Chapter 10

Part One: Turmoil in officialdom. Chapter 10: No need to sing sad love songs again

It was already past nine when they reached the city. Tang Xueqian had always lived in Yangjiang Residential Community, in an apartment allocated to him when he was president of the teachers' college. When he moved into city government, the college naturally would not have been foolish enough to take an apartment back from a deputy mayor. After the case against Tang Xueqian broke, the college reclaimed it. Only in 1999, when his conviction was overturned, did the city assign him another apartment elsewhere.

They drove around Yangjiang Residential Community, passing Building 18, where Tang Xueqian lived. A Santana was parked downstairs. As they passed it, Zhang Ke saw two young men sitting inside. The Jetta's windows were tinted, so he believed the two men in the Santana could not see him. He asked his younger uncle to drive out of the community and stop at the entrance to the lane, then returned to Yangjiang Residential Community himself.

"Want me to come with you?"

"Two plainclothes officers. They'll be easy to fool. If we go together, it won't work."

Zhang Ke walked back to Building 18 and glanced into the Santana twice by the light of the streetlamp. The two men inside furtively turned their faces away. Zhang Ke looked twice more, until they could no longer stand it and rolled up their windows. Only then did he head upstairs.

Tang Xueqian's apartment was on the third floor, the large unit at the eastern end. It was said that when officials chose apartments, they always managed to get the best floors and layouts, and Tang Xueqian's home was no exception. On his way upstairs, Zhang Ke saw that the lights were on, but after standing outside the door for a while, he confirmed that the only voices inside belonged to Gu Jianping and her daughter, Tang Jing.

Counting his previous life, eleven years had passed since Zhang Ke had last seen Tang Jing after graduating from high school. Standing outside the door, he felt a slight tightness in his chest.

Tap, tap, tap... Zhang Ke knocked softly rather than ringing the doorbell.

"Who is it?" It was Gu Jianping's chilly voice. Zhang Ke had never liked Tang Xueqian's wife, Gu Jianping, even before he was sixteen.

Even through a sixteen-year-old boy's eyes, Gu Jianping qualified as a beautiful woman, with an elegant bearing. But she was rather cold toward people, making her seem unapproachable.

Zhang Ke said nothing. Hearing someone approach the security door and open the peephole cover, he stepped back a little so that whoever was inside could see him.

"Zhang Ke, it's you!" Tang Jing opened the security door, and the surprise and delight on her pretty face sent a tremor through him. To Tang Jing, it had only been ten days or a fortnight since she had seen him. For him, eleven years had passed before he could see again the face he had been madly in love with as a boy.

Tang Jing took his hand and all but dragged him inside. "Mom, Zhang Ke's here..."

Gu Jianping was pushing herself up from the dining table. Her face was pale as she watched Zhang Ke enter. "Oh, little Ke's here..." Her voice was hollow and weak. "Have you come to see Jing?"

At that moment, Zhang Ke actually felt a little sympathy for Gu Jianping. With Tang Xueqian isolated for investigation, she was probably enduring the greatest blow of her life. That was also why she had no energy left to give him a cold look.

Even after returning to 1994, Zhang Ke could still clearly remember Gu Jianping's eyes whenever he came to see Tang Jing-a look that robbed him of the courage to come again.

Of course, after the case against Tang Xueqian broke, Tang Jing had believed the rumors outside, and her hostility and loathing toward Zhang Ke had mercilessly crushed the youthful affection that had once budded between them. But he had not truly freed himself from that hopeless young love until he met another girl in his second year of college.

At Gu Jianping's words, Zhang Ke turned to look at Tang Jing. She wore a pale blue camisole. Her skin was delicate and fair, her figure slender, her breasts slightly rounded. Her face was as pale as her mother's. Although she was still a young girl without a striking figure, her lovely face held an allure that most girls her age lacked. Zhang Ke remembered being captivated by that very allure as a boy, consumed by desire and unable to free himself.

Thinking of how Tang Jing had also spent these days in worry, fear, and even despair, Zhang Ke felt a surge of self-reproach he could barely suppress. Yes, he had little liking for either Gu Jianping or Tang Xueqian, and he harbored a resentment he could not shake over Tang Jing's cruelty and mockery toward him in high school. But why had she been so heartless toward him? Because she had thought his father had betrayed Tang Xueqian!

Seeing the light in Tang Jing's eyes when she saw him, as though hope had sprouted amid despair, Zhang Ke felt all the resentment that had lingered in his heart for years vanish completely.

How could I have thought it wouldn't matter if Tang Xueqian were sacrificed?

"Zhang Ke, what did you want to see me about?" Tang Jing held his arm, a hint of dependence in her eyes.

"Oh." Zhang Ke chose his words carefully. "Aunt Gu, my dad sent me to see you."

"Your dad? Didn't your dad go into hiding in Dongshe?" Gu Jianping's voice grew urgent, and she could not help coughing. An unhealthy flush rose on her pale face.

Although the rumors had not yet spread everywhere, someone with an agenda had already passed word of his father's whereabouts to Gu Jianping.

The security door did not block sound very well. Zhang Ke feared that if they spoke too loudly, the people across the hall would hear.

"Uncle Tang is innocent. My dad believes Uncle Tang is innocent..." Zhang Ke watched Gu Jianping. At a time like this, he believed that anyone saying Tang Xueqian was innocent could offer her some comfort. "My dad sent me with a message for you. If we talk in the living room, someone passing outside might hear. Shall we go to Tang Jing's room?"

"What did your dad want you to tell me?"

Zhang Ke said nothing and had Tang Jing help her mother to her room. It looked as though it had not been tidied for several days and was somewhat messy.

"This is the letter my dad asked me to bring you..." Zhang Ke handed Gu Jianping the short letter his father had written in Dongshe. It was not long. In it, Zhang Zhixing recalled his feelings over the years he had worked in the city after following Tang Xueqian there, and flatly denied the possibility that Tang Xueqian had taken bribes or kept a mistress.

"He still says there's no mistress. Even now, he's trying to deceive me..." Gu Jianping pushed Tang Jing aside and walked out, her face ashen, slamming the door behind her with a bang.

Zhang Ke looked at Tang Jing, not knowing what had happened. Tang Jing said, "Uncle Ye was just here. He brought a photograph of Dad with a woman..."

"Secretary Ye only came to deliver the photograph?" Zhang Ke was not particularly surprised.

"No, he also had a look in Dad's study. He said Dad's mistakes weren't that serious, and that Dad had always won people's support through his work. He believed everyone would speak up for Dad when the time came. He said he wanted to show Dad's work journal to the investigation team, to let them know how hard Dad usually worked..."

Zhang Ke cursed inwardly. Looking at Tang Jing's pitiful face, he gazed into her long, alluring eyes. Her thin shoulder bones stood exposed, their sharp contours like imperial porcelain. In his memory, Tang Jing had never been this thin, which showed how much anguish she had endured these past few days. He placed his hands on her cold shoulders. "Do you trust your dad?"

"I don't know. Don't ask me..." Tang Jing closed her eyes in pain and shook her head. Her lifted lashes were long and curled, making it hard not to feel tenderness for her.

"Your dad will be all right. You have to trust him." Zhang Ke gently drew Tang Jing into his arms. Before he was sixteen, they had secretly held hands; surely she would not reject a hug now. He had never held Tang Jing before. She felt a little taller than Xu Si, around 162 or 163 centimeters. Resting his hand on the soft muscles of her back, he patted her gently. "Go ask your mom to come in. I still have something to tell her..."