◎ Regret ◎

Qiu Shuang was in the Huangdafa when she received Gu Qiao’s call. She was just about to ask when Gu Qiao was coming down when she heard Gu Qiao say, “Don’t go home tonight — stay at the hotel. I’ve booked you a room. Come on up, I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

Qiu Shuang hesitated for only a second before agreeing. Gu Qiao had been working until this hour on top of drinking heavily — being jolted around in a car would be far worse than resting directly at the hotel.

Stepping into the elevator, Qiu Shuang noticed Gu Qiao was slightly drunk. But even drunk, she didn’t forget work: “Let’s get dial-up internet set up as soon as possible — another promotional channel won’t hurt.” Last year, China had established full technical connectivity to the global internet, but it was only this year that the public had started to be offered telephone dial-up access. Before internet access existed, Qiu Shuang had connected via a modem to a server to send and receive posts offline, which severely limited what she could actually transmit.

Qiu Shuang took more than a passing look at Gu Qiao’s watch. What a coincidence — the watch Luo Peiyin had been wearing looked almost identical to the one Gu Qiao used to wear. If it wasn’t a coincidence, if they were actually wearing each other’s watches — what kind of closeness would that take? When Gu Qiao was in Shanghai, Qiu Shuang had been on the phone with her every single day, and Gu Qiao’s workload hadn’t been any lighter than when she was at the store. With that kind of schedule, had she somehow still found time, in between everything, to develop an intimate relationship with someone?

Gu Qiao didn’t give Qiu Shuang any opening in the elevator to bring up Luo Peiyin. Even drunk, she was a fully competent businesswoman — not only would she never reveal a secret, she would seize every opportunity to promote her own products and sing other people’s praises without the slightest hesitation.

By the time they went from the elevator to the room door, Qiu Shuang — who hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol — was feeling as giddy as if she had.

Qiu Shuang assumed Gu Qiao would come in with her. “Aren’t you staying here?”

“This room is all yours.”

“You booked me a suite?” Qiu Shuang had expected Gu Qiao to book a twin room — after all, they only needed to sleep for a few hours before being up early for the store. Booking her a suite all to herself was very uneconomical.

“You don’t need to look so shocked. Today’s sales were this good — no small part of that is thanks to you. Surely I should book you a suite.”

“Can I still cancel it?” Qiu Shuang was genuinely pained by her boss’s generosity — turning this money into a bonus would have been much better. She wouldn’t even get to sleep in — she had to be at the store early.

Gu Qiao smiled. “No.”

“Which room are you in?”

Gu Qiao pointed to the room across from the elevator. The last time she had stayed here was in 1992 — and now it was already 1995. Back then, to sell leather jackets, she had wanted customers to see her the moment they stepped off the elevator, so she had deliberately chosen this room. Everything had its tradeoffs — later, when the troublemakers came, they saw her room the moment they stepped off the elevator too.

“Spending all that money and still choosing a room right next to the elevator — it must be so noisy, how do you sleep? Maybe you should cancel it. We could just share a room.” Qiu Shuang was genuinely puzzled. This wasn’t like Gu Qiao’s usual style. When Gu Qiao was willing to spend money, she spent it freely — but it always had to be worth it.

“When you’re exhausted enough, you’re out the moment your head hits the pillow. Go get some sleep — we’ve still got a hard battle ahead of us tomorrow.”

Gu Qiao walked to the room Luo Peiyin had specified, staring at the number on the door, still somewhat in a daze. He actually remembered. She had mentioned this room number to him over the phone, no more than twice.

This was the very room where she had sold leather jackets — raking in money hand over fist — then called Luo Peiyin to report how much she’d made. And it was also in this room that she had been ambushed and cornered.

When Gu Qiao walked in, Luo Peiyin was standing by the window looking at the night view.

Gu Qiao caught the faint smell of cigarette smoke. Then she watched him turn around and press the cigarette out in the ashtray.

“When did you start smoking? I remember you didn’t touch cigarettes before.” She still remembered when he had accompanied her to purchase leather jackets — they would stand in the connecting section between train carriages, where people always smoked, and the smoke would occasionally make him cough. She had assumed he was the type who disliked the smell of smoke.

Luo Peiyin looked steadily at Gu Qiao and smiled. “Living an easy life for too long gets dull — you need something to spice it up.”

Gu Qiao was momentarily stunned. So he had started smoking after their breakup.

Luo Peiyin didn’t continue down that thread, and smiled as he asked her, “Does this room look the same as it did back then?” When he had specifically requested this room, the front desk had seemed quite puzzled. The view outside was far livelier than it had been more than two years ago, and even at this hour there were still cars passing below. Luo Peiyin had at first assumed the room was still available simply by coincidence — but now he understood exactly why it was free. Gu Qiao had never mentioned to him that this room was right next to the street and the elevator. As noisy as it was for sleeping purposes, it was absolutely not the ideal choice for rest — yet she had described the room to him as though it were wonderful in every way.

Of course, from a business perspective, it really was ideal.

“It doesn’t seem to have changed much.” Gu Qiao looked around the suite. When she had lived here, it had barely functioned as a living space — nothing but leather jackets everywhere, the entire room saturated with the smell of hide. The smell of renminbi must have been intoxicating enough to make her completely tolerant of the leather jacket smell. Back then, the thing that had made her happiest was making money — and telling Luo Peiyin she had made money.

One of her greatest regrets when they broke up was that all those days of raking in money had only been narrated to him over the phone — he had never been there to see it with his own eyes.

Luo Peiyin’s gaze settled on the telephone. It was on that very phone that Gu Qiao had called him and said those infuriating words about breaking up.

“If you still need blank floppy disks, I can help you make some contacts.”

“No need. I’ve already taken care of it.” Shen Zheng had insisted on thanking her in the elevator, saying that if he had prepared the stock properly from the start, none of tonight’s ordeal would have been necessary. He went on to say that Gu Qiao had worked so hard she hadn’t even had time to eat — some other day he would definitely treat her and her boyfriend to a proper meal. With that, Shen Zheng had inadvertently revealed her hand. Over the phone, she hadn’t mentioned any of this to Luo Peiyin — she had only said she was celebrating at the hotel. And at that point, she hadn’t yet known that Luo Peiyin was already at the hotel.

Gu Qiao picked up one of the sweets left on the table for guests, unwrapped it, popped it in her mouth, and smiled at Luo Peiyin. “I told you before we’d reach twenty thousand in sales — now it looks like it might be even more.”

“With sales this good, a celebration is certainly called for. But you didn’t really come here to celebrate — so why did you lie to me on the phone?” Luo Peiyin looked at Gu Qiao. She was dressed simply today — trousers, shirt, wide belt, hair pinned up neatly without a strand out of place. Very different from how she had looked the first time he ever saw her.

Luo Peiyin looked steadily at Gu Qiao. “Was it really that difficult to tell me about a problem you were facing?”

“The software was selling too well and we hadn’t prepared enough stock — the blank floppy disks ran out, so I needed to come here to negotiate. By the time you called, I had already signed the contract.”

“But if you hadn’t signed the contract yet, you still wouldn’t have told me — would you? Just like when your bank draft was frozen, you didn’t say a single word about any difficulty you were in — the only words you had were ‘break up.’ Do you still think, even now, that your way of handling things was the right one?” He had a strong intuition that the hardship Gu Qiao had faced back then was not limited to the bank draft being frozen — because every time she ran into trouble, not a single honest word came out of her mouth.

Gu Qiao had to admit it — even if she hadn’t signed the contract, she still wouldn’t have said anything to Luo Peiyin.

Luo Peiyin smiled at Gu Qiao. “After we broke up, I did indeed live the easy, unencumbered life you had wanted for me for a while — no longer lying awake because a single phone call went unanswered, worrying about one person. Those days are finally over.”

Gu Qiao’s smile stiffened on her face. Her teeth had bitten through the apple candy, and the taste of it flooded her mouth.

“What’s ridiculous is that this easy life you speak of never made me feel any better.” He had once been better than anyone at keeping things light and uncomplicated. But somehow she had changed his habits. They had no blood tie whatsoever, yet she called him “cousin” with more warmth than anyone; he had merely been in a minor car accident — something he was perfectly capable of handling himself — yet she had loaded up a tricycle with her entire pot-and-pan household and moved herself in, purely to cook him invalid food… By the time he had grown accustomed to being entangled with her, she suddenly erected boundaries even firmer than his own, and whenever trouble came, she would push him toward that easy life.

His palm pressed down on her shoulder, each word pressing directly into Gu Qiao’s face: “Didn’t you ask me if I had regrets? I’m telling you now — I do regret it. When you said those idiotic things about breaking up, I should never have let you finish. I should have bought the nearest flight home and come to see for myself what kind of easy life you were living in this room. Otherwise, even now, you’d still think your way of handling things was right. How little would I have to care about you to feel perfectly at ease — utterly uninformed and standing completely apart — when you were struggling?”

Luo Peiyin turned Gu Qiao’s face toward him and looked directly into her eyes. “And you don’t need to feel the slightest embarrassment about having lied to me. Because I lied to you as well.”

“When I decided to be with you, I decided to be with you in every possible way — not just in whatever arrangement felt convenient.”

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