“Ian, do you want to read?” Cecilia Adler finally asked, unable to bear the silence any longer.
Ian Quincy reluctantly released her hand.
“Let’s.”
The exam was in July, and it was already the end of January.
He didn’t have much time left.
What’s more, from the first to the fifth of every month, someone else would appear and take control of his body.
They didn’t share memories.
He needed to write down everything that had happened to him recently—aside from getting married—to inform this other self.
Cecilia Adler walked over to the coffee table, sat down, and picked up the book he had bought for her, holding it in a studious manner.
The title printed on the cover was *Circles*.
‘What a strange title.’
She opened it to the first page and immediately found many words she didn’t recognize.
Even when she recognized the words, she had no idea what the author was describing.
Things like “Georgian style” and “French doors.”
Every single thing she didn’t understand was a reminder of the gap between her and Ian Quincy.
Her gaze drifted from the book to Ian Quincy.
He sat in the chair opposite her, dressed in a crisp black cashmere sweater and matching trousers.
His legs were slightly apart, his head bowed low over his book.
His hand, with its well-defined knuckles, held one corner of the book, giving him a scholarly air.
She looked down at herself—at her old, pilled, rose-colored sweater and her drab gray pants.
‘So hopelessly frumpy.’
So frumpy it made her feel thoroughly inadequate.
“Ian, I just remembered I have something to do at home.
I’ll get out of your hair.”
Ian Quincy looked up.
‘She just sat down, and she’s already leaving?’
‘To go home and prepare for the New Year?’
‘She just finished working her stall; can’t she rest for a bit?’
“You’re busy all day.
Aren’t you tired?”
“Not at all.
I was much busier back in the village.
In the summer, I’d cut pig feed, haul chicken manure, and dig irrigation ditches.
In the winter, I’d spend the whole day chopping firewood and fetching water.” What she meant was, ‘My world is limited to a small patch of farmland, to the chickens, ducks, pigs, and sheep outside my door.’
‘But you…
the women you’ll associate with in the future will be just like you.
They’ll work in offices, intellectuals who give the orders.’
‘Right now, you’re just going along with your parents’ arrangement, but you’ll regret it sooner or later.
We should just split up now.
It’ll save you the trouble of telling me later that we have nothing in common, or criticizing me for every little thing I do wrong.’
“That’s not so different from the work on the state farms.
It’s very hard,” Ian Quincy said.
“I won’t let you work that hard in the future.”
Cecilia Adler was speechless.
She was trying to get him to look down on her, and here he was, making promises.
‘Is he an idiot?’
Before leaving, she couldn’t stop herself from showing her concern.
She took a crisp pastry from her pocket and placed it in front of him.
“Eat this when you get hungry.”
A smile touched Ian Quincy’s eyes.
“Alright.”
…
After leaving the family compound, Cecilia Adler didn’t go straight home.
Instead, she went to a department store.
Using the cloth coupons Lucas Lee had given her when she first arrived in the capital, she bought a bolt of fabric to make a decent outfit for visiting relatives during the New Year.
After choosing her fabric, she also bought some cotton batting by weight.
Then, she bought a skein of yarn, planning to knit Ian Quincy a pair of gloves as a New Year’s gift.
She spent every last bit of the one-eighty she had earned.
‘Money really doesn’t go far.’
The weather had been gloomy all day.
As evening approached, snowflakes began to flutter down, quickly blanketing the ground.
The streets were nearly deserted.
Vivian Lee kept glancing toward the door.
“My sister left this morning without a word.
Who knows what she’s been up to?
It’s almost dark and there’s still no sign of her.
Dad, shouldn’t we go look for her?”
“Look for what?
She’s definitely with that Quillan boy.” May Sutton’s voice dripped with contempt for Cecilia.
“Even if they have their marriage certificate, she shouldn’t be running over to a man’s house every other day.
How improper is that?”
Vivian Lee, however, suspected that Ian Quincy was holding Cecilia against her will.
‘She’s probably being tormented as we speak.’
Lucas Lee was also quite critical.
“A grown woman with no sense of shame.
When she gets back, just watch how I’ll deal with her…”