Jing Yuqi was the person closest to Shu Chi over these years.
The term “business partner” could indeed perfectly sum up their relationship, but there was absolutely no problem with Xiaohu calling Shu Chi her godmother either.
Back then, Jing Yuqi was pregnant and still running a stall. When it was almost time to give birth, it was Shu Chi, who ran the stall next door, who helped her get to the hospital.
This taciturn stall owner was several years younger than her, yet Jing Yuqi always overlooked Shu Chi’s age.
Some people never seem to have an adolescence. Twenty years old like thirty, thirty years old exactly thirty, maybe at forty or fifty, she’d remain the same forever.
It was as if she was frozen in a single moment by something unspeakable. No matter how you looked at her, she resembled a statue.
Jing Yuqi was a talkative person, capable of blowing trivial matters into sky-high tales. Amid the garbage left behind when the night market dispersed, she would sit with Shu Chi at a small, foldable wooden table and talk freely.
With fiery liquor going down her throat, it felt like she could say anything.
Shu Chi occasionally brought up a few things. Her voice hadn’t been healed for long, and she was still used to her state of being mute, not fond of initiating conversation.
Back then, she’d been used to speaking in two-word phrases.
Or multiples of two, seeming strange and pitiful.
It was only after Xiaohu was born that Jing Yuqi heard Shu Chi say she hadn’t been able to speak before.
She was utterly shocked for a full five minutes, staring at Shu Chi by her hospital bed for a long time before finally choking out, “Then why did it get better?”
She could understand being unable to produce sound due to a stimulus.
But for such a psychosomatic affliction to render a normal person silent for over a decade—what on earth had made her come around?
Shu Chi didn’t say then. She just smiled slightly.
The woman wasn’t one who smiled often either. There were many women running stalls in the night market.
Shu Chi was twenty-one that year, much darker than she was now, yet her bone structure was exceptionally gifted. She could barely be considered a dusky beauty.
But her features were fierce, a scar even on her cheekbone. At a glance, she didn’t seem an easy person to talk to.
Jing Yuqi remembered that smile for many years.
She guessed it had something to do with someone, but she never guessed it was romance. After all, when would Shu Chi even have the time for dating?
Shu Chi lived only to earn money. When they’d run stalls next to each other for barely half a year, she was already the hardest-working person on the entire street, packing up later than anyone else.
Usually, food stalls were run by two people, either a married couple or siblings.
Shu Chi, alone, pulled the noodles, shaved them, boiled them, added toppings, cleared tables, and even washed dishes. Her efficiency was such that her slightly hunched posture seemed innate. If ill-mannered customers scolded her a couple of times, she wouldn’t get angry in the slightest.
Years later, when Shu Chi brought up this past over the dinner table, Jing Yuqi asked, “Was it because of her that you got better?”
At first, Mu Ling didn’t understand. She only caught on when Jing Yuqi pointed at her own throat.
Shu Chi hummed in affirmation, lowering her eyes as she ate her food. Her eating manner was simple and unpretentious—big mouthfuls of rice, large gulps of wine.
Over so many years, Jing Yuqi had packaged herself into an internet celebrity. Only Shu Chi remained the same as back then. Apart from her clothes being less rustic, she was still, at her core, like a silent tree.
Jing Yuqi said, “Honestly, keeping it bottled up for so many years without saying anything. I was dying of curiosity.”
She sniffled. Shu Chi pulled a tissue for her and said. “Are you my mom or something? Don’t cry.”
Shu Chi smiled helplessly. Mu Ling clinked glasses with her. “I can’t tell. You’ve even had an online romance.”
The kid came back from the bathroom, already unable to eat anymore, and went off to the living room to play games.
Shu Chi topped off the two adults’ drinks before she realized. “We’ve all been drinking. How are we getting home?”
Jing Yuqi filled her own glass too. “Designated driver! Are you an idiot?”
Shu Chi said “Oh.” “Alright then.”
Mu Ling asked another question. “When did you have your online romance? Ten years ago, you would’ve been twenty? Not in this area, right?”
Jing Yuqi said, “I met her when she was twenty-one.”
Shu Chi’s front profile carried a hint of fierceness, but her side profile had absolutely none of that feeling. She took a sip of wine. “Back then, I was an apprentice and did deliveries.”
Jing Yuqi nodded. “The year we met while running stalls, this one here had opened a noodle shop and was deeply in debt.”
The person before them was completely outside the circles Mu Ling usually mingled with. But sometimes, it was precisely by stepping outside your own circle that you found friends you could truly get along with.
“I’m just surprised. Shu Chi seems…”
Mu Ling paused.
“Completely…”
Jing Yuqi understood. “You know old phones, the flip-open kind. Back in those days, dating was all about texting and stuff. My partner and I…”
She quickly steered away from this topic. “Shu Chi’s phone wasn’t a PHS, though.”
Shu Chi said, “PHS couldn’t run the app.”
Back then, phones were palm-sized. A screen of 5×5 cm was considered good. One square suited for three words “I love you” perfectly.
For a sentence like “I really really miss you,” you might need a new line.
Mu Ling asked, “Then why did you trick her into thinking you were a man?”
This was a bit hard to understand. Mu Ling rested her chin on her hand. “You don’t seem like the type to toy with girls’ feelings.”
If it were Shu Chi, Mu Ling would be more worried she’d be the one getting trapped by someone.
Among the three, Shu Chi held her liquor the best. When business negotiations reached the drinking contest stage previously, she was usually the last one standing.
Mentioning this, her eyes seemed to be stained with a lot of unknowable sorrow, even the scar on her face became somewhat gentle.
“She thought I was a man. I didn’t deny it, and I didn’t confirm it.”
Looking back now, Shu Chi had had many opportunities to tell Bean Sprout that she wasn’t a man.
That she couldn’t be the other’s husband, that there wouldn’t be that naively imagined future the other dreamed of.
Not a university student, not someone out doing work-study to earn pocket money, couldn’t play an instrument, she couldn’t even speak.
She could only, on those extremely precious nights, accept the other’s voice call requests.
The sound card on that crappy computer was terrible, the other person’s voice always carrying static. Even so, Shu Chi had found it incredibly sweet.
She had basely occupied that warmth belonging solely to “Book Late” in the silent night.
Knowing full well that this despicable act would be exposed one day, yet still hoping it could be delayed a little longer.
Heaven had always been expert at striking her down with a sledgehammer—like Grandma’s outstretched hand, like the bubbles in the pond symbolizing life’s final struggle.
Like the stolen money, like the luggage lost during the long-distance train ride, like the helplessness when her shop was smashed.
Shu Chi thought: Her leaving me was expected.
Perhaps we were never truly together at all.
Mu Ling lowered her head and drank her wine. She had also experienced that era. The trends back then were just like that.
It could also be seen as the birth of another kind of cultural shift. Looking back now, it was quite nostalgic.
She asked, “For an online romance, how do you know that what the other person said was necessarily true?”
Mu Ling glanced at Jing Yuqi, who looked desperately in need of a cigarette, nibbling on a crab leg, afraid her daughter would catch her bad habit.
“Yeah, maybe the other person was also a guy.”
Jing Yuqi cracked a joke.
Shu Chi said, “Not a guy.”
Mu Ling asked again, “Then do you know what she looked like?”
Shu Chi shook her head.
Mu Ling asked, “Did she know what you looked like?”
Shu Chi shook her head again.
Mu Ling thought: How can an online romance be like a blind marriage?
Jing Yuqi was also curious, seizing the moment to ask a few more questions. “Then where was she from?”
Shu Chi still had the mood to keep eating crab. “From around here.”
Jing Yuqi widened her eyes. “I said when we first decided to come here to develop, you were so incredibly eager. So it was for a woman?”
Her face looked heartbroken. “I thought your career drive had kicked in, but it turns out…”
This person had always loved to put on a performance. Shu Chi was long used to it. “I don’t know the specifics either.”
Over all these years, Shu Chi had thought about it many times.
I know nothing about her—her name, her appearance, her height, her family…
But what did any of that matter? The concern I received wasn’t fake.
Just that tiny bit of waiting meant for me was enough for Shu Chi to remember fondly, without end.
So many years in Bramble City, occasionally she’d have whimsical thoughts. Had I ever encountered her before?
But we never video-called, voice calls were one-sided, and she knew nothing about me either.
I was a fake digital lover.
Jing Yuqi exclaimed. “It’s fine. So many years have passed. Rather than dwelling on the past, look at the present.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What was that just now? Ding Ya was that girl from the other day, right? Missing you??”
She twisted that one sentence into something incredibly flirtatious and full of innuendo. Mu Ling almost burst out laughing.
Shu Chi said, “She said she wanted to call me.”
Jing Yuqi asked with an exaggerated tone, “Is she chasing you?”
Shu Chi said, “Is this considered chasing?”
Her brows were shadowed with deep confusion. Though her skin wasn’t pale, somehow, in this light, she seemed pale.
Jing Yuqi reached out and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Would you even know? Over the years, it’s not like no one’s chased you, right?”
Shu Chi pursed her lips, thinking of some unpleasant experience.
Jing Yuqi also recalled that person. “That one doesn’t count as normal.”
Mu Ling hummed. “Who?”
Jing Yuqi said, “Some minor streamer who liked Shu Chi. Came straight to ask her out.”
Mu Ling said, “That’s also normal, for adults.”
Jing Yuqi said, “But Shu Chi isn’t that type of person. Anyone ordinary who had an interest in her was rejected very thoroughly.”
Jing Yuqi thought of Ding Ya, feeling that the girl looked clever and deft, her voice pleasant to hear—a type that even other women would find endearing.
No wonder Shu Chi was stirred.
Shu Chi pushed away Jing Yuqi’s hand. “I don’t feel like she wants to chase me, or that she’s serious.”
That day at Ding Ya’s home, Shu Chi had heard her own name spoken many times.
Ding Ya had said her name sounded very nice.
Having an interest in her versus teasing her were two different things. Shu Chi wasn’t truly stupid; she could tell the difference.
Jing Yuqi said, “Elaborate?”
Shu Chi again didn’t know how to say it. The moment she frowned, her fierce look emerged. Jing Yuqi laughed. “That day, when I told you to take her home, you really did?”
Shu Chi nodded.
Jing Yuqi asked, “You didn’t go up to her place, did you?”
Mu Ling coughed. “Don’t leave out words.”
Jing Yuqi said, “It’s fine, Old Chi understands.”
Shu Chi said, “She invited me to see her dog.”
Her face practically screamed “I am innocent,” but this whole situation was unusual regardless.
Jing Yuqi said, “Isn’t Ding Ya your type? Small stature, soft voice.”
Shu Chi denied it. “I never said I liked that type.”
Jing Yuqi said, “Your online love is in the past. If you like that kind of feeling, just find someone similar.”
Mu Ling rested her chin on her hand. “A substitute then. But that online romance of yours doesn’t really count as a relationship, right? Just a phone call, calling each other ‘husband’ and ‘wife.’ I could call Sister Qi ‘husband’ too.”
Jing Yuqi threw her a flirtatious glance.
Shu Chi corrected her seriously. “Even if it wasn’t a relationship, she was very important to me.”
Jing Yuqi said, “Yes, yes, yes. Making a mute speak—it’s like an iron tree blooming. But the sea of people is vast. You can’t keep rejecting everyone forever. What if…?”
Mu Ling agreed. “Just give it a try. She might not be chasing you, but she’s reaching out to chat. Shu Chi, I rarely see you rushing to answer the phone like that.”
Jing Yuqi said, “Unless it’s a three or four-million-yuan deal.”
She made an exaggerated joke.
Shu Chi felt a bit helpless. “There’s someone in my heart. How can I accept someone new in this state?”
