Qiu Luo

On the day before her departure, Qiu Luo woke up particularly early. To avoid disrupting her usual rhythm, she lay in bed for a long time. When it was about time, she put on her nightgown, went to the living room to turn on the music, walked to the window, and pressed the button. The electric curtains slowly gathered together. She squinted her eyes, looking at the sun outside that was red to the point of being nauseating. Then she took a shower, dried her hair with a blow dryer, made coffee, toasted bread, went downstairs to get the day’s newspaper, and placed it on the table.

After finishing these tasks, she looked up at the clock on the wall—it was exactly time to wake up Jing Yu. But when she reached the bedroom, she discovered that Jing Yu was already awake, sitting on the bed in a daze.

This morning, his movements were exceptionally slow. It was already past the usual time for leaving, yet he still sat at the table reading the newspaper, with only half of his coffee consumed. Yesterday, the company had officially announced his promotion. Perhaps because his long efforts had finally paid off, his entire being suddenly relaxed.

She had been waiting for this day for a long time too. After urging him several times, Jing Yu finally got up. Before leaving, he said his colleagues wanted to celebrate for him tonight and asked her to join them. Qiu Luo refused, but immediately felt somewhat regretful. Whether or not she saw him beaming with satisfaction and smugness, it would be a kind of sadness.

After seeing Jing Yu off, she double-locked the door, dragged out an empty suitcase, and began packing. She had only selected some of her most frequently worn clothes, yet it was already too much. Qiu Luo took the clothes out one by one, putting them back in the closet, constantly reminding herself that she was going to live a brand new life, so these old clothes shouldn’t be brought along. Hair dryer, curling iron, cosmetics, records, books—she harshly screened every item that would accompany her on the journey, putting them in, then taking them out. Suddenly, for a moment, she felt they all had no value. The suitcase immediately became very empty. The cat had been watching from the side, and at this moment suddenly jumped into the suitcase, sitting in the center and refusing to come out. She didn’t know what it meant by doing this—whether it didn’t want her to leave, or wanted to go with her.

She spent great effort catching the cat and shutting it in the study. When she returned, she had already lost patience and randomly stuffed the clothes and cosmetics at hand into the suitcase, along with some frequently used medications and appliances, then immediately closed the suitcase, not wanting to look at it again. She was particularly inept at packing travel bags, perhaps because she rarely traveled far. She had never liked traveling before. Travel was full of constraints, a kind of restricted life. However, now her thinking had changed somewhat, and she preferred to call it a “disciplined life.” She dragged the heavy leather suitcase back to the balcony and placed that dusty shoebox on top of it again. Except for that cat currently wailing in the study, no one knew that hidden in the leather suitcase was her about-to-begin “disciplined life.”

There was still half an hour before the supermarket opened. She sat on the sofa and roughly finished reading the novel she had read halfway through. The bland ending—the author, writing to the end, probably also realized what a hypocritical story this was, suddenly lost all confidence, and had to hastily conclude. Qiu Luo hadn’t read an ending that satisfied her for a long time. Many novels had moving passages in their earlier parts, but it didn’t last long before they became confused and lost direction. She also knew she was being too harsh on those authors, but she demanded the same of herself, which is why she never became a novelist. The writing dreams she had as a girl were strangled by her own harshness.

At ten o’clock, she arrived at the supermarket. Black garbage bags (50×60 cm), men’s oil-control refreshing body wash, anti-dandruff shampoo, mugwort soap, collar cleaner, refill bag liquid hand soap, three-pack tissue boxes, men’s multivitamins, sixty-watt energy-saving light bulbs, A4 printer paper, hazelnut cookies. Before checkout, she grabbed four packs of AA batteries and threw them into the shopping cart.

At twelve o’clock, the dry cleaner—she picked up one of his suits and three shirts.

At twelve-thirty, after eating a bowl of pork cartilage ramen alone, she rushed to the pet store: five-kilogram bag of finicky cat food, ten pouches of cat treats. She asked the shop owner for a business card with the address and delivery phone number written on it. At the bank next door, she withdrew money and topped up the electricity and gas cards.

At one o’clock in the afternoon, she arrived at the café. After drinking a cup of espresso, she still felt sleepy and fell asleep lying on the table.

Yuan Yuan didn’t arrive until almost two o’clock, naturally bringing her child along. They moved outside to sit in the sun and chatted briefly, interrupted several times by the child’s crying. When Yuan Yuan picked up her daughter, pressing the little face against her own forehead and gently coaxing her, Qiu Luo suddenly had a strange thought: Did this little girl know her mother’s double eyelids were surgically created? Of course not—she didn’t even know where eyelids were located yet. Qiu Luo thought, this world had been lying from the very beginning; even a mother’s eyes that smile desperately at you could be fake.

At three-thirty, they left the café. On the way, Qiu Luo washed her car and filled it with gas. She just thought that the life she was leaving for Jing Yu shouldn’t be too barren. When she got home, the hourly worker Xiao Ju had already arrived and was mopping the floor.

“We need to do a thorough cleaning today,” Qiu Luo said as soon as she entered.

“Are guests coming?” Xiao Ju asked.

“Can’t we do a thorough cleaning if no guests are coming?” Qiu Luo countered, and Xiao Ju fell silent.

For the first time, she worked alongside Xiao Ju. They took down and washed the curtains, changed the bed sheets, threw away nearly half the expired and flavorless food from the refrigerator, discarded four pieces of clothing and three pairs of boots that would never be worn again, trimmed the cat’s matted long fur, and organized the clutter piled on the balcony. The more they worked, the more she realized how dirty and messy the house was. Xiao Ju came every afternoon to clean for about two hours, but now it seemed it was all just surface work. Qiu Luo suddenly felt somewhat sad, thinking her mother’s former warnings were right—she had been too kind to Xiao Ju usually, spoiling her and making her increasingly lazy.

After finishing the cleaning, it was nearly seven o’clock. Xiao Ju was somewhat sullen because her work hours had been extended without reason. Qiu Luo thought that since this was the last day, she shouldn’t be calculating anymore. So she gave those old clothes and boots to Xiao Ju. She knew Xiao Ju actually loved to dress up and had always liked these clothes. Xiao Ju became happy again and, seeing her cooking pasta, volunteered to help. When they brushed past each other, Qiu Luo again smelled that scent on her body. When Xiao Ju first arrived, she could hardly stand it. It was the smell of grass, the smell of hard, dry grain, the smell of poverty that emanated from eating poorly and lacking oil and fat. Later, after living in the city for a long time, this smell gradually faded. What she smelled now seemed like the last few wisps, disappearing in an instant into the creamy fragrance of the pasta.

Xiao Ju had watched her cook often and had learned to pour a little oil in the pot so the noodles wouldn’t stick together. At her place, Xiao Ju had also learned to make pizza, cheesecake, and cookies, and understood how to brew coffee and open red wine. Qiu Luo didn’t know whether these fancy skills would ever truly come in handy for Xiao Ju someday.

She had originally planned to have Xiao Ju stay for dinner, but she had to rush to another household to work, saying she was already running late. Qiu Luo ate the pasta alone. Because she used up the remaining half can of meat sauce, the noodles were salty and thick, and she only ate a small portion.

She sat there in a daze, remembering that this afternoon she had forgotten to tell Yuan Yuan that she had watched that movie called “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” a few days ago. Yuan Yuan had mentioned it long ago, saying she wasn’t sure if the repeatedly appearing line “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?” had any deeper meaning. After watching it, Qiu Luo searched online and finally figured out that this phrase was a pun on the famous nursery rhyme “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” She then found Woolf’s collected works to read and studied the author’s portrait on the title page for a long time. On that face that really couldn’t be called beautiful, there was a pair of judging eyes that made one’s heart collapse and confess to the false life one was currently living. She really wanted to discuss this with Yuan Yuan and even had the urge to call her immediately. But at this moment, Yuan Yuan was probably accompanying her daughter in building blocks, or scolding the newly arrived fourth nanny, or continuing to argue with her mother-in-law about private versus public kindergarten. So even if she had remembered this during their afternoon meeting, Woolf wouldn’t have become their topic of conversation. Never would. The current Yuan Yuan only feared the big bad wolf, not Woolf.

The cat jumped onto the table, sniffed the noodles, stepped back a few paces, sat down and looked at her, its eyes full of puzzlement. As if to say, “If you leave, what will happen to me?” Indeed, the cat was something Qiu Luo insisted on keeping; Jing Yu didn’t like it at all. Because of this, he had to spend five minutes every morning using a lint roller to remove cat hair from his suit. Now that Qiu Luo was leaving, the cat couldn’t help but worry about its fate. But if one thought optimistically: while searching everywhere for a household to give the cat to, Jing Yu might fall into a new romance, and the successor female head of household might happen to love cats very much and not mind that it carried the scent of past events, then it could still smoothly join their new life.

She fell into imagining Jing Yu’s new life. How much time would he spend looking for her, how much time would he spend grieving her loss, how much time would he spend healing from this grief, how much time would he spend finding the next girl he had feelings for, how much time would he spend dating her until they slept together, how much time would he spend sleeping with her until they moved in together. Of course, many steps could proceed simultaneously or be skipped. This fit his efficiency-focused work style, and moreover, his personality indeed had a very decisive side. She felt very sad, as if she had already been deeply hurt by him, and leaving had instead become a kind of self-defense.

Qiu Luo’s mind was troubled. Seeing the clock pointing to ten, she couldn’t help but call Jing Yu. There was a commotion of merriment on the other end—after dinner they had gone to Old Huo’s house to drink. Jing Yu’s voice was very excited; apparently he had been drinking too.

“I’ll come pick you up,” Qiu Luo said, afraid he would refuse, and immediately hung up.

Old Huo was Jing Yu’s supervisor, living in the suburbs. Qiu Luo had been there many times. Every time she entered this huge villa district, she would get lost, but fortunately the security guard had already caught up on his bicycle to guide her way. The first time she came here, she really liked it. No one wouldn’t like it—European-style houses with such large private gardens, so quiet at night it seemed they were no longer in the human world. A house full of antique furniture, each with its own history. Darkly patterned carpets older than her grandmother made her feet afraid to step firmly. The fruit in the fruit bowl was so beautiful it had to be painted into a Vermeer oil painting. All the vessels gleamed, and as she gripped her wine glass, she thought she had never drunk such crystalline wine before. The hostess entertained them warmly with lobster flown in by plane and steaks made from spiritually raised cattle. After dinner, she brought out her collection of jade artifacts for everyone to admire. This hostess, like those antique furniture pieces, was dignified, as if custom-made for this house. The light from the floor lamp knew how to please its master like a dog, giving her the benevolent glow of a madonna. Later, when she encountered her by chance at a café, Qiu Luo felt relieved—turns out her foundation wasn’t applied so evenly, and it couldn’t completely cover the brown spots aged in time.

Qiu Luo tried hard to hide her culture shock and behaved very appropriately. She knew that Jing Yu, like her or perhaps even more so, had grown up in the countryside. No matter how grand the scenes he had witnessed since, his heart inevitably held some melancholy. The first time they came out of Old Huo’s house, she asked Jing Yu whether, if he reached Old Huo’s position in the future, they could also live in such a house. She didn’t know why she had asked this question so impatiently—perhaps just to draw a little closer to this house—but as soon as the question left her mouth, even she herself felt the desire in her heart. Jing Yu said, “I suppose so.” What he hesitated about wasn’t his own prospects, but the unreality of this house. But as a goal to strive for, it was so real.

Later, Qiu Luo became very afraid of coming to Old Huo’s house. When they spent an entire evening discussing that Ming dynasty antique vase on the table, she would suddenly have the evil thought of standing up and smashing it on the ground, to prove that she had the courage of that child who pointed out the emperor’s new clothes. But she didn’t. All she had was this persistent evil thought, making her restless and requiring great effort to keep herself pressed in her seat. Whenever this happened, she would look at Jing Yu resentfully. But not once did he catch her gaze.

She was despising a life she desired to approach and reach. The worst part was that it wasn’t because of jealousy. She quickly gave up the plan to tell Jing Yu about these feelings. To maintain his arduous work, he had to focus wholeheartedly and look at this goal with desire. Shaking this goal would be equivalent to taking away the bone placed in front of a dog—the result was predictable. So she remained silent, but from very early on knew that their ideals had already gone separate ways. Compared to breaking up, separating residences, or dividing property, the separation of ideals required no effort at all.

She arrived at Old Huo’s front door and heard a burst of laughter from inside the house. Feeling timid, she didn’t want to walk in under everyone’s gaze. She thought perhaps she could stand here quietly for a little while. She looked at the three black sedans parked nearby. Suddenly she couldn’t recognize which one was Jing Yu’s, and had to walk around to the back to check the license plate numbers to be sure. They were so similar.

A girl walked over from the distance. It was Old Huo’s daughter, only fourteen years old, but her body was already quite full. She hesitated whether to greet her, but finally hastily lowered her head, took out her phone, and pretended to prepare to make a call. The girl walked up to her, looked at her, and asked:

“Why don’t you go in?”

Her tone was somewhat hard, as if there was a hint of provocation. Qiu Luo was very angry and almost blurted out the retort, “Why should I go in?” But she held back and still didn’t speak, just continued to lower her head and press buttons on her phone.

The girl went inside and closed the door. Qiu Luo knew she had to go in now. Just as she was about to ring the doorbell, the door opened. The guests walked out. Old Huo’s wife gently patted her shoulder:

“You’re here. Come in and sit for a while?”

Qiu Luo smiled and shook her head. Everyone who saw her greeted her one after another. Jing Yu finished changing his shoes at the entrance and walked out, handing her the car keys.

As she was seeing them to their cars, Old Huo’s wife fingered her thin blouse, “Aren’t you cold, wearing just this one piece?”

“Seeing you makes me feel cold,” Qiu Luo said with a smile, pointing to the mink stole draped over Old Huo’s wife.

Jing Yu fell asleep in the car. Qiu Luo turned on the car’s music—it was a very sad man singing. She had never heard it before; this record wasn’t one she had bought. When the car stopped, Jing Yu woke up himself, opened the car door, picked up his suit jacket, and walked straight to the garage elevator door. She watched him from behind and felt he was already living in the life after her departure.

Neither of them had any intention of making this night longer, so they didn’t make love. When she dragged her suitcase out of the house the next day, she felt a trace of regret, like forgetting to bring a piece of luggage.

Qiu Luo had always thought she would definitely have insomnia on the last night. But this didn’t happen. Before falling asleep, she turned her face to look at Jing Yu one last time. The last time, yet she didn’t perceive any sadness. In all those nights before this, she had always looked at him like this, privately rehearsing their farewell. Having rehearsed too many times, the sadness diminished, and finally she even began to feel impatient. Who would know that the reason she had to leave was only because she had spent too much time imagining this thing, so this thing had to become real, otherwise life would be fake.

Xiao Ju

The next day, Xiao Ju had nothing much to do in the morning and had to make a trip to the post office in the afternoon, so she arrived relatively early. When she walked into the apartment building, she ran into Qiu Luo coming out with a suitcase. Qiu Luo looked momentarily startled when she saw her.

“Going on a business trip?” Xiao Ju asked.

“Mm.” Qiu Luo paused for a moment, then continued walking out.

Xiao Ju thought there would be some instructions to give, so she kept turning back to look at her. Qiu Luo walked faster and faster, flagging down a taxi that had just dropped off a passenger. Some strange intuition made Xiao Ju believe that Qiu Luo might not come back.

Xiao Ju opened the door, took off her shoes, and began working. She was washing coffee cups in the kitchen, but her mind kept thinking about Qiu Luo’s departure. She dropped the half-washed coffee cup, dried her hands, and went to the bedroom and study to look around. She found no letters or notes left behind. She thought, of course, knowing that the housekeeper might see them while working, who would leave letters or notes in obvious places? Besides, perhaps the male head of household knew about her leaving. However, for some reason, Xiao Ju still leaned toward the male head of household not knowing. She went to check the wardrobe and dressing table. The clothes were full to bursting, and at first glance seemed complete. The cosmetics were almost all left behind, and the necklaces, earrings, and rings in the jewelry box were all there too. She was getting a bit tired of thinking, and finally concluded that it might really be as simple as a business trip for a few days.

Leaving Qiu Luo’s house, Xiao Ju took the bus to the post office. On the way, De Ming called three times, and she hung up on all of them. She really didn’t want to shout at him on the bus. At the post office entrance, the phone rang again. She answered:

“Stop urging me, I’m already at the post office entrance.” She hung up the phone in exasperation. The phone finally fell quiet.

There were many people queuing at the post office, with the longest line being for money transfers. The girl standing in front of her had a bun so short it couldn’t be shorter, holding a small cloth bag that looked nothing like a wallet. You could tell at a glance she was also a housekeeper. Looking further ahead, she felt at least two more were too. She wondered why it was all women sending money—were the men in their families all like De Ming?

Since last autumn, De Ming hadn’t worked outside. At first it was because they were building a house at home, but after the house was finished, he showed no intention of going out to work. Xiao Ju didn’t want him to come to Beijing. The child would start elementary school this autumn, and having someone close to home to supervise her would be good. De Ming himself didn’t like coming to Beijing either. Last year when he came and stayed for less than half a year, he left as soon as that construction crew disbanded. Xiao Ju just hoped he would go to Mianyang, only an hour’s journey away, so he could come home every day. Just after the Spring Festival, he went for more than half a month. Later, after several consecutive days of rain, the project was suspended, and he hadn’t gone again since then. He spent all day gathering with several people to play cards, and when they played cards, there had to be money involved, otherwise they found it boring. Every time Xiao Ju called home, he would always say:

“I got up this morning and saw the sky was heavily overcast, afraid it might rain…”

“Did all the clouds gather over your Sichuan?” Xiao Ju would angrily shout at him.

He always had his reasons too, saying this year’s climate was abnormal, looking like some disaster might happen, maybe a torrential rain or mudslide. Xiao Ju said, “So now you can read the stars and weather?” They would argue to the point of irreconcilability, both threatening divorce. After a week, when Xiao Ju’s anger subsided and she called home, it was still bad weather there. They would start arguing again. This cycle continued, and Xiao Ju still sent money home every month, but starting two months ago, she began keeping some of the extra money she earned for herself. This time, less than a month had passed when De Ming came urging her to send money. After questioning him for a long time, he finally admitted he had lent the money to his cousin to build a house. They started fighting again. Xiao Ju cursed viciously over the phone, but still came to the post office.

Thinking about it made Xiao Ju feel wronged. She didn’t find working outside bitter—unlike some people who missed home after being away for a long time and cried when thinking of their children. She adapted quickly, feeling that Beijing had its good points too. She had even bought an old television and could watch Korean dramas in the evenings when she returned to her lodging, occasionally buying fish and shrimp at the market to cook for herself. She didn’t really miss her child either—occasionally calling was enough, and she had no particular worries. Perhaps because she could get by anywhere, she increasingly felt what use was such a useless man who couldn’t even make her life a little better.

This afternoon, Xiao Ju clutched her wallet, standing in the money transfer queue with several other housekeepers, slowly shuffling forward, when suddenly she felt intense sadness. She really wanted to break free from this shackled queue and gain some freedom. Freedom—thinking of this word, Qiu Luo’s departing figure with her suitcase immediately appeared before her eyes. She believed that figure was heading toward freedom.

The next day when Xiao Ju came to Qiu Luo’s house, no one was home. But strangely, the room was very tidy, exactly the same as when she had left. Everything in the house was properly placed in its original position, with no signs of being used. The male head of household seemed not to have returned either. The cat’s food bowl was completely empty. Xiao Ju put food in it, and it devoured it ravenously—apparently no one had fed it last night either. Though the house was clean, she couldn’t let herself be idle, so she mopped the floor and wiped the bookcases again. While working, she wondered what was going on. There were two reasonable possibilities: either they had both gone out of town on business or vacation; or Qiu Luo had really run away from home, and after discovering this, the male head of household had gone to look for her. She quickly eliminated the first possibility, because if both of them were leaving, Qiu Luo should have said something when she saw her, or left her a note at home. But the second possibility also didn’t quite make sense. From when the male head of household returned home to discovering Qiu Luo was gone would still require some time. During the waiting period, he would surely eat or drink something, but not even a water glass had been touched. When Xiao Ju left, she put back on the door the advertising flyers she had taken down when she arrived.

The next day when she came, she found that the advertising flyer was still on the door. The house remained as clean as before, and the cat ran to her as soon as it saw her, circling around her and meowing loudly. No one had returned. She did a perfunctory cleaning and then sat on the sofa, flipping through the fashion magazines on the table. The afternoon room was full of sunlight. As she read, her eyes could barely stay open, so she lay down on the sofa and slept for a while. When she woke up, the cat was curled up by her feet, warm and cozy. She put on her coat and shoes, picked up the keys and walked out the door, suddenly feeling some attachment to this house.

By the fifth day, she finally couldn’t help but call Qiu Luo. The phone was turned off. From afternoon to evening, she made several more calls, all met with a turned-off phone. What worried her most was that something might have happened to the male head of household, but Qiu Luo, who had run away from home, still didn’t know. Before going to bed, she lay in bed, recalling that it was the male head of household who had initially called the agency to hire her. Perhaps the agency still had his phone number, and she planned to ask about it tomorrow.

But this matter had its difficulties. She had already fallen out with the agency long ago, for a very common reason: after accumulating some regular employers, she bypassed the agency and contacted employers directly to settle wages. This way employers could pay a little less, while she could earn at least twice as much each month. Many hourly workers did the same as her, but there were also many failed examples. Some returned after a few months, humbly begging the company to take them back. When Xiao Ju saw them at the time, she had decided to have more backbone—once she left, she would never return.

She could only ask Sister Xia for help. When leaving the company, she had asked Sister Xia to come along, but Sister Xia was afraid she couldn’t do it reliably and was also afraid of making enemies with the agency. People had different aspirations, and Xiao Ju didn’t want to force her. They still often met in the evenings to chat.

Xiao Ju didn’t tell Sister Xia the truth. She only said the male and female heads of household had quarreled, and the male head hadn’t been home for several days. The female head was so angry at home that she became ill, neither eating nor drinking. So she wanted to secretly call the male head. Sister Xia laughed at her, saying she was meddling in too many affairs, as if she were their housekeeper. But then she said she probably couldn’t help, as asking directly would definitely not work, and that phone book was locked in their drawer, impossible to peek at. Xiao Ju desperately begged her, persistently, until she finally agreed to see what she could do and look for an opportunity.

But the express delivery she received the next day completely dispelled Xiao Ju’s idea of calling the male head of household. At that time, she was grooming the cat in the empty house when the delivery person pounded on the door. He had come up to try his luck because he was in the neighborhood:

“I’ve been calling for several days, but the phone’s always turned off,” the delivery person complained. Xiao Ju took the package, which had Qiu Luo’s name written as the recipient.

Without thinking, she tore open the envelope. This type of large express company envelope could be seen everywhere, and it wouldn’t be difficult at all to reseal it to look original. Inside was a thin sheet of paper—a letter. She looked at the signature; it was from Jing Yu.

She read the letter while slowly walking to the sofa and sitting down. Then she read it again.

Luoluo:

The afternoon when the promotion news was announced, I felt completely hollowed out, sitting in the office not wanting to do anything, not wanting to go home either. I felt like a spinning top that had been constantly whipped, spinning rapidly, now suddenly stopped. I couldn’t even stand steady.

I know I shouldn’t have any complaints about my current life. This is indeed a stable, prosperous life, and it will surely get better and better. But I can’t think carefully about what kind of “better” this “better” really is. Once I think about it, I immediately feel that this “better” is meaningless.

When we first met, we were somewhat unrealistic. You were still writing things then, I remember you talked to me about the novel you planned to write. Thinking about it now, it seems like such a distant thing. You know, I’ve always said it doesn’t matter whether you work or not, you can do whatever you want as long as you feel happy. But if I still have any extravagant hopes, it would be that I hope you can give me some passion, some idealistic things. I’m very afraid of becoming as boring and vulgar as those colleagues. I’m not blaming you when I say these things.

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning and think about the remaining greater half of my life, I feel there’s no suspense left at all, and I find it terrifying. I know that leaving like this now will cost me a lot. But I can’t convince myself to stay here and continue living a life without suspense. As for where to go and what to do, I really haven’t made any plans.

I remember during New Year this year, your parents discussed with us, hoping we would get married this year. We’ve been together for six years now, and now it can’t be realized. I feel very guilty about this. But my leaving isn’t to escape marriage. What I’m escaping might be something bigger than marriage.

Writing this letter in the office, perhaps due to the atmosphere, makes me write very seriously and unable to discuss emotional topics with you. Those things can be left for later discussion, perhaps they’ll be clearer then.

I’ll leave the house and car to you. When I return later, I’ll help you with the transfer procedures.

Jing Yu

Xiao Ju put down the letter, extremely astonished. These two people had actually run away from home on the same day without prior agreement. Also, they hadn’t even been married yet, though they looked like a couple of many years. She calculated that she was actually a year younger than Qiu Luo, yet her child was already six years old. City women could remain unmarried for such a long time.

That night, there was a power outage at her lodging. Xiao Ju sat alone in the dark, thinking about many things. She thought that city people lived so carefully and selectively—once they felt there was a problem, they immediately wanted to change. Country people like her weren’t lacking the courage to change their lives, it’s just that they lived in a muddle, and even when life had problems, they couldn’t see them. But it seemed it wasn’t quite like that either. She did know where life’s problems lay. That was De Ming. Almost all her troubles came from him. It turned out she had always known where the problem was and wasn’t afraid to bear the consequences of changing her life; she had just never seriously thought about solving the problem.

Xiao Ju seriously considered the matter of divorce. If she did this, she definitely wouldn’t return to Sichuan, and she wouldn’t want the child either. Thinking about staying in Beijing alone like this, there was nothing to be afraid of. As for men, she thought there would eventually be some. If there weren’t, she would accept it. Qiu Luo had once told her she was a Virgo, and Xiao Ju also felt that those descriptions of Virgos all fit her. She had standards she wouldn’t lower, belonging to the type who would rather have nothing than settle for less.

Xiao Ju’s thoughts felt somewhat stifling, so she decided to go out for a walk. She came to the street, where both sides were lined with small restaurants. The signs were bright red, people sat in circles around round tables, eating spicy food, drinking fizzy beer, talking and laughing very lively. Walking along and watching, she also felt herself becoming heated and energetic. She took out her phone and sent De Ming a text message. She wrote:

“When I talk about divorce with you, it’s not just angry words. I really feel there’s no point in continuing like this.” After writing, she read it again and changed “point” to “meaning.”

After sending the message, she felt much more refreshed. Looking up, she discovered she had unknowingly walked to the building where Qiu Luo lived. She hesitated for a moment, then decided to go up and stay for a while; she could even take a hot shower.

When Xiao Ju used her key to open the door, she heard muffled thumping sounds from inside. Her heart tensed a little, worried they had returned. But she was also somewhat curious, so she didn’t retreat. As soon as she entered, it was pitch black inside, not like anyone was there. When she turned on the lights, she saw the cat was struggling by the shoe cabinet. It had always liked playing with sneaker laces, with the thin strings winding and swinging around like a living creature that could play with it. But this time, somehow, it had managed to tie all four of its paws into the laces, and the shoe was stuck under the shoe cabinet, unable to move. No matter how hard it tried to break free, it remained bound to that shoe under the shoe cabinet.

Xiao Ju untied those strings. The cat was already exhausted and slowly walked to the water bowl to drink water in big gulps. Xiao Ju had never had much feeling for cats, but at this moment she felt somewhat heartbroken. If she hadn’t walked here tonight and only came tomorrow afternoon, the cat would probably have continued struggling like this and would surely have despaired long ago.

The cat incident gave Xiao Ju a very good excuse. From then on, she came to this apartment every evening. She would take a shower and watch TV. Sometimes she also watched DVDs—Qiu Luo’s house had several boxes of them. Just the matter of taking a shower alone already made her feel life was much more joyful. The water flow was so strong, the hot water seemed endless, and she could even sit in the bathtub and soak her aching legs and feet. Qiu Luo’s house also had many books. Actually, Xiao Ju had always loved reading. When Qiu Luo was there, she often gave her some old magazines. However, the books in Qiu Luo’s house were all too profound; there were many she couldn’t understand. Some books that Qiu Luo had flipped through before leaving were still on the desk, not put back on the bookshelf. Among them, several were written by a foreign woman named Woolf. Xiao Ju picked them up one by one to look through, but couldn’t get into reading them no matter what. Long passages spoke in riddles, making people not know what was happening. However, one of them was called “A Room of One’s Own.” It said that women must have a room of their own. Reading this, Xiao Ju felt very moved. Now, having such a temporary room that could accommodate her, she indeed felt life was completely different from the past.

But she rarely stayed overnight here, except for two occasions when she watched horror DVDs and was too scared to walk the night roads. She had some obsessive cleanliness about beds—she didn’t want others to sleep in her bed, and she felt Qiu Luo would think the same way. As for De Ming, he sent back a text message after a day: “Do whatever you think is best.” Xiao Ju thought she indeed wanted to handle things according to her own wishes. She planned to find time to go home and have a good talk with De Ming about divorce.

After half a month passed, a very practical problem presented itself. With both Qiu Luo and the male head of household gone, no one was paying her wages. This salary of six hundred yuan per month represented a very large proportion of her total income. Apart from Qiu Luo’s house, the other regular households she visited, some only needed her once a week. Then there was scattered work—they’d call her when needed, and she’d be idle when there were no calls. Now without these six hundred yuan, most of her working hours were empty. She had to swallow her pride and ask some clients to help inquire whether any of their friends needed help. Finding work required patience; she had to prepare for the fact that her income would be very low for the next few months. So she felt very conflicted. Sometimes she really hoped Qiu Luo and the others would return quickly and pay her wages. But if they returned, she would no longer be able to use this apartment. This apartment meant freedom to her. She had always thought that having money must be more free than having no money, but her current situation was that having money would actually cause her to lose freedom.

However, the choice between money and freedom was not in her own hands. All Xiao Ju could do was accept whatever fate brought.

But heaven and fate had even greater arrangements. De Ming’s crow mouth had actually been right. Although the nation’s clouds hadn’t gathered over Sichuan’s skies, all the energy in the earth’s crust had erupted in Sichuan. On the afternoon of the earthquake, Xiao Ju was working at a client’s house when Sister Xia called to inform her. She called De Ming and her family, but couldn’t get through to anyone. In the evening when she watched TV, she learned how serious it was. She called all her relatives’ numbers one by one, but none went through. She could only comfort herself by saying that the disaster areas reported in the news were still some distance from their location.

She sat on Qiu Luo’s sofa, facing that television, clutching the phone and continuously pressing redial. Sister Xia called again to ask about the situation and comfort her. Finally she sighed:

“Such a big thing happened, and you’re still quite calm about it.”

“What else can I do?” Xiao Ju said.

She had already experienced the power of natural disasters. Her mother had been killed by a fallen electric pole during the 1998 floods. She still remembered how she and her brother held each other in the hospital corridor, crying their hearts out. The so-called strength was cried out in tears that summer. Xiao Ju kept guard by the television, waiting for the latest news from Sichuan. She was very hungry and found a wrinkled apple in Qiu Luo’s refrigerator to eat. Not knowing where the courage came from, she actually opened a bottle of red wine and gulped it down. Not long after drinking, the phone call actually went through. De Ming called to her from the other end, but she thought it was the alcohol’s effect making her hallucinate, and was too scared to respond for a long time. De Ming and the child were both fine, and everyone in the family was still there, but the newly built house had completely collapsed in the earthquake. They were temporarily moved to earthquake-proof shelters set up outdoors.

In the following week, the news was all about search and rescue operations. Xiao Ju spent all her time outside of work in front of the television. Villages very close to their location had also lost many people. De Ming often called to report their safety and would always mention that so-and-so they knew had lost relatives.

Sometimes when Xiao Ju hung up the phone and turned off the TV, looking at the scene before her, she felt somewhat dazed. The cat slept unknowingly on the reclining chair, the wind gently stirred the gauze curtains, the gardenia flowers on the windowsill had all bloomed, and the clock on the wall without a second hand and graduations always made people think it had stopped. She couldn’t say whether all this was too quiet or too cold.

Sister Xia asked her why she was still staying here instead of returning to Sichuan. She said the houses had all collapsed, building new ones required money, and how could she earn money if she went back? Sister Xia thought what she said made sense. But Xiao Ju herself became confused. During these recent days in Beijing, she hadn’t earned much money either. If Sister Xia hadn’t asked like this, she almost forgot that she came to Beijing to earn money. Now it was truly time when money was needed. De Ming had also lent money to his cousin to build a house, and now that house had collapsed too. The money owed to them probably could never be repaid. Thinking about it made Xiao Ju angry.

A few days later, De Ming’s sister in Mianyang took their parents over. This left only De Ming alone with the child, feeling somewhat overwhelmed. He called to ask Xiao Ju’s opinion.

“You should also go to Mianyang to find your sister,” Xiao Ju said coldly.

“So many people all going to someone else’s place, how embarrassing would that be? Mianyang is also chaotic now, can’t find any work at all,” De Ming said.

“So what do you mean?”

“I’m thinking of putting Lanlan at their place first. School isn’t in session anyway, and my parents can still take care of her.”

“What about you?”

“I think I should come to Beijing to find you,” De Ming answered without much confidence, and the next sentence was even weaker, “There’s nothing left here anymore.”

Xiao Ju was silent for a long time and said, “Let me think about it.” She hung up the phone and suddenly felt this was the only way, and there wasn’t really anything to think about. But there seemed to be some ethereal joy, inexplicably believing that De Ming had become somewhat better.

On the day De Ming took the train to Beijing, the male head of household sent back a letter. “For Qiu Luo.” Seeing the familiar name, Xiao Ju’s heart actually felt some concern.

Luoluo:

Writing this letter, I’m in Mianyang. After leaving home, I wandered everywhere, but still couldn’t seem to find anywhere to stay. I had originally planned to go to the northwest to be a rural teacher. When I heard about the earthquake, I thought perhaps I could come to Sichuan. A few days ago I went to help in one of the most severely affected towns. The phrase I heard most every day was “signs of life.” This phrase always excites me, as if I’ve grasped the meaning of life. It sounds really funny—I actually can’t help much, but being here, rushing around everywhere every day, constantly in a state of wanting to help, makes me feel very energetic all over.

When I mention being a rural teacher, coming here as a volunteer, you’ll probably laugh at me. Neither of us is the type with hot blood, nor do we have overflowing compassion. At first I didn’t understand myself either, but later I thought of a book I’d read that described the mentality of certain fanatics. They selflessly throw themselves into charity and public welfare because they are complete failures in their own lives. They do this to escape the constant sense of defeat they experience. Helping others gives them satisfaction, and this is the only work that won’t bring blame and negation. Kindness became their last umbrella of protection. The volunteers here are as numerous as locusts. I don’t know if they, like me, came with the purpose of self-rescue.

I have to go to another county later, so I can’t continue writing. Oh, I suddenly remembered that Xiao Ju, who works in our house, is from Sichuan. I wonder if her family are all safe? Please give her my regards.

Jing Yu

Seeing the last sentence, Xiao Ju’s tears fell, although she still didn’t understand why Jing Yu wanted to go to Sichuan. She turned on the TV to watch news reports from the disaster relief sites, hoping to find Jing Yu among the vast crowds.

She watched for a long time without seeing Jing Yu, but suddenly spotted someone who looked very much like Qiu Luo among the volunteer medical rescue teams. Xiao Ju thought this must be a scene she had imagined. Because she had forgotten what Jing Yu looked like, what she was looking for had become Qiu Luo instead. But when that woman left the screen, she clearly saw that familiar figure walking away with a suitcase. Later, Xiao Ju often recalled this magical scene that appeared on television that afternoon. She became more and more convinced that person was Qiu Luo. She told herself, since they could run away from home on the same day, why couldn’t they both go to Sichuan as volunteers?

At the same moment, following her instructions, De Ming was putting the valuable things from home into plastic woven bags and hurrying to the train station. Though their village never appeared on television, Xiao Ju seemed to see him walking out from broken walls and rubble. As he walked, he turned back for a lingering look.

In the few days before De Ming came to Beijing, Xiao Ju kept hesitating whether to tell him about the empty apartment. But while waiting for his arrival, she unconsciously changed the bed sheets in the apartment’s bedroom. The freshly washed bed sheets had the lemon-scented fragrance left by the detergent. Xiao Ju spread them out and smoothed them flat, as devout as facing a brand new life. She realized how much she was looking forward to De Ming’s quick arrival. But that anticipation was filled with shyness and nervousness, as if she were doing something very risky. She was happily lost, feeling as if she wasn’t waiting for her man in a strange room, but rather in her own home, expecting a strange man to ring the doorbell.