Ding Ya hailed a cab for Yang Jie. She didn’t say a word the entire ride and looked quite dejected.
Yang Jie thought she had pushed too hard. “Mom is just afraid that you…”
Ding Ya’s mind was a chaotic mess. She forced a smile at Yang Jie and said, “It’s fine, Mom, don’t worry. There’s nothing to that yet. If I ever make a real decision, I’ll definitely bring her to meet you.”
It was freezing outside. She thought of Shu Chi’s words from just moments ago, and her heart felt like it had gone cold too.
Had Shu Chi found out?
The car arrived quickly. Yang Jie sighed. “Don’t get hurt.”
Yang Jie still couldn’t set her mind at ease, but she also knew that Ding Ya had a personality as stubborn as an ox. Once she set her mind on something, she couldn’t be pulled back, and nothing anyone said would do any good.
Ding Ya waved and said goodbye to her mom.
The snack stalls outside the residential complex were still open, their aromas drifting everywhere, but Ding Ya had no appetite at all.
She walked back slowly. For a moment, she even wanted to run. She ended up just sitting on the edge of a flowerbed in the complex for a while.
Occasionally, a parent with a child would pass by. Ding Ya was petite to begin with, and sitting there covering her face made it look like she was crying. A child looked at her a couple of times and asked their parent, “Mom, is that big sister crying?”
The parent, of course, didn’t want to get involved and was about to say something when they heard the young woman speak. “Not crying, just got dumped.”
The parent scooped up the child and walked away quickly.
Ding Ya sighed and muttered, “Why run? It’s not like I’m going to take it out on society.”
She thought: I can’t be hurt, but I’ve hurt Shu Chi.
Ding Ya couldn’t blame her mom either. Yang Jie had no idea what Ding Ya was hiding, nor did she know that the person sitting across from her was Ding Ya’s rumored partner.
Her own mother, completely unaware, had precisely exposed the lies Ding Ya had been covering up.
Ding Ya stepped into the elevator and closed her eyes, thinking: Is Shu Chi going to break up with me?
It had only just begun, and it was already exposed.
What an accident.
At this moment, what she feared most wasn’t the breakup itself, but the look in Shu Chi’s eyes.
Ding Ya took a deep breath and opened the door.
The apartment was very quiet; the only sound was the clinking of bowls. Shu Chi had already finished washing the dishes and was placing them one by one onto the drying rack.
There was no discernible emotion in her silhouette. She didn’t turn around at the sound. Ding Ya instinctively swallowed and called out, “Shu Chi.”
Her voice trembled.
It was completely different from her usual deliberately teasing tone.
Shu Chi placed the last bowl on the rack, then meticulously washed her hands again, dried them, and finally turned around and walked over.
Her slightly longer hair was tied back at the nape of her neck, looking almost like short hair at a glance.
Last night, in the midst of their gasps, Ding Ya had grabbed it, teasingly asking, “What are you, a little jiangshi?”
Shu Chi hadn’t understood. Ding Ya had just bitten her shoulder, closed her eyes, and said, “You know, from those zombie movies. If you haven’t seen one, we can watch one together.”
Shu Chi hadn’t watched many movies. She vaguely remembered a movie channel that a neighbor girl used to put on when she visited as a child.
The dubbed foreign films all had the same tone, and the voices in Hong Kong and Taiwanese dramas were instantly recognizable, but Shu Chi hadn’t had a choice in the matter. She was lucky to watch anything at all.
Shu Chi had never had many choices growing up, but when it was time to choose, she never went against her own heart.
Like leaving the textile factory. Like opening the noodle shop. Like setting up a stall. Like starting a business with Jing Yuqi.
Ding Ya was also her own choice.
But just now, she had realized there might have been a trap hidden within that “own choice.”
Ding Ya was still standing in the entryway, having just changed her shoes. Her eyes were glistening. She called out to her again.
Shu Chi said calmly, “Come here and sit.”
She sat down on the sofa. Ding Ya shuffled over in small steps.
Ding Ya still chose to throw herself directly into the other’s arms and asked, “Are you mad?”
Shu Chi: “I don’t know.”
She looked at Ding Ya. “Are you telling me you don’t have any more reasons for not being Bean Sprout?”
Ding Ya shook her head. The heart that had been suspended for so long finally settled.
She closed her eyes and said, “I can’t make up any more.”
“Hit me.”
She was very sincere at this moment, nestling in Shu Chi’s arms like a piece of stubborn, sticky nougat.
Shu Chi didn’t try to push her away either. Her voice carried no discernible anger or sadness, only confusion. “It really was you?”
Ding Ya: “Mom laid it all out. What else could I say? If it were Piggy Manor, I could still say a previous partner played it with me—it is a co-op game, after all.”
She didn’t dare look at Shu Chi. Staring at the ornaments on the table, she spoke, her gaze holding a stubbornness that mirrored her innate personality.
“But that dress-up game… it was too long ago. And that skirt… there was only one. It was too expensive; no one ever bought it.”
Shu Chi found it hard to describe what she was feeling. She just mechanically opened her mouth and asked, “What was the name of that skirt?”
The person in her arms answered without a second’s hesitation: “Pure White Heart.”
She said it with absolute certainty, and it was devastatingly brutal.
No one but the actual person would answer so readily.
Even when Shu Chi had added Ding Ya on WeChat and they’d talked about shared experiences, they had never mentioned this part.
She wasn’t good at chatting to begin with. Mostly, Ding Ya guided the conversation, and Shu Chi would respond.
This memory, older than even the electronic puppy, seemed like something dug out from the bottom of a trunk, complete with such a casual reason.
A gift from someone.
But Shu Chi really had played that dress-up game. She really had, by a twist of fate, bought that skirt.
And that day had happened to be her birthday. Trapped in shadows that had stolen her voice, she’d impulsively paid for it.
Back then, she had thought: Think of it as buying it for a little sister who hasn’t grown up.
The other party had been incredulous, confirming multiple times after accepting it, then saying you were a good person.
Shu Chi closed her eyes in pain. The person in her arms brought her both joy and sorrow, a sweet torment.
Ding Ya could feel Shu Chi’s body trembling. She pressed herself closer, hugging Shu Chi. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, Shu Chi.”
Her tears fell from her eyes, smearing onto Shu Chi’s clothes. But Shu Chi pulled her back, looking into Ding Ya’s eyes, peering deep inside. “When did you recognize me?”
While washing the dishes, Shu Chi had thought a lot. It was possible that Ding Ya had only gradually figured it out after they started talking.
After all, the same game, the same online dating experience.
No… that wasn’t right either.
Ding Ya grabbed her hand. “When you gave me the dog.”
Shu Chi’s hand was a bit cold, probably from doing the dishes.
Ding Ya wrapped her hands around hers, but Shu Chi pulled away, asking incredulously, “How is that possible?”
If Ding Ya was Bean Sprout, they had never actually met.
Shu Chi had never even made a sound or shown her face.
Instead, it was the other party who had sent Shu Chi photos, often leaving voice messages, but Shu Chi hadn’t thought much of it.
Ding Ya took a shaky breath, lowered her head, and said, “I went to find you.”
Shu Chi suddenly reversed her grip, seizing Ding Ya’s wrist and forcing Ding Ya to instinctively look up.
Ding Ya met her eyes, red-rimmed, as if she had been cruelly bullied.
“I went to find you, Shu Chi.”
She repeated it. “When you were running the noodle shop in Banyan City.”
Ding Ya spoke each word deliberately. Shu Chi stared at her, astonished. “When?”
She let go of her hand, seemingly about to pull away, to put some distance between them. But Ding Ya refused.
Her subconscious was warning her: she couldn’t let go.
It was something she had lost once. If she lost it again, it might never come back.
Ding Ya answered truthfully: “Before the college entrance exam.”
The coming-of-age ceremony had just ended. Ding Ya had used the weekend as an excuse, found a reason, and secretly gone alone to meet her online “boyfriend.”
She wanted to see what that person looked like.
Even if she had already guessed the person wasn’t a university student, she still wanted to know what they actually did.
The long-distance bus bumped along, traveling from one small county town to another distant city. Unbeknownst to Ding Ya, her worried brother was following right behind her.
A young girl’s heart charges forward without hesitation, first being deeply moved by its own passion.
Shu Chi: “I… back then, I…”
Even though Shu Chi was the one who had been deceived, she suddenly lost the right to reproach, because she had truly deceived Ding Ya too.
Not a university student. Not working her way through school.
She had no money at all, and no education. She was just a worker toiling nonstop from dawn till dusk.
She had swindled a precious affection through an internet cable, never imagining the person in question would follow her address to find her.
“The address… was from those gloves you mailed…?”
Shu Chi looked at Ding Ya, her lips trembling. Ding Ya nodded. “You said back then to send it to the hardware store on that street for you to pick up.”
In those days, express delivery wasn’t as developed as it is now, but basic logistics were still quite smooth.
That hardware store was a pickup point. Ding Ya got off the bus, took a taxi to that area, and found the shop.
Ding Ya hadn’t had much hope, because neither had told the other their real name.
Even though Ding Ya had asked, the other party had just said calling me this is the same.
Maybe her name had a “Shu” or “Chi” sound in it.
But Ding Ya hadn’t expected to find out as soon as she asked.
The landlady, probably having just given birth as she was a bit plump, was holding a baby. In the summer heatwave, she pointed the way for this girl in a hat and sun protection jacket: “See the noodle shop diagonally across the street?”
It was called Eat a Bowl of Noodles. The sign was standard too—red background, yellow text—less impressive-looking than the Shaxian snacks across the street.
It was mealtime then. Ding Ya walked over, carrying her backpack.
Ding Ya had set out at the first light of dawn, thinking her own brother was too busy gaming to notice her. She was eighteen this year, her birthday had passed, her ID card could prove it.
Buying a bus ticket was no problem. The whole journey was smooth.
That noodle shop was okay. When she pushed the door open, there were only two empty seats.
Ding Ya picked one and sat down. She watched a woman bustling out of the kitchen carrying noodles. The long-haired female boss spoke to that person: “Boss Shu, you really should hire some help. One person can’t handle all this.”
That person had short hair, not even reaching her chin, but was dressed cleanly. Hearing this, she just shook her head.
How is this a woman??
Before Ding Ya could think further, the person came over. “What would you like?”
Ding Ya looked up at her. The other seemed a bit awkward too, so she just stopped talking and pointed at the menu.
She used to be nearsighted but had laser surgery after retaking her exams. Back then, she wore big, thick-framed glasses, and a sun-protective face mask was hanging from her chin.
“Pork chop noodles.”
Ding Ya said.
The person went inside.
The noodle-cooking station was open to view. Ding Ya rested her chin on her hand and watched for a while as this person bustled back and forth.
She never saw a second person. No other Boss Shu.
Some customers seemed to know the boss, calling out “Shu Chi” directly.
Ding Ya’s heart felt like it had been smashed by a heavy stone. She had no desire to eat; the world just spun around her.
Her online love was a woman.
The “husband” she’d called out to for so long was also a woman.
It seemed every piece of information she knew was fake.
Ding Ya left fifty kuai. She didn’t even want the noodles. She just walked away.
“I regret it now.”
Ding Ya said in a low voice. “If only I had finished that bowl of noodles back then.”
Shu Chi remembered now too. She murmured, “It was you.”
Outside, the rain started falling again, pattering softly. Only one light was on inside, leaving the sofa area somewhat dim.
The little dog was fast asleep. The robot vacuum had come out on its own to work again.
Ding Ya asked, surprised, “You remember me?”
Shu Chi hummed an affirmation. “Fifty kuai. Didn’t eat the noodles. Left.”
“I went outside to look.”
She no longer remembered the girl’s exact features, only that it was a student who ordered food and then left.
Leaving fifty kuai. She hadn’t known what that meant.
Ding Ya took a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry.”
She knew she couldn’t keep hiding it. It was better to just lay it all out. “I knew it was you from the beginning. I just wanted to latch onto you. I didn’t expect you to be a business partner.”
Ding Ya sighed. She reached out and grabbed a piece of candy from the table. “That online husband who got cancer was fake. I made it up to trick you, to get you to talk to me more.”
Shu Chi asked, “Why didn’t you just tell me it was you from the start?”
Ding Ya: “Because I was still angry.”
She didn’t look at Shu Chi when she said this.
From Shu Chi’s angle, she could see Ding Ya pop a milk candy into her mouth. Cheek bulging, she said, “Back then, I really thought my online love was a pure, handsome guy. Traveling a thousand miles to meet in person, only to find out she was a woman.”
It was very quiet around them; each other’s sighs were clearly audible. Ding Ya’s eyes were still red-rimmed, made even more expressive by the tears.
It was easy to soften a person’s heart, easy to make them want to forgive, and even shift the blame onto oneself.
Shen Mu had said Ding Ya had a hateful face, the purest form of innocent depravity, saying if she were born in a different era, she might have been a Devil Lord.
Too bad Ding Ya didn’t have that kind of ambition. Up to now, her quarry had been one and only one, right in front of her eyes, and she had still messed it up.
Ding Ya sighed. “In that instant, I really wanted to rush in and curse at you, but seeing you bustling around all alone, I thought, forget it.”
She’d gone back and cried that day. Ding Ya didn’t invest her heart in making friends; she was also stingy with her emotional spending.
As for this online relationship’s sunk cost, Shu Chi’s was of course higher. For Ding Ya, her lingering attachment itself was the biggest sunk cost.
And the aftereffects were huge, directly causing her already poor grades to plummet, leading to her parents sending her to repeat a year of school.
Ding Ya hadn’t wanted to log into that account anymore.
That year, she still insisted she liked men, still thought being with a woman was outrageous.
But she hadn’t expected men to be the more outrageous ones. Her ex-boyfriend wasn’t even as exciting as the electronic persona who had fake-pretended to be a man during their online romance.
People’s thoughts change.
Ding Ya didn’t care so much about sexual orientation anymore. What she cared about was what she herself liked.
She cupped Shu Chi’s face in her hands and said, with great solemnity, “Shu Chi, I like you. I really liked you back then, too.”
Just when Ding Ya thought she would absolutely be forgiven, Shu Chi, whose face she was holding, burst into tears.
The tears fell onto Ding Ya’s hands. Last night, on her birthday, she’d still needed to turn off the lights to wipe her tears. Today, she didn’t hide it at all.
Shu Chi took a shaky breath, turned her face away, and said, “I’m angry.”
