The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 44
by Little PandaSerious
“Will you be my girlfriend?”
I am not a nostalgic person.
Yet I remained by your side, for many, many years.
When she opened her eyes again, Cheng Xiang saw a field of pure white ceiling.
This time, she didn’t suspect she had gone to heaven, because the distinct smell of disinfectant reached her nose.
She slowly turned her head and saw Tao Tianran sitting by her bed, peeling an apple.
Tao Tianran was peeling an apple?
Cheng Xiang blinked. Tao Tianran’s posture looked proper enough, but it couldn’t hide the fact that the apple in her hand was only a third of its original size.
As Cheng Xiang opened her mouth, she realized she was still a bit weak. She asked faintly, “How much were these apples per kilo?”
The knife in Tao Tianran’s hand paused for a fraction of a second.
Clearly, she hadn’t expected this to be the first question Cheng Xiang would ask upon waking.
Tao Tianran set the knife down, pulled a receipt from the fruit basket, and glanced at it. “Sixty-eight yuan.”
Cheng Xiang’s blood pressure instantly spiked. Looking even weaker, she made a placating gesture with her hand. “Then put it down. Put it down, put it down, stop peeling.”
Tao Tianran likely didn’t understand what she meant.
But perhaps afraid she might pass out again from agitation, she complied and placed both the apple and the paring knife on the nightstand.
Cheng Xiang pursed her lips, then licked them. How did I end up in the hospital again? Did these cutting-edge modern medical machines detect that I’m not exactly myself right now?
She snuck a glance at Tao Tianran.
Tao Tianran’s expression was eternally calm and indifferent; it was impossible to discern anything from it.
She cleared her throat. “Um, how did I end up in the hospital?”
“You don’t know?”
Playing with rhetorical questions, are we?
After careful consideration, Cheng Xiang said, “No, I don’t.”
“You fainted at the airport. President Qiao called me, since you are, after all, a former employee of our company.”
So if I hadn’t been a former Kunpu employee, Tao Tianran would have just left me at the airport?
Hmph, what a hard-hearted woman.
“You brought me to the hospital? Then,” Cheng Xiang asked cautiously, “what did the doctor say was wrong with me?”
“I told the doctor you’ve been having frequent bouts of low blood sugar lately. The doctor ran a series of tests and said you are indeed a bit weak.”
She hadn’t done anything since entering Yu Yusheng’s body, so how could she be weak?
Fortunately, it seemed the fact of her transmigration hadn’t been exposed.
Cheng Xiang rubbed her fingertips against the bedsheet. “Since I’m fine, I won’t trouble Teacher Tao any further. Teacher Tao, you should go back and rest.”
Tao Tianran pulled a tissue from the nightstand, wiped her hands clean, picked up her Hermรจs Bolide, and stood up.
“โฆ” Cheng Xiang lay in bed, staring up at her. “You’reโฆ really leaving?”
“?” Tao Tianran said, “Didn’t you just say I could leave?”
“โฆโฆโฆโฆโฆโฆ” Cheng Xiang licked her lips again. “Well, how about you stay a little longer? Just until this IV drip finishes.”
Tao Tianran glanced at the IV bag hanging by the bed, set her bag down, and sat back in her chair.
What kind of person is she, Cheng Xiang grumbled inwardly. Doesn’t she understand basic Chinese politeness?
But Tao Tianran had always been like this.
Sometimes, Cheng Xiang felt she was like a straight and unbending stalk of green bamboo, completely uncaring about the rules by which the world operated.
“I’m still a little dizzy,” Cheng Xiang told Tao Tianran. “I’m going to sleep a bit more.”
“Mhm.” Tao Tianran took a fountain pen and sketching paper out of her bag.
This was the advantage of being accustomed to hand-drawingโno need to carry a digital tablet everywhere.
The rustle of the pen nib scratching across the paper sounded like falling rain, creating a natural white noise. Cheng Xiang closed her eyes. A lover’s eyes are more precise than any medical instrument, she thought.
Since her transmigration, exactly two people had questioned her identity.
The first was Tao Tianran. The second was Qiao Zhiji.
Cheng Xiang’s heart suddenly gave another violent thump. She instinctively furrowed her brow, then forced herself to relax when she sensed Tao Tianran looking over at her from the bedside.
Digging her fingers lightly into the sheets, Cheng Xiang suddenly realized something:
Yu Yusheng regretted it.
Ever since seeing Qiao Zhiji, the original Yu Yusheng’s consciousness was fighting for control of this body with increasing frequency.
Whatโฆ what do I do about this?
Cheng Xiang’s breathing grew heavier as the medication in her IV drip finally lulled her to sleep.
Once Cheng Xiang was asleep, Tao Tianran paused her pen and lifted her gaze to look at her.
In her sleep, Cheng Xiang’s browโwhich she had deliberately relaxed moments agoโcreased once more. Her still-pale lips trembled, parting as she mumbled something in a low voice.
Tao Tianran leaned in closer to listen.
What she murmured softly was, “Hey Tao Tianranโฆ”
Tao Tianran straightened up, her gaze falling back onto that stunningly beautiful face.
This face was very unfamiliar. But the tone in which she called out “Hey Tao Tianran” was incredibly familiar.
It was exactly the same as the Cheng Xiang of the past.
After her IV finished, Cheng Xiang told Tao Tianran she could leave.
She somewhat regretted asking Tao Tianran to stay.
She had just dreamt of Tao Tianran. She had dreamt of the time during her junior year of college when she confessed to Tao Tianran yet again. It had been after the cultural festival at Tao Tianran’s university; she had volunteered as outside help to assist the drama club with dismantling their sets.
She remembered the play was called ใThe Man on the Moonใ. It told the story of a female astronaut who encountered a spaceship malfunction in outer space and was left all alone, accompanied only by the moon as she gazed at the distant blue planet.
Cheng Xiang had been wearing a blue culture shirt1 from Tao Tianran’s university. A small line of text printed on the left breast bore the name of the drama club, and across the back ran the play’s title, ใThe Man on the Moonใ.
With delicate movements, she hauled the moon model. It had been made with help from the ceramics clubโit came up to her lower abdomen and was incredibly heavy.
Halfway through dragging it, she stood up, planted her hands on her hips, and let out a long breath, using the back of her hand to wipe the fine sweat from her forehead.
A student in glasses tapped her shoulder. “Classmate, which department are you from again?”
“Oh,” Cheng Xiang said. “I don’t go to this school.”
“?” the student asked. “Then why are you here helping?”
Yeah, why am I? Cheng Xiang had asked herself the same question.
Tao Tianran wasn’t in the drama club at all. Tao Tianran hadn’t even joined any clubs, nor was she enthusiastic about campus activities like the cultural festival.
She had come to help starting from the day they set up the stage all the way to this day of dismantling itโfour days in totalโand she hadn’t gone to find Tao Tianran once.
Cheng Xiang smiled at the student. “I’m just here to soak in the cultural ocean of a prestigious university.”
After finishing the set teardown, Cheng Xiang waved goodbye to the drama club students. Over the course of four days, they had grown somewhat familiar. Cheng Xiang mentioned a delicious malatang spot outside the campus and agreed to go together next time.
“Xiangzi,” they asked. “How do you know the area outside our school better than we do?”
Cheng Xiang laughed and skipped a step forward. She had switched to a single-shoulder canvas tote, but she had unclipped the little bear pendant from her high school backpack and attached it to this bag. With her light skip, it bounced to and fro.
“The area around your school is just great for wandering,” she said, waving her hand. “We’ll hang out next time, then.”
As she walked toward the campus gates, the little bear on her canvas bag continued to bounce with her steps.
She raised a hand and casually flicked it.
It was a fluffy brown bear, with two tiny cerulean buttons for eyes. At some unknown point, one had fallen off. Cheng Xiang had originally wanted to find a similar one to replace it, but she could never find a matching color. So she left it empty. The bear’s right eye was nothing but a loose thread, leaving it to look at the world with only its left eye.
Cheng Xiang wasn’t a particularly nostalgic person.
It was just that she saw how Tao Tianran always used a single old item for a very, very long timeโlike that Montblanc fountain pen. Cheng Xiang had even asked her about it once, “Did someone give it to you? Does it have any special meaning?”
“No. It doesn’t.”
Cheng Xiang’s little bear pendant didn’t have any special meaning either; it was just something she’d bought at random from a stationery shop near school. But mimicking Tao Tianran, she had kept using it for many, many years.
Reflected on the grounds of Tao Tianran’s university at this moment were her slender ankles, her fluffy shoulder-length hair, and the little bear on the strap of her canvas bag.
Softly, Cheng Xiang hummed a tune, “So you were the luck I most wanted to keepโฆ2“
With the cultural festival concluded, the campus suddenly fell quiet. The rest of the students had returned to their dormitories, leaving only Cheng Xiang to slowly stroll toward the gates.
Passing by Tao Tianran’s dormitory building, Cheng Xiang tilted her head back to look up.
It was a rigidly angular student apartment building with off-white walls. Standing there in the night, it looked rather stiff and aloof, like a bookworm who couldn’t blend into a conversation. Cheng Xiang let out a pfft of laughter, suddenly finding it quite amusing.
Just as her eyes curved into crescents of mirth, her gaze habitually fell upon Tao Tianran’s dorm room. She realized that beneath the various skirts and shirts hung out to dry in the corridor, a person was standing.
It was Tao Tianran.
Her eyes still crinkled in a smile, Cheng Xiang raised a hand and waved vigorously at her.
Tao Tianran stood at an equally rigid and angular window, bathed in the dim yellow light of the corridor, looking beautiful and remote.
Cheng Xiang raised a hand to rub her chest over her little heart. Sigh, why do I feel a bit sad?
She waved to Tao Tianran again, then resumed walking toward the school gates.
Suddenly, the phone in her canvas bag vibrated.
She pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and pursed her lips before answering in a very small voice, “Hello?”
To Tao Tianran, the tone Cheng Xiang used every time she answered her calls was like a tiny snail tentatively poking its head out of its shell, tremulously unfurling its antennae.
Tao Tianran said, “Wait a minute.”
“Huh?” Cheng Xiang asked.
The line disconnected.
Cheng Xiang stood rooted to the spot, gripping her phone. Her lips were still pursed. Tao Tianran’s silhouette had already vanished from the dorm corridor.
A short while later, a tall, slender figure in a white skirt emerged from the dormitory entrance.
Deep down, Cheng Xiang let out a tiny wow.
Clasping her hands behind her back, her fingertips picking nervously at her phone screen, she lowered her gaze to Tao Tianran’s ankles and said, “It seems likeโฆ you rarely wear skirts.”
The hem of Tao Tianran’s white skirt was very long. Unlike the crisp dress shirts she usually wore, it draped softly around her ankles.
Tao Tianran’s ankles are so pretty, Cheng Xiang thought.
“Mhm,” Tao Tianran replied. “My shirts are all in the wash.”
Pfft. Cheng Xiang kept her head bowed, her lips curling into a smile. What kind of reason is that? Not romantic at all.
“Here.”
Cheng Xiang lifted her gaze, her eyelids rising slowly. She saw Tao Tianran’s slender white fingertips extending toward her, holding a bottle of mineral water.
“Oh, thanks,” Cheng Xiang said slowly.
Tao Tianran looked at the girl in front of her.
Her movements couldn’t really be called coyโthey were just a bitโฆ squirmy, like a small animal. She wore the blue culture shirt from Tao Tianran’s school paired with dark blue denim shorts, exposing two thin legs.
Her knees were small and rounded, and a barely noticeable patch of skin had been scraped off one of them.
She must have scraped it while moving that moon set piece earlier.
Without a word, Tao Tianran started walking toward the school gates.
Cheng Xiang paused for a second, then hurried to catch up.
Is Tao Tianranโฆ walking me out?
Hehe. Hehehe.
Cheng Xiang unscrewed the cap of the water Tao Tianran had given her and took a small sip. Hey, how did the ad slogan go? Nongfu Spring3 is a bit sweet. It really is.
Cheng Xiang pursed her lips, then parted them, leaving them slick with moisture. She cleared her throat. She had originally wanted to talk about the cultural festival performances, but what tumbled out of her mouth instead was, “Tao Tianran, will you be my girlfriend?”
โฆEh!
Cheng Xiang startled herself. But just like her other small movements, her reaction was minor.
In any case, she had lost count of how many times she had said this to Tao Tianran.
In truth, whenever she faced Tao Tianran, she was always very shy.
So much so that every time the words slipped out, they felt incredibly abrupt.
Like when someone suddenly bumped into her shoulder on the bus.
Or when Tao Tianran unexpectedly crouched down to tie her shoelaces.
Or when a strawberry-shaped cloud drifted across the horizon.
One second she might be completely silent, or talking about a totally unrelated topic, and then the words would just slip out: “Tao Tianran, will you be my girlfriend?”
Quietly. Loudly. With burning ears. While deliberately looking away from Tao Tianran.
And every time, Tao Tianran would say, “Are you serious.”
Cheng Xiang would laugh it off, and the topic would be dropped.
But this time, Tao Tianran was quiet for a moment before asking, “Are you actually serious?”
Cheng Xiang abruptly stopped in her tracks.
When Tao Tianran turned to look back at her, she saw Cheng Xiang clutching the water bottle tightly, her eyelashes fluttering rapidly. She looked like she was about to cry.
“Tao Tianran.” The moment Cheng Xiang spoke, her voice hitched. She really was on the verge of tears.
She quickly took a deep breath, trying to temper her emotions before speaking again as steadily as she could manage. “Did you really think I was joking every time?”
“Every single time, I was serious,” she stressed. “Every time.”
They didn’t sound like formal declarations, nor did they happen at special times.
When someone bumped my shoulder on the bus. When you crouched down beside me to tie your shoes. When a strawberry-shaped cloud drifted across the sky. In all these arbitrary, disconnected moments, a tiny bubble would suddenly rise in my heart, and I wanted so, so badly for you to be my girlfriend.
They had just reached the bamboo grove on campus. The wind rustled through the leaves, swaying them gently.
Tao Tianran’s lips parted. Just when Cheng Xiang thought she was going to tell her not to cryโฆ
Tao Tianran said, “I accept.”
Cheng Xiang’s eyelashes trembled, and tears fluttered down her cheeks.
Tao Tianran turned back around and continued walking forward.
Cheng Xiang stood frozen in place. “Hey Tao Tianran.”
Tao Tianran kept walking.
Cheng Xiang jogged to catch up, the little bear pendant bouncing and gently slapping against her canvas bag. She ran in such a hurry that she felt the sock on her left foot sliding down her thin ankle.
Reaching Tao Tianran’s side, she demanded, “What does that mean?”
Tao Tianran’s long white skirt brushed lightly against her calves. Keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead, she said, “It means exactly what you heard.”
“Why?”
Tao Tianran shot her a glance. Seeing the teardrops still clinging to her thick eyelashes, she pulled a pack of tissues from her pocket and handed it to her.
Cheng Xiang took it, but she didn’t pull out a tissue to dry her eyes. She let the teardrops hang there. They made her eyelashes itch, and her heart itched just the same. “I mean, do you like me too?”
Tao Tianran shifted her gaze back to the path ahead.
“What do you like about me?”
Tao Tianran’s slender eyelashes slowly fluttered, and her thin lips parted.
Suddenly, Cheng Xiang sprinted forward. “Ah, never mind, never mind, don’t say it.”
It was a very strange feeling in that momentโshe actually didn’t dare face the reason why Tao Tianran liked her.
But after dashing forward a few paces, Cheng Xiang stopped. Clasping her hands behind her back under the moonlight, she waited for Tao Tianran to slowly close the distance.
They resumed walking shoulder to shoulder. Every so often, Cheng Xiang would lift her eyelids to sneak a peek at her. “Hey Tao Tianran, you should tell me after all. Why me?”
Tao Tianran’s gaze was placid. “I’m not saying.”
Cheng Xiang grew anxious. “Huh? Why not?”
“I can’t say it now,” Tao Tianran replied.
“Come on, say it, Tao Tianran.” Cheng Xiang hovered beside her, walking normally one moment, then turning around to walk backward the next, just so she could look at Tao Tianran’s face. “Hey Tao Tianran, just tell me.”
The streetlamps on campus were tall and elegant, like a moon looking down upon the mortal realm, stretching their shadows incredibly long.
Sometimes those shadows pooled beneath their feet; other times, they climbed the walls blanketed in moonflowers that they passed by.
Tao Tianran escorted Cheng Xiang all the way out the school gates, then said, “Wait here.”
Cheng Xiang watched Tao Tianran’s slender figure duck into a convenience store by the road. She stood outside waiting, hands behind her back, no longer looking into the store but instead gazing out at the night painted by streetlights.
Only when she let out the small breath she’d been holding did she realize she had been holding it this entire time.
Tao Tianranโฆ is my girlfriend now?
The corners of Cheng Xiang’s lips curled up, though her eyes stung a little.
Just then, Tao Tianran emerged from the convenience store holding a pack of band-aids.
Cheng Xiang stared blankly.
“You scraped your knee,” Tao Tianran reminded her.
“Oh.” Cheng Xiang looked down. She really hadn’t noticed.
She was just about to reach out and take the band-aids when she froze, realizing Tao Tianran had no intention of handing them over.
Tao Tianran pulled out a single band-aid.
She peeled off the wrapper and gently crouched down in front of her.
A few late-returning students milled around the school gates. The streetlights watched over the world with tender warmth. Artificial light mixed with moonlight, cascading over their shoulders.
Cheng Xiang suddenly grew flustered. With her hands still clasped behind her back, she nervously twisted her fingers together. Eh, letting the girlfriend who just agreed to go out with me look at my knee?
She unconsciously took a half-step back, but Tao Tianran’s voice came out soft, “Don’t move.”
Cheng Xiang froze in place like a robot. Her hands snapped back behind her as she stood rigidly straight, lips pressed tight. She didn’t know why Tao Tianran still hadn’t applied the band-aid, her movements stalling with a subtle hesitation.
Tao Tianran was simply thinking.
The girl standing before herโeven her knees were small, slender, and pale.
The sock on her right foot was pulled up properly, but the cuff of her left sock was sliding down her ankle.
Tao Tianran lifted her head, looking at that small face bathed in the lamplight. The tears on her eyelashes had dried, but because she hadn’t wiped them away, faint tear tracks remained on her pale cheeks.
Cheng Xiang also lowered her eyes to look back. Because Tao Tianran was gazing up at her from below, her jaw had flushed a delicate shade of pink.
Tao Tianran found it hard to define the sudden, almost tender emotion welling up in her heart in that moment.
She gently pressed the band-aid over the scrape on Cheng Xiang’s knee. Then, driven by some inexplicable impulse, she lightly brushed her thumb over it.
It didn’t actually hurt, but Cheng Xiang let out a small “Ah!”
Tao Tianran stood up. “Shall we go?”
“G-go where?”
“The bus stop,” Tao Tianran said. “If we don’t hurry, you’ll miss the last bus.”
“Ohโฆ”
At the bus stop, they didn’t stand very close to each other. Cheng Xiang didn’t know why she kept clasping her hands behind her back like an old cadre. She lifted her eyes to study the dense vertical columns of station names painted on the white sign.
Hualikan.
Lasuying.
These names, which usually seemed nonsensical, suddenly possessed a certain cuteness.
Hey, why did the bus arrive so fast?
Cheng Xiang turned around sluggishly and told Tao Tianran, “I’m heading back then.”
“Mhm.”
Cheng Xiang bounded onto the bus in a couple of strides and picked an empty seat on the left. She ducked her head, her heart still pounding thump-thump, as if she had swallowed all the popping candy in the world.
Just as the bus began to pull away, she suddenly shot to her feet. Sent lurching by the momentum of the moving vehicle, she threw herself into an empty seat on the right side.
Her posture was a bit clumsy, but she frantically shoved open the window.
“Hey Tao Tianranโ”
Standing beside the bus stop sign, Tao Tianran heard her call and looked up.
Cheng Xiang realized she didn’t actually have anything to say. She simply wanted to call out Tao Tianran’s name in the night, under the moonlight, on this intoxicatingly breezy early-summer evening.
Many years later, existing inside Yu Yusheng’s body, lying on a hospital bed receiving an IV drip, Cheng Xiang didn’t know why she had dreamt of this.
With her eyes closed, she felt a dampness at their corners, as if the teardrop from all those years ago was once again clinging to her eyelashes.
She knew Tao Tianran was sitting right beside her. She could hear the rustle of Tao Tianran’s pen scratching across the paperโjust like the rustling fragments of sound the wind had made as it swept through the bamboo grove on the night she confessed.
She felt a pang of guilt. She wondered if, in her dream just now, she had murmured, “Hey Tao Tianran.”
After settling her emotions, she opened her eyes, pretending nothing was amiss.
Tao Tianran was still sitting by the bed sketching, her expression as unreadable as ever.
So, I guess I didn’t.
Cheng Xiang spoke up. “Teacher Tao, my drip is almost done. Could you call the nurse for me? You can head back after that.”
Tao Tianran gave a soft “Mhm” before raising her eyes and picking up her Bolide bag.
When the nurse came to remove the IV needle, Cheng Xiang asked, “Can I be discharged now?”
“Of course not.”
“But I’m completely fine! How about I do a backflip for you to prove it?”
“You have insurance, what are you afraid of? You don’t have to pay for the hospitalization yourself,” the nurse said, shooting her a look.
Yes, Eldest Miss Yu had insurance for Beicheng’s most high-end private hospital. But Cheng Xiang was genuinely terrified of being scanned by those modern medical machines again.
After finally fighting for her right to be discharged, Cheng Xiang practically scrambled out of the hospital.
She had fainted at the airport before she could answer Qiao Zhiji’s question. Terrified that Qiao Zhiji would seek her out again, she checked her phone, but it was quiet.
Instead, it was Yi Yu who called her. “Heard you passed out?”
“Hey,” Cheng Xiang said, disgruntled. “What’s with that tone? Are you bringing up my misfortune just to amuse yourself?”
Yi Yu laughed. “I’m flying back tomorrow. I’m telling you, I just love visiting sick people. The moment you put an apple in a hospital room, it somehow tastes better.”
“No, don’t.” Cheng Xiang’s head ached from her chatter. “I’ve already been discharged. Just let me rest.”
The first thing Cheng Xiang did upon discharge was visit a real estate agency.
After listing her requirements for an apartment, she sat on the sofa, locked in a staring contest with the agent.
“Do youโฆ have any other requests?”
“Well, find me one,” Cheng Xiang said. “Once you find it, I’ll move in right now.”
Agent: โฆ
They’d seen impatient clients before, but never one this impatient.
The agent told her, “Tomorrow. How about tomorrow? I’ll have places ready for you.”
Cheng Xiang nodded, but she really didn’t want to go home.
So, dragging her suitcase behind her, she took a taxi to Qin Ziqiao’s place. On the way, Yi Yu sent her a message: ใI thought about it. Maybe you should go back to the hospital for a couple more days? I’m genuinely worried about your health.ใ
Cheng Xiang replied: ใDrop the act.ใ
ใThirty thousand.ใ
ใNo deal.ใ
While replying to Yi Yu’s messages, Cheng Xiang pressed the doorbell to Qin Ziqiao’s apartment.
The door opened from the inside. Cheng Xiang looked up from her phone screen and saw Yi Yu’s face. She was wearing pajamas and gnawing on an apple. Continuing the topic from their texts, Cheng Xiang said, “Aren’t you already eating an apple? What’s the difference between that and the ones in the hospital?”
“There’s a difference. A real difference,” Yi Yu said with utter solemnity.
Cheng Xiang blinked twice. Yi Yu blinked twice back.
“Heyโ!” Cheng Xiang suddenly shrieked. “What are you doing here?!”
Footnotes
- A 'culture shirt' (wรฉnhuร shฤn) is a type of event or promotional t-shirt commonly custom-printed for school activities, clubs, or cultural festivals in China.
- A lyric from the widely popular Mandopop song 'A Little Happiness' (Xiวo Xรฌngyรนn) by Hebe Tien.
- A real-world Chinese bottled water brand. Its famous advertising slogan is 'Nongfu Spring is a bit sweet.'
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