Jiang Min pushed open the door to the private room. Ning Rou rose to greet her, wearing a white sweater and a light coffee-colored skirt, long hair draped gently over her shoulders, smiling at her. “Sister A-Min.”
“Wait long?”
“No, I just got here.”
Jiang Min took off her coat, hung it up with her bag, and sat down.
Ning Rou poured her tea. “Did you walk over?”
The tea was scalding. Jiang Min took a sip, dispelling the chill clinging to her. “Drove. Saves me coming back for the car after dinner.”
“Little Lin will be a bit late. You don’t have anything else tonight, do you?”
“What would she need to go home for?”
“She didn’t say.” Ning Rou topped up her tea. “From her tone it didn’t sound like anything major. A few days ago she told me she’d come to Mingchuan. Did she go see you?”
Jiang Min found it a little funny. “She came to my team to interview. She got the job. You didn’t know?”
“I see…” Ning Rou’s hand paused as she poured, her eyes lowering, then quickly lifting again, her smile soft and gentle. “I didn’t know. She only told me she was back in Mingchuan and might come see you. Well, that’s good. You’ll be able to see each other often now.”
Jiang Min gave a scornful little laugh. “Seeing me or not, it’s all the same. She never has a word to say to me anyway.”
Ning Rou soothed her gently. “Don’t say that. After all, you sponsored Little Lin for so many years.”
Jiang Min said nothing.
Her slender knuckles tightened around the teacup, the pads of her fingers feeling the warmth of the tea.
Seeing her silence, Ning Rou paused a few seconds before changing the subject. “How has Auntie been lately? Keeping well?”
“Reasonably. She was just complaining about you the other day.”
“That’s my fault — I haven’t called her in a while.”
“Then you deserve the scolding.” A hint of a smile surfaced on Jiang Min’s face. “I can go two or three months without talking to her and she doesn’t care a bit. But you — one month without a call and she nags nonstop.”
Jiang Min’s mother, Pei Ruyi, and Ning Rou’s mother, Ning Zhilan, had grown up together. After Ning Zhilan passed away early, Pei Ruyi had essentially raised Ning Rou as her own daughter, and had told Jiang Min to look after her.
Ning Rou was two years younger than Jiang Min, gentle-natured, soft-spoken; Jiang Min was always afraid someone would take advantage of her.
These days Ning Rou worked as an editor at a magazine office. The editor-in-chief had some friendly history with Jiang Min and looked out for Ning Rou. The work was easy and respectable — well suited to her.
Ning Rou nodded. “Okay, I know. When we have time, let’s go home together and see her.”
Jiang Min considered. “The end of the year is packed. We’ll see what the schedule allows.”
Ning Rou squeezed her hand. “You and your ‘too busy.’ Auntie has told you off about that how many times.”
Jiang Min laughed too. “Which is exactly why you should go keep her company more.”
The two were still chatting and laughing when the door to the private room was pulled open from outside.
Lin Xuqing stood in the doorway, figure slender, gaze clear and bright. “Sorry. I’m late.”
Ning Rou rose at once. “Not at all. Little Lin, no need to be so polite. Come, take off your coat and hang it up first.”
Lin Xuqing made a sound of acknowledgment. “Thank you, Sister Ning Rou. I can do it myself.”
It was a square table for four. Ning Rou sat beside Jiang Min; the two chairs across were empty. Lin Xuqing took the seat opposite Ning Rou.
Ning Rou poured her tea. “Come, let’s toast first. To Little Lin finally being back in Mingchuan.”
Lin Xuqing accepted the teacup. “Thank you, Sister Ning Rou.”
Jiang Min raised her teacup as well, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. “Welcome back. And if you botch the job and get fired, you’re not allowed to go crying to Ning Rou about it.”
Ning Rou laughed. “You — why frighten Little Lin for no reason? With her ability, no job would ever be a problem.”
Lin Xuqing lowered her head, as if smiling too.
But with that joke of Jiang Min’s, the atmosphere was at least less stifling than before. Ning Rou served food to both of them, keeping up a gentle stream of conversation, and the table didn’t fall silent.
“Little Lin, what made you decide to come back to Mingchuan? Weren’t you still over in Africa?”
“Mm. Two years ago I joined a program stationed in Africa. After drifting out there so long, I was tired. I came back at the start of this year and found a job, but it didn’t suit me, so I quit again.”
Jiang Min listened and said nothing.
Over the years, Ning Rou had occasionally mentioned bits and pieces of Lin Xuqing’s whereabouts. Jiang Min had only listened, never asking.
“It’s good that you’re back. Being alone out there must have been hard.” Ning Rou’s voice was warm. “It’ll be better from now on. If anything difficult comes up, come to me, or to Sister A-Min. Don’t carry everything by yourself.”
Jiang Min said, neither warm nor cold, “Do you not know her personality by now? Her, coming to us for help? She’d be doing well not to hide things from us.”
Ning Rou hurried to smooth it over. “All right, all right, it’s a rare dinner. Come, try this new dish.”
Lin Xuqing said nothing, her long lashes lowered, casting faint shadows.
Jiang Min had said her piece; seeing her sitting there head bowed and silent, she couldn’t help thinking, Forget it.
What was the point of sparring with her? She’d known all along this person was this closed-off.
“Eat more beef. What are you doing with the greens?” Jiang Min put food in her bowl. “After all these years, you’re even thinner than your student days, aren’t you?”
Lin Xuqing raised her eyes to her, visibly startled, almost disbelieving. “…Hm?”
Finding her staring, Jiang Min looked away. “Not eating? If you’re not eating, I’m taking it back.”
And she moved to lift the beef away with the serving chopsticks toward the spare empty plate.
Lin Xuqing said hurriedly, “Eating it, I’m eating it.”
She pressed her own chopsticks down on the serving chopsticks — then immediately realized her mistake, and in letting go knocked a napkin off the table. A whole flustered scramble, and several rapid apologies.
Jiang Min couldn’t help a small laugh.
All this prim and composed posturing, day in and day out.
So she hadn’t changed all that much after all.
Ning Rou watched the two of them, still smiling her soft, gentle smile.
By the time dinner ended, the sky was pitch dark.
Snow had begun to fall. Jiang Min asked Ning Rou, “Did you drive?”
Ning Rou shook her head. “I didn’t.”
Jiang Min fished out her keys. “I’ll take you.”
Hailing a car around here at night wasn’t easy. Ning Rou didn’t live far — a twenty-minute walk at most. But her health was poor, and Jiang Min didn’t like the idea of her out walking this late.
Ning Rou said softly, “All right.”
Jiang Min turned back to Lin Xuqing. “Where do you live?”
“A friend is coming to pick me up,” Lin Xuqing said at once. “Take Sister Ning Rou home. I’ll walk.”
Jiang Min arched a brow.
What kind of friend was this friend, exactly?
But she didn’t ask. “How long will you have to wait?”
“She said a few minutes. You two go ahead.” As Lin Xuqing spoke, her hand found the hand warmer in her pocket — already cold.
She held it out. “Here. Thank you.”
“Returning it?”
“It’s not warm anymore.”
Jiang Min had long since forgotten the hand warmer existed. She reached out to take it — and brushed Lin Xuqing’s fingertips. Ice-cold.
For an instant she wanted to say something, then stopped herself. “Message me when you’re home. Be careful.”
Lin Xuqing nodded. “All right.”
Still as sparing with her words as ever.
Ning Rou said her goodbyes to Lin Xuqing too and climbed into the passenger seat.
Jiang Min started the car, glancing back as she pulled out — Lin Xuqing was still standing where she’d been.
Snowflakes came sifting down.
And she stood alone in the night.
Until, in the rearview mirror, she shrank to a tiny black dot and vanished.
Ning Rou asked suddenly, “Are you still angry with Little Lin?”
“Angry?” Jiang Min laughed softly. “That was years and years ago. No.”
“Though for all we know, she’s still angry at me. After all, I tore into her back then…”
Afterward, all contact had simply ended.
Ordinarily Jiang Min couldn’t be bothered to dwell on such things. Most things were useless to dwell on, and there was even less point in digging to the root of them.
In this world, many things simply had no “why” to be found.
“How’s work been lately?” Jiang Min changed the subject.
Ning Rou said, “All right. A few small problems, but all solvable.”
Just then the car reached the base of Ning Rou’s building. Jiang Min parked. “It’s turned cold lately — don’t catch a chill. And don’t let yourself be pushed around at work either. Anyone gives you trouble, you tell me.”
Ning Rou laughed. “I know, I know. I’m not a little kid anymore — who’d bully me? All right, go home and get some rest.”
Jiang Min shook her head, smiling too.
She had looked after her since they were children; perhaps by now it was simply habit. She sometimes forgot that Ning Rou was past thirty — hardly the tearful little thing she’d once been.
At home, Jiang Min finished washing up before checking her phone. Still no message.
She thought for a moment, then sent Lin Xuqing a WeChat: “Home yet?”
Half an hour passed after she finished washing up. Still nothing.
She thought of that figure in the rearview mirror, and called directly.
Surprisingly, the call connected within two seconds.
The voice on the other end asked, “Who is this?”
Jiang Min’s tone was sharp. “Lin Xuqing?”
There was a beat of delay, as if the other had only just recognized her voice. “…Sorry. I was out walking with a friend.”
“I told you to message me when you got home, and you—” Jiang Min heard wind on the other end, paused, then said, “Forget it. Never mind. Hanging up.”
Lin Xuqing had barely gotten out an apology before the line went dead with a beep.
Her fingers tightened around her phone as she stared at the screen for several seconds.
“Ms. Lin, may I close the window now?”
Tang Xiaoyu was looking at her as though she’d lost her mind. “It’s the dead of winter. Why on earth are you taking calls with the window wide open?”
“‘Walking with a friend’? Are we taking walks in the living room now?” Tang Xiaoyu flopped onto the sofa. “So who’s on the other end, that they’ve got our Ms. Lin telling bald-faced lies?”
Lin Xuqing shut the window and turned around. “A colleague.”
Tang Xiaoyu: “Do I look like an idiot?”
What a flimsy excuse. Could she be any lazier about it?
Lin Xuqing met her aggrieved stare and said evenly, “Probably.”
“Probably what?” But Tang Xiaoyu only watched her go into her room and shut the door before it caught up with her. “You shameless crook, you got me again!”
Lin Xuqing listened to the commotion in the living room, long since used to it.
It was late, and she’d barely slept the night before; she ought to hurry through washing up and rest. But she only stood at the doorway.
She didn’t turn on the light. The room was pitch dark.
Her thumb drifted, unbidden, back to the call log.
Outside the window, the wind howled and snow fell in sheets; all the world was silent.
Inside it, she pressed the phone face-in against her chest, and with the rise and fall of her breathing it slowly became one with her heartbeat.
