Chapter 17
His consciousness was muddled. In the instant his eyes were seared by white light, Chen Huai caught that scent again, a trace of fruit, shifting from rot into something fresh, like newly picked fruit in spring or autumn.
Buildings gradually closed in around the two of them. Chen Huai’s body turned half-transparent again, his whole person pressed against the ground as if he had no weight.
He asked Qin Yao, “Have you been wearing perfume?”
Before, that scent had always come from her. But just now it had only appeared for a fleeting moment, then vanished without a trace into the faintly cool air.
Qin Yao sniffed at her clothes, puzzled. “What perfume? I’m a ghost, where would I get perfume?”
Maybe he was being overly suspicious. Chen Huai pressed his lips together. “Forget it. Pointless question.”
The buildings around them felt cramped, spreading outward like spokes. The two stood at the center of it all. When they looked up, their view was completely blocked by the shadows of old buildings. The passageway was already as narrow as a strip of sky, and now it was strung with lines of laundry. Damp clothes dripped steadily, as if it were raining.
Chen Huai glanced sideways and saw the door number, No. 136 Zhongxin Road.
Guoguo… Sun Hongping came out of a very small foot massage parlor, a bag in her hand. Her hair hung loose, her face covered in heavy makeup. Even so, the foundation failed to hide her slightly pallid complexion.
Her shoes had low heels, clicking against the ground with a hollow tap.
Qin Yao turned to watch her back, watching for a long time, watching as she walked farther and farther away, silent the whole while.
Chen Huai could not quite name what he was feeling. Though he had seen her, he remembered nothing. Half-transparent as he was, he could not even call out “Mom” to her. He could only watch as she kept walking, her steps growing more hurried, the slightly oversized low heels rubbing her ankles red and raw.
Is this what she's been doing since she left home?
Qin Yao spoke. “We should follow her.”
Chen Huai gave a quiet “mm.” He had just turned and taken a few steps when he saw Dr. Cao come out of that same foot massage parlor. Several buttons at his collar were undone, his coat draped over his arm, and there was a fresh slap mark on his face.
Cao Yu looked much younger at this time, far younger than when Chen Huai had seen him at the hospital. But he looked worn down. After being struck, he pressed his tongue against his cheek and sucked in a breath of cold air.
He could not see Chen Huai, yet he happened to stop right beside him. Narrowing his eyes slightly, he stared ahead at Sun Hongping as she walked, watching her turn, descend a few steps, and enter a shabby old bookstore. There was not even a signboard, only a mounted piece of calligraphy that read: “Abandoned Books.”
From the corner of his eye, Cao Yu noticed Qin Yao standing to the side. He looked at her again, as if her face seemed familiar. Qin Yao lowered her head and suddenly gripped Chen Huai’s hand tightly. The next second, Cao Yu froze, rubbed his eyes, and looked around.
“I thought…”
“How could that be,” Cao Yu murmured to himself.
In the end, he cast one last glance at the “Abandoned Books,” then turned and left through another street.
Chen Huai stared at their clasped hands. “What are you afraid of?”
Qin Yao lifted her eyes. “I’m not afraid. Can’t I just grab you for a second? It makes it easier to follow.”
He only lowered his gaze, offering no comment.
…But she was clearly gripping him so tightly.
The old secondhand bookstore was crammed with books. Inside, a paper was pasted up that read, “Everything in the shop belongs to students.” It seemed Sun Hongping was not familiar with the owner, probably her first time here. She struggled to sift through the mountain of old books, picking and choosing until she found what she wanted.
The place she rented was neither far nor close to where she worked. It took half an hour to walk back. Chen Huai watched as she took out her key from her pocket. When she pulled the door open, the red-painted iron door creaked harshly, like a blade scraping against steel.
The floor was bare cement, the decor cheap in a sort of rough, industrial style. The room was about twenty square meters, containing only a bed, a desk, and a very small bookshelf.
Chen Huai noticed that the bookshelf looked very similar to the one in Qin Yao’s room.
The first thing Sun Hongping did when she got home was bend over the narrow sink and remove her makeup. Then she opened a large new bottle of mouthwash, gargling for over ten minutes before spitting it out. Even then, she brushed her teeth again and scrubbed every gap between her fingers clean.
By the time she finished all this, it was fully dark. Outside, the birds could not be told apart, sparrows or crows, chattering indistinctly, blending together with the fierce wind.
Sun Hongping tied up her curled hair, switched on a small lamp, and sat at the desk, quietly reading. Her gaze was gentle. The knuckles of the hand that stroked the pages were swollen. As she read, she wrote and scribbled, filling the margins with dense, tiny annotations.
She was reading Memories of Matsuko, and she wrote:
【Her brightness can only be felt after witnessing her entire life.】
【But I will not place my love in any one person.】
Sun Hongping wrote heavily:
【Especially not a man.】
Most of the money she earned went to rent and utilities. A smaller portion was taken by Tang Juan, who was always wailing that she had gone to the big city and forgotten the parents back home who had raised her with such hardship.
But back then, they had agreed to go to Beijing together. In the end, she had been deceived into coming to Lincheng, working at a foot bath shop owned by one of Tang Juan’s unreliable friends.
Tang Juan had told her it was very profitable.
It was.
Because it was not only about massaging feet.
There had never been the means at home for her to study properly. Sun Hongping had not even finished primary school before Tang Juan forced her to drop out. At first, she was too young, her body thin and weak, and the factories would not take her. So Tang Juan sent her to break corn for landowners who had fields. A full basket earned only one yuan.
Later, when she reached her teens, she was sent into a factory to work. When her younger brother needed to continue his schooling, Sun Hongping was tricked again into coming to Lincheng. With no education, little literacy, and barely able to recognize a few legal terms, she was told by the boss that she had signed a contract. She would have to work for twenty years. If she did not follow the contract, she would have to pay compensation. Back then, he had given Tang Juan two hundred thousand yuan. If the contract was broken, Sun Hongping would have to pay five hundred thousand.
Even if she sold her blood, she could not earn five hundred thousand.
When she had first arrived, her temperament had been too stubborn. She scratched every customer until they bled. In the changing room, when she changed clothes, her coworkers talked about an employee who had just left, saying she had married up. Her man had paid five hundred thousand for her, and she had gone.
Back then, they all liked to say: “Even a foot-massage girl can have her spring.”
Sun Hongping lowered her head and buttoned her clothes, saying nothing.
Cao Yu worked part-time at the shop. At first, Sun Hongping thought he was one of the male technicians there, since that kind of service did exist here, though he looked too young, like he was still in school.
Later she learned that Cao Yu was a university student, only working part-time at the front desk. In those days, not many people knew how to use computers, and he was responsible for entering all the shop’s records.
He studied at a medical university. To become a doctor required too many years of study. His family’s circumstances were not that good, so he had to come out and work. From him, Sun Hongping sensed a kind of aloofness, something that did not fit at all with the shop’s neon-lit, indulgent, chaotic atmosphere. He did not speak much, but when he saw men handing over membership cards, he would frown in distaste.
She knew that Cao Yu also looked down on the male and female technicians in the shop. He lived too cleanly, his moral thinking steeped in what was written in textbooks, believing that doing this kind of work meant a lack of self-respect, a failure to value oneself.
But what choice was there?
She, too, wanted to sit in a classroom and study, wanted to get into university. If she could, she would definitely study literature.
It was impossible. Material reality did not bend to human will.
That day at work, Sun Hongping pulled her clothes together and walked to the front desk. Before she could speak, Cao Yu glanced at her, then lowered his eyes back to the computer screen. “The shop’s coats are in the changing room. I don’t have any here.”
“I know,” Sun Hongping said. “I want to ask you a favor.”
Cao Yu paused his hands politely, though he still did not look at her. “Mm, go ahead.”
“Don’t assign me any clients today.”
Sun Hongping continued on her own, “On Fridays the bookstore closes early. I want to get off work sooner and return some books. There are also a few I haven’t managed to borrow yet.”
Cao Yu lifted his eyes to look at her. She gave a faint, bitter smile. “If I can’t borrow books, the weekend will be hard to get through. I can’t even fit a TV in my place.”
For no clear reason, he fell silent for a long time, lowering his chin slightly.
“All right. Got it.”
Sun Hongping was very grateful. She turned and had only taken a few steps when she heard his voice from beneath the staircase. “If you go straight ahead after you leave, there’s an ‘Abandoned Books’ bookstore not far from here. The books there are very cheap.”
She leaned over the stair railing to look at him. Cao Yu did not turn back. She said, “Thank you.”
Customers who handed over membership cards to be called in were all turned away. The boss flew into a rage, called him into the back room, and slapped him, saying that if he did not want to earn money for his studies, he could just quit.
“I pay you such a high salary not to have you act as some moral model. Where else can you get treatment as good as here? You just sit and tap on a computer. If you want to do exercises, you do them. If you want to study, you study. It’s like getting paid for nothing every month.”
Cao Yu said nothing. After being hit, he went out and saw Sun Hongping, just off work, hurrying toward the place he had mentioned. Her bag looked heavy, but inside, apart from makeup remover, there were only several thick books, clean to an almost stark degree.
The next day, Sun Hongping came again with that heavy backpack. From it, she took out a music album, Wang Leehom’s Big City, Small Love.
“After I borrowed the books yesterday, I noticed a new record store had opened at the intersection. They were playing this song in the shop. I thought it sounded nice, so I bought it for you.”
She handed the album to Cao Yu, her head slightly lowered.
“I heard Brother Jiang hit you yesterday. I’m sorry. Because of my matter, you were put in a difficult position.” After apologizing, she turned to leave. “I know you need this job to pay your tuition. I won’t trouble you with this kind of thing anymore… I can’t delay your studies.”
Cao Yu held the album, not yet having spoken, when Sun Hongping had already gone upstairs, her low heels tapping against the steps.
He put on his earphones and listened to the music of Big City, Small Love, quietly taking down the coat hanging on the wall behind him and putting it back into his bag.
/
The ends of jet-black hair curl into a ring
Entwining all my longing for you
Separated by a translucent curtain
The words we speak hold no deceit at all
The gray roof tiles, a quiet scene
The lights are your beautiful face
At last, I have found the end of all my wandering
/
After that, Cao Yu still turned away many customers for her.
No comments:
Post a Comment