The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 27
by Little PandaGift
Fastened around Tao Tianran’s ankle.
[I used to love holidays more than anything.
Looking back, maybe my subconscious knew that every holiday could be the last burst of happiness.]
Cheng Xiang said, “Elopement is time stolen from the grind of daily life — belonging only to you and one other person. It’s small, maybe hard to notice. It’s fleeting, maybe just five short minutes. So you have to extend your antennae and catch it with everything you’ve got. Realize — oh, I’m eloping from everyday life with this person.”
She said, “You have to be brave. Extend your antennae toward the person you care about.”
Tao Tianran sat in silence.
Cheng Xiang let her chest settle imperceptibly, switching to a languid, charming smile. “Not thrilling enough? Then how about—”
“No,” Tao Tianran said. “It was very good.”
Cheng Xiang had originally planned to make their Round 2 design a brooch, using alexandrite to mimic the delicate shape of long lashes — like an eye the heart opens to the world.
Tao Tianran suggested it might work better as a bracelet. Using Kemi cornflower blue sapphire1, crushed to simulate a drooping effect, swaying with the wrist as though about to fall — like lashes, and like tears.
Tao Tianran said, “Tears are the emotions of eyelashes.”
Since when was she playing the philosopher? Even Cheng Xiang was momentarily stunned.
And so the plan was set. As always, Tao Tianran drafted the outlines, and Cheng Xiang filled in the detail work.
One day, Cheng Xiang received a call from an unfamiliar number.
She picked up — and it was Yi Yu.
Cheng Xiang asked, “How are you even calling me?”
Yi Yu: “Because I’m the investor!”
Cheng Xiang scoffed. “What do you want?”
“Nothing much. Just wondering if it’s been delivered.”
Cheng Xiang was still puzzling over this when a pushcart rolled in, laden with Starbucks.
It bore a massively flamboyant banner printed with chibi versions of her and Tao Tianran, topped with a line of bold clerical script:
「The one Sheng loves is Tianran.
The “Tian-Sheng CP2” invites you for coffee!」
As Cheng Xiang pressed a hand to her forehead, Tao Tianran walked in.
Cheng Xiang muttered into the phone, “If you insist on being this obnoxious, you might as well call it Shengtian CP.”
“Ha!” Yi Yu laughed brightly. “If you’ve got that kind of ambition, then by all means.”
Cheng Xiang hung up and walked over to Tao Tianran. “Courtesy of the Big Boss.”
Tao Tianran nodded.
“Bother you?”
“If it did, they’d only egg it on harder.”
Cheng Xiang picked a mocha from the spread and handed a black coffee to Tao Tianran. “Drink this?”
Tao Tianran took it. “Thank you.”
They moved to a corner. Cheng Xiang stood with one hand behind her back, leaning slightly against the wall. Tao Tianran stood with one hand slipped into her tailored trousers, sipping her coffee.
Tao Tianran was never tea, Cheng Xiang thought. No soft, lingering sweetness on the tongue. She wasn’t gentle — more like black coffee, a clean bitterness seared deep into the hippocampus, edged with astringency.
Even Tao Tianran’s natural scent was the same.
Everyone on the crew came to share the coffee, laughing at the garish banner, glancing their way from across the room.
A strange feeling.
In the past, Cheng Xiang would have given anything for people to gossip about her and Tao Tianran. Now that it was actually happening, she felt a curious sense of detachment — as though she were watching from the outside.
Tao Tianran was the first to break the silence. “That person you loved so much.”
“Hm?”
“What were they like?”
A faint smile curved Cheng Xiang’s lips. She tapped the wall lightly with one fingertip. “Actually, rather like Teacher Tao. I’d even say — very like.”
They won Round 2 as expected. No suspense.
If Tao Tianran weren’t terrifyingly talented, Cheng Xiang might have suspected Yi Yu rigged the results.
The Round 2 competition laid the groundwork for Round 3: the top three designer pairs won the chance to fabricate their designs into physical pieces.
Not with real gemstones, of course.
Yi Yu had actually offered to sponsor genuine stones. The production team had nearly keeled over: “We can’t afford that — seriously, we can’t afford that!”
Yi Yu pouted. “They’re just little rocks.”
Jewelry designers fall into two camps. One draws only flat design sketches; the other has hands-on fabrication skills. In current market trends, the latter was obviously more in demand.
After all, compared with handing a blueprint off to a craftsman, only the designer herself knows exactly how each facet of a gemstone should catch its light and shadow.
Yu Yusheng was still the former. But Tao Tianran was the latter.
That black-and-white photograph she’d displayed during her self-introduction on the show — that was her, cutting gemstones.
The production team provided simulated synthetic stones3. This was also the direction jewelry design was heading, given that natural gemstones would only grow scarcer. Yi Yu might look down on synthetics, but she wanted to probe the market.
The top three design pairs were each assigned a workshop.
That day, Tao Tianran was last to finish her pre-interview and arrived late, right up against the recording start time. Cheng Xiang waited for her at the entrance.
The large cutting machines were hard to transport, so the workshop shoot counted as a rare on-location segment. Beyond the prefabricated studio set, the suburban workshop was framed by lush, overgrown greenery, sunlight breaking into dappled light across the grass.
Cheng Xiang had finally retrieved her sent-out laundry and changed back into a figure-hugging professional suit. She squinted slightly against the fierce brightness.
The moment Tao Tianran appeared, Cheng Xiang’s eyes seemed to drink in frost and snow.
Another crisp white shirt, but swapped for beige linen trousers, a loose belt at her waist woven from shells. Compared with her usual sharp office look, there was something of the bohemian artist about her.
And perched on her nose — gold-rimmed glasses.
The very pair from that photograph. Not solid gold — the frames were thin, catching a cold gleam, rendering her features even more remote. The lenses were thin; you couldn’t tell the prescription.
Cheng Xiang teased her: “Trying to look cool?”
She walked into the workshop. “Once during a cut, the hardness was too high and my safety goggles failed. Debris scratched my eyelid. I wear glasses in the studio to keep out floating dust.”
Cheng Xiang’s heart gave a small lurch.
Walking through the doorway, calf-high wild grass brushed softly against their ankles. Cheng Xiang followed her in and watched Tao Tianran pick up the cutting tool with practiced ease, already swapping her gold-rimmed glasses for safety goggles.
It was a striking collision of aesthetics.
Tao Tianran’s frame was lithe, her wrists so slender that every bone was visible. Yet gripping that heavy machine, she seemed to be mastering it.
A god of frost and snow — taming a beast.
Cheng Xiang asked, “What can I help with?”
She assigned Cheng Xiang some menial tasks. Blazing white sunlight poured through the windows. Cheng Xiang stood behind her, working on her own tasks, and with her back turned, asked, “What happened to your eye?”
Just that one question, swallowed by the machine’s steady hum. As though she’d never asked, and Tao Tianran had never heard.
Not until Cheng Xiang finished and stepped to Tao Tianran’s side to observe.
Tao Tianran leaned low, examining the facet reflections on the simulated Kemi cornflower blue sapphire, murmuring, “The hardness of synthetic stones still isn’t enough.”
“Hm?”
She switched off the machine but kept her head lowered, studying the cut surface, seemingly calculating the best way to proceed.
It was then, almost offhandedly, that she murmured: “It’s nothing. A very small wound, on my lower eyelid.”
“Let me see.” The words left Cheng Xiang’s mouth on pure instinct.
Tao Tianran said nothing. She continued her low observation for a while longer, then reached up and removed her safety goggles, looking at the stone without any barrier.
Cheng Xiang leaned in across from her.
Tao Tianran raised a slender index finger and tapped beneath her eye. “Here.” Her gaze stayed fixed on the synthetic stone.
Cheng Xiang looked closely.
There really was an extremely fine wound there. After all this time it had darkened to a dusky pink, set at the outer half of her lower eyelid — almost like half a tear on the verge of spilling over.
Cheng Xiang frowned, not realizing how close she’d drawn. Not until Tao Tianran lifted her thin eyelids did Cheng Xiang discover that cool, refined fragrance right at her nose.
She jerked upright.
She should say something — a joke, a reminder to be careful. Tao Tianran should say something too, even a curt warning that she was too close.
But for some unspeakable reason, neither of them spoke.
Cheng Xiang stepped back two paces and turned toward the lush grass outside the window.
Behind her, the cutting machine hummed back to life.
「Sadness.」
The sunlight beyond was a fierce, blinding white — summer arriving with the full abandon of a season that held nothing back.
Cheng Xiang’s fingers curled slightly. She couldn’t say why the emotion that washed through her in this moment was sadness.
For Tao Tianran. Or for herself.
Or perhaps for this near-intimate, barely-there tension between them.
During the Round 3 studio recording, the air conditioning broke.
Watching variety shows in her previous life, Cheng Xiang had only ever seen the glamorous side. Now that she was part of one, she understood the grueling behind-the-scenes reality. Zou Tian whispered to her, “I heard the outdoor shoots are even worse.”
The studio was marginally better. With the AC dead, the production team hauled in large industrial ice machines and stationed them around the stage.
Everyone still ended up drenched in sweat. The makeup artists became the busiest people on set, constantly darting in to blot oil and touch up faces.
Everyone except Tao Tianran.
Cheng Xiang sometimes suspected Tao Tianran was constitutionally incapable of sweating. Even during their most intense moments together, she barely perspired — only the palest flush of pink would bloom across her eyelids, almost feverish. Cheng Xiang, meanwhile, would be wringing wet.
Same as now.
Today she wore white — white shirt, white tailored trousers. The longer Cheng Xiang looked, the more she recognized the Gangdao-style elegance in her: slender but never frail, with a cool, expansive precision. The ends of her hair were cut in deliberate, layered angles that fell in clean lines.
They won again, predictably.
The directing team huddled in a sidebar meeting, probably brainstorming how to manufacture drama from a competition with zero suspense.
Then came the supplemental recording of the judges’ commentary.
Evidently, the directors had landed on their hook: “deification.” The judging panel, already full of admiration for Tao Tianran, now heaped praise without restraint.
The designers sat in two rows on semicircular waiting chairs, a standing microphone positioned right in front of Cheng Xiang. One judge was effusive about Tao Tianran’s prodigious gifts when Tao Tianran leaned forward slightly and reached for the mic in front of Cheng Xiang. “Excuse me.”
“In this competition, Shianne and I are a team. In fact, the concepts for both consecutive rounds were hers.”
Cheng Xiang lowered her gaze, watching Tao Tianran’s slender fingers pressed against the table’s edge, a strand of dark hair falling across the surface.
When recording wrapped, the production team made a surprise announcement: the final episode required collaboration with an actress whose schedule had fallen through. What was supposed to be a fourteen-day continuous shoot would be split — three days off, then resume.
The editor brought out a cardboard box containing everyone’s confiscated phones and began distributing them one by one.
Cheng Xiang said goodbye to the designers she’d grown friendly with and headed for the studio exit, planning to pack her things at the dorm first.
Most designers lingered, chatting. Crew members crisscrossed the space. The lights were still up. A director rolled a script and coordinated camera positions with the cinematographer for the next episode.
The floor was tangled with tracks and cables. You had to keep walking — all the way past the heavy red velvet curtain, where the lights suddenly dimmed, as though you’d been flung from a “Truman Show” back into reality.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust before she made out the figure leaning against the wall behind the curtain.
Tao Tianran stood there, on the phone with Yi Yu. “Mm. The brightness and clarity of the synthetic stones might pass for genuine, but the hardness isn’t there. I’ve tested several types — the cut texture is obvious when the machine goes through. It’ll affect subsequent setting.”
Spotting Cheng Xiang, she lifted her chin in acknowledgment.
Seeing her hang up, Cheng Xiang walked over. “Calling the Big Boss?”
Tao Tianran knew she’d overheard. She shot her a sidelong glance. “Do you really think the Big Boss is rich and stupid?”
Only then did Cheng Xiang understand why Yi Yu had arranged for them to join this low-traffic variety show.
Anyone who’d built Kunpu to its current scale couldn’t possibly be stupid. She simply wanted to use more designers’ hands to test the market prospects of synthetic stones, which had been gaining traction in recent years.
Tao Tianran said, “The Big Boss says we don’t need to come back to the office for these three days. Treat it as time off.”
Cheng Xiang nodded. “Works for me.”
Tao Tianran’s movements as she slipped her phone back into her trouser pocket remained cool and unhurried.
A sudden irritation prickled through Cheng Xiang.
Tao Tianran was like this — as though every glimmering, half-there tension between them had been Cheng Xiang’s imagination alone.
She just stood there, her words as sparse as ever. She didn’t even have the courtesy to ask how Cheng Xiang was getting home, or offer a ride.
That was Tao Tianran. Always had been.
Cheng Xiang had always been guessing: “Does she like me? Does she not like me? Does she like me a little, but not that much?”
It was exhausting.
And the guessing always ended the same way — a muffled door slam, the TV blaring the relentless cheer of 《My Own Swordsman》, making it impossible to even cry.
Cheng Xiang clicked her tongue and turned to leave.
But Tao Tianran stopped her. “Wait.”
Cheng Xiang glanced back and noticed, for the first time, the navy velvet box in Tao Tianran’s other hand.
Her slender wrist lifted slightly. “Yours.”
Cheng Xiang took it and opened it. Inside was their fabricated Kemi cornflower blue sapphire bracelet — synthetic stones, not worth much, given to them by the production team as a keepsake.
Well — you couldn’t exactly call it worthless. Designed and crafted by Tao Tianran, its value multiplied a hundredfold over.
Cheng Xiang studied the flawless sapphire facets. “Mine?”
Tao Tianran nodded. “You led the design. It’s yours.”
A faint smile tugged at Cheng Xiang’s lips. “If it’s really mine…”
I used to love holidays more than anything.
Christmas. New Year’s Eve. Spring Festival. And Valentine’s Day after that. Cheng Xiang had even dragged Tao Tianran into celebrating Arbor Day. If not for Qingming Festival being terrible luck, she’d probably have celebrated that too.
She’d say, “Tao Tianran, you have to give me a present.”
And the presents she asked for were always strange. Oddly shaped rocks from the beach. Seashells. One Arbor Day she’d asked Tao Tianran for a potted cactus.
Qin Ziqiao said her brain worked in mysterious ways.
She’d cackle: “Woman, I have successfully captured her attention.”
These gifts had been stuffed into a repurposed tin-can box by Cheng Xiang. After Tao Tianran left, when she was moving out of the rental apartment, she put on her Pikachu onesie, cradled the box, and walked toward the dumpsters.
The box tipped at an angle, the rocks and shells inside clattering against each other.
An older woman stood nearby. “Miss, are you dumping that or not?”
Cheng Xiang looked back. “Huh?”
“If you’re dumping it, give me the box.”
“Well then,” Cheng Xiang held the whole box out, “take it all.”
The woman reached for it. “I’ll dump out what’s inside. Those things aren’t worth anything — only the cardboard sells.”
Cheng Xiang snatched it back. “Oh, sorry — never mind. I won’t dump it after all.”
She hugged the box, turned, and ran.
She stopped short at a cluster of bushes, fished a chicken sausage from her onesie pocket, and soon two cats came padding over, following the scent.
Cheng Xiang set the box aside and crouched down, arms around her knees, talking to them. “I’m leaving, you know. It’s only been half a year — didn’t even have time to fatten you up.”
“But that third-grader with the black-frame glasses seems decent to you. You probably won’t go hungry.”
Then she scooped up the box and clattered upstairs.
That box eventually made its way back to the Siheyuan4 along with all her clothes, pots and pans, and manga, stuffed under the bed, never to see daylight again.
When settling the rent with her landlady, the woman had been genuinely regretful: “You young people never stay put. I told you a three-year lease would get you a discount and you refused. You knew even back then you wouldn’t last, didn’t you?”
Cheng Xiang opened her mouth.
She wasn’t sure whether to say she’d known — or that she hadn’t.
Had she known, or hadn’t she, that she and Tao Tianran would soon reach their end?
Perhaps, on some subconscious level, she had.
Now she stood before Tao Tianran, holding the bracelet, thinking of that box of rocks and shells stuffed under a bed.
After she died, Director Ma probably never went into her old room again. So they were still there — sleeping with every sunset, growing alongside the plane trees, white doves flying overhead, loose tiles shedding rustling dust.
Cheng Xiang’s smile deepened. She lifted the bracelet from its box and crouched down.
Setting the velvet box aside on the ground, Cheng Xiang looked up. “Since it’s mine, I can give it to whoever I want, right?”
The bracelet had been made to standard wrist measurements. At 172 centimeters tall, Tao Tianran’s wrists were disproportionately slender — the bracelet seemed almost too loose. So Cheng Xiang unclasped the metal fastening and, instead of the wrist, circled it around her equally slender ankle.
Now it was too tight. Head bowed, Cheng Xiang’s fingertips drew it closed with careful pressure.
Tao Tianran’s ankle shifted subtly inside her stiletto heel. The metal clasp grazed her anklebone, nearly embedding into her porcelain skin as it snapped shut.
For a split second Tao Tianran seemed to lose her footing. Cheng Xiang kept her head down for a long time, not looking at her expression. Behind the red velvet curtain, the lights and tracks and cameras hummed with activity, walling them off in a hidden corner.
Cheng Xiang lifted her face again, lips curving. “Then I’d like to give it to Teacher Tao.”
“After all, this bracelet’s name is ‘Tears.’ And I did say—” She rose to her feet, standing level with Tao Tianran now. Her red lips drew close to Tao Tianran’s ear, the soft parting of her lips like the beating of butterfly wings:
“I’d really love… to see someone like Teacher Tao cry. Will I get to see that day?”
She turned and walked away, leaving Tao Tianran standing alone, the too-tight sapphire bracelet fastened around her ankle.
Cheng Xiang packed her bags and caught a ride home alone.
Leaning against the back seat, she whistled. She had money now, okay? Who needed anyone to drive them? No more carpools — premium cars at will.
The driver even wore white gloves and said, “Good evening, ma’am.” Not like Tao Tianran, who always looked at people from the corners of her eyes.
This — this was the joy of money!
But Cheng Xiang still carried the cautious restraint of a Neighborhood Committee director’s daughter. She only spent her wages from this period and the bonuses Yi Yu tossed around with extravagant abandon.
If the Eldest Miss Yu ever came back to reclaim her body, Cheng Xiang could at least say she’d only spent money she’d earned herself. After all, she’d been working herself to the bone as the Eldest Miss’s beast of burden5 — that didn’t count as taking advantage, right?
By the time she returned from the suburbs to the Yu residence, night had fallen.
Zhuwei had accompanied Yu Song to a dinner banquet. Cheng Xiang headed to her room and showered first. The Eldest Miss’s skincare collection was truly exquisite — all these little jars of face masks.
Cheng Xiang couldn’t resist picking one up. She checked the label — Black Bandage, a premium repair mask. She looked up the price online and clicked her tongue.
Well, she was maintaining the Eldest Miss’s body on her behalf. That didn’t count as taking advantage either, right?
Mask applied, she turned on the turntable and had just settled back against the headboard, eyes closed, when the door creaked open a crack.
A small head poked through. “Yu Yusheng.”
“Use my English name.”
“Shianne.” Yu Yuluo needed a favor and complied readily enough. “Where are the snacks you brought me?”
“Ate them.”
“You actually ate them all!” Yu Yuluo howled.
Cheng Xiang opened one eye and laughed at the sight of the girl stamping her feet.
Yu Yuluo cut short her fake crying and shot her a glance — she knew this meant yes. Composing herself, she asked, “Where are they really?”
Cheng Xiang jerked her chin toward the suitcase.
Yu Yuluo bounded over and flipped the lid open. Her eyes went bright at once.
Leaning against the headboard, Cheng Xiang said, “Full disclosure — I really did eat one box of your coconut rolls. The catering on this show, honestly, was nothing to write home about.”
Yu Yuluo pulled back the thin blanket and climbed onto the bed, wrapping her arms softly around Cheng Xiang’s waist. “How are you so nice?”
“I ate your snacks and that’s nice?”
“But you said the food was bad, and you only ate one box,” Yu Yuluo said softly.
Cheng Xiang couldn’t say exactly what stirred in her at that moment.
Later she realized — it was touch.
Lying on the snow-covered crosswalk after the car accident, her last memory wasn’t pain. It was cold. As though her whole body had sunk into a frozen lake, a bone-deep chill seeping into every crack of her skeleton, her limbs locked like rusted machinery.
That was the taste of death.
Since transmigrating, Cheng Xiang had felt a distance from everyone. Director Ma and Deputy Director Cheng didn’t recognize her. Qin Ziqiao treated her as Yu Yusheng. And facing the Eldest Miss’s parents, she naturally lacked any sense of closeness.
As for Tao Tianran — even more impossible.
Only now did Cheng Xiang realize how much cautious restraint she carried beneath her new life of money and talent. She drew Yu Yuluo — whose arms were still wrapped around her waist — into a full embrace. The ten-year-old hadn’t hit her growth spurt yet; her body was soft and round.
Cheng Xiang curled around her, holding tight. Yu Yuluo protested, “Hey, your face mask is getting all over me.”
“It’s Black Bandage. Do you have any idea how much this costs? Consider yourself lucky.”
Pressed against Yu Yuluo’s forehead, she realized how desperately she craved the warmth of another body — the most primal comfort of being alive. She discovered she was afraid of death. Terrified. That marrow-deep cold had lodged itself in her subconscious, and she never wanted to go through it again.
Yu Yuluo said, “You’re being so mushy.”
Cheng Xiang answered, “A little bit, yeah.”
“By the way — that variety show you went on.”
“What about it?”
“It might blow up.”
“No way.” Cheng Xiang didn’t believe it for a second. That show? Banking on celebrity appearances when the stars wouldn’t even show until the final round — who’d watch that?
“Seriously, I’ve been seeing it all over online.” Yu Yuluo pulled out a phone.
“Wait — don’t you only have a kids’ smartwatch?”
Yu Yuluo gave her a look that said, How are you this naive.
On the phone screen was a photo from the show: Tao Tianran leaning forward to adjust the mic in front of Cheng Xiang, Cheng Xiang gazing down at her.
Clearly a covert shot.
Whether a deliberate leak by the production team or a staff member’s “unauthorized” release — impossible to say.
Yu Yuluo pocketed her phone. “There are tons of photos like this one. Your CP6 is about to go viral!”
Cheng Xiang gave a little scoff.
Just the directing team, knowing there was no suspense or drama to be found, milking it for buzz. The internet had no memory. It would pass.
But Yu Yuluo lowered her voice: “How come you went on a show like that anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“That incident in high school — wasn’t it really serious?” Yu Yuluo’s voice dropped even further. “Because your parents found out you liked girls, right?”
Cheng Xiang froze.
The author has something to say:
Some of you in the comments have been saying the pacing is slow —
I see you 🐶 But I’m not changing it.
I want to fully develop their backstory first. Happy reading, everyone — have a great weekend 🐶🌹
Footnotes
- A premium blue sapphire with a 'cornflower' color grade. 'Kemi' appears to be a fictionalized origin name. Simulated versions were used on the variety show.
- A layered pun. 'The one Sheng loves is Tianran' homophonically echoes 'The love of my life is Tianran' (yīshēng suǒ'ài shì tiānrán). The CP name 'Tian-Sheng' sounds like 'tiānshēng yīduì' (天生一对), meaning 'a match made in heaven.' The reversed form 'Shengtian CP' is also referenced.
- Lab-created gemstones used in Round 3 of the variety show, positioned as the future of jewelry design as natural gems grow scarce.
- A traditional Chinese courtyard residence.
- Literally 'cattle and horses.' Modern Chinese internet slang for overworked, exploited corporate employees.
- Abbreviation for 'Character Pairing' or 'Couple Pairing,' referring to an imagined romantic relationship between two characters. Widely used in online fandoms.
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