I'm Done With Him — I Want to Confess to Her

The unexpected episode was finally sorted out. By the end of it everyone was exhausted and hungry, so He Yu asked if they wanted to get a late-night bite. The first to throw up a hand in enthusiastic agreement was Bai Jing, who had almost nothing to do with any of this.

'Yes, yes, let's go for congee! There's a hotel near The Bund that does a shark-fin-and-sea-urchin congee that's absolutely something else — how about that place?'

He Yu turned to look at Xie Xue.

Xie Xue wiped her eyes and shot Bai Jing a mildly disgruntled look. 'I want barbecue. Garbage Street.'

'Then Garbage Street it is.'

Bai Jing: 'Ah… that's a bit… fine…'

With Xie Xue there, He Yu gave at least some thought to Xie Qingcheng's dignity and turned to him as well. 'What about you?'

'I won't join you. I'll take the dog for its shots and adoption check. If you want to keep it, I'll drop it off for you later.'

He glanced down at the little yellow dog sitting obediently at his feet.

Xiao Huang had taken quite a liking to Xie Qingcheng. She circled him in happy loops, her fluffy yellow tail going like a propeller. 'Woof!'

.

Half an hour later.

Huzhou night-market stalls.

'Boss — fifty skewers of chicken cartilage, fifty lamb skewers, ten grilled rice cakes, ten grilled mushrooms, a dozen grilled oysters, and five beers.' The moment Xie Xue reached the barbecue stand she called out her order with the ease of someone who'd done it a hundred times.

'Isn't this kind of place really dirty… I never eat at these.' Bai Jing extended two fingers and used her fingernails to turn over the grease-smudged menu as gingerly as she could.

Xie Xue rolled her eyes without any particular goodwill. 'Weren't you the one who insisted on tagging along?'

'Oh come on, little sister, why so fierce. I'm hungry too.' While she said this, Bai Jing planted her precious posterior in the seat closest to He Yu without a trace of self-consciousness. 'Just order something light for me, would you? It's late — I'm worried about putting on weight.'

Xie Xue glared at her, then slammed a hand on the table with the energy of someone picking a fight. 'Boss — give us ten more of those goddamn oil-braised rabbit heads!'

Bai Jing: 'You—!'

He Yu, blandly: 'Make it twenty. I want some too.'

Bai Jing: '…'

Grilling skewers looks easy until it isn't. Chicken cartilage is chicken cartilage, but when a hired hand grills it, something essential is missing. The owner, though — one flick of the arm, one shake of the bamboo skewer, and the golden-crisped cartilage sheds its excess fat in glistening drops. The rendered oil hits the charcoal and sets off some small, wonderful chemistry: the scorched richness of char and the scatter of sparks leap up together. Veiled in blue smoke, the owner is like a grandmaster in hiding — one subtle flare of the nostrils, one breath drawn through the haze, and he catches the precise moment of perfect doneness and pulls the skewers from the heat.

Then plated and brought out hot, each skewer cooked to exactly the right point. These consoling little morsels are the paragons of their craft — a hair underdone and they taste raw, a hair overdone and they turn to sawdust, but here they are golden and yielding, and a single bite releases a rush of fat that melts across the tongue like snow.

Xie Xue was a regular. She'd ordered enough skewers to nearly buckle the thin-plastic-tablecloth table. She was tearing through the spread like a small natural disaster; Bai Jing, meanwhile, maintained her composure and delivered a masterclass in Sichuan opera's most prized trick — face-changing.

'Young Master He isn't from Shanghai, is he?' Bai Jing batted her semi-permanent lash extensions, her pearl-glossed lips spreading wide. 'The accent doesn't sound like it.'

He Yu smiled pleasantly. 'Miss Bai, are you conducting a household census?'

'No, no, no, nothing like that.' Bai Jing waved her hands quickly and smoothed her hair with a slightly flustered laugh. 'It's just that I did my postgrad in Yan City — business school at Yan City University of Economics. Your Mandarin is very standard, so I wondered if you might be from the north.'

'What an impressive pedigree.' He Yu smiled with great civility and fished a rabbit head out of the grill — one that stared back at him with the wide, unresigned eyes of something that had died with grievances.

Bai Jing didn't catch it. She kept talking: 'Exactly, so I'm working the counter mainly to build experience, working toward a management role down the line. You see a lot on the front line — I've served quite a few celebrities and executives. Just a few days ago I ran into an actor, the one in that primetime drama that just—'

Crunch. He Yu's white teeth bit straight through the rabbit skull.

Bai Jing choked on her sentence. It felt as though the words she hadn't finished yet had been bitten to pieces through the air and lodged in her own throat. Her neck suddenly felt a little sore.

He Yu smiled on. It was only now that Bai Jing noticed he had a canine tooth — not very prominent, but when he tilted his smile it showed faintly beneath his thin lip. He Yu ate the rabbit brains with unhurried ease. 'Keep talking, Miss Bai. You came with us, after all — no need to go hungry. Don't you like rabbit heads?'

Bai Jing waved her hands in a flurry. 'Oh, I — I eat very little normally, a few sips of cola and I'm full, really, I'm fine—'

'Is that so?' He Yu tossed the cracked rabbit bone onto the plate, smiled lightly. 'What a shame.'

As the drinks made their rounds, Bai Jing reined herself in somewhat — but in the end couldn't resist the temptation and moved to add He Yu on WeChat. Watching this, Xie Xue finally ran out of patience. This woman was here on a blind date with her older brother. What was she doing trying to add He Yu? Did she have no sense of decency at all?

So she said, with undisguised irritation:

'Sorry, he can't give you his WeChat.'

'Why not? Are you his girlfriend?'

'I — I'm not!' Xie Xue shot back indignantly, and launched into invention. 'But He Yu has a girlfriend. A real beauty, very fierce, terribly jealous, a few years older than him, keeps him on a short leash — if he steps out of line she slaps him. She's the reason I'm here keeping an eye on him. Isn't that right, He Yu?!'

He Yu said, without missing a beat: 'What you're describing is a Nationalist secret police handler.'

Oh, for—

Xie Xue kicked at him under the table in pure fury.

He Yu: 'I don't have a girlfriend like that. I also don't have a type that runs to fierce, jealous beauties who are older than me.'

Son of a—

Xie Xue pressed down harder — then noticed her foot was starting to hurt. She looked down. Incredible. She'd been stomping the table leg.

He Yu smiled to himself and, without drawing any attention to it, pulled his long legs back from beside the table leg. He slid a skewer dusted with Sichuan pepper into Xie Xue's bowl, then turned to face Bai Jing, who had been watching with barely concealed hope. 'That said, Miss Bai — there is someone I like. So I don't casually exchange contact with girls. I hope you understand.'

Bai Jing couldn't quite hide her disappointment. 'Can't we just be ordinary friends?'

This time He Yu didn't even produce a polite smile. The approachable, youthful warmth seemed to drain out of him all at once. He looked at her quietly for a moment.

'Thank you. But I don't think we move in the same world.'

That sentence, once spoken, removed any graceful exit she might have had. The atmosphere went brittle.

He Yu pulled a napkin and wiped the grease from his fingers, one finger at a time, methodically. Then he tossed the napkin aside, cast a cool, sideways glance at the woman whose expression was doing a great deal, and said calmly: 'I'll go wash my hands.'

Not everyone in the world is oblivious to social cues, and Bai Jing received this particular cue with perfect clarity — the cold, dismissive contempt of a wealthy and handsome man who didn't think she was worth his time. The Xie girl at the table had clearly been through enough tonight and wasn't spending any more breath on her either. Bai Jing felt the full weight of her own awkwardness, found a pretext about something urgent that had come up, and slipped away from the table with as little fanfare as she could manage.

A little while later He Yu came back, saw she was gone, raised an eyebrow — didn't ask a single question — and sat down beside Xie Xue with the air of a man to whom nothing in particular had happened.

Xie Xue rolled her eyes several times and said a few choice things about Bai Jing, then bit through a couple of cartilage skewers with a satisfying crunch, turned to He Yu, and said: 'You said just now that you have someone you like. Was that real? Who is it?'

'I was winding you up.'

Xie Xue patted her chest and took a small sip of beer. 'Oh — well you nearly scared me to death…'

He Yu's hand went slightly still. He looked over at the girl's guileless profile.

'Why are you staring at me?'

'Does it scare you — if I have someone I like?'

'Of course it does.'

'Why?'

'Because I'm still single, obviously. If you get together with someone, doesn't that mean I can't come hang out with you as much anymore?'

…What a ridiculous reason.

Xie Xue: 'What are you laughing at?'

He Yu reached over, and his thumb gently brushed the Sichuan pepper that had caught at the corner of her mouth without her noticing. He smoothed out his expression and spoke as if nothing had happened: 'How do you manage to get barbecue sauce on your face from a skewer?'

The truth was, he'd wanted to confess for a long time. He'd had it in mind since the day he came back.

Only He Yu had his standards. A confession, he felt, should be a deliberate thing — not something you blurted out on a whim, flushed with impulse, on a noisy street corner, just like that, a secret you'd kept for years suddenly spilling out of you.

Holding that thought, he steered the conversation elsewhere. 'Don't let your brother go on blind dates with girls this young anymore. He's not a kid — he's already set in his ways, and women his own age can't stand him, let alone someone like her. The generation gap alone must be a canyon.'

'Why are you badmouthing my brother? He's never done anything to you!'

He Yu: 'I'm stating facts.'

'Oh, get lost!'

He Yu rolled his eyes, baffled by Xie Xue's brother-fixation. 'I mean it. Take off the rose-tinted glasses and look — your brother is a middle-aged divorcé. Finding someone steady and even-tempered would be plenty. A girl that young is genuinely not suited to him.'

'Save it. My brother is gorgeous and wonderful — why should he settle?'

'Gorgeous, sure. Spends all his time looking down his nose at people, and it's not like anyone owes him anything.' As he said it, Xie Qingcheng's impassive face rose to mind — that slight unbending, the lean forward, the straw caught between his teeth.

The whole manner of it, like some CEO accepting service from a personal assistant as his natural due. Not even paying for it. How could anyone be that composed — that casually, provocatively contemptuous?

He Yu felt the irritation stir again. He found himself wondering what he'd have to hold up to Xie Qingcheng's mouth instead, what it would take to sweep that poise clean away — to leave him glassy-eyed, his face invaded by something like panic and humiliation.

Though would a face like Xie Qingcheng's ever actually show that kind of vulnerability…

He Yu had never seen it. He thought about it for a moment and found, somewhat surprisingly, that he couldn't picture it either.

'What are you thinking about?'

He Yu, absently: 'Your brother.'

'What?'

'…I'm thinking about whether your brother has ever been rattled. Been outclassed by someone.'

'Oh, give that up right now — I've never seen him like that, not once in my whole life. My brother is exceptional. So calm, so tough. You see him now in his dress shirts with his books, but when he was your age he was the best fighter in our whole neighborhood. Once, a whole gang of thugs were harassing me and he went after all twelve of them alone — swinging a steel pipe — and marched them straight to the Local Police Station. After that, those guys would practically lay a carpet down whenever they saw him coming, bowing and calling him big brother, every single one of them — except for one. But that was a special case, it doesn't count.'

He Yu watched the light in her eyes and felt, if anything, worse. He smiled. 'You're exactly the same as when you were little — the moment you bring him up you look like you're in the presence of a god. You've always thought your brother was your savior.'

'He is! You have no idea how hard it was for him, raising me on his own — doing the job of a father and a mother and a brother all at once…'

'And you were a good kid. You made it easier on him.'

'…God, no. I don't have a tenth of what he has.' Xie Xue shook her head while she ate. 'Not even close.'

As they talked, He Yu watched her in the rowdy, smoke-wreathed light of the night stall — the small, unselfconscious shape of her self-deprecation — and found her quietly funny. His gaze softened without him noticing. Such a good girl, he thought. He couldn't be the only one who'd noticed.

He really couldn't wait any longer.

He didn't go back to the dorm that night — it was too late, and he didn't want to wake anyone. After dropping Xie Xue off at the faculty residential building, he had the driver take him to a hotel he often used, showered, and lay down among the soft goose-down pillows.

'I'm here. You…'

His fingers moved quickly across the screen, but the thought ran aground halfway through.

He Yu let out a slow breath, deleted what he'd typed, and stared at the little Sleepwalking Bear profile picture in the WeChat window for a long moment. Then he sent the simplest thing he could.

'Good night.'

He was about to put the phone down when it chimed. He Yu assumed it was Xie Xue's reply and picked it up at once.

But the message was from the savior. A transfer notification.

'The hospital's online banking had a limit set. I've fixed it now — here's the money back.'

He Yu had always found this particular trait of Xie Qingcheng's deeply grating, and the fact that it wasn't Xie Xue's reply made him colder still.

'I helped someone. Why would I take your money for it.'

Xie Qingcheng found He Yu's disposition equally grating, and couldn't be bothered to argue. He went straight to: 'Call it a service fee.'

'A what?'

'Driving fee. Even if I'd called a car service on the spot, I wouldn't have found a driver as young and capable and willing to floor it as you.'

'…'

The nerve of him.

How many people in the world would genuinely treat Young Master He as a hired driver and pay him a service fee for it?

And why did it somehow sound exactly like paying for company?

He Yu's expression darkened. He was composing a reply when he accidentally swiped back and landed on Xie Xue's chat window.

He thought again of Xie Xue's bright eyes when she talked about Xie Qingcheng. And that line: 'You have no idea how hard it was for him, raising me on his own…'

'…'

Fine. He was her older brother, when all was said and done.

He Yu typed back: 'Don't mention it, Brother Xie. Anytime you need a lift, just call — I'll make sure every ride is smooth and you leave satisfied.'

'Send me your overseas insurance claims record first.'

He Yu's face went dark again. He really should never have shown that man a hint of warmth.

Then the phone buzzed again.

This time it wasn't Xie Qingcheng. It was Xie Xue.

'Good night! Thanks for everything today.'

She'd come out of the shower in the faculty dorm, toweling her damp hair and stifling a yawn. She'd barely fished out her phone before she saw the good-night from He Yu. She smiled without thinking and sent this back.

Then she sat down at her desk and opened her journal. Hardly anyone kept a written diary anymore, but there were always a few eccentric souls with a taste for the old ways, content to linger in yesterday alongside rusty ink and sharpened nibs and pages the color of unbleached cotton.

She turned up the desk lamp and began her nightly entry:

'Today my brother went on another blind date, but I didn't like this girl. I think…'

She wrote on for five hundred words or so. Writing about Xie Qingcheng's love life inevitably led her to think about her own — which had been nonexistent for some time.

Xie Xue sighed and looked out at the night, where the streetlamps drifted pale and yellow.

She was nothing like her brother that way. He'd long since given up on love and marriage — living too wide awake for any of it, those peach-blossom eyes of his skimming over people with a thin, impatient edge.

She, though, had someone she liked.

His shape rose in her mind — someone she'd watched come and go throughout her whole life, always close, always somehow just out of reach.

She knew perfectly well that they didn't belong to the same world. The gap between them was too wide. And he was younger than her, on top of everything.

But they were both at Hu University now. And she could see it clearly — the girls who had their eyes on him came in wave after wave, more relentless than the autumn wheat bending in the wind.

If she said nothing, she wouldn't have much time left. And if they simply passed each other by, she might regret it for the rest of her life — end up like her brother: making do with someone she felt little for, trading hollow vows, walking into the tomb of a marriage, and one day clawing her way back out of it, alone again, doing the rounds of blind dates just to keep the family from grieving.

She couldn't bear to watch her older brother like this sometimes. She had the sense that Xie Qingcheng was living for other people, most of the time. He said he didn't care what anyone thought — but he was the one among them all who cared most about family.

Xie Qingcheng was wound too tight.

It wasn't as though she hadn't tried to talk to him about it. But every time the words were only halfway out, he'd cut her off with a look — either telling her to focus on her studies and mind her own business, or lecturing her that adult matters were none of her concern and what did she know at her age.

The one who understood the least about feeling, it turned out, was him. He'd lived half a life and had only one marriage to show for it, and that one had been a disaster.

'I want to try telling someone how I feel. Gege always said I should be brave. I think this is the same. Whatever happens, at least I'll have tried. When I look back, I won't have any regrets.'

Xie Xue wrote the last line and closed the journal.

What she didn't know was that several kilometers away, in a Hotel Suite, He Yu had arrived at something very much like the same thought.