A week later, Qin Siyu really did get the part-time typing job.
He continued repairing bicycles on weekends, but he no longer had to spend his spare time on weekdays repairing shoes. Instead, he could type up documents.
After gluing the rubber soles onto Aston’s shoes, he had officially put down his shoemaker’s knife. Or rather, his file. The only thing missing was a formal retirement ceremony for it.
After the ambiguous intimacy of that day, neither contacted the other.
Of course, both of them had sensed everything that passed between them.
At the time they had seemed unable to resist letting the other know something. Qin Siyu had practiced typing Aston’s name, then put their two names together. Their gazes had met and tangled, their palms had touched, and their fingers had clasped… Yet once they’d gone home, calmed down, and escaped temptation, they both understood how terribly dangerous it had been.
Only an abyss lay ahead.
Neither wanted to fall into it, much less drag the other down.
Qin Siyu could sense that although Kingsley Aston seemed mature and composed on the surface, he was actually wild beneath it. If they ever truly crossed the line, if they stepped beyond the boundary, nothing awaited them but fire and scorched earth.
There was no need. Truly no need.
That avoidance continued until the middle of May.
Final examinations arrived. Qin Siyu was busy studying, taking exams, typing, and earning money. But he often thought about Kingsley Aston, too. At night he still had certain dreams. In them he and Aston brushed shoulders and interlaced their fingers.
Qin Siyu was ashamed of these dreams. He had no idea that, on the other side, ever since that night of “embracing the devil,” Aston had been thinking about him often, thinking of him all the way to the end.
Students had to declare their majors in their second year. If Qin Siyu wanted to study medicine, he needed to choose carefully: chemistry or biology. Berkeley had introduced a major in recent years called biochemistry, combining both subjects. It suited him perfectly.
But he needed excellent grades. He had a paper, published with Aston; he had project experience from helping Professor Watson; and he had a volunteer position, having recently been accepted after arranging the laundry service… Now he needed the grades.
He had ranked first in almost every course he took last semester. He needed to come first again this semester.
Only after every examination was over, almost two weeks into avoiding one another, did Qin Siyu receive another invitation to an event from Aston. Or rather, the invitation was actually from Endicott Cliff.
It was a party to celebrate the end of exams.
The venue was Endicott Cliff’s home.
Once again, Qin Siyu witnessed the extravagant habits of the rich.
For example, you had to go through a security check to enter Cliff’s house.
There was a security team at the entrance, and guests were screened before going inside.
Cliff’s house was luxurious to the utmost. He casually introduced some of what they could see: lacquered and gilded furniture originally from China, items from Japan, marquetry side tables from Louis XVI’s era, inlaid cabinets from Louis XIV’s reign, sculptures by Michelangelo… In short, his family home contained some of the finest artworks from countries and eras all over the world.
“My family’s upstairs,” Cliff said. “Let’s keep ourselves under control a little.”
At the end, he looked at Aston. “We should really have had this at your place. Your parents have both gone back to New York.”
Aston ignored him.
Cliff smiled at the others. “His mother is arranging a grand seventieth-birthday celebration for a former secretary of state.”
Qin Siyu raised his eyes. He hadn’t known that politics and business were so closely intertwined. A former secretary of state’s seventieth birthday was actually being organized by a businessman’s family. Or rather, by the businessman’s capable wife. And a former secretary of state was a former holder of the country’s second-highest office.
From the things Aston had said, Qin Siyu could tell his mother liked all that: appearing in the newspapers, being the center of attention.
While they were eating, Qin Siyu thought about it and finally chose to sit beside Aston. He didn’t know anyone else very well, or what sort of people they were.
Aston gave him a friendly smile, so Qin Siyu smiled back just as politely.
“Sean,” Cliff said instead, “long time no see.”
Qin Siyu replied, “Long time no see.”
“You said you wanted to study biochemistry, didn’t you? My parents just donated a memorial bench outside the building. Have you seen it?”
“Mm,” Qin Siyu said. “I love sitting there. I go all the time.”
He hadn’t noticed it at all. He was simply giving Cliff the pleasant response he wanted to hear.
Aston’s lips curved.
Qin Siyu was still the same when it came to eating. He never took very much, and his appetite wasn’t large, but he ate everything on his plate. He never left even a grain of rice.
After peeling shrimp, he always checked the shells. If a little meat remained stuck to one, he used his fork to scrape it off and ate that, too.
He ate earnestly and seriously. He hardly spoke during meals, seemed not to listen to anyone, and certainly didn’t laugh and chatter. Food was the most important thing in the world; everything around him fell away.
After the meal, everyone began playing games.
All the invited students went into a recreation room. It was enormous, with very high windows and thick, heavy curtains that hung down for more than ten meters. Qin Siyu considered the problem of cleaning those curtains for a moment, then realized it wasn’t his concern.
Several huge mounted sea fish hung on the room’s four walls, each more than three meters long. They were trophies caught by Cliff’s family. There were also several rooms beyond this one. Who knew what other animal specimens were in those?
At Cliff’s butler’s instructions, the servants brought out things to beat the heat: blocks of ice covered in jasmine blossoms were placed beneath the electric fans.
With the economy in such poor condition, games played at home had become hugely popular, and a great many interesting varieties had appeared. Plenty of rich young people enjoyed them, too.
First they played a popular game of backgammon, then “The Rich Man,” Monopoly.
This was a fashionable American board game about getting rich, published by Parker Brothers. The players scrambled to buy property, collect rent, make investments, and so forth, with the aim of bankrupting everyone else, monopolizing the city, and becoming the winner, the “rich man.”
In an economy like this, “becoming rich in a game” offered everyone a dream. Although they knew it was an illusion, they couldn’t resist. The game was selling twenty thousand copies every week. Its designer had gone from pauper to tycoon almost overnight, and Parker Brothers was promoting his story as a marketing hook.
Elio’s Notes: The story is set in 1933, but Parker Brothers did not acquire and commercially launch its edition of Monopoly until 1935. Earlier handmade versions circulated and were sometimes called “monopoly.” Its original creator, Elizabeth Magie, was an inventor and social reformer, rather than a university professor. The chapter’s period dialogue and reported sales remain translated as written. Sources: Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Lemelson Center, and the Ninth Circuit’s historical record.
Everyone gathered around to play.
Aston was banned from taking part. Cliff said that, as the only son of a real-estate magnate, he would have an unfair advantage. So Aston sat quietly behind Qin Siyu instead. Qin Siyu sat cross-legged, while Aston lounged with one knee raised and the other angled to the side, sitting very close and watching him roll the dice.
Qin Siyu didn’t quite understand the game at first.
He turned his head to Aston. “Should I build a house?”
Aston looked at him. “Yes.”
“Mm.”
Qin Siyu paid with the play money. Aston picked up a little “house” and placed it on the property for him.
After a few rounds, Qin Siyu asked, “Should I enter the auction?”
“Mm,” Aston said.
“Raise my bid?”
“Raise it.”
“Keep raising?”
“Mm.”
“And now?”
“Give up.”
“All right.”
Whenever Qin Siyu paid with play money, Aston did something else for him. He might place a second story on Qin Siyu’s building, add the topmost piece, and nudge the whole thing neatly into the exact center of its property. Or he might retrieve Qin Siyu’s dice and set them squarely in front of him.
“You…” After this had happened several times, Qin Siyu said, “I can do those things myself.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?” Aston looked into his eyes. “Just sit and stare at you?”
…Fuck.
Qin Siyu said, “Suit yourself.”
With Aston’s help, Qin Siyu won his very first game.
Cliff was always smiling. “Did you enjoy that? Being a rich man for the first time?”
Qin Siyu looked down at the board. All the houses belonged to him. “I don’t know. I actually feel rather bad about it. If this were real life, everyone else would be at the mercy of the winner, wouldn’t they?”
In real life he wasn’t the person building the houses. He was the one who had to rent them.
The rich students around him suddenly fell very quiet.
Aston turned to look at his face. “Sean, you’re very clever. In fact, this game was originally invented by a woman who was a professor, I believe. There were two sets of rules: one ending in monopoly, the other in prosperity. She wanted to promote Georgism. The point was to show people how dreadful monopoly was. Because she was a professor, some of her university colleagues used the game to explain the single-tax theory, including your friend Professor Brown. Her work appears to have been stolen. Nobody knows about her, and the people who took it even stripped away what she truly wanted to say. They turned it into a monopoly game, sold the rights for an enormous price, and called it Monopoly. They spread the very thing she’d always opposed across America and even the world, making countless people obsessed with it.”
Qin Siyu: “Shit.”
That was how the world always worked.
Cliff said, “Really? So that’s how it happened? We’ve played it so many times, and I don’t think any of us has ever felt there was anything wrong with it.”
Hearing that, Aston looked at Qin Siyu again before agreeing with his friend. “Mm.”
They went on to other games, including bingo, and made merry until after ten at night.
“All right,” Cliff said. He always wore a smile, but his mind was full of wicked ideas. “Since you’ve all come this far, I mean to give you a night you’ll never forget.”
Aston raised his eyes.
“Come on,” Cliff said, walking to the middle of the room. “Guests, stand on either side. That’s it, twelve of you here… twelve over there… Thank you, Sean, you’re really so considerate. First to cooperate, as always. I like you so much. Right, ten people on this side, ten on that side… Hey, Master, please. You need to join in, too, all right? Without you, we won’t have an even number.”
Aston glanced at him, lowered his long legs, and stood. He walked gracefully to the very end of the line, turned, and gave Cliff an insincere smile. He stood out far more than the other eleven people beside him. Several women were looking at him.
Cliff went to the wall, drew the curtains shut, and snapped off the lights.
The estate was already dark. Now even the moonlight was blocked. Qin Siyu spread his fingers and looked at them. He couldn’t make out the faintest outline.
Normally, even if there was just a little light, a person’s eyes would eventually adjust, and they could see something. But here… Those rich people’s heavy curtains really were something. Not a speck of light remained.
Several people called out, “Hey! Endicott Cliff! What are you doing?”
“We’re going to play a romantic matching game,” Cliff said. “I have twelve lengths of string, with twenty-four ends. I’m going to hand each of you one end, at random. Then each pair will… pull the string taut and walk toward each other until you meet in the middle.”
“Understand? Both people follow their string until they meet. Of course, I won’t pair people carelessly. When each couple meets in the middle, you both hold out a hand. I’ll ask a series of questions. If the answer is yes, draw an ‘○’ in the palm of the person opposite you. If it’s no, draw an ‘×.’ Once all the questions have been answered, the two of you must decide whether to kiss or refuse. I guarantee that, if you’ve paid enough attention tonight to the person you like, my questions will let you figure out whether you’re facing that person or someone else.”
Cliff smiled again. “Although I also firmly believe everyone here has several people they fancy… this game might help you find the one you’re destined for. Maybe even… some gentlemen will hear the first question, ‘Are you a man?’ get a negative answer, and decide on the spot that they’ll kiss.”
Everyone laughed.
Cliff sounded like a devil in the darkness. “When we reach the end, my final question will be: Do you want to kiss? You’ll answer with ‘○’ or ‘×’ again.”
Qin Siyu: “…”
Aston was on the opposite side.
There was only a one-in-twelve chance, but Qin Siyu grew nervous. In the darkness, his breathing felt even deeper and slower.
Cliff went on, “Of course, to identify the person you like with absolute certainty, you have to pay very close attention to them. So the likeliest outcome is that you think it might be someone you like, but you aren’t completely sure. At that point, you have to decide whether to kiss. Will you take the gamble? Guess right and you get your wish, and all the ambiguity is broken. Guess wrong and… ugh, how disgusting. The funniest part is that after the game you’ll have to test the people around you. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one I kissed in the dark, right?’ If it was, perhaps you’ll end up together. But if not… you may spend the next few years of university trying to work out whom you kissed that night!”
Everyone burst out laughing again.
Many protested, “You’re awful, Endicott Cliff!”
Qin Siyu thought about it for a long time. If someone had already kissed the wrong person and been disgusted, why would they insist on investigating and finding out exactly whom they’d kissed? After thinking for a while, he understood: uncertainty doubled the disgust.
He looked toward the opposite side. It was pitch-black. He couldn’t see anything.
Cliff felt his way with the strings. “Sean, would you make a sound? It’s completely dark in here.”
“Here,” Qin Siyu said. “Come this way.”
“Darling, you’re wonderful.”
Following his voice, Cliff went over and put the ends of the red cords into the guests’ hands one at a time. Then he went to the opposite side and handed out the other ends. As he walked across, he kept talking. “Wow, it’s so dark. Oh my gosh!”
Qin Siyu held his red cord and gave it a gentle tug. He had no idea who was holding the other end.
Many of the people of the opposite sex in the room were beautiful. But all he wanted was—
Cliff stood on the other side and naturally patted the person beside him. “Let’s begin.”
She gently tugged her cord until she felt someone pulling back from the other end, then began feeling her way forward through the darkness.
She didn’t know how far she would have to walk or whom she would meet.
When the first person began walking, Qin Siyu tensed, afraid his own cord would pull him forward. Fortunately, the end in his hand remained limp and completely still.
After a while, the first pair met in the middle.
The sounds of movement stopped. Cliff asked, “All right? You’re there, yes? Now both of you hold out your left hands, palms open. Good… First question: Are you a man? The person who originally stood by the window answers first. If you’re a man, draw a circle in your partner’s palm. If you’re not, draw a cross.”
After the responses, they heard two women’s voices break into little bursts of laughter.
“What’s so funny? Finish the game!” Cliff said. “Now the second question… Are you wearing glasses? Were you wearing a hat when you arrived tonight? Are you wearing a dress? Does your dress have stripes? Are you wearing a shirt? Is your shirt gray? Does your shirt have a button-down collar? Were your leather shoes brown when you arrived? Do you have short hair? Are your eyes blue? Is your hair chestnut brown? Are you taller than six feet?”
Qin Siyu thought of himself, then Aston, then everyone else whose features he could remember. It was true: if you had really paid attention to someone, the answers would identify them. Cliff had put thought into these questions. They were carefully designed to distinguish every person, so that no one would remain unidentifiable unless their partner simply couldn’t remember.
And because absolute certainty required so much information, there were many questions. Every one could raise someone’s hopes and then shatter them completely.
Yet as Cliff had said, for most people, “liking” someone meant only liking them a little.
Finally Cliff asked, “All right. Time to decide. Do you want to kiss?”
Naturally, the two girls didn’t.
Cliff waited a moment. “Now walk around me on either side and go to the back… Wait there until the game is over.”
The second pair came together in the middle.
After all the questions, Qin Siyu had a vague sense that the two of them kissed.
He couldn’t say why.
The people nearby held their breath, too, afraid of disturbing them. The air seemed to stretch into strands and tendrils; even the room took on a faintly sweet, musky scent of hormones.
Then came the second pair, and then the third.
Each time Qin Siyu felt a jolt of nervousness, yet the cord in his hand remained completely still.
They could vaguely tell that perhaps three pairs among those ahead of them had kissed. Every time, the air seemed to turn thick and sticky for a moment.
But nobody knew who any of them were.
Aston stood at the very end.
After everyone else had gone, Cliff said, “All right, the last pair. We all know who one of them is, don’t we? But who the other one is… that’s a mystery.”
“…” Qin Siyu’s cord still hadn’t been pulled.
He already knew he would be the other person.
Sure enough, after the person opposite began drawing on the cord, Qin Siyu soon felt a tug in his own hand.
He let himself be pulled toward the middle.
The red cord wound around his wrist. He gradually tightened it, then gently looped it around his wrist, turn after turn.
In the darkness, he seemed to hear someone breathing across from him. He couldn’t explain it, but from the atmosphere, the pressure in the air, he knew it was Aston.
He didn’t need to confirm a single thing.
But Cliff began asking anyway. “Are you a man?”
A fingertip brushed his palm. It tickled.
With his other hand, Qin Siyu drew a circle as well.
Then came “Is your shirt gray?” “Does it have a button-down collar?” “Were your leather shoes brown when you arrived tonight?”
Qin Siyu realized he really could remember every detail of what Aston had worn.
So if you couldn’t be sure about a person, perhaps it really did mean you didn’t like them enough.
He realized, too, that he truly had been watching Aston all along, caring about him that much.
One by one, the other man’s fingertips answered and confirmed each question against his palm.
Every answer tickled. The tingling crept from his palm up his arm and into his heart.
Cliff continued asking, “Is your hair golden?”
Qin Siyu drew an “×.” And the person opposite him… slowly traced an “○.”
Then, “Are your eyes blue?”
Qin Siyu drew another “×.” And the other man… once more slowly drew an “○.”
A little while later, at last, every question had been answered.
Cliff asked, “Now, do you intend to kiss the person in front of you?”
Both men’s fingertips stopped moving.
Qin Siyu didn’t know.
Under cover of darkness, under cover of a game, with their identities hidden, with no one knowing and no way to be sure, with the freedom to deny it afterward, to feign surprise afterward… could he kiss Aston?
His breathing grew rapid. Terribly nervous, he held his fingertip motionless where it was.
Aston made no clear declaration either. A declaration like that would shock the world.
In the palm of Aston’s hand, Qin Siyu’s fingertip trembled faintly. He couldn’t bring himself to answer. Aston didn’t force him.
After several seconds, Aston closed his hand around Qin Siyu’s, feeling the tremors running through his fingers.
He lifted those fingers to his lips and kissed the tip of the index finger that was shaking hardest, the one that had wanted to answer. Then his lips traveled up along the skin to the back of the hand, over knuckles and raised veins, until he reached the worst scar on Qin Siyu’s hand. There he kissed it again.
Like an old-fashioned hand-kiss offered to a princess as a sign of devotion.
Qin Siyu trembled even more.
When he was a teenager apprenticing and repairing shoes in the Italian district, he’d accidentally struck the back of his own hand with a hammer. Blood had poured everywhere. He hadn’t dared go to a Western hospital because it would cost money, and the wound had reopened again and again, taking a very long time to heal.
After it had healed, the skin wasn’t that different in color, only a little raised and paler.
His parents didn’t even know he had the scar. He himself hardly thought about it.
Yet Aston had noticed it. He must have felt sorry for Qin Siyu because of it, too. How else could he have found the scar so precisely in complete darkness, without a trace of light?
Whether it was his trembling fingertip or the scar left by an old injury, Aston wanted to kiss it.
Fingertips settled against the back of Qin Siyu’s neck, a palm resting against his cervical spine.
A wave of tingling surged toward his brain. Qin Siyu didn’t draw away. He laid his other hand over Aston’s. Aston’s fingers were very cool.
Qin Siyu wrapped one arm around Aston’s waist and pressed the other hand to his back, between the shoulder blades.
Warm lips came against his. There was no rush, no attempt to deepen the contact. They exchanged small, gentle kisses.
One, two, three, four.
So soft, so real.
Tingling swept through Qin Siyu’s entire body, from his head to his toes.
He couldn’t understand why. His lips touched things every day: food, drink, spoons, chopsticks… None of that had ever felt like anything. So why was this different? Why did his heart feel as though it might leap out of his chest?
After five kisses, neither could be satisfied. They had no idea whether they would ever again have a chance in this life to pretend not to know what was happening. Neither wanted to waste it. Their tongues reached out, curling lightly around each other and tangling.
Their tongues moved in circles, brushing and rubbing. Qin Siyu clung tightly to Aston, both arms enclosed in Aston’s embrace. He trembled faintly, his legs weak.
Knowing that their time was limited, they kissed harder and closer, reaching almost a feverish pitch. Their breathing grew heavy now and then. Qin Siyu wished time could stop forever in that moment.
Darkness heightened all their senses a thousandfold. His taste buds seemed to have stopped working, overwhelmed, numb. Every last one seemed ready to burst apart and burn itself out right there.
They had been kissing for too long. They couldn’t continue. Slowly they drew apart, and Aston let the red cord fall. In the unseen darkness, a long, thin, silvery thread stretched between their tongues. It broke, leaving a cool sensation between Qin Siyu’s parted lips.
The sitting room was utterly silent. In truth everyone could sense that Kingsley Aston had actually kissed someone.
No one had expected that outcome.
The atmosphere was unmistakably strange.
Long and thick with feeling.
He had really kissed someone?
Who?
Who in this room could have caught his fancy?
Nobody knew who that person was.
Slipping around the others, Qin Siyu followed the wall to the back and stopped among the crowd without bumping into anyone.
“All right, the game’s over,” Cliff said, his voice carrying its usual teasing note.
With a snap, the whole sitting room flooded with light again!
Everyone squinted.
Knowing Kingsley Aston had kissed someone, the guests scanned the women’s faces, searching for a clue.
The women studied each other and realized that others were studying them in turn.
Who was the person Kingsley Aston liked?
And given Kingsley Aston’s nature, he must have been utterly certain of their identity.
But Cliff’s questions had all been about “what are you wearing tonight” and “what did you have on when you arrived.” That meant Aston didn’t just like the person casually. The idea was unbelievable.
Qin Siyu let his gaze fall languidly.
Fortunately, even if someone noticed his ears had turned red and his lips were swollen, they’d assume he’d kissed one of the ladies present. It was easy to hide.
Only Cliff let his gaze pass over his friend’s composed face and then over the others. Seeing every woman there curiously inspecting everyone else, he turned his attention back to Aston and said nothing.
Since childhood, Cliff had been exceptionally good at reading people. He could tell the difference between someone genuinely observing others and someone trying to conceal something.
“Well then,” Cliff said with a smile. “I can see that several people who kissed in the dark are still savoring it. I suppose I’ve done a good deed. Whether you kissed the right person, though… you’ll have to find that out yourselves. May those in love end up together, and may those who kissed the wrong person forget it.”
Some people protested. “You’d rather it was all the latter, wouldn’t you? You’re horrible!” “Always smiling on the outside, always plotting something nasty inside!”
“You’re doing me an injustice,” Cliff said. He glanced at his friend and offered a kindly hint. “At least one person, I’m certain, couldn’t possibly have made a mistake.”
Aston lifted his eyes.
Cliff continued, “Actually, there is one situation I forgot to mention just now: acting on impulse. Let me add it. I hope that anyone who gave in to impulse just now will calm down and think about the future… Don’t choose the wrong person and go on making the same mistake again.”