Because underwear had to be washed separately, and he found that too inconvenient. So he simply treated them as disposable.
Wei Qingyue told her all his habits without the slightest embarrassment. In front of her, he felt a complete and utter sense of safety. Underwear was intimate — but he was transparent with her.
“Can’t you just buy one of those small washing machines for delicates?” Jiang Du touched her own flushed cheek, thinking privately that this man was terribly wasteful.
Wei Qingyue said, “Too much trouble. You still have to take them out and hang them to dry.”
Jiang Du looked at him with speechless exasperation. She asked, as though in passing, “Have you always been like this? Even as a child?”
“How young do you mean?” Wei Qingyue spoke of it lightly. “When I was boarding in primary school, in first grade, I was so small I didn’t even know to change my underwear. I didn’t like washing my feet either. Once it got dark I just wanted to crawl into the blankets. Everything was a mess everywhere, and noisy enough to drive you mad. I said so in the end — how come everything smells? Wei Zhendong caught the smell on me one day and beat me good and proper. After middle school, when I’d grown a bit, I started knowing to keep clean.”
He spoke of his childhood, and Jiang Du put down what she was holding and listened quietly. When he finished, she knitted her brows slightly and moved closer, brushing her arm gently against his — soft and delicate: “Then let me give you a washing machine.”
She felt, in truth, like crying. She had loved cleanliness from the time she was small — wore white socks without a mark on them. In school, other children’s red neckerchiefs would be twisted and dirty as old rags, but hers was always clean and neat and fresh. If only they had been classmates back then. She would certainly have reminded him — Wei Qingyue, you smell, you need to change your clothes. Does no one do your laundry? I could take it home and ask my grandmother to wash it for you.
“You’re going to give me a washing machine?” Wei Qingyue’s brow shot up. He gave a short, skeptical sound of amusement. “I thought you were going to say you’d wash my underwear for me from now on.”
As if he could wish for that.
Jiang Du smacked him with the notebook. Then she began folding, hanging, and sorting his clothes by category — even rolling his socks into neat little bundles.
Wei Qingyue made no offer to help. Instead he poured himself a glass of water and leaned against the doorframe, watching her work.
He was thoroughly oblivious, too — Jiang Du was going in and out of the space, and he didn’t think to move even an inch. “Move a little,” she kept saying.
“Mm.” Wei Qingyue shifted approximately one millimeter.
Jiang Du looked up at him. “Move a little more.”
Wei Qingyue shuffled right back into the original spot.
Absolutely in the way.
“Wei Qingyue.” Jiang Du called him by his full name. “Can you please go sit on the sofa?”
“No,” he said, watching her with a smile.
“You’re such a child,” Jiang Du sighed.
After more than an hour of work, it was finally done. She told him where everything had been put.
Wei Qingyue glanced around with only half his attention, and said, “As long as you know.”
But then, with lively interest, he asked her: “You’re quite domestic, aren’t you? I seem to remember you could never rinse your clothes properly — always left detergent marks all over them.”
That was ancient history. And she still couldn’t really manage hand-washing clothes — though Jiang Du had the sense not to say so outright. “I wouldn’t say I’m particularly domestic,” she said, a little self-consciously. “I can’t cook well — that’s a real flaw. But I do like keeping a home organized. Especially now, our rental is small, so good storage matters a lot. Half and half, I suppose — faults and good points.”
When she finished, she hesitated shyly, hemming and hawing a little before asking, “Do you want to come to my place for dinner? Grandfather has cooked for you.”
Wei Qingyue very much did. He told her to wait ten minutes — he needed to shower and change. The mirror had been fogged over with steam and he couldn’t see his own face clearly.
The two of them went out together, down to the parking garage. There, a mother was frowning and scolding her child, who was lying on the ground throwing a tantrum. The mother’s expression was stone-faced: “Li Haoran, if you keep this up, you can stay here — I’m leaving you behind.” She turned and walked away. The child froze for a moment, then, seeing his mother genuinely walking away, scrambled up off the ground and ran after her — arms flying out from behind to wrap around the woman’s waist. The mother turned around. Whatever she said, she picked him up in the end and put him in the car.
Wei Qingyue watched with an inscrutable expression until both mother and child were seated in the car. Only then did he turn away.
He opened the car door for Jiang Du to get in first.
Then he made no move to start the engine. With unhurried deliberateness he said, “If I ever have children, I will never say anything so careless about abandoning them.”
Something flickered in Jiang Du’s eyes — a shadow of heartache, profound and sharp. For him, or for herself — she couldn’t entirely tell. But she offered him what comfort she could: “Just now, that mother was only trying to scare the child. She didn’t mean it.”
“Then he’s very lucky,” Wei Qingyue said. “In the first year of middle school, at the midterm examinations, I ranked first in the entire school. Wei Zhendong came to the parent-teacher meeting as a parent representative — he gave a speech about how he had raised a top-performing student. A crowd of people came up afterward asking for his secret, complimenting him. That’s how it works when you’re a student — good grades are your greatest source of glory. Afterward, I walked home with him. I thought, since he was in a good mood that day, I could try to say something, anything — but the words went round and round inside me and never came out. Then halfway along the road he took a call, said he had an engagement he needed to attend, and told me to get out of the car. The weather was terrible — wind and rain. I said, Dad, drive a little further and drop me at the bus stop — the most ordinary request in the world — and it enraged him. He told me to get out immediately and clear off, called me exactly like my mother — always looking down on people, making demands. That kind of rain, and he wouldn’t even let me take an umbrella. I was soaked through like a dog, standing by the roadside watching his car disappear into the driving rain and mist. In that moment I understood completely — I was someone who could be discarded at any time. Whether it was Wei Zhendong or my mother, they could throw me away without a second thought. If I didn’t want to be the one left behind, I had to rise above them, never rely on them, never expect anything from them.”
He paused, then turned his head and looked at Jiang Du with a steady, searching gaze. “Will you abandon me? Suddenly demand that I get out of the car and clear off?”
Jiang Du felt her heart clench with a fierce, almost dizzying pain.
She shook her head. When she reached for his hand, she realized Wei Qingyue’s body was trembling faintly, in a way that was almost imperceptible.
“What you feel for me — it’s real, isn’t it?” he asked, in a voice that was almost anguished. Almost lost. “I mean to say — you won’t leave. You’ll stay and help me tidy the apartment.”
Jiang Du’s eyes filled with hot tears. Smiling, she said, “Even if you tried to drive me away, I wouldn’t leave.”
Wei Qingyue drew her head toward him and held her, kissing her in the car. The sense of mastery he felt over her presence filled him with a deep and complete satisfaction.
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The trunk was loaded with gifts. When they arrived at the housing complex, Wei Qingyue instinctively looked at the security guard’s face — and the face that looked back at him was identical to the one from twelve years ago. It sent a cold shock through his entire body.
He remembered it clearly. The day he had come here last time, as they were leaving, the security guard had exchanged a greeting with Jiang Du. He had followed the sound and looked — an ordinary face, a middle-aged man.
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