman, go to your appointment."
Before their scheduled dinner, Li Wenjing spun around in front of the mirror twice, dressed more than usual. She put on makeup and a new blue dress, bought this summer and never worn twice. She tied her hair up with a silk scarf. She hesitated for a moment, worried about looking too different from usual, then removed the scarf, wiped off her bright red lipstick, and reapplied a rose-colored one. This seemed to comfort her, making her look less forced. This was her first time meeting someone over twenty years her senior, in what looked like a date, and she felt nervous no matter how she thought about it.
She didn't know when her feelings for Gustav had changed. Was it when he came to visit her at her bedside, or when he was so tolerant of her during their last meal? From childhood to adolescence and adulthood, she had never met anyone like him. She couldn't figure out what her feelings for Dr. Gu were, mixed with a hint of unusual feelings for Gustav. She liked Dr. Gu, and she liked Gustav too. Dr. Gu's appreciation for her seemed pure, unadulterated, without any feelings between men and women. Could the doctor always be so indifferent when faced with a naked person, his fingers touching her breasts? On the other hand, she also longed for another kind of love, one that would give her care and concern, as well as the flow of passion. In this kind of love a man has for a woman, she could make up for the person she was in her childhood—without fatherly love, and motherly love was also scarce, with her mother always joining her father in scolding her. She rarely felt love, couldn't trust, and even when faced with affection, she tended to avoid it.
She arrived earlier than Gustav. It was an unassuming Italian restaurant, a single brown wooden door from the street level. Pushing it open, she revealed the restaurant's reception desk, flanked by paintings of classical ladies clutching fruit baskets. Before Gustav arrived, she waited at the reception desk. The wall reliefs depicted women in loose-fitting dresses. Li Wenjing gazed at the women's ample breasts, gazing as though they would ooze milk.
After waiting for five minutes, he finally arrived, apologized to Li Wenjing, and gently put his arm around her shoulders. They greeted each other face to face. His freshly shaved face had stubble rubbing against hers. She smelled the pleasant perfume on him and couldn't help but look at him. The moment their eyes met, she looked away first.
He asked Wen Jing what she wanted to eat, and Wen Jing said, "Just order what you want. Foreign restaurants usually have very few dishes. It's always appetizers, two dishes, and dessert. It's not like Chinese people who put out all the dishes and make a big table."
A pile of cheese was served first. I don’t know what it was, but it looked like winter melon. He helped her prepare it and pushed it to her side. He said it was called sheep cheese and an appetizer.
He didn't mention Gu Weiyi, nor did Wen Jing. He only talked about his recent work, his own feelings, and how she'd eaten, as if this were a real date. She wasn't very good with a fork, and she fumbled with the spaghetti, unable to get it out of the mouth. Her face flushed. He smiled as he rolled up the noodles with his fork. Li Wenjing copied him, and he kept praising her "perfect."
"I'm really stupid. I've never eaten Western food before. I can't even hold a knife and fork properly."
"You did a great job. I didn't know how to use chopsticks before, and it took me a long time to learn. Now I've mastered it, and I don't eat much anymore."
"Don't you like Chinese food?"
"Lunch is cheap. I used to eat there often when I was in school, along with Alai, Charles's mother. We didn't have much money back then, so if we wanted to eat well, we had to pool our money. We would sleep together until the next afternoon because I never let her get up."
He seemed to be looking back at that afternoon, blurry and blurry, his eyes narrowed. "She would scold me because she was putting on makeup, because I loved slapping her butt, because my hand slipped, because her eyeliner smudged, because we went to a restaurant and I looked at the menu over and over again, not knowing what to choose, because the restaurant was small, and her legs were pressed against mine."
He took the bottle to pour the wine, but his hand was not steady and the wine spilled on the table. He apologized to Li Wenjing.
"You won't have to eat cheap Chinese food anymore, that's great."
"I like Chinese food, but it doesn't seem right to ask a young lady for it."
"I don't mind. I prefer Chinese food."
"What do you and Charles usually eat out?"
"We eat everything, barbecue, meat, and hot pot."
"He should pay. If it's a split bill, that's terrible."
"I didn't ask him to pay for the meal. I was planning to treat him to a meal."
"It's okay, he should do it for you."
Gustav looked at her, and they made eye contact again. This time, Wen Jing didn't shy away, meeting those blue eyes directly, a pair of eyes that a woman uses to look at a man, resting on his pupils. His eyes alone were like the deep sea, where, by some strange coincidence, she'd walked in, sunk, and never been able to get out. He seemed to see right through her.
There is always some sadness in her eyes, with slightly drooping corners and bulging eyeballs. She is not beautiful, but there is an indescribable emotion in her. She is very attractive. Those mysterious stories are like the ashes left after the disillusionment of hope, hazy and disappearing in the black of the pupils, hiding things that she does not want others to see, which is very similar to Alai's temperament.
"Wenjing, to be honest, you are very attractive to me, and I like you." He supported his face with one hand and looked at Li Wenjing seriously. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't say this. I loved her and I love our child. Forgive me, it's too late today, I can't continue to ask you out."
"But..." Li Wenjing bit her lip and shook her head. "Yes, when we met, he was very angry. I couldn't help him. The more I helped, the more trouble I made."
"No problem, you've helped me a lot. I've been talking to Charles recently." He smiled again, "I apologize on his behalf. He cares too much about you."
Li Wenjing corrected him, "He doesn't care about me, he cares about his mother."
It started to rain after dinner, and Gustav sent her home. Before she entered the community, she saw Gu Weiyi's car outside. Before she had time to say goodbye to Gustav, Gu Weiyi came out.
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