“We’ve already eaten,” Zhou Min said. “Wan’er and I had dinner with Chief Editor Zhong. We had mutton dumplings in sour broth at a diner. Why don’t you go back home, and we’ll be along in a moment. Mr. Zhong went home to get something after dinner, and we’ve agreed to wait for him here, since he wouldn’t be able to find your house.”
Niu Yueqing returned home with Liu Yue, who went straight to the kitchen to make the noodles, while Niu Yueqing told Zhuang that Zhou Min and Tang Wan’er were coming over with Mr. Zhong, who had never been to their house. He had always phoned about manuscripts. If it had been to inquire about Zhuang’s injury, since they weren’t close friends, he would have asked Zhou to send his regards. Besides, it was dark out, so why would the old man come all the way out here?
“Zhou Min must have talked him into coming,” Zhuang said. “It’s about that article. Zhou Min got the idea that I wouldn’t listen to him, so he’s trotted out Mr. Zhong to get my attention.”
“He may be smart, but that’s the sort of thing small-town people would do,” Niu Yueqing said before taking fruit to wash in the kitchen.
Before long, the three visitors arrived. Zhuang limped to open the door, and Wan’er helped him back inside to sit on the sofa, before putting a stool under his injured foot so he could stretch his leg. “Does it still hurt?” she asked tearfully when she removed the gauze and saw the swollen ankle. Seeing that she had forgotten herself, Zhuang secretly pinched her arm to stop her hand, and tossed her a towel to dry her tears.
“I feel terrible having someone your age come all the way to see me,” he said, looking at Chief Editor Zhong. “You can come any time you want, Zhou Min, but why must you drag Chief Editor Zhong along?”
“Even if you didn’t want me here, I would come as soon as I heard about your injury. You agreed to have Zhou Min’s article appear in the first issue, and we will want to publish one of yours in the future. An editor relies on the support of writers and readers. I can feel secure in my job only with your help.”
Now that Zhong had brought up Zhou’s article, Zhuang decided to skip the small talk and get straight to the point.
“I spent ten days at the meeting, where I hurt my foot, so I couldn’t check things out at the magazine. How is everything now? Zhou Min didn’t come by to fill me in.”
“I did,” Zhou Min said, “but since you were at the meeting, I had to turn over the announcement to the department for approval by the Propaganda Section.”
“Here’s how it looks now,” Zhong said. “Jing Xueyin insisted on adding the words ‘grave inaccuracy and malicious slander’ to the announcement, but I couldn’t accept that. I said to the department head, ‘I was labeled a Rightist for twenty years and was in charge of the magazine for three years after my rehabilitation before Wu Kun schemed to replace me. Now that I’m the editor-in-chief, do you think I care about the title? Worst-case scenario, I’d step down and be a Rightist again. What would our readers think about our redesigned magazine if we didn’t stick to our principles and rushed into punishing people or publishing an announcement? What kind of credibility would the magazine have then? How are we going to express our determination to protect the rights of writers?”
A usually cautious, timid man, Zhong sounded particularly firm when he was keyed up, which impressed Zhuang and Niu Yueqing.
“Chief Editor Zhong has been toiling over this day and night,” Zhou Min said. “Without his firm stance, who knows how many people would be laughing at me and at Zhuang Laoshi. It doesn’t matter in my case, since I’m like the man who doesn’t have to be careful when he pees if his pants are already wet. But we have to think about Zhuang Laoshi’s reputation.”
Without responding to him, Zhuang told Liu Yue to fill Mr. Zhong’s cup. The girl, who was having a great time sharing ideas about hairstyles with Tang Wan’er in the study, came out to pour more tea before getting Niu Yueqing to go back inside with her.
“The announcement is still at the Propaganda Section,” Zhong said. “I’ve been calling for three days, asking for a decision, either a formal letter or for the announcement to be returned with a comment. But they say the deputy governor for cultural affairs, who has to read it, has been too busy. They told me we’d hear from them soon. That worries me. It would be wonderful if the deputy governor accepted what we wrote, but my hands will be tied if he listens to that woman and consents to her request for the added language before giving his approval. I might be bold enough to argue with the head of our office, but not with the deputy governor.”
Zhuang fell silent, his head down.
“Here’s what I think,” he said after a moment. “I’m not worried about the magazine with you in charge. I could go see someone in the Provincial Office. Zhou Min, I’ll write a letter for you to the secretary-general of the Municipal Party Committee. He and the deputy governor are in-laws. Go see him and ask him to speak to the deputy governor. We don’t expect them to be on our side. All we want is for them to remain neutral and not favor one side over the other.”
Zhou Min was so elated he stopped eating the apple he was holding.
“I didn’t know that Zhuang Laoshi had such a connection. Would that woman have been so arrogant if we’d exploited it?”
“Good steel must be used only for a sword. Important connections like this should never be exploited except when absolutely necessary.”
Zhuang remained silent as he lit a new cigarette from the one he was smoking, sending smoke spreading along his cheeks into his hair and making it look as if it was on fire.
After he finished the second cigarette, he asked Niu Yueqing to talk with Mr. Zhong while he went into the study to write the letter. Tang Wan’er and Liu Yue were still in there, chattering away, but when he came in, Wan’er turned to ask how he had injured his foot. She said she had had the same dream every night, one about him riding down the street on his scooter; he didn’t stop when she called to him, and she wondered how he could go so fast. The dream turned out to be the opposite of reality, since Zhuang actually had injured his foot.
“I did go too fast,” he said. “I twisted my ankle when I ran out of my room to take care of the mayor’s requests. Isn’t that something? I’d agreed to meet with someone that night to talk about art, but the person ended up making the trip in vain. I wonder if that person is mad at me.” He looked at Wan’er, who cast a glance at Liu Yue before saying, “You’re a celebrity, so it’s no big deal if you can’t keep your word. That person was obviously not lucky enough to have that conversation with you. No need to worry that the person might have gotten bloodshot eyes from waiting.”
“I wouldn’t mind if the person cursed me,” he said with a smile. “We know each other well enough that cursing is a sign of affection and slaps mean love. The next time we see each other, I’ll let the person bite off a piece of me.”
The veiled talk had Liu Yue in a fog. “Why are you spending so much time talking about some other person?”
“I’ll stop,” he said. “Wan’er, I heard you’ve been under the weather.”
“Achy heart,” she said, her eyes bright.
“Ah, does it still ache?”
“Not anymore.”
“But be careful.” Then he turned to Liu Yue. “Go into the old mistress’s room and get a bottle of vitamin E from her drawer.”