Inside the iron gates stood a three-story Portuguese-style villa with beige exterior walls. Uncle Zhong got out of the car and observed Tang Shen’s expression. Seeing her completely calm, without a trace of being dazzled, he felt a sense of displeasure, as if his masters were being looked down upon. Even among servants, there were distinct ranks; as a veteran of the household, he made sure to introduce, “There are also two levels of basement parking here.”
Pushing her small suitcase, Tang Shen followed Uncle Zhong to the back door. Uncle Zhong kept chattering away: “You can see the sea from the big terrace, and even Hengqin. By the way, your Cantonese is quite good. Can you speak English?”
From Uncle Zhong’s demeanor, Tang Shen gathered he meant no real malice. She replied that she knew a little bit.
Uncle Zhong then began talking about his son, who was studying accounting in Australia. “My wife took him there last time; I haven’t been to Australia yet, but I must take leave to go to his graduation ceremony.” While he was rambling on, a woman in her forties or fifties walked out. She was thin and dark-skinned, with her hair pulled back tightly. She looked Tang Shen up and down. “You’re the new family tutor?”
“Yes.”
“Just this one suitcase? And you came from such a far place.” The latter half of her sentence carried a heavier tone.
“One is enough.”
The woman let out an “hmph” and asked if her blue card (work permit) had been processed yet.
Tang Shen glanced at her without answering immediately. She pressed the release button on her suitcase handle, which let out a sharp click, and straightened up unhurriedly. “My work visa has already been applied for; Ms. Cheng arranged it for me.”
Her attitude was polite, but her words carried a secondary meaning: This matter was arranged by Ms. Cheng, and it’s none of your concern.
The woman realized that this newcomer was no pushover. She opened her mouth, about to say something, when Cheng Baoyi’s voice suddenly rang out from inside: “Sister Huan—”
Cheng Baoyi was standing between the living room and the foyer, wearing an almond-colored linen shirt, her face quiet and expressionless.
“Take Teacher Tang’s luggage up to the second floor. The room at the very end.”
Her tone wasn’t heavy, but Sister Huan’s expression shifted slightly. She looked at Cheng Baoyi, then at Tang Shen. Tang Shen gently pushed the suitcase toward her and said, “Sorry to trouble you.” Sister Huan had no choice but to carry the suitcase upstairs, her footsteps going pata, pata, heavy with reluctance.
Watching her go upstairs, Cheng Baoyi turned her face back. “Sister Huan is someone who used to work closely with my eldest aunt.”
Tang Shen understood. In this house, even a domestic helper had their own political allegiances.
“And Uncle Zhong…?”
“He’s just pure talk.”
Before coming, Tang Shen had looked up the news in advance, roughly grasping the family’s situation. Cheng Yongtang was a local Macao traditional Chinese medicine enterprise, said to trace its roots back to the Guangzhou Cheng Ji founded during the Daoguang Emperor’s reign. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Cheng family split into three branches, staying in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao respectively. The Macao branch gave birth to daughters, failed to secure the pastry recipe, and gradually lost contact with Guangzhou and Hong Kong. However, they carved out a new path from the medicinal formulas passed down to the daughters, slowly growing into what they were today.
During the 1960s and 70s, Macao was an underdeveloped small city with few job opportunities. The wave of immigration in the 1980s caused the population to surge, and Cheng Yongtang’s business flourished as well. Its storefronts expanded rapidly, growing to a total of six or seven shops across Hong Kong and Macao today, along with a small factory in Macao.
The only problem was that the head of the family, old Mrs. Cheng, was of advanced age. The current struggle between the third-generation members of the two households was essentially a fight for her favor, trust, and the ultimate right of inheritance. Because the primary household had two adult grandsons, they held an absolute advantage. The man Tang Shen had seen today, Cheng Kewei, was the eldest grandson of the primary household.
As for the secondary household, its members were pitifully few—only Cheng Baoyi and her younger brother.
This house was where old Mrs. Cheng lived; the other two households lived not far away, just over a ten-minute drive. But since last year, the old lady’s health had deteriorated, and members of the primary household had successively moved back, claiming they “wanted to keep Grandma company.” The secondary household followed closely behind, terrified that the old lady would play favorites.
Once inside the room and the door closed, Cheng Baoyi felt free to explain the household situation, mentioning that recently, everyone had moved back. “My eldest brother lives in Daitan Mountain, and my second brother lives near Regency Art Centre [StarWorld Plaza area]. But starting last month, even my eldest and second brothers spend a lot of their time here.”
“Eldest brother? Second brother?” Tang Shen asked.
“They’re both from the primary household.” Cheng Baoyi glanced at her. “You don’t need to worry about that too much. Your task is to look after Kejia and make him a bit happier.” She paused. “And make him win Grandma’s favor more often.”
Tang Shen thought to herself, Of course. Why else would they hire her as a tutor if not for this purpose? Cheng Baoyi mentioned that Kejia had recently gone on a school study trip to Sichuan and would be back tonight, at which point Tang Shen would meet him.
Cheng Baoyi left. Tang Shen tried hard to memorize the names of everyone she had met and hadn’t met. Hao Jie and Sister Huan—their names were homophones for good and bad respectively, making them very easy to remember. She chuckled inwardly; if human nature were truly that simple and distinct to categorize, how wonderful that would be.
Her room was considered staff quarters, but at least it was an independent space. Directly across the hall was another room, which she guessed might house other servants. Since the other “masters” lived on the third floor and used the elevator, she wouldn’t cross paths with them, making it feel like a modern-day Downton Abbey.
She opened her suitcase, hung up her clothes one by one, sat down on the edge of the bed, put away her non-resident worker identification card, and opened the e-reader she brought from Guangzhou. On the tiny screen, the Middle East was in turmoil, vying for the crown prince position. Outside her window, the sky was blue with pale clouds, and little birds chirped.
Around six o’clock, the sound of cars and voices drifted up from the courtyard below, creating a vague commotion. Tang Shen remembered Cheng Baoyi telling her that at dinnertime, someone would come to guide her to the kitchen area to dine with the other servants, so she simply stayed inside reading peacefully until someone knocked on the door.
Getting up to open it, she found Cheng Baoyi standing outside.
“My grandmother is back. She wants to see you.”
Land in Macao is unimaginably expensive; this house wasn’t small locally, but compared to the mainland, it wasn’t much. The Chengs were considered wealthy, but Macao had a small market after all, and even counting the entire Greater Bay Area, their influence was ultimately limited.
Yet the furniture and household items here were all of the finest quality. From doing business since the Qing Dynasty onwards, what the old lady took the most pride in was precisely this so-called traditional family heritage. At that moment, she was sitting on the sofa, talking to a young girl. The girl sat on her left, wearing an off-white loose hoodie, with straight black hair draped over her shoulders and teardrop earrings. Her makeup was very light, her eyes large and innocent. Seeing Tang Shen approach, she stared at her with a half-smile. Sitting right beside her was a young, handsome man.
Tang Shen guessed that these must be the twins from the primary household—Cheng Kewei’s younger brother and sister.
She heard the younger sister ask with a smile, “You must be Kejia’s tutor, right? You look really pretty.”
Tang Shen said straight out, “Hello, Ms. Cheng.”
“Call me Ah Xin!” The other girl tilted her head with a childlike mischief. “After what happened before, I actually thought Second Aunt wouldn’t hire any more female tutors.” She let out a giggle loaded with subtext. The man beside her glanced at her, and she immediately shut her mouth.
While the two of them spoke, the old lady had been sizing up Tang Shen. Now, she spoke: “When did Teacher Tang arrive?”
“I arrived this afternoon.”
“Then you should have a good rest.”
Tang Shen replied that the trip from Guangzhou wasn’t too bad. The old lady mentioned that she herself was born in Guangzhou and didn’t come to Macao until she was six or seven, and that Guangzhou had changed drastically now. Tang Shen answered primly, “Just like Macao, it’s getting better and better day by day.” The people around her thought to herself that she was actually quite suited to be an elderly person’s companion—well-spoken and modestly dressed.
Old Mrs. Cheng asked a couple more casual questions, and Tang Shen answered them one by one. As she spoke, Cheng Baoyi, Cheng Baoxin, and the young man kept watching her. Tang Shen suddenly felt this scene resembled Daiyu’s first entry into the Jia Mansion, standing under the gaze of many, exchanging polite pleasantries with the Dowager.
Just then, the sound of a car echoed from outside. The old lady stopped talking, and everyone looked toward the entrance. Tang Shen thought to herself, Which Wang Xifeng is about to make an entrance now?
The door opened, and someone walked in. Tang Shen recognized the two men from the Alphard earlier that afternoon.
Cheng Kewei still wore that taut, tense expression. Without looking at anyone, he walked straight to the sofa, sat down diagonally opposite old Mrs. Cheng’s left, and spoke directly to her: “Grandma, the approval from Hong Kong came through.”
There was a casualness in his tone that only the eldest grandson of the direct line dared to display in front of the elder. “I’d like to slash the pricing by ten percent to open up the distribution channels first…”
As the two of them talked about official business, Tang Shen instinctively averted her gaze, her eyes falling on the person standing behind Cheng Kewei.
That person was currently standing beside her, just like Tang Shen, the only two people in the living room who hadn’t taken a seat. She got a clear look at his entire face.
—It was him.
A few weeks ago, she was leading the kids in practicing lion dance in the open space outside the primary school gate when a car with dual Guangdong-Macao plates took a wrong turn and passed by. The driver got out to ask for directions, causing Xiaoxue to get distracted and sprain her ankle. Tang Shen had squatted down to massage the child, pulling a bottle of bruise-relief oil out of her bag. The driver blurted out, “Isn’t this our oil?” before awkwardly switching back to halting Mandarin to ask for directions.
Tang Shen pointed the way in Cantonese. “You went the wrong way, you need to turn out right here…”
The person in the car had gotten out at some point and was standing silently behind Uncle Zhong. The driver nodded repeatedly, muttering, “Thank you, thank you.” Then, turning back, he said, “Oh, Mr. Wen, why did you get out?”
The man addressed as Mr. Wen was Wen Yizhuang—the very same person standing before her now. That day, he had glanced at the bottle of bruise-relief oil, then looked at Tang Shen. He had said, “Wait a moment,” then turned back to the car, retrieved a box of bruise-relief oil, and handed it to her with the plastic shrink-wrap still intact. “Your bottle is fake. Use this one.”
Tang Shen hesitated, giving him a look.
“Keep it. We have plenty of samples. Thank you for helping with the directions.” He glanced at the child with the sprained ankle, who was looking curiously at this polished, well-dressed man. Tang Shen accepted it.
“The acute phase is within 48 hours,” Wen Yizhuang had said. “Medicated oil contains active blood-circulating components, so don’t use it right now. Wait two days until the swelling goes down before rubbing it on to help absorb the bruising; it will recover much faster.”
When she received that bottle of bruise-relief oil that day, she had assumed he was an employee of Cheng Yongtang. Never had she expected he would also be a member of the Cheng family.
At this moment, she watched him with a composed expression. Wen Yizhuang happened to look back at her as well, offering her a slight smile, clearly recognizing her too. He was clear-featured and handsome, but didn’t look like the Cheng family; instead, he looked more like a northerner. Tang Shen guessed he must be a relative on old Mrs. Cheng’s side.
Seeing Wen Yizhuang looking at her, she showed no stage fright, holding his gaze steadily until he looked away first, only then turning her head back.
Cheng Kewei was still reporting on work. Old Mrs. Cheng neither said it was good nor bad. She put down her teacup and glanced at Cheng Kewei. Understanding her cue, he looked at the others.
Cheng Baoxin immediately chimed in, “I’m hungry too; I’ll go to the dining area with Second Brother first.” The young man beside her stood up.
Tang Shen thought, If Cheng Kewei is the eldest brother, this man must be the second brother. It seemed the primary household completely took cues from Cheng Kewei; wealthy Hong Kong and Macao families truly valued the so-called eldest grandson of the direct line. The heavy expectations placed on them were evident from their very names. By comparison, “Baoyi” and “Baoxin” were just little treasures and little candies.
The little candy Cheng Baoyi obligingly stood up. Tang Shen naturally knew how to take a hint and turned to head back to her room. Just as she took a few steps, old Mrs. Cheng suddenly spoke: “Teacher Tang—”
Tang Shen turned back.
Everyone was looking at her. Even Cheng Kewei finally raised his head, looking down upon this newcomer “servant” as if bestowing a favor.
With a hint of a smile, old Mrs. Cheng said in a gentle tone, “You are Kejia’s tutor. Even though Kejia couldn’t make it back on time for his flight, our Cheng family has a tradition of respecting teachers and valuing education. If you don’t mind, please join us for dinner as well.”
Tang Shen didn’t answer immediately. She cautiously glanced at Cheng Baoyi. Old Mrs. Cheng immediately instructed Cheng Baoyi, “Baoyi, take Teacher Tang over.”
Only then did Tang Shen thank the old lady and follow Cheng Baoyi toward the dining room. Wen Yizhuang, who had originally been walking ahead of her, turned his head back at that moment and gave her another look. She calmly accepted his scrutiny and raised her eyes to gaze back at him.
The overhead light was warm, casting down from his side and blending half his face into a soft shadow. He wore a light-colored shirt that draped softly over his frame, the sleeves casually rolled up to his elbows to reveal the muscles of his forearms; his shoes were dark camel-colored. He somewhat resembled Cheng Kewei’s shadow, yet Cheng Kewei couldn’t completely eclipse his radiance. Standing next to that handsome man from earlier, it looked almost like the sun and moon shining upon each other.
He couldn’t be a servant—servants weren’t this poised. Perhaps he was a relative of the family; otherwise, why would Cheng Kewei be the one driving him? Yet he wasn’t an honored guest at the table either. When the old lady spoke with Cheng Kewei, everyone else was seated, and only she and Wen Yizhuang had been standing.
The two of them were the only outsiders here. But even among outsiders, there were degrees of closeness. If she was Lin Daiyu, this man was more like the favored and close Xue Baochai.
Wen Yizhuang suddenly spoke up: “Just arrived in Macao. Are you getting used to it?”
“I’m used to adapting to new environments.” Tang Shen’s eyes shone brightly. “Wherever I go, I treat that place as my own home.”