Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I went home in silence.

Lu Zhi’an still hadn’t come back from working overtime, but ten minutes earlier, he’d posted on WeChat Moments. There were beers and skewers on the table, and his caption read: “A man fed is a man obliged. Time to roll up my sleeves and hunt for bugs.”

In one corner of the photo was a bouquet of roses in a vase. In the bottom right, a sliver of fingernail peeked into frame, freshly painted, glossy pink and shimmering.

How nice, seeing each other day and night.

The couple next door started fighting again, dragging me back from my suggestive imaginings into reality.

Something was smashed. The loud accusations gradually turned into muffled sobs.

I used to take it for granted that we were completely different from that couple next door.

They were our seniors in the Beijing drifter life, the not-so-successful kind. Nearly forty and still renting, always fighting like the sky was falling, cursing each other, tearing each other apart. What romance could there possibly be in that?

And I used to believe there was love between Lu Zhi’an and me.

It was late, and Lu Zhi’an still hadn’t gotten off work. He wasn’t replying to my messages, either. Once upon a time, he would get off early on Fridays and squeeze into the kitchen with me to make dinner.

Midnight came. The day before had already ended, and I hadn’t even received a single happy birthday.

In the silence, ambiguous sounds drifted through the wall. That couple had already made up.

I suddenly remembered last summer, when they brought a pair of twin girls over from their hometown. The four of them crammed into that tiny room, then got up at the crack of dawn on weekends and set out in grand procession to tour Beijing.

Maybe they were the ones who truly had feelings for each other, intertwined like vine and tree.

Lu Zhi’an and I didn’t fight, but we didn’t communicate, either. I went to bed early and got up early; he left late and came back late. We didn’t bring up marriage, didn’t bring up the future. We just saved money out of inertia and lived through one numb, repetitive day after another.

Now, it seemed, he had found a beam of light.

Close to noon on Saturday, Lu Zhi’an asked me, “You didn’t make lunch?”

I said, “We’re eating out today.”

At the restaurant, resentment simmered inside me as I ordered dish after dish without hesitation.

He was paying anyway. Feeling sorry for a man never did any good anyway.

Lu Zhi’an looked like he wanted to say something, then stopped.

After I named the fifth dish to the server, he finally waved an arm and closed the menu for me.

“Let’s start with these. If it’s not enough, we can order more. We shouldn’t waste food.”

When the dishes arrived, perhaps because ordering so much had made his heart ache, Lu Zhi’an finally put down his phone, lifted his eyes, and started eating.

I only picked at the things I liked, and once I was seventy percent full, I set down my chopsticks.

When you stopped being considerate of men, life became much easier.

After lunch, we wandered through jewelry stores, shoe stores, and bag shops in the mall.

Lu Zhi’an paid for me twice. The third time, he took a step back from the cashier and said with a smile, “I’ll give you a chance to pay for this one yourself.”

In the clerk’s eyes, the two of us must have looked like complete weirdos.

I gave a soft laugh. “Then forget it.” Then I turned and left.

As we walked out of the mall, I happened to catch a glimpse of my own face reflected in the glass wall. I looked utterly dim.

Would taking revenge this way really make me happy?

Playing mind games with him, doing everything I could to dig money out of his pockets, then sulking and giving him the cold shoulder when he refused-was that really a good way to get back at him?

I was twenty-seven this year, still in the golden age of my life. All I wanted was to truly love someone.