That summer, Xue Baoyi followed her older brother to discuss a business deal. The begonias outside the private club were in full bloom. Tired of waiting, she got into an argument with the people at the entrance. She never lost focus when arguing, but from the corner of her eye, she saw someone watching her from behind a second-floor window for a full five minutes.
She looked up. A man stood by the window, a cigarette between his lips, leaning lazily against the frame. Dressed in black, tall and slender, with shadows beneath his brow, his half-smiling eyes were like amber submerged in cold water.
She forgot what she was saying.
The man strolled downstairs and pinched her cheek between two fingers, turning her face this way and that to inspect how her palm-sized oval face had been squeezed out of shape, her lips pursed like a goldfish blowing bubbles.
He laughed and patted her head. "Quite the spitfire."
The pat left her dazed. By the time she came to, he was already gone. Begonia petals covered her shoulders.
Later, Xue Baoyi asked everyone who that man was.
Not a single person had a good thing to say.
They said he was arrogant, demanding, and impossible to talk to. They said he had made a name for himself at a young age, and that he was ruthless. Whatever he agreed to do, he got done. When he turned against someone, no one could protect them. Picking a fight with him was worse than jumping into the sea. They said the silver ring on his left ring finger had an unknown story behind it. When someone asked, he would just smile and say, "I'm married."
No one dared ask again.
Her brother warned her: "Don't go looking for trouble. Stay away from him."
At the time, Xue Baoyi thought, Who said I wanted to stay away?
*
Later, her brother's business ran into trouble. His empire collapsed, and overnight, the family moved south.
Rumors spread everywhere. They said the woman Mr. Jiang kept was the younger sister of the Xue family, and now that the Xues were struggling to save themselves, they had scattered like birds and beasts.
Someone asked Jiang Yanqing to his face, "I heard you and that eldest daughter of the Xue family..."
Jiang Yanqing swirled his glass and glanced over with a smirk. The man's hand immediately dropped from his shoulder, and he sobered up considerably.
When he got home that night, it was one in the morning. Xue Baoyi had cried herself out and fallen asleep curled up on the sofa, tear tracks on her face, still clutching a corner of his coat.
He knelt on one knee before the sofa and lowered his head.
His palm rested over her flat stomach. Something was quietly happening there, something she didn't yet know about.
He kissed that expanse of snow-white skin and laughed softly in the darkness.
He should have taken her away when she was very little.
Kept her in the pocket of his coat, against the side of his chest, where his body temperature was 36.7 degrees.
He would have fed her with his own hands, taught her to speak with his own hands, and raised her inch by inch with his own hands.
Then every inch of her would belong to him.
Her tears would be his, her laughter would be his, and the one in her belly would be his, too.
No one could take them away.
Theme: Love and freedom
