5. The Drunkard Cooks Wine
Once they added each other on WeChat, Jin Yu had a lot more to say.
Wang Meili had expected as much.
Before, they had not been on Tinder every day, and she would sometimes take months to reply, leaving Jin Yu little room to play his hand. But WeChat was different. It was hard to fob someone off when you simply did not reply to their messages.
Back when they chatted on Tinder, Wang Meili, being older, more experienced, and fond of playing the teacher, had once imparted some advice to him when he came asking for guidance: whether there was a second date after meeting in person was the measure of how well the first date had gone. Ideally, you should settle on a time and place for the next date right then and there.
The situation was obvious. Wang Meili's taiji skills were excellent. Beneath every move, she managed to brush him off so smoothly that it went unnoticed.
Jin Yu had not sensed her evasiveness at all. His straight man determination charged ahead. Early the next morning, he called her on voice chat. “Ah, there’s paint stuck in your hair. Is it a lot? You need to cut your hair? It’s that serious? How short do you have to cut it? Uh... I don’t have a thing for long hair! I was just asking how short! That’s not what I meant... Where are you getting it cut? Can I come find you? No, I have to come. I have to explain! You misunderstood me!” He stewed over it for a long while before finally steeling himself. “Long hair, short hair... I... like both...”
Wang Meili had no choice. Her teasing had backfired on her, and all she could do was sit at home and wait for him.
He was not a local. He was staying temporarily at a university classmate’s place.
Jin Yu said he was planning to settle down here and was currently looking at apartments.
Wang Meili hurriedly put a stop to the conversation. She did not continue asking how work was going, where he planned to rent, whether he needed her help, or why he was not working in his own city.
She was afraid she would get stuck with this enthusiastic dog-plaster.
She had never asked about his family circumstances, but it was not difficult to guess. Someone who could grow into the kind of person who opened his heart to everyone he met probably did not come from a bad family. This sort of optimism was common among white people. As for the "little yellow people," they were, by and large, an emotionally repressed and melancholy bunch, the type to put on an icy “do not approach strangers” expression for no reason.
The more Wang Meili thought about it, the darker her face became. Then the more she thought about it, the funnier she found it, until she started grinning stupidly to herself.
Every time, she ended up falling for men she could not get a handle on, masochistically enjoying the torment of being troubled by love. She had once joked to Qin Su that someone had cast a lovesickness curse on her. Her good friend Qin Su, as though she had been found out, hurriedly agreed that the same had happened to her. But bullshit. Hadn’t she just fallen in love with another dog-plaster?
On this point, Wang Meili was quite certain. She found it even harder than Qin Su to enter a relationship, and it was difficult for her to give any response to people who loved her. Qin Su needed to enter serious relationships again and again, as though going through trial and error. Wang Meili was different. She had no parents pressuring her, no relationship holding her hostage. She simply drifted, swayed, and floated along.
She had once thought she was Lithromantic, and even posted the label on social media. Later, she Dated a psychologist. The guy analyzed her while fucking her, saying that the term had no research backing and was merely an internet word, while what lay beneath it was a resistance to intimate relationships, and an inability to cope with them.
His technique was nothing special, but he did manage to poke apart the lack of security she had hidden beneath a hard iron shell. He fucked her to tears right there and then. Damn psychologist.
So she might as well smash the jar after breaking it. She took countless detours in relationships, set up innumerable obstacles for herself, then became more determined with every setback, made the other person fall in love with her, and kicked him to the curb.
Sui Tang fit the image of an impregnable city wall perfectly.
He suited her. What she wanted was precisely someone who would not fall in love with her, someone for her to climb, like a stele.
Once, while chatting with a male friend, he said that he did not kiss because he was afraid of catching a disease. Wearing a condom and not kissing made casual hookups feel safer. Kissing was definitely pleasurable, but there was still a hurdle in his heart. Kissing, well, that was something he would do with a girlfriend.
That pure-hearted moment from a scumbag was burned firmly into Wang Meili’s mind. She respected other people’s decision not to kiss. But when she actually encountered a man who truly did not kiss, her friend’s words began playing on a loop.
She thought of last night, when she had kissed carelessly around his lips and rubbed against the slight stubble there, and the whirlpool stirred up by the deep gaze in his eyes. He had neither turned his face away nor reciprocated the kiss.
Wang Meili was both annoyed and amused. What, had he compromised because she was a regular customer? Was it different because she was a repeat customer? Had accompanying her through a marital upheaval made him feel closer to her? Or had he simply been burning with anger, hesitating over whether to kick this ungrateful woman out of bed?
She really loved pondering moments like this, both happy and disappointed.
Women, what did they want, anyway? Wasn’t it simply to have someone who loved them, and someone who would never love them?
Wang Meili’s thoughts ran wild as she washed the paint from her hair in an awkward position. Her arm stretched out until it ached and swelled with soreness. After a long while, she gradually began to lose her temper.
Only, when she saw Jin Yu, her anger vanished again.
He had gotten a perm. So cute!
#
#
Last night, Jin Yu had accompanied his classmate to get a haircut. The hairstylist said that Jin Yu would look great with a perm, but he refused without even thinking about it.
Ten minutes later, a handsome guy to his right finished getting his hair permed and looked fantastic. His girlfriend danced around excitedly, cupped his face, and kissed him several times. Jin Yu was envious and got the same style.
Afterward, his brain cleared up, too.
He looked left and right and felt something was off. He tossed the hairstylist’s instruction not to wash his hair for two days to the back of his mind and washed the dense African curls into a fluffy mop of curls like a goat’s coat.
Although Jin Yu was extremely annoyed whenever Wang Meili emphasized their age difference as an older sister and younger brother, making it impossible for him to flirt with her successfully while she kept landing punches right where it hurt, fortunately, older sisters had a natural filter when it came to younger brothers. It was difficult for them to say anything derogatory.
Her eyes sparkled. She covered her mouth dramatically to suppress a scream, performing like the finest stage actress. “Oh my God! Curly hair suits you so well! You put those French men to shame by several streets."
Jin Yu scratched his head sheepishly, unsure whether he should believe her. He could only quickly check the state of her hair and ask what had happened to it.
While he examined her hair, Wang Meili was still turning her head to sneak glances at him. Fine. He believed her.
The paint had been washed out in patches, leaving red and black strands clumped together. From behind, it really was frightening, as though there were no hope for it.
Jin Yu reached out and touched the stiff, dried strands. “How did it get on there?”
Wang Meili answered casually, laughing it off. “Forget it.” She certainly could not say that she had done it while having sex with a man.
Now that he had come all the way over, and had even brought a fruit basket, it would seem terribly rude for Wang Meili to go out again. She could only keep the atmosphere warm and pretend nothing had happened.
Jin Yu said, “I looked it up. Alcohol and turpentine might work. Have you tried them?”
There was a lot of paint, and Wang Meili’s hair was fine and soft. Every strand of it had betrayed her, joining forces with the paint. She gave up. “Mm... but it’s such a hassle. I’d have to go out and buy them, and they might not even work.”
She opened the fruit basket and washed the fruit, thinking to herself, What a child who doesn’t know how to keep house. What decent fruit could there possibly be in a fruit basket like this?
She continued, “It’d be easier just to cut it.” She gestured to the spot around her neck. “Cut it to here? I just looked in the mirror. Seems about right. Whatever, never mind. I’ll figure it out at the hair salon.”
As she spoke, she grew impatient with herself.
She had spent half the day supporting her arm and scrubbing at the paint. Her head was heavy and muddled, her arm aching. If this had been a few years ago, she would have simply taken a pair of scissors and chopped it all off herself.
“How will you know if you don’t try!” Jin Yu had only zipped his jacket halfway when he suddenly pulled it up beneath his chin again. “I’ll go buy it!”
Before Wang Meili could react, Jin Yu rushed out the door.
#
#
Jin Yu wanted to save her hair even more than Wang Meili did.
He took a facial cleansing towel, soaked it with alcohol, and slowly moistened and rubbed the strands.
She sat before the mirror, letting the clear, youthful scent of the big boy envelop her.
Wang Meili listlessly let him do as he pleased, tossing out sarcastic remarks. “Hair is something that grows back. It’s worthless. It’s not like losing a finger and having to reattach it, or going blind and having to get treatment.” She deliberately steered the joke toward his apparent long hair obsession.
Jin Yu lowered his eyes, completely focused on the dried, paint-stained hair clutched in his palm. The smell of alcohol stung his eyes. He wrinkled his nose. “Didn’t you say you wanted to grow your hair long?”
“When did I say that?” She did not remember at all.
“The last time you cut your hair short.”
That was ages ago.
Wang Meili’s hair had a hard time growing past her shoulders. The moment she managed to tie it into a little ponytail, something or other would happen and snip, there it went. She often said that next time she would grow it long. She had cried wolf about it so many times that even she did not believe herself anymore, and no one else took her seriously either. She had never expected that someone would actually remember.
Jin Yu wiped at it with such seriousness. That kind of earnestness was exceedingly rare among the men who had passed rapidly through her life.
She was not touched. If anything, she found it a little funny. Her heart was hard as a rock as she laughed at his clumsy earnestness. What an innocent boy. Couldn’t he see that she had no interest in him?
Did all big boys entering the world of love for the first time develop an attachment to older sisters who had already watched a thousand sails pass by? She could not help but feel a little mocking toward him.
Wang Meili propped up her head, her chin resting against the thenar eminence of her hand, and drawled lazily, one word at a time. “The last time I told you to cut your hair short was at least half a year ago. I’ve cut my hair so many times since then.”
“Really?” Jin Yu’s hand paused. He thought about it. “That’s true.”
Even so, he continued wiping. The white facial towel was covered in messy red and black paint. He proudly held it up beneath her eyes like a treasure. “Look! It comes off!” So great!
She reached out and touched it. “There’s still a lot.”
The entire left side had been pressed down and rubbed against badly. Of course, what she was even more curious about was Sui Tang, whom she had later ridden beneath her. He must have been in even worse shape than she was.
He wasn’t going to shave his head completely, was he?
She covered her mouth and hurriedly suppressed her laughter.
“I only scrubbed it for a few minutes, and it came right off.”
“Okay, okay, okay, this skill can go on your résumé!”
“Do you have any weird things you can put on a résumé?”
“Of course. A lot of weird things have happened to me because I drank too much.”
He was curious. “Like what?”
“For example, what I told you about. When I was young, I got drunk and angry after a breakup and cut my hair short.”
Jin Yu pouted. “You’re still very young now!”
Wang Meili burst out laughing. His ability to pick out the important point. “Sleeping on the street. Oh, and I once got into a car accident because I was drunk. After being dragged two meters, a corner of my ear was ground off.”
“Really?” He looked her over from side to side, his gaze settling on her left ear.
“It really is missing a piece!” The sharp edge slanted downward. Very cool, very Wang Meili.
His warm breath brushed against her ear.
Wang Meili grew uncomfortable under his stare, suspecting he was doing it on purpose.
If he kept staring, kept staring, she would have to turn around and give him a little kiss. She could not stand this kind of pure-hearted interaction.
“Anything else?” He waited for her to continue. In their Tinder chats, she had always been mysterious. He especially wanted her to tell him more, but online chatting had its limitations, and his own conversational skills were not very good. He had no way to coax her into saying more.
So now, face-to-face, he was like a dog digging a hole, waiting expectantly for her to spin more bullshit.
“There is,” Wang Meili said. Through the mirror, she smiled and winked at him. “For example, getting drunk and having sex, collapsing onto wet paint, and making a complete mess of my hair.” She raised one shoulder and flicked a few playful strands.
At that, Jin Yu’s movements stopped.
Clearly, when confronted head-on with Wang Meili’s suggestive flirtation, he had no idea how to handle it.
She sighed inwardly, though her expression remained perfectly natural. She smacked her lips. “Believe me?”
“Tch.” He turned his face away, ignoring what she had just said. She really did love letting her mouth run wild.
Wang Meili swore that she genuinely had no intention of doing anything to Jinyu. In fact, somewhere deep inside, she was vaguely drawing a line between them as man and woman.
Her inner state was that of someone pressing her palms together, counseling herself: Don’t prey on the little boy. He’s still young, still innocent. Don’t shatter his fantasies about his older sister, and don’t ruin this perfectly good friendship forged through adversity.
But when a man and a woman were alone together, breathing facing one another, their body heat close, watching the other person peel fruit, it was difficult not to feel desire.
She made herself a drink with a lime from the fruit basket. Her hand was too sore, and she misjudged the amount, pouring in too much.
Thinking of Jin Yu’s poor alcohol tolerance, she sniffed it. The smell of alcohol was a little strong, so she could only drink it herself.
He had spent more than half an hour rubbing her hair, and even the smell of alcohol had made him say he felt dizzy. If he actually drank it, wouldn’t he have to spend the night sleeping at her place?
Wang Meili was busy in the open kitchen while Jin Yu stood there awkwardly, repeatedly wiping his hands with a paper towel.
He was a little nervous in the unfamiliar surroundings, so he volunteered to peel some fruit.
He should find something to do. Otherwise, he looked a little like someone preparing to leave at any moment.
Wang Meili had seen plenty of self-important men, but when a boy was both clumsy and self-important, insisting on taking over the task of peeling an apple, only to turn it into a cube, get angry at himself, start over, and grit his teeth so hard that his jawline became sharply defined, it still made her mouth water.
Maybe it was the apple’s sweet-and-sour flavor that had hooked her.
Or maybe it was the young man’s dazed, handsome face and its raw, youthful quality.
She told him to stop peeling it. “It’s so ugly. How are you supposed to eat that?”
He tried to salvage his pride. “Don’t you like cooking wine? Apples are perfect for mulled wine.”
“What am I supposed to cook it for? Am I going to drink it alone?”
“I... can have a little.”
“Mulled wine hits hard. You can’t handle it.” Wang Meili laughed.
Jin Yu glanced out the window at the cold gray tones outside. “Mulled wine goes really well with snowy weather.”
A man and a woman alone together went pretty well together, too.
Wang Meili exhaled a breath heavy with the smell of alcohol and rubbed her damp hair. “Okay. I’ll make it.”
She held the wineglass in her left hand, took down the red wine she had only just put away properly the night before with her right, and neatly caught the cabinet door with her wrist.
She had a beautiful enamel pot, and today was the first time she had used it. She casually tossed in the oddly shaped chunks of apple, rummaged around for a while, squeezed in some lemon juice, added rock sugar, opened a portable spice packet containing star anise, bay leaves, rosemary, cinnamon, and cardamom, and poured in more than half a bottle of red wine.
Almost instantly, the concentration of alcohol in the room exploded.
The tartness of lime around her nose was swallowed by the scent of fermented grapes.
She swallowed down the sharp, smoky peatiness and asked, “How old are you again this year?”
“Twenty-three.”
“What year were you born?”
She folded her hands together and gazed over at him, putting on the manner of an interviewer.
Jin Yu did not dare drink. He was afraid that if he got drunk, he would start saying things he should not. He had no idea what he was supposed to talk about or do with a beautiful drunk, so he could only steer the conversation toward alcohol.
He sat on the orange fabric stool beside the bed, with the half-nude painting of Wang Meili’s back still open in his line of sight.
Originally, the painting had been covered with a piece of cloth, but he accidentally stepped on it when he turned around, knocking it down. There was nothing he could do. He had not done it on purpose. Her place was rather small. He tried to pull it back into place, but when he crouched down, his hand shook, and the entire painting was exposed.
At the time, he thought, The last time my heart went this out of control was that penalty shootout in the England-France match.
Jin Yu had not factored Wang Meili into the equation.
He had not expected his next bout of heart-pounding panic to come so soon.
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