◎ You and Your Food ◎

Luo Peiyin guessed his stepmother probably hadn’t told Gu Qiao anything about his biological mother.

The light ahead turned red. The car stopped at the intersection. Gu Qiao’s moss-green earrings kept swaying in front of Luo Peiyin’s eyes.

“Cousin, roughly when do you think you’ll be back from Shanghai? So many new restaurants have opened in the city — I’d like to take you to all of them… I’m heading home on the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, and I want to…”

“That little head of yours — always thinking about food.” Luo Peiyin’s fingertip lightly grazed Gu Qiao’s earring. The two bouncing, lively circles of moss green made her face look rosier by contrast.

Compared to those two animated earrings, Gu Qiao herself seemed quite still and tranquil. Her lashes reminded Luo Peiyin of reeds swaying in a breeze — casting their shadow on the water’s surface, rippling the whole surface of the lake.

Then came silence. Everything seemed to lie hidden within that gap — needing no words to fill it.

The red light stretched on, giving Luo Peiyin time to study Gu Qiao’s face. He was simply looking at her, yet Gu Qiao felt that gaze like a warm wind pressing against her face, and the heat that had just faded came rushing back. She dropped her eyes to her knitted gloves. Her mind was entirely occupied by his face.

Gu Qiao pulled her hair forward to hide the flush on her face.

She reminded him: “Cousin, the light’s about to turn green.”

Gu Qiao kept her gaze fixed downward, studying her knitted gloves. The pattern on them was a panda eating bamboo — a style that sold very well. That brief moment of intimacy just now had felt like something that went beyond the boundary between a cousin and his younger cousin, and it had thrown her heart into disarray. She glanced sidelong at Luo Peiyin — he was driving intently, eyes fixed straight ahead. His hands hadn’t gone red from the cold, but his ears looked like they might have.

The winter air crept in through the gap in the window, and Gu Qiao breathed in the smell of outside — the particular dryness of winter, like coarse sandpaper rustling and whirring past her ears.

It was Luo Peiyin who broke the silence: “This afternoon I’d like to borrow your van for a while. I’ll return it by nine tonight.”

Gu Qiao magnanimously said: “Take it! As long as you need it. No rush to return it.” Then she immediately remembered he was flying to Shanghai tomorrow morning.

“What time is your flight tomorrow?”

When she learned Luo Peiyin was flying rather than taking the train, Gu Qiao thought — perhaps he wasn’t as financially stretched as she had imagined.

“Will you make it in time? Should I…”

“It’ll be fine.”

When they reached the stall, Gu Qiao hopped out of the car and swiftly rummaged through a box, pulling out two pairs of gloves and two sets of earmuffs. One pair of gloves was black knit, the other leather, and the earmuffs came in different colors.

Both her hands were full. She looked up, and found Luo Peiyin’s face right there. He had gotten out of the car and hadn’t stayed in it as she had told him to.

Gu Qiao stuffed the gloves and earmuffs into Luo Peiyin’s hands: “I have plenty of extras — take these.”

Luo Peiyin only took one pair of knitted gloves.

Gu Qiao didn’t argue about the gloves, but she insisted Luo Peiyin take at least one set of earmuffs. She tilted her head back for a look at his ears, and said: “Pick one and put it on — don’t let your ears freeze.”

Gu Qiao pressed the earmuffs into Luo Peiyin’s hands and said with a smile: “See you tomorrow!”

She studied his ears, thinking he must be very cold, and urged him to get in the car quickly. He wasn’t like her — he couldn’t use his long hair to cover his ears.

Luo Peiyin got in the car and glanced back at Gu Qiao. He found her watching him too. Their eyes met, and Gu Qiao immediately smiled and waved.

Only after the Huangdafa van vanished from her sight did she notice Xiao Peng had come to stand beside her.

Xiao Peng’s look today was rather theatrical — a black coat with a white scarf, as though he had stepped down from a stage. He saw Gu Qiao and waved his hat at her. She took one look at the outfit and nearly burst out laughing.

“Who was that man driving your van? You can lend someone a lot of things, but I think a car is something you shouldn’t lend out so easily.”

Gu Qiao didn’t answer the question: “Let’s get to business — how many leather jackets do you need? And what’s your latest pickup date?”

“Can’t we talk about anything else?”

“How much can you actually sell a pigskin leather jacket for in Russia? Give me a real number. You tell me straight, and I won’t begrudge you the profit. The price I charged you before is the price I’ll charge you now.”

Xiao Peng grinned at her: “It’s not exactly a state secret. Come have dinner with me tonight, pour me a couple of glasses of alcohol, and it’ll all come out.”

“I have plans tonight. Drinking is bad for your health — I’d advise you to cut back. Leather jackets are selling fast right now — if you don’t book in advance, there may not be any stock when you need it.”

Xiao Peng sighed: “A hundred pieces, pickup tomorrow.”

“Done, no problem!”

—

Luo Bo’an hadn’t seen his son in over a year, and now that his son had barely come back, he was heading off to Shanghai again. He had always been dissatisfied with his first wife’s manner of doing things — she put herself at the center of everything and never knew how to consider other people. From the time the children were small until now, it had always been the children going to see her. Could she not, just once, make a special trip to see her own child? Occasionally he would think that this was probably his first wife’s way of punishing the boy — punishing him for coming back from Singapore to live with his father. Of course, when it came to his first wife returning to China to invest, he supported it both professionally and personally.

Luo Bo’an’s mind was entirely taken up with work; household matters he had handed over to his current wife to manage. That included showing care toward the children from his first marriage — he had delegated that as well to the current Mrs. Luo. When his son came back from America, he considered his son’s Chinese palate and told his wife to have the housekeeper make a few extra dishes that the boy liked — though what dishes his eldest son actually liked, he wasn’t entirely sure.

Ever since they married, the current Mrs. Luo had walked on eggshells in the role of stepmother. Luo Peiyin came back only once every year or more, so of course she also needed to fulfill her duties as a stepmother. Even without Luo Bo’an saying a word, she would have told the housekeeper to add a couple of dishes the stepson liked — though the housekeeper was no chef, and the execution was somewhat lacking.

Regardless, the extra dishes at the table represented the sincerity of a stepmother making an effort. Whether the son had appreciated the gesture was one thing — the father, at least, had.

This marriage was one Luo Bo’an had thought through carefully, unlike the last one, which had been entirely the product of emotional impulsiveness. Not that the last marriage had been without its merits — it had at least given him a useful reference point for failure. Using his first wife as a template in reverse, he had chosen his current wife: a woman who treated his success as her own. And at last he had a peaceful family life. He could barely understand now how he had once had the energy to engage in all those pointless quarrels. Arguments within a family produced no value — they only drained.

He and his first wife were two parallel lines: when parallel, they could appreciate each other. The moment they intersected, the quarreling was endless. Both of them were bent on convincing the other, but neither was ever convinced. In that kind of environment, it was very hard for a child to admire his own father. Not to mention that after his first wife brought their son to Singapore, who knew what sort of upbringing she had given the boy in an environment without him.

So when his son voluntarily came back to China and chose to live with him, he had been genuinely astonished. His first wife had probably been just as astonished as he was by their son’s return. His first wife had always been one to hold grudges — even against those closest to her. He had originally assumed she would remarry and have more children, as she was younger than him. But she had remained single all this time. He felt no particular sympathy for his first wife on account of this — someone like her, knowing others felt sorry for her, would think privately: with what standing do you dare pity me?

Before marrying his current wife, he had consulted his children for their opinion. His son had offered a pro forma expression of respect for his choice, as though it had nothing to do with him.

In the more than a year they hadn’t seen each other, much had changed both at home and abroad. Luo Bo’an felt it was necessary to have a serious talk with his son. After dinner, he called him into the study.

—

The velvet curtains in Gu Qiao’s room were hotel cast-offs, and at this hour on a normal evening they would already have been drawn shut, with only the floor lamp faithfully continuing to shed its light. But now the curtains had not yet been put to work.

Gu Qiao sat in the brocade-upholstered single armchair, clutching her hot water bottle and wrapped in a blanket, nibbling at toasted banana while running through calculations in her head. A small pot sat steadily on the stove, the quiet sound of congee bubbling rising gently — she hadn’t eaten dinner yet. On a normal evening she would come home, shut the door, change into her house clothes, and settle in. Tonight she had changed out of her daytime clothes as well, but her appearance suggested she was expecting a guest rather than settling in for rest.

Five minutes to nine, and Gu Qiao didn’t wait to hear a knock — she went out the door first. Other people lived in the courtyard too; a knock would carry to everyone.

When her watch read five past nine, Gu Qiao still hadn’t seen Luo Peiyin at the gate.

—