So I Had No Choice But to Stop Being the White Moonlight – Chapter 90
by Little PandaI’m Not Going to Be the White Moonlight
Old Acquaintances Meet Again
The sea and sky merged into a single line. At the farthest edge of sight, the ocean seemed to surge up toward the celestial realm, its white waves curling into thin clouds on the horizon.
The wind whipped a person’s long hair into disarray, the dark strands turning light and airy in the sunlight.
Chi Qian leaned against the yacht’s railing, her face tilted up to welcome the clean feeling that was saturated with the scent of freedom.
Seagulls hovered nearby, seeming to know this was a rich person’s boat. They circled, crying out one after another to beg for food.
Chi Qian laughed inwardly at the seagulls’ laziness, as if seeing kindred spirits, and offered them the dry bread in her hand.
Greeted by seagulls all the way, Chi Qian’s mood completely relaxed.
She had thought she wasn’t so nervous anymore, but as several islands slowly rose into view, her heart still began to beat faster. Her hand holding the dry bread tightened.
A seagull extended its talons and nearly lost its footing,1 failing to snatch the bread from Chi Qian’s hand.
This clearly wasn’t her hometown, yet as Chi Qian gazed at the small island, a feeling of timidness on the verge of returning home arose amidst her excitement and wonder.2
She had actually, truly returned.
And with Shi Jinlan, no less.
Chi Qian’s gaze skipped over Yuan Ming, who was observing the seagulls on the deck, and landed on Shi Jinlan.
The woman had only just recovered from her illness a few days ago, and her complexion still didn’t look that good. The sunlight laid a layer of caramel color in her hair, pure and clean. The wind wrapped around her profile, an intimate caress, lingering for a good while before drifting away.
As if noticing the gaze from her side, Shi Jinlan suddenly lifted her eyes and looked toward Chi Qian as well.
Her clear pupils swept calmly over Chi Qian’s eyes. Chi Qian was struck by a sudden realization—the gloominess was gone from them.
But when had she ever been on the receiving end of Shi Jinlan’s wary and hostile gaze?
“Is something wrong?” Shi Jinlan asked softly.
Chi Qian shook her head, growing accustomed to the scattered images that popped into her mind. “Were you very fierce to me before?”
Shi Jinlan would never admit it. “You’re overthinking things.”
Chi Qian blinked, feeling that Shi Jinlan was the one talking nonsense.
This person was truly cunning. She never told lies, but by not responding directly, she was essentially confirming it.
If Chi Qian didn’t know her so well, she would have been fooled.
Chi Qian let out a huff of laughter and leaned her head in front of Shi Jinlan. “Shi Jinlan, you don’t want me to remember, is it because you really weren’t as good to me at the beginning as you are now?”
Her approaching head blocked the sunlight. Though the light had been glaring, Shi Jinlan had no desire to avoid it.
She calmly met Chi Qian’s smiling eyes. Her well-defined fingers rose, and she easily reached out to pinch Chi Qian’s slightly chubby cheek, moving her head to face forward. “Sit properly. We’re preparing to slow down and dock.”
The yacht was faster than most land and sea vehicles. After passing through unimpeded,3 it soon carried the group to the pier of Xiao Yu Island.
The island’s pier was much more orderly than before. Commercial ships, cargo ships, and passenger ships were all assigned to different areas. The shore of the pier was painted white. Though the constant washing and sunning from the sea still allowed many barnacles to grow on the embankment, they were regularly scraped off, leaving deep marks on the wall that were hard to fade.
Chi Qian gave Shi Jinlan a deep smile. In this person’s presence, the nervousness she’d just felt had eased considerably.
She looked at the new, orderly scenery before her and prepared to step onto the gangway with light footsteps.
“It’s changed a lot, hasn’t it,” Yuan Ming said, walking behind Chi Qian.
“Yeah.” Chi Qian nodded and turned her head, her eyes filled with wonder. “I seem to remember it didn’t look like this before. It was all dilapidated.”
“That’s right. The place where we used to get off the boat was just a wooden plank. You even fell off from here once,” Yuan Ming said with a gentle smile.
Chi Qian was a little embarrassed; she had absolutely no memory of that incident.
And just then, a hand touched her arm.
The unique, cool temperature of a certain someone’s fingers brushed past Chi Qian’s skin. The wind carried a chill as a figure cut across Chi Qian’s line of sight. “Excuse me, let me pass.”
Saying so, Shi Jinlan brazenly inserted herself between Chi Qian and Yuan Ming.
Her tall figure blocked half the sun, casting her features in shadow against the light. Though she was looking down from a superior position, her frown was obvious. She extended a hand toward Chi Qian. “Are you coming up?”
“Okay.” By reflex, the moment Shi Jinlan reached out to her, Chi Qian placed her own hand in hers.
On the deck, the lineup of people standing side-by-side had changed.
Yuan Ming watched from behind and couldn’t help but smile.
The island had developed quite well. Coming from the pier, there was even a shuttle bus.
It wasn’t summer vacation yet, so it wasn’t the true peak tourist season. The bus wasn’t too crowded.
Chi Qian wanted to see as much of the scenery as possible, so she chose the last row of seats facing away from the direction of travel, pulling Shi Jinlan and Yuan Ming to sit with her.
The waves washed onto the shore, like nature’s own chant.
The wind here was very cool, and the temperature was quite a bit lower than inland. No longer relying on its scorching heat, the sun gently illuminated the coastline. The world was an azure, clean place, like something out of a painting.
Watching the scenery on both sides, Chi Qian felt a sense of familiarity rising from the bottom of her heart.
But because of the development in recent years, there were some places she had no memory of at all.
“Do you see that area?” Like a qualified tour guide, Yuan Ming noticed Chi Qian’s gaze and pointed for her.
Chi Qian had already noticed it.
On the verdant green mountain sat a cluster of white houses, arranged like blocks. They were laid out in neat rows,4 showing a strong sense of design.
Chi Qian guessed, “Is this a new hotel on the island?”
“This is Auntie Zhou’s hot spring inn. It was expanded the year before last, making it twice as big as the original,” Yuan Ming explained to Chi Qian.
“That’s amazing!” Chi Qian was extremely surprised. She had a vague impression of this place, but it certainly hadn’t been such a landmark before.
“For this, we have to thank our President Shi.” Yuan Ming smiled gently, looking past Chi Qian at the stone-faced Shi Jinlan. “She was the one who attracted business and investment,5 developing our island’s natural scenery and specialty seafood. Our Xiao Yu Island is developing much better than the neighboring Da Yu Island now.”
Shi Jinlan looked at the two heads peering at her, one after the other, and her thin lips parted slightly. “It was a matter of lifting a hand.”6
Her voice was the epitome of understatement, as if this were just a trivial matter not worth mentioning.7
But this was something Chi Qian hadn’t expected.
Even after she left, the island and Shi Jinlan were still bound together.
The sea breeze blew along the embankment, rustling the leaves of the trees lining the coastal road. Light and shadow dappled across Shi Jinlan’s face, making it flicker between bright and dark.
She leaned back slightly against the seat, her posture straight yet languid. She possessed a kind of nobility that should have been out of place here,8 yet she blended perfectly with this land.
After that night, Chi Qian had pestered Shi Jinlan to tell her a little more of their story.
Shi Jinlan had thought carefully and told Chi Qian about the Flower Float Parade during the Sanyuesan Festival9 that year.
She even had a photo from that time on her phone.
In it, a bouquet of exceptionally beautiful flowers was pinned to her high ponytail. She stood together with Shi Jinlan, who also wore a full crown of flowers, and was held intimately in her arms.
It was just that the photo’s resolution wasn’t very good; it didn’t look like it was taken with this phone.
What a pity.
As for the stories that came after, no matter how Chi Qian asked, Shi Jinlan refused to tell her.
But even if Shi Jinlan didn’t say, Chi Qian could figure it out.
The Flower Float Parade was on Sanyuesan, and she had died by jumping off a cliff on the fourth of the third month.
During the parade, one of them had played Ah Qing, and the other had played Ling Ji.
And after her death, Shi Jinlan was like Ling Ji, feeding back into this island that had raised the person she loved most.
She had solitarily guarded this island that once held her, guarding the few rays of light in her long life.
If she had never returned, how dark and lightless would her life have been?
Chi Qian let out a long breath.
This island seemed to carry too many of her memories, both light and heavy. It made her feel a familiar intimacy, yet also a faint, aching pain in her heart.
Chi Qian was about to turn her head to look at Shi Jinlan one more time when the shuttle bus stopped at an intersection that was both strange and familiar.
The collectively renovated houses no longer had damp green moss growing on them. Chi Qian’s gaze followed a familiar path up the ramp.
The third house past the roadside, then turn left, and at the end of the path was Chi Qingyan’s home.
Her home.
Her steps as she got off the bus suddenly grew heavy. Guilt weighed on her like a thousand jun,10 yet a thousand jun was not even half its weight.
Chi Qian hesitated in her steps,11 and her hanging hand was taken by someone.
Shi Jinlan’s shadow fell over her shoulder as she said in a soft voice, “Let’s go up.”
Those cool fingers intertwined with hers in her palm, yet they were like four taels moving a thousand catties.12
How strange.
And how reassuring.
Chi Qian took a deep breath and gave Shi Jinlan a smile full of nervousness. “Okay.”
Walking up the concrete ramp, Chi Qian felt that this area seemed to have been widened.
Before she even reached the end of the path, a familiar silhouette appeared in her vision far earlier than she expected. A one-story dilapidated house had become a two-story building with evenly painted white walls, not the kind of shoddy paint job the village used to slap on for uniformity.
This house had been renovated.
The east room that served as the sickroom had also been expanded. The apothecary and the washroom were now separate, much more orderly.
But as Chi Qian looked at the familiar low gate, she saw it was still the same as ever—unlatched, swinging open with a gentle push.
As the gate was pushed open, Yuan Ming, who was usually gentle in her conduct, raised her voice and called into the courtyard, “Teacher, we’re back.”
Hearing this, Chi Qian froze.
Her panicked gaze darted around the courtyard, her eyes not knowing whether to land on the sickroom entrance or the main hall directly opposite…
It was neither.
The hinges on the back of the door had been tightened a bit too much. A creaking sound came from the apothecary, which Chi Qian had overlooked.
The door was slowly pulled open from the inside, and Chi Qingyan walked out.
He was dressed with particular neatness. In the summer heat, he wore a loose, beige, old-fashioned jacket paired with black cotton-linen trousers.
From a distance, he was still the hale and hearty13 old man from Chi Qian’s memory.
But inevitably, Chi Qian noticed that Chi Qingyan had aged, too.
His short-cropped hair revealed a layer of white stubble, much whiter than a few years ago.
He used to laugh and say that his hair was very black, and that even in his seventies or eighties, he was much better off than those other old geezers.
But how had he become like this in just three years?
The thought made Chi Qian’s heart clench.
Even if Chi Qingyan would deny it, she knew. It was because of her death.
Three years felt longer than the time it took to walk from the apothecary to the doorway. Chi Qian looked at Chi Qingyan, her eyes turning red.
Chi Qingyan looked at Chi Qian, and his reaction was the same.
His eyes roamed over Chi Qian ceaselessly, looking at her face, her arms.
And the way she walked.
Although Yuan Ming had given him a heads-up, seeing Chi Qian appear before him, Chi Qingyan still couldn’t believe it.
His aged lips trembled several times before he managed to say, “…Xiao Qian.”
“Grandfather,” Chi Qian choked out.
Chi Qingyan smiled through his tears. He gripped Chi Qian’s arms with both hands, repeating her name over and over. “Xiao Qian, Qianqian.”
He steadied his emotions a little, rubbing Chi Qian’s arms as he asked eagerly, “How are you? Is your body fully recovered now?”
“Yes.” Chi Qian nodded and recited the lines Shi Jinlan had prepared for her. “Ah Lan hired many doctors. The medicine they prescribed was even more bitter than Grandfather’s.”
“You little rascal.” Chi Qian’s words amused him, and with eyes full of tears, he chided her, “Serves you right for not listening.”
But no matter what he said, his heart was still tied to Chi Qian. Hearing her mention medicine, he immediately asked, “Do you still have to take medicine now? What kind? I’ve saved up a lot of good medicinal herbs over the years, let’s see if there’s anything you need.”
“I don’t take it anymore, I stopped long ago.” Chi Qian shook her head to reassure him.
The old man’s palms, having lost muscle mass, were covered by a thin layer of skin, as if flesh and bone had separated.
Feeling Chi Qingyan’s concern for her, she inexplicably wanted to burst into tears.
“I just… I just missed Grandfather.” Sobbing, Chi Qian threw herself into Chi Qingyan’s arms.
This wasn’t part of her prepared script, but the truest thought welling up from the bottom of her heart.
It had only been three years, but she felt as if she and Chi Qingyan had been separated for a very, very long time. A granddaughter’s reliance on her grandfather formed another kind of loneliness in her heart, and large teardrops splattered onto the back of Chi Qingyan’s hand.
His sun-drenched skin seemed to receive the nourishment of rain, and the tears soaked in instantly.
Chi Qingyan gripped Chi Qian’s hand tightly, not scolding, just complaining with immense tenderness, his old eyes filled with heartache. “You really are heartless, not even sending me a single letter all these years.”
“I didn’t know if I could ever come back,” Chi Qian said, lowering her head in guilt.
A reunion should be a joyous occasion. Chi Qingyan didn’t want Chi Qian to feel guilty at a time like this. He took her hand and said, “You must be hungry. Let’s eat. I got a pheasant from your Auntie Zhou yesterday. It’s a hot commodity, very delicious.”
“Okay.”
Familial love was different from romantic love. The feeling of timidness upon returning home was quickly squeezed out by something called a sense of belonging.
Chi Qian nodded and followed Chi Qingyan into the house.
As it turned out, one should never tell an elderly person in advance that they are coming back.
Chi Qingyan had cooked a huge table of food. There were four people sitting at the table, but the variety of meat and vegetable dishes on it could nearly fill a cookbook.
Chi Qian was thankful that Shi Jinlan had picked out a loose-fitting dress for her this morning; she was so full she was about to burst.
She felt it was necessary to go out for a walk, and Chi Qingyan also seemed to have something to discuss with Shi Jinlan. The moment she put down her chopsticks, he told her to go out, look at the island, and walk off her meal.
Chi Qian was initially worried that Chi Qingyan keeping Shi Jinlan behind might mean big trouble.
But then Chi Qingyan glanced to his left, signaling for Yuan Ming to stay as well.
Now Chi Qian was relieved.
Although Shi Jinlan was never particularly fond of Yuan Ming, as long as she herself wasn’t present, they would be allies.
As the biggest factor that could interfere with their alliance, Chi Qian naturally wiped her mouth and left.
The island had changed so much over the years that she didn’t even know where to go. She wandered until she came upon a quiet bar.
Soft, melodious music drifted out from within, accompanied by the sound of the sea, the waves seeming to sway along with it.
Chi Qian felt from the bottom of her heart that a quiet bar was quite suitable for the island. She stopped, pushed the door open, and walked inside.
There weren’t many people in the bar at this hour. A female singer sat on the stage, her head bowed as she strummed her guitar and sang.
Scattered applause came from the few occupied booths, not particularly enthusiastic, but it looked familiar to Chi Qian.
Just as she was thinking this, a heavy hand suddenly pressed down on her shoulder.
The gesture wasn’t exactly polite, especially in a place like this.
The smell of alcohol wafted through the air. Just as Chi Qian was about to frown, a flamboyant, lazy voice preceded her, sounding out unhurriedly, “This beautiful young lady, may I buy you a drink?”
The voice was extremely familiar to Chi Qian, and she subconsciously looked up.
In the dim light, a head of red hair burned like fire in her vision. Song Tang held a wine glass in one hand and brushed aside the hair at her cheek with the other. Her eyebrows were slightly raised, her flamboyant air suffused with a myriad of charms. “What? Old acquaintances meet again, and you won’t even grant me that?”
The author has something to say:
Lanlan: Happy Children’s Day, Aunties!
Qianqian: A kiss to liven things up for all the Aunties! (Smack!)
Lanlan blushes, forces herself to look calm, almost trips over her own feet, and makes a clumsy exit.
Footnotes
- The original phrase is 马失前蹄 (mǎ shī qián tí), literally “a horse loses its front footing,” an idiom for making an unexpected mistake or stumbling.
- The original phrase is 近乡情怯 (jìn xiāng qíng qiè), an idiom describing the complex feeling of apprehension and anxiety that arises when one is about to return home after a long absence.
- The original phrase is 畅行无阻 (chàngxíng wú zǔ), an idiom meaning to travel smoothly without any obstruction.
- The original phrase is 鳞次栉比 (líncìzhìbǐ), literally “like fish scales and comb teeth,” an idiom describing buildings arranged in dense, orderly rows.
- The original phrase is 招商引资 (zhāoshāngyǐnzī), a common term for policies aimed at attracting commercial and financial investment for economic development.
- The original phrase is 举手之劳 (jǔshǒuzhiláo), an idiom meaning something that requires very little effort.
- The original phrase is 不足挂齿 (bùzúguàchǐ), an idiom used to humbly dismiss one’s own achievements as insignificant.
- The original phrase is 格格不入 (gégébùrù), an idiom meaning to be incompatible or out of place.
- Sanyuesan, or the third day of the third lunar month, is a traditional Chinese festival with various regional customs.
- A jun is an ancient Chinese unit of weight, roughly 15 kg or 33 lbs. 千钧 (qiānjūn), or a thousand jun, is a metaphor for an extremely heavy burden.
- The original text uses 彳亍 (chìchù), a literary term for walking slowly and hesitantly.
- The idiom 四两拨千斤 (sì liǎng bō qiānjīn) describes the principle of using a small, clever force to deflect a much larger one, as in martial arts or by using leverage.
- The original phrase is 精神矍铄 (jīngshénjuéshuò), an idiom describing an elderly person who is still full of vigor and energy.
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