Miaoyue curled her lip, but swallowed what she’d meant to say. She was prepared to regard her revenge as complete, but she hadn’t expected Li Yong to commit yet another blunder straightaway. He was taking three pairs of slippers from underneath the bed. He gave the first pair to Cui, the second to Miaoyue, and slipped the third pair on himself. Miaoyue looked with great displeasure at the order with which he had distributed the slippers, but it was Cui who began to speak. ‘Now that wasn’t right, Li Yong. You should have given the first pair to your girlfriend.’ But before he’d finished his sentence, Miaoyue had already kicked the slippers away.
‘Useless!’ Miaoyue shrieked at Li Yong, ‘Are you even a man at all? Just because he’s got money, you’re happy to be his slave?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? He’s my big bro.’ Li Yong’s face flushed scarlet, and he said awkwardly, ‘They’re just slippers. Does it matter who gets them first?’
Cui, sitting to one side, shook with belly laughter, a kind of laughter simultaneously merry and suspect. And while he was laughing he slapped Li Yong on the back, then leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Miaoyue glared at them; she wished she could make out what they were saying. She saw only that Cui had his eye on her, and that the look he gave her was a little peculiar. It seemed to be approbation, but then again somehow it was not. It struck her as a secretive kind of look.
Without knowing why, Miaoyue didn’t dare to look Cui straight in the eye, so she turned her face away and gazed out of the window instead. Outside, the scene on the pier was beginning to move and the turbid river-water was slowly retreating: the boat had finally left the harbour. The trip had begun, and with that, little by little, Miaoyue’s mood slowly improved. Place names flashed rapidly through her mind — Nanjing, Wuhan, Wanxian, Chongqing — the names of cities she knew they would pass along the way on this Three Gorges trip. Miaoyue’s mood slowly improved as she imagined the beautiful, magnificent scenery of the Yangtze Three Gorges. It seemed to her that she could already dimly perceive a strangely shaped, precipitous mountain peak: the famed Goddess Peak. Miaoyue had found out about it from a Yangtze tourist map, and the shape of Goddess Peak really did resemble a woman holding vigil over the river, though Miaoyue couldn’t be sure why it was Goddess Peak alone that had inflamed her boundless imagination.
She found the crumpled tourist map in the small bag and let her fingers move along the scenic spots of the river, then suddenly her finger paused on the red dot that indicated Goddess Peak: ‘Goddess Peak,’ Miaoyue smiled and sighed. ‘This boat is so slow. When are we going to get to Goddess Peak?’
Li Yong had already taken off his shirt, and had picked up a towel to rub under his armpits. ‘What’s your hurry?’ Li Yong said, ‘The boat has only just left. Whatchamacallit Peak’s on the Three Gorges and the Three Gorges come after Wuhan, so you can see it once we’re in the Three Gorges.’
‘Thanks for the newsflash.’ Miaoyue shot him a contemptuous glance and realized that her question had been directed at Cui, but for whatever reason, as soon as her glance met Cui’s she felt discomfited and looked away. Miaoyue stared down again at the map and said, as if she were talking to herself, ‘Goddess Peak will probably be on the third day. Or maybe on the fourth?’
‘I don’t know what day it’s on, either,’ Cui, who was sitting on the other berth, put away his newspaper, ‘All I know is that we get to Wuhan on the second day, and that’s where I get off.’
‘What’s so great about Wuhan?’ Miaoyue asked, still bent over the map, ‘My aunt lives in Wuhan, and my mum’s been there. She said it’s boiling in summer, freezing in winter, and boring all year round.’
‘I realize the Three Gorges are stunning and Wuhan is Dullsville, but I don’t have time to keep going upriver with you — it’s just a question of time. If I were as free as you guys, then it’d be fine, but the businessman’s life is hectic, and I can’t afford to keep you company all the way up.’
‘Bro has to get off at Wuhan,’ Li Yong sat down next to Miaoyue, ‘I told you, remember? Bro has a lot of business in Wuhan.’
‘I’m sorry, was anybody talking to you?’ Miaoyue pushed Li Yong away with her elbow and frowned. ‘You know, I really don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite so annoying. When you open your trap all you do is jabber. Aren’t you worried you might exhaust the human word supply?’
It seemed Li Yong would never lose his temper with his girlfriend, for he switched from her side to Cui’s with a wink and said, ‘What do you think? Tough cookie, eh?’
Cui just gave his belly laugh, ‘Don’t be angry, little bro,’ he said, slapping Li Yong several times on the back, ‘a man is lucky when he has a girlfriend with a sense of humour. If you can’t take a woman’s fury, then you aren’t a real man!’
Miaoyue sniggered, or to be more precise, a knowing snigger was emitted somewhere between Cui and Miaoyue. This subtle event had come about very suddenly. Miaoyue’s heart gave a little thump and she suddenly turned her face, having felt a faint pang of discomfort. She didn’t even know how this had happened — suddenly it seemed like she and Cui had reached a secret understanding, an alliance to tease or bully Li Yong.
The boat growled slightly as it moved over the water. Looking out the window they could see the sky growing dark, and the rural scenes along the riverside became shrouded in the thin mist of evening; a monotonous, hazy aspect. Miaoyue wanted to open the window, but it was nailed shut. Li Yong walked over to her and tried with all his strength to pull the window up. This time Miaoyue didn’t censure him, she simply pointed at the nails and informed him with a look at the ceiling what an idiot he was. Then she popped a preserved plum in her mouth and picked up a fashion magazine.
Even before night had fallen the two men began to drink. Miaoyue couldn’t understand the pleasure of drinking, but they plunged into it with gusto, especially Li Yong. With his fair skin and delicate features, the flush of drink quickly began to show, and at the same time his speech became more animated and coarse. He talked the whole time about a colleague who had embezzled five million bucks of public money before absconding abroad. ‘Bro, you wouldn’t believe it. Monkeyman really had the balls to do it.’ Li Yong said. ‘Fuck, man. I thought I knew the guy, but I didn’t know what was going on in his head. Monkeyman was totally yellow, but then he really had the balls to do it. Fuck, man, people today are crazy for money.’
‘You’ve said that a hundred times,’ Miaoyue said in disgust. ‘It looks to me like you’ll be crazy for money soon, too.’
But Cui was very patient with Li Yong’s talk and remarked, ‘If we were all crazy, it’d be fine. If we were crazy then we wouldn’t want any money.’
Miaoyue sniggered a little, or to be more exact it was again the snigger of understanding between her Cui. She was a little embarrassed and turned away, looking at the small bottle in Li Yong’s hand. Of the two roasted chickens that had been on the table there was now only half a chicken left. Li Yong was still trying to tear off a wing and Miaoyue was poking at him with her magazine.
Li Yong turned to her, ‘What’s the matter? It’s not as if the news about Monkeyman is a national secret. It’s been all over the papers; why shouldn’t I talk about it?’
‘I don’t care about your stupid Monkeyman or Elephantman or whatever,’ Miaoyue said. ‘I was trying to tell you not to be such a glutton. You didn’t buy the chicken, but you’ve eaten it all up.’
‘Hey, what are you talking about?’ Li Yong said, ‘Me and bro, we don’t split hairs. Me eating it is the same thing as him eating it. Isn’t that right, bro?’