Chapter 21: “Sinking Beneath the Surface” Part 1

The elevator rose to the third floor and opened with a soft ding. Damp mist scattered everywhere, and the blue-green tiled floor gleamed with rippling reflections. Watery splashes echoed from all directions.

She had expected the air to feel cool in such a place.

But instead, a wave of warm air rushed down from overhead, rustling through Fu Tingli’s hair, which had grown a bit long and unruly.

This was actually a private swimming pool.

Fu Tingli felt a flicker of surprise. The water churned steadily as she stepped out of the elevator, careful not to let her gaze wander where it shouldn’t.

The pool water swayed gently.

She walked along the poolside path, her sneakers’ thick soles squelching on the water-slicked floor. Even her footsteps sounded wet and sticky.

She hadn’t gone far when a splash rose from the rippling surface, spattering the tops of her sneakers.

The water was hot.

Reflexively, she looked up toward the pale blue surface and caught sight of a hazy figure gliding through the pool.

In the nearly transparent blue water, the woman swimming there stood out in vivid red, like a brightly colored fish drifting freely.

—of course, it was Kong Liyuan.

Had Kong Liyuan noticed her arrival? She probably had; the footsteps were loud enough.

Fu Tingli thought as much and took another step forward. The elevator doors, a few paces behind her, slid shut with deliberate slowness, like a tunnel from another time abandoning her here alone.

So she walked quietly along the poolside path, hands tucked into her pockets.

She watched the overhead lights cast shimmering halos across the pale blue water, blue and red blending in a hazy, dreamlike flow.

At the pool’s edge, her shoe soles met the ground with steady steps, slow and leisurely, matching the direction and rhythm of Kong Liyuan’s movements in the water.

It was as if they were traveling the same path.

Fu Tingli picked up on the subtle synchronicity and began tapping her feet lightly now and then, deliberately aligning her pace.

Did Kong Liyuan notice from underwater? Or did the view from below make everything look completely different?

She glanced down instinctively.

There was Kong Liyuan’s drifting red silhouette, her excessively pale and creamy skin rising and falling with the crystal-clear blue water—an impact that was breathtaking.

As she reached the end and turned, her shoe scraped the floor with a faint sound.

At that exact moment, Kong Liyuan turned back in the pool too, her graceful form churning up a massive splash amid the swirling waves.

—They really did feel like they were on the same path, just like that encounter back in California.

That time, Kong Liyuan had claimed she couldn’t swim and followed along the edge, mirroring Fu Tingli’s strokes step for step.

Only back then, Fu Tingli had been the one underwater. The blue surface rippled overhead, sunlight piercing straight down to the pool bottom like oil dissolving slowly, sinking beneath the surface.

She had worn a one-piece swimsuit printed with blue-and-white butterflies—the one Kong Liyuan bought for her.

Kong Liyuan, who was penniless at the time without even a phone, had casually pawned her only lighter for it.

That journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles—who knew who had first lost sight of their original purpose? Somehow, it stretched into three full days and nights. At the end, when she bought cigarettes for Kong Liyuan, Kong Liyuan pawned her lighter to get the swimsuit.

The California sun had been blindingly bright.

Submerged, she saw the tall shadow on the pool bottom, stepping slowly in time with her rhythm.

Surfacing, there were those brown Martin boots following along the edge, one deliberate step at a time.

Higher up were the woman’s long, straight legs, and the intense, profound gaze fixed on her.

After a few laps, her stamina began to flag, and she couldn’t swim much farther. She floated to the surface.

With her dripping wet hand, she grasped the woman’s straight, pale calf, mischievously tempted to pull her in.

Water streamed down her face, dripping from her lashes in unbroken lines.

Everything blurred in the sway.

She only saw the woman squat down without hesitation, brown Martin boots splattered with water.

The woman smiled at her through the haze, her image reflected on the surface.

The emotion in her eyes was unclear—tenderness, or something else. Her fingers, cool despite the summer heat, threaded through the soaked strands of her hair, stroking her head.

“You’re soaked through.”

Fu Tingli shook the water from her hair without a care. “Can’t you smoke now?”

The woman propped her chin lazily, laughing freely. “Ah, I’d forgotten about that. Why didn’t you say anything when I pawned it to the shopkeeper?”

“Wasn’t it you who said you were giving me a gift?” Fu Tingli decided she’d buy her a new lighter in Los Angeles later—at least as a parting gift.

With that thought, she inexplicably felt a tug, like she wanted to dive back in and keep swimming.

But the woman gently lifted her chin, leaning close, her lips brushing her ear like the promise of a kiss about to deepen.

She turned instinctively to seek those lips, but the breath at her ear steadied for just a second.

Then the woman on shore pushed her suddenly, and they plunged together into the churning, hazy water.

This woman had always followed her whims. Even though it was the shallow end, with no risk of real danger.

Still, Fu Tingli flailed in panic.

She struggled in the water, choking down several mouthfuls before managing to support the nonswimmer, pinning the soaked woman against the pool edge. Using the water’s buoyancy, she held her steady.

Muscle memory took over; her hands automatically found the spot at the woman’s waist where the flying bird tattoo nestled, gripping it firmly. She draped the woman’s bandaged hand over her shoulder to keep the wound from getting wet and infected.

Gasping for air, she wanted to say something—anything at all—but words failed her.

Because in the next instant, the woman climbed onto her fiercely. The bandage on her arm seeped translucent red, and she kissed her, drenched and desperate.

Buoyancy spiraled out of control, breath on the verge of giving out. In the exchange, the life breathed into her revived them both.

It was a savage, exhilarating kiss.

The pain sank into her lungs, but precisely because of that, it burned into memory. And it happened right before they parted ways, like sealing a truth on the spot:

In the rest of their lives, nothing could pierce the heart so deeply or erase this shared path from memory entirely.

Even if reduced to ashes, it could reignite from the smallest spark, spreading like wildfire.

Like now, with their positions reversed.

Fu Tingli couldn’t help being pulled back into the memory. The water sounds at her ear became some kind of trigger, her gaze inexorably captured by Kong Liyuan.

It drifted to her floating black hair in the water, then to the faintly visible curve of her smooth waist.

There should have been a red flying bird tattoo there.

But now it was gone, though a faint reddish-gray trace lingered on the skin, like remnants of removal.

Fu Tingli wasn’t entirely sure. Logically, modern laser tattoo removal was effective enough. If Kong Liyuan wanted it gone, why leave any trace?

She wanted a closer look, but Kong Liyuan wore a one-piece swimsuit that bared her pale, slender limbs and the subtle undulations of her waist in the water.

It was too distracting.

Unwilling to stare openly, Fu Tingli glanced sidelong now and then, pretending not to look at Kong Liyuan at all.

The figure underwater seemed to sense her conflict and slowed her strokes.

Just as she was about to make it out, it submerged again. When it resurfaced, a face slick with water gleamed with startling clarity amid the blue and red.

“If you want to look, come down here and look.”

Kong Liyuan swam leisurely to the opposite side, leaning back languidly. In the water’s reflections, her features were sharp and profound, laced with an effortless allure.

“No.” Fu Tingli denied automatically, tapping her shoe on the water-slicked floor.

“You look like you’ve washed off the tattoo?” Unable to hold back, she asked directly. “Just curious.”

Kong Liyuan on the far side of the pool seemed to pause, then shifted position slightly in the water.

She sprawled lazily over a padded towel at the edge, back turned toward Fu Tingli, generously exposing her waist.

“It’s gone,” Kong Liyuan said.

Fu Tingli peered over. The rippling blue water separated them, but she could still see clearly.

The graceful waist, wrapped in the vivid red swimsuit, faced her squarely, baring a large expanse of skin on the side. It matched her earlier guess exactly.

The striking red flying bird had vanished, leaving only a ghostly imprint.

For some reason, the queasy feeling rising in Fu Tingli’s stomach spread fully in that moment.

She felt a pang of loss, perhaps because it reminded her of the flying bird sculpture she’d brought back—now occupying just a fiftieth of her twenty-square-meter space.

The sculpture wasn’t even finished, and the bird had disappeared first. Attributing her stuffiness to that, she calmed down again.

“You actors have so many eyes on you. A tattoo that big wouldn’t look right,” she said softly.

Kong Liyuan didn’t follow her lead. After a long moment, she turned back around, facing her squarely.

The water had mostly drained from her face, leaving a hazy softness in her eyes and brows that hadn’t been there before.

“About today…” After wracking her brain, Fu Tingli remembered why she’d come up in the first place and said earnestly, “Thank you anyway.”

“If it weren’t for Teacher Kong, I probably would’ve been walking home until midnight.”

“And now?” Kong Liyuan seemed to have rested enough. She swam slowly toward her. “This place is pretty far from your house. How are you getting back?”

“There’s a subway station nearby. Not far,” Fu Tingli had checked before coming up. “It runs until midnight, so I can definitely make it home.”

Kong Liyuan said nothing, continuing to drift casually in her direction.

The water parted by her hands cradled a flash of red, like a swaying red tunnel stretching from her side to this one.

“Xialai told me…” A drifting wave splashed up, hitting the ground—Kong Liyuan was drawing closer. “You’re the one who asked her to drive over and pick me up.”

“You learned her name in less than an hour?” It was hard to pin down what exactly caught Kong Liyuan’s interest.

“We were going the same way, so if I didn’t even know her name…” Here, Fu Tingli’s voice trailed off. “Wouldn’t that be weird?”

By now, Kong Liyuan had swum right up beside her, gazing up at her from the water. It was a startlingly fresh perspective, completely inverted from before.

She floated on the surface, wet hair framing red lips. Fu Tingli stood on the edge, inexplicably captured by the one in the water—as if the surging waves flowed across her vision, impossible to look away from.

Her shadow enveloped the figure in the water entirely, creating the illusion of two beings sharing the same body.

Then Kong Liyuan smiled faintly, transparent droplets trailing from her lips. Some fell away; a tiny bit vanished into the damp red of her mouth.

“Looks like Xialai’s your new friend.”

“Is she? Not really. I don’t know if we’ll meet again, and we didn’t exchange contacts or anything.”

“She’s Rong Wu’s cousin. Rong Wu just told me Xialai thinks highly of you.”

“She’s nice too. Very genuine.” Fu Tingli recalled what Xialai had said to her earlier and offered a sincere assessment.

Kong Liyuan seemed not to hear. In the next instant, she sank beneath the surface. Fu Tingli instinctively scanned the splashing water for her.

She hadn’t even caught sight.

The very next second, a massive spray erupted right in front of her as Kong Liyuan burst from the water, right at the pool’s edge.