On the National Day holiday in 2010, Lin Yingtao stood in the terminal of Hong Kong International Airport, a backpack on her shoulders and a suitcase in hand. She glanced at her notes while talking on the phone with her aunt. Her aunt, who frequently visited Hong Kong for shopping trips, urged Lin Yingtao, “Have you bought an Octopus card yet? Take the Airport Express! Your brother just transferred 100,000 to you. Buy whatever you like in Hong Kong! Little Yingtao, you’re already 20 years old, always carrying that small backpack. Let your brother buy you a proper handbag! Call me if you need anything! Don’t be shy with your aunt!”
Lin Yingtao squeezed through the Golden Week crowds, pulling her suitcase. On the Airport Express, she sat nervously between other passengers, studying her notes intently.
She changed lines midway, taking the Island Line. Although Hong Kong seemed to have a one-day holiday for National Day, Lin Yingtao couldn’t shake the feeling that Jiang Qiaoxi might be at school—he loved studying so much, that he might even be having a self-study session.
Even if he wasn’t there, visiting the University of Hong Kong should yield some information about Jiang Qiaoxi.
As soon as she arrived in Hong Kong, Lin Yingtao immediately sensed the difference in her surroundings. Unfamiliar language, unfamiliar climate, unfamiliar faces, and unfamiliar expressions on people’s faces. She wore a light blouse with rolled-up sleeves and an open collar. From the airport to the subway, she shivered constantly from the cold.
Yet once she exited the station, the outside air was stifling. Her hair clung to her neck, and she began to sweat almost instantly.
Lin Yingtao couldn’t understand Cantonese. She regretted not watching as many TVB dramas as Qin Yeyun had in their childhood. Fortunately, she had practiced spoken English in the English Association at her university. Most people in this city spoke English, and young people knew some Mandarin.
Standing on the streets near HKU, Lin Yingtao looked around, thinking, “This is where Jiang Qiaoxi has been living for the past few years.”
Why, why hadn’t he called even once?
“Jiang Qiao Xi,” Lin Yingtao wasn’t sure how to pronounce these three characters in Cantonese. She wrote them down and approached some students with backpacks passing by the steps of the HKU Art Gallery. In English, she asked, “Do you know this person?”
They all shook their heads, looking at her curiously.
Undeterred, Lin Yingtao asked, “Then where do HKU students usually go for self-study during holidays?”
A male student smiled and replied, “The library here, but you probably can’t get in.”
Lin Yingtao wandered around the HKU campus. She left her suitcase by the roadside and mustered the courage to ask anyone who didn’t look like a tourist—students with backpacks, players in field hockey uniforms, or young people engaged in club activities. Some were friendly but apologetically said they didn’t know such a person, while others hurried past, ignoring her.
The campus wasn’t large. Lin Yingtao dragged her suitcase around, drenched in sweat, her blouse clinging to her back and waist. Sweat had even started to fall from her eyes. Perhaps it was the unfamiliarity that made her so brave. Back at her university, Lin Yingtao would never have dared to search for someone like this.
She suddenly remembered that Jiang Qiaoxi had always disliked interacting with people. He was taciturn and preferred solitude. In fact, except when he was with Lin Yingtao, he rarely smiled at others.
If this were high school, at least she could find him in a fixed classroom. Everyone would see him, and the teachers would know him. But in university, with so many classrooms, departments, majors, courses, and students from all over the world—Lin Yingtao pulled her suitcase forward, asking herself honestly how many people she knew at her university. She barely knew anyone, so how could she expect to randomly encounter someone at HKU who would know Jiang Qiaoxi?
Not to mention it was a holiday today, making the chances even slimmer.
Lin Yingtao passed by every bulletin board with text and photos at HKU, carefully examining the smiling faces of students in the pictures. She hoped in vain to catch a glimpse of Jiang Qiaoxi or see his name. HKU was a world-renowned university with nearly a century of history, and its students always seemed relaxed, at ease, and focused. Lin Yingtao watched them from the roadside as if observing people from another world. She had no idea where Jiang Qiaoxi might be.
Somehow, she suddenly recalled her childhood, standing at the gates of the Provincial Experimental Affiliated Middle School. She was that out-of-place splash of red, mixing with the blue of the affiliated school students in her search for Jiang Qiaoxi, sticking out like a sore thumb.
Lin Yingtao dragged her suitcase to an intersection, hearing the urgent sound of a woodblock amidst the bustling crowds around her. She had been too optimistic before coming, thinking that if such a person existed, she would surely be able to find him.
Perhaps she should come back tomorrow when it wasn’t a holiday.
Her cousin had helped her book a hotel near Tsim Sha Tsui. Lin Yingtao entered the subway station, feeling a chill seep through her hair and into her clothes and scalp. Her new Hong Kong SIM card phone rang.
Cai Fangyuan asked, “Did you find him?”
Hearing Cai Fangyuan’s familiar Northern Chinese Mandarin accent, Lin Yingtao replied dejectedly, “No…” She pulled her suitcase, escaping from the subway station.
The sweat under her blouse had turned cold, and her waist was tightly bound by her skirt, the waistband damp with perspiration.
Cai Fangyuan urgently said, “Check your QQ. I sent you some addresses. My colleague’s senior from HKU helped ask around—”
“Asked what?” Lin Yingtao inquired.
Cai Fangyuan explained, “Well, I searched those HKU information groups for ages and couldn’t find anything. This senior spent a year on exchange at HKU last year and joined a cheap rental group for mainland students. He just asked the group admin, who said there might have been someone named Jiang Qiaoxi who rented an apartment through them. But the admin isn’t the landlord, so he doesn’t know if Jiang Qiaoxi has moved out or which building and room he rented. I’ll try to get more details for you!”
Lin Yingtao picked up her suitcase. “Then… I’ll go check it out right away!” she said excitedly.
Cai Fangyuan asked, “Have you eaten? You should eat first! I’ll call you if I hear anything!”
From landing in Hong Kong at 10 AM until now, Lin Yingtao hadn’t felt hungry. She had just sweated too much. She stood in front of a vending machine and bought a bottle of water. Lin Yingtao lowered her head to look at the information Cai Fangyuan had sent her. As she blinked at the unfamiliar string of addresses, sweat from her eyelashes suddenly seeped into her eyes.
Lin Yingtao boarded a red double-decker bus. Perhaps she should have gone to the hotel first to drop off her luggage, but she was eager to see Jiang Qiaoxi right away. She turned her head to look at the Hong Kong street scenes outside the window, then took out a mirror from her backpack and attempted to fix her sweat-dampened bangs and hair.
Before she left, Qin Yeyun had suggested that Lin Yingtao put on some nice makeup.
But in this weather, how could anyone wear makeup? Hong Kong was too humid. Even in early October, it felt like summer, not the kind of heat in Beijing, but a stifling, oppressive warmth.
The cheap student apartment was a narrow strip wedged between two old buildings. Lin Yingtao looked up, seeing the densely packed windows like a honeycomb. She climbed the steps and peered through the glass of the ground floor entrance.
The apartment manager was a man in his sixties, watching horse racing news. When Lin Yingtao asked him a question, he responded with a few sentences in Cantonese.
Unable to understand, Lin Yingtao stood outside the window, looking at him with big, pitiful eyes.
“I just handle the keys,” the old man said in broken Mandarin, pointing to the key rack on the wall.
“Do you know anyone who might know him?” Lin Yingtao seized the opportunity to ask further. “I just want to find my friend. Jiang Qiaoxi is my classmate. We’re from the same hometown!”
The old man watched the horse racing news for a while longer as if he hadn’t heard Lin Yingtao’s words.
After a few minutes, he turned back to see Lin Yingtao still at the window, her big watery eyes persistently staring at him.
“You’re not from a loan shark, are you?” he asked her.
Lin Yingtao was taken aback and shook her head vigorously.
Managing an apartment full of mainland students, he had to understand some Mandarin.
“I’m from Beijing Normal University. My name is Lin Qile,” Lin Yingtao hurriedly explained. “I can show you my ID. I’m not a bad person. I’m here to find a classmate named Jiang Qiaoxi. Are you sure you don’t know him?”
The old man shook his head, took a sip of water from his cup, pulled open a drawer, and took out a business card. “Call this person. He’s the landlord.”
Lin Yingtao sat on a long bench by the roadside. She felt dizzy, perhaps from walking too long. Her feet were sore, and she couldn’t walk anymore. She might even have heat exhaustion.
Her aunt had told her to wear sneakers in Hong Kong because shopping would be tiring.
Lin Yingtao finished the bottle of water and opened a small packet of cookies to eat while waiting for the call to connect. She hadn’t even gone shopping yet, but her feet felt as heavy as lead.
The landlord finally answered the phone.
Lin Yingtao held the phone to her ear, watching the hurried Hong Kong pedestrians on the street before her. She didn’t know how to face everyone’s wariness again.
She thought for two seconds.
“Hello, I… I’m looking for Jiang Qiaoxi,” she said in English, a bit timidly.
There was a pause on the other end. It was a very young man’s voice, sounding like a student: “You’ve got the wrong number. This isn’t Jiang Qiaoxi.”
Lin Yingtao suddenly held her breath.
“He… he gave me this number…” Lin Yingtao said nervously. “Are you his friend?”
“Friend? I suppose you could say that,” the other party said casually. “And you are?”
Lin Yingtao said, “I’m… I’m a student from his tutoring class. He left a book at my house, and because I’m… I’m going on a trip tomorrow, I wanted to return the book to him today!”
“Alright,” the landlord said. “You can bring it over and leave it downstairs.”
Lin Yingtao stood up immediately. “Can you tell me the exact address?”
In the subway, cold air rushed around her. Lin Yingtao stood next to her suitcase, unconsciously hugging herself. She felt so cold and uncomfortable, but the thought of seeing Jiang Qiaoxi soon made it bearable. She could endure.
Lin Yingtao followed the address down a slope. She had left the subway station, but strangely, her arms were still shivering from the cold. She thought she should buy another bottle of water. Lowering her head, she put her backpack on top of her suitcase and, fighting dizziness, took out an old math olympiad book.
She had brought this from home. It was an old book Jiang Qiaoxi had left in the Little White Building’s study room. She didn’t know why she had brought it, perhaps as proof that Lin Yingtao had kept Jiang Qiaoxi’s plea in mind these three years and never forgot him.
Reaching the old-style apartment building, Lin Yingtao tried to lift her suitcase the steps but nearly fell forward as she bent down.
“Excuse me, which floor and room does Jiang Qiaoxi live in?” she asked, leaning against the window.
The apartment manager was a young man, seemingly a student working part-time during his free time. He looked up at Lin Yingtao: “And you are?”
Lin Yingtao frowned and said, “I just called…” She took out her phone to find the landlord’s number. “I just called him, and he told me to come over.”
The manager remained unmoved and said in Hong Kong-accented Mandarin, “If you have a card, you can swipe it to enter. Otherwise, we don’t allow entry.”
Lin Yingtao sat on the long flight of stairs in front of the apartment, her suitcase at her feet. She hugged her backpack, her forehead heavy. She called the landlord again. The landlord said, “You can just leave the book downstairs.”
Lin Yingtao said, “I want to see Jiang Qiaoxi in person.”
The landlord suddenly chuckled.
“Do you know why Jiang Qiaoxi always gives you girls my phone number?” he said. “It’s because there are far too many female students like you.”
Lin Yingtao was taken aback.
“Can you speak more slowly?” she said.
“What?”
“I didn’t catch that clearly,” Lin Yingtao said honestly.
The landlord said softly, “Darling, don’t wait in front of the building. Your Teacher Jiang might not be back until after midnight. Who knows how long he’ll be at the hospital or school, or maybe he’ll be tutoring at another student’s home. Be a good girl and go home, back to your parents.”
The call ended, but Lin Yingtao didn’t realize it. Her forehead sank heavily, and she felt cold all over. Her toes were unconsciously pressed together.
Occasionally, people passed through the door behind her, walking by Lin Yingtao. Her skirt draped over the steps and someone stepped on it. They hurriedly said “sorry,” but Lin Yingtao didn’t react.