The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 55
by Little PandaWhat is Going On
A sudden urge to cry.
[A modern poem reads:
“If anyone asks about my worries, I dare not speak your name1.”]
Cheng Xiang was a little surprised.
Running into the yujie2 again at this bar seemed reasonable enough; after all, they had only ever crossed paths outside the company building and in this very venue.
But there was no way this yujie came to the bar every single day, right? For her to show up whenever Cheng Xiang did—this was just a bit too coincidental.
Cheng Xiang repeatedly bit the corner of her lip. Should she say hello? Or not?
Sigh, better not. Even as an extreme extrovert, she never knew what to say around the yujie. Besides, the woman’s aura was so freezing cold that the bottle of drinking yogurt she had handed Cheng Xiang last time probably didn’t even need refrigeration to stay chilled.
Hahaha. Cheng Xiang laughed to herself at her own absurd joke.
Had the yujie seen her? Or had her gaze just happened to sweep in this direction? With her canvas bag on her shoulder, Cheng Xiang silently shuffled toward the dim shadows.
The yujie indifferently withdrew her gaze. She made no move to come over, simply carrying her bag as she walked deeper into the bar.
Cheng Xiang let out a quiet sigh of relief. She probably hadn’t seen her, then.
Tao Tianran walked into the bar. Yi Yu was vigorously shaking a cocktail shaker, letting out an amused “oh” when she spotted her.
“You really do come here every day,” Yi Yu teased. “I’m starting to suspect you’re waiting for someone.”
Tao Tianran remained silent. She curled her fingers and tapped the bar counter once, ordering a drink.
“Waiting by the stump for a stray rabbit?” Yi Yu leaned an ear in close, gossiping. “Which little white rabbit are you waiting for? Come on, tell me.”
“Not a little white rabbit,” Tao Tianran said, picking up her glass and taking a sip. “A fancy rat3.”
“Hahaha! Well, it seems the bar really does help people unwind. Even Teacher Tao is cracking jokes now.”
Tao Tianran recalled the sight of Cheng Xiang at the entrance just moments ago.
As the weather gradually warmed, Cheng Xiang had ditched her bulky, puffer-style down jacket in favor of a thick plaid shirt-jacket over a hoodie. A pair of snow boots made her legs in her jeans look remarkably slender. Her medium-length, soft chestnut hair fell over her shoulders, and her round eyes scanned her surroundings. Every now and then, when she took a breath, she would slightly wrinkle the bridge of her nose.
Qin Ziqiao had once said that Cheng Xiang looked like a fancy rat.
Tao Tianran had looked up what a fancy rat looked like, and the resemblance was indeed uncanny.
Wary. Yet curious. Always ready to embrace the world.
“Hey, look, look,” Yi Yu suddenly called to Tao Tianran. “See that girl over there in the hoodie? She’s completely barefaced—she really doesn’t look like the type who frequents bars, yet she’s back again!”
Tao Tianran took a sip of her drink and brushed her falling long hair behind her ear.
“Should I go ask if she’s of age? She didn’t sneak in, did she?”
“She’s of age,” Tao Tianran, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up.
“How do you know? Do you know her?”
“We don’t count as knowing each other yet.”
If Yi Yu had been focused entirely on the gossip, she would have noticed the qualifier Tao Tianran had added before “don’t count as knowing each other”—”yet.”
Yi Yu watched the corner, highly amused. “Hey, the woman who hit on her last time is here too. Do you think there’s a spark between them?”
Tao Tianran said nothing, her fingertips idly tapping against her glass.
“If they actually end up together, does that make me a matchmaker? Can I count that toward my spiritual merits? What if I give them a lifetime thirty-percent-off membership card?”
Yi Yu grew more excited as she spoke, deeply impressed by her own business acumen. But when she turned her head, she found Tao Tianran staring at her with a completely blank expression.
“…” Yi Yu raised a hand to clutch her chest. “You scared me. Why are you glaring at me?”
“Did I glare at you?”
“Did you… not glare?” Yi Yu was suddenly unsure.
After a brief silence, Tao Tianran suddenly asked, “What are those two doing?”
“Which two?”
Tao Tianran lifted her eyelids to glance at her.
“Oh, oh, the two I was just gossiping about. Can’t you see for yourself? Just turn around—they’re right behind you to your left.”
“I don’t want to look,” Tao Tianran said.
“If you don’t want to look, why did you ask? Are you interested or not?”
Tao Tianran stared at Yi Yu in silence.
Yi Yu brought both hands to her chest in a defensive pose. “Why do I feel like you’re glaring at me again? Is it still my imagination?”
Tao Tianran pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth. “I have nothing better to do. I was just asking casually, all right?”
“Since when do you have nothing better to do?” Yi Yu glanced over in that direction. “They ordered two drinks and a plate of nuts. Right now, that girl is saying something. She looks so happy, her eyes are totally crinkled up. Aw, she really does look rather sweet.”
“She looks very happy?” Tao Tianran lifted her eyelids again.
“Yeah, what could be so funny? I kind of want to eavesdrop.”
Cheng Xiang was currently telling Luo Yan the story of how she had fractured her leg in the shower.
“The shower head at my place doesn’t focus very well, and when the water pressure gets unstable, it sprays all over the place. I was washing my hair with foam covering my eyes, and before I knew it, water sprayed straight into my ear.”
“I don’t even remember when, but I once read online that hopping on one foot can get the water out of your ear. Like, if water gets in your right ear, you hop on your left foot. So I had my left slipper on, hopping around clack-clack, and then, guess what—”
There was really nothing to guess. Cheng Xiang’s eyes curved as she laughed.
“I slipped and broke my leg! Hahaha! I’m not going to lie, that was the very first fracture of my life. I had to wear a cast for two months. I got all kinds of people to doodle all over it. I actually wanted to keep it at home as a treasure, but…”
She lowered her voice. “To be honest, the cast actually smelled a bit ripe after they took it off. My mom insisted on throwing it away.”
Luo Yan’s lips curved upward.
When she had first met Cheng Xiang at the bar, she had found the girl highly intriguing—her round eyes were always darting around, observing the world. Listening to her speak now, Luo Yan realized she was quite the chatterbox, but in a way that felt incredibly relaxing to someone with such a high-stress job.
Cheng Xiang watched as Luo Yan’s expression softened toward her.
She scolded herself internally: What are you doing, Cheng Xiang? Why do you start babbling the moment you open your mouth!
You spent nearly two hundred yuan tonight. Did you come here just to make small talk with Luo Yan?
She stared at Luo Yan, her lips parting slightly.
Sigh, how should I bring this up? She couldn’t exactly pull off a zero-frame startup4 and ask if the lawyer was interested in her.
Weighing her words, she asked, “Isn’t it busy being a lawyer?”
“Hmm?”
“Oh, I just meant… you seem to have the time to chat with me every day.”
Luo Yan smiled. “Actually, being a lawyer is extremely busy.”
Oh, heavens…
How do I respond to that?
“Can I ask you a question?” Luo Yan said.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“What’s your type?”
“…Huh?”
“Well, to be honest, I don’t really know,” Cheng Xiang said, pulling herself together as she answered seriously. “I think… when I meet that person, I’ll just know.”
Luo Yan observed her expression and took a sip of her drink. “Which means?”
Cheng Xiang’s face felt like it was about to burst into flames.
She felt that, since the conversation had reached this point, she had to be completely direct. She was incredibly nervous. Sigh. It felt like a straight-A student had come to be friends with an F-student like her, and she was about to reject them.
Just then, Yi Yu tapped on the bar counter and called out to Tao Tianran, “Are you really not going to look? It’s getting so good. That girl has such a serious look on her face. I wonder what she’s saying. You don’t think she’s confessing, do you? Heavens, if she is, I’m sending a bottle of champagne to their table!”
“Hey, are you glaring at me again?”
For the first time, Tao Tianran turned her head.
Bathed in the warm glow of the wall sconce, Cheng Xiang’s small, delicate face indeed wore an intensely serious expression.
Tao Tianran set down her glass and stood up.
“Hey, where are you going?”
Without a word, Tao Tianran headed straight for the restroom.
Emerging from the stall, she washed her hands and used her slender fingers to adjust the collar of her shirt. The lighting in the restroom was kept very low, casting a shadow over her face in the mirror and accentuating the sharp, delicate lines of her features.
Tao Tianran suddenly wondered: Can a person’s affection change?
She remembered when Cheng Xiang had first met her in the past. Back then, rumors had spread like wildfire across the entire school grade: “She was completely dazed by Tao Tianran’s beauty—”
Of course, that wasn’t how it had actually happened.
But Tao Tianran still remembered the first time Cheng Xiang had looked at her through the classroom window—the way those pupils had suddenly dilated.
She remembered it was a Chinese class.
The lingering heat of late summer and early autumn hung in the air, accompanied by the monotonous, rhythmic scratching of the teacher’s chalk against the blackboard. The entire classroom had been half-asleep. Only one girl, her small face propped up on one hand, had been staring out the window in sheer boredom, her gaze drifting aimlessly over the sun-dappled phoenix trees.
And she had been the very first to spot Tao Tianran walking in behind the homeroom teacher.
Those small, animal-like eyes had widened slightly.
Not long after that, Tao Tianran had gained a little tail at school.
“Tao Tianran, do you remember that we have to submit an essay for English class?”
“Tao Tianran, do you want to borrow my eraser?” It was the first time she had ever met someone who proactively offered to lend an eraser.
“Tao Tianran, since you sit behind me, can you see all my split ends?” Cheng Xiang would pull at her short hair, looking deeply distressed. “I’ve cut it so short, so why does it still have split ends? I didn’t inherit my mom’s hair at all. Hers is so thick and black. She said it’s because she washed it with soap locust pods5 since she was a kid.”
“Hey, Tao Tianran, you’re from Gangdao. Have you ever heard of washing hair with soap locust pods?”
Tao Tianran pulled herself out of the memory, her gaze focusing on her own eyes in the mirror.
Was it possible for a person to lose all their memories and never fall for the same person again?
In the past, Tao Tianran had been certain, just as she had recognized Cheng Xiang in countless loops and discovered that she loved her deeply.
Yet in this moment, for the very first time, she suddenly felt a tremor of uncertainty.
Pushing the door open with her usual icy expression, she resolved to walk over to Cheng Xiang’s table, only to nearly collide with someone. Before she could even see who it was, she heard a soft, delicate whisper: “Sorry.”
Tao Tianran lifted her long eyelashes.
When they had met back in her second year of high school, she had often wondered what Cheng Xiang would be like when she grew up. She had found it hard to picture how such a chatty, pure, and slightly silly person would turn out as a working adult.
Later, she discovered that the adult Cheng Xiang was actually exactly the same as she had been in high school.
She might have grown a single centimeter taller. Her face was still tiny and delicate, and her eyes were perhaps not quite as round as they had been in her teens—now slightly more elongated, which, combined with a chin that had lost its baby fat, gave her a slightly more mature look.
Yet the moment she smiled, the soft rolls under her eyes would still bunch up, her eyes curving like crescents.
Right now, Cheng Xiang was standing in front of her, not smiling at all. She had taken a large step backward when the door opened, her pupils widening slightly. It was hard to tell if she had simply been startled by the sudden opening of the door, or if it was…
Simply because she had run into her.
The bar’s lighting mimicked an industrial, distressed metal aesthetic, with several spotlights hanging from the black-painted steel rafters above. The light fell unevenly—intense in some spots, pitch-dark in others. Tao Tianran squinted slightly against the bright beam.
She had been drinking, and a faint scent of alcohol drifted from her.
Cheng Xiang just stood there, staring blankly, her lips slightly parted.
Tao Tianran’s gaze drifted to Cheng Xiang’s lips, which caught the glint of the spotlight, and a sudden wave of irritation washed over her.
She knew she should speak to Cheng Xiang. She should ask for her contact information. But the memory of Cheng Xiang sitting across from Luo Yan, smiling so brightly, made her purse her lips. Suddenly, she didn’t want to say anything at all.
She stepped forward on her high heels and began to walk past.
Cheng Xiang remained where she was, lightly biting her lower lip.
She had always thought the yujie was just cold, her face a mask of total indifference. Who would have thought that the way the yujie squinted slightly under the spotlights could be so incredibly alluring?
When Tao Tianran suddenly spun around, she hadn’t expected Cheng Xiang to be following right behind her.
Evidently startled by the sudden turnaround, Cheng Xiang gasped and took another step back, her eyes widening once more.
Dazzled by the light, Tao Tianran squinted again.
Oh, my… Cheng Xiang was utterly dazed. Releasing her lower lip, she suddenly blurted out, “Do you want to add each other on WeChat?”
The moment the words left her mouth, Cheng Xiang instantly regretted it.
She had been too impulsive, Xiangzi! Did four random encounters make them familiar enough? Why on earth did she suddenly ask for her WeChat?
If she asked so abruptly, the other woman was bound to refuse. Think about it: she was a corporate elite whose single shirt probably cost a month of Cheng Xiang’s salary. Why would she suddenly agree to give her WeChat to someone asking out of the blue? Was she really that bored?
Cheng Xiang took another tiny half-step backward, clasping her hands behind her back. “No, I mean… not long ago, I read this thing online. It said that if you cross paths with someone three times in a row, it’s fate, and you’re destined to get to know each other. So I thought of you.”
“I’m just saying, since we’ve already run into each other four times, maybe we could exchange contact info? I don’t mean anything else by it,” Cheng Xiang quickly released her hands and waved them frantically in front of her. “Don’t misunderstand. Please don’t misunderstand.”
“You thought of me?” Tao Tianran asked.
“Huh?”
“You just said that after seeing that post online, you thought of me,” Tao Tianran said. “So… when you were by yourself, you thought of me?”
Uh, talk about a unique way to filter information.
Cheng Xiang nodded. “…I did.”
Tao Tianran lowered her chin slightly, appearing to be deep in thought.
Then, she tilted her chin upward. “Do you enjoy adding people on WeChat?”
“Ah?” Cheng Xiang was dumbfounded again.
“The one you came to the bar with tonight—you met her the last time you were here, didn’t you?” Tao Tianran squinted slightly again, perhaps finding the overhead light too bright. “You added her WeChat too, right?”
“Yes,” Cheng Xiang nodded, completely bewildered.
“Oh,” Tao Tianran nodded along. “So every time you come to the bar, you add another jiejie’s WeChat.”
Oh, heavens… Cheng Xiang couldn’t explain why, but hearing the woman utter the word “jiejie” in that incredibly cool, crisp voice made her heart skip another beat.
“And here I thought you were a good girl,” Tao Tianran continued, keeping her gaze fixed on her. “I even gave you a bottle of drinking yogurt last time.”
Cheng Xiang clasped her hands behind her back once more.
Tao Tianran simply stared at her. In truth, Tao Tianran was a deeply proud person—not because she boasted of her own talent, looks, or family background, but because she simply did not care about the rest of the world.
Yet at this moment, a subtle anxiety was gnawing at her heart.
Cheng Xiang stood with her head bowed for a moment before suddenly looking up and blurting out, “Since you gave it to me, of course I drank it! I drank it on my way home.”
Tao Tianran was momentarily stunned, and then, completely caught off guard, she laughed.
How long had it been since she last smiled like this?
She suddenly recalled that rainy night from countless loops ago, when she had watched Cheng Xiang’s silhouette sprinting frantically along the emergency lane of the expressway, just moments before a truck would smash through the green median barrier and collide with her.
Yet here Cheng Xiang was, standing perfectly safe and sound in front of her, saying something so mundane and endearing.
Tao Tianran hadn’t intended to smile in front of Cheng Xiang so soon, but the amusement had been jarred loose by Cheng Xiang’s words. She raised a hand to press against her lips, though her shimmering eyes still held a lingering trace of laughter.
Cheng Xiang stared at her, completely dazed.
Clearing her throat, Tao Tianran lowered her hand and asked, “Was it good?”
“Actually, I have a feeling,” Cheng Xiang whispered, “that it might have gone a bit bad.”
“Hmm?”
“Well, after you gave it to me, I didn’t drink it right away because I’d already ordered drinks with my friend. The alcohol here is pretty expensive, so I couldn’t just let it go to waste, right? I ended up taking the yogurt back with me.”
“I see.”
“Then, when I got home that night, I was feeling kind of thirsty after the alcohol, so I dug the yogurt out of my bag and drank it.” Cheng Xiang wrinkled her nose as she spoke. “Do you think it’s because it was stuffed in my bag for too long? The very first sip tasted a bit off.”
Tao Tianran nodded with mock seriousness. “It’s possible.”
“And then?” she asked.
“Then I… drank the rest anyway.”
Tao Tianran asked softly, “Why?”
…What do you mean, why?
“It would have been such a waste to throw it out.”
“Why would it be a waste?”
…Because wasting food is bad!
Cheng Xiang was at a loss for how to respond.
As they stood there, girls occasionally walked past them toward the restroom. Tao Tianran turned slightly in her direction to make room, bringing with her a wave of her natural, crisp fragrance.
Cheng Xiang asked in a small voice, “What’s your name?”
Tao Tianran came to a halt and shot her a sidelong glance. “Do you ask a different jiejie her name every week too?”
Cheng Xiang laughed.
Faced with Tao Tianran, her nervousness suddenly vanished. Scratching her head, she curled her lips and said, “Hey, I didn’t actually mean to do that.”
“Last week, or this week?” Tao Tianran asked.
“Huh?”
“Did you not mean to ask last week, or this week?”
At that moment, someone emerged from the restroom and walked behind Cheng Xiang toward the bar. Cheng Xiang didn’t notice, but Tao Tianran lifted her slender fingers and lightly tugged the corner of Cheng Xiang’s jacket, releasing it almost instantly. The movement was incredibly swift and natural.
Cheng Xiang pursed her lips. “So… are you going to tell me or not?”
Perhaps tired of standing in her high heels, Tao Tianran leaned back against a slightly tarnished metal pillar. “Do you want to know?”
She pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, leaving a subtle pause. “How about you take a guess?”
“Me guess?” Cheng Xiang grinned. “Xiao Hua? Gousheng? Erdan?”
The yujie raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll give you a hint. It’s a line from a play.”
“Peking opera?” Cheng Xiang’s mind raced through various operatic verses like ‘I suddenly raise my head to see the clear moonlight in the azure sky,’ which she felt suited the yujie’s vibe quite well.
The yujie shook her head slightly. “Kunqu opera. Have you heard of it?”
“Ah, I have. My dad is from the South, actually.” Hey, Cheng Xiang, why are you sharing family details with someone you barely know?
“Mm.” The yujie fell silent, waiting for Cheng Xiang to think.
Cheng Xiang tilted her head in thought. Could it be ‘They say at the end of deep passion, there are no trees in the moon and no waves in the shadow’?
After all, the face of the woman before her was so icy and aloof; perhaps only such cold, quiet verses could match her.
But when Cheng Xiang spoke, her voice became incredibly soft. “You must know that I have always naturally loved…6“
The lights flickered twice, and the shadow of a passerby fell across the yujie’s face.
Her expression froze, as if she had been dragged back to a time long, long ago by the shifting light.
A subtle, surging wave of emotion washed over Cheng Xiang’s heart, though she couldn’t explain what was happening.
It was impossible to tell how much time passed. Perhaps two seconds, perhaps many years—long enough for tectonic plates to shift, for diamonds to form, for seas to turn into mulberry fields.
The yujie extended her slender fingertips toward Cheng Xiang. “Yes. I am Tao Tianran.”
A fine sheen of sweat broke out on Cheng Xiang’s forehead, and her heart began to beat thump-thump.
Why was she so absolutely certain in her heart? Certain that the name of the woman before her had to be those two clear, simple characters—”Tianran.”
Cheng Xiang couldn’t think of any other name that would suit her better. Or rather, she couldn’t imagine any other face that would fit this name so perfectly.
But Tao Tianran was actually offering a handshake. Wasn’t that a bit too corporate? In the dilapidated office building where Cheng Xiang worked, they didn’t hand out business cards, let alone shake hands. Stunned for a moment, Cheng Xiang wiped her palm against her side behind her back.
Only then did she extend her hand to lightly, briefly clasp the other’s.
Tao Tianran gently wrapped her fingers around Cheng Xiang’s, not releasing them immediately.
So cool.
Cheng Xiang thought it felt like holding cold moonlight in her hand.
“And your name?” Tao Tianran asked.
“Oh, I’m Cheng Xiang.” Cheng Xiang was just about to explain that it wasn’t the homophone for prime minister.
Tao Tianran nodded. “Yes, Xiao Xiang.”
Cheng Xiang froze.
Usually, even when people knew her name meant a narrow alleyway, they would call her Xiangzi because it rolled off the tongue easier.
Yet the Tao Tianran in front of her had said—”Xiao Xiang.”
It felt as though those two characters had been spoken by those thin lips countless times before.
Aloud, and in silence. In the snow, and in the rain.
That indescribable, subtle sensation began to swell in her heart once more.
A sudden stinging sensation hit her nose. What was this sudden, overwhelming urge to cry?
Cheng Xiang found it completely bizarre. Striving to suppress the emotion, she forced a smile and asked, “How did you know my childhood nickname is Xiao Xiang? Only my parents and relatives call me that. Most of my classmates and friends call me Xiangzi.”
“Indeed,” Tao Tianran nodded. “How did I know?”
Cheng Xiang raised a hand to touch the tip of her nose. “Um, I should get back to my seat.”
“Oh.” Tao Tianran pursed her lips, tilting her chin up slightly. “Someone is waiting for you.”
…Why does that sound a bit odd?
Then again, there was nothing wrong with it. Luo Yan was waiting for her. Cheng Xiang had said she was going to the restroom precisely to buy some time to figure out how to explain things clearly to Luo Yan.
So she nodded. “Yeah.”
…Wait, why did she get the feeling that Tao Tianran had just glared at her?
Was it just her imagination?
Tao Tianran turned around and walked back toward the bar.
“Excuse me,” Cheng Xiang called out from behind her.
Tao Tianran looked back.
“Are we not adding each other on WeChat?”
“159,” Tao Tianran replied.
Cheng Xiang froze for a moment before realizing that the woman was reciting her phone number.
She quickly pulled out her phone, her fingers tapping the digital keypad.
After rattling off the eleven digits, Tao Tianran said, “Give me a ring?”
“Oh, right.” Cheng Xiang dialed the number.
Tao Tianran pulled out her own phone, casting a downward glance at the screen. Why hadn’t she saved Cheng Xiang’s number either? Offering a soft “Goodbye,” she walked away on her own.
Cheng Xiang thought: Is she going to save my number later? I wonder how Tao Tianran will save my name?
Would it be a formal ‘Cheng Xiang’? Or just a simple, convenient ‘Xiang’? Or perhaps she’ll save it as ‘Xiao Cheng’ in a business-like manner, just like that handshake of hers?
Pfft.
Cheng Xiang thought to herself, Like a real estate agent.
She stared at the eleven-digit string on her screen. She began to type out the character “Tao.”
Then she deleted it, replacing it with the three letters “TTR.” After saving the contact, she slipped her phone back into her pocket and hurried back to her table.
It was very strange. Why type her initials, as if she were trying to hide something?
It was as if this had become her very own secret.
Footnotes
- From the poem 'Worries' (fanyou) by modern Chinese poet Dai Wangshu. It expresses a deep, melancholy longing and unspoken love that the speaker keeps hidden from the world.
- A loanword from Japanese 'onee-sama', used in modern Chinese subcultures to describe a mature, cool, elegant, and highly attractive older sister archetype.
- A popular breed of domesticated pet rat (huāzhīshǔ) in China, characterized by its spotted coat, high intelligence, and endearing, alert behavior.
- A term originating from fighting games, referring to an attack or action that triggers instantly with zero preparation frames. In slang, it means taking sudden, unhesitating action.
- The seedpods of the Chinese honey locust tree (zǎojiào), traditionally boiled and used as a natural, chemical-free shampoo and soap in ancient and rural China.
- A famous line from 'The Peony Pavilion' (Mudan Ting), a masterpiece of Kunqu opera written by Tang Xianzu in the Ming dynasty. It serves as a poetic pun on Tao Tianran's name, which literally means 'natural' or 'nature'.
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