Lao Dao paced in place. He felt something pushing at his throat, but he couldn’t articulate it. Standing in the sun, he closed his eyes and inhaled. The clean, fresh air filled his lungs and provided some measure of comfort.
A moment later, he was on his way. The address Yi Yan had given him was to the east, a little more than three kilometers away. There were very few people in the pedestrian lane, and only scattered cars sped by in a blur on the eight-lane avenue. Occasionally, well-dressed women passed Lao Dao in two-wheeled carts. The passengers adopted such graceful postures that it was as though they were in some fashion show. No one paid any attention to Lao Dao. The trees swayed in the breeze, and the air in their shade seemed suffused with the perfume from the elegant women.
Yi Yan’s office was in the Xidan commercial district. There were no skyscrapers at all, only a few low buildings scattered around a large park. The buildings seemed isolated from one another but were really parts of a single compound connected via underground passages.
Lao Dao found the supermarket. He was early. As soon as he came in, a small shopping cart began to follow him around. Every time he stopped by a shelf, the screen on the cart displayed the names of the goods on the shelf, their descriptions, customer reviews, and comparisons with other brands in the same category. All the merchandise in the supermarket seemed to be labeled in foreign languages. The packaging for all the food products was very refined, and small cakes and fruits were enticingly arranged on plates for customers.
There seemed to be no guards or clerks in the whole market, but Lao Dao didn’t dare to touch anything, keeping his distance as though everything were a dangerous, exotic animal.
More customers appeared before noon. Some men in suits came into the market, grabbed sandwiches, and waved them at the scanner next to the door before hurrying out. Like on the street, no one paid any attention to Lao Dao as he waited in an obscure corner near the door.
Yi Yan appeared, and Lao Dao went up to her. Yi Yan glanced around and, without saying anything, led Lao Dao to a small restaurant next door. Two small robots dressed in plaid skirts greeted them, took Yi Yan’s purse, brought them to a booth, and handed them menus. Yi Yan pressed a few spots on the menu to make her selection and handed the menu back to the robot. The robot turned and glided smoothly on its wheels to the back.
Yi Yan and Lao Dao sat mutely across from each other. Lao Dao pulled out the envelope.
Yi Yan still didn’t take it from him. “Can you let me explain?”
Lao Dao pushed the envelope across the table. “Please take this first.”
Yi Yan pushed it back. “Can you let me explain first?”
“You don’t need to explain anything,” Lao Dao said. “I didn’t write this letter. I’m just the messenger.”
“But you have to go back and give him an answer.” Yi Yan looked down. The little robot returned with two plates, one for each of them. On each plate were two slices of some kind of red sashimi, arranged like flower petals. Yi Yan didn’t pick up her chopsticks, and neither did Lao Dao. The envelope rested between the two plates, and neither touched it. “I didn’t betray him,” Yi Yan said. “When I met him last year, I was already engaged. I didn’t lie to him or conceal the truth from him on purpose.… Well, maybe I did lie, but it was because he assumed and guessed. He saw Wu Wen come to pick me up once, and asked me if he was my father. I… I couldn’t answer him, you know? It was just too embarrassing. I…”
Yi Yan couldn’t speak anymore.
Lao Dao waited awhile before replying. “I’m not interested in what happened between you two. All I care about is that you take the letter.”
Yi Yan kept her head down, and then she looked up. “After you go back, can you… help me by not telling him everything?”
“Why?”
“I don’t want him to think that I was just playing with his feelings. I do like him, really. I feel very conflicted.”
“None of this is my concern.”
“Please, I’m begging you… I really do like him.”
Lao Dao was silent for a minute. “But you got married in the end?”
“Wu Wen was very good to me. We’d been together several years. He knew my parents, and we’d been engaged for a long time. Also… I’m three years older than Qin Tian, and I was afraid he wouldn’t like that. Qin Tian thought I was an intern, like him, and I admit that was my fault for not telling him the truth. I don’t know why I said I was an intern at first, and then it became harder and harder to correct him. I never thought he would be serious.”
Slowly Yi Yan told Lao Dao her story. She was actually an assistant to the bank’s president and had already been working there for two years at the time she met Qin Tian. She had been sent to the UN for training and was helping out at the symposium. In fact, her husband earned so much money that she didn’t really need to work, but she didn’t like the idea of being at home all day. She worked only half days and took a half-time salary. The rest of the day was hers to do with as she pleased, and she liked learning new things and meeting new people. She really had enjoyed the months she spent training at the UN. She told Lao Dao that there were many wives like her who worked half time. As a matter of fact, after she got off work at noon, another wealthy wife worked as the president’s assistant in the afternoon. She told Lao Dao that, though she had not told Qin Tian the truth, her heart was honest.
“And so”—she spooned a serving of the new hot dish onto Lao Dao’s plate—“can you please not tell him, just temporarily? Please… give me a chance to explain to him myself.”
Lao Dao didn’t pick up his chopsticks. He was very hungry, but he felt that he could not eat this food. “Then I’d be lying, too,” Lao Dao said.
Yi Yan opened her purse, took out her wallet, and retrieved five ten-thousand-yuan bills. She pushed them across the table toward Lao Dao. “Please accept this token of my appreciation.”
Lao Dao was stunned. He had never seen bills with such large denominations or needed to use them. Almost subconsciously he stood up, angry. The way Yi Yan had taken out the money seemed to suggest that she had been anticipating an attempt from him to blackmail her, and he could not accept that. This is what they think of Third Spacers.
He felt that if he took her money, he would be selling Qin Tian out. It was true that he really wasn’t Qin Tian’s friend, but he still thought of it as a kind of betrayal. Lao Dao wanted to grab the bills, throw them on the ground, and walk away. But he couldn’t. He looked at the money again: the five thin notes were spread on the table like a broken fan. He could sense the power they had over him. They were baby blue in color, distinct from the brown thousand-yuan note and the red hundred-yuan note. These bills looked deeper, most distant somehow, like a kind of seduction. Several times he wanted to stop looking at them and leave, but he couldn’t.
Yi Yan continued to rummage through her purse, taking everything out until she finally found another fifty thousand yuan from an inner pocket and placed them together with the other bills. “This is all I have. Please take it and help me.” She paused. “Look, the reason I don’t want him to know is because I’m not sure what I’m going to do. It’s possible that someday I’ll have the courage to be with him.”
Lao Dao looked at the ten notes spread out on the table, and then looked up at her. He sensed that she didn’t believe what she was saying. Her voice was hesitant, belying her words. She was just delaying everything to the future so that she wouldn’t be embarrassed now. She was unlikely to ever elope with Qin Tian, but she also didn’t want him to despise her. Thus, she wanted to keep alive the possibility so she could feel better about herself.