Chapter 5 Part3 (1/2)
Oh geez, fate likes to play little jokes on you, encountering people you didn't really want to encounter. Don't worry, though. Someone will come to Jia He's rescue. ?
Chapter 5.3 — A Brief Return to Shanghai (3)
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”It was raining this afternoon in Shanghai. I had just wanted to confirm whether you had anyone to pick you up.”
The soup scalded her tongue. Jia He lightly sucked some air into her mouth, not saying anything.
On his end, Yi Wenze seemed in no hurry. Vaguely, in the phone, Qing could be heard saying something, and there also seemed to be Qiao Qiao's and Cheng Hao's voices… The liveliness of that side served even more to highlight the quiet and loneliness of this one. By now, it was already approaching the eatery's closing time. When she first came in, there had still been two or three other customers, but she was the only one left now.
The four shop employees were already cleaning the floors and were continually shuffling by her, clearly demonstrating the hint that it was closing time.
With a spoon, Jia He gave a few stirs to her soup, watching as that one remaining meatball merrily somersaulted around inside. ”Actually, it's pretty easy to catch a cab here at Hongqiao Railway Station, and my home isn't very far away either. Teacher, rest earlier. My mobile is going to be out of battery right away, so I won't talk anymore.”
”All right, then. Take care and be safe.”
His voice was warm and gentle, as it always was, and seemed to have been lowered by several notches. Jia He was silent for quite a long moment before finally hanging up the phone first.
While she was rapidly destroying the rest of the food, her mobile phone all of a sudden vibrated again.
It was a text message from Qiao Qiao: You go, girl. You had a roomful of people listening to the two of you talk about how it's raining in Shanghai.
Jia He nearly bit her tongue. Good thing she had been smart and hung up the phone. Who's there?
Qiao Qiao: It's been quite theatrical. When you were getting on the train, Yi Wenze's agent came, and then later there were Liao Jing and Cheng Hao. Then just now when the doctor was doing the check-up, Tian Chu arrived. Anyhow, currently I'm the person who's watching all the excitement…
Those two rows of tiny words listed out what felt like a countless number of heavyweight names.
Jia He quickly typed out a line of words, but then she immediately erased it and started over, switching to write a completely different sentence. After repeating this process another two or three times, she was still staring dully at that blank reply box. What exactly she wanted to ask, even she herself did not know.
”Miss,” a shop employee addressed her, holding a white cleaning rag and wiping down the railing next to her, ”sorry, but we actually need to close up now.”
She thought for a moment but in the end still did not reply to the text. Putting away her mobile phone, she left the eatery.
Torrential rain was indeed pouring down during the drive to her home, and traffic was ridiculously congested on the elevated roadway. The worst part was that a rear end collision had occurred on that road. As Jia He sat in the taxi, listening to a song request program on the radio, her head against the gla.s.s of the window, she held her mobile phone and surfed online, flipping through webpage after webpage, from international news to forum posts and webcasts, but not daring to touch any entertainment news… Tian Chu's new alb.u.m had hit the charts and hence had caused even her old song, ”Sunlight,” to be requested by someone. In this small, narrow s.p.a.ce, that melody was extravagantly amplified, and even the driver began humming along with it.
She rolled the window down by a crack, drawing in a deep breath.
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In the month that followed, Jia He was extremely busy.
Her new script went through all sorts of trials and tribulations, and she had revised it to the point that she was even feeling psychological resistance to it. Sometimes, when she opened up Microsoft Word, she could not even remember what the names of the male and female lead were… Her new mobile phone was the exact same model as her previous one, and her Angry Birds record had risen back to the original stage that she had been at. Except for Qiao Qiao's phone calls that would come every now and then to hara.s.s her and report to her the state of Yi Wenze's recovery, everything was as it had always been.
One time, at three in the morning, Qiao Qiao had once more gotten into a huge tiff with her O great ba.s.s-playing talent and called her to vent her grievances. Out of the blue, she asked, ”You're honestly not curious about what I saw that night, you know, in the ma.s.sage room?”
Jia He was taken aback for a moment, evidently having already forgotten about the matter.
”Forget it.” For once, Qiao Qiao's lips were remaining tightly sealed about something. ”I've decided that I'm going to keep this inside me and let it rot away in my stomach. My ba.s.s-playing talent said that women shouldn't be too nosy and gossipy, so I've decided I'll start that with this matter of yours and turn over a new leaf.”
Unhesitantly hanging up the phone, Jia He buried her head down and continued cooking up the fourth melodramatic misunderstanding between the male and female lead…
One month later, as she spun her car keys and walked out of the underground parking garage of Raffles City[1], a car came to a stop right in front of her. Gu Yu's face appeared from behind its half-open window. ”Jia He.” He made a little gesture. ”Wait for me here. I'll be right up.”
With those words, he did not wait for Jia He's response and drove down into the parking garage.
Watching as the back of his car disappeared into the entrance, she was caught in a bind, for it was not appropriate to leave, but neither did she want to stay.
All of a sudden, a car came driving straight towards her and, its driver not braking early enough, nearly rammed into her. Luckily, someone behind her yanked her away. It was Gu Yu, who had just walked up from the parking garage. The novice driver inside the car hastily stuck her head out and said sorry. Jia He wagged her hand and did not say anything, discreetly pulling her arm back.
In contrast, the expression of the woman in the front pa.s.senger seat s.h.i.+fted greatly, and opening her door, she got out of the car and gave a subdued greeting of ”Editor-In-Chief.” A very brief look of perplexity crossed Gu Yu's face, but then an easy smile replaced it, like this was his old acquaintance. The woman hurriedly took a look at Jia He, who should have been the near-victim but was now standing off to the side like a random bystander who had nothing to do with all this. ”Sorry, Editor-In-Chief. My friend just learned how to drive. Your friend… is fine, right?”
Jia He jumped in to answer first. ”No worries. It's also my bad. I shouldn't have stood by the entrance to wait for someone.”
Nevertheless, the woman continued gingerly giving her apologies. It was quite a while later before she, still filled with anxiety, got back into the car and left, leaving the remaining two people there to stare at each other.
Gu Yu lowered his head to look at her. ”You really are fine?”
Jia He tried her best to smile. ”I'm fine. Just now, that was your colleague?”
”Might be someone new. She doesn't really look familiar.”
He was wearing gla.s.ses today, a pure-black metal frame, and looked cultured and sophisticated.
She could still remember, when she had just started university, Gu Yu was already in his fourth year and was the emcee of that year's Welcome Gala. At the time, he had been so at ease as he dialogued and laughed with female emcee, who had been wearing seven-inch heels, and had enchanted all those younger female schoolmates who had only recently taken their first steps through the university gates. Later, by fortune and accident, she had become his girlfriend, and her greatest pleasure each day had been to s.n.a.t.c.h his gla.s.ses off of him and see how those eyes behind the gla.s.ses could only look resignedly at her.
Gu Yu asked, ”You're here to buy something?”
Nodding, Jia He replied, ”Qiao Qiao said iPads have come down in price. I came to take a look.”
”The little shop behind Raffles City?”
Jia He answered with an ”mm-hmm,” planning on making up an excuse that would allow her to leave.
”Do you remember that friend I mentioned to you last time?” Gu Yu pointed in the direction of Fuzhou Road. He and I are meeting up to grab something to eat together. But it's still early. I'll go look at iPads with you first.”
Raffles City in Shanghai's Huangpu District. The location of he parking garage has been annotated.
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These few sentences from him completely upset her plans.
Back when the two of them were dating, their days and nights had been so busy with work that they would not even get to see each other during the week. At the time, day and night Jia He had hoped that they could have a surprise chance meeting somewhere, but never once did this wish come true. Now, though, this was just great. This was originally just an arbitrary decision to go strolling and shopping that she made after waking up, but for some reason, it had gone from being a casual shopping trip to an awkward occasion of her old love coming along with her.
Gu Yu, the ”strolling companion,” fulfilled his duties conscientiously and, when it was time to pay, even very naturally fished out his wallet and pulled out his card. Hastily putting a stop to his actions, Jia He took out her own wallet and gave it a waggle. ”It's not New Year's, nor is it a festival or holiday. Absolutely do not give me anything as a gift. I don't want to be constantly thinking about what gift I should give you in return.”
With a shake of his head and a smile, Gu Yu put away his wallet. Telling Jia He to first inspect the product to make sure everything was okay, he stepped out the door.
The shop owner had already become well acquainted with Jia He by now, and casually he teased, ”This one's a good guy. Really, he is quite good.”