Chapter Nine (Part 2): The Kiss
The next day.
When a gentle breeze stirred the gauze canopy, Lu Yin woke up.
Once fully awake, she did not have much of a hangover. Her scalp only felt slightly swollen, and yesterday’s memories had broken off in pieces, stopping at the point when Lu Qiang had been sitting across from her, continuously pouring her more liquor. As for what the two of them had talked about, she could not remember a thing.
Lu Yin patted her forehead and lay in bed for several minutes. Only when her stomach began protesting did she get up to look for something to eat.
Her bare feet touched the floor as she stood. Her movements suddenly stopped. The cold sensation of the floor shot straight up from the soles of her feet. From the corner of her eye, she saw a pile of clothes scattered on the floor, a white camisole, shorts, and a black jacket, all hers.
Lu Yin’s legs went weak, and she dropped back onto the bed. She suddenly looked down. She was wearing only her most intimate garments, her bare white skin made almost translucent by the light. The two pieces of fabric covered only the most essential parts, barely enough to count as coverage.
Lu Yin stared in astonishment, her mouth open, her heart pounding wildly. She gripped the bedsheet tightly with both hands. It took a full five minutes before she managed to calm down somewhat.
She cautiously moved her body. Everything felt normal. She did not feel any discomfort or anything unusual. Lu Yin viciously pinched her thigh, regretting that she had let down her guard yesterday and allowed him to ply her with liquor. That man was vicious by nature. What good intentions could he possibly have? Even if nothing had happened, how could she possibly look good dressed like this?
After sitting dazed for another moment, she bent down and picked up the clothes from the floor. Turning them over, she found they were still damp underneath. The sight irritated her, so she bundled them all together and threw them straight into the washing machine.
The dining table in the living room had already been cleaned up. Only a single glass remained on it. Lu Yin smelled it. It was plain water.
She carried it to the kitchen sink. Her eyes caught the newly replaced water valve, its bright silver surface reflecting her in a distorted, warped shape. She could not help thinking again of the way that man had stood here yesterday repairing the valve. Beneath his simple undershirt, his back was like a mountain, his arms strong and straight, his stature very tall. To look into his eyes, she had to raise her head and look up…
Lu Yin remained lost in thought for a long while before realizing she was still clutching the glass. She bit her lip and viciously despised herself inwardly. She had originally planned to find some leftover rice and heat it up, but all she found was half a plate of peanuts. He had eaten all of yesterday’s dishes, leaving the porcelain plates washed clean and neatly stacked on the rack.
She stood in the kitchen for a while before changing her clothes and going outside to find something to eat.
***
It was already September. The weather was no longer as stiflingly hot as before. The sunlight was still bright and glaring, but the occasional breeze that passed by was cool and refreshing.
Lu Yin stepped out of the building entrance and instinctively raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. She had barely taken two steps when she spotted that man at a glance. Lu Qiang was crouching on the flowerbed, smoking. His heels were not planted firmly, his elbows propped on his knees, shoulders slightly hunched, his gaze already turned in this direction.
For a moment, Lu Yin did not know what to do. She straightened her back somewhat self-consciously, pretending she had not seen him, and walked around the flowerbed. From that hurried glance, she felt that there was something different about him today. She had been too flustered to make out what it was.
Lu Qiang’s eyes followed her the entire time. As she passed him, he did not move. Instead, he took several hard drags from the cigarette in his hand, then crushed the butt against the concrete.
She had already walked more than ten meters before Lu Qiang finally stepped down from the flowerbed. A few strides brought him up beside her.
He turned his head. “Sleep okay last night?”
Lu Yin ignored him.
He smiled. “I was afraid you’d catch a cold, so I helped you take off all your wet clothes.”
Lu Yin’s breathing stopped. She abruptly halted. He took one more step before stopping too and looking back at her.
Lu Qiang looked completely innocent. “Come on.”
“You…”
“What did I do?”
Lu Yin’s cheeks were already flushed bright red. She glared furiously at the man in front of her. “What did you do?”
Lu Qiang deliberately teased her, boldly looking her up and down. “Everything I should and shouldn’t have done.”
After a few seconds, she said, “You’re lying.” Her voice was already trembling.
Lu Qiang said, “What would I gain from lying to you? You were in that state. If I didn’t do something, would I still be a real man?”
The color drained from Lu Yin’s face, her lashes trembling. For a long while, she could not say a word.
Seeing her expression, Lu Qiang asked, “You believed me?”
Something shifted in Lu Yin’s eyes.
“Can’t take a joke?” He gave her a push forward. “If I’d really done anything, would you be standing here just fine today?”
“You…”
“Nothing happened. I just took your clothes off. At most, I had a look or two.”
Lu Yin’s ears began to burn. Under the blazing sun, she felt slightly dizzy. She secretly bit her lip for a while. She still had some apprehension toward him, so she sulkily said nothing.
This man had successfully reset her limits. He was not merely rough and fierce. Sometimes, he was shameless and downright brazen too. He had no filter, able to say anything, and she had no idea which of his words were true and which were lies.
Lu Qiang followed her as they walked outside. “Where are you going?”
Lu Yin kept her head lowered. From the corner of her eye, she saw the large feet beside her, wearing a pair of plain-colored flat sneakers. She could not help turning her head for a glance, and only then did she notice what was different about him today.
He had finally changed out of his casual clothes. He was wearing black tapered track pants. His legs were too long, leaving his ankles exposed. The old undershirt he had been wearing was gone too, replaced by a soft crew-neck T-shirt that wrapped closely around his upper body. The muscles in his arms stood out prominently, his chest broad and well-developed, his waist lean.
He had just gotten a haircut, a short layer lying close against his scalp, making him look sharp and energetic.
Lu Yin looked only once before quickly averting her gaze.
Lu Qiang said, “I’m asking you.”
“To eat.”
He said, “Perfect. Let’s go together. I didn’t get enough to eat last night either.”
“…”
The two of them had breakfast together, finishing in less than ten minutes.
Lu Qiang asked, “Going home?”
Lu Yin nodded and headed toward the entrance of the residential complex. After walking a few steps, she noticed that he was still following her. Lu Yin turned around. “Are you going to work?”
“Night shift.”
She opened her mouth. “Then this is…”
Lu Qiang said, “Come somewhere with me.”
Lu Yin pointed at herself. “Me?”
He did not look at her, merely giving a casual hum.
They happened to be passing a bus stop. A bus pulled in, then left again.
Lu Qiang stood to the side, looking at the route sign. Lu Yin wanted to slip away, but he caught her by the wrist and pulled her back.
Lu Yin tugged away. “I don’t…” Before she could finish, he supported her at the waist and lifted her onto the long-distance minibus that had just pulled into the stop.
Written on the side of the vehicle were the words, “Xinli Bus Station – Qiluo Mountain.” Their destination was Qiluo Mountain.
Lu Yin pushed him away and turned around, wanting to get off, but Lu Qiang blocked her.
She protested quietly, “I’m not going.”
Lu Qiang frowned and reprimanded her in a gentle voice, “Just stay put for a while.”
She pushed against his strength, her face red with anger. “What is wrong with you?”
“Afraid I’m going to sell you?”
“You’d better not!”
“Couldn’t bear to.” He said it with a roguish grin. Using a little force, he guided her backward. There were few people on the bus, so they took the last row.
Lu Yin was breathing unevenly. “There isn’t a single person around that place. What exactly are you trying to do? I don’t want to go.”
“Who said there’s no one here?” Lu Qiang smiled, opening the window on her side. The bus started moving, carrying a faint fragrance in with the breeze.
“…I want to get off.”
Lu Qiang blocked the way outside, folding his arms and closing his eyes, showing not the slightest intention of paying her any attention.
Lu Yin was furious. She pushed him, but the person outside did not move an inch, nor did he even open his eyes.
Lu Yin glared at him. Getting no response, she finally deflated and slumped back against the seat.
At that moment, the morning sunlight was just right, rays of it passing through the buildings, through the treetops, through the transparent glass, scattering across the two of them.
Lu Qiang kept his eyes closed and curled the corner of his lips. Flecks of light fell across his face, softening even his overly rugged features.
***
Qiluo Mountain was the final stop, and not many people got off here.
After an hour of jolting along, the bus finally stopped at the foot of the mountain.
This was the border between Zhangzhou and Hongyang. Lu Yin had never been here before. The year before last, she had gone to Hongyang on a business trip and passed through here. The mountain was not particularly high, but it stretched across a vast area in undulating rises and falls, covered in dense green vegetation. The air was humid, and even the sunlight seemed sparse here.
Lu Qiang walked ahead, looking around, and remained silent for quite a while.
Lu Yin caught up a few steps. “What exactly did we come to Qiluo Mountain for?”
“To clear our heads.”
“What is there here to clear our heads about?”
Lu Qiang told her, “Bungee jumping.”
Lu Yin was startled and stopped in her tracks for a moment. Lu Qiang asked, “Have you ever ridden one of those drop towers? It’s more or less the same idea.”
“I have,” Lu Yin said. “But a drop tower is only a dozen or so meters.”
“This isn’t high either. The vertical height of the mountain is only about twenty meters. You can try it later.”
Lu Yin did not believe him. “Aren’t bungee jumps all more than fifty meters?”
“Who told you that?” Lu Qiang glanced at her with obvious disdain. “This one is low.”
“You’ve been here before?”
After a pause, he said, “When I was young.”
The two walked another few hundred meters, rounded a small hill, and sure enough, saw the cable car leading up the mountain.
There was bungee jumping here. She had only heard about it before. Because it had been built early and was in a remote location, hardly anyone usually came here. Everyone went instead to the newly built observation tower seven hundred li away.
They soon reached the top. The ride took no more than two minutes. Just as he had said, the mountain was not high.
Lu Yin was somewhat tempted and wanted to give it a try.
She was still hesitating and struggling with the decision when she could not withstand his repeated encouragement. Acting on impulse, once the bungee cord and safety harness had been fastened and she was standing on the tower platform, she grabbed the railing and froze.
On one side of Qiluo Mountain was the mountain itself, while the other side was a sheer cliff. The tower was built at the summit, extending horizontally out over the precipice. It stood twenty meters above the ground, while the bottom of the cliff was seventy meters below. Beneath the cliff was a stretch of jade-green water, tightly embraced by the surrounding mountains, its ripples barely stirring, calm and peaceful.
Lu Yin clung to the railing without letting go. Beneath her feet was an endless abyss. That pool of green water looked like a whirlpool, as though it could swallow a person whole within seconds.
The staff member behind her carefully explained the proper movements, but Lu Yin felt as though her ears were ringing. She could not hear a thing.
The person gently tapped her. Lu Yin turned around and grabbed him. “I’m not jumping anymore. It’s too high. I’m scared.”
The staff member: “…”
Lu Yin’s voice trembled. “I didn’t know it was this high. I was tricked into coming here. He said it was only twenty meters…”
The man’s clothes were bunched up in her fists. He looked down at them, his face utterly speechless.
Lu Qiang patted him and motioned behind him with a wave of his hand. “I’ll take over.”
He stepped forward and pried Lu Yin’s fingers loose. The staff member stepped away, and Lu Yin immediately clung to him like a gecko, pressing her body backward against him. “I’m not jumping anymore. I’m not jumping. You liar.”
“Stand up straight first.”
“My legs are weak.” She began sliding downward.
Lu Qiang’s eyes held a smile as he firmly steadied her by the shoulders. His chest was like a wall, blocking her path and refusing to give her even the slightest escape.
After she had struggled enough, Lu Yin pressed herself against him, both arms like vines, tightly wrapped around his waist. Lu Qiang indulged himself for a few seconds, then with a deft movement, turned her around and held down her arms.
Lu Yin cried out in surprise, nearly falling.
Lu Qiang spoke in a low voice. “I’ve failed so badly. I’ve never understood how to live this life. I’m afraid of what other people will say, always sensitive and suspicious, whenever something happens, I keep it bottled up and don’t dare say it…”
He paused for a moment. Lu Yin quieted down, feeling that the words sounded strangely familiar.
He continued, “Timid and cowardly, afraid of everything. When I saw them coming out of the restaurant, instead of holding my head high and walking over, I turned around and wanted to run away.”
“I’m twenty-seven years old. I’m really afraid I’ll spend my whole life living in his shadow.”
***
The wind howled beside her ears. Lu Qiang pressed close against her back, each word entering Lu Yin’s ears with perfect clarity. She finally understood. Everything he had said was actually about her.
Lu Qiang said, “How frightening can his shadow really be? So what if other people talk? Once you jump from here, all that shit is nothing.”
Lu Yin said, “I don’t dare.” By the time she spoke, she had already calmed down considerably. Those three words were not an expression of cowardice. Rather, they sounded like she was psyching herself up before the jump.
Lu Qiang said, “You jump first, then I’ll jump. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Prove to me that you’re not a coward.”
He spoke slowly, one word at a time, his rough voice like a hypnotic incantation urging her onward. A kind of reckless madness unexpectedly rose within her, making her want to throw caution to the wind.
Lu Yin murmured, “I really have to jump?”
Lu Qiang released her arms. “Jump.”
The world before Lu Yin’s eyes gradually dissolved into nothingness. She slowly closed her eyes.
Lu Qiang said, “Do you want to make something of your life? If you do, jump.”
After a long while, Lu Yin said, “Help me.”
Lu Qiang braced her at the waist and said softly, “Shout it out.”
***
The moment she jumped, Lu Yin regretted it. It was as though she had suddenly been jolted awake from hypnosis. That sensation of being on the verge of death instantly overwhelmed her. The place where her heart should have been felt empty. Wind whistled fiercely past her ears. She could not breathe. Her hands clawed desperately at the air, but could not reach anything. That feeling of being completely out of control was utterly despairing.
Her body plummeted downward at terrifying speed, the mountain walls around her racing upward. For several seconds, Lu Yin thought that perhaps she really was going to die this time.
The bungee cord reached its limit. Before she could react, it yanked her back into the air. Her heart lurched again, and she had to endure that heart-stopping terror all over again. Lu Yin remembered Lu Qiang’s final words. She threw caution to the wind and cried out at the top of her lungs.
Throughout the entire process, she spun and swayed endlessly in midair, with nothing to hold on to, terrified and helpless. And yet she was also like a butterfly breaking free from its cocoon, enduring the trial between life and death and being reborn once more, alone and courageous, throwing herself into it without reservation.
The five minutes in midair felt as long as a century. When the cord finally stopped swinging, she hung upside down, the top of her head only a meter above the surface of the water. At last, the tears at the corners of Lu Yin’s eyes fell.
She thought of Liu Zecheng. Six years of the past were like old photographs, slowly growing mold and rotting away. Through her blurred vision appeared the retreating figures of him and the young woman walking away together.
It was as though, in an instant, her heart suddenly stopped hurting. There was no hatred, only numbness, so numb that she could feel nothing at all. The opposite of love was indifference, and at the moment she jumped, she had finally achieved it.
Faced with death, nothing was more important than being alive.
So it turned out that even if you loved someone, you could stop loving them in an instant.
Lu Yin blinked. A drop of water slipped from the corner of her eye, and her vision cleared. A small boat entered her world. Amid the lush green mountains, the emerald water lay without a ripple. A small oar stirred up layer upon layer of ripples, and the entire reflected world began to leap and sway.
That man sat at the bow of the boat, a cigarette between his lips but unlit. The faintest smile hung at the corners of his mouth, his expression bold yet carrying an undercurrent of tenderness. He stared at her without blinking until the little boat slowly drew near.
The boatman removed the straps and buckles from her body. Lu Qiang caught her in one motion. Lu Yin’s hands and feet were weak, and she collapsed onto the boat.
A laugh came from above her head. Lu Yin became inexplicably furious, swinging her fists at him as she burst into tears.
Three parts grievance, three parts exhilaration, and for the rest, she could not even find a reason.
Lu Qiang let her hit him. He tucked the cigarette from his lips behind his ear. When she had hit him enough, he caught her cold hands and brought them to his lips, kissing them. “Tired? Rest a while before you hit me again.”
Lu Yin cursed, “Bastard!”
Lu Qiang smiled. “You’re the one who asked me to help you, and now you’re cursing me?”
Lu Yin cried, “Why didn’t you jump?”
Lu Qiang said, “I was going to. But seeing you flailing around like that, rushing to your death, who would dare jump after you?”
Lu Yin pouted, and her tears came even more fiercely than before.
Lu Qiang gradually lost his smile. He pulled her against him and wiped at her face with his rough palm, but he could not wipe the tears away. Lu Qiang looked at her seriously for a while, then suddenly lowered his head and lightly pecked beneath her eyelid.
The person in his arms stiffened.
Lu Qiang lifted his head and watched her reaction from close range, his breathing disordered. Only a few seconds later, he lowered his head again, slowly kissing and tasting away her tears.
Wave after wave of impact left Lu Yin unable to react. She finally calmed down. She forgot to cry, her breathing tangled and cautious.
Lu Qiang moved away only a little and pinched her chin, staring straight at her. Their breaths mingled. In his pupils, he could see a tiny reflection of her.
Lu Yin wanted to pull away, but the hand on her chin tightened. Lu Qiang said, “Be with me. This thing won’t make you jump a second time.”
Lu Yin’s heart pounded like a drum.
He said, “Be with me. As long as I have it, whatever you want, I’ll give you.”
They were traveling across the middle of the lake. The little boat was like a leaf, drifting alone.
Whether he got an answer or not did not matter. Lu Qiang did not want to wait. He slowly leaned down and lightly touched the corner of her lips. After pausing for only a few seconds, he tilted his head to find a comfortable angle and moved toward her lips.
All the tenderness was a disguise. Once he had gotten past that initial, uneasy testing, his true nature was revealed. His force gradually grew stronger, transforming him into a powerful beast, wildly claiming what he wanted, no longer giving the other person any chance to turn the tables.
The oars churned the entire surface of the lake, stirring up spring waters. Lu Yin’s mind went completely blank, like a soulless puppet, letting herself be manipulated, letting herself be squeezed and kneaded however he pleased.
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