◎Don’t Misunderstand◎

Gu Qiao narrowed her round eyes, but this didn’t interfere with her surveillance of the gloves. Keeping watch over the gloves was her own responsibility — she couldn’t comfortably shift that burden onto someone else. Besides, she wasn’t the least bit sleepy.

She cleared all other thoughts from her mind. Luo Peiyin had his arm around her shoulder to show they were on the same side. At this hour, traveling alone made it easier to attract unwanted attention, especially for a young girl like her. He needed to protect her while also maintaining appropriate distance between them.

When he spoke, he faced straight ahead rather than turning toward her ear. Gu Qiao’s awareness of herself as a woman felt particularly sharp today — every one of Luo Peiyin’s gestures reminded her that she was female. If she wasn’t careful, they might develop a relationship that went beyond distant relatives. The fact that she was a woman came before the fact that she was his “cousin.” Gu Qiao registered this reminder and stood up straighter, dividing her attention between watching the gloves at all times and avoiding unnecessary physical contact.

But the more guarded she became, the more sensitive she grew. She could almost feel the pressure of each of his fingers on her shoulder — his thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger…

Her body grew increasingly tense. She would rather be squeezed in among strangers than endure this kind of torment. But by the halfway point of the journey, Gu Qiao freed herself from it.

The most fundamental reason she was suffering here was because she had no money, and Luo Peiyin was suffering alongside her for the same reason. She did the math in her head — how much profit this batch of gloves would bring, how much longer she’d need to earn before she could rent a permanent stall.

Gu Qiao’s eyes lit up and grew round again. The future stretched out before her. Gu Qiao never doubted that she would succeed — having money was only a matter of time. But now she hoped that time would be as short as possible. Still, Lou Deyu’s lesson served as a warning, so Gu Qiao’s plans remained cautious. Before Luo Peiyin went abroad, if she could manage a fixed stall and have a little more spending money than her cousin, she’d be able to treat him a few more times — that would be enough.

By the time they reached the train station it was past three in the morning, and they didn’t get home until after four by taxi. The night was still dark, but the white snow lit up the entire world. Their shoes crunched and squeaked against the snow, and Gu Qiao left a trail of footprints behind her. In a moment of childlike impulse, she wanted to put her shoe beside one of Luo Peiyin’s prints to compare sizes, but in the end she didn’t step into his.

Luo Peiyin gave Gu Qiao the bedroom and took freshly washed sheets and a duvet cover from the cabinet for her to change herself. Then he took a few items of clothing from the wardrobe and held them in his hands.

Gu Qiao quickly said, “I’ll just curl up on the sofa for a bit.”

“Keep being polite and it’ll be daylight.” Luo Peiyin gave Gu Qiao no chance to refuse and turned to close the bedroom door.

The bedroom was considerably larger than Gu Qiao’s little room and had a single armchair. Beside the chair stood a magazine rack, and most of the magazine covers on it were in English.

The sheets, duvet cover, and pillowcase were all pale grey and white checked, and there was only one pillow. The clean set he had prepared for her was white. She wasn’t sure whether he only had one duvet in this apartment — she opened the bedroom door to ask him, but the living room was empty.

The sound of running water came from the bathroom. He must be showering. Gu Qiao retreated back into the bedroom, walked to the window, drew the curtains, shutting out the snow beyond, and settled herself in the bedroom’s single armchair.

She drifted off into a hazy sleep, then drifted back into a hazy wakefulness. She opened the bedroom door and saw Luo Peiyin reclining against the sofa in the living room, eyes closed, a thin blanket draped over him. It was a double sofa but not long enough for him to lie down fully. She’d guessed right last night — he only had one duvet. She tiptoed back into the bedroom, gathered up the duvet she hadn’t used the night before, and spread it over him. She was usually quick and efficient, but this time she moved unusually slowly, afraid that even a slightly heavier movement might wake him.

She slipped out of the apartment like a thief. The whole world was dazzlingly white. She used her fingers to trace Luo Peiyin’s eyes, nose, mouth, and the outline of his ears into the snow. She had studied his features clearly back in the living room. Her drawing skills, however, fell far short of her powers of observation — no one but herself could have recognized who it was supposed to be. She had intended to leave that face in the snow, but then imagined all kinds of shoes trampling it beyond recognition, and swept it away with her hand.

When Luo Peiyin woke up and found an extra duvet covering him, the bedroom door was half open. Even then he didn’t forget to knock. No one answered. He waited outside for half a minute before pushing the door open.

The bedroom was empty. The fresh sheets and duvet cover he had prepared for Gu Qiao remained exactly where he had placed them, looking completely untouched.

By the time Luo Peiyin found Gu Qiao downstairs, she was holding out a snow-sculpted peony toward him with a smile: “Cousin, this is for you — a peony!”

She had originally intended to make a rose from snow, but halfway through she decided to change it to a peony. Giving someone a peony was giving them wealth and good fortune — extremely auspicious. Both her hands had gone red and raw from the cold, but she hadn’t felt it at all while she was making it.

Layer upon layer of white petals looked as though they had bloomed in summer, yet felt ice-cold to the touch.

Gu Qiao’s face was flushed red with cold, and she smiled to show her white teeth: “If you don’t like white, I can add a bit of colour.”

“The flower you made is beautiful.”

“If you like it, I can make you more.”

“Get back inside.”

The two of them went upstairs together. Gu Qiao had bounded down the stairs two or three steps at a time, but on the way back she was perfectly well-behaved. Luo Peiyin told Gu Qiao to sleep a little longer while he made breakfast, and he’d call her when it was ready.

“Cousin, you can cook?”

“Well enough.”

Gu Qiao studied a group portrait oil painting on the wall: “That painting is really good.”

“What do you think is good about it?” The painting had been bought by Luo Peiyin the previous year. At the time, the band had rented a room near the Old Summer Palace as a rehearsal space. The neighbouring tenant was a painter — one whose paintings wouldn’t sell. A Chinese painter obsessively devoted to imitating Rubens.

Rubens had a strong market, but imitating Rubens was another matter entirely. What’s more, a Chinese person imitating Rubens — even American Pop seemed to have moved past all that. And the foreign art dealers who came to China were not seeking any distant classicism but rather the exotic, something the foreigners perceived as quintessentially Chinese, much like the kind of exotic quality Chinese people associated with Africa.

He had even forgotten whether he bought the painting for the painting itself, or for someone else’s stubborn devotion.

“So many people, and every single one has a different expression.” Joy, anger, sorrow, fear, delight — every emotion was gathered together in one image. Then Gu Qiao looked at Luo Peiyin, smiled, and stuck out her tongue: “I’m just an amateur. I only know what I like the look of.”

Gu Qiao lowered her head and ate the fried egg Luo Peiyin had made. She’d assumed he could barely manage to wash a bowl, so discovering he could actually cook came as a surprise.

Because she had been eating boiled peanuts the night before, Luo Peiyin confirmed she wasn’t allergic to peanuts, then spread some peanut butter on bread and handed it to her.

“Cousin, will you be in at noon? I’d like to stop by and pick up that bag.”

“Where are you planning to keep it?”

“I rented a small storage room before. I’ve been keeping things there.”

“Why not leave it here?”

Gu Qiao quickly declined: “I’ve already paid for that storage room. Leaving it empty would be a waste.”

“Is it convenient there?”

“Very convenient.”

“Leave it here for now, and on Sunday I’ll drive it over for you.” Before Gu Qiao could protest, Luo Peiyin added: “My sister — that is, your older cousin — is taking you to dinner tomorrow evening.”

“Your sister is taking me to dinner?”

“She works at a television station and is very interested in street markets and night markets. She’d like to have a chat with you.”

“Of course.” Gu Qiao thought for a moment and said, “What aspects would my older cousin like to discuss? If it’s something I don’t know about, I can ask around ahead of time.”

“Just talk about what you know.”

—

Luo Sijing looked at the mustard-yellow coat and scarf in front of her. “Why didn’t you give her these clothes yourself? Why use me as a pretext?”

“I didn’t want to create unnecessary misunderstandings.”

“Is it really a misunderstanding?” If he hadn’t given them at all, there would have been no misunderstanding to speak of. Even if her brother bought clothes for this girl, she could still interpret it as simple admiration. Pure admiration between members of the opposite sex did exist.

“Whether it’s a misunderstanding or not, it will pass.”

But if it truly passes — if the other person truly moves on — will you be able to accept that? But Luo Sijing did not say this to her brother.

“I have some clothes with tags still on them.”

“She likes bright colours.”

“Perhaps she just hasn’t tried other colours.”

“Even if she tried them, she wouldn’t like them.”

—