Seeing something unusual in her expression, Tang Shen asked what was wrong.
With a self-deprecating laugh, Cheng Baoyi let slip a bit of inner truth: “You really are… scarily smart!”
“Scarier than Yuwen Hu?” Tang Shen smiled. “We haven’t finished the part about Yuwen邕 yet.”
“Where did we get up to just now?”
“We got to the part where he endured and played the fool for twelve years. How many years are you planning to play along?”
Cheng Baoyi laughed as well, casting her previous thought to the back of her mind. “My acting skills aren’t great, I don’t want to play along for too long.” Picking up the afternoon tea menu, she suggested ordering more food so they could keep listening about him enduring for another twelve years.
During the afternoon tea hour on a weekday, the place wasn’t usually crowded. However, with the rapid development of Macau’s tourism industry in recent years, even an ordinary cha chaan teng like this had customers. The ceiling fan turned slowly overhead, while a waiter in a white shirt and black skirt hurried past. Approaching the table, the waiter asked politely what they would like to order.
Recognizing the soft, timid voice, Cheng Baoyi and Tang Shen looked up in familiarity. Wasn’t this Wang Jingchun? Cheng Baoyi called out, “Miss Wong, what are you doing here?”
As if facing a formidable enemy, Wang Jingchun started, her hand loosening and letting her notepad drop to the floor. Bending down to pick it up, her voice still trembled slightly, “You can also scan the QR code to order, MPay—”
Wang Jingchun wasn’t good at lying. She just stood there panicked and silent, timidly glancing toward the back. She was afraid her father might walk out at any moment and demand to know what was going on.
Tang Shen looked at her, then at Cheng Baoyi, and sensibly kept quiet.
“Miss Wong, they said you were having an affair with Cheng Kewei. I don’t believe it…”
Hearing Cheng Kewei’s name made Wang Jingchun’s heart pound wildly. Cutting her off in a rush, she said, “I’m sorry, I have to go to work now, please excuse me.” Unwilling to let her go, Cheng Baoyi still pressed a hand over hers. “I don’t think you’re that kind of person.”
“I really have to work… my dad will scold me if he sees…” She glanced back. A gray-haired man, assuming there was some customer complaint, was walking over with a suspicious look on his face. Without missing a beat, Tang Shen raised her voice with an insatiable appetite, exaggeratedly fussing over the menu: “Do you have any recommendations for afternoon tea?”
The man stopped, glanced over, and walked away.
Snatching the menu handed over by Tang Shen to shield her face, Cheng Baoyi lowered her voice. “It was just an excuse for my mummy to fire you, wasn’t it?” Seeing that Wang Jingchun didn’t answer, she let out a sigh of relief—whether out of respect for Wang Jingchun’s character or reassurance that she hadn’t misplaced her trust. “Kejia liked you a lot. After you left, he cried for a long time. I also knew you weren’t the kind of person mummy claimed, trying to hook a rich husband and seduce Cheng Kewei…”
“Mrs. Cheng wasn’t wrong. I am.” Wang Jingchun spoke up abruptly. Her voice remained low and soft, but it carried the stubborn resolution of an honest person pushed to the limit—braving out the words and forcibly pinning the “gold-digger” label onto herself.
She said, “I was the one who approached Cheng Kewei first. I’m no victim.”
Stunned, Cheng Baoyi couldn’t find words to reply. Tang Shen found it inconvenient to speak, keeping her head down and pretending to study the menu the entire time. Pointing at the afternoon tea sets on the page, Wang Jingchun feigned composure and explained with deadpan seriousness: if they liked curry, they might as well try the Portuguese chicken rice; the portion wasn’t too big, and the pork chop bun and molten lava French toast were also local specialties; add a bottle of milk tea each, and that would be just about right.
Seeing that Cheng Baoyi remained silent and the atmosphere grew awkwardly quiet, Tang Shen immediately chimed in, “I’ll have the pork chop bun and milk tea.” Then she nudged Cheng Baoyi: “And you?” When Cheng Baoyi stayed quiet, Tang Shen closed the menu. “She’ll have the same.”
Though the cha chaan teng was small, Wang Jingchun rarely came over to their table afterward, as if an invisible barrier stood between them. She purposefully kept her gaze away, running out to deliver orders in between. From the glass window, Tang Shen and Cheng Baoyi watched her put on a helmet, mount a scooter, and speed away down the narrow alley. Resting her chin in her hand, Cheng Baoyi watched the departing figure and murmured, “Kejia always thought she was a good teacher.”
Taking a sip of milk tea, Tang Shen asked, “Why isn’t she a good teacher now?”
Unable to formulate an answer, Cheng Baoyi lowered her head and said, “Let’s continue.”
Tang Shen could see it now: Cheng Baoyi possessed a strong sense of morality. Returning the purchase order in front of her employees or having Uncle Zhong’s son conduct research were both entirely normal actions. Yet because she carried hidden motives and heavy secrets in her heart, she felt deeply insecure.
Uncle Zhong’s son quickly discovered that this trading company’s primary client was indeed Cheng Yongtang, with other clients being sporadic and small-scale; furthermore, the purchase price for the poria mushroom was higher than market rates and had persisted for over a year.
With Baoxin’s side remaining quiet and making no moves, Cheng Baoyi felt even more unsettled. Tang Shen advised her not to obsess over what others were doing, but to focus on handling the matters right in front of her.
When the two of them discussed this, they were floating in the Cheng family’s swimming pool, each sitting on an inflatable giant duck. Cheng Baoyi told Tang Shen about the Hengqin Traditional Chinese Medicine Cooperation Zone, mentioning that she had found a partner for secondary process development and was preparing to apply nanotechnology to the ancestral ointment formula. Lying flat on her big yellow duck, Tang Shen listened quietly.
Sliding down off the duck, Cheng Baoyi said, “I’m hungry.” She climbed out of the water, grabbed a towel, and asked, “Are you coming in?”
By now, Tang Shen had stayed in the Cheng family long enough to shed her initial overcautiousness. “I’ll lie down for a little longer.”
Cheng Baoyi’s wet footprints stretched all the way to the lounge chair, where she slipped into her slippers and padded noisily into the house. In the pool, only Tang Shen remained. The night was cool, the water clear. Lying on her back atop the big yellow duck, she dragged her fingers through the water. She hadn’t told Cheng Baoyi this, but no matter how close their bond grew, someone like her—raised in the cramped, noisy environment of an urban village—still harbored a deep yearning for solitude.
A breeze swept past, and the giant yellow duck drifted slowly across the water’s surface. With her eyes closed, she felt comfortable enough to fall asleep. Slowly, slowly…
Her body suddenly listed to one side.
In an instant, water rushed into her nose and mouth, causing her to choke violently. Someone swiftly pulled her close, wrapping one arm firmly across her back while the other grasped her elbow.
Brushing away her wet hair, she looked up and saw, to her astonishment, Cheng Keqi.
His light-colored shirt clung to his body, water droplets trickling down his jawline. His hair was disheveled, with several damp strands plastered across his forehead. “Are you alright?”
“Mm.”
He released his grip and stepped back half a step.
Recovering her wits, Tang Shen watched him climb out of the water, then steadied herself against the pool edge and climbed the steps one by one. A towel draped over the lounge chair’s armrest caught his eye; he picked it up and handed it to her. “Dry off.”
Taking it, she covered her head with the towel, shutting out the pool lights and the person before her. “Were you here the whole time?”
“I just got back and saw you lying here alone, looking like you fell asleep. I was afraid you might have been drinking and been in danger, so I waited a bit.”
She used the towel to dry her wet hair. “Thank you.” She thought to herself that the pool wasn’t even deep; falling in wouldn’t have caused any real harm. But from childhood, she had grown accustomed to avoiding words others disliked hearing. She didn’t know that even if she had said so, Cheng Keqi wouldn’t have refuted her—because he, too, had grown accustomed since childhood to tailoring his speech to suit other people’s expectations.
Wringing out the hem of his shirt, Cheng Keqi watched droplets patter onto the ceramic tiles. In the end, he simply turned his back, stripped off the shirt, wrung it dry, carried it in his hand, and walked into the house.
Having grown up in a complex environment, Tang Shen didn’t believe in innocent, pure-hearted souls, children aside. She didn’t know whether Cheng Keqi was merely putting on the facade of a good person. But even if it was an act, if someone could keep playing that part all the way through, what difference was there between them and a truly “good person”?