Chapter 37: “Pineapple Cake” Part 2

An adorably huffy steamed bun.

Chi Buyu’s angry face was hilarious. That’s what Cui Qijin thought, and she was about to say it. “Actually…”

Chi Buyu’s eyes lit up. “Actually what?”

Cui Qijin tucked in the corner of her quilt. “Actually, when you’re mad, you look just like a pufferfish.”

Chi Buyu got even angrier.

She sucked in a breath and held it, then wrapped her arms around her own shoulders and rolled away. She patted herself on the back and muttered fiercely to herself, “Don’t get mad, don’t get mad. Getting sick over it won’t help.”

Cui Qijin laughed so hard the bed shook. Chi Buyu, fuming, made it shake even more.

Cui Qijin finished laughing, but Chi Buyu was still stewing.

Was she really done talking to her?

Hesitating, Cui Qijin reached out and patted Chi Buyu’s shoulder through the soft quilt. “Chi Buyu?”

Chi Buyu didn’t turn around. “What!”

Cui Qijin patted her again. “Turn back around.”

Chi Buyu lifted her chin defiantly, then dropped it like a turnstile gate slamming shut. She pulled the quilt tighter and grumbled, “I’m sleeping!”

Cui Qijin looked at the back of her head and still found her sulking adorable. She wondered if, once they got back to Chengdu, Chi Buyu would ever throw a tantrum like this in front of her again.

Humans really were contradictory creatures. The thought of losing something made even the little annoyances you’d usually hate start to feel nostalgic.

She pondered for a moment.

Deciding it was better not to rile Chi Buyu up even more, she threw back the quilt and got out of bed.

In the glow of the nightlight, she opened the half-empty suitcase and pulled out the pineapple cake she’d secretly stashed there that afternoon. The packaging was tricky to unwrap.

She glanced at the still-pouting Chi Buyu and simply crouched down on the floor. She undid the ribbon, and the four-inch cake fit perfectly in her two hands.

Cui Qijin held the cake and softly called Chi Buyu’s name again. “Chi Buyu.”

Her phone showed 11:57. Chi Buyu kicked at the quilt but said nothing.

“Chi Buyu. Chi Buyu.”

At 11:58, Chi Buyu huffed out a breath, wobbling like a jiggling block of jelly.

“Chi Buyu. Chi Buyu. Chi Buyu.”

Cui Qijin kept calling, her hands steady with the cake, not tiring at all. She even sat down on the carpet, staring at Chi Buyu’s back, calling name after name.

Each “Chi Buyu” carried the sweetness of pineapple cake, but also the pain of the Sword of Damocles—like an ambush closing in from all sides, overwhelming her throat.

At 11:59, Chi Buyu finally showed signs of softening.

“Chi Buyu.”

In the end, it all boiled down to that one name. Cui Qijin had never spent a night like this, repeating someone’s name over and over.

“It’s midnight.”

WeChat notifications began chiming in the room. Cui Qijin’s voice was soft, almost lingering—like a fond farewell to Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage at the stroke of twelve.

At those words, Chi Buyu finally turned back around. She started off a little coy, but when she saw the cake cradled in Cui Qijin’s hands, the lingering displeasure vanished from her face, replaced by pure, indescribable joy.

Then, as if realizing her delight was too obvious, Chi Buyu lifted her chin primly. She wriggled over under the quilt, inching close to Cui Qijin’s face. Suppressing her upward-tugging lips with all her pride, she said, “Didn’t you say there was no cake?”

How could someone shift through so many expressions in a single minute?

Cui Qijin didn’t know.

She studied Chi Buyu’s face, her expressions, the little way she propped up her cheeks.

“They really don’t have one,” she said matter-of-factly. Then she lightly flicked Chi Buyu’s forehead. “Happy birthday.”

But she did. That was the second fact.

She didn’t voice the second fact.

From Chi Buyu’s incredibly complicated expression, though, Cui Qijin could tell she wasn’t mad anymore—and was probably, grudgingly, pleased.

Thank goodness.

Thank goodness that someone who always got massive cakes on her birthday could still feel this much genuine joy from a little one.

“You already got a big cake for tomorrow, so when did you sneak off and buy this little one?” Chi Buyu asked, blinking.

Her eyes were always a bit dewy, but they seemed even more so now—though Cui Qijin might have been imagining it.

“I do love pineapple, though.”

I knew you did. The big cake doesn’t have any, so I bought this little one extra.

“We’ll eat the big cake tomorrow. I saw this one and bought it on the spot,” Cui Qijin explained.

For some reason, she suddenly couldn’t meet Chi Buyu’s eyes straight on. Maybe it was the sticky gleam in them— one look, and she’d be caught.

She’d held the cake for so long.

Now she passed the little cake to Chi Buyu.

Then she rummaged for the candles, hesitating as she asked, “Want to make a wish first?”

Chi Buyu agreed instantly. “Of course! You can’t blow out candles without a wish!”

Cui Qijin thought that made sense, but she couldn’t find a lighter. After searching the room, she turned back to see Chi Buyu sprawled awkwardly at the bed’s edge, hands cradling the little cake.

“Wait just a sec,” Cui Qijin said.

Chi Buyu nodded obediently. “Got it.”

Her phone, wherever it was, was now buzzing nonstop with WeChat alerts. No doubt, everyone in the world who adored Shuishui’er without reservation was showering her with happy birthday wishes right at the stroke of midnight—and they still hadn’t stopped.

But Shuishui herself just held the cake, ignoring the messages, her eyes fixed on Cui Qijin with unmistakable anticipation.

Cui Qijin couldn’t bear to disappoint that look.

She slipped out of the room.

First, she checked Chen Wenran’s room and found the lights off. Meng Yuhong upstairs was surely fast asleep by now. Cui Qijin rummaged in the living room but found nothing that could light a fire.

No luck.

Disappointed, she returned to the room.

Chi Buyu was still in the same position, hands outstretched to hold the cake. Her arms looked tired; she’d just been about to set it down carefully when she saw Cui Qijin and lifted it again, hope flickering in her eyes. “Did you find a lighter?”

Cui Qijin shook her head.

Chi Buyu sighed and started to lower the cake again.

“But there’s another way,” Cui Qijin said.

Chi Buyu picked it right back up, no complaints about the repetition.

Cui Qijin picked up the candles and asked beforehand, “Can I borrow your kitchen for a minute?”

“Sure,” Chi Buyu nodded vigorously, grinning like a fragrant pineapple herself. “I know what you’re up to.”

Before leaving, Cui Qijin saw her still clutching the cake and reminded her, “If your arms are tired, just set the cake down. Don’t keep holding it.”

With that, she headed out. Chi Buyu called after her eagerly, “Will do.”

Cui Qijin took the candles to Chi Buyu’s kitchen. She found the gas stove and turned the knob, but it wouldn’t ignite. She crouched to check the main valve, flipped it on, and tried a few more times. Still nothing.

She felt her IQ dropping. For some reason, she was utterly stumped by a simple gas stove.

With a sigh, she shut off the main valve.

Lips pursed, she noticed the honeycomb briquette on the other side of the stove. There was still hope.

She eyed the candles in her hand.

Not ready to give up, she tried the gas stove one more time. No dice, as expected.

She had no other ideas.

Gritting her teeth, she stuck a candle into the briquette and waited patiently. A spark appeared.

She pulled it out—

The candle was lit, but her hands were covered in black soot, and the candle itself was smudged all around.

Not ideal.

She tried another.

And another.

Finally, with the cleanest one lit, she headed back. Chi Buyu was still cradling that cake intently, as if studying how many pineapple chunks were inside.

When she saw Cui Qijin approaching with the lit candle, she even let out an obliging “Wow.”

Cui Qijin carefully shielded the faint candle flame as she drew near and crouched down. She was just about to insert the candle into the cake when she noticed something—the candle she had considered the cleanest one still had soot smeared on its base.

She hesitated and decided against it.

Chi Buyu, however, noticed something else. “Cui Muhuo, your clothes are all sooty.”

Cui Qijin glanced down and saw that her pajama sleeve was covered in black smudges.

She caught the worry flickering in Chi Buyu’s eyes. Swallowing her discomfort at the ruined sleepwear, she said lightly, “It’s fine. I’ll just wash up and change into a fresh set later.”

She held up the lit candle again, inwardly frustrated at her clumsiness in dirtying it. Hesitantly, she suggested, “How about you make the wish instead? The candle’s dirty—I don’t want to mess up the cake.”

“Huh?”

Chi Buyu leaned in for a look. “Yeah, it’s definitely dirty.”

“But it’s no big deal.”

Just a second ago, she had seemed regretful. Now she rallied instantly, her eyes crinkling into upside-down crescent moons—the only moonlight visible that night.

“We can still do it like this. Just hold it steady for me, okay? Don’t burn yourself.”

With that, Chi Buyu squeezed her eyes shut in eager anticipation. Her lashes trembled faintly in the candlelight, as if she were making some grand, momentous wish.

Molten wax dripped down, landing on the fleshy part of her hand between thumb and forefinger, where it pooled in the creases of her palm.

Cui Qijin said nothing. She didn’t even feel the pain at first—just an intense heat that soon turned to numbness. Then another drop fell, and the sensation dragged on endlessly, not unlike the agony of death by a thousand cuts.

She waited patiently, letting Chi Buyu make her twenty-sixth birthday wish right there on her hand.

As Chi Buyu wished, Cui Qijin watched her and thought how absurd it was that they always ended up like this. Perhaps some mischievous ancient Greek deity had shackled them with some trivial curse, leading to all these ridiculous mishaps. Even something as simple as celebrating a birthday had spiraled because they couldn’t find a lighter, forcing them to keep the cake and candle apart.

And so, on Chi Buyu’s twenty-sixth birthday, she cradled a four-inch cake in her hands. Beneath the flame Cui Qijin held steady for her, she made solemn wish after wish—so many, in fact, that she kept her eyes shut the whole time.

Through the hazy glow of the candle, Cui Qijin’s gaze held an unprecedented honesty, a tender lingering she wasn’t even aware of, and a surrendered acceptance of the inevitable.

The moment Chi Buyu opened her eyes, they sparkled brightly as she asked, “Guess what I wished for?”

Cui Qijin smiled. Breaking from her usual habit of teasing, she played along. “What wish?”

Chi Buyu lifted her chin. “Aren’t you supposed to guess?”

Cui Qijin shook her head honestly. “How could I possibly guess that?”

“You didn’t even try!”

Chi Buyu pouted, clearly unsatisfied. But after a moment’s hesitation—perhaps for the sake of the pineapple cake—she feigned generosity, though a touch awkwardly. “Fine.”

The candle was still flickering. In its warm light, her smile seemed especially soft and blurred, laced with anticipation as she said, “I hope that by twenty-seven, I’ll have something new. And that I’ll forever, forever, forever keep everything I have right in this moment.”

She strung together three “forevers,” revealing just how desperately she wanted this wish to come true. For a fleeting instant, Cui Qijin nearly reverted to her old self and said—

Idiot, wishes don’t come true if you tell them.

But then Chi Buyu blew out the flame and looked up at her, her eyes brimming with confident longing.

Cui Qijin didn’t want this wish to fail. So with utter sincerity, she replied, “You will make this wish come true.”

And in her heart, she truly hoped that every one of Chi Buyu’s future birthday wishes would.