Under the fluorescent lights, there were only a few scattered customers in the shop, and the sound of light footsteps kept ringing out.
Alcohol had made her head ache and burn, but in the brief few seconds after the words left her mouth, in those short moments when Zhou Yanqian widened her eyes and her pupils trembled, Lian Wan’s mind suddenly became calm.
She felt a little regretful, and a little oddly satisfied.
Really, wearing more or less did not matter much.
That was her freedom to begin with.
Lian Wan knew that. In fact, she knew even more, things like feminism, things like equality, things like the ever-changing trends and politics. These things, unlike the long, dead silence of Pingchuan Town, were hot and sharp-edged, and were all popular topics in the city.
When Lian Wan was in school, her grades were poor. But she still understood what kind of world existed beyond the books, beyond Pingchuan Town. Not to mention that the internet was so developed now, so even though they were far from the bustle and excitement of the city, urban hot topics and ways of living were slowly influencing this small town too.
There were still so many brilliant lives in the world.
But Lian Wan knew these things, and also had to cast them aside. The awakening these topics brought could not put a single cent in her pocket. Just like all these years, when she had always been alone, driving along the road, her temper and numbness gradually growing in the day after day of life.
Only, between clear-eyed ignorance and contented backwardness, the former’s pretended guilt seemed somehow heavier.
What was a whip depended on who was the flock. Lian Wan vaguely thought back to the laughter and words of those men tonight, and to herself sitting among them. Her anger settled down, like embers after a fire had burned through, cold and soaking into her back.
She stared at the woman’s trembling pupils, as if looking at herself across a dark lake.
Petulantly, she thought: she was just a driver from a small place, alone, without money, without education, without ideals, without courage, almost turning into a man among a crowd of men. These empty, vague words were just like the relationship between the two of them. They were never even from the same place.
Just like now, she was about to make her angry at once.
Thinking that, Lian Wan waited for her fury, waited for her mockery, even her contempt, like a mortal waiting for a god’s punishment, but the woman only froze for a moment. Her long lashes flickered, as if she had quickly made peace with something, and she lifted one hand.
She touched Lian Wan’s face, then used her fingertip to stroke the hot curve of her ear, her touch light and slow, and asked in a soft voice:
“Then you tell me, what is good, and what is bad?”
It was as if a heavy stone had fallen in her heart. Lian Wan unconsciously opened her mouth to argue. “I…”
Pale, slender fingers drew back, and lightly pressed against Lian Wan’s dry lips. Like a spirit seducing people in the dark of night, those thin red lips parted and closed:
“You’re drunk now. Go back and think it over properly. You’re not allowed to come again for the next few days. Come back once you’ve thought it through.”
The tone sounded exactly like coaxing.
The fingers withdrew, along with the slight rustle of the thin lapel, obscuring that one sliver of dazzling allure.
“…I don’t know.” Lian Wan was dry-mouthed. She swallowed and said in a small voice.
But the woman no longer looked at her.
Seeing that the two of them had both fallen silent, someone at the back opportunistically squeezed forward, handed over instant noodles, chocolate, and a scan code, and bumped Lian Wan painfully with his elbow. Lian Wan shot him an irritated glare, but the other person ignored her and only busied himself greeting Zhou Yanqian, talking endlessly.
“You mean luncheon meat, right… I’ll stock some for you next time…”
“Really, I like adding ham sausages. I don’t eat luncheon meat…”
Lian Wan held the position of being pushed aside, staring longingly for quite a while. Only after seeing that Zhou Yanqian really had no intention of paying her any more attention did she turn around blankly. From walking to the door to pushing it open and going out, she used all her strength to feel for the gaze behind her, yet felt nothing at all.
…She really was angry after all.
Back home, in the pitch-black room, Lian Wan did not even turn on the light. She did nothing, only collapsed onto the bed and brooded with her head covered.
Lian Wan did not understand. Clearly Zhou Yanqian had fulfilled her wish and really gotten angry, but she still wasn’t happy. She felt unhappy as if something had been snatched from her, and also powerless, as though the life of being manipulated after her grandmother died had come again.
But this time she could no longer keep a cold face.
In her more than twenty years of life, this was the first time she had tasted something so complicated, to the point that even in her dreams she was caught in the struggle.
When she woke up, she was drenched in sweat. Her clothes, unchanged from the night before, were wrinkled and crumpled, and when she turned over, the stiff bones in her body creaked and groaned along with the bed frame.
The room was full of white light, and the faint smell of frying vegetables drifted in from a neighbor’s place. It seemed it was already late. Lian Wan stared at the ceiling for a long time before she suddenly realized that it was already afternoon. Luckily the Truck Fleet was off for half a day. Rubbing her sore neck, she walked out onto the balcony and pulled a face towel from the clothesline. Glancing down, she just happened to see a familiar slender figure stepping out onto the balcony diagonally below.
Maybe there was even a familiar sweet scent.
That head of black hair was pinned up on top of her head, revealing a pale neck, her posture dignified and untouchable. With one turn, there was that same snow-white chest, and the silk camisole nightgown could not contain that body of a woman well-fed by sleep, wildly baring its teeth and claws in the afternoon fragrance of plants.
She had dreamed all night. Lian Wan was frightened just from seeing her now. She held the wet towel in both hands. Even with such a long distance between them, she still nervously held her breath, afraid that the other would see her, and afraid that the other would not see her.
But the other seemed not to understand any of these thoughts of hers, and did not notice the nervous peeking not far away. She washed her face, looked in the mirror, tied up her hair, all by herself with ease. When her two pale arms lifted, the overly thin fabric left everything in plain sight, and Lian Wan had to close her eyes again.
When she opened them again, there was no sign of the woman on the balcony anymore.
The washbasin clanged. Lian Wan wiped her face in a burst of irritation. The dripping wet towel wrung her palm painfully.
Rarely acting on impulse, she did not eat lunch. After taking a shower, she turned around and left home. When she got to the Truck Fleet, she was the first one there today. The break room was empty, and on WeChat Wang Zhiqiang said there was not much work today, only one moving job in West District, and he sent her the client’s contact information.
In town, the custom was that for a move, she would probably have to help carry things too. Thinking of that, Lian Wan took the old clothes she had stored there before from the Truck Fleet cabinet and changed into them. The clothes were still from several years ago, old as a faded newspaper. Lian Wan drew the curtain in the truck, and while changing she thought, after this run, I’ll throw them away.
The client called. It was a young man’s voice, asking impatiently when she would arrive, with anger in his tone.
Too lazy to waste words, Lian Wan turned on speakerphone and tossed the phone aside, twisted the key, and said along with the rumbling of the engine, “Soon.”
The man urged her a few more times. Lian Wan treated it as if she had not heard, answered perfunctorily, and by the time the truck was on the road, the other side had already hung up on its own.
West District was a little more prosperous than the East District where Lian Wan lived. Small three-story Western-style houses had sprung up along the street, shops stood in dense rows, packed close together. There were also more people on the street than in the East District, and the shopkeepers’ children chased each other up and down the road, not even looking at the cars.
Lian Wan hit the brakes several times in a row, and her already poor mood only worsened. She was the sort of person whose feelings showed plainly on her face, so she tightened her expression even more. When she got out of the truck, the client was already waiting downstairs, clearly meaning for her to go upstairs and move things.
It was obvious the man had originally wanted to flare up, but when he saw Lian Wan’s expression, he held it back. As they went upstairs, he kept rambling, “How long have you been doing this? Can you even handle it? I’m kind of scared when women drive, woman drivers, don’t tell me in a minute…”
Lian Wan cut him off. “Mm, when you walk in front of my truck later, be careful. Watch out I don’t run you over.”
The man glared. “Hey, what are you sayin’…” Lian Wan did not back down and glared right back. In this tiny place called Pingchuan Town, nobody ever talked about customer service. There were only a few truck drivers in town, and on ordinary days when the drivers from the Truck Fleet went out for jobs, they were all treated like bosses. The man only dared say this because her face was unfamiliar and she was a woman. Lian Wan knew that clearly in her heart and could not be bothered to tangle with him. She strode up the stairs in long steps, stopped in front of the open-door household, and stood there motionless with her arms folded, waiting.
Inside the door, the packed and stacked cardboard boxes were already lying in a messy sprawl on the balcony, and there were several brightly colored plastic buckets too. Inside the buckets were a bundle of hangers and toiletries, and some unorganized clothes poked out from the cardboard boxes, looking a little bedraggled at first glance.
There were also footsteps sounding inside. The man behind hurried up, shot her a resentful glare, and went into the room.
Not long after, he came out supporting a pregnant woman with a big belly.
Unexpectedly, that pregnant woman was an acquaintance. She looked up and greeted her. “…Awan? Is that you?”
Gu Yan’s voice was no different from before, still carrying that annoying timidity. “…It really is you.”
Lian Wan lifted her eyelids and recognized her. But she did not make a sound, only nodded at her.
The man also hesitated. “You two know each other?”
Lian Wan was impatient. “How is this supposed to be moved?”
“Oh! You take the boxes on this side, I’ll take these. Xiaoyan… come on, watch your step…”
The woman behind them laughed softly. “I’m not that delicate…”
“You are…”
Lian Wan could not be bothered to listen to the rest. She lifted a box and went downstairs.
She had drunk last night and still had not eaten anything today. After going up and down the stairs several times and sitting back in the truck, she was already starting to break out in a faint sweat behind her back. Her stomach was empty, and even the strength in her foot on the gas pedal felt weak.
Yet Gu Yan was still talking to her. Carefully protecting her belly with the seatbelt on, she tilted her head and smiled ingratiatingly at Lian Wan. “So you really are driving a truck now. I’ve heard people say that doing this kind of work is hard for girls…”
Lian Wan kept her eyes on the road, watching out for children darting out. “Mm.”
Gu Yan’s words were cut off, but she was not angry. She had always been this mild and easygoing, so after a quiet moment she started a different topic:
“Do you still keep in touch with any classmates from before? I’ve lost contact with a lot of people.”
“No.”
The truck turned onto the main road. Actually, Lian Wan had wanted to say, “What’s the point of keeping in touch, when everyone just looks down on each other anyway.” But thinking of the other woman as Gu Yan, this slightly dim-witted-sounding woman, she held herself back.
Gu Yan fell silent for several minutes because of that answer. Maybe the silence made her uneasy. Not long after, she asked softly, “Hey, do you people who do this make a lot of money?”
Her tone carried deliberate familiarity, and also a few traces of brightness, as if she were happy to have found some excellent topic to talk about.
Listening to that, Lian Wan suddenly felt that everything was terribly meaningless.
She did not answer. After a while, she still could not help saying calmly, “It’s just like that.”
All the good, all the bad, you, me, everyone, now, the future, it was all just like that.