Chen Wan could not eat. The phone in his pocket vibrated, but he ignored it. He had only lowered his eyes to glance at his watch when Cao Zhi, the principal wife of the first household, found something to say about it.
“Is the food not to your taste? How has Ah Wan gotten so thin?”
Everyone looked over.
Chen Wan wiped his hands with his napkin and said, “No. It’s hot, so I can’t eat much.”
Her nephew, Cao Zhi, seemed to joke without meaning anything by it. “Ah Wan is used to lavish banquets now. How could he still look at food like this? A friend was just praising him to me the other day, saying Ah Wan showed up in Central the day before yesterday looking very impressive.”
Subtle expressions crossed everyone’s faces.
Zhao Shengge’s welcome-home dinner had been held in Central the day before yesterday.
The sea tower restaurant, the only one of its kind in Hai City, had been reserved for two full days.
Chen Bingxin interrogated Chen Wan. “What were you doing in Central?”
Chen Wan wiped his hands unhurriedly and lied with perfect composure. “Parking cars for Zhuo Zhixuan.”
Chen Bingxin’s cloudy gaze stopped on him. Chen Wan turned his head and looked back calmly.
Chen Bingxin had no choice but to believe him. Everyone knew Chen Wan had once gone swimming as a child and happened to save a classmate of distinguished background.
Liao Quan, the maternal grand-uncle from the second household, laughed. “Then Ah Wan needs to hold tight to that rope. It won’t do if you climb up by yourself. Only when the Chen family is doing well can you stand more steadily too, isn’t that right?”
Chen Wan said nothing. Chen Bingxin gave a snort first.
“What hope can he possibly have? They’re only using him to run errands. Would they truly give him any face?”
For those words to be said aloud in front of everyone made them all snicker. Song Qingmiao was furious but did not dare speak; her face flushed red with anger. Chen Wan, however, did not feel humiliated.
The words were ugly, but in theory, Chen Bingxin was not wrong.
Chen Wan had always known his own place. He had never dared be too optimistic about whether that circle had truly accepted him. After all, his birth, class, and position were all there, with a chasm between them.
But no matter what, Chen Wan still felt it was much better than this place.
Leaving aside whether those young masters took him as a friend, at least they took him as a person.
Chen Wan nodded in agreement and said, neither humble nor arrogant, “That is true. Someone like me, who only does odd jobs and runs errands, can’t put in a word.”
Not only would he never do anything for the Chen family, he would not even use the favors and convenience of that circle for his own business.
This was a strict defensive line.
Chen Wan, as a person, was impure from inside to outside, from head to toe, from his eyes to his smile. Only this bit of feeling could still count as pure.
He had to do everything he could to preserve that purity.
Everyone wanted to see Chen Wan make a fool of himself, but since the person involved looked utterly indifferent and unconcerned, the subject shifted to the marriage prospects of the eldest daughter of the third household.
The Chen residence was strict with its rules and heavy with elaborate formalities. After dinner ended, Chen Bingxin pressed his palms together and recited a prayer, then led everyone to offer incense to the Lord and the Sea Goddess.
Chen Wan had suspected more than once that this half-local, half-foreign, neither-Chinese-nor-Western formalistic faith might actually anger both Eastern and Western gods.
Standing among a group of his peers as they knelt and kowtowed over and over, Chen Wan at one point felt as if he were living in some year at the end of the Qing dynasty.
As in previous years, Chen Bingxin had invited several feng shui masters to exorcise ghosts and make offerings to Buddha. He spent a great deal of money to obtain spirit talismans, trying to make Rongxin, a building already rotten from its roots, shine again.
The masters touched the corners and lintels here and there. After calculating an excellent divination, everyone felt reassured and went back to playing mahjong. Guests came in wave after wave. The tiles clattered down, and Guanyin and Buddha were both disturbed from their peace by one cry of “Win” after another.
The rosewood wall clock had only just pointed to eight.
There was still a long time before he could leave.
Chen Wan went to the side hall to get some air. He never took work calls in the old residence, so he stood idly before the window and watched the rain.
The No. 8 storm signal had come in fierce and urgent, but it did not leave cleanly. It kept dragging its tail behind it. Night rain struck the broad palm leaves with a rustling sound, and ice-begonia petals had fallen all over the courtyard.
It was not a weekend, but school was out because of the typhoon, so there were more children around. Some were from side branches of the Chen family, and some had been brought by guests. They were roughhousing in the front hall.
Chen Wan watched them for a while out of boredom, then keenly walked over to a girl with two little horn braids. She was pressed against the wall in a strange, stiff posture.
Chen Wan scared off the boys buzzing around her like flies, then crouched and asked, “What are you doing?”
The girl was probably mixed-race. Her hair curled slightly at the temples, and her pale pupils looked at Chen Wan warily.
Chen Wan gave her a very faint smile.
Almost no one could resist Chen Wan’s smile, whether at seventeen or seven.
The girl shook her head and said in English, “I’m fine.”
Chen Wan checked her and saw no obvious injuries, so he stood beside her and leaned against the wall in the same way.
Perhaps this boring way of passing time somehow won her trust. After a while, the girl turned her head and solemnly extended her hand.
“Hello. Judy.”
Chen Wan also held out his hand and shook hers gravely. “Hello. Chen Wan.”
Afraid she would not understand Chinese, Chen Wan added, “Or Keats.”
The girl was more interested in his Chinese name, though her pronunciation was not very fluent. “Chen… Wan? Which Wan?”
“The Wan from ‘to keep someone from leaving.’”
Judy blinked. Her Chinese was not yet good enough to understand the word.
Chen Wan touched his pocket and took out a very simple business card, pointing to the characters printed on it. Judy looked at them carefully for a while, then accepted the card.
The two of them stood side by side in silence for a little longer, watching the night rain. Chen Wan felt thirsty, picked up a mangosteen from beside the offering table, and asked, “Judy, do you want some?”
Judy hesitated for a moment and said, “I’m sorry, Chen Wan. It’s not convenient for me to eat.”
Chen Wan was amused by her earnest seriousness.
“Why?”
Judy said awkwardly, “My dress is ruined. It’s not convenient for me to leave this wall.”
Only then did Chen Wan notice the scissor marks on the hem of her dress. He put away his smile and asked quietly, “They did this?”
The boys were seven or eight, the age when even dogs found them annoying.
Judy tacitly admitted it.
Chen Wan took off the shirt he was wearing over his clothes and handed it to her, letting her tie it around her waist. “Use this to cover yourself first.”
Judy thanked him.
Chen Wan asked, “Do you need me to tell your mother?”
Judy’s mother was Madam Du Rui, who was currently playing cards in the living room.
The once-widowed wife of Hai City’s richest man, a society lady who possessed half of Shallow Bay, had countless lovers. The identity of Judy’s father had once been one of Hai City’s favorite mysteries.
Madam Du Rui was addicted to luxury and dissipation and did not pay much attention to Judy, so Judy still said no. Madam Du Rui would only scold her for losing a young lady’s manners.
Chen Wan respected her wishes.
His shirt was very long. Judy could wear it as a skirt, and it even looked rather fashionable.
Chen Wan broke open the mangosteen and shared half with her. Judy ate with great restraint.
It was the height of mangosteen season. They had been imported by air from Vietnam that very day, each one round and full, the flesh translucent white and sweet, like several petals of packed snow, its cool sweetness spilling between the teeth.
After they finished eating, Chen Wan looked at the fruit basket and asked, “Have another one. Pineapple or melon?”
Now that Judy had his outer shirt on, she could move much more freely. She craned her head and said, “Melon.”
Chen Wan picked up the knife to cut it. Suddenly, a hand clapped down on his shoulder from behind.
Chen Wan reacted extremely fast. He dodged sideways, turned, and pointed the tip of the knife at the person. The other party hurriedly moved his hand away and raised both hands in surrender, grinning so widely his gums showed.
“Ah Wan, it’s me.”
Chen Wan stepped half a pace forward to block Judy behind him. He did not lower the knife. He made a few casual motions with it in the air and said, “So what if it’s you? Back up.”
He did not even need to turn his head. Just smelling that rotten odor was enough for him to know which stinking fly it was.
Liao Quan was still smiling. He pointed at the knife in Chen Wan’s hand. “Put that down first. I just haven’t seen you in a long time and wanted to chat with you.”
Chen Wan ignored him.
Liao Quan said again, “Harmony in the family brings prosperity to everything. If your brother-in-law sees this, he’ll scold you again.”
“It doesn’t matter if he sees.”
The stairway light fell across Chen Wan’s face. When he was not smiling, his presence was actually somewhat cold and sinister. Chen Wan tilted his head slightly and said, slowly but clearly, “Do you think you can send me into Little Olive Mountain a second time?”
Liao Quan’s smile faded a little. He licked the root of his teeth.
Little Olive Mountain was Hai City’s asylum. The patients kept there all had special backgrounds: officials’ mistresses and illegitimate children, top-level political prisoners, celebrities who had lost their minds.
Chen Wan had spent three years there starting at age nine.
He extended the tip of the knife another inch forward, pointing it straight between Liao Quan’s brows. He tapped the air lightly and said in a calm voice, “You can’t do it anymore. But I can cut your fingers again.”
The knife tip was much too close. Liao Quan’s greedy, murky eyes finally shrank back by half a degree.
The year Chen Wan had first been brought back from an Outer Third Ring tenement, he was nine. During afternoon nap, Liao Quan locked him in a room.
Liao Quan touched the child’s feet and took off his white socks. He had not expected Chen Wan to be so unusually alert and guarded. Almost immediately, Chen Wan kicked back and stomped hard on his wrist.
Liao Quan cried out in pain, slapped Chen Wan across the face, and grabbed his hair. Chen Wan was young, but he was vicious and sparing with words. Without another word, he picked up the scissors on the desk and cut Liao Quan’s fingers.
He had never been some powerless young master. He was a wild child who had grown up in an Outer Third Ring tenement, roaming around without anyone to discipline him. He was a vicious dog raised in a place where the weak were prey to the strong, untamed and covered in thorns. Liao Quan’s hands were shredded bloody by those thorns.
When the Filipina maid heard the bloodcurdling screams from the hallway, Chen Wan had almost stabbed through the man’s palm and was still trying to stab his eyes and face.
The incident caused an enormous uproar. A doctor came to the house to treat the injury and said Liao Quan’s right hand might be disabled. Liao Liu, the second wife, kicked Chen Wan in front of everyone, then slapped Song Qingmiao hard across the face. Still unable to vent her hatred, she cried, raged, and threatened to hang herself, demanding that Chen Bingxin give her brother justice. Liao Quan was the Liao family’s only son.
Everyone from every household looked at Chen Wan as if he were a mad, evil freak. What ordinary child would be so cruel and vicious as to nearly kill someone?
Chen Bingxin was furious. Chen Wan was like the lawless, ungovernable Nezha who protected his mother and killed his father, an ungrateful wolf cub that could not be raised tame. Chen Bingxin ordered the family doctor to forcibly inject him with sedatives, produced a diagnosis declaring him mentally ill, and had him sent to Little Olive Mountain.
Chen Wan withdrew the knife and did not look at Liao Quan again. He went back to cutting melon for Judy.
“You know what I’m like. A barefoot man isn’t afraid of someone wearing shoes. If I can say it, I can do it.”
Liao Quan had never been able to take advantage of him before, and now he could even less. Unwilling, Liao Quan looked at Chen Wan’s handsome, elegant profile. Both the deceptive softness in Chen Wan and his prickly edge when roused were very tempting. But he was also afraid Chen Wan would truly go mad. After all, a moment ago, Chen Wan had genuinely seemed ready to drive the knife into his eye.
It was not time yet.
Liao Quan looked at Judy, took two steps back, and left.
Chen Wan handed Judy a slice of melon. “Are you scared?”
Judy ate until her mouth shone and asked, “Of what?”
“Did I frighten you?” The way he had held the knife just now had looked as if he meant to kill someone. He did not know whether it would leave a psychological shadow on a child, so when he gave her the fruit, he smiled at her and wiped the juice from her hands with a tissue.
“No,” Judy said, looking up at him.
Perhaps Madam Du Rui did not avoid her when flirting with her lovers. The little girl was somewhat precocious. She said in English, “Chen Wan, you are a gentle gentleman.”
“…”
Pointing a knife at someone, yet still a gentle gentleman?
Judy’s eyes moved left and right over the fruit basket. Then she said sincerely, “Like the mangosteen, Keats.”
Mangosteen: firm and sturdy on the outside, translucent white and soft within.
“…”
Chen Wan did not really understand the strange imagination and childlike innocence of children. After choking on silence for a moment, he did not dare give her the knife. Instead, he stuffed several fruit forks into her pocket for self-defense and instructed her, “If you see this person again, go somewhere with lots of adults.”
Judy trusted him, so she nodded obediently.