Chapter 9: The Secret

Downstairs, a man lies deathly ill, while the family next door plays a gramophone. Across the way, someone is tending a child. Upstairs, two people laugh wildly, and there is also the sound of people playing cards. On a boat in the river, a woman weeps for her dead mother. Human joys and sorrows are not shared. I only find them noisy.

—Lu Xun

The moment Su Jing saw Su Nan, she reacted as though she had found her savior and raised her voice.

“Su Nan! Su Nan, talk some sense into your brother-in-law! It’s almost New Year! Who goes running off to someone else’s home when New Year is nearly here?”

The man shoved Su Jing away. “I left you the house and gave you money! Why the fuck are you still making trouble? What the fuck do you want?”

Su Nan stood there stunned and humiliated. Then her thoughts became like the snow that had been trampled nearly out of existence: disorderly and mottled, with only a patch of blankness remaining.

“Su Nan!”

Su Jing lunged at the man again and clung to him.

“Su Nan, help me talk some sense into your brother-in-law! It’s almost New Year!”

A burning coal seemed lodged in Su Nan’s throat, leaving her unable to speak. She wished she could lose her voice or simply evaporate where she stood.

The plastic bag rattled in the cold wind. She stepped forward but took hold of Su Jing’s arm instead.

“Sis... let it go.”

“Let it go? Why should I let it go? This is his home! And there’s Ningning. Ningning is his daughter!”

As though suddenly unable to support herself, Su Jing began sobbing. Yet her rough, reddened fingers still clutched the man’s sleeve with all their strength.

“You can’t leave. If you take one step toward that bitch, I’ll...”

Her gaze swept around and landed on the sedan at the mouth of the alley. Although it was several years old, its exterior remained polished and gleaming.

“I’ll smash my head against that car and kill myself!”

Su Jing had called Su Nan cold and heartless during the countless times Su Nan had urged her to divorce. Su Jing always had hundreds of arguments ready in response, as though one rational piece of advice from Su Nan placed her in the same camp as “that bitch.”

Eventually, Su Nan no longer dared mention it.

What little sympathy remained inside her was like loose sand held in her hand. The longer she squeezed, the more of it slipped away. All that remained was the irritation and numbness digging into her flesh.

Human joys and sorrows are not shared. I only find them noisy.

At that moment, Su Nan sensed that she might truly be cold and heartless. A bitterly disappointed Then go ahead and die rose to her lips, nearly emerging one word at a time.

Clenching her back teeth, she wrapped her arms around Su Jing’s waist and pulled hard. When Su Jing collided with the bag in her hand, it fell into the muddy water with a smack.

A slap carrying the force of the wind struck her face.

“Su Nan! Whose side are you on?”

The man seized the opportunity to wrench his sleeve free. He shot Su Jing a sidelong glance, straightened his collar, and swaggered away.

Chen Zhiyu stepped forward and extended an arm, but he did not know what he could do. His arm stiffened awkwardly in place.

Five red marks appeared across Su Nan’s face where Su Jing had struck her.

Su Jing seemed dazed. A moment later, she gripped Su Nan’s arm and stepped back.

“Little sister, I... I didn’t mean to.”

“Ningning is still at home. She’s so young, and you left her alone.”

Su Nan quickly crouched, using the motion to sniff hard and force everything back. She retrieved the bag from the muddy water, removed the clean bottle of dishwashing liquid, and pushed it into Su Jing’s hands.

“Go back. I’m going home.”

“Little sister...”

Su Nan kept her head lowered and looked at no one. She passed Su Jing, passed Chen Zhiyu, and hurried away across the filthy snow.

As she brushed past them, tears spilled from her lowered eyes.

“Su Nan.”

She seemed not to hear him and continued walking as though fleeing.

Chen Zhiyu pulled out his car key, slammed the door, and quickly caught up with her.

Dark clouds hung low. The river had nearly dried up, and the stone bridge was covered in dull gray dust. Su Nan stood beside it.

He remembered the night they returned from People’s Hospital. When he turned to look back, he had seen that slender figure, as though something heavy were pressing upon her shoulders.

Who had she been speaking to on the phone that night? What had she been thinking?

At twenty-four, she should have been at a bright, uninhibited age. Yet he could always see a glaring alienation and loneliness in her eyes. Sometimes he could see nothing at all, only a desert filled with wind and snow.

“Su Nan.”

The figure quickly raised a hand and wiped her eyes. Her voice was muffled and heavy.

“I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

Witness what?

Even adults who were not forced or nagged had moments of helplessness.

“I have to ask...” He sighed quietly. “You’re so foolish. How many people must have bullied you while you were growing up?”

“No one. Only you...” Her voice trembled like a taut string.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

Still pretending to be strong.

He stepped closer, closed his hand around her slender wrist, and pulled her toward him. His fingers approached her swollen red cheek.

“That isn’t where I meant.”

Her damp eyelashes trembled rapidly.

“Five minutes.”

Holding her wrist, he drew her into his arms.

For five minutes, he was not her professor, and she was not his student.

The body in his arms was rigid. After a moment, it slowly relaxed. She clutched the edge of his coat so tightly that the knuckles of all five fingers turned white. Her breathing came quick and uneven, carrying each suppressed sob into his ears.

Into his heart.

Slowly and somewhat hesitantly, he placed a palm against her back.

Some things grew increasingly confusing, while others became steadily clearer.

Countless thoughts formed and vanished, rising and falling.

Her breathing gradually steadied. Her grip on his coat loosened, and the person in his arms stepped half a pace back. In a thick, muffled voice, she thanked him.

He gave a noncommittal “Mm.”

“I know one or two lawyers who specialize in divorce cases.”

Su Nan shook her head. “They wouldn’t be of any use.”

Su Jing refused to divorce. She intended to drag along the dignity and affection that had long since disappeared and fight the unfaithful man to the bitter end.

“If you ever need them, contact me directly.”

Beneath the bridge, the exposed mud of the riverbed released an earthy smell.

The wind lifted her hair. Her eyes, freshly washed by tears, were clear and bright. Yet emotions still clung to them and refused to disperse. Looking into them, one saw only sorrow and an even deeper sorrow.

At last, he caught a glimpse of how her stubborn, submissive, cheerfully enduring, yet deeply withdrawn personality had formed.

And yet...

He reached into his pocket for a cigarette. Only after taking a drag did the agitation inside him ease slightly, one anxiety surfacing as soon as another was pressed down.

His upbringing had been strict. His father, Chen Zhen, was a traditional Chinese father who particularly disliked his restless antics.

Once, Chen Zhiyu went camping in the mountains with his classmates and brought home a squirrel he had caught. It died in less than a week.

Chen Zhen made him kneel for half a day before the squirrel’s body.

“I never opposed you keeping pets. Last year, you kept a Pekingese for three months before giving it to your uncle. The year before, you kept a Linqing cat for one month, and now your mother takes care of it for you. Did you ever find out whether this squirrel could adapt to life in the city, or what it normally ate, drank, and lived in? If you couldn’t keep this one either, whom were you planning to abandon it to? Me?”

Chen Zhiyu buried the squirrel. After that, he never brought another cat, dog, or bird home.

“Zhiyu, if you cannot accept responsibility, do not take something upon yourself.”

Amid the sound of the wind, the two of them remained silent for too long.

“Professor Chen, you should hurry to the exhibition hall. It closes at four thirty.”

Chen Zhiyu nodded without speaking.

He had not smoked for some time, leaving a long column of ash for the incoming wind to scatter. He crushed the cigarette out, as though intending to cut off both the embrace born from that moment of impulse and everything it had brought forth.

They parted on the bridge and walked in opposite directions. Chen Zhiyu headed toward the red houses, while Su Nan continued toward her own home in the distance.

The surrounding buildings had changed beyond recognition, but the road remained the same one she had often walked as a child.

After crossing the bridge, she passed a succession of small shops and stalls that sold everything from powdered milk and diapers to funeral supplies, encompassing life from birth to death. She then entered a cramped alley filled with a bicycle that had fallen apart, flowerpots that had become one with the soil, thirty-year-old sneakers, and countless other objects.

Her home stood at the end.

Su Nan stopped outside but did not go upstairs.

Water dripped from above. Years of rain had stained a large patch of concrete outside the entrance a deep, inky green, like moss.

Drip.

Only now did she seem to recover from that embrace, which could be pulled apart and examined from every direction without revealing the slightest romantic intention. Then, as though possessed, she began recalling every detail.

Shame, humiliation, and a pounding heart.

His body heat, his breath carrying a faint woody fragrance, the dampness clinging to his clothes...

Once everything had settled and fermented, all that remained was the despair of having tasted something and begun to crave it.

Inside the red houses, beside the white architectural model, stood an introduction to the building and its designers.

S University Art Museum

The design draws upon the imagery of the verse, “Children return early from school and eagerly fly their kites upon the east wind.” The entire roof of the museum resembles a paper kite, light and graceful.

This was the final work in whose design Yang Luo participated before her death. Under the guidance of renowned architect Zhou Guanyuan, then a professor in Chongcheng University’s Department of Architecture, she designed it together with Chen Zhiyu, now a professor in Chongcheng University’s School of Journalism and Communication.

It is a treasure of S University and of humanity’s entire architectural history...

Yang Luo, 1979–2002, native of Qinghe District, Qicheng.

In 1997, she was admitted to Chongcheng University’s Department of Architecture with the highest examination score in the district.

In 1999, she received the Silver Award in the Anderson International Architectural Design Awards.

...

On October 17, 2002, she tragically died in a car accident. She was only twenty-three years old.

Above the introduction was a color photograph of her upper body. The printing had distorted it slightly, but one could still see that she had been an extraordinarily beautiful young woman.

Her bright eyes moved expressively.

When those eyes in the photograph looked intently at you, it seemed as though every flower in the world had bloomed.

October 17, 2015. S University.

That day, he had stood beneath the eaves and asked her:

“Could you sing something else?”

“That’s an art museum. Can you see it?”

“A friend of mine designed it.”

“The view is good from here. Seen from this angle, the roof of the museum resembles a paper kite.”

“Qicheng... Autumn is lovely there. Once it starts raining, it rains for a month. It’s the perfect place to find somewhere to drink and admire the maples.”