Chapter Two: Nan Bei of the Nan Family (3)
The call ended at 5:17.
It was the time just before the sky was about to grow light. She pushed open the glass door of her bedroom and walked outside.
Far across the lake, scattered points of light from fishing boats had yet to go out. The air still carried a hint of dampness, as though there had just been a passing shower. Fortunately, the terrace had good protection from the rain, so there would be no standing water to soil her clothes.
The darkest hour before dawn made the light from the wall lamps stand out all the more.
And there was Cheng Muyang, dressed simply and appropriately in casual clothes, his feet in white slippers, sitting in a high-backed rattan chair as he looked through the newspaper in his hands. On the low rattan table was a pot of tea.
Hearing her footsteps, he did not look up. Instead, with a rustle, he flipped to the next page. “It’s not light yet. Why are you awake?”
“My brother’s call woke me up.” The place where she sat was separated from where he was, so they could only look at each other across the space between them. She could not walk over. “You haven’t slept this whole time? What newspaper are you reading?”
“Yesterday’s Russian Novye Izvestia.”
She gave an “oh.” “Such an official newspaper. Don’t tell me it’s going to say where there’s an arms deal today.”
“Nothing like that.” He glanced at her, smiling like a shrewd old fox. “Just for entertainment. Take the Moscow mayoral election and the voting, for example. In your eyes, it’s a stage play. Put simply, someone suddenly loses the president’s favor. Maybe the black forces behind him are fighting among themselves? Or perhaps they failed at an investment in some market? It’s like how you clearly know history happened this way, yet the textbook uses completely different words. Don’t you find that interesting?”
She thought about it, then laughed.
What Cheng Muyang was referring to was probably that unlucky former mayor of Moscow, who had wavered between the old and new presidents. In the end, he failed to successfully play both sides and instead became a casualty of the struggle between opposing powers.
On the plane over, she had happened to hear three fellow passengers discussing it. She had not expected Cheng Muyang to be following the matter too.
The two of them chatted idly for a while. Finally, Xiao Feng slowly and unsteadily climbed up from the rocking chair, rubbed his eyes for a while, and gestured a few times at Cheng Muyang. Cheng Muyang spoke to him quietly in Russian. Xiao Feng pursed his lips and looked toward Nan Bei.
In the end, Cheng Muyang curled his finger and gave him a hard flick on the forehead, then said something quickly and in a low voice.
Nan Bei could not understand a word, so she could only wait across the railing for him to explain.
“Xiao Feng says you woke him up,” Cheng Muyang tossed the newspaper onto the table and walked over. “He says that usually, when a woman needs to apologize to a man, the best way is to offer herself to him.”
Nan Bei did not know whether to laugh or cry. “What kind of thinking is that?”
“He grew up in Russia. You know, there, the ratio of men to women is close to one to three. Men are a scarce species, so naturally there’s more of a male-dominated attitude.” He smiled and held out his hand to her. “Jump over.”
Nan Bei took his hand and directly leapt over the waist-high railing. For someone who had lived in a primeval jungle since childhood, an obstacle and distance like this were truly nothing worth mentioning.
“Most Russian men don’t have much of a sense of responsibility. They like drinking and have bad tempers.” He supported her arm until she landed safely. “And the women are all attractive, their numbers overflowing. You could say it’s paradise for men.”
“So that’s why he was spoiled into being like this?” She found it amusing.
“More or less.” Cheng Muyang smiled faintly. “You know, most of the time when he and I are in Moscow, he’s surrounded by supermodels. Offering themselves to him is nothing unusual.”
She pressed her lips together and smiled. “And then? What did you say?”
“Me?” Cheng Muyang repeated the Russian she could not understand, then translated it quietly for her. “I told him, this girl needs to apologize to me first.”
She gave an “oh.”
The distant sky had already begun to brighten, though it was still thick with dark clouds. From here, the surface of the lake was veiled in wisps of mist, indistinct.
Suddenly, the faint sound of thunder began to rumble, as though muffled within the clouds, its tone low and heavy.
Amid the thunder, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
“There were many reasons at the time. I had no choice but to leave.”
If she had known then that he, like her, had been born into a family like this for generations, perhaps she would have made a different choice. At the very least, she would have told him why she had to return to Wanding.
“It’s all right.” He repeated it again.
She looked at him.
He looked at her too. The hand that had so skillfully ejected shells, cocked the gun, and pulled the trigger the night before was now merely tapping against the wooden railing.
The light tapping of wood was slow, yet never lost its rhythm.
Cheng Muyang suddenly said something, again in a language she did not understand.
She asked him, “What did you say?”
“Nothing.” He propped his elbow against the railing beside him and leaned there. “I was talking to Xiao Feng.”
Before he had finished speaking, Xiao Feng had already risen from the rattan rocking chair and pulled open the glass door to the terrace. A damp wind blew over from the lake. The moment the glass door opened, it sent the curtains on both sides rustling softly.
She watched the boy’s retreating figure, wondering what he had just said.
As if sensing her curiosity, Cheng Muyang said, “Want to know what I just said?”
She smiled without answering.
“I said,” he lifted the bangs from her forehead, looking into her bright, shining black eyes, “Xiao Feng, you’d better find somewhere else to sleep. Right now, I want to kiss this little girl.”
After he finished speaking, his hand had already slipped to the side of her face, his fingertips gently caressing her skin. And those eyes were no longer the deep, rich brown of the middle of the night. Instead, they held a translucent sheen, beautiful enough to make anyone look twice.
She smiled and dodged his hand, trying her best to break this overly suggestive atmosphere. “So, is this how you invite women in Moscow?”
“Me?” He smiled too, withdrawing his hand. “In Moscow, I’m usually the one being invited.”
Nan Bei pursed her lips and gave him a push. “Wake up, Boss Cheng. This is Zhejiang Province.”
Cheng Muyang withdrew with her push, returning to the rattan chair and sitting down. He tossed the newspaper back into the little woven basket.
The thunder was growing louder and louder.
Nan Bei continued leaning against the railing, concealing the heartbeat that was still difficult to steady.
“It’s been plum rain season here lately. I haven’t seen the rising sun in more than a week.” She stretched out her limbs. “You know, there’s only one time during the day when you can look directly at the sun without hurting your eyes. Instead, it can actually strengthen your eyesight.”
Cheng Muyang picked up a mint leaf from the porcelain dish on the table. “You mean ‘Wangri Gong’?”
Wangri Gong (望日功) is a traditional martial-arts eye-training practice that involves gazing at the rising sun.
She smiled. “You know Muay Thai?”
“A little.” He held the leaf between his teeth and smiled faintly.
“I know a little too. My older brother taught me.” Whenever she mentioned Nan Huai, her smile always became very soft, like a spoiled and doted-on little girl. “Starting when he was seven or eight, he would stare at the rising sun every day and practice ‘Wangri Gong.’”
“People who practice that for a long time develop extremely keen eyesight,” he continued, picking up her words. “It’s not only useful for close-quarters combat. They’re equally skilled at shooting, too, right?” He asked the question with interest. Because he was chewing the mint leaf, his words were slightly indistinct, just like his voice that night when he had been talking on the phone. A little languid, completely unconcerned, yet the content of his words was impossible to ignore.
Nan Bei turned around and looked him over from head to toe. Cheng Muyang let her examine him. His legs were very long, and sitting there with his hands resting on his knees as he looked at her, he had an imposing presence all on his own.
But what she really wanted to look at was his hands.
The joints along the back of his hands were exceptionally smooth, and when he bent them, the curve was extraordinarily beautiful. These were traces left by boxing. Without more than ten years of training, one would never develop such physical signs. If she had suspected his identity even slightly back then, she would not have overlooked such an obvious trace.
Still, there was no point dwelling on something like that.
To borrow Nan Huai’s words: Been deceived? Don’t blame anyone else. You were simply too stupid.
Breakfast ended at seven thirty. Nan Bei thought Cheng Muyang would surely disappear just as he had over the past two days. Unexpectedly, he seemed to have plenty of time on his hands. While she sat downstairs in the living room chatting with the two aunties, he remained outside the glass door the entire time, sitting there playing with the cats.
Both of the older aunties had never married, but between them they had raised seven or eight cats.
On days when the weather was good, most of the cats were nowhere to be seen. On gloomy, rainy days like this, however, they were too lazy to go outside again. Some sat, some lay down, and some simply sprawled across Cheng Muyang’s legs, utterly quiet.
“Chengcheng said you two used to be classmates, back when you were in Belgium?” The old auntie in the black qipao scratched the white cat in her arms and casually asked her, smiling. “What did you study back then?”
“Mathematics.” Whenever Nan Bei mentioned the major she had abandoned halfway through, her temples still began to ache. “It’s hard to study. It really wears you down.”
“Mathematics? Didn’t Chengcheng study physics?” The old auntie found this interesting. After thinking about it, she nodded. “That’s good, that’s good. Learn math, physics, and chemistry well, and you’ll have nothing to fear wherever you go.”
Hearing an old slogan from the 1980s come out of the old auntie’s mouth made it genuinely difficult not to laugh. She really thought these two old aunties were unbearably adorable, except they always liked to press her about her life with Cheng Muyang in Belgium. She avoided the gunfight where the two of them had truly first met and instead picked out a few amusing stories to tell.
By the time the two old aunties finally let her go, Nan Bei discovered that Cheng Muyang was still playing with the cats.
What a leisurely mood.
She slid open the glass door, and the sound of the rain instantly grew louder. “Auntie just told me that you bought this house and renovated it for them?” she asked him. By then, the smallest black cat had already crept over without a sound, rubbing against her legs and repeatedly rolling around coquettishly.
She had always been helpless against animals that were too sweet and adorably foolish.
So she simply crouched down and stroked its head, indulging it.
“When I was a child, they would always talk about Qianshan Township.” Cheng Muyang also offered his finger, and the kitten quickly opened its mouth and half-bit, half-held his index finger. “Unfortunately, the place was later flooded. They were left without a home and without a piece of land where they could be buried. In the end, we could only settle for building them a house by Qiandao Lake. Once they pass away, they can be buried on some mountain here. That way, it can count as returning to their roots.”
The kitten was biting with great satisfaction. He tried to pull his finger back, but unexpectedly, the cat wrapped both front paws around his hand and was lifted right off the ground. The two of them looked at this stubborn cat, exchanged a glance, and could not help laughing.
“Cheng Muyang?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I ask you a little question?”
He gave another “hmm” and continued leisurely playing with the stubborn cat.
“Is there some other purpose to the Shen family trip?”
Her tone was relaxed, as though she were simply asking when the rain would stop.
“You want to know?” He was silent for a while, then suddenly lowered his voice. “How about we make a bet? If you win, I’ll tell you the answer. If you lose… you have to learn to say something in Russian the way I do.”
She had not expected him to agree so readily. “All right. But first tell me what you want me to say.”
Cheng Muyang repeated the sentence to her very slowly. Because he spoke slowly, the coldness and softness of his intonation became all the more pronounced.
Nan Bei searched her memory for the sorts of things she had once idly asked Katyusha, things like “I love you.” This was completely different. Of course, she also believed Cheng Muyang was not that bored, so she simply treated it as a game and agreed.
Their wager was how many seconds the cat could hold on.
Seeing that the kitten was still hanging on stubbornly, she confidently placed her bet. “It should be able to last another minute.”
Cheng Muyang looked at his watch. “Within thirty seconds.”
“That confident?”
He smiled mysteriously, then quickly shook his hand. The cat gave an aggrieved little meow and slid down from his arm. “Twenty-three seconds.”
…
Nan Bei was stunned at first, then could only complain helplessly, half laughing and half exasperated. “Can you be any more shameless?”
But the bet itself had been full of holes. She could only blame herself for accepting it so readily. She had no grounds to blame him. A bet was a bet, and naturally she had to accept defeat. She obediently followed Cheng Muyang’s pronunciation of the Russian phrase, repeating it three or four times before she finally memorized every sound.
Then she recited it to him, one word at a time, with solemn precision.
Only after she had finished did she remember to ask him, “What did what you taught me just now mean?”
“The first word, солнце, is my name.”
She gave a brief “Oh.” It was short and easy to remember.
“The complete meaning of the sentence is…” There was a hint of teasing in his smile. “Cheng Muyang is a good man.”
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