It’s Time to End
The vibration of her phone finally pulled Bai Xin from the dead silence, but she still didn’t move.
Cheng Jiqing had been gone for over an hour. She remained in the seat Cheng Jiqing had just occupied, sitting there for so long that even the simple act of moving her phone felt stiff and unfamiliar.
—Do you really want to know my answer right now?
At that moment, looking at Cheng Jiqing’s calm yet bitter expression, she had suddenly lost the courage to listen.
She felt like she knew what Cheng Jiqing was about to say to her.
But she couldn’t even chase after her, because of Cheng Jiqing’s last words before leaving—”Bai Xin, I’m really tired. I want to be alone for a while.”
She didn’t want to push her, and she didn’t dare.
She thought Cheng Jiqing wouldn’t be so cruel as to leave quietly without a word.
So she let her go.
An occasional warm breeze blew past, and Bai Xin felt a chill on her cheeks, only then realizing she was crying again. Cheng Jiqing was gone, leaving her here all alone. Gone.
Bai Xin prepared to stand up, only to find her limbs stiff and numb from sitting still for too long.
Just then, her phone vibrated again.
She glanced at the caller ID, paused, and pressed the heel of her palm against the corner of her eye, wiping away the tears.
She answered.
“Miss Bai, I’m President Cheng’s secretary.”
Bai Xin had no energy to deal with this and hung up directly.
What could Cheng Jing want from her? It was undoubtedly about her and Cheng Jiqing.
Half a minute later, the phone rang again.
Tear tracks still stained Bai Xin’s face, but her eyes were icy and fraught with irritation.
She answered the call.
“Bai Xin.”
Cheng Jing’s deep voice sounded through the receiver.
Bai Xin raised her reddened eyes and heard the voice on the other end say, “I think we need to meet.”
A thought suddenly struck Bai Xin. How did Cheng Jiqing find out so abruptly? Where did she hear it from?
And why was it such a coincidence that Cheng Jing was contacting her right now?
She didn’t rush to speak. Cheng Jing’s voice turned harsh. “Or do you need me to be more explicit? You know perfectly well what you did to Chengcheng.”
A dark cloud fell over Bai Xin’s entire being.
“It was you.”
There seemed to be a moment of stunned silence on Cheng Jing’s end before she quickly said, “I have no desire to waste my time. Bai Xin, I’m giving you a chance. Tell Chengcheng yourself about what you and the hospital did, and I can let you off this one time.”
She paused, then added coldly, “Otherwise, even with Zhou Yushu backing you, I will stop at nothing to make you pay the price. Do you understand?”
Bai Xin narrowed her eyes. From those words, she knew it wasn’t Cheng Jing.
She took a breath. The mere mention of Cheng Jiqing made her heart ache, and the frustration was like being fried in hot oil.
Images flashed through Bai Xin’s mind like a movie—Cheng Jiqing’s tear-filled, wounded eyes from just a while ago. Her own throat felt like it was filled with coarse sand.
“Then you don’t have to bother. She already knows,” she said, then added, “But what right do you have to say these things to me? Have you ever done anything good for Cheng Jiqing?”
Cheng Jing’s breathing clearly grew heavier.
Two seconds later, she said, “At least I would never use her.”
Bai Xin’s brow furrowed. Her fingers dug slightly into the tabletop, slowly clenching into a fist.
“Whether she knows or not, Bai Xin, if Chengcheng gets hurt, I will not be merciful. This is my final warning to you.”
“Then let me give you a warning as well.”
Bai Xin lifted her chin slightly, her eyes red but her voice sharp and severe. “Anyone who stands in my way is my enemy. You’re welcome to try me.”
By dusk in December, the sky had already turned into a pitch-black mass.
It was dark and oppressive, like the color of spilled ink bleeding across paper.
Bai Xin walked along the pavement. A thin layer of snow, already losing its vitality, was still piled up on both sides of the road.
After walking for a while, she belatedly remembered her car was parked in the other direction.
She started walking back.
Her breath turned to mist under the streetlight, then instantly dispersed.
Bai Xin kept her phone in her hand, not putting it in her bag, as if she wanted to feel the cold.
Another ten minutes passed before Bai Xin returned to her car.
A WeChat notification vibrated.
She quickly looked down, and the faint light in her eyes abruptly dimmed, like a firefly being extinguished, a forest falling silent.
It was a message from Tang Jia, telling her the person who caused the problem was her assistant. The assistant owed money in Macau and had been found by Cheng Jing.
Birds die for food, and humans die for wealth1.
Pressed hard and unable to pay off the debt, she decided to take a double payout.
【Where is she?】
【She ran off again. Probably knows she’s caused a disaster.】
【Find her.】
Bai Xin swiped a line across the car window. The fog parted, revealing the neon lights outside. She stared at them quietly for a moment, then suddenly, in frustration, smashed her phone onto the dashboard!
With a loud ‘thud,’ the phone slid down and fell to the floor.
Bai Xin didn’t pick it up. She took a deep breath, then placed a hand over her violently pounding heart.
It hurt.
Intense unease and fear enveloped her, while overwhelming self-blame and regret tormented her. Bai Xin’s trembling hands tried to start the car. She pressed the button twice, but her shaking hands caused her to fail both times.
She covered her face with her hands. Another half-minute passed before she adjusted her breathing again.
At Nanjing.
The moment she opened the door, she knew Cheng Jiqing hadn’t come back.
In the coffee shop, that sentence, “I don’t want to go back,” felt like some kind of confirmation.
Bai Xin forced herself to calm down. For some reason, her tears wouldn’t stop, as if a voice inside her was giving her some kind of psychological premonition.
Cheng Jiqing wouldn’t be this cruel to me.
Bai Xin’s frozen hands opened Cheng Jiqing’s WeChat.
She wanted to apologize, but just as Cheng Jiqing had said… after all those times, even saying the words “I’m sorry” now felt like it would be a form of harm to Cheng Jiqing.
Bai Xin walked into the bedroom. A suitcase packed with clothes sat neatly by the mirror, and two tickets to Beiyu Town were on the bedside table. They were supposed to travel to Beiyu Town tomorrow.
Bai Xin tilted her head back slightly, trying to let her blurry vision clear, trying to calm herself down.
Finally, she managed to type out a sentence.
【Chengcheng, please come home, okay?】
That night, Cheng Jiqing didn’t reply, nor did she return.
On Christmas Day.
The weather in Beicheng was indeed clear and bright. The snow that had piled up for days gradually melted under the warm afternoon sun, ceasing to exist.
The spotless city returned to its original appearance.
On this day, Bai Xin still received no message from Cheng Jiqing. She couldn’t wait any longer and dialed her number.
The phone was off.
From morning till night, she tried many times, but it was never turned on.
It was the same as last time, yet different. Because Cheng Jiqing had already told her agency about today’s trip two days ago, this time the company had no idea where she was.
She even contacted Song Ling.
Song Ling didn’t know either.
Only then did Bai Xin realize she couldn’t find Cheng Jiqing. She didn’t even know where to begin looking.
Christmas in Beiyu Town this year was exceptionally brilliant.
Fireworks, like dazzling stars, bloomed in the dark sky, then vanished in an instant, beautiful but fleeting.
Beauty is never eternal.
Cheng Jiqing sat on a wooden bench across from her guesthouse. Colorful lights and red lanterns were hung everywhere, a combination of Chinese and Western elements that created a unique atmosphere.
She tilted her head up slightly. The fireworks lit up her pupils, iridescent and incredibly beautiful.
The tickets to Beiyu Town had to be booked in advance. The two she had bought were at home.
She didn’t want to go back, so she shouldn’t have been able to come.
But she still wanted to go, though she didn’t know why.
Perhaps it was because she had said it would be a regret if she couldn’t go, and she didn’t want to leave herself with any regrets.
Maybe even heaven took some pity on her. She searched on her original body’s phone and actually found someone selling tickets.
Two of them.
The seller’s description read: “Tickets for Beiyu Town tonight. Broke up with my girlfriend, selling both, cheap transfer.”
Cheng Jiqing bought both of them.
She thought that if she bought them together, it might help that person move on from the matter a little sooner.
The north wind was bleak. She found a quiet and remote guesthouse, some distance from where the fireworks were being set off.
As she sat on the bench, the wind would occasionally carry snow from the branches above, which rustled down onto her down jacket, creating a lively sound.
So lively it made one’s eyes and heart ache.
Cheng Jiqing turned her head, and a small snowflake happened to fall on her eyelid, melting in an instant.
The fourth day.
When Bai Xin received Ada’s call, she was sitting on the balcony, holding the copy of 《Going Ashore》 that Cheng Jiqing often read.
She remembered the first page she opened. On it was a sentence Cheng Jiqing had written—Better to be lonely than to suffer.
Ada told her on the phone that Cheng Jiqing had posted on Weibo.
Bai Xin rarely used Weibo; she only downloaded the app after Cheng Jiqing decided to start acting.
Cheng Jiqing was the only person she followed.
But somehow, a pile of messy accounts had taken over the top of her feed. In the two seconds it took her to scroll, she was on the verge of going mad with frustration.
Finally. She saw the familiar name.
Cheng Jiqing: The weather is great, and I’m doing great too.
The accompanying picture was of a clear, azure sky.
Gentle words, a gentle picture, yet Bai Xin felt an endless chill. Everything is great, even if I’m not there.
Everything is great, she just doesn’t want to deal with me anymore.
Everything is great, she just doesn’t want to come back, doesn’t want to see me.
If this were the past, Bai Xin would have used every means at her disposal to find Cheng Jiqing. But she knew Cheng Jiqing wouldn’t like that. The fact that not a single trace of information had been revealed for so many days meant Cheng Jiqing didn’t want to be found.
Bai Xin curled up on the sofa, hugging herself tightly.
Cheng Jiqing stayed in Beiyu Town for seven days.
Until the last day of December.
Two days prior, a heavy snow had fallen on Beiyu Town, like salt and willow catkins scattered from the sky, building a thick layer on the ground and rooftops.
Tonight, Cheng Jiqing was once again sitting on the same wooden bench from the first night.
The fireworks were even more spectacular than on Christmas Day.
She looked at the snow-covered ground beside the bench and crouched down.
Little by little, she gathered it into her palms.
The snow was icy cold, but she didn’t really feel it.
Cheng Jiqing gathered the snow patiently. She had given herself seven days, but even now, her heart felt like it was being twisted by a knife, filled with disappointment. For the past few nights, she hadn’t slept or eaten well.
In the morning, when she looked at her haggard face in the mirror, she had a startling realization—she was becoming unlike herself.
This was wrong.
She didn’t like it.
She thought about it. Taking ten thousand steps back, even if she could forgive Bai Xin right now, could she ever trust her as she did before?
Probably not.
She would start to feel terrified, anxious, constantly wondering if she was being deceived again. She would analyze and doubt every word from Bai Xin, wondering if Bai Xin was hiding things from her, lying to her.
They would start to argue, to be suspicious, and every time, it would remind her of the past…
And then, a vicious cycle.
Cheng Jiqing continued to tirelessly pile up the snow. She thought, What’s the point of it all, then?
If being in love is for the sake of torture, then what’s the point?
Besides, several days had passed, and her heart was just as it was seven days ago.
Suddenly, a firework boomed. Cheng Jiqing looked up. The magnificent display filling the sky was, in the end, just emptiness.
Soon, this year would be over.
When she was a child in the orphanage, the director wouldn’t let the younger kids stay up late, but she could always hear the fireworks outside her window at midnight.
When she grew up and started acting, busy making a living, she would be surrounded by people, but it was still just her alone when she returned to her room.
She could stay up late now, but there weren’t as many fireworks in the city anymore.
It wasn’t really an obsession, just a small expectation.
That’s why she had prepared herself with ten-tenths of her heart for this trip.
And perhaps because of that, the experience felt even more profound, so deep it was carved into her bones.
Cheng Jiqing’s movements stopped. She suddenly felt that everything around her seemed to have no meaning in the first place.
The people she had treated with sincerity, the people who had claimed to treat her with sincerity, were all deceiving her. Tang Jia was, Cheng Jing was, and even the person closest to her was too.
Utterly uninteresting. Why suffer?
It was completely pointless.
Cheng Jiqing looked at the fireworks and gave a self-deprecating smile.
It was time to go back, she thought.
Not far away, a firework shot straight into the sky.
It looked as if it was about to tear a hole in it.
Cheng Jiqing’s silhouette, clad in a black down jacket, appeared dim and indistinct under the multicolored light.
Behind her, she left only a small snowman, which sat quietly beside the bench.
Accompanying the dark night, to welcome the new year.
The day she returned to Beicheng, Cheng Jiqing finally turned her phone on.
As expected, there were many messages. She waited a moment for them to stop coming in before she tapped to read them.
There were a lot of people.
Cheng Jing: 【Chengcheng, I can’t reach you. Are you okay?】
Cheng Jing: 【Take care.】
Song Ling: 【You were right, Bai Xin really did come ask me.】
Song Ling: 【But where are you?】
Song Ling: 【Cheng Jiqing, are you okay? If you’re not dead, send me a message back. What’s up, heartbroken?】
There were many more messages after that.
Before she left, Song Ling was the only one who knew she was going on a long trip.
There were a few greetings from Qin Yufu with pictures of her cat.
Messages from Zhou Qing, Tong Yanxi, and even Li Yunlan.
There were too many; she didn’t read them one by one.
Her gaze fell on the one in the middle. She had unpinned it last time and hadn’t pinned it again since.
How can a wound heal immediately? Cheng Jiqing thought. Before it could even heal, the same mistake was made again. That’s why it’s especially devastating.
Cheng Jiqing looked at the dozen or so red notification dots but didn’t open the chat. She could see the latest message in the preview.
【Chengcheng, it’s been seven days. Where are you? Reply to me…】
She tilted her head back and took a breath of the piercingly cold air, letting it cut through the tightness in her chest. She turned off her phone and headed directly to Tang Jia’s hospital.
The expression on Tang Jia’s face when she saw her was even more surprised than seven days ago, now with an added hint of gravity.
Tang Jia rose slightly from her seat. “You’re back?”
Cheng Jiqing was direct and concise. “Can we continue with that medicine from before?”
Tang Jia was taken aback, then nodded. “But…”
“Arrange for someone to draw my blood,” Cheng Jiqing said calmly. “You finish making the medicine.”
This unexpected appearance and conversation should have been a relief for Tang Jia, but it wasn’t. Seeing Cheng Jiqing’s cold expression, she knew the situation was bad.
Tang Jia hesitated. “Have you contacted Bai Xin?”
“What? Do I need her permission to voluntarily have my blood drawn now? You don’t need to ask her,” Cheng Jiqing said. “Dr. Tang, just do what you’re supposed to do.”
Cheng Jiqing looked at Tang Jia, her usual brightness and kindness gone, replaced by only distance. “If you don’t want me to go through the trouble of finding problems for you, too.”
Tang Jia: “…”
If they hadn’t gotten to know each other, she could have remained indifferent, minded her own business, and felt no guilt or reluctance.
But people aren’t made of wood or stone. Over these past days interacting with Cheng Jiqing, they had gotten along very well; it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call them friends.
From that perspective, her actions were inexcusable, and she felt guilty and ashamed.
But she had no choice. After all, she and Bai Xin had known each other for many years, and she even occasionally saw Bai Xin as a younger sister.
This was the so-called difference between who was close and who wasn’t.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” She had already realized something.
Cheng Jiqing simply asked in return, “What is the most suitable frequency for drawing blood?”
“Once a week,” Tang Jia sighed internally. “Cheng Jiqing, Bai Xin is…”
Cheng Jiqing’s clear voice interrupted her.
“Fine. Once a week, then. Find someone to draw my blood.”
From beginning to end, Cheng Jiqing was so calm it was chilling. Even Tang Jia could feel the resolution within it. Tang Jia desperately wanted to explain something more, but she knew that anything she said now would only be a hindrance to Bai Xin.
Before heading to the blood-draw room, Cheng Jiqing paused, her back to Tang Jia, and said slowly, “Don’t let Bai Xin come over. I will find her.”
As Cheng Jiqing’s pale hand went to open the door, Tang Jia’s apologetic voice sounded from behind her. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need.”
The first day of the new year in Beicheng. A light snow was falling.
Cheng Jiqing stood at the entrance of the hospital, her figure upright and graceful in a white down jacket.
Flurries of snow like grains of salt sprinkled down, fine and dense. They didn’t look like much on her clothes or in her hair, but if you didn’t shake them off, they would sneak into your collar after a while and touch your skin.
They could chill you to the bone. In that instant, you might feel a piercing pain.
She didn’t get into the car right away. She had received a WeChat message from her lawyer. After looking at it, she went back and found Ada’s chat, then sent a contract over.
A contract for termination.
Funnily enough, it was the same one from last time.
She then forwarded her lawyer’s contact card.
【Ada, the person who just added you is my lawyer. That’s correct. Please liaise with her regarding the contract termination. Thank you for all your hard work during this time. And thank you for taking care of me.】
Ada’s call came through almost immediately.
Cheng Jiqing gently declined it.
She ignored everything that followed.
Cheng Jiqing still didn’t get into the car. She looked up at the snow-filled sky, her eyes stung by the snowflakes several times. She closed them for a moment.
It was as if she was waiting for something. Waiting for the snow to stop, waiting for the sky to darken.
After a long while.
She opened her eyes. The snow was still falling. The heavy snow made Beicheng look bright and white. Nothing had changed.
Cheng Jiqing lowered her head.
Her well-defined fingers swiped open the screen. She easily found the profile picture with the lily silhouette.
She tapped on it. The chat background was the picture of her and Bai Xin on the Beicheng bridge.
Cheng Jiqing’s eyes trembled for a second.
She typed out a sentence, word by word. She hesitated over two of the characters in the sentence.
In the end, she chose two more suitable ones.
Cheng Jiqing put the phone back in her pocket and walked toward the car.
It wasn’t as cold inside the car, but the moment she stepped in, she suddenly froze. She belatedly remembered, oh, she hadn’t shaken the snow off her clothes.
At that moment, the snow slipped into her collar and touched her skin.
It was, indeed, a sudden, bone-chilling pain.
…
At Nanjing, the house was neat, clean, and tidy.
On the table were newly bought lilies, pink roses, and fresh oranges. The light blue sofa cover was also new.
Bai Xin opened the fridge. It was filled with vegetables for salads, beef, and chicken.
She had just bought them this morning.
She thought Cheng Jiqing would come back eventually. When she did, she would be able to eat fresh food.
She knew Cheng Jiqing wouldn’t forgive her easily this time, but she thought she still had to tell Cheng Jiqing that she was wrong.
She would use all her effort, her entire life, to make it up to her.
Don’t give up on me.
Bai Xin walked to the balcony. She crouched down to water the cactus there, and it was at that moment that the phone on the island counter vibrated.
Perhaps startled, her fingertip bumped into one of the cactus’s sharp spines.
A bead of blood welled up from her pale pink fingertip.
She raised her hand to her lips and pressed down on the spot.
She walked over in a few steps and picked up the phone.
The moment Cheng Jiqing’s name popped up, she was filled with earth-shattering joy.
But in the next second, as Bai Xin saw the content in the chat box, the blood in her veins suddenly flowed backward, freezing into ice.
The phone smashed onto the floor. On the shattered screen, one could still vaguely make out the sentence—
【Bai Xin, let’s break up.】
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