Chapter Three: A Tempting Business (3)
Cheng Muyang walked her back to her room.
The room door opened, but she turned around and took two steps backward, blocking him outside the door.
“I’m going to take a hot shower,” she said softly.
“Go ahead.” Cheng Muyang looked like he was trying not to laugh, his arm braced against the doorframe. “I’ll wait for you.”
“Don’t wait here.” She gave him a little push. “It doesn’t look good.”
“All right.” His voice softened too. “I’ll wait for you in Master Shen’s room.”
They were very close. She even felt that if either of them said one more word, their lips would meet. Yet she did not answer right away. She merely rested her hand on his bare shoulder and, in a softened voice, told him, “Go wait for me on the third floor, at the bar. I’ll come find you after my hot shower.”
With his back to the hallway light, his face was etched in sharp contours. His brown eyes seemed veiled in mist, amber-like. “All right. I’ll wait for you.”
The moment the door closed, through the sliver of light beneath it, she could still see him watching her without blinking.
With a click, it finally shut out everything beyond the door.
There was no light on in the room. She turned around, took only a clean bath towel from the bathroom, and, drying her hair, dialed a number.
“Hello.” The voice on the other end was utterly expressionless.
“Bodongha.”
“Private?”
“No, I’m Nan Bei.”
The operator on the phone finally changed his tone, very politely informing her that Mr. Bodongha was online and would hang up within ten seconds to take Nan Bei’s call. In reality, there was no need for ten seconds. Almost at the same time, the operator’s call was cut off.
“Miss, I heard you’re at sea now.” The laughter on the other end was hearty.
“Yes, in international waters, near the Bashi Channel.” She spoke in a low voice, picking up the cushion beside her. “Help me with a small favor. I need to look into some information, but Nan Huai can’t know.”
The other party was silent for a while, but still agreed.
Nan Bei asked only two questions. First, the purpose of the Shen family’s trip. Second, Cheng Muyang’s history, down to every month of every year.
“Seven tomorrow morning. I’ll wait for your news.”
It was 10:30 when the call ended.
She took only five minutes to shower. Beneath the stream of water, her mind was filled with layer upon layer of fragments. The scenes from when they first met, all the way to this reunion, and that kiss just now that she could not escape. She pressed her fingers against her lips, still able to remember how gently Cheng Muyang had treated her moments ago.
Because she had lost herself in thought, her right hand turned up the hot water.
The rapidly rising temperature nearly scalded her.
Ever since Nan Huai had brought the family’s half-century of turmoil to an end, ever since she had returned from Belgium to Wanding, she was no longer an individual unto herself. What kind of person Cheng Muyang was, and what sacrifices she might make by being with him, were things she needed to be fully prepared for.
Nan Bei changed into a dark green dress and went to the bar.
The bar on the third floor was full of young people, most of them members of the younger generation. Apart from the young and those of lower status, no one else would appear here at this hour, so the two of them were practically meeting in secret.
She did not deliberately look for him. She simply sat in a corner, flipping through the drinks menu in her hand.
Before long, a pair of arms came around her on either side, braced against the edge of the round table.
“I thought I’d have to wait until dawn.”
There was a rare, uninhibited sensuality in Cheng Muyang’s voice.
She lowered her head with a smile and continued aimlessly scanning the rows of words, her two fingers sliding down line by line, as though she were genuinely concentrating on reading something. It was not until Cheng Muyang took hold of those two fingers that she finally raised her head.
He brought her fingers to his lips and lightly brushed them with his mouth. “Do you still remember the sentence I taught you?”
Nan Bei was startled at first, then immediately remembered that unfair bet.
She did not have his gift for languages, but her memory had always been good.
At the time, she had seriously followed Cheng Muyang in learning that Russian sentence, and after repeating it three or four times, she had basically memorized every pronunciation. So when he asked her again now, she could still repeat it with ease.
But it was simply too noisy here.
Nan Bei had no choice but to catch hold of his shirt collar, lean close to his ear, and say it to him.
Her pronunciation was not standard, and it certainly did not sound as good as his.
After she finished, she finally asked him again, “Now can you tell me what it really means?”
“The first word, солнце, is my name.” He deliberately repeated what he had said back then.
She played along and gave a soft “Oh.”
солнце, солнце. Remembering it now felt entirely different.
“The real meaning of this sentence is...” He leaned close to her ear as well and told her, “Cheng Muyang is my man.”
Nan Bei opened her mouth, but no words came out. Instead, beneath the table, she viciously and deeply pinched his other arm. At first, it was simply to vent her frustration. She had not expected him to pay it any mind. By the end, she herself felt she had gone too far. When she finally let go, a bluish-purple mark had already risen on his snow-white arm.
“Does it hurt?” She felt an inexplicable pang of sympathy and reached out to rub it with her fingers.
He gave a soft “Mm,” put an arm around her shoulders, and beckoned over a server to order red wine.
Later, the two of them both drank some red wine. No one here knew them. Beneath the shifting layers of dim light, the midnight music was no longer overwhelming, gradually becoming mellow and soft. At the edge of the crowd on the dance floor, she and he began to dance slowly. When someone passed behind them, he finally pulled her into his arms at just the right moment.
“Nan Bei?”
“Mm?” Because of the lighting, she narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked at him.
Because of the languid, indulgent rhythm, their bodies drew closer and closer, the skin of their arms brushing against each other from time to time, just like all the couples on the dance floor. Cheng Muyang quietly bent down, looking at her. “Do you believe that I’m serious about you?”
She placed a hand on his waist and leaned against him, without answering the question.
They danced for a long time, so long that there were almost no one left on the dance floor, so long that someone had already come to tell them that dawn was approaching. Cheng Muyang said something softly to the server, and soon the server bowed and withdrew, clearing the place completely.
A space belonging only to the two of them.
Everything became intoxicating. The exhaustion of being awake all night, stirred by the alcohol, left even her gaze hazy. Cheng Muyang kept looking at her, watching every movement, every expression, even the drowsy, weary way she looked with her eyes closed.
The music quietly changed. It was a tune known only to the two of them.
She suddenly smiled and asked him softly, “You still remember?”
“My memory has always been good, especially when it comes to things concerning you.”
She smiled soundlessly, rubbing her face against his shirt. Exhausted from staying awake all night, she actually felt somewhat dazed. She had to admit that at certain moments, Cheng Muyang was an utterly gentle man.
The first time she heard this song was during one Lunar New Year
They were eating in the town hall square in Huy, a city eighty kilometers southeast of Brussels. Since it was not a local holiday, there were not many people around. The two of them had brought Katyusha, a Russian, along, and eventually chose a Chinese restaurant called “Red Sorghum.”
There were three or four tables of Chinese people in the restaurant.
Later, they all gathered together, laughing and making merry, and before they knew it, it was midnight.
When the restaurant was closing, the owner put on this song. He even hummed along with it quite passionately. She put on her heavy coat and listened to the closing song, rich with a distinctly Spanish flavor.
At the time, she had asked Cheng Muyang quietly whose song it was and why she had never heard it before.
Cheng Muyang told her it was a song Madonna had released in 1986.
She stood at the entrance of the restaurant, listening as the owner sang it to the end.
She asked what the song was called. He gave her the Spanish words “La Isla Bonita” and told her that they translated as “the beautiful island.” Katyusha had a particular fondness for the word “island.” She kept talking about her dream in the taxi, saying that she wanted to marry a man who owned an island.
She found it both amusing and exasperating. Who would have thought that Katyusha would then touch her eyes and tell her, “Whatever kind of dream you have, that’s the kind of person you’ll become.”
She was even more delighted. “All right, then. The dream has to be a little grander. We’ll both marry men who own islands.”
Upon hearing this, Katyusha immediately went to tug on Cheng Muyang’s arm. “Did you hear that? Work hard for it, young man.”
She remembered that at the time, Cheng Muyang had merely let his gaze fall upon her and said, half in jest and half in earnest, “This island won’t have any residents. Tourists will be prohibited from visiting, and there will need to be a coast guard to prevent outsiders from entering. Ideally, there should be a pink house on the island, along with a villa, a tennis court, and a luxurious landscaped garden. And...” He paused for a while before saying, as though recalling something, “this island really does exist. It’s in Greece, and its market value is approximately two hundred million pounds. The owner is Athina Onassis.”
Katyusha listened, her heart fluttering, repeatedly covering her mouth and squealing.
She lowered her head and laughed too, taking Cheng Muyang to be joking. At the time, she was still in exile. Descriptions like these, islands worth hundreds of millions of pounds, could only be jokes shared among impoverished overseas students...
Remembering what he had said back then, Nan Bei lazily leaned against him, her dance steps no longer resembling steps at all.
Cheng Muyang, holding her, glanced at his watch. “Do you want to go back to the room and sleep for a while?”
She gave a soft “Mm” and looked up at him.
Cheng Muyang’s hand slid down her back and supported her waist, allowing her to stand more comfortably. The tips of their noses touched, their lips gently brushing against each other in intimacy, but neither made any further move.
After a while, she finally asked him softly, “The island you talked about, could it be a bad check?”
He smiled. “Anytime, anywhere. You’re welcome to cash it in.”
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