It didn't seem like Xie Qingcheng planned to explain further. He merely asked, "Xie Xue never told you?"
"She didn't."
"Maybe she thought it was my personal business."
He Yu fell quiet for a moment. "You and Li Ruoqiu weren't right for each other?"
Li Ruoqiu was Xie Qingcheng's ex-wife.
He Yu had a very deep impression of this woman—he thought there was something wrong with her. How could someone walk into marriage, often touted as the grave of love, with a man as paternalistic and cold as Xie Qingcheng?
In He Yu's memory, Xie Qingcheng seemed devoid of desires. It was like he ought to be always sitting at his office desk in a neat and proper white lab coat, against the backdrop of some overflowing bookshelves, giving off the ice-cold and sobering scent of disinfectant.
He Yu found it hard to believe that Xie Qingcheng would love anyone. He found it even harder to believe that anyone would love Xie Qingcheng.
But Doctor Xie really had gotten married.
He Yu still remembered Xie Qingcheng's wedding day—he had gone at his mother's behest to bring gift money to the newlyweds. He hadn't even bothered to change out of his school uniform. After the driver dropped him off at the hotel, he walked in casually wearing his white athletic shoes, his backpack slung over his shoulders, hands shoved into the pockets of his school-issued gym shorts.
Xie Qingcheng was welcoming the guests.
The team of wedding professionals had put makeup on him. He stood in the center of the crowd, his back as straight as a ruler, his bearing dignified, with pitch-black brows and eyes that resembled fallen stars. The master of ceremonies was saying something to him—it was too loud, and Xie Qingcheng was tall and couldn't hear clearly, so he tilted his head and leaned down to let the emcee speak directly into his ear. In contrast to those around him, Xie Qingcheng's face seemed shockingly pale, like thin porcelain under a spotlight, so fragile it would shatter at the slightest touch.
His lips were slightly pale too, as though the blood in his veins had been frozen under a layer of ice. Skin clear and pristine, lips like red plum blossoms frosted with snow.
Though He Yu didn't like men, he was someone who appreciated beauty.
At that moment, He Yu imagined that the proposal between Li Ruoqiu—who was very pretty, to be honest—and Xie Qingcheng might have gone like this: Xie Qingcheng would be dressed in pure white, his usual ballpoint and fountain pens clipped to his breast pocket, with his hands in his pants pockets, standing like an untouchable alpine flower. Then, in an unrepentantly insufferable tone, he would say to the young lady, "I'm going to marry you. You can go ahead and thank me on your knees."
He Yu was a master at pretending, so of course he wouldn't voice his genuine thoughts. With his messenger bag slung over his shoulder, He Yu walked up to the handsome groom and beautiful bride. Smiling, he said,
"Doctor Xie, Saozi."
"This is…" began Li Ruoqiu.
"A friend's son," Xie Qingcheng said by way of introduction. He had an agreement with the He family; he wouldn't tell outsiders that He Yu was his patient.
"So pretty—what a good-looking kid," Li Ruoqiu complimented.
He Yu gave her a polite, gentlemanly bow, with a faint smile in his dark black eyes. "Nonsense. Saozi is the real beauty."
The teenager retrieved a thick sealed red envelope from his canvas bag. He said, gentle and refined, "Wishing you and Doctor Xie an everlasting and blissful marriage."
Everlasting and blissful his ass.
Back then, he already had an inkling that no one would be able to put up with a man like Xie Qingcheng, but he hadn't expected that this marriage would really be so short-lived. Could he have magically manifested this?
He Yu resisted the building schadenfreude and asked evenly, "Why'd you get divorced all of a sudden?"
Xie Qingcheng said nothing.
"I remember she really liked you back then. When the two of you visited my house after you got married, she only had eyes for you."
Xie Qingcheng broke his silence. "He Yu, this is indeed my personal business."
He Yu arched a brow slightly.
He assessed Xie Qingcheng's arrogant expression. Now that he was facing Xie Qingcheng again, He Yu suddenly felt that many things had changed over the course of the years he had spent abroad.
But He Yu wasn't actually interested in what had changed about Xie Qingcheng, so in the end, he just smiled. "Then never mind. Hope you have a successful matchmaking date."
Xie Qingcheng shot him a cool glance and, without bothering to thank him, turned to leave.
The dorm door closed behind him.
Because He Yu had brought up his ex-wife, Xie Qingcheng found himself involuntarily reminded of his marriage with Li Ruoqiu, a union that could be described as a complete failure.
Xie Qingcheng was well aware of the reason why Xie Xue hadn't mentioned the divorce to He Yu: it was immensely embarrassing. While it was true that Li Ruoqiu had once loved him, it was also true that her love didn't last.
She cheated on him.
This was something that Xie Qingcheng could never accept. He didn't know what love was, but he did know familial duty. With respect to certain issues, his way of thinking was extremely conservative.
But Li Ruoqiu was different.
She believed that the most important thing in a marriage was love, not duty. Thus, their marriage eventually fell apart. Even though she was the one who had fallen in love with a married man, she still cried and lashed out at Xie Qingcheng afterward. She told him he only had eyes for his work, that marrying him was no different from marrying a frigid copy of his work schedule.
In all honesty, this wasn't an unreasonable criticism. Xie Qingcheng knew he wasn't a sentimental man.
Throughout their relationship, Xie Qingcheng had never felt any sort of love for her. She had pursued him for many years, and as they got to know each other, he also began to feel that she was a suitable partner. In due course, they got married.
After they tied the knot, he didn't shirk a single duty or responsibility expected of him as a husband.
But that wasn't the type of marriage she wanted.
Xie Qingcheng was very responsible, but he wasn't romantic, and his personality was rather indifferent. He could remain rational and calm even in bed, never succumbing to or indulging in any desires. It was as if he were completing a task or fulfilling a duty that one was obligated to do after marriage, but he did so without much passion.
Thus, her heart gradually cooled.
She cheated on him, then told him, "Xie Qingcheng, you're a heartless person. Even to this day, you still don't understand. What I want is love, not just a marriage."
But what was love?
Xie Qingcheng only felt the onset of a splitting headache. Who knew how much effort it took for him to refrain from slamming the table in rage. He gazed at her for a very long time. In the end, he spoke numbly, his voice as calm as still water. "Does that man love you? He has a wife and daughter. How sincere do you think he is about you?"
She looked up, her eyes burning with something that Xie Qingcheng couldn't understand at all.
"…I don't care if he has a wife and a kid," Li Ruoqiu said. "I just know that at the very least, he's passionate when he holds me. I can hear his heart beat faster, unlike you, Xie Qingcheng. You're perfectly prim and proper, you never mess around with other women, you let me manage the money and the household—but your heart when you're with me is like a dead man's ECG. We've been married for so many years, but it's only ever been a flat line.
"Life is short—just a few decades. He was once bound by an unhappy marriage, just like me. Now, I've come to a realization: I don't need status, money, or even reputation. Other people can call me loose or a slut if they feel like it, but I only want to be with him."
Xie Qingcheng closed his eyes, the cigarette in his hand about to burn his fingers. "Li Ruoqiu, have you gone insane? There's no such thing as love. Love is just a reaction caused by the dopamine in your body—it's your hormones acting up. But responsibility does exist, and so does family.
You're crazy about him, but is he willing to get divorced and live with you?"
After a moment of silence, the flame in Li Ruoqiu's eyes blazed even more wildly. Finally, she said with tearful resolve, "I just don't want to have regrets.
Xie Qingcheng, love does exist. It might defy norms and be shunned by society, or maybe it's so lowly that it's buried in mud and unspeakable filth, but it does exist. It has nothing to do with hormones or dopamine. I'm sorry there's no way I can continue living with you like this, because now I know what love is. I love him, even if it's wrong."
Despite the many years that had passed since the divorce, Xie Qingcheng still found the conversation absurd every time he thought of it. If "love" was what made someone walk into the fray, despite knowing very well that it was wrong —if "love" made them stand by their mistakes, despite knowing full well that they were stepping into a bottomless abyss, to the point that they could disregard anything, from infamy, scorn, principles, morals, to life itself—then, to him, this seemed less like a type of affection and more like some kind of disease.
He couldn't empathize at all.
Although Xie Qingcheng's personality was staunch, when all was said and done, he was still a straight man who had internalized traditional chauvinistic ideals. When his wife cheated on him and ran off with a married man, that betrayal pained him deeply.
After his divorce, Xie Qingcheng carried on. He went to work, wrote his manuscripts, and taught his students as usual; he didn't seem upset at all. Yet it was plainly obvious to everyone around him that he was rapidly losing weight, his cheeks were becoming slightly sunken, and his voice rasped when he spoke.
Concerned that the university would go viral on Weibo if Xie Qingcheng kicked the bucket, the dean advised him solicitously, "Professor Xie, if you're feeling unwell, just take some time off and go rest at home. You mustn't push yourself too hard."
To the dean's surprise, Xie Qingcheng tossed a flash drive at him. In it was a compressed folder of PowerPoint presentations—the most recent materials for his course. Given how complex and dense the contents were, the dean realized that even at the height of his intellectual and physical prowess, he would have had difficulties putting them together so quickly.
"Do you still want me to go home?" Xie Qingcheng leaned back against his office chair, interlocking his slender fingers. He was so slight he resembled tissue paper and so thin his silhouette seemed like dark smoke. Yet when he looked up, his gaze was still unexpectedly clear—one could even call it coldly sharp.
"I do want to rest," Xie Qingcheng continued, "but please make sure that there's someone other than me who can prepare the first lecture of this course to this standard."
Naturally, there was no one else who could step up to the plate.
The dean could also tell from Xie Qingcheng's blazing gaze that his worry that the university would go viral on Weibo was unfounded for the time being. Those were not the eyes of someone who was about to shrivel up and die.
But hardly anyone knew that in order to keep working properly, in order to bury those shattered emotions at the bottom of his heart, Xie Qingcheng would sit in his bedroom and smoke when he was at home.
Even when he started coughing uncontrollably, he refused to stop. It was as if he wanted to dye his lungs black, as if he wanted to turn the entire house into a nicotine paradise.
His neighbor Auntie Li simply couldn't bear to see him in this state.
In the beginning, the Xie family had been quite well off, as both his parents were high-ranking members of the police force. Later, however, they committed a major error when handling a case and were both demoted to the lowest rank. At that time, his mother also fell ill. In order to pay for her treatment, they sold their large house and moved into an apartment in a small alley in the old city district of Huzhou. They pinched pennies to survive but came to know many enthusiastic neighbors along the way.
Xie Qingcheng hadn't even come of age when his parents passed away, yet he had to take on the responsibility of being the head of the household. All the neighbors pitied the Xie children and made sure to look after them, and Auntie Li was especially attentive to Xie Qingcheng.
Auntie Li was a little younger than Xie Qingcheng's mother. She liked kids, but she never married and had no children of her own. She treated the Xie siblings as though they were her own precious babies, especially after their parents died. This untethered woman and the two orphaned children grew deeply attached to each other.
After Xie Qingcheng's divorce, Auntie Li wept for a long, long time.
Then, like an old mother going bald from stress, she mustered up the energy to introduce girls to him.
In order to avoid hurting Auntie Li's feelings, Xie Qingcheng attended every meeting she set up, but really, he was just going through the motions.
Besides, from the perspective of those girls, he wasn't a great catch either.
Xie Qingcheng's circumstances were considered excellent the first time he got married. He was handsome and tall, a doctor in his twenties at a provincial-level hospital. He was in the prime of his life, with boundless future prospects. His only tangible shortcoming was that he hadn't been born into a wealthy family and didn't have much money.
But now, he was a divorcé, and his salary as a professor wasn't as high as when he had been a doctor. He wasn't that young anymore either, so naturally, his flaws became all the more conspicuous, like a set of unusually protruding ribs. Not only was he a divorced man pushing forty without a nice house or car, but he also had an unmarried younger sister he needed to look after, dragging him down like a child from a previous marriage.
No matter how handsome he was, he wasn't a celebrity, so he couldn't cash in on it to make a living.
How could a girl's parents not mind?
Turning up for matchmaking meetings and dating weren't the same. It was said that compatibility was determined by first impressions, but in reality, one's overall circumstances were the deciding factor. Thus, the conversations often went like this:
"Your job is pretty good, right? Do you have time to take care of a family?"
"I don't. Because I'm a medical school professor, the course materials need to be very detailed and accurate. The students also have many questions, so I often work overtime."
"Oh… Well, your salary isn't bad, right?"
"I'll probably need to teach for another three years or so before I get a raise. But I'm not sure if I'll still be at the university at that time."
"Ah, I see… Do you have any other family?"
"…I have a younger sister."
"Is she married?"
"Not yet."
Silence.
The interrogation was usually sharp and direct, dissecting one's circumstances like a surgical knife, and Xie Qingcheng's answers would completely erase the woman's initially hopeful smile.
Auntie Li became terribly anxious when she found out about this. "Hey, you have to talk yourself up on a matchmaking date! It's all an established convention. Everyone else is bragging, but you get there and downplay yourself from the get-go. People will think you're even lousier than you say you are. Who would know if you embellished a bit?"
Xie Qingcheng originally wanted to say, "I don't want to remarry," but when he met Auntie Li's worried and sorrowful eyes, the words that came out of his mouth turned into, "I've grown used to it. Sorry."
Auntie Li looked at him with wide eyes. After a while, she sounded slightly choked up as she said, "Child, you're so wonderful. How could Buddha possibly not bless you… I burn incense and pray every day, asking the heavens to find a fated marriage for my precious one. Then even if I died right now, it would be worth it…"
"Auntie Li, please don't talk nonsense."
"I'm an old bag of bones, why should I be afraid? But you're different—you're still young. If you don't live well in the future, how could I face your dad and Muying in the underworld…"
Auntie Li cast her net wide, looking for all types of girls, in hopes that she could find a suitable marriage partner for him. Xie Qingcheng didn't like this one bit. He was a proud, arrogant, and unyielding man; he was unwilling to lie and disliked being scrutinized. As a result, his state of mind had done a one-eighty compared to when he had gone on a matchmaking date with Li Ruoqiu. Now, he was certain he would never share the rest of his life with anyone else.
But with his patriarchal personality, how could he bear to let his friends and family cry and hurt because of him? He had to see them live happily under his protection and care.
Thus, in order to make Auntie Li a little happier, he still agreed to go on those matchmaking dates that were akin to job interviews, even though the result was always a foregone conclusion.
His matchmaking date today was with a much younger woman named Bai Jing, who worked at a luxury sales counter in Huzhou's most fashionable mall.
A relative of hers was apparently a professor at a famous medical school.
In this coastal city overflowing with wealth, there were plenty of rich people with millions in assets. Bai Jing spent her days amid the excessive extravagance of the luxury goods counter, listening to the obnoxious bragging of the men and women who frequented the store. This inevitably gave her the misconception that she was also very posh and glamorous.
With her nose in the air, she judged people by the logos on their clothes—those boys wearing Adidas and Nike were immediately labeled as penniless wretches in her mind. At any rate, they'd have to throw on some Prada at least to be good enough to talk to her.
When Xie Qingcheng arrived at the café, Bai Jing was talking to her bestie on the phone. "Aiya, totally. You have no idea—I run into those kinds of dumbasses every single day at work. Today, there was a mother and son, I dunno what the son was wearing—it was probably from Taobao. If I weren't such a professional, I would've rolled my eyes so hard. Ah, wearing Taobao to shop at our counter, dontcha think that's hilarious?"
Holding a teaspoon with her diamond-adorned pinky outstretched, she stirred her little cup of coffee. Bai Jing listened to her friend's reply and covered her mouth as she laughed.
"What can you buy with that? They definitely won't be able to afford it. The both of them would probably need half a year's salary to pay for a single pair of slippers from our counter. And let me tell you something, babe—do you know what that boy asked when he came up to me? He said, 'Do you sell baseball caps here? My mom likes working out and it's her birthday today. I want to buy her a baseball cap.'"
Bai Jing laughed so hard she shook.
"I straight up told him, 'I'm so sorry, the brands we carry here have never made baseball caps. Sir, are you unfamiliar with our brands?' Ha ha ha ha, if only you could've seen his face! It was incredible… Aiya, hold on, I think my date is here. I'll talk to you later then. Let's try out Bulgari for afternoon tea later, babe. Love you! Mwah!"
Unfortunately, the café was noisy so even though Xie Qingcheng was looking for Bai Jing, he didn't hear her obnoxious bragging.
Bai Jing caught sight of Xie Qingcheng peering around and noticed that he fit the description given by the matchmaker. "Very tall, very handsome, peach-blossom eyes, but with a cold demeanor." She waved to him at once. "Hi! Are you Xie Qingcheng, Professor Xie?"
Xie Qingcheng walked over. "Mm. Hello."
Bai Jing gave him a once-over before finally locking her gaze on his simple T-shirt. Suddenly, a smile spread across her face as her voice coyly went up an octave. "Hello, hello, I'm Bai Jing."