The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 39
by Little PandaSecret Thoughts
Another her in the world.
「That feeling of liking a person so much, it won’t happen again.」
When Cheng Xiang boarded the plane to Thailand, she felt deeply guilty.
She was genuinely afraid of being scammed into some fraud compound, okay!
Her guilt only deepened when she followed the address Yi Yu had given her to find the spirit medium1.
Mainly, she couldn’t quite figure out what she was now. Was she a… ghost? Or something else?
What if the medium struck her with one palm and her soul came popping right out of Yu Yusheng’s body?
It was a yoga cultivation center. Besides people practicing yoga, there were others practicing meditation, practicing qigong2, and even people throwing their bodies against trees while letting out a vigorous “Hah!”
Cheng Xiang watched with amusement: hitting trees—that was a technique the grandpas and grandmas of Beicheng knew well.
She remembered back when she and Tao Tianran rented that tiny fifty-ping3 apartment together.
She’d had no money in her pocket back then. Going to the movies on a date meant waiting for the weekend and carefully calculating group-buying deals. On the rare days when both she and Tao Tianran got off work early, they would go for walks by the river together.
Not far from their rental, there was a small river.
Old folks used to fish there, but after the urban management officers chased them away a few times, the fishing stopped. Instead, they started hanging targets from the willow branches by the riverbank, using homemade slingshots to flick pebbles.
And then there was the tree-hitting.
Hitting with their arms. Hitting with their backs. Hitting with their bellies. All while letting out a vigorous “Hah—!”
Cheng Xiang giggled watching them: “Why is that so funny, Tao Tianran?”
Sometimes Cheng Xiang walked arm-in-arm with Tao Tianran.
Sometimes they walked side by side.
Cheng Xiang turned her head to steal a glance at Tao Tianran. Tao Tianran stood on a rainbow-shaped bridge—probably painted pink originally, Cheng Xiang guessed, now turned gray and weather-beaten after years of wind and sun.
Tao Tianran stood on a drab rainbow, her gaze cool as she watched the group of old folks hitting trees.
Cheng Xiang opened her mouth, but in the end, she never said: “When we’re old, let’s do that too.”
She realized she had never dared to imagine a future with Tao Tianran.
Ugh, heartbroken people shouldn’t think about these things. Every thought was a wound.
She followed the signposts toward the medium’s place—a small cottage with a triangular roof, long thatched grass hanging down, looking quite stylish.
A middle-aged woman with slightly dark skin sat there, eyes closed, a red dot between her brows.
Cheng Xiang hesitated, then walked over.
The woman opened her eyes: “What would you like to know?”
Oh, she spoke Chinese.
Cheng Xiang dragged over a teak chair and sat down: “Can you tell everything?”
“Yes, but first I need to sense your energy.”
She looked Cheng Xiang over and began rummaging through her bag for something.
Cheng Xiang caught a glimpse of the bag: monogrammed LV.
Even spirit mediums use luxury goods…
The medium pulled out a small bottle of essential oil. When she poured it between her palms, warmed it, and reached toward Cheng Xiang’s forehead, Cheng Xiang flinched in fright.
She thought she saw her vision blur for a moment—was it real, or just her nerves playing tricks?
Don’t actually slap her soul right out of Yu Yusheng’s body!
But the medium’s hand only hovered lightly before her forehead: “The human body contains seven chakras4. The one at the center of the brows is called the Ajna Chakra.”
Cheng Xiang perked up at that: Chakra—she knew this one! That was the Sharingan5, wasn’t it?
The medium continued: “This is the source of intuition and insight.”
Cheng Xiang considered for a moment, then asked: “So what do you sense about me?”
The medium closed her eyes and sensed for a while before shaking her head: “I can’t sense much. Your energy field is too weak.”
Cheng Xiang’s heart sank: “How can that be?”
“Have you had any plastic surgery recently?”
“N-no, I haven’t.”
“That’s strange.” The medium shook her head. “The energy that belongs to you yourself is very weak in your body.”
“So… how do I fix that?”
If she pulls out a talisman and tells me to burn it to ash and drink it with water, I’m walking right out.
“In your closet at home.”
“Mm-hm.”
“There should be some clothes you wore growing up, right? Put them on, do a period of meditation, and then do as I just did—place both hands before your Ajna Chakra and use your intuition to feel the voice of your heart.”
“Oh…”
“Next.”
Cheng Xiang turned her head. Two blonde, blue-eyed European young ladies were queuing behind her.
She had to stand up and walk away, glancing back every few steps.
That was it?
So simple? No talisman or anything?
After a few steps, the view opened up to reveal an enormous essential oil shop.
A boss in a pointy-topped hat greeted her warmly: “When you do your meditation, you can pair it with our sandalwood essential oil—it helps focus the mind and deepen your practice!”
Oh, so they don’t sell talismans in Thailand.
They sell essential oils. Heh.
Could that actually fool us Chinese? This is all stuff we’ve long since moved past. By now Cheng Xiang had completely lost faith. She waved her hand dispiritedly: “Not buying, not buying.”
Leaving the yoga center, she called Yi Yu: “Did you buy that sandalwood meditation oil from her?”
“I did.”
Heh. Sure enough—rich and foolish.
Cheng Xiang hung up. She didn’t dare wander around alone, so she rested at the hotel for half a day before boarding her flight home.
Back at the Yu family villa, she still felt dazed from the trip.
What had she even gained…
But now, she had no other options. Cheng Xiang decided to make a last-ditch effort—she hadn’t bought the essential oil, but she’d try the medium’s advice and put on old clothes for meditation.
Chakra, Sharingan—what if she actually sensed something?
Cheng Xiang opened the Eldest Miss’s closet.
She had to admit—the woman had taste. Row upon row of silk blouses and wide-leg trousers, alluring and sharp, nothing like her own daily uniform of T-shirts and shorts walking through the office building that smelled of stir-fried pork with green peppers.
The closet was enormous, as if it could hold an entire lifetime of stories.
Cheng Xiang rummaged through it and, sure enough, found Yu Yusheng’s high school uniform in the very back.
The Eldest Miss had attended a private high school. The uniform was beautiful—like those sailor suits from Japanese dramas.
Mentioning uniforms made Cheng Xiang feel a wave of sadness.
The Attached Seventh High School uniform was hideous. The T-shirt was dark with a turned-down collar; the skirt was the same dark shade, utterly lacking the lightness and romance of youth.
And the skirt wasn’t even pleated—it hung shapelessly to the knees like a gunnysack.
Some of the pretty girls in the grade, those crowned “School Beauty” or “Class Beauty,” would secretly hem their skirts shorter, revealing pale knees and milky thighs.
Cheng Xiang didn’t dare. She was too cowardly.
Besides, with her skinny arms and legs, there wasn’t much to reveal anyway.
The only person in school who could make the uniform look good was, of course, Tao Tianran.
Cheng Xiang didn’t think she’d secretly altered the hem length, but she was tall—she simply walked, and a pair of straight, slender legs emerged from beneath the skirt.
No one dared speak to Tao Tianran.
But Cheng Xiang clearly noticed that when Tao Tianran passed through the corridor, those boys bouncing basketballs would steal glances at her full chest and pale legs.
Cheng Xiang stood in the corridor chatting with Qin Ziqiao, saying loudly: “What are you looking at, Li Junhao!”
The boy dribbled the ball a few times, then flicked his wrist to hook the basketball back as it rolled away: “What, you jealous because I’m not looking at you?”
“Jealous, my ass!”
“Last time for the Class Beauty vote, wasn’t there only one person who voted for you? Wasn’t it you?” His voice was grinning.
“It wasn’t! And what the hell is a Class Beauty vote anyway? Since when do you bunch of stinky boys get to judge whether girls are pretty or excellent?” She was furious, absolutely furious.
Back in high school, they really had been quite bored.
The boys would write down every girl’s name in the class, pick a deadly dull history class to pass the notebook around—ceiling fan whirring overhead, the teacher droning in hypnotic tones: “The Netherlands expanded overseas colonization, establishing a worldwide colonial empire in the seventeenth century…”
The notebook passed row by row to the back, mingled with the boys’ whispered laughter.
Cheng Xiang twirled her gel pen, listening to Tao Tianran behind her, always so quiet, never making a sound.
Suddenly, a fountain pen poked Cheng Xiang’s back.
Cheng Xiang sat bolt upright. When she turned to look at Tao Tianran, her face flushed faintly.
Tao Tianran had poked her right on her bra clasp…
Tao Tianran looked at Cheng Xiang. Seeing her expression, she seemed to realize what had happened. Her eyelashes gave a light flutter.
Amid the teacher’s hypnotic drone about “Britain also actively expanded overseas”—
Cheng Xiang whispered: “What is it?”
Tao Tianran’s lashes lowered. She was already using that Montblanc fountain pen by then. She continued taking notes in her textbook with a soft scratch, while her left hand passed a notebook toward Cheng Xiang.
“Cheng Xiang.”
Cheng Xiang responded automatically: “Yes?”
The whole class burst into laughter.
Cheng Xiang hurriedly stuffed the notebook into her desk drawer and stood up. Her desk mate whispered: “Which colonial countries did Britain compete with?”
She didn’t know that either.
The history teacher glanced at her: “Pay attention in class.”
He pointed his finger and told her to sit.
Cheng Xiang pulled the notebook Tao Tianran had passed her from the desk drawer.
Oh. The boring Class Beauty Contest.
Cheng Xiang pursed her lips and showed it to her desk mate, who shook her head lazily. The girls had always been dismissive of these so-called contests.
Cheng Xiang poked the back of the student in front of her, about to pass the notebook along—
When she lowered her gaze and it landed right on her own name.
「Cheng Xiang」.
Every girl’s name in class was written in the notebook. Anonymous voting—whoever wanted to vote could put a checkmark after a name.
Cheng Xiang’s name had always been empty space. Qin Ziqiao’s too. It wasn’t that they were unattractive—just unremarkable.
And then Cheng Xiang’s heart suddenly skipped—
There was a checkmark after her name.
A checkmark in blue ink.
For a moment, she wanted to turn around and look at Tao Tianran, but the history teacher was watching hawk-eyed from the podium. She didn’t dare.
After class, Tao Tianran was called away by the English teacher.
Cheng Xiang walked over to Qin Ziqiao’s desk and hooked an arm around her shoulder: “Let’s go to the convenience store and buy cola.”
Qin Ziqiao pushed her claw away, gaze still fixed on the novel in her desk drawer: “Not going.”
A girl nearby said: “Xiangzi, lend me your red gel pen.”
“It’s in my pencil case, get it yourself.”
“I’m not giving it back, just so you know.”
“Fine, fine.” Cheng Xiang said, shaking Qin Ziqiao’s shoulder: “Come on, it’s so hot.”
Qin Ziqiao closed her book and stood up.
The two walked to the small supermarket outside the cafeteria. A chilled bottle of Coca-Cola twisted open with a “tssht.”
Cheng Xiang held the little red bottle cap and looked at it, pouting.
“What?” Qin Ziqiao had bought a bag of tomato-flavored chips. She tore it open and offered some to Cheng Xiang.
Cheng Xiang shook her head: “Eh, didn’t win 「one more bottle」6. I thought I was lucky today.”
“Why?”
Cheng Xiang glanced around. Seeing no classmates nearby, she lowered her voice: “That Class Beauty Contest was being passed around during history class, right?”
“Boring.”
“It was boring. And those boys are such cowards—when it reached me, Tao Tianran didn’t even have the most votes.”
“So?”
“That’s not the point. The point is—” Cheng Xiang lowered her voice conspiratorially: “Someone actually voted for me.”
“You care?”
“No, listen. The checkmark next to my name was made with a blue fountain pen.” Cheng Xiang said: “Do you think Tao Tianran doesn’t know that us girls don’t participate in this?”
“What’s the difference between a blue fountain pen and a blue gel pen?”
“…Huh?”
“Can’t tell the difference, right?” Qin Ziqiao picked up a chip and crunched on it: “You just want it to be Tao Tianran. Don’t give yourself false hope.”
Cheng Xiang gripped the cola bottle and gave it a shake, then reached up to smooth her bangs: “Oh.”
“How long are you going to keep liking Tao Tianran?” Qin Ziqiao asked suddenly.
“Uh, I don’t know. Just… one day at a time, I guess.”
The days passed one by one, and she kept liking Tao Tianran, day after day.
Of course she understood her old friend didn’t want to see her get hurt.
But still.
Before evening study hall, Cheng Xiang slipped into the restroom.
Everyone else had gone to eat dinner or take a walk. Qin Ziqiao was in the classroom reading novels. The restroom was empty, with only the orange-pink sunset spilling in through the doorway.
Cheng Xiang stood in that wash of sunset, smoothing her bangs again, gazing at herself in the mirror above the sink.
Her skin was pale and fine, her eyes round. Maybe she counted as sweet-looking, but by her peers’ standards, she couldn’t be called “pretty.”
Cheng Xiang rested one hand on the sink, lowered her head, and scuffed the floor with her toe.
Footsteps from the doorway.
Cheng Xiang turned, and her mouth fell open in an exaggerated “O.” Thinking she looked too stupid, she quickly pressed her lips into a tight line.
No matter how many times she’d secretly practiced what reaction to make when she ran into Tao Tianran—
“Hi, Tao Tianran.”
“Tao Tianran, what a coincidence.”
Every time they actually met, she still looked this foolish.
Lips pressed tight, and only her heart racing wildly in the silence.
Tao Tianran glanced at her, walked past, and headed toward a stall.
Cheng Xiang was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when Tao Tianran turned and walked back toward her.
Cheng Xiang stood rigid, shoulders tense.
Tao Tianran hesitated—unusual for her—and said quietly: “Your skirt is stained.”
“…What?”
As Cheng Xiang said the word, her face slowly, slowly turned the color of liver.
What the hell! She’d gotten her period.
She turned and ran straight for a stall.
“Hey.” Tao Tianran called after her.
“Hm?” She looked back, still jogging in place. She didn’t know why she was jogging in place—did she know how the Epang Palace7 of Qin Shi Huang came to be? It was being dug out by her toes right now.
Tao Tianran pulled out a sanitary pad and handed it to her.
“Thanks.” Cheng Xiang took it with her head down and rushed into the stall.
The uniform skirt was black—it shouldn’t show stains, right? Heh, anyone who thinks that has clearly never stained one.
Dark colors! They show! Very clearly!
But tonight was the parent-teacher conference. She couldn’t ask for leave.
When Cheng Xiang came out of the stall, Tao Tianran was still there.
With burning ears, she pretended nothing had happened and walked over to wash her hands.
Tao Tianran suddenly said: “Go keep watch at the door for me?”
“Hm?” Cheng Xiang turned back, water still rushing from the tap.
Tao Tianran walked over and turned off the faucet, repeating: “Go keep watch at the door.”
Cheng Xiang hadn’t actually understood, but her legs started moving toward the door anyway.
She looked back.
…Oh my god!
She quickly turned away again, pulled the door shut, and stared at a phoenix tree in the corridor outside, her heart pounding wildly.
Tao Tianran—she, she, she was taking off her uniform T-shirt!
In the one glance Cheng Xiang had turned back, she’d seen her snow-white back, her creamy-white bra, the clasp gently tracing the shape of her slightly prominent spine.
Tao Tianran’s head was slightly bowed. A strand of her long, dark hair fell forward, brushing against that expanse of white.
Cheng Xiang gripped the door tightly, staring fixedly at the phoenix tree outside. If her eyes could do pinhole imaging, the phoenix leaves would have caught fire by now.
Footsteps from behind the door: “Come in.”
“…What?!”
“Come in.”
Cheng Xiang slipped back inside, still pressing against the door to keep anyone from suddenly entering.
Tao Tianran was right beside her. In the early summer, the girl’s firm skin radiated a subtle warmth. Tao Tianran never used perfume—even many years later, after she started working, she still didn’t. What rose from the texture of her skin was the scent of mountain stream snow water.
Tao Tianran’s arm reached past her. She shrank back.
Now it was Tao Tianran holding the door. The restroom door couldn’t be locked, so Tao Tianran just held it there and said to Cheng Xiang: “Hurry and take off your shirt. Let’s swap.”
“But I’m flat.” The words flew out of Cheng Xiang’s mouth.
Tao Tianran’s expression clearly blanked for a moment.
Cheng Xiang wanted to bite her own tongue off.
There was no time to think. Cheng Xiang turned her back, quickly stripped off her T-shirt, and handed it to Tao Tianran behind her.
Tao Tianran passed her own T-shirt over. Cheng Xiang pulled it on fast.
Face burning, she said: “I’ll hold the door. You change quickly.”
Only then did Tao Tianran let go.
She put on Cheng Xiang’s uniform T-shirt.
Tao Tianran was already over 170 centimeters in high school. Her T-shirt on Cheng Xiang was clearly longer, perfectly covering the small stained patch on the skirt.
Cheng Xiang opened her mouth, wanting to say “thank you.”
She worked herself up for a long time but couldn’t figure out how to say it. She pulled open the door and walked out, arms and legs moving in stiff unison.
Tao Tianran followed about a meter behind.
Outside the corridor, phoenix trees cast their shade. Cicadas sang. The sunset filtered through the leaves, gently embracing the shadows the girls cast on the wall.
Tao Tianran watched Cheng Xiang walking ahead of her.
Cheng Xiang had dressed in a hurry. The hem was straightened, but the collar at the back of her neck was all bunched up and crooked.
Tao Tianran’s fingers curled.
It was killing her OCD. She really wanted to fix it for her.
Her fingers slowly relaxed. For some reason, after the two of them had swapped shirts, she felt that if her fingers brushed Cheng Xiang’s fuzzy nape again, it would be…
Even more strange.
So she walked unhurriedly behind Cheng Xiang, watching that one small patch of unfolded collar rise and fall with Cheng Xiang’s stiff, mechanical steps.
Vivid, like her fuzzy eyelashes.
Vivid, like the way her nose always crinkled when she smiled.
When Cheng Xiang returned to the classroom, she saw Director Ma had already arrived, craning her neck to peer down the other end of the corridor. Her manner made Cheng Xiang want to hand her a handful of sunflower seeds8.
Cheng Xiang looked too: “What’s going on?”
At the other end of the corridor, the homeroom teacher stood with two sets of parents.
Director Ma: “Seems like someone got caught with puppy love9.”
“How’d they get caught?”
“The girl wrote in a diary. Cheng Tian, right? She’s been to our house before.” Director Ma suddenly asked: “What about you—do you keep a diary?”
“I don’t, I don’t. I’m too lazy to even write essays.”
“Don’t go having puppy love.” Director Ma instructed: Puppy love affects the civil service exam10.”
Cheng Xiang laughed: “What, are they going to write it in my file or something?”
That evening, Tao Tianran’s mother was personally escorted by the principal.
Of course—the Tao family had donated an entire library building to Attached Seventh High School.
Tao Tianran didn’t go over. She simply stood in the corner, continuing to read her English book, as if her mother’s pleasantries with the principal had nothing to do with her.
Until the parent-teacher conference officially began.
With senior year approaching, there would be no time off. The homeroom teacher had the students gather in the corridor, discussing the text in small groups.
Since it was by group, Cheng Xiang and Tao Tianran ended up together.
About ten students sat in a circle in the corridor. The group leader was reading Candle Wu Withdraws the Qin Army11.
“Relying on another’s strength yet harming them is not benevolent; losing one’s allies is not wise; trading chaos for order is not martial…”
Cheng Xiang sat diagonally across from Tao Tianran, lightly swinging her legs.
The corridor’s waist-high wall was a retro cement gray. Moonlight spilled in, making everything look even colder.
Cheng Xiang lifted her gaze halfway, observing Tao Tianran across from her.
Tao Tianran held her fountain pen, writing something in her Chinese textbook.
Her writing had its own rhythm. A line of characters, a pause, the fountain pen making a small dot. Another line, a pause, another small dot.
Cheng Xiang twirled the gel pen between her fingers.
The blue checkmark after her name had a similarly casual dot after it.
But… how could Tao Tianran possibly think she was pretty?
Just then, Tao Tianran suddenly looked over at her.
Her eyes flinched, and she guiltily looked away.
Tao Tianran’s fountain pen paused. She thought: The pet mouse turned into a little rabbit12.
That kind of skittish glance was vivid too.
Tao Tianran had probably only glanced over by accident. Her gaze moved away quickly.
Cheng Xiang didn’t dare look over again. She lowered her eyes to stare at the uniform’s hem.
To avoid mix-ups in PE class, each person’s uniform had a small name tag sewn on the hem. Right now, the uniform she wore said 「Tao Tianran」.
And the one Tao Tianran wore had a small tag on the hem: 「Cheng Xiang」.
Just then, the group leader called out: “Tao Tianran.”
Cheng Xiang was staring at those three characters on the hem. She answered automatically: “Yes?”
Everyone laughed.
The group leader teased: “What, you’re Tao Tianran now?”
People always took familiar things for granted. No one noticed they’d swapped uniforms.
Cheng Xiang thought: In this moment, they’d exchanged more than names.
They’d exchanged body heat, exchanged touch, exchanged the feelings hidden in the texture of their skin.
The parent-teacher conference finally ended.
Director Ma found Cheng Xiang: “Your math scores this month weren’t good.”
“My math has never been good.”
“But you’re about to be a senior—you need to think of something…”
Mother and daughter walked toward the school gate together.
Back at the siheyuan13, Cheng Xiang showered first, then did her homework. Paper after paper after paper.
When she finished, she flopped onto the bed. Her little toe accidentally kicked the phoenix tree trunk, and she grimaced in pain.
She hugged her leg and stared blankly for a while, then leaned closer to the tree.
There was a knotted scar on the trunk that looked like a small hollow.
Cheng Xiang knelt on the soft bed, bent forward, and lowered her voice: “That feeling of liking a person so much, it won’t happen again.”
Back then, Cheng Xiang was too young—too young to imagine forever.
She just felt that as the days passed one by one, she would keep liking Tao Tianran, day after day.
The days passed as a matter of course. Her liking, day after day, was also a matter of course.
It would never happen again.
That kind of fuzzy, oblivious youthful secret.
That kind of feeling where swapping one uniform T-shirt felt like exchanging the secrets woven into your skin.
She lay on her back by the bed, gazing at the lamp hanging from the ceiling beam, her heel against the phoenix trunk, toes swaying back and forth.
Why would she write a diary?
Only a tree was a safe listener.
It chewed every feeling it heard together with time itself, swallowed it into its belly, and turned it into ring after ring of growth—unrecognizable to anyone, unknowable to all.
Later, Cheng Xiang did indeed like Tao Tianran for many, many years.
Anxious and insecure. In love. Heartbroken.
All of it became scattered words, buried in this small tree hole14, rotting with time, then taking root and sprouting again the next spring.
[Why are my eyelashes wet. I’m clearly not crying.]
[Why is it, exactly? Even when I’m dating you, I only dare write your name on a foggy window.]
[When some people leave, their silhouette is like mist you can’t grasp, and the sound of the door closing is like a gunshot.]
…
Many years later, when Cheng Xiang was no longer Cheng Xiang, she sat in Yu Yusheng’s bedroom, facing Yu Yusheng’s high school uniform, remembering those scattered feelings she’d only ever confessed to a tree trunk.
Carefully, she drew Yu Yusheng’s uniform from the very back of the closet.
Clack.
A palm-sized notebook fell from the uniform’s pocket.
Cheng Xiang picked it up, flipped through a few pages, and her gaze froze.
It was Yu Yusheng’s diary.
Yu Yusheng’s handwriting shifted from the neat script of high school to something slightly more hurried later on.
Each day held only brief sentences:
[How long must I practice? Practice hiding the intense feelings behind a light tone.]
[I want to feed you very, very spicy noodles. I want to take you on a roller coaster. I want to bite hard on your slender shoulder blade. I just want to make you cry for me at least once, that would be good too.]
[I’m sorry. I still haven’t become the adult I hoped to be.]
…
Cheng Xiang held that tiny diary, her hands trembling nonstop.
Was it… really such a coincidence?
So all those feelings she’d had for Tao Tianran—somewhere else in the world, another person had experienced the exact same thing for someone else.
That other her in the world—was Yu Yusheng.
Footnotes
- A person who claims to communicate with spirits; also called a psychic or channeler.
- A traditional Chinese practice involving breathing exercises and movement to cultivate 'qi' or life energy.
- In mainland Chinese usage, 'ping' is shorthand for square meters; fifty ping is approximately fifty square meters, typical for a small apartment.
- From Sanskrit, meaning 'wheel' or 'disk.' In yoga and meditation traditions, chakras are energy centers in the subtle body. The Ajna Chakra, located between the eyebrows, is associated with intuition and insight.
- The 'Sharingan' is a special eye technique from the popular Japanese anime and manga 'Naruto,' associated with heightened perception and supernatural abilities.
- A common promotional phrase found under Chinese beverage bottle caps, meaning 'win another bottle'—similar to a prize redemption system.
- The Epang Palace was a grand complex begun by Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor. The joke plays on the Chinese internet meme of curling one's toes so hard from embarrassment that one could dig an entire palace.
- In Chinese culture, eating sunflower seeds is associated with being a spectator or watching drama unfold, similar to 'getting popcorn' for a show.
- Literally 'early love,' referring to romantic relationships among middle or high school students, generally frowned upon by parents and teachers in China.
- A common parental pressure tactic linking any misbehavior to future career prospects, specifically the highly competitive national civil service exam.
- A famous passage from the 'Zuo Zhuan,' a classical Chinese historical text commonly taught in high school literature classes. It recounts how the diplomat Zhu Zhi Wu persuaded the Qin army to withdraw.
- Tao Tianran's metaphors for Cheng Xiang—'pet mouse' (fancy mouse) refers to her usual fidgety, lively state; 'little rabbit' refers to when she's startled or flustered.
- A traditional Chinese courtyard residence.
- A common metaphor for a place to tell secrets.
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