The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 18

“Snap.”

Cheng Xiang suddenly reached out and knocked it away.

[I want to make you very, very spicy noodles,
I want to take you on a roller coaster,
I want to bite hard on your slender shoulder blade.
I want you to shed at least one tear for me — that would be enough.]

            

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Tao Tianran glanced back. “Why are you walking behind me?”

“Hm?” Cheng Xiang looked up.

“Don’t you usually walk beside me?” She walked in her high heels, striding with confident authority.

            

“Oh…” Cheng Xiang’s lashes lowered. “It’s Sunday. Just relaxing a bit.”

Tao Tianran said nothing more, turning back to continue forward.

Only then did Cheng Xiang slowly lift her eyelids — first taking in Tao Tianran’s slender high heels, her long legs, her narrow waist, then the straight black hair falling over her shoulders, gradually drawing it all into her view.

            

Ten years have passed, and finally I’m walking here with you again.

The thought she couldn’t suppress was: If you had agreed to wander here with me back then…

I wouldn’t have had the heart to walk beside you. Instead, I would have followed behind you, watching your back like savoring a melting candy, reluctant to finish it all at once.

            

But how much can happen in ten years?

It can change a girl’s white-collared school uniform into a sharp professional suit.

It can bury so many unspoken feelings beneath a winter’s heavy snow.

            

It can leave me standing behind you now, completely transformed into a stranger.

Cheng Xiang sniffed and stepped forward, moving to walk beside Tao Tianran. She glanced at Tao Tianran and noticed her gaze resting on a strange-looking, enormous gray bird.

“Oh, that’s a shoebill stork¹.” Cheng Xiang composed herself. “You see its head looks like a whale’s head, right? It originally lived in the swamps of East Africa, catches prey incredibly fast — it hides itself in the water grass…”

            

Strange, how smoothly that came out.

Cheng Xiang’s tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth. Did she still remember the 《On Teachers²》 she’d struggled to memorize in high school?

…She couldn’t remember a single line.

            

Why did those animal descriptions she’d memorized back then remain etched in her mind like cuneiform on the Mesopotamian plains³?

Tao Tianran glanced over at her.

“What?” Cheng Xiang loosened her curled, thick hair, smiling with a touch of charm. “Think I’m very cultured?”

            

Tao Tianran withdrew her gaze. “I think you talk too much.”

Fast, and dense. In Tao Tianran’s memories, only one person had ever spoken like this.

“Hey Tao Tianran, do you like watching movies with subtitles or listening to the dubbing? Don’t you think the dubbing is so funny hahahaha…”

            

“Hey Tao Tianran, do you like thick carrot strips or thin carrot strips? This thick? A little thinner? Or even thinner?”

“Hey Tao Tianran…”

While Tao Tianran was slightly lost in thought, Cheng Xiang was quietly sending a WeChat message to Qin Ziqiao: 【What’s going on with your zoo?】

            

Qin Ziqiao replied irritably: 【What?】

【Except for a few birds, why aren’t most of the animals coming out?】

Qin Ziqiao sent her a weather forecast directly:

            

Heavy snow warning, strong winds, nighttime temperatures dropping to -8 degrees Celsius.

Cheng Xiang clicked her tongue: 【At least let the capybara you’re raising come out for a walk.】

【If you’re so capable, go talk to it yourself.】

            

【…】

Cheng Xiang put away her phone and noticed Tao Tianran’s gaze resting on a plant.

Oh right. Although this place is called a zoo, strictly speaking it’s a botanical and zoological garden. Many rare plant species stand here and there — looking at plants is fine too, right?

            

Cheng Xiang suddenly realized: Why does she still care about Tao Tianran’s tour experience? She really was PUA’d⁴ hard by Tao Tianran back then. Just standing beside her, she automatically treats her like an Empress Dowager.

Cheng Xiang pouted. After Tao Tianran walked away, she stepped forward to take a look.

She had been so busy memorizing impressive animal descriptions back then that she’d neglected the plants. Before her, on a weathered sign, some romantic caretaker had written:

            

【Gray-stemmed cycad, a plant species unique to China, distributed in the Red River basin south of Gejiu, on the verge of extinction, transplanted to our garden in 2015.

If you came here in 2015, you would remember it then like a fuzzy tentacle, tremblingly opening its arms to the world — timid, curious, unafraid of injury.

If you missed the chance to come here in 2015, then unfortunately, what you see now is already invulnerable.】

            

Cheng Xiang rubbed her eyes.

What is this? Who allowed plant descriptions to be this literary? She wanted to complain!

She turned her head to look at Tao Tianran’s retreating figure.

            

Wrapped in a plain black cashmere coat, thin and austere.

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Tao Tianran didn’t notice when the noisy person beside her fell silent.

It was only when they sat down in the noodle shop inside the park that she realized her ears had been quiet for a while.

            

Cheng Xiang lowered her head and fiddled with her chopsticks before raising her face. “You know, in parks like this, there’s nothing good to eat. This noodle shop is passable.”

No matter her mood, she still had that host’s sense of responsibility. Perhaps it was her mother’s bloodline as a Neighborhood Committee Director.

“Mm.” Tao Tianran said. “The noodle shop is fine.”

            

It really was too cold today. Tao Tianran was dressed more lightly than her, and thinner besides. Her usually pale nose tip was reddened from the cold.

Cheng Xiang didn’t look at her eyes, just stared at her nose tip.

Something stung the bottom of her eyes, an inexplicable sourness rising—

            

What the hell, Tao Tianran?

Why didn’t you let me say “this noodle shop is passable” to you ten years ago?

Why, in those ten years, when there were so many, so many opportunities, didn’t I say to you “this movie is worth watching,” “this ice cream is worth trying,” “the popcorn syrup here is generous”?

            

So many ordinary words, left unsaid at the time, scattered like dust through the cracks of daily life.

Once missed, there’s no need to pick them up again.

When you look up again, you find a layer of dust that can’t be wiped clean.

            

Perhaps feelings between people rot away like this, bit by bit.

Cheng Xiang wanted to rub her nose again but held back. She scanned the code to order two bowls of clear noodle soup, then chased after the server to say, “No spice, remember, remember.”

When she returned to the table, she found Tao Tianran watching her.

            

She held her phone between her index finger and thumb, spinning it lightly, tapping it against the table surface again and again.

When the two bowls of clear noodle soup arrived, Cheng Xiang tossed her phone onto the table, smoothly lifted the lid of the chili sauce jar, scooped a full spoon, and held it to the edge of Tao Tianran’s bowl.

Just as she was about to pour it in, she stopped abruptly, remembering something, and asked: “Does Teacher Tao eat spicy food?”

            

Tao Tianran’s long lashes lowered. She didn’t look at her, just stared at the chili sauce in the spoon. “It’s fine.”

Cheng Xiang drew a shallow breath.

What the hell? Tao Tianran clearly doesn’t eat spicy food. She had specifically gone to tell the server, out of sheer habit that annoyed even herself.

            

SPLASH. Cheng Xiang dumped the entire spoon of chili sauce into Tao Tianran’s noodle bowl.

Tao Tianran’s chopstick tip lightly stirred. A patch of glaring red floated on the surface.

She lifted a strand of noodles, lowered her head, and used her other hand to tuck her fallen black hair behind her ear.

            

Cheng Xiang sat across from her, watching her movements with cold eyes.

Until that strand of noodles, glaringly red, nearly touched Tao Tianran’s thin lips.

“Snap.”

            

Cheng Xiang suddenly reached out and knocked the chopsticks from Tao Tianran’s hand.

Her movement was large. She panted, watching the red oil splash onto Tao Tianran’s elegant coat, the chopsticks falling to the ground one after another — thud, thud — two muffled sounds that reminded her of Tao Tianran’s door closing as she left in the past, like a gun fired into her heart.

Cheng Xiang struggled to calm her chest. Tao Tianran, on the other hand, just quietly watched her.

            

Until she said, “Teacher Tao doesn’t look like someone who can eat spicy food. Better not eat it.”

“Is that so.” Tao Tianran lowered her chin. “Do I look like that?”

Cheng Xiang switched their two noodle bowls. Tao Tianran pulled out a fresh pair of chopsticks. Neither mentioned what had just happened, and they finished their noodles in silence.

            

Walking out of the noodle shop, Tao Tianran thrust both hands into her coat pockets. Red oil still stained the front of her coat.

She lifted her gaze to the sky. The snow that the weather forecast had predicted for tonight was now drifting down.

Touched by the cold, Tao Tianran’s skin was too thin — her pale nose tip reddened again.

            

Tao Tianran looked up at the sky, gray as pigeon feathers, and thought: Was there anything in her life that could truly be called “regret”?

No, there wasn’t.

She had never gone to Cheng Xiang’s funeral.

            

She had never shed a single tear for Cheng Xiang either.

She turned back. Cheng Xiang, following behind her, was putting on her coat as she walked. The cold air rushed at her, and her nose tip instinctively wrinkled.

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