◎ I Am Gu Jinghuì’s Brother-in-Law ◎

Gu Qiao did, in fact, feel a small flicker of amusement at him. Luo Peiyin had taken to dish-washing as though he knew exactly what he was doing, yet the practice turned out to be quite another matter from the theory. Having discovered this small clumsiness in her cousin, she felt a little closer to him somehow.

Gu Qiao didn’t deny it, just smiled and said: “Go get some alcohol to disinfect that. I’ll give the dishes one more rinse — you don’t need to worry about them.”

“Are you staying here to supervise me?”

Gu Qiao opened the refrigerator: “I’m just taking stock of today’s leftovers. I usually buy just enough for each day, but today with the guests I bought a bit extra, and there’s quite a lot left — I’m thinking about how to use it all up tomorrow.” Going out of the kitchen meant walking into the living room, which she didn’t feel inclined to do. And there was nothing much she had to say to the guests, so she’d decided to stay in the kitchen, the place where she felt most at home.

Luo Peiyin understood — because he’d brought food in from the restaurant, Gu Qiao’s extra purchases had gone to waste. Then he heard her say: “This Chinese yam — I was going to make a stir-fried yam dish tonight, but I didn’t get to use it, so I’ll save it for tomorrow morning to make yam porridge.”

Luo Peiyin suspected Gu Qiao was saying this specifically for his benefit — he liked yam. He suspected she was angling for a small measure of credit: she hadn’t made it tonight, but she’d had the intention all along, and she would still make it for him tomorrow morning. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with Gu Qiao being so direct about it. In this day and age, even the finest wine needed to announce itself or no one would find it. Without telling him herself, no one would see her efforts. Whatever Gu Qiao’s motives, she was genuinely trying her best. The grandmother, in recent years, had always had Old Qian drive her to buy groceries, and she didn’t go out for fresh things every single day.

Luo Peiyin finished the dishes and turned around, just in time to see Gu Qiao pull a small notebook from her apron pocket and tick something off with a pen. Noticing him watching, she explained of her own accord: “This morning I recorded the grocery spending, but not all of it was used, so I need to make a note.”

“You keep accounts every day?”

Gu Qiao smiled: “I do. Keeping accounts gives me a sense of control. Even though I’m only managing one household’s shopping, it’s teaching me how to manage costs.”

It was also, of course, to keep the accounts transparent and prevent any suspicion of dishonesty on her part. She didn’t say this — but Luo Peiyin understood.

Hearing Gu Qiao frame grocery bookkeeping in these terms, he was moved to ask: “How do you manage costs?”

Gu Qiao had developed a whole system for herself recently but had had no one to share it with. Now that Luo Peiyin asked, she held nothing back: “Every meal needs to have a balance of cold dishes and hot dishes, meat and vegetables, dishes and soup — that basic structure stays the same. Then within that, I work out the specifics according to everyone’s tastes. And I keep a rough daily budget that I try not to exceed. Once I know my budget, I start arranging the dishes. For expensive things like fish and shrimp, I try to choose cooking methods everyone can agree on, otherwise —” otherwise it feels as though you’re showing favoritism.

“You have quite a head for economics.”

“Thank you.”

Not in the least bit modest.

Encouraged by her cousin’s praise, Gu Qiao felt she’d found someone who truly understood her, and couldn’t help going on: “Actually, there’s a lot you can learn just from following market prices. I read different regions’ produce prices in the papers and compare why the same vegetable costs differently in different places…”

After Gu Qiao had said her piece, her conclusion was that cucumbers were about to go up in price, so she should buy more tomorrow. Luo Peiyin listened to the end of Gu Qiao’s analysis of produce prices and said nothing.

“Cousin, do you think I sound calculating, always talking about food prices?”

She was about to defend herself when Luo Peiyin said: “Not at all.”

Gu Qiao’s interest in regional produce prices was not fundamentally different from a merchant watching commodity futures on the Chicago exchange — just that the former, no matter how much attention she paid, would save her only a few cents here and there. Her mind was full of ideas, and she was constrained only by having no money to work with. He also realized that sending Gu Qiao into logistics was placing her in the wrong position — all those commercial instincts would have precious little outlet in a support role. But since she had already decided, it wasn’t his place to interfere.

“Cousin, how far is it from here to your university? How long does it take by bicycle?”

“About forty minutes.” He said this, then thought how much slower Gu Qiao would likely be. “You’d better take the bus.”

“I’ll cycle — cycling is good exercise.” And it saves money. She also wondered whether the position came with dormitory accommodation. She asked Luo Peiyin: “Cousin, is the food in your university canteen any good?”

“Edible.” Meaning: possible to swallow.

Luo Peiyin felt he’d spent quite enough time in the kitchen: “You’re not leaving?”

“Cousin, you go first — I’ve still got a couple of things to do.”

As he left the kitchen, Luo Peiyin saw Gu Qiao still scribbling in her little notebook. He mentioned in passing: “You can do that in your room.”

“My head is clearest in the kitchen.”

Luo Peiyin thought about the guests waiting in the living room. He had assumed Gu Qiao got along warmly with everyone — apparently even she had moments when she didn’t want to see people. He glanced at her back and suddenly felt a touch of pity. This person, apart from work, seemed to have no other comfort.

—

Zhou Zhining looked up when Luo Peiyin emerged alone from the kitchen, and called out to him. Luo Peiyin greeted them both, then went straight upstairs to his room.

Zhou Zhining said to her mother and Mrs. Luo: “I wanted to talk to Little Cousin Luo about what new books he’s been reading lately.” With that, she went upstairs.

A knock at the door, then a “Little Cousin Luo” — then the sound of the door closing.

Mrs. Luo smiled: “Goodness knows what secrets these two have that they need to keep from the rest of us.”

“Little Cousin Luo, I saw that thank-you letter.”

“Mm.” When he had seen the letter, Luo Peiyin had known this moment would come sooner or later. After all, the person who wrote it had wanted as many eyes on it as possible.

“Don’t be too upset about it. It’s not worth punishing yourself for someone else’s mistakes. Some people always measure others by their own standards — they assume everyone is as vulgar as themselves, that anyone would welcome exaggerated and hollow flattery, and that currying favor is the only ladder to climb. That attitude shows contempt for others and contempt for themselves. But the truth is, there are always people who hold to their own convictions and appreciate only what is genuine. Without truth, there can be no beauty.”

“It’s not really a matter of right or wrong, or who’s better than whom. Everyone’s way of living is determined by their actual circumstances.” Luo Peiyin wasn’t interested in discussing this at length with this naive girl. He simply said: “Better not bring it up with anyone else.” He didn’t particularly care for himself — enough people knew about it already. It was Gu Qiao he was thinking of: if her cousin-aunt heard about it from the Zhou family’s guests this evening, she was going to have a great deal of explaining to do.

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll keep it as a secret between just the two of us.”

A secret? He had no interest in sharing secret confidences with a naive young girl. Luo Peiyin smiled: “I don’t have any secrets. If you can’t help yourself, you’re perfectly welcome to tell anyone you like.”

Zhou Zhining’s eyes wandered to his bookshelf. The philosophy, history, and fiction that had once filled it were all gone — replaced mostly by reference books, the majority on mathematics and computing, with the occasional economics text or journal scattered among them. She used to borrow books from Luo Peiyin regularly. Even her father’s shelves had something to offer, but now there was not a single book here she wanted to borrow. She felt a small, creeping disappointment in the Luo Peiyin of today — had even he lost his ideals and turned entirely toward practical ambition? With his background and talent, there was no need for that. Still, she believed he was only temporarily lost and would eventually find his way back to the right path.

“Little Cousin Luo, I’ll head back down — you go ahead and do what you need to do.” She’d been half expecting him to call her back, to let her share with him the confusion she’d been turning over: why had the people around her all started becoming so calculating? Why had ambitions shifted from becoming a poet to landing a high-salaried position at a foreign company, or striking it rich in business?

“Alright. Goodbye.”

Zhou Zhining left this visit somewhat disappointed, though not entirely so — on her way out, Luo Peiyin had presented her and her mother with coffee beans he’d brought back from abroad, and had personally seen them both to the door.

Two days before the start of Luo Peiyin’s new term, Mrs. Luo finally found a new housekeeper. The woman was in her thirties, efficient and capable in her work — though her cooking ran on the salty side, only marginally better than the university canteen.

On that day, only the housekeeper and Luo Peiyin were at home — Gu Qiao had gone to the department store with Mrs. Luo. Hearing the doorbell, the housekeeper went to answer it and nearly jumped in fright. The man at the door had a face and neck tanned to the color of coal; his hairstyle and clothing looked as though he had just emerged from somewhere very remote. But the area always had a guard post — they wouldn’t have let just anyone in.

“May I ask who you’re looking for?”

“Gu Jinghuì. I’m Gu Jinghuì’s brother-in-law.”

Before coming to the Luo household, Lou Deyu had specifically stopped at a public bathhouse to wash himself and had bought a new shirt from a street stall to change into. Lou Deyu had realized toward the end of the previous year that he’d been cheated. Once he’d worked that out, he had spent months hunting the swindler down. By spring of this year, he had finally tracked the man down. But the money was gone. The swindler told Lou Deyu that he too had been a victim — that he had also emptied out his savings and taken on heavy debts for the sake of the “unfreezing national assets” scheme, and that the money he had swindled from Lou Deyu had simply gone to fill an earlier hole. Now he was broke as well. But he insisted he’d had no choice but to swindle Lou Deyu, and then proposed a new venture — this time guaranteed to make money — and encouraged Lou Deyu to go in with him. Lou Deyu felt the veins in his neck stand out with fury, and he spat: “Do I have the word ‘idiot’ written on my face? You cheat me once and you think you can cheat me again?” With that, he laid into the swindler with his bare fists until the man couldn’t get back on his feet. Recovering the money proved far from easy; what he managed to wring out was a drop in the bucket compared to what he’d put in. He staked out the swindler’s home for several days, only to find the place more run-down than his own house had been before he’d even started building. He couldn’t understand what had possessed him to trust this wretch with the dream of getting rich.

Thinking of his household with no income coming in, Lou Deyu pooled together what money he had managed to recover and sent a postal money order to Gu Qiao. He addressed it to her school, knowing that with Gu Jingshu’s kind of character, any money received would go straight toward repaying debts. She was stubborn that way. Gu Qiao was more flexible — she took after him in that respect, the good-for-nothing that he was. At the time, just the thought of her had made him furious, but looking at it now, having someone like that in the family wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; the others were all too straightforward and honest. He divided the money into two parts: one for Gu Qiao’s university tuition if she got in — that was all he had, no more; these days there were even students selling socks and insoles on the side, so if she found the money insufficient she could earn the rest herself. The second part was for the household’s living expenses. Under no circumstances was she to tell anyone he’d sent money back — and if any creditors came knocking, she was to say the time hadn’t come yet. When he used to lend money to others, having them repay him a few years later was perfectly normal.

Having sent money home, he settled in to wait for a chance to start over. He couldn’t go skulking back home like this — he’d be the laughingstock of everyone. Hainan had been designated a special economic zone the previous year, and crowds of people were heading there to seek their fortunes. He intended to go look for opportunities too. Unfortunately he had no capital to speak of. Telling himself that a true man could bend as well as stand tall, he found work as a porter — hauling loads while saving up money. Day after day of shouldering heavy sacks; he’d never suffered like this even back in the village as a young man.

When Lou Deyu saw it in the newspaper, he discovered Gu Qiao had come to the city in search of him. She clearly hadn’t gotten into university, and by now the house was probably still overrun by creditors. Those debt collectors were utterly shameless — when they had owed him money for years at a time, he’d never told them to pack up and get out, because he wasn’t the type to bully decent, honest people. Was that what this was? Taking advantage of his family’s honesty?

He had made up his mind to go back and give those people a fight — make them know what he was capable of. Before going home, he decided to come and find Gu Qiao first.