Chapter Twenty-Seven: Insatiable Desire

Still seething with resentment, Xia Ying stormed out of the house alone. Fang Da remained planted on the sofa, not the least bit inclined to get up and stop her or run after her. Qin Ruonan, however, was somewhat uneasy and wanted to go after Xia Ying to see how things stood, only to be stopped by Fang Da.

“Officer Qin, there’s no need to chase after her. Xiaoying will be fine. If you follow her, she’ll only feel more uncomfortable. She’s not like Qian Yuling; she’s not the type to grab hold of anyone and pour out her heart.” Fang Da seemed to know Xia Ying’s character all too well. He waved at Qin Ruonan, his face expressionless, neither his tone nor his manner betraying the slightest concern.

Qin Ruonan was slightly taken aback. Since taking on the case of Fang Wan’s disappearance, she had indeed been the unwilling audience to Qian Yuling’s complaints several times. But how could Fang Da know these things so clearly?

Seeing Qin Ruonan looking at him in thought, Fang Da gave a helpless, bitter smile. “Qian Yuling and I, whatever else may be said, were once husband and wife in the truest sense. Our child is already ten years old. How could I not know what she’s like? If she has grievances in her heart, she has to speak them out. If you don’t let her speak, she’ll never let it go. This time something so serious happened, of course she’ll resent me, think I lost our son. After resenting me, she’ll naturally resent the divorce as well. I can’t say exactly who she’ll go to and accuse me to, but since you two are the officers handling this matter, she certainly won’t keep silent with you.”

“Then can you really be sure Xia Ying won’t have any problems? She’s carrying your child right now. If anything were to happen…” Qin Ruonan had already had her doubts answered by how thoroughly Fang Da seemed to understand Qian Yuling’s character. At this moment, it was the angry Xia Ying storming off that worried her more.

“I’m sure. Xiaoying is the kind of person who cherishes herself very much, who knows how to be good to herself, and who never lets herself suffer. Think about it—she even had to get back at my son for those childish pranks he played on her. How could she be someone who doesn’t care about herself?” Fang Da’s bitter smile deepened. “To be honest, I really didn’t know about those things Fang Wan did. I’m ashamed of that. As a father, I was terribly unqualified. If I had known earlier, if I had criticized him and told him to stop targeting Xia Ying, maybe the laxative incident wouldn’t have happened.”

“As for the laxative matter, we’ve already learned some things for now. Let’s keep to the previous question: did you ever intervene in Qian Yuling’s remarriage?” An Changpu felt that although Fang Da was far from being a responsible father, his emotions at the moment were genuine enough. Since he was so certain that Xia Ying would be fine, there was no point in dwelling on her leaving the house. So he returned to Qin Ruonan’s earlier question.

With Xia Ying no longer present, Fang Da’s attitude toward the subject seemed to relax slightly. It was, in truth, easy to understand; talking about one’s former wife in front of one’s current wife was an awkward matter.

And Fang Da’s difficulty in speaking also revealed something else in another way: his feelings for Qian Yuling were complicated. The answer to An Changpu’s question was already plain enough—Fang Da had certainly interfered in Qian Yuling’s search for a new husband. Otherwise, he would not have been avoiding the matter so evasively in front of Xia Ying. The reason to ask now was simply to get a direct answer from the person himself.

At first Fang Da said nothing. He took a few fierce drags on his cigarette. Whether his mind was troubled or he simply was not much of a smoker by habit, he inhaled too hard and ended up coughing violently.

“I admit it. I did interfere,” he said at last, after the coughing fit subsided and the redness in his face had faded somewhat.

“Why did you do that?”

“I…” Fang Da had only uttered one word before he choked up again. Lowering his head, he let out a sigh. “Forget it. I won’t hide behind any lofty excuse for myself. What I was about to say was that I was afraid she’d find some unreliable man and make my son suffer, but even I don’t believe that. How could I expect anyone else to believe it? To tell the truth, I stopped Qian Yuling from remarrying because I was afraid she’d find a decent man and live well after she remarried.”

His words left both An Changpu and Qin Ruonan unsure how to react. After a long pause, Qin Ruonan asked in disbelief, “You hate your ex-wife that much? You can’t even stand to see her live a good life?”

“No! I don’t hate her!” Fang Da hurried to explain. “How should I put it… Once Qian Yuling and I divorced, our marriage was certainly a failure. But I truly don’t hate her. I left her because I couldn’t stand arguing with her all day long. I was afraid that if she found another man and lived a more comfortable life than she had with me, then I’d truly have no way back at all.”

That phrase, no way back, was something a person often had to weigh when playing many different roles in life. It was also a natural instinct to protect one’s own interests. Usually, when the road ahead is clear and the future looks bright, the matter of a fallback path doesn’t even come up. And when there is security, when there is a sense of safety, one often doesn’t need to keep such a so-called way back at all.

Fang Da had broken away from his marriage to Qian Yuling, and not long after had married Xia Ying, who was young, beautiful, and even gentle and docile in temperament. It was a life many men might have envied. Yet he still regarded Qian Yuling as his fallback. What lay beneath that was almost self-evident.

“Have there been problems between you and Xia Ying, in your relationship or your marriage?” An Changpu asked.

Fang Da shook his head, his brow furrowing. He leaned forward, picked up the ashtray from the coffee table, and ground the cigarette butt in his hand into it several times. Then he pulled out another cigarette and lit it. After a few puffs, he suddenly grew irritable. He ran a hand through his hair at random and said, “How strange! We’re clearly supposed to be investigating my son’s disappearance. How did this turn into questioning my love life and marriage?”

“We’re asking you these things now for the sake of Fang Wan’s case too. Your son is only a one-year-old boy. He doesn’t have any complicated social background or relationships. Aside from trafficking, any other possibility of abduction or unlawful detention would have to be tied to the adults in his family. Conflicts of interest among adults, old grievances, or personal enmity could all make a child a target for retaliation. And after this period of investigation, the possibility of trafficking has basically been ruled out. So I hope you can understand and not be resistant.” Faced with Fang Da’s irritability, An Changpu remained calm and unhurried.

Fang Da gave a long sigh, a stream of smoke pouring from his nostrils. He nodded at An Changpu. “I understand what you mean. I’m not resisting. I just feel embarrassed. At my age, this is the first time I’ve had to dissect myself in front of outsiders.”

“There are no emotional problems between Xia Ying and me, at least not from my side. I don’t feel she has any issue with me either.” He paused, then went on. “I have no dissatisfaction with my current relationship. As for wanting to leave myself a way out, even I can’t quite explain why. When I was living with Qian Yuling and her family before, as you’ve both experienced, she had a hot temper and couldn’t keep anything bottled up. If something displeased her, she had to say it all out in one breath, like a machine gun. She also loved meddling in my affairs. If I was out entertaining clients at night, I had to be home before eight-thirty. I was only allowed so many cigarettes a day. If I came home even a little late after work, she’d interrogate me for ages—why I was late, what I had been doing, who I was with, men or women, all of it. She could question me endlessly. I was truly driven to the point of exasperation.”

“Later, the two of us divorced simply because we argued too much and damaged the relationship. When we had just divorced, I was in a lot of pain too. A man with a son—unable to leave because of obligations at work, yet still having to pick up the child after school. Those were hectic days, with everything falling apart in my hands. Then I met Xiaoying. You’ve all seen her: young, beautiful, soft-spoken. After meeting her, I felt a kind of happiness I had never felt while living with Qian Yuling. So we got married. At first, I felt especially good. Wherever I went to entertain guests, whoever I was with, whatever time I came home, she never asked. But as time went on, I started to feel uneasy again.”

“I see…” An Changpu said, unsure whether to laugh or cry.

Fang Da shook his head. “I know what you want to say. At first I thought the same thing—that now no one would be nagging me or keeping me in check all day, so I should be especially satisfied and happy. But people are strange sometimes. Xiaoying doesn’t care about anything, doesn’t interfere in anything. As long as I hand over the household money and pocket money each month, she’s delighted. After a while, though, I began to feel that she didn’t really care about me as a person at all, only about the material security I could provide. And Xiaoying is young, more than ten years younger than me. She dresses me up, drags me out to play with her. At first it was fresh and fun, but after a while it became tiring. I’m already forty; she’s in her early twenties. Our stamina and energy aren’t equal. When I’m tired, when I feel in my heart that I’m not being cared about, I become especially lost, and then I start thinking back to the days when I lived with Qian Yuling.”

“I was afraid too. Xiaoying is young. If one day she met a man who could give her a better life than I can, would she kick me to the curb, this old man? But if you ask whether I regret divorcing Qian Yuling and marrying Xiaoying, I can’t really say that either. Qian Yuling cared about me and looked after me; I know that. But her temper was quick, and she controlled me too much. I truly couldn’t stand it. Xia Ying is gentle and gives me freedom, but she doesn’t seem to care about me as a person very much either. In my heart, I often feel torn. I don’t even know whether the path I’ve taken was right or wrong. I don’t know what this all amounts to.”

“It’s simple. What you have is nothing more than a heart that’s never satisfied.” Qin Ruonan looked at Fang Da and spoke coldly.