Chapter 5: The Feast

When the long night rises and reveals the depths of my soul, I am merely an emptied wineglass, having poured myself into time until I cease to exist.

—Robert Fitzgerald, “The Wineglass”

Chen Zhiyu had not visited Cheng Wan’s parents for a long time. The last time had been during the Lunar New Year.

He found a place to park some distance away and continued on foot. Someone stood guard at the entrance. Glancing sideways and recognizing Chen Zhiyu, the guard let him enter without question.

The air carried a hint of rain. Several old trees swayed their leaves.

He stood beneath one of them and finished a cigarette before heading upstairs.

Cheng Wan had been climbing steadily higher in her career. Many things were now beyond her control, but when it came to her birthday, she still maintained her old habit of celebrating only with the people closest to her.

Cheng Wan’s mother had fallen ill during the first half of the year. She looked much healthier now and held Chen Zhiyu back to talk about ordinary family matters. Cheng Wan’s parents had watched him grow up. Although he was often contrary and temperamental in other situations, he was exceptionally patient with the elderly couple.

Cheng Wan and Chen Zhiyu’s mother were making soup in the kitchen. Through the thin white steam, Cheng Wan glanced toward the living room.

Chen’s mother smiled. “Neither his father nor I can control him. Your parents are the only people he’ll still listen to.”

Cheng Wan smiled. “He’s only pretending to behave.”

Because it was a family dinner, there was little ceremony and not much drinking. After the meal, they cut a cake. While lighting the candles, Cheng Wan’s mother tactfully brought up the matter of having children. Watching other people enjoy time with their grandchildren, she was envious in the end. But she also understood that Cheng Wan and Chen Zhiyu were both busy with their careers. If their momentum was interrupted while they were advancing, catching up again would not be easy.

After leaving the apartment, the two walked together toward the car.

Cheng Wan had not drunk any alcohol, so she drove. She put the car in gear and released the clutch, but the engine stalled on her first attempt.

“I haven’t driven a manual in years. I’m out of practice.”

“Release the clutch more slowly.”

Cheng Wan tried several more times before finally getting the car moving.

“I’m staying at your place tonight.”

Chen Zhiyu took out a cigarette and lit it. “I haven’t cleaned in several days.”

“That’s fine. I can make do for one night. I’m afraid someone might be waiting outside my door.”

Chen Zhiyu glanced at her. “What happened?”

Cheng Wan smiled, though her expression was somewhat detached. “I encountered a difficult one. She insisted on spending my birthday with me today. I didn’t answer her calls... She may simply be too young.”

Chen Zhiyu never commented on her personal life. He took a drag from his cigarette and said mildly, “Be careful.”

Cheng Wan switched on the car stereo. A light but melancholy folk song began to play, and she hummed along:

If you miss the train I’m on, you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles.

Cheng Wan parked the car and handed the keys to Chen Zhiyu. They went upstairs together.

The apartment had been purchased for their marriage, but Cheng Wan only occasionally stayed there overnight. Her workplace was far away, so she had simply bought another apartment near her office.

A huge wooden display cabinet stood in the living room, with all kinds of stones neatly arranged behind its glass doors.

Cheng Wan walked over and looked around. “There are even more now.”

A cardboard box sat on the table beside it. She opened it and saw a piece of black rock inside.

“What kind of stone is this?”

Chen Zhiyu glanced over. “Biotite andesite. Lin Han helped me acquire it.”

Then she had sent Su Nan all the way to Chongcheng carrying it for him.

Cheng Wan leaned one hip against the edge of the table and examined the clearly labeled conglomerates, siltstones, mylonites, and other rocks inside the cabinet. Some were commonplace, while others were worth a fortune.

“You should open a rock exhibition. You could even sell tickets.”

Ignoring her joke, Chen Zhiyu went into the bathroom to shower.

Cheng Wan wandered around for a while before opening a bottle of his red wine. She had not drunk during the family dinner, but now, holding the glass, she inadvertently finished half the bottle.

When Chen Zhiyu emerged from the shower, he picked up the pack of cigarettes from the coffee table, took one out, and lowered his head to light it.

“You went straight for the most expensive bottle.”

Cheng Wan smiled and lay back on the sofa. “I’m done. Being drunk feels awful.”

Chen Zhiyu sat opposite her, his elbows resting on his thighs and his back slightly hunched.

As if staying sober felt any better.

Cheng Wan turned her head to look at him. “Tell me, should I step away?”

“Could you bear to?”

Power was like a drug. Sometimes, the slightest taste was enough to make escape impossible.

Cheng Wan asked him for a cigarette and lit it. Still lying back, she took a drag and raised her arm, watching the ember dim as a wisp of pale smoke dispersed. Her gaze followed the smoke’s path.

“This is all my life will ever be.”

On Thursday, Su Nan came down with a cold. She lay down during the midday break and did not hear her alarm. By the time she hurried into the classroom, class had already been underway for ten minutes.

It was a small classroom, and without a key, the door could not be opened from outside.

She stood there for half a minute, considering which was more serious: arriving late or missing class entirely. In the end, she steeled herself and knocked.

A moment later, the door creaked open.

Chen Zhiyu’s gaze rested on her for a moment, devoid of emotion. “Come in.”

Su Nan hurriedly found a seat and took out her notebook. After running all the way there, she began coughing the moment she sat down. She covered her mouth, afraid of disturbing Chen Zhiyu’s lecture, and tried desperately to suppress it. Only when she could no longer hold it back did a muffled, heavy cough escape her throat.

She felt for her insulated bottle, only to discover that it was empty. In her rush to leave, she had forgotten to fill it with water.

As soon as the first period ended, Su Nan hurried to the tearoom around the corner in the corridor.

She filled more than half her bottle with boiling water. Standing in the corridor, she blew across its mouth and swallowed it in small sips.

“You have permission to leave. Go back and rest.”

Su Nan nearly choked. Turning around, she discovered that Chen Zhiyu had come out without her noticing.

“Professor Chen.”

“You’re disrupting my class by staying.”

Su Nan’s face flushed bright red. “I’m sorry.”

Chen Zhiyu looked at her. “How did you catch a cold?”

“Someone infected me.”

“Take care when the weather changes.”

“Mm.”

Unable to understand what Chen Zhiyu meant, she merely felt nervous and overwhelmed.

She had been this way since childhood, incapable of building comfortable relationships with her teachers. At high school reunions, everyone else could laugh and converse freely with their homeroom teacher, chatting about anything and everything. Su Nan alone remained constrained and uneasy, like an outsider.

After leaving the tearoom, she returned to the classroom to collect her belongings.

Before she had even left the school administration building, her phone vibrated with a new message in the group chat.

Chen Zhiyu: A Brief Analysis of Issues in the Institutionalization of Communication Studies in China. No fewer than three thousand Chinese characters. Submit it to the class representative, Su Nan, before next week’s class.

Su Nan faintly detected an element of teasing. However, judging by the course schedule, it was indeed time to assign a short paper.

Holding her phone, she replied:

Received.

Rain was forecast for Saturday. As soon as Su Nan woke that morning, she heard it drumming against the window. Her roommate, who had originally agreed to visit Bodhi Temple with her, immediately backed out and suggested going on another weekend when the weather was clear.

With nothing to do, Su Nan had no desire to work on her assignments. She sat on her bed and used her laptop for a while. When she received a WeChat message from Chen Zhiyu, she nearly sprang off the mattress.

Where are the materials you collected last week?

She hurriedly found the document on her desktop and sent it to him.

A moment later, an email reply arrived:

This is fine. Are you free? Bring your laptop and come help me in my office.

Su Nan struggled internally for a moment before going against her conscience and replying that she was free.

She could not quite explain it, but deep down, she was somewhat afraid of Chen Zhiyu.

Su Nan left her umbrella standing in the corridor and knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Su Nan pushed it open. “Professor Chen.”

Chen Zhiyu raised his head from behind his laptop screen. “Find somewhere to sit. Leave the door open.”

Su Nan stopped herself from closing it. She sat on the small sofa nearby, took her laptop from her backpack, and placed it on the coffee table.

“Is it raining outside?”

A little rainwater clung to her shoulders.

“Mm.”

Chen Zhiyu withdrew his gaze. “I sent you some material by email.”

Su Nan hurriedly logged in to her account. A new unread message was already waiting in her inbox.

“Make a table based on the document.”

Without even looking at its contents, Su Nan agreed.

Chen Zhiyu pushed the laptop on his desk away, rose, and walked to the window. He opened it a crack, allowing the wind to blow a fine spray of rain inside. Leaning against the windowsill, he lit a cigarette.

After a while, Su Nan hesitantly spoke. “Professor Chen.”

Chen Zhiyu looked over.

“For the rows and columns...”

With the cigarette between his lips, Chen Zhiyu walked to her side and looked down at the screen. “That works.”

Su Nan began pasting the data into the table one entry at a time.

Chen Zhiyu was silent.

Biting down on his cigarette, he asked, “Is that how you enter data?”

Su Nan grew nervous. “Yes.”

Chen Zhiyu suddenly bent down and took the mouse from her hand.

Su Nan jumped, her entire body going rigid.

Chen Zhiyu flicked his wrist, copied the data from the document into Excel, and swiftly selected Data > Text to Columns > Delimited. He checked Comma and pressed Enter. Hundreds of rows of data automatically separated into columns.

Su Nan stared at the screen in silence.

Chen Zhiyu lowered his head to look at her. “You’ve never learned to use Excel?”

Under the circumstances, she could not possibly claim that she had. She had previously used spreadsheets only to arrange and total figures, while someone else had helped her with the SPSS functions for her undergraduate thesis.

Numbers had always made her head ache.

A quiet laugh sounded above her.

Half of Su Nan’s body remained stiff. Only after a moment did she realize it was because he was standing too close. His arm was pressed against hers, and his breath brushed the top of her head. Even the scent of tobacco seemed stronger than before as it entered her nose.

After a moment that felt unusually long, Chen Zhiyu finally straightened and stepped half a pace back.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a small length of ash fall from the tip of his cigarette. When she looked more carefully, however, there was no trace of it anywhere.

Amusement colored Chen Zhiyu’s voice, and he did not sound angry. “In thirty-three years of life, this is the first time I’ve taught a graduate student how to use Excel.”

Su Nan’s face burned.

“You make decent PowerPoint presentations, so I assumed there wouldn’t be a problem.”

“PowerPoint is simple.”

“Were you a humanities student?”

“Most people who study communications come from the humanities.”

“I studied the sciences.”

“Then why did you...?”

“I chose the major without thinking.” Chen Zhiyu’s answer was slightly hurried, as though he wanted to end the subject. “Take your time fixing the rest.”

“All right.”

Chen Zhiyu watched her.

There was a peculiar stubbornness to her that was difficult to measure. He could never tell whether her pride was high or low. Sometimes he could not resist striking at it a few more times, wanting to see exactly where its limits lay.