He Yu stood quite a way off from the commotion, at a rather distant corner, and no one really noticed him.
This tiny alley could hardly be considered a tourist spot or a viral place of interest, but it had been completely surrounded by an impenetrable mob, with many members of the crowd holding their cell phones aloft and raising a ruckus.
Meanwhile, Xie Qingcheng had returned by taxi to Moyu Alley just moments earlier.
Because his and He Yu's shared fit of madness last night had dragged on for too long, by the time he woke up, it was no longer early. And with the argument, payment, and back-and-forth that had ensued afterward, the sky had already begun to darken by the time he made it back to Moyu Alley. On a normal day, everyone would already be at home eating dinner by now.
But that was not the case at Moyu Alley today.
When Xie Qingcheng drew closer, he found a group of civil police standing at the gates. They were preventing the throng of people holding up phones and taking photos and videos from entering the area.
Seeing that it was a one-way road, the taxi driver said, "I'll have to park here."
"Here is fine, thank you," Xie Qingcheng replied as he paid the fare.
As soon as his long legs stepped out of the taxi, blinding flashes of white light filled his vision. For a second, he thought he must be feeling so terrible that his vision was blurring—only to realize that the lights were coming from the crowd, who were frantically snapping photos and videos of him while being held back by the police officers. With such an enthusiastic spectacle, someone not in the know might even think that some celebrity had arrived.
"It's him!"
"Xie Qingcheng, could you tell us what the broadcasting tower murder case has to do with you?"
"Why would a criminal organization play videos of you? Why only you and not anyone else? Do you have some connection to Cheng Kang Psychiatric Hospital?"
"People on the internet are saying you were involved in the plan to imprison and molest mentally ill women. Aren't you going to dispel the rumors?"
"Xie Qingcheng, why would you insult Professor Qin Ciyan? He was a national hero like no other! Do you have no conscience?! How can someone like you be a doctor, a teacher?! Go put yourself behind bars!"
Xie Qingcheng had already had a rough idea of the situation before he arrived. Thanks to the Huzhou University broadcasting tower case, his home had become an unfortunate epicenter of chaos. Someone had leaked and spread Xie Qingcheng's home address online, so the little internet celebrities with their video cameras and bystanders with simple ideologies all began to show up like piranhas scenting blood, pouring into Moyu Alley in droves.
Not only had his house been defaced with paint, but his next-door neighbors had been affected too. Auntie Li had rushed outside to argue with them, but she had been recorded and the video had been subsequently spread online. The netizens said that she was Xie Qingcheng's mom, just some harpy throwing a tantrum. Xie Xue had been smeared even more absurdly. People were claiming that she was Xie Qingcheng's mistress, the "other woman." The person who uploaded that video got a ton of views for it.
Later, Xie Xue had called the police in tears. Chen Man was among the police officers who arrived on the scene, and they chased all those people out of the alley. The ones making an especially big racket were taken directly to the police station to drink tea.
After that, some of the troublemakers stopped splashing paint and disturbing the residents, but a number of them stayed camped out by the gates. They knew that Xie Qingcheng would eventually come home, and look! Wasn't he here right now?
"Get his picture!"
"Xie Qingcheng, look over here at the camera."
Look, my ass. Xie Qingcheng ignored them completely as he slammed the car door, pulled aside the police cordon, and walked in with an aura befitting a VIP. As a result, the shabby little Huzhou taxi took on a quality akin to the luxury car of a mafia boss.
"Ge! Ge!"
It was surprisingly quiet in the alleyway. Xie Xue was sitting on a little stool in front of their house, but the moment she saw Xie Qingcheng, she jumped up and launched herself at him. Her velocity combined with her 45 kg body weight nearly broke Xie Qingcheng's already painfully aching back, causing him to stumble back a few steps.
Ordinarily, her big brother could catch her with one hand and even spin her around several times with ease, but Xie Qingcheng couldn't even handle her tackle hug now. Startled, Xie Xue looked up at him with puff red eyes. "Ge, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"
"It's nothing." Xie Qingcheng coughed quietly. "I lost my footing."
Chen Man also walked over. "Xie-ge."
All their neighbors were gathered in the courtyard. The uncles and aunties were waving their palm-leaf fans, shooing away the mosquitoes and flies. They all turned to look at Xie Qingcheng when they saw him return, but no one spoke.
Dressed in a floral nightgown, Auntie Li was sitting beneath an old camphor tree, wiping her tears. She had gotten her shoes mixed up when she'd shoved her feet inside them in a hurry to shuffle out the door.
Xie Qingcheng, still holding Xie Xue, patted her on the head and back to console her, then looked around. Because of all the internet celebrities who had poured in earlier, the shabby but quietly elegant alleyway had been rendered a hideous mess. Uncle Liu's flowerpots had been smashed, Auntie Zhao's fence had been torn down, and even the doghouse for Mrs. Wang's son's husky had been flattened into a pile of wood by the crowd's stampeding feet.
The dog was still standing dumbfounded at the side, likely because it had yet to recover from what had just happened. It thought to itself, wasn't property damage supposed to be a dog's realm of expertise? How was it that these people were so much more beastly that they even managed to destroy its doghouse?
Even more unsightly was the bloodred paint that had been splashed across not only the Xie family residence but also two neighboring households. Shockingly, someone had also spray-painted the words "fuck off" in crooked letters using scarlet spray paint.
Xie Qingcheng had a sturdy, resilient psyche, so he didn't become demoralized in the face of all this destruction. In fact, he didn't even seem to be all that negatively affected—indeed, after his experiences last night, what could possibly affect him now?
He did feel very apologetic that others had been involved, though, so after a long moment of silence, he turned toward the neighbors in the courtyard and said, "I'm sorry for disturbing all of you with this mess."
The evening wind rustled through the courtyard, blowing through the loquat tree, the creeping ivy, and the pajamas of the old uncles and aunties.
After a long pause, Granny Zhang spoke. "Xiao-Xie…"
Xie Qingcheng didn't respond. He assumed Granny Zhang was talking to Xie Xue. It had been years since any of his neighbors had called him Xiao-Xie. Everyone thought he was cold and formidable, so they all referred to him as Professor Xie or Doctor Xie, and he had only been called Xiao-Xie when he was still in school. It was only when Granny Zhang walked over with faltering steps and reached out to grasp his arm with a hand that was covered in skin like old tree bark that he realized she was actually calling out to him.
"Um, Xiao-Xie, don't be scared… We've all left our phones inside. None of us have them with us right now, so no one's going to take pictures of you or hurt you here…"
Xie Qingcheng started in surprise. Only now did he see the tears of concern welling up in Granny Zhang's age-blurred eyes.
"It's all right, dear child, go get some sleep. The police are here, so those people can't get in. As for the yard, we'll clean it up… Don't think too much about it. It's all right, it's all right."
"Yeah, Xiao-Xie, it's all right."
"Those people are a bunch of monsters in human skin. Don't take those influencers to heart."
"That's right. Besides, this fence of mine has been up for a decade already. This is a perfect opportunity to get a new one."
"Xie-gege, I can get a bigger doghouse too. I bought this one when Awoo was still a puppy. It's a squeeze even when it's just sleeping."
When he was outside the alleyway just moments before, Xie Qingcheng had felt rather numb. Verbal abuse mattered very little to him; it was nothing more than dust in the wind that he didn't need to care about. He couldn't even be bothered to spare his detractors a single glance. As long as no one was injured, everything was fine.
But in this moment, looking at these old neighbors who he regularly crossed paths with, who he'd lived alongside for over twenty years, he suddenly felt something in his heart shatter. It was boiling hot but had a dull pain alongside it.
"I'm really very sorry. I've troubled you so much."
He didn't know what he ought to say, especially when he saw that the white magnolia tree in Uncle Liu's yard had also been trampled, its elegant sheltering branches toppled between spilt mud and shattered pottery.
It was as if his heart had likewise been scraped by those broken pieces of pottery. Looking at Uncle Liu's stooped figure, he said, "This is the tree that Auntie Sun planted."
Auntie Sun had been Uncle Liu's wife. She had passed away from lung cancer several years ago, but when she was still alive, she liked white magnolias the most. She had planted this tree with her own hands over twenty years ago, back when she was still a young auntie with a clear and powerful voice, and Uncle Liu was still a vigorous man with a ramrod straight back.
A flowering tree unmoved by twenty years of wind and rain had been snapped at the waist under the trampling feet of a single evening's surging crowd.
Uncle Liu stared at the rings of the tree's trunk, spacing out. Each ring was like the shadow of a happier time, a ripple raised by her smile.
Xie Qingcheng was a man of steel, but this time, after a long stretch of silence, he couldn't seem to suppress the slight hoarseness of his voice. "I'm sorry, Uncle."
At long last, Uncle Liu finally drifted back to reality. "Aiya, it's all right, Xiao-Xie," he said. He walked over, leaning on his cane, and patted Xie Qingcheng on the back just like during his younger years, when the uncle who worked at the steelworks would pat that young man's back with large hands as sturdy as iron towers.
"It's all right, it's just a tree. Just as long as everyone's okay, just as long as everyone's okay. A tree… A tree can…be replanted…"
But as the old man said this, he couldn't help but bow his head and wipe away the tears in his eyes.
Everyone knew that even if they planted another tree, it wouldn't be the same one. The person who planted this one had already been laid to rest. Now the tree had followed in her footsteps, like the fading years of their youth.
Uncle Liu dragged a faint smile back onto his wrinkled face. "Back then, you were the one who bought this tree for Wanyun from the garden market. Your parents helped her plant it. Do you think I've gotten dementia in my old age? I still remember everything."
"That's right," someone else chimed in. "Xiao-Xie, we've lived together for almost twenty years, how could we not know what sort of person you are, and what sort of people your parents were? No matter what they're saying out there, you and Xiao-Xue still have all us neighbors. Don't worry, okay? Go inside and get some rest. Wash up, you look exhausted."
"Yeah, hurry and wash up. Your face is so gloomy. Aah, if your parents were alive to see it, they'd be dying of heartbreak…"
Xie Xue raised her head from within Xie Qingcheng's arms and looked tearfully at everyone around them. Then, unable to bear it any longer, she buried her face in her brother's chest again and started sobbing loudly.
After thanking everyone and apologizing profusely, Xie Qingcheng brought Xie Xue back inside their house. Chen Man and Auntie Li followed them in.
From the inside, the paint on the windows looked even more like streaks of blood left behind by a sinister set of claws. Xie Qingcheng had no words.
"Xie-ge, don't worry too much," Chen Man said. "These people are like a swarm of locusts; they'll be gone before you know it. They're just looking for trouble, and I've asked my colleagues to settle things with them one by one. The police will stay here at Moyu Alley for the next few days, so there won't be any more problems…"
Xie Qingcheng coughed softly. His whole body was aching and burning with fever, and he was barely hanging on through sheer force of will. The dim lighting inside the room was the only reason no one could tell he was clearly ill.
He tapped out a cigarette and was about to light it when he caught sight of Auntie Li. He put the lighter back down again without saying anything.
"Ge, what are we supposed to do now…"
"Xiao-Xie, was there some sort of misunderstanding about the matter with Professor Qin back then? You…you mentioned him a few times before and always spoke highly of him. When you said those things, you must have… You must have had a reason." Auntie Li wiped her tears. "Can you think of a way to explain this to everyone? Hmm? Then those people will stop chasing after you and giving you a hard time…"
Xie Qingcheng remained silent.
After a beat, Auntie Li urged, "Xiao-Xie, say something."
Outside, the darkness of the long night was oppressively heavy.
Inside, the people closest to him were right by his side.
Xie Qingcheng's trembling fingers fiddled unconsciously with his steel lighter, igniting it, then putting it out, then igniting it, and then putting it out again…
Finally, he tossed the lighter to the side again and closed his eyes. Although his voice was hoarse from exhaustion, it was resolute and unyielding. "There wasn't any reason."
It was Auntie Li's turn to be dumbfounded.
"No one has accused me falsely. I said it and I meant it. I truly couldn't accept the ridiculous things that Qin Ciyan did. My attitude had changed by then, and my relationship with him wasn't very good either. I said those words on a moment's impulse when I was lacking in judgment."
"But Ge—" Xie Xue spoke up.
"I'm not perfect, Xie Xue. Your brother is an ordinary person—there are times when I get scared and worried. You were still so young back then, and I saw him get murdered right in front of my eyes. There was no way I could keep on working in the healthcare system… I got scared, so I quit. That's what happened."
A lengthy silence followed.
When Xie Xue spoke again, her voice sounded like a kitten's helpless mewl. "Ge, can't you be honest, even with us?"
Xie Qingcheng spent a long time lost in thought, with specters from the past seeming to flash across his field of vision. Eventually, he closed his eyes, lowered his head, and gathered his hands together, pressing them between his brows. He said softly, "What I said is the truth. I'm sorry… I've disappointed you all."
And so that conversation ultimately concluded with a drawn-out silence. Everyone in the room listening to him knew very well that Xie Qingcheng was stubborn to a fault.
"There's thirty thousand yuan on this card," Xie Qingcheng said at last. "Auntie Li, please take it. We still need to compensate the neighbors for their damaged property, even if they said that there's no need. If not for me, they wouldn't have been drawn into this mess. I'll think of ways to take care of anything that's left. Please stay at home and don't worry about it."
"Xiao-Xie…"
Xie Qingcheng had the exact same peach-blossom eyes as his mother, Zhou Muying—and there was an identical flintiness in them as well.
Auntie Li's heart twinged again.
An orphan abandoned at a temple, Li Miaoqing had worked as an escort in a Huzhou nightclub in her youth. As she waited upon those clients and attended to their needs, everyone called her a whore who stank between the legs. Once, when Zhou Muying was on assignment during a crackdown on the sex trade, she brought her in for questioning.
Back then, Li Miaoqing didn't listen to anyone. She sat in the interrogation room with a cigarette she'd obtained from another police officer between her lips, unwilling to answer a single question.
Still, she said to Zhou Muying, "They said I'm just a whore who stinks between the legs. So what. You might've caught me, but I'm just going to turn around and keep selling myself—as if you can stop me!"
Zhou Muying replied, "Li Miaoqing, you're only seventeen. I don't want to lock you up. Once you enter that place, it'll leave a stain on you for the rest of your life. I know you don't have parents or a family. Here's my card—this is my office phone number, and this is my personal number. Call me if you ever need anything. I'm not just a police officer—I'm a woman and a mother too. I don't want to see a girl who hasn't even come of age yet go down this path. You don't need to call me Officer Zhou, you can just call me Muying. I can help you. You don't need to be afraid."
Back then, when that same pair of peach-blossom eyes looked at her from across the interrogation room, Li Miaoqing had felt like an earthquake was tearing through her body, radiating out from the epicenter of her scarred and battered heart.
Later on, she became a member of Zhou Muying's eclectic circle of friends. At that time, their relationship was very steady. Zhou Muying always looked after this young woman who had lost her way, and she even invited her over for the New Year. She never once looked down on her.
When Zhou Muying and Xie Ping fell on hard times and couldn't find a suitable place to live, Li Miaoqing asked around in Moyu Alley, where she herself was living, and found a deal on a second-hand house. That was how they became neighbors. Over the course of the next two decades of trials and tribulations, Li Miaoqing never earned a living through such sordid means again. She became a tailor and made qipao, and she sewed countless beautiful gowns for Zhou Muying.
Now Li Miaoqing was gray at the temples, and Zhou Muying was nothing more than bone beneath the Yellow Springs. The last qipao she made for her Zhou-jiejie was Zhou Muying's burial dress, cut from a gorgeous brocade. She'd deliberately sewed it in a long-sleeved style to cover Zhou Muying's severed arm.
Because Li Miaoqing knew that Zhou Muying wasn't just a police officer. She was also a woman, a mother, a wife. She liked being beautiful. And she was the most beautiful…with those bright, resolute eyes.
Right now, it was like those eyes had crossed time to gaze at Li Miaoqing's creased, wrinkled face through all the years that had passed.
"After everything that's already happened, this is really nothing to me," Xie Qingcheng insisted.
In the end, Li Miaoqing let out a sigh and didn't speak any further.
Xie Qingcheng helped the older woman and the younger girl to their respective rooms to rest.
Outside, it began to rain.
The hour grew later.
Xie Qingcheng put on a fall jacket and took out two umbrellas, handing one to Chen Man.
"You should go home, it's getting late."
"Ge, you're not staying here tonight?" Chen Man was a bit surprised. Given Xie Qingcheng's personality, he'd expected him to stay with Xie Xue today.
But Xie Qingcheng really couldn't hold on any longer.
He felt like his forehead was on fire and his body was made of cotton, never mind the aching pain radiating from that one unspeakable part of his body. If Chen Man had been a bit more observant, he would have realized that Xie Qingcheng had hardly sat down the entire night.
"I'm not staying. There are some things I need to take care of at school, so I'm heading back to the dormitory."
"Why don't I give you a ride…"
Xie Qingcheng pushed the door open, and a chilly gust from the autumn rain blew into the room.
"There's no need." With the black carbon fiber handle of the umbrella in hand, wrapped up in his fall windbreaker, Xie Qingcheng walked into the pitch-dark night.
He couldn't pretend for much longer. He could feel that his back was drenched in cold sweat as flashes of heat surged through him. His face was burning, and everything was spinning before his eyes as though half of his consciousness had been yanked harshly out of his body.
Chen Man said, "Then you…"
"I'm leaving. Thanks for your hard work today. You should go home soon."
By the time Xie Qingcheng walked out of the alley, it was already past two in the morning, yet there were still people braving the rain and waiting outside. Xie Qingcheng had to admire their persistence. He called a taxi from within the police cordon. When the car arrived, he folded his umbrella and ducked inside, cutting off the explosion of camera flashes and noise on the other side of the door.
The moment he entered the car, he couldn't take it any longer. Leaning back in exhaustion, he lifted a hand to cover his eyes.
The cabbie asked him, "Da-ge, where to?"
Xie Qingcheng didn't answer.
"Da-ge?" The other man called out several times before Xie Qingcheng slowly resurfaced from his fevered confusion.
He knew that he really ought to go to the hospital. But he didn't want to at all. What was he supposed to tell the doctor when he got there? He would rather use all his pride and fortitude to take that secret to his grave than breathe a word of what had happened within the confines of that small room in the club to anyone. How could he possibly explain the reason behind his fever to the doctor?
He was a doctor himself. He might as well just go home, take some anti-inflammatories, and leave it be.
So, Xie Qingcheng discarded the word "hospital," which had been at the tip of his tongue, and instead replied, "The Huzhou Medical School faculty dorm, thanks."
The cabbie sped off.
Xie Qingcheng didn't see Chen Man lingering amongst the noisy crowd. After standing there for a long time, the young police officer's brow creased with worry. Finally, he turned around and went back into Moyu Alley, only to come out again a while later.
Xie Qingcheng also didn't see He Yu sitting behind the glass display window of the 24-hour convenience store across the street, drinking a cup of coffee. Or how, after tossing his coffee, He Yu tugged down the brim of his hat and walked out of the store.