Red Mandarin Dress

still cold.
    “Would you like a hot water bottle, Peiqin?”
    “No, I have you.” She clung closer against him. “When Qinqin goes to college, there’ll be only two of us here, an empty old nest.”
    “You don’t have to worry,” he said, noticing a single white hair at her temple. He took the opportunity to lead the talk in the direction planned. “You still look so young and handsome.”
    “You don’t have to flatter me like that.”
    “I saw a mandarin dress in a store window today. It would become you nicely, I believe. Have you worn one before?”
    “Come on, Yu. Have you ever seen me wearing a mandarin dress? In our middle school days, such a garment was out of the question, decadent and bourgeois and whatnot. Then we both went to the godforsaken army farm in Yunnan, wearing the same imitation army uniform for ten years. When we came back, we didn’t even have a proper wardrobe for ourselves under your father’s roof. You have never paid any proper attention to me, husband.”
    “Now with a room for ourselves, I can try to do better in the future.”
    “But why are you suddenly paying attention to a mandarin dress? Oh, I know. Another case of yours. The red mandarin dress case, I’ve heard of it.”
    “Surely you know something about the dress. Maybe you examined one in a store.”
    “Once or twice, perhaps, but I never go into any of those fancy stores. Do you think a mandarin dress would fit me—a middle-aged woman working in a shabby restaurant?”
    “Why not?” Yu said, his hand tracing the familiar curves on her body.
    “No, don’t sweet-talk like your chief inspector. It’s not a dress for a working woman. Not for me, in that tingsijian office smeared all over with wok fumes and coal soot. I saw a long article about mandarin dresses in a fashion magazine. Why the style has suddenly become so popular again, I can’t figure out. But tell me about your case.”
    So he summed up what he and his colleagues had done, focusing more or less on the failure of routine police procedure.
    At the end of his summary, she said quietly, “Have you discussed it with Chen?”
    “We talked on the phone yesterday. He’s on vacation, working on a literature paper with a so-called deconstructive approach. About the case, he just mumbled several psychological terms, probably from his mystery translations.”
    “Chen can be like that,” she said. “If the murderer is a nut, it can be really difficult, since he acts out of a logic comprehensible only to himself.”
    He waited for her to go on, but she didn’t seem to be concentrating on the discussion.
    “What about your chief inspector’s literature program?” she asked, changing the subject unexpectedly. “Do you think he’s going for a career change?”
    “He’s unpredictable,” Yu said. “I don’t know.”
    “He may be facing a midlife crisis—too much work and stress, and no one there for him back at home. Is he still seeing that young girl, White Cloud?”
    “No, I don’t think so. He’s never talked to me about her.”
    “But the girl had a crush on him.”
    “How do you know?”
    “The way she helped take care of his mother during his delegation trip.”
    “Well, that Big Buck could have paid her.”
    “No, she did a lot of things she didn’t have to just for the sake of money,” she said. “The old woman likes her a lot too. A college student, clever and presentable. In the old woman’s eyes, she must be a good choice. And he is a very dutiful son.”
    “That he is. He keeps talking to me about his not having provided better care for his mother, about his having let her down by not following in the academic footsteps of his father and by not having had a family of his own.”
    “When he called in yesterday, we talked a little. He explained that his decision to enroll in the special program was partially made for her. In spite of her deteriorating health, she’s still worried about him. He thought that, if he could do little to change his bachelor status, then at least an MA degree might comfort the old woman a bit.”
    “According to a fortune-teller, he has no peach-blossom luck,” Yu said, sighing. “Like in a Chinese proverb, one with good luck in their career may have none in love.”
    “Come on. He’s had his share of peach-blossom luck. Like his HCC girlfriend in Beijing. Things just didn’t work out. Still, White Cloud could be the one.”
    “I’m not surprised about her crush, but I don’t