The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 38
by Little PandaThe Truth
Tao Tianran recited silently in her heart: Please, please.
「Memories are like a trench coat,
the one that got rained on and didn’t have time to dry.」
Her stomach churning with acid, Tao Tianran ate the expired compressed biscuits.
Compressed biscuits always tasted like sawdust, and as she mechanically chewed and swallowed, she couldn’t tell if they had gone bad or not.
She was still alive.
Living just as she had every day since she and Cheng Xiang had broken up.
Beicheng had seen a lot of snow recently. Yi Yu, ever one to cherish her life, kept pushing back her international flight.
That day, she paced her office with her hands behind her back, frantic. “What am I going to do if I can’t reach her?”
Tao Tianran happened to be in her office at the time, preparing to present a design.
Yi Yu stopped in her tracks. “Why aren’t you asking me who I can’t reach?”
“Why should I ask?”
“I can’t reach Shianne!” Yi Yu hissed. “She went to Ghost Laugh Mountain to oversee the factory! What if she ends up dead out there?”
Tao Tianran froze, then said, “My apologies, I’ll report back later.”
She returned to her own office and immediately took out her phone to search for 「Ghost Laugh Mountain」.
Located in the suburbs of Beicheng, its unique geography, surrounded by mountains on three sides, meant that it only rained in the winter, never snowed. Winter was its rainy season.
The weather forecast showed that Ghost Laugh Mountain was being battered by violent winds and torrential rain, and that traffic was paralyzed.
Tao Tianran stood up.
She didn’t know where she was going, not even after she got into her Bentley.
She had been driving for a long time when she glanced at the navigation and realized she was heading toward Ghost Laugh Mountain.
It was snowing heavily that day. The traffic in Beicheng was exceptionally congested, with countless red taillights stopped haphazardly on the roads. Every so often, a driver would stick their head out a window to curse.
By the time she drove into the mountains, it was already dusk. The snow had turned to freezing rain, pitter-pattering against the windshield.
Her high beams could only illuminate about five meters ahead. The geological formation of the three-sided mountain range made it like the bottom of a sunken basin; the wind couldn’t escape, instead howling back and forth as it scoured the rock walls.
Ahead, a dead tree, toppled by the wind, lay across the path. It had struck the mountain rock, its tip splintered into several pieces.
The road up the mountain was completely blocked. If Ghost Laugh Mountain weren’t so remote, there would have been a “No Entry” warning sign at its base.
Tao Tianran hesitated for a second, then pushed open the car door and got out.
The wind tore at the door as if to slam it shut, but she managed to squeeze out. The dense freezing rain immediately drenched her from head to toe. Her black hair stuck to her face, blurring her vision, and the downpour dripped endlessly from her eyelashes.
She walked forward to inspect the log. Thankfully, the end had shattered into several pieces; even with the strength of a single woman, she should be able to move them.
“Nngh—”
Rainwater poured into her ankle boots. Had she ever in her life exerted herself like this?
After a great deal of effort, she cleared a small path. Shivering, she scrambled back into the car, cranked the heat to maximum, and let the rain from her trench coat soak into the leather seat.
The rest of the road up was like that: drive a little, stop a little.
As she spiraled upward, a flash of blue-violet lightning on the horizon seemed to crack right in front of her windshield.
She asked herself in her heart: What are you doing here, Tao Tianran?
But she kept driving, following the road signs until she found the factory’s women’s dormitory area.
Only one of the incredibly simple container-like modular rooms had its lights on.
She got out of her car and staggered toward it. She took a deep breath and got a mouthful of rain.
Slap. Her fingers were nearly numb. She raised a hand and slapped the white-painted door.
She didn’t know if it was the freezing rain or the nerve-calming medication she’d been taking, but her head felt muddled.
She asked herself again: What are you doing here, Tao Tianran?
Who are you looking for?
Slap, slap. She slapped the painted door twice more as the cold rain poured relentlessly between her lips.
Finally, someone answered.
The wind seemed ready to tear the small painted door from its hinges. Tao Tianran immediately slipped inside, working with Yu Yusheng to force the door shut.
The person standing before her was, indeed, Yu Yusheng.
But the way she looked at Tao Tianran, her eyelashes fluttering gently—it was so much like Cheng Xiang.
Tao Tianran knew her own black hair was a wretched mess, plastered to her face in dripping strands.
She asked Yu Yusheng, “Are you all right?”
Yu Yusheng actually smiled.
Tao Tianran couldn’t say why she was suddenly angry. Angry at Yu Yusheng, angry at Cheng Xiang, or angry at her past self, who had understood nothing.
Now that she had finally realized she needed to find her Xiao Xiang…
Where could she possibly find her?
Her brow furrowed deeply, and she asked again in a stern tone, “Are you all right or not?”
Yu Yusheng was still smiling that languidly charming smile. With those stunning features, she really didn’t look like Cheng Xiang at all.
Her lips curled. “Is Teacher Tao concerned about me?”
As she spoke, she turned to walk back into the room, as if she thought Tao Tianran was making a mountain out of a molehill.
But the moment she turned, her eyelashes flickered and fell.
Before Tao Tianran could process what she was doing, she had reached out and seized her wrist.
The pads of her fingers, soaked with freezing rain, were so cold. Tao Tianran was trembling, gripping the thrumming pulse in Yu Yusheng’s wrist tightly.
Strong. Vibrant. Alive.
She heard her own voice tremble as she asked, “Are you… Xiao Xiang?”
A deathly silence fell over the room, broken only by the gale and downpour outside, which tore at mountain trees that had to be centuries old.
Yu Yusheng kept her head down for a long time.
Then she turned around, looked at Tao Tianran, and her lovely red lips quirked upward.
Tao Tianran squeezed her eyes shut, reciting in her heart: Please, please.
Let it be a hallucination. Let it be anything.
But Yu Yusheng’s voice sounded by her ear. “How could that be?”
Tao Tianran’s eyes snapped open.
It really didn’t take many words to completely shatter a person’s hope.
Just like that time she had come home to find Cheng Xiang giggling at a sitcom, hugging her knees as she stared at the TV screen and said, “Let’s break up.”
Just like now, as she gripped Yu Yusheng’s wrist like a final, life-saving straw, and Yu Yusheng said, simply, “How could that be?”
“But… but how did you know about the little mole on my waist hollow?”
Cheng Xiang’s lips curled again. “Have you forgotten, Teacher Tao? Cheng Xiang and I had an investment partnership. Of course I know what she knew.”
Tao Tianran’s hand fell, empty, to her side.
The next morning, the rain gradually subsided.
Cheng Xiang was curled up like a shrimp on the narrow single bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, facing the whitewashed wall of the modular room.
She had lain like that all night, not daring to turn around.
On the floor behind her, Tao Tianran had made a pallet. Cheng Xiang had extra blankets; Tao Tianran had spread one on the floor and haphazardly wrapped the other around herself.
She knew Tao Tianran was also facing away from her, her gaunt spine rising and falling faintly with each breath. But she didn’t know if Tao Tianran was asleep, or if she had a fever. She didn’t know if Tao Tianran had believed her nonsensical story or not.
Tao Tianran had lain there all night, perfectly quiet.
The sky slowly brightened. The daylight, swaying with the shadows of the pine trees, filtered in through the window. Cheng Xiang still didn’t move, her eyes fixed on the undulating texture of the wall.
Until her phone began to vibrate.
It seemed the signal was back.
She answered it, keeping her voice low. “Hello.”
It was the foreman stationed at the factory. He said he’d contacted the rescue team from the base of the mountain and they were coming to pick her up. He asked if she was all right.
“I’m fine. But there’s another person with me. Two of us in total.”
“Who?” The surprise on the other end was obvious.
Cheng Xiang paused. “Another designer colleague.”
She hung up, still curled up like a shrimp.
Until there was a knock on the door.
She shot up from the bed, pulling on her coat as she went to open the door. Her long, curly hair was casually tucked into her collar, which, paired with her slightly dirty cotton-padded jacket, made her look like a bohemian gypsy.
The room had no heating; she usually used a small space heater, but the power had gone out last night, and it was as cold as an icebox.
Tao Tianran had already sat up from the floor. Her hair was mostly dry, stuck messily to the sides of her face. Her trench coat showed no obvious water stains, but it looked damp, and therefore heavy.
Like a memory from the past, weighing down on her, too heavy to bear.
Before opening the door, Cheng Xiang asked in a low voice, “Do you have a fever?”
“No,” Tao Tianran replied.
Despite the fact that her face was a mess of pale exhaustion.
Cheng Xiang opened the door, and Tao Tianran stood up and walked behind her.
The man outside asked, “Are you two designer teachers all right?”
Cheng Xiang didn’t answer. It was Tao Tianran who stepped out first.
The rain was still drizzling outside, soaking the shoulders of Tao Tianran’s trench coat and spreading into a dark patch. She looked down at the car parked outside, almost completely buried under fallen leaves and broken branches.
The rescuer asked, “Whose car is this? In this state, I don’t even know if insurance will cover it.” Then he added half-jokingly, “Surely no one drove it up the mountain in last night’s weather?”
Tao Tianran said nothing.
The two of them got into a van and sat in the back. A rescuer handed each of them an aluminum thermal blanket. Cheng Xiang had only ever seen these things in outdoor documentaries and was a little intrigued. She unfolded it with a loud rustle and draped it over herself. It really did have a warming effect.
She glanced at Tao Tianran.
Tao Tianran had also opened the thermal blanket and draped it over herself. She clutched it at her chest, her head leaning against the car window. It was impossible to tell if she was really asleep or just feigning sleep. A strand of half-damp black hair fell along her pale cheek.
Cheng Xiang had never seen Tao Tianran look so wretched.
The road had been cleared, and the drive down the mountain was relatively smooth.
From a distance, Cheng Xiang saw a car parked at the foot of the mountain with several people standing beside it holding umbrellas.
It was Yi Yu with a few of her assistants. The moment Cheng Xiang got out of the van, Yi Yu tossed her umbrella aside and ran over. “Holy shit, you scared me to death!”
Cheng Xiang grinned. “I didn’t realize you were such a humane capitalist.”
“What do you mean, humane? I was just afraid I’d have to pay out the nose if anything happened to you,” Yi Yu said. She glanced at Tao Tianran, who had gotten out of the van behind Cheng Xiang. At first, she didn’t react, but a second look made her eyes bulge like saucers.
Her finger trembled as she pointed at Tao Tianran. “What are you doing here?”
Tao Tianran remained silent.
Yi Yu glanced at the assistants beside her and, with great effort, suppressed her urge to eat melon1.
She waved a hand, and an assistant poured several cups of ginger tea from a thermos, handing one to Cheng Xiang in a disposable cup. “Quick, drink this. Warm up.”
Cheng Xiang took a sip and nearly spat the ginger tea out. “Why is it crackling?”
“Ha!” Yi Yu puffed out her chest proudly. “I added popping candy! How’s that for a kick? To wake you up, bring you back to your senses.” She turned to her assistant. “Does that count as a single rhyme?”
“No,” the assistant said, cutting her down.
“Hey!” Yi Yu huffed in frustration.
Cheng Xiang stole a glance at Tao Tianran.
Aside from her pale face, nothing seemed out of the ordinary on the surface.
Yi Yu had them get into her car and asked Cheng Xiang, “Should I take you home to rest first?”
Cheng Xiang shot her a sidelong glance. “Don’t you dare offer me thirty thousand this time.”
An assistant whispered, “Yesterday, the Big Boss said she’d give three million.”
Yi Yu immediately slapped her on the shoulder. “That was yesterday! Shianne is fine now, isn’t she?”
She’s still a wicked, evil capitalist.
Cheng Xiang’s lips curled into a smile.
When they reached the Yu family villa, she waved goodbye to Yi Yu and got out. Yi Yu said to her, “Get some good rest. We can talk about whatever it is at the office another day.”
Cheng Xiang glanced through the half-open car door at the back row, where Tao Tianran was still feigning sleep with her eyes closed.
“Okay,” Cheng Xiang said.
She closed the door for them.
Yi Yu turned to look at Tao Tianran in the back. “And what about you, Teacher Tao? If you tell me you’re going back to the office to work right now, I’ll be so moved I could die.”
Tao Tianran, eyes still closed, said, “Not the office. Take me home.”
Yi Yu let out a breath. She’s still a normal person, then.
The next morning, Yi Yu arrived at the office at seven-thirty.
Everyone who came in after her exchanged glances, whispering to each other, “Is our company going bankrupt?”
Ten minutes before clock-in time, Tao Tianran walked into the company as usual, carrying her Hermès Bolide.
This time, Yi Yu didn’t even send an assistant. She intercepted Tao Tianran at the entrance and dragged her into her own office.
Sitting in her leather executive chair, she peered at Tao Tianran through the facets of an enormous tourmaline. “All right, tell me what happened.”
What was it about Tao Tianran’s face? Even viewed through every facet of the gemstone, magnified and distorted, it still appeared cold, beautiful, and flawless.
Like the gem itself.
But Tao Tianran said, “I would be very grateful if you didn’t ask.”
Yi Yu was taken aback.
It was the first time she had ever heard Tao Tianran speak in that tone.
She felt strangely flustered and nodded in agreement. “Fine, I won’t ask.”
Tao Tianran stood up and left her office.
Cheng Xiang came to the company two days later.
She was good-natured and had brought milk tea from the new shop downstairs, remembering who preferred milk green tea and who preferred Dianhong.
Yi Yu had her assistant summon her to the office.
Cheng Xiang smiled and handed her a cup of oolong.
Yi Yu pierced the seal with the straw, stirred it a bit, and sucked up a couple of pearls, chewing on them.
Then she raised her eyes. “So?”
“I’m here to resign,” Cheng Xiang said with a smile. “I’ve pretty much wrapped up the progress at the mountain factory.”
She took a printed report from her bag and placed it on Yi Yu’s desk. “I’ve sent the digital version to your email,” she added.
“You’re still resigning?” Yi Yu felt the milk tea was a bit hot. She took a Hetian jade disc from her desk and placed it between the cup and her palm.
The sight made Cheng Xiang’s heart ache. Was this person any different from someone who used a Qianlong-era famille rose vase to pickle vegetables at home?
Wait, Cheng Xiang decided to ask. “You don’t actually use a Qianlong-era famille rose vase to pickle vegetables at home, do you?”
Yi Yu thought for a moment. “I think the pickling jar at my grandma’s house might be one of those…”
Hey!
She slapped Yi Yu’s desk. “Stop, just stop.”
Yi Yu asked, “But why do you still want to resign?”
“I’ve just thought things through.”
“Thought through that you don’t want to be a jewelry designer anymore?”
“Not that.”
It’s just that I’ve thought it through. I don’t want to be entangled with Tao Tianran anymore.
Especially after Tao Tianran had asked that question: “Are you… Xiao Xiang?”
What was that all about? She wasn’t about to believe that Tao Tianran was so deeply in love she couldn’t let go.
In the end, every time you asked, “Do you love me?”, whether spoken aloud or not, wasn’t the battle already lost the moment the question formed in your mind?
She placed the last cup of milk tea from the bag on the desk. “Please give this to Teacher Tao for me.”
Yi Yu glanced at the flavor label. “Biscuit crumbs instead of pearls? Isn’t that too sweet? I don’t think Teacher Tao will like it.”
Cheng Xiang’s lips curved into a smile. “Who cares what she likes.”
She returned to her desk to pack up her things.
She was just that kind of person, with a lot of odds and ends. She thought for a moment, ran downstairs, got a cardboard box from a delivery guy, and went back up to pack.
Her colleagues gathered around. “Shianne, we heard you’re resigning?”
“That’s right.”
While she was packing, Yi Yu’s assistant delivered the milk tea to Tao Tianran’s office. “Teacher Tao, this is from Shianne. She came in today to process her resignation.”
Tao Tianran had been about to say that she didn’t drink milk tea.
But she glanced at the flavor label. “Leave it here.”
After the assistant left, she pierced the plastic seal with a straw. Peeking through the half-closed blinds, she saw Cheng Xiang chatting and laughing with her colleagues.
The cookie crumbs slid down with the milk tea, and the taste in her mouth was damp, just like the compressed biscuits.
Cheng Xiang had finally achieved her teenage dream.
She wore a soft satin shirt that accentuated her curves, paired with wide-leg suit pants and a pair of delicate high heels. With her voluminous curly hair and bright red lips, she swept up her box, tossing her hair. “Well, I’m off, then,” she announced to her colleagues. “The mountains are high and the waters long, we’ll meet again someday2.”
She had finally gotten to be the cool, professional woman from a TVB Hong Kong drama3 making a stylish exit.
Wait, that wasn’t quite how a cool professional woman said goodbye.
Before leaving, Cheng Xiang took one last look at Tao Tianran’s private office.
The blinds were half-closed, obscuring the view. She could only make out Tao Tianran’s slender silhouette leaning back in her office chair.
Cheng Xiang tore her gaze away and walked out of the Kunpu office building.
It was three in the afternoon, still a while before quitting time, so there weren’t many people walking around the CBD.
She bought another milk tea with biscuit crumbs at the bottom, sat down on a bench by the road, and placed the cardboard box beside her.
She tilted her head back. The glass-walled skyscraper soared into the clouds. The sky, clear for the first time after a winter snow, was the color of a porcelain blue vase.
The biscuit crumbs, softened by the milk tea, tasted a lot like compressed biscuits when they landed in her mouth.
Cheng Xiang squinted against the sun, chewing slowly.
She thought about the last time she had gone to Tao Tianran’s place. She had gone crazy, buying box after box of toilet paper, tissues, and sanitary pads from a livestream.
And many boxes of compressed biscuits.
Tao Tianran’s residential complex had butler service, but Cheng Xiang had been too embarrassed to trouble them. She borrowed a small trolley from the property management office and hauled everything back to Tao Tianran’s home, trip after trip.
Perhaps even then, she had a faint premonition.
Her relationship with Tao Tianran wouldn’t last.
From the very beginning, their relationship had been about her standing on her tiptoes, trying desperately to reach, chasing with all her might. The moment she got tired and let go, it would end.
She didn’t think Tao Tianran would even ask her “why.”
Placing the compressed biscuits on the storage shelf, she’d felt an urge to laugh. She thought she was being so neurotic.
The toilet paper, tissues, and sanitary pads—Tao Tianran could at least use those. But compressed biscuits? She couldn’t think of a single scenario, short of the apocalypse or a zombie outbreak, where Tao Tianran would have a reason to eat them.
And yet.
Cheng Xiang had carefully placed the compressed biscuits on the shelf.
Tao Tianran definitely wouldn’t like canned luncheon meat, so compressed biscuits were the longest-lasting food Cheng Xiang could think of.
I know the compressed biscuits will expire, the toilet paper will expire, even the sanitary pads will expire. Even little turtles don’t live for a hundred years like I thought they did.
I just hope that after I leave, my heart can stay with you for as long as possible.
I can’t afford to give you anything expensive, so I’ll give you lots and lots of toilet paper and sanitary pads.
And a lamp that will always be lit on your way home.
In the days after I’m gone, I hope you, my TTR, will be well.
Cheng Xiang had only one thought now: she wanted to figure out why she had inexplicably woken up in Yu Yusheng’s body.
In novels and TV shows, transmigration always had a trigger, right?
Even in that wildly popular drama, the female lead had to listen to Wu Bai’s “so for now, close your eyes4” to travel into the body of another girl who seemingly had no connection to her.
Ever since she had laid down the law with Zhuwei and Yu Yuce, she had been like an invisible person in this house.
When a home became oppressive, it could be truly oppressive.
They didn’t starve her or deny her anything. But everyone looked right through her. They would chat and make small talk among themselves as if she were superfluous.
It wasn’t that Cheng Xiang hadn’t thought about moving out. She was loaded now, right?
But if she left the Yu residence, she would have even fewer clues about the original Yu Yusheng. How would she ever find the truth?
She sat cross-legged on the soft, round bed, racking her brain to recall the moment of the car accident.
First of all, she was certain she hadn’t heard Teacher Wu Bai’s “so for now, close your eyes.”
Wait, wait a minute.
Cheng Xiang’s brow furrowed. She thought she really had heard a song at that moment. What was it?
It was something like, “See the iron hooves thunder! Trampling ten thousand miles of rivers and mountains! I really want to live for another five hundred years!”
Yes, she had definitely heard that song.
All your senses are magnified before you die. She could even hear the strained, guttural quality in Teacher Han Lei’s voice and the buzzing static in the accompaniment.
What… did that mean?
Cheng Xiang was a bit stumped. She hadn’t lived for another five hundred years. She had died instantly.
Oh, I figured it out.
Cheng Xiang remembered there was a mobile phone store for the elderly outside the market where she’d gone to buy liangpi. A cheap, domestic-brand phone for seniors hung by the door like a loudspeaker, and that day it had been blasting “Borrow Another 500 Years from Heaven5.”
Cheng Xiang felt a little deflated. Her fingers unconsciously drew circles on the bed.
Were there any other clues?
She remembered that as the truck rushed toward her, the paint on its front was scraped, and next to the black plastic-shrouded headlight, there was some graffiti scrawled by the driver’s daughter: “xxybzd.”
What did “xxybzd” mean?
Xiong Xiong ye bu zhi dao? “Little Bear also doesn’t know”?
…What kind of nonsense was that?
Cheng Xiang clutched her head. If a person’s brain was a walnut kernel, hers had now overloaded and burnt to a crisp, turning into a piece of candied amber walnut.
Thinking like this was getting her nowhere.
She had to find clues from Eldest Miss Yu herself.
She looked around the room. She had already searched every nook and cranny, turned over everything that could and couldn’t be turned over.
She picked up her phone and called Yi Yu. “Hey, former boss.”
“What, bored already? Want to come back to work?” Yi Yu’s voice sounded lazy.
Like hell she wanted to work. Did Yi Yu really think she had the soul of a corporate slave6?
She said to Yi Yu, “Don’t think I don’t know you’re playing with that ridiculously expensive tourmaline from your safe right now.”
Yi Yu paused.
She was actually playing with it?
Yi Yu said guiltily, “Don’t tell Teacher Tao.”
A fine, dense prickling sensation went through Cheng Xiang’s heart.
For a long time now, she had been deliberately trying not to think about Tao Tianran.
She cleared her throat. “I’m not trying to come back to work. I wanted to ask you, that time we went to Thailand on a business trip, wasn’t there a spirit medium there?”
Yi Yu let out a loud laugh. “You believe that stuff? She told me I was fated for romance, but all I got were frogs croaking outside my bedroom window every day. It sounded just like ‘all alone, all alone’7—”
“Then what about that time with you and Qin Ziqiao…”
“Shush! Stop right there!” Yi Yu interrupted. “Thirty thousand. Hush money.”
“How about I give you thirty thousand, and you let me eat some melon?” Wow, it felt great to be rich!
“Maybe some other time,” Yi Yu said evasively.
“It’s not that I really believe in psychics or anything,” Cheng Xiang said. “I’m just out of ideas, so I thought I’d give it a try.”
“Try what? How to thaw Teacher Tao’s iceberg heart?” Yi Yu teased.
Quite the opposite.
The fingertip Cheng Xiang had been using to draw circles on the bed stopped—if she could figure out why she had transmigrated into Yu Yusheng’s body, perhaps she could better understand how she should live this second life.
And then, she would forget Tao Tianran.
Footnotes
- Chī guā (吃瓜), literally 'to eat melon,' is popular internet slang for watching drama unfold or gossiping.
- Shān gāo shuǐ cháng, hòu huì yǒu qī (山高水长，后会有期) is a classic farewell from historical and martial arts genres, literally meaning 'The mountains are high and the waters are long, we'll meet again someday.'
- TVB is the premier television broadcaster in Hong Kong, and its dramas were widely popular across Asia. The 'cool professional woman' (dushi liren) is a popular media archetype of a stylish, independent, modern city woman.
- A lyric from the song 'Last Dance' by Wu Bai & China Blue. The song became an iconic plot device in the 2019 Taiwanese time-travel romance drama “Someday or One Day”.
- A powerful and classic 2004 song by singer Han Lei, 《Xiàng Tiān Zài Jiè Wǔbǎi Nián》, famously used as the theme for the historical drama “Kangxi Dynasty”.
- Niúmǎ (牛马), literally 'cattle and horses,' is modern internet slang used by overworked employees to self-deprecatingly refer to themselves as beasts of burden or corporate slaves.
- The Chinese word for 'all alone' is gūguǎ (孤寡), which mimics the sound of a frog's croak.
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