Chapter Four (Part 1): Probing
Lu Yin drew her knees up and scooted backward twice, escaping his hand. She wiped at her eyes. “No, no. I can do it myself.”
She sniffed, her voice sounding strangely aggrieved, with a caution she could barely conceal.
Lu Qiang half knelt, half crouched, his elbow resting on his knee. He was very close to her, his broad, sturdy body like a wall.
The only bit of light was blocked out, and Lu Yin sank into darkness. The oppressive pressure made her shrink back involuntarily.
He looked at her. “Are you afraid of me?”
After a moment, “…No.” As she answered, she gently moved herself, trying to get up.
The corner of Lu Qiang’s mouth lifted. “Then why are you hiding?”
Lu Yin paused and forced out a smile. “Really, I’m not.” She pretended to be at ease, doing her best not to look at him.
She braced her arm against the ground, exerted force through her waist and abdomen, and pushed herself up from the floor. Her ankle hurt, so she bent her knee and hissed out a breath.
Lu Qiang was still crouching. His eyes flicked toward the rounded calf of her leg. Looking a little higher, there were two tiny hollows behind her knee, a fragile tendon connecting to her slender, delicate leg. Concealed beneath the darkness, it supported her with a softness that was also strangely resilient.
The index finger resting on his knee moved instinctively. He raised his eyes to look at her again.
Lu Yin tried to move her foot forward, but a stabbing pain in her ankle made it impossible to take another step. She let out an “Ah,” and fell backward again, only to unexpectedly land against a body as solid as a wall of bronze and iron. Her back and the crooks of her knees landed perfectly between his two arms, her hips on his knee. When she lifted her head, the cigarette between his teeth was right beside her face.
Lu Yin froze for a moment before struggling to get up. “I’m… sorry.”
Lu Qiang tightened his large hand. No matter how much strength she had, she simply could not escape.
The person in his arms was restless, constantly trying to arch her waist and slip down. Her slender waist twisted nimbly in his palm like a snake. He gave it an almost imperceptible squeeze. The body in his arms stiffened, and she did not dare move again.
Lu Qiang stood up and lowered his eyes, glancing at her chest. She was wearing a loose white camisole, a casual style meant for staying at home. The rooftop was too dark, so in truth he could only see a patch of white. Yet the side pressed against his chest was hot and soft, the sensation real and unmistakable.
He took one last look at the ashes on the ground, then turned and walked toward the door.
The building had six floors. It was an old-style residential building, with two flights of stairs making up each floor. The lights were sound-activated. Lu Qiang stamped his foot, and the light came on.
She narrowed her eyes, exposed beneath the harsh light. Suddenly, she felt an embarrassed shame, as though there were nowhere left to hide. Lu Yin hurriedly lowered her head, unsure what to do with her hands, and awkwardly smoothed the strands of hair at her forehead.
A chuckle came from above her head. “Which floor do you live on?”
Lu Yin said, “The second.”
Lu Qiang asked, “Heartbroken?”
“No.” She denied it.
“Then you must be bored out of your mind, coming up to the rooftop in the middle of the night to play ghost.”
“I wasn’t playing ghost. I was just burning something.”
“For the dead?”
Lu Yin choked, angry but unable to say anything.
Lu Qiang carried her with ease, going down two flights. “Did someone dump you?”
Lu Yin became wary. “Don’t talk nonsense. My… husband is at home.”
“Then he didn’t come up with you?”
Lu Yin clasped her hands tightly and lowered her eyes. “He was asleep.”
Lu Qiang had no more questions. He turned at the staircase and reached the third floor. He stamped his foot, but the light did not come on. Lu Qiang gave a heavy cough.
The vibration in his chest traveled through her arm. Lu Yin instinctively moved away. “This floor is broken.”
After a few seconds of silence, he asked, “The third floor?”
“Yes,” Lu Yin said. “It’s been like this for a month.”
Lu Qiang said nothing. After a moment, he suddenly gave a low chuckle and continued downward.
In the dark space, everything around them seemed even quieter. She could hear his heavy breathing, accompanied by the slightly monotonous sound of his footsteps. It was only a few meters, yet it felt longer and more torturous than ever.
With only a few steps left, she breathed a sigh of relief, but then held her breath again. Lu Qiang suddenly tightened his arms and shifted her upward. His rough palm brushed across her thigh, as though adjusting her position. His hand tightened, almost as if deliberately testing her weight.
Lu Yin’s heart leaped into her throat.
Once they reached the second floor and he had steadied himself, she suddenly let out an “Ah.” “I forgot something on the rooftop.”
Lu Qiang said, “Oh?”
Lu Yin straightened her waist slightly, indicating that she wanted him to put her down.
Lu Qiang looked at her, released his left hand, and supported her back, lowering her to the ground as gently as possible. She kept her injured foot slightly raised and did not feel any pain.
Lu Yin hopped backward. “Um… could I trouble you to go get it for me?”
Lu Qiang looked at her. “What is it?”
“A key.” She pointed at the door beside them. “My front door key.”
Lu Qiang gave her one last look, then turned and went upstairs.
There was no sound. The sound-activated light on the second floor soon went out, returning everything to darkness. Lu Yin held her breath and glanced upward. After confirming that there was no movement, she tiptoed on her injured foot and scrambled toward the third floor.
She took the key from her pocket. Her hand was trembling as she unlocked the door.
Once inside, she gently locked it behind her, then leaned against the door and let all her strength drain away, feeling as though she were about to collapse.
Lu Yin took some time to calm herself. She pinched the front of her shirt and shook it a few times, drenched in cold sweat. Only after her breathing had steadied did she summon the courage to look outside through the peephole.
Before long, the sound-activated light upstairs came on. Lu Yin’s eyes widened, and she stared without blinking at the space outside her door.
A tall figure entered her field of vision. His head was lowered, his footsteps solid and steady. The light was behind him, leaving his features blurred and making his expression impossible to see.
He came closer and closer. At the turn in the stairs, he suddenly stopped in front of her door.
Lu Yin’s breathing caught. She instinctively reached for the light switch, only to remember that she had never turned on the light after entering.
The man stood in front of her door for a moment. Turning sideways, he took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. After taking two puffs, the glow of the flame flickering on and off, he raised the hand holding the cigarette and hooked it against his forehead, then headed downstairs.
From beginning to end, he never once looked in her direction.
Only then did Lu Yin’s suspended heart finally settle.
Lu Qiang descended from the third floor to the second, stepping out of darkness and into the light. He did not pause on the second floor. He raised his eyes toward the pitch-black third floor, then glanced at the light bulb above his head before continuing downstairs.
He stopped at the entrance of the building and leaned against the battered security door, intending to finish his cigarette.
A woman approached from the opposite direction, her steps graceful, the crisp clicks of her “hate-the-sky-high” heels ringing through the night.
Lu Qiang instinctively scanned her figure first. Her breasts were high and full, her legs long, her waist and hips swaying from side to side.
He narrowed his eyes and took a drag of his cigarette.
When the woman reached him, she smiled and asked, “Security guard-gege, what exactly happened on the rooftop?”
Lu Qiang said, “Nothing much.”
“Nothing much?” She did not believe him and stepped forward. “Nothing to do in the middle of the night, so someone goes up to the rooftop and sets a fire?”
Lu Qiang said nothing.
She pressed, “Man or woman?”
“Woman.”
“Young?”
“Mm.”
She became gossipy. “She must have gone through some kind of shock. Got dumped, right?”
Lu Qiang said, “No. She was burning joss paper.”
“Burning joss paper?” She looked puzzled. “For whom?”
“The dead, I suppose.”
His voice was naturally deep. Fittingly, a gust of night wind swept through, lifting the hem of the woman’s skirt and sending a chilly draft up between her legs. The time had come, and several of the lights in the residential complex went out with a sharp pa.
The woman screamed and plunged headfirst into Lu Qiang’s arms.
He had not finished his cigarette. One hand remained in his pocket, the other holding the cigarette as he lounged lazily against the doorframe. He neither embraced her nor pushed her away.
The woman trembled. “Just now, I saw someone setting a fire on the rooftop of the building opposite from my apartment… If it were really a fire, that would be one thing. But burning joss paper on the rooftop… that’s creepy enough. That woman must have something wrong with her, right?”
Lu Qiang said, “Who knows.”
The woman said, “I’m a little cold.” As she spoke, she deliberately, or perhaps unintentionally, rubbed her breasts against his chest.
“If you’re cold, why did you change clothes?”
Half an hour earlier, someone had called the security office, saying that there was someone setting a fire on the rooftop of the building opposite. He had just been about to go to sleep and had pulled on a pair of loose boxer shorts before heading in that direction. The person who made the call had already been waiting downstairs, wearing loose pajamas and cloth slippers, hair disheveled and appearance unkempt. There had been no way to tell what kind of figure she had.
Now, she seemed like an entirely different person.
Lu Qiang crushed the cigarette in his hand. With a flick of his middle finger, the cigarette butt flew into the trash can. The woman was holding him tightly. He slipped an arm around her and touched her buttocks.
The woman could not help but shiver. When he squeezed her, she rose onto her toes, involuntarily letting out a soft moan.
Lu Qiang squeezed twice more. His movements paused, then his hand slid downward, touching her thigh, until finally his palm came to rest behind her knee.
It was a sensitive spot. She bent her leg backward, trapping his hand between her legs, and giggled.
The sensation was completely different. Lu Qiang withdrew his hand.
The woman said, “Security guard-gege, why don’t you walk me home? I live right across the way. It’s so dark, I’m a little scared.”
Lu Qiang glanced at her. “Then you should find a bodyguard. That’s not my job.”
He pulled her hand away, too lazy to look at her, and walked directly toward the security office in the distance.
The residential complex was silent and still. Ahead lay a pitch-black road. His footsteps were lonely as he walked on, muddled and aimless, just like the first half of his life.
Lu Qiang rubbed his bald nape with one hand and suddenly laughed aloud, amused by this strange and unexpected night.
As if at this moment, he had once again confirmed what was on his mind.
The road lit up as well.
***
During her leave, Lu Yin had twisted her ankle and had no choice but to rest at home for another half a month.
Early one morning, she arrived at the factory. Her coworkers had not yet all arrived, so she found a secluded corner and drank some milk.
The factory’s dining hall was actually an employee break room. It was quite spacious. Two unused sewing machines were piled in one corner, while a long wooden table stretched across the center. Pickled vegetables and vinegar bottles left behind by people after eating were scattered across it. Sunlight filtered through the old glass, leaving the dust with nowhere to hide in its beams. Above her, an electric fan hummed as it turned, and the entire room seemed somewhat hazy and muddled.
Lu Yin withdrew her gaze and sighed.
Disorderly footsteps came from the corridor. Several female coworkers approached, chattering among themselves, their voices growing closer and closer. Lu Yin rubbed herself against the chair, inexplicably feeling somewhat flustered.
The door was pushed open. The moment they saw her, their laughter and conversation abruptly stopped.
Lu Yin lowered her head and took a sip of milk. Someone immediately greeted her. “Yinyin-jie, you’re here.”
“I heard you twisted your ankle. Is it feeling better?”
“I have some soy milk here, Xiao Lu. Want some?”
Lu Yin tidied her hair and smiled, answering them all at once. “It’s just a minor injury. A few days of rest and it’ll be fine… I already had breakfast, so no need.”
The woman smiled, set the soy milk down on the table, and went behind the curtain to the changing area to change clothes.
The room fell into an eerie silence for several seconds. Everyone went about their own business, and the atmosphere was somewhat awkward.
Lu Yin felt as though she were sitting on pins and needles. She gathered up the trash on the table and smiled. “I’ll go back to the office first. We’ll talk later.”
Several people hurriedly said, “Talk later.”
“Okay…”
“Okay, okay…”
The door closed behind her. From inside came whispered conversation, but she could not make out what they were saying.
She gently tightened her grip on the doorknob, feeling like a turtle retreating into its shell, hiding from the outside world and only then finding a safety that was little more than self-deception.
In truth, her coworkers had not made things difficult for her. They had not even mentioned the canceled wedding. But she could not endure their cautious avoidance, nor their seemingly well-intentioned greetings.
The eyes that looked at her were filled with curiosity, sympathy, and regret. This made her feel increasingly pitiful, like a failed experimental subject.
Sometimes, she felt that sympathy was harder to accept than a serious wound.
She drifted through the entire morning in a daze. Her coworkers went to the cafeteria together for lunch. She did not want to go. There was a sandwich she had brought from home sitting on the table.
Someone knocked several times on the partition. She looked up. It was a male coworker.
“Want to go eat together?”
Lu Yin shook her head. “You go. I ate a lot this morning, so I’m not hungry yet.”
Her male coworker said, “Eating a lot still counts as breakfast. It’s noon now. Even if you’re not hungry, you should go eat something.”
“I’m not going…”
The male coworker had just been about to speak when someone called from the doorway, “Chen Rui, we’re waiting for you. Hurry up.”
“Coming.” He called back, then lowered his body and said quietly, “If you don’t want to become the center of attention, the best way is not to isolate yourself. Act like you did before, as though nothing happened.”
Lu Yin suddenly raised her head.
There was no denying that avoiding everyone was the only thing she wanted to do right now, but clearly, what he said made sense.
He paused. “You haven’t changed. Naturally, everyone won’t pay much attention to you. Once enough time passes, everything will be just like before.”
Lu Yin pressed her lips together and slowly lowered the pen in her hand.
Chen Rui’s eyes lit up as he encouraged her. “Come on! Want to go eat together?”
After hesitating for a moment, Lu Yin stood and followed him outside.
The cafeteria served the most ordinary three-dishes-and-one-soup meal, one meat dish and two vegetables. The soup had hardly any flavor.
Several coworkers sat around the dining table, men and women alike, chatting as they ate and carrying on lively conversations. No one deliberately steered the topic toward her, nor did anyone make a point of looking her over. It seemed no one was discussing that matter behind her back.
Lu Yin’s back was no longer so rigid, her shoulders relaxed, and only then did she feel a trace of relief.
A coworker came in from outside and called out a greeting to the table. Seeing that Lu Yin had come to work, her expression immediately became rather suggestive. She asked, “Lu Yin, are you okay?”
The entire table immediately fell silent. Someone lowered their head, while someone else coughed awkwardly. The coworker beside her bumped her arm, and only then did she realize she had asked something she should not have. She stammered for a while, then made up an excuse and slipped away.
Lu Yin put down her chopsticks. The food in her mouth had become as tasteless as wax.
That coworker was from another department. They were no more than casual acquaintances, and she had not even invited her to her wedding to Liu Zecheng.
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