Chapter 13: Arrangements

If you are a boat, then drifting is your destiny. Do not come ashore.

—Bei Dao, The Green Lamp

A figure stood outside the hotel. The moment the car approached, she ran toward it.

“Su Nan! Su Nan, are you all right?”

Su Nan got out, steadied herself, and apologized again.

Chen Zhiyu lowered the car window, took out his wallet, and removed several banknotes and a card. Closing the wallet, he tossed everything to Su Nan.

“Book me a room. You go take a shower first.”

Two sentences and two instructions, both clear and precise. Yet when spoken together, they sounded somewhat...

He considered them and sensed something inappropriate, but it would have been awkward to add an explanation. He simply raised the window and drove away.

Su Nan showered, changed into clean clothes, and sat on the edge of the bed drying her hair.

A knock sounded. Su Nan switched off the hair dryer.

The class representative told her to remain seated and ran to open the door.

“Professor Chen. Wait a moment. I’ll get your room key.”

Chen Zhiyu accepted his wallet and key card, then handed her a plastic bag filled with medicine.

“Help Su Nan apply this.”

His gaze, however, turned toward the room.

The person inside happened to lean out and look back at him. Her hair was still damp, and her face was completely bare.

He raised his voice. “Go to bed early after applying the medicine. We’re returning to the city tomorrow morning.”

The class representative readily agreed.

Su Nan’s gaze remained fixed on his face. Her clear eyes beneath the pale yellow light seemed to contain something she wanted to say.

He truly did not want to entrust the task of applying her medicine to someone else. Yet it would be inappropriate for him to enter their room, and even more inappropriate to ask her to come to his.

He stood there for a moment. After some thought, he beckoned.

“Su Nan, come here. I need to tell you something.”

His tone was entirely businesslike.

Suspecting nothing, Su Nan put down the hair dryer and hopped over.

Chen Zhiyu lowered his head and spoke quietly. “Did you sneak a look at my identification card?”

Su Nan hurriedly answered, “No.”

“Oh? Then how did you book my room without it?”

Only then did Su Nan realize that his voice contained laughter. This was not serious business at all.

Chen Zhiyu handed her the other two paper bags he was holding. She accepted them and looked inside.

“What are these?”

He did not answer. He merely said, “The class representative’s bag contains Yunnan Baiyao spray. Apply it according to the instructions. Tomorrow, when we return to Dancheng...”

“I still wanted to explore the city.”

Before she finished, she raised her head and found Chen Zhiyu looking at her with an almost-smile. Her courage immediately failed.

“When we return to Dancheng, I’ll take you to a hospital.”

“There’s a hospital in town.”

“One of those dubious Putian hospitals?”

Su Nan laughed. “I was raised without much fuss. An injury like this truly isn’t serious.”

Chen Zhiyu saw the class representative glance toward the doorway and decided not to say more. He reached for his cigarettes, took one out, and caught the filter between his teeth.

“I’m leaving. Go to bed early.”

Back inside, Su Nan sat beside the window and searched through the plastic bag near the class representative. It contained several kinds of medicine for disinfection and treating injuries, both topical and oral.

They disinfected the wound and applied liquid medicine. The class representative also sprayed an aerosol over her ankle. It felt cool at first, then began burning hot, though it no longer hurt as much as before.

A strong, fresh medicinal scent filled the air.

Su Nan returned to her bed and brought over the two paper bags Chen Zhiyu had given her. She removed two boxes.

One was a shoebox containing a pair of Converse sneakers.

She glanced at the class representative. The other woman was absorbed in her phone and paying no attention.

Secretly, Su Nan slipped the uninjured right foot into one of the shoes.

It fit perfectly.

When she examined the other box, however, she froze.

It contained an iPhone.

The phone was rose gold. The screen lit up when she pressed the Home button. He had even trimmed the SIM card from her old phone and inserted it into the new one.

The phone immediately seemed too hot to hold. Even the shoes on her feet appeared to have changed in meaning.

Her thoughts fell into chaos. She could not determine whether she felt happy or worried.

A university professor privately giving an expensive gift to a female student...

An iPhone counted as expensive, didn’t it?

Whether she interpreted it innocently or seriously, something felt wrong.

Only one thought remained clear: she could not accept the phone.

“Su Nan.”

Su Nan returned to her senses. The class representative rubbed her stomach and looked at her.

“Have you eaten dinner?”

Only then did Su Nan realize that all the trouble she had caused had also delayed the other woman’s meal. Feeling immediately guilty, she hurriedly asked, “What would you like? I’ll treat you.”

“What do you want? I can go downstairs and buy something for us. You can’t walk now, can you?”

The class representative took her phone and wallet and left.

Su Nan found the SIM-eject tool inside the phone box and removed her old card from the new phone.

Only three minutes later, someone knocked loudly on the door. Su Nan slipped her feet into the hotel slippers and hopped over to open it.

The class representative beamed. “Professor Chen is treating us to barbecue!”

The extravagantly wealthy Professor Chen was already waiting downstairs. When he saw them emerge, he extinguished the cigarette in his hand.

Su Nan supported herself against the class representative and slowly limped over to greet him.

Chen Zhiyu had also showered and changed. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and his hair was only half dry. Against the evening lights, he once again possessed some of the dissolute air Su Nan had seen at the bar that night.

“Get in.”

Chen Zhiyu opened the door. His gaze swept over the paper bag in Su Nan’s hand and the brand-new sneaker on her foot.

The town was small and resembled a typical urban-rural fringe. Smoke filled its single narrow street, and waves of rich aromas drifted toward them.

They walked from one end to the other and selected a restaurant that appeared relatively clean.

“You two go inside. I’ll find somewhere to park.”

The class representative got out first. Chen Zhiyu glanced into the rearview mirror and happened to meet Su Nan’s gaze in its reflection.

He turned around, but Su Nan quickly lowered her head. She placed the paper bag she was carrying on the back seat, climbed out, and closed the door.

Watching them walk away, he extended an arm and pulled the bag toward him.

It was the one he had just given her. The phone lay neatly inside its box.

Su Nan and the class representative waited inside the restaurant for a while before Chen Zhiyu finally arrived. He pulled off a long section of tissue paper and wiped both his chair and the table three times before sitting. When the bowls and chopsticks arrived, he carefully rinsed them with tea as well.

Su Nan could not help wondering about it.

She had assumed he was not particularly fastidious because he had not hesitated at all before touching her mud-covered hands and feet. Looking at him now, however, his behavior seemed almost germaphobic.

“Professor Chen.” The class representative smiled at him. “We all thought you were difficult to approach. It turns out you’re very easygoing.”

He was difficult to approach. He merely had a pleasing face. Nothing that came out of his mouth sounded human.

“What do you say about me in private?”

“That you’re young! You don’t look thirty-three at all.”

“Thirty-four.”

“Oh, thirty-four. Many of us want to apply for doctoral programs at Chongcheng University because of you.”

“I’m an associate professor. I can’t supervise doctoral students.”

“By the time we’re admitted, you might have been promoted to doctoral supervisor.”

Chen Zhiyu laughed. “May your auspicious words come true.”

“Do you have any requirements when selecting students?”

“Nothing in particular. There’s only one condition: they must be able to endure my temper.”

The words were directed at the class representative, but his gaze moved toward Su Nan.

Su Nan lowered her head and studied the menu, pretending not to notice the jab hidden in his words.

“Are you particularly strict?”

“Strict?”

He watched her hands turning the plastic menu over repeatedly. The village committee courtyard had been too dark for him to see clearly. Only now did he notice that her ten fingers were long and slender. Even beneath the greasy white lightbulb overhead, they appeared fair and delicate.

“I wouldn’t call myself strict. They simply need to be graduate students who know how to use Excel.”

Her fingers stopped exactly as expected.

“Student Su Nan.” Once she finally deigned to raise her head, he laughed softly. “You’ve studied that menu for quite some time. What conclusions have you reached?”

Her gaze darted briefly across his face. “My conclusions depend on your budget for tonight.”

Haven’t you already seen my wallet?

He swallowed the words and looked toward the class representative. “Order whatever you want.”

The class representative eagerly rubbed her hands together. “Professor Chen, may I order scallops? I love them.”

“Go ahead. I’ll ask your advisor, Professor Liu, to reimburse me later.”

The class representative exclaimed, “Really?”

Su Nan could not help intervening. “Order them. Professor Chen is teasing you.”

She looked over and found Chen Zhiyu watching her with an amused, knowing expression.

The small restaurant was busy, and it took a long time for all their food to arrive. The class representative devoted herself to the scallops and spoke less. In the silence, a subtly peculiar atmosphere became impossible to ignore.

After a moment, Chen Zhiyu broke it.

“Where did you eat lunch?”

The class representative answered, “At the village committee. There was an enormous table full of food.”

Su Nan said, “At one of the secretaries’ homes. There were three dishes. One had some kind of plant cooked with pork. It was delicious.”

“King oyster mushrooms? Tea tree mushrooms?” the class representative asked.

“No, it wasn’t a mushroom. It tasted a little like chestnuts and water chestnuts.”

“Arrowhead,” Chen Zhiyu said.

Su Nan paused. “I think that was it.”

The class representative exclaimed, “Professor Chen, you even know that?”

“If I didn’t know more than you, how could I keep you under control?” Chen Zhiyu took a sip of tea.

He ate very little, taking only a few bites of green vegetables and grilled slices of steamed bun. Presumably, he considered the meat there unclean.

“You students nowadays are always ready to tear the roof off.”

The class representative laughed. “Not at all. We respect you enormously.”

“Do you?”

Chen Zhiyu raised his eyes and directed an indecipherable gaze toward Su Nan.

“Why do I feel that, sometimes, certain people no longer listen to the arrangements I make?”

He placed particular emphasis on the word arrangements.

Su Nan understood. Lowering her head, she used her chopsticks to stir the minced garlic on her eggplant and pretended not to notice.