“I don’t know why,” Zhuang said, “but here’s some music I really like. I bought a tape of it. I’ll play it for you. It’s quite intense.” He put it in the tape deck, from which emerged funereal music. Niu Yueqing came up and stopped it. “Who ever heard of enjoying this?”
“Be patient and listen. You’ll like it when it begins to speak to you,” Zhuang said.
“I’ll never like it. People are going to think someone in our family died when you play that.”
With an unhappy smile, Zhuang turned off the cassette player and sat down to eat.
“So Zhuang Laoshi is henpecked?”
“I’m not. It’s just that she’s not cowed by me.”
Niu Yueqing ignored his response, so he muttered, “This is good porridge.” He laid down his chopsticks and asked Zhou if he was free to go see Meng Yunfang.
Zhou looked uncomfortable as he hemmed and hawed. “Actually, I do want to talk to you about something, but I’ll wait until you’re done eating.”
“I’m done, so go ahead.”
“I thought I’d repay your kindness with some of my own, which is why I wrote the article. I wanted to promote you, and never expected to cause so much trouble. Jing Xueyin has raised a fuss. The higher-ups in the department may come to you for verification, so I’m here to see what you have to say.”
“Zhuang Laoshi and I have read the article,” Niu Yueqing said, sending Zhou into a minor panic.
“So you’ve read it, too, Shimu?”
“Don’t go looking for trouble when everything is fine,” she said. “And don’t be afraid if trouble arises. If anyone should be raising a fuss, it’s me, not her. Zhuang Zhidie did not write that article, but shouldn’t she at least keep Zhuang in mind? Like they say, show some respect to Buddha if not to the monk. Don’t past feelings mean anything to her?”
Ignoring what Niu Yueqing said, Zhuang frowned and asked Zhou to give him a detailed account of what was happening at the department and the magazine. “I said repeatedly that you must go explain things to her the moment she came back.” He sighed. “Why didn’t anyone pay attention? Now that she’s raising hell, her enemies will gossip and gloat over the situation. And then there’s Wu Kun, who’s adding fuel to the fire, using her husband to pressure her. Self-esteem requires her to complain; otherwise, people would take her silence as an admission. Now that she has created such an uproar, they probably won’t let it quietly pass. No one has ever been able to get an advantage over her. As someone who has been a proud person all her life, she can’t just back down, like a stone rolling downhill.”
“Now that the woman has turned hostile, why look at it only from her perspective?” Niu Yueqing said. “Subjectively speaking, there’s nothing bad about the publication of Zhou’s article. What you just said could make many people lose heart and cause a ripple effect.”
Zhuang felt anger rising inside, but he held his temper and said, “So what do I do?”
“If someone from the department comes to check with you, all you need to do is insist that everything in the article is true,” Zhou said. “You can even say — this probably is something Shimu would not like to hear…”
“Go ahead, say it,” Niu Yueqing said.
“You can say you and she were intimate, but that the article stopped short of saying so. This is common in romantic liaisons — he said, she said, where are you going to find a witness? Once the water is muddied, no one can clear it up.”
Zhuang jumped to his feet, looking very stern. “How could you come up with such a nutty idea? This is not about taking responsibility for your own words, but about having a clear conscience.”
“Don’t ever say that, Zhou Min,” Niu Yueqing added. “Unlike you and me, Zhuang Laoshi must think about his status in society. If that got out and was passed around, he would be no different than a hooligan and one of Xijing’s idlers. And what would I say to people?”
Zhou’s face reddened at the reproach. He slapped himself, saying that he must have lost his head to come up with such a repellent idea. He was so inexperienced, he had been scared witless when he learned of the directives from the Provincial Office, and he begged forgiveness from Laoshi and Shimu. Still irate, Zhuang grabbed a teacup and put it up to his lips before realizing it was empty; he put it down and looked away. Niu Yueqing came over to pour tea for both of them.
“No need for that, Zhou Min,” she said. “Zhuang Laoshi understands, so no more talk about forgiveness, all right? It upsets us when you go on like that.”
Looking contrite, Zhou said, “I’d never say that to anyone else. What do we do, then?”
“I don’t know,” Zhuang said. “But I’ll never admit that she and I were in love.”
“That’s all in the past,” Niu Yueqing said. “I don’t care whether you were in love or not, because it happened before we met. I didn’t want to say anything, but you two did not have a clean break. It went on after you and I were engaged. I wasn’t blind, I saw everything. I even told you not to see her again, but you were always defending her, even though it hurt my feelings. I thought she was a noble person who had strong feelings for you, but now we know that she could push you over a cliff or down a well.”
“Are you finished?” Zhuang said. “You’re only making it worse.”
“You probably think I’m jealous, don’t you? I just feel sorry for you.”
Liu Yue tried to smooth things over while Zhou blamed himself.
“I’ve put up with a lot,” Niu Yueqing said, “but I’m disappointed that you’re not angry or upset with her even now. How can you explain your relationship if it wasn’t love?”
“We were comrades, friends,” Zhuang said.
“If that’s the case, then why didn’t what was in the article happen between you and someone else at the magazine?”
“We were just closer than most comrades and friends.”
“I’ll go along with whatever you say. But are you being realistic? What was written reeks of a true romance, so the magazine and Zhou Min will suffer if you insist upon your denial. Then what will people say about you? They’ll say Zhuang Zhidie can sacrifice friends who support and promote him on account of a woman.”
“Are you forcing me into an admission?”
“You treat something considered trash by others as treasure, which can only mean you’re still thinking about her. So go ahead and do whatever you want.” She turned to Zhou and said, “Go tell Zhong Weixian and the others that you all deserve to suffer because you wanted to promote Zhuang Zhidie. You should pack up your things and return to your job at the nunnery tomorrow.” She got up and went into the bedroom.
Zhuang paced the living room with a sour look on his face, while Zhou looked on blankly, unsure of what to do. Pained by the sight, Liu Yue went into the kitchen and brought out a plate of plums for Zhou Min, who did not want one, despite her insistence. They went back and forth until Zhuang came over, picked one up for Zhou, and took one for himself.
“Here’s what I think we can do. You insist that what you wrote was based on truth, and you can even say it came from me. But I didn’t say it was between Jing and me; it was based on what has happened between me and all the women I’ve known. What you wrote could be about Jing Xueyin, but it could also be about someone else entirely. It was a realist piece based on the principles of literary creation. You gathered material, generalized and summed up what happened between me and all those women, and then represented the scenario through this symbolic image called X. Would that work? That way you can be free of responsibility, no matter what accusations they hurl at you.”