Chapter 4: Mother

Shen Yunzhi, Lu's mother, was sixty-one, small and upright, in a grey silk jacket and a jade bracelet.

She walked into her son's kitchen at six-fifteen without knocking.

Lu was already there in his shirtsleeves, with his cuffs buttoned to the wrist and no mark on him at all.

Fang came out of the second room with wet hair and a face he had arranged in the mirror.

"Auntie," he said.

"So you are the lorry," said Shen Yunzhi.

"Logistics, Auntie. Two thousand one hundred trucks."

"And a temper."

"Only for people who deserve it," said Fang.

She looked him up and down, and then at the empty counter, and then at her son.

"There is no food in this house."

"There is coffee," said Lu.

"That is not food, Zhenyu. Your designer never cooked either, but at least he ordered."

Fang opened the refrigerator.

It held eggs, a bunch of scallions that someone had left in the door, and a bottle of very expensive water.

"Sit down, Auntie," he said, and rolled up his sleeves.

It did not take long.

He heated oil in the one good pan until the scallions popped.

He tipped it over the rice he found in a drawer, and fried the eggs in what was left.

He did it loudly, banging the pan and swearing at the hob.

The kitchen filled with a smell that had not been there in the four years Lu had owned it.

Shen Yunzhi sat at the counter with her bag on her knee and watched.

Lu sat beside her.

His left hand went under the table and settled on Fang's thigh when Fang came to set down the bowls.

Fang stopped with the bowl in the air.

The hand was warm, and it did not move.

"Eat, Mother," said Lu.

His thumb pressed once into the inside of Fang's leg, very slightly, and then it was just a hand, resting.

Fang put down the bowl and went red to the collar and picked up his own chopsticks.

Shen Yunzhi ate a mouthful, and then a second.

Her face did not change at all.

"Seven seats on the board of Yunhe," she said. "Zhenyu, you. Mr. Fang, you."

"And Wen Jiaying, in her tracksuit," said Fang.

"The loud girl takes your second seat. Ning Boyuan has three."

"He has two nominees and himself," said Lu.

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