Zhou Muying replied, “Li Miaoqing, you’re only seventeen. I don’t want to lock you up. Once you enter that place, it’ll leave a stain on you for the rest of your life. I know you don’t have parents or a family. Here’s my card—this is my office phone number, and this is my personal number. Call me if you ever need anything. I’m not just a police officer—I’m a woman and a mother too. I don’t want to see a girl who hasn’t even come of age yet go down this path. You don’t need to call me Officer Zhou, you can just call me Muying. I can help you. You don’t need to be afraid.”
Back then, when that same pair of peach-blossom eyes looked at her from across the interrogation room, Li Miaoqing had felt like an earthquake was tearing through her body, radiating out from the epicenter of her scarred and battered heart.
Later on, she became a member of Zhou Muying’s eclectic circle of friends. At that time, their relationship was very steady. Zhou Muying always looked after this young woman who had lost her way, and she even invited her over for the New Year. She never once looked down on her.
When Zhou Muying and Xie Ping fell on hard times and couldn’t find a suitable place to live, Li Miaoqing asked around in Moyu Alley, where she herself was living, and found a deal on a second-hand house. That was how they became neighbors. Over the course of the next two decades of trials and tribulations, Li Miaoqing never earned a living through such sordid means again. She became a tailor and made qipao, and she sewed countless beautiful gowns for Zhou Muying.
Now Li Miaoqing was gray at the temples, and Zhou Muying was nothing more than bone beneath the Yellow Springs. The last qipao she made for her Zhou-jiejie was Zhou Muying’s burial dress, cut from a gorgeous brocade. She’d deliberately sewed it in a long-sleeved style to cover Zhou Muying’s severed arm.
Because Li Miaoqing knew that Zhou Muying wasn’t just a police officer. She was also a woman, a mother, a wife. She liked being beautiful. And she was the most beautiful…with those bright, resolute eyes.
Right now, it was like those eyes had crossed time to gaze at Li Miaoqing’s creased, wrinkled face through all the years that had passed.
“After everything that’s already happened, this is really nothing to me,” Xie Qingcheng insisted.
In the end, Li Miaoqing let out a sigh and didn’t speak any further.
Xie Qingcheng helped the older woman and the younger girl to their respective rooms to rest.
Outside, it began to rain.
The hour grew later.
Xie Qingcheng put on a fall jacket and took out two umbrellas, handing one to Chen Man.
“You should go home, it’s getting late.”
“Ge, you’re not staying here tonight?” Chen Man was a bit surprised. Given Xie Qingcheng’s personality, he’d expected him to stay with Xie Xue today.
But Xie Qingcheng really couldn’t hold on any longer.
He felt like his forehead was on fire and his body was made of cotton, never mind the aching pain radiating from that one unspeakable part of his body. If Chen Man had been a bit more observant, he would have realized that Xie Qingcheng had hardly sat down the entire night.
“I’m not staying. There are some things I need to take care of at school, so I’m heading back to the dormitory.”
“Why don’t I give you a ride…”
Xie Qingcheng pushed the door open, and a chilly gust from the autumn rain blew into the room.
“There’s no need.” With the black carbon fiber handle of the umbrella in hand, wrapped up in his fall windbreaker, Xie Qingcheng walked into the pitch-dark night.
He couldn’t pretend for much longer. He could feel that his back was drenched in cold sweat as flashes of heat surged through him. His face was burning, and everything was spinning before his eyes as though half of his consciousness had been yanked harshly out of his body.
Chen Man said, “Then you…”
“I’m leaving. Thanks for your hard work today. You should go home soon.”
By the time Xie Qingcheng walked out of the alley, it was already past two in the morning, yet there were still people braving the rain and waiting outside. Xie Qingcheng had to admire their persistence. He called a taxi from within the police cordon. When the car arrived, he folded his umbrella and ducked inside, cutting off the explosion of camera flashes and noise on the other side of the door.
The moment he entered the car, he couldn’t take it any longer. Leaning back in exhaustion, he lifted a hand to cover his eyes.
The cabbie asked him, “Da-ge, where to?”
Xie Qingcheng didn’t answer.
“Da-ge?” The other man called out several times before Xie Qingcheng slowly resurfaced from his fevered confusion.
He knew that he really ought to go to the hospital. But he didn’t want to at all. What was he supposed to tell the doctor when he got there? He would rather use all his pride and fortitude to take that secret to his grave than breathe a word of what had happened within the confines of that small room in the club to anyone. How could he possibly explain the reason behind his fever to the doctor?
He was a doctor himself. He might as well just go home, take some anti-inflammatories, and leave it be.
So, Xie Qingcheng discarded the word “hospital,” which had been at the tip of his tongue, and instead replied, “The Huzhou Medical School faculty dorm, thanks.”
The cabbie sped off.
Xie Qingcheng didn’t see Chen Man lingering amongst the noisy crowd. After standing there for a long time, the young police officer’s brow creased with worry. Finally, he turned around and went back into Moyu Alley, only to come out again a while later.
Xie Qingcheng also didn’t see He Yu sitting behind the glass display window of the 24-hour convenience store across the street, drinking a cup of coffee. Or how, after tossing his coffee, He Yu tugged down the brim of his hat and walked out of the store.