Chapter 47

Chapter 47

Shanghai Reunion (III)

Finding no job, but hearing news of Song Qi, though it wasn’t exactly good news. Yu Manyi felt incredibly exhausted that day, even more than when she had been running around for half a month looking for work.

When she returned to the inn, the owner enthusiastically asked her how the job search went, since she had looked more determined than usual that morning. But she just shook her head and asked if she could use the table by the door.

The room she rented didn’t have a table, and none of the other female guests seemed to need one. However, Yu Manyi realized she was the type of person who must have a table. A few days ago, she had written a resume, drawn some sketches, and even clipped job ads from the newspaper on that table.

The owner nodded, and she sat down beside it. Then, she started looking up the address Huo Shiwen had given her on the map she had just unfolded.

Song Qi’s new residence was no longer in the lane. He had moved to an apartment in the French Concession, about a half-hour walk from the inn she was staying in. The distance between them hadn’t really been that far all along, and Yu Manyi had felt that way before, now it was confirmed.

She circled the location on the map, then flipped through the job ads she had clipped, landing on the page for Jiang Yu’s painting studio. She made an "X" next to it with a pencil—what kind of grudge did Jiang Yu and Principal Lu have? She didn’t know, but the teacher who had interviewed her had mentioned “the Shanghai painting community,” and Yu Manyi was new to the city, with no one to introduce her.

She regretted not asking Huo Shiwen if she had heard anything about it while she was crying earlier.

Her new job opportunities had also fallen through, so she had to buy another copy of Shenbao. Yu Manyi stacked the map on top, staring at the small dot where Song Qi’s place was, for a long while. Finally, she looked up at the innkeeper, who had been smoking.

"Boss," Yu Manyi said, "I want to ask you about something concerning men."

"..." The boss put out his cigarette, a bit flustered by her vague question.

"It’s just..." Yu Manyi looked at the boss, hearing that he was quite old but still unmarried. She thought he looked like he might match the shopkeeper’s wife from the fabric store in Shaoxing. After thinking this, she realized she had become a little obsessed with matchmaking. She, a runaway bride, had the first instinct to match up single men and women.

But it wasn’t entirely her fault; she had gone to consult the fabric shopkeeper about a certain romantic matter, and now, when she had doubts about young men’s psychology, she found herself asking this man. It was hard not to associate the two.

"If you men hit a rough patch in life," Yu Manyi continued, "would you still want to see people you knew from before?"It turned out to be this issue. The innkeeper immediately lit another cigarette and answered her, "It depends on the character of the person you're talking about."

"He’s a good person," Yu Manyi said.

"Then he probably wouldn't want to," the innkeeper replied. "Men like us, with taste, usually prefer to deal with hardships on our own, without anyone else getting involved. It also depends on how serious the trouble is. On the Shanghai Bund, there’s this rule—don’t let others drag you down, and don’t drag others down either."

After saying this, the innkeeper left. Yu Manyi was left alone at the table, thinking about what Huo Shiwen had said in the café: "He’s indifferent to everyone now," and also, "He doesn’t want to drag others down." The second part of what Huo Shiwen said seemed to match what the innkeeper had just said.

Song Qi...

She gently turned her head and rested on her arm.

He really was a person who didn’t like to burden others, but the truth is, feelings between people often lie in this mutual entanglement. Yu Manyi tilted her head, picked up the map, and waved it in front of her eyes, feeling a new idea forming.

She felt a little dazed by this thought that had suddenly appeared in her mind. When she used to face Song Qi, she was always passive, and her anger often came from his teasing. But after the fire, she no longer acted the same.

Perhaps that fire not only burned the Yu family, but also burned away a layer of delusion in Yu Manyi’s heart. A new version of herself slowly woke up from within.

The next day, Yu Manyi went to two more interviews. Of course, she wasn’t selected, but she had gotten used to it. When she returned to the inn, the innkeeper saw her rush in, but when she went out again, she had changed into a purple jacket skirt, her hair also redone from the trendy loose style back to the old look. She looked just like the sixty-year-old aunt the innkeeper had brought over from Zhenjiang.

"Why the sudden change, looking so shabby?" the innkeeper frowned.

"Just needed to look a bit shabbier," Yu Manyi said. As she spoke, she picked up some dirt from the floor and deliberately patted it onto her clothes, making herself look all dusty. The innkeeper was even more confused—sigh, the times are tough now, young people can't find jobs, and everyone’s losing their mind.

She didn’t look bad even dressed down, her eyes sparkling, her demeanor sharp. She wasn’t like those old-fashioned women on calendar pictures; instead, she seemed like a lively, modern person wrapped in an old shell, each step full of energy, trying to break out of that shell. It truly is the person that defines the clothes, not the clothes that define the person. She had only been in Shanghai for a month, but wearing the same outfit made her look completely different.She took one last look at the map, marked the route, and ran out the door.

She went to interviews during the day, and by the time she was walking down the street, it was already close to evening. The residential houses within the concession were still rows of stone gate houses, and further in, the alleys were more lively than the streets outside.

After passing through a few streets, the buildings gradually grew taller, and finally, from three or four-story houses, she entered an apartment district. Yu Manyi found the address Huo Shiwen had written for her, looked up, and saw a light green six-story apartment building, very stylish, with flowers hanging outside every window.

There was a window near the door on the first floor, but there was no one inside, which made Yu Manyi feel that all doormen in the world were like Uncle Qi. She looked around and didn’t see anyone stopping her, so she picked up her skirt and climbed the stairs two steps at a time to the fourth floor where Song Qi lived.

Each floor had two households, and Song Qi lived on the east side. Yu Manyi pressed her ear to the door and listened for a while. There was no sound, which meant no one was home. There was a discarded but cleaned flowerpot by the door. Yu Manyi turned it upside down, sat up straight, and sat down on it.

The hem of her skirt dragged on the ground, and the wide sleeves covered her legs. She hugged her knees with both hands, resting one side of her face against her knee, half-closing her eyes while waiting for Song Qi to return.

Even in Shanghai, the clothing style during this period was chaotic. On one street, the left side had foreign firms, and the right side had pawn shops.

It wasn’t that people in the foreign firms wore suits and people in the pawn shops wore long robes. The distinction between people didn’t seem strict. Three people walked side by side: long robes, suits, and Zhongshan suits, perhaps even a fourth person in a horse coat with sunglasses and a melon hat. It was... a very chaotic scene.

For example, the two in front of her were quite chaotic, so much so that Fang Qian, wearing a long dress, crossed her arms and mocked:

"Mr. Lu, even if you’re working in the accounting room at a Chinese medicine shop, there's no need to dress like you just came from the countryside. With that appearance, I’d rather not admit you were once in the same class as us at school. Please, next time, come to me and Xiao Li for advice on buying clothes. Right now, you make me feel like I’m accompanying my great-grandfather out."

"The other gentlemen in the Chinese medicine shop dress like this," Lu Xiangcang no longer looked like a hybrid. After just a few months of work, he looked a year older than Fang Qian, wearing a long robe and horse coat.

"I'm still interning, of course I can't stand out too much. Fang Qian, people like us who are outsiders trying to stay in Shanghai have to hold our tongues and do things by the book... Song Qi, Song Qi is back!"

It was the fourth year at school, and classes were few. Several students were already running around, thinking about their future. Fang Qian worked as a translator in a foreign firm, while Lu Xiangcang, in order to avoid returning home, found a job in the accounting room. As for Song Qi, after shutting down the newspaper, he went to work as an engineer at a mechanical factory—he had never intended to take over his father's business, and now he definitely couldn’t."Song Qi!" Fang Qian leaned out of her car window and called out.

It was rush hour, and the crowd was dense. Amidst the sea of people, a figure paused for a moment when he heard the shout, then quickly quickened his pace, trying to blend back into the crowd.

However, blending into the crowd wasn’t something one could just do by will. Song Qi was too tall, wearing a dark patterned wide-collared suit that he didn’t button up due to the rising heat, making him stand out as too conspicuous with a touch of flirtatious charm.

"I’m not used to him not wearing that old student uniform," Fang Qian said, pushing open the car door and chasing after him while talking to Lu Xiangcang. "When he changes clothes a little, the bourgeois wolf-dog vibe just can’t be hidden. They’re really different from us who come from politics, those who started in business."

"I heard there are many British engineers in the mechanical factory he works at," Lu Xiangcang said. "He’s just going with the flow, just like I am. We’re all adapting to the work environment."

"Stop playing the victim."

The street was so crowded it was hard to move, but Fang Qian and Lu Xiangcang still managed to catch up to him. They finally cornered him before he could enter the apartment building.

"Stop, stop, stop... Song Qi!" Fang Qian, not used to being shaken off like this, was seething with anger. Lu Xiangcang, worried she might explode in public, quickly stepped in and scolded him, "Song Qi, there’s no need to always avoid us like this!"

The word "avoid" didn’t sound pleasant, and Song Qi finally slowed down, turning to look at them. His eyes were still as dark as before, but his expression was much calmer and carried a hint of indifference.

"I really can’t stand it anymore," Fang Qian said, barely holding back her frustration. "Do you really need to draw such a clear line with us? We’ve been classmates for four years, we even worked on the newspaper together..."

"Don’t mention the newspaper..." Lu Xiangcang softly reminded her, and Fang Qian promptly closed her mouth.

That newspaper really was the source of everything. He had saved the concubine from the You family when she was arrested to raise funds for the paper, and he had taught the second Miss of the Yu family literacy through illustrations for it. Even last year, when he was imprisoned, it was because of something published in that very paper.

Mr. Meng had said before that Song Qi’s reckless nature would eventually get him into trouble. And in the end, it was that newspaper that caused his downfall. At that time, aside from him, a few students from other newspapers were taken in for questioning by the police, but everyone was quickly released. Only Song Qi, with his father’s business rival stirring things up, suffered a month of imprisonment.

Song Qi never mentioned his time in prison to them. In fact, after he got out, he never brought up anything to them again. He did his best to avoid any further interactions with them, to prevent drawing them into trouble if the police came searching again."We were only in there for a few days, weren't we?" Fang Qian said. "Even if you feel guilty, there's no need to..."

"I'm not guilty."

It had been a long time since Fang Qian had heard Song Qi's voice. When he suddenly spoke, she was startled. She raised her head and saw Song Qi looking down, examining her and Lu Xiangcang for a moment. He continued in his calm tone, "You don’t need to know. Go back, don’t come looking for me again, and don’t let anyone see you coming to look for me."

"Hey... Hey!" Fang Qian stomped her foot. Seeing that Song Qi had no intention of turning around, she yelled recklessly, "The concubine from the You family... told me that there are female workers from Shaoxing at her factory, and they mentioned the fire at the You family last month..."

Song Qi finally stopped in front of the apartment door.

"It seems like something happened to the Yu family too, but since it's not from the same village, she doesn’t know the details," Fang Qian continued. "Do you think Man Yi will be alright?"

She noticed that when she mentioned Yu Man Yi, Song Qi seemed to be listening more intently, whereas he had ignored the rest of what she said. Fang Qian and Lu Xiangcang exchanged a glance and went on:

"There are some returning overseas students in our trading company, who broke off their engagements with their families after graduation, wanting to find educated wives in Shanghai. I keep thinking... could Man Yi's cousin be doing the same thing? I haven't heard from her since. Has she contacted you?"

"From what she described, her cousin has decent character, so he shouldn't be like your colleague," Song Qi said.

Fang Qian felt a bit relieved that Song Qi was willing to speak with her, though every word seemed to steer the conversation toward an end. The three of them stood in silence for a while, before Song Qi finally turned around and said, "I will write a letter to the postman in the town and inquire. You two should leave now, don't stay here any longer."

"Why are you always rushing us?" Fang Qian asked, feeling a little frustrated. Just when she thought there was a glimmer of hope, Song Qi tried to push them away again. When had she ever been treated like this by a man? It was always the other way around, with men chasing after her. "If Man Yi really encounters trouble and comes to find you, are you going to chase her away like this too?"

"I’ll chase her off just the same," Song Qi said, though his tone had softened. "Now go, I’ll let you know when I get a reply."

After encountering quite a bit of traffic, Fang Qian's car finally caught up with the speed of the three pedestrians and stopped at the entrance of the apartment building. Complaining, Fang Qian and Lu Xiangcang turned and got into the car, leaving Song Qi standing alone in front of the building.

He watched the car drive off and then turned to an elderly man sitting behind a window at the door, asking, "Did the police come looking for me today?""No, Mr. Song," the old man quickly said, his words coming out so fast it seemed like he was covering something up. "No police came looking for you, no one has come for you. I've been here at the door the whole time, keeping watch."

Song Qi seemed to relax a bit. The elevator had been broken for the past few days and no one had come to fix it. He had no choice but to take off his coat and hang it on his arm as he climbed the stairs, step by step.

By the time he reached the second floor, something felt off. When he reached the third floor, the feeling intensified. Song Qi stopped in his tracks and looked up the stairs, catching a faint fragrance of osmanthus in the air.

What kind of karmic retribution was this, faster than a lightning strike? Just moments ago, on the first floor, Song Qi had said "I’ll chase her off just the same." Now, three steps around the corner, he saw the purple patched dress figure squatting at his doorstep.

As for Yu Man Yi, she had originally planned this reunion with some degree of rationality. Everything she was about to do was part of her performance; she even fretted for a moment about her inability to summon tears on cue.

But the moment Song Qi appeared in front of her, she suddenly couldn't control the ache in her chest. The tears that had been gathering quickly overwhelmed her, and they were so genuine that they were more heart-wrenching than if they had fallen immediately.

Song Qi stood before her, his expression one of surprise, looking a bit at a loss due to the suddenness of the situation. Yu Man Yi bit her lip for a while before, when he crouched down to her level, she finally said the line she had planned to deliver with acting, but now each word was filled with heavy emotion.

"Song Qi..."

She looked into his pitch-black eyes, as if seeing the fire that had burned everything, the thick fog over the girl’s grave, the green smoke from burning hell money, and the endless starry river above the canal.

"Song Qi," she suddenly reached out her arm and threw herself at him. "I’ve been wronged, so, so much."