Chapter Ninety-Eight — Sharing One Car

From far to near, the scene slowly sharpened into focus.

Yishu saw him in a dark overcoat, the row of buttons at his chest all undone. The wind had caught the hem and lifted one corner of it. His face was half-hidden in the dusk, yet the handsome outline of his features was still visible, a strong, clean arc sketched across the blackened backdrop.

“So late, and you’re still not going home?”

Yishu stood where she was and steadied herself. The tide of people poured out and dispersed in different directions. A few coworkers who had left late were still lingering in the bike shed, hunting for their vehicles at an unhurried pace, chatting and laughing as they planned to sing karaoke till dawn. Yishu could not help admiring their stamina and resolve. After a grueling battle that had lasted a full twenty-four hours, they still had the strength to wage one more desperate fight against exhaustion.

“I’m talking to you. What are you looking around for?”

That was Tang Chao’s style to the letter. Though Yishu could not clearly make out his face against the backlight, his voice, his presence, his tone all conveyed one unmistakable fact: it was Tang Chao.

“You’re talking to me?” Even though she was nearly certain, she asked anyway, just to be safe.

“If I’m not talking to you, am I talking to a ghost?” His words were as blunt as ever.

“I’ve never heard a single decent word come out of your mouth!” Annoyed, Yishu brushed past him and headed toward the main road.

It had been quite some time since she had heard him say anything so infuriatingly provocative. For a while she had almost been under the illusion that he had turned over a new leaf, become an altogether different man. It had indeed been an illusion.

“Stop.” He caught her slender arm. “Who said you could leave?”

“And who says I can’t?” The anger suppressed by her drowsiness burst through at last. “It’s the middle of the night and instead of sleeping, you’re putting on airs outside someone else’s company. How bored are you?”

“I’ll take you home.” His voice suddenly softened, as if he had switched into a completely different temperament. “It’s late. It isn’t safe for you to go back alone.”

His unaccountable gentleness soothed some of her anger. She lifted her heavy head and looked at him. Wrapped in the golden halo of the streetlamps, he looked very much like a refined young gentleman from another age.

Perhaps it was the setting, or perhaps a brief spell of confusion, but whenever he treated her tenderly, her temper dissolved with it.

Achoo. Achoo. Achoo.

He sneezed several times in succession, snapping Yishu’s quiet imaginings back to reality.

“Here, wipe yourself.” She took a packet of tissues from her pocket and held it out to him.

In the light, she saw that the wind had blown his face red, his lips white with cold, and his straight nose looked like a pickled radish, with two clear streams hanging beneath it.

He hardly looked like Tang Chao at all. He had always given the impression of being polished and striking.

“What exactly are you doing here?” Yishu felt a flicker of sympathy for him. She herself could barely stand the howling wind raging around them. All she wanted was to hurry back, take a hot bath to wash away the exhaustion, and then collapse into sleep.

Tang Chao took the tissue from her hand, pinched his nose, and blew hard, clearing the damp mess from his nostrils.

With the precision of a practiced shooter, he tossed the crumpled tissue into the trash can beside the flowerbed across from them. All those years of basketball had not been wasted. Throwing away trash was child’s play.

Then he suddenly bent down, his seductive gaze fixing every movement she made. “Must you be this dense? Do I really have to spell it out?” He pressed a hand to her shoulder and leaned closer and closer. “I came here, of course, to pick you up from work. What else did you think I was doing out here in the middle of the night, admiring the moon?”

Yishu pushed him away. “You came to pick me up?”

Tang Chao had barely opened his mouth to answer when Yishu immediately cut in. “No need. I can take a cab home myself.”

“I said get in the car, so get in the car.” He was losing patience. The bitter cold had worn away what little good temper he had managed to muster. “What, are you afraid I’m going to eat you?”

A few coworkers from customer service came up behind them. More precisely, they had ridden out from the bike shed, seen the scene before them, and, with perfect mutual understanding, dismounted to reenact some melodramatic plot they had clearly picked up from television.

“Hey, handsome, could you give us a ride?” one of the women said in an affectedly coy voice. “We all live so far away, and it’s so late. We’re scared too.”

Tang Chao rolled his dark eyes so hard that only the whites showed. He had absolutely no interest in dealing with those shameless clowns.

“I’m talking to you!” the woman said indignantly. “Are men these days all so cold to pretty women?”

Tang Chao exhaled a plume of white breath that spread around his face before the wind tore it apart and swallowed it into the vast night. Red veins webbed the whites of his eyes. “Before I lose my temper, get out of here.”

The atmosphere froze at once.

It was hard to say whether he was hopelessly insensitive or simply unwaveringly devoted.

Yishu looked at her coworkers’ faces, then turned to look at Tang Chao’s.

To keep things from escalating further, she smoothed down her windblown hair, tucked it behind her ear, and walked toward the black sedan across the road.

She recognized his car. Most cars, judged only by appearance, could be distinguished only by their model or license plate. Yet somehow she could recognize his at a glance, even in the tightly folded darkness of midnight.

Tang Chao pressed the electronic lock. The two yellow lights in front and the two red lights behind flashed twice together.

Yishu reached for the rear door.

“Sit in front.” Tang Chao pushed the rear door shut and opened the passenger door instead.

She no longer had the strength to resist his will. Since she had already gotten into his car, what difference did it make where she sat?

With the engine rumbling, they left Kaisheng behind, that place where day and night had been overturned for a full week. In the rearview mirror, Yishu saw two newer coworkers still standing at the company entrance, staring at one another in bewilderment. In truth, her ready compliance had been forced upon her by circumstance. Though she would later return to work at the physical store in Textile City, and she and the customer service department would no longer cross paths much, they still belonged to the same company, the same division. Sooner or later they would meet again. If they could not be friends, at least they need not become enemies.

The car drove beyond the snack street and turned right onto Yue’an Road. Two rows of magnificent streetlights flooded the six-lane road with light as bright as day.

“Wait.”

Tang Chao slammed on the brakes, slowed, and pulled over to the roadside.

Yishu lowered the window and leaned out to see what was there. In the distance, a slender figure emerged through the sparse branches of the camphor trees.

It really was Guo Yamei. At first Yishu had not dared to be sure; she had only been able to tell it was the shape of a woman.

“What’s wrong? Are you feeling sick? Carsick?” Tang Chao pulled up the handbrake and studied her face.

“I’m fine.”

“If you’re fine, why tell me to stop?” His tone was not kind. He was just about to start the engine again when, from the corner of his eye, he noticed that Yishu’s gaze was fixed on the image in the rearview mirror. He looked back and saw, beneath the shadows of the trees, a shapely woman approaching. “You know her?”

“I...”

His voice brushed against the hair at the back of her head and echoed through the car.

The warmth of his breath struck the nape of her neck as he spoke. The ticklish sensation made the muscles in Yishu’s body contract sharply. She turned around, and her forehead knocked into his nose.

“Are you all right?”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Drive.” Yishu pressed her palm to her forehead and gently rubbed the swelling spot in circles.

“You’re sure you don’t want to let her in?” Tang Chao had seen straight through her.

“Who?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

Yishu turned her head to the right again and checked the rearview mirror. There was only a blurred stretch of night now; Guo Yamei was nowhere to be seen. She shifted her gaze forward. Guo Yamei had already gone quite a long way.

“Forget it.”

“Are you sure?” Seeing Yishu’s hesitation, Tang Chao could not help asking once more. “I don’t care either way. One more passenger, one less passenger, it makes no difference to me. As long as you’re here.”

At the bus stop, Guo Yamei stood before the route board, checking the schedule of each bus one by one. She took out her phone to check the time, then lowered her lashes in disappointment.

Yishu did not know exactly where in the city center Guo Yamei lived. The bus she took was always the same one. She probably lived somewhere far from the busy districts, if the buses that passed by were so few and far between.

“Give her a lift.” After all, there was no blood feud between them.

Tang Chao drove the car forward and stopped two or three meters ahead of Guo Yamei.

Yishu watched her approach slowly, but hesitation and uncertainty once again prevented her from opening the door.

Guo Yamei walked past the car.

“Wait.” Yishu opened the door. “It’s late. If you don’t mind, we can give you a ride.”

For a long moment, Guo Yamei’s back and Yishu’s face stood in silent opposition.

To an outsider, it might have looked like either a scene of parting or one of attempted reconciliation.

If she did not want to, Yishu would not force her. “Then be careful on your way.”

“Thank you.” Guo Yamei opened the door and bent to get in.

Yishu was startled by the gesture. Through the windshield, she saw Guo Yamei leaning into a corner seat with a trace of pleasure, as though she had finally laid aside old prejudice and resentment.

“Are you getting in or not?”

Only at Tang Chao’s shout did Yishu return to herself. The wind of the winter night had dulled her senses. Once she came back to her senses, the piercing cold swept over her with doubled force.