17. Heading North Together

Having arranged for Tao Muwei to stay temporarily with his English teacher, Hu Naiyu, and having taken care of everything else, Gao Weizhao and Wen Mingjuan went together to the High Speed Rail station, ready to board the train up to Taipei.

Tickets bought, in the waiting room, Wen Mingjuan sat beside Gao Weizhao; outside, the sky had already gone completely dark. She wasn't sure how it had happened, but a strange sense of "leaning on each other for survival" had welled up in her heart.

What a curious twist of fate this was.

If she'd never known Gao Weizhao in the first place, how could she possibly be feeling this sense of "leaning on each other for survival" here today?

The world was so vast, and yet only a single, tenacious thread bound the two of them together.

And that thread was none other than Lan Yunmei's fate.

"Gao Weizhao." After thinking it over for a good while, Wen Mingjuan called out to him.

"How am I supposed to repay this debt I owe you?" She asked.

"Repay?" Gao Weizhao looked somewhat puzzled. "I never asked you to repay anything."

A subtle, faint feeling spread quietly through Wen Mingjuan's heart. When she'd first gotten to know Gao Weizhao, he'd always carried himself with that cold, forbidding air, keeping everyone at arm's length—but now, that didn't seem to be the case anymore, though she couldn't quite put her finger on what exactly had changed.

And when had this change even begun? Wen Mingjuan tilted her head, racking her brain, but couldn't find a single clue. Was she simply not sharp enough to have noticed the transformation as it happened?

"You weren't like this before." Holding it in was becoming unbearable; Wen Mingjuan couldn't help herself and asked, "When did you become so warm-hearted?"

"Am I really as bad as you make it sound?" Gao Weizhao shook his head lightly.

"Not bad, exactly, just... a little cold, that's all." Wen Mingjuan gave an awkward, bashful smile, a faint blush rising in her cheeks.

"Why would anyone bother getting all warm and cozy with people for no reason?" Gao Weizhao answered without a second thought. "This world is full of traps, every direction you look."

"You shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush." Wen Mingjuan said, looking at him. "There are still plenty of good people in this world. If you go by your view of things, this world would be far too dark a place—that kind of philosophy of life can't bring anyone happiness."

"Not everyone necessarily needs happiness." Gao Weizhao said quietly.

"So you're shutting happiness out entirely?"

Gao Weizhao had no interest in discussing this topic—at least, up until today, this sort of subject held no appeal for him. Strictly speaking, he tended to avoid topics like this altogether, as if they were some kind of probe that could see straight into the tangled, cynical world inside him.

He stood up and walked a few steps away, to give the mood some room to breathe.

* * *

Arriving in Taipei, Gao Weizhao led Wen Mingjuan by taxi to his residence to settle in first.

"Wait here a moment." Gao Weizhao set down the luggage, walked into the utility closet, and came back with a duster, wiping down the sofa and coffee table first.

"Do you have a rag? I'll help." Seeing a grown man like Gao Weizhao doing all this housework himself, Wen Mingjuan didn't feel right just standing there watching.

"No need, you sit. I live alone, I'm used to doing the cleaning myself, it's nothing." He said.

"You really wouldn't guess it." Wen Mingjuan said, a touch of teasing in her voice. "You live in a place this big all by yourself?"

Wen Mingjuan looked around, feeling a bit of novelty at the sight. This was the penthouse floor of a twin residential tower, looking to be about sixty-some pings in size—for just Gao Weizhao alone to live in seemed almost a waste of such a fine space.

"What else would you suggest?" Gao Weizhao asked as he kept cleaning.

"No girlfriend, fiancée, or wife dropping by often? Seems awfully lonely." Wen Mingjuan blurted it out without thinking it through first.

"Women are troublesome creatures. I'm not going to go dropping a rock on my own foot for no reason." He said.

"You're prejudiced against women." Wen Mingjuan didn't agree with his take.

"Whether it's prejudice or not isn't really the point. The point is, even men rarely come here."

"You're a very rare exception as a guest." Gao Weizhao said, perfectly at ease. "Even the brothers in my gang mostly don't know I live here. And even the ones who do know wouldn't dare just show up unannounced—they understand I don't like being disturbed."

Hearing Gao Weizhao say this, Wen Mingjuan suddenly felt rather awkward. In her rush to decide to come up to Taipei with Gao Weizhao, she only now realized she'd put herself in the awkward position of sharing a room, alone, with an unmarried man.

"Then maybe I should just go stay at a hotel by myself." Wen Mingjuan said, remembering this point, blushing shyly. "It doesn't seem very appropriate for me to stay here."

Watching her blush like that, Gao Weizhao actually found it amusing. He'd assumed she had the free and easy spirit of someone used to life on the streets, unconcerned with the usual proprieties between men and women. Only now did he realize he'd been mistaken—this little dummy apparently hadn't even considered the issue at all, and had simply, mindlessly, tagged along with him.

Truly, hopelessly dim.

"You're already here, and it's not as if you'd have to share a bed with me—there's no shortage of empty rooms here, so what's there to worry about?" Gao Weizhao held back the urge to laugh and kept teasing her. "You already caught the flasher—don't tell me you're still doubting my innocence?"

"Ah..." Wen Mingjuan sucked in a startled breath.

Gao Weizhao really shouldn't have said that—hearing it, Wen Mingjuan was thoroughly, hopelessly mortified.

So he'd known all along.

It had been that very night she'd sprayed him square in the face with her pepper spray.

She was, in fact, the very "culprit."

All this time, Wen Mingjuan had assumed Gao Weizhao hadn't recognized her, and had even taken pains, consciously or not, to keep her "identity" hidden so it wouldn't be exposed—and now this was thoroughly, mortifyingly blown.

"I... I..." Thoroughly shaken, Wen Mingjuan couldn't get any words out for a moment, could only keep grinning sheepishly at Gao Weizhao in embarrassment.

Gao Weizhao said nothing more. He walked toward the utility closet and brought out the vacuum cleaner.

"I didn't mean to..." Wen Mingjuan stammered. "Why didn't you say something sooner?" Her thumbs and index fingers rubbed against each other unconsciously, at a loss for what to do.

"Say what?" Gao Weizhao said, plugging in the vacuum.

"That you already knew I'd... sprayed you with pepper spray..."

"What would be the point of saying anything?" Gao Weizhao said. "Besides, it wasn't until I caught that guy that it finally dawned on me why you'd sprayed me in the first place. Honestly! I held a grudge over that for quite a while."

"Oh..." Wen Mingjuan responded awkwardly, then suddenly remembered something.

"Then why were you behind us that night in the first place?" She asked.

If Gao Weizhao hadn't shown up out of nowhere behind her and Zhang Tingyu, and then called out "Miss," none of this "accidental spraying" business would ever have happened.

The vacuum had already roared to life, filling the whole apartment with noise. Whether Gao Weizhao answered her question or not, she couldn't have heard it anyway.

Gao Weizhao finished up a general cleaning, spending a little over an hour on it; by then Wen Mingjuan had already showered and dried her hair.

Suddenly she heard Gao Weizhao knock on her door. She quickly set down her comb and opened it.

"I'm going out to scope things out first. If necessary, I'll go see Tulong. Don't worry about me, get some sleep." Gao Weizhao instructed her.

"It's this late, and you're still going out?" Wen Mingjuan was startled; glancing at her watch, it was already past eleven.

"Tulong is a nightlife kind of guy. If I don't go looking for him now, by the time it's daytime, who knows what woman's bed he'll be passed out dead asleep in—how would I ever find him then?"

Forgetting for a moment that he was talking to Wen Mingjuan, Gao Weizhao slipped right back into his usual manner of speech, leaving Wen Mingjuan looking thoroughly embarrassed, unsure how to respond.

Before she could even stop him, Gao Weizhao was already out the door.

Wen Mingjuan's heart was heavy with worry—going alone in the middle of the night to find that "terrorist" called Tulong, no one would believe there was no danger in that.

By the time Gao Weizhao made his way back through the front door again, it was already past three in the morning. Usually when he came home, he was met with a house full of darkness; tonight, though, the lights were blazing.

Gao Weizhao froze for a moment, then remembered there was someone else in the apartment—Wen Mingjuan. A strange feeling suddenly welled up in his chest. That feeling hadn't even faded yet when his eyes fell on Wen Mingjuan, half-slumped against the sofa, fast asleep.

"Why is she sleeping here?" Gao Weizhao muttered under his breath, but that strange feeling in his chest swelled up without warning, spreading outward, until it filled every corner of space that belonged to him.

Is this what it feels like, having someone wait up for you?

Had she simply tired herself out waiting, and fallen asleep without realizing it?

Was she waiting for him?

Gao Weizhao crept quietly toward Wen Mingjuan. It was already December; deep in the night like this, a chill hung heavy in the air, and with Wen Mingjuan sleeping here like this, she'd surely catch cold. So Gao Weizhao quickly took off his own jacket and gently draped it over her.

Wen Mingjuan shifted slightly, but didn't wake. And at that very moment, that faint, elusive scent of her hair drifted quietly into Gao Weizhao's senses once more.

"Strange—she washed her hair with my shampoo, so why have I never noticed it smelling this nice before?"

Gazing at Wen Mingjuan's face, it was as if some spell were drawing Gao Weizhao in, compelling him to lean slowly closer to that lovely face.

Just as Gao Weizhao's lips were about to brush against Wen Mingjuan's cheek, he caught himself in time, and gently nudged her instead.

"Go sleep in your room." He said to her. "I'm not so stingy as to make a guest sleep on the sofa."

Rubbing her drowsy eyes, Wen Mingjuan looked up at Gao Weizhao, still half-asleep.

"You're back?" She asked weakly. "What time is it?"

"Past three." Gao Weizhao said, standing up straight.

"Why are you back so late? I waited so long." Woken groggily from deep sleep, Wen Mingjuan's mind was still hazy.

"I never told you to wait for me. Didn't I already tell you to go to sleep?"

"I couldn't stop worrying about you, you blockhead." Wen Mingjuan muttered.

She let out a deep yawn.

"I'm not a three-year-old..."

"Did you find Tulong or not?"

"No." Gao Weizhao answered her. "But I got him on the phone, and we've arranged to meet at his club tomorrow at five in the afternoon." He took out a set of keys and handed them to Wen Mingjuan, explaining each one's purpose in turn.

"When you wake up, if you want something to eat, go buy it outside yourself, don't worry about me, I'll take care of myself." He told her gently.