◎ Experiencing Rural Life ◎

Just as Gu Qiao was about to come through the door, she ran into the great-great-uncle. She was not in as much of a rush as she had been on her way out, and upon seeing the great-great-uncle, she called a greeting.

The great-great-uncle’s surprise and delight were as though Gu Qiao had suddenly recovered his sight, and he replied heartily.

“Has your father gone and borrowed money again? Someone’s come looking for him.”

“That’s impossible. Who’s come to our house?”

“A young fellow — quite tall, wearing a grey overcoat, speaks in standard Mandarin. Looks nothing like someone from around here. In the middle of the New Year celebrations, who comes all this way to your home if not to collect a debt? Your father — not that I should say this — how has he still not learned his lesson from last time? Every person has their own fate and fortune. If wealth isn’t in your destiny, you can’t force it.”

Gu Qiao had no time to argue with the great-great-uncle over that last part. She set off in her thick cotton shoes at a run straight toward home. When she reached the gate, she turned back to the great-great-uncle, who was hastening over with his walking stick: “Go home and rest! You don’t need to get involved in our family affairs!”

She had just stepped through the courtyard gate when her thick cotton shoes came to a halt against the ground. She suspected she was seeing things — this face was far too familiar, and it was utterly out of place against its surroundings. Before this moment, she could not even have imagined this scene. Looking at his face, she felt as though she were in a dream; but as her gaze moved from his face down to the mud on his shoes and the hem of his trousers, she knew it was real. A torrent of questions surged through her mind: why had he come to find her? He had taken a train for over ten hours to find her — and there were no direct vehicles from the train station to their village. How on earth had he gotten here?

Their eyes met. The image of Gu Qiao that fell into Luo Peiyin’s view was exactly this: clumping along in her thick heavy cotton shoes, wearing her blue padded jacket with the overskirt sleeves, a great mass of hair bundled together.

Gu Qiao, in her long gaze, let her eyes travel back to herself. Except for a modest effort at dressing up on New Year’s Day itself, Gu Qiao dressed for the rest of the time however was most comfortable. Luo Peiyin was also dressed casually, but his version of casual and hers were two entirely different things. Gu Qiao was suddenly seized by an impulse to hide herself somewhere and change her clothes — but she suppressed this impulse, removed her overskirt sleeves, and called out with a smile: “Cousin!” With Lou Deyu present, she kept the surprise in her voice suppressed. She didn’t ask Luo Peiyin why he had come — she had a vague sense of why, but she had no intention of letting others know.

Her way of addressing Luo Peiyin slipped back smoothly to “cousin,” as if their relationship were still as it had been the previous winter.

Gu Qiao caught a flicker of surprise on Luo Peiyin’s face, but she had no intention right now of revealing their true relationship. If she made it public, not only would Luo Peiyin receive no warm reception whatsoever, but her family would also have a difficult time getting through the rest of the New Year. This Spring Festival her family was considerably happier than in previous years; she didn’t want to spoil their rare good mood.

She then explained to Lou Deyu: “My cousin has never visited the countryside before. He’s always been curious about rural life and came to have a look around…”

Luo Peiyin, listening to Gu Qiao explain his arrival to Lou Deyu, found her tone giving the impression that he was some old official going to the countryside to experience peasant life and gauge the state of the people. He watched Gu Qiao with an expression that suggested he was listening to her tell a joke — he had never been in such a good mood. He had come to deliver a Chinese-character display pager; before the New Year he hadn’t managed to scrape together quite enough spare cash. He and Gu Qiao had made an arrangement that he would fly back from America to see her on her birthday. Had it not been for suddenly losing contact with Gu Qiao, he would have had this Chinese-character display pager passed on to Xiao Jia to deliver to Gu Qiao in his stead.

Zhao Yue had misunderstood him. Luo Peiyin had never considered Xiao Jia to be a romantic rival, just as he had never considered any man a rival where he and Gu Qiao’s relationship was concerned. It was simply that he had once felt it completely unnecessary to invest time and energy in imagining a distant future with another person and working toward it, only for the purpose of becoming one of several people — or one of a dozen — in someone’s heart. The harder you tried in such a situation, the more you resembled a fool. He had always believed that a romantic partner is someone you choose for yourself, and because of that uniqueness, their importance is not only greater than that of friends, but should also surpass that of the family you cannot choose. He still believed this now.

What he had now confirmed, however, was that this view was entirely one-sided on his part. He was certain Gu Qiao had a reason for introducing him as she did, but how much of that reason was for his sake — that was impossible to know.

Gu Qiao’s third auntie-in-law had not yet left, and she stood to one side with a smile: “Never been here before? You must stay a few more days this time! Which side of the family is this cousin from? How come we’ve never seen him before. What a handsome young man — one look and you can tell he’s from a big city.” The third auntie-in-law searched her memory: this was not a relative from the Lou family; he must be from the Gu family side. She thought of Gu Jinghui, but based on Gu Jinghui’s age, she seemed too young to have a son this old.

Her compliment was met with a polite smile from the young man himself — brief though that courteous smile was, the third auntie-in-law appeared encouraged and continued in the same vein: “Gu Qiao’s cousin — you’re not spoken for yet, are you?”

With her long experience at matchmaking, the third auntie-in-law weighed up every young man and woman she encountered on the scale in her mind and automatically paired them off. Gu Qiao was attractive and capable, but her father had no official position and there were still debts to his name — she was well-matched with a young man whose parents both held government positions but who was not particularly good-looking. That was what people called complementarity. And this young man was no one other than her son’s supervisor; making a match would serve her own interests too. Now, setting eyes on Gu Qiao’s cousin standing before her, the third auntie-in-law’s mind immediately conjured up several eligible young women yet to be wed.

Luo Peiyin’s gaze shifted to Gu Qiao: “Gu Qiao, do you think I’m in a position to answer that question?”

Gu Qiao heard the barb in Luo Peiyin’s words. She was waiting for a moment to be alone with Luo Peiyin to explain — once she’d explained, she was certain he would understand.

Lou Deyu didn’t wait for his daughter to reply and cut off his sister-in-law’s line of conversation at once: “Sister-in-law, didn’t you just say good looks can’t put food on the table? It’s getting on in the day — hurry home and eat your regular meals.”

The sister-in-law cursed him under her breath. Even at the age when he was about to become a father-in-law, this younger brother-in-law of hers still couldn’t say anything decent.

Lou Deyu noticed that Gu Qiao hadn’t known this young man from the Luo family was coming today either. As an observer, Lou Deyu always detected subtle shifts in the atmosphere before the people directly involved did, and he sensed now that something was not quite right.

Once the sister-in-law had been seen off, Lou Deyu immediately picked up where Gu Qiao had left off: “Young Luo, what brought you out all this way to experience rural life? I heard from Qiao’er that you’ve gone to study in America — I thought you’d just stay there and not come back. Coming all this way to our place like this, you really should have given us some notice, so we could have been prepared. You’ve come now though, and we welcome you — we just hope the hospitality won’t be lacking…”

Lou Deyu reached into the pocket of his padded jacket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and shook one out for Luo Peiyin: “Have one — take the edge off the weariness. You must be tired after coming all this way. The only thing is, the people in our house don’t like the smell of smoke, so I usually smoke outside and only come in after I’m done.”

“Thank you, I don’t smoke.”

The cigarettes in Lou Deyu’s pocket were for giving away. Since getting into debt, he had not smoked much; on the rare occasions he did, he rolled his own dry tobacco. The cigarettes in his pocket were too expensive for him to smoke himself. Lou Deyu cursed inwardly — this young man was terribly rude. Who turns away a cigarette someone offers them?

“These are good cigarettes — you’ve probably never had this brand.”

“Dad, my cousin doesn’t smoke.”

“Really?”

Gu Qiao felt her father’s hostility toward Luo Peiyin: “Dad, let’s not stand out here talking. Cold as it is, let’s get my cousin inside to sit down.” She moved closer to Luo Peiyin and said in a low voice: “My pager broke yesterday and hasn’t been fixed yet. Come in and have some tea first.”

Luo Peiyin followed Gu Qiao inside, letting his gaze sweep around the living room. Lou Deyu noticed.

Lou Deyu, unlike Gu Qiao, was dressed very properly today — in the collared padded jacket Gu Qiao had given him, with the sweater her mother had knitted him underneath. He had freshly cut his hair and shaved, and cut a considerably more presentable figure than the last time this young man from the Luo family had laid eyes on him.

The only unfortunate thing was that the furniture in the room let him down.

Lou Deyu’s unwillingness to welcome Luo Peiyin was in part the young man himself, and in part the timing of his arrival. The furniture he had bought when first building this house had all been hauled away. This past year his mind had been entirely on earning money, and there had been nothing left over to buy new pieces. The teak sofas had been carried off; now there wasn’t even a sofa in the living room — only the simple wooden benches he had made himself. Gu Qiao had said on this return home that she would buy new furniture for the house next year. But repaying the debt had already required Gu Qiao’s money; how could he bear to have her spend money on that too?

If Luo Peiyin had come a couple of years later, once he had made enough money to replace the living room furniture with new pieces — he might not have found Luo Peiyin’s presence quite so objectionable.

But Gu Qiao felt no shame about the furniture at home. She introduced it to Luo Peiyin: “This bench was made by my dad himself — incredibly sturdy.” There was a large heating stove in the center of the room. Gu Qiao pulled a bench close to it: “Cousin, sit here.”

Luo Peiyin had known from early on what the Gu family’s circumstances were. He had seen her at her most difficult. Life would only get better. If the border trade business took off, they could replace all the furniture at home — and even update the equipment at the canning workshop.

With Lou Deyu present, Gu Qiao kept careful distance from Luo Peiyin at all times, as if he truly were her distant cousin.

Lou Deyu had been ready with a whole stomach full of excuses for his modest furniture, but hearing Gu Qiao say this, he swallowed them all back down. Lou Deyu was well aware that Luo Peiyin had no interest in talking with him; if not for Gu Qiao being there, he would have long since retreated to the kitchen to wrap dumplings with the rest of the family. But at this moment he summoned an enormous display of warmth toward Luo Peiyin: “Qiao’er stayed with your family for quite some time before. Now that you’ve come, we should do our best to return the hospitality. But right now two of our rooms have been turned into workshop space, so there’s not really anywhere suitable to host you. I was thinking — you’re an honored guest, and you’re used to life in the big cities, so you probably won’t be comfortable with rural accommodations. Once you’ve had a look around this afternoon, I’ll take you to the county guesthouse. Don’t be polite about it — the room costs will be on me.”

“Dad, I don’t know where the new teacups are — can you go to the kitchen and look for them?”

Lou Deyu went out of the room reluctantly and headed for the kitchen.

Once Lou Deyu had gone, Gu Qiao couldn’t hold back: “I had no idea my pager would go and break like that. Did you come because you couldn’t reach me?”

Luo Peiyin smiled: “Cousin-sister, I came because I wanted to experience rural life.” His smile held a note of mockery, though mostly self-directed. He drew the Chinese-character display pager he had brought from his pocket and pushed it in front of Gu Qiao: “You don’t need to fix the broken one — use this new one.”

Gu Qiao looked at the new pager. She knew very well what a pager like this cost. He had taken a train for over ten hours to come deliver it to her…

Luo Peiyin didn’t give Gu Qiao time to react. He placed the case he had brought down on the bench and opened it. He had come in a hurry, but had still managed to bring gifts for Gu Qiao’s family before boarding the train.

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