Chapter 24: Chapter Nine

“What are you up to again?” she said, exasperated.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. You can disappear now.”

“I just got back from England and didn’t prepare anything to celebrate your opening, but…” he said sincerely.

“Are you giving me an opening gift?” Bai Ziling interrupted eagerly. “If you disappear, that’ll be the best gift.”

“Who brought in that idol group?” Jiang Jie chatted with her.

“Han Ze.”

“Looks like you’ve got quite the network.”

“Have you finished talking?” Bai Ziling feared Xia Zhen and Sima Xingchen would spot Jiang Jie here, so she grabbed his arm and dragged him to a less conspicuous spot.

“Bai Ziling, I’m not your lover. Do you really need to hide me like this?” Jiang Jie said, displeased.

“I don’t want them to see you.” She let go of him.

“Am I that shameful to be seen?”

“No! You’re perfectly presentable—but I don’t want them to think we’re still connected. Did you bring the divorce agreement?”

“I didn’t bring a divorce agreement.” He told her bluntly.

“You didn’t?!”

“I don’t want to divorce.”

“You don’t want to divorce?!” Bai Ziling nearly fainted. “What do you have to do to me before you’re satisfied? Jiang Jie, I want freedom! I believe you need it more than I do!”

“I miss you.” Jiang Jie’s sudden confession.

Bai Ziling nearly suffocated. What did he say?! He said he missed her?! Was this her “hallucination,” or had he truly spoken those words?

“Bai Ziling, perhaps I truly hurt you deeply before—but I never meant to.” He apologized to her.

“Not meant to?” She refused to forgive him. “What did you say then? As long as I gave myself to you, I could leave with a check the next morning. What were you feeling then? And think about how I felt! Jiang Jie, you treated me like a prostitute!”

“I never treated you like a prostitute!” he retorted.

“Then what was I?”

“I hadn’t figured things out yet.”

Bai Ziling felt no sense of clarity. Other women might have rushed forward to embrace him at his confession, burying old grievances—but not her! She wasn’t so easily fooled.

“Jiang Jie, do you know me?” Bai Ziling asked coldly.

“I…”

“Do you know what’s going on in my mind?”

“I don’t know.” He spoke plainly.

“You don’t know, and you don’t understand me—so why are you here? Looking for trouble? Are you really that dense?” She scolded him without mercy.

Jiang Jie fell silent.

“Don’t provoke me again, or…” It wasn’t very moral to drag Di Zhiwei into this, but to make Jiang Jie give up, she had to be ruthless. “Or I’ll really get together with Di Zhiwei—and then I’ll have to call you ‘cousin.’”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Jiang Jie suddenly roared like an angry lion.

“I wouldn’t dare?” Now it was Bai Ziling’s turn to be bold. “Marrying Di Zhiwei doesn’t sound bad—I could help him get the inheritance your grandfather left him, and I could… actually get pregnant!”

Jiang Jie raised his hand. He never thought he’d hit a woman—much less that his first target would be Bai Ziling.

“You…” Bai Ziling’s face twisted in agony. She didn’t cover her cheek, but she could feel its burning heat—his strike had been no light blow.

“Bai Ziling…” Jiang Jie was filled with regret. If time could rewind to just before he raised his hand, he’d rather cut off his own hand than give her that slap.

“I hate you…” she whispered.

“You won’t be with Zhiwei.”

“It’s none of your business!”

“You’re still my wife.”

“You’d better publish it in the papers! Tell the whole world I’m your wife—I don’t care!” She shouted defiantly, childishly. “I’m not just going to be with Di Zhiwei—I’ll go through man after man. I’ll make myself a whore. So what?! Kill me if you can!”

Jiang Jie just glared at her fiercely.

“If you don’t want to wear green, get your lawyer to send me the divorce agreement right away!” She issued her final ultimatum.

Jiang Jie remained silent. He truly didn’t know what to say now.

【Chapter Nine】

Overwhelmed and seeking escape, Bai Ziling, though still running her coffee shop, temporarily vanished to avoid Jiang Jie—and even Di Zhiwei. Her cousin Tong Yiwen ran a kindergarten on a hill in Xindian, so Bai Ziling went to stay with her.

Tong Yiwen was only two or three years older than Bai Ziling, but she was the type of woman—kind yet conservative and rigid—who always buttoned her shirt to the top, wore dark long pants, tied her long hair into a ponytail, wore no makeup, and looked like a woman from the early Republican era.

She asked no questions about Bai Ziling’s sudden arrival. Her home was inside the kindergarten; having Bai Ziling around meant another helper and another companion.

Bai Ziling admired her cousin—not just for running a kindergarten alone, but for her lack of prying and nagging. Tong Yiwen never asked why Bai Ziling had appeared so suddenly, nor what troubles she carried. They seemed to have known each other all their lives.

Nights on the hill were dull and monotonous—nothing but a sky full of stars and a room of silence. At first, Bai Ziling flipped through books or listened to the radio, since Tong Yiwen had no cable TV. But as days passed, she began to feel each day drag like a year.

Watching her, Tong Yiwen one night suddenly handed her two balls of yarn and four knitting needles.

“Cousin, what’s this—”

“I’ll teach you to knit a sweater.”

“Knit a sweater?!” Bai Ziling’s eyes nearly popped out. In her entire life, aside from basic sewing in junior high and high school home economics, she’d never fixed a button herself. Now she was expected to learn to knit…

“Don’t want to learn?” Tong Yiwen glanced at her without pressing.

“Can’t I just buy one?”

“Buying and making your own are different.”

“But…”

“I just want you to use knitting to calm your emotions. It’ll give you something to focus on, so you won’t drift aimlessly every day, wondering how to endure.” Tong Yiwen spoke with wisdom beyond her years.

Bai Ziling felt a little ashamed.

“Knitting is actually very interesting—so many patterns, stitches, endless variations. Every sweater you make is unique. You’ll never worry about matching someone else’s.”

“I’ve never been interested in this kind of thing…”

“Never?” Tong Yiwen finished for her.

“My home economics grades were always barely passing.”

Tong Yiwen didn’t push her. She began knitting swiftly, her movements calm and peaceful. After a full day with a room full of rowdy children, she still had the energy and focus to knit—a woman of twenty-five or twenty-six…

“Cousin, why did you come to live on this hill?” Bai Ziling suddenly asked, curious. She and this cousin weren’t close; if not for Jiang Jie’s doing, she’d still be comfortably in Taipei.

“Come to live?”

“Honestly, at your age, no one would exile themselves to a place this remote—where even buying groceries requires driving. Don’t give me that nonsense about ‘educating the nation’s future.’” Bai Ziling wanted to have a real talk with her cousin—after all, the big house held only the two of them.

Tong Yiwen only smiled faintly.

“Did you get hurt in love?” Bai Ziling guessed.

“Not what you think.”

“Then what?”

Tong Yiwen’s expression made it clear she didn’t want to talk about it.

“No modern woman dresses as conservatively and rigidly as you do—like you’re trying to wrap yourself entirely. A little exposure is still elegance, still sensuality.”

“I’m used to dressing this way.”

“This isn’t healthy.”