The moon was bright, the stars were few, and crows were flying south. After asking Granny Wan next door to look after his chickens and cow, Zhao Buxi shouldered his luggage and set off on the arduous journey into the city to deliver a gift.
About a kilometer beyond the village entrance was a bus stop. The last bus into town left at nine.
Calling it a stop was generous. There was only a roadside sign: a rusty iron post painted white, topped with a vertical rectangular panel edged in orange, its white center listing the bus schedule.
Without the light pollution of a city, the stars shone clearly in the country sky. Above Zhao Buxi hung the ladle-shaped Big Dipper and the Morning Star, which so often appeared near the moon.
The moon was large and bright. On nights like this, the countryside was so clearly illuminated that one could see the surroundings without a flashlight or streetlamp. Other than fresh air, this was the only other advantage the countryside had over the city.
Toads and katydids called back and forth in the grass. Zhao Buxi, meanwhile, could think of nothing but the news he had heard over dinner.
“Cases of graduate supervisors bullying and oppressing students have emerged repeatedly in recent years. Are these just a few bad apples spoiling the barrel, or are the exposed cases merely the tip of the iceberg? How can these abuses be prevented, and the rights of vulnerable people protected?”
“When will we stop seeing people take credit for others’ work, passing off someone else’s achievements as their own?”
Perhaps it would never stop entirely. But neither would justice and resistance.
Zhao Sheng was studying for his master’s degree in Beijing. Getting there from the village meant taking a bus to the county town, transferring to a high-speed train, then traveling from the Beijing station to the university. The whole trip took considerable time.
Zhao Buxi quickened his pace. If only he had wings, he would have flown straight there.
He had just reached the village entrance when he spotted a dark figure in the night. The person was burdened with bags, just like him, including an enormous black duffel that dwarfed its wearer and made him resemble a thousand-year-old tortoise from a distance.
Zhao Buxi blinked hard, thinking he was looking at Master Roshi, the Turtle Hermit. Only on closer inspection did he recognize Old Jiang.
Hearing footsteps behind him, Old Jiang turned around, dragging his mountain of luggage.
Whoosh…
A gust of wind swept past.
“What the hell are you doing here, boy?!”
Old Jiang stared in surprise at Zhao Buxi under the streetlight.
What’s Zhao Erniu doing at the village entrance in the middle of the night, instead of sleeping, hauling around an enormous woven sack?
Rather than answer, Zhao Buxi was more interested in why Old Jiang was up at this hour with so much luggage strapped and clutched to him.
“Where are you off to?” Zhao Buxi asked.
“What’s it to you?” the old man snapped.
Zhao Buxi blinked, apparently understanding something. “Wait, seriously? I said you stole two tomatoes, and now you can’t bear to stay in the village?”
Since when was he so thin-skinned? Whatever happened to old people being shameless?
Every time Zhao Buxi opened his mouth, Old Jiang wanted to stamp his feet. “You’re the one who’d flee the village over two stolen tomatoes! I’m going out on serious business!”
Serious business?
Old Jiang used to trade in clothing and accessories around Guangzhou. He had retired to the village this year with enough savings to live comfortably, and his son was settled in the city with a wife and a happy family. The old man spent his days strolling around the village and stealing the occasional tomato. What serious business could he possibly have?
He must really be upset that I called him a tomato thief, but he’s too embarrassed to admit it.
Zhao Buxi cleared his throat. “If you’re really still upset about the tomatoes, I’ll apologize. I speak without thinking sometimes. Don’t take it to…”
Old Jiang waved both hands frantically. “Shoo! Shoo! It’s not about the tomatoes.”
“Then what is it?” Zhao Buxi demanded. Why did he have to leave?
Old Jiang gazed toward the future and sighed. Still, this counted as happy news. “My daughter-in-law gave birth.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Zhao Buxi asked.
But Old Jiang looked miserable as he held up two fingers. “Two of them.”
Old Jiang had lost his wife early and never remarried, struggling along on his own. Over the years he’d bought his son a car, helped him secure a home, and seen him married. After finally earning enough retirement savings to return home in triumph, the arrival of a grandson and granddaughter had plunged him right back into the days before liberation.
His son and daughter-in-law both held entry-level public-institution jobs, taking home a combined six thousand yuan a month. One child might have been manageable. How was six thousand supposed to feed two?
So Old Jiang had packed his bags in the middle of the night to go earn money for baby formula.
Sixty was just the age to start chasing your dreams.
“Born to work myself to the bone, that’s what I am,” he muttered. Then he glanced at Zhao Buxi, who was equally laden with bags. “Where are you going?”
“To the capital to see Little Tiger.”
“He’s doing graduate studies. What are you going there for?”
Zhao Buxi zipped his mouth shut. Old Jiang was a terrible gossip, and news would spread from one person to ten, then ten to a hundred. He didn’t want people to hear that Little Tiger might be having a hard time because he hadn’t given his professor a gift. It would only give them something else to mock his brother over.
“I miss him. I’m going to visit.”
Old Jiang looked him over. “You’re going dressed like that?”
Zhao Buxi looked down at himself. “What’s wrong with it?”
Wasn’t he wearing clothes? The old man was acting like he’d turned up naked.
Old Jiang gave him a look. “Tsk.”
He looked again. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk…”
Zhao Buxi exploded. “What are you doing, chirping like a cricket? Tsk, tsk, tsk!”
“Aren’t you afraid of embarrassing Little Tiger if you show up wearing that?”
Embarrassing him? Zhao Buxi thought the old man was being ridiculous. “Who cares what I wear?”
Old Jiang wasn’t having it. “Who cares what you wear? What world do you think we live in? You think the capital’s like our village? You’re going out in a few scraps of cheap polyester!”
“Fine clothes make the man, just like a good saddle makes the horse. People respect the clothes before they respect the person. Don’t you understand?”
Zhao Buxi struck straight to the heart of it. “Are you trying to sell me something?”
Old Jiang: “…”
His nose for business was as sharp as a full-grown hyena’s.
Old Jiang reasoned with him. “What you wear affects how people treat you. If you were going to some ordinary little county town, I wouldn’t bother telling you all this.”
“But you’re going to Beijing, to one of the finest universities in the country. If you don’t dress well, plenty of people will look down on you. Even elementary school brats compare their families’ wealth and bully kids from poorer homes. Do you think universities are any different?”
“You entered society young. You understand without me telling you. Top universities are full of people with wealth and connections. If you go dressed like that and they find out you’re Little Tiger’s brother, they’ll know his family background and that he has no one powerful backing him up. What’s to stop them from bullying him mercilessly?”
Old Jiang’s words weren’t entirely sincere, but they weren’t entirely false either. His line of work had shown him all kinds of people.
Zhao Buxi understood immediately. “Fine. I’ll buy some good clothes when I get to town.”
To Zhao Buxi, “good clothes” meant anything costing more than a hundred yuan.
“Why wait until town?” Old Jiang hauled the tortoise shell off his back. “I’ve got everything right here. I’ll give you a good price.”
He spread a huge sheet of plastic on the ground and started pulling out clothes, slapping them down one after another and pointing at each.
“Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Ralph Lauren ready-to-wear. Hold on, there’s more…”
He began digging bags out of another enormous sack. “LV men’s Keepall 45, 50, basic Keepalls, Speedy 40, Hermès men’s Kelly in the full range, Chanel unisex shoulder bags…”
Old Jiang’s tortoise shell might as well have been bottomless. Once the clothes and bags were out, he started producing shoes and accessories.
Slap, slap, slap. He laid dozens of watches on the plastic sheet.
“Patek Philippe Nautilus, Rolex, Cartier, Audemars Piguet…”
Zhao Buxi could only hear the old man rattling off names. He didn’t recognize a single brand.
The sixty-year-old entrepreneur’s face flushed with excitement as he held one item after another against Zhao Buxi to see how it looked.
“If you want to tell whether someone’s rich, start with their shoes. If you can’t recognize the brand, look at how light or dark the shoes are and how clean they are.”
He shoved a handbag into Zhao Buxi’s hand. Zhao Buxi lifted it up.
“WRONG!” Old Jiang roared, making him jump.
“When you’re carrying a designer men’s handbag, like Hermès, don’t lift it up. Just let it hang naturally from your hand, with your arm relaxed. You can bend your elbow a little.”
After bags came watches. “You generally wear a watch on your left wrist, but no one’s stopping you putting it on the right. That’s personal preference.”
After fussing over Zhao Buxi from head to toe, Old Jiang even found him several pairs of designer underwear.
“Even underwear?” Zhao Buxi asked.
“Of course! Let me tell you, once you’re rich, you even have to make sure people can see your underwear and envy it.” He pointed out the waistband. “That’s part of fashion.”
Zhao Buxi looked disgusted. Fashion, my ass. Rich people must be sick in the head, showing the tops of their underwear. Don’t they have any shame?
Old Jiang told Zhao Buxi to throw away the clothes and trousers he’d packed in his woven sack once he reached the county town. As he stuffed the new clothes and accessories into a new bag for Zhao Buxi, he calculated how much profit he’d make. “One, five, ten, fifteen…”
“How much altogether?” Zhao Buxi asked.
Old Jiang counted the items in the bag and added what Zhao Buxi was wearing. Then he pulled out a calculator and tapped out a whole string of zeros.
“Discounted price for you: six thousand.”
“How much?” Zhao Buxi’s eyes widened. Six thousand for these clothes? He immediately started pulling his shirt off. “I don’t want any of it.”
I’d be better off buying my own clothes in town.
Old Jiang hurried to stop him. “Six thousand is already cheap! These are all one-to-one copies. The clothes, bags, and shoes are all the highest-grade versions!”
He picked up a bag. “Look at the craftsmanship! Look at the hardware! The intentionally distressed finish! Leather from the original factory! You’re getting a bargain!”
What bargain? He thinks I’m a pig ready for slaughter.
Seeing that Zhao Buxi wouldn’t budge, Old Jiang relented. “Fine. Name your price.”
Zhao Buxi was tempted now that he had everything on. It genuinely looked good. He looked down at the outfit Old Jiang had assembled for him.
“Five hundred.”
“I’m going to die right now.”
“Six hundred.”
“This very instant.”
Just do it!
Old Jiang made to jump into the ditch beside the road.
Today, one way or another, he would teach Zhao Buxi what it meant to say that people died for money and birds died for food.
“Hey!” Zhao Buxi grabbed the old man and hauled him back. “Eight hundred, maximum. Not a yuan more.”
At that price, Old Jiang would lose his shirt.
Eight hundred wouldn’t even cover the cost of the merchandise.
Old Jiang’s face collapsed. He didn’t want to accept. In his mind, a whole army of ants began marching, each ant repeating the same phrase as it passed: How can this possibly work?
Exactly. How could it?
But when the night breeze blew and he looked up from the ditch to Zhao Buxi again, Old Jiang abruptly said, “Eight hundred isn’t impossible.”
Zhao Buxi looked stricken.
I didn’t bargain low enough!
“What are you thinking, brat? I’m selling everything at a loss! I’ll let you take it for eight hundred, but there’s a condition.”
“What condition?” Zhao Buxi asked.
“You model a few outfits for my photographs.”
The successful people in Old Jiang’s trade didn’t even have physical shops. They relied on repeat customers recommending them to others and made their deals over WeChat.
Most of his clientele were international students, rich second-generation youngsters, and wealthy women.
Good modeling photos could sell any style. Even casual browsers would be tempted to place an order.
“Modeling photos? You mean pictures?”
“Right. Just pictures. Change into a few outfits, strike a few poses, and we’ll photograph them one after another.”
A few photographs in exchange for a discount of several thousand yuan? He’d be a fool not to take that deal.
And so they came to an agreement.
When it came time to take the photos, however, Zhao Buxi and Old Jiang were both stumped.
Zhao Buxi didn’t know how to pose. Old Jiang’s previous social-media photos had all been taken by employees he’d hired. He didn’t know how to shoot them himself.
“Do you know how?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
Now what?
They looked at each other, pulled out their phones, and spoke in unison.
“Doubao, Doubao, generate some poses for a photo shoot.”
“Doubao, Doubao, generate some camera angles for a photo shoot.”
* * *
Seven in the morning, on the campus of Capital University.
Zhao Sheng had gotten up early to move his belongings out of the dormitory.
The previous day, the building where Zhao Sheng lived had exploded. Someone had used a prohibited electrical appliance, and the wiring was old and poorly maintained.
Fortunately, everyone had been in class at the time and there were no casualties. But the explosion exposed a major safety hazard, so all the students in the building had been evacuated, and the university arranged alternative accommodation.
There were quite a few students in the building and only so many available dorm rooms. Even after every empty bed had been assigned, a few people were left with nowhere to stay.
Zhao Sheng was one of them.
Fortunately, only eight students remained without dormitory places. The university arranged for them to stay temporarily in faculty apartments until the building’s wiring was replaced and it was safe to move back.
Zhao Sheng had been assigned to the faculty apartment of his own supervisor, Fang Peizhi.
The explosion had happened yesterday. The dormitory supervisor had notified everyone to collect their things today, after which the building would be sealed off.
They had only one day to move. Zhao Sheng needed to visit a site that afternoon for a practical report, so he’d come early to collect his luggage.
Plenty of other students were also up early to move. People on their way to eight o’clock classes and morning joggers came over to watch the commotion.
Zhao Sheng’s arrival drew a wave of attention.
“Look, look! It’s Zhao Sheng.”
A girl nudged her companions. Keeping her palm pressed against her trouser seam, she extended one finger and pointed at Zhao Sheng with a supposedly unrivaled degree of stealth.
Another girl’s eyes widened. In a drawn-out, excited voice, she said, “Holy crap, he’s gorgeous. He’s way too handsome.”
Ever since term started, rumors had spread that the breathtakingly handsome Professor Fang, whose looks alone made people want to bang their heads on the ground, had taken on a student who’d been the campus heartthrob at a Double First-Class university in Shanghai.
That only added another feather to the cap of Fang’s already distinguished academic group.
Who even talked about campus belles and campus heartthrobs these days? Most people rolled their eyes at the term.
But everyone who had seen Zhao Sheng said he was handsome. Really handsome.
Seeing was believing.
The group were doctoral students. Seeing Zhao Sheng carrying so many things, someone suggested, “Let’s go help him.”
One of the men said, “You go if you want. I’m not going.”
“Come on, help the younger student. He’s carrying so much.”
“Why should I? I’m doing a doctorate, and he’s only doing a master’s. You want me to help him?” The man lectured them gravely. “Immortals and mortals belong to different worlds. Doctorates and master’s degrees are destined for different paths. Understand?”
A girl shot back, “Then you’re never allowed to use the idiom ‘a fruitful harvest’ again.”
Elio’s Notes: The Chinese word for a master’s degree (硕士) and the idiom translated here as “a fruitful harvest” (硕果累累) share the character 硕. After the PhD student’s snobbish little speech, she’s banning that character from his vocabulary.
“…”
The man refused to go, so the others left him behind and went to help Zhao Sheng.
In today’s society, good-looking people tended to receive special treatment.
“Junior, let us help you.”
Zhao Sheng looked at the sudden group of strangers and politely declined. “That’s all right, thank you.”
They were so enthusiastic that they took his belongings out of his hands anyway.
Zhao Sheng was brilliant at studying, but not particularly good at dealing with people.
One of the girls said, “It’s fine. Don’t be shy.”
Seeing that his things had already been distributed among them, Zhao Sheng could only thank them.
He wasn’t much of a conversationalist. On the walk to the faculty apartments, he answered each question they asked but volunteered little of his own.
“We heard the university had a handsome new junior the moment you enrolled. We wondered just how handsome anyone could be. Turns out you’re even better-looking than we imagined.”
Zhao Sheng was exceptionally attractive. Calling him a beautiful young man wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
Someone else chimed in. “Your mom and dad must be good-looking too, right?”
Zhao Sheng replied, “I look like my older brother.”