Chapter 17: The One Who Torments Me
She walked in. Saw him immediately.
Their eyes met. Both paused.
Her heart did something involuntary. He gave a slight, polite nod.
Not surprising, she thought, that Zhao Qiyan would be the first person I saw coming back. But why does it feel strange? She hesitated, then started toward him — and registered, belatedly, the woman sitting across from him.
She stopped. Turned smoothly and found a quiet table on the other side of the room.
The menu came. She ordered something without focusing on what. Her gaze drifted to the beads on her right wrist — sandalwood, the texture worn to a mellow luster. She looked at them for a moment, and then, almost against her will, smiled.
A farewell gift, maybe. A graceful exit, clearly managed — the offer made, refused, and then he had stepped back without scene, without pressure. Complete and clean.
Walking out that evening, she thought that mutual respect like that was probably the best ending available to them.
Her reputation had been building in the industry since. Some success is accidental and some is inevitable; usually it needs both a person worth discovering and someone willing to discover them, and Zhao Qiyan had been that.
Jiang Wei invited her to an antique appraisal evening. They had settled, comfortably, into being each other's best resource for navigating their respective family complications, and both of them knew it.
Ruan Jing never dressed up deliberately; she didn't need to. She had a way of putting on something simple and having it read as considered. British-style scarves, usually — just right. Jiang Wei always privately approved of her taste.
"Thank you for coming," he said, when she arrived. "If you see my mother, just smile. That's the whole job."
She nodded, scanning the room. Everyone here was the kind of person who appeared in venues like this without effort. "I've been on my feet in the gallery all day. I'm sitting down. Come get me when the target appears."
He laughed. "Okay."
She'd been in the rest area ten minutes when she saw him. At first she thought she was imagining it. Then he turned and she confirmed: Zhao Qiyan, here, apparently not seeing her.
Someone settled onto the sofa beside her. She said, without looking over: "Has the target appeared?"
"My mother's still discussing Yuan Dynasty bowls with someone. We're nowhere near modern times."
"Why didn't you mention Zhao Qiyan would be here?"
Jiang Wei followed her gaze. "He's a must-invite. Didn't you see the way the organizer welcomed him? He always has something to offer."
She raised her eyebrows slightly and said nothing.
"Did you see his new girlfriend?" Jiang Wei gestured discreetly in a direction, with the particular tone of someone both envious and trying to gauge someone else's reaction. He had never been quite clear on what Ruan Jing and Zhao Qiyan were to each other. He'd asked; she'd said friends. He'd tried asking Zhao Qiyan and gotten nothing.
She had, in fact, seen the woman — well-dressed, holding his arm with a kind of intimacy that managed to be graceful rather than demonstrative.
"That's Xie Xia," Jiang Wei said. "Oil painter, from Foshan. A single painting of hers goes for anywhere between a hundred and two hundred thousand yuan." He paused. "She and Qiyan have been seeing each other a long time. I've always wondered why she doesn't want a formal title. From what Weiwei says, she's known him for over ten years. If this is a race, it's a marathon."
"Artists tend to find titles secondary," Ruan Jing said. "Maybe she genuinely just likes him."
"Should we go over and say hello?"
"No." She stopped him before he could get up. "Another time. There's always another chance."
Jiang Wei, who had noticed something in the direction of Zhao Qiyan, said carefully, "He just saw you and said the same thing. Did you two coordinate this?"
She looked at him sideways.
"Right," Jiang Wei said, reading the look. "Why don't you come find my mother. Sooner started, sooner done."
"Better sooner than later," she said, stood, glanced once more in the direction she was deliberately not going, and walked the other way. The second time they'd been in the same room and let it pass.
Two days later, a painter named Xie Xia arrived at the Gao Fan Gallery asking specifically for her.
Chen Fan met Ruan Jing at the door when she came in. "How is it that the boss of this gallery has absolutely no status?"
She didn't answer that.
"She's a little arrogant," he added, quieter, before she went in. "Wants to hold an exhibition here. Just — be careful."
Ruan Jing pushed open the door.
Xie Xia looked up and seemed genuinely surprised — she hadn't expected the art director to be this young. "You're Ruan Jing?"
"Yes. Miss Xie — what can Gao Fan do for you?"
The calm was apparently what won her over. Xie Xia liked directness, liked people who didn't waste time on ceremony. She put down her coffee and said: "I want to hold an exhibition here. Next week if possible, and I'd like you to handle the full planning."
"Next week might be tight. I'd have to see if I can clear the time."
"Another week is fine. I'm not pressed."
"I'll contact you once I have a plan."
"Good." Xie Xia looked at her with some consideration. "I think you'll do well."
"Thank you," Ruan Jing said pleasantly.
They ended up in frequent contact over the following days — business had its own logic, and Xie Xia's schedule adjusted to accommodate Ruan Jing's existing workload without complaint. In the process, Ruan Jing found that the arrogance Chen Fan had warned her about was more a kind of professional economy than genuine coldness: Xie Xia simply didn't waste time on things that didn't matter to her.
One afternoon, Ruan Jing went to the studio. Xie Xia had just finished something at her desk and made two cups of coffee with the unassuming manner of someone who knew exactly what she could and couldn't do. "My skills are average. I'll introduce you to a proper coffee person next time."
"I'm not particular about it," Ruan Jing said, picked up the cup, and drank. "As long as it's not poison."
Xie Xia laughed, which was apparently not something that happened all the time in her studio. "You're a strange person, Ruan Jing."
"Strange how?"
"Relaxed. Unselfconscious. Most women aren't."
"I'm not sure that's a compliment."
Xie Xia touched her arm lightly. "If you were a man, I would absolutely pursue you. You're intelligent and easy."
Ruan Jing said, "The man you like probably isn't short on either of those things."
"Him?" Something moved through Xie Xia's expression. "He's probably lacking in heart."
Ruan Jing looked at her — actually looked, at the particular quality of what was on her face. "With your looks, you could have anyone."
"But I only want that one."
Ruan Jing said, quietly: "Poor thing."
Xie Xia was still smiling at that when neither of them noticed someone had walked in.
"Qiyan—" Xie Xia saw him first and stopped mid-movement.
Ruan Jing stood and turned. He was at the door, his expression settled and quiet, looking at her.
"Qiyan, this is Ruan Jing — Gao Fan's art director." Xie Xia, who hadn't noticed anything unusual, moved through the introduction easily. "Ruan Jing, this is Zhao Qiyan."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Zhao."
He lowered his gaze for a moment, then looked at her directly. "Hello, Miss Ruan."
How many times had some version of this happened? Ruan Jing's face registered something that wasn't quite what she intended, and she brought it back.
Xie Xia's phone rang — a delivery downstairs. She went out.
The door closed.
Ruan Jing turned her back to him. She brought one hand up and pressed it to her brow, eyes shut, taking the moment while she had it.
Then his arms came around her from behind.
She went still. Made herself stay still.
He knew he had crossed something. He'd known it every time, and managed to hold the line until — this time. He had a precise count of how many times he had watched her turn away. Five. He was not proud of what he did after five, but there was something in him that was finished pretending it didn't happen.
He held her for only a moment. Then stepped back.
A second later, the door opened and Xie Xia came back in.
The puzzle stayed unfinished. No one pushed the pieces and no one cleared them away.
Until the middle of the month, when Ruan Jing went to a university reunion and drank too much. The room was loud and bright and she had a headache and someone was telling her not to drive herself home, to call someone.
She laughed. "Who? Zhao Qiyan?"
The table looked at her with interest. "Who's Zhao Qiyan?"
She heard herself answer, with the particular honesty of someone whose filter had temporarily gone off duty:
"The one who torments me."
"Isn't it Jiang Yan who torments you?" Someone at the table knew the whole history.
"No," she said. "That's different. This is Zhao Qiyan."
The table absorbed this with great curiosity.
Ruan Jing set down her glass and thought: well.
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