Wei Lai had gone to Ke Ke Shu’s room to wash up, but in just the short walk back, he had already broken into a thin, clammy sweat all over again.
He found this genuinely baffling: there was no rain here, just dry heat — shouldn’t it be desiccating people? How was anyone still sweating?
He knocked and entered. Cen Jin was sitting on the palm-mat, holding a tray and eating. Her hair was half-dry, and she had wrapped herself in a length of black silk.
Wei Lai remembered that piece of silk. When they were trimming the luggage, she had explained its uses: it could serve as a bath towel, a sleeping robe, a head wrap; on a beach it worked as a wrap; if clothes ran short, it could be a skirt — half-length or full-length, either worked.
Its versatility had made him think that if he were ever born a woman, he’d absolutely have to get one.
Her skin was fair, and black made it stand out especially well.
The ceiling fan was already running at its highest setting — at any moment it seemed ready to wrench itself free from its hook.
Cen Jin looked up at him: “You’re staying in here with me?”
Wei Lai pulled open the folding chaise longue: “Protocol says so. Of course, you can ask me to sleep by the door — though if someone breaks through the window, it’ll take me one or two seconds longer to reach you.”
His real motivation was to sleep inside and enjoy the fan.
Cen Jin lowered her gaze and patiently worked her fork against a slippery piece of lamb: “Then sleep there.”
Wei Lai relaxed slightly. When he lay down, he felt as though something was missing.
It wasn’t until the lights went out that it came to him: “Are there mosquitoes?”
“The north is more of a desert climate — too hot for them. They only come out when it cools down a bit.”
Wei Lai grimaced in the dark: even the mosquitoes wouldn’t clock in under these working conditions.
“You seem to know a lot about the culture and conditions here?”
“It’s a specialization. I studied this. Same as you knowing your way around a gun.”
Her tone suggested she wasn’t particularly in the mood to chat. Wei Lai stopped talking, closed his eyes, and focused on sleeping.
But sleep wouldn’t come. Wherever his body pressed against the chaise longue, heat accumulated quickly, and he found himself constantly shifting and turning to find a cooler spot. In the sealed room, the air was churned by the fan — though if anything it felt like the friction was generating more heat — producing what seemed to be hot wind.
He had no idea how much time passed. In a half-conscious haze, he suddenly heard a sound — the particular kind of sound that signals the sudden absence of all sound.
The fan was slowing down.
The electricity in this area must have been draining away as fast as water absorbed by sand.
The power had gone out.
The air was suffocating and heavy with moisture, and his body was clammy. Sleeping outdoors would have been better than this. Wei Lai felt he couldn’t take it anymore.
Someone else gave out before he did.
There was movement from the bed — Cen Jin sat up, and then reached for the magazine beside her and began fanning herself.
When he had bought this magazine, he had sensed it would be useful to her — just not in this particular way.
And yet strangely, now that she was the one suffering, he somehow felt more settled. A faint, inexplicable sense of superiority even rose in his chest.
Cen Jin was thoroughly miserable. She fumbled her way out of bed — apparently barefoot, because her footsteps made no sound — and went first to the window to open it, but the latch was stuck fast and she couldn’t get it. She then tried the door.
The door opened. Outside was an ashen blue sky. Cen Jin leaned against the doorframe to catch some air, her figure a slender black shadow growing out of the wall.
That really wasn’t easy on her.
After a while, she made her way back, stopped beside his chaise longue, and crouched down halfway: “Hey.”
Just a little while ago, when he had tried to make conversation before sleep, she had barely acknowledged him. Now that she couldn’t sleep, she had come looking for him?
Wei Lai was in no mood to oblige. He adopted the drowsy, irritated tone of someone woken up: “Mm?”
“It’s too hot.”
“Too hot… you woke me up for that? What good does disturbing someone else do you? What’s the point of something that hurts others and helps no one?”
Cen Jin scoffed: “Stop pretending.”
“You’ve been wide awake this whole time — eyes practically glowing. Did you think I couldn’t tell?”
Fair enough. His own eyes were too bright for his own good.
Wei Lai had no choice but to sit up.
“What do you want to do?”
“This building is made of brick, with a concrete roof on top. Concrete cools quickly, and there’s higher ground for the breeze — we could go up to the rooftop to cool down.”
“……One hundred euros.”
“What?”
“Escorting a client onto the rooftop in the middle of the night — that’s not in the contract. One hundred euros.”
She asked the Saudis for money; he’d ask her for money — did she think only she could charge people?
Ancient poetry had a saying: every head can be shaved; without shaving, there are no heads.
Wei Lai wanted to see her lose her temper — he had never actually seen it.
A long pause.
“……Last time, you borrowed one of my cigarettes to smoke. One hundred and twenty euros. Non-negotiable.”