Chapter One: Cheng Muyang of the Cheng Family (1)
Taizhou, China.
It had already been four years since she returned to China after dropping out halfway through her studies in Belgium, and in all that time, she had never left Yunnan.
If Master Shen, who had watched her grow up from childhood, had not returned to his hometown to pay respects to his ancestors, she would not have come to Taizhou either, accompanying the old man on a return to the place of his youth.
This time, because Master Shen had come to Taizhou to pay respects to his ancestors, no fewer than 170 descendants of the Shen family had rushed here from all over the country. Yet only Master Shen and his two sons were staying in the old residence. Nan Bei was staying here as well. She had arrived a week early, and every day, apart from seeing all sorts of elders and younger relatives, she would go to the Yu Pavilion near the old residence.
The Yu Pavilion was privately owned and was often used by the local government for exhibitions and to entertain distinguished guests. There would not be many idle visitors there.
The weather was somewhat oppressive that afternoon.
Master Shen was giving an in-depth interview to a media outlet. With nothing else to do, she slipped out through the back door of the old residence again and followed the small path to the Yu Pavilion. When she pushed open the door, the rich scent of sandalwood mingled with the cold air from the air conditioning and rushed toward her. From behind the glazed screen facing the entrance came the singing of Taiwanese opera, its stylized cadence and inflection impeccably old-fashioned.
It was truly blazing hot outside.
Having suddenly been hit by the cool air from the air conditioner, she could not help narrowing her eyes in comfort and letting out a long breath.
She had just been about to ask for some cooling tea when she froze where she stood.
There were two or three guests in the inner hall, and one person in particular was striking.
It was Cheng Mu.
She still remembered what he had looked like when they parted back then. At the time, he had been a young boy, tall and thin, with short black hair. Only his eyes were exceptionally beautiful, brown like those of a Persian cat. But the living, breathing person standing before her now was no longer a boy. He had long since grown into a thoroughly grown man.
Nan Bei gestured to the girl who had spotted her in the inner hall, signaling her to keep quiet, then quietly walked over from the back hall and watched him carefully from a distance.
Cheng Mu was wearing a black shirt. Other than the watch on his wrist, there was nothing superfluous about him from head to toe. He simply sat there, one hand resting along the edge of the table, watching the woman beside him choose bracelets. The two occasionally exchanged a few words, both speaking in Cantonese. For a girl with a good voice, speaking this local language really did add quite a few points to her charm.
This was a private jade shop. On her first day here, Master Shen had told her that everyone who could come here was someone connected to the Shen family. Could it be that he was connected to the Shen family too?
Nan Bei found it somewhat difficult to believe.
“Is this one good?” The woman raised her arm and looked at him.
“Not bad.” He was, as ever, sparing with his words.
To her, Cheng Mu was a gifted physics student with whom she had spent some time, the two of them having come within a hair's breadth of breaking through that ambiguous boundary between them.
And to him, she was merely the girl who had been forced to leave after only half a semester at university, without ever making that slight ambiguity between them explicit. So, here, in Taizhou, in the Shen family's private Yu Pavilion, what was she supposed to do upon seeing him again?
She did not walk back out the door. Instead, she entered the inner hall. The carpet was the thick, heavy kind, and walking across it gave her feet a soft, yielding sensation. Because she had approached, both of them turned to look over.
Nan Bei smiled and said, “The best jadeite here probably hasn't been brought out yet.”
“Really?” The woman had a pleased look in her eyes.
“If there is any, you can bring it all out.” Cheng Mu looked at her face, carefully examining the long-unseen familiar person.
“Just a moment.”
She lowered her voice, turned her head, and said a few words to the shop attendant she had long been familiar with. Very soon, someone brought out the bracelets she had referred to as the “best.”
The woman was clearly very knowledgeable about these things. Her eyes were filled with delight as she lowered her head and examined them one by one.
Standing to the woman's left, she quietly let her gaze cross over and soundlessly asked him: Girlfriend?
Cheng Mu propped his elbow against the edge of the rosewood table and merely looked at her. There seemed to be a smile in his eyes, yet it did not appear on his face. “These all look pretty good. Are there any that are particularly worth collecting?”
He completely ignored her question.
“There are.”
She lifted the corners of her lips slightly, took the keys from the shop attendant, and walked over to the enormous glass display case, where she unlocked it.
Such a large display case contained only two jade bracelets, enough to show their value.
Yet she did not hesitate. She took out both bracelets arranged side by side, picked the smaller one, turned around, and tried it on the woman. She gently took the woman's hand, slipped the bracelet over her four fingers held together, and pressed it down to the web between her thumb and index finger. The size was unexpectedly perfect.
“This one is worth collecting, and the size suits this lady very well.”
“Why not just put it on?” Cheng Mu asked with interest, glancing at the jade bracelet in her hand.
“A bracelet that's the right size is very difficult to take off once it's put on. And when a jade bracelet fits just right, it's as if it has chosen its owner. Forcing it off isn't good either.” Nan Bei spoke with practiced authority. “This is a treasure kept to anchor the shop's reputation, so the gentleman and the lady should think it over carefully before trying it on.”
The two female shop attendants behind her were holding themselves back from laughing.
Although the way she put it sounded convincing enough, there was nothing professional about her explanation at all. She sounded more like a jianghu swindler. If Master Shen had not left instructions beforehand that the young miss was free to do whatever she wanted, they truly would not have dared let Nan Bei take it out so casually.
The reasoning, however, was actually true. Although the shop had special hand oil for removing jade bracelets, with a size that fit this well, putting it on and then trying to take it off really would require enduring some hardship.
She had originally meant to scare him a little.
She had not expected Cheng Mu to actually take it over and put it directly onto the woman's wrist.
Nan Bei watched as such a fine jade bracelet was given to someone else, let out a soft breath, and gestured to the female attendant that she could ring it up. The attendant pressed her lips together in a smile. Instead of walking toward the counter, she bowed directly and led the two of them out from behind the screen.
“Is she a regular customer?”
“No. When Master Shen sent someone to bring him here, he said that whatever he chose would be considered a gift to a younger member of the family.” The attendant was quite emotional about it. They had gone so far as to hide the finest jadeite to save the owner money, only for Nan Bei to squander it.
By the next day, everyone knew about it. With one joke born out of Nan Bei's little mix-up, she had given away a jade bracelet worth seventy million yuan at market value. This Yu Pavilion had originally been established for private collections and exhibitions by the local government, and could be considered one of the Shen family's contributions to adding some political achievements to their ancestral hometown. So whether something was missing or something had been added, no one would really go and make an issue of it.
“It doesn't matter. It was only something that the old eunuch Li Lianying secretly took out of the palace and that was later sold overseas. At least you gave it to that person, and it will remain within China for a long time. You could say you protected a national treasure.” Shen Jiaming, who had grown up alongside her, sounded rather sour. “At worst, put it on your brother's tab. But Beibei, how come you're so generous toward Cheng Muyang?”
She was stunned for a moment. “You mean Cheng Muyang?”
“Yes. Boss Cheng's fourth nephew, Cheng Muyang.” Shen Jiaming stood up and carefully examined the parrot in the cage by the window. “The Cheng family has always chosen the capable rather than their own relatives. Ever since Old Master Cheng turned seventy, this Cheng Muyang has been appearing more and more frequently. He has practically become the Cheng family's young boss.”
She gave an “oh.” “When I knew him, I didn't know he was from the Cheng family.”
Shen Jiaming was somewhat surprised, but he had overlooked how formidable the macaw was and nearly had his finger pecked.
Yet even as the parrot frantically slammed itself against the cage, he could not help looking at her with some feeling.
“What a coincidence.”
“Yeah... what a coincidence.”
Cheng Muyang. So he was Cheng Muyang after all.
The black tea in Nan Bei's hands gave off wisps of steam.
Jiangsu and Zhejiang had just entered the plum-rain season. The weather was like rainy Yunnan, both familiar climates, so she did not really feel very far from home. Thinking about it now, it seemed she had always lived in places where it rained a lot.
Those years in Belgium had been rainy too, but the climate there was extremely comfortable. The highest temperature in summer never exceeded 28°C, while in the depths of winter at night, the lowest temperature only hovered around 0°C.
Although there was plenty of rain and snow, most of it was fine, clinging drizzle and light snow that melted the moment it touched the ground.
That heavy snowfall that blocked nine hundred kilometers of road was something that happened only once in several decades.
Back then, she had been sent to the hospital. The doctor, speaking rapid French with a distinct Belgian accent, kept asking who had removed the bullet. When Cheng Mu was finally forced to admit that it had been him, she had still been astonished by how bold that boy was. It was just that he had not had anything decent at hand, and the wound looked absolutely terrible.
No matter how much they tried to remedy it afterward, a conspicuous scar remained on the upper side of her right arm.
Several of her classmates had been thoroughly frightened. Yet the one who had been shot, and the clumsy person who had treated the wound, were both remarkably calm. She had experienced an actual gunfight in Yunnan when she was little, so aside from the pain, she truly had no negative emotions about it. But from the police taking her statement all the way to her eventual hospitalization, Cheng Mu had not shown any particularly strong emotion either. That had genuinely shaken her.
At the time, she had thought that since he studied physics, his brain must simply be constructed differently.
But now, at last, she had her answer.
The Cheng family was primarily engaged in the arms trade. It would have been strange if he were afraid.
No wonder, from beginning to end, the only thing he ever asked her was, “Are you okay?”
Really... too much.
At the time, because of the damp weather, the wound had not been particularly easy to heal.
After returning to school, many of her classmates noticed that a handsome mixed-race boy had appeared by her side, doubling as her “nanny.” At the time, Nan Bei shared a room with a Russian girl. Having a boy coming and going was always inconvenient, but unexpectedly, her roommate was more than happy to facilitate the happiness of others.
One evening, while she was bent over her mathematical analysis coursework, the girl asked her what she thought about being secretly loved by a boy for so long. She was somewhat bewildered. The Russian beauty, dressed in a pair of short shorts, wandered around in front of her and told her that the boy named Cheng Mu had started paying attention to her ever since she first entered the school.
Nan Bei truly had not known about what had happened before. But even then, she had already sensed it.
She simply had too unusual a family background to think too deeply about it. Besides, it seemed that when it came to him, she was still missing just that little something.
Moreover, someone like Cheng Mu, a gifted physics student, should have continued his studies all the way through and eventually entered a laboratory without a hitch.
There should have been no involvement whatsoever.
Only once. Just that one time, she had tested him.
“What do you think about things like the arms trade? Have you ever wanted to live that kind of life?” She leaned back against her chair, holding up her book, while her eyes secretly stole glances at him.
She truly enjoyed these one-on-one conversations in Chinese.
He was sparing with words. His intonation was extremely standard. Compared with someone like her, who could not distinguish between the front and back nasal sounds, his speech was almost unnaturally precise.
Cheng Mu glanced at her, tapping the tabletop lightly with the tip of his pen. For an instant, he smiled like a calculating old fox.
“Sounds like you're rather fascinated by it?”
“How could that be?” She shook her head from side to side, turning up her nose at the idea.
That afternoon, outside was the kind of gloomy, rainy weather Belgium often had. He was sitting very close to her, and the clothes he wore had been deliberately dried in a dryer, carrying a faint, warm scent. The clothes she wore were the same.
She had to admit, she never again had such a considerate “nanny” after that.
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