Fatal Weakness—Yang Hengjun (4.3)

致命弱点 Fatal Weakness
扬恒均 Yang Hengjun

第三章 上帝的手术刀 Chapter 3 The Scalpel of God

Part 4.3

"Could you describe a bit what Guo Qingqing looked like after the operation?"

Catherine gives a big stretch, and looks at me with a rather comical expression. "I can't, I'm afraid, but if one day you ever see some woman with eyebrows like of your Chinese state television stars and the breasts and butt of a Hong Kong glamour queen, it might just be Guo Qingqing. Just remember, the Guo Qingqing you remember is gone, and not just in appearance; deep down, in her soul, she's not the Guo Qingqing you used to know."

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

Coming out from Catherine's home, both my legs have gone like jello. Tales of ghosts or the supernatural never used to have this effect on me. And so, I hobble to the Brooklyn bridge, and sit there with an empty mind, looking towards Manhattan, sitting there like I had years earlier, when I was studying here. Back then, whenever I had too much on my mind, I'd come sit down beside the Hudson river, just sitting here, waiting for the sunlight to slowly fade[ into darkness] and the lights to start showing in the windows of the skyscrapers all around. I thought of all the stories there must be behind each of those windows, how much joy and worry. I'd think like this until my mind would become as calm as the river I saw before me.

I get up and head to the phone booth nearby to phone my parents, tell them I'm coming home, then phone Liu Mingwei in Washington, to tell him I won't be coming. What my parents tell me is upsetting: just after I left, the Guangzhou Industry and Supervision Bureaus shut down the Pan's corporation, proclaiming the Pan's Nutritious Oral Tonic to have none of the effects advertised by company, and Ah Hua has been laying low, afraid to run into my parents. It's hard hearing that my parents have just found out they'd been taken advantage of again, and twice as desolate knowing that I won't be able to see Ah Hua when I get back. Hearing my parents' clearly aged voices on the phone puts me at an even greater loss. Then Liu Mingwei answers my call and gets worked up while chewing me out, blaming me for not telling him beforehand that I'd be coming to the States. There's nothing much I can say, but before I even get a chance to explain, he's already decided to drive in from Washington, first thing in the morning.