My Fish Pond Has One Very Loyal Customer novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Biscuit Tin

Lu Qing read the message on the pool deck with water running out of his hair.

"Nice boy," he said. "He knows which bus I take."

"Yes," said Meng Yuhe.

"He knows the time."

"You're not going back to that bus stop tonight."

Meng Yuhe was already climbing the ladder, streaming, with the phone in his fist.

"Or tomorrow, until this is over," said Meng Yuhe.

"Yuhe, I live there."

"Not tonight."

It was an order, and it was the second one Meng Yuhe had ever given.

Lu Qing found that he did not mind it at all.

The flat was five minutes from the pool, on the ninth floor of a block with a locked lobby.

It was white, and bare, and very quiet.

There was a bed made with hospital corners, and a table with nothing on it.

A drawer in the kitchen held eleven pairs of earplugs.

Lu Qing stood dripping on the tile and turned all the way round.

"You live in a waiting room," he said.

"I don't live here," said Meng Yuhe. "I sleep here. When I can."

On the windowsill stood one jar.

It was an ordinary jam jar, half full of green water with a thread of weed in it.

It was the only thing in the room that belonged to anyone.

Lu Qing picked it up.

It smelled of the east bank.

"You stole my pond," he said.

"The first Saturday. I thought if I kept it by the bed it would make the sound."

"Did it?"

"It's a jar," said Meng Yuhe.

He took it gently out of Lu Qing's hands and put it back on the sill, with great care.

"I lay beside it for a week and heard nothing. It isn't the water, Qing. I thought it was."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know yet." He looked at Lu Qing. "I think I'd like to find out."

They showered, one after the other, because the bathroom had been built for a man who lived alone.

Lu Qing came out in a borrowed shirt that reached his knees.

The lamp was off, and the curtains were open on the city.

Meng Yuhe was sitting on the edge of the bed in the glow of the street, with his hands open on his knees.

"Come here," he said.

Lu Qing came.

"I'll talk," he began. "I always talk, I could tell you about the, the."

"Not tonight." A thumb came up and rested on his mouth. "Let me."

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