◎ A Genuinely Good Person ◎

On the day Gu Qiao received her pay, she stepped out of the office and immediately saw Luo Peiyin. He had come to bring her the developed photographs — they were tucked inside a kraft paper envelope, quite a thick stack.

Gu Qiao took the envelope, feeling a slight flutter of alarm. Surely she hadn’t taken that many! Getting so many photographs developed at a photo shop would cost quite a bit. Although her cousin wouldn’t ask her for the money, causing him so much trouble…

“Older cousin, I’ve gotten my wages today — what would you like to eat? My treat.” Gu Qiao knew her cousin was well aware of her financial situation and wouldn’t order anything too expensive.

“I’ve arranged to have dinner with a friend today.”

So he had made a special trip just to deliver the photographs to her.

“You’ve gone to all this trouble coming over — I could have just picked them up myself.” Though she didn’t actually know where she would have picked them up, given how rarely he came home.

After Luo Peiyin cycled away, Gu Qiao realized there was still something she hadn’t asked. She got on her own bicycle and started to chase after him. This bicycle had quite some history to it — possibly older than Gu Qiao herself. She had spent a little bit of money on a bell and some colored streamers, and given the old thing a fresh makeover. The bicycle had thus become extremely eye-catching: not only could she spot it immediately in the bicycle shed, but Gu Qiao also figured something this conspicuous was less likely to attract thieves.

She pedaled this conspicuous bicycle in pursuit of Luo Peiyin, but no matter how hard she pushed, the distance between them didn’t seem to close. Just as Luo Peiyin was about to reach the campus gate, Gu Qiao took a deep breath and called out clearly: “Older cousin!”

Luo Peiyin looked back and saw Gu Qiao and her bicycle ringing its bell. *What an extraordinary contraption.* He stopped; Gu Qiao caught up, took a deep breath to steady herself, and in the glow of the evening sun, her face was flushed.

“Older cousin, are you going home tonight? I’m buying everyone some pastries today.”

“You chased all the way after me just for this?”

“If you’re not back today, I’ll buy them tomorrow — otherwise they won’t be fresh.”

“I’ll be back, but I don’t know what time.”

“Alright! Older cousin, see you later!” Gu Qiao had rushed after him in a hurry, and now she rushed away just as hurriedly. Only after the sound of Gu Qiao’s bicycle bell faded away did Luo Peiyin turn and ride toward his destination.

Gu Qiao pedaled her eye-catching bicycle straight to the market. She had let her cousin-aunt know in the morning — she was getting paid today and wanted to send some small gifts home to her family, so she’d be back late. Gu Qiao’s eyes were drawn to many things, but she ultimately decided to buy two pairs of wool socks for each family member. In their debt-ridden circumstances, even if her mother had new clothes — even a silk scarf — she wouldn’t wear them out in public. Socks were a different matter: no one could see them, and they’d keep you warm. After buying the socks, she also picked out a large assortment of hair ties, hair elastics, and hair clips in every color and style for her two younger sisters. She felt a pang of sadness for them. When she herself was their age, her mother had been hardworking and capable, and with Lou Deyu having come into a little money, the family hadn’t been short of anything — she had frequently gotten new clothes, her mother had braided her hair in all sorts of styles, and not a single day of the week had she worn the same hair tie twice. Her younger sisters hadn’t been so fortunate.

After buying these small things, Gu Qiao headed to the food market. For the past few days she had been bringing her own lunch. Having decided to cook for herself every day, she couldn’t in good conscience continue using the groceries bought with the household money that Auntie Zhang managed. Before, when she was doing the household shopping, she would get up early every day to buy fresh produce; now, for her own cooking, she bought marked-down produce at the end of the day at the food market, buying enough for an entire week in one go. Her own cooking was simple too — no meat, just stir-fried vegetables — and very efficient in terms of time. Today she bought a few extra varieties.

Luo the Fourth was eating the tiramisu Gu Qiao had bought while saying: “Cousin-sister, since you’ve gotten paid, let’s all go to KFC on Sunday!”

Luo Peiyin’s stepmother shot Luo the Fourth a look — this child was simply too thoughtless. Luo the Fourth immediately fell silent, thinking his mother was simply opposed to KFC.

“Sure! This Sunday I’ll treat you and Third Brother — but before then, you are not to keep pestering Auntie Zhang to fry chicken for you anymore. That sort of thing shouldn’t be eaten every single day.”

When Luo Peiyin came through the door, Gu Qiao was still sitting on the living room sofa reading a book. Ordinarily at this hour, she would already have retreated to her small room. But today, after the pastries were finished, she hadn’t left the living room — instead she’d sat down on the sofa reading *Practical English: Three Hundred Sentences*, which she’d borrowed from the library.

Seeing Luo Peiyin come home, Gu Qiao quickly stood up from the sofa, softly called out “older cousin,” and then neatly brought out the slice of tiramisu she had been holding back for him.

“Older cousin, try some — everyone says it’s delicious.”

“I’m not hungry right now — you eat it.”

“Then just try two bites first; the rest can be your breakfast tomorrow morning.” Without waiting for Luo Peiyin to decline, Gu Qiao already had the small fork extended toward him. “By tomorrow it won’t be fresh anymore.”

With a pair of expectant eyes fixed on him like that, Luo Peiyin had no choice but to cooperate and take two bites.

“Not bad, right?”

“Not bad.”

“Good, then. I’ll go back to my room, older cousin.” Having received the answer she’d hoped for, Gu Qiao took her *Practical English: Three Hundred Sentences* and returned to her room. This vocabulary should be enough if she was going to help sell clothes to foreigners. She had explored all the places she’d wanted to explore these past days; next Sunday it would be time to go and earn some money.

The more she thought about it, the more Gu Qiao felt that earning money was truly a wonderful thing — you could buy gifts for your mother, treat people to things, repay kindnesses. The world had so many wealthy people; one more wouldn’t make a difference.

Once she was in her small room, Gu Qiao finally had leisure to look through the photographs in the envelope. Every single photograph of her was smiling — no wonder her cousin had said they all looked about the same. Then she came to the photographs of her work colleagues: however many people were in a single photograph, that many duplicate copies were inside the envelope. This…

There was a knock at the door. Gu Qiao quickly stuffed all the photographs back into the drawer. Luo Peiyin’s stepmother came in and took a hundred-yuan note from her purse to give Gu Qiao: “Your little cousin was so inconsiderate — where does he get the idea to make you treat everyone the moment you’ve just gotten your wages? I know your heart is in the right place. Take this money for the taxi rides and food — it should be about enough. Just don’t let him eat too much.”

“I can treat them myself. I’ve been eating here every day — treating my younger cousins to a meal on payday is perfectly normal. You absolutely must take this back. If I’m spending your money, how can I call it my treat?”

Treating them to a meal was one thing, but she certainly wasn’t going to take a taxi — she would only buy her younger cousins two subway tickets each.

Seeing how firm Gu Qiao was, her cousin-aunt didn’t press further. Noticing the writing paper spread out on Gu Qiao’s desk, she asked: “The photographs you took at the Summer Palace the other day — have they been developed yet? Let me have a look.”

Gu Qiao took them from the drawer to show her. Luo Peiyin’s stepmother looked at the photographs of Gu Qiao: “Did your older cousin take these for you?”

“Yes.”

“They turned out nicely.” Luo Peiyin’s stepmother was on the verge of saying more, then stopped herself. “Is this the only one?”

Gu Qiao ultimately decided to tell a small lie: “Just this one.”

After her cousin-aunt left, Gu Qiao bent over her desk to write a letter to her mother. She wrote that she was doing very well, that she’d been to many places, and that her older cousin… After writing “older cousin,” she crossed out that sentence and started fresh on a new sheet — the new letter contained no mention of her older cousin. She wrote instead that the whole family of her cousin-aunt were all very kind to her.

She didn’t write that, despite how kind they were to her, she still wanted to move out. The dormitory spots weren’t rotating to her anytime soon, and as for renting — the monthly rent for rooms in the villages near the Old Summer Palace was already several tens of yuan, which was not yet within her means.

The Luo family’s friends in Suzhou had sent them water chestnuts, and Gu Qiao cooked water chestnut congee in a small clay pot that morning. Her cousin had bought tickets to take her to see the osmanthus blossoms — she would return the favor with a dish of osmanthus-sugar lotus root, plus a green vegetable on the side. She handed Luo Peiyin the new insulated container and lunchbox without any other pretext this time, saying only that autumn had arrived and she wanted him to taste something seasonal.

“Older cousin, no need to make a special trip to return the lunchbox — I have another one.”

“Do you have any plans for Sunday?”

“I’m taking my younger cousins to KFC.” Of course, if her cousin weren’t allergic to chicken, she would have invited him too.

“Fourth Brother’s idea?” In this regard, Luo Peiyin knew his younger brother well — away from his mother’s oversight, the boy was perfectly capable of single-handedly eating through half of Gu Qiao’s monthly wages.

“I’d have wanted to treat them regardless — it’s only right.”

Gu Qiao arrived at the office early that morning. She took the photographs and asked Jiang Kai to identify who everyone was in the group shots, so she could deliver a copy to each person. Jiang Kai hadn’t expected Gu Qiao to catch on so fast — clearly the things he’d said had had an effect. Fetching boiled water, though it was also a service for everyone, was unpriced — and “priceless” could be interpreted in completely different ways by different people; some people’s understanding of “priceless” was that it was worthless. But photographs were different: black-and-white, color, four-inch, six-inch — all had standard prices. A large color photograph simply looked thoughtful. And for the same amount of money, a color photograph conveyed far more thoughtfulness than snacks and sunflower seeds.

Jiang Kai told Gu Qiao which person was from the materials procurement department, which from the general affairs section, who was a department head, and who — though only a staff member — had a husband who was a leader somewhere important, so couldn’t simply be addressed as “Old” something-or-other. During break time, Gu Qiao went person by person through the group photograph and sought each one out to deliver their copy.

Large six-inch color prints — everyone who received one praised Gu Qiao’s photography skills. Why “good”? Because everyone was in sharp focus, everyone was smiling, and nobody had their eyes closed. By the time she returned to the office, Gu Qiao had received a considerable amount of snacks and sunflower seeds. Once Jiang Kai explained the situation to her, Gu Qiao realized she had inadvertently become known as someone clever and capable. Going about getting to know people by taking their photographs and delivering them was far more natural than pushing gifts on them out of nowhere.

The people in her office had formed a new impression of Gu Qiao. Jiang Kai asked how she’d come up with this approach. Gu Qiao maintained a silence on the matter.

At noon, Luo Peiyin was in the middle of eating the dishes Gu Qiao had sent with him when Zhao Yue and Xiao Jia arrived.

The room Luo Peiyin currently lived in belonged to his older sister. She had bought a new apartment and moved out, leaving the furniture exactly as it was and simply handing him the keys.

The two hadn’t come empty-handed — they brought a lunchbox. Zhao Yue said: “Auntie Qin specifically asked me to bring you these dumplings.”

“Luo-ge, today’s dumplings were wrapped by my mum herself — she asked me to bring them over for you to try.”

Zhao Yue noticed the lunchbox on the table: “Who’s the mysterious benefactor who made this for you?”

Getting no response from Luo Peiyin, Zhao Yue’s eyes flicked around: “It’s not your younger cousin, is it?”

“Luo-ge’s younger cousin? Have I met her?”

“His younger cousin is quite a character — someone you’ve probably never had the good fortune to encounter before.” Zhao Yue genuinely did find Gu Qiao interesting. “His younger cousin herself holds genuinely good people in very high regard. I told Peiyin before that I should introduce you two — once you meet someone who is truly good, you realize that whoever you thought was good before was a pale imitation.”

“Stop your nonsense!”

“Right, I’ll shut up immediately.” Among Luo Peiyin’s friends, Zhao Yue was one of the rare few who dared joke around with him. Though the truth was that Zhao Yue’s tendency toward banter was somewhat beyond his control. Having this gift for language and suppressing it — sometimes he felt that was doing himself a disservice. But he also knew when to stop.

Among all of Zhao Yue’s acquaintances, Xiao Jia was among those with the finest character. In Zhao Yue’s grandmother’s words: “I’ve never seen such an earnest child.” This sort of child, praised by elders and other parents alike, had actually become something of an outsider at school precisely because of his earnestness — and because of that, he had become the target of regular praise from teachers and other parents, which at one point made him the thorn in the side of certain boys. He had even been bullied over it. Zhao Yue and Xiao Jia had grown up together; Xiao Jia’s father and Luo Peiyin’s father had been classmates, so they all knew each other. Zhao Yue and Luo Peiyin couldn’t stand by and watch someone they knew get bullied, and they had fought on his behalf several times. But helping was one thing — they genuinely couldn’t connect with him on a personal level.

In order to fit into the group, Xiao Jia made a firm resolution to become bad. Zhao Yue later, whenever he heard someone say “my child was led astray by so-and-so,” always wanted to laugh. A truly good child cannot be led astray. Xiao Jia tried skipping class to play ball with them — and spent every other hour at home studying. When he pulled out money to buy everyone sodas, he accidentally brought along a vocabulary flashcard too, studying at every opportunity; he tried learning to curse like the others with great ferocity, and “this idiot” came out of his mouth as “this fool” — utterly without force, as though he were flirting; he tried smoking and ended up being the one who collected the cigarette butts, always reminding everyone not to litter. It eventually evolved into him not only picking up his companions’ cigarette butts, but also being unable to resist picking up any stray cigarette butt he spotted on the street — until one day he ran right into a woman with a red armband.

The woman had only seen the second half of events and assumed the boy, under her intimidating presence, had picked up the cigarette butt he himself had dropped for fear of being fined. Seeing this, she immediately launched into an educational lecture: “Since I see you picked it up, I won’t fine you this time — but no more littering in the future.” She added: “And smoking at such a young age — if I catch you again, I’ll be calling your parents.” Xiao Jia was absolutely beside himself with indignation and protested: “I didn’t drop this cigarette butt.” The woman declared with iron certainty: “If you didn’t drop it, why did you pick it up?” Zhao Yue was standing to the side laughing too hard to speak. *Truly no way out for the righteous.*

All of them presented a polished face to the world but had limited sympathy for others in practice. Yet Xiao Jia’s painfully arduous journey toward becoming bad had, somehow, stirred a flicker of sympathy in them. Luo Peiyin had even said to Xiao Jia, with some degree of guilty conscience: “Why go learning to be like other people — if anything, we should be learning from you…”

This praise from Luo Peiyin had deeply encouraged Xiao Jia. The person he admired most was Luo Peiyin — someone who never did anything “bad” by his own moral standards, and yet still commanded everyone’s respect. If his idol was saying he should learn from Xiao Jia, then Xiao Jia must be doing something right. What mattered most, of course, was that Luo Peiyin brought Xiao Jia into the group and made it known that the others were not to mock him. Because of this, Xiao Jia put an end to his brief detour into delinquency and went back to being the good student he’d always been.

Naturally, a good student like this had his admirers who recognized his worth. But Xiao Jia himself felt nothing for his own kind, and perversely, the only type he was drawn to was the bold and uninhibited sort. The previous year, Xiao Jia had developed feelings for a girl from the music conservatory. It just so happened that the band Luo Peiyin played in was short a bassist at the time, so he had introduced the girl to Luo Peiyin.

Xiao Jia also kept bringing the girl along to gatherings. Anyone with functioning eyes could see whose gaze the girl’s eyes followed — and yet Xiao Jia remained completely oblivious, and kept telling the girl all about Luo Peiyin’s good qualities. Zhao Yue even suspected that the girl’s feelings for Luo Peiyin owed no small debt to Xiao Jia’s daily advertisements on his behalf. On this account, Luo Peiyin had avoided multiple gatherings. Outside of band rehearsal, there was no other contact. The girl decided Xiao Jia was an obstacle to her pursuit of Luo Peiyin and confronted him directly. She told Luo Peiyin that she was a free person, and that she had already made things clear to Xiao Jia. Luo Peiyin responded that he had no feelings for her, and that it had nothing to do with anyone else. Afterward, Luo Peiyin quit the band. Xiao Jia came looking for Luo Peiyin and asked him not to leave the band on his account — even saying that if Luo Peiyin truly decided to pursue the girl bassist, he would offer his most sincere and heartfelt blessings.

Zhao Yue made a great show of anguish over this, even lamenting in front of Luo Peiyin: “That girl has such sharp-looking eyes — how can she not recognize true quality when she sees it? If I were a woman, I’d only ever be interested in someone as dependable as Xiao Jia.” Of course he was not a woman, so all he could do was offer his brother his condolences. Zhao Yue also tried advising Xiao Jia: “Next time you go on a date with a girl, talk about things she’s actually interested in.” The more he tried to help, the more exasperated he became: “Why do you keep going on about what new developments there are in computers, the World Wide Web, and scientific technology? The girl isn’t Luo-ge — who wants to hear you talk about that?”

The topic Zhao Yue and Xiao Jia brought to Luo Peiyin were entirely different in nature. Zhao Yue talked about who had been caught for black-market trading, who had recently headed down to Hainan, the property development around the Asian Games Village, how far the Pudong planning had progressed, and when it was actually going to be properly developed… Xiao Jia, on the other hand, talked about the latest technological breakthroughs. His spoken English wasn’t great, so to improve it he attended the English corner held every Saturday on the lawn east of the library — but he could work through an English technical reference book in under two days.

Xiao Jia asked Luo Peiyin: “Luo-ge, which schools did you apply to?”

Zhao Yue laughed: “Difficulties are always temporary. I see a lot of opportunity here at home in the future — how about staying and making it big with your brothers?”

Xiao Jia interjected: “But if you want to learn the latest technology right now, you still have to go to America and see for yourself. Luo-ge, can I use your computer to generate a diagram? The computer I built myself is lacking a bit.”