The Alley Was Always This Long – Chapter 6

by Little Panda

The Passenger Seat

Her exclusive seat.

[Why was it exactly?
Even though I was dating you, I still harbored the cautious, timid heart of a secret admirer.
I only dared to write your name on the fog-covered window.]

The first day of work was similar to the first day of school: it was all about adapting to the environment, figuring out the situation, and generally easy to handle.

When it was time to clock out, Cheng Xiang sat at her desk and swept her gaze across the office.

Wow, it seemed high-end corporate slaves¹ were still corporate slaves. Even after working hours, everyone “voluntarily” stayed behind, continuing to grind away in front of their computers.

The only difference, perhaps, was that in the past, Cheng Xiang and her coworkers would pool their orders just to buy cheap malatang². These high-end corporate slaves, on the other hand, likely opted for those salads that made a person’s face turn green from eating so much of them—salads that cost dozens of yuan a box, frighteningly expensive.

Just as Cheng Xiang was thinking this, Tao Tianran walked out of her office.

A girl with short hair came jogging over, carrying a paper bag. Judging by her demeanor, she was Tao Tianran’s assistant. “I’m so sorry, so sorry, Teacher Tao. I was taking a call from the big boss just now. Your dinner delivery has arrived.”

Cheng Xiang shot a glance at the paper bag from afar. Sure enough, it was from a famous ‘white people food’³ brand.

It was exactly the kind of salad that turned a person’s face green.

Pfft. Cheng Xiang couldn’t hold it in and let out a snort of laughter.

Tao Tianran’s assistant didn’t hear it. But what kind of ears did Tao Tianran have? She immediately shot a sharp glance in Cheng Xiang’s direction.

Cheng Xiang instantly adopted a posture of utter focus—eyes on her nose, nose on her heart⁴—putting on the facade of a corporate slave diligently staring at her computer monitor.

Just then, the assistant who had picked her up that morning happened to walk by to grab some documents. Seeing her, the assistant smiled and asked, “Shianne, are you not heading off work yet?”

“Ah?” Cheng Xiang was a little dazed. She looked around the office again. “Everyone… isn’t everyone else still working?”

The assistant smiled. “But you always leave exactly on time.”

Hmph, Cheng Xiang silently cursed in her head.

What did they call the capriciousness of the rich? This was the capriciousness of the rich. It seemed Eldest Miss Yu, relying on her family’s wealth, wasn’t the least bit afraid of losing her job.

Since the original Eldest Miss Yu had a heart set on rectifying toxic workplace culture, Cheng Xiang wouldn’t pretend anymore either.

She grabbed her handbag, stood up, and casually flipped the curly ends of her hair over her shoulder. “Alright then, I’m clocking out.”

“You didn’t drive today,” the assistant noted. “I’ll have a driver take you.”

“No need, no need.” Cheng Xiang thought she shouldn’t put on such grand airs. “You focus on your work, I’ll call a cab myself.”

But she had been careless. She had forgotten just how light and thin the coats of the wealthy were.

The moment she stepped downstairs, the biting, bone-chilling wind taught her a harsh lesson.

Ever since the first snow of winter had fallen, it had come down with a vengeance. Snowflakes flew thickly through the ink-black night sky—drifting, scattered, like memories someone desperately wanted to forget but couldn’t.

Shivering violently, Cheng Xiang pulled her coat tighter and clutched her phone, staring at the ride-hailing app. There were eighty-seven people ahead of her in the queue for a standard express car.

Wait, hold on—why was she even calling a standard express car?! Had she forgotten she was supposed to be a social elite now?!

Cheng Xiang let out two huffs of breath and, with all the arrogance of the wealthy, selected the most expensive luxury car tier.

…She had still been careless. She had forgotten just how many rich people occupied Beicheng’s most expensive CBD office building. The queue for luxury cars was even longer than the express queue—nearly a hundred people. Was everyone too lazy to drive themselves in the snow?

As Cheng Xiang hopped from foot to foot by the curb wrapped in her coat, a glacier white Bentley Bentayga pulled out from the underground garage.

Hey, hey, hey… Cheng Xiang scrambled a few steps out of the way.

Sniffling, she stood still and looked through the windshield. It was tinted with a dark privacy film. She remembered when Tao Tianran bought the car right after graduating university; Cheng Xiang had been the one to go with her.

The saleswoman had been overwhelmingly enthusiastic, asking what kind of tint they wanted, offering a choice between dark and light. Cheng Xiang had stood by and said without hesitation, “Dark!” Then she paused, remembering it was Tao Tianran’s car, took a step back, poked Tao Tianran’s waist, and said, “You pick, you pick.”

Back then, a freshly graduated Tao Tianran wore a crisp white collared shirt paired with slim black trousers, the top two buttons left casually undone. Rather than her straight collarbones, what perhaps drew the eye even more was the pale cyan beauty’s tendon⁵ at her neck.

It was like the finest white porcelain, reflecting a luster as ancient as time, only serving to highlight how breathtakingly pale Tao Tianran was.

She was an ice field, devoid of joy or sorrow. Yet all her tiny details were incredibly vivid—like the two small moles at the corners of her eyes and brows, or the pale cyan beauty’s tendon that pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat.

Back then, she wasn’t quite as strictly professional, not quite as flawlessly perfect, not quite as invulnerable as she later became. That slight touch of youthful greenness constantly drew you in, making you steal another glance, as if by looking just a little longer, you might glimpse a sliver of true warmth behind her perpetually unruffled face.

But even in her early twenties, the young miss of a wealthy family already possessed an extraordinary air. She said coolly to the saleswoman, “Dark.”

Standing behind Tao Tianran, Cheng Xiang giggled under her breath, ‘Hehehe.’

Tao Tianran shot her a sidelong glance.

“I mean it,” Cheng Xiang said, waving her hands in a dramatic, deadpan defense. “I definitely didn’t suggest the dark tint just so I could get all intimate with you in the car!”

Cheng Xiang learned later that Tao Tianran chose the dark tint simply because she was completely indifferent to most things.

Cheng Xiang also learned later that she would never get the chance to get intimate with Tao Tianran in the car anyway—even though Tao Tianran was the most attractive person she had ever seen driving one-handed.

Speaking of which, Cheng Xiang had been the very first passenger in that Bentley.

When she sat in the passenger seat, the factory-issue paper floor mats hadn’t even been removed. Stepping on them made a loud, crisp rustling sound, like crushing fallen leaves in late autumn.

Tao Tianran’s gaze slid over to her. “Take it out.”

Was it that obvious? She had her hands hidden behind her back, fidgeting awkwardly.

“…It’s really tacky,” Cheng Xiang hesitated for a moment before pulling the car ornament out from behind her back.

It was handmade. Various colored beads were strung together to form a lucky cat bearing the characters “Safe Travels,” complete with Director Ma’s favorite red tassels at the bottom. Making it hadn’t been easy! For a whole week, Cheng Xiang felt like she was going cross-eyed.

**Hand-beaded lucky cat ornament with a red tassel**

But… she shifted in her seat, sniffing the scent of the brand-new leather upholstery.

The loud, “tacky” lucky cat in her hands really did clash horribly with the sleek, minimalist luxury of the car. After all, Tao Tianran had mentioned buying a car with such effortless nonchalance—in the same tone one might use to say they picked up half a kilo of apples on the way back to campus. How was Cheng Xiang supposed to know Tao Tianran would casually buy a two-million-yuan car the moment she graduated?

Yet, Tao Tianran took it from her hands and hung it directly from the rearview mirror.

“Don’t…” Even Cheng Xiang thought it looked out of place.

“Let it hang,” Tao Tianran said, putting the car in gear and driving off smoothly.

Now, the reborn Cheng Xiang stood by the curb, watching through the Bentley’s windshield as the red tassels of the lucky cat swayed back and forth, reflecting Tao Tianran’s joyless, sorrowless face. She still looked incredibly cool driving one-handed. Her coat was tossed casually onto the passenger seat. She wore a more professional white shirt now, a single strand of black hair clinging to her beauty’s tendon before vanishing into her collar.

Only then did Cheng Xiang remember she ought to hide.

Tao Tianran had ordered dinner, so who knew why she suddenly had to leave the office. If she happened to be going the same way as Cheng Xiang, and offered a ride to a coworker standing freezing on the curb…

Given Beicheng’s evening rush hour traffic, wouldn’t they be trapped alone in an enclosed space for two hours?

Cheng Xiang broke out in goosebumps. She had nowhere to hide, and she watched helplessly as Tao Tianran shot her a sidelong glance through the windshield.

And then, that glacier white, infinitely cool Bentley drove right past her.

It drove right past her…

It didn’t even slow down. The wind in its wake lifted the hem of Cheng Xiang’s excessively thin coat.

Hey! Cheng Xiang stomped her foot on the pavement, practically laughing from the sheer absurdity of it.

She didn’t know whether to feel bitter or relieved—bitter that she had once fallen in love with such an ice field, or relieved that Tao Tianran wasn’t just cold to her, but was frostily indiscriminate toward everyone.

What was pride worth anyway? Could you eat it? Cheng Xiang abandoned her stubbornness and, shivering, called her assistant.

The assistant soon came jogging downstairs. “I’ve arranged for the driver. He’ll pull the car around shortly.” She offered a teasing smile. “When you said you’d call your own cab, I thought maybe someone was coming to pick you up for a date.”

Cheng Xiang asked casually, “Did I use to go on a lot of dates?”

The assistant blinked, an expression that clearly said, ‘Hey, don’t try to trick me into gossiping about your private life,’ dancing in her eyes.

The car arrived swiftly. The assistant was highly courteous, and despite Cheng Xiang’s repeated polite refusals, she ended up in the front passenger seat while Cheng Xiang was ushered into the back.

Cheng Xiang sank into the rear seat, the warm air of the heater finally bringing sensation back to her frozen fingers.

She turned her head to look out the window. If she narrowed her eyes slightly, the city lights outside blurred, transforming into an old, faded postcard. The white fog slowly creeping up the glass was the dust that time had left behind.

Cheng Xiang raised her slender, pale fingertips.

In the past, she had talked a lot, smiled a lot, and was full of little habits. For instance, whenever she saw a fogged-up car window, she could never sit still. She always had to trace her fingers over it and write something.

Unconsciously, her finger would form the strokes: a horizontal line, another horizontal line, a left-falling stroke, a right-falling stroke—the character ‘Tian’ (天).

Then she would snap out of it and deliberately append words to form phrases: “Tianzhen, tiankong, tianlun zhi le—innocence, sky, family happiness.”

Pfft, “family happiness,” really.

Only when she sneaked a quiet glance at Tao Tianran and found her staring out the opposite window would she quickly scrawl onto the glass: “Tianran.”

And then, just as quickly, she would wipe it away.

When Tao Tianran turned back at the rustling sound of her movements, Cheng Xiang would bare her two rows of little white teeth in a wide grin and say, “Nothing, nothing at all.”

Why was it exactly?

Cheng Xiang looked at where Tao Tianran’s hand used to rest between them. Her index finger curled, but in the end, she didn’t grasp at the empty air, pressing her lips together and looking out the other window.

Why was it that even when I was dating you—even when I could proudly brag to outsiders about “my girlfriend”—

Why did I still harbor the cautious, timid heart of a secret admirer whenever I sat beside you?

Even the heart-pounding, bitter emotions connected to you felt like they were stolen. They couldn’t be committed to paper; they could only be written on a fog-covered window. Once the fog dissipated, they vanished without a trace.

Cheng Xiang thought to herself: So it turns out that when your heart beats for someone to its absolute limit, all that remains is bitterness.

She pulled her finger back, no longer tracing shapes on the glass. Keeping her tone perfectly casual, she asked the assistant, “Teacher Tao…”

“Hmm?” The assistant turned back to look.

“What kind of person is she?” Cheng Xiang tried her best to sound utterly uninterested.

“Oh.” The assistant smiled. “You’ve only worked with Teacher Tao for a very limited time, right? After all, shortly after you joined the company, she went abroad for advanced studies, and soon after she returned, you were posted overseas.”

“Teacher Tao… how should I put it?” The assistant raised a hand and tapped her temple. “She’s just cold. Usually, ‘cold’ is followed by another descriptor, right? Like cold and arrogant, or cold and ruthless. But not Teacher Tao. She’s just cold.”

Cheng Xiang’s lips curled into a smile.

Exactly. That was Tao Tianran.

Whether “cold and arrogant” or “cold and ruthless,” both were easier to grasp than pure, unadulterated “coldness.” Tao Tianran was too stingy to offer even a sliver of anything extra. She was just cold.

Cheng Xiang let out a small, quiet breath from her chest.

Was falling in love with someone like that her predestined doom?

Back at the Yu family home, Zhuwei was sitting on the living room sofa, flipping through a medical text.

Before she retired, she had been a highly renowned doctor.

Cheng Xiang tossed her handbag onto the sofa and collapsed backward, her face pointed at the ceiling.

Zhuwei turned a page of her book and shot her a sidelong glance. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s just… work.” Cheng Xiang felt the gaudy crystal chandelier was a bit too blinding. She raised a hand to shield her eyes. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”

Zhuwei turned another page. “Then resign.”

“Really?” Cheng Xiang parted her fingers slightly, peering out at Zhuwei.

What did they call the superpower of money⁶? This was the superpower of money! To be able to quit a job whenever you felt like it. If she were still the Cheng Xiang of her past life, she would have hesitated endlessly!

She sat up from the sofa. “Then I really might…”

Spending day after day with Tao Tianran was simply too difficult for her.

Tao Tianran was an ice field she could never thaw. When she had initiated the breakup in her past life, hadn’t she done it out of a desperate desire to abandon her armor and flee?

Seeing an ex she still couldn’t forget every single day—that feeling was like repeatedly licking the hole left after a tooth extraction.

You knew that tooth was never growing back. All that remained was an empty, echoing wound.

Zhuwei turned another page. “Well, this is just how you are. You can’t compare to your brother.”

Cheng Xiang felt a sudden, heavy blockage in her chest.

This seemed to be the first time since transmigrating that she realized—even the beautiful, rich, and talented Eldest Miss Yu didn’t have a life where everything went exactly as she pleased.

She picked up her handbag and stood.

Zhuwei lifted her gaze from the pages. “Well? Are you resigning or not? If you quit, go work for the family company and help your brother with some odds and ends. At any rate, no one expects you to achieve anything significant.”

“We’ll see,” Cheng Xiang said, stepping toward the stairs.

She went back to her bedroom and rummaged around again, but failed to uncover any new items that might help her understand Yu Yusheng better.

Crossing her arms, Cheng Xiang paced the room like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. She felt that since she had transmigrated and taken over someone else’s body, she couldn’t just start off by doing something that would embarrass her host.

She couldn’t resign.

But… that meant continuing to see Tao Tianran every day?

Just then, Cheng Xiang’s phone rang.

She glanced at the screen. A voice call was coming in from a contact named “Miss Wen the Glamorous Twin-Tailed Cockroach.”

…What kind of hardcore, unhinged name was that?

Cheng Xiang answered. “Hello.”

“Come out and play!” a highly flirtatious female voice rang through the speaker.

“Where?” Cheng Xiang figured that, since she still didn’t know much about Yu Yusheng, speaking more meant making more mistakes. It was better to spit out single syllables. It made her look cool!

“Hide.”

“I’ll… be right there.” When it came to Hide, Cheng Xiang couldn’t refuse. That was the bar she had always wanted to go to with Qin Ziqiao in the past, but had never actually managed to step foot inside.

Footnotes

'Niúmǎ' literally translates to 'cattle and horses' (beasts of burden). In modern Chinese internet slang, it is a self-deprecating term used by overworked, exploited corporate employees to describe themselves.
Málàtàng is a popular, inexpensive Chinese street food where customers select various skewers of meat and vegetables to be cooked together in a spicy, numbing broth.
Modern Chinese internet slang (báirén fàn) referring to bland, cold, or extremely raw Western-style meals—typically salads, sandwiches, or raw vegetables—eaten strictly for sustenance rather than flavor.
'Yǎnguān bí, bíguān xīn' (eyes on the nose, nose on the heart) is a traditional Chinese idiom derived from Buddhist meditation practices. It describes a state of intense concentration or adopting an utterly impassive, focused demeanor.
Měirén jīn (beauty's muscle or tendon) refers to the sternocleidomastoid muscle running along the side of the neck. When prominent, it is considered a classic mark of elegance and physical beauty in Chinese aesthetics.
A pun on the Chinese word for 'superpower' (chāonénglì). By swapping the first character for a homophone meaning 'banknote' (钞), it playfully translates to the 'superpower of money'—the ability to solve any problem simply by being incredibly rich.

Footnotes

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