Li Ang - The Lost Garden

This time Lin did not say anything, so Masao went ahead with his plan after the meeting.

Within a short time, 90 percent of the sites were sold. The overall sales price didn’t go up dramatically, but individual cases continued to bring in high profits; the cost of housing was obviously stuck at a plateau, which meant it would not only not drop, but that another rising trend might be just around the corner.

As real estate prices soared, an island economy that was developed through international trade seemingly began to enjoy the full benefit of the wealth from foreign reserves. Within a year or two, those who owned houses or land saw their wealth increase two or three times, some as much ten. Looking at numbers, some people felt that their sudden wealth was simply too great for them to know what to do with it.

As for those in the real estate business, which helped created the boom, the assessments of their houses and land were so inflated they could hardly believe them. Everyone in the business was studying these numbers and the wealth they represented, hoping to increase the value to an incalculable figure.

Masao was under noticeable pressure, even though Lin had not made a comment. As the days passed, differences between the new and old sales reached several billion, which finally led Masao to get totally drunk at one company party.

It was at a seaside staff club Lin had designed. Amid the sounds of people outdrinking each other, Yinghong walked into the yard alone. The Indian summer was nearing its end, but it suddenly reasserted itself, and the seaside was stifling hot even at night. The Chinese-style garden, with its meandering wall, had eaves capped with small tiles. As moonbeams shone down on the eaves through spaces in the wall’s carvings, she thought she saw someone standing by the wall.

“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” she said in a gentle voice with a hint of reproach.

The man in the shadows looked up; it was Masao. A peachlike carving in the wall shaded his face; even in the dark she sensed that he had nearly drunk himself senseless.

“Masao,” Yinghong called out his name in precise Japanese, with a tender edge to her voice. “Go back inside. You’ve had too much to drink.”

The crisp but gentle voice calling out his name seemed to stir memories, for he stared at her woodenly, as tears began to slide down his face.

“It’s all right. Seriously, it’s all right,” she continued in Japanese, made uneasy by tears from a man who, in his fifties, had always maintained the demeanor of a somber Japanese man. She reached into her purse, took out some tissues, and walked up to him.

He reached out, as if to take the tissues, but instead he did something completely unexpected; he pulled her into his arms. As her face came in contact with his flabby chest, foul-smelling from sweat and alcohol, she instinctively tried to fend him off.

“It’s me,” she cried out, “Zhu Yinghong.”

He paused briefly, as if undergoing a confused battle with himself, and then he mumbled:

“Of course it’s you. How could I not know it’s you? You’re Zhu Yinghong and you slept with Lin Xigeng. You let him fuck you. You’re his mistress, the concubine, so why can’t I, why can’t I …”

She continued to struggle, but the hulking drunk was surprisingly strong. A rash of ideas flashed through her head. She could scream for someone to come out and rescue her, but with all the employees around, that would cause irreparable damage. Masao was Lin’s irreplaceable right-hand man; his steady manner and composure served as a counterpoint to Lin’s arrogance and conceit, his willingness to stay behind the scene the sole reason why the two men could work so well together.

With thoughts flashing through her mind, she stopped struggling because she knew she could not fight him off. She did not make a sound, choosing to bide her time, waiting for the right moment for escape. To her surprise, he stopped and, with his arms around her, stammered over and over:

“To be his concubine. Aren’t you all the same, the same?”

When he let down his guard, she ducked out of his arms, and as she took off toward the house, she sensed that he was not giving chase, so she changed direction and headed for the parking lot.

She did not go to the office the next day, and she decided to tell Lin about the incident.

She knew that he was the jealous type, just as she’d known about his conceit and arrogance; he wanted to claim sole ownership of whatever belonged to him. To be sure, he would grow tired of something, but relinquishing had to be the result of his loss of interest, not someone else’s. By revealing Masao’s behavior, she hoped to make him jealous, especially since the violation had come from his preeminent business partner. If nothing else, he had to save face by declaring that Zhu Yinghong belonged to him.

This could be what solidified their relationship.

Of course, she thought about how her action would damage Lin’s relationship with Masao, yet she was convinced that, knowing the indispensible role Masao played in his business empire, Lin might not bring it up with the man, but would need to give some sort of signal to her and to Masao. And that would be marriage.

The possibility of driving a wedge between the two men did not concern her. It was too early to feel the existence of the baby inside her, but clearly it was growing day by day, like a persistent nightmare, and it would not take long for it to become a burden by changing her outward appearance. Carrying the child to term without marriage was out of the question for Yinghong, who must consider the reputation of her immediate family and the Zhu clan.

To her surprise, Lin did not fly into a rage; instead, he listened quietly, carefully ferreting out every little detail to determine whether Masao had gotten his way with her. On her part, Yinghong intentionally minimized Masao’s insult while stressing his affection for her. She repeatedly assured him that Masao hadn’t even touched her lips. Then Lin fell silent.

She stopped going into the office for the time being, and Lin never brought up the incident again; but a few days later rumors began to spread in real estate circles that Masao would soon be leaving Lin’s company.

Yinghong heard nothing from Lin. Was he waiting till everything cleared up to tell her? She shook her head. For a major event like this, Lin’s personality and style would require that he boast about it beforehand; he was someone who would not stop until he made sure the person receiving his favor knew every detail.

Feeling anxious, she found an excuse to go into the office one afternoon, under the pretense that she needed to turn over some documents right away. She had known, before arriving, that Lin was away at a meeting, but that Masao would be around.

She had her own people in the company, but only those personally involved would understand such delicate and subtle interactions. As expected, she “ran into” Masao in the office, whom she greeted in her usual manner. Masao, in contrast, was so startled by the encounter that his face reddened; the big, brawny man, who paraded his role as the head of the family in his usual Japanese way, gave her a flustered nod before slinking back to his office.

Instinct told her that Masao had been so drunk that night on the beach that he probably did not remember exactly what he had done. Personal consideration for face-saving made it impossible for Lin to lay it all out, which could only lead to speculation that Masao would likely think he had done something much worse.

One thing was clear to Yinghong: with the sense of dignity stemming from a Japanese upbringing that instilled a code of masculinity closely tied to the traditional culture of hara-kiri, Masao would never think of fighting back, and his self-esteem would not allow him to defend himself.