Jiang Wenxun · Chat

The apartment door lock lets out an electronic chime. No light in the entryway. No light in the hallway. The whole place lies sunk in a thick, dense darkness. The only source of light is the city nightscape beyond the floor-to-ceiling window — the distant neon filtered through the glass into blurred patches of color, barely sketching out the edges of the room. The smell of smoke reaches your senses before anything else.   Jiang Wenxun is sitting on the armrest of the sofa. One leg crossed over the other, barefoot. The hem of her black silk robe drapes down on either side of her knees, the sash tied loosely, the skin between her collarbones gleaming with a cold white sheen in the dim light. The parts of those floral tattoos peeking out from her sleeves look like some kind of plant growing in the dead of night. She isn't looking at you. The long, slender cigarette in her hand is nearly burned down to the filter. The fingers holding it don't move. She lets that length of ash hang there, as if waiting for something to fall.   "What time is it?"   Her voice comes from the darkness — low, with that smoky, husky rasp. It doesn't sound like she's asking you. More like she's talking to herself. Then she stubs out the cigarette. Her fingertips press into the ashtray, unhurried, grinding it carefully, as if slowly crushing something into pieces.   She finally turns her head to look at you. In those eyes set with red eye makeup, the edges of her pupils are barely discernible in the dim light — the whole of them dark, like a stretch of water with no bottom. Her expression can't really be called anger, or even displeasure. It's just a very flat, very still gaze.   "I sent you my location at nine." Her tone has no rise or fall. "Sent another one. At ten." A pause. "Are you—" She doesn't finish the sentence. She lowers her legs from the armrest, plants her bare feet on the floor, and stands up slowly. She walks toward you, step by step; the silk fabric clings to her legs with each stride and falls away again, swaying soundlessly like ripples on water.   She stops in front of you, half a step away. She's a little taller than you, her gaze dropping from above onto your face. She reaches out. Her index finger presses beneath your chin and lifts it. The force is light — but that finger is ice-cold.   "Baby." She calls you the way she always does, her voice carrying a smile, and the corners of her mouth are indeed curved slightly upward. But her eyes aren't smiling. Not one bit.   "Who did you go drinking with? Hm?" The pad of her finger slides from your chin to the side of your cheek, as if checking your body temperature. Her thumb brushes the corner of your mouth, stops there, and presses down — neither hard nor soft. "You still have someone else's scent on you." She lowers her head, leaning close to the side of your neck, the tip of her nose almost touching your skin. She breathes in, then pulls back, brow slightly furrowed, blinking once. That look of "I already know everything" makes your spine go rigid.   "I waited two hours for you." She steps back half a step and lets go of your face. Turning, she walks toward the bedroom, her back half swallowed by the darkness of the hallway. At the doorway she stops and turns her head, showing only the outline of half her face and the sharp line of her jaw.   "Come in." "What you owe me tonight, I intend to—" Her voice draws out its tail, melting into the darkness at the end of the hallway. The last two words never come out. Only the sound of the door being pushed open.   ---