Xie Bin and Jian Bianlin had originally reserved rooms in the Banyan Tree Macau. Now, though, there were no more available rooms, so Xie Bin decided last-minute to give his room to Chu Jian while he went to stay in the nearby Ritz-Carlton. When Chu Jian finished checking in and walked into her room, housekeeping was just beginning to clean it.
Jian Bianlin glanced inside. The room was in disarray, and there was also the stench of cigarettes. In a low voice, he instructed the housekeeping staff that the odour needed to be removed, and then, picking up Chu Jian’s small suitcase, he brought her to his own room first.
As she stepped into his room, a slight, inexplicable sense of nervousness came over her that could only be eased by continuously talking. “It’s a good thing that after I went back last time, I got another travel permit for Macau[1]; otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to be here by tonight.” Seeing Jian Bianlin’s clothes, lots of clothes, strewn on the bed because he had not had the chance to put them away yet, Chu Jian brought all the clothes hangers over and, one by one, started to hang his garments up for him. “You don’t have a shoot tomorrow morning, right?”
Her voice cut off abruptly. The last button-up shirt had been moved away, revealing several nicely-folded pairs of underpants…
Chu Jian practically used a full throwing motion to toss the shirt back, covering up those items again.
But they still were not completely concealed. She cast a guiltily self-conscious glance at Jian Bianlin, who was lighting some incense. With her fingers, she tugged on the corner of the shirt and pulled it over another inch. There, completely covered up now…
Then, acting utterly as if she had not seen anything, she hastily began hanging the clothes that were now on hangers into the closet.
“I’m going to watch some TV. You go take a shower.” He set a lit candle into a holder.
“Shower?” Chu Jian’s arm froze, his jacket still held high, and she gaped foolishly at him.
“You’ve had the wind blowing on you the whole night. If you don’t take a shower, you’ll catch a cold.” Jian Bianlin stepped over and took the garments she was holding from her, hanging them up himself. “Hurry and go now.”
He had always been someone who spoke only half of what was to be said. If he could omit any words, he would.
Chu Jian roughly understood what he was saying. Her own hotel room was just starting to be cleaned, and the odours still needed to be removed. It was uncertain what time everything would be finished, so it was better to shower here.
But…
Chu Jian turned to look at the shower enclosure. Its four walls were all semitransparent glass, and it was beside the open walk-in closet. See-through on all sides…
Jian Bianlin dragged the suitcase from beside the door over to the walk-in closet, just outside the shower enclosure.
Without saying a word, he then walked up beside the floor-length windows and turned on the water to the heated pool. The sound of coursing water instantly filled that quiet room.
After being taken aback briefly, Chu Jian understood.
This action of filling the in-room pool in the middle of the night carried no other meanings behind it. It was purely to lessen and offset the water sounds that would be coming from her shower so that she would at least not feel too embarrassed.
Amid the sounds of water and the television, Chu Jian hesitated for one minute, but afterward, she hurriedly grabbed some clean clothes and underwear from her suitcase, rushed inside, and used less than twenty minutes to finish up a haphazard shower. Then, following a search all about to find a hairdryer, she blew her hair until it was mostly dry before walking out from the walk-in closet.
