Situ Jie couldn’t have said exactly when it grew dark outside. When she’d first opened her computer it had clearly still been afternoon; she’d ended up sprawled sideways at the edge of her bed, shoes still on, her mind hollowed out by some kind of overload, as if she’d simply blanked out. It wasn’t until a knock at the door startled her that she sat bolt upright and realized the room had gone completely black, save for the faint blue glow of the monitor in standby mode.
The knocking grew more urgent, heavier—like the drumbeat before a battle. Situ Jie went to open the door on reflex. Standing outside was Auntie Yao, one hand still raised in midair. These days her relationship with Situ Jie hadn’t grown any warmer, but after being scolded a few times, she had at least learned to be more polite about things—even when hurrying Situ Jie to a meal, she’d never knocked quite this forcefully before. Situ Jie found herself a little taken aback.
“You didn’t hear all that knocking?” Auntie Yao said. “Your parents are back. They want you downstairs, right away.”
Situ Jie’s heart clenched violently. By then she could already see her hot-tempered father appear at the top of the stairs. Before she could even make out his expression, her vision blurred, and in an instant her whole body lost its balance—half her face went numb, while the other half struck hard against the sharp edge of the doorframe as she toppled sideways. Strangely, she didn’t feel much pain at the time, just dizziness; even with her eyes open she couldn’t focus. The old teak floor spun around her, the doorframe barely holding her upright, and the feet of the people standing nearby whirled past at strange, dislocated angles.
Situ Jiu’an had come up through the army, and was said to have trained himself in solid, disciplined boxing back in his day, a skill he took great pride in. Most family and friends had, at one point or another over tea, watched him break a brick with his bare hand for entertainment, always winning a round of applause. After he turned forty, though, these little performances had grown rarer—partly because Xue Shaoping had grown sick of watching and forbidden him from tormenting himself further, and partly, Situ Jie privately suspected, because he could no longer quite manage it; she’d once caught him secretly rubbing medicated liniment into his hand after one of his more spirited demonstrations. Situ Jie had always found her father’s displays of brute strength rather ridiculous, but it had never once occurred to her that the very hand that came down so ferociously on bricks would one day come down on her. He wasn’t as strong as he’d been in his youth, but a single lunging step toward his own daughter was more than enough. The blow that followed felt less like a slap and more, quite literally, like being struck down.
In her daze, Situ Jie found herself remembering all those bricks that had cracked cleanly in her father’s hand—it wouldn’t be so strange, she thought, if this blow killed her too. She heard her mother’s sharp, anguished cry. “What are you doing, hitting her! You promised me we’d talk this through properly!”
“I’ve been too obedient to you—always talking things through properly, never willing to lay a finger on her. That’s exactly how I raised a daughter like this. My only regret now is that I started disciplining her too late!”
Even without seeing her father’s face, Situ Jie could picture his eyes, wide with fury, as if fire might burst from them at any moment. There are no walls without cracks in this world, and bad news travels a thousand miles; she’d known this moment would come eventually, but she hadn’t expected it so soon, without even a moment to catch her breath. Perhaps it was for the best, though—at least it spared her the dread of waiting.
She raised her head, just in time to see his hand rising again. Her mother’s footsteps, frantic and rushed, were still some distance away; she had no way to get up in time herself, and another blow of raw, physical pain seemed unavoidable. She simply froze, and in her daze even forgot the last small act of self-protection—closing her eyes.
This time, though, the blow she braced for—the “discipline” she had every reason to expect—never landed. Someone had seized her father’s hand and held it fast. A few seconds later, Xue Shaoping had already thrown herself down beside her daughter, letting out a sharp cry, half-supporting, half-carrying Situ Jie upright.
“Is she not your own flesh and blood? Even if she’d murdered someone, set a fire, you’d have no right to come down on her that hard. And you actually could bring yourself to do it! You think beating her to death solves anything?” There was no trace left of Xue Shaoping’s usual composure and elegance in her voice.
“Beating her to death would at least spare me the sight of her. Otherwise she’ll go right on thinking that now she’s grown up, now she’s got a mind of her own, there’s nothing she won’t dare do, nothing she isn’t capable of.”
It was only then that Situ Jie saw clearly who it was that had been holding back her furious father—none other than Yao Qiyun. Meeting his eyes so abruptly, in a moment like this, stirred more feelings in her than she could sort through; but her gratitude and relief were quickly swallowed by a deeper alarm, because there was something in his expression she could read clearly: forget striking her—he didn’t even want to touch her.
Xue Shaoping wiped her daughter’s face with the back of her hand, shouting for Auntie Yao to fetch gauze. Situ Jie saw blood smeared across her mother’s hand, then reached up and wiped at her own face without thinking—her fingers came away wet, a shocking, vivid red.
She must have looked hideous just then; even the first words out of her mouth came out slurred and unclear.
“Even a death sentence gets a trial first—you didn’t ask me a single question before you did this?” She threw the same fury back at her father, even though she was still swaying, barely able to stand. In some strange way, father and daughter were remarkably alike.
“And you still have the nerve to talk? Going to make excuses now, or say those filthy things all over again just to finish killing me? You’ve dragged my name through the mud completely. If I hadn’t happened to be meeting with Professor Gao today, I never would have known I’d raised a beast like you!”
Understanding dawned on Situ Jie, and she nodded slowly to herself. So that explained it—why everything had come crashing down so suddenly. Professor Gao. No wonder it was such a “coincidence.”
“You believe what he says, but not what your own daughter tells you?”
“Professor Gao didn’t even say much of anything—he just told me to try to see the bright side of it. Your mother and I have been going around like a couple of fools, so pleased with ourselves, thinking you’d finally made something of yourself, brought honor to the Situ family name. Turns out there are thousands of people out there laughing at us behind our backs, pointing fingers at our spines. Photographs mailed straight to the company, the so-called victim ready to file a formal complaint—this isn’t over! How did you sink this low? What has this family ever denied you in twenty-some years? And to go and do that with… with some pervert nearly my own age—and to think he’s supposed to be some kind of expert, some professor—I can’t even bring myself to say it! I wish to god your mother and I had never had you at all!”
As Situ Jiu’an worked himself up further, he lunged forward again, and again Yao Qiyun silently held him back.
“Tell me—why did you do something like that?” Xue Shaoping asked, tears streaming down her face as she looked at Situ Jie in anguish.
“None of you can make sense of why I’d do this. I can’t make sense of it either.” Situ Jie reached back and gripped her mother’s hand, and only then did the tears finally come. “I never did it, Mom. Believe me, I never did anything to bring shame on this family. I did go to Zou Jin’s house, but it was to plead on a classmate’s behalf—I never even set foot inside. Those photographs are completely misleading, deliberately so. He never told me a single word about switching the grades—I only found out about it afterward, same as everyone else!”
Xue Shaoping shook her head. “You… there’s nothing between you and him, and yet a professor, a man in a position of authority, would take on that kind of risk, for no reason at all, to do you favors and sabotage an innocent girl in the process—and someone would go to all this trouble just to frame you? Explain that to me.”
“This whole thing was planned by Tan Shaocheng and Liu Zhisu, Zou Jin’s student—they worked it out together beforehand, and Gao Henian must be tangled up in it somehow too! People like that will stop at nothing to get what they want. Tan Shaocheng especially—I know she’s always hated me, she’s been waiting for a chance like this—”
The words were barely out of her mouth before she realized how thin and unsupported her defense sounded, standing entirely alone. Even Yao Qiyun frowned and looked away, and there was nothing in her mother’s expression that suggested agreement either.
“You’re telling me that girl surnamed Tan hates you, that all of this was some deliberate frame-up—a girl so poor she couldn’t even afford to bury her own father, deliberately losing her scholarship, deliberately having her grades switched, all just to spite you? If Professor Gao hadn’t taken pity on her and stepped in, that girl would probably have lost her graduate recommendation entirely too. And you want me to believe she went through all of that just to wrongly accuse you?” Xue Shaoping said, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“Whether it was deliberate, I can’t say for certain right now—there’s clearly some conflict between Liu Zhisu and Zou Jin too, and there must be something between Gao Henian and Zou Jin as well. Switching the grades was Zou Jin’s doing—he had inappropriate feelings toward me, but there was never anything between us. Tan Shaocheng and the others simply seized on the grades issue and blew it up into something bigger—”
Xue Shaoping didn’t even wait for her to finish before letting out a heavy sigh. “There’s nothing between you and him? Situ Jie, flies don’t land on an egg without a crack in it. I’ve never once let up on how I raised you—have you forgotten everything I taught you? In life, it doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, what matters most is never losing your own integrity. When did I ever teach you to use improper means to seize something that was never yours to begin with? By that measure, you’re not even the equal of some poor girl from a mountain village—at least she’s lived with more dignity than you have. You’ve disappointed me terribly!”
“This is exactly what comes of spoiling her!” Situ Jiu’an snorted coldly.
“What good does arguing over this do now? What matters most is figuring out how to handle this properly, making sure that girl doesn’t keep making trouble—we’re the ones in the wrong here, and if we don’t find some way to deal with it, this is only going to spiral further out of control…”
“If people could be bought off with a little inducement, none of this would have happened in the first place!”
…
They fell into an argument.
And Situ Jie’s heart, slowly, went cold.
She finally understood, with complete clarity, one simple fact: no one believed her. No one was willing to listen to what she had to say. Not even the people closest to her.
The thought of the people closest to her made something jolt inside her.
She turned, facing her father, who looked ready to strike her again at any moment, and walked a few steps toward Yao Qiyun, who stood there like some statue at dusk, trying to make himself invisible. She looked at him with a kind of desperate hope, as though clutching at the last straw she had left.
“Tell them. Tell them you believe me—tell them you know I’d never do something like that!”
Yao Qiyun froze for a moment, then slowly lowered his eyes.
He said, “I don’t know.”
Something in Situ Jie broke loose. “Give me a reason! Give me one reason—just explain it, why would I do that, what would I possibly get out of it?!” She stared into his eyes, half-hysterical, as though she’d lost her mind.
A bitter, unreadable smile rose at the corner of his mouth.
“I already told you—I don’t know. A’Jue, maybe you’re just too proud. Maybe you can’t accept losing to someone who’s beneath you in every way. Or maybe you’ve simply grown so used to acting without restraint that you’ve never once feared hurting the people who love you.”
“Who loves me?” Situ Jie murmured to herself. “Loves me like this?”
She pushed past them both and made for the stairs, nearly knocking over Auntie Yao, who had finally, belatedly, managed to find the gauze. Yao Qiyun caught up with her at the front door.
“Don’t act like a child. What, you think you can just walk out that door and never come back?”
“Whether I drop dead out there is none of your business. I really don’t know how I ever ended up with someone like you. All you’ve ever given me is ice-cold indifference. Get out of my way.” Situ Jie was beyond furious.
Yao Qiyun said, “You’re right. I can’t give you anything. If I’d known it would come to this, why would I have started at all?”
Situ Jie sat on a bench beneath the Wu family’s building. She couldn’t afford to go far, not looking the way she did now, with darkness falling—her face a mess of blood and bruises, probably tearstains too, like some monster paraded through the streets.
Wu Jiang came rushing over, and when he saw her, he could hardly believe his own eyes.
“Who did this to you?” She wouldn’t answer, but he could more or less guess. “Your father? They found out?”
Without another word, he pulled her to the nearest community clinic to have her injuries seen to. As the antiseptic touched the wound, Situ Jie finally registered just how much it hurt—she hadn’t felt it before, perhaps because some stronger sensation had drowned it out. She didn’t need a mirror to know how swollen half her face had become; her head felt impossibly heavy, and the spot where she’d struck the doorframe couldn’t bear the lightest touch without her hissing involuntarily, like a wounded snake.
After a rough assessment and examination, the doctor on duty at the clinic suggested she go to a larger hospital for a proper head scan, just to rule out a concussion. Situ Jie refused. She told Wu Jiang, “If it really is a concussion, and I end up losing my memory—wouldn’t that actually be a nice thing?”
Wu Jiang said irritably, “More likely you’d just end up an idiot.”
Situ Jie laughed. “You know why I called you? I’m starving. I haven’t eaten a thing, and I don’t have a single coin on me.”
She wasn’t exaggerating. No amount of suffering could beat back hunger—the sorrow of still being alive.
With no better option, Wu Jiang led her out of the clinic. After a moment’s thought, he said, “I’m actually supposed to meet someone, and I need to head over there now—come with me, and you can get something to eat while we’re at it.”
Situ Jie pressed the ice pack from the clinic against her face with one hand. “Meet who?”
Wu Jiang kept walking, head down, and said nothing.
“Ah…” Situ Jie said thoughtfully. “You could’ve just said so. Just give me some cash and I’ll leave you two alone.”
Wu Jiang stopped walking, hands shoved in his pockets, and kicked a stray dead leaf into the bushes along the sidewalk.
“I wasn’t planning to go, honestly. But since I’m already out here, I figured avoiding it forever isn’t really an option. Situ, come with me—consider it a favor to me. My head’s a mess right now, and I don’t know how to face her alone.”
“Are you really that dense, or just pretending to be? I was part of what dragged her into all this too. Don’t dance around it—think whatever you want of me, it doesn’t matter anymore,” Situ Jie said, a note of weary resignation in her voice.
“You’re different.”
Situ Jie couldn’t tell whether “different,” in Wu Jiang’s mind, meant that at least her face hadn’t ended up in the indecent photos, so her disgrace was somehow milder—or simply that she wasn’t the woman he loved, so it mattered less to him.
She asked, “If I told you I never had any kind of relationship with Zou Jin, that I never had him do anything for me—would you believe me?”
Wu Jiang hesitated for a moment, then nodded anyway. “I believe you.”
As a friend, Wu Jiang might well choose kind words just to spare her further humiliation—Situ Jie had already expected as much—but hearing him say it out loud still moved her, if only slightly.
“Even if it’s just something you’re saying to be nice, I’m grateful. Really. Besides you, I doubt anyone else would even bother saying it.”
“Of course I believe you, Situ. I know exactly what kind of person you are—just like I know what kind of person Xiaowan is.”
Why is it that people always hold the ones they love to a harsher standard, find it so much harder to forgive them? Is it because caring makes people cruel? Situ Jie thought of the moment Yao Qiyun had turned his back on her, and it cut through her like a knife.
“I’m not trying to defend her, but whatever happened between her and Zou Jin is in the past now. She’s—”
“I know,” Wu Jiang said, and his response caught Situ Jie off guard.
“Guessing something and seeing it with your own eyes aren’t the same thing!” Wu Jiang took a few more steps. Situ Jie had never seen him this agitated before—not even when the sky seemed to be falling, he usually didn’t care. “After I saw those photographs, I called her. I asked her if Zou Jin had forced her into it. She said no—no one forced her into anything, she’d done it willingly. Why couldn’t she just help me lie to myself a little? I keep telling myself, over and over, that she loves me now, only me—but the second I close my eyes, those photographs are right there. I remember exactly where his hands were, every single place. I can’t stand it… and besides, now that this has all blown up, how am I supposed to bring her home? Convincing my parents to accept that I want to marry a woman older than me—I could manage that. But how am I supposed to get them to accept that their future daughter-in-law spent who knows how long carrying on with her married advisor, and let herself be photographed doing it, for the whole world to gawk at?”
“Are you going to end it with her?”
Wu Jiang shook his head, lost. “I don’t know. That’s why I think I need to really think this through. At the very least, right now, I can’t get past it in my own heart.”
Qu Xiaowan was sitting by the window of a small Western-style café in the middle of the busy downtown district. Dinner hour had already passed; the restaurant wasn’t crowded, and the bright lighting against her made her look almost fragile.
She’d been flipping through a magazine the whole time, and only when Wu Jiang came into view did she check her watch. “You’re here,” she said. “I’ve been waiting exactly three hours.” There was no resentment in her voice as she said it—just a smile, simply stating a fact.
“Sorry, something came up,” Wu Jiang said quietly.
“What are you sorry for? I chose to wait, that’s got nothing to do with you—I didn’t have anywhere else to be anyway.” She looked Situ Jie over carefully and asked, “What happened to your face? Is a bruised, swollen look trending these days or something?”
Situ Jie let out a couple of noncommittal grunts in response; she’d already grown used to Qu Xiaowan’s blunt, cutting way of speaking. Before this, she’d more or less assumed the other woman treated her as invisible.
Qu Xiaowan quickly ordered herself something filling. She thought about asking the other two if they wanted anything too, but seeing that neither of them seemed in the mood, she didn’t bother playing host uninvited. The moment the food arrived, she dug in without hesitation, chewing and swallowing without a second thought even as it pulled at her injuries.
Between Wu Jiang and Qu Xiaowan, the conversation stayed light, noncommittal—as if either of them feared that one careless word might strip away the last thin covering left over something already riddled with holes. Qu Xiaowan was clearly in a more talkative mood than usual, chattering more than Situ Jie had ever seen from her, recounting with real enthusiasm the little amusing things she’d noticed through the window during her three-hour wait, laughing for ages over some passerby’s minor clumsiness.
Not long after Situ Jie finished eating, she heard Wu Jiang say to Qu Xiaowan, “Let’s get you home. You’ve been sitting here a long time, you must be tired.”
“Not really, I don’t feel tired at all,” Qu Xiaowan said with a smile. But even Situ Jie couldn’t bear to look too closely at the bloodshot state of her eyes. She tilted her head, thought for a moment, and then, with the eager brightness of a child, suggested, “Why don’t we go see a movie? You said you liked that one last time!”
“Some other time.”
“Let’s go, just today.” She reached out with perfect naturalness, a hint of coy warmth in the gesture, meaning to affectionately take hold of Wu Jiang’s hand resting on the table. But just as her fingers were about to reach his, his hand slipped back, seamlessly, out of reach.
He signaled the waiter for the check, then stood.
“Go home and get some real sleep, all right? I’ve been pretty busy lately. Once things settle down a bit… I’ll call you then.”
The smile that had still been lingering at the corners of Qu Xiaowan’s mouth a moment ago slowly stiffened. She kept smiling, kept smiling, until it gradually became a smile of quiet, complete understanding. The hand that had failed to reach him slowly withdrew, tucking itself away beneath the table.
“Okay,” she said to Wu Jiang.