◎ Old Acquaintances ◎

On the last day of 1994, businesses everywhere were ushering in the new year. In the early evening, the lights of every kind of advertisement sign spilled and splashed into people’s eyes from all directions — their colors even more vivid and stimulating than anything in Gu Qiao’s wardrobe.

Gu Qiao’s outfit today was slightly more subdued than Luo Peiyin would have expected. He rarely associated her with white when he thought of her. White blouse, yellow skirt — her pair of hoop earrings in yellow as well. Yellow brought her good fortune, and of course the last day of the year called for something celebratory.

Although it was Gu Qiao’s first time driving a Cadillac, she took to it quickly. Of the fingers resting on the steering wheel, one had a split nail — shorter than all the others, the broken piece gone somewhere unknown.

Luo Peiyin sat beside her. He had gone to Suzhou early that morning and only set out to return when the sky had already started to darken. At a red light, Gu Qiao stole a glance at the person beside her. He was impeccably presented. Even in the dead of night — in the early hours of the morning, in fact, when he had been in her room — he had remained so neatly dressed that he could have walked out the door to meet anyone at a moment’s notice.

In the early hours, at the entryway, Gu Qiao’s fingers had at first been clenched into fists pressed against the wall, her nails digging into her palms. Gradually, those hands had wound around Luo Peiyin’s waist, pressing fingerprints into his shirt. Gripping him tightly, she was guided step by step onto the bed.

What she had expected to happen didn’t happen. As though she were the only one consumed by desire — while he watched her burn in it, and had no reluctance about feeding the fire a little higher.

His body lowered, his arms reaching over to hold her in place.

The pain was bearable. But in one particular moment, she suddenly lost control and cried out. His mouth and his fingers were equally dexterous.

Wave after wave washed over her. She was like a vessel adrift in a vast sea, with no telling when she might reach shore — rising and falling, her fingers digging deep into the mattress, deeper and deeper. Probably that was when the small piece of nail had split off.

Gu Qiao’s mind had been incapable of thought at that moment — beyond meaningless repetition, she couldn’t form a single coherent sentence. She looked down at him; he was looking at her too. She clenched her teeth tightly, refusing to let another sound escape.

Luo Peiyin’s fingers slid from where they had just been and pressed at her lips, parting them — deliberately coaxing the sounds out of her. Gu Qiao bit down on his finger like a small leopard biting into prey that had walked straight into its jaws.

By the time Gu Qiao finally came back to herself, she found that Luo Peiyin’s finger had been bitten open, her blouse was unbuttoned, while he was still in perfectly presentable attire, ready to walk out the door at any moment. She did not like this imbalance. She reached out and pulled at his tie. He leaned close to her ear and said: “Since you’re so committed to fairness — go ahead and do to me exactly what I just did to you.”

She had not returned the favor in equal measure.

He walked out of her room with his clothes entirely in order. The last thing he said to her before leaving was: see you in the morning.

The memory of those early hours surfaced again. Gu Qiao’s gaze settled on Luo Peiyin’s slender, agile fingers. His middle finger still had a dented mark — it hadn’t faded yet. She must have bitten down rather hard.

Luo Peiyin perhaps noticed her looking at him, and his gaze settled on her face: “Are you feeling warm right now?”

“No.”

Gu Qiao did not raise a hand to her face to test how red her cheeks were. The red light had already changed to green. She forcibly pushed the memory down and focused entirely on following Luo Peiyin’s directions as she drove.

On the way, when the topic of her gift came up, Luo Peiyin smiled and said: “I half expected you to give discount cards for your shop’s software — after all, your Shanghai location is opening soon, isn’t it?”

Gu Qiao had indeed briefly considered it, but dismissed the idea immediately. Her Shanghai shop hadn’t even found a location yet. Bringing that kind of gift would have made it seem as though she had accompanied Luo Peiyin to this engagement while never missing a beat in promoting her software — and on top of that, the gift would have been an empty promise.

“How many name cards did you bring?”

Gu Qiao could only take this as Luo Peiyin making fun of her. She hadn’t realized her cousin had this kind of talent for sarcasm. She didn’t answer, tried not to let him distract her, and kept her eyes fixed straight ahead.

Their destination was a new hotel across the river. It had been built recently. Gu Qiao had imagined it would be a small, ordinary gathering — but everything turned out to be larger than she’d expected.

Many people had already arrived before them. Gu Qiao found herself surrounded by a sea of floor-length gowns, which made her own outfit look almost understated by comparison. Countless pieces of jewelry on ears, necks, and wrists flashed and winked at her, catching the overhead lights and sending them tumbling toward her. The brightest things in the room — brighter than her earrings, by quite a margin — were her eyes. She counted at least three distinct natural hair colors around her.

She had been wondering how Luo Peiyin would introduce her. Would he do what he had always done — announce their relationship the moment they got together? Or would he call her his cousin? There were probably actual cousins of his at this gathering.

She had guessed wrong on both counts. When guests raised their glasses and came over to greet Luo Peiyin, he made a formal introduction: Miss Gu of the software retail industry. He hadn’t exaggerated a single word on her behalf. Yet somehow, by virtue of his introduction, people came away with the impression that she had already built a formidable presence in software retail. This was exactly the moment to hand out a name card — and she, who never left the house without one, had left them behind today.

She stood at his side, smiling at the appropriate moments, her self-introduction by now well-practiced enough to require no real-time improvisation.

Once each new arrival had moved on, Luo Peiyin leaned down and asked softly in her ear: “You didn’t bring your cards?”

Gu Qiao smiled: “No.” Not having the cards was admittedly a mild inconvenience, but the pleasure of having guessed wrong made up for it somewhat.

When the guests arriving to greet him were blond, Luo Peiyin switched languages for the introduction.

Gu Qiao’s English was not particularly strong, but she could hear clearly enough that the introduction Luo Peiyin gave in English was word for word the same as what he had said before.

Gu Qiao suspected that at least half of Luo Peiyin’s value to his employer was derived simply from standing there and making his employer’s business look vast and far-reaching. She wondered what scale her own business would have to reach before she could justify spending money purely for the sake of appearances. She was certain that because of Luo Peiyin’s introductions, these people had come away with an inflated sense of how large her operation currently was.

One beautiful misunderstanding after another. Gu Qiao didn’t mind in the least. After all — there would come a day.

Only when she came across Zhao Yue did the same words lose their effect.

For Zhao Yue, encountering Gu Qiao and Luo Peiyin together at this event was a far greater surprise than it was for them to encounter him.

The Hainan real estate collapse had brought Zhao Yue quite low for a period. The money he had made trading on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets had all been sunk into it. People like him, who had been building properties in good faith, were the ones who truly suffered. Meanwhile some who had been speculating and flipping land had managed to cash out in time — walking away with a windfall. When Zhao Yue had eventually gone to Luo Peiyin for help, he’d had to summon the nerve to say it, since Luo Peiyin had warned him long before.

In the end he had opened his mouth. He had many friends, but when it came to the point of real crisis, those willing to help were few, and among those willing, fewer still had any real capacity to help.

Zhao Yue had reached out to a number of people for help, but he hadn’t said a word to Xiao Jia. Xiao Jia was on a fixed salary at a research institute — never mind that the amount he earned couldn’t plug even a small hole in the deficit, it wouldn’t have felt right to ask. And yet Xiao Jia had gone ahead and handed him a thick envelope, which turned out to be stuffed full of cash. When Zhao Yue asked where it came from, Xiao Jia told him it was his share of the profits from a business venture with Gu Qiao.

Zhao Yue’s impression of Gu Qiao had still been frozen at the time when she sold leather jackets. Xiao Jia updated him on her current situation: she had pivoted from leather jackets to selling anti-virus cards, and had generously split half the profits with Xiao Jia.

Zhao Yue knew his old friend Xiao Jia well — the man had never developed the instinct for making money. At the time, he thought to himself: Gu Qiao really does have a knack for it. While everyone else was chasing real estate, she had spotted the value in consumer electronics, held firm alongside Xiao Jia through the whole anti-virus card venture, and helped Xiao Jia earn more than a decade’s worth of his salary.

Those tens of thousands of yuan hadn’t meant much to Zhao Yue at the height of his earnings. But at that moment, they had truly come to his rescue. Gu Qiao had, in an indirect way, helped him as well.

This woman really had a talent for finding her way into remarkable situations — and here she’d found her way into this one tonight.

Zhao Yue had always made a point of not interfering in other people’s personal affairs, so he concealed his surprise very well. Madam Liao had once asked him obliquely about Luo Peiyin’s romantic situation, though only once. Zhao Yue kept his professional and personal lives clearly separate and was not about to betray a friend on his employer’s behalf. So he had said he didn’t know — which was, in fact, entirely true. It wasn’t as though they were in the same country; it wasn’t as though he could ask about a girlfriend every time they spoke. That would have been rather excessive.

Zhao Yue brought up the old story on his own initiative — something he had never mentioned to Luo Peiyin before, since by that time Gu Qiao had already become an ex-girlfriend.

“You two must let me play host next time you’re both in Shanghai.”

Gu Qiao only smiled, because she had no idea when that would be.

Gu Qiao met one person after another in that hall. But it was only when she met Luo Peiyin’s mother that Gu Qiao felt a trace of real nervousness for the first time.

Even with Gu Qiao’s limited knowledge of jewelry, she could tell at a glance that the emerald brooch was very valuable. Madam Liao’s outfit itself was simple, but the simpler the cut, the more clearly it demonstrated mastery, and the more effectively it allowed the jewelry to shine without being overshadowed.

Gu Qiao thought, at the most inopportune moment, of the phrase “thrice-married old man.” Whatever Luo Peiyin’s father felt on the inside, he always appeared warm and friendly to her on the surface. His mother, however, did not appear to count warmth of manner as a virtue.

When Luo Peiyin introduced Gu Qiao this time, he dispensed with all prefixes and simply gave her name.

Whenever Madam Liao tried to introduce a suitable girl to her son, the answer was always that he already had a girlfriend.

She had never openly opposed his choosing his own companions — she simply asked that he bring his girlfriend to meet her first. And Luo Peiyin’s answer was always the same: “The moment it gets to marriage, I’ll certainly let you know.” Madam Liao intensely disliked the word “let you know.” She understood exactly what he meant: when it came to his marriage, she had the right to be informed, and nothing else. By the time he was “letting her know,” it would be too late. She did not believe her son’s choice of life partner was none of her business.

And yet in the two years Luo Peiyin had spent in Singapore, not a single relationship had developed to the point of informing her. Singapore was not a large place. If Luo Peiyin had a steady girlfriend, there was no way it would have escaped her notice — yet his girlfriend remained an enigma, seemingly made of air.

The name “Gu Qiao” — and in particular the character “Gu” — quickly triggered Madam Liao’s memory. She had paid attention to this name before, but after Luo Peiyin had gone directly from America to Singapore rather than returning to China, she had swiftly erased those two characters from her memory.

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