Xingzhou City (9)
The phone was right there on the dining table. Luo Jingming reached out and answered it. Whatever was said on the other end, Tan Guhong watched as his expression quickly turned cold.
The two of them were too close together, so she could clearly hear the voice on the other end of the phone, but the language being spoken was one she could not understand. The only word that was repeated particularly often was “kun.”
Luo Jingming did not say a word from beginning to end. He listened until the other person had finished speaking, and only then gave a brief reply.
After hanging up, he looked at Tan Guhong. Their eyes met, and she smiled teasingly.
“What accent of English is that supposed to be?”
But Luo Jingming did not play along with her joke. In a low voice, he said, “I need to leave Singapore for a few days.”
Tan Guhong froze for a moment and could not help asking, “What happened?”
There was less than a week left until the birthday banquet.
“Something came up at the company. Don’t worry.” As if he had seen through her thoughts, he smiled reassuringly. “I’ll be back before my grandfather’s birthday banquet.”
Tan Guhong was silent for a moment before smiling. “Suit yourself. After all, you’re the one who needs to curry favor with your grandfather, not me. If I’m not mistaken, you’re planning to give Grandpa Liang the jade pendant you got at the Liverpool auction as a birthday gift, right?”
“Smart!”
He kissed her cheek and said softly, “Miss Smart, if you have nothing to do these next few days, you could try your luck at the casino again. Maybe the tide has turned, who knows.”
Luo Jingming left as soon as he said he would. After making a few quick preparations, he departed directly. It seemed the situation really was urgent.
Was it another matter at work? Tan Guhong remained skeptical. He had simply counted on the fact that she would not ask too many questions.
After Luo Jingming left, the sweet, suggestive atmosphere that had filled the morning also vanished with him. Tan Guhong put on a bathrobe and lay alone on the soft couch in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in the living room, idly turning a stemmed glass around in her hand.
It was the same one he had used to drink from the night before. Traces of dried wine still clung to it, with rings of red residue hardened around the bottom of the glass.
He had used such a decisive method simply to make her believe him.
Actually, she knew he had not lied. It was just that there were too many things he had never told her.
Suddenly, there was a noise outside the door. Tan Guhong assumed it was the room service she had ordered, bringing her clothes and breakfast.
Yesterday, he had carried her all the way back in his arms. Now that things had come to this, there was no need to pretend to hide it anymore. Whoever wanted to know could know. She no longer wanted to waste energy worrying about it.
Unexpectedly, just as she got up, the door was already opened from outside. A beautiful woman with platinum-blonde hair walked in naturally and asked, “Lone, when did you get back from Taipei? Why didn’t you come find me...”
The rest of her words disappeared the moment she saw Tan Guhong.
This woman was Luo Jingming’s so-called work assistant, Polina.
She had been there all along the Queen Anne cruise from San Francisco to Phuket. And now, she had actually appeared in Singapore again.
The two women stared at each other, awkwardly frozen in place for a moment.
Polina’s eyes swept over the bathrobe Tan Guhong was wearing, and she immediately understood why she had appeared here so early in the morning. Paulina’s expression changed slightly as she demanded, “You spent the night here?”
Tan Guhong narrowed her eyes and slowly stood up, tightening her grip around the wineglass in her hand. Without saying a word, she walked toward Polina.
Perhaps sensing the hostility radiating from her, Polina hurriedly waved her hands in clarification. “Don’t misunderstand. Lone and I aren’t like what you think!”
Tan Guhong stopped in her tracks. She looked at her expressionlessly for a moment before giving a faint, detached smile. “I didn’t misunderstand anything.”
Polina felt somewhat uncomfortable under her gaze, but still forced herself to ask, “Where is Lone?”
“He left. He’s gone from Singapore.”
“What?!” Polina shrieked. “How can he still be running around at a time like this? Where did he go?”
Tan Guhong did not answer. After a pause of several seconds, she suddenly smiled. “Come sit down first. We can talk slowly. Tea or coffee?”
The worry on Polina’s face was unmistakable. She nodded and walked over to the sofa, sitting down as she casually replied, “Coffee, please.”
Tan Guhong’s smile stiffened.
Don’t expect someone who never drank coffee to know how to make it. She fumbled around in front of the coffee machine in the kitchen, studying it to no avail for quite some time. In the end, she had no choice but to take some instant coffee powder, pour it into a cup, haphazardly dissolve it with hot water, and bring it over to Polina.
Polina took it and had a sip. The color drained visibly from her face. Her lips pressed tightly together as she held the mouthful of coffee in her mouth, neither able to spit it out nor swallow it. Her chin trembled slightly as she stared at Tan Guhong in disbelief.
Tan Guhong was a little embarrassed too. She really had not done it on purpose. She cleared her throat and explained, “Sorry, it’s my first time making coffee.”
Polina remained stiff for a long while. At last, she worked up the courage to swallow the coffee and forced a smile. “It’s okay. It’s not bad.”
Then she set the cup of unidentified brown liquid on the coffee table and pushed it away from herself.
Polina did not seem to care about the relationship between Tan Guhong and Luo Jingming. She simply asked, “Where exactly did Lone go?”
“You don’t know where he went?” Tan Guhong asked in return, unhurriedly.
“I don’t know.”
Polina frowned slightly, and her expression did not seem feigned.
Tan Guhong’s thoughts raced. She knew that besides speaking English in all kinds of accents, Luo Jingming also knew Italian, Vietnamese, and Ukrainian, but she did not understand any of those foreign languages. Was “kun” simply an ordinary word in the conversation, or did it refer to... A-Kun?
For some reason, her intuition told her it was the latter.
She would take the gamble.
Lowering her eyes, she casually asked another question.
“Then could it be that you also don’t know where A-Kun went?”
Polina’s face changed instantly. “Something happened to A-Kun?”
Tan Guhong’s heart sank. Sure enough, this woman knew a great deal.
After Sicily, A-Kun’s whereabouts had become a mystery. With an identity as special as his, what kind of business had he gone to handle for Luo Jingming?
Although Luo Jingming constantly said, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” Tan Guhong rarely asked him. Sometimes it was because she did not care, and sometimes because she knew perfectly well. Even if she asked, he would not tell her at all. Just like last night, he had fobbed her off with a glass of red wine. What use was there in asking?
The line between not asking because you do not care and not asking because you already know you will not get an answer can, sometimes, be truly blurred.
After letting the words slip, Polina also realized that she had misspoken. Pretending nothing was wrong, she picked up the coffee on the table and took a sip. Her face immediately turned ashen again, and she swallowed it with difficulty.
“Don’t be nervous. I was only asking casually.” Tan Guhong smiled. “Why are you here? Are you vacationing with Luo Jingming?”
“Well, sort of.” Polina shrugged. “It’s just that he gets to relax while I have no choice but to run around after him and take care of everything.”
“Your Chinese is very good.”
Not only was it standard, she could even use idioms. For someone of mixed heritage who had grown up in America, that was already quite remarkable.
“Of course. My father is Chinese, and I grew up in Chinatown.”
“So, your relationship with Luo Jingming really is quite unusual.”
To have known Luo Jingming back when he was in Chinatown, and to have stayed by his side all the way until now... Tan Guhong had originally thought that only A-Kun and his butler Li Zhengkai had remained at his side. As it turned out, there was also Polina. Yet Luo Jingming had never mentioned her to her.
“No! There’s nothing between us. Don’t misunderstand!”
Polina regretted letting her words slip once again. She almost picked up the coffee on the table and drank from it again. Fortunately, she realized in time at the last moment and promptly put it back down, placing the coffee cup on the coffee table in the corner farthest from herself with lingering fear.
Tan Guhong gave her a half-smile. “I really didn’t misunderstand anything.”
“I know you must have a lot of misunderstandings about Lone, and a lot of questions too, but I’m sorry. I can’t tell you much.”
Polina looked at Tan Guhong seriously. Her crystal-clear sky-blue eyes were filled with sincerity. “The only thing I can tell you is that he cares about you very much, much more than you imagine. He cares about you terribly, he cares so much that... he’s almost become an idiot.”
Tan Guhong was slightly stunned, then shook her head. “You don’t need to come and tell me this.”
“Whether you believe it is up to you.” Polina stood up. “I should go. If Lone comes back, remember to have him come find me immediately.”
After seeing off this beautiful woman who could freely come and go from Luo Jingming’s room, Tan Guhong’s emotions were somewhat unsettled.
Even while eating breakfast, her mind wandered unconsciously. She imagined the things Luo Jingming was hiding from her, imagined what kind of person Polina really was.
Luo Jingming’s influence on her was greater than she had imagined, even greater than it had been back in Phuket, and it showed every sign of growing stronger.
This was not good. This was very bad.
Everything was slipping uncontrollably out of control. She did not like this feeling.
She had to do something to distract herself.
After tidying up haphazardly, Tan Guhong left the room and wandered aimlessly around Xingzhou.
As she walked, she found herself standing outside the casino without realizing it. She could not help remembering what Luo Jingming had said before leaving.
She stood for a moment in front of the warning sign put up by the Singapore government to prevent people from becoming addicted to gambling. After pondering for a while, she stepped into the hall.
As usual, she exchanged a pile of the smallest-denomination chips at the service counter and walked over to the same dice table as yesterday. It was not yet time for grocery shopping, so the grandmas and grandpas had not come out yet. There was not a single customer at the table, only the croupier, who was leaning there listlessly, idly playing with the dice in his hand.
When he saw Tan Guhong approach, the croupier immediately straightened up and called out, “Miss Tan.”
Tan Guhong gave him a long look, then sat down at the table anyway.
“Miss Tan, will you be the banker?”
“No, you do it.”
“Okay.”
Tan Guhong propped her chin up with one hand, considering where she should place her chips. In the end, she casually chose “hard eight” and pushed all her chips onto it.
“Come on.” It was all the same anyway.
The croupier understood. He placed the dice inside a black, spherical glass dome and struck it three times. The dice quickly bounced and tumbled up and down inside the glass sphere. A moment later, the machine stopped and the dome opened. The two dice inside were both fours, “hard eight.”
“Miss Tan, you win.”
The few white chips in front of her instantly doubled, turning into red chips.
Tan Guhong was slightly stunned, but she did not pay much attention to it. She directly pushed all her chips onto “hard eight” again.
“Again.”
The croupier operated the machine efficiently. In an instant, the dome opened, and once again the two dice were both fours.
Her chips doubled again.
Tan Guhong said nothing and once again bet everything on “hard eight.”
“Again.”
The croupier operated the machine and opened the dome. Still, “four-four.”
Tan Guhong refused to believe it was merely luck. She bet again, and won again. She went all in on “hard eight” for ten consecutive rounds, and unbelievably, she won all ten!
The value of the chips in front of her had already reached five figures.
The croupier smiled politely. “Miss Tan, you’re having an excellent run of luck today.”
What was this? Unlucky in love, lucky at the casino?
Tan Guhong gave a cold laugh, picked up her chips, and left, heading to another table.
But today, by some strange twist, things were simply too bizarre. No matter which game she played next, she won all the way through. Whether it was Sic Bo, Pai Gow, blackjack, or games she had never even played before, such as baccarat and three-card poker, she bet everything every time. This caused the chips in her hands to keep doubling, until eventually the entire casino lit up with colored lights and music began to play, celebrating her winning a full five million Singapore dollars in a single day!
Amid the applause of all the staff and the envious gazes of the customers around her, a casino attendant walked over to Tan Guhong and said quietly,
“Miss Tan, our boss would like to see you.”
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