Manhattanhenge

Chapter 3: N. A Beautiful Evening

He is gay.

Ning Yixiao arrived at the dinner banquet late, but no one blamed him.

Those celebrated entrepreneurs, who were still snobbish and condescending two years ago, were welcoming him with smiles as if nothing was wrong, raising their glasses at the tardy Ning Yixiao. Those same old smiles seemed to very much convey admiration for this young talent.

But Ning Yixiao would always remember their cold gazes during his Series A financing.

He quickly schooled into another expression as well, sweeping away the gloom on his face earlier and replacing it with a smile.

“I apologize. Something suddenly came up. I hope I haven’t been late for too long.”

“See, Shaw is a workaholic through and through, and he is the best at keeping his promises. He must have been delayed by work today.” Mr Orvis who was close to the main seats laughed. “The banquet’s only just begun. The dishes aren’t even served yet. Shaw, please do me the honor and share something about yourself to fill up the time.”

The others present also chimed in approvingly, livening the place up.

Ning Yixiao conceded to the request, taking a seat along with these well-known entrepreneurs at the long table. Considering his limited experience, sitting at close proximity to the host would have made anyone in his place feel suffocated with nerves. But Ning Yixiao’s ambition made him take it in stride.

Accepting the hot towel offered by the waiter, he wiped his hands and then sipped the aperitif. The room was warm. Ning Yixiao could feel his body temperature rising bit by bit.

The majority of the guests at this table were caucasian men. Or rather, they comprised the business giants in New York and the Bay Area. They fought against each other and protected each other too. No one could shake that up.

Ning Yixiao always had high energy levels for work, but today, he found it hard to concentrate. Although he was clearly paying attention to these investors and their business partners’ conversation, the image of Su Hui kept intruding in front of his eyes. The dim natural evening light had shrouded him; there had been no smile on the face that was so pale it was almost translucent.

“How rare it is to see such a new face!”

A stranger’s voice rang out. Ning Yixiao sharply sensed that she appeared to be speaking to him, so he followed the voice and raised his eyes. It was a ginger-haired woman who was holding onto Mr. Jones’ arm. She looked just a few years older than himself.

She sat diagonally opposite from him while Mr. Jones sat on the host’s seat. The two’s eyes zeroed in on him.

Ning Yixiao subconsciously reached for his name card, but he noticed when he took it out that he had already held onto this card for a long time now. Even when the paper had wrinkled, he still did not take it out.

He paused before he reached for his wallet again, offering the lady a brand-new name card.

“Here I thought you have two types of name cards for different people.” The lady laughed. The hand that accepted the card donned bright red nail polish. She read the card carefully before lifting it up as if she were showcasing her trump card in a gambling session. She then joked, “Oh, it seems that I’ve been given the formal business one.”

The other guests in the dinner banquet laughed along with her. Ning Yixiao did the same and offered no explanation.

“A pleasure to meet you. I’m Julie Seville. Just call me Julie.” Separated by the fresh flowers and extravagant plates on the table, she stretched out a hand towards Ning Yixiao.

“Ning Yixiao.” He only held her flamingly bright fingertips out of politeness.

“I like Oriental men.” Julie flipped her curls, smiling as she said, “Asian men have a very unique sort of reticent and gentlemanly nature.”

A major investor sitting at the side teased her without any restraint, “Oh, please. You just like handsome men!”

Julie mischievously gave him a look, rebuking him fakely. Then she looked at Ning Yixiao. “How strange. I’ve never seen you on the covers of the Fortune or Entrepreneur magazines.”

She began joking, “If you were to advertise with your face, perhaps it’ll be effective marketing.”

“Shaw doesn’t even hold his roadshows personally, and gets that skinny research fellow in his company to do it. He’s practically the most mysterious entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.”

“Oh, never mind then. If he were to be on the cover, I bet Fortune magazine would just be mistaken as GQ!”

Ning Yixiao chuckled. “Surely, that’s an exaggeration. My appearance doesn’t fit the sense of beauty here.”

“Who said that?” Julie’s smile did not lessen any. The alcohol had powdered her cheeks pink and made her even more direct with her words. “You look Eurasian, since you have characteristics of both sides—and they’re even the good ones. You must have been pretty sought-after when you were studying, weren’t you?”

The women of Vanity Fair were interested in Ning Yixiao, so such things happened occasionally. Even the people present at the moment have witnessed it a handful of times.

“Julie, are you still interested in him?” Someone else bantered. “Just give up. It’s well known that Shaw is seeing someone.”

The smile on Ning Yixiao’s face was very mild. In others’ eyes, this face had an out-of-place but noble Oriental air. Even though his life had no connection with the word, “high-born”.

As he listened to their banter and chat, Ning Yixiao watched coolly from a distance internally, but maintained the smile on the surface without expressing the slightest hint of repulsion. He was very clear that while these people fawned and flattered him, an unknown number might be sneering at him in secret. Climbing up by sucking up, fawning over them for self-interest, using shrewd methods… These were phrases he heard too much of in private.

The host and the organizer of this banquet, Mr. Jones, only watched the others speak with a grin, and occasionally exchanged some words with Ning Yixiao, discussing their new product that was nearing launch. This business giant seemed very approachable, but when he did not smile, he had an imposing sternness even when he was not angry.

Ning Yixiao did not consume much of the food in the banquet, other than a few bites of steak. In order to make progress for his company’s Series C financing, he used the remainder of the time to talk with a few investors about their ideals, plans and future domains. His speech was neither slow nor superfluous, and was instead steady and confident.

But midway through, an investor diverted the topic to one that hit a sore spot.

“Shaw, you don’t look too good today. But you weren’t like this when I saw you yesterday. Did something happen?”

Ning Yixiao startled for a moment before he responded with a laugh.

“No. Perhaps I worked long hours recently, so I look a little more fatigued.”

After the meal, the waiters served the desserts for them, announcing that it was cherry almond bavarois made by the greatest pastry chef in Seattle. When it was served, Ning Yixiao stared at the cherry topping on the cake, but he did not plan to eat it.

“Shaw?” Mr. Jones even noticed his mind had wandered off. “Have a try. I’m sure you’ll like it.”

Ning Yixiao acknowledged in a reply. He picked up the fork at the side and only cut out a small piece. He even took care to avoid the glistening, pretty spiked cherry at the top.

After the banquet, he stayed to chat with Mr. Jones. The man had given him some very helpful advice while avoiding all comments relating to personal matters; he only asked him to take care of himself.

“I will.”

As he made his way out of the hotel the banquet was held in, Julie offered to give him a ride back to his hotel upon seeing that he did not have a chauffeur. But Ning Yixiao rejected it. Likely because she rarely met anyone this tactless, Julie was taken quite aback for a while before she finally remembered to roll up her car’s window.

“Then I wish you a pleasant evening.”

Ning Yixiao walked on the chilly, foreign streets of Seattle alone. The snowfall was becoming heavier, and it didn’t seem like it was stopping any time soon. He recalled what someone said at the banquet, that he hoped that there wouldn’t be heavy snowfall tomorrow, or they’d have to stop work.

Truly, what a fragile city this was. Just a night’s worth of snow could make it stop in its tracks.

He suddenly felt a little envious, steps pausing in front of a convenience store. He mentally wrestled with himself for a few seconds, but he still walked in. When he left its doors, he was holding a pack of Marlboros as well as a pack of disinfectant wipes. He borrowed a lighter from the store and walked outside to sit down.

The umbrellas used to block the summer sun rays were still left in winter. So, no snow had landed on the chairs and tables hiding under the umbrellas.

It had been a very long time since he bought this brand. The packaging seemed to have changed too. The “aurora” described by that person was gone from the wrapper; in its place were ordinary shades of black and blue.

He had just lit the cigarette in his mouth when he received a call from Jing Ming.

“Where are you at? Done yet?”

Ning Yixiao exhaled a puff of smoke, the white tendrils curling in front of his eyes. The alcohol evaporated from the skin on his hands. It was very cold and carried with it some prickling pain. His tone became a little languid. “Why are you so concerned when you didn’t attend it?”

“Couldn’t be bothered to go. Too troublesome.”

Ning Yixiao still found his accented Mandarin weird. “I think you should speak English instead.”

Jing Ming was a friend he met when he was studying in S University, and they hit it off well. He was genuinely someone of Euroasian ancestry. His father was a French real estate agent while his mother was Chinese, an able woman who manufactured medicine. Back then, if this hot-headed rich second-generation of an entrepreneur wasn’t an angel and became an investor, Ning Yixiao’s entrepreneur journey would not have set off so quickly.

Although he was born and raised in California, he loved Chinese culture very much. Back then, he voluntarily tried to be friends with him because Ning Yixiao was from China. He even had Ning Yixiao pick a Chinese name from the thousands of selections in “Memorial to Yueyang Tower” [1]. Then, he banned his friends from calling him Luka and instead encouraged everyone to call him “Jing Ming”. This even made some American friends get their tongues tied. Normally, when he spoke with Ning Yixiao, he insisted to speak in Mandarin. He even consulted xiangsheng performances and learned Beijing dialect, finding it especially exciting.

“Naw. What are you doing?” Jing Ming refused to switch into English and even attempted to use some awkward Beijing dialect.

“Smoking.”

Jing Ming seemed to have gotten some blackmail material, voice raising. “I thought you wanted to quit? But you’re picking it up again?”

Ning Yixiao hummed in acknowledgement. “I’m not feeling great today, so I wanted to smoke.”

Jing Ming let out a long sigh. “If you ask me, you should just stop trying to quit. So what if you smoke? It’s not like you’ll die tomorrow. Plus, human lifespans are so long. For someone like you who does nothing except work, you gotta have some channel to whittle it away, am I right?”

Ning Yixiao didn’t really listen to much of what he said. He just smoked quietly, exhaling ash gray curls under the sun umbrellas that were inappropriate for this season.

“Workaholics are so scary. I think your only leisure activity is to go home to stare off at your kitten stuffed toy…”

Ning Yixiao very abruptly cut him off, getting up. “I’m going back.”

“Hey, hey, hey, back where?” Jing Ming clearly could not read the situation and didn’t think much of what he said too. He asked again, “Right, I gotta attend a get-together later. You coming?”

“No. I’m going back to the hotel. I’m not done with work yet.” Ning Yixiao extinguished the cigarette butt and along with those faint emotions stirring in his heart, he tossed it all into the trash bin.

“You should take it easy occasionally.” He sighed again.

NIng Yixiao returned the lighter and flagged for a cab, saying carelessly, “As a business partner, you should also do some work.”

In Mandarin, Jing Ming spoke in a manner that was completely a Westerner’s way of speaking: “All right, that’s it for me. Have a good evening!”

These words had been comical in the first place but sounded comical too.

Ning Yixiao was not expecting a pleasant evening. Especially not tonight.

Back in the hotel room, he turned on his laptop for a meeting. But most of the time, they were just reporting to him. So, as someone extremely proficient in multitasking, Ning Yixiao listened as he read the report that the financial officer sent. The entire meeting lasted for two and a half hours. When it was nearly over, he opened his mailbox and replied to his pending emails one by one. Only then did he realize he had received Carl’s email about what he requested him to do.

There were many attachments in the email, and many of them were academic papers. Ning Yixiao downloaded them and then made a call to Carl.

“If I am not wrong, he is a clinical psychiatrist based in New York, with his own clinic. I compiled some of his published academic journals and papers. Dr. Liang likely focuses on studying treatments for bipolar disorder. Do we have projects where we’re required to work with him?”

Carl had misunderstood the intention behind Ning Yixiao’s order. But since he didn’t hear a no from Ning Yixiao, he continued, “To be honest, we have a doctor in our labs that was under the same professor as Dr. Liang. It’s Elvis. If we need to partner with him, I believe we can talk to him through him.”

Ning Yixiao did not comment. Instead, he paused a little before continuing, “Anything about things unrelated to his profession?”

“Unrelated to his profession…” Carl considered. “You mean his private life?”

He had not completely figured out what Ning Yixiao’s intention was. After a long moment of pondering, he suddenly remembered a paper he just saw. “Oh, that’s right. Dr. Liang had published a paper regarding the psychology of homosexuality when he was studying for his degree. He’s gay.”

This was private enough, wasn’t it?

Carl quietly waited for a response. He even thought Ning Yixiao would praise him for his meticulousness.

He didn’t expect that Ning Yixiao would immediately hang up on him.

A thought instantly popped into his mind. If there was a major on the psychology of your superiors, he would definitely sign up and study it.

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Translator Note:

[1] 岳阳楼记: a piece of literature written by Fan Zhongyan

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Cao: POOR CARL…
Cai: I feel so bad for him…