Chapter 16: “Truth”

Q: Why stay away from Cui Muhuo?

A: This is a secret that truly cannot be told.

–

“Why don’t you two love Xue Kaiqi?”

By now, the speakers had switched to Rong Zu’er’s songs. The bridgehead hotpot base had been dumped into the pot, and the spatula stirred it until the rich aroma rose. Cui Qijin watched as Chen Wenran tossed in two rock sugars and most of a pot of boiling water before clapping on the lid to trap the rising steam. She still hadn’t forgotten to ask about it.

“I don’t,” Cui Qijin said. She added millet chili, cilantro, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sugar to her dipping bowl in strict order, methodical as always.

“Me neither.” Chi Buyu was busy pouring vinegar.

“Really?” Chen Wenran filled the third cup with Weiyi, grinning slyly. “Then should I switch the song back?”

“No.”

“No.”

Their voices overlapped perfectly once more.

Chen Wenran clutched the half-empty bottle of Weiyi, positively delighted. Then she caught the two of them exchanging a glance.

Hmm. Very unnatural.

They both looked away at the same moment. Each one picked up a freshly poured cup without so much as raising her head.

These two were acting so strangely right now. They must have either been fighting or making out just moments ago.

Chen Wenran and Ran Yan traded looks, winking conspiratorially as they tried to pry out the truth. Cui Qijin lifted her eyelids. “Since when did I realize you love music this much?”

“Do we really need tunes just to choke down hotpot?”

She casually swept her gaze across the table.

Chi Buyu had already dumped half a bowl of vinegar into her dipping bowl, but she wasn’t satisfied. She grabbed another bowl and slammed it onto the table with heroic flair, urging Ran Yan to pour in more. “Add some! More! Just a bit more!” In the end, the whole half-bowl was nothing but vinegar.

Cui Qijin suspected Chi Buyu had grown up soaking in a vat of vinegar. Just looking at it made her own eyes feel like they’d been rinsed in the stuff.

“You wouldn’t get it. Without some music, what kind of Valentine’s is this?” Chen Wenran called over the hotpot’s bubbling roar.

Cui Qijin didn’t look up. She mumbled a vague “Mm.”

No one had even touched their chopsticks yet.

She noticed Chi Buyu stealing a glance at her before quickly looking away at the red broth, now bubbling vigorously. Chi Buyu’s fingers gripped the Weiyi cup with caution. She looked troubled. Sneaky.

Cui Qijin propped her cheek and watched.

Chi Buyu stayed silent.

Fine, then. Cui Qijin withdrew her gaze leisurely.

She picked up her chopsticks and reached for the pot—but a brimming cup of Weiyi slid toward her, nudged along agonizingly slowly by one finger. Poke. A little closer.

“Cui Muhuo.” Chi Buyu spoke in her mangled Chengdu accent.

“You got a hair tie? I’m scared my hair’ll get all oily.”

Why be so sneaky just to ask for a hair tie? Cui Qijin glanced over. Chi Buyu blinked at her.

She looked down at the Weiyi now pushed right in front of her. Did she really need to bribe someone with Weiyi just to borrow a hair tie?

That was what Cui Qijin thought. But what she said was, “You’re using Chen Wenran’s Weiyi to butter me up for a hair tie?”

Chen Wenran, her lips smeared red with sauce, asked blankly what that meant.

Cui Qijin waved it off. Nothing.

She pushed the sneaky Weiyi back with natural ease. Then she slipped a black hair tie off her wrist and tossed it to Chi Buyu.

“One enough?”

“Need two.”

…

Cui Qijin looked over.

Chi Buyu tugged at her pigtails on either side and cleared her throat. “Gonna tie both sides up.”

“Just tie them together. Problem solved.”

“But tied together, it won’t look good.”

Chi Buyu wrinkled her nose. “Plus, once I untie them, my hair’ll get all messed up…”

She emphasized each word. “Then it’ll look even worse.”

“…”

Cui Qijin slipped off the hair tie from her left wrist too and tossed it over.

“Thanks.” Chi Buyu was all politeness now.

She swiftly gathered her twin tails into two buns. The floppy ribbons dangled alongside them behind her ears, with uneven strands of hair poking out like the untrimmed fuzz on a lop-eared rabbit.

Cui Qijin saw that after all this, Chi Buyu still hadn’t taken a single bite. She couldn’t help asking, “Why not just use your ribbons?”

“Because I’d have to undo my hair first.” Chi Buyu answered earnestly, a bit long-winded. “I’ve had it tied up so long—undoing it now would look awful. You know how thick my hair is…”

“Got it,” Cui Qijin cut in neatly. “Like the Lion King.”

“Bingo~” Chi Buyu mimicked the Lion King’s dubbing voice from the cartoon.

What was so “bingo” about it?

That was what Cui Qijin thought. Then her eyes drifted across the table to Ran Yan and Chen Wenran. For some reason, she wondered: Chi Buyu and Ran Yan had been dormmates for years. Had she never once let her hair down in front of Ran Yan?

She didn’t dwell on it. Her shirt hem tugged again. She glanced right—Chi Buyu once more, a few stray hairs poking rebelliously from behind her new buns.

It made Cui Qijin want to reach out and smooth them flat.

She stared at those stray wisps, asking distractedly, “What now, Lion King?”

“You’re the Lion King!”

Chi Buyu bristled, puffing out her cheeks like a goldfish in a huff. Awkwardly, she mumbled, “Just wondering if you have an apron. Don’t wanna get my clothes dirty.”

Chi Buyu was so wordy. Chi Buyu was so fussy about her looks. Eating a meal with Chi Buyu was such a hassle.

“If not, it’s fine—”

“Wait a sec.”

Their words collided.

Cui Qijin stood first. Under Ran Yan and Chen Wenran’s puzzled stares, she walked to the low table under the sofa, pulled out a fresh apron, and tossed it to Chi Buyu.

When she sat back down, she couldn’t resist. She reached out casually and brushed those fluffy stray hairs smooth. Chi Buyu whipped her head around, shaking like a goldfish wriggling its tail.

“Cui Muhuo, you’re so annoying!”

She said it again—and those fluffy strays swayed with her, like bizarrely flapping fish fins.

Cui Qijin chuckled as if it were nothing and added, “Eat up, Lion King.”

–

The hotpot stretched on until Rong Zu’er’s playlist wrapped up, until Chi Buyu polished off that half-bowl of vinegar, until Ran Yan crunched into a Fire Crystal Persimmon to kill the spice. Finally, Chen Wenran queued up a NetEase Cloud playlist of millennial Hong Kong and Taiwan hits.

And suggested they play the UNO version of Truth or Dare. In short: Play UNO first. Whoever ends up with the most cards in hand picks a Truth or Dare from the deck.

It sounded complicated.

It was really just UNO plus Truth or Dare. Cui Qijin figured Chi Buyu might not even follow.

The woman had lost spectacularly last time. How could she beat the veterans Ran Yan and Chen Wenran?

In the first round, everyone but Chi Buyu cleared their hands. She had the most cards left. Propping her cheek, thoroughly reluctant, she drew a Truth card—

“How many relationships have you had?” Ran Yan read it aloud while peeling candied oranges for Chen Wenran.

Chen Wenran tsked and bit into an orange. “We all know this one. Lame deck.”

She chewed for a bit, then leaned in. “Same story, right? No changes? Just that one time? The online meet-cute?”

Chi Buyu’s hand overflowed with cards. She propped her chin and pondered forever before answering, “Yeah, that should count as one, right?”

“Of course it does.” Chen Wenran slotted the drawn card back in and shuffled furiously. “No more boring ones next time.” She turned to Cui Qijin. “Want a candied orange? Super sweet.”

But she found Cui Qijin staring blankly at her empty cup. After a long pause, Cui Qijin said no. She scooted her chair back, grabbed the cup, and went to refill it.

When she returned, there was only a splash of water in it. In a toneless voice, she said, “Next round.”

Later rounds saw Ran Yan and Chen Wenran each picking dares—call an ex, chug a drink. Many rounds in, Chi Buyu lost again. She fiddled unhappily with her cards for ages before drawing a Truth, resigned—

“How’s your first love doing these days?”

Chen Wenran read it, adding her two cents: “Ha, like anyone knows? That was eight or nine years ago.”

Ran Yan shot her a look. “Let Shuishui answer. What’re you doing, speaking for her?”

She eyed Chi Buyu’s crumpled expression, suspicious. “You haven’t kept in touch with your first love since, right?”

“No.”

Chi Buyu shook her head, face all scrunched up. Halfway through the shake, she realized everyone at the table was staring—except Cui Qijin.

Cui Qijin wasn’t looking her way. She’d even pulled out her phone and was tapping away at the dimly lit screen, utterly incurious.

Only Cui Qijin wasn’t curious.

Chi Buyu scraped at the stiff card with her nail.

She glanced down at it again, fixated on the words, and answered properly. “I don’t know. Haven’t talked. But she’s probably doing great. After all, she’s so smart.”

“Smart, even after dumping you?” Ran Yan pursed her lips, still salty about that first love’s antics.

Chi Buyu glanced at Ran Yan. Probably figuring she had a point, she caved without much fight. “Fine. She’s an idiot.”

Chen Wenran glanced at the serene Cui Qijin. Something felt off. She muttered, “Hang on, Cui Qijin. Why aren’t you joining in to trash her?”

Ran Yan and Chi Buyu both looked up.

Cui Qijin raised her eyes. She set her phone down slowly, locked the screen, and said flatly, “Wise folks fall in love, and they either drown or break every bone.”

And besides…

She took a sip of water and glanced at Chi Buyu, buried under a pile of cards. In the same toneless voice, she added, “Idiot? Double it.”

Cui Qijin rarely lost at this game. She couldn’t figure out why—in a four-player match—Chi Buyu kept taking the fall.

She couldn’t figure out why that Truth or Dare deck overflowed with first-love questions. Like it was a first-love special.

Even less could she understand…

Why Chi Buyu never cheated. They’d all known each other for years. Why stay so brutally honest?

Another round. Ran Yan and Chen Wenran cleared first. Cui Qijin eyed Chi Buyu’s hand but overlooked playing a functional card in time. She lost—to Chi Buyu, of all people.

She drew from the Truth or Dare deck—and pulled a repeat.

“How many relationships have you had?”

Chen Wenran read it aloud, then recoiled in horror. “Holy crap, Cui Qijin. You’ve never told me about stuff like this?”

Because she’d never lost a game like this before.

She had never liked opening up about herself. She didn’t think there was anything worth sharing. Unlike others who made friends by dumping a whole basketful of secrets on the table, she kept hers locked away.

Today had been a mistake.

The room’s ambient lights cast rippling blue water patterns across the walls, like the gurgling rush of water pouring into an aquarium. Amid the splashes, David Tao’s voice endlessly crooned “Ordinary Friends.”

For a moment, Cui Qijin felt submerged in that blue water. Then she heard the one voice she least wanted to hear right now, cutting through especially clear:

“Hey, Cui Muhuo, why have you never talked about stuff like this?”

When she looked up, she saw those blue torrents surging wildly into the night, rushing headlong between her and Chi Buyu like a silent downpour—one determined to wash away every pretense of forgetting.

She watched the blue storm slowly wash over Chi Buyu’s face, turned toward her. The expression there left Cui Qijin feeling utterly adrift, as if Chi Buyu wanted to hear more but wasn’t quite sure she did.

Her gaze drifted to the Brazilian turtle in the nearby tank, clawing at the glass as if desperate to break free. Then to the tropical fish from her memories, their fins gliding across Chi Buyu’s clear eyes like a cruel reminder.

And still, she was powerless to stop it.

All she could do was squeeze her eyes shut, fingers tightening on the “Truth” written on the back of the card, before slowly breathing out two words:

“Once.”

She figured that since someone else had already bared their soul with a truth tonight, that one time of hers had no escape—it was defined as love, and nothing else.