All the way to her daughter’s house she was weighed down by heavy thoughts. She disliked visiting her daughter and had been there only a couple of times. During each visit her three grandsons had looked at her as if she was a monster. Her daughter never treated her with respect; she didn’t even bother to open the door for her when she arrived or to see her off when she left, and couldn’t seem to open her mouth without saying something hurtful. The only one who had some manners was her son-in-law, a genial man, but him she regarded with disdain. She had difficulty understanding his Shandong accent and could not abide the smell of onion and garlic always on his breath. She treated him with indifference; he, for his part, not being in the habit of ingratiating himself, had simply put up with her giving him the cold shoulder.
Mrs. Jiang saw her daughter’s illness as the perfect opportunity to assert her own rights. Strutting into the apartment with an authoritative mien, she went straight into Jiang Lili’s bedroom, completely ignoring the rustic crowd outside. Within less than five minutes, she had already listed more than a dozen things that she thought were wrong about the household and voiced an equal number of suggestions. Her criticisms negated virtually everything as it presently was, and even she knew that her suggestions were impossible to carry out. Initially, Jiang Lili tried her best to put up with her, but her mother kept on pushing. Taking her daughter’s silence as acquiescence, Mrs. Jiang became even more animated; she flailed her arms about, declaring that she was going to change the bedding and give her daughter a proper bath. She looked as if she was getting ready to revamp their entire living situation. Jiang Lili had no patience to argue with her: she simply flung the bedside lamp across the room. Emboldened by the commotion, Jiang Lili’s Shandong mother-in-law rushed inside to find the room in total chaos. The glass thermos had been shattered, the medicine spilled all over the floor; Mrs. Jiang, her face ghostly pale, was still trying to reason with the patient as if she were a normal person, but Jiang Lili kept throwing everything within her reach, including her blanket and pillows. The mother-in-law grabbed the blanket and, throwing it around Jiang Lili, tried to restrain her that way, while Jiang Lili struggled in her arms like a threshing flail. She had no recourse but to urge Mrs. Zhang to go home and come back after Jiang Lili had calmed down. Jiang Lili collapsed the moment her mother was out the door. After that incident, her mother-in-law made a point of clearing all visitors with Jiang Lili before letting them in.
When Mr. Cheng and Wang Qiyao went to see Jiang Lili, they were turned away at the door. Mrs. Zhang came outside to explain that Jiang Lili was not receiving visitors because she was weak and needed her sleep. The old lady felt so badly about turning them away that she could barely bring herself to look them in the eyes, as if this was somehow her fault. Although neither of them dared say so out loud, each had an idea about why Jiang Lili refused to see them, and both were vexed. Jiang Lili’s decision not to let them in was a form of reproach — an eternal condemnation from which they would never be free. Neither dared to look into the old lady’s eyes — they even avoided one another’s eyes as they parted hastily and went back to their respective apartments.
On two separate occasions after that Mr. Cheng and Wang Qiyao paid visits individually to Jiang Lili’s house. Mr. Cheng was rebuffed a second time. After leaving in disappointment, he walked east on Huaihai Road until he came upon a bustling wineshop, with common laborers sitting around square softwood tables. Outside the entrance was a pot of “stinky tofu” simmering in a pot of boiling oil. Unable to resist the aroma of food and wine, he took a seat at one of the tables and ordered a small bottle of rice wine and a plate of shredded tripe. The others sitting at his table were strangers, and each ordered basically the same thing — one or two dishes and a bottle of wine. As they ate, the conversation of the party at the next table grew louder and louder. Once the rice wine had got into his system, Mr. Cheng felt warm and his eyes began to sting; before he knew it, tears were trickling down his face. No one around him seemed to notice. The smoke from the steaming wok enveloped everyone at the table in a hot, oily mist; no one could see clearly, and Mr. Cheng was free to wallow in his misery.
At this very moment, Wang Qiyao was sitting on the side of Jiang Lili’s bed. Wang Qiyao had arrived at the mouth of the longtang leading to Jiang Lili’s just as Mr. Cheng left it, and Jiang Lili had asked her in.
Wang Qiyao’s first impression when she entered the bedroom and saw Jiang Lili was how much better she looked compared to the last time. Jiang Lili’s hair had been carefully combed back behind her ears, she was wearing a freshly laundered white shirt, her cheeks were a rosy red, and she was sitting up in bed, propped up on a pile of pillows. Instead of greeting Wang Qiyao, she turned her back to her. Wang Qiyao sat down on the edge of the bed, wondering what to say; Jiang Lili’s profile showed clearly that she was crying. The curtains were half-drawn and the westering sunlight crept in, gilding her hair, clothes, and the blankets, giving the room a melancholic air. After a long interval, Jiang Lili suddenly laughed, “Don’t you think the three of us are ridiculous?”
Wang Qiyao, at a loss for words, gave a little laugh in response.
Hearing this, Jiang Lili turned around and gazed at her. “He was here earlier, but I wouldn’t let him in.”
“He really feels badly,” explained Wang Qiyao.
Jiang Lili’s face tightened. She exclaimed indignantly, “What the hell do I care if he feels bad?”
Wang Qiyao did not dare to respond. It suddenly dawned on her that Jiang Lili’s rosy cheeks, which were by now bright red, were the sign of fever. She extended her hand to feel her friend’s forehand. Jiang Lili pushed it away violently, but from the touch of her hand Wang Qiyao knew that she was burning up. Sitting up in bed, Jiang Lili leaned over and pulled a loose-leaf binder from the drawer of the desk next to the bed and flung it at Wang Qiyao. Inside were lines of handwritten poetry. Wang Qiyao recognized the poems as Jiang Lili’s and was immediately taken back to their high school days. Those pages could have been burned to ash and she would have still recognized the flowery language — it had Jiang Lili’s name written all over it. But as maudlin as they were, the words still exuded a touching sincerity. There is something about great romantic poems that always awakens nausea in the reader — a combination of sincerity and exaggeration that leaves the reader at a loss as to whether he should laugh or cry. Wang Qiyao had never been able to stand this kind of poetry, and that was why she didn’t want to be close to Jiang Lili. However, staring at those poems that moment, she was overcome by tears. She realized that even if this had been a show, the way Jiang Lili had invested her entire life into it had made it all real. Behind every line of poetry, whether good or bad, she could see the shadow of Mr. Cheng. Jiang Lili snatched the folder from Wang Qiyao’s hands and, quickly flipping through the pages, read aloud the most absurd sections, often bursting into laughter before she could finish each line. Her mother-in-law peeked through the crack in the door to see what all the commotion was about. Jiang Lili laughed so hard that she could no longer sit straight and doubled over on the blankets.