Chapter 13
Li Ting said he was going to see Meng Zixian that night and wouldn't be back for dinner. Around 11:00, he sent a message saying he had just landed in Hai City and wanted to meet Chen Yue's people. Chen Huan asked if they were still going to Xitai Mountain this weekend, and he said he could make it.
On Friday afternoon, Shen Huan received a call from Lou Hetai, asking if she could give Meng Zixian a ride on the way to Xitai Mountain. He and Li Ting would take the highway directly from the airport. He said that the transmission and tires of Meng Zixian's borrowed car were broken and had to be left at the 4S shop for repairs. Shen Huan hesitated for a moment, then agreed.
She sent a message to Meng Zixuan, asking where it would be more convenient to pick him up, and he replied with a shopping mall address.
She didn't turn off the engine while waiting for Meng Zixuan. It was rainy today, and the underground parking garage was especially cold. Shen Huan turned on the warm air conditioner and put his right hand against the air outlet.
She didn't know why Lou Hetai had asked her to pick up Meng Zixian. The drive, hitting the evening rush hour, would probably take two hours. Lou Hetai must have known something about their past. Or perhaps others had already moved on from the past, Lou Hetai had forgotten, Meng Zixian had forgotten, and only she couldn't stop thinking about it.
Perhaps because of this inner concern, she appeared generous and came without asking any further questions. Now she regretted it. "I'm not on my way," she could have replied to Lou Hetai. Was it difficult? Not really, just a simple word. But she didn't say it.
She checked the time, 4:59, they had agreed to meet at five o'clock.
Her eyes drifted to the elevator entrance from time to time. She had already waited for three groups of people. The LCD clock ticked to 5:00, and the elevator door opened. First came a high school couple, followed by Meng Zixuan. He was always punctual.
Shen Huan's hand, pressed against the air-conditioning vent, trembled. She came to her senses and saw her fingers were red from the hot air. She withdrew her right hand, rubbed it with her cold left hand, then grabbed the phone lying on the passenger seat, opened the door, and got out.
They looked at each other from a distance, and Chen Huan raised her right hand and waved. Meng Zixuan did not greet her, with a schoolbag hanging on his left shoulder.
Meng Zixian's biological parents were from the north, his mother of Caucasian descent. He had a tall frame, a well-defined square jaw, and skin that appeared pale and rough for an East Asian, with pupils that were almost amber in color.
He walked with his back straight, his steps stiff and old-fashioned as he passed through the basement where young men were playing skateboards and young girls were dancing in flowery dresses.
He stopped in front of the car, his body tall, blocking the cold white light from the garage roof that hit her face. Chen Huan took a small step back and smiled at him. It wasn't a natural smile, but it was genuine.
She asked him if he wanted to get in the car, but then she felt it was nonsense. She opened the door and got into the driver's seat. Meng Zixian pulled the door from the passenger side, but the door didn't open. Chen Huan pressed the unlock button on his side and shouted to him through the window glass, "Try again." He didn't move, as if he received a message on his phone, and lowered his head to look at the screen. Chen Huan shouted again, "Try again?" Meng Zixian finally looked up from his phone, opened the car door, and got in.
I heard it, he said, no need to shout.
Chen Huan bit her lip, deciding not to talk to him next. She buckled her seatbelt back on and realized the car was too hot. She remembered Meng Zixian liked to use the air conditioning on low, and only wore a fleece vest in the winter. Chen Huan turned off the heat and put the car in gear to drive out of the parking space.
There were so many cars on the elevated highway that Chen Huan couldn't squeeze through the others, and several cars cut in. She knew Meng Zixuan would be annoyed, so she sat helplessly in the passenger seat, watching other cars pass them and pass in front, honking their horns as they passed, or leaning over through the glass to look provocatively at who was in the driver's seat.
When the traffic came to a standstill, Shen Huan secretly glanced at Meng Zixuan. He was staring ahead with his jaw tense.
The car sped up after getting on the highway. Meng Zixuan asked Chen Huan what he did in the United States half a month ago. Chen Huan said he went to see Li Wangnan, but he didn't expect that the kid went to a military training camp in North Carolina and was hospitalized after coming out.
Meng Zixuan said he had heard about it too.
Chen Huan asked, "Do you know what happened? You worked so hard for so long but still couldn't pass the exam." Meng Zixian replied that during a field exercise, Li Wangnan's teammate was injured in both legs by an explosion. He did a good job of first aid, but when he was carrying his teammate down the mountain, he sprained his ankle and said he couldn't carry it anymore, so he was expelled by the instructor.
Shen Huan was confused: "Did your teammate's leg really get injured by the explosion?"
"No, exercise arrangements."
"Did Li Wangnan really sprain his ankle?"
"right."
Chen Huan thought for a moment and said to himself, "He's a man with a sprained ankle and has to carry a person with normal legs down the mountain. It's understandable that he's not happy about it, right?"
Meng Zixuan's masseter muscles twitched faintly on the side of his face. Shen Huan was quite happy that she had angered him. She was not a generous person. She still remembered his cold expression as he walked away from the customs.
Chen Huan asked what happened in the end. Theoretically, the man's leg had been injured by the explosion, so how could they get down the mountain? Meng Zixian replied that a female soldier in the battalion carried him down. Chen Huan asked how much the wounded man weighed, and Meng Zixian said about 200 pounds. Chen Huan asked how much the female soldier weighed, and Meng Zixian replied that she didn't know, maybe 130 or 150 pounds. Chen Huan marveled at the fact that there was such a strong woman, a hero among us women. Meng Zixian glanced at her and said, "You don't have to represent women. There are many such female soldiers."
South of Xitaishan Island lies a forest of nearly 1,000 mu (approximately 1,000 acres). Facing the sea, it features streams and natural caves, making it ideal for tourism development. Mulin Villa, in which Lu Xiaofan holds a stake, acquired this land and is developing most of it into a hotel and a luxury campsite. A smaller area near the valley and stream was recently awarded a bid for a city-run youth practical training base.
It was seven in the evening when they arrived on the island. The sun had set, and the sea was gradually being swallowed by dusk. Most of the area was still under development, with iron fences surrounding several construction sites. The coast was piled with gravel and asphalt, gleaming gray-blue in the setting sun.
The weather forecast called for rain tonight. As we approached the island, the wind picked up, and even with the windows down, a salty, damp air seeped into the car. It was getting dark, and the streetlights were still on. She was the only car on the road, with no other light besides her headlights.
Chen Huan muttered, "Did I get off the wrong bus? This place is so remote." Meng Zixuan didn't respond, but cleared his throat and said, "I have something to ask you."
Chen Huan glanced at the dashboard. The high beams were on, but it was still dark outside. She didn't respond. She was a little scared to talk about this in person.
There was a moon hanging in the sky at the end of the road. Meng Zixuan said that there were some of your things in my apartment in Brooklyn. Did you send them over or something?
Chen Huan pretended not to know. "Really? Are there a lot of things? I don't remember." She actually remembered it clearly: her clothes, her desktop computer, the small porcelain items she'd found, the mesh hat. She'd left so many things there. Chen Huan deliberately didn't take them away, and Meng Zixuan never asked.
He thought she didn't remember, "I'll fly to New York next month and pack the boxes and send them over."
Chen Huan turned the steering wheel right, and the car lurched onto the gravel off the road, the wheels creaking as they rolled over the gravel. She braked and shifted the car into P.
Chen Huan licked her dry lower lip, inhaled, and exhaled slowly, turning her head like an old clock, one tick at a time, to face him. "You found a girlfriend," she said, not as a question. Those things hadn't been cleared out for so many years, and now they were going to be kicked out. She understood what Meng Zixuan meant.
Meng Zixuan hadn't expected to have to stop the car to discuss this. This matter was of course serious, for both of them, so he was discussing it in person today. But he thought it would be a quick discussion. "Throw it away, I don't want it anymore," he thought Shen Huan would respond. "It's eight years old, so shabby."
"Another woman is moving in." Shen Huan pointed out pointedly and even viciously.
Meng Zixuan didn't understand why she was acting so aggressively, so he answered as calmly as possible, "Not yet."
“But there was a woman.”
"……right."
"Girlfriend." Shen Huan said to himself.
"Not yet."
"You want her to move into your house and live with you."
Meng Zixuan frowned, turned his head, and looked out the window. He didn't respond, not wanting to fall into that trap again.
"White people?" Chen Huan continued, "You really like white people. I don't know why."
Meng Zixuan’s lips were stretched into a line, and he said nothing. She was very good at irritating him.
If he hadn't been sure how Chen Huan would react before, now he knew: she was furious. He wasn't prepared to delve into the reason for her anger, but he'd offer an analogy: it was similar to the way she'd played with a discarded doll and refused to let anyone else have it. Whatever the reason, Chen Huan was just as selfish as he'd remembered her.
"Aren't you in jail?
"Where did you meet this woman?
“What does this person do?
"If you ask me, I'm just a minor in an online relationship, and you're the top guy on the list."
The words were too outrageous, and Shen Huan suddenly shut up. After a while, Meng Zixuan saw her pulling her sleeve to wipe the corners of her eyes, but she didn't cry out loud, and her face was expressionless.
Meng Zixuan looked out the window again. The lingering moisture from the coastal vegetation rose, creating a light mist covering the ground. It looked like a rather muggy day, but since the air conditioning wasn't on in the car, he didn't feel hot.
Chen Huan, however, seemed to be suffocating. She opened the car door on her side, and the sound of the tide and the sea breeze rushed into the car, blowing her hair. She took off the hair tie from her wrist and tied her long hair behind her ear. The back of her hand was white, and as she pulled the hair tie, her slender fingers seemed to be solving a nine-ring puzzle. Meng Zixuan watched her hand, one circle, two circles...
After a while, Shen Huan apologized to him: "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have spoken like that."
Meng Zixuan retracted his gaze and was silent for a long time. He replied, "It's okay."
"I don't discriminate against white people. I said that because I'm a little jealous." She opened her mouth, paused, and continued, "Because of something that happened in the past."
Meng Zixuan nodded slightly, a hint of hesitation flashed across his eyes, but he didn't think too much about it.
Chen Huan closed the car door, started the engine, and got back on the road. As night fell, scattered raindrops began to fall, hitting the windshield. The rain quickly intensified, with bean-sized drops forming streams on the car window.
"Then I'll send you the address," Shen Huan said. Her voice was a little soft, cut off by the creaking sound of the wipers swaying back and forth.
"What?" Meng Zixuan didn't react.
Shen Huan said the box could be sent to her home in Yunjingli.
The rain stopped when they arrived at the Mulin Resort, and Chen Huan called Lu Xiaofan. Lu Xiaofan asked her to park the car in the hotel basement, "Why did it take so long?" The other end of the phone said that Li Ting and Lou Hetai had arrived early.
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