Chapter 16

“You know exactly what happens if you catch a cold at a critical moment, right…”

Lu Shimiao looked down and said nothing.

She had barely ever been sick in her life. In fact, during middle school, she often got headaches precisely because her constitution was too robust.

She’d watch helplessly as other female classmates asked for leave due to period pain, and male classmates skipped class because of diarrhea, while she, because her attempts to fake illness were so unconvincing, couldn’t even fool Lu Yuan, who doted on her. Thus, she smoothly achieved the highest honor of perfect attendance throughout her entire student career.

The only two times in her life she’d been so miserably ill that she couldn’t get out of bed had both happened right under Xue Tong’s nose.

…

It was the third week of the Police Academy term. The Hong Kong Observatory had issued advance warnings about the Typhoon Signal No. 8 information. Citizens across Hong Kong had been eagerly looking forward to it since Monday.

“Sitting on a No. 1, hoping for a No. 3, dreaming of a No. 8” became the hot topic among Police Cadets that week.

After all, they were certain the Instructors couldn’t be so twisted as to make people perform mud-roll drills during a Signal No. 8. A typhoon holiday became the budding hope for Police Cadets to sleep in. Everyone was praying to every deity imaginable, hoping this typhoon would last a good long while.

Lu Shimiao received the text notice from the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Monday, reminding exchange students in Hong Kong to prepare typhoon food supplies in advance and report safety information promptly. She procrastinated until Tuesday before going to the supermarket, only to find the shelves completely stripped bare.

She only managed to buy two packages of Nissin Demae Itcho.

Oh well.

Having something to eat was better than nothing.

Carrying the two bags of instant noodles, Lu Shimiao trudged slowly home.

Ever since Xue Tong told her she needed to move out, she’d contacted the agency agent to terminate the lease and find a new place.

The agent sent her a single reply: “You can move out, but the rent is non-refundable, and you’ll need to pay the breach-of-contract penalty fee.”

She had no idea how Lu Yuan had done business for so many years or what kind of contracts he signed. She was even starting to doubt whether the family business could last until Qiu Wen found a live-in son-in-law to take over. The legal standing of that contract in Hong Kong was far more effective than it would be in Mainland China.

The Mainland dealt with reason and sentiment.

Hong Kong dealt with the letter of the law.

One sentence from the agent left her in a dilemma. If she made a phone call back to Shanghai right now…

Lu Yuan would surely hurry to Hong Kong in a panic, and Qiu Wen would use the opportunity to insinuate she was incompetent. She’d run all the way to this godforsaken place, and still Qiu Wen could get leverage on her?

Forget it.

She’d think of another way.

Walking into the elevator, she pressed the floor number. The Roman numerals loomed over her head like a ticking time bomb.

She was about to go back and face those shameless people again. It felt like ants crawling all over her body, an unease starting from her very toes.

She pushed open the door to the shared apartment.

Lin Tingting, having finished an early shift, was sitting in the living room watching TV. The morning news was broadcasting reports about the Typhoon Signal No. 8. They didn’t speak.

Since the last time Lu Shimiao had firmly ignored Lin Tingting, the woman had backed off somewhat. She no longer pressured Lu Shimiao to buy things, only resorting to playing extremely loud music in the middle of the night—just enough to make it impossible to sleep.

Oh well. She couldn’t sleep well anyway. Sleeping or not, what was the difference anymore?

Just as Lu Shimiao was about to walk past her, Lin Tingting called out, “Little Sister, someone came asking about the water and electricity bill. You should go to Property Management to pay it, or the power will be cut tonight.”

“Okay.” Lu Shimiao was rather unaccustomed to hearing her speak in a halfway normal tone of voice.

She went to her room, put away the instant noodles, and prepared to go pay the utility bill. Stepping out the door, she ran into An Cheng, who was standing right outside.

“Hi,” An Cheng, wearing glasses, greeted her enthusiastically with an outstretched hand.

“Hi.” Lu Shimiao had no choice but to ‘hi’ back.

“I’ll go with you.” An Cheng was smiling, his glasses bobbing up and down with his facial muscles.

Lu Shimiao nodded, and the two walked out side-by-side.

The surname An was quite common in Hong Kong. Three people in the shared apartment had the surname An. Consequently, Lin Tingting referred to An Cheng as “An Silly-Eyes”—a dopey and clueless idiot with glasses. An Cheng didn’t seem to mind, constantly hanging around Lin Tingting to chat and joke.

Lu Shimiao knew he was a freelance photographer, often out from dawn until dusk with his camera as if out on location shoots. The two of them crossed paths very rarely in the apartment. Every time was in the laundry room, where she’d invariably see An Cheng sitting next to a washing machine with a bowl of instant noodles, reading a book.

Lu Shimiao could never figure it out: how could An Cheng read a book in the stuffy, stifling environment of the laundry room, compounded by the steaming instant noodles?

The two were standing in front of the elevator. An Cheng stood very close to her and opened his mouth to say, “You are very beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Lu Shimiao felt profoundly uncomfortable receiving the compliment. The man’s voice sounded creepy, so she politely took a step to the side to distance herself.

“Don’t mind people like Lin Tingting. She’s already bullied and driven away so many Tenants. Especially the Tenants who used to rent your room.” An Cheng’s Mandarin was fairly good, lacking the typical heavy Hong Kong accent. His enunciation was clear and accurate.

Lu Shimiao hadn’t expected An Cheng to speak against Lin Tingting right in front of her. She had thought the two of them were on good terms.

She didn’t pick up the thread of conversation and remained silent.

“Did you manage to buy food? There’s a typhoon expected this weekend.” An Cheng continued trying to make conversation.

“If you didn’t, I can give you a few packs of ready-to-eat meals, the heat-up kind. Going outside during a typhoon is dangerous. Shanghai also has typhoons, doesn’t it?”

Lu Shimiao froze. She wasn’t touched by this display of concern; instead, a paranoid and chilling alertness crept over her.

She had never mentioned to anyone in this shared apartment where she was from. How did An Cheng know her personal information?

“Who told you I’m from Shanghai?” Lu Shimiao had her doubts, so she decided to ask directly.

“Ah…..” An Cheng awkwardly tightened his grip on his camera, his tone sheepish. “The agent told me.”

The agent…

Lu Shimiao considered it. It was possible. She dropped her suspicion.

Facing An Cheng’s friendliness, she smiled and replied, “In Shanghai, typhoons usually just bring some rain. But thank you for the offer. I’ve already bought supplies.”

The elevator arrived. An Cheng politely gestured for Lu Shimiao to enter first.

Lu Shimiao smiled slightly and walked in first. She took out her card, swiped it in the reader, and pressed for the ground floor.

Meanwhile, An Cheng walked in behind her. He pressed himself very close against her back while swiping his own card, then pressed the button for the 12th floor before stepping away.

The entire action lasted only a fleeting instant.

But Lu Shimiao felt as if her body was experiencing a cataclysmic collapse.

…

When An Cheng had swiped his card past her, his hand had brushed across her thigh and buttocks. And she could clearly feel something hard pressing against her…

She’d never been in a relationship, but she knew what that thing was.

Lu Shimiao froze, her body rigid. She looked up at the mirror to see their respective positions.

An Cheng had already moved to the very back of the elevator, head bowed, playing on his phone. An umbrella blocked the bulge in his pants. There was a meter’s distance between them.

He sensed Lu Shimiao looking at him, and so he raised his head with an untroubled expression, asking, “Is the 12th floor already here?”

Everything had happened in that silent, narrow space. It came without a sound, and passed away imperceptibly. In those few seconds, Lu Shimiao felt like someone was strangling her, making it impossible to breathe.

The greasy scent of his scalp left on her when he pressed close still lingered at her nose. The rough, invasive sensation on the skin of her thigh wouldn’t dissipate. Every single hair that had been touched stood on end, trembling. The spot on her back where she’d been nudged matched the location of the bulge in his trousers.

Lu Shimiao stood there processing what happened for what felt like an eternity.

She had been sexually harassed.

She looked up at the surveillance camera. Its red light was flashing.

She was well-versed in criminal law and procedure; she knew perfectly well that such a fleeting action was essentially impossible to gather evidence for…

When law faces unquantifiable darkness, it turns into a vacuum-sealed bag.

Impossible to open, yet unable to contain what’s inside.

The 12th floor had arrived.

Lu Shimiao quickly pressed herself against the wall, her fingertip resting directly on the elevator alarm button, her entire posture in a defensive state.

Her mind raced through potential counter-attacks given the disparity in male-female physical strength. If he dared move, she would ensure he went to prison.

But An Cheng simply walked out of the elevator with light, brisk steps, brushing past her.

Watching the girl’s cautious demeanor, a flicker of gratification passed under his glasses. The frightened expression on the prey’s face was even more satisfying than copping a feel.

Standing outside the elevator, An Cheng turned to face Lu Shimiao. He waited like that until the doors slowly slid shut, then leisurely raised his hand in a wave.

His Mandarin was filled with a teasing, humiliating lilt: “Bye-bye.”

Lu Shimiao leaned against the elevator wall for support, her mind echoing with his gaze and tone.

The disgusting sensation of being groped on her buttocks and thighs made her feel the urge to vomit with every breath. She desperately wanted to carve the flesh off her body, to sever the sticky, horrific connection to him.

Exiting the elevator, she pulled out her phone to start looking for a new place. Instructor Xue was right; moving out was not something that could be delayed.

Lu Shimiao walked to the Property Management center in a daze, signed her name, swiped her card, paid the bill. Her head was buzzing the entire time. She simply did whatever the management staff told her to do, not even checking the amount she had paid.

Just as she walked out of the management office’s main door, Lu Yuan called.

“Baby, did you go buy another handbag?”

Sitting in his office, Lu Yuan was staring at the credit card transaction list, somewhat unable to process it. Spending 100,000 yuan in a single month was not his daughter’s typical spending habit.

Before going to Hong Kong, Qiu Wen often criticized Lu Shimiao for buying athletic wear.

Spending 20,000 yuan on an Arc’teryx waterproof mountaineering jacket and wearing it for two or three years without changing it, owning not a single piece of attire fitting a proper young lady.

Back then, Lu Shimiao would jump up in frustration, arguing that money should be spent on practical essentials. A mountaineering jacket was waterproof, warm, and lightweight, and you could zip off the sleeves to wear it as a vest. Why cram into a crowded store to buy some branded, shoddy junk?

Qiu Wen had been rendered speechless by her daughter.

But looking at it now? Lu Shimiao’s spending level was almost catching up to his wife’s…

Shanghai men were mostly devoted “daughter slaves,” and Lu Yuan was no exception. If his daughter bought a few handbags or pieces of clothing, that was a small matter easily settled just by asking.

What he feared was his daughter being lured into getting mixed up in messy, unsavory things. At his age, his heart couldn’t take it.

Standing under the heavy, dark clouds, Lu Shimiao trudged forward heavily, not daring to answer.

“Oh, Darling, don’t give your dad the silent treatment.” Lu Yuan stood up from his chair, his tone full of indulgence. “Money, Daddy makes it for you to spend. But the rate of your spending changed so suddenly, of course I need to ask about it.”

“Daddy knows you don’t like Cantonese food. There are a few very good Shanghai cuisine restaurants in Hong Kong too. Daddy will send you their locations on WeChat in a moment.”

“If you see a nice bag, buy it. But don’t buy too many. Picking up your mother’s shopping habits would be bad. Not every family is as well-off as ours. If you marry in the future, spending too much will scare the man away.”

“Ai-yo, you… Zu sa la [what are you doing], are you trying to kill me by not talking to your dad?! Lu Shimiao!” Lu Yuan grew anxious, reeling off a string of Shanghainese in his agitation.

Lu Shimiao had always thought she’d never actually prove to be as useless as Qiu Wen claimed, but faced with the money she’d spent on behalf of others, she couldn’t find the courage to tell Lu Yuan the truth.

All she could manage was a whisper as thin as a mosquito’s buzz: “I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Daddy just needs you to take good care of yourself. Eat on time, sleep on time. Daddy isn’t like your Mom…” Lu Yuan sighed.

“Even if you can’t get first place, even if you can’t find a boyfriend in the future, Daddy can still support you. You know that, right?”

Lu Shimiao rarely heard her father say things like this.

In her eyes, Lu Yuan was the archetypal, endlessly chattering Shanghai man, daily shuttling through the kitchen, the office, and the school gate without ever finding it tiresome. When Lu Yuan spoke to her, his sentences always ended with that ‘ya’ particle. It was a local Shanghainese speech habit, yes, but she had never heard him speak that way to anyone else.

Although his tone always carried coaxing, and he always ran away from family disputes, and Qiu Wen always said he had no backbone, couldn’t break through anything…

Lu Shimiao knew that if Lu Yuan ever witnessed what had happened in that elevator today, he would fight that person to the death without a second thought.

Lu Shimiao felt a dull, blunt knife sawing against her cowardice and inadequacy.

The cool wind brushed her hair tips. She watched the ocean waves in the distance curl up white spray—scattered, then gathering again.

The free life she had once longed for was not the least bit easy.

“Dad, I’ll take good care of myself. You take care of yourself too. I’ll use the money well. Don’t worry.”

Afraid that homesickness would cause a complete breakdown and unleash a torrent of tears, Lu Shimiao carefully controlled her voice. “I still have class, I have to hang up now.”

The moment she hung up, she immediately pulled out her phone to check the spending records.

The most recent transaction: 12,030 HKD, Payee Note: 36th Floor Electricity Fee.