And so the three of us went marching down the road of anti-human, anti-social behavior without a single backward glance…
—Lingjing's Diary
There's a proverb: a wife is no match for a concubine, a concubine no match for an affair, and an affair no match for what you can't have.
The principle is exactly the same: skipping class is always more thrilling and more fun than a holiday. Especially when all three of them have a streak of rebellion down to the bone—then the thrill multiplies. So when the three of them climbed over the wall at one side of the school grounds, even Jiaming, who usually just went along with whatever anyone said, let out a heartfelt cheer; and naturally Lingjing's and Huaisha's cheers were more fervent still.
It was only a little past nine in the morning. Once clear of the school grounds, the three of them went browsing from shop to shop. Of the three kids, Huaisha's family was the best off.
In recent months the Sand Bamboo Gang had been pushing its turf outward, and Huaisha's dad was often away from home, so the three of them put their heads together and decided to spend their whole day of truancy enjoying themselves at Huaisha's place.
After all, in the Huang family home Jiaming basically had no place of his own, and Lingjing always played the good girl, so Huaisha's house was naturally the best option.
The two girls ran ahead, giggling, darting between the shop counters, and by the end of the morning the three of them were loaded down with bags.
Huaisha paid for nearly all of it: two outfits and a pair of shoes for herself, a floral dress for Lingjing, a whole heap of videotapes, game cartridges and comics, and even a few pretty down pillows bought on a whim, plus piles of vegetables and fruit, pork and beef, and several jin of rice.
Clearly the girls were treating the whole thing as a simple game of house. Though in fact, that is exactly what it was.
Huaisha's villa stood on a hillside east of Jianghai City, facing the sea. The area was generally acknowledged as the city's wealthy district—and precisely because everyone living around there was rich and powerful, it lay far away from the turf the Sand Bamboo Gang controlled. That was also why, after the villa was bought, Huaisha's dad spent pitifully little time in it. And since it was too far from school, Huaisha generally didn't live there either; she trailed after her dad around Sand Bamboo Gang headquarters.
The three of them rode the bus across the river on the big bridge and then prepared to transfer. Passing beneath the bridge piers, Jiaming suddenly spotted two somewhat familiar figures: the mother and daughter from early that morning. He had assumed the two of them would head back to wherever they lived once the killer was dealt with; instead they were huddled under the bridge pier, the sort of spot only vagrants gathered, both of them in thin pajamas.
The blonde mother held the porcelain-doll of a mixed-race little girl, sitting there quietly as if dead. Jianghai was a big coastal city, and foreigners were no rare sight, but a mother and daughter in pajamas sitting here was genuinely eye-catching. Lingjing and Huaisha couldn't help looking a few extra times, guessing at who these two were and what had befallen them. But when Jiaming turned his appraising gaze on them, the little girl seemed to recognize him; she broke free of her mother's arms, clasped her hands in front of her chest, and came over hesitantly.
The little girl had neat black hair that covered her ears and eyes brimming with tears. She wore goose-yellow fleece pajamas, and beneath them a pair of adorable lotus-root-pink bare feet. It was only the third month of spring; a little girl walking barefoot in thin pajamas looked both darling and pitiful.
Jiaming felt a headache coming on. The blonde mother hadn't recognized him, but the little girl had somehow found him out by pure intuition—she probably wasn't sure of it herself, but watching her come over looking so woebegone, calling timidly in English, "Brother, brother…", Jiaming knew there was going to be trouble.
The three of them were in middle school now, and Lingjing and Huaisha could understand simple English words. They were slightly miffed that the little girl only called for a brother and not a sister, but the ten-year-old mixed-race girl had stirred their sympathy all the same. After a quick consultation they dug out two of the outfits they had bought that day, the shoes, and a few bread rolls and pressed them into the girl's hands, and Lingjing said in stiff English, "For… you…" (meaning "for you").
"Brother… help…" Clutching what the two girls had handed her, the little girl wept and spoke to Jiaming in a soft, small voice. Seeing that she kept looking at Jiaming, the two girls puzzled over it for a long while, and in the end Huaisha took out almost all the money she had left and gave the whole lot to the little girl before they got on the bus. It wasn't much after all that shopping, but it was enough for a few good meals.
Sympathy aside, neither of the girls had considered taking the little girl and her mother home with them; even kindness has its limits. As for the little girl, faced with Jiaming's puzzled expression from first to last, she finally concluded that she must have mistaken him, and stood with tears in her eyes watching the three of them walk away.
Pity though they felt, they were two people with no connection to them after all, and the girls had done their duty as good people. A moment later their spirits were high again.
They transferred buses and got off at a stop called Banshan, and as far as the eye could see, amid the mountain's vivid green, stood handsome Western-style buildings with red tiles and white walls, with a clean, quiet road winding up along the slope.
To the right a crescent-shaped coastline stretched out along the mountain, and the sea breeze swept in, fresh and exhilarating. This was the first time Jiaming and Lingjing had ever been to Huaisha's home.
Huaisha flashed her credentials, and the three kids went in through the strictly guarded gate of the compound. It was a two-story villa set on the hillside, with a pretty swimming pool in the small courtyard; it looked magnificent. When the door was opened, the little girl announced with great ceremony, "Now this place is our turf!"
After that, Lingjing phoned home from there to say she wouldn't be back that day. The three of them washed the rice and cooked, and the villa, silent for months on end, grew lively again. In the afternoon Lingjing and Huaisha curled up on the living-room sofa watching tapes and playing games, while Jiaming played on the computer in the room that passed for a study.
"Study" was a generous word for it; the computer was really just decoration—Huaisha's dad had no idea how to use the thing—but as far as equipment went, it was absolutely top quality.
By the 2010s of the twenty-first century, for an outstanding assassin, hacking was practically a required course. Once he had adapted to the backward DOS operating system, he tried his hand at breaking into a few small websites, and by the time he had recovered the feeling that his old skills were as sharp as ever, it was nearly evening.
In the meantime the two girls had taken turns coming in to check on him several times, each time with a look of complete bafflement.
After dinner, Jiaming pulled up the copy of Monopoly already installed on the computer and the three of them played together. It was the first time either girl had touched a computer game, and they were hooked at once.
But girls never have much talent for games: Lingjing only knew how to buy land by the rules and hoarded cards she couldn't bear to use, while Huaisha, ever the violent one, was mad for ruining people, flinging bombs and sabotage cards all over the board.
In no time Jiaming had bankrupted them both, and then feathers filled the air as the two girls came after him on a merciless pillow manhunt.
In the rounds that followed, the two girls joined forces against Jiaming and still ended up with mud on their faces most of the time. The three of them chased and whacked each other with pillow after pillow, and every so often the girls' excited shrieks rang out.
Fun as the games were, neither Jiaming nor Lingjing was in the habit of staying up late, so around ten o'clock the three of them shut off the computer and got ready for bed. And it was that night that something happened which, to a large extent, largely shaped the ambiguous relationship among the three of them from then on.
It all started with a small object.
That night Jiaming was put up in Huaisha's old room, while the two girls chose the big bed in Huaisha's dad's room to share. After their baths, in thin pajamas, the two sweet-smelling girls roughhoused on the bed as usual, and then Lingjing, to her astonishment, found a funny little plastic packet under the sheet—roughly square, with a ring-shaped object inside.
And then, in the noble spirit of not being ashamed to ask, our classmate Lingjing sincerely consulted Teacher Huaisha on what the thing was for.
"Oh? This thing? Mm, a condom—very common, you know." It was a rare chance for Huaisha to be the knowledgeable one in front of Lingjing; half-informed herself, she blushed a little, then with feigned composure gave her explanation.
Gentle readers must understand that in 1995 all of China was still very innocent—as innocent as that vacuum-packed, cold-sterilized condom with the warning printed on it: do not eat if the bag is swollen. Shasha didn't really understand it either. After a delicate, roundabout explanation Lingjing shook her head and grew more confused than ever, so to seize this rare opportunity to display her erudition, Shasha began rummaging through every drawer and cabinet in the room until she finally dug up a few mysterious videotapes, intending to give Lingjing a more objective explanation.
"Heh heh, Dad thought I didn't know about these, but I found them anyway. Lingjing, this is really interesting stuff… la la la la…"
Having shown off to her heart's content—Dad's room had both a VCR and a TV, so there was no need to go out to the living room—she shut the doors and windows, killed the lights, and a moment later the television displayed two stark-naked, big-breasted foreign girls, moaning and sighing.
Spring nights are chilly after all. Under the quilt the two girls, full of the spirit of inquiry, clung to each other and stared at the screen, neither daring to speak. Then their breathing began to come faster, and their bodies, without either of them noticing, grew hot…