The rain kept drumming against Mu Wen's window, and against her new home. She sat bolt upright in bed.
"Mu Wen?" Xie Chong called her name again from the other end of the line. The rain rustled, and so did his voice.
Mu Wen finally snapped back to reality and asked, "Who is this?"
"Xie Chong."
"Who's Xie Chong? Don't know them!" Mu Wen repaid grudges on the spot without a second's hesitation. She hung up, then rolled around on the bed laughing.
How satisfying! she thought. So this is what it feels like to play it cool.
Xie Chong's call came in again. Mu Wen picked up, but this time she didn't tease him. She greeted him cheerfully: "Mr. Xie! I knew you'd still remember me!"
Xie Chong was standing by the roadside. His large umbrella covered him like a canopy, making the sound of the rain especially clear. The rain had soaked his pant legs and shoes. He felt his whole body was damp, as if he'd been transported to London.
Mu Wen's delight after her prank poured straight into his ears, and his mood, ruined by the rain, improved along with it: "Why were you laughing like a big idiot just now?" he said. Before Mu Wen could fire back, he asked, "When did you get back?"
"I came back today!" Mu Wen said.
"Today?" Xie Chong was a little surprised. On the very first day of her return, they'd met again as if by fate. Xie Chong remembered their last meeting. He'd been drinking then too, and they'd shared a plate of fried rice at a roadside stall on a winter night. So ordinary, yet it came back to him on this rainy evening.
"Yes, today." Mu Wen said happily. "I saw someone under an umbrella who looked like you, so I went over to say hi. Too bad you didn't recognize me, and you got pulled away by someone."
"I'm not senile. How could I not recognize you?"
"Aren't you?"
"?" Xie Chong wanted to make a jab at her, but the others at the table were leaving one by one in their cars. The rain was heavy, and they quickly said their goodbyes to Xie Chong. He had no choice but to stop talking and exchange pleasantries with them.
Mu Wen waited quietly.
His hoarse voice, soaked in the heavy rain, seemed to ferment, carrying a certain proof. She listened to him talking to other people, trying to discern whether it sounded different from how he spoke to her.
It was different.
Xie Chong was so polite.
He kept saying things like "What a wonderful evening, let's meet again," "I'll visit you another day," "Stay in touch"…
This was another side of him.
In places she couldn't see, he lived with a different face. Such a multifaceted life.
Mu Wen found this kind of socializing tedious, so she hung up.
Xie Chong finally saw everyone off. He let out a long sigh, picked up his phone, and saw that Mu Wen had already hung up.
He called her again and asked, "That little alley where you used to live—do they still sell fried rice on rainy days?"
"They do. Working people brave all weather." Mu Wen said.
"Want to go get some?" Xie Chong asked. "Do you still live there?"
"I moved to the building across the street." Mu Wen said. "Cross the footbridge, it's the neighborhood next to the supermarket."
"Let's go?" Xie Chong had only acted on a whim, not expecting much.
But Mu Wen responded readily: "Let's go!"
Mu Wen was eager to catch up with Xie Chong.
She knew she'd thought of him countless times over the past days. She'd originally wanted to slowly forget him. Because there were so many people in Beijing—she would have her real first, second, hundredth client, and meet more and more people… All of it would dilute her memories of Xie Chong and eventually make her forget him.
But she'd run into him again.
On her first day back in Beijing, she saw him standing in the rain. The umbrella hid his face, but she recognized him at a glance.
Mu Wen couldn't refuse him. She'd already jumped out of bed, her hair still dripping: "Let's go. I'll get ready right now!"
This shocked Xie Chong.
He had very few friends. The only one who would happily accept his invitation like this was Qian Song. Mu Wen's acceptance came without any hesitation, even with a touch of excitement.
"It's raining…" Xie Chong reminded her.
"Stop with the nonsense!" Mu Wen said. "Hurry up! Meet me under the footbridge!"
She hung up, dried her hair with her "old, broken-down" hairdryer, changed into a white T-shirt and knee-length shorts for a stroll, grabbed her umbrella, and headed out. The rain was still falling. She ran through the puddles, and wherever she passed, little "water blossoms" bloomed.
She ran up the footbridge and saw the car lights on the road flickering in the rainy night, like a nearsighted person taking off their glasses—everything became blurry and muted. But on the roadside across the bridge, Xie Chong stood alone, clear and distinct.
He stood there under his umbrella, waiting for her.
Mu Wen felt like it had been a long time since she'd last seen him. Back then, she hadn't graduated yet, and he was still her client.
Mu Wen trotted up to him and reached her hand under his umbrella to wave: "Hi!"
Xie Chong's hand came out from under the umbrella, mimicking her: "Hi." Then he raised the umbrella and, as expected, saw Mu Wen's smiling face.
"Let's go." He said just that one word, then turned and walked away.
They each held their own umbrella as they walked to the back alley, where they saw the "big umbrellas" clustered together in rows, with many people standing beneath them—some taking shelter from the rain, some chatting, some eating. The skewers were still there, the charcoal-grilled lamb skewers were still there, the sauce-smeared flatbread was still there, and the fried rice was still there too.
They each sat on small stools, holding a plate of fried rice as they ate.
Xie Chong's legs encroached on Mu Wen's space, and she kicked him away.
Xie Chong suddenly asked her: "Does your hometown not have any cell towers?"
"What do you mean?" Mu Wen didn't understand what he was talking about, and retorted: "Did you know that mobile base stations can even reach uninhabited areas? Why would my hometown not have them? Are you looking down on me or something?"
"Yeah."
Xie Chong thought: You have towers, yet you still scream your lungs out.
"So where in Inner Mongolia is your hometown? Inner Mongolia is huge."
"Yakeshi," Mu Wen replied.
"What?" Xie Chong didn't catch it: "Where?"
"Is your brain missing a cell tower or something…" Mu Wen finally got her revenge for her hometown, raising her voice a bit: "YA! KE! SHI!"
Right—that was exactly how she had shouted it back then. Xie Chong suspected that once she left Beijing, she must have devolved into a primitive person—taking off her civilized clothes, picking up tools, and rubbing sticks together to make fire. It had to be that way.
He was lost in his own imagination, and couldn't help but let out a laugh. He looked up from his plate of fried rice and saw Mu Wen staring at him like he was a freak. So he shrugged: "I've been drinking. Don't mind me."
Mu Wen mimicked his shrug.
She asked Xie Chong whether he had already moved into Wanliu, and whether he was satisfied with the place. Xie Chong said he had been there a few times but hadn't moved in yet.
"Why not?" Mu Wen was a bit surprised: "How can you resist? When I buy new clothes, I can't wait to put them on. A new house! How can you hold back?"
Xie Chong asked her very seriously: "If you bought new clothes every day, would you still be that happy?"
That stumped Mu Wen.
Because she rarely bought clothes. She had worn the same clothes for years and still couldn't bear to throw them away, so every time she bought something new, she was thrilled.
Then she understood what Xie Chong meant: Mr. Xie was expressing that he had so many properties that he wasn't eager to move into a new one! How annoying, Mu Wen thought.
When I think of him, how could I forget that he's a nitpicky, insufferable pest?
"Want to take a look?" Xie Chong suddenly asked again.
"Look at what?"
"Look at your work."
"Right now?"
"Is there a problem?"
Mu Wen didn't speak.
He was a single man, and she was a single woman—on a rainy night like this, going with him to his home would be something ambiguous. She didn't know what mindset had prompted Xie Chong to make such an invitation, but he seemed so open and aboveboard that it made all her worries seem pointless.
Xie Chong sipped his water while watching Mu Wen, waiting for her answer.
"Let's go," Mu Wen said. "Let's take a look." It was the first renovation project of her life, and she didn't know how Xie Chong had eventually furnished it. She had been given the chance to revisit the place, and that was something she couldn't refuse.
Xie Chong paused mid-sip. He hadn't expected Mu Wen to trust him completely, without any guard. She didn't even worry that he might take her to a private space and harm or humiliate her there.
"Let's go." He stood up and walked back into the rain.
Mu Wen wasn't afraid that Xie Chong might be a bad person, because she knew he wasn't. But she was afraid of something else. The thing she had been uncertain about inside her heart became clear at that moment—she realized that in all that time past, the reason she kept thinking of him again and again was because she liked him.
They walked all the way to the footbridge, and Mu Wen saw Xie Chong's car slowly pulling up from the roadside. She said "goodbye" to him and bolted up the stairs of the footbridge.
Xie Chong followed behind her, running up as well, even overtaking her. Their umbrellas were dripping rain desperately, each vying to express their own emotions. At the center of the footbridge, Xie Chong blocked Mu Wen's path.
She nearly crashed into his arms. Their umbrellas had already collided, squeezed out of shape.
"Are you planning to run all the way to my place?" Xie Chong teased her deliberately: "Are all you Yakeshi people this physically fit?" Then he added: "We can't go today. I didn't bring my keys."
"Oh. What a shame." Mu Wen breathed a faint sigh of relief, and Xie Chong breathed one too.
Xie Chong's gaze fell below the footbridge, where a winding line of cars stretched all the way to the end of the rainy night. Beijing on a rainy night was as beautiful as an oil painting. If only it didn't get so windy when it rained.
A sudden gust of wild wind swept up, nearly flipping their umbrellas. They both gripped their umbrellas for dear life. Mu Wen's flimsy umbrella was blown inside out, its ribs twisted into a strange shape. The wind nearly knocked her off her feet.
"Holy shit." Xie Chong grabbed her arm and pulled her under his umbrella, saying with delight: "You were about to take flight!" He snatched her umbrella away and pressed his own into her hand.
Mu Wen did not refuse his kindness. She felt that Xie Chong's mind was like it had been soaked in rainwater—a little more rain wouldn't hurt him. No normal person would say "you're about to take flight" at a moment like that.
"How's the new place you rented?" Xie Chong asked.
"It's great. I really like it."
Mu Wen told Xie Chong about her new home: the little flowers on the windowsill, the separate kitchen, a clean single bed… Her bed was by the window, and she could see the sky from it.
"Even though it's raining today, the sky in the rain is beautiful too."
Xie Chong walked quietly beside her, listening. Sometimes he would tilt his head slightly to look at her. Her face was radiant as she described the things she loved, and she happened to look at him too, her eyes full of longing for a brand-new life.
Yes, in Mu Wen's heart, coming to Beijing again meant starting a brand-new life.
The rain fell heavily, yet their steps were slow. Mu Wen was like beans spilling from a sack, eager to pour out everything from the past few months to him all at once. Xie Chong, for his part, listened quietly.
Even when they had already reached the bottom of Mu Wen's building.
Mu Wen showed no sign of stopping, and he showed no sign of leaving either. Fortunately, the sound of rain filled the world, so their conversation wouldn't disturb anyone sleeping.
Xie Chong's phone rang. The driver said the roadside parking had exceeded the time limit, so he would turn around and come back. Only then did Mu Wen realize how much she had been talking. She said with slight embarrassment, "Ah… I'm like a machine gun."
Xie Chong said, "Even a machine gun runs out of bullets." He was only joking—he didn't think there was anything wrong with Mu Wen's outpouring. On the contrary, he loved listening.
They were no longer client and designer. Their topics had jumped out of the house, and they chatted about ordinary things. Strangely, the process of jumping out was so natural, as if no deliberate transition was needed at all.
Xie Chong felt that Mu Wen brought him a feeling like having a friend.
He really had too few friends.
The driver returned, and Xie Chong had to leave. Mu Wen offered to walk him to the entrance of the complex, but Xie Chong declined, saying, "You walk me to the gate, I walk you back, you walk me again—back and forth like that, we'd be at it until dawn."
Mu Wen chuckled.
She switched umbrellas with him, turned around, and went home.
She lived on the first floor. After entering, she turned on the light, ran to the window, and pressed her face against it to see if Xie Chong had left.
Xie Chong saw a face suddenly pressed against the window and jumped back a step in fright.
Mu Wen opened the window a crack and, in a ghostly voice, slowly said to him, "Good—bye——"
Xie Chong's scalp tingled, and he hurried away.
He disappeared into the pitch-black rainy night.
The driver asked where he wanted to go. He said Wanliu.
He had the keys, but the moment Mu Wen had said she was coming, something inside him had refused. Wanliu held a special meaning for him. It had been left empty, waiting for a true owner to move in.
Since returning from England, he had only been there once, to drop off some cookware and bedding. But he had only left the things in the living room, never even opening them.
"Wanliu?" The driver was a bit surprised. "You rarely go there. You said you didn't like it."
"It's too late tonight. I don't want to bother with the hassle."
He tidied up briefly and slept in the new home for the first time. Strangely, he slept very well.
He felt something new eagerly rushing into his body, trying to change him.
His phone lit up with a text message. He opened it—it was from Mu Wen:
"I'm so happy I ran into you today! Looking forward to meeting again!"
Mu Wen was learning to speak to him in the tone Xie Chong used for social engagements, because she had edited this message for a long time—no matter which tone she tried, it seemed to carry a hint of ambiguity. Only Xie Chong's own tone was just right.
That polite, distant tone was truly just right!