The next day, Cen Jin slept almost until midday. Wei Lai had woken earlier — but not by much. When she opened her eyes, he was standing with his back to her at the side of the bed, just finishing buckling his belt.
He heard her stir and turned to look at her with an expression that was half smile and half knowing look.
Cen Jin was disoriented for a moment. Then gradually the memories of last night came back, and her face burned. She yanked the pillow over and pressed it across her face.
The bed dipped slightly beside her. Wei Lai sat down.
He said: “I think I finally understand why you once said you hoped your husband would die before you — married life does accumulate a fair number of secrets, and once they got out, they wouldn’t exactly be flattering…”
Cen Jin said through clenched teeth: “Are you done or not?”
Wei Lai moved the pillow aside: “When I’m strict with you, you’re perfectly well-behaved. When I’m good to you, you get all excited — like a wild little cat, biting and scratching. If I hadn’t managed to hold you down, I think you might have scrambled up to the roof beams.”
Cen Jin kept her eyes cast downward, refusing to look at him. Her eyelashes fluttered for a long moment before she managed to squeeze out: “Does it hurt?”
Wei Lai burst out laughing.
“You think I’m like you? That bite of yours, that scratching — it’s basically tickling me. Go ahead and call it ‘scratching an itch.'”
Cen Jin sat up and looked at him. The bite marks on his shoulder had nearly faded. Across his back were several red marks — in some places the skin had been broken, with small, beaded points of red — she still couldn’t quite believe that in a moment of abandon she had been so unrestrained. Perhaps for anyone, man or woman, when emotion reaches an extreme, it always carries some destructive impulse.
She rested her chin on his bare shoulder, wrapped her arms around him from behind, and quietly took in the warmth of his body. His upper back was broad and solid; there was a deep hollow running down the center, flanked by firm, well-defined muscle. Even in this light embrace, she felt an immense sense of security.
Cen Jin asked softly: “Why do you like me?”
Wei Lai laughed: “How could anyone explain something like that.”
Just as he accepted without question that the interior angles of a triangle always sum to 180 degrees — without ever thinking to ask why.
It was genuinely beyond explaining. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever protected. His clients had included supermodels and famous actresses of a sensual sort. At most he had regarded them with a man’s appreciative gaze, exchanged a few harmless jokes with colleagues, and then returned to being an expressionless wall.
The person who dazzles your eyes and the person who moves your heart are often two entirely different kinds of people. You can clearly describe who can take your breath away visually — but you can never quite say who will be the one to knock on the door of your heart. You have to open it yourself to see the face of the person standing outside.
Cen Jin said: “I can’t explain it either. If I had known it would come to this…”
If she had known it would come to this, would she still have chosen him on that first interview day?
A voice deep inside answered: Absolutely not.
But if she hadn’t chosen him — that would mean missing him forever, wouldn’t it?
She was briefly lost in thought, until Wei Lai pressed the unfinished question: “Don’t leave things half said. If you had known it would come to this — what then?”
Cen Jin smiled and changed the subject: “Look at that.”
He followed her gaze. The burned-down candle — spread into a thin, smooth pool, with two or three wax drips hanging frozen along the edge.
The world and its chaos are a consuming fire; a person is the wax. From birth to death, you are slowly worn down, softened and melted. Even without love, even spending your life beside the wrong person, you melt away all the same — life as the beginning, death as the end. It makes no difference.
But if you are fortunate enough to meet the right person, he becomes the wick — when the fire comes, he helps you burn into light and warmth and heat. And then he stays beside you, all the way to the very last moment.
Wei Lai asked: “What are you showing me?”
Cen Jin snapped at him: “I’m telling you to look — the candle burned out. Go ask the innkeeper for a new one.”
——
Opening the door to go out, the air was damp. It must have rained again in the morning. Wei Lai loosened his muscles, and in the middle of a stretching bend, he noticed the Egao girl — Ji Ni — upside-down in his field of vision, running in this direction, then coming to a halt in the middle of the courtyard.
She was probably mindful of his earlier words: “Don’t come disturbing me again.”
Wei Lai smiled and walked over to meet her, gesturing for her to follow him to one side of the wall. From this angle he had a clear line of sight, and could also monitor any movement inside Cen Jin’s room.
Ji Ni was visibly excited. She held out a cigarette, struck a match, and lit it for him: “Someone’s been asking about you.”
Wei Lai felt a subtle alertness, but he didn’t want to show urgency.
He took a slow, unhurried drag, then asked: “What’s your name?”
“Ji Ni.”
“Who’s been asking about me?”
“Not exactly asking about you — asking about your car.” Ji Ni pointed toward his car parked in the corner of the courtyard. “A jeep with a palm-leaf mat on top — there can only be one in all of Egao, right?”
She gave a little giggle.
Wei Lai gave nothing away: “Go on.”
“They came into town before dawn. Driving a van — two or three people inside. They didn’t stay at the inn; apparently they settled in at someone’s private home.”
“Which house?”
Ji Ni said nothing. Her palm turned upward, fingers curled — the universal gesture for money. She smiled with unexpected depth.
Wei Lai smiled back: “You got news this fast — I only asked you to keep watch last night, and by this morning you already have something. Don’t you know that information gathered too quickly can also make a person suspicious?”
Ji Ni scoffed: “Women like us have no steady work, so we gather together and gossip endlessly. The town is this small. If a wolf comes in from some direction in the morning, we’ll all know by noon which way it came from and what it carried in its mouth.”
“Their address… what do you want for it?”
Ji Ni licked her lips: “Ten… dollars?”
“Fine, I’ll give it to you shortly.”
Ji Ni smiled and let her outstretched hand fall: “Go out the main gate, turn left. Follow the road all the way to the end of the street. There’s a row of houses there, the walls are made of stone, and the rooftops are green and red. They’re staying in the one with the red roof. They drove the car into the forest behind the house — you won’t easily spot it.”
“The people in the car — any distinguishing features?”