After a long silence, she asked, "Is this…really what you want to do?"
"What do you mean?"
She looked up. Placing her hand on his knee, she looked into his eyes and said, "You don't want to just be an ordinary person? Studying hard, graduating, and then going abroad with me? That's not good enough for you?"
Fang Mu looked down and said nothing. He gently moved her hand away and shook his head.
"Why?" she asked, her eyes filling with tears. "Do you think your life is normal? Do you think you're happy like this?
His voice was soft as he spoke. "No."
"Then why are you doing this?" Deng Linyue suddenly jumped to her feet. "Are you a policeman? Is this your duty? Or is someone forcing you?"
When she saw that he wasn't going to respond, she bit her lip in an attempt to calm down. "Fang Mu, I admit that the reason I love you is because you're someone who has experienced a lot. There's an indescribable sort of force around you, and this made me curious. It also captivated me, and made me feel secure. But after I fell in love with you, I found that this force also scared me." The questions seemed to come tumbling out. "Why does so much death always seem to follow you? Why must you always place yourself in such dangerous situations? After what he did, that boy Meng deserved to die, so what does that have to do with you? Why do you have to get yourself tangled up in it? Why do you have to cause so much pointless trouble?" She paused. "When you were doing all this, did you ever think of me?"
Fang Mu looked up. "Meng Fanzhe isn't the killer. The killer is someone else."
"Then so what? Why don't you just not worry about it? Why don't you just let the police do their jobs? Why don't you just be a normal student?"
He smiled bitterly and shook his head. "Impossible." He held her attention. "There are so many things… You just wouldn't understand."
"What wouldn't I understand? Tell me!" She sat down beside him and wiped away the tears forming. Her eyes never leaving his face.
He looked steadily into her bright and innocent eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but all he managed to say was, "You…don't need to know."
She stared at him until he looked away.
After a few long moments, she dried her eyes and slowly stood up. She walked to the door. "No matter what," she said in a quiet, soft tone, "I hope you know that regardless of what happens, I will always be by your side."
She opened the door and left.
For an instant Fang Mu wanted to call her back, hold her close, and whisper to her, "I'm sorry… forgive me."
But he didn't do a thing, just sat there and watched her disappear.
A few days later, Tai Wei called to say that Li Weidong had sent police to recheck the apartment, but because the scene had already been fairly heavily disturbed, it was impossible to determine if someone had been there before Fang Mu arrived. Additionally, interviews with the neighbors had turned up nothing of value. The police also searched through the apartment several times, and were certain that the letter Fang Mu mentioned was not at the scene.
Although Tai Wei didn't offer any official opinion over the phone, his position was already clear: the letter did not exist. Someone had to be lying, but whether this was Fang Mu or Dong Guizhi, he didn't know.
Fang Mu didn't feel like arguing with him, so after saying a few brief words, he quickly got off the phone. Sensing that Deng Linyue had been listening in to his conversation, he said without looking over at her: "That was Tai Wei. He called about the SuijingCity investigation."
Sure enough, Deng Linyue had been true to her word. For the past few days, she had stuck close to Fang Mu at all times, except when they were asleep. No matter what time he left his dorm, she was always waiting for him outside.
But she was also speaking less and less. Even when they were eating, she often wouldn't say a word. Many times, Fang Mu would happen to look up at her and find that she was staring back at him.
The look in her eyes was no longer the warm, soft gaze from when they first got together; now it carried the hint of a close examination. It made him nervous when she looked at him like that, and when their eyes met he often had to look away in defeat after a few seconds.
At night, when he would walk her back to her dorm, Deng Linyue would always stand silently outside of it several minutes. He stood beside her, smoking or just looking off into the distance, not saying a word either. Often, she would turn and walk into her dorm without the least bit of warning, and though Fang Mu waited for her several times, he never saw her turn and come back as she had that one night before.
They hadn't kissed in a long time.
At one point Zhang Yao came to talk with Fang Mu. She told him that over the past few days Deng Linyue had been acting very strangely. Often Zhang Yao wouldn't see her all day, and then when Deng Linyue returned to the dorm at night, she would go straight to bed. One time, Zhang Yao woke to find Deng Linyue crying under her covers late in the night. When she asked her what was wrong, Deng Linyue just answered that she'd had a nightmare and wouldn't say anything else.
With the hint of a threat in her voice, Zhang Yao told Fang Mu that Deng Linyue had once asked her if she had made the right choice in being with Fang Mu. "If you don't start acting a little nicer to her," Zhang Yao said, "I'm afraid she might dump you!"
Fang Mu didn't really care whether Deng Linyue dumped him or not, but hearing how sad she sounded, he couldn't but feel a little sorry. When she invited him to a Christmas party, he immediately said yes.
For JiangbinCityUniversity students, Christmas was easily one of the best-loved holidays. Even though it was a foreign holiday, these black-haired, yellow-skinned students celebrated it with even more fervor than Chinese New Year. By mid-December, all the restaurants, flower stores, and gift shops around the school had begun promotional activities, the campus was covered with over-the-top advertisements and posters, and everywhere one looked was the image of that red-hat-wearing, white-bearded old man. Girls began looking forward to the gifts they would receive, while boys began saving their money, either for a gift that would make their girlfriend smile or one that would capture the heart of a girl they'd long admired.
Despite the festive atmosphere, Fang Mu hardly caught the Christmas fever. Previously, when he had been single, he had never given any thought to the holiday. But although he still felt the same way, when Du Yu asked him if he wanted to go shopping for Christmas gifts, he forced himself to tag along.
Du Yu strolled around the Guomao shopping mall as patiently as a girl, frequently stopping to ask Fang Mu what he thought of some item or whether another was actually so nice. Each time Fang Mu just shrugged and said: "It's all right." Soon Du Yu began to feel that having Fang Mu help him choose a gift hadn't been the smartest idea in the world, so he ignored him and kept looking on his own. Freed from his duties, Fang Mu walked leisurely along after him, hands in his pockets.
He may have been bored, but this kind of relaxed afternoon was hard to come by. After being so tense for so long and after all the terrible things that had happened, he found it truly satisfying to stroll around, with a light heart and an empty mind.
While passing a counter covered with little knick-knacks, Fang Mu happened to catch sight of a small glass globe. The glass gleamed so brightly that he stared at it for an few extra seconds. Noticing this, the young saleswoman immediately called him over in a warm and enthusiastic tone. Seeing no reason not to, Fang Mu walked over to take a closer look.
The globe was actually a music box, or at least made up the upper half of one. Underneath it was the musical portion, a small and square box made of plastic. Inside the glass globe was a scene in miniature: a young man and woman standing side by side under a streetlight, with her leaning happily against his shoulder. Small white flakes were scattered around inside the globe, looking much like snow.