Chapter 45 Part 2

Tonight, Wen Zenian clearly had no interest in schlepping back to the island. She followed Meng Ning upstairs, her steps feather-light. The elders were all abed; from behind the security door on the second floor came the low, muffled meow of someone’s cat.

Meng Ning unlocked the door. Qi Xiao and Song Xiao had already retreated to their rooms—whether asleep or simply anticipating their arrival together, she couldn’t say.

Wen Zenian kicked off her high heels and slipped into the slippers Meng Ning handed her.

“Aren’t you sleepy?” she asked.

“Hm?” Meng Ning replied. “I’m fine.”

“Want to watch a movie?” Wen Zenian suggested. “There’s this one called Paris Night Traveler. A friend recommended it—said it’s good.”

She had brought it up because Meng Ning had just mentioned Paris.

Meng Ning nodded. “Sure.”

Qi Xiao had bought the projector, and it had been sitting in the living room since their last viewing. Meng Ning carried it into her room. There was only one chair, so she said, “I’ll grab another from the living room.”

“No need,” Wen Zenian said.

She smoothed out her trousers and sat on the edge of Meng Ning’s bed. With a touch of alcohol in her voice, she added, “You don’t mind, right? We can always change the sheets.”

Wen Zenian was the type who held grudges over the smallest things.

The first time she got drunk at Meng Ning’s place, she hadn’t been able to shower and had simply collapsed onto Meng Ning’s bed. She had asked if Meng Ning minded, and Meng Ning had said no—they could change the sheets.

Wen Zenian still remembered it.

“If you keep twisting your neck like that,” Meng Ning said, “it’ll start to hurt after a while.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Wen Zenian kicked off the slippers and leaned back against the headboard. The flush at the tips of her ears had faded in the night breeze, but the deeper warmth of the alcohol now tinted the corners of her eyes with pink.

Wen Zenian wore her professional makeup with such earnestness that, amid the neutral earth tones of her eyeshadow and lipstick, that single flush stood out as the only note of sensuality. The contrast made it all the more captivating.

She crossed her long legs, clad in tailored trousers, revealing just the tips of her feet encased in sheer stockings. The projector was on but idle, its beam lingering on her toes.

Sometimes Wen Zenian evoked that ancient line: Even the heartless can be moving.

Her emotions rarely showed. Her nods and waves were understated, her smiles faint—a mere quirk of the lips before they relaxed. She might snap at an investor now and then, but it wasn’t true anger, just a flicker of impatience. She was far too poised, orchestrating everything from within her own carefully controlled world.

Nothing merited more than a fraction of her feelings. She conjured dreams for others, turning her hand to summon clouds or rain, filling her life with the wild ecstasies of countless admirers.

She operated behind the scenes, yet throngs bowed beneath her pencil skirts.

Her voice carried a huskier edge after the wine and cigarettes. “You have a streaming service membership, right?”

She spent little time in the country, so of course she didn’t.

Meng Ning had been tapping away on her phone, searching for the movie. She looked up. “Oh, I can just use whatever site.”

The kind littered with little porn ads.

Wen Zenian quirked her lips again, her smile heavy-lidded and lazy.

The film she had named was artsy and obscure. Meng Ning hunted through three sites before finding it. The moment it connected to the projector, the moans from the ads below erupted into the room.

Wen Zenian arched the corner of her eyebrow. “Was that on purpose?”

Meng Ning shot back, “Would you believe me if I said no?”

Wen Zenian was propped against the headboard now, while Meng Ning had swiveled the desk chair ninety degrees toward the side wall. They were sealed in the tiny bedroom, yet maintained a careful distance between them.

“Believe it or not, it doesn’t change anything.” Wen Zenian folded her hands at her waist, where her shirttail was neatly tucked into her trousers. She closed her eyes. “Not right now anyway. Feeling a bit dizzy.”

“Oh? You can’t?”

Wen Zenian peeled back her thin, soft eyelids and gave Meng Ning a look.

She had confessed to Qi Xiao once that her natural inclination was 0, but tonight she was firmly in the 1 role—and she couldn’t let that slide.

Meng Ning stifled a laugh, ducking her head to fiddle with her phone instead of pressing the banter.

Drinking always left her breaths a touch heavier, and now the buzz swelled into something languid and drawn-out. She exhaled, shut her eyes again, too dizzy to bother squabbling with Meng Ning.

Meng Ning had a habit of tossing out quips when she grew nervous or quiet, her smile affixed to her face like a mask.

Wen Zenian didn’t rise to it, so Meng Ning let the silence settle. As the video buffered, her gaze drifted slowly toward Wen Zenian’s face.

The room was dark, the curtains drawn tight for the movie. The cramped space felt starved of air, as if she could only draw breath from the faint alcoholic haze of Wen Zenian’s exhales.

The loading screen glowed white, bathing Wen Zenian’s delicately closed eyelids in light. The collar of her shirt hung softly open, though the diamond earrings dangling from her lobes gleamed small and unyielding.

Meng Ning knew her tastes by now. She had no fondness for pearls; diamonds suited her better—their sharp edges capable of slashing through the briars of time, concealed within a deceptive glow, subtle enough to make you work to uncover their fire.

The movie’s opening sound cue played, and Wen Zenian opened her eyes. Meng Ning looked away.

Wen Zenian had shown up in these final moments of her birthday to find her. No words passed between them about it. They had ridden the bus together, taken a stroll, and now settled in for a film.

The female lead had one of those quintessentially French faces—not pretty, exactly, but breathtakingly beautiful.

Meng Ning studied her disheveled hair, the subtle droop of her mouth, the eyes that still held a doe-like clarity despite middle age. Then Wen Zenian’s voice came from the headboard: “I really can’t. Dizzy as hell.”

Meng Ning kept her eyes on the projection. “Want to lie down for a bit?”

Wen Zenian was the one who had proposed the movie, and now she was the one who couldn’t watch. “Yeah,” she murmured, stretching out on Meng Ning’s bed.

When exhaustion claimed her, she always assumed the same position—whether after making love with Meng Ning, finishing a long workday, or knocking back too much wine. One arm raised, draped across her forehead, her pale wrist emerging from the cuff of her sleeve.

Somehow, her skin looked impossibly soft against the starched lines of a button-down. Tonight, though, the shirt was whisper-soft, making her complexion seem even more velvety.

Time found no purchase on her. Neither did lingering stares.

Meng Ning averted her eyes discreetly and fixed them back on the projection wall.

How long did a movie last? She glanced at her phone: one hour and twenty-three minutes remaining.

She could stay seated that long. She didn’t even need to look at Wen Zenian’s face—just listen as her steadying breaths wove into the film’s dialogue and score.

Paris at the twilight cusp between night and day held a muted gray, tinged faintly purple. The projected light spilled across Meng Ning’s little bedroom, blurring the city’s night into her own until the edges dissolved.

No wonder people loved movies.

No wonder people loved to dream.

She hit pause. Could she stretch out that remaining hour and twenty-three minutes just a little longer?

The room plunged into utter stillness. She held her own breath feather-light, hearing only Wen Zenian’s. Paris’s nightscape filled the wall; after a moment’s thought, she unclasped her Buddha beads.

It was a daring move. She only removed them for showers—sliding them right back on afterward—or when alone in her room. Qi Xiao had never seen her without them.

She cradled the beads in her palm, fingers turning them absently. They weren’t fine bodhi seeds, but five years against her skin had lent them a warm luster.

She wondered whether, if not for this strange reunion, things might have unfolded differently between her and Wen Zenian.

Probably not.

That version of their story would have been simpler. But as she had told Qi Xiao, their lives ran on parallel tracks, worlds apart. Meng Ning had always excelled at protecting herself—why gamble her sense of security?

It would have ended the same: one exquisite dream, then retreat into her shell.

No—without this, she might not have dared even that much. Not like now, with the option to leave as her safety net.

Any moment with Wen Zenian felt like a dream.

Take this one: the drab plaid curtains drawn tight, sealing out the real world. No raucous wet market, no roadside barbecue stalls alive with beer clinks and thick local dialects, no dingy fruit stands. Just Paris at dawn flickering across the faint cracks in her bedroom wall.

Qi Xiao and Song Xiao must be asleep by now. The neighbors on either side lay eerily silent.

Meng Ning rose and approached Wen Zenian.

She stood still for a moment, confirming she hadn’t disturbed her, then took another step closer.

Wen Zenian was asleep.

The arm across her forehead had fallen away, her lashes casting thick shadows like twilight beneath her eyes. Sleep brought no childlike innocence to her features—only a poised rationality. It wasn’t guarded, merely a flawless detachment that felt almost too perfect to be real.

Meng Ning gazed at that face, her own lips parting in a whisper: “Happy birthday.”

The first scene straight out of a novel unfolded.

Even as the words left Meng Ning’s lips in silence, Wen Zenian’s profile shifted against the pillow with a faint rustle.

Heart hammering, Meng Ning retreated two steps to her chair.

What followed felt less cinematic. Wen Zenian registered nothing. Not until Meng Ning restarted the film and rewound the beads around her wrist did Wen Zenian lift her arm again across her forehead—as if rousing briefly before settling back. Slowly, she pushed herself upright.

Even in sleep, her posture stayed impeccable, leaving few creases in the sheets. She leaned against the headboard, crossing her long legs once more, and turned toward the projection.

Oblivious to how long she had dozed, she never noticed the pause.

She didn’t care about missing parts or ask what happened next. In an artsy film like this, every scene evoked both beginning and end. She tilted her swan-like neck, letting the play of light and shadow wash across her face.

Meng Ning could pretend nothing had happened.

But as she watched the French heroine perch on a corner bay window, wrapped in a chunky knit sweater, the words slipped out again, barely audible: “Happy birthday.”

Soft enough to vanish amid the room’s echoing French narration.

Deep down, Meng Ning figured Wen Zenian didn’t need it anyway. A woman who put no stock in gods or Buddhas—would she believe a wispy blessing like that held any power?

Wen Zenian stared at the projection for a long stretch without replying.

Just when Meng Ning assumed it was forgotten, Wen Zenian’s gaze turned to her.

Meng Ning kept her eyes glued to the screen, but she felt it.

Wen Zenian spoke her name. “Meng Ning.”

Then: “Say it again.”