Chapter 33: Don't Tell Him I Was Here
Her mother's appendicitis came without warning.
By the time everything was handled — the admission, the paperwork, the waiting — Ruan Jing thought of her lunch with Qiyan and looked at her watch. One o'clock. Her phone had gone missing somewhere in the rush. He would have tried to reach her by now, found nothing, and drawn his own conclusions. She felt a pang at that — he would think she had simply not shown up.
Coming out of the ward she found Ruan Xian in the corridor, phone to her ear, who hung up when she saw her and came over with an expression of mild amusement. "Zhao Lin just called to interrogate me about how you and Qiyan got together. You two are really committed to alarming people."
"Sis. Can I borrow your phone?"
She dialed the number she knew by now without thinking. It rang seven or eight times. No answer. She handed the phone back.
"Looking for Zhao Qiyan?" Ruan Xian said. "He's probably still having tea with his parents right now." A pause, then, practically: "Everything's under control here. You could head off if you need to."
"I'll stay until Mom wakes up."
Their cousin Ruan Minghui appeared at the end of the corridor, returning from eating. "A-Jing, your phone. I ran into Jiang Yan outside — he had it."
Ruan Xian said something unflattering under her breath. Ruan Jing took the phone, checked the messages. Nothing from Zhao Qiyan. She felt the absence of it more than she'd expected.
Back in the private room, Zhao Qiyan's mother watched her son over the rim of her teacup.
"Qiyan. Is the tea alright?"
"Your choices are always to my liking." Mrs. Zhao smiled, studying him. He had been slightly elsewhere since sitting down — not obviously, but she knew this face too well. "You don't need to stay if something's come up. I'm not going anywhere."
"I'm fine. And you're not old."
"I'm practically of grandmother age," she said. "How can I not be?"
Qi Yan looked at her. "Is that a hint?"
"You've always been perceptive." She set down her cup. "Your father and I have wanted grandchildren for years. We've never pushed you because we knew you had little interest in the usual path. But now—" She left it open.
Zhao Qiyan pressed two fingers to his forehead. He didn't want to worry them. He also couldn't make promises about things he wasn't yet certain of himself. He said nothing, and the room carried on around his silence.
Evening. Jiang Yan came back to the hospital after work and found Ruan Jing alone by the window, looking at nothing in particular.
"Where's Auntie?"
She startled. "Oh — restroom. I'm about to take her."
He put down the fruit he'd brought. "Have you eaten?"
"I'll eat at home."
He glanced at his watch. "I need to go back too. We can go together."
Ruan Jing looked at him. "You're being unusually polite."
Jiang Yan didn't argue the point. He noticed that her expression was off — tired, and carrying something heavier underneath it. He reached out, without fully deciding to, and touched her cheek briefly.
"What are you doing?"
For once he produced a real smile — unhurried, without the usual edge. "I was thinking. You used to do things without stopping to think. You've changed."
"People do."
"Yes." His gaze moved toward the door. Ruan Jing followed it.
Zhao Qiyan was standing in the doorway.
He had clearly been there for some time. His expression was composed, giving nothing away.
"Why did you come?" She was already moving toward him, then caught herself. "Are you angry? I completely forgot — my mom got sick suddenly—"
"I know. It's alright." He had already understood, the moment he saw her, that she was relieved he was there. That was enough. His expression softened in a way he didn't bother to conceal. "I thought you might want to see me."
"I did." He said it simply, with the slight awkwardness of someone unaccustomed to admitting things directly. "Can we have dinner? I was worried that standing you up today upset you, so I didn't dare call."
"How could that be." Whatever remained of the day's difficulty arranged itself into something more manageable the moment he was in the room. She turned back toward where Jiang Yan was collecting his coat. "This is Zhao Qiyan. My boyfriend." Then, to Qiyan: "Jiang Yan. My older brother."
Qi Yan nodded. "Hello."
Jiang Yan picked up his coat and walked out without a word.
Ruan Jing exhaled. "He's upset again."
Qi Yan stepped closer and put his arm around her, lightly. "Do you like him?"
She looked up. "What?"
"Jiang Yan." He said it with more steadiness than he felt. "You were watching him the whole time. You didn't even notice me come in."
He understood, even as he asked, that the question was unreasonable. He had suppressed it once already and apparently not finished the job. Possessiveness, he was discovering, didn't respond well to logic. The particular discomfort of watching that man move through the same space as Ruan Jing, speak her name, touch her face without asking — it sat in him like a splinter he couldn't locate. He was capable of managing his expression. He was less capable of managing the thing underneath it.
Ruan Jing looked at him steadily. "Zhao Qiyan. You should trust me a little more than that. Whatever else you're uncertain about — I wouldn't be unfaithful to you." She paused. "He's my senior, and my elder. And my lover is you."
Zhao Qiyan was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed, briefly and with some embarrassment. "I've learned something today."
"Your stubbornness is genuinely remarkable."
"I've never claimed to be competent where you're concerned." He was in a good enough mood to accept the teasing without minding it. "After dinner — would you come somewhere with me?"
Meeting Mrs. Zhao was, for Ruan Jing, an exercise in not knowing what to say and managing it less badly than she'd feared. Mrs. Zhao was easy to be around — warm without being overwhelming, asking things Ruan Jing could actually answer. When Zhao Qiyan appeared with juice and sat beside her, she asked quietly whether his mother approved of her.
He leaned in. "She likes you because you're who I like."
Mrs. Zhao, standing nearby and not intending to overhear, heard it anyway. She watched the way her son looked at this woman and felt, simultaneously, glad and afraid. He was further in than she'd realized. She could only hope the girl would match what he was bringing to it.
It was past ten when he walked her home.
He came inside with her, and found every light on. The whole family was assembled — her mother, Ruan Minghui, Jiang Yan — and the atmosphere was the particular kind of still that means something has happened.
Ruan Zheng had been reported for embezzlement. The court had accepted the case. A preliminary investigation was already underway.
Even if he was eventually cleared, the damage to his name would outlast the process. The schools, the family's century-old foundation, the future of everyone connected to the Ruan name — all of it suddenly precarious. That night the family moved immediately, contacting lawyers, calling relatives back from out of town. The room had the quality of a siege.
Ruan Jing did not sleep.
She watched her grandfather break his cane. She sat with it.
She thought about calling Zhao Qiyan and stopped herself. This wasn't something she could discuss in the open yet. She didn't want to bring it to him half-formed and frightened.
She put the phone down and sat in the dark.
Her mother was discharged the next day and told the younger generation, in the way of someone who has made a decision and will not revisit it, to keep doing their jobs and let the adults handle this.
Ruan Jing spent the morning at her desk unable to focus, running on insufficient sleep and too many simultaneous anxieties. At three in the afternoon, after attending a Ministry of Education meeting in the city alongside Jiang Yan, she found herself driving toward Zhao Qiyan's shop without having fully decided to.
She pushed open the door. An unfamiliar waiter greeted her. She glanced toward the corner Qiyan usually occupied. Empty.
A waitress who recognized her came over quickly, said something to the new waiter, who looked embarrassed and stepped back.
"Is he not here?"
"A lady came around midday. Seemed like something to discuss with the boss. He left early afternoon."
Ruan Jing nodded. She looked at her watch. "If he comes back—" She stopped. "Never mind. It's nothing." She turned to go, then turned back. "Don't tell him I was here."
She parked outside a convenience store down the street, went in, bought a fruit beer, opened it on the way back to the car and took a few slow sips in the afternoon light. She wasn't particularly thirsty. She wasn't sure what she was.
Across the street, the department store doors opened.
Zhao Qiyan came out.
Beside him was a woman — elegant, unhurried. Ruan Jing knew her. Xie Xia.
She stood very still for a moment.
Then she decided to retreat before they saw her, turned to go, and found she was too late.
"Ah Jing!" Xie Xia raised a hand. Zhao Qiyan was already crossing the street toward her, a smile breaking through before he'd said anything. "What are you doing here?"
"Just browsing."
"Long time, Jing." Xie Xia came over, and her eyes fell on the can in Ruan Jing's hand with amusement. "Drinking in the middle of the afternoon?"
"I was thirsty."
Her phone moved. A message from Ruan Xian asking to be picked up. She looked at it, then at the two of them. "I have to go. You should carry on." She nodded briefly at Qi Yan as she said it.
"Goodbye, A-Jing." Xie Xia watched her get into the car and pull away, then turned to Zhao Qiyan with the relaxed interest of someone whose thoughts run toward aesthetics. "Ruan Jing has a wonderful quality to her. I've always wanted to paint her. Do you think she'd agree to sit for me?"
Zhao Qiyan's eyes stayed on the intersection where the car had disappeared. He brought himself back slowly, a small unremarkable melancholy moving through him.
"Shall we go," he said. "If you miss your flight—"
"Then I'll go later. I'm more worried about wearing out my welcome."
"You never could." He put a hand briefly to her shoulder. "You're always welcome here, whenever you come."
Xie Xia looked at him — the same face, the same quality of composure, but layered over with something she recognized as time well spent. He had always been difficult to get close to; the years had not changed that, had perhaps deepened it. She said, quietly: "I know we couldn't be that. But in my own accounting, you've always been more than a friend to me. I've admired you, and depended on you, and I understood — you never saw me differently for it. You're good with everyone. And you're — very hard. I used to wonder who would ever make you look twice. Who would be worth a piece of your real attention."
Zhao Qiyan smiled, a small thing, clean and without performance.
He didn't answer. He didn't need to.
After seeing Xie Xia off, he drove to the Ruan house.
He didn't go in that evening. A call came before he reached the door, and he turned back.
He didn't see her that night.
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