The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 36

The Small Mole

That one on the waist hollow.

「At the time, we both thought,
that it was just an ordinary day in our lives.」

            

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Recently, Tao Tianran had been willing to accompany Yi Yu to a few friends’ gatherings.

Simply because staying at home all the time made her feel as though she didn’t even exist.

Yi Yu’s social circle was only so large; the second- and third-generation wealthy heirs always played together, as it was safer. At the drinking party, Yi Yu caught a glimpse of Chen Chuxia from afar: “That girl used to have a crush on you, right?”

            

Tao Tianran didn’t answer.

“Look at you.” Yi Yu’s eyebrows lifted. “Elder Xie tried to introduce you to someone, and you didn’t want it. What exactly are you thinking?”

Tao Tianran: “I’m not thinking anything.”

            

“Then, what about Shianne?”

Tao Tianran frowned, the movement barely perceptible.

She disliked Yu Yusheng’s English name. Shianne sounded far too similar to a certain single Chinese character.

            

She asked Yi Yu in return, “What about Yu Yusheng?”

“Someone like you never understands feelings, right?” Yi Yu rubbed her wine glass, watching her reaction from the corner of her eye. “If Shianne were interested in you—I’m just saying if—what would you think?”

Tao Tianran held her wine glass, her slender wrist giving it a gentle swirl.

            

“Drink a little less.” Yi Yu couldn’t help but remind her. “Did you used to love drinking this much?”

Tao Tianran thought to herself: What was she supposed to think?

With anyone else, she could easily evade them, easily reject them.

            

But Yu Yusheng was so similar to Cheng Xiang, yet also so different.

It left her stuck between approaching and avoiding, caught in a dilemma.

She told Yi Yu, “I’m stepping out for a moment.”

            

“What for? It’s not like you smoke, why do you keep running outside?”

“Just getting some air.”

Tao Tianran hadn’t expected that the very person who had just appeared in her conversation with Yi Yu would be standing under the streetlight at this moment. With a cigarette wedged between her fingers and a deeply charming smile lifting the corners of her lips, she raised a hand toward her. “Hola.”

            

Tao Tianran paused her steps, then walked over. “I didn’t know you were here too.”

Yu Yusheng lifted a hand to casually tousle her thick, curly hair. Leaning closer to her side, she seemed to give a light sniff. “Why are you always drinking so much alcohol?”

Tao Tianran replied coolly, “And you? Why are you always smoking so many cigarettes?”

            

Yu Yusheng curled her lips into a smile.

Her cat-like face was truly too captivating. Seen up close under the light, she actually didn’t look like Cheng Xiang at all.

But as she slowly exhaled a thin stream of smoke, the haze wreathed around her beautiful face, making her look like someone walking straight out of a memory.

            

Tao Tianran suddenly asked, “Have you ever eaten a certain kind of apple? Very small, green, and very tart.”

In truth, ever since returning from their business trip to Gangdao, the two hadn’t interacted much.

Even if they accidentally bumped into each other in the company pantry, it was just a nod as they brushed past one another.

            

Yu Yusheng probably never expected her to suddenly bring up such a topic. For a single second, her expression went blank with stun.

She stared unblinkingly, observing every minuscule reaction from Yu Yusheng.

Finally, that momentary stun washed over Yu Yusheng’s face like neon lights reflecting across a car window. Yu Yusheng tapped the cigarette between her fingers, and the ash fell with a soft rustle, like the embers of burned-out time.

            

Yu Yusheng curled her lips in a bewitching smile. “Teacher Tao, nowadays everyone eats genetically improved fruit. It’s so sweet. Who would still want to eat that kind of tart little fruit?”

Tao Tianran: “Is that so.”

Right then, a “meow” sounded from the corner of the wall.

            

They both looked back to see a scrawny calico cat slip out.

Subconsciously, Yu Yusheng had already stubbed out her cigarette. Having spent some time with her, Tao Tianran knew her personality was actually rather undisciplined and domineering. Yet now, as if afraid of startling the cat, she softened her footsteps and walked over. “You poor little thing.”

She gazed around, as if searching for any convenience stores that were still open, murmuring, “I’m going to go buy some cat food.”

            

Tao Tianran: “I have some in my car.”

Yu Yusheng’s movement to step away paused, and she looked over at her.

Tao Tianran’s naturally distant face was bathed in the cool light of the streetlamp.

            

Yu Yusheng parted her lips slightly, pursed them, then relaxed. “Then let’s go. We’ll get it from Teacher Tao’s car.”

Tao Tianran opened the trunk, took out the cat food stored inside, and handed it to Yu Yusheng.

Yu Yusheng took it and walked back to the corner of the wall. Dressed in an overly exquisite soft satin shirt and wide-leg suit pants, her posture as she crouched down to feed the stray cat was nonetheless highly practiced.

            

Tao Tianran stood behind her, lowering her gaze to watch her slowly fluttering eyelashes as she looked at the stray cat.

“Teacher Tao,” she suddenly said.

“What is it?”

            

“Why do you have cat food in your trunk?”

“Is that very strange?”

“I just think someone like Teacher Tao doesn’t look like the type to feed stray cats.”

            

“I don’t look like a good person?”

Yu Yusheng smiled. “You look like someone who doesn’t know how to love.”

Tao Tianran stared at her softly trembling eyelashes. After a long time, she finally said, “I suppose so.”

            

With that, she turned and headed back toward the bar.

“Where is Teacher Tao going?”

“It’s too late. I’m leaving first.”

            

Tao Tianran didn’t even know what her hurried footsteps were fleeing from.

What sprang to mind was the day Cheng Xiang brought up breaking up with her.

That had truly been an overly ordinary day. Ordinary to the point where countless days in the past had been spent exactly like it, and countless days in the future would be spent exactly like it—so ordinary that you would never have thought it would thereby become an impassable watershed in your life.

            

She remembered coming home from work to find Cheng Xiang sitting on the sofa with her knees pulled to her chest. A sitcom was playing on the TV.

Cheng Xiang’s voice rang out just like that, light and quiet: “Tao Tianran, let’s break up.”

There was no build-up whatsoever, thus leaving one entirely without defense.

            

Tao Tianran had just taken a drink of soda water from the fridge. The icy, prickly sensation caught in her throat.

A single sentence surfaced in her mind: Why is this happening again?

She had moved from her grandmother’s old house with the ditch outside the door, to the home on the sloping road, and then to the luxury mansion in Banshan.

            

The chapters of her life had been turned over one by one just like that, splintered and disjointed from one another without rhyme or reason.

But why was it that the part she thought would never pass—the part where she believed she could finally stay rooted—was now going to pass in exactly the same way?

In the past, she had never asked too many questions. Just like when she moved away from her grandmother’s house, and the normally strict old woman had stood in the fading sunset to watch her go; or when she moved away from the home on the sloping road, and the little girl who had once acted as her playmate hid in the corner peeking at her. She had never asked about any of it.

            

What did it matter if she asked? Throughout all her constant uprootings, she had long since understood: what couldn’t be kept, simply couldn’t be kept.

But at this moment, her throat tightened, and she found that the piercing, icy chill of the soda water had traveled all the way from her throat to her fingertips.

She asked Cheng Xiang softly, “Have you thought this through?”

            

“Mm.” Cheng Xiang sat on the sofa, continuing to watch the sitcom, giggling out loud.

“Okay.” Tao Tianran nodded and began to pack her suitcase, without saying another word.

This was how it should be, wasn’t it?

            

How could the sunlight ever stop for a glacier? Sunlight only moved according to its own laws, equally illuminating the world.

When she dragged her suitcase out of their rented apartment, Tao Tianran looked back.

The setting sun reflected aslant on the horizon, and the sides of the streets were filled with crowds returning home from grocery shopping.

            

She stood by the road with her suitcase, hailing a cab. Her thin shadow was cast onto the pavement by the sunset, only to be trampled over by passing children.

A long time later, she received a call from Director Ma. “Tianran.”

Director Ma’s tone carried a sob. “Xiao Xiang has passed away.”

            

Tao Tianran stood in the corridor outside the company’s meeting room, the unfiltered glare of the spotlights stabbing straight into her eyes.

She thought back to the day she dragged her suitcase away from the rented apartment. It had been early winter. It hadn’t yet snowed, but the frigid chill had brought out an astringent scent in the air, smelling just like those small green apples they had eaten in Kuncheng.

At the time, she had actually believed that it was just another ordinary day in her life where she experienced yet another parting.

            

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That evening, Tao Tianran took the cat food out of her car’s trunk to give to Yu Yusheng. Yu Yusheng had said, “Teacher Tao doesn’t look like the type to feed stray cats.”

Tao Tianran’s tongue caught.

The person who fed cats had never been her. It was Cheng Xiang, who was always wearing her Pikachu onesie pajamas, going downstairs to feed the stray cats in the neighborhood.

            

So the imprints Cheng Xiang had left upon her were never just limited to her Beicheng accent¹ when saying “weir.”

Leaving the bar at a pace resembling a fleeing run, Tao Tianran called a designated driver and returned to her residential neighborhood.

To get from the underground garage to her home, she had to cut through a section of the neighborhood. The towering, old-fashioned streetlights always looked like an aging moon.

            

She was carrying her Bolide² home when she saw the neighborhood maintenance worker perched on a ladder, replacing a bulb for a streetlight.

Upon seeing her, he greeted her: “Miss Tao.”

Tao Tianran nodded in response.

            

“Is your younger cousin doing well?”

Tao Tianran froze.

“You know, the girl with the slender limbs, the one whose eyes crinkle up when she smiles,” the maintenance worker prompted. “Your cousin.”

            

Tao Tianran’s fingers gripping her bag tightened in an instant.

He was talking about Cheng Xiang.

The maintenance worker climbed down from the ladder, shouldered it, and walked over to Tao Tianran. “Didn’t your cousin always come to help you water your flowers before? I’ve run into her quite a few times. I haven’t seen her in a while. Is she doing well?”

            

Tao Tianran parted her lips.

In the past, Cheng Xiang had a key to her home.

When she was busy with work, Cheng Xiang would say it was too much of a pity to let the garden go barren, so she would occasionally drop by to water the flowers for her. After returning from her house the very first time, Cheng Xiang had sat silently on the sofa, hugging her knees. She had asked her what was wrong.

            

Cheng Xiang had tipped her face up, gently biting her lower lip. “Tao Tianran, you can afford a house like that. Why are you living with me in a rented apartment?”

Tao Tianran hadn’t known why Cheng Xiang would refer to herself as her cousin.

She remembered Cheng Xiang asking her once: “Why can you afford a house like this?”

            

“My family paid for it.”

“Oh.” Cheng Xiang had nodded. “Will your family come here too, then?”

“No.”

            

Cheng Xiang nodded again and didn’t say anything more.

Back in the present, the maintenance worker stood before Tao Tianran. “That cousin of yours has a pretty good heart. We bumped into each other twice, and she asked if I’d had breakfast yet, and even shared the steamed buns she’d bought with me.”

That was just how Cheng Xiang was.

            

Other people always called her foolish. She would always stand with her hands on her hips, letting out a bright laugh as she declared: “How am I foolish? I’m highly calculating, alright?”

The maintenance worker suddenly smiled, pointing at the streetlight behind him. “Miss Tao, do you know why this lamp on your way home has never once broken?”

“Truth is, the wiring in this neighborhood is old and very hard to manage. We’re constantly fixing things here and there.”

            

“It was your cousin who pleaded with me to pay a little extra attention to your path every time I ran maintenance.”

“She said you were always alone on your way home, and always alone once you got back. That it wasn’t safe.”

Tao Tianran parted her lips once more. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry, I drank a little too much tonight.”

            

Her heels clacked as she hurried forward.

Arriving home, she discarded her high heels; one stood upright while the other fell sideways in the entryway. Finding that her left hand was trembling slightly, she hurriedly twisted open a bottle of whiskey, poured it into a square tumbler, and threw it down her throat in a rush.

When had she started keeping alcohol in the entryway cabinet too? It was as if she couldn’t afford to wait a single extra second.

            

Her fingers gripped the glass loosely. Closing her eyes, she leaned against the cabinet, feeling her stomach begin to burn.

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Xie Yongji invited Tao Tianran out once.

“Xiao Tao, don’t think I’m trying to play matchmaker for you again. I’m not that kind of annoying old lady. Our collaborative design is related to crustal movement, isn’t it? I just wanted to ask you, if you have time, should we take a stroll through the geological museum together?”

            

“Understood, Elder Xie.”

Tao Tianran’s attire always possessed a minimalist elegance. In the autumn and winter, for instance, she always wore a trench coat that reached her ankles, the front left open, paired with a set of stiletto heels. Standing at the museum entrance, the thin, piercing sunlight slanted down upon her.

When Xie Yongji saw her, she immediately clicked her tongue twice.

            

There weren’t many visitors at the museum on a weekday, only a group of elementary schoolers in uniform. Passing through the busiest section—the mammoth exhibit—they arrived at the purely educational exhibition area for crustal movement.

The surroundings abruptly fell quiet.

Tao Tianran liked these stones—not only because they could incubate gemstones, but because they were immutable substances.

            

Until they walked into a video screening hall.

Xie Yongji called out to her, “Xiao Tao, have a seat and take a look.”

With the elementary schoolers gathered in the mammoth hall, there was hardly anyone in this area. Row after row of empty seats reflected the blue light of the screen. Xie Yongji casually picked an empty seat in the third row. Tao Tianran didn’t sit down. She had brought a lot of reference materials that day and was carrying a tote bag; she merely leaned aslant against the screening hall’s wall.

            

The entire space was very dark. The female narrator’s voice carried the placid tone typical of educational documentaries:

“During the Earth’s geological history, it has undergone a total of three major ice ages.”

“These are the Sinian glaciation 600 million years ago, the Permo-Carboniferous glaciation 250 million years ago, and the Quaternary glaciation that began 2 million years ago.”

            

“Because the absorption of heat by glaciers has a lagging effect.”

“From the time solar activity became frequent until the end of humanity’s last ice age, a total of 8,000 years elapsed.”

Tao Tianran rested her shoulder against the wall. Her left arm was crossed horizontally over her chest, while her right hand hung down, her thumb repeatedly flicking the pinky ring on her little finger.

            

Speaking of this ring.

It was during her and Cheng Xiang’s trip to Kuncheng. Cheng Xiang had taken the lead, and the two of them visited the renowned local tourist street.

Cheng Xiang: “Ah, this, this, this…”

            

Tao Tianran: “What is it?”

Cheng Xiang: “This isn’t really what I had in mind.”

In Cheng Xiang’s imagination, this was supposed to be an incredibly artistic street, filled with niche cafes and avant-garde bookstores, the kind of place where Tao Tianran could walk right in and take beautiful photos.

            

But in reality, there was hardly any difference between this place and the tourist streets found in every other city. Vendors selling flower cakes, tuckahoe pastries, and handmade soaps. Young shop girls stood at their storefronts with listless expressions, shaking little plastic hand-clappers as they called out to customers.

An older woman enthusiastically rushed up to them, holding up a laminated piece of cardboard. “Little sisters, want some travel photos taken?”

“No, no, no, no photos.” Cheng Xiang grabbed Tao Tianran and dragged her away.

            

Chinese people, after all, most feared the four words: “since we’re already here.”

Gritting her teeth, Cheng Xiang pulled Tao Tianran into a silver shop by the roadside. Her gaze swept over a massive collection of silver earrings. “You’re a jewelry designer. Why don’t you ever wear any jewelry?”

But out of the corner of her eye, she kept glancing at the silver rings off to the side—bouncing here and there, like a dragonfly skipping over water.

            

She wanted to buy a ring for Tao Tianran, but she didn’t dare.

They hadn’t been dating for very long at the time; she was afraid of coming across as too impatient and eager.

Thus, she comforted herself in her heart: Earrings are pretty good too.

            

Tao Tianran’s gaze drifted over.

Cheng Xiang’s heart leaped into her throat, thumping wildly. “If you think these earrings are too flashy…”

Oh, how calculating she was! She had a backup plan. She had led the conversation up to this point, and next she would say: “I just saw a handmade silver shop next door where you can forge your own jewelry. How about I go make a pair of earrings for you?”

            

Tao Tianran nodded. “The earrings are a little too flashy.”

Cheng Xiang’s mental script was just about to leave her lips.

But Tao Tianran picked up one of the most minimalist plain silver bands from the side. She tried sliding it onto her middle finger, but the size was a bit too small, so she slipped it onto her right pinky instead.

            

Cheng Xiang stared, dumbfounded.

Tao Tianran had already turned her head to ask the shopkeeper: “How much?”

“Seventy-six yuan.”

            

Tao Tianran looked at Cheng Xiang. “Aren’t you going to gift it to me?”

Cheng Xiang froze, then hurriedly whipped out her phone. “Hey, hey, hey, I’ll do it, I’ll do it! Lady boss, I’m paying!”

Coming out of the silver shop, Cheng Xiang squeezed her way to the roadside to buy a flower cake. It was so cloyingly sweet it nearly glued her throat shut. With a few crumbs of flaky pastry clinging to the corner of her mouth, she covertly glanced at the plain silver band on Tao Tianran’s pinky out of the corner of her eye.

            

It truly all came down to being beautiful.

Tao Tianran didn’t eat flower cakes. She stood by the side of the road with her, holding a bottle of Nongfu Spring mineral water between her fingers. She raised her hand to take a sip, swept back her long, straight black hair, and used the pad of her finger to wipe the pastry crumbs from the corner of Cheng Xiang’s lips. As her right hand dropped back down, the seventy-six-yuan plain band on her pinky looked like a rare, priceless treasure.

This… Cheng Xiang thought to herself. Does Tao Tianran even know what it means to have someone buy a ring for her?

            

Fortunately, she hadn’t suffered from diarrhea anymore that day. Returning to their room at night and showering, she leaned against the headboard and searched on her phone: 【Meaning of pinky rings.】

Are you kidding me! The meaning of a pinky ring is that a person has resolved to stay single?

Cheng Xiang curled her lip and continued searching.

            

Oh, oh, oh! A pinky ring also carries the meaning of guarding one’s chastity for someone else.

She was happy again, letting out a bright laugh. Just then, Tao Tianran stepped out of the bathroom from her shower, catching sight of her expression. “What is it?”

Cheng Xiang lowered her eyes, glancing at the ring on her right pinky. Actually, she really wanted to ask: Shouldn’t you take it off when you shower? What if it tarnishes?

            

But Tao Tianran hadn’t taken it off, so she didn’t bring it up.

Cheng Xiang felt that perhaps Tao Tianran simply didn’t care much about the ring. She didn’t take it off to wash her hands, she didn’t take it off to shower, she didn’t take it off to wash her hair, and she didn’t even take it off when going swimming. But for some unknown reason—whatever magical material this seventy-six-yuan pinky ring was made of—Tao Tianran had worn it just like that for many years. It hadn’t gotten any shinier, but neither had it tarnished.

Tao Tianran never took this ring off again.

            

Later on, she became a highly influential jewelry designer in the industry, with all kinds of luxurious jewelry easily within her grasp, yet she felt they were burdensome. Many people had asked her if there was any special meaning behind this pinky ring, the only piece Teacher Tao was willing to wear.

“It doesn’t mean anything.” Tao Tianran always answered this way.

She had never searched for the meaning of a pinky ring like Cheng Xiang had. It was simply a gift from Cheng Xiang, and so she always wore it.

            

Right now, as Tao Tianran leaned against the screening hall wall, her thumb slowly flicking the pinky ring, she thought to herself: If it hadn’t been Cheng Xiang, would she have been willing to wear a ring given by anyone else?

It took 8,000 years from solar activity to the end of humanity’s last ice age.

How long had it taken from the first time Cheng Xiang turned back to ask to borrow an eraser, to her standing right here, the surging emotions in her heart finally shattering all her defenses?

            

The educational film screening ended. Xie Yongji stood up. “Oh, Xiao Tao, why does your complexion look so awful? Are you feeling unwell?”

Tao Tianran: “Just a stomachache.”

The two walked out of the museum. Xie Yongji cast a glance up at the high, vast sky. “Once a person gets old, they feel like time flies by. It’s almost winter already. I wonder when it will snow this year?”

            

“I remember there was one winter where the first snow fell especially late, right?”

Tao Tianran remained silent for a long time. “Mm.”

It was precisely in that winter that her Xiao Xiang had fallen in the midst of a rustling first snow.

            

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Yu Yuce invited Tao Tianran to his home for dinner.

Tao Tianran knew that she would run into Yu Yusheng there.

When she arrived, she didn’t see that deeply alluring, languid feline face. Yu Yuluo told her, “Shianne has a stomachache. She went upstairs first.”

            

Why didn’t they just call her ‘Yusheng’ even at home, insisting instead on calling her ‘Shianne’?

Tao Tianran heard her own voice saying, “I’ll go up and check on her.”

Dusk drifted down like fog. Yu Yusheng was collapsed deep into the sofa, a book covering her face. Tao Tianran drew closer and took a look; its sage-green cover was slightly yellowed. It was a copy of 《Jane Eyre》.

            

Tao Tianran’s heart hung in her throat.

Because the way Yu Yusheng lay on the sofa with her legs curled up really looked just like Cheng Xiang.

They used to have a sofa in their rented apartment too. Sometimes, when Cheng Xiang grew tired while waiting for her to come home from work, she would fall asleep curled up on the sofa exactly like this.

            

Tao Tianran lifted the copy of 《Jane Eyre》 off Yu Yusheng’s face and read aloud from the pages: “Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?”

Yu Yusheng laughed softly.

She hadn’t actually fallen asleep.

            

Tao Tianran could not have anticipated the developments that followed.

Yu Yusheng closed the distance between them and asked, “Do you really want to be my sister-in-law? Want to hear me call you that?”

Tao Tianran found her throat tightening, yet the fingers gripping the book’s spine loosened. The small antique edition fell to the floor, seemingly kicking up the dust from deep within her memories, lingering around her ankles with a ticklish sensation.

            

Tao Tianran blinked lightly. As that strikingly beautiful, heavy-featured face drew closer and closer, she didn’t look like Cheng Xiang.

But when the thick eyelashes on that face fluttered with a light tremble, she looked far too much like Cheng Xiang.

Tao Tianran felt a ball of fire burning in her stomach. She knew Yu Yusheng’s gaze had fallen on her lips, her eyes tracing the slight protrusion of her upper lip tubercle.

            

Tao Tianran closed her eyes.

It’s you, isn’t it.

She said in her heart: Xiao Xiang, if it’s you, then… anything is fine.

            

But what evidence did she actually have? She had merely seen Yu Yusheng’s fluttering eyelashes and the expression she wore when feeding stray cats. She was just someone sick beyond cure. Yet in the end, Yu Yusheng leaned close to her ear, lowering her voice. “At the Kunpu year-end party this weekend, how about I invite Teacher Tao to dance?”

“Would Teacher Tao wear a backless evening gown?” Yu Yusheng’s dark, husky voice drifted over. “That small red mole on your waist hollow… is the most beautiful.”

Tao Tianran’s breathing abruptly hitched.

            

Yu Yusheng had already walked to the bedroom door, yanking it open to address Yu Yuce, who had been persistently knocking on the door outside. “Come with me.”

Tao Tianran was left standing alone in the room. She lowered her head, her thumb pressing dead against the pinky ring on her little finger.

That small crimson mole on her waist hollow—Cheng Xiang had kissed it, sucked on it, licked it back and forth over and over again.

            

Other than Cheng Xiang, who else could possibly know?!

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