Part VI – 浪子回头 (The Return of the Prodigal)
VI.i – Xiaoming
East Coast Park was familiar territory to Xiaoming. Since childhood, he came here on at least a weekly basis. Yet tonight was not like other nights. Xiaoming tugged at the collar of his button-down Oxford shirt, trying his hardest not to sweat as he strolled down the footpath.
He'd asked Xixi to meet him at the Bedok Jetty. The 15 km (9 mile) long beachfront recreational area that lay just across the expressway in front of his block of flats wasn't usually busy on weekdays, except during school holidays. But so long as they stayed away from the playground, food centre, and skate park, they could be certain of their relative privacy.
Bedok Jetty lay slightly beyond the parts of the park that were frequented by families. During the day, it was a haven for fishing. At sundown after work, with the sea breeze sweeping in to take away the stuffiness, it was an oasis of peace and serenity against the bustle of the city.
At least, it was as peaceful as any place could get within a bustling urban city-state. The East Coast Parkway, one of Singapore's major expressways, was less than a kilometre away.
Xiaoming felt that he was coming of age, and this was his time to act upon it.
All along, he'd been waiting for the year of his thirtieth birthday to tie the knot with Xixi. If pressed, he wouldn't be able to explain why he thought that was the right age to marry, but like all his decisions in life before this, he stuck to the choices that felt safe. And nobody could fault him for being too young and incautious if he spent his twenties in a steady relationship that culminated in marriage at thirty.
Now, though, he had reason to speak even though the momentous birthday was still several months away. He had been selected for a three-year overseas posting in Chengdu, Sichuan, with the statutory board where he worked. If he accepted the appointment, he would need to relocate, and he wanted Xixi to go with him.
He'd told his parents of his plans – after all, they needed to consult a geomancer to find auspicious wedding banquet and solemnization dates. He'd also roped Lele in and allowed her to tell Fang Wu. They were the ones who would be capturing this moment for posterity.
In short, everyone closest to the couple knew, except for the recipient of his proposal. Xiaoming didn't know how to be romantic, not that Xixi seemed to mind. One of the things that he liked best about her was her preference for security over romance.
But Xiaoming had been privy to enough proposals from his friends and colleagues to feel the obligation to create some element of drama and surprise. It seemed that the ladies appreciated this, although it only put more pressure on Xiaoming.
He knew that Xixi would realize this wasn't just any other day. Usually, they met on the weekends and rarely saw each other after work. But since this was a workday, she wouldn't need foreknowledge of the occasion to be all dressed up in a skirt and heels. In fact, to Xiaoming's mind, she always dressed up when they went out together. She never went more than five metres away from her front door without makeup.
Today, Xiaoming thought, Xixi looked prettier than ever. With the breeze ruffling her hair ever so slightly, against the backdrop of the sea he looked upon every day from his window, he could only think of one thing – that with Xixi, he would always be at home.
Yes, there was Xiaoming's posting as an overseas Centre Director, which would take them away for three years if that was the path that he – or rather, they – might choose. They might even choose to extend their stay for more terms and be away for six years, even nine.
But at the end of that road, there was no doubt that they would eventually return to the seafront flat that Xiaoming had always called home, with this view greeting them every morning and evening. This was where they belonged.
Vi. ii – Xixi
Xiaoming never asked her to come to the beach on a weekday. Without the need for any further hints, Xixi knew that this day was special.
At twenty-seven, Xixi wasn't the first of her uni cohort to be proposed to, though she knew she also wouldn't be the last. Among her current colleagues and former uni classmates, there were ladies who liked to one-up each other on how over-the-top their boyfriends' romantic gestures could be. She'd heard of bombastic proposals proclaimed from the swankiest spots in town, such as the rooftop of Marina Bay Sands.
To Xixi, this was much more intimate and personal. East Coast Park was Xiaoming's happy place; it had literally been a witness to him growing up. Through the nearly seven years they'd been dating, Xixi and Xiaoming had spent many private moments here after dinner with his parents. They didn't walk as far as Bedok Jetty very often, but they cycled here – and beyond – on occasional Sunday or holiday afternoons when they wanted to get away from it all.
This was no cycling trip, and Xixi was aware of it. She'd taken the Thomson-East Coast Line train from her office and crossed the East Coast Parkway via underpass, making slow but careful progress in order not to mess up her work attire.
Seeing Xiaoming dressed in his best office wear confirmed Xixi's suspicions of the nature of this meeting. Yet it still surprised her that at the end of the jetty, he went on bended knee.
"Zheng Xinxi – Xixi – will you marry me?" he asked.
As Xixi had always expected, Xiaoming's proposal would be simple and straightforward. Nobody would ever credit him for his imagination, but Xixi was overjoyed to see that she'd overrated his pragmatism. She'd anticipated that he might propose over a meal at the food court, and this was much better than that.
"Xiaoming," she said, stretching her arms out to help him to his feet, "of course the answer is yes." Glowing with joy, she wrapped him up in a tearful hug.
Vi. iii – Lele
Lele hit the "stop" button on her smartphone camera with a satisfied grin. When it came to her turn, she would love to have a big party with a professional camera crew. But for the painfully shy Xiaoming, she could only feel relieved that he had the sense to ask someone to record this special moment.
She'd dragged Fang Wu along with her to carry the proposal balloons, which spelled "Marry Me". He'd wrangled the pink foil letters into a bunched-up bed sheet for concealment and wrestled with them to keep them from floating away.
Surely, he was the most fidgety wingman she'd ever seen, Lele thought. As a former professional athlete, he ought to be strong enough to manage a bunch of helium balloons without quite so much wrangling.
With the moment on bended knee caught and captured, Fang Wu was able to release his burden, handing the strung-together letters to Xiaoming.
"Wow," Xixi gasped. "But now, everyone will know."
Lele would prefer to believe that her sister cast her eyes down in mock embarrassment. But reserved as Xixi and Xiaoming could be, Lele knew very well that most likely, their bashfulness was real. Which meant that Xiaoming had gone way out of his comfort zone to make this occasion memorable for Xixi.
They captured a few more shots with Xiaoming presenting the balloons to Xixi, and the happy couple sealing it with a kiss.
Lele always kept her smartphone model up to date, which was great for such occasions when she needed a camera with good low-light performance. But she knew her hand-held shots would look amateurish in the wedding video up against the professionally taken same-day footage.
Not that Xixi and Xiaoming would mind – they were intensely private, almost as intensely frugal, and she respected their wish for her (and her other half) to be the only live witnesses to this special moment, simply because she was the person closest to Xixi.
"Do you not want people to see it?" Xiaoming asked. "I thought all ladies want dramatic proposals."
"傻瓜 (Silly)," said Xixi affectionately, mussing Xiaoming's hair, "everything you do for me is special." She wound the string of the balloons around her wrist and let them flutter proudly behind her in the wind.
Their usual lack of demonstrativeness belied the obvious affection in Xixi's and Xiaoming's eyes. Lele could scarcely bear to watch, knowing that she had yet to inspire a similar gaze from Fang Wu. Even now, as she cast him a meaningful glance, all she saw was that he was looking away.
Vi. iv – Xiaoming
For dinner, Xiaoming had booked alfresco dining at the nearby Jumbo Seafood Restaurant, one of Singapore's most popular chili crab chains. A whole crab would do very nicely for four people.
Tying the balloon string securely to his chair, Xiaoming let the words billow behind him. He had been brought up to believe that keeping his head down and getting the right answers was more important than being noticed, but now that Xixi was his for life, he didn't mind proclaiming it from the rooftops.
Perhaps, being selected for an overseas posting gave him new confidence – or maybe it was love that made him bold.
Xiaoming was not at all in the habit of ordering wine, but it felt appropriate to get a bottle of Australian white wine to toast the occasion. After all, he and Xixi had more than one thing to celebrate.
"There's one more thing I wanted to tell you," Xiaoming announced, "I've been offered a post as the Centre Director in Chengdu."
"太好了! (That's terrific!)" squealed Xixi. "And so, you asked so I could move there with you!"
"Not just that," Xiaoming countered. "I would have asked you anyway, because I'm turning thirty and I wouldn't want to wait. But now I will get COLA (Cost of Living Allowance), which means we can afford a better place."
Even though he was sure of Xixi's loyalty to him, Xiaoming couldn't help feeling insecure that his family wasn't as wealthy as hers. As career civil servants, his parents had earned a decent and stable income but lived plainly and frugally. For example, they hadn't renovated their flat in decades.
On the other hand, the Zhengs were a well-to-do business family, willing and able to afford all the extras. While Xiaoming knew Xixi didn't thumb up her nose at public housing – a five-room HDB flat was decently middle-class in Singapore, and she was currently living in one too – he couldn't help feeling that his ageing flat might seem inadequate to her parents and possibly her relatives.
Yet Xiaoming couldn't bring himself to exchange the only home he knew for something newer. There were so many things about his parents' flat that couldn't be replaced or replicated: its prime location, the sea view that he loved, and the fact that his parents would never leave it. He knew that if Xixi loved him as much as he thought she did, she would take him as he was, flat and all. And she had.
Still, Xiaoming couldn't deny that living overseas on expat terms for a few years would raise his status with her family. It meant he could come back with a handsome promotion into line management too, which would also be advantageous for his income and reputation.
"Congratulations!" As Xiaoming might have guessed, Fang Wu was the first to approve. While Xiaoming wouldn't admit it, the appearance of Fang Wu in his life caused him a lot of stress. Nothing was more important to that dude than independence, which was the key aspect where Xiaoming couldn't help feeling that he came up short. He was relieved that Xixi would have no reason to compare him with Fang Wu anymore.
"Xixi, are you excited to be closer to your parents?" Fang Wu continued. It hadn't escaped Xiaoming that not having parents might have been a catalyst to Fang Wu's accelerated independence. With this revelation that Fang Wu treasured family nonetheless, Xiaoming felt less judged than before.
"A two-hour flight isn't exactly close," replied Xixi, fiddling with her piece of crab. "I've never been in a new place away from my parents, Lele, and my friends. The first year of uni doesn't count since I was in a hostel and made friends very quickly. But Xiaoming, since you will be with me, I won't be scared."
"Same here." Xiaoming smiled a little shamefacedly. He wouldn't confess aloud that he'd never lived anywhere but his parents' flat for nearly thirty years. Even while attending the National University of Singapore, he'd stayed at home instead of at the hostels. "I'm actually more nervous about speaking Chinese all the time than about moving out on our own."
"How can a Dunman High boy be worried about speaking Chinese?" teased Xixi.
Xiaoming had attended Tao Nan School and Dunman High, the most prestigious primary and secondary Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools in the eastern part of the island. He'd studied Higher Chinese from Primary 1 to the 'A' Levels, but that still wasn't enough to make him comfortable with conversing in Mandarin, when everything in Singapore was done in English.
"I think you know," Xiaoming bantered back. "Haven't we all seen Dunman High students on the MRT?" Like most people living in the eastern part of Singapore, he regularly encountered students in Dunman High uniforms conversing in English while commuting on public transportation. He'd been one of them once. "But with your help, I'm sure I can learn over time."
"Xiaoming, how do you think Uncle and Aunty will take it?" asked Xixi a little nervously. It surprised Xiaoming that Xixi would worry more about his parents' reactions than he did. Had he given her the impression that he was so dependent on them? And if he had, did it scare her?
"I think they'll enjoy coming to visit," he said, trying to sound confident. He'd done his research, and they would be able to stay in China visa-free for 30 days at a time. "We can take them to see the pandas."
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding was one of the major local attractions that gave the city its fame, with the surrounding forest being one of the best panda habitats. It was the home of the giant pandas that came to the Singapore Zoo on loans, and where the first panda cub born in Singapore had gone back to.
They continued talking deep into the night, discussing their future and the upcoming move. Xiaoming regaled the rest with stories about the collective excitement in Singapore at the birth of the first panda cub, a boy named Le Le 叻叻 (not to be confused with Xixi's sister Lele 乐乐) in 2021.
Xiaoming was surprised to find Lele uncharacteristically silent. She'd badgered him incessantly about getting a flat for the past two years, so he knew she was supportive of him as a partner for her sister. Perhaps Lele might feel left out with him and Xixi moving away and leaving her behind, but he scarcely expected her to feel upset when it meant that she would have the whole flat to herself and Fang Wu.
But at twenty-five, Lele was an adult. There wasn't much Xiaoming could do on her account. Besides, there were other concerns at the top of his mind.
After they finished dinner, Xiaoming called a Grab to pick Xixi up and send her home. Graciously, Lele and Fang Wu offered to take public transportation so that he could accompany Xixi in the car and bring the balloons. Xiaoming was grateful for the much-needed privacy.
"Xixi, do you think I am a late bloomer?" he asked. "I mean, normally CDs (Centre Directors) are appointed after three years of work, but it took me four years to get my Centre Directorship."
"Oh, Xiaoming." Xixi laid her head on his shoulder and stretched an arm across him. "Even if you never became a Centre Director, I'd love you anyway. No matter whether you get your promotion early or late, I'll always be proud of you." She gave him a blissful hug.
In the dark, Xiaoming's face lit up, knowing that he had chosen the person who accepted him for who he was.
He wouldn't fool himself into thinking he was a high-flyer, when many people got promoted faster than him. But he wasn't doing too badly either – not everybody at his statutory board became Centre Directors, so it was better late than never. He was hardworking, meticulous and reliable, traits which paid off in the end.
Best of all, Xixi treasured him for it. Xiaoming would never call himself the luckiest man in the world (the way Fang Wu sometimes did), but he was happy to simply be lucky enough.
Vi.v – Lele
The travel plans that sprung up after Xixi and Xiaoming's engagement put Lele into an even more desperate mood than before.
Of course, Xiaoming would join Xixi and Lele's annual Lunar New Year visit to their parents in two months' time. For the past six years, Xixi and Xiaoming had spent a fortnight in Changsha every summer, while passing the Lunar New Year with their respective families. That was the practical choice when in China the New Year holidays spanned a whole week, whereas people got only two days off in Singapore. Furthermore, travel fares were highly inflated during the Golden Week.
When Lele joined Xixi and Xiaoming's summer trips home, she had already felt like a hanger-on even before their formal engagement. Her parents were too good; no matter how much they showered Xixi and Xiaoming with their approbation, they never openly criticised Lele for her singlehood. Yet, with every inch of praise her parents bestowed on Xiaoming, Lele felt the subtle pressure anyway.
Tagging on to the engaged Xixi and Xiaoming, with all the added baggage that the Lunar New Year brought, would be infinitely worse. The elder generation dispensed 红包 hongbao, or red packets enclosing cash gifts, to unmarried members of the younger generation. This customary practice was believed to bring luck.
Xixi and Xiaoming were almost certain to marry before Xiaoming embarked on his posting in Chengdu, so this would be the final New Year that they would be receiving hongbao instead of giving them. Lele knew that all the relatives they visited would point out this fact ad nauseum, even though she least wanted to be reminded of it.
The prospect of being stuck as the only hongbao recipient left in the family felt to Lele like a damning proclamation of her arrested development. All her life, she only wanted to catch up to her elder sister. She'd always rebelled against being a child or getting treated like one.
Yet Lele also knew that in Chinese families, marriage couldn't be rushed. Wedding banquet venues were often oversubscribed, necessitating reservations twelve to eighteen months in advance. The waiting lists for new construction public housing flats in Singapore could be twice as long as that.
Even after the two to three years it took for dating to progress to engagement, the road from engagement to marriage was a long slog for those who didn't buck tradition to short-circuit it.
For example, Xixi and Xiaoming would need to compromise on the wedding banquet to be married before his posting. Most likely, they would host a small dinner or a lunch instead of a standard banquet dinner with hundreds of guests.
But then, both their sets of parents were relatively easy-going. A more traditional family would force them to host the customary dinner banquet eventually, even if they'd lived as a married couple for months by the time it took place.
No matter what formalities Xixi and Xiaoming might still be awaiting at the time of their move to Chengdu, Lele was fully aware that she had no hope of catching up to them.
As far as her relationship with Fang Wu was concerned, Lele was barely at step one. And there wasn't much she could do to accelerate their progress when the burden of courtship lay at least as much in the hands of the gentleman as the lady.
The only thing Lele could aim for was to have Fang Wu join her for the visit to Changsha, so that she could show her parents that she was doing something to address her single status.
That he would not, was something that Lele never anticipated. Thus far, hadn't he always done her bidding?
Vi. vi – Fang Wu
All this chatter about travel to Changsha was grating on Fang Wu's nerves.
In the few days since Xiaoming's proposal, Xixi and Lele had scoured the Scoot website almost hourly in anticipation of booking the cheapest air fares.
For the sake of courtesy, he resisted telling them that airline tickets were never cheap in the Lunar New Year peak season, and that they ought to just book whatever was available and be done with it.
"We don't need a row of three," Lele called to Xiaoming. "Two pairs of two seats should be possible, right?"
"Two pairs of two? Why would you need four seats?"
Fang Wu disliked having the need to say out loud that he wouldn't be joining them because it sounded rude. In fact, it shocked him that they assumed he would be part of the travelling party.
When it came to be rationally considered, Fang Wu didn't have more off days than anybody else working in Singapore. Furthermore, his sister, who was retired and had all the off days in the world, would be coming to visit him. Who in their right mind could possibly think it reasonable for him to join them on this visit when he was only tangentially related (if at all) to the newly engaged couple?
"Xiaowu, you're coming along, right? I thought you knew that!" Lele shot back.
Well, he hadn't. While Fang Wu had to admit that he had not seriously thought on this subject before, he honestly didn't suppose that he and Lele were established enough as a couple that a Lunar New Year visit to the parents would be customary.
"That was what I was searching for," replied Xiaoming. "But I can only find one pair of available seats together, can you and Fang Wu sit separately?"
This was getting even more ridiculous – did Xixi and Xiaoming also consider his relationship with Lele to be that serious? Fang Wu could admit that he hadn't protested when Lele had proclaimed him her boyfriend. But they'd only known each other for three months. How could any impartial third party ever deem them to be in meet-the-parents territory?
Besides, it didn't escape Fang Wu that if he spent the Lunar New Year with Lele and her parents, everyone would consider them engaged. A Lunar New Year visit was much more loaded than a meet-the-parents trip at other times of the year. It meant he would be introduced to all Lele's relatives as an honorary member of her family. Naturally, it would raise eyebrows if they didn't follow through with a wedding within a year after doing that.
"I can't go," he pointed out. "I won't be able to take that amount of time off during the school term."
"Why not? Isn't that what relief teachers are for?" argued Lele.
"How can I be considered reliable if I took time off like that in my first year? Besides, my sister has already made arrangements to visit me over here," Fang Wu countered.
"But you said your sister's plans could change anytime! So, you could just tell her to go to Changsha instead of Singapore," ordered Lele. "You're from Hunan, aren't you? Don't you have family there to visit?"
"We don't. My brother is in the rural area. And I already promised to visit him for the Winter Solstice."
This last statement was untrue unless Fang Wu took actions to give it veracity. His sister-in-law had been expecting a child when he last visited in the summer, so he did owe Fang Wen and his wife another visit before too long. But he'd initially planned for it to happen in either the March or June school holidays, not in December. He had barely settled in, so he had not intended to travel again so soon.
"You can tell your brother to come to Changsha," insisted Lele. Had he reasoned and talked in vain? If Fang Wu had ever believed that he admired Lele's resolution of character, he hadn't imagined that it would go to the extent of not being able to take 'no' for an answer.
"Yes, with a baby not even six months old," remarked Fang Wu. He hated himself for resorting to sarcasm, but he couldn't conceal his irritation anymore. "I'm sorry. I can't go with you."
"Xiaowu, come here." Lele stood up and with a swish of her long hair, she strode to the door and pushed it open. The set of her jaw showed that she would bear no opposition.
Despite the many positions of authority he had held over the years (and still did), Fang Wu had never needed to be as stern as Lele was now to be obeyed.
He had met his match, or perhaps even his master, in obstinacy.
Lele grabbed his hand and led him downstairs, crossing the street to Tampines Central Park. Out there in the open, where Xixi and Xiaoming couldn't hear them, she lit right into him.
"如果你不去，我也不去, (If you're not going, I won't go either,)" she threatened. "明白吗？ ([Do you] understand?)"
"这是你们之间的事, 干嘛要把我扯进去? (This is between you [and your family, why must you drag me into it?)" Fang Wu retorted.
"就因为是我的事，我偏要你管！ (Because this concerns me, I insist you must care [about it]!) 你要我收红包,收到几时？(For how long do you wish me to continue receiving red packets?)" Lele stamped her foot in frustration.
"我们才认识三个月, (We've only known each other for three months,)" parried Fang Wu, "谈这些不是太早了吧！ (Isn't it too early to talk about this!)"
The moment after the words flew out of his mouth, Fang Wu felt his own hypocrisy recoil upon him like the stroke of a whip. There had once been a time when three months hadn't been too soon for him to make up his mind. The only difference was that now, he'd made up his mind in the opposite direction.
"我们年纪已经不小了，还浪费时间干什么? (We're not young anymore, why are we still wasting time?)" Lele demanded.
Switching to English, she continued, "Let me teach you a phrase in Singlish: 'Ai' means 'want', and 'mai' means 'do you'. So, when you say, 'Ai stead mai', it means, 'do you want to go steady with me'?"
She shot him a meaningful look, as if daring him to speak.
"你在问我吗？ (Are you asking me [this]?)" Fang Wu knew he was playing dumb, that he was being deliberately and irritatingly stubborn. But if that was how Lele wanted it, two could play at that game.
"难道你不想开口？(Don't tell me you don't wish to say [it]?)" Lele challenged him back.
"对不起。([I'm] sorry.)" How had this whole thing left Fang Wu feeling like a cad? He knew what Lele wanted to hear.
The problem was, he couldn't bring himself to say it.
Yes, Fang Wu had been unguarded in approaching Lele, but he truly didn't consider himself involved to the point of being no longer at his own disposal. Still, so long as Lele believed so, he had let her down.
"你就这样一走了之？ (You're just going to go off like that?)" accused Lele. "既然这样，你就给我滚！ (Since [the situation is] like that, just go away!)"
Fang Wu felt cornered, regardless of whether this pickle was entirely of his own making. He wished he could say with a clear conscience that it was not, but even while resenting Lele's obdurate behaviour, he knew that his moment of plausible denial had passed.
He should never have allowed Lele to continue addressing him by a pet name after he became conscious that things could go no farther between them. But when had he started feeling that way? He could not pinpoint the exact moment, yet this was undeniably how he felt now, and he couldn't reverse it.
That she had entrapped him by referring to him as her boyfriend without his express consent was no reason for him not to have spoken out earlier. After all, couldn't his silence be construed as tacit consent?
"非常抱歉，我不能成全你。([I'm] extremely sorry, I can't do as you wish.)" With true penitence, Fang Wu hung his head. If he thought he had known indignity and humiliation before, it paled against the shame that now engulfed him.
All his life, Fang Wu had never done anything that rendered him unequal to looking others in the eye. But if he believed himself to be honourable to a fault, how had he ended up stooping to this level of passive-aggressiveness?
"我们就到此为止，(We're over,)" declared Lele. "从此以后，一刀两断！ (From now on, [let's] have a clean break!)"
Twice in his life, Fang Wu had dated someone seriously. Both times, he'd been dumped. Painfully, it dawned on him that when Atiqah had broken off with him, she had been the one to apologise, whereas Lele now expected him to apologise to her.
And he had apologised, repeatedly in fact, but it wasn't enough to assuage either her anger or his conscience.
Lele stalked off before he did, holding her head high and steadfastly avoiding any eye contact. Clearly, she saw herself as the party with the moral advantage.
Fang Wu knew the only path for reconciliation with Lele would be to determine himself hers in honour if she wished it. However, he saw no virtue in continuing this deception. Perhaps it might have commenced unwittingly, but it would most certainly be wilful if he now chose to perpetuate it.
By letting things end here, he would be kinder to Lele than to himself, Fang Wu felt. He'd tried to pursue a relationship where he had best calculated the certainty of acceptance, only to find in hindsight that it had stroked his ego but hadn't touched his heart.
She would move on; she would find somebody for whom the proclamations of love would not be a lie. He, on the other hand, had gambled twice in love and lost, with no guarantee of being third time lucky.
He barely knew where he wandered to before meandering back to his flat. Once he got home, he wasted no time in booking air tickets to visit his brother.
At such short notice, the nonstop flights on Scoot were fully booked. Fang Wu ended up with a circuitous flight itinerary via Kunming, leaving at 2:30 AM followed by nearly nine hours of travel time including the layover. After arriving at Changsha, he would need to take a long-distance bus into the countryside, making it at least a full day before he could reach his brother's home.
The journey would be gruelling, but the physical punishment was roundly deserved. From the period when he realised how horribly he'd misled Lele and deceived himself, his emotional penance had become severe. No amount of corporeal suffering could compare to it.
Lele further proved Fang Wu's unworthiness by showing up at his door the next morning, her swollen eyes belying her outward composure.
"昨天我太冲动了， (Yesterday, I was too impulsive,)" she admitted. Had he been in her place, Fang Wu thought, he would have tacked on an apology to that statement. But it wasn't out of character for Lele to be too proud to say she was sorry for anything. Three months was enough to give Fang Wu some understanding of her personality, no matter what he had professed.
"那你会去吗？ (In that case, will you go?)" If Lele could temper down the ill feeling of the previous day, Fang Wu would respond in kind. To let go of anger sat much easier with Fang Wu's conscience than holding onto it. How was it that only in hindsight he realised this too?
Resolutely, Lele shook her head. For a moment, Fang Wu felt guilty that he was driving her to snub her parents at the most important festive season for the year. Yet guilt wasn't a good enough reason for him to humour her against his true inclination.
"子欲养而亲不在的感觉，我体验过。 (I know what it's like to be too late to give my parents the support I would have wished to provide,)" he remarked, as gently as he could. "我劝你，还是去吧。 (I would advise you to go.)"
"我的事，你管不着。(My affairs are none of your business.)" In Lele's voice, the rancour of the previous day was replaced by sheer resignation. "我祝你一路顺风。 (I wish you a safe journey.)"
When Fang Wu hadn't told Lele that he would be flying off the very next day, he could only conclude that Lele was implying that she didn't want to see him again. That she wouldn't be communicating with him between now and the Winter Solstice, and most likely beyond.
"那么，(Then,)" he replied, "我祝福你。 (I wish you the best of luck.)"
With the barest of nods, Lele turned and walked away, leaving Fang Wu to close the door. The click of the lock underscored the finality of this conclusion to their relationship.
Left alone to his thoughts, Fang Wu gave in fully to his feelings of horror and remorse at the collateral damage he'd created.
If his unwillingness to commit to Lele had the power to make her cry, her feelings for him could not be as trifling as his turned out to be for her. He'd thought he was moving on, that he could settle for an uneventful relationship with any woman who matched him in cultural background and social standing, provided that her character was compatible enough with his.
"A strong mind, with sweetness of manner," had made the first and the last of his mental description.
Lele hadn't missed the mark on those standards – well, perhaps she fell short of the second condition now, after insisting on having her way despite his advice. Her petulance and stubbornness when he declined her request to travel to Changsha with her was the last straw to convince Fang Wu that they wouldn't be happy together in the long run.
Worst of all, Fang Wu had figured this out only yesterday.
Prior to that, he had been forcing himself to believe that Lele was the most suitable woman within his reach, on the sole basis that she'd been born in the same province as him. Very ironically, they'd ended up quarrelling over the Confucian values that had been drummed into them from childhood, and they'd broken up using the shared language that should have drawn them together.
By forging ahead purely based on the surface attribute of race, despite his insufficient understanding of Lele's personality, Fang Wu had been settling. He'd even been subconsciously aware that he was doing so, while completely oblivious to how he might have engaged Lele's feelings and how deeply disappointed she must be now.
Another man, someone who regarded romantic relationships with less seriousness, might absolve himself of blame in a way that Fang Wu could not.
Mutually deciding not to proceed with someone you met through an app after a couple of dinner dates was one thing. Discovering you were fundamentally incompatible with someone after getting enmeshed into their daily life, perhaps even after getting them emotionally attached, was another. That was something Fang Wu might have learned earlier, if he hadn't spent the past eight years with his career as a cover for his lack of focus in seeking a life partner.
A small part of Fang Wu wished that he could undo it all, that he could overlook the areas where he and Lele didn't see eye to eye. She was six years younger than he and accustomed to being indulged with all her wishes. Therefore, he shouldn't be surprised or repulsed by her decision to forgo paying her parents a Lunar New Year visit for purely self-centred reasons.
Unlike him, she had no experience yet of what she might regret in not taking every opportunity to bond with her family. He couldn't expect her to value the same things he did, when she hadn't been through enough disappointments in life to fully appreciate the good fortune and privilege she currently had.
Yet, a bigger part of Fang Wu stood firm; the easy road wouldn't be the right one. Even if he could patch things up with Lele for now by caving in, in the long run it wouldn't change that their values and priorities were misaligned.
A tiny voice whispered in his ear that someone right in front of him exemplified the precept of filial piety perfectly. So much so, in fact, that he should have no doubt as to why Lele would always come up short in his mind.
If he hadn't witnessed the equanimity with which Atiqah handled the responsibility of looking after her father, even to the sacrifice of her promising future in football, would Fang Wu be as critical of Lele's self-centredness and lack of filial piety at present?
Till the previous day, till the leisure for reflection which followed it, he had not understood the perfect excellence of Atiqah's inner strength, with which Lele's youthful wilfulness could so ill bear a comparison.
Till he experienced the burning shame of becoming the instrument of someone's misery, he hadn't been able to give his younger self – and Atiqah's – the grace they merited for their honest intentions, despite the unfortunate result.
Till he compared his memories of being dumped by Atiqah with his current feelings after being dumped by Lele, he didn't realise that he had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been angry. But then, he hadn't experienced true indifference until now.
The strongest lesson that Fang Wu's fallout with Lele imprinted on him was the distinction between love and ego. He should have felt no shame in admitting to a broken heart, when it was far more disgraceful to selfishly, if not quite wilfully, break someone else's.
Layovers were sheer torture, worse than any of the eighteen levels of hell. When the Chinese Super League hadn't deemed its players precious enough to be above flying commercially, Fang Wu knew he was throwing a toddler tantrum to think this way.
No, he might not be a snob or a diva (not yet, anyway). But when his mind was now trained to associate long flights with breakups, it ought not to be surprising that he was an even worse flyer than a two-year-old.
He still remembered his passage from Barcelona to Kunming eight years ago with videographic clarity. El Prat Airport was a shopping paradise on the inside, but all of it had passed him by in a blur. It had been a miracle that he'd even been able to find his gate when all he'd been able to think of was the sound of Atiqah's voice, telling him that she didn't love him, ringing in his ears.
In his funk, Fang Wu had missed the boarding announcements in Spanish and English. It had taken a desperate flight attendant, running out of the plane to hurriedly make an impromptu boarding call for him in Mandarin, to make him realise that the plane was about to leave without him.
"这是寻人广播，深圳航空 ZH866航班 – ZH866 – 即将就要起飞，请方武先生 – 方武先生 – 立即前往D13 号登机口 – D13 号 – 登机！ (This is a paging announcement, Shenzhen Airlines flight ZH 866 – ZH 866 – is about to take off. Can Mr. Fang Wu – Mr. Fang Wu – please come to gate D13 – gate D13 – for immediate boarding!)"
Somehow the sound of his own name had jolted him out of his thoughts sufficiently for Fang Wu to grab his backpack and shuffle to the aerobridge. The exasperated sighs of the ground staff upon seeing that he had been sitting right there in the gate hold area while they'd been anxiously paging him only added to his humiliation and indignity.
They probably thought he'd missed the earlier boarding calls not because he'd been distracted by the airport shopping, but because he didn't understand English! Pettily, he'd chosen to dwell on the cabin crew speaking to him in Mandarin throughout the 13-hour flight as further evidence that they doubted his literacy in English, rather than the more likely explanation that they used Mandarin with everyone who looked Chinese.
Nothing on that flight had gone right. He'd clean forgotten that he was the one who'd volunteered to take economy class to save his club some money and instead resented the narrowness of his window seat on the Airbus A330. Coffee had tasted like drain water when served in paper cups, and none of the inflight meals had been flavourful enough to qualify as real food. There had been no films worth watching on the inflight entertainment.
For the half a day it had taken to transport him from Barcelona to Shenzhen, Fang Wu had turned into a grouchy, prickly monster.
Landing at Shenzhen Bao'an Airport hadn't made things any better. Xia Jian had come with his newlywed wife all the way from Guangzhou, a 90-minute drive away, leaving at the crack of dawn to pick him up. He should have appreciated their kindness, but instead their curious and enthusiastic enquiries about the scenery and culture of Barcelona had felt more like being given the third degree.
And the belated wedding gift in his pocket had seemed to weigh as much as a brick. He'd missed Xia Jian's wedding banquet that summer because his time was not his own. In fact, Fang Wu's overnight stay in Guangzhou enroute to Kunming (the capital of Yunnan province where his new club was situated), with the newlyweds putting him up at their flat, had been the only chance he'd had to meet the Xias after switching clubs at the beginning of that year.
Less than forty-eight hours prior, Fang Wu had slipped 1,888 yuan (US$260) into a golden envelope. The special red packet, designed for weddings, bore the Chinese character 囍 with the double 'xi' to denote conjugal bliss, and a cartoon pop-up picture of a wedding couple in Chinese traditional dress. At the time, he'd looked upon the envelope with a smile, imagining how in a few years he might be throwing a banquet with his family and friends giving him envelopes like this.
With the tables turned upon him in a matter of hours, the red packet had felt as if it practically burned a hole in his pocket. He'd divested himself of it the instant he was settled in the back seat of Xia Jian's car, with no recollection of how brusquely he might have handed it over to his friend.
None of this behaviour had been anything to be proud of. In fact, after Fang Wu had regained his senses, he'd made it a point to apologise to Xia Jian and Mrs. Xia before they saw him off at Guangzhou Baiyun Airport the next morning to catch his onward connection. To this day, he wondered if Xia Jian suspected that anything had been amiss with him beyond the jet lag that he'd claimed as an excuse for his boorishness.
There was something about Kunming and breakups that kept him in a time loop like Groundhog Day, Fang Wu decided. Eight and a half years later, here he was at Singapore Changi Airport at an unearthly hour past midnight, waiting to board his China Eastern Airlines flight headed there, not two days after he'd been dumped again.
Worse still, even though she wasn't the one who dumped him this time, Nur Atiqah binti Eusoff was still firmly on his mind.
If atonement had a physical manifestation, spending four and a half hours in economy class at 2 AM on a Boeing 737 had to be it. There was no chance Fang Wu would get any sleep that night and no inflight entertainment on the plane, so thoughts of how he'd ruined everything – not just with Lele, but with Atiqah all over again – flitted constantly through his head.
Flying thirty thousand feet above somewhere in Thailand, Fang Wu had nothing to do but wish that he had earlier learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the daring of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind.
He was aghast at how grotesquely he had misinterpreted Atiqah's situation. All these years, he'd wondered why he'd never seen her name on the starting XI at AFC (Asian Football Confederation) Women's Asian Cup or SEA (South East Asia) Games matches.
All along, he had assumed that she had lacked the staying power to follow through with football, just as she had failed to follow through with his offer of love. If he hadn't become privy to her family's situation, he would never have realised how wrong he'd been.
After seeing Atiqah again, Fang Wu couldn't delude himself any longer that she had ever treated his love for her as a game. She still dressed as modestly as before, perhaps even more so now that she wore the tudung whenever she went outside her immediate neighbourhood. Therefore, it was preposterous to think her in any way capable of playing with the feelings of a man.
He'd hung onto her words that she didn't love him, to the extent of overlooking the words that had followed – that she couldn't love him. Within the constraints of Islam, she hadn't been at liberty to do so, much less say so. At only 19 years old and having never dated before, hanging all her hopes on a man who might convert to Islam years into the future must have terrified Atiqah.
That could only mean that he had been unjust to her merits, because he had been a sufferer from them. It must have taken a lot of courage for Atiqah to say out loud that she wished to wait for him when such a desire was so taboo, even if she had later retracted her promise. Being the one who held the option to convert, Fang Wu had held all the cards to their future, whereas Atiqah had hardly any choice at all – not then, and not now either.
Her character was now fixed on his mind as perfection itself, maintaining the loveliest medium of fortitude and gentleness. How could he ever have thought otherwise? She'd had him when she requested him not to bring her to expensive restaurants because she didn't own the attire to do those places justice. When all the other young women he'd asked out previously would have jumped at the chance for him to splurge on posh dates, it was refreshing to find someone who cared more about those around her than herself, even at such a young age.
And what had sealed the deal for Fang Wu, not only then but thereafter, was what Atiqah had said to him when he invited her to go wakeboarding in Barcelona. She'd declined his offer to teach her how to ride for a very good reason: for people whose careers hinged on not getting injured, tempting fate through extreme sports in their leisure time felt like an unnecessary risk.
Atiqah's advice had been why he'd toned down his tricks that day, staying on the flat rather than showing off on the obstacles like he always had before. And after that final outing, he'd never gotten on a wakeboard since.
Everybody Fang Wu knew had been impressed with his wakeboarding. His brother-in-law, who'd taught him to ride when he was fifteen, sometimes lamented that he'd chosen the wrong career. Despite her unwillingness for herself or for him to take the risks, the tricks he'd showed her had brought an admiring smile to Atiqah's face and elicited her sincere applause, even though what he'd exhibited that day was only a fraction of his skill.
To give up his one indulgence, the only source of thrill that he'd looked forward to off the pitch, had been a sacrifice indeed. But Fang Wu had stuck to it because he believed in Atiqah's advice. If she could lead him thus at 19, wasn't her potential to become a trusted helpmeet boundless in the years to come? It was this that had made his 23-year-old self so certain that no matter how many years it took, he would never find her equal.
Eight years on, he was still following her counsel. This could only mean that he persisted in having loved none but her. That she had never been supplanted. That after having seen everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost, he was now left to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment, which had kept him from trying to regain her when thrown in his way.
Arriving at Kunming and having to bustle through Chinese immigration for his domestic connection interrupted Fang Wu's train of thought. For all that he had allowed himself to succumb to peevishness the previous time, he resolved that he would do better now. Honouring his brother with the courtesy he was due was his only means of making things right while he was here on Chinese soil.
It was very generous of Fang Wen to welcome him when he was springing himself on his brother with barely two days' notice. Fang Wu decided that he was better off staying a night in Changsha to buy some gifts for his brother's family, so as not to repeat the ungraciousness that he had shown Xia Jian after flying in from Barcelona. Heartbreak was no excuse to treat others badly, and he was long overdue to learn that.
After booking a hotel on Ctrip and texting his brother on WeChat to apprise him of his amended plans, Fang Wu boarded his next flight in a slightly better frame of mind. There was nothing he could do about Lele's disappointment except hope that it would weaken over distance and time. And as for Atiqah, he would return to Singapore after the Winter Solstice and act as circumstances might require.
The stakes for Fang Wu to pursue Atiqah romantically hadn't changed. He would still need to state his intention to convert to Islam and pursue marriage upfront, if he wanted to take their relationship beyond the level of common neighbourliness.
But Fang Wu knew it would be premature to consider his readiness for conversion before he ascertained whether Atiqah was still interested in him. He had been willing to convert before, on the mere condition that his feelings were reciprocated. Discovering just how precious this second chance was to him should make his fears and doubts about Muslim conversion from the first time even less of a hurdle than before.
Meanwhile, he could find a degree of comfort in focusing on his brother's joy, instead of wallowing in his own misery. The onward flight from Kunming to Changsha was just two hours, not enough for Fang Wu to get any meaningful rest. Still, fuelled by pure adrenaline, he roamed the city for the rest of the day after he arrived, in search of the best present to welcome his new nephew into the world.
Perhaps it was out of sheer fatigue, or possibly, it was the newfound peace he found from realising that far from being a victim, he had held the keys to his happiness all along. That night, all alone in a hotel room in Changsha, Fang Wu fell into the deepest and most restful sleep he'd had in years.
Vi. vii – Fang Wen
Compared to his siblings, Fang Wen led a very modest and retiring life. The rural areas of China had seen many improvements in the past thirty years, but still lacked the luxuries that his sister and brother had gotten used to in the cities. He knew there were good reasons why he was the least-visited sibling, so whenever either of them came, he welcomed them with open arms.
While they were growing up, Fang Wen and Fang Wu had been polar opposites. Their parents had named them for the saying 文武双全 wen wu shuang quan, which meant that the contrasting qualities of learning and valour were needed to complete a man. And aptly, the personalities of their brothers matched their names.
Fang Wen, the elder by two years, had been bookish and obedient, the scholar of the family. Despite being the only sibling who went for higher education, he was the least travelled of the three. The farthest he had ventured from their childhood village was to study elementary education at Changsha Normal University before going back into the country as a teacher.
In contrast, the young Fang Wu had incessantly gotten into mischief, earning the nickname "孙悟空 Sun Wukong", or the Monkey King, for his exploits. He had loved that moniker, which fit perfectly with his reputation for righteous disobedience. When Fang Ying fashioned a cudgel (the weapon that Sun Wukong used) for him by decorating a bamboo stick with gold paint, he'd perfected the art of twirling it within days, carrying it everywhere he went.
Despite a substantial age gap, Fang Wu had always raided his elder siblings' toys and books, so Fang Wen had never doubted his brother's intelligence. But at school Fang Wu had been incapable of sitting still and constantly gave the appearance of inattention. That had possibly been the reason why he'd been pigeonholed into playing football instead of being set up for university.
With hindsight and the knowledge from his teacher training, Fang Wen wondered if his brother might have been bored in school because he was ahead of his class, or if he might have suffered from ADHD. Possibly, it could have been a combination of both. Regardless, when Fang Wu had now made more of a name for himself than if he'd pursued a more conventional career path, perhaps his missed opportunity to go to university didn't matter.
"二哥！ (Second Big Brother!)" Even with his hands full of packages, Fang Wu managed to hug his brother after getting off the bus.
"你还好吗？ (How are you doing?)" Fang Wen reached out to take some of the parcels from his brother's hands. For someone who had spent nine hours on planes and in airports just a day ago, Fang Wu looked great, but then he always did.
"还不错。 (Not bad.)" Fang Wen was used to his brother's studied air of nonchalance. Still, he wondered why Fang Wu had come all this way at the last minute, even with the direct flights being full. If he had booked ahead for the March school holidays and gotten a nonstop flight, the plane ride to Changsha would have been just under five hours, instead of nearly double that.
Retirement from competitive sport had done his brother good, Fang Wen decided. In time-lapse, he'd watched the mischievous child of the past grow into an ebullient young man, but after his brother rose into the Super League, a sort of hard edge had grown around him. Fang Wen had put it down to the need for a world-class striker to develop some degree of ruthlessness, so he hadn't thought too deeply about it.
In his oversize rapper-style puffer jacket, the fashion of the cities, Fang Wu didn't look any more like he belonged in this village than he had during his halcyon days at Shanghai Port. Winters weren't even that cold in the southern provinces, so Fang Wen knew that his brother was wearing it merely to look cool.
But sitting down to a simple bowl of home-cooked noodles with Fang Wen and his wife Huixian (惠娴) for lunch, Fang Wu appeared unusually content. In fact, Fang Wen hadn't seen his brother appear so relaxed in more than eight years. To boot, a fortnight's stay was much longer than any of his previous visits for over a decade.
And Fang Wu hadn't lost his youthful sense of humour, nor his knack for buying the most hilarious gag gifts. From one of the biggest bundles he carried, he whipped out a life-size Ne Zha (哪吒) doll which was bigger than his three-month-old nephew currently.
"你会把孩子弄哭， (You'll make the baby cry,)" Fang Wen predicted with a chuckle. The record-breaking Ne Zha animated series had been all the rage for several years, and he had to admit that the bratty demon child warrior somewhat resembled his younger brother. But a big-headed doll that sent out voodoo vibes with its black-rimmed eyes was not what he nor Huixian would ever think of getting for their son, especially not at this age.
Apparently, little Shengwu (胜武) had more in common with his uncle (and namesake) than his father, because the child gurgled with laughter and batted at the doll when it was dangled in front of him.
"果然是未来的武林盟主， (As expected, [he's] a future warrior chief,)" said Fang Wu, laughing.
"他的确很像你。 (He is indeed very much like you.)" Fang Wen treated his brother to an indulgent smile.
Though Fang Wen still thought it was sad that he and his brother had been deprived of many years of growing up together, he was thankful, not for the first time, that they had remained close, somehow transcending the barriers of time and distance.
Vi. viii – Fang Wu
Seeing his brother's happiness ought to be enough. Fang Wu could have no other pleasure, when he deserved none.
Life was slow here, giving him much leisure and solitude for lamenting the blindness of his own pride and the blunders of his own calculations should he so wish. But there was a simplicity about his daily routine that offered him a welcome respite. Every day, he bought fresh produce from elderly street vendors, helped his brother and sister-in-law with laundry and diaper changes, and played with his baby nephew whenever the child was awake.
For the Winter Solstice, they made the traditional dessert of 汤圆tangyuan. The sense of companionship as they rolled the spherical rice flour dumplings by hand was worth this impromptu visit, Fang Wu decided. Had he remained in Singapore, he would most likely have been trapped spending the Winter Solstice and Christmas with Lele. He hoped that with some weeks to cool off, it wouldn't be so horribly awkward anymore when they inevitably ran into each other at the foot of their block.
Eid, or Hari Raya Puasa as it was called in Singapore, would fall on the 23rd of December, two days after the Winter Solstice. A part of Fang Wu wished he could be there with Atiqah and her family to break their fast. But he had been hasty and precipitate too many times when a more deliberate approach might have served him better. Rebounding from Lele to Atiqah in a pinch would look horrible and be respectful to neither of them.
Besides, after he returned to Singapore and ascertained Atiqah's level of romantic interest in him, Fang Wu would still have to figure out how he fit in with her personal beliefs and choices. With the deeper insight gained from residing in a country with a substantial Muslim population, he could now see that Muslim life was more nuanced than he had previously believed.
In Singapore, Malay Muslims were a racial minority. But they were numerous enough to become a prominent pillar of society anyway. Malay was one of the four national languages, Muslim holidays were observed on the national public holiday calendar, and halal establishments were widely available. Within a society that respected Muslims but wasn't exclusively Islamic, observance of the Muslim faith was more like a spectrum than a binary concept.
It was possible – and much more accepted in Singapore than in Spain – to wrap one's entire life around Islam. Fang Wu had seen children who attended madrasahs (Islamic religious schools) instead of the mainstream local education system. Madrasah pupils were easily identifiable by their uniforms, which incorporated elements of Malay traditional dress. Some local families even dressed their daughters in headscarves at preschool age.
However, these were the minority among Singapore's Malay Muslims. Far more of them, including Atiqah and her family, studied and worked in mainstream Singaporean society with nothing to set them apart except for the occasional donning of Malay traditional attire and their adherence to a halal diet. If they prayed during the day, it was done so discreetly that hardly anyone else noticed.
At the hot pot dinner, Atiqah's sister, Aizah, had mentioned that some Muslims drank alcohol. It didn't mean that the rules of Islam were flexible, just that people's private decisions on how they observed Islam (or not) varied widely. If Fang Wu were to convert, he was determined to show proper respect for the rules, but he hadn't realised that the standards he'd set for himself might exceed those of some people who had been born Muslim.
From eight years ago, Fang Wu knew one thing: the 19-year-old Atiqah had been willing to consider his suit, if he would convert to Islam for her. Still, he didn't know whether over the years, her views towards having a non-Malay partner might have changed.
But one thing gave him hope: despite her straitened finances, she'd been willing to pay extra to watch the Chinese Super League.
Which meant that most likely, she'd watched all his club matches. Was this for him?
Fang Wu stayed with his brother through Christmas, before he had to return for the start of the school year. The night before he left, he confessed everything.
In particular, it felt good to unburden one thing to his brother: his sense of guilt from having been unfair to Atiqah for so long. First through his overly precipitate offer of courtship eight years ago, and now for having been emotionally closed to her when he had the chance to reconcile.
"我亏欠她太多, (I've let her down too much,)" he lamented. "如果是你，你会原谅我吗？ (If it were you [in her shoes, would you forgive me?)"
"有时候，你也需要宽容自己, (Sometimes, you need to be more forgiving of yourself,)" Fang Wen replied. "告诉我，如果没有那种障碍，你还会那么做吗？ (Tell me, if you didn't have that barrier [of religion, would you still have done things that way?)"
"绝对不会！ (Of course not!)" Fang Wu exclaimed, recoiling in horror. "我会好好地追求她。 (I would have courted her properly.)"
"当时你毫无选择，也不算是你的错。 (At that time, you had no choice, so it shouldn't be considered your fault.)" Fang Wen reassured him.
Hearing someone blame him less than he had blamed himself was an unexpected relief to Fang Wu. Perhaps he should have confided in his siblings sooner; he knew he would have, if he'd known they wouldn't think less of him for his folly.
"但我想问你, (But I would like to ask you,)" Fang Wen continued, "中国女孩儿多的是，为什么你偏要选一位穆斯林人? (There are so many ladies in China, why would you insist on choosing a Muslim?)"
"她的天分绝无仅有，我一看就迷上了， (Her talent is so exceptional that I was bewitched at first sight,)" Fang Wu replied.
"生活对象，是凭天分来选吗？ (Do you choose a life partner by their talent?)" enquired Fang Wen, quirking an eyebrow.
It was a very good question, and this was the reason why Fang Wu needed his sensible big brother to counsel him.
Of course, Fang Wu had been dazzled by Atiqah because she was a prodigy. And yet he would give himself the credit for making every effort not to take advantage of her youth.
He hadn't counted how many times he'd watched her training sessions before approaching her, but back then, he'd been content to admire her skills from a distance. Only when he couldn't stand the injustice of her perennial loneliness had he stepped forward to offer his companionship.
With such lavish recommendations as her talent and character offered, he could not have possibly failed to fall in love. But now, all the sheen of the prodigy was gone. He had come to know her as a neighbour, someone who blended in the crowd, but still her best qualities shone through like a beacon of light. If given the chance to defend her case, he wished nothing more than to make sure it was known that she was special.
"我还可以说， (And I will add,)" Fang Wu declared, "她是一位佳人。 (She is a [unusually] good person.)"
"那么，你要回去好好得追她， (Then, you must go back and court her well,)" Fang Wen advised enthusiastically. "你还在等什么？ (What are you waiting for?)"
"你觉得我还有机会吗？ (Do you think I still have a chance?) 好马不吃回头草 （A good horse doesn't return to old pastures,）" quoted Fang Wu, referencing an old Chinese proverb.
"你可别忘记下一句， (You shouldn't forget the next part [of that saying,)" Fang Wen reminded him. "浪子回头金不换。 (A prodigal who returns is more valuable than gold.)"
Under that starless sky, in the silence of a village far away from the hustle that Fang Wu had gotten used to since before his teens, the two brothers sat in silent acknowledgment. Clapping his hand on his brother's shoulder, Fang Wen offered one last encouragement before he retired for the night.
"小弟，我祝你好运， (Little brother, I wish you luck)," he said.
Left alone once again with his thoughts, Fang Wu could not help but marvel at the sense of vindication that now surged through him. Eight was an auspicious number, but he would have denied that this hiatus of that many years was anything but untoward. Except that now, he had come to learn how truly lucky he was.
He had been a prodigal. But he was on the cusp of his return. This was his chance to make things right.
A prodigal who came back was worth more than gold. If he could be worth even half of that to her, he would call himself the most fortunate man in the world.
Notes:
The meanings of Fang Wen's (Edward Wentworth's) wife and son are:
- Huixian 惠娴 means "virtuous and elegant", which are qualities that a clergyman is likely to appreciate in his wife.
- Shengwu 胜武 means "military victory", which means he's named after his uncle in a very complimentary way.
Of course, the family name is Fang.
Canon Parallels:
- Charles Hayter received an offer to hold a living for a young boy who was to inherit it when he grew up, 25 miles away from Uppercross in an area of Dorsetshire with good game. Chengdu is about four and a half hours from Singapore (Xiaoming's parents = Winthrop) and about 2 hours from Changsha (Xixi's parents = Uppercross), so it's within the ballpark of the 4-hour travelling time that 25 miles would have taken in the Regency era. Plus, its surrounding forests have pandas (hence, wildlife)!
- Like in canon, FW didn't end up getting entangled in an expectation of being engaged with Lele through any single grand gesture, but rather because he got increasingly embroiled in Lele's life like a frog cooking in a boiling pot. The last straw for him was becoming Xiaoming's wingman at his proposal and celebrating the engagement with a double date, which led to the expectation of the two couples travelling to Changsha to celebrate with the parents.
- We can see "for you alone I think and plan" in action with how FW organizes his thoughts around courting Atiqah and reconsidering Islam.