◎ Very Few ◎
Gu Qiao was momentarily stunned, her knife and fork sliding across the porcelain plate with a jarring screech.
“Does this answer surprise you?”
Gu Qiao was indeed surprised, and also very curious. Who was that girl? Who had initiated the breakup? Why did they break up? She was no longer his only ex-girlfriend — now she didn’t know if she was the second or perhaps the third. She even found herself curious about how far things had gone between the man in front of her and this other ex-girlfriend of his, whether he would walk through the door and kiss her on the mouth, leaving faint, dense, barely perceptible toothmarks on her lips… She reined in her imagination before it could go any further, and she also discovered for the first time that she had such a fierce sense of possessiveness toward Luo Peiyin. It was quite unreasonable to demand that someone, after a breakup, never fall in love again. After all, not everyone was like her — too busy to have any time for romance.
Looking back, it was actually because of possessiveness that she had, back then, agreed to be with Luo Peiyin without even giving it any thought, despite knowing nothing about what a romantic relationship truly meant. A female cousin with no blood relation couldn’t really be called something one could “possess” — one had to change that title to something else.
Now she earned far more than she used to, yet in matters of the heart she was less decisive than before.
Gu Qiao raised her eyes to look at Luo Peiyin, trying to catch the expression on his face. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that question.”
Luo Peiyin had never once lost ground in a direct gaze. “What is there to be sorry about? Unless you think a breakup is something to be heartbroken over.”
Being stared at by Luo Peiyin made Gu Qiao quite uncomfortable. She lowered her head and continued eating. Her hand was steady and precise and merciless — she cut everything on her plate into tiny pieces.
The candlelight on the table flickered. Beyond the window, the neon lights became a backdrop, and in the tangled interplay of light and shadow, Luo Peiyin watched Gu Qiao bring the finely cut pieces of food to her mouth. The candlelight wavered across her face, as if something were crawling over it.
“There’s something on your mouth.”
Gu Qiao dabbed at her lips with the napkin. Luo Peiyin kept watching her, as if whatever it was hadn’t been wiped away. But Gu Qiao had wiped her entire mouth and still couldn’t find what it was.
“My apologies, I was mistaken.”
Gu Qiao saw nothing resembling an apology on Luo Peiyin’s face. She realized that she no longer felt particularly apologetic in front of him either. She had been the one to call off their relationship, but hadn’t he gone on to find another girlfriend, turning her into the second — or however-many-th — ex-girlfriend?
Luo Peiyin seemed more genuinely interested in the food on the table than she was. He complimented the meal: “The abalone is quite good.”
She wasn’t sure whether Luo Peiyin truly liked the food, because his manner of eating was far too composed — even if caught off guard by a candid photo, not a single moment of inelegance could be found, right down to the angle of his elbow against the table. Was this really how a person looked when they genuinely enjoyed the food in front of them?
Gu Qiao realized she had ordered far too much, and this sort of establishment did not allow her to finish quickly. She ate slowly, as though competing with Luo Peiyin over who could be more composed.
Luo Peiyin paid the bill before Gu Qiao could. He knew that being treated by Gu Qiao would make her feel more at ease — especially after he had caught that small moment of awkwardness from her.
“Cousin, didn’t we agree I was treating?”
Luo Peiyin suddenly turned his gaze to search for hers. “Have you always followed through on everything you’ve agreed to with people?”
Gu Qiao froze. Luo Peiyin immediately shifted his tone. “Don’t take what I just said to heart. You can treat me next time.”
Gu Qiao couldn’t entirely let it go — she let those words rest in her heart for a little while.
Coming down from the rooftop restaurant, they had to ride the elevator together for a long time again. Fortunately, this time the elevator wasn’t just the two of them. Gu Qiao felt a small measure of relief — not every surface of the elevator would be showing Luo Peiyin her expression.
Out of the elevator, Luo Peiyin draped his overcoat over Gu Qiao’s shoulders again.
“There’s no need — it’s just a few steps, and we’ll be in the car in no time.”
“In the interest of saving us both time, I’d suggest you put it on. If you fall ill, I can’t pretend not to notice.”
Gu Qiao tucked herself into Luo Peiyin’s car. Unlike the old days when he had driven her battered yellow Dafa — with no warmth inside and having to wear gloves to drive — this car was almost too warm. Gu Qiao wanted very much to let in some fresh air.
The car moved fast, even though Luo Peiyin had always thought that driving a sedan like a sports car was rather foolish. Gu Qiao kept her eyes fixed on the window, watching buildings outside shift and change in rapid succession, like a shadow puppet performance.
Not long after their breakup phone call, Luo Peiyin had gone through a period of driving sports cars every day. He had originally planned to rent one for only a few days after Gu Qiao arrived in America — the rental stretched to half a month, and then he switched to another. When Gu Qiao had unilaterally announced over the phone that she was ending their relationship — declared that she had never intended to come to America to study — the necessity of saving up for the future had lost all purpose. He had even wondered how he had ended up so naturally walking down that conventional path of saving money, buying a house. During those days, it was as if Gu Qiao had assimilated him — he had been cutting every expense that didn’t generate growth, including the car, while incorporating a large house into the category of life’s necessities.
His life seemed to revert to its former course — a mode of living completely opposite to what it had been. He lived in a large warehouse that had no heat in winter and drove expensive sports cars from time to time. In that warehouse, he could turn the music up to full volume without worrying about disturbing anyone. Unlike Gu Qiao, he wasn’t afraid of the cold, so the inability to stay warm in winter wasn’t any kind of drawback at all. The rent was even cheaper than a small apartment, and the money saved could buy a decent sound system.
The terms of happiness for one person were entirely different from those for two. Inviting Gu Qiao to come live with him — spending winter in a heatless warehouse — would have been practically fraudulent. At least in the old hutong flat one could burn a stove for warmth. Besides, Gu Qiao had already booked an entire hotel suite by then. He would have needed to provide her with a standard of living at least equal to what she had at home.
Annie had enthusiastically offered to showcase her design talents in the warehouse. Luo Peiyin declined, on the grounds that he had no intention of living there permanently. A free-spirited bachelor had no need for a fixed residence.
Perhaps because daily life had grown too homogeneous — and homogeneity inevitably drifted toward monotony — Luo Peiyin soon brought that Ba Fen – Chapter of his life to a close.
A long silence fell inside the car, and Gu Qiao’s eyes remained fixed on the window. Then she suddenly heard Luo Peiyin say: “I think back on what you said, and I find it makes a great deal of sense.”
Gu Qiao was momentarily taken aback. She smiled at the car window. “What did I say?”
“That romance really ought to be a little more relaxed. You were right.”
—