The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 28
by Little Panda“Silly Girl.”
Tao Tianran said it softly in Cantonese.
[My mouth fell silent; my ears began to weep.
Everything in my world was thrown into chaos.]
When Yu Yusheng was in her second year of university, Yu Yuluo was only four.
Normally, a four-year-old wouldn’t have memories. Yu Yuluo didn’t know why she remembered that period so clearly either—perhaps the atmosphere at home had been so strange that even a tiny child could sense it.
She remembered the bowl shattering against the wall with a bang.
She also remembered Zhuwei’s cold voice: “After all this time, are you still going to act like you did in high school?”
She remembered the ambulance wailing as it approached, lights flashing, looking exactly like the ones in her picture books, taking the hunger-striking Yu Yusheng to the hospital.
Now, seeing Cheng Xiang stunned, she nudged her. “Sorry. Forget I said anything.”
“No,” Cheng Xiang asked. “What happened after?”
“After what?”
“After that… incident.”
“I don’t know what happened after.” Yu Yuluo was a little confused—after all, she’d only been four. “After that, you went back to eating and drinking, going everywhere, like a social butterfly.”
“You must’ve been pretty popular.” Yu Yuluo wrinkled her nose.
Cheng Xiang smiled and ruffled Yu Yuluo’s hair.
After Yu Yuluo left, satisfied, clutching a pile of snacks, Cheng Xiang got up, washed the face mask off, and searched the room.
Eldest Miss Yu probably didn’t keep a diary, since she found nothing. She carefully went through every social media account accessible on the phone and found no clues either.
Why had she transmigrated into Yu Yusheng’s body in the first place?
Random chance?
Then where had Yu Yusheng gone?
Questions without answers were like unsolvable math problems—if you didn’t know, you simply didn’t know.
Cheng Xiang’s head ached from thinking. She buried herself under the covers and fell asleep.
The next day, Cheng Xiang went downstairs for breakfast. Zhuwei’s attitude was as normal as ever—whether the online storm hadn’t reached her yet or she had other plans, Cheng Xiang couldn’t tell.
Cheng Xiang rested at home, then went to find Qin Ziqiao in the evening sunset.
The moment she stepped off the bus, she ran into Xiao Xiao—a high school classmate of hers and Qin Ziqiao’s, the one who’d borrowed eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight yuan to save her cat, causing Cheng Xiang to miss her breakup trip.
She’d later learned that Xiao Xiao hadn’t used the money to save her cat, but to help her loser boyfriend buy a motorcycle.
The instant Xiao Xiao’s gaze shot over, Cheng Xiang instinctively gripped her phone and ducked behind a utility pole, pretending to take a call.
Adults were just that hypocritical.
Especially when you weren’t doing as well as the other person. Especially when you knew the other person looked down on you.
Greeting her was wrong; not greeting her was also wrong. Instinctively, you just wanted to hide.
When she caught, from the corner of her eye, that Xiao Xiao’s gaze held envy, she suddenly realized—
Oh. She wasn’t Cheng Xiang anymore.
That Cheng Xiang whom everyone tricked like a fool.
She was Yu Yusheng now—a beautiful, wealthy young miss whom everyone envied.
Maybe she should walk over, pretend to ask Xiao Xiao for a small favor, use the opportunity to add her on WeChat, exploit Xiao Xiao’s admiration, and spin her in circles. That would be revenge.
But it was pointless.
Cheng Xiang put away her phone, ignored Xiao Xiao, and walked forward with utter disdain. Xiao Xiao brushed past her, still turning back again and again to look at her retreating figure.
Dead, then alive again, Cheng Xiang found all of this meaningless.
The only person she couldn’t let go of was Tao Tianran.
Pathetic.
She stood beneath Qin Ziqiao’s building waiting for her to get off work. Ugh, what a pain. If she were still the old Cheng Xiang, she’d have a key to Qin Ziqiao’s place. She’d just go upstairs, order takeout, and wait in the air-conditioning.
It wasn’t until Qin Ziqiao arrived late, stepping through the twilight, a blade of grass on her T-shirt—the mark of someone who’d just fed capybaras—that she led Cheng Xiang upstairs.
This time she was rather polite, thanking Cheng Xiang for the souvenir from Thailand and asking what takeout she wanted.
Something about Qin Ziqiao’s aura was subtly different.
Besides the grassy scent of having fed capybaras, there was…
Cheng Xiang sniffed for a long while but couldn’t pinpoint it. The air conditioner hummed, sending cold air through the room. Maybe it was just her imagination.
This meeting, Cheng Xiang sensed Qin Ziqiao’s distance.
The takeout she’d ordered was malatang1. She shoveled a bite coated in sesame paste into her mouth and asked with a smile, “Why so distant with me? Think I’m not much like Cheng Xiang anymore?”
Qin Ziqiao curved her lips. “You never were that much alike. Thinking about it carefully, you’re actually worlds apart.”
“How so?” Cheng Xiang stabbed a starch ball.
“You’re rich. She wasn’t.”
Ouch. Right where it hurts, sister.
Cheng Xiang asked, “What else?”
Qin Ziqiao smiled again. “How to put it… You’re confident, but Xiao Xiang wasn’t. You’re decisive, but Xiao Xiang actually worried about everything. You know how to wield feminine charm, but she didn’t.”
“It’s not that she was ugly—she definitely wasn’t, she was delicate and pretty. But she was just… a little wooden. She’d hurry to offer her sincere heart to people, like a small animal baring its belly straightforwardly, without that seductive pull. So…”
Qin Ziqiao shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Cheng Xiang finished it silently in her own mind: So, Tao Tianran never truly fell for her.
Cheng Xiang clicked her tongue. “Got it.”
Leaving Qin Ziqiao’s place, Cheng Xiang didn’t hurry to the bus stop. She walked toward the river to feel the hot wind.
It was an utterly ordinary river, nothing scenic. In the dry season you could see the bare riverbed; the rainy season was slightly better, with old men writing calligraphy with water mops along the bank and aunties doing their square-dancing routines.
In the past, after she and Qin Ziqiao had eaten too much malatang, they’d walk here to digest, halfway through buying a doll-head bar each.
They’d jokingly call it: “Women have two stomachs. One for the main meal, one for dessert.”
Now Cheng Xiang was alone, leaning against a rainbow-shaped railing. The wind, still warm, blew over slowly. She swept her long curly hair behind her shoulders, aware that passersby were secretly looking at her.
Given her looks and her outfit…
Cheng Xiang felt this trip to Thailand had been rather fortuitous.
For six months, if she’d stayed in Beicheng, she would definitely still have been immersed in her old life, seeing Tao Tianran, Qin Ziqiao, Director Ma and Deputy Director Cheng, and the whole world through Cheng Xiang’s eyes.
But going to Thailand with Yi Yu, everything was a new social network, and the work was all things she hadn’t understood before—analyzing gem compositions, screening exhibitions, liaising with local artists.
Even with Eldest Miss Yu’s natural talent, her knowledge reserves had been insufficient. Those six months hadn’t been without hardship.
It was precisely that hardship that made her rarely think of Tao Tianran, or the past.
Cheng Xiang felt the wind for a while longer, then picked up her handbag and walked to the roadside supermarket.
She was still lost in thought when she opened the freezer. She’d meant to grab a doll-head bar, but her body instinctively reached for a box of Meiji instead.
Looking down, it was matcha flavor.
Had the old Cheng Xiang liked matcha? Not particularly.
She pressed her lips together, took the ice cream to scan and pay.
Walking out of the supermarket, the hot, dry night wind brushed past. She dug a spoonful into her mouth and squinted—
Her tongue accepted the flavor readily. It tasted good.
Perhaps Yu Yusheng’s will was gradually influencing her too.
The three-day break was actually very short. Everyone returned to the variety show’s prefab recording quarters.
“Who’s the celebrity, really?” someone asked, cupping their face. “Could it be Nan Xian?”
“As if.” Someone else scoffed. “Look at this show’s budget. Does it look like they could afford someone that big?”
Cheng Xiang thought silently: Big Boss, they’re mocking you for being poor.
The celebrity who arrived really wasn’t Nan Xiaoxue. It was a trending young actress2.
Zou Tian whispered to Cheng Xiang, “I heard she had plastic surgery.”
“Really?”
“Mm. Her most distinctive feature is those lips. I heard they’re augmented.”
Cheng Xiang glanced at Tao Tianran, who stood nearby with arms crossed.
A Kunqu line put it best: “You should know that all my life I’ve loved what is natural”3. A clever heart, a free spirit. Tao Tianran’s lips were on the thinner side, not quite in line with current beauty standards, but paired with her distant, mist-willow brows and slender eyes, she looked like a classical fine-brush painting come to life. Those thin lips suited her perfectly.
Besides, they looked cold and hard, but they were actually wonderful to kiss.
Cheng Xiang clicked her tongue inwardly. What am I still thinking about this for?
The production team had probably poured all their effort into the celebrity guest segment, finally pulling out some tricks. They posted the actress’s most famous performance clips online and had fans vote to choose the hottest scene for a live reenactment.
As expected, the winner was her biggest hit—a Republican-era4 drama.
In the drama, the actress had actually been third-billed, playing the proprietress of a qipao shop—curled hair, bold lips, smoking a water pipe. Her striking looks suited the styling extraordinarily well. Countless GIF clips circulated widely online, her buzz at one point overshadowing the lead actresses.
The most famous of these was the scene of her slowly descending the stairs.
That drama’s director excelled at filming women, and without using templates—especially skilled at uncovering different dimensions of allure. The actress was a northerner; the distance between her brows and eyes was rather wide, not quite fitting traditional aesthetics. But those lips, painted intensely—the camera focused entirely on them.
Emerald glazed tiles, old camphor-wood stairs creaking under high heels, the mottled green of a mildewed copper wall lamp flickering in the shadows.
It was practically a one-woman show. She stepped down the stairs and addressed the male lead waiting on the soft sofa below: “Boss Jiang.”
She bent forward, her waist collapsing low, and exhaled all the smoke from her water pipe into his face.
Performing without a physical set on site would highlight her acting even more.
Originally, rumors had circulated that a male star of similar trending status would be brought in to play opposite her, but later, whether due to scheduling conflicts or the on-site squabbling over first and second billing, it fell through.
In any case, the rule announced on set was this: they would draw lots among the designers to select one to act opposite the actress, experiencing the scene’s atmosphere immersively from a designer’s perspective.
Someone raised a hand. “So it’ll be chosen from the male designers?”
The showrunner said ambiguously, “Not necessarily. Whoever gets drawn, gets drawn.”
The moment the words fell, all eyes turned to Tao Tianran.
Anyone could see that for the show’s effect, the production team would definitely push Tao Tianran hard.
It was a clever move. Tao Tianran was cool and elegant; the actress was intense and dazzling. Cheng Xiang could already imagine how many clips would spring up online from the moment the actress bent down to address her.
Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine—
The drawing ended. Cheng Xiang held the slip of paper with the crown sticker—she had been selected.
Are you serious? The production team didn’t even rig it? It kind of overturned her previous understanding of reality!
Cheng Xiang caught sight of the production team huddled in a sidebar.
Yeah, they must have marked the lots and gotten it wrong by mistake.
Once they finished deliberating: “Alright, let’s prepare to start.”
Cheng Xiang: …
Could it be that they thought a scene between two striking beauties would also work?
If this were the old Cheng Xiang, she would definitely have hidden.
But now, first, she’d accepted the appearance fee; second, she felt the real Yu Yusheng wouldn’t hide.
Then come on. Let her be an emotionless tool.
Actors relied on styling—Cheng Xiang deeply understood this now. There was no creaking old camphor-wood staircase on set, no mottled green wall lamp, but the moment the actress changed into a dark, light-velvet qipao and emerged from the dim light, the atmosphere was there.
Cheng Xiang collapsed onto the sofa, watching the actress rehearse, continuing to be an emotionless tool.
Until the actress walked up to her, her soft waist collapsing low, carmine-lacquered fingers resting on the sofa arm.
Oh my… Cheng Xiang shrank back into the sofa, her shoulders tensing.
She suddenly realized she had never been this close to anyone besides Tao Tianran.
From start to finish, her sincerity, her fluttering heart, her leaning in—all of it had been given to Tao Tianran.
Nervousness made her lashes tremble with a rustle—an instinctive reaction. It drew a breathy laugh from the actress, who then whispered, “Straight?”
How are you talking while facing away from the camera?
Cheng Xiang hunched her shoulders. “Uh, not that straight.”
The actress laughed, her shoulders shaking almost imperceptibly.
The stage lighting was cleverly arranged, downplaying her brows and eyes so that all attention focused on those lips. The matte retro lipstick made the lip lines more visible, but that distinct texture was a temptation in itself.
Cheng Xiang suddenly thought: What if the real Yu Yusheng never came back?
If she really had to keep living as Yu Yusheng. If she really had to let go of Tao Tianran. Would she approach another person? Would she draw close to another pair of lips?
Suddenly the lights dimmed. Someone tapped the actress’s shoulder.
Cheng Xiang’s lashes stilled. She saw Tao Tianran walking over, bending down to look at her, and suddenly felt a little like crying.
Why?
A little aggrieved. A little dejected. A little unwilling.
Her lashes fluttered again: I don’t want to… get close to anyone else at all.
Tao Tianran looked at Cheng Xiang, but her words were directed at the actress: “There’s a lighting issue.”
“Huh?”
“The close-up is fine, but the wide-angle camera position is too dark and affects the shot. They need to relight.”
For the filming effect, the actress wasn’t wearing an earpiece, so Tao Tianran had come over to inform her.
“Ugh.” The actress showed some impatience. The qipao hugged her waist as she swayed over to the side, picking up her script and fanning her face with it.
Cheng Xiang looked up at Tao Tianran. “Why did you come over?”
“Privilege,” Tao Tianran said. “Because we’re on the same team. I can privately ask about your immediate, subtle feelings.”
“Oh.” Cheng Xiang managed a smile. “Let’s talk later.”
She rose from the sofa. Under this lighting, Tao Tianran’s brows and eyes were blurred too, the focus gathering on those thin lips.
The lips she had kissed.
The lips that had called out ‘Xiao Xiang.’
The lips that had asked, ‘Have you thought this through?’ when she brought up the breakup.
Cheng Xiang said, “Excuse me.”
Tao Tianran stepped aside. Cheng Xiang hunched her shoulders and hopped off the stage. Actually, after being in Yu Yusheng’s body for a while, her every gesture had gradually taken on Yu Yusheng’s allure.
But this hop was a little rushed, betraying her nervousness.
Her lashes itched. She stood at the edge of the stage and raised her hand to rub them, then remembered she was wearing mascara. The moment she lowered her hand, Tao Tianran walked over and handed her a cotton pad: “You can wipe under your eyes.”
“Thanks.” Cheng Xiang took it.
Suddenly she didn’t want to wipe anymore. She didn’t know where this wave of dejection came from.
A spotlight chased over from the stage direction, turning Tao Tianran into a backlit silhouette. Her edges burred with halation. Cheng Xiang saw Tao Tianran raise her hand, pause midair, then reach over hesitantly, palm horizontal.
Very lightly, very lightly, she touched her lashes.
The thick lashes brushed against the lines of Tao Tianran’s palm.
Cheng Xiang froze for an instant, but Tao Tianran had already withdrawn her hand, murmured an “Sorry,” and walked away on her high heels.
The final round’s design theme was, without question, “Lips.”
As a designer who had “personally experienced” it, everyone came to ask Cheng Xiang how she felt.
She hesitated slightly. “I… I’m not too sure.”
Everyone assumed she was hiding her ideas for herself. After a few pleasantries, they dispersed.
Only Tao Tianran asked, “What do you mean by ‘not too sure’?”
By then only the two of them remained in the conference room. Cheng Xiang folded her hands, her left and right thumbs circling each other. “It’s just that I think human lips are very strange things.”
The same lips that tenderly called your name.
The same lips that coldly said goodbye.
The same lips that kissed softly.
The same lips that pressed shut indifferently.
Cheng Xiang raised her eyes and murmured to Tao Tianran, “How can an organ be this complicated?”
Tao Tianran only looked at her. Neither of them mentioned that light touch to her lashes just now.
For the final round’s design, Tao Tianran and Cheng Xiang used imitation Mozambique pigeon blood red5.
They made a brooch, the contour of half a lip line. The actress pinned it to the chest of her qipao, like an open mouth biting into the heart.
Before the winner announcements, the production team privately approached Tao Tianran: “Teacher Tao, you’re from Gangdao. Could you say a few words in Cantonese during your speech?”
“No.” Tao Tianran refused cleanly.
Sometimes Cheng Xiang had wondered why Tao Tianran’s bluntness never offended people. Perhaps it was because she was neither humble nor arrogant—she existed objectively, outside subjective rules.
Cheng Xiang knew Tao Tianran hated speaking Cantonese.
She’d joked about it before too, telling Tao Tianran to speak it, saying it was so sultry, so sultry. Tao Tianran had merely cast a cool glance from the corner of her eye and brushed the matter aside.
Except for one time.
The first time she and Tao Tianran had been intimate.
Under the showerhead, she softened into Tao Tianran’s embrace. Tao Tianran’s forearm wrapped horizontally around her waist, keeping her from slipping. The water was like a midsummer downpour, washing away her sweat and tears.
Her lips parted slightly. The taste in her mouth was salty.
Tao Tianran’s thin lips pressed against her ear. When she spoke, the water ran down along her ear bone.
Tao Tianran said softly in Cantonese, “Silly girl.”
Cheng Xiang lowered her lashes.
So people’s ears can cry too, she thought.
On the day filming wrapped, Yi Yu came to pick them up in her Maserati.
She applauded them with theatrical flair. “Bravo!”
Cheng Xiang wanted to hide, but Tao Tianran walked straight toward Yi Yu.
Jiejie, you’ve got guts, Cheng Xiang thought.
Then she watched with her own eyes as Tao Tianran walked toward Yi Yu, walked past Yi Yu, got into her own car, and drove straight off.
Yi Yu held her arms out to empty air. “…”
Cheng Xiang really couldn’t hold it in. “Pfft.”
Yi Yu clenched her fist. “Get over here already!”
Cheng Xiang dragged her suitcase over. “I’m telling you, Big Boss, the team you invested in for this show isn’t cutting it. Don’t ever call me up for this again.”
Yi Yu opened her hand, raising her last three fingers while pressing her index finger and thumb into an “O.”
Cheng Xiang: “OK? Deal?”
Yi Yu: “Thirty thousand.”
Cheng Xiang: “…”
This superpower of money6!
Yi Yu planned to drive Cheng Xiang home herself. “This is an unusual privilege.”
Cheng Xiang: “You probably know you screwed us over.”
After much effort wedging the suitcase into the low sports car, Cheng Xiang got into the passenger seat and twitched her nose.
Yi Yu gripped the steering wheel. “What?”
“Nothing much.” It was just that the scent in Yi Yu’s car felt somewhat familiar, though she couldn’t say where from.
On the way home, Yi Yu asked, “How did it feel being with Teacher Tao day and night?”
Cheng Xiang smiled.
Hard to say.
Reason wanted to stay away; instinct was screaming.
Just like now, even she couldn’t tell whether she wanted to keep being Cheng Xiang, or wanted to get away from the Cheng Xiang of the past.
“However,” Yi Yu tapped the steering wheel with her fingertips, “whatever it feels like, you’ll have to spend more day-and-night time with Teacher Tao.”
Cheng Xiang turned to look at her.
“You need to go to Gangdao with Teacher Tao again. President Lin from last time referred a huge job.” Yi Yu shaped her lips into an exaggerated O. “Very. Big!”
Cheng Xiang remembered the staggering blue gem Yi Yu had mentioned in her office last time. “Big. Really big.”
She kind of wanted to laugh, but felt the corners of her mouth weighed down. She turned to look out the window.
“In a bad mood?” Yi Yu said. “Hey, I was just stirring the pot. That CP7 hype from the show will blow over online soon. It’s normal that you couldn’t pry Tao Tianran loose—after all, gems are the substances with the most stable internal elements.”
Cheng Xiang made a sound of acknowledgment.
If Tao Tianran had been completely unmoved, perhaps it would just be a lot of unwillingness.
But unlike now, it was hard to say whether it was her imagination.
Yi Yu waved her hand magnanimously and gave her two days off. “Rest well for two days, then go on a business trip to Gangdao with Teacher Tao.”
Cheng Xiang reacted: “Wait, weren’t these two days already the weekend?”
Yi Yu laughed heartily and drove off in a cloud of dust.
Tao Tianran didn’t socialize much. The only person who came to visit after she got home was the property manager.
He spoke to her with some embarrassment: “Miss Tao, this quarter’s property fees…”
Tao Tianran’s community had butler-style service. To make it convenient for residents to adjust their service packages at any time, property fees were collected quarterly.
Because Tao Tianran had gone to film the variety show, she’d forgotten to handle the online payment.
Now she scanned the QR code presented by the property manager and paid with her head lowered.
“Thank you, thank you.” The property manager was full of gratitude. “We thought you were also holding up payments because of the community streetlight issues. We’re actively contacting the power grid to resolve the circuit problem…”
“No,” Tao Tianran said. “The streetlights on my daily route haven’t been broken.”
“That’s good, that’s good.”
Tao Tianran closed the door, poured herself a glass of red wine, and swirled it by its slender stem to let it breathe. Her fingertips brushed across the lines of her palm.
That palm had just touched Cheng Xiang’s fluffy lashes.
She set down her wineglass and sent Cheng Xiang a message on her phone: 【See you at the airport Monday at seven a.m.】
Cheng Xiang did not reply.
Tao Tianran held her phone for a long time, lowered her eyes, and tapped the screen, scrolling down and down.
Until the very last conversation thread, showing that she seemed to have not contacted this person in a very long time.
Her finger paused, then tapped in. The contact name displayed as “The Alley You Can Never Walk to the End Of.”
Back then, Cheng Xiang had changed it herself on Tao Tianran’s phone, saying it was good luck, as if the two of them would never break up.
Tao Tianran’s gaze dropped.
The chat window showed their final exchange:
【Tonight, eat tomato brisket or brisket tomato?】
【Hahaha, just kidding.】
【What I meant to ask: Tonight, eat tomato brisket or cowpea ribs?】
Tao Tianran: 【Tomato brisket.】
Cheng Xiang: 【Tao Tianran, could you be a little cuter? Every time you reply on WeChat there’s no tone and no stickers.】
Tao Tianran: 【Mm.】
Cheng Xiang: 【???】
【Hahahahaha. Tao Tianran, how are you this cute! Alright, go be busy, see you at home tonight~】
【Squirrel gnawing corn.gif】
Tao Tianran had lost count of how many times she’d read this conversation.
It was only much later that she realized: in her chat window with Cheng Xiang, the last message was always from Cheng Xiang. Just like when they talked on the phone—Cheng Xiang was always the one to hang up last.
Even though it was the day after this conversation about what to have for dinner.
Out of nowhere, Cheng Xiang broke up with her.
Footnotes
- A Chinese street-food hot pot common in northern China; the Beicheng style is distinguished by its thick sesame-paste base rather than a spicy broth.
- Internet slang for a young actress who commands high online traffic and trending-topic visibility, typically with a massive following but not necessarily top-tier veteran status.
- A line from the Ming dynasty Kunqu opera 'The Peony Pavilion' (《牡丹亭》 Mǔdān Tíng), celebrating an innate, unartificial beauty.
- A genre of Chinese film and television set during the Republican era (1912–1949), characterized by qipao dresses, art-deco glamour, and turbulent romance.
- A simulated ruby in the coveted pigeon-blood-red color associated with Mozambique-origin stones, prized in fine jewelry for their vivid, unheated hue.
- A pun on 'superpower' (chao nengli), replacing the first character with a homophone meaning 'banknote' (chao) to describe the ability to solve any problem simply by being rich.
- Short for 'Character Pairing' or 'Couple Pairing,' referring to an imagined romantic relationship between two characters, often promoted by variety shows for online buzz.
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