The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 52
by Little PandaStrangers
“Long, straight black hair—that’s the ultimate killer.”
[I want to get to know you, yet I dare not. My first heart-flutter is hidden in a tangle of indecision like this.]
Tao Tianran sat in her office, taking a moment to collect herself. She opened her computer to reply to a few emails, then picked up her design sketches and walked into the conference room.
Yi Yu propped her head up with one hand, tossing diamonds in the air out of sheer boredom. Seeing her, she gave a soft cough, sat up straight, and guiltily slipped the diamonds back into their velvet box. Looking askance at her, she said in a dry, mocking tone, “Oh, look who decided to show up.”
Tao Tianran pulled out a chair and sat down.
While the other colleagues were still setting up their devices, Yi Yu leaned close to Tao Tianran and lowered her voice conspiratorially, “That super important matter of yours—did you get it done?”
Tao Tianran replied calmly, “I did.” She opened her sketches, spreading them across the conference table, and habitually gripped her Montblanc fountain pen, her middle finger lightly stained with faint blue ink.
“Just how important was it? Tell me so I can get a good scare.”
Tao Tianran glanced at Yi Yu.
Yi Yu curled her lip. Given Tao Tianran’s personality, she hated anyone at the company prying into her private life, so she certainly wouldn’t say.
To her surprise, Tao Tianran said, “Perhaps one day you will know.”
“Which day?”
Tao Tianran didn’t answer. She only curled her lips in a barely perceptible smile. Like ripples rising on a lake, it drifted away in the split second before anyone could clearly catch it.
Yi Yu practically suspected her own eyes. She grabbed Tao Tianran’s slender wrist. “Did you just smile? You smiled, didn’t you! Why are you in such a good mood?”
Tao Tianran brushed her paws away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Thirty thousand!”
“Not even for three hundred thousand.”
It was when Tao Tianran woke up this morning and saw the time displayed on her phone that she realized she had succeeded.
Time had flowed backward.
It was now the day after Cheng Xiang’s first death, and she still retained her memories of the previous loop.
In every previous loop, she had never retained her memories. Each time, she could only remember why she had stepped into loop after loop once she returned to that white space.
Now that she remembered everything, did it mean… the death loop1 had finally been broken?
She didn’t dare rejoice too early. She even kept her breathing light, trying her best to remain calm, as if fearing that if Heaven discovered her ecstasy, it would immediately pop this illusion like a bubble.
She got out of bed calmly, washed up calmly, went downstairs calmly, and drank a cup of lemon water calmly.
Then she calmly drove out, not forgetting to call her assistant to arrange some work.
She drove all the way to the entrance of Hundred Flowers Alley, her heart pounding wildly, though she remained perfectly composed on the surface.
She parked, locked the car, and walked into the alley by herself. Standing in front of the gate of Cheng Xiang’s family siheyuan2, she hesitated, not daring to step inside at all.
Then, a slender-limbed girl came running out, full of cheer.
Tao Tianran’s heart was flung into midair and then slowly drifted back down. She felt a faint, burning warmth sting the corners of her eyes.
But as Cheng Xiang ran past her, she merely cast a strange look in her direction.
She didn’t recognize her.
Tao Tianran lowered her head, sorting through the logic in her mind once more:
Through the wormholes, she had returned time and again to the period between Cheng Xiang’s two car accidents.
Without retaining her memories, she had recognized Cheng Xiang anew each time, throwing herself forward without a second thought whenever Cheng Xiang met her second car accident. Guided by an incredibly low-probability algorithm, she had finally succeeded once.
Both she and Cheng Xiang had survived.
If the time between Cheng Xiang’s two car accidents was viewed as a closed time loop—where the truck entered a wormhole during the first accident and exited it during the second—then her successful rescue of Cheng Xiang during the second accident disrupted the self-consistency of this temporal loop. The circumstances of the truck’s first collision changed accordingly, simultaneously saving Cheng Xiang from the first impact.
The trajectories of their lives had been rewritten by this one-in-a-thousand shift.
The current Cheng Xiang did not know her. They had never been high school classmates; they had never met. Cheng Xiang had never fallen in love with her.
Cheng Xiang, likely afraid of being late for work, had only spared her that single, odd glance before darting away down the alley.
Tao Tianran stood there for a couple of seconds more before walking out of the alley, her eyes tracing Cheng Xiang’s retreating figure as her lips curved slightly upward.
What did it matter if Cheng Xiang had never known her?
Cheng Xiang was alive.
She had a lifetime ahead of her.
They had a lifetime ahead of them.
Cheng Xiang stared at the small, square clock on her desk. “Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine…”
The moment the clock hand struck six sharp, she sprang to her feet and grabbed the canvas bag she had packed long ago.
“Not working late today, Xiangzi?”
“Nope, not tonight! Ahaha!”
Slinging her canvas bag over her shoulder, she carefully stepped over the cardboard boxes piled up in the hallway by the courier company next door. The smell of boxed lunches with shredded pork and green peppers still lingered in the corridor. As she walked over to wait for the elevator, she pulled out her phone and sent a WeChat message to Director Ma: 【Shoot, I forgot to tell you whether I wanted stir-fried tomatoes and eggs or tomato egg soup tonight.】
Director Ma: 【I already made stir-fried tomatoes and eggs.】
Cheng Xiang: 【How could you! I wanted tomato egg soup more.】
【Cut it out,】 Director Ma typed back rapidly. 【If I had said I made tomato egg soup, you would’ve claimed you wanted stir-fried tomatoes and eggs. That’s just how you are, you’re tangled3 in indecision to death.】
Cheng Xiang replied: 【Ziqiao is coming over for dinner tonight. Don’t nag me about taking the civil service exam4 in front of her. It’s so annoying.】
Director Ma: 【Why didn’t you tell me sooner that Ziqiao was coming over? I’ll whip up two more dishes.】
Cheng Xiang: 【No need. We’ll buy some liangpi5 at the market, and get a bag of fried vegetarian meatballs6.】
Next to the cold skin noodle stall at the market was a vendor selling vegetarian meatballs. They had no meat in them—which went without saying, given their name. They were simply shredded carrots coated in flour batter and deep-fried in some kind of oil, making them incredibly fragrant.
When Cheng Xiang was about to get off the bus, she sent another WeChat message to Qin Ziqiao: 【Where are you?】
Qin Ziqiao: 【Almost at the mouth of your alley.】
Cheng Xiang: 【Got it. I’ll wait for you at the alley mouth, and we can go to the market together.】
The weather was really freezing now that the sky had cleared after the snow. Cheng Xiang stood under the bus stop sign, blowing on her palms and stomping her feet in small movements.
From afar, she saw Qin Ziqiao walking listlessly toward her with a backpack.
She slapped Qin Ziqiao’s shoulder hard: “Qiaozi, perk up!”
Qin Ziqiao rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you go tend to capybaras7 for a whole day and see if you have any energy left.”
Cheng Xiang looped her arm through Qin Ziqiao’s. “Let’s go, let’s go. I’ll take you to get some delicious food.”
Qin Ziqiao wasn’t used to having her arm linked, so she pulled it free. “Oh, stop it.”
“You’ve grown up with me and you’re still not used to it?” Cheng Xiang glared at her. “Look at you, always pulling such a sour face.”
“None of your business.”
The two walked together along the alley toward the market.
Cheng Xiang glanced toward the side of the alley.
“What is it?” Qin Ziqiao asked.
Cheng Xiang lowered her voice conspiratorially: “Let me tell you, I saw a total yujie8 here this morning.”
“Come on, yujie only exist in novels. There are no yujie in real life.”
“Seriously!” Cheng Xiang grew anxious. “Why would I lie to you? She must have been over 1.7 meters, wearing a long, loose-cut, charcoal-grey coat—not the belted kind, but the kind with incredibly sharp shoulders. Super cool. And she had long, straight black hair9, you know? Long, straight black hair—that is the ultimate killer10.”
“Did you sneak a photo?”
Cheng Xiang licked her lips. “How could I have the nerve to do that?”
“Did you ask for her WeChat?”
Cheng Xiang let out an incredibly loud laugh: “I wanted to, but her coat looked ridiculously expensive, and she had this incredibly elite vibe. Think about it—if you were an elite yujie like that, and some random nobody girl suddenly rushed out from the sidewalk to ask for your WeChat, would you add her?”
“Fair point.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“And then?”
“What ‘and then’? That’s it.”
“Your story just ends like that?”
“Otherwise what? I just happened to see an exceptionally good-looking yujie, and once I saw her, that was it.”
As they spoke, they walked all the way to the market entrance. When they crossed the zebra crossing, Cheng Xiang tightly linked arms with Qin Ziqiao. “I absolutely have to hold onto you here.”
“Why?”
“Yesterday after work, didn’t I come to buy liangpi for my dad? Just as I was walking out, my mom suddenly chased me down to tell me: ‘It might snow, so be careful walking.'”
“And then?” Qin Ziqiao felt a bit of a headache coming on. Cheng Xiang was a rambler who never got to the point.
“And then it really did snow! When I was crossing this very zebra crossing—you know how trucks are allowed onto the roads after seven? This truck, I don’t know if its brakes failed or what, but it suddenly barreled right toward the crossing.”
“What?” Qin Ziqiao gasped, startled. “Did it hit you?”
Cheng Xiang rolled her eyes, thinking, What kind of IQ does this best friend of mine have? “Fortunately, it braked in time, or else I definitely wouldn’t have dodged it. It scared the life out of me. I didn’t even dare mention it to my parents when I got home.”
“Yeah, it’s better not to say anything. Especially your mom—she makes such a fuss, she’d nag you about it for a whole year.”
“Tell me about it. Hey, do you think I should go pray at Yonghe Temple?”
“Better not. Don’t people say the Fourth Prince11 is pretty unreliable…”
Together, they bought their liangpi and a bag of fried vegetarian meatballs.
When they returned to the siheyuan, Deputy Director Cheng was practicing the Eight Brocades12 in the courtyard. “Ziqiao, I haven’t seen you in a long time. How are your parents?”
Cheng Xiang unwrapped her scarf as she walked into the house: “Dad, on such a freezing day, aren’t you cold? Can’t you practice inside?”
Director Ma came out to greet them. “Ziqiao is here! Did you take any videos of the capybaras? Let Auntie have a look.”
Director Ma simply adored the capybaras Qin Ziqiao looked after.
Qin Ziqiao handed her phone to Director Ma while helping Cheng Xiang set the dinner table.
The TV was playing the evening news broadcast, as it always did. Director Ma picked up a vegetarian meatball with her chopsticks and started in on her usual topic. “Ziqiao, you need to talk some sense into Xiao Xiang. I keep telling her to take the civil service exam, but she just refuses.”
“Mom!”
“Look at Ziqiao’s job, how wonderful it is. Working at the zoo comes with an official establishment13, which is stable.”
“Auntie, it’s really not that great. The capybaras chew on my trouser cuffs every single day…”
“In any case, stability is what matters. Just look at Xiao Xiang—her job is completely unstable, and when it comes to dating, there’s absolutely no movement. It worries me sick just looking at her.”
“Mom, Mom, Mom.” Cheng Xiang’s head began to throb.
After dinner, as she walked Qin Ziqiao out, Cheng Xiang complained, “Maybe I should just move out and rent a place like you did.”
“You’d never be able to leave—your mom’s cooking is way too good.”
“Sigh, true.” Cheng Xiang cupped her left cheek with a palm. “But it’s so frustrating. Nag, nag, nag. Why does she have to keep pushing me? I’ve simply never met anyone I liked my entire life. Am I supposed to just conjure one out of thin air for her?”
That night, Cheng Xiang huddled in her room, drawing her webcomic.
When she finally looked up, she nearly scared herself to death—it was already one in the morning.
She quickly took a shower and crawled into bed. To her surprise, she had a dream.
She actually dreamed of the yujie she had seen that morning…
The next morning, Cheng Xiang opened her eyes, feeling a bit dazed. What did she dream about the yujie again? She couldn’t quite remember.
Director Ma pushed Cheng Xiang’s bedroom door wide open. “Do you have any idea how many times your alarm has gone off? Still not up, still not up!”
Seeing Cheng Xiang huddled in her duvet with a blank expression, she laughed. “You child, why do you always look like a little animal?”
Cheng Xiang had inherited half of her father’s Southern lineage. Her skin was fine and fair, her face was palm-sized, and her hair was soft and thin. She loved sleeping with the duvet pulled over her head; every morning when she woke up, half her face would be tucked inside with her hair messy and wild.
Director Ma yanked her duvet away. “Get up, hurry. The chive pockets14 I fried are going to get cold.”
“Mom! It’s freezing—”
As Cheng Xiang scrambled up to change her clothes, she cast her mind back to the dream from the night before.
Honestly, she had only looked at the yujie once, and she hadn’t even had the nerve to see what she actually looked like. How could she dream about her?
Just as she was about to grasp a faint shadow of what the dream had been, her mother’s sudden yank of the duvet had startled every last detail right out of her head.
It… it couldn’t have been some kind of inappropriate dream, could it?
Having had breakfast at home this morning, Cheng Xiang didn’t need to buy anything on her way, heading straight up to the office.
Her boss was sitting at her workstation, spinning around in her chair; one look told her it was nothing good.
Steeling herself, she walked over. “Morning, Boss.”
“Xiao Cheng!” The moment her boss opened her mouth, spit practically flew onto Cheng Xiang’s face. If Cheng Xiang sniffed closely, she could even smell that her boss’s breakfast had also been chive pockets.
“Yes, Boss?”
“This Nisanna of yours—isn’t she drawn a bit too unsexy? Why don’t you make her chest a little bigger?”
“But Nisanna’s character traits are high agility and mobility skills…”
“Why are you overthinking it?” The boss slapped the desk. “Everything is about drawing in players!”
Once her boss walked away, Cheng Xiang let out a heavy sigh, dragged her chair and sat down at her workstation.
She quietly sent a WeChat message to Qin Ziqiao: 【I want to resign so badly.】
Qin Ziqiao: 【Better not. The economic climate is terrible right now. It’s already good enough to have a job that keeps you fed.】
Cheng Xiang: 【Sigh, is that so?】
Having finally toughed it out until the end of the shift, Cheng Xiang showed the revised Nisanna design to her boss.
The boss frowned. “Did you not understand what I said? How is this any different from your first draft?”
“I’ve already tried my best while staying true to the character’s concept…”
“I told you to ignore the character settings! Just change it however I told you to change it!”
Cheng Xiang pursed her lips.
“Is there a problem?”
“…No.”
“Then work overtime to fix it. Let me see it first thing tomorrow morning.” With that, the boss left.
The colleagues in the office slowly trickled out one by one, until only Cheng Xiang was left sitting at her workstation, with a warm yellow desk lamp lit.
Sighing, she pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed her swollen eyes.
Having finally finished the revisions according to her boss’s demands, she walked out of the office in a foul mood. She pulled out her phone to check the time—it was already ten at night.
She stood waiting for the elevator with her head drooping, completely stripped of her usual high spirits. Part of it was exhaustion, but more than that, she felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction with herself.
Why did her life always consist of taking one step back after another?
She had loved drawing comics since she was a little girl. From elementary school onward, she would draw four-panel strips in her notebooks, with Qin Ziqiao as her sole reader. When the college entrance exams rolled around, she wanted to major in fine arts, but Director Ma adamantly refused. Cheng Xiang herself had also felt uncertain, wondering if an art major could actually sustain her in the future.
In the end, she had gone to a comprehensive university instead.
Yet even after entering university, she couldn’t let it go. In her junior year, she started teaching herself CG art, hand-drawing, and 3D modeling. As graduation approached, she fell into a panic over job hunting and was steered toward civil service exam preparation by Director Ma.
After studying for the exams for some time, she realized she couldn’t bring herself to go against her own heart. Knowing she couldn’t make a living as a full-time comic artist, she eventually joined a game company as a concept artist.
Now, with no apparent future in her current job, Director Ma was back to nagging her about the civil service exams.
Cheng Xiang curled her lip, feeling that she couldn’t go on being so indecisive forever.
Just like how she could never make up her mind between stir-fried tomatoes and eggs or tomato egg soup. This personality of hers was really quite bad.
Going downstairs, she walked into a roadside convenience store, wanting to buy a bottle of yogurt to refresh herself.
On the shelves sat original, peach, and strawberry flavors—but not the green grape flavor she wanted to buy.
Really infuriating. But this is life, right?
Cheng Xiang walked out of the convenience store empty-handed. Since the buses had already stopped running, she planned to take a longer detour to the subway station. That way, she could save the taxi fare that the company would reimburse, and go eat a nice meal with Qin Ziqiao on the weekend.
Just as she reached the street below her office building, she spotted a Bentley parked by the curb.
Their office area was by no means a high-end commercial district; even her boss only drove a Cadillac. Seeing such a sleek, gleaming luxury car parked at the curb, with its beautiful, sweeping curves, was quite an eye-catching sight.
Cheng Xiang took a second look.
But what was even more striking than the luxury car was the person leaning against it.
She was remarkably tall—definitely over 1.7 meters—and slender, possessing the physique of a model. Her charcoal-grey coat hung open, revealing a white shirt and lead-grey, narrow-leg trousers tucked into a pair of slim high heels that left her ankles exposed.
Leaning casually against a luxury car worth millions, she had one hand slid into her coat pocket, and was sucking on… a five-yuan bottle of yogurt.
Cheng Xiang stared again.
She knew that little round bottle all too well. The label on it had a faint green tint—it was the exact green grape drinking yogurt she had wanted to buy.
It was bought by this person!
Cheng Xiang cast another look, feeling slightly indignant.
But as she walked closer, she realized—hey, why did this person look like…
…like the yujie she had seen at her alley entrance that morning?
She couldn’t be entirely sure, though. After all, she had only rushed past her in a hurry. Staring at someone’s face was rather impolite, so she had only caught a brief glimpse and hadn’t seen her features clearly.
Whether it was her or not, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with her.
She continued walking forward with her canvas bag, but to her surprise, the yujie beside the luxury car spoke up: “Hi.”
Wow, her voice was so beautiful!
It wasn’t the deep, smoky voice one would think suited a yujie, but was instead very clear, clear and crisp, like pure, fish-free snowmelt flowing naturally down a mountain stream.
Cheng Xiang looked to her left, then to her right, pointing a finger at her own nose. “Are you talking to me?”
She took another glance at the yogurt in the yujie’s hand.
Hey, did she know that a yujie drinking such a cartoonish yogurt actually didn’t match her at all? If she hadn’t bought it, leaving that last bottle, how great would that have been? Cheng Xiang licked her lips.
But the yujie seemed completely oblivious to her internal monologue. Sucking the bottle dry, the straw scraped against the bottom with a sharp hiss, whereupon she tossed the empty bottle into the trash bin and strode over to Cheng Xiang in her high heels.
Cheng Xiang touched the tip of her nose, suddenly feeling a bit nervous.
“Yes, you.”
With just that one sentence, Cheng Xiang touched the tip of her nose again for some reason: “Oh, is something the matter?”
As a Neighborhood Committee Director, Director Ma had drilled safety tips into Cheng Xiang since childhood—like never talking to strangers on the street.
But the woman in front of her didn’t look like a bad person, did she? With a luxury car that expensive, robbing someone like her wouldn’t even cover the cost of gas.
The yujie asked, “Excuse me, is there a tattoo parlor around here?”
Cheng Xiang blinked, startled. “Yes.”
Mainly because the person in front of her didn’t look like the type who would go get a tattoo.
Her gaze circled around the yujie, taking in her appearance in earnest for the first time.
Her skin was a sculpted white, almost pale, yet there was no trace of illness on her; it only made one think of “a vast, clean expanse of white.” Her simple, elegant expression made her look like an ice plain with no flowers blooming on it, save for two ink-colored moles at the corner of her eye and brow, like ink droplets scattered on ice, writing a handsome poem.
Thin eyebrows, thin eyelids, a straight nose bridge, and thin lips—so good-looking she didn’t seem like someone you would meet in real life.
The yujie inquired, “Then, could you tell me how to get to that tattoo parlor?”
“It’s actually a bit complicated to explain.” Cheng Xiang tried to figure out how to put it into words. Their office complex was incredibly chaotic, with the ground floor packed with storefronts selling rice bowls, noodles, and fried potatoes. Deeper inside, it wasn’t just offices; there were dance studios, tattoo parlors, gyms—you name it.
“Go down this road, and when you reach the convenience store with the red sign, turn left. Keep going until you see a roasted fish restaurant, then turn right there. Go all the way to the end—actually, wait, not quite the very end. Just before the end, there’s a narrow path on the left. Keep walking down that for about a hundred meters, and you should see it when you look up.”
Cheng Xiang was highly doubtful: “Can you remember all that?”
If she hadn’t been working in this area for so long, she would have gotten completely turned around.
The yujie gave a calm, faint nod: “More or less.”
Cheng Xiang pursed her lips slightly.
Reasonably speaking, it wasn’t all that far. It was just a bit convoluted and tricky to locate, so there wouldn’t have been any harm in guiding her there. But then, she recalled Director Ma’s earnest warning about not talking to strangers.
Pursing her lips once more, she swallowed the words, “How about I just show you the way?”
The yujie glanced at her, thanked her, and walked away in her high heels.
Cheng Xiang set off toward the subway station, her canvas bag slung over her shoulder. She cast a glance back at the luxury car parked by the road. Could she park here? She wouldn’t get a ticket from the traffic police, would she? She had always been a worrier since childhood.
Drawing closer, she saw that the car was parked perfectly within a white-lined space. A sign nearby stated that parking was permitted from eight in the evening until seven in the morning.
Oh, then it was fine.
Just as Cheng Xiang was about to continue walking to the subway station, she noticed something resting on the windshield.
She stepped closer to take a look.
It seemed to be a promotional flyer slipped there by some business. A bar named Afterglow was having its grand opening, offering thirty percent off for the first week.
This had absolutely nothing to do with Cheng Xiang’s life. She carried her bag along and headed down into the subway.
When she got home, utterly exhausted from the long overtime shift, she tossed her canvas bag aside and collapsed onto her bed with a heavy sigh. Her eyelids drooped as she stared out at the phoenix tree15.
She let herself rot16 like that for a short while, but eventually struggled to get up with a sigh, continuing to draw her comic.
She set a strict daily goal for herself every night; if she failed to meet it because of some pointless overtime at work, she would only end up more frustrated.
Halfway through, she licked her lips, thinking back to the cup of yogurt she didn’t get to drink tonight.
Seriously, why would such a mature yujie drink cartoon yogurt? Cheng Xiang curled her lip slightly.
The next morning, instead of buying a jianbing17 on her way to work, Cheng Xiang ducked into a convenience store to get a rice ball. While there, she cast a glance over the cold drink cabinet.
Oh, her green grape yogurt was restocked.
She grabbed a bottle and took it to the counter to pay. “Please heat up the rice ball, and I’ll take this yogurt too. Thank you.”
Sucking on her yogurt as she walked to the office, she received a WeChat message from Qin Ziqiao: 【Why didn’t you send me your breakfast this morning?】
【Oh, it’s just, you know, a rice ball.】
【Just a rice ball?】
【And yogurt.】 Cheng Xiang, for some reason she couldn’t explain, touched the tip of her nose.
As soon as she walked near her workstation and saw her boss sitting there again, Cheng Xiang let out a preemptive sigh.
“Xiao Cheng.”
“Yes, Boss?”
“This character design… why does she look even worse after your edits than she did in the first draft?”
Cheng Xiang almost coughed up a mouthful of blood.
“Let’s just stick with the first draft. Make your revisions based on that one instead.”
“…What direction should I take?”
“You’re asking me? If I knew how to draw it, why would I pay to hire you? Just keep trying until I’m satisfied.”
A tight knot of frustration swelled in Cheng Xiang’s chest.
After working overtime for an entire week, she finally got the Nisanna design approved.
Rubbing her stiff neck, Cheng Xiang stood beneath a half-extinguished sign for claypot rice and pulled out her phone to text Qin Ziqiao: 【Want to go to a bar?】
Qin Ziqiao replied without a second thought: 【No.】
【Why?】
【Isn’t it way better to stay home and read post-apocalyptic novels?】
【Classmate Qiaozi, back in junior high when everyone else was playing video games, you were reading post-apocalyptic novels. In high school when everyone else was in puppy love18, you were reading post-apocalyptic novels. Now that we’ve graduated and everyone goes out to bars, you’re still reading post-apocalyptic novels.】
【Aren’t you the same? Always cooped up at home drawing comics.】
【So we need to go out and see some of the world! I’ve never even been to a bar before.】
【Why do you absolutely want to go?】
【Just… sick of working overtime.】 The urge to quit her job was starting to bubble up, leaving her feeling incredibly stifled.
【But we don’t even know which bar to go to.】
【I know of one. It just opened, and they’re offering thirty percent off.】
【Is it far? I’m not going if it’s far.】
【It’s not far. It should be somewhere near my office building.】
Cheng Xiang pulled out her phone to search for Afterglow. Once she searched, she was stunned—this wasn’t near her company at all. Why did they distribute flyers here?
She forwarded the link from the orange review app to Qin Ziqiao: 【Look, pretty cool, right?】
【The average spend is so high.】
【Exactly! That’s why we have to go now while they have thirty percent off, otherwise we’ll never afford it.】
Qin Ziqiao was convinced: 【Alright, fine then.】
【I’m going to take the bus right now. Shall we meet at the bar’s entrance?】
【Sure. I’ll head out from my place as soon as I finish watering my green onions.】
Cheng Xiang sent back an OK emoji: 【I should be the first to arrive then. See you there!】
Footnotes
- sǐwáng xúnhuán: A repeating cycle of death and timeline resets entered voluntarily to alter a past fatality.
- sìhéyuàn: A traditional Chinese courtyard residence, a classic architectural style found in Beicheng.
- jiūjié: To be conflicted, tangled, or extremely indecisive. It is a core personality trait of Cheng Xiang throughout the story.
- kǎogōng: The highly competitive civil service examinations in China, widely pursued for their career stability and benefits.
- liángpí: Cold skin noodles, a popular northwestern Chinese dish made of wheat or rice starch, served cold with a savory sauce.
- zhá sù wánzi: Deep-fried vegetarian meatballs made of a flour batter and shredded carrots, popular in northern China.
- kǎpíbālā: Phonetic rendering of 'capybara'. In Chinese internet culture, the animal has become a popular symbol of ultimate calm and indifference to life's stressors.
- yùjiě: A Japanese loanword ('onee-san') used in Chinese subcultures for a cool, mature, elegant, and highly attractive older sister archetype.
- hēi cháng zhí: Literally 'long straight black hair', a popular subcultural aesthetic archetype representing pristine, elegant, and classic feminine beauty.
- juéshā: Literally 'instant kill' or 'buzzer-beater'. In modern slang, it refers to an unbeatable visual aesthetic or irresistible look.
- Sìyé: 'Fourth Prince', referring to the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. Yonghe Temple in Beijing was his former residence, making him the 'deity' petitioned there for career and wealth.
- bāduànjǐn: A traditional Chinese qigong exercise consisting of eight physical movements designed to improve physical and mental health.
- biānzhì: The official government-allocated staffing structure in China, which offers lifelong job security, stable benefits, and high social status.
- jiǔcài hézi: Pan-fried turnovers stuffed with chives, scrambled eggs, and vermicelli noodles, a traditional northern Chinese breakfast.
- wútóng: The East Asian phoenix tree (Firmiana simplex), traditionally associated with hosting the mythical phoenix and representing deep emotional yearning in Chinese literature.
- bǎilàn: Literally 'let it rot', popular Chinese slang for slacking off, giving up, or rolling with the punches when facing pressures.
- jiānbǐng guǒzi: A popular Chinese savory street crepe made from a grain batter, eggs, scallions, sweet bean sauce, and a crispy fried cracker.
- zǎoliàn: 'Early love' or dating during primary, middle, or high school, which is traditionally discouraged or strictly forbidden by Chinese parents and schools.
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