Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Seeing Xu Si again

When Zhang Ke woke up the next day, his parents had already left home.

From his parents' conversation yesterday, public attention had already shifted to the woman named Xu Si. Many people seemed convinced that she was Tang Xueqian's secret mistress. This woman's testimony was a crucial factor in the court's conviction of Tang Xueqian for accepting bribes. For now, perhaps she was the only person who could provide some leads toward resolving the problem.

Zhang Ke was not particularly enthusiastic about clearing Tang Xueqian's name. The key was to let his father know how to seize opportunities and avoid trouble. As long as his father remained deputy secretary-general of the municipal government, he would at least still count as an official's son. Even if he had to live his life over again from sixteen, that would be quite pleasant.

Of course, things would not be that simple. Tang Xueqian had brought his father into the municipal government and personally promoted him. There was no way his father could escape the impact of Tang Xueqian's case.

Fine, fine. Tang Xueqian's case was still the key to solving the problem. Zhang Ke thought that if the truth about Ding Xiangshan fabricating evidence to frame Tang Xueqian could be exposed ahead of time, perhaps his happy life as an official's son might continue indefinitely.

After breakfast, Zhang Ke took a ride to Xiangshan Scenic Area. The sun was only just beginning to blaze. July was hot, and although the Xiangshan forest was one of Haizhou's best summer retreats, there were few visitors at the forest park entrance because it was not the weekend.

There were many photo-processing shops in the square outside the south gate of Xiangshan Forest Park, and cameras were easy to rent there too. Zhang Ke thought that even if he revealed the truth about Tang Xueqian's case, his father would not believe him. Only photographs of the people involved would be convincing.

Zhang Ke rented a camera whose shutter made no clicking sound, then took a dedicated sightseeing shuttle from the south gate square to the northern side of the mountain.

Had Haizhou City's intermediate court not released limited details of Ding Xiangshan's case to the public in Year 1999, almost no one in Haizhou City apart from his confidants would have known that an inconspicuous red-brick villa at the northern foot of Xiangshan was the private love nest Ding Xiangshan had maintained in Haizhou City since becoming Haizhou City Party Committee Secretary.

In the summer after Ding Xiangshan's case concluded, Zhang Ke had made a special trip to visit this red-brick villa. That would have been exactly five years from now. Although he had come five years earlier, the scenery looked almost unchanged. Perhaps even five years later, leaves blown down by the wind would still occasionally fall along this secluded concrete path shaded by dense foliage.

A courtyard wall built of chalk stone stood across the end of the concrete path, leaving only one corner of the villa's attic visible. Its brick walls were deep red, and the small window on the side of the attic faced the concrete path. The main entrance was not visible from here.

Only a distant relative of Ding Xiangshan's looked after the little red-brick villa day to day. Zhang Ke passed through the woods and circled around to the front. The sheet-metal gate was tightly shut, hiding everything inside.

Zhang Ke was wondering whether to climb in and take a look when he heard a car approaching in the distance. Hiding behind the dense foliage, he saw a black Nissan stop outside the courtyard gate. Its license plate gave no indication of whose car it was. The car waited briefly outside before someone opened the gate from within, and the Nissan drove inside. A red Corolla was also parked in the courtyard.

Zhang Ke thought that if Xu Si had already become Ding Xiangshan's mistress by now, the red Corolla was very likely hers. He raised the camera and quickly pressed the shutter.

The flash was off, the light in the woods was dim, and he was so far away that he did not know whether this ordinary Nikon optical camera could capture the cars clearly.

When the courtyard gate opened again at noon, Zhang Ke only managed to snap Ding Xiangshan bending down to get into the Nissan. The Nissan left the courtyard first. About two or three minutes later, the red Corolla slowly started moving, but its owner had already been sitting inside for some time, so Zhang Ke could not be certain whether the person inside was Xu Si.

As long as he could establish that Xu Si owned the red Corolla, these photographs would reveal something. Zhang Ke did not climb inside to search for evidence of Ding Xiangshan's crimes. That would have been too risky. Instead, he retraced his steps to the south gate of Xiangshan Park, intending to find a shop to develop the film, only to see the red Corolla parked in the south gate square.

Zhang Ke looked around. Apart from the vendors beneath their sun umbrellas, there were only five or six tourists in the square, none of whom looked like the red Corolla's owner.

There was no Nissan nearby. Zhang Ke could not understand how the red Corolla's owner could still be in the mood for sightseeing here. He stepped sideways into a photo-processing shop, his eyes still on the car in the square, and failed to notice someone coming out. He collided head-on with her, and an icy drink soaked half his shoulder.

"Sorry, I'm so sorry..." The woman apologized repeatedly, fumbling as she opened her handbag and searched inside. Her hair covered her entire face, revealing only a stretch of creamy-white neck that looked extraordinarily delicate, as though merely looking at it let him feel its breathtaking softness and resilience.

Definitely a beauty. Zhang Ke was no longer an inexperienced, ignorant sixteen-year-old boy. He could not help wanting to step back and see what exquisite, flawless face lay beneath that hair. She lifted her head first, and her innocent, guilty eyes made his heart give a sudden hard thump. In that instant, Zhang Ke could hardly believe that the woman with these beautiful eyes would invent lies about Tang Xueqian taking bribes and tell them to the provincial inspection team.

The Xu Si in Zhang Ke's memory had a haggard face. Back then, he had just started his first year of university, inexperienced and innocent, unable to appreciate the worn beauty of an adult battered by life. Yet now that his soul, with all its experiences, had returned to his sixteen-year-old body, this mature, gorgeous face left him shaken and spellbound.

Xu Si was tall and wore a pale yellow dress, with a palm-wide leather belt at her waist that made it look even more slender. Her mature, gorgeous face showed neither fatigue nor haggardness, and her beautiful eyes, holding a faint sadness, were captivating. She looked about twenty-three or twenty-four, perhaps a little older; after all, it was difficult to tell a beautiful woman's true age. Zhang Ke could fully understand why his mother had called her a temptress, and why his father had not firmly denied it when his mother suggested Xu Si might be Tang Xueqian's lover. Zhang Ke thought that if he had enough power, he too would be unable to resist taking such a woman for himself. Fuck, Tang Xueqian was a deputy mayor, a man, not some paragon of chastity. Even if he had kept himself pure before, he probably would not want to remain a saint after seeing Xu Si.

But at this point, Xu Si should have been Ding Xiangshan's woman.

Zhang Ke licked his dry lips. His throat felt a little dry too. In his previous life, he had known his share of beautiful women. Of all the women he knew, only Chen Ning and Tang Xueqian's daughter Tang Jing could compare with the Xu Si before him. Although all three were rare beauties, their temperaments were utterly different. Compared with Chen Ning's cool beauty and purity and Tang Jing's sweetness and innocence, Zhang Ke believed Xu Si's beauty could more easily turn the whole world upside down.

"I didn't notice you coming in..." Xu Si had no idea that the boy's expression concealed other complicated feelings besides his fascination with her beauty. She took out a handkerchief to wipe the cola off Zhang Ke.

Smelling the faint, delicate fragrance drifting from Xu Si, Zhang Ke reached for the handkerchief, his gaze involuntarily slipping to her full breasts, which threatened to burst out of her dress. "You're wet here too. Why don't you wipe that first? Look how soaked I am. You won't be able to wipe it all off anyway..." Inwardly, he regretted that only a few drops had splashed onto Xu Si's chest, revealing just a small patch of red bra. The shopkeeper behind the counter could not resist leaning over to look too.

Xu Si's pretty face reddened. She turned sideways to avoid the shopkeeper's gaze, but did not think to hide from Zhang Ke's eyes. She dabbed at her chest with the handkerchief, not realizing that wiping her breasts tugged her neckline down and exposed more snow-white flesh, giving Zhang Ke quite a feast for his eyes.

"I'm sorry. How about I buy you a new one to change into?"

"It's all right. The sun's strong outside. It'll dry in no time."

"Are you sure it's all right?" Xu Si asked again, uncertain.

Zhang Ke waved a hand with affected nonchalance and watched Xu Si climb into the red Corolla.

In 1994, Haizhou City did not yet have photo-processing shops offering while-you-wait service. Zhang Ke left the film at a shop whose owner did not look overly curious, then returned the camera. After lunch, he went back to the south gate square and found the red Corolla still parked there.

"Hey, if you're heading down the mountain, I can give you a ride..." Xu Si said as Zhang Ke passed, propping her cheek in her hand. Her snow-white arm rested on the car window, which had pressed a red mark into it.

"Were you waiting for me?" Zhang Ke pointed at himself, unable to understand why Xu Si had come back. But heaven had given him a chance to get close to her; he might as well die if he let it slip. Despite his questions, he quickly circled around to the right and opened the car door. As he leaned halfway inside, he could not resist trying to steal another look at the snow-white flesh of Xu Si's breasts.

As the car descended Xiangshan, Zhang Ke gazed thoughtfully at Xu Si's full, creamy-white cheek in profile. He repeatedly speculated about the role she had played in Tang Xueqian's case.

In Zhang Ke's memory, someone had reported Tang Xueqian for accepting bribes while he oversaw the restructuring of Xinfeng Group in 1994. The province sent an inspection team to investigate and soon obtained evidence that Tang Xueqian had accepted bribes from Jiang Mingcheng of Xinfeng Group. According to the court's publicly released judgment, Tang Xueqian had used his influence to arrange a job at Xinfeng Group for his mistress Xu Si. Through Xu Si, the group's general manager Jiang Mingcheng had bribed Tang Xueqian on three occasions, totaling 270,000 yuan (Xu Si's six months of salary from Xinfeng Group would also be added when sentencing), so that Tang Xueqian would give the group's management more favorable treatment when allocating benefits during the restructuring. All three payments had gone into Xu Si's personal account. Together with Xu Si's own testimony and deposits totaling 370,000 yuan in Tang Xueqian and his wife's accounts, of which 160,000 yuan had no explainable legal source, they formed a complete chain of evidence.

Xu Si had probably provided the inspection team with the evidence that doomed Tang Xueqian after Zhang Ke's father left Haizhou. Looking at the shapely curves of her body in profile, Zhang Ke truly could not imagine such a beautiful body harboring such a venomous heart.

Rather than imagine Xu Si as a venomous beauty, Zhang Ke preferred to believe she had some compelling difficulty she could not speak of. He patted the back of his head, inwardly laughing at his own naivety. Even in his second life, he was still being deceived by appearances.