After Chu Jian sent the message off, she felt unsettled, as if her heart was wafting around and not grounded in anything.
To give herself a distraction, she decided she might as well play some Lianliankan[1][simple puzzle game to match pictures].
In this night, here on the tatami, she was playing on her mobile phone, while out in the adjacent room, the older woman was preparing things for tomorrow and watching television.
And so, they passed the time this way.
When she had played until her thumbs were sore, she shut down the game window and glanced at the time. It was pretty late.
“Auntie, where is the tub that you collect all the shells in?”
Soon, a blue plastic tub was set down on the table.
……
The entire world fell into silence.
The television outside was still playing the midnight news, describing a rear-end collision that had occurred on a certain street in Shanghai. Her ears were filled with these sounds as she tilted her head upwards to look at that person who was completely obstructing the yellow glow of the wall lamp. “Aren’t you supposed… to be at an event?”
There was still an empty conch shell in her hand. In a moment of inattention, she squeezed her hand tightly around it, and then, giving a start when it pricked her, she hastily dropped it onto the table. The man in front of her pulled off the cap that he had been using to conceal his face and tossed it aside. Dropping one knee down onto the tatami, he efficiently tidied up for her the garbage that had been scattered all over the table from the meal.
Chu Jian was caught in an awkward bind, where extending a hand to help seemed unfitting but not helping seemed inappropriate as well.
That one word of “okay” had taken her an entire afternoon plus an evening of deliberation before she had arrived at it. She had not even finished mentally preparing herself yet, and now he was here? Didn’t he have an event tonight? With those types of fashion and celebrity gala dinners, after the dinner part was over, should there not be another wild after-party teeming with sensual pleasures? Everyone would sit together on high-back sofas, sighing over the shortage of resources for actors and lamenting that film production teams were either dissolving or deferring projects. While they were at it, they would express their plans and line-ups for their work over the next couple of years, their eager anticipation for the upcoming blockbuster dramas, as well as their predictions for the box office…
Why was he here picking up garbage instead?
So, after the “okay,” now what? Were they going to have a date tonight? … Chu Jian yanked out napkin after napkin, pulling out seven or eight and then wiping herself clean, from her fingers to her mouth, then back to her hands—basically something she found for herself to do while he was tidying up.
In the end, after Jian Bianlin had finished clearing away everything, he also sat down, leaning half his body sideways against the tatami mat. His hand brushed against his pocket, where he discovered that pen that had been dismantled into little pieces. Wordlessly, he fished it out and once again, bit by bit, put it back together.
He did so quietly, without a sound being made. Reassembled, he placed the pen on the table.
In the warm amber light of the wall lamp, Chu Jian took a glance. She recognized this pen. The taste of the mustard and soy sauce used for dipping the strawberry conches was still on her lips. A little embarrassed, she unconsciously licked her bottom lip.
Jian Bianlin’s eyes took in this little mannerism of hers. “Doesn’t your stomach feel uncomfortable after eating this stuff?”
She murmured, “I’m used to it.”
