Chapter Four
Step by Step into the Past (1)
Her mother had plenty of good things to say about Shen Ce over the phone.
She said that he had turned down the staff the old Western-style mansion wanted to send over because he wanted to build a good relationship with his new younger sister. He had even made a point of asking about her usual food preferences. The pea shoots cooked with wine had been something he specifically inquired about.
Before the call ended, she heard Uncle Shen's voice. "How is your brother treating you?"
"Very well," she said. "He just made me a late-night snack."
"Siblings destined to be," Uncle Shen remarked. "He's the youngest of his generation in the family and has never known how to take care of anyone, but he's actually showing patience with you. From now on, though, you'll be the youngest child in our family."
She had met this Uncle Shen a few times. He was younger than her father, but far more calculating.
Her biological parents had married in the late 1970s. Their elders had arranged the match. They were equally well educated and both good-looking, though the Shen family was better off, so her mother had married beneath her station. She was eighteen when she married, and the marriage ultimately ended in divorce. At first, the family elders refused to let her parents separate. The harmony between the two families was at stake, as was their reputation. Later, her mother insisted on having her way and went through with the divorce when Zhaozhao was three. She then spent several years building a company from nothing, achieving enough success to give the family a perfectly satisfactory account of herself.
Because of this, she caught the attention of her maternal great-granduncle's cousin, who brought her back into the family business. She became the only one among the younger generation of cousins to wield real authority, managing the business alongside several of Master Shen's sons, with responsibility for real estate and, later, the gambling business.
Now that her mother had a successful career, she could be even less constrained in matters of love. So what, exactly, had made her decide to remarry in her forties?
What was so exceptional about this Uncle Shen?
Before she came, her mother had told her what Uncle Shen had said when he proposed:
"Baoying, for the past year, I've dreamed about you every few days. In those dreams, you're always in meetings with me, discussing business, while I keep wanting to interrupt you and ask if you'd like to go out for a walk, or have a cup of coffee. So, Baoying, I thought I might as well say more plainly what I've been wanting to say in those dreams. I want to ask whether you would consider marrying me. Of course, with your abilities, looks, and education, you'll meet plenty of men who are better than me, and younger too. Or perhaps you no longer want to be married at all. But I'd still like to try, to ask whether you might be willing to marry beneath yourself one more time?"
...
The telephone suddenly rang.
It was the intercom beside her bed.
"I saw the light on in your room," he said as soon as she picked up the receiver. "Just finished a call?"
"Just hung up. I spoke to your dad, too." There was a chaise longue beside the intercom, and she lay down on it.
She was still puzzled about how Shen Ce could have seen the light.
He lived on the third floor. Going from the top floor to the third, he would have no reason to pass her room on the second.
"Is that so?" He didn't seem particularly interested in what had been said on the phone.
Suddenly, she heard a woman's voice. Shen Zhaozhao thought she must have misheard. "Do you have a guest?"
"A guest?"
The voice grew louder, and music began to swell. It was a movie, complete with the sound of a moving train. He was in the home theater.
No wonder he had been able to see the light in her room. If he was going from the top floor to the home theater, he really would have to pass her room.
At first, she assumed that because they were still being polite with each other, still at the stage of getting acquainted, he needed to exchange a few pleasantries before getting to the reason he'd called.
Unexpectedly, the conversation never went beyond idle chatter.
Separated by a single floor, they talked for half an hour, moving from the weather in Hong Kong and Macau to the wedding banquet menu, then to the weather in the city where she studied and life at boarding school. They talked about the difficulties she'd faced when she was first sent there.
"Children from non-English-speaking countries were required to attend French schools back then. My mom was delighted when she heard that and sent me straight over."
At first, there hadn't been much to show for it. But later, whenever the two sisters got together during summer or winter vacation, they would invariably agree on one thing: her French was every bit as good as her older sister's, who studied in France, and her English was unquestionably better.
It was only then that she finally admitted her mother had been farsighted. Living in a bilingual region really did give a person a natural advantage when it came to languages.
As the conversation went on, Shen Zhaozhao began to seriously wonder just how boring this movie could possibly be, that he needed someone to talk to just to make it through. She also suspected he must have a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, to insist on watching such a terrible movie all the way to the end.
An hour later, she couldn't help asking, "The movie still isn't over?"
"I'm watching the second one."
This was nothing like she'd imagined. She stared blankly. He was already on the second movie, and he still wasn't going to bed?
"Is it good?"
"Haven't really been paying attention. It's probably all right."
"Want me to take you out for a drive?" He seemed to have grown impatient with the movie himself, and asked the question casually.
Now? The wall clock showed two in the morning.
"Don't want to go?" After talking for so long, his voice had grown even more resonant, with that particular magnetic quality of a man's low register.
Zhaozhao hesitated. "I don't think you can drive."
He had been drinking just an hour ago.
There was silence on the other end.
"How about going to the beach instead?" she suggested. She wasn't sleepy anyway. "I can go with you."
"We're halfway up the hill. It wouldn't be convenient to walk down."
That was true.
She thought their midnight conversation would end there.
"Go on," he said.
Clearly, he still wanted to keep talking.
And so, after going around in a circle, the two of them, separated by a single floor, ended up right back where they'd started, chatting late into the night.
She couldn't even remember how she'd fallen asleep that night. When she woke again, the first thing she saw was the white intercom receiver in front of her. There was no sound coming from it.
Opposite the head of her bed was wallpaper in the style of an ink-wash painting. It looked as though it had been painted by hand. Sunlight streamed through the half-open curtains and fell across it, making the continuous mountain ranges and rivers seem to rise from the surface, almost like a print made with layers of paint.
She gazed at the painting for a long time.
They had spent the entire night on the phone, talking about nothing but this and that.
Before going downstairs, she was in a strange mood. As she rounded the staircase, the first people she saw were two young women from the property management staff cleaning the living room. Shen Ce was nowhere in sight.
The one vacuuming the carpet smiled and greeted her. "You're awake, Miss? Mr. Shen said we should wait until you woke up before coming upstairs."
"Do you have any clothes that need laundering, Miss?" the other asked. "Or should we collect everything from the third floor, like we do for Mr. Shen?"
It took Shen Zhaozhao a moment to realize that they had mistaken her for Shen Ce's girlfriend.
"I live on the second floor," she hurriedly clarified. "My ge sleeps on the third floor. I sleep on the second."
The woman looked surprised for an instant. There had been no mention of a Miss Shen in the property owner's information, but she quickly smiled and nodded, smoothing over the awkwardness without betraying anything in her expression or voice.
"I'm sorry, Miss Shen. May I ask if there's any clothing in your room on the second floor that needs collecting? And you can also let us know what you'd like for lunch."
Before leaving, Shen Ce had already instructed the property management staff to take care of her lunch and afternoon tea.
He was out all day. After all, it was his father's wedding banquet, and there were important guests he needed to entertain personally.
Before six, Shen Ce called and told her to take the elevator straight down to the garage.
He was back.
"Give me ten minutes," she said, then quickly corrected herself. "Five minutes."
Shen Zhaozhao took five minutes to change out of her loungewear and into a summer skirt suit, then rode the elevator down to the garage.
All the lights in the garage were on, and the metal gate stood open. There were four parking spaces inside.
The black car from yesterday was parked in the innermost space. It was the one the chauffeur had used to drive them home. The remaining three were all models popular with young people. He was sitting in a gray-blue car.
He was dressed considerably more formally than yesterday to receive the distinguished guests. Over his T-shirt, he wore a casual blazer. His short hair had been carefully styled, and a pair of thin-framed glasses rested on his face.
She hadn't seen a single person all day. Now that she finally saw him, her mood inexplicably brightened.
"What are you smiling at?" He seemed to be in a good mood himself.
"Nonprescription glasses." Zhaozhao pointed at his glasses, having spotted the trick from the side. "A prop to make you look more mature."
He didn't deny it. With one hand, he took the glasses off the bridge of his nose and handed them to her.
"If you hadn't mentioned it, I'd have forgotten I was still wearing them."
Zhaozhao took them naturally. She was used to sitting in the front passenger seat beside her mother and equally accustomed to helping out whoever was driving. She found the glasses case, thoughtfully took out the gray cleaning cloth, wiped the lenses clean, and put them away.
Knowing that this was her first visit to Hong Kong, Shen Ce had booked a restaurant at the Peak for dinner, then planned to drive to a gathering Liang Jinrong had arranged in Lan Kwai Fong. They were all places a girl her age would want to visit on her first trip here.
Lan Kwai Fong was truly crowded. Swept up in the lively atmosphere, and with Liang Jinrong egging her on, she finally abandoned the reserve she'd maintained since arriving. As Liang Jinrong put it, he ordered her a cocktail meant for "little kids," a pretty-looking drink that didn't taste particularly good.
They sat around a tiny round table outdoors, so small that with the three of them gathered around it, their legs touched.
Shen Zhaozhao took a sip and was promptly caught by Shen Ce's watchful eyes.
She lowered her head guiltily.
"What? You're going to police your little sister's drinking too? She's an adult."
"Ask her." He smiled, casting her a sidelong glance.
She propped her face in both hands and pleaded softly with him. "I didn't know you very well yesterday. That's why I lied to you."
Shen Ce said nothing. He merely shook his head with a smile, beckoned to a server, and took out some money to buy another drink so she could alternate between the two.
Just as the server was about to take the money, Liang Jinrong caught Shen Ce's hand.
"Not going to the Renaissance?"
"No."
Shen Ce had never intended to move on to another venue.
Liang Jinrong didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He lamented that Young Master Shen really wasn't giving him any face, especially when he'd come all this way specifically to pick them up.
From Liang Jinrong's words, she pieced together what was going on. It turned out that the real gathering tonight was in Wan Chai, where a whole crowd had assembled. Liang Jinrong had come under orders to escort Shen Ce over. Plenty of people were waiting for him to show up and lend his presence to the occasion.
"She's so young. How could I take her there?" Shen Ce said at last.
Liang Jinrong thought about it and had to agree. The man's younger sister had only just turned eighteen. Better forget it.
Liang Jinrong soon left, leaving the two of them at the table.
When the server brought over the drink, he smiled and quietly told Shen Ce that there would be a couples' event in a few days, with free drinks for the girls.
Clearly, he had mistaken them for a young couple.
Shen Ce merely smiled. As though he hadn't understood, he took Zhaozhao's drink from the server, gave him an extra tip, and sent him on his way.
Since he had to drive, he was drinking nothing but soda water.
Zhaozhao's first cocktail wasn't particularly strong, nowhere near enough to get her drunk. At most, it made her happy, so that she couldn't help smiling more than usual.
She caught sight of a girl at the next table glancing their way.
Looking at him.
And so, following the stranger's gaze, she wanted to look at him too.
But halfway there, her eyes retreated, settling lightly on her glass instead.
She leaned over the reddish-brown round table, staring absently at the lemon-yellow liquid inside the glass.
When she was thirteen or fourteen, she would occasionally mention Shen Ce to her older sister. Her sister had no impression of him whatsoever, so naturally there was nothing to talk about.
When she was fifteen or sixteen, she dreamed about him twice. Both times, she woke up and sat on the edge of her bed in a daze.
She had been young then, without the awareness to think too deeply about it. It was a little girl's private thoughts, something she hadn't even told her sister.
Droplets of water trickled down the transparent sides of the glass. She blew at them, trying to change the course of their descent.
Gradually, through the glass, she caught sight of his chin and the contours of the lower half of his face.
Seen from below, his features were even more finely handsome.
"Drunk?" Shen Ce asked her.
"No, I couldn't be. Just this little bit, how could I be?"
Her voice was soft and sweet, steeped in laughter.
Shen Ce raised his eyebrows slightly, a teasing glint in his expression, but didn't expose her.
Usually, when someone broke a single sentence into little fragments of just a few words each, even if they weren't drunk, they weren't far from it.
They had arrived early, and it was only when they were leaving that the place was reaching its liveliest hour.
Everywhere, men and women stood along the streets holding bottles of beer, mingling with all sorts of passersby.
They walked down a narrow, sloping street. There were so many people around them that she happened to see a couple kissing openly in the middle of the road.
She wanted to watch, so, emboldened by the alcohol, she actually stopped and observed them with great interest.
Because of this unexpected halt, she was soon swept along by a group of four or five Koreans walking together, all the way to the entrance of a bar.
Before long, Shen Ce came back looking for her.
He found that she'd been clever enough to stay where she was instead of wandering around. The only not-so-clever thing was that she was watching two beautiful women, one blonde and one dark-haired, kissing each other.
When the women noticed Zhaozhao watching, they even stopped to greet the little girl enthusiastically.
It got to the point where Shen Ce felt rather superfluous.
Shen Zhaozhao was too embarrassed to tell him that this was already the third couple she'd watched.
The man and woman she'd seen kissing earlier had actually been something of a novelty to her. By contrast, the two beautiful women she'd seen last were perfectly ordinary.
After three years at an all-girls' school, she'd long since grown accustomed to that kind of romance...
Even after getting into his car, she was still thinking about the couples she'd just seen, how they had kissed so passionately, as though no one else existed. She'd even been able to see how their tongues parted and tangled together again.
Shen Ce concentrated on driving and didn't make much idle conversation.
As the car pulled into the garage and the gate slowly descended, she leaned sideways against the back of her seat.
The heavy clang of metal striking the ground jarred against her eardrums. She fingered the buckle of her seat belt, her attention drifting for a moment.
Her two older cousins would arrive tomorrow morning, and in the afternoon, they would be leaving Hong Kong by boat.
The two days had passed so quickly.
"Go upstairs and take a shower." Shen Ce switched off the engine and unfastened his seat belt.
Zhaozhao nodded.
Apart from her mother, he was the second person who gave her instructions about even such small things.
"Wait for my call," he added.
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