As the night grew darker, everything became blurry shadows before his eyes. The plane tree swayed in the wind and shed its leaves. The next morning, leaves would pile up on the ground. Somehow, Gu Nianbin thought of the lean and small figure of the girl who dashed away from him. Then he couldn"t help smiling. It seemed that she would be very busy tomorrow morning.
Gu Shanshan came out of the house and asked, "Brother, why are you standing here blankly ? What are you thinking about?"
Gu Nianbin took his last puff of the cigarette and flicked it far away. The b.u.t.t flew across the sky in an arc and then landed on the patterned tiles.
Getting no response from him, Gu Shanshan went on to ask, "Are you thinking about Xiaowan?"
Gu Nianbin shook his head and asked, "What"s the name of the new girl?"
"Du Xiaoxian." Gu Shanshan became a little curious. "Why do you care about her?"
"Nothing. She seems to fear me and ran away at the first sight of me."
Gu Shanshan burst out laughing and gave him a punch. "You always keep a straight face. Every servant in this house is afraid of you. Someone might have told her something about you, so she ran away immediately after seeing you. Brother, the servants don"t have a good impression of you!"
In fact, Gu Nianbin was a man who looked courtly rather than horrible. He was just a man of few words and had a natural air of dignity and power, so that everyone feared him. He was generally kind to the servants, except for one day, a maid vacuumed the carpet in the hallway when he was in the study. He was then in a bad mood, and the noise irritated him more. He opened the door and scolded the maid. From then on, as long as he was in his room, the servants would tiptoe by the door for fear of disturbing him.
"Let"s go inside." Gu Nianbin turned around. "Where are mom and dad?"
"They are eating fruit. They want you to join them."
"If I didn"t ask, would you remember to tell me?"
"What? That"s because you seemed to suffer from lovesickness. If I asked you to go inside, you would be scolded by mom."
"Total nonsense!" Gu Nianbin glared at her and entered the house with his arm around her shoulder.
Fang Yaru was gratified when she watched her handsome son and beautiful daughter coming in. She recalled when they were children, little Gu Nianbin would play with toddling Gu Shanshan in the yard. How time flew! They both reached the age of marriage, which filled her with mixed feelings.
"Come here to eat some cantaloupe. It is iced and tastes refreshing."
She forked a piece of cantaloupe for Gu Nianbin and another for Gu Shanshan. "I asked you to bring him in, but you kept me waiting for so long. I thought you two had sneaked out again."
Hearing her words, they both burst into laughter. They did that before.
Then Fang Yaru forked a piece of cantaloupe and handed it to Gu Guangxian. "Would you like one more piece?"
"No." Gu Guangxian stood up. "I"m going upstairs."
"Wait, I"ll go with you." After putting down the fruit fork, Fang Yaru stood up and helped Gu Guangxian upstairs. As she walked, she turned around and said to them, "Go to bed early, my honey." It sounded as if they were still children.
Gu Shanshan watched them go upstairs and asked with a smile, "Brother, do you remember the day we sneaked out?"
"Of course I do," Gu Nianbin said slowly. "You were to blame, but I was punished in the end. I shall remember it all my life."
He was quite serious because that night solved his long-held puzzle and enabled him to know his real thoughts. If somebody asked him when he lost his heart to Xia Xiaowan, he would say it was on that night.