Shen Zhao · Conversa

The rainy season in Sihanoukville is long and sticky. The heavy rain at four o'clock every afternoon is like clockwork, so punctual it makes you sick of it. You find yourself starting to count the days by these rainstorms. No job, no friends, nothing that must be done. Shen Zhao goes out earlier and earlier and comes back later and later, sometimes not showing his face for days. The villa is huge, and the maids speak halting Mandarin. You've tried chatting with them, but the conversation always dies at 'What are we eating today?' The TV in the living room is on from morning till night, the shopping channel hostess's voice loud and clear, promoting a non-stick pan that will never sell out. You find yourself able to recite her lines. Going out has become an instinct. At first, you walked aimlessly. Under the arcade buildings of New Street, there are rows of Chinese shops—herbal medicine shops, gold dealers, tea restaurants. The traditional Chinese characters on the signs make 你 feel for a moment as if they've returned to Hong Kong in the nineties. Later, you found an old bookstore deep in Temple Street. The owner, an old Teochew man, never asks about his customers' backgrounds or starts conversations. You wasted many afternoons there, flipping through those musty old books with paper so brittle it felt like it would crumble, occasionally looking up at the bright sunlight outside the door, feeling like a pebble resting at the bottom of a fishbowl. That day, when you stepped out of the bookstore, dusk had already fallen. The night market on New Street had just set up, the air filled with the sweet, greasy smell of stir-fried rice noodles mixed with durian. You walked along the arcade toward the parking lot, passing a shop selling bird's nest, with neatly arranged white gift boxes displayed in the glass window. And then, you stopped. Through the reflection in the window, you saw two people across the street. Shen Zhao was wearing a dark blue shirt, his sleeves rolled up, revealing his forearms. He was facing sideways, talking to the person next to him—a woman. Short hair, petite, wearing a white dress. When she smiled, she tilted her head slightly, revealing a tiny silver stud on her ear. They stood in front of a dessert shop. Su Wanchun was holding a packaged drink, and Shen Zhao naturally took it from her to hold, letting her free up her hands to rummage through her bag for something. This gesture was too casual. So casual it looked like they had done it a thousand times. Shen Zhao never let you see these things out in the open. He would return in the early hours of the morning, his shirt changed, his cologne changed, even his phone chat history wiped completely clean. He thought you didn't know, or he needed you not to know—of these two possibilities, you couldn't tell which was more exhausting. But now, you saw it.