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Chapter 1: Are You Waiting for Me to Pick You Up and Hold You High?
The day Meng Huaijin went to South City to bring Shu Wan back, torrential rain battered the entire city.
“How long has she been like this?” asked the guard[1]The Chinese term jingweiyuan refers here to a security aide accompanying a military or government official; his exact rank is not specified. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3722811_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3722811_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); at Meng Huaijin’s side.
By the windowsill, the girl sat curled up with her knees drawn to her chest, a posture of self-protection, quietly watching the raindrops outside. A breeze stirred the ends of her hair, revealing a delicate, luminous face utterly devoid of life. She didn’t even notice that the hem of her white dress had been soaked by the rain.
The only steward still left at the Shu family home let out a long sigh. “Miss has been like this for a week. She saw her parents shoot themselves with her own eyes. She hasn’t spoken a word since.”
“Can a girl her age still be sent to an orphanage?” The low, commanding voice belonged to someone other than the guard.
At those words, the pupils that had been fixed on the sky finally shifted, ever so slightly. Mechanically, Shu Wan turned toward the sound.
The man was very tall. His long black coat hung open in the downpour, and his presence was sharp and oppressive. In his slender, pale hand, he held a black umbrella. The face beneath it was even more severe, his eyes and brows carrying a coldness more chilling than the rain.
Shu Wan had seen him before.
When she was younger, she had gone with her mother to the Meng family in North City and accidentally wandered into his room.
Back then, still too young to know better, she saw a man in military uniform lying on the bed, fast asleep with an arm over his face. Mistaking him for her father, she climbed onto the bed and fell asleep with her head on his other arm.
When she woke that day, this was the face she saw. The man was very handsome, much younger than her father, but he looked far fiercer.
Especially his eyes. As cold as the dead of winter, they seemed to cut to the bone, like glittering silver blades. He looked less like a soldier than a ruthless bandit with a breathtaking face.
Little Shu Wan had burst into tears on the spot.
The fierce man furrowed his brows in irritation. His voice was even more unfeeling than his gaze. “Cry again and I’ll let the dogs loose.”
Crystal-clear tears filled the girl’s beautiful eyes, round as copper bells. They teetered on the brink of falling, but she was so frightened she didn’t dare make another sound.
That was when Shu Wan learned that her mother had been adopted into the Meng family while she was still a minor.
And that fierce man was her mother’s younger brother in name—the Meng family’s bona fide Second Young Master[2]A family title for the second son of a prominent household, not an official government or military rank. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3722811_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3722811_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, Meng Huaijin.
After her mother married her father, she had severed both the legal adoption ties and all contact with the Meng family. That visit had been their first contact since then. Now, entrusting Shu Wan to Meng Huaijin marked the second.
Shu Wan figured Meng Huaijin must dislike her. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be talking about sending her to an orphanage now that she’d become an orphan.
He’d frightened her when she was little, and he was frightening her again now. What kind of place was an orphanage? Would she even have a future if she went there?
The events of the past few days had pressed down on Shu Wan until she could barely breathe. Meng Huaijin’s words were the final straw.
This time she didn’t wail like she had as a child. She cried silently, tears spilling from the corners of her reddened eyes and winding down her fair, delicate cheeks onto the soft white fabric of her dress. She looked utterly broken.
The old steward dropped to his knees with a thud and pleaded, “Sir, for her mother’s sake, please don’t send her to an orphanage. Once summer break is over, she’ll be in her final year of high school. All you need to do is show her some mercy, give her food, and see her through university. Once she can support herself, you won’t have to look after her anymore. But right now…”
Meng Huaijin seemed not to hear him. He handed his umbrella to the guard and stepped inside. After looking down at the girl for a moment, he asked flatly, “You don’t know how to address me?”
Shu Wan raised her reddened eyes and met his intensely intimidating gaze. After a pause, she said softly, “Uncle.”
Meng Huaijin didn’t answer. Instead, he surveyed the once-grand Shu Family Mansion, now plastered with official seals[3]Seals affixed by authorities to mark a property as legally sealed or seized, restricting access or interference. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3722811_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3722811_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. First the grand buildings rise, then the halls fill with banqueting guests, and finally it all comes crashing down…[4]This echoes a line from The Peach Blossom Fan, a Qing-dynasty play by Kong Shangren, about the sudden collapse of wealth and power. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3722811_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3722811_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
In officialdom, it was just like a battlefield: one day you were riding high, and the next you were a rat everyone wanted to drive off the street.
Shu Wan’s gaze fell on the seals too. Grief was welling up inside her when the cold male voice dropped down from above her head again. “Are you waiting for me to pick you up and lift you high, or for me to get some candy to coax you?”
“…”
She had heard grown-ups talk about her uncle’s impressive record.
—Meng Huaijin had joined the military at sixteen and entered the National University of Defense Technology[5]A Chinese military university known for education and research in defense science and technology. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3722811_1_5').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3722811_1_5', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); at eighteen. After graduating, he spent five years at a top-secret base, earning countless commendations. Recently, he had been transferred back to North City to take up a post in the central government.
He was exacting and decisive, swift and ruthless in his actions. Anyone who worked with him—or came under his scrutiny—was afraid of him.
Shu Wan was still reeling from one blow after another, but the old steward understood what Meng Huaijin meant. He took her hand and led her upstairs. “Miss, sir means he’s taking you away. Come with me and pack your things.”
As much as she hated to admit it, Meng Huaijin was the only relative Shu Wan could rely on now. And her mother had specifically told her before she died: No one in the Meng family can be trusted. Only this uncle can.
“Then what about you, Grandpa Chen[6]“Grandpa” can be an affectionate, respectful address for an elderly man in Chinese; it does not necessarily indicate a blood relationship. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3722811_1_6').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3722811_1_6', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });? Where will you go after I leave?” Shu Wan watched the old man bustle around, packing her things, and felt a sharp ache in her nose.
The old steward zipped up her suitcase with a smile. He said he could return to his hometown in the countryside. He was tired after all these years, and it was about time he settled down and enjoyed his retirement there.
He also earnestly urged Shu Wan that once she went to the Meng family, she must put away her spoiled young-lady airs. Whenever possible, she should back down, yield, and endure…
As he spoke, tears streamed down the old steward’s face. He had watched her be born, take her first tottering steps, and learn to talk, then watched her grow into a poised young woman. Once, she had been the treasured darling of the entire Shu family.
Who could have imagined that, overnight, a budding crabapple blossom would be struck by frost? Now she was going away to live under someone else’s roof, at the mercy of their moods…
As they parted, the sight of the old man’s weathered face and longing eyes overwhelmed Shu Wan with grief.
Sitting in the black car, the girl gazed longingly at the old man’s stooped figure. Tears soaked the front of her clothes.
At last, she turned to the man beside her and pleaded, “Could you take Grandpa Chen with us? He can do all sorts of things. He could—”
“I’m not short of servants.”
In the car, Meng Huaijin lounged against the seatback. His gaze fell on the pink backpack on the girl’s back, the extravagant white rabbit doll dangling from its zipper, and the live cat in her arms. His brows drew together tighter and tighter.
“Please…”
“Do I need to remind you that you can barely look after yourself right now?”
Meng Huaijin’s gaze lingered for an instant on her tear-reddened eyes. His expressionless voice was flat. “Either come with me, or get out and fend for yourself. You have three seconds to decide.”
The guard behind the wheel glanced in the rearview mirror at his boss, whose heart was as hard as steel and whose mercilessness rivaled the King of Hell[7]Yanwang, or Yama, is a ruler or judge of the underworld in Chinese religious tradition. The comparison emphasizes his frightening severity. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3722811_1_7').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3722811_1_7', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. Then he looked at the poor girl, her eyes brimming with tears. He covered his mouth and coughed. Without waiting for the three seconds to pass, he shot the car forward.
Shu Wan decided she wouldn’t beg the hard-hearted man again. She resolved that as soon as she earned some money, she would come back for Grandpa Chen.
She had been through far too much these past few days.
Her parents bringing everything to a tragic end with their own lives; their property seized, their home sealed; the relentless interrogations in the questioning room…
It was a torrent of mud and stones too much for someone her age to bear.
Perhaps from sheer grief, the girl was exhausted enough to fall asleep before long.
At first, she kept one thread of awareness, reminding herself not to lean toward the cold-faced King of Hell beside her. But as her sleep deepened, her body gradually slanted to one side of its own accord…
Something landed on his thigh with a weight that was neither light nor heavy. Sweet, warm breaths seeped through Meng Huaijin’s suit trousers, spreading beneath the fabric and soon reaching a rather sensitive spot.
Meng Huaijin’s brows knitted sharply. He glared at the head resting against his thigh and was just about to push it away when he heard a long sob.
It came from the girl in her sleep. Whatever she was dreaming about, it had crumpled her little face with grief.
That round little head of hers was remarkably stubborn, and she was still such a crybaby.
Girls this age were so sensitive and hard to figure out. Caught between childhood and adulthood, they were a real nuisance.
“Captain[8]The Chinese term used here addresses the leader of a team or unit; it need not correspond to the formal military rank of captain. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3722811_1_8').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3722811_1_8', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, should we go straight to the airport and fly back to North City?” the guard in front asked.
The man glanced at the live cat in her arms. “If you can get the airline to change its rules so animals can fly, I’ll call you Captain.”
“…”
The guard had come with him from the military and was long accustomed to his hot-tempered officer’s ways. A thought struck him, and he came up with an idea. “How about we quietly give the cat away?”
“Then if you make her cry, are you going to comfort her?”
Meng Huaijin took a cushion and tucked it under the girl’s head, keeping her warm breath from touching his thigh. Finally, he pulled out a cigarette and held it between his fingers. Leaning back against the seat, he said coolly, “Enough talk. Drive back.”
“`
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