Forever Jiangnan Chapter 9

 

Chapter Nine

In the End, It Is the Meaning of Samsara (3)

She was thinking about what lay beneath those words, and the more she thought about it, the more she smiled. Not outwardly, but inwardly. Warmth spread over her calves, and sunlight fell just below her knees. It was as though she, too, were melting in the sun.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” He slipped back into his half-serious, half-teasing manner. “Feeling disappointed that you’re missing out on a gift?”

Naturally, he meant the meeting gift she would have received as his younger sister if he had a girlfriend.

“Yes, terribly disappointed,” Zhaozhao said with feigned regret. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be the only one keeping me company. Girls have more to talk about with other girls, after all.”

“I’m sorry you have to put up with that,” he said, playing along with her and expressing his own regret. “Having only me for company.”

They fell silent at the same time. Neither spoke, and neither hung up. The silence did not make things awkward. Instead, as the seconds ticked by, it melted into an indescribable atmosphere that made them reluctant to end the call.

Even though they could see each other downstairs as soon as they hung up.

Zhaozhao had thought he was taking her to see the sights of Macau. It was only after getting into his car that she learned they were going to visit a greenhouse. When they arrived, the car turned into a secluded European-style courtyard. Shen Ce led her around the back and into a glass greenhouse.

The moment Zhaozhao stepped inside, she sensed that this greenhouse must have some connection to the one on the top floor of the little house in Hong Kong.

The greenhouse was arranged like a maze, divided into several sections. Enormous ceramic pots stood on the ground, while mandrakes hung down in clusters, forming natural walls. She tilted her head back and saw strands of leaves dangling from the suspended flowerpots like green chains. She immediately asked, “What are these called?”

“Burro’s tail.”

“You have these in your greenhouse, too. I recognize the asparagus fern, the narcissus, and the peonies, but I don’t know this one.”

“Is that so?” he asked with a smile. “You’ve been to the greenhouse in the little house?”

Zhaozhao murmured an affirmative, feeling a little guilty under his amused gaze.

What was wrong with having visited the greenhouse?

Before she could think any further, she spotted a woman’s back ahead of her. The woman wore a simple long dress, its color almost identical to the blooming mandrakes beside her. She was tending to a crown of thorns when she heard them talking and turned around. Seeing Shen Ce, she smiled. “So you finally decided to come see me.”

The woman was even more surprised to see Zhaozhao standing beside Shen Ce than she was to see him at all. She gave Zhaozhao several more looks, then turned to Shen Ce in astonishment. Her eyes seemed to be asking, Where did this girl come from? How can she be so beautiful?

The woman’s silent approval put Shen Ce in an even better mood. He introduced them. “This is Zhaozhao. This is my mother.”

Zhaozhao stared at him in disbelief.

Of all the things she had imagined, she had never expected him to bring her to meet his mother, Uncle Shen’s ex-wife.

Fortunately, Shen Ce’s mother did not care in the slightest about his father’s remarriage. Instead, she was much more interested in the girl her son had brought to see her for the first time. After asking Zhaozhao about her life and studies, she asked pointedly, “Did you like that pair of dice?”

Zhaozhao paused. “I did.”

Shen Ce’s mother smiled. “Those dice were given to him by his maternal grandfather. My father had only one daughter, and I have only one son. In the future…”

“We came to choose flowers today,” Shen Ce interrupted from where he had been sitting silently. “The greenhouse needs some new ones.”

He could tell Zhaozhao liked that greenhouse. She had mentioned it when she was drunk, and she had mentioned it again when she was sober.

“I’ll help you choose some later and have them sent across the sea.” Shen Ce’s mother could also see that he was doing this for his new little sister.

Zhaozhao sensed that Shen Ce had something he wanted to discuss with his mother, so she took the initiative and went off to play with the pair of white cats wandering mischievously around the greenhouse.

He watched her retreating figure, gazing at it intently for a while. When he finally turned back, he saw a lotus slowly unfurling in a glass teapot. The dried bud was being coaxed open by the water, and as it blossomed, it regained its color.

“This flower tea…”

“I’ll send you some, too.” His mother mercilessly exposed his intentions. He still wanted to give something to this new little sister. “Before she leaves.”

Shen Ce smiled and looked at her again.

A white canopy covered half the greenhouse. Some flowers preferred the shade and could not be left in direct sunlight. Zhaozhao sat in that cool patch with a cat in her arms, her legs crossed beneath the hem of her short skirt.

He seemed to see her as she had been in the past.

The young girl had leaned against a low table, resting her chin on his leg. Beneath her skirt, her bare feet had never deigned to wear socks. Her pale ankles brushed against the floorboards, and wherever he looked, there was white. The courtyard’s lush greenery enveloped the sound of cicadas, their cries stirring up a restlessness that gnawed at him. The teacup in his hand had long been empty, yet he did not move. He did not want to move.

She had questioned him while resting on his leg. Ge, you really have a woman on the north bank of the Yangtze? Have you really fallen under her spell, lost your mind? Ge, she’s from enemy territory. How do you know she isn’t a spy? Ge, you want a woman… And then came one elaborate argument after another. He listened contentedly, far more contentedly than he listened to the cicadas.

He did not know who had spread the rumor so convincingly, but it had one advantage: he could hear her jealousy unfold, one sentence after another. And because it still was not enough, he deliberately led her to the wrong conclusion.

“Now the north bank belongs to me, too. You shouldn’t call her a woman from an enemy country anymore.”

Her face immediately went pale. Anger flared in her eyes. Once she had finished being angry, she left. He had calculated that she would return in less than the time it took half an incense stick to burn. Zhaozhao could not bear to be apart from him. They rarely got to see each other, and she could not stand to be separated from him for even a moment.

This time, though, he supposed he had angered her badly. He waited a full incense stick before she returned, carrying a shaving blade and a warm, damp towel.

The blade pressed against his cheek. Afraid of cutting him, she handled it carefully. Her almond-shaped eyes held nothing but him, nothing in the world but him.

“Ge… Just think about it. A woman from an enemy country. How could you dare let her do this for you? Aren’t you afraid?”

A young girl’s heart could twist and turn a thousand different ways, but no matter how it turned, it always led back to him.

And her lips, opening and closing as she spoke beneath his ear, had touched him long ago. He had simply pretended not to notice.

His Zhaozhao.

…

“Before I turned three,” Shen Ce said, looking at his mother, “what happened?”

Shen Ce’s mother had also been admiring the beauty playing with the cats in one corner of the greenhouse. The question caught her so off guard that she froze for a long moment.

“Before you were three, your father was always by your side. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know very much.”

For a moment, as she met her son’s eyes, she was still afraid. Afraid of seeing again the look in his eyes on that night when he was three.

That year, her son had neither asked nor answered questions, neither listened nor spoken. She held him in her arms and cried every day. Then, one night, she finally received a glance from him. It was as if he found her annoying, as if he were annoyed by a strange woman holding him and crying.

She dared not admit it, but that look had frightened her to the brink of collapse. In the end, she left Shen Ce’s father alone in Jiangnan to care for their only son.

Whenever she recalled it afterward, she was convinced that the gaze belonged to a man who had witnessed life and death, seen countless killings, and steeped himself in a sea of violence. For such a shadow to dwell in the eyes of a three-year-old child, how terrifying it was.

She had been barely in her twenties then, with little experience of life’s rises and falls. She had been utterly incapable of facing a gaze like that.

Even now, well past forty, recalling it still sent a chill creeping over her.

“Is that so?” Shen Ce looked again at the lotus in the teapot.

“Your father said… that the great monk told him you had suffered greatly, endured pains that ordinary people couldn’t bear, and that was why you couldn’t hold on. You were too young back then.”

He did not answer.

“What if you were to return to the past…” His mother wanted to say the words die a horrible death, but she could not bring herself to say them. She swallowed the rest of the sentence, unable to imagine how cruel it would be to experience the pain of dying all over again. “You might not believe any of this. It sounds so absurd and ridiculous… Even I feel foolish saying it aloud.”

She would rather believe it was a hallucination, some kind of chronic mental affliction.

Because Shen Ce’s mother had not been by his side much when he was young, she had always felt guilty toward him. And since he was her only son, that guilt, combined with the bond of blood, made her treasure him above all else. She could not bear to let him suffer the torments of his childhood again.

She asked softly, “Has something been upsetting you? Stay away from it. Stay away from anything that brings back the memories.”

Why should he stay away? How could he possibly avoid it?

He had just lifted one corner of the veil, and all he desperately wanted now was to see what lay beneath it.

“I came because I want you to help me make a will.”

“A will? How old are you? Your father and I are both still alive. What do you need a will for?”

Why?

He was afraid of dying young. He could not feel at ease.

He could not bear the thought of leaving her alone in this place, with no one to rely on. He did not trust human nature, nor did he believe her parents would ever treat her wholeheartedly, without any selfish motives, no matter the circumstances. No one could do that except him.

The conversation between them was interrupted by a cry of pain from Zhaozhao.

Shaking her hand, Zhaozhao tried to negotiate with the larger of the two white cats, smiling as she spoke. “Scratch a little more gently, okay?”

Noticing that the two people in the distance had stopped talking, she gave Shen Ce and his mother an apologetic smile. “Please, carry on. I’m just playing with them.”

Shen Ce left his mother and went over to her, crouching down beside her. The two cats had not been frightened away by Zhaozhao’s cry. Instead, the moment they saw Shen Ce, their fur stood on end. One darted into the corner of a wicker chair, the other behind a flowerpot. Both pairs of blue-yellow eyes stared fixedly at him, spying on him from two different angles.

Shen Ce reached for her hand to check whether the cat had scratched her, but she pulled away.

His mother was right over there…

If he truly wanted to catch her, there was nothing that could escape him, including her. He had managed to catch her effortlessly last night even with his hands behind his back, so how could she possibly evade him now? Zhaozhao had nowhere to dodge. Her hand ended up in his.

“Your mother takes such good care of her flowers,” she said, forcing herself to appear composed and changing the subject. “What’s that one called?”

“Hibiscus.”

“What a lovely name.” For some inexplicable reason, Zhaozhao liked it.

He looked at her.

She explained, “It has that word sang in it. It sounds lovely when you say it.”

The cats passed behind her. They were afraid of him, but they liked her very much.

In the end, the two cats finally worked up the courage to approach her. Their fondness outweighed their fear, and they settled down beside her feet, though neither dared let the tip of its tail brush against Shen Ce.

“Does it?” he asked after a long pause.

“Mm. Say it,” she said, pronouncing sang with a light sound formed at the tip of the tongue. Then she smiled and asked him, “It sounds lovely, doesn’t it?”

He gazed at her. “I’d rather hear you call me gege.”

“…”

“Changed your mind? Don’t want to call me that anymore?”

Under his gaze, her face grew hot. Her thoughts turned this way and that, going around in circles. “You can’t expect me to call you that just because you tell me to. What do I get out of it?”

“What do you get?” He smiled. “The benefit is that I’ll never find you a sister-in-law for the rest of my life.”

Zhaozhao’s face had already been burning, but that remark struck her squarely. For a long moment, she could not say a word. She picked up one of the cats and walked away.

She was genuinely angry.

And she stayed angry all the way back to the Shen family’s parking garage, without saying a single word.

The parking garage here was enormous, almost half the size of an underground car park.

Shen Ce did not turn off the engine. A thin stream of cold air blew against her arm, leaving her chilled.

Zhaozhao unfastened her seat belt and heard him ask, “Getting out already?”

She still ignored him, freeing herself from the restraint on her own. A soft click came from Shen Ce’s side, too, as his seat belt retracted into its slot. It was a very quiet sound, but there was no one else in the underground garage. The silence was so complete that the noise seemed ten times louder.

Zhaozhao thought he was getting out as well, but instead he reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder.

“I took you out to take care of some business. Only now do I have time to sit with you for a while.” His tone had suddenly become sincere.

After saying that, he asked again, “We hardly ever get to be alone together. Do you really want to go upstairs?”

As if they did not see each other every day, she retorted inwardly.

One second passed, then another. Zhaozhao grew puzzled when he did not say anything. She glanced at him, only to find that he had caught her looking. As if responding to her gaze, he leaned toward her.

“Softening up?”

“No.” He had cornered her into speaking.

His upper body blocked the entire view outside the window.

At first, Zhaozhao ignored him. But with the warmth radiating from his hand on her shoulder, she gradually grew uneasy. He had not moved at all. His hand was still resting on her shoulder. She did not even know when her own hand had ended up against his chest. She pushed him away.

“Ge, stop fooling around.”

An engine started somewhere in the parking garage.

Someone was coming.

Her soul nearly left her body. She closed her eyes and listened to her own heartbeat. Blood rushed to her face, turning it scarlet, while the pounding made her eardrums tremble. Headlights swept past. Even with her eyes closed, she could see the light.

The car gradually drove away, restoring the quiet.

As though she had survived a calamity, she slowly raised her eyelids. The light washed away the darkness.

Shen Ce seemed to have been waiting for her. Only when she opened her eyes did he move closer. Zhaozhao shrank back, but the seat was behind her head, leaving her nowhere to go. This attempt to evade him was almost entirely futile.

She had never been this close to a man before. Her whole body had gone numb, and in this dangerous place, where they could be seen at any moment, the nervous excitement was all the more intense.

“Ge…” She was genuinely panicking now. Her heartbeat was so violent that the scene before her eyes seemed to sway.

He stopped.

“You don’t want me to?”

✦

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Forever Jiangnan Chapter 8

 

Chapter Eight

In the End, It Is the Meaning of Samsara (2)

The moment Zhaozhao entered the lounge, voices rose and fell around her, all calling out “Little Auntie” and “Auntie.” There were children of every age, both older and younger. She had barely sat down on the sofa when Shen Yan’s son, who wasn’t yet two, climbed into her lap and called out in his babyish voice, “Little Auntie Grandma.” He tugged at her collar and kept repeating, “Little Uncle Grandpa, Little Uncle Grandpa…”

The little baby had only just learned to talk and couldn’t quite get his words out. What he wanted to ask was where Shen Ce was. When he couldn’t find him, he felt wronged, and when he felt wronged, he wanted to cry. So Zhaozhao held Shen Yan’s little boy and fulfilled her duties as a “grandmother” by coaxing her… great-nephew.

By the time Shen Ce showed himself again, his trousers covered the injuries on his legs, but large patches of bruising were still visible beneath his short sleeves. There was also a bloody scrape across his forehead. Seeing Zhaozhao and his great-nephew clinging to each other like a mother koala and her baby, he immediately called Shen Yan to account. “You brought him here and then didn’t even soothe him?”

Shen Yan gave an awkward grin and took his son into his arms, carrying him off to bed first.

Shen Ce sat down beside her, resting his arm along the back of the sofa behind her.

By this point, Liang Jinhua had long since been driven away. With Shen Yan gone as well, he and Zhaozhao were the only older ones left here.

“Little Uncle, let me put some medicine on your wounds.” The boy who had tried to stop the car squeezed up beside Shen Ce’s legs, holding out the medicine.

“You wouldn’t even call your Little Auntie when Little Uncle asked you to. Now you’re trying to make it up to him?” a girl said. She was the one who had called Zhaozhao earlier.

The children bickered without the slightest sense that anything was amiss.

The speaker meant nothing by it, but the listener heard more than she said.

Zhaozhao’s gaze wandered. She was wondering what she ought to do.

“With your Little Auntie here, I don’t need you.” Shen Ce handed over the medicine as though it were the most natural thing in the world. “No one’s next door.”

With that, he got up.

Amid her little nephew’s disappointment, Zhaozhao followed him. They passed through a room full of laughter and went into the small room next door, a tiny tea room with a sofa and an incense burner sending up thin wisps of smoke. A wooden carved screen blocked the view from the doorway.

It was quiet inside. All she could hear was the laughter of the little children beyond the screen.

Zhaozhao opened the round tin. She dipped her fingers into the transparent ointment, looked up, and met his eyes.

“You’re going to use your hands?”

“Using my hands works better.” She pretended to be calm, having completely forgotten to ask whether there were cotton swabs or anything of the sort.

Shen Ce had originally intended to call someone to bring him a warm, damp towel and then apply the medicine himself. He disliked the sticky feel of ointment and never used his hands for it. He always did it that way. But there was no need for that now.

He took off his short-sleeved shirt. Shen Ce had also been bare-chested in the boxing ring earlier, his back exposed, but at the time she had been too worried about his safety to pay attention to anything else. Now his body was directly before her, the muscles from his shoulders down across his chest and abdomen all laid bare to her view. At the front, the thin drawstring tied into a knot on his trousers hung down, the waistband sitting low on his hips.

He cradled the teacup in his hands and took a sip. “Go ahead.”

Zhaozhao rubbed the ointment into her palm and blew on it. “Should I start with your shoulder?”

He fell silent for a moment. The room suddenly grew dark.

There was the sound of hurried footsteps, thump, thump, thump. A small figure ran out of the darkness that swallowed everything, throwing her arms around his waist. Her little hands clasped behind his back, and she refused to let go.

He lowered his head, wanting to see that little face, the one that had captivated the entire neighborhood despite her tender age. She wouldn’t let him. She shook her head from side to side in his arms, asking, Ge, you don’t want me anymore? Ge, where did you go? Ge, do you know I’ll die without you? Ge, do you know I’ve already been dead for thirty-nine days?

He wanted to comfort her, but he also wanted to hear her speak. So he let her cry and carry on in his arms, right up until she noticed the wounds on his hands and arms.

He had survived a brush with death, barely escaping with his life and almost leaving nothing behind but his bones. He had no room to think about anything else. He was desperate to hear his little sister cry and fuss over how much she had missed him, so he let her roll up his sleeves.

The little girl burst into tears again and ran off. When she returned, her arms were full of medicine and bandages. She even had a paper bag of brown sugar cubes clutched in one hand. She stuffed a piece of brown sugar between his teeth, scooped out a large lump of ointment with her fingers, and parted her little mouth to blow into her palm. Then she rubbed her hands together, as though trying to warm the medicine first. She was afraid it would be cold, afraid the cold would touch him…

In the last days of winter, as the year hastened toward its end and all things withered, even the warmth of the charcoal brazier could not compare to her hands, that pair of tender little hands.

“Just the shoulder.” Shen Ce looked out of the darkness and at the Zhaozhao standing before him in the present.

Zhaozhao rubbed her hands together a couple of times before laying them against his body.

The muscles beneath her palms tensed.

Her hand trembled.

“You can rub it a little,” he said abruptly.

There was fire in her palms, but it was burning her. Her face was heating up, too. In a fluster, she rubbed the area in two quick circles and tried to withdraw her hand. Shen Ce offered a timely reminder. “Rub until it’s warm. That’s how the bruising disperses.”

“What counts as warm?” she asked, unconsciously adjusting her sitting position. Just now, she had been entirely focused on the place where their skin met and hadn’t noticed that she had been sitting on her own leg until it went numb. A fine, prickling sensation spread through it, almost as though she could see the blood coursing through her own veins.

“I’ll tell you when it’s warm.”

Zhaozhao silently grumbled to herself.

Shen Ce happened to glance at her, as though he had heard her thoughts.

“Shen Qi,” he called to the boy outside. “When you apply medicine, does it have to get warm every time?”

“Yes, yes!” the boy called back. “Little Auntie, rub harder! Rub until it gets warm!”

“Little Auntie, harder!” the other children outside joined in, egging her on.

Shen Ce looked at her again. Beneath his lashes, his eyes tilted slightly as he watched her, as though amused by how much she was overthinking things.

Zhaozhao fell silent. She concentrated on rubbing the bruise, and when it finally did grow warm, a strange sense of accomplishment welled up inside her.

“That’s enough. Move to another spot,” Shen Ce said quietly.

This time, it was the small of his back.

Perhaps it was the particular location, but Zhaozhao was even less composed this time. The moment her hand covered the bruise, it was as though every pore on her body had been forced open. One moment she felt hot, the next cold…

“Do you really want to call me gege?” the man with his back to her suddenly asked.

She stopped.

Those two calls of ge earlier had slipped out without thought, without any particular intention behind them. She didn’t know how to explain herself.

“From now on, call me by my name in front of other people,” he told her amid the quiet that belonged only to the two of them. “In private, you can call me whatever you like.”

Zhaozhao murmured an “Mm,” wanting to escape.

Shen Ce suddenly reached his arm behind him. Caught off guard, she found her wrist trapped in his grasp. Zhaozhao’s heart raced. The heat around her wrist slid upward, wrapping around the back of her hand…

Because of the slick ointment, both their hands slipped against each other like loaches. One was trying every possible way to keep her there; the other was using every scheme she could think of to get away.

He didn’t even turn around. One hand held the teacup, long since emptied, while the other restrained her.

He was warming her with his own body heat.

Only when someone outside the screen asked whether they needed more water did this thread of ambiguous intimacy finally snap at the sound of their voices.

Seeing the person come in with a kettle, Zhaozhao moved far away from him and stood beside the screen, watching the thin white smoke curl upward from the incense burner. She clasped her hands behind her back, still dazed by what had just happened. Shen Ce said nothing either. He took a tissue and wiped his hands, inch by inch.

“What kind of incense is this?” Afraid the person refilling the water might sense something strange, she took the initiative to ask.

“Dengliumei agarwood,” he said.

Zhaozhao gave an “Oh.” The name clearly came from some classical reference. She cast another glance at the incense burner, then turned around. Shen Ce was already standing before her, still bare-chested.

The person who had come to refill the water left.

It was late. Outside, the children were shouting their goodbyes to one another. Within the screen, Shen Ce responded to them with ease. Even after everyone had left, he and Zhaozhao remained standing face-to-face.

Thinking that things had become such a mess, she knew there was no way she could continue applying the medicine.

“I’ve finished the ones on your back. The rest, the ones on the front…”

“I’ll do the ones on the front myself.”

It was as though she could feel his body heat and the force of his breathing through the air between them. The furnishings all around them cast shadows: the screen standing beside them, the teapot and teacups, the incense burner, even the wallpaper. Shadow connected to shadow, closing in around them, concealing everything that was happening in the room.

“At the wedding banquet…”

His breath fell against her bangs. He had lowered his head, waiting for her to continue.

“Is your girlfriend coming?” she asked softly.

It was almost like a laugh, a silent laugh that only someone standing as close to him as she was could sense.

“Your sister-in-law…” He stopped short, then deliberately added, “Hard to say.”

He was certain that Zhaozhao had genuinely forgotten the previous night.

No one would be foolish enough to probe twice in succession, testing whether he had a girlfriend.

Those three words, your sister-in-law, struck Zhaozhao so hard that she could no longer steady herself. Then what had just happened between them been? A fleeting moment when they had been unable to restrain their feelings?

Shen Ce turned his back to her, smiling as he left her standing where she was. He returned to the sofa to sit at his leisure, still pouring himself tea. When he raised his head, he saw her walking around the screen and called out, “You really won’t stay to hear the rest?”

This was probably the first time she had ever given him the cold shoulder, refusing to spare him even half a step before turning and disappearing from sight.

Shen Ce gazed at the screen.

Dengliumei…

The little girl had climbed onto his lap and nestled into his arms, holding up a scroll. Ge, the fragrance of Dengliumei fills an entire room when you burn just one piece. The fragrant smoke lingers for three days without dispersing. Ge, when you become a great general one day, we’ll stack box after box of it all over our room.

Her hair brushed lightly beneath his ear as she acted spoiled, displaying the innocent intimacy of a child. Dengliumei, Dengliumei. She had recited those words from before sunset until the lamps were lit. With every repetition, his heart burned more fiercely. Forget Dengliumei, he could not even afford to buy the leftover incense.

He would be leaving soon. Who would protect her?

He had even thought of taking advantage of some household's pampered concubine, or perhaps a famous courtesan in Chaisang, using his extraordinary looks to exchange for good meals for her every day and peaceful sleep every night.

Every means available in this world, he would resort to them all, no matter how unscrupulous. That, of course, included himself.

Everyone except Zhaozhao.

…

Shen Ce leaned back against the sofa, gazing at the carved patterns at the very top of the screen. From the first time he had heard the name Zhaozhao, from the first time he had heard about night blindness, he had vaguely sensed that something was coming back to him.

Only tonight had he truly seen it.

He had once had a family member, a younger sister named Zhaozhao.

Shen Zhaozhao.

…

When Zhaozhao returned to her room, her older sister had just come back as well.

In previous years, whenever the two sisters met, they would talk through the night until dawn. This night was no exception, except that Zhaozhao was unusually restless. While her sister recounted a recent, short-lived secret crush, Zhaozhao stretched her front leg, then her back leg, then her side leg against the windowsill. Late into the night, she collapsed at the foot of the bed and wearily closed her eyes.

The carved screen seemed to be standing in her room, and he seemed to be beside her, holding her hand. Nor had he been entirely still. Before the person refilling the water interrupted them last night, he had also lightly scraped the back of her hand with the pad of his finger, then the backs of her fingers…

The ringing telephone was what woke her.

Her sister had just finished washing her face and was preparing to return to her own room. She answered the phone for Zhaozhao.

Then she shoved the receiver into Zhaozhao’s hand. “Shen Ce is looking for you.”

Zhaozhao took a long moment to react before suddenly sitting up. The telephone cord was not long enough. She pulled it taut, sending the telephone crashing straight into the headboard, earning herself a strange look from her sister.

She suppressed the pounding in her chest from being startled awake and watched as the door slammed shut. At first, she had simply been afraid her sister might overhear something. Now that there was no one else around, her thoughts naturally returned to the previous night.

“Has everyone left?”

She did not answer.

“Still angry?” His voice sounded as though he were speaking right beside her. “Was it worth staying angry all night because you wouldn’t hear me out?”

“Ge, did you need something from me?” Zhaozhao kept her voice stiff.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“What is there to talk about this early in the morning?”

“It’s ten o’clock now.”

“…”

“Weren’t you wanting to ask about your sister-in-law?”

“I wasn’t really asking. I was just making polite conversation.” Zhaozhao considered herself not quite a first-rate actress when it came to playing dumb, but certainly a very good one. “I’m not here very often, and I’m not interested in knowing what your private life is like.”

What did it mean that he had held her hand? She had been the one who had failed to refuse in the first place, the one who had followed him there. She could simply chalk it up to inexperience and having been led astray. Zhaozhao was doing her best to untangle the threads, analyze things objectively, and cut through the knot before it grew any more complicated.

“You really don’t want to ask?” he asked again.

“Ask what? When you’re getting married?”

He laughed.

…

As though he had calculated that her irritation was about to surge and she would hang up, he quickly continued, “I apologize. I’ll spend the day with you as compensation.”

Zhaozhao wanted to ask what exactly he was compensating her for. For the absurdity of last night, for touching her hand? In the end, she suppressed the thought. If he would not acknowledge it, neither would she.

“No need.”

“Zhaozhao.” Shen Ce suddenly grew serious. “I’m alone. I always have been.”

✦

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Forever Jiangnan Chapter 7

 

Chapter Seven

In the End, It Is the Meaning of Samsara (1)

Uncle Shen hosted the two sisters for dinner.

It was the first time the older sister had met their mother's husband. She remarked to Zhaozhao, “An old school gentleman.”

Even when dining privately with his stepdaughters, he wore a shirt that was perfectly pressed, without a single wrinkle. He personally attended to every little detail, from serving the dishes to refilling their glasses, taking meticulous care of their mother. When speaking to women, he would naturally lower his own posture, without any trace of affectation.

“Mom's type,” Zhaozhao whispered. That was why she had been able to tell from the beginning that this Uncle Shen was definitely the man their mother would marry.

Uncle Shen noticed the twins observing him and smiled at them. “Is the food to your liking?”

“Uncle Shen, whether the food suits our taste doesn't matter. As long as you two are happy, anything we eat will be a grand feast,” the older sister said, raising her glass. “May you enjoy a hundred years of wedded bliss.”

Zhaozhao raised her glass as well. “May you grow old together, your brows remaining level with one another's.”

Uncle Shen and their mother exchanged a smile.

Zhaozhao saw him take their mother's hand where it rested beside the table. Even the smallest gestures were filled with the tenderness of newlyweds. Their mother was happy.

Next week was the big day.

And what was she thinking about? An older brother she had met only two days ago. Where had he gone? How late would he be back?

After dinner, their mother drove the older sister out to have some fun, while Uncle Shen took Zhaozhao to a study with an inner room. Apparently, it had belonged to the earliest owner of the house, Shen Ce's great-grandfather.

Zhaozhao had always felt favorably toward the Shen family. Her mother had told her that in the late Qing dynasty, Shen Ce's great-grandfather had been a member of a prominent noble family in the capital. After the Qing dynasty fell, the family moved around several times before eventually settling in Macau. He had been deeply troubled by the terms imposed by the foreign concessions and wanted to remain here until the territory returned to Chinese rule.

The moment she entered the study on the first floor, she could tell that everything, from the furnishings to the decorative objects, had preserved its old appearance. An entire wall of bookshelves stretched all the way to the ceiling. There was a large, freestanding grandfather clock, an old gramophone in excellent condition, and everything else seemed just as it had been.

It was as though this study still stood in that turbulent era, unchanged.

“Great-grandfather is buried in Beijing. Lighting a stick of incense here will do,” Uncle Shen said, handing her one.

She did as he instructed.

When she left the study, several uncles had gathered in the adjoining room. They were all from Uncle Shen's generation. He was the only one in his forties, while the rest were elderly men in their sixties and seventies. Zhaozhao greeted each of them in turn. Thinking of the many men in their forties and fifties who would be attending the wedding banquet, she gained a deeper understanding of why everyone said Shen Ce belonged to a senior generation in the family.

The uncles had all prepared gifts for her. Zhaozhao thanked each of them and accepted them one by one.

There were so many that she could barely hold all the boxes. A hand reached out from behind her and took several of the larger ones from her arms.

She turned around.

It was him.

The grandfather clock had just passed eight. Did that count as “very late”?

The moment the eldest uncle, who was over seventy, saw him, he spoke. “Shen Ce is back.”

“Eldest Uncle.” Shen Ce stepped up in front of him.

“Zhaozhao is your own younger sister. Keep that firmly in mind.” Everyone fell silent to listen. Of all those present, this eldest uncle's words carried the most weight. “In the past, you had no siblings, and everyone in the family protected you. Starting today, you need to learn.”

Shen Ce remained silent for a long time.

Only when everyone had begun to find his silence a little strange did he finally speak in a low voice.

“I'll treat her well.”

He took a seat and accepted the tea from the girl standing behind him.

He had rushed back from outside just now because the family uncles had arrived ahead of schedule, so he had not changed out of his suit. The guests Shen Ce had met with that evening were important, and he was still wearing his tie. Perhaps he was simply too tired. Amid the elders' cheerful conversation in the room, he was unusually quiet.

Later, one of the uncles told Zhaozhao that the monthly allowance provided by the family was the same for men and women, with the amount varying only according to age. Zhaozhao would receive one too, and she would also have inheritance rights in the future.

This was completely different from her maternal great-granduncle's family. Over there, children who were not related by blood would never be treated equally. It seemed that when the Shen family said they valued family, they meant it. It was not just something they said.

As Zhaozhao chatted idly with the uncles, she gradually realized that Shen Ce really was an anomaly in his family.

Perhaps it was because all the men in this room had grown old, and he was the only one who still possessed an edge. At first glance, that sharpness was not conspicuous. It was like the blade of a knife buried in sand. Only when the wind came and swept away a layer of grains could one see what lay beneath.

He was a famous blade hidden beneath the sand, always concealing himself, keeping his edge sheathed. Without a gust of wind, he never revealed it.

When Zhaozhao left, Shen Ce was still sitting with the others. The tea had been replaced three times, yet he had not uttered a single word.

After ten o'clock, her mother called to tell her not to wait for them and to go to bed first. Before she could even set the receiver down properly, the phone rang again, more urgently with each ring. She assumed it was her mother calling back.

“Auntie.”

A strange girl's voice came through the receiver.

The girl's voice was sweet and delicate, the sort that could easily soften anyone's heart. Zhaozhao guessed she was one of Shen Ce's nieces.

“Mm, hello.”

“Come watch Little Uncle box.”

“Box? Where?”

“Someone will come pick you up.”

On the other end, the children's laughter mingled together, and then the call ended.

The man who came to pick her up was dressed casually. He was refined and polite, and introduced himself as Shen Yan. He looked to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and he also called her “Auntie.”

Someone who had lived to that age was surely already married. When it came to dealing with people, he was far more seasoned than Zhaozhao, who had only just reached adulthood. A few words of casual conversation were enough to ease her discomfort with the family titles.

“For the next couple of days, just let the kids call you that a little more so everyone can get used to it,” Shen Yan said with a smile as he led her outside. “Little Uncle isn't in the best mood. If he gets upset later, just pretend nothing happened.”

Zhaozhao had initially wanted to ask why, partly so she could prepare herself and perhaps help talk him down. But when the question reached the tip of her tongue, she decided it was unnecessary. Every person here had a much deeper relationship with Shen Ce than she did. There was no need for her to get involved.

The two of them headed toward the elevator.

When Shen Ce had arrived that afternoon, he had told her that the building had a bowling alley, a swimming pool, and a gym, located on the basement level and the top floor respectively. He had not mentioned that there was also a boxing area.

Once they entered, she saw that the boxing ring occupied a section of the northeastern side of the gym.

From a distance, she could make out the backs of two men in the ring. Both were bare from the waist up, with white wraps wound around their hands. The same kind of wraps were wound around their wrists and ankles. Muay Thai was one of the bloodiest forms of combat. She normally would not even watch matches in which the fighters wore padded gloves, let alone this most primitive form of fighting, barehanded.

There were no children watching from the sidelines. They had probably all been taken somewhere else.

The two men were locked in a closely contested match.

Shen Ce's footwork was strange and unpredictable. Sweat trickled down his back, tracing the beautiful definition of his muscles. There were bruises on his arms from the blows he had taken, though his opponent was in far worse shape.

Zhaozhao thought of a saying:

An eagle stands as though asleep; a tiger walks as though ill.

It was precisely in this way that he seized his prey and tore into it.

His opponent could no longer hold back and suddenly launched an attack.

They clashed head-on with fists and legs, while elbows and knees were used for close-range surprise attacks. Every move was vicious. Shen Ce suddenly retreated two steps, feinted, then abruptly twisted his body and delivered a powerful spinning back kick, sending a grown man crashing straight into the ropes.

The posts surrounding the entire ring reverberated violently...

He caught the wet towel thrown up from below the ring and spat out the mouthful of bloody saliva he had been holding between his teeth. When Zhaozhao saw the faint red against the white, she drew in a sharp breath.

He tilted his head slightly, his gaze sweeping over her face. Something flickered in his eyes and disappeared.

Shen Ce quickly looked away. “Switch to hemp rope.”

Wrapping hemp rope around one's hands was practically like wrapping them in files. It was rough and hard, with astonishing destructive power. This was the kind of method used in Southeast Asian outdoor fighting rings and underground boxing venues to give spectators a thrill and make money off them. Primitive and barbaric.

The man who had been fighting Shen Ce rolled over and propped himself up against the ropes with both hands, panting. “That's enough. You're supposed to be a groomsman, too. What kind of look would it be to show up injured?”

“We're not stopping.”

Shen Ce drove him off the ring and tossed the towel down after him.

Shen Ce said something to the Thai boxing master who had been standing beside the ring with his arms crossed, watching the entire time. Zhaozhao could not understand him. It was Thai. The master gave a slight nod, took off his white robe, found two coils of hemp rope for wrapping hands, and climbed into the ring.

One coil was thrown to Shen Ce.

This was a real professional fighter, the kind of man who had spent years boxing, like those who fought in televised matches. His body was covered in scars, and his eyes held a ferocity that seemed capable of tearing his opponent apart.

“What the hell has gotten into your little uncle today? Why's he going so hard?” The man who had been driven out of the ring walked over to Shen Yan, barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.

“Will the hemp rope make the injuries more serious?” Zhaozhao suddenly interjected.

“Of course.” The man lowered his head to look at her. “Once that stuff is wrapped around your hands, every punch draws blood.”

Zhaozhao's breathing stopped.

She watched his back as he unhurriedly and skillfully wound the hemp rope around his hands. Her heart pounded wildly.

The boxing master pressed his palms together and bowed slightly to Shen Ce in greeting.

Shen Ce brought his palms together as well, his manner unhurried and composed. He inclined his head slightly, his eyes fixed on the master six paces away, and performed the silent opening salute before a fight.

The quieter it was, the more it tore at her heart.

Almost involuntarily, Zhaozhao circled around to the other side, moving to the edge of the ring closer to Shen Ce. She peered at him through the ropes. Seeing the Thai boxing master's body covered in old scars and the coarse hemp rope wound around both men's hands, she called out, “Ge.”

The man in the ring seemed not to hear her.

Both men had already begun moving into their respective footwork. Muay Thai placed great emphasis on footwork, with the prowling steps of a tiger and the strides of a lion, every step brimming with killing intent. The more years of experience a fighter had, the more clearly his skill could be judged by the way he moved his feet.

Frightened by what she saw, Zhaozhao followed him around to the other side. “Ge, listen to me for a second.”

Shen Ce stopped moving.

Zhaozhao lowered her voice and asked quickly, “You aren't wearing any protective gear. You haven't even put in a mouthguard. What if something happens when you fight like this?”

Seeing Shen Ce stop, the master stopped as well. After all, Shen Ce was his employer. There was no need to draw blood and determine superiority the moment they stepped into the ring. This was not some open-air fighting pit where men fought for money to make a living.

The master waited until Zhaozhao had finished, then addressed Shen Ce in a low, measured voice, saying two brief sentences.

The first: You're distracted.

The second: Who is she?

Zhaozhao had no idea what they were saying. She could only stare intently at Shen Ce's face, trying to work out the content of their conversation from his expression. But Shen Ce gave her no chance to find out. He did not answer a single word.

Shen Ce thought for a moment, then took another tiger-like step forward.

Zhaozhao's heart sank.

Suddenly, he stopped again. With a smile that seemed almost helpless, he straightened up and shook his head at the master. Bringing his palms together, he bowed slightly, bringing an end to this fierce battle between two tigers that had already been poised to erupt.

His bare feet, white cloth wraps wound around the middle and ankles, left a trail of wet footprints across the ring as he walked toward her. He crouched down in front of her, then reached over with his hands still wrapped in white hemp rope and patted the top of her head.

“What is it? Afraid I'll lose?”

His palm was still warm.

“What's the point of fighting to win or lose? It's not even a competition.” The words had already left her mouth when she realized her tone was wrong. She sounded as though she were complaining to someone she was extremely close to.

“It's utterly pointless.” The man before her relaxed his brows and eyes, then spoke in a low voice, sounding half sincere and half teasing. “Just a way to kill time. I've got nothing else to do, and no one wants me around anyway.”

Up on the elevated ring, he pressed a hand against the soft ropes and swung himself down. He took a bottle of water from Shen Yan, then walked barefoot to one side to rinse his mouth. Everything he spat into the wooden bucket was bloody water. It took three consecutive mouthfuls of water before the blood was finally washed clean from his mouth.

The man who had boxed with Shen Ce earlier studied Zhaozhao carefully under the lights.

He had thought from the start that she did not look like a member of the Shen family. Standing beside the boxing ring, this girl seemed to have been nurtured by the waters and soil of Jiangnan, with a moist, fragrant softness about her. Usually, a face like hers might appear somewhat plain, but hers did not. She was like a deep-red flower petal holding the morning mist, or perhaps like great swaths of such blossoms filling an entire garden.

At first glance, she was all he could see. Everything else disappeared from view.

The man had initially assumed she was Shen Ce's woman. Ever since she came in, she had been circling the ring, with eyes only for Shen Ce. So he had put aside any thought of getting to know her. Only when he heard Zhaozhao call Shen Ce ge did he finally understand. She was his younger sister.

“Hello. My surname is Liang, Liang Jinhua. My younger brother has mentioned you.”

This man was entirely different from Liang Jinrong. Their facial features were quite dissimilar, too. He was more rugged, with stronger masculine features, and appeared to be in his thirties.

Zhaozhao was just about to respond when Shen Ce interrupted. “You two go to the lounge first.”

Zhaozhao gave the man a polite smile and left ahead of them.

Liang Jinhua watched her go. “The moment I saw your younger sister, a few lines of poetry came to mind, though none of them quite fit.”

By the wine-shop, the woman is moonlike, her fair wrists as white as frost and snow.

Shen Ce had thought of this line before, at the flower cake shop.

Liang Jinhua was already past thirty and had begun considering pursuing a suitable woman he liked so that they could start a family together. He had previously heard that the younger brother from the third branch had been making great efforts to court the new girl in the Shen family. Having seen her today, he felt that the effort was well worth it.

“Where are you going later? What does your younger sister like?” He wanted to get to know her, too.

Because Zhaozhao had made him step out of the fight just before it began, Shen Ce's desire to draw blood had not yet fully subsided. His eyes were narrowed slightly as he unwound the hemp rope from his hands and tossed it into the bucket of water. The backs of his hands were covered in crisscrossing marks left by the tight wraps.

“She already has someone.”

✦

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