A few days later the schools were back in session and he went back to work. He had a full schedule and would leave early and not return home until late. He went to bed early every night and slept peacefully. Spring had begun to adorn the dark roof tiles outside his dormer window. The wild grass that sprang up from between the tiles was nameless, but it grew thick. The sunlight was warmish and had a moist feel. Even the songs of birds sounded richer, as if they had endless things to say. Waking up in the morning, he would wonder, What good things are going to happen today? Even people who are wise to the ways of the world can’t help being infected by this strange hope. That was the benefit of spring: everyone looks on the bright side of things and feels more lighthearted.
That Sunday, he finally went to Wang Qiyao’s apartment. As he entered the back alley, he suddenly began to feel lost, and even asked himself, What kind of place is this? Had he even been there before? But his bicycle seemed to know the way and he rode right up to Wang Qiyao’s building. He left his bicycle outside the back door and went straight up the stairs. Her door was closed. He knocked but no one answered. He took out his key, but before he could get it into the keyhole, the door opened. The curtains were all pulled shut, but the noon sun had managed to creep in, filling the room with a hazy glare that mingled with the cigarette smoke in the air. Wang Qiyao had got up and put on her nightgown before opening the door, but once she had let him in, she went back to bed.
“Are you sick?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. He approached, intending to console her, but as soon as he saw the stains on her pillow from her hair dye, his heart sank. There was a stale odor lingering from the previous day, which also brought his spirits down.
“It’s stuffy in here,” he said as he went to open a window. The glare of the sun blinded him as he pulled the curtain back.
“We should start preparing lunch. .” he said, trying to put on a cheerful air.
He had not expected his words to find an echo in Wang Qiyao, who said quietly, “You’ve always talked about taking me out for a meal. . well, how about today?”
Those words were the equivalent of calling out “checkmate.” Both of them understood the significance of eating out together like that, but one of them had always refused to go. Times have changed, and the tables have turned; she, who had once refused, wished to go, while he, who had been so aggressive, now refused. He stood with his face toward the curtains for a moment before turning around and walking out.
From the Blue Sky Down to the Yellow Springs
As we have mentioned before, Long Legs was a god of the night, never returning to his lair until past midnight. One evening, after wrapping up his nightlife early but not feeling like going home, he decided to ride past Peace Lane and somehow found himself going in. Seeing the light on in Wang Qiyao’s window, he figured there must be people up there having a grand old time, and rode over toward the back alley with eager excitement. At that moment he saw someone getting off his bicycle outside the back door of her building. It was Old Colour. Long Legs was about to call out to him when he saw Old Colour unlock the door and head straight upstairs, quietly closing the door behind him. How could he have a key to Wang Qiyao’s building? Long Legs may have been naïve, but he wasn’t stupid; he knew better than to knock on the door, and instead turned around and rode out of the back alley. As he passed by the front on his way out, he looked up again at the window and saw that the light had already been turned off.
Looking down at his watch, Long Legs saw that it was midnight. There was not a single light on in Peace Lane and the apartment buildings threw a jagged silhouette against the curtain of darkness. It was a strange night. There was something mysterious about that night, even to someone as deeply embroiled in the city’s nightlife as Long Legs; it made him feel oppressed and somewhat perturbed. Strange demons seemed to have taken over the narrow night sky between the buildings, and the night air rang out with premonitions. Long Legs was suddenly struck by how distant and strange this city really was to him. In these streets, empty of cars and pedestrians, the traffic lights at the intersections changed from red to green to red again, as if controlled by some alien force. When an occasional pedestrian chanced on another, they were fearful and couldn’t wait to get away. The night was a massive net and Long Legs felt like a fish trapped inside it; no matter how hard he swam, he couldn’t escape. It was like something from a nightmare. But Long Legs was a man without a memory: every morning he would awaken and everything from the night before would disappear like clouds and mist. By the following evening he would be just as lovable and friendly as ever; it felt good to be together with his friends and even the neon lights were all practiced in singing and dancing.
However, that was back before the Spring Festival. On the second day of the Lunar New Year, when he was at Wang Qiyao’s apartment watching Old Colour and Zhang Yonghong parrying with each other, the incident he had witnessed never even crossed his mind. That New Year was a tough time for Long Legs; the day after the dinner, he disappeared. Everyone thought that he had gone to Hong Kong to see his cousin — Zhang Yonghong was expecting him to bring back the most fashionable outfits for her. But what was really up with Long Legs? Bundled up in a factory-issue cotton overcoat, his hands drawn back inside his sleeves, he was, in fact, braving the cold in the passenger seat of a three-wheel pedicab on his way to an aquatic products supplier at Hongze Lake. The cars on the highway were all trying to overtake each other; their glaring headlights, swinging this way and that, shone harshly on the night traveler curled up in the back of the pedicab. Blaring in his ears were the sounds of truck engines mixed with the sharp blasts of horns; occasionally they passed by pedicabs broken down by the side of the road, the occupants standing next to their vehicles with a blank look on their faces.
That was indeed another world. Between unbounded heaven and the limitless earth, human beings crawled like small insects, and could be crushed by a single step. When one finds himself in such circumstances, it is easy to act out of desperation. The aquatic products business was exceedingly risky and uncertain, but Long Legs went ahead and threw in his last bit of money. In doing so, he effectively burned all of his bridges — there was no turning back now. If he failed, how could he ever go back to Shanghai to face his friends? How could he face Zhang Yonghong?
At this very time, the story about his trip to Hong Kong was spreading all over Shanghai. You know what happens once people start talking — everyone tells their friends, their friends tell their friends, and before you know it the story gets blown completely out of proportion. People started to say that Long Legs was never coming back: his cousin was sponsoring him to emigrate. Others said that he had gone away to claim his inheritance and that even if he did come back, he wouldn’t be the same person. Zhang Yonghong began to grow anxious and silently counted the days since his departure. She couldn’t help but feel uneasy when she thought about how old she was; she was already well past marrying age. For the past year or so she had set her sights on this one man — he was her sole candidate. The more she worried about her future, the more she missed Long Legs. With no news from him, and the rumors flying all around, she could no longer sit still. She decided to visit Wang Qiyao to try to take her mind off the matter. Just as she was about to open the back door to Wang Qiyao’s building, Old Colour stepped out.