Chapter 47: Emotional Burdens

Pei Huaihua could clearly sense that Wu Zhenri had grown cold toward her. When she stepped out from his residence, the night outside was pitch black.

Wu Zhenri only offered a perfunctory, polite goodbye, omitting his usual gesture of walking her out a piece of the way. He gave no thought to the safety of a young woman traveling alone at night. It was as if, once that matter was concluded, it was nothing more than a completed transaction. Their connection felt less like a romantic relationship and more like a transaction between a client and a prostitute.

Discontent stirred within Huaihua, shaking her confidence in this so-called relationship with Wu. She even began to view her former aspirations—marrying him and following him down south to indulge in a sweet, comfortable life—as utterly ridiculous.

When she returned home, the rest of the household was already fast asleep. She unlocked the door and stepped inside, her very first action being to snatch the bouquet of roses Wu had previously bought from a flower-selling child out of the water-filled vase, hurling them straight out the window.

As she tossed them into the night, the light caught the petals, revealing they had already begun to rot and turn black. Indeed, they should have been thrown away long ago.

*You intend to discard me, Wu Zhenri,* she thought to herself. *Before your intentions can be put into action, I will discard you first.*

Lately, Wu Zhenri seemed utterly bewitched, constantly driven to seek out the young woman who repaired clocks and watches on South Street. So preoccupied was he that even during his morning internship at a construction unit, his mind remained entirely absent. Halfway through the shift, he fabricated a lie about needing to buy a jacket on West Street, tugging at the hem of his own thin windbreaker as he addressed the on-site supervisor, saying, "Look how thinly I am dressed."

Having thus slipped away, he made a bee-line for the watch-repair stall on South Street.

The young woman was deeply engrossed in her work, holding a long-handled magnifying glass. From time to time, she would meticulously shift it over a watch dial to inspect it, make a few adjustments, and restore a broken timepiece to working order, its steady ticking resuming once more.

A customer standing nearby accepted the repaired watch, and upon learning the modest repair fee, cheerfully paid the money.

Spotting a moment when the customer departed, Wu Zhenri stepped forward to strike up a conversation. "Your surname is Hu, isn't it?"

"That's right! How did you know?" The young woman, currently working on a second watch, lifted a delicate, jade-white, tapered face, blinking her bright, lustrous eyes as she countered his question.

Wu Zhenri flashed a flattering grin. "You are the renowned beauty of the South Street watch-repair stalls. How could I possibly not know?"

Hu咪咪 (Hu Mimi) had originally intended to ask for the name and background of the strange young man standing before her, but seeing another customer approach with a wristwatch that likely needed repair, she cut him off. "I am very busy right now. I don't have time to chat."

"When will you have time? Would you teach me the art of watch repair?" Wu Zhenri asked purposely, eager to linger and entangle himself further with her.

Hu Mimi had no mood for this. Accepting the other customer's watch, she casually gestured toward an elderly man wearing glasses at a neighboring stall and said, "Go find Master He if you want an apprenticeship! All my skills were learned from him."

"I only want to apprentice under you," Wu Zhenri insisted.

"I don't take apprentices," Hu Mimi replied firmly. "And I don't have time to chat with you. If you aren't here to fix a watch, don't speak to me. You're only distracting me and interfering with my work—people are waiting to collect their watches!"

Unwilling to give up, Wu Zhenri thought to himself: *You may not want to entangle with me, but I am determined to entangle with you. I'll win you over yet.*

Her words were, for all intents and purposes, a polite dismissal, and he was certainly perceptive enough to understand that.

Yet he felt no anger, buoyed by a sense of superiority. In his mind, a watch repairwoman held a low social standing, whereas he—despite having bought his way into a university education—was a university man nonetheless.

Furthermore, he considered himself a member of the affluent second generation, blessed with decent looks. If not an absolute heartthrob, he was at least half a one! Armed with such multifaceted strengths, he felt entirely equipped to conquer her.

With this in mind, he smiled and addressed Hu Mimi with an abrupt, complimentary remark as she bowed her head over her work: "Little Hu, you are so stunning. I'd love to see you again next time."

"Pffft!" Hu Mimi felt no joy upon hearing praise from a stranger. Too many men had complimented her beauty, the vast majority of them young, and she had long since arrived at a cynical conclusion: none of these men had pure intentions; they were all lechers.

Her thoughts drifted back to a few years prior during her school days. Hadn't there been two male classmates who admired her looks? In the end, driven by jealousy and a contest for her affections, they had come to blows, resulting in their expulsion from the school and dragging her down with them, forcing her out as well.

Ever since that time, not only did she lack favorable feelings toward men who praised her, but she harbored a latent resentment. She had secretly resolved never to rely on her physical appearance to sponge off men for a living, vowing instead to stand on her own two feet.

True to her word, after leaving school, Hu Mimi had apprenticed herself to Master He on South Street, learning the craft until she graduated to running her own stall, truly fulfilling a young woman's promise of self-reliance through her own abilities.

To maneuver his way closer to Hu Mimi, Wu Zhenri put in a bit of effort. He went downtown to the leather goods market, bought a genuine cowhide women's handbag, and presented it to Pei Huaihua, also treating her to a meal of steak at a local food stall.

It was evening when Pei Huaihua, touched by Wu's sudden generosity, assumed he had fallen back in love with her. Gazing at the expensive handbag she had just received, a wave of confidence washed over her; her voice took on a slightly affected, sweet tone as she batted her eyelashes and cast flirtatious glances at him.

By the time Wu Zhenri's face was flushed and warm from drinking, he felt a certain degree of tipsiness, though he remained lucid. Secretly pouring a splash of the potent white liquor from his own glass into Pei Huaihua's, he clinked glasses with her and urged her to drink.

Feeling thoroughly pampered and unwilling to spoil his good mood, and reasoning that a tiny, non-intoxicating sip of alcohol would do no harm, Huaihua raised no further objections.

Just as she lifted the glass to her lips, Wu Zhenri said, "Huaihua, I want to ask a favor of you, so I'm not treating you in vain."

"What favor?" Huaihua lowered the glass, which emanated the sharp scent of liquor, and pressed him with a sudden, cornering urgency.

Wu Zhenri smiled craftily. "I'll tell you after you pick up the glass and finish your drink."

"That won't do. If you don't tell me, I won't drink," Huaihua balked stubbornly.

Noticing that other diners at neighboring stalls were casting curious glances their way, Wu Zhenri waved a dismissive hand. "Forget it. This matter is too important, not suitable to be discussed here. While we take a walk later, I'll tell you all about it."

Trusting him once more—she was, after all, a straightforward person—Pei Huaihua picked up her glass and downed the remaining liquor in one go.

After finishing at the food stall, they left the brightly lit, bustling commercial streets and wandered into a dimly lit, somewhat melancholic tree-lined avenue.

Palming the handbag now slung over her shoulder, Huaihua asked Wu Zhenri in a grateful tone, "What is this favor you wanted? You can tell me now. You've been so good to me—whatever I can help with, I'll do my absolute best. How it turns out will be up to fate, but if I can't pull it off, you mustn't blame me!"

Wu Zhenri stammered and stuttered, unable to squeeze out a coherent sentence for the longest time.

Only when Huaihua prodded him repeatedly did he finally voice the thought burning in his mind: "Aren't you quite close with that watch repairwoman, Hu Mimi? Could you introduce me to her?"

It felt as though a basin of cold water had been dumped over her head; a deep chill spread through Pei Huaihua's chest. The moment those words left his mouth, she grasped his true intentions.

*So that's how it is,* she thought bitterly. *If you've set your sights on Hu Mimi, why did you buy me a handbag? Since your affections have wandered elsewhere, doesn't this bag in my hands transform into an emotional burden?*

*Indeed, once a person's heart has flown off, it can never be retrieved. Right now, his heart belongs to Hu Mimi, a stranger to him, and there is nothing I can do.*

*Should I return the handbag and wash my hands of him? No! I was utterly loyal to him; it is he who failed to cherish it. I offered him my maidenhood, only for him to profane it.*

*What is the monetary value of this handbag anyway? I need feel not the slightest pang of guilt in accepting it. It is not I who failed him; he is the one who failed me.*

Having thought it through and seen right through his facade, she instinctively clutched the handbag at her side, resolving never to take it off and return it. Letting out a cold laugh, she put on a mask of magnanimity toward Wu Zhenri and said, "Fine! Leave the introduction to me. I'll take care of it!"

Pei Huaihua's uncharacteristic readiness caught Wu Zhenri completely off guard. Eager to flatter and reward her, he purposefully reached out to pull her into his embrace, pressing her close beneath a camphor tree by the roadside before planting a passionate kiss on her lips.

Huaihua tilted her head away, pushing him back. "Zhenri, I haven't accomplished your task yet. Once it's done, you can come and dally with me all you like!"

Wu Zhenri laughed and agreed on the surface, but inwardly he thought: *Once I'm together with Hu Mimi, who would bother dallying with you?*

Yet there was still a crucial step remaining, and unable to suppress his impatience, he asked, "Then when can you help me with this favor?"

"In the next couple of days," Pei Huaihua told him explicitly, instructing him not to seek her out in the interim. Once she had spoken with Hu Mimi, she would contact him naturally.

Having said her piece, Huaihua abandoned the walk entirely and headed straight back toward home.

Under the hazy night, Wu Zhenri offered to escort her, but Huaihua rebuffed him. *You southern bastard, roaming around with such a fickle heart—who wants you to walk them home? Hypocritical scum.* A wave of disgust toward Wu washed over her.

She walked a few paces alone, but noticing Wu stubbornly trailing behind her, she spun around and delivered a chilly ultimatum: "Zhenri, you can walk me home if you insist, but the favor you asked of me won't happen."

Wu Zhenri halted in his tracks. "Me walking you a piece of the way and me asking a favor of you are two completely different things. Why are you lumping them together?"

"Let me tell you, you can't have your cake and eat it too," Huaihua retorted, displaying a sharp backbone. With an unyielding attitude, she reiterated, "You can walk me home, but I won't do you that favor."

This put Wu Zhenri in an awkward spot. He fully grasped her underlying meaning: she was essentially telling him that if he wanted to be with her, he needed to walk beside her through the journey of life wholeheartedly, casting aside thoughts of other women; if he wouldn't commit to her, she had no use for his hypocritical company.

Quietly interrogating his own conscience, Wu Zhenri asked himself: *Do I actually like Pei Huaihua or not?* His thoughts yielded an answer: if the intoxicatingly beautiful watch repairwoman Hu Mimi had never entered the picture, he could have grudgingly continued his relationship with Pei Huaihua; but now that Hu Mimi existed—her captivating, haunting image permanently etched into his mind, appearing before his eyes the moment he closed them—

Left with no choice, Wu Zhenri uttered the words required of the moment: "Thank you, Huaihua! If you don't want me to walk you, I won't. I wouldn't want to displease you—I'll just leave that matter entirely in your hands."

Pei Huaihua gave no reply. Seeing that he was no longer tailing her, she strode off without a backward glance down the tree-lined path, hailed a passing taxi, and directed it straight toward home.