The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 21
by Little PandaFirst Kiss
Heartbeats become light, and all things grow wildly.
[Back then I thought my youth would never end. My life stretched long before me. The person I liked and I would be together forever.]
Qin Ziqiao was utterly speechless. “Why are you at my house again?”
Cheng Xiang sat in the computer chair, swaying left and right. She wasn’t even eating potato chips. She just hugged her arms, her expression heavy. “What’s the most expensive restaurant in Beicheng?”
“You’re that rich and you’re asking me?” Qin Ziqiao pulled out her phone and opened the orange software1. “Sort by price and scroll down. Why, are you treating me?”
“No. Tao Tianran is treating me.”
Qin Ziqiao froze. “Really? Why?”
Cheng Xiang gritted her back teeth. “Because I’m overflowing with talent.”
“Tsk.” Qin Ziqiao clicked her tongue. “Saying that about yourselfβthat’s pretty shameless.”
The most expensive restaurant shown on the app was Japanese, ranked first. Second was French.
Cheng Xiang looked at the average cost per person and let out a wail. “That’s it? How am I supposed to bankrupt Tao Tianran with that?”
Qin Ziqiao gave her a half-hearted kick. “I’m going to start hating the rich!”
Cheng Xiang sat in the computer chair, chin in hand, full of sorrow.
The next day after work, when Tao Tianran walked out of her office, Cheng Xiang sat at her workstation, fingers flicking each of the blind box figurines on her desk one by one.
Hearing movement, she raised her exquisite face. “Hi, Teacher Tao.”
That voice sounded dark in the night. Tao Tianran asked, “Have you chosen a restaurant?”
“Mm.” Cheng Xiang stood up, her slender waist soft as if boneless, one hand propped on the desk. “Shall we go together?”
“Let’s go.” Tao Tianran picked up her handbag and walked out.
Cheng Xiang stood by the roadside, waiting for Tao Tianran to get the car from the underground garage.
She took out her phone and glanced at it. The memo on the screen showed a bare number: γ827 daysγ.
When Tao Tianran drove out, she saw Cheng Xiang standing by the road with her head down, the city lights seeming to press heavily on her shoulders.
Tao Tianran parked by the curb and honked softly. Only then did Cheng Xiang raise her head, phone clutched in her hand.
With such force, as if she wanted the phone’s edges to cut into her palm.
The way she opened the passenger door was practiced. Tao Tianran’s thin lips moved slightly.
“What?” Cheng Xiang asked.
“Nothing.” Tao Tianran turned toward the windshield, fingertip tapping lightly on the steering wheel.
Cheng Xiang sat in the passenger seat and buckled her seatbelt.
She turned to look at the night outside the window. The city had a unique kind of weather called neon, imprinting on the retina, gradually dissolving into the number she’d just seen on her phone: γ827 daysγ.
Two years and ninety-seven days after we broke up, I’m sitting in your car again.
Cheng Xiang looked at Tao Tianran. “Teacher Tao, your car smells nice.”
Tao Tianran didn’t use perfume, so the enclosed space was filled with her skin’s scentβa pristine cold fragrance, like an ice field where no moss grows.
Cheng Xiang asked, “Do few people ride in Teacher Tao’s car?”
Tao Tianran habitually drove with one hand. When she wasn’t looking at her phone, her other hand naturally fell to her leg. “Very few. Why?”
“Nothing.”
It’s just that the car is full of only your scent.
Her eyes fell on the lucky cat hanging from Tao Tianran’s rearview mirror.
It had been hanging there for too many years, this kind of small handmade ornament.
The red thread had even started to fray, sticking out unattractively to the side.
Cheng Xiang reached out.
“Don’t move.” Tao Tianran suddenly spoke.
Her voice was cold to begin with, so it was impossible to tell if there was any severity in that abrupt command.
“Oh.” Cheng Xiang pulled her hand back and wrinkled her nose.
Someone who was usually so talkative, she remained silent the whole way, just watching the streetlights flow past outside the window.
Until they got out. She exited from the passenger side. Tao Tianran was walking around from the driver’s side, one hand holding her phone, typing with her head down.
“Teacher Tao.”
When Tao Tianran drew close, Cheng Xiang leaned in gently, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Now your passenger seat has my scent on it.”
Tao Tianran’s lowered lashes fluttered.
She raised her eyes and tucked her phone back into her pocket. “Let’s go.”
Tao Tianran carried her bag and walked toward the building. This area gathered the trendiest restaurants of the moment.
Cheng Xiang drawled from behind her. “Not there.”
Tao Tianran raised her eyes. Cheng Xiang lifted her chin. “Back there.”
They walked around the twisting form of the skyscraper. Behind it was a cramped hutong, and in the distance, a red tent glowing with dim yellow light.
Cheng Xiang walked over. “We’re eating malatang2. Teacher Tao doesn’t mind, right?”
Tao Tianran glanced at it. Her movements paused for a moment, then she sat down.
“Here there’s⦔
Cheng Xiang was about to explain, but Tao Tianran was already familiar with the routine, taking a mushroom skewer and placing it in the stainless steel bowl lined with a plastic bag.
Cheng Xiang’s tongue curled back. She laughed. “I didn’t think Teacher Tao, a Gangdao native, would have eaten northern malatang before.”
Beicheng’s “malatang” might be called that, but it wasn’t numbing, spicy, or hot.
Sesame paste formed the base. The taste that entered your mouth was a thick, rich fragrance.
Cheng Xiang used to take Tao Tianran to eat malatang often.
Back then, Qin Ziqiao had given Cheng Xiang a sidelong glance. “I thought you were going to be all sentimental and say you couldn’t bear to let her eat at a street stall or something.”
Cheng Xiang wagged her finger. “You don’t understand. I’m scheming.”
“Think about it. Someone with her family background, the people she usually interacts withβthey’re all eating at five-star hotels, Michelin restaurants. I have to take her somewhere different.”
“That way she’ll think I’m so elegant, so unique, so different.” Cheng Xiang propped one hand against the wall and laughed. “Woman, I’ve successfully caught her attention.”
Anyway, the first time Cheng Xiang took Tao Tianran to eat malatang was two months and three days into their relationship.
That was also a winter.
The sky was gray and hazy. The weather forecast said snow was coming.
When they met, Cheng Xiang waited at the entrance of the hutong. She saw Tao Tianran walking toward her from far awayβso beautiful that she felt a little nervous. Her hands went behind her back, rubbing against her down jacket.
Compared to Tao Tianran, she felt she looked a bit silly today. Her white down jacket was puffy, the hood hanging behind her lined with fake fox fur. An overly long striped wool scarf dragged down, colorful enough to compete with a flamingo.
Tao Tianran was cool. Her long straight black hair was simple and clean. She wore an oversized plain black chunky-knit sweater, the sleeves long enough to peek out from under her black structured coat, paired with knee-high riding boots.
When Tao Tianran sat on the small plastic stool, Cheng Xiang felt a little sorry for her long legs, curled up like that. She just sat there, so faint and composed, watching Cheng Xiang bustle about like a little beeβbreaking apart disposable chopsticks and scraping off the burrs, scalding Tao Tianran’s stainless steel bowl with boiling water and then dumping it out.
All while saying to Tao Tianran: “Your stomach isn’t good, don’t take those starch balls. Take more of those mushrooms, lotus root slices. Oh, that beef is kind of fake, synthetic. Do you want ham sausage instead? Can you eat that? I checked the brand of ham sausage hereβit’s not the one that had the food safety scandal before.”
Tao Tianran didn’t talk much while eating. She lowered her head, her porcelain-white nose tip glistening with fine beads of sweat from the steam.
She took the first bite. Cheng Xiang watched her with sparkling eyes.
She took the second bite. Cheng Xiang watched her with sparkling eyes.
She took the third bite⦠fine, she stopped eating. She looked at Cheng Xiang too.
“Is it good? Is it good?” Cheng Xiang watched her like a small animal, eyes bright, feet stamping slightly under the table.
“Not good.”
“Ah?” The disappointment on her face was so obvious it made one suspect Cheng Xiang had invested in this little stall.
Tao Tianran lowered her head to bite a lotus root slice.
“Eh, if it’s not good then don’t eat it⦔ Cheng Xiang panicked and tried to stop her.
Tao Tianran dodged with her chopsticks, lowering her head to take another bite.
“I was teasing you.”
“Wow⦔ Cheng Xiang was stunned. “Tao Tianran, you actually know how to joke with me?”
Cheng Xiang thought humans were such shallow visual creatures. Why did Tao Tianran eating malatang look so beautiful, making her heart beat faster and faster?
Cheng Xiang also thought humans weren’t that shallow as visual creatures, because Tao Tianran walking beside her with a mask on still made her heart beat faster and faster.
Maybe it was Tao Tianran’s scent. Maybe it was the snow that was about to fall from the sky.
Maybe it was nothing at all.
Liking someone was just a pure kind of moodβso pure you couldn’t even find a concrete reason for it.
Cheng Xiang raised her eyes to look at the sky. “The snow hasn’t fallen yet.”
“My mom said⦔ Cheng Xiang circled her tongue. “Eh, let me change the opening. The internet says you can’t use ‘my mom said’ when talking to your partner. Anyway, old sayingsβ¦ how do old sayings go again?”
Back then, they were waiting for a taxi back to school by the roadside, standing in the narrow entrance of the hutong to avoid the wind.
Cheng Xiang smiled awkwardly. “I originally wanted to say something about how it’s coldest before the snow fallsβ¦ but, that’s not why.”
Her hands were in her down jacket pockets, curling and uncurling, her palms rubbing against the inner lining. She felt like she was sweating.
“Tao Tianran.” She licked her lips. “Want to hold hands?”
Tao Tianran lowered her lashes, looking at the lips Cheng Xiang had just licked.
Unlike her own thin lips, Cheng Xiang’s lips had some fullness to themβdewy and very present.
Tao Tianran’s gaze circled around that glistening curve.
After a pause, Tao Tianran said, “Want to kiss?”
Cheng Xiang froze.
“That’s so presumptuous.” After saying it, she bit her own lip.
Tao Tianran smiled.
Back then, she leaned against the ancient northern wall. She’d been there however long and still wasn’t used to the north. The winter air carried the austere scent of snow pine. Her black sweater sleeve had static. When she raised her hand to touch Cheng Xiang’s face, there was a soft “snap.”
Cheng Xiang’s chin instinctively pulled back, then leaned forward again, cradling her face in that palm.
Soft. Warm.
Tao Tianran’s slender fingers were cold to the touch, like the snow that had been threatening to fall all night, a rehearsal.
Cheng Xiang didn’t know why she kept biting her lip, staring at the silver zipper swinging on Tao Tianran’s sweater cuff.
Tao Tianran’s thumb gently brushed her lip. “Relax.”
“You’re actually doing this?” Cheng Xiang suddenly started stammering. “N-n-no, that’s not okay.”
She jumped back two meters.
Tao Tianran pulled her hand back, tucking it into her plain black coat pocket. She leaned her head back against the ancient hutong wall, the mottled surface very present. “Not okay?”
She was that tallβtall and slender. Wearing a long structured coat with knee-high riding boots, she just stood there, so unrestrained.
“N-n-no, it’s not that it’s not okay.” Cheng Xiang flung one end of her scarf back over her shoulder and shoved her other hand into her down jacket pocket. “Wait, you wait.”
She dug around for a while, then ran toward the convenience store by the road. “Wait a bit more.”
Tao Tianran leaned against the alley entrance, looking at a streetlamp across the way. The voltage was unstable, the filament crackling and flickering. Behind her, the smoke-pine-gray wall bricks had stood for who knows how many thousands of years.
Her phone rang. Tao Tianran answered. “Hello.”
Her voice was clear enough to make snow fall.
From her angle, she could just see Cheng Xiang’s back at the convenience store by the road. The white down jacket was puffed upβvery cute.
And Cheng Xiang’s voice came through the phone: “Orange or pineapple?”
Tao Tianran looked at that back, facing the counter, selecting chewing gum.
“Orange.” Her tongue circled gently.
“What, orange is sold out?!” Cheng Xiang let out a small cry, then exhaled. “Oh, there’s still some. Thank goodness.”
Before long, that figure in the white puffy down jacket ran out of the convenience store.
She stood by the road. The sky was threatening snow, overly gloomy. The asphalt road became an ink-gray river, the white crosswalk a floating bridge on its surface.
Cheng Xiang’s slight figure reflected on it, chin raised, watching the traffic light count down the seconds, taking small shuffling steps.
The whole world fell into a gray silence. Only she was a point of white, vivid to the point of abruptness.
In the first second the traffic light changed, she ran across the roadβtap, tap, tap.
Ran toward Tao Tianran, then stopped at a half-person distance, asking her: “Do you want one?”
“Yes.”
She handed a piece of chewing gum to Tao Tianran, then peeled another piece and put it in her own mouth. She stood under that lamp with the flickering filament, looking at the road, her back to Tao Tianran.
“Tao Tianran, there’s someone selling roasted sweet potatoes.” Her back swayed gently. “Do you want one?”
“Xiao Xiang.” Tao Tianran called her. “Come here.”
Cheng Xiang paused, then walked up to Tao Tianran with her head down.
“Open your mouth.”
Cheng Xiang opened her mouth and spat the chewed-soft gum into the tissue in Tao Tianran’s palm.
Tao Tianran cupped her chin.
“I-it’s still not good, right.” Cheng Xiang started stammering again. “This is a hutong entrance. People walking back and forth. The grandpas and grandmas in Beicheng are very gossipy. They’ll come crowd around you in a bit.”
The snow finally began to fall, rustling down.
Tao Tianran swept her long hair behind one ear. Snowflakes landed on her crystalline ear, and on Cheng Xiang’s lips, which still had teeth marks on them.
She placed one slender hand on Cheng Xiang’s shoulder and turned her gently. They hid inside the hutong. She pulled the hood attached to the down jacket over Cheng Xiang’s head.
With her other hand, she pulled the hood of her black coat over her own head, then lowered her head and kissed her gently.
Cheng Xiang’s eyes widened slightly.
The world instantly fell silent.
Pedestrians. Cars. The convenience store. The road like a silver-gray river, neon lights rippling with light.
Above them was an even taller streetlamp, its light falling silently. Between her and the world, there was only a Tao Tianran.
Suddenly the hood pulled over them trapped both their breaths, forming a fresh universe.
γThere, heartbeats became light, and all things grew wildly.γ
Tao Tianran’s lips were so cold. They touched Cheng Xiang’s lips lightly, probing, then withdrew. In the time it took Cheng Xiang to switch to another breath, those cold thin lips pressed close again, but didn’t extend her tongue.
Cheng Xiang had discussed with Qin Ziqiao many times whether to close her eyes for a first kiss.
Cheng Xiang said: “I won’t close them. I want to see every micro-expression on Tao Tianran’s face.”
But only in that moment did she knowβclosing your eyes was an instinct.
Because the tip of her heart was trembling. She had to close her eyes and hold her breath to concentrate all her senses on that trembling. Cheng Xiang shut her eyes. Her eyelids trembled. Snowflakes landed on her long, thick lashes.
She felt Tao Tianran lower her chin, turning her face slightly to accommodate her height. Breath with a hint of coldness hit below her nose, making her breathing a little unsteady.
But she stood straight, didn’t even raise her hand to embrace Tao Tianran. They hid in the hutong away from people. From beginning to end, neither of them extended the tip of their tongue. Just two girls who had just turned twenty, their soft lips touching like flower petals, under the streetlamp, in the falling snow, their breath trembling soft and fuzzy.
There would never again be such a simple, pure kiss in this life.
Cheng Xiang felt snow melting at the roots of her lashes. Maybe it wasn’t snow, but a faint warmth overflowing from her eyes.
Until Tao Tianran pulled away from her lips, straightened up, and leaned sideways against the mottled wall behind her.
She raised her hand, her thumb nearing Cheng Xiang’s lips, then realized there was nothing to wipe, pressed gently, and lowered it back down.
When she turned to walk forward, she realized Cheng Xiang hadn’t followed.
She took half a step back. Her other hand, the one in her coat pocket, opened toward Cheng Xiang. The lines of her palm looked like an ancient map where a lady buried flower notes.
Cheng Xiang stood there blankly, thinking she wanted to read her fortune.
Until Tao Tianran said: “Hand.”
Cheng Xiang rubbed her hand behind her back on her down jacket again, then put it in.
Tao Tianran’s slender fingers wrapped around hers.
Cheng Xiang let out a “wow.”
Tao Tianran looked at her. She whispered: “Your hand is so cold.”
Pressing down on her words, Tao Tianran held her hand and tucked it into her coat pocket.
It was warm.
Getting a taxi on a snowy day was genuinely difficult. Once in the car, the Beicheng driver was chatty: “Out having fun?”
“Out on a date!” Cheng Xiang couldn’t help answering like thatβor rather, showing off.
In those days, the north wasn’t as open as it is now. The driver glanced back in surprise. Two twenty-year-old girls sat side by side in the back seat. One with long straight black hair, elegant and refined. One with soft light brown shoulder-length hair, smiling with curved brows and eyes, but thick lashes.
Inside the coat pocket, a bulge showedβtheir hands held together, tucked inside.
That was the first time they took a taxi together. Before that, they’d always gone back to their respective schools.
Tao Tianran gave the driver Cheng Xiang’s school name. Cheng Xiang said from the side: Go to the Central Academy of Fine Arts first.
Tao Tianran glanced at her but said nothing.
When they arrived at the Central Academy’s gate, Tao Tianran got out, preparing to say goodbye. But Cheng Xiang followed her out with a smile.
Tao Tianran frowned slightly. “Hard to get a taxi in the snow.”
Cheng Xiang’s eyes curved in a smile. “It’s fine.”
Tao Tianran stood at the school gate watching her. She waved. “Bye, Tao Tianran.”
“Just this?”
“Mm.” Cheng Xiang nodded. “Just this.”
“Couldn’t say it in the taxi?”
Cheng Xiang just smiled.
Tao Tianran turned and walked toward campus. After two steps, her pace slowed. She looked back. “Why are you the one seeing me off?”
Cheng Xiang: “I’m the gong.”
Tao Tianran’s thin eyebrows lifted noticeably.
“Today’s kissing thing. You initiated. That was an accident.” Cheng Xiang smacked her lips.
Tao Tianran lifted her brow like that again and walked into campus.
Cheng Xiang stood in place and watched until her back completely disappeared.
Then Cheng Xiang suddenly started running, running through the falling snow.
Urgent, chest heaving, lips pressed together but eyes smilingβrunning past the city wall, past the snow-covered cypresses, past the distant morning bell and evening drum.
Her overly colorful striped wool scarf hung down long on one side, almost to her knee. Her Doc Martens’ laces had come half-untied.
She spun around on the empty crosswalk, then kept running forward.
When Qin Ziqiao answered her call, she was startled. “Did you fight with Director Ma again?”
“Qin Ziqiao.” Cheng Xiang was panting. “Come down for barbecue!”
“What?” Qin Ziqiao lazily curled under her blanket. “No, it’s too cold.”
“I’m at your school gate.”
“β¦What?!”
When Qin Ziqiao rolled out of bed, wrapped in a down jacket, and hurried downstairs, Cheng Xiang stood with both hands in her pockets in the falling snow, snowflakes on her eyebrows and lashes.
Qin Ziqiao was startled. “What are you doing?”
“I ran here.”
“β¦What?!” Qin Ziqiao was stunned. “Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m just treating you to barbecue!” Cheng Xiang pulled Qin Ziqiao with her ice-cold hands, half-running, half-skipping forward.
Qin Ziqiao stumbled from being pulled. “What exactly happened?”
Cheng Xiang just laughed, her laughter scattering in the snow-filled sky.
Her memory of that night was very deep.
Ink-black sky. Snow like stars. Places with streetlamps were illuminated more clearly. She and Qin Ziqiao started acting crazy, sticking out their tongues to see who could catch more snowflakes.
Tao Tianran. That simple, pure happinessβthere wouldn’t be any more of that either.
I was so, so happy.
So happy that I ran urgently, joyfully, aimlessly through the heavy snow.
Back then I thought my youth would never end. My life stretched long before me. Tao Tianran and I would be together forever.
The malatang Cheng Xiang brought Tao Tianran to today wasn’t any of the ones she’d taken Tao Tianran to in the past.
It’s just that these kinds of small stalls always resembled each otherβalways warm red tents, dim yellow lights.
Cheng Xiang sat beside Tao Tianran and spaced out for a moment.
Her teeth gently held her tongue before she could come back to himself, lowering her voice to a languid tone. “Teacher Tao, why were you avoiding me at the company before?”
Tao Tianran was eating a bamboo shoot skewer, steam misting her lashes.
She raised her eyes and looked at Cheng Xiang. “I didn’t promise to answer the reason.”
Cheng Xiang lifted her lips, tongue tapping lightly against her upper palate.
She didn’t ask further because Cheng Xiang realized she was a little afraid of hearing that answer.
She was afraid Tao Tianran was avoiding her because of the past Cheng Xiang. Even more afraid Tao Tianran wasn’t avoiding her because of the past Cheng Xiang.
“Then what does Teacher Tao want to talk about?” Cheng Xiang picked up a starch ball for herself and rolled it in the sesame paste.
“Design.”
Heh. Of course.
Tao Tianran didn’t like talking while eating. She kept pausing her chopsticks. Cheng Xiang watched her struggling. “Finish eating, then talk.”
When they walked out of the red tent, a mocking smile lifted the corner of Cheng Xiang’s lips.
What a coincidence.
Coincidentally with Tao Tianran. Coincidentally eating malatang. Coincidentally with snow falling from the ink-heavy sky, rustling down.
Tao Tianran’s questions about design, Cheng Xiang listened attentively at first, answering one by one.
Until they reached the hutong entrance. An iron lampshade on a streetlamp was slightly rusted. Coincidentally, the filament kept flickering.
Tao Tianran didn’t hear Cheng Xiang’s response. She looked back and saw Cheng Xiang standing two steps behind, staring blankly at that streetlamp.
Tao Tianran called her: “Shianne?”
That damned English nameβtoo similar to Cheng Xiang’s original name.
Cheng Xiang sniffed, looking at Tao Tianran through the falling snow.
Yi Yu said Tao Tianran was like a gemstone. There was truth to that. Her unruffled calm gave her an air of unpredictability. She wasn’t naive, nor was she worldly. She wasn’t arrogant, nor was she fawning. She stood there, clear and clean. You could almost see her five years ago, and almost see her five years from now.
Five years ago, she had her first kiss with Cheng Xiang.
Five years from now, who would she be with?
Cheng Xiang looked at her, drifting snow pressing her lashes heavy.
If she were still Cheng Xiang, if that car accident hadn’t happened, standing here with Tao Tianran right now, looking at those cold thin lipsβwould she still want to kiss them?
Tao Tianran paused. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Cheng Xiang walked toward Tao Tianran.
One step.
Two steps.
It was the same heavy feeling as that night of their first kiss, running through street after street.
Her gaze fell on Tao Tianran’s lips, lightly touching them. “I was looking. Teacher Tao’s lips are thin. Some people say such lips are cold-hearted by nature.”
She paused.
“But others say such lips are very good to kiss.”
Tao Tianran gazed at her amber cat-like pupils, didn’t speak, then turned and walked toward the parking lot.
Cheng Xiang suddenly thought of that somewhat ugly wool scarfβwhere had it gone?
Oh. She remembered.
The day she moved out of the apartment she shared with Tao Tianran, she’d called the cheapest little moving truck. Several canvas bags were stuffed so full they couldn’t close. The striped scarf hung down from one of them like a small animal’s tail.
Cheng Xiang sat in the passenger seat, silently watching out the window.
She didn’t know that scarf, with a sudden brake and a low curse from the driver, finally slipped from the canvas bag and fell onto the muddy road after the snow.
Cheng Xiang only noticed from the rearview mirror and was about to call out.
The red light passed. The car behind drove up, covered in mud, and ran right over it.
Cheng Xiang’s long lashes fluttered twice.
“Miss.” The driver asked her: “What did you want to say just now?”
“Nothing.” Cheng Xiang raised her eyes to look at the gray sky after snow. “Forget it.”
Footnotes
- 'Orange software' is Chinese internet slang for the Xianyu app, Alibaba's second-hand marketplace. The app's icon is orange, leading users to refer to it obliquely as 'orange software' to avoid direct naming.
- Malatang is a Chinese street food where diners select raw ingredients to be cooked in a boiling broth. Beicheng-style malatang uses a sesame paste base rather than the spicy broth common in other regions, creating a rich, nutty flavor.
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