TYSUF – Chapter 7 Lost in the Play (1)

After winter passed and she started attending classes, Fu Tongwen also began his social engagements in America.

She would see him once or twice a month, occasionally answering his questions about her studies. Their conversations were always brief—he spoke more, and she spoke less. In contrast, Gu Yiren and Wan Feng conversed with him much more.

One weekend in March, Fu Tongwen stayed overnight at the apartment. He was in an unusually good mood that day, joining them in the living room for afternoon tea. The discussion revolved around current affairs and the idea of saving the nation through industry.

Out of nowhere, Wan Feng asked, “Since you often visit Bada Hutong, have you ever met the courtesan Xiao Fengxian—the one who even Cai E was infatuated with?”

Fu Tongwen smiled. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”

He never defended himself against the rumors of his so-called “unrestrained affections.”

Then, his gaze fell on her. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

She neither followed political affairs nor had a broad social circle. Unlike Wan Feng and Gu Yiren, she couldn’t immediately engage in discussions about domestic news. Having nothing to contribute, she picked up the teapot and said, “I’ll refill the water.”

By the time she returned with the teapot, Gu Yiren was already standing, declaring, “I will dedicate my entire life to serving my country.”

The sudden display of loyalty sounded like a farewell.

Sure enough, Fu Tongwen’s response confirmed her suspicion: “Take care of yourself. No matter what happens, always remember—‘As long as the green hills remain, there will be wood to burn.’”

Gu Yiren responded passionately, “Don’t worry, Third Master!”

Shen Xi suddenly felt the teapot burning hot in her hands. She hastily set it down on the table with a loud thud, her palms turning red from the heat.

Gu Yiren and Wan Feng both laughed. Wan Feng grabbed her hand and gently rubbed it. “We didn’t tell you earlier because we were afraid you’d be reluctant to let us go.”

“You two?” Shen Xi was taken aback.

“Yes, both of us,” Wan Feng smiled. “We’re leaving together.”

Shen Xi suddenly understood. No wonder he had come back—to see everyone one last time.

Gu Yiren had always held deep respect for Fu Tongwen. That night before his departure, he drank until he was completely unconscious. Fu Tongwen, affected by the emotions of the moment, also downed several glasses.

Shen Xi quietly refilled his cup, counting—by the fourth glass, Fu Tongwen noticed and looked at her.

She quickly turned away, pretending to focus on the clock hanging on the wall.

“What are you looking at?” Wan Feng asked softly.

“Should we take him upstairs? If he’s this drunk, how will he board the ship tomorrow?” Shen Xi whispered.

“Can you take him?” Wan Feng pressed her wrist gently against Shen Xi’s back, pleading, “I want to sit alone with Third Master for a while.”

Then she turned to face Shen Xi directly, her voice even lower. “Please, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Sit alone with him?

Shen Xi immediately understood. There were things that didn’t need to be said out loud between women.

Wan Feng liked Fu Tongwen.

Since when? Perhaps even before Shen Xi had met him.

“…Please,” Wan Feng whispered, barely audible.

Shen Xi absentmindedly traced her fingertip along the table, touching the cold edge of a plate.

“I’ll go call someone to help carry him upstairs,” Shen Xi compromised.

She realized that leaving the dining table was far more difficult than she had imagined. Even when the young man following Fu Tongwen lifted Gu Yiren and asked her to lend a hand, she was still lost in thought, absent-minded.

Upstairs, Gu Yiren vomited profusely, momentarily interrupting her wandering thoughts.

She stayed to clean up. After wiping the floor spotless, she noticed a neatly folded white dress shirt on the bed along with a deep blue knitted tie. That must be his “battle attire” for returning home. But what about her? One more year? Two? Or even longer?

Gu Yiren turned over in his sleep, mumbling something. Shen Xi leaned in to listen—he was talking about bridge construction.

She spread out a blanket and covered him. “Goodbye, Brother Gu.”

Of course, Gu Yiren couldn’t hear her. In his dreams, he was pouring his heart out to the Duke of Zhou, passionately expressing his wish to build bridges.

Shen Xi sat at the edge of the bed, glancing at the watch beside him. An hour had passed, and there was still no movement downstairs.

She hesitated—if she went downstairs, she might run into something she shouldn’t see. But staying here, she couldn’t settle down either. Bracing her hands behind her, she straightened her spine and stretched her back muscles. Following Gu Yiren’s lead, she began reciting The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon.

Although she studied Western medicine, she had unwavering faith in the wisdom of the ancestors and never ignored any Chinese medical texts. “It will always be useful someday,” she often said.

“If the heart’s cold shifts to the lungs, the lungs decay. Those with decayed lungs drink one and urinate two, beyond saving. If the lungs’ cold shifts to the kidneys, it causes swelling. Those with swelling, when the abdomen is pressed, feel no firmness; the water gathers in the intestines, and when moving rapidly, it gurgles like liquid sloshing in a bag…”

A knock on the door.

Shen Xi stopped. Behind her, the man continued muttering about his thesis in his sleep.

She opened the door—it was Wan Feng.

Wan Feng’s eyes were red. When she looked at Shen Xi, there was an unspoken meaning in her gaze.

“Go,” she whispered. “Go to Third Master.”

Go to Fu Tongwen?

Shen Xi was stunned. Before she could ask, Wan Feng had already taken her hands. “After tonight, we will be separated by mountains and rivers. Take good care of yourself. You know knowledge has no limits—you’ll never finish learning, so take your time.”

“It’s only three o’clock. It’s too early for goodbyes,” Shen Xi replied softly. “I’ll see you off in the morning.”

Wan Feng smiled faintly and nodded.

As she left, Shen Xi still felt that something was off—something she couldn’t quite put into words.

Gu Yiren’s room was on the first floor. When she stepped out, the lights in the hall were off.

The switch was by the front door, but she couldn’t be bothered to turn back. She climbed the stairs in the dark.

The deep silence of the night made the sound of her heels striking the steps unnervingly loud. Growing impatient, she lifted her heels and quickly ran up, stopping at Fu Tongwen’s door.

The door was slightly ajar. She tried peeking through the gap, but it was no use.

With no other choice, she gathered her courage. “Third Brother.”

No response.

Shen Xi gently pushed the door open and saw Fu Tongwen, his back facing her, putting on a suit.

“Close the door,” he said.

She shut the door behind her and looked at his back.

Fu Tongwen said, “Tonight is a farewell night.”

“Hmm.” She understood.

“You seem quite sentimental too?”

Shen Xi nodded again. “Everyone is, especially… Wan Feng. I think she’s the most reluctant to part with you, Third Brother.”

She thought she had stated this plainly, but Fu Tongwen suddenly turned to look at her. He said nothing, yet his silence made her uneasy. Outside, the rain fell in streaks, pattering against the glass, leaving dense, scattered marks.

“What do you think she said to me just now? Or what she did?” Fu Tongwen suddenly asked with a slight smile. “Is it that as long as I’m alone with a woman in a room, people will always assume something improper?”

Shen Xi was once again startled by his ability to read minds. She hesitated and said, “No.”

Even though it was a lie.

Fu Tongwen smiled with amusement. “When I said it was a farewell night, I meant I’m leaving New York.”

“You’re leaving? Are you returning to China with them?”

“No. I used their departure as a cover. It’s actually me who has to leave.”

Fu Tongwen explained in the simplest terms—he had refused to cooperate in the opium trade, which caused trouble for him. Now, he had no choice but to leave, using Gu Yiren’s identity to travel. His departure was secret; even his servants wouldn’t be accompanying him. That young boy following him would instead continue to California as originally planned, visiting an old friend at UC Berkeley.

Gu Yiren and Wan Feng were also leaving. After tonight, this apartment would be empty.

He spoke lightly, as if he were merely going on an outing from the east side of Beijing to the west.

But this was an urgent escape, a journey across the ocean—more than three months at sea. A single misstep could cost him his life.

“Just you and Mr. Tan?” Shen Xi asked urgently. “That’s too dangerous.”

He chuckled instead. “Why wouldn’t it be possible?”

From a stack of magazines on his desk, Fu Tongwen pulled out a check and a business card. “I called you here just to apologize. The three of us will all be taken care of, but Shen Xi, from now on, no one will be looking after you.”

He walked up to her and held out the check. “Go to California. Get a new mentor.”

The vast world stretched before them—this was his farewell to her.

Shen Xi looked down at the name on the card. A renowned scholar. So when Wan Feng had said he was ‘visiting a friend,’ had he actually been making arrangements for her all along?

“An orthopedist,” he said.

Her hands felt heavy as lead. She couldn’t lift them. She shook her head.

She was no longer the same person she had been three years ago.

Back then, she had been naive, inexperienced, and had thought simply—just going abroad to study.

But now, things were different.

A farewell night, perhaps a final parting.

Thousands of miles away, with the country in turmoil, the entire world at war, people fleeing, families torn apart.

Every goodbye could be the last. Shen Xi felt a deep emptiness in her heart, a creeping panic. She instinctively shook her head.

“I want to go back to China,” she said softly.

Her answer caught him by surprise.

“Everywhere is in chaos,” Shen Xi felt like she was rambling, her mind struggling to keep up with her words. “I’m afraid that by the time I finish my studies, I won’t have the chance to return. Or that before I can go back, the U.S. will join the war. Nothing is certain. What if—just what if—I complete my studies, only to die in a foreign land? Wouldn’t all these years of effort be wasted?”

He finally smiled. “You’re a bit like my fourth brother—so impatient, as if even a minute or a second’s delay would bring the fall of the nation and the destruction of our home.” He said it with a smile, but it carried a deep, helpless sorrow.

After speaking, he fell silent and pulled out his pocket watch.

He was checking the time, but he was also considering.

The anxiety of waiting crashed down like a tidal wave. Shen Xi wondered—if he refused, what other reason could she use to persuade him?

Second by second.

Outside, the rain grew heavier, pounding against the windowpanes with a loud clatter. There must have been hail mixed in, striking the glass with such force.

Shen Xi took a quiet breath and waited patiently.

“Your future is in your own hands,” Fu Tongwen said, putting away his pocket watch. “A hundred days at sea—you might die before you even arrive. If that happens, regret will be too late.”

That was a yes. He had agreed.

Blood rushed to her heart. Her face flushed with excitement, and she broke into a smile.

“Like the Titanic?”

Fu Tongwen shook his head slightly and sighed with a smile. “Medical students all seem to have the same temperament.”

No fear of life and death.

Shen Xi had been scheduled to be the last to leave, so she hadn’t prepared in advance.

Now that Fu Tongwen had made his decision, she dared not waste another second. She dashed back to her room and pulled out the old suitcase that had been sitting under her bed for three years. A thick layer of dust had settled on it—she wiped it off hastily with a damp towel and started packing.

Clothes, both inner and outer layers—just enough for three months, since she could wash them along the way. Books were too heavy to bring, but she couldn’t bear to leave them behind. She closed the suitcase, then hesitated, reopened it, and placed her surgical knives on top—somewhere easy to reach. In the end, the books took up too much space. Her suitcase was heavier than Tan Qingxiang’s.

Struggling, she lugged the suitcase to the living room. The young boy helping with the luggage lifted it—and his face changed instantly. “Are you trying to be a burden to Third Master?”

Shen Xi’s face paled. She wanted to snatch the suitcase back and cut down her belongings.

“Let her bring it. How much heavier could it be?” Dr. Tan chuckled, effortlessly taking the suitcase. “I think you’re just upset that your Third Master isn’t bringing you along, but he’s bringing her instead.”

The boy didn’t deny it. With a stiff face, he turned to Shen Xi. “Three months at sea—do you even know how to take care of Third Master?”

Take care of someone… In her past experiences, the only thing she had ever learned was how to care for opium addicts.

“When have I ever needed anyone to take care of me?”

Fu Tongwen descended the stairs, his fingers sliding from the back of his stiff-collared shirt toward the front, finally adjusting his tie with a light touch. His demeanor made it seem like he was heading out for a leisurely trip, not fleeing for his life.

“For ordinary matters, maybe not,” the boy muttered. “But who will wash and iron your clothes?”

“I can do that,” Shen Xi exhaled in relief.

“Can you match his outfits? Third Master wears suits—his socks and leather shoes must be properly coordinated too.”

That required a sense of style. Shen Xi hesitated.

“Miss Shen,” the boy addressed her, though he clearly didn’t think much of her, yet he had no choice but to follow Third Master’s lead in calling her that. “If we really face life-and-death situations on the journey, remember—Third Master once saved you. When it comes to matters of survival, you must be like us—protect Third Master.”

Before she could respond, he had already placed this heavy burden on her shoulders.

Fu Tongwen smiled slightly, curled two fingers, and gave the boy a sharp flick on the forehead. “The way you’re pressing her, you sound like a ‘baixiangren.’”

The boy fell silent.

Shen Xi didn’t understand and asked softly, “What is a ‘baixiangren’?”

The servants all laughed.

One of the middle-aged men explained, “It’s a slang term from Xiao Qian’s hometown.”

Shen Xi nodded, but she still didn’t quite understand.

At that moment, they were all relaxed, as if they were merely sending Fu Tongwen off to a banquet. But when someone opened the front door for them, the atmosphere grew cold.

The weight of it made Shen Xi incredibly nervous.

A gust of wind rushed through the entryway, chilling her forehead.

Ahead of her, Fu Tongwen’s tall, slender figure stepped out through the door.

She couldn’t help but turn back for one last look at the apartment.

The marble statues by the entryway, the glass vase on the table with neither water nor fresh flowers, the clock, the floor—she even glanced at the cabinet where she had once found chocolates.

That night, the first half had been about saying goodbye. The second half became her own hurried departure.

Parting from people was hard. But even saying goodbye to this apartment filled her with unexpected sorrow.

Gu Yiren was still fast asleep. Wan Feng was surely taking care of him. No one had expected that she would be the first to leave.

Three years of studying abroad—like a dream she had finally woken up from.