Chapter 7

Chen Li had waited a long time for Xie Anqing to reply, then put her phone back in her pocket.

Life here was so peaceful that the flowers on the windowsill and the trees beneath the veranda could easily fill a day. Chen Li often forgot to charge her phone. The forty percent battery she’d started with that morning had run out during a morning of shooting, and her phone had shut down.

Without a camera, Chen Li walked even more slowly, trying to record the scenery and the people with her eyes.

Every time Xie Huaixia turned around, she found Chen Li looking toward the little building at the village office.

Was she worried about her aunt?

Xie Huaixia plucked a stalk of foxtail grass to shade herself from the sun, then looked up at Chen Li. “Auntie, don’t worry. My aunt will be fine. She was born in the Year of the Pig.”

Chen Li looked away from the fields in the same direction as the village office. “What?”

“My aunt has a puppy’s ability to bounce back. She’ll be healthy again in no time!”

Chen Li thought it over. What did pigs and puppies have to do with each other?

She lifted a hand to Xie Huaixia’s hat, wanting to ask. But before she could, Xie Huaixia clapped both hands over her head and shrieked, “I haven’t washed my hair, Auntie! That’s so rude!”

Chen Li fell silent.

So washing your hair before you went out really was a major social courtesy at every age.

Her question forgotten, Chen Li thought instead about how dogs did heal faster than people.

Dogs whined when they were in pain. But this Party Secretary—

Chen Li watched Xie Huaixia’s angry little head for a moment, then tapped the top of it with a finger. “Have you got markers in your bag?”

All morning, every time Xie Huaixia reached into her bag, she’d pulled out something different. It was like a magic box.

Chen Li decided to take her chances.

Xie Huaixia started yelling again when Chen Li touched her head. Then her eyes suddenly lit up. “I have a whole box! Auntie bought it for me when she went to a meeting in the county. There are so many colors!”

“Let me borrow them.”

For the next five minutes, the two of them crouched and stood by the side of the road. Every time Chen Li drew a line, Xie Huaixia’s mouth fell open in amazement.

Her voice wasn’t loud. They were almost a kilometer from the village office. No one could have heard her from there.

And yet Xie Anqing kept feeling as if something were buzzing by her ear. She glanced outside, wanting to shoo away the sparrows perched on the windowsill.

But what had the sparrows done wrong?

They were only resting.

Xie Anqing put up with the noise as long as she could, then turned to Xie Yun, who had just come in from outside. “Shoo the sparrows off the windowsill.”

Xie Yun looked confused.

Xie Anqing was the one who left corn at the entrance for the sparrows. Why was she the one asking for them to be chased off now?

Xie Yun shifted her gaze to Xie Beibei, who’d wandered around the library and come back because she couldn’t find anything to do.

Xie Beibei was reading a comic that had her mind in the gutter. Hiding behind a monitor, she helpfully said, “Shoo them away. They keep chirping over there. It’s so annoying.”

Xie Yun wondered if something was wrong with her ears.

The sparrows were using only a corner of the sill. They weren’t chirping, and they barely moved.

In the end, Xie Yun went outside and chased them off.

When she returned, Xie Anqing handed her a stamped document. “The paperwork for the replacement housing is done. Take it with you when you go to the town meeting.”

“All right.” Xie Yun took the papers, then looked at Xie Anqing’s deathly pale face. “Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down for a while? Let Beibei inspect the reservoir.”

Xie Beibei hurriedly sat up and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, yeah! I handled the fire-safety talk the other day by myself. I can do it.”

Xie Anqing lowered her eyelids and watched Xie Beibei for a couple of seconds. “You can?”

“Absolutely!”

Xie Anqing stood, the IV bag of levofloxacin still hanging from her hand. “Call me if anything happens.”

“Okay, Auntie.”

Xie Yun moved a chair out of Xie Anqing’s way. “I’ll have to go to the county after the town meeting. Do you need me to bring you anything?”

Xie Anqing was about to say no, but stopped herself. “Bring me two outfits. Shirts and trousers. Pick the ugly ones.”

Xie Yun stared at her. “What?”

After Xie Anqing left, Xie Yun asked, “What’s gotten into her?”

Xie Beibei shrugged and spread her hands. She had no idea.

There was a dormitory upstairs in the village office. Xie Anqing hung up her IV bag and lay down on her single bed. She was exhausted, her whole body heavy and foggy. She closed her eyes and fell asleep almost at once.

She slept until the sun was setting.

Xie Anqing sat up, still feeling uneasy.

In the nearly six years she’d worked at the village office, she’d never skipped work before. She couldn’t help worrying that Xie Beibei would mess things up, or that someone from the village might come looking for her, or the town might issue a new policy. Still, she felt much better. If her hand didn’t hurt and her stomach weren’t empty, she might not have believed she’d been sick.

Xie Anqing went through her phone, answered the messages she needed to answer, and got up to head downstairs.

The village office was empty.

She didn’t bother opening the door. Instead, she checked the windows, picked up the corn the sparrows hadn’t eaten, and put it back on the windowsill. Then she shuffled out.

She stopped short when she reached the bicycles.

Through the car window, Chen Li was staring back at her. It took Xie Anqing four or five seconds to come out of her daze and open the door.

“Did you get a good sleep?” Chen Li asked.

She sounded as familiar as an old friend.

Xie Anqing had slept so long that her mind was still foggy. She didn’t think to ask how Chen Li knew she’d been asleep. She simply asked, “What are you doing here, Miss Chen?”

Chen Li smiled and walked toward her. “Someone asked me to pick you up after work.”

“Who?”

“Xie Huaixia.”

Impossible.

Two hours ago, Xie Huaixia had sent her a voice message saying she’d finished touring the village with Chen Li and had gone home. She was going to sleep, and Chen Li was going to take a shower and go to bed.

How could someone who was supposed to be sleeping be here, waiting with that faraway look?

Xie Anqing’s impulse to call her bluff rose and fell in a matter of seconds. “It’s only a short walk. You don’t have to go to the trouble, Miss Chen.”

“I’ve already driven over. Are you going to make me drive back with the car empty?”

“…Thanks for the trouble.”

“Don’t mention it, Secretary Xie.”

Chen Li turned toward the car. After a couple of steps, she seemed to remember something.

“Hold out your left hand.”

Xie Anqing stared at Chen Li. The setting sun fell across her face. She gathered up a handful of hot air, then let it go, and held out her hand.

“Your hand,” Chen Li said.

Xie Anqing did as she was told.

Chen Li pulled an adhesive bandage from her pocket. Its wrapper was already gone. She peeled back a corner of the backing and held it by both ends, ready to press it onto Xie Anqing’s hand.

The instant their skin touched, Xie Anqing instinctively flinched.

As if she’d expected that, Chen Li hooked the two little fingers of one hand around Xie Anqing’s. “Almost done.”

Then she peeled away the backing, smoothed the bandage over Xie Anqing’s hand, and pulled away. A chill, strangely at odds with the hot summer, lingered on either side of Xie Anqing’s hand.

Xie Anqing was silent for a few seconds before looking down.

Someone had drawn a little cartoon dog on the plain waterproof bandage. It had raised a front paw, as though petting the bruises on the back of her hand.

“Guoqing is a good therapy dog,” Chen Li said. She’d turned the text she’d sent on WeChat into speech, then embellished it. “You lent Guoqing to me this morning, so now I’m returning the dog to you. Does it still hurt when you have Guoqing’s paw to pet it?”

The person opposite her laughed. “I’m not sure, really. I thought I’d give it a try. What do you think, Secretary Xie?”

Xie Anqing had an opinion.

From the moment Chen Li had said, “I’d think you were waiting for me—not my photos,” she’d wondered.

Or maybe from even earlier.

She remembered the day they’d met at the level crossing. Chen Li had looked her over a little too closely, then laughed for no apparent reason.

From that moment on, so many of Chen Li’s looks and gestures had gone beyond what should have been normal between them.

The extra attention hadn’t quite reached the point of making Xie Anqing uncomfortable. But while she could stand the heat, that didn’t mean she liked the sticky, ambiguous feeling.

For a moment, she thought she should find a chance to talk to Chen Li directly about keeping some distance during the time they’d be together.

It wouldn’t be an easy thing to say. If she made it sound too mild, Chen Li might not get the point. If she went too far, she’d embarrass them both.

After all, you didn’t slap away a smiling face, and if you needed someone’s help, you had to show them respect.

There was also a very real chance that she was being too sensitive and suspicious.

From the very beginning, she’d labeled Chen Li a heartbreaker. Chen Li flirted without ever making her intentions clear. Even after Xie Anqing learned she was a woman, the label didn’t feel unfair.

Xie Anqing was prejudiced against her, and it was easy to read too much into her actions.

So what should she say? What should she talk about, and how far should she take the conversation? The boundaries were too blurry.

She had an entire village to look after.

Chen Li was the one person who’d been willing to help them—the one Xie Anqing had reached out to in heartfelt messages, whose work she’d memorized, and whom she’d waited a week for at the level crossing. She had to think through every decision carefully, so she could live up to Chen Li’s generosity.

The irritation came rushing back.

The white concrete reflected the light onto Xie Anqing’s face.

She lowered her hand. “That kind of thing only works on children.”

“Children need to be comforted. And they’re so easy to comfort.”

“Then I suppose it’s normal that I don’t feel anything.”

Chen Li leaned against the front of the car, arms crossed. A clump of pale-yellow flowers grew between the bricks by her feet.

Xie Anqing slipped her left hand into her pocket and said evenly, “Miss Chen, can you draw?”

The change of subject was clumsy enough to be obvious.

Chen Li lifted her brows, unbothered. “I’m pretty good.”

Then she straightened and walked to the car. Instead of getting into the driver’s seat, she opened the passenger door and stood aside.

“Secretary Xie, your chariot awaits.”

Her lazy voice still carried a hint of romance, still sounded like more than the situation called for.

Xie Anqing’s steps faltered. When her gaze settled on Chen Li, all she saw was a woman leaning her arm on the open car door, perfectly relaxed and candid.

Still. Still.

Those two identical words meant opposite things, and neither gave Xie Anqing any guidance about where the blurry line in her head ought to fall.

The hand in her pocket tightened until it began to go numb. Then she let it go and walked over to get in.

Thump.

Chen Li got in on the other side.

Just before they left, Xie Beibei, who’d finished inspecting the reservoir, braked her electric scooter beside the passenger door with a squeak and knocked on the window.

Xie Anqing lowered it.

Xie Beibei leaned in and looked around. She grinned at Chen Li, who had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gearshift. “Teacher Chen, you’ve got air-conditioning, right?”

“I do.”

“Could you give me a ride for a bit? I’ve been running up and down the mountain for almost three hours. I’m about to melt.”

“Of course. But…”

“What?”

“You’ll have to get your Party Secretary’s approval first.” Chen Li rested her elbow on the door and glanced at Xie Anqing. “I’m staying at her house. If I don’t listen to her, she might kick me out.”

“That’s impossible!”

Xie Beibei knew that Teacher Chen was the person her aunt had gone to all that trouble to invite. She was here to help them with something important. There was no way her aunt would kick her out—not even say something mildly insulting, the sort of remark that implied Chen Li had water in her brain.

Tsk!

Just thinking about it put Xie Beibei in a good mood. She turned to look at Xie Anqing, all cheek.

“…Auntie, I’m not actually that worried about the heat. I mostly wanted a chance to tell you about the Three Trips to the Countryside students.”

Xie Anqing gave her a flat look. “You have one minute.”

Without another word, Xie Beibei got into the car.

This was so comfortable—

She sprawled across the seat and enjoyed the air-conditioning for half a minute. Then she glanced up. Good grief, her aunt’s eyes in the rearview mirror were perfectly calm.

Xie Beibei sat up at once. “Xie Yun and the village director saw how deeply you were sleeping this afternoon, so they didn’t wake you. We’ve already picked up the Three Trips to the Countryside students and got them settled.”

“Weren’t they coming the day after tomorrow?”

“Plans changed. Good thing you always think ahead. You had us pick out the host families early and buy bedding and toiletries. Three are staying at Teacher Huang’s, and two are at Granny Shu’s…”

As the village’s Party Secretary, Xie Anqing should have led by example and been the first to host the students in her own home.

But their arrival conflicted with Chen Li’s stay, so Xie Anqing had to choose. She’d made room for Chen Li.

“What are the Three Trips to the Countryside?” Chen Li asked.

That was exactly the question Xie Beibei, who handled publicity, had been waiting for. She braced both hands on the seat in front of her and leaned forward.

“It means bringing culture, science, and health to the countryside. You can think of it as a social-practice program for college students.”

“What are they practicing?”

“This group is here to paint murals. They’ll paint the walls, especially ones that need repairs or a fresh coat. Think about it: a wall that’s peeling and worn gets a new coat of paint and a mural. Doesn’t the whole village look completely different?”

The more Xie Beibei thought about it, the better the program sounded. “Just walking through the village would put you in a better mood.”

Chen Li agreed and continued asking questions. “What themes will they paint?”

“The new countryside! Flowers, birds, insects, fish, landscapes—anything that shows off a green, healthy rural community!”

“Got it.”

Chen Li drove fast. When an electric scooter came toward her, she turned the wheel to the right without hesitation or slowing down.

The road was narrow. The tires came within inches of the edge.

Scrape! Clack!

Branches sticking out over the road whipped past the passenger-side window.

Xie Anqing had been lost in thought. The sound made her look over. The branches seemed to slash right across her face, and the car looked as if it might plunge into the ditch at any moment. The shock sent her heart leaping. Before the branches could come crashing down, she instinctively jerked inward and hit Xie Beibei’s hand, which was braced on the seat.

Xie Beibei looked puzzled. “Auntie, what’s wrong? Why do you look so upset?”

Xie Anqing said nothing.

Chen Li glanced quickly toward the corner of her eye and hit the brakes.

She braked hard enough that Xie Beibei nearly pitched forward. Once she’d steadied herself, she patted her chest, scrambled into the back, and buckled her seat belt.

Xie Anqing was still turned sideways in the passenger seat, lips pressed tightly together.

When Chen Li looked over, the first thing she saw was the thick tangle of branches pressed against the window. She froze, then immediately understood what had happened.

Xie Anqing had already collected herself. She drew in her outstretched right leg, sat up straight, and was about to tell Xie Beibei she was fine when Chen Li cut in.

Chen Li reached over and briefly ruffled her hair. “Sorry. I’m used to driving alone. I haven’t learned to look after the passenger.”