But she was different. Cui Qijin was different.
Cui Qijin always had so much fear and timidity. Cui Qijin had to work so hard to stop herself from saying “five minutes,” terrified of her own hopes. At times like this, she struggled, suffered, wanted to deny what she’d done. And yet she couldn’t guarantee that if she went back to that moment, she wouldn’t make the same choice again. She hated it, but she was powerless. She watched herself, step by step, becoming the next Cui He or the next Yu Hongdong in the unyielding rules of fate—hurting, time and again, those who tried to get love from her or tried to love her.
Whenever Cui Qijin connected deeply with someone, she always ended up hurting them easily.
Cui Qijin didn’t know what love was. But she guessed that love must be like what Chi Buyu had now.
There was one thing Cui Qijin could never understand—why anyone would love another person so completely, holding nothing back, like the love Chi Buyu received.
Cui Qijin always left herself an escape route. Cui Qijin was always stingy with what she gave.
Cui Qijin, wkeinauadqtqb—in the end, she was just one person.
She would hurt Chi Buyu.
She already had hurt her. And it was foreseeable that if she chose to continue…
Then the hurts wouldn’t stop at just this once.
“How could it not be because of me?” Cui Qijin murmured to herself, her voice sounding distant and unreal.
“No, it’s not because of you.”
Chen Wenran’s voice came from above her head, sounding like some wise, mature adult.
“You were only in your mid-teens back then, right? Even now, when we look back at high schoolers, we think of them as kids. Isn’t that true?”
“Come on, it was puberty! During my teen years, I was sneaking out over the wall every day to play, blindly crushing on straight girls. But so what? You can’t sentence me to life in prison just for that, right? Teens get hesitant, scared, timid, confused… whatever it is, it’s all totally normal.”
“And hey, come on—that was love. Love is something no one’s ever truly figured out. If it were that simple, there wouldn’t be any philosophers in the world, would there?”
Cui Qijin didn’t speak. She didn’t pick up the mango or the beer can.
She thought Chen Wenran shouldn’t say things like that. It sounded like making excuses for her.
She didn’t want Chen Wenran making excuses for her.
She needed blame.
Chen Wenran’s blame, Ran Yan’s… and Chi Buyu’s.
But Chen Wenran just gently stroked her hair, like some much older mentor figure.
Cui Qijin calmly moved her hand away.
Chen Wenran tsked and went on.
“But I’m not letting you off the hook, okay? Straight up, we’re pretty close, so you’d think I’d be biased toward you. But Ran Yan’s been side-eyeing me these past few days, saying if I dare take sides, just try it. So I’m trying not to be biased. Straight up, I’m blaming you.”
“Cui Qijin, I’m telling you seriously: you need to apologize to Shuishui. A whole lot of apologies.”
The tension in Cui Qijin’s back eased a little. “I know.”
“Mm-hmm~” Chen Wenran twirled her braid, then—very kindly—picked up the mango and beer can. In her confusion, she shoved the mango into Cui Qijin’s right hand and the beer can into her left.
Backward. Cui Qijin thought, but she had no energy to say it out loud.
“Next—and this is next—you also need to apologize to that sixteen- or seventeen-year-old Cui Qijin from back then.”
Why her?
Chen Wenran was still crouched in front of her, speaking softly. “You’ve blamed her too much.”
Cui Qijin tightened her grip on both hands. She didn’t reply.
“After all, that sixteen- or seventeen-year-old you bravely chose to double back to the mall that second time. You spent ages searching and didn’t find Shuishui there—not knowing she’d already left, not knowing she’d fallen because of her night blindness. So you could only stand there, lost and despondent, waiting for Shuishui to reply to you, waiting for her to come back to the mall… but she never did. None of that was entirely your fault.”
Cui Qijin stayed silent.
She swapped the mango and beer can in her hands, now in the wrong spots. The next second, she looked up to find Chen Wenran watching her, full of reluctance, making some kind of guess.
“So when you saw Shuishui’s flowers in the trash can, and the Stitch keychain she’d prepared for you… You’ve never made a mistake, never crossed any boundaries, never disappointed anyone. So back then, you thought you’d committed this huge error…”
“You keep going back and forth because you’re scared of becoming the unchosen option. So you called me, hung up the moment I didn’t answer, then called back. When you heard me mention the transfer, your first reaction was relief—sure that the transactional exchange made you more comfortable.”
“You have OCD tendencies, mysophobia. When I stay over, you draw strict boundaries. You wipe every table spotless, won’t use outside utensils, wash your hands over and over, avoid other people’s stuff, always change out of outer clothes at the entryway before coming in. Pajamas have to be long-sleeved and long-pants. When you drink coffee, you sip and wipe the rim…”
“But you…”
Chen Wenran gazed at Cui Qijin.
From the day they’d met, this woman always hunched her back when she felt seen through—two sharp shoulder blades propping up her thin sleepshirt, dipping inward down the middle. She hid her eyes, her expression. In those moments, she always looked like a child who’d done something wrong.
What must that sixteen- or seventeen-year-old Cui Qijin have been like?
Younger than now, probably more stubborn. More prone to bristling in panic? A bit lost in how she saw the world? The first to dodge anything she couldn’t handle, processing everything by the info and experiences she’d absorbed…
Yes, yes she was. Thank goodness.
So what kind of information had shaped Cui Qijin’s past to make her the Cui Qijin of today?
Always going back and forth, always thinking she was clever but actually so clumsy. Refusing to err, so she’d preemptively try to fix her mistakes before anyone noticed.
Why was it like that?
Logically, at just over twenty, what was a few mistakes? Would it kill her? But for Cui Qijin, it seemed even worse than death.
Or maybe… no one had ever had her back for her mistakes. No one had ever said, “Hey, go ahead and do it—I’ve got you.”
Maybe she’d never gotten that, so she refused to acknowledge “love,” pessimistically seeing it as weakness, as helplessness.
Stubbornly believing people were best alone—really, unwilling to be rejected or abandoned when asking for something. Better never to ask anyone for anything, to reject all intimacy…
But that day…
Chen Wenran said,
“But that day, you told me it was a rainy day. A rain that soaks the floors and turns everything to mud. You can imagine how much filth from that rain was smeared on the trash can.”
Cui Qijin gripped the mango and the beer tightly, her voice very soft.
“Don’t say any more.”
“Alright then, I won’t say it. I’ll ask you instead.” Chen Wenran leaned in. “Did you go back there afterward? Did you see something in the trash can? What was in that trash can?”
Cui Qijin didn’t lift her head. She didn’t move. She didn’t look at Chen Wenran. She just wondered why Chen Wenran could see right through her. Why did Chen Wenran seem more like the adult than she did? For Chen Wenran—for so many people, maybe—that incident wasn’t a big deal at all. It was something trivial that could be brushed off easily. Why was Chen Wenran asking her these questions?
“But you picked them all up from the trash can, didn’t you?”
Chen Wenran asked again.
Cui Qijin didn’t answer. She felt so tired. The whole world seemed to spin around her. She smelled the muddy stench of rainwater again, and without warning, she was back in that empty mall—
The mall was closed. She had to enter through the escalator from the movie theater, head to the cinema first, then push against the crowd leaving the last showing, racing up to the deserted second floor to find that photo booth.
No one was there.
But she didn’t leave. She didn’t know why she just stood there.
The mall was eerily empty. The lights were off, plunging everything into darkness—but not the comforting kind of black. She clutched the Colorful Leaf Taro, its leaves soaked despite her careful protection along the way.
She stared at the trash can again.
—What was in that trash can?
Of course, there was Chi Buyu’s bouquet.
And the Stitch keychain.
The one that lit up when you pressed it, endlessly repeating the same phrase—
I love U～
And maybe other things, too.
Things like what Cui He had told her when she was sick: “Be good. You have to be on your own.” She wondered, if she had said, Mom, I don’t want to. I don’t want to be alone. I want you with me—what would Cui He have said?
Or that sweltering summer when she couldn’t have a mango, and she wanted to call Yu Hongdong. If she had said, I don’t want this. I don’t want the ones from the fruit stand. I want you to buy it for me—what would Yu Hongdong have said?
Or even earlier, when Cui He went to Harbin and Yu Hongdong to Shanghai. She hadn’t wanted them to go. If she had said, I don’t want you to. I don’t want you both to leave me. I want you to stay and watch me grow up—what would they have said?
Maybe nothing would have changed.
They would have labeled her a disobedient child. They would have lectured her: “Cui Qijin, you need to be more sensible, more mature. In the end, everyone has to rely on themselves.” They would have dismissed her deepest pleas, her longings, as “wrong” or “inappropriate.” She had made a mistake, and they wouldn’t get angry—but they would be displeased. They would be disappointed. They wouldn’t approve.
They would pretend to forgive her generously, but she would never truly feel absolved.
From beginning to end, she only ever felt one thing—
Every mistake brings punishment.
And so, back then, as she held that Colorful Leaf Taro dripping with raindrops, staring into the trash can streaked with rainwater, stuffed with sticky shoe covers, snack bags, spoiled food, and who knew what germs—she felt there should be one more thing she had forgotten in there—
Good evening. Nice to see you, Chi Buyu.
That was another overlooked mistake.
She had picked up her mistakes.
The flowers wilted not long after she retrieved them. The Colorful Leaf Taro, drenched by the rain, fared no better. For some reason, she could never keep it alive, and it died.
She kept the Stitch keychain, locking it away in her suitcase as a symbol of her error.
As for that unsaid phrase—
Good evening. Nice to see you, Chi Buyu.
That meant she had run away. She had discarded those words—and Chi Buyu.
Another mistake. So…
Cui Qijin slowly tightened her arms around herself, her voice full of regret and confusion.
“I thought back then… she didn’t want me anymore.”
Evidently, every mistake brings punishment.
