Chapter Three
The Swallows Return After a Thousand Years (3)
When they reached the parking lot, Shen Ce was just about to call the driver when four young men beside a sports car parked in the distance waved at him, calling out to him. Shen Zhaozhao had assumed he had brought his friends along to pick her up, but judging by his expression, he seemed unaware that they were coming.
The men gathered around them with warm smiles, looking at the Shen family's new little sister.
“Your brother had a date this afternoon. It was arranged by the family a long time ago, but he turned it down, saying he had to pick up his sister,” said the man at the front, who wore a black T-shirt. “We were all wondering what sister the Shen family had that we didn't know about. So we followed him here. How about joining us for a meal?” He extended his right hand in greeting. “Liang Jinrong.”
They helped load the luggage into the cars.
“Your sister riding with me?” Liang Jinrong asked him.
“I'll ride with my ge.” She didn't want to ride in a stranger's car. She was afraid they would have nothing to talk about.
“Your brother didn't drive here,” another man said with a laugh.
Seeing that all their cars today were two-seaters, Shen Ce had a pretty good idea of what was going on. Liang Jinrong had done this on purpose. Shen Ce tugged at the collar of Liang Jinrong's casual blazer, making it look as though he were straightening his clothes. But the real point was what followed. He patted Liang Jinrong on the shoulder with his right hand and gripped it firmly.
“Drive carefully.”
“It's rare to see you worry about someone,” Liang Jinrong said, slipping out of Shen Ce's grasp. He opened the car door for Shen Zhaozhao with exaggerated attentiveness. “Now that you're in my car, what could possibly happen to you?”
Once they were on the road, Liang Jinrong remained friendly, keeping up a conversation with her.
“Why can't he drive?” she suddenly asked.
“Who?” Liang Jinrong quickly understood. “Oh, he's color blind. Red-color blind, but he does have a driver's license. He just doesn't like driving.” He looked at Zhaozhao. “Didn't you know?”
No wonder he'd kept checking and rechecking at the pastry shop.
As though he'd found a topic they could talk about at length, Liang Jinrong lowered his voice and added mysteriously, “He was sent to the mainland right after he was born. He lived in Jiangnan for several years. That seems to have something to do with it.”
They had dinner in Central.
These men had all grown up with Shen Ce. They had attended secondary school in Britain together, and most had gone on to study at Cambridge or the University of London. At first, she had wondered why they had all gone to Britain. Then she thought of the circumstances surrounding Hong Kong's handover. Sending them there had probably been the most convenient option, and over the generations, it had become a tradition.
Whenever they chatted, they liked to steer the conversation toward Shen Ce. For one thing, among their families, the Shens were the only ones who had insisted on keeping their company off the stock market. They had no trust funds either, and their finances were not publicly disclosed. This naturally lent them an air of mystery, making Shen Ce the focus of attention. It had been that way since childhood. For another, Shen Ce was, in every respect, at just the right age to be an ideal romantic prospect. Marriage might still be premature, but everyone wanted to play matchmaker for the sisters in their own families, setting them up for a relationship, a cup of tea, a date or two. The families would grow closer, and harmony was precious. A good match was even more precious.
These men knew the details of his life all too well. They even teased him about which girl had shared his flight back from Britain a few days earlier. Eventually, Shen Ce grew tired of their teasing. Claiming he had afternoon tea plans, he took her away first.
But that was just an excuse. The driver had been waiting downstairs for some time. There were no afternoon tea plans. They were going home.
“Go to the little house,” he said.
In Hong Kong, Shen Ce's father owned two properties. The larger one was an old-fashioned garden villa given to him by his great-grandfather. There was also a small villa in Repulse Bay that his father had bought himself when he was young and starting his business. Shen Ce had always called it the little house.
It was a small house, decorated in the style favored by the older generation. The furniture, floors, hanging lamps and even the wall tapestries were all in shades of brown, warm brown and dark yellow. The overall lighting was dim, but the place felt warm.
The ground floor consisted of a living and dining area and a kitchen, while the mezzanine housed a home theater. The second floor had originally been Shen Ce's bedroom, but he had it prepared for her and moved into his father's room on the third floor instead. Since the house had stood unoccupied for years and he was still studying abroad, someone came by regularly to clean it, and the property was also looked after by the management company. There was therefore no live-in staff.
Only one driver was staying here, and he had come over from the garden villa.
From listening to his conversation with the driver, Shen Zhaozhao gathered that her stepfather had originally arranged for two people to take care of their daily needs, including meals, but Shen Ce had turned them down.
In other words, for the next two days, it would be just her and Shen Ce living under the same roof.
“Call me when you wake up.” He pointed to the intercom beside the bed, then left her alone in the room.
The time difference between Montreal, where she lived, and here was exactly twelve hours, day and night reversed. By the time she woke up, it was already midnight.
She picked up the telephone receiver, thought about it, then put it back.
It was too late. She might as well get up and find something to do herself.
At this hour, she should have been hungry. Her stomach was empty. Remembering that the kitchen was on the ground floor, she made her way downstairs by feel, following the layout she had pieced together in her mind. The door to the home theater on the mezzanine was ajar, and light spilled through the gap.
She felt her way over and peered inside. Shen Ce was asleep on a large, deep-blue leather sofa. He had showered after returning and changed into dark gray cotton shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. His legs were crossed and stretched out in front of the sofa. He was fast asleep, while light from the screen shifted constantly across his body and the walls.
A phone vibrated in the corner of the sofa.
He was jolted awake. Squinting, he sat upright, still fighting off his drowsiness, until he spotted her standing by the door with a broad smile on her face.
Shen Ce rolled his stiff neck and got up from the sofa.
“It's too late,” Shen Zhaozhao said. “I didn't want to call and disturb you.”
He turned off the movie.
“You don't have to worry about me. Go back to sleep.” She noticed the red veins in his eyes.
This was the hour when normal people should be sleeping. Staying awake with her would only wear him out.
Shen Ce stopped in front of her. “If I weren't going to look after you, why would I have set an alarm?”
His hand reached over her head and pressed a switch. The mechanism drew the heavy curtains apart, one side after the other, like an unrolling scroll, revealing the distant view of Repulse Bay outside.
“I thought you were going out.” She looked up at his face from below, catching the shadow cast by the bridge of his nose.
“Where would I go?”
Lan Kwai Fong. Liang Jinrong had mentioned at lunch that many of their friends would be there tonight and wanted to meet the two siblings.
His warm breath fell against her forehead.
Her heart hung in suspense.
She remembered that night at the Shen residence, the deciding round. He had said, “Come here. Sit in front of me.” As he spoke, he leaned back, making room for her on the front half of his chair. Caught up in the excitement of the game, she leaned against him. Shen Ce wrapped both arms around her shoulders, clasped her hands tightly in his, and together they held a dice cup, shaking out the final roll.
When they lifted the cup and revealed the result, he began dealing the cards, forgetting to let her return to her original seat. From time to time, the skin of his arms brushed against her ears and face...
The light divided by the wooden lattice windows, the shifting moon shadows, the gray-white walls. Suddenly, the entire scene rose into three-dimensional clarity in her mind.
That night, Shen Jiaheng had pushed all his chips toward the two of them with both hands, still smiling as he said that since the two families had already been considering a marriage alliance, they might as well settle the childhood betrothal then and there. Later, he had given her the dice. Even Shen Jiaming had made a rare joke at Shen Ce's expense, saying that, under Macau's legal marriage age, they could talk about it again in three years.
But those had only been jokes made by the older brothers, the unfiltered remarks of young men.
Shen Zhaozhao thought he was going to say something, but he didn't.
He was probably still sleepy. His hand rested against the wall beside the switch, and he remained motionless, his eyes slightly closed. The final click of the curtains opening all the way startled him awake, and he opened his eyes.
“Go downstairs and wait for me,” he said quietly.
Shen Ce pushed open a door. There was a bathroom inside. Seeing her still standing there in the mirror, he said, “I'm taking a shower.”
His words made Shen Zhaozhao's face grow hot. She turned and went downstairs.
Behind her, the sound of running water came in waves, perfectly clear. Anyone could tell the bathroom door hadn't been closed. He was probably still too sleepy and had forgotten.
Until the bathroom door opened, Shen Zhaozhao had absolutely no idea what he intended to do in there. Otherwise, she would have left long ago.
There was actually a bathroom in the home theater. What a strange habit.
Shen Ce rarely came back, and he wasn't familiar with his own kitchen either.
The refrigerator was stocked with all kinds of ingredients the driver had helped buy that afternoon, a riot of colors: red, purplish red, yellow, pale yellow, white, creamy white and green. Among them, she recognized the deep green of pea shoots.
He happened to point at those.
Shen Zhaozhao was pleasantly surprised. “You know how to cook these? They're my favorite.”
“With wine?”
“Sure.” He really did know how to make them.
He took out the pea shoots. “See what else you want to eat.”
She liked vegetables, and as she bent down to look, she found the refrigerator fully stocked with all kinds of greens, exactly to her taste.
Shen Ce left the kitchen and returned with a bottle of Wuliangye. It was the sort of liquor someone would have had to ask around about, a bottle prepared in advance specifically for this dish. Had he asked Mom? This was her favorite liquor to use when stir-frying pea shoots. Because Zhaozhao had loved eating them since childhood, her mother had tried several kinds of baijiu before discovering that this one gave them the best aroma.
Shen Ce specifically told her to wait on the rooftop for dinner. Before long, all the dishes were ready. Apart from the pea shoots cooked with liquor, everything else had been blanched or simply stir-fried. The two sat beside the swimming pool, enjoying the breeze. Her feet were in her slippers, which she kept tipping up and down playfully, while her gaze drifted toward him from time to time.
“Your friend said,” she began, resting her head on one arm as she chatted with him, “that you lived in Jiangnan when you were little?”
The person who had spent the most time with her today was Liang Jinrong. Of course, the “friend” she meant was him.
He didn't answer. Instead, he held out his wineglass and turned it halfway around by the rim.
Shen Zhaozhao's heart skipped a beat. She didn't move.
“You don't drink?”
She nodded.
She could drink, actually, but since this was their first evening alone together, it was better to exercise some restraint.
The man in front of her lowered his head, took a small sip, and swallowed it slowly. “I had to be resuscitated when I was born. I came close to dying several times, and the doctors said I probably wouldn't survive. My parents couldn't bear to lose me, so they found someone to come and take a look. He said my ties to this world were too weak, and Macau's land and water couldn't keep me here.”
“Could Jiangnan keep you?”
He gave a slight nod.
“Was it in Zhejiang or Jiangsu? Or somewhere else?”
“A small town near Putuo Mountain.” He looked at his wineglass. “I lived there until I was three.”
Putuo.
It was an unfamiliar place. She had never been there, though a classmate had mentioned it once.
Shen Zhaozhao continued hooking her slipper with her toes, lightly tapping out little rhythms against the ground beneath her feet. When she looked up and saw him watching her, she smiled at him.
“Go on.”
“What is there to tell?” He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his drink. Leaning back in the rattan chair, he kept his gaze fixed on her.
Being stared at by her own older brother made her thoughts drift until she had no choice but to look at the water in the swimming pool, as though admiring the view.
“Shall I take these things downstairs?” She decided it would be better to leave first.
The aroma of the liquor must have been intoxicating.
“Someone will clear them away,” he said.
“But aren't there no staff here? Not for these two days?” She remembered what the driver had told her.
“The property management will take care of the cleaning.”
With one excuse for leaving taken away from her, she still had another.
Shen Zhaozhao pushed back her chair and waved her phone. “Mom said she'd call me. Like you, she knows I have jet lag, so she's deliberately waited until now. Take your time sitting here.”
She had taken two steps when she stopped, turned around with her hands clasped behind her back, and offered her brother an approving smile.
“I forgot to say, it really was delicious.”
He nodded. “I'm honored by your praise.”
At that moment, he resembled the young men at the lunch table, a heaven-blessed son of privilege with the haughty air of someone who looked down on the world.
Shen Zhaozhao waved at him and smiled again, trying to ingratiate herself with him.
Back in her room, her mother called right on time and asked how she was getting along with her new older brother. The call gave her the perfect opportunity to finish telling the story.
Her mother recounted a more detailed version of what the older generation had said. After they took Shen Ce to the area around Putuo Mountain, they consulted two Buddhist monks. Both gave the same explanation: Shen Ce was never supposed to have been born, so his life force was weak. If he were raised in Jiangnan, there might still be a slim chance of keeping him alive, because something there could bind him to this world.
Against all odds, he survived. But even after he turned three, he still didn't speak and paid no attention to the people around him, neither acknowledging nor responding to anyone. So the family went to consult a venerable monk again. He said Shen Ce was still clinging to attachments from a previous life, that he had not forgotten his past through reincarnation. If those lingering attachments could not be dispelled, he would still face a great calamity. Sure enough, before long, he fell seriously ill again...
“And he got better after that?” she asked, as though listening to a story.
She liked hearing stories like this. Perhaps it was a characteristic of big families. There was always someone who firmly believed in feng shui and fate.
“He must have,” her mother said. “Your Uncle Shen only ever mentioned it once.”
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