Chapter 25: The Barbecue Is Getting Cold

Xia Chan barely paused. She pulled herself free, turned, and pushed him back.

He Huaisheng stumbled one step, recovered, and looked at her.

She knew she'd overreacted. But if she didn't stop it here it would never stop, and she was the one who would have to live with where it went.

She looked up at him. Everything she had thought about this — all the versions, good and bad, the outcomes she had turned over at length in the dark — none of it had led anywhere she could follow with a clear conscience.

She opened her mouth. Her voice came out rougher than she intended.

"...Let it be."

She was ordinary. She experienced vanity and loneliness and a kind of sympathy that overflowed its banks without asking permission. None of those things, she had learned, led anywhere good.

He Huaisheng's expression gave nothing away. He looked at her for a long time.

Then he bent down, picked up the cage, and walked to his car.

Xia Chan didn't watch him go. She opened her door, got in, and drove.

---

By mid-October, Chongcheng had settled into continuous rain.

Xia Chan caught a cold in the shift between seasons and felt as damp and inert as the weather — the kind of listlessness that cold medicine treated and didn't cure.

Liu Baona's birthday fell on a weekend. Xia Chan made herself go.

Baona liked a crowd, and had invited one accordingly — a large mixed group, everyone moving at a higher energy than Xia Chan could locate at the moment. She found Chen Aijia, who was similarly stranded at the edge of it, and the two of them drifted to a quieter corner and talked about nothing in particular. Work gossip, mostly. The kind of hotel industry news that had felt relevant when Xia Chan was still in it, and now seemed like something happening in a place she used to live.

Chen Aijia looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"I took cold medicine. I'm a bit foggy."

"Go home if you need to."

"I haven't been here long enough. A little longer."

Chen Aijia laughed. "I don't really fit in with that group either."

When the music started again and the dancing resumed, Xia Chan's head began to register every beat as a specific complaint. She found Baona, said goodbye properly, and left. Chen Aijia followed shortly after.

Outside, the evening was early enough. They found a dessert shop, sat down, and ordered something warm.

Xia Chan ordered hot chocolate and worked through it slowly.

Chen Aijia asked if she'd met anyone promising at work.

"No. I'm too busy, and I don't have the energy for it right now."

They sat with the quiet for a moment, the particular sympathy of two people who understand each other without needing to explain.

Chen Aijia broke it. "By the way — Baona has been getting close to that guy from your company. Zhang Yu. Did you know?"

"Zhang Yu?"

Since the cocktail party earlier in the year, Xia Chan and Zhang Yu hadn't crossed paths at work. The secretariat and PR departments were on separate floors, separate worlds. She had to think for a moment to place him.

"How did they meet?"

"Your Xinghui PR department has been doing work with Kaize. He came by a few times after the party and they got to know each other."

Xia Chan considered this. They were both a particular kind of earnest. It made sense. "Why wasn't he there today?"

"Probably working overtime."

Chen Aijia sighed. "Young people just go after things. At our age there's too much second-guessing."

Xia Chan agreed without reservation. "You're more direct than I am. I'd settle for half your decisiveness."

"I'm only decisive about things that don't cost me anything," Chen Aijia said. "Playing with fire is different. Once you actually get burned, nobody's decisive."

Xia Chan looked at her. "What got burned?"

Chen Aijia said quickly: "Just an example."

Xia Chan let it go and returned to her own thoughts.

Chen Aijia studied her. "Something's wrong. Is it He Qihua?"

Xia Chan came back to herself. "No. I'm just tired. I have a business trip to Pengcheng next week."

Chen Aijia asked, after a moment: "You're at Xinghui — do you hear anything about Ruyu's situation?"

Xia Chan paused before answering. "Not much. She's with He Huaisheng, so she's mostly in Yangcheng, I think."

Chen Aijia exhaled — a long, layered sound that seemed to have more in it than the question had asked for.

Xia Chan registered it and said nothing.

They finished and left the dessert shop. Xia Chan offered a ride; Chen Aijia waved it off — someone was coming for her, Xia Chan should go home and sleep off the cold.

Xia Chan got in the car and drove.

She hadn't gone far when something in the rearview mirror made her ease off the accelerator.

A red Lamborghini, parked at the kerb.

Xia Chan looked at it. Something cold moved through her that had nothing to do with the weather.

She pressed the accelerator and drove past it, putting distance between herself and the image before she stopped to think about what it meant.

A red Lamborghini. The same one He Huaisheng had borrowed the last time, if she had it right. And there were very few people she knew who would be driving one. She turned Chen Aijia's careful vagueness over in her mind, the way she'd deflected every time the subject came close to something specific.

The picture assembled itself without her wanting it to.

She couldn't confirm it. She tried gently, in the weeks that followed, and Chen Aijia redirected each time with the precision of someone who has decided not to be known on this particular subject. Xia Chan stopped asking and simply became more certain.

---

At the end of October, Xinghui was co-organizing an international home furnishing exhibition in Pengcheng. Xia Chan was assigned to lead the project. She arrived with her team, established themselves at the venue, and immediately began the work of turning a floor plan into something real — inspecting the space, designing the booth layout, confirming the delivery schedule.

Two days before the opening, the shipment from Chongcheng arrived.

Xia Chan went to check it.

Six sets of products were missing.

She called Chongcheng. The exhibit catalog her team had sent differed from hers — an earlier version, not the final one. Her own team had sent the wrong file.

She absorbed this information and moved past the question of how it had happened. That conversation could wait. Right now she needed those six sets.

She worked through every Xinghui distributor in Pengcheng and recovered four. The remaining two — a sofa and coffee table set — were not available in the city, not at any source she could reach. The exhibition opened tomorrow. Chongcheng was over seventeen hundred kilometers away.

The team met and turned it over from every angle. The only clean solution was to pull those items from the catalog entirely, which would mean serious consequences for everyone in the room.

Xia Chan stood up. "Keep setting up. Leave the space for those two sets."

She went to her room, sat on the edge of the bed, and held her phone for a long time.

Then she found the contact and sent the message.

He Huaisheng replied quickly: Wait a moment.

She waited fifteen minutes with the phone in her hand.

We have the goods.

She explained what she needed. He said he'd arrange a truck immediately. Guangzhou to Shenzhen was under two hundred kilometers — three, four hours at most.

Xia Chan felt the weight lift.

She thanked him.

You're welcome.

---

The truck arrived at eight in the evening. Xia Chan supervised the unloading, oversaw the setup, walked the booth twice to confirm everything was in order. By nine-thirty it was done.

She went out and found the nearest place still serving food — a street stall — and ate rice noodle rolls standing up.

Her phone moved.

He Huaisheng: Has the stuff arrived?

She wrote back: Yes. Everything's ready.

Good.

She looked at the screen for a moment, then put the phone in her pocket and finished eating.

---

The exhibition ran three days.

The results were better than expected — several confirmed orders, including some from overseas. By the end of it, the team was too tired to celebrate properly. Their return to Chongcheng was scheduled for the day after tomorrow. Xia Chan looked at what remained to be done, made a decision, and told everyone to take tomorrow off. The summary could wait until they were home.

She went back to the hotel, lay down for an hour without sleeping, then got up and went out for food.

A street market nearby was still active in the early evening. She bought barbecue, added a few cans of beer, and started back.

At the turn before the hotel, she noticed a black car parked at the entrance. Something in the shape of it made her slow.

She looked at the rear of the car. Toyota.

She stood at the corner and didn't move for a moment.

The hazard lights flashed once, twice.

Xia Chan pressed her lips together, shifted the bag in her hand, and walked forward.

The back window came down. He Huaisheng. Looking more tired than the last time she'd seen him, in the way of someone who has been managing too many things across too much distance.

Neither of them said anything.

After a moment he opened the car door and moved over.

Xia Chan hesitated, then bent down and got in.

The driver pulled away from the hotel. She didn't ask where they were going.

She was still holding the barbecue and the beer. The cans were cold from the night air and were now pressed against her stockinged legs. The chill worked its way in.

After a moment she felt him shift. His hand closed around hers.

She couldn't help curling her fingers. He tightened his grip — enough to be slightly uncomfortable, the kind of pressure that doesn't want to be uncertain about itself.

The car moved through the city. Neither of them spoke. In the back seat the only sound was their breathing.

Xia Chan cleared her throat. "The barbecue is getting cold. Do you want some?"

He Huaisheng's hand released hers.

She reached over and opened the window. Cold air came in fast.

She turned toward him and held out the bag.

He looked at it. He didn't take it.

She shrugged and took out a can for herself instead, opened it, and drank. The cold hit the back of her throat and she shivered.

He Huaisheng reached over and took the can from her hand.

She looked at him.

He tipped his head back and drank — unhurried, the line of his throat moving as he swallowed. When the can was empty he crushed it in one hand, leaned toward the window, and dropped it outside. The sound of it hitting the road came back to them a second later.

In another life, Xia Chan would have had something to say about littering.

Under his gaze now, in this car, on this particular night, she found that she had nothing at all.