◎ What Would You Give Up for Love? ◎

Seeing that the whole Luo family was present, Xiao Jia was worried about causing trouble for Gu Qiao, so he asked Luo Peiyin to pass the watch along to her. Luo Peiyin told Xiao Jia that Gu Qiao would not casually accept such an expensive gift. His tone was crisp and decisive, leaving Xiao Jia feeling as though giving the gift had been a mistake.

Xiao Jia rubbed the back of his head sheepishly: “But today I accepted her New Year’s gift — it would be too ungracious not to give something in return.” What gift Gu Qiao had given Xiao Jia needed no asking — he was wearing the gloves she had given him on his hands right then.

After dinner, Luo Peiyin distributed gifts to the family.

The gift he had brought for Gu Qiao was a portable cassette player, accompanied by several tapes. Besides English-language study tapes, there were also two pop music cassettes, one of which contained the song Gu Qiao loved, “Tomorrow Will Be Better.” Luo the Third was very curious — none of these songs belonged to Second Brother’s usual musical taste. Luo the Fourth was displeased: although he had a cassette player of his own, Second Brother was giving Cousin-Sister a four-digit gift while giving him one in the double digits — the gap was simply too large. And what bothered him most of all was that he had no idea how much pocket money their father had given Second Brother to afford such an expensive gift for Cousin-Sister.

Mrs. Luo concealed her inner astonishment. Her stepson was giving Gu Qiao a gift at this price range, openly and without any attempt to hide it — she could not bring herself to believe that Luo Peiyin had developed such profound familial affection for this cousin-sister who shared no blood ties with him. Instinctively, she looked at Luo Bo’an rather than her stepson or Gu Qiao, and found that her husband showed no unusual reaction.

Though Gu Qiao didn’t know the exact price of the item, she could tell it wasn’t cheap.

“Thank you, Cousin-Brother! I’ll accept the tapes, but the cassette player is too expensive — I can’t accept it. Please keep it for yourself.”

In turning it down, she hadn’t given a moment’s thought to the fact that without a cassette player, she had no way to listen to the tapes.

“In my heart, you are no different from my own younger siblings. Third Sister and Fourth Brother both have cassette players. You’re studying English — of course you need one too.” Having said this to Gu Qiao, Luo Peiyin suddenly turned to his stepmother: “Auntie Gu, please tell Cousin-Sister not to stand on ceremony. We’re family — being too polite only creates distance.”

Whatever warmth and enthusiasm she felt toward him, regardless of its nature, was ultimately nothing more than the result of him treating her a little better than most people did. She had no real interest in who he was as a person, nor did she truly know him. Such fondness was thin and changeable. If someone else were good to her, it would probably make little difference. He had never valued that sort of shallow, reactive affection — losing it later would be no great loss. Yet watching her silhouette as she worked in the kitchen, Luo Peiyin thought: it wasn’t her fault. The truth was, too few people had ever been genuinely kind to her.

Hearing from his son that Gu Qiao was making efforts to study English in her spare time, Luo Bo’an also said to her: “Persisting in your studies outside of work is admirable — and if Peiyin, as your elder cousin-brother, doesn’t have the time to tutor you himself, buying you a study tool is perfectly reasonable. Why would you refuse?”

Hearing her husband say this, Mrs. Luo chimed in and urged Gu Qiao to accept the gift as well. At first she had assumed Gu Qiao was unlikely to catch Luo Peiyin’s eye, but later she had thought that even if a relationship between a man and a woman didn’t necessarily lead to marriage, it was still possible that Luo Peiyin had taken a liking to Gu Qiao. If Gu Qiao didn’t guard herself, and something actually happened between them, the father would naturally side with the son, and it would be difficult for her to stand against the old man — Gu Qiao would then have no choice but to swallow her grievances in silence.

Mrs. Luo had been cautioning Gu Qiao all along, afraid she and Luo Peiyin might cause a scandal. Now that Luo Peiyin was openly good to Gu Qiao, her suspicions had actually diminished somewhat. Perhaps he truly did see Gu Qiao only as a relative. But Luo Peiyin had never been particularly attentive even to his own younger siblings — why, then, did he show such special consideration for this niece of his? Was it because of the fish ball soup on the table tonight?

When she herself was eighteen, she had been far less calculating than Gu Qiao — nowhere near as adept at carefully cultivating goodwill with the people who could help her. She had only gradually gained such experience through the hard knocks of life. She couldn’t quite fathom how her older cousin, a woman who prized face to the point of near-obsession, had managed to raise a daughter like this.

“Thank you, Cousin-Brother!” Beyond gratitude, there was only gratitude. Being treated as a cousin-sister wasn’t so bad — it meant they could keep in touch. And once she had money, she would be able to reciprocate with gifts of equal value.

That evening, New Year’s Day, Gu Qiao listened to “Tomorrow Will Be Better” on the cassette player Luo Peiyin had given her, over and over again.

As a way of thanking her Cousin-Brother, the very next morning Gu Qiao went to the kitchen early and prepared two dishes and a soup, packed them into an insulated container, and had Luo Peiyin take them along when he left. That afternoon, Gu Qiao went to a bookstore and bought a basic Russian conversation tape, which she would listen to on the cassette player whenever she had a free moment.

When she got off work, Gu Qiao saw Xiao Jia again — he had come specifically to the office to deliver the watch to her in person. Gu Qiao could tell that Xiao Jia was not at ease simply accepting the five hundred yuan windfall, so she insisted on asking him for the receipt, and at the first opportunity went to the department store counter to return the item. She then wrote Xiao Jia a promissory note, calculated at that year’s interest rate.

That year, Luo Peiyin was a fourth-year student. He had already completed all of his coursework. Most of his credits had been finished during the previous three years, so he had fewer exams than others, and his winter break naturally arrived earlier.

Before leaving for Hainan, Luo Peiyin invited Gu Qiao to attend a fashion show featuring Bai Ling at a French restaurant.

“Bai Ling still remembers you. When she heard you’re in the clothing business, she specifically invited you to come.”

“Is Bai Ling a model?”

“It’s a side job.”

Over the past couple of years, many restaurants and dance halls, in an effort to attract customers, had begun supplementing their musical performers with fashion show programs. These shows sold separate tickets at quite a steep price, though the style of such performances was often chaotic and muddled — the performers needed above all to be beautiful, while the clothing itself was of secondary concern. The Sino-French joint-venture restaurant, however, had a French owner with his own fashion company, so the fashion show was not merely for show. Tonight’s runway event was themed around the debut of the season’s spring and summer collection.

By this point, Gu Qiao understood perfectly well that if she wanted to make money, visiting department stores and wholesale markets to see which clothes were selling well would be far more practical than viewing any paintings or attending any fashion shows. But the moment she heard about it, she said yes without hesitation.

Since she was heading to a restaurant straight from work, she made a small adjustment to her hairstyle that morning. They had only met once — would Bai Ling really be this enthusiastic? More likely it was just an invitation to Luo Peiyin. She had no idea what role her Cousin-Brother needed her to play on the evening — was she there to help advance his relationship with Bai Ling, or simply to serve as a third wheel?

Gu Qiao had deliberately tucked her white shirt into her jeans, cinched with a wide leather belt she had bought for two yuan. The vendor had insisted it was genuine leather, but she now knew a thing or two about leather, and for that price, who would believe it — though to be fair, you couldn’t really tell unless you were very close. Over the white shirt she had layered a woolen vest and a padded jacket.

When Gu Qiao arrived at the office, Xiao Wang spotted her new hairstyle and asked how she’d done it. Gu Qiao happily shared her technique with everyone.

After work, Gu Qiao took off her woolen vest and padded jacket, and changed into the mustard-yellow coat her older cousin-sister had given her last time. Amid a winter awash in black, white, and grey, her mustard-yellow coat was like a moving beacon — impossible for Luo Peiyin not to see.

On their way to the restaurant, Gu Qiao spotted a shop selling Asian Games lottery scratch cards. She went in and bought two — one for herself, one for Luo Peiyin.

“Scratch it yourself.”

“Scratch it, Cousin-Brother! Last time I gave Xiao Jia one, and he won five hundred yuan!” She hoped she could bring him equally good fortune.

The Asian Games extended its thanks once again for Gu Qiao’s support. Before she even had time to feel disappointed, she was already gazing at Luo Peiyin’s hands with eager anticipation.

The scratch panel thanked him for his support of the Asian Games.

Gu Qiao was more disappointed than she would have been over her own loss. She bought another one and handed it to Luo Peiyin: “Try scratching this one.”

Under Gu Qiao’s expectant gaze, Luo Peiyin scratched open the second card.

Once again, it thanked him for his support of the Asian Games.

Gu Qiao was about to buy yet another, but Luo Peiyin stopped her: “Don’t you think you’re acting like a compulsive gambler right now?”

—

By the time the two of them arrived at the French restaurant, two bicycles had taken up spots by the entrance.

The warmth inside the restaurant was generous. Gu Qiao took off her coat, and the most vivid colors on her person became the silk scarf tying back her hair and the color of her lips.

This establishment had opened a few years earlier with an exclusively foreign model lineup, but in recent years had taken on a growing number of local models. Bai Ling looked very different from the first time Gu Qiao had met her — her expression was entirely detached, her presentation a kind of measured act of grace. The clothes themselves had more expression and life than the faces wearing them, Gu Qiao thought as she watched, wondering when these pieces would make their way into domestic department stores, and then into the wholesale market. Money had become a filter, and Gu Qiao had long stopped subjecting herself to the stimulation of those department store foreign womenswear sections with their breathtaking price tags — she and her target buyers preferred the wholesale market. But once the show ended and Bai Ling came out from backstage, changed out of her runway clothes and walking toward them, her earlier warm smile had returned.

Bai Ling was a little disappointed that Luo Peiyin wasn’t wearing the cologne she had given him. On the day of the New Year’s Sino-French cultural reception, knowing he would be there, she had specifically given him her favorite men’s fragrance. He had given her something in return — a gift of the kind of culturally distinctive decorative ware that arts and crafts stores sold specifically to foreign visitors. With that gift, he had expressed his definition of their relationship. He had gone home before the banquet even began, and though Bai Ling felt a touch of disappointment at his early departure, it hadn’t stopped her from dancing the evening away with others. Once the disappointment passed, it did nothing to diminish their friendship. There were things about each other they both admired — the difference was that Bai Ling was curious about Luo Peiyin, but he felt no such curiosity about her. It was as if, simply by crossing cultural boundaries, he had come to understand her with effortless ease.

Bai Ling told Gu Qiao that she was only doing this runway show as a side gig to earn a little extra — enough for a plane ticket to Hainan. Her parents would only help cover the hotel expenses.

Having heard from Luo Peiyin that Gu Qiao was now selling clothes from a street stall, Bai Ling told her it was cool. Bai Ling didn’t know the full background, and simply assumed that Gu Qiao had chosen the stall over pursuing a degree — viewing it as a lifestyle choice. Rationally, she believed neither path was inherently superior; emotionally, Bai Ling was drawn to the unconventional one.

For a fleeting moment Gu Qiao felt like laughing. Running a stall was not a lifestyle choice for her — it was a survival strategy. Bai Ling was too far removed from poverty, and had romanticized it. But this didn’t stop Gu Qiao from graciously accepting Bai Ling’s compliment. She, in turn, complimented Bai Ling on the clothes she had presented in the show.

The restaurant had quite a few foreign patrons, as well as some people Gu Qiao occasionally recognized from the newspapers. Ever since moving into the Luo household, she hadn’t watched television.

Gu Qiao thought a woman not far away — dressed in a black-and-white tweed suit — looked remarkably like a very popular female celebrity she’d seen in the papers. But both her Cousin-Brother and Bai Ling seemed to have little interest in the people around them. Bai Ling at this moment was far more focused on eating — she had deprived her stomach terribly for the sake of this runway appearance and was eager to make up for it.

The restaurant had two menus. The one Gu Qiao and Bai Ling were given listed no prices.

Gu Qiao assumed both menus were the same: “If there are no prices listed, what happens if we spend more than we planned?”

“Your Cousin-Brother’s menu has the prices.”

“Cousin-Brother, may I look at yours?”

“Look at your own.”

Gu Qiao selected a dessert that looked rather appealing, then stayed out of the ordering from that point on. She said she had eaten too much at lunch, and that one dessert would be plenty.

Bai Ling said she’d have a glass of champagne and asked if Gu Qiao wanted a little as well — the drink would be her treat. Bai Ling smiled and told Gu Qiao that when she and Luo Peiyin dined out together, he would never split the food bill with her — but beverages were not within the scope of what he would cover. If she ordered drinks for herself, she paid for them separately. She didn’t add that their opportunities to dine alone together were, in fact, not all that frequent.

“You treated me last time — let me treat you this time.” Bai Ling still believed that Gu Qiao had paid for her drink that last time.

Gu Qiao thanked Bai Ling for her kindness and said she didn’t drink. But Bai Ling’s gesture had given her an idea — so it was possible to treat someone to just one item.

She turned to Luo Peiyin and Bai Ling: “The desserts are on me. Please don’t stand on ceremony.”

This time Luo Peiyin didn’t ask Gu Qiao about allergies or dietary restrictions. Her stomach was probably more resilient than anyone’s — whenever something was free, she would try anything new, no matter whether it tasted good or not, her curiosity surpassing even her actual appetite for food.

Even Bai Ling, famished as she was, felt Luo Peiyin had been a little extravagant this time — there was no way three people could finish all of this. In her memory, he was not the wasteful sort. Generous when hosting others — yes — he would never split the bill with a woman. But he was a man who kept careful account of money, and would never spend it unnecessarily.

Before the after-dinner desserts arrived, Gu Qiao was already full.

Bai Ling noticed that Gu Qiao was genuinely interested in everything she said — even including the details of how she had earned this particular side income. And that interest had nothing whatsoever to do with Bai Ling’s relationship with Luo Peiyin.

“Are you thinking of becoming a model?”

“No — I’m not tall enough.” She would have to stand on tiptoe to reach the minimum height requirement for professional models. Gu Qiao had never given the idea a single thought.

“It’s not just that—” Bai Ling’s eyes traveled assessingly over Gu Qiao’s upper figure, where one could discern a certain fullness. She was about to offer some comment on the matter, but Luo Peiyin stopped her with a look.

Gu Qiao caught the glance that passed between them. These two knew each other quite well.

Bai Ling offered a different answer instead: “Your face is too expressive. Sometimes people are so captivated by it that they forget to look at what you’re wearing.”

Luo Peiyin settled the bill, service charge included. Bai Ling handed Luo Peiyin her share of the drinks, and Gu Qiao took out ten yuan to give him — her share of the desserts.

“Is that enough?”

“Too much.”

Bai Ling watched the cousin-and-cousin pair with great amusement. She had the distinct sense that Luo Peiyin was keeping something from her. Or more precisely — not concealing it deliberately, but simply not feeling any need to tell her.

Bai Ling said her goodbyes to the two of them and folded herself into a taxi.

The night was very cold. Luo Peiyin slipped off his coat and draped it over Gu Qiao’s shoulders.

“There’s no need, Cousin-Brother — I brought my padded jacket.” The coat was returned to Luo Peiyin’s shoulders, and Gu Qiao put on her padded jacket instead — not at all a match for her mustard-yellow ensemble, but warm nonetheless.

Before leaving for Hainan, Luo Peiyin did not say goodbye to Gu Qiao. She found herself feeling, for some reason she couldn’t quite name, a small twinge of sadness. But she reasoned that since he wouldn’t graduate until the following summer, there would still be opportunities to see him again.

Gu Qiao returned home on the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month. She had stopped staying at the Luo household from the very start of the winter break, but her second-aunt had assumed she had gone straight home after the holiday began. She hadn’t gone home — instead, she had moved in with Chen Qing at the Chen family’s place. She wasn’t staying for free and gave Chen Qing a hundred yuan. A hundred yuan was far too much for less than a month of half a room’s worth of rent. Before Chen Qing could refuse, Gu Qiao said: “I still have some help to ask of you.”

Gu Qiao split her time in two: half selling gloves, half wandering through department stores and wholesale markets, looking exclusively at leather jackets — one after another, just looking, never buying, from horse-leather jackets priced in the thousands down to pig-leather jackets at a hundred or so. Only when the shopkeepers grew impatient with them would they move on to the next store. Returning home afterward, Gu Qiao would record each piece in her notebook one by one — and whenever she couldn’t recall a detail, she’d ask Chen Qing to fill in the gaps. Chen Qing had little interest in most things, but she had a real eye for clothing.

Once the two had surveyed the leather jackets across their own city, Gu Qiao bought train tickets to Tianjin. Chen Qing had also been meaning to see Tianjin for a while — the two cities were so close, and she had grown up never having visited. It seemed almost embarrassing.

On the train, Chen Qing had Gu Qiao answer a question from the magazine she was reading.

“What would you give up for love? Four options: money, beauty, health, or freedom?”

“This kind of hypothetical is pretty pointless.”

“Just pick one — what would you give up?”

“Love.”

“I’m asking what you would give up for love. Let me repeat: money, beauty, health, or freedom?”

Gu Qiao found the question genuinely tedious, requiring no reflection whatsoever: “I would give up love.”

“You have absolutely no sense of romance.”

The two left Tianjin Station and wandered from Quanyechang on Binjiang Road all the way to Dagutong Estimated Clothing Street. The fragrance of fried dough cakes from the Ear-Hole Fried Cake shop drifted through every corner of the street, the New Year’s atmosphere already thick in the air, crowds everywhere buying holiday goods. Gu Qiao stamped her feet against the cold while waiting in line, and once she had bought the hot fried cakes, handed one portion to Chen Qing and wasted no time bringing the rest to her mouth. Her lips were scalded as she blew on each bite, while the hands holding the cake were red with cold.

The two wandered from morning until nearly sundown, looking exclusively at leather jackets. Gu Qiao’s interest never flagged, but in the end she bought only a single pig-leather jacket. Chen Qing felt the trip to Tianjin had been entirely in vain — not a single proper attraction visited, not even a steamed bun from Goubuli. Even though Gu Qiao had made clear from the start that she was here to look at leather jackets, Chen Qing had thought: they’re both young — surely Gu Qiao had some sense of fun? She had imagined spending the morning helping Gu Qiao look at jackets and the afternoon exploring together. Instead, from start to finish, it was all leather jackets. A Tianjin trip? More like a leather jacket pilgrimage.

Gu Qiao checked her watch and smiled at Chen Qing: “Goubuli isn’t only in Tianjin — there’s a branch near Beihai Park. I’ll take you when we get back. And isn’t Tianjin Station right next to the Hai River? Before we head back, let’s take a walk along the riverbank.”

The two walked arm in arm along the Hai River, wrapped up tightly against the cold, heads constantly burrowed into their collars. The river wind showed them absolutely no mercy. Though Gu Qiao had her head wrapped in a scarf, the loose strands of her hair still swayed back and forth in the gusts.

“Oh, that’s a nice watch — who gave it to you?”

“My… Cousin-Sister.”

“And where is that Cousin-Brother of yours these days?”

“Hainan.”

“Lovely and warm there, I’m sure. Going to Hainan in winter — now that’s living well. Unlike us two silly girls, as if we weren’t cold enough already, standing here taking in the wind, freezing like a pair of fools.” He was basking in the sun in Hainan while the two of them were getting battered by the Hai River wind.

Too cold to properly appreciate the scenery, the two girls pulled their coats tighter and made a dash for the train station.

Tianjin Station had stalls selling local specialties. Gu Qiao bought four tins of Eighteenth Street fried dough twists — two for Chen Qing, two to bring home.

On the train back, Gu Qiao had made up her mind: pig-leather jackets were the most suitable product for her. They were the cheapest — the cost was within what she could manage. And buyers of pig-leather jackets cared mainly about price and warmth, and were not particularly concerned about whether the item came from a proper factory or a small workshop. The other types of leather would cost too much, with risks she couldn’t absorb; and she had no competitive advantage in them either. After winter would come spring, and spring was the season for leather jackets.

Auntie Chen grew quite curious and asked Chen Qing: “It’s the holidays — why is Qiao-Girl rushing around like a spinning top? She looks even busier than your brother.”

“How can you make money without staying busy?”

Gu Qiao went to Xinji to purchase pig-leather, bought the style of jacket she had in mind — the kind that looked exactly like the standard leather jackets in her clothing books — and began searching for a workshop that could produce them for her. She inquired from Wudaokou and Lanqiying all the way to Ganjiapkou, going shop by shop, and eventually made her way to Dazhongmen. There, at last, she found a workshop willing to produce leather jackets — but the owners were heading back to their hometown for the New Year and wouldn’t be able to start until the following year.

On the twenty-ninth of the twelfth lunar month, Lou Deyu borrowed a motorcycle from a neighbor to meet Gu Qiao at the train station.

Letters from home had told Gu Qiao that her parents were now making preserves at home. Lou Deyu had spent a month recovering from his injury in bed before he began scrambling for money again. In the autumn, many villagers hadn’t been able to sell their hawthorns — they had almost gone to waste. Her parents had bought them up at low cost, cleared out two rooms, bought glass jars, and started making preserves themselves. Lou Deyu’s travels over the years had helped him build connections, and he managed to sell the preserves. But it was ultimately a two-person family operation with limited efficiency, and the income from making preserves was still less than what Gu Qiao was earning outside. Lou Deyu wanted to use the money to expand production, but Gu Jingshu insisted on paying off the debt first. He couldn’t get his way with his wife, and had no choice but to accept it.

Lou Deyu began painting a grand picture for Gu Qiao: “Give it a couple of years, and once our family’s cannery is up and running, you’ll come back to be the deputy general manager.”

“Deal!” From Lou Deyu’s words, Gu Qiao could already make out the structure of the future family enterprise — her mother as chairwoman, her father as general manager.

Lou Deyu spotted the Eighteenth Street fried dough twists Gu Qiao had brought back: “You went and had fun in Tianjin?”

“Mm.”

“When you’re young, you should travel more. Once I have money, I’ll take your mother and sisters there too.” Lou Deyu felt reassured — it seemed that despite the upheavals at home, Gu Qiao’s spirits had been unaffected.

Neither of them mentioned the letter Lou Deyu had written to Gu Qiao.

Gu Qiao’s two younger sisters were overjoyed to see their older sister come home. The elder of the two used the hair ties Gu Qiao had bought to braid the younger one’s hair. Their grandmother soaked the fried dough twists Gu Qiao had brought in hot water and ate them slowly. Gu Qiao’s mother held up the twists against Gu Qiao’s frame and said she had gotten thinner. Gu Qiao said being thin was good — losing weight was all the rage in the city now. Gu Qiao toured the family’s preserve workshop, which was entirely primitive in setup. She thought that this year, once she had earned a bit more, she would buy the family a can-sealing machine.

Gu Qiao gave her mother three hundred yuan for the holiday. Gu Jingshu pushed it away: “How much do you earn in a month? You keep this for yourself.”

“I earn more than just my salary.” Gu Qiao told her mother that besides her regular job she also ran a street stall, and made more from that than from her wages. Plenty of people were doing both these days. The rest of the money she still needed to use for purchasing goods — but by next year, she would be able to help pay off the family debt. Not wanting to worry her mother, she made no mention of her out-of-town purchasing trips.

Even though Gu Qiao made it sound easy, Gu Jingshu knew her daughter’s life was far from simple. If making money were that easy, wouldn’t everyone just go out and do it?

“The debt is your father’s and my problem — it has nothing to do with you. Focus on your job. I can’t give you anything right now — how could I ask things of you on top of that? Save everything you earn for yourself, and keep it for your own future.”

—

On New Year’s Eve, because they still owed money, the family hadn’t bought fireworks. They bought only three strings of firecrackers. Gu Qiao set them off together with her sisters. The red paper fragments scattered into the air from the bursting firecrackers, and Gu Qiao thought of the fireworks on New Year’s Day. But there were no fireworks here — yet all of her family was with her, and she smiled, pressing her cold hands to her little sister’s cheeks. Her sister came tickling her back, and the air filled with the smell of firecrackers and laughter.

On the fifth day of the new year, the whole family gathered to make dumplings, and her sisters once again asked Gu Qiao to tell them stories about the city. Gu Qiao suddenly remembered the book of Zhou Zan’s that a classmate had once given her, and asked her sisters where that book had gone.

“What a coincidence — my current job was actually introduced through Uncle Zhou Zan.”

Lou Deyu, who had been wrapping dumplings, crushed the wrapper while pinching the pleats, the filling sticking all over his hands. Using washing his hands as a pretext, he left the room and nearly tripped over the door threshold on his way out.

Gu Qiao noticed that her mother’s expression had gone strange too — a smile frozen on her face, slow to fade, but in her mother’s eyes Gu Qiao caught a faint trace of bitterness.

That night, Gu Qiao sought out her grandmother: “Grandmother, do you know whether Mom and Dad know Zhou Zan?”

“Hmm? Who?”

From her grandmother’s tone, Gu Qiao concluded they definitely did: “Please tell me the truth.”

Her grandmother let out a sigh: “Your little aunt — look how well she’s doing now. Why did she still have to go and ask someone with the surname Zhou to help find you a job? This Zhou person — he and your mother were in a relationship before. Then when he went back to the city, your mother even went to the station to see him off. And then a month later, this man sends a letter saying he’s breaking it off. This son of a tortoise — absolutely worthless. If you’re going to end things, say it face to face, like a person. Not even showing up, just sending a letter. Truly a piece of work.”

There were other things her grandmother thought were even more inexcusable, but she didn’t say them.

“Did my little aunt know about all this?”

“How could she not know? What’s baffling is — why would she still keep in touch with this person with the surname Zhou? Why find him to help introduce you to a job? Isn’t that just rubbing salt in the wound?” As if recalling something, her grandmother suddenly asked Gu Qiao: “So what did this Zhou person tell you himself? Does he have children?”

“We’ve never exchanged a word. And what does it matter to us whether he has children?” Zhou Zhining was only one year older than her — at the very least, she had been born a full year after the breakup. What was Lou Deyu’s suspicion even based on?

“Did Zhou Zan ever come back to our village?”

“Who cares whether he came back or not! Never mind him!” Her grandmother added: “Maybe you should talk to your little aunt about finding you a different job.”

“Second-Aunt has already been trouble enough on my account. I don’t want to trouble her further. Don’t worry — I’ll find something better. I’m quite capable, you know. Plenty of good jobs would be fighting to have me.”

“The fortune-teller also said you’d amount to something.”

“Grandmother — please don’t bring up the matter of Zhou Zan with Mom and Dad again.” Lou Deyu was the kind of man who, upon hearing Zhou Zan’s name, somehow hadn’t made a scene — of course, because he had no money and no confidence to back it up. But what about her mother? She had been unilaterally informed by letter that it was over, and now, nearly twenty years later, this man had learned that she was living a difficult life — that because of her husband’s debts, she had nearly been turned out of her own home, and that it was through his connections that her daughter had found her job. What must she be feeling? Had motherhood overridden her pride — had she felt she couldn’t give her daughter better, and so chosen silence?

“Bring him up? As if he’s worth it!”

Gu Qiao came out of her grandmother’s room and walked into the courtyard. The moon on the fifth night of the new year was half-concealed behind clouds. A piece of hard candy sat in her mouth, and somehow it tasted only of bitterness. She thought of the letter Lou Deyu had written, which she had once found merely laughable. Now it just made her feel that Lou Deyu was pitiable. What a spineless man — to let someone he hadn’t seen for nearly twenty years cast such a long shadow over half his life, every move shaped by that shadow. No one would ever have that power over her life. She would not give anyone that opportunity. She stood watching as the clouds drifted away from the moon before returning to her room — but the moon hung there like a hook, keeping her awake long into the night.

The next day her younger sister said to her: “Sister, I’ve searched everywhere in the house and still can’t find the book you mentioned.”

“That book isn’t worth looking for. Don’t look for it anymore, and don’t mention it again.”

“But yesterday you were—”

“I was confused yesterday. From now on, don’t mention that book or the person who wrote it ever again.”

—