Once he’d dried her face, he held the coffee cup in both hands. “Here, drink this, young lady, please.” She gave him another flirtatious look; it hit him like ten thousand arrows piercing his heart, opening up ten thousand little holes that were home to ten thousand wriggly worms. With the look of someone who was lightheaded from crying, she leaned against Jintong and took a sip of coffee. The crying stopped, but she was still sniffling, like a little girl, and Jintong, who’d spent fifteen years in a labor reform camp and another three in a mental institution, was starting to get angry over her performance. “Young lady,” he said as he tried to drape her raincoat over her shoulders, “it’s getting late, time for you to be going home.” Her lips parted in a grimace, the coffee cup in her hand followed the contours of her breast and abdomen as it crashed to the floor. Wahl She was crying again, this time louder than ever, as if she wanted the whole city to bear witness to her grief. Flames of rage ignited in his heart, but he didn’t dare let so much as a spark emerge. Happily, there were a couple of chocolate drops wrapped in gold foil on the table, like a pair of tiny bombs; he picked up one, peeled off the foil, and stuffed the dark candy into her mouth. “Young lady,” he said, clenching his teeth to keep his tone passably gentle, “don’t cry. Eat the candy…” She spit it out; it landed on the floor, where it rolled around like a little turd, dirtying the wool carpet. On and on she cried. Jintong peeled the foil off of the second piece of chocolate, and stuffed it too into her mouth. In no mood to be an obedient soul, she was about to spit it out, when he covered her mouth with his hand. So she doubled up her fist and tried to slug him. He ducked, putting his face directly opposite the blue bra, beneath which her milky white breasts jiggled. Jintong’s anger melted away, replaced by feelings of pity. Now that reason had taken flight, he wrapped his arms around her ice-cold shoulders. Then came the kissing and petting, the melted chocolate drop serving to fuse their lips together.
A long, long time passed. He knew there was no way he could get rid of this woman before sunup, especially now that they’d kissed and held each other tightly; accompanying an increase in mutual feelings was a greater sense of responsibility. “What have I done to make you dislike me so?” she asked through her tears.
“Nothing,” Jintong protested. “It’s me I dislike. You don’t know me. I’ve served time in prison and in a mental institution. Bad things await any woman who gets close to me. I don’t want to bring harm to you, young lady.”
“You don’t need to say anything,” she said as she covered her face and sobbed. “I know I’m not good enough for you… but I love you, I’ve loved you in secret for the longest time… there’s nothing you need to do except allow me to stay with you for a while… make me a happy woman.”
With that she turned and walked across the room, paused briefly, and opened the door.
Deeply touched, Jintong cursed himself for his pettiness and for having such bad thoughts about the woman. How could you let someone with such a pure heart, a widow who’s suffered so much, walk away in the grip of sadness? What makes you so great? Does an old lecher like you deserve a woman’s love? Can you really let her leave in the middle of the night, in the rain? What if she catches her death of cold? Or what if she meets up with one of those gangs of hooligans?
He rushed out into the corridor and caught up with her. Still teary-eyed, she put her arms around his neck and let him carry her back to his room. The smell of her oily hair made him wish he’d let her go after all, but he forced himself to lay her out on his bed.
With eyes like a little sheep, she said, “I’m yours. Everything I have is yours.”
10
Jintong could not have felt worse as he applied his fingerprint to the marriage certificate, but he did it anyway. He knew he didn’t love this woman, hated her, in fact. First, he had no idea how old she was. Second, he didn’t know her name. And third, her background was a complete mystery. As they walked together out of the civil administrator’s office, he asked her, “What’s your name?”
She grimaced angrily as she opened the red marriage certificate binder. “Take a good look,” she said. “It’s written right there.”
There it was, in black and white: Wang Yinzhi and Shangguan Jintong, having expressed their desire to marry, and having satisfied all the requirements of the Marriage Laws of the People’s Republic of China
“Are you related to Wang Jinzhi?” he asked her. “He’s my father.”
Everything went black – Jintong swooned.
Like an idiot, I’ve boarded a ship of thieves, but what can I do? Getting married is easy; getting unmarried is not. Now I’m more convinced than ever that Wang Jinzhi is behind all this. Damn that Unicorn, just because he suffered at the hands of Sima Liang, he dreamed up this sinister scheme to punish me. Where are you, Sima Liang?
With tears still wetting her eyes, she said, “Jintong, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. I love you. This has nothing to do with my father. In fact, he’s even threatened to disown me because of it. He asked me what I saw in you, reminding me that it was public knowledge that you served time for necrophilia and spent several years in a mental institution. So what if you have a nephew who is rolling in money or a niece who is mayor? he said. We may be poor, but not in spirit or integrity… it’s all right, Jintong,” she continued, looking at him through the mist in her eyes, “we can go file for divorce if you want, and I’ll pick up the threads of my life…”
Her tears fell on his heart. Maybe I was letting my suspicions get the better of me. What’s wrong with knowing that someone loves you?
Wang Yinzhi was a managerial genius. She set to work revising Jintong’s business strategy by building a factory behind the shop to produce top-quality “Unicorn” brassieres. Suddenly little more than a figurehead, Jintong spent most of his time in front of the TV set, where he was treated to ubiquitous ads for Unicorn Bras:
“Wear a Unicorn and life starts anew.”
“In a Unicorn fortune smiles on you.”
A third-rate actor was waving a bra in front of the camera:
“Put on a Unicorn and your hubby will flip.
Take it off and your fortunes will slip.”
Disgusted by what he saw, Jintong turned off the TV and began pacing back and forth along the rut he’d created in the lush wool carpet. His pace quickened, his excitement rose, his thoughts grew confused, like a starving, penned-up goat. Soon tiring, he sat down and turned the TV back on with the remote control. The Unicorn Hour was in progress. The program featured interviews and biopics of Dalan’s most influential women. Lu Shengli and Geng Lianlian had both been featured.
The familiar theme music, the pleasant strains of Fate knocking at the door, preceded the voice of the announcer: “This program is brought to you by Unicorn Lingerie. Wear a Unicorn and life starts anew. The unicorn is the beast of love. It warms my heart day and night.” The Unicorn logo filled the screen. The image: a cross between a rhinoceros and a nippled breast.
“Today’s guest is Wang Yinzhi. Thanks to Ms. Wang’s aggressive marketing, the young men and women of Dalan take great pride in wearing Unicorn products. No longer limited to women’s lingerie, the line now features caps and socks, and everything in between.” The microphone moved over to the heavily lipsticked mouth of Unicorn’s general manager, Wang Yinzhi.