Chapter 1: “Ordinary Friends”

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“That’s weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“It’s just Chi Buyu. She’s been acting so strange lately—” The girl’s voice carried the lilt of Chengdu dialect, blending into the bar’s pulsing drumbeat. She raised her voice just a touch, which made it sound oddly cheerful.

“A few days ago, I called her to ask if she could make it to the class reunion, and then I asked if she had Cui Qijin’s number…”

The friend who chimed in burst out laughing. “And then? What did Class Monitor Chi Buyu say to you, our high school class president?”

The class president, the one who’d spoken in dialect, let out a sigh. She lifted her half-face mask, covering the upper part of her face, and mimicked Chi Buyu’s deliberately mumbled tone from that phone call.

“Cui Qijin? Which one?”

After a bizarre ten-second pause,

Switching abruptly to standard Mandarin made it sound especially awkward.

After a moment’s recollection, she said, “I remember those two dancing ‘Trouble Maker’ together at the freshman military training gala back in high school year one, right? The whole grade was buzzing that Chi Buyu actually kissed Cui Qijin. How does Chi Buyu herself forget something that memorable?”

“Not just that—” The class president smirked behind her Crab Boss mask.

“After that, they seemed to butt heads all the time. They’d bicker whenever they met—one complaining the other was too pale and ghostly cold, the other saying this one grinned like an idiot with nothing but hot air for brains. Never a peaceful moment in the same room…”

She trailed off midway.

After a long pause, it hit her. “Right! They’ve been tangled up in drama forever. So why’s Chi Buyu suddenly pretending over the phone like she doesn’t know Cui Qijin?”

She added her own guess. “Unless it’s because of that thing in Hong Kong last June…”

“In Hong Kong how? On-again-off-again? Tears and passion? Rekindled flames?”

“What kind of melodramatic crap are you spouting? None of that fits them. I’d rather believe they got into a brutal fight there, bloodied and sworn enemies forever—that’s why Chi Buyu’s pretending not to know her now.”

“Not impossible.” The northern girl scooted closer with a grin.

“But back in school, were they really on such bad terms? I never thought so. Those arguments you mentioned? I never saw them. I always figured they were pretty good friends—”

A sharp, piercing screech from the speakers onstage cut her off. Like a glitch punishing a taboo word, forcing an instant fix.

Then came a lazy female voice.

“Who’s friends with her.”

In the brief silence between the screech, the words drifted down from overhead. Spoken slowly, a few syllables light and slick, not dragging but with a unique smoothness.

The bar fell quiet for a split second. Both girls whipped their heads around to look.

A ’90s Cantopop ballad hit its first line just as the newcomer settled into a seat. She was bundled in a dark, heavy coat, yet somehow still looked slender and pale.

The bar was packed, hazy and chaotic. The resident singer sported vibrant red hair. Everyone at the reunion had shed their high school awkwardness; every young face glowed with excitement, flushed from craft beer.

Only this one moved slowly to a corner booth, her skin so fair it was almost translucent. Like she’d dabbed on lipstick and casually clipped back her hair with a shark clip, big black-framed glasses hiding most of her face, as if she’d wandered down from upstairs in her coat for a stroll.

Utterly nonchalant.

The class president, still holding her Crab Boss mask mid-conversation, gaped in shock. Was time really some magical capsule that had rolled eight years forward?

Even Cui Qijin, whom she’d always imagined as rigidly methodical—chewing every bite in precise order—had become so relaxed?

But clearly not.

Because in the next second after her remark, Cui Qijin pulled out a sanitizing wipe. A slender, pale wrist emerged from her coat sleeve, and she began wiping down the table at a leisurely pace.

In a soft voice, she repeated herself.

“We’re not friends.”

No one could tell who she meant it for.

But it felt like an emphasis after the fix—like double-checking before letting it go.

“Cui Qijin?”

The class president finally snapped out of it, lowering her mask with a delighted grin. “You came? Weren’t you supposed to go camping tonight?”

Cui Qijin was cleaning the glasses she’d just removed, half-lidding her eyes at the question.

She had distinctive narrow inner-double eyelids, thin lids revealing faint blue veins beneath. Her gaze always carried a fragile coolness; expressionless, it looked almost fierce.

“My sister’s got something going on at school that needed handling. I was in the neighborhood.” She nodded a greeting to the pair, then added curtly.

Her eyes flicked to the aimless snow outside the window. She lazily put her now-clear glasses back on and tossed out, out of nowhere, “Plus, it’s snowing today.”

“No wonder. Yeah, can’t camp in snow.” The class president glanced out too, then watched her meticulously wipe the already spotless glass table.

“I remember your sister goes to Jiaoda University nearby. Yeah, that’s close—just a short walk.”

Cui Qijin tilted her chin slightly. “Mm,” she replied, then stressed, “Very convenient.”

The class president watched her finish the table and patiently swap to a fresh wipe to clean her hands.

She shook her head. “You’ve barely changed all these years.”

The wistful remark made her chuckle first. Then, like old pals, she slung an arm around Cui Qijin’s shoulder—no intention of hiding their earlier chat.

“So, Chi Buyu told me you two aren’t close. What do you think?”

Cui Qijin’s hand paused mid-wipe. She disposed of the used wipe methodically, glanced impassively at the arm on her shoulder, and replied with a skin-deep smile.

“She’s right.”

The class president yanked her arm back at once, hands up in sincere surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Forgot—you hate physical contact.”

Cui Qijin shifted her gaze away, offering a faint smile. “It’s fine.”

The class president caught up with her a bit more, then got pulled into another conversation by someone else.

Cui Qijin half-closed her eyes. The bar’s stuffy heat reeked—thick mingled perfumes, dense fermenting booze, scents from all sorts of bodies… all filtering through the ’90s Cantopop into her nose.

It choked her, like a beluga whale that couldn’t breathe from its cheeks, shoved into briny seas before a storm.

She opened her eyes and scanned the crowd. Faces everywhere, all animated, dancing with the swaying lights like ballerinas.

She hugged her arms, bored out of her mind, wondering why she was even sitting there.

Truth was, she’d forgotten about the reunion entirely. She’d only been passing by when her enthusiastic vice class president spotted and dragged her in. People assumed she’d come on purpose and chatted her up. Since the vice president had gone out of her way to help her before, Cui Qijin hadn’t burst her bubble.

Once inside, the vice president got called away by other friends. Not wanting to bolt right away, Cui Qijin claimed a corner seat.

Her knuckle tapped her screen to life: 20:49. Eleven more minutes, then. She clutched the awkward half-face mask, settling on that in her mind.

It was a prop from the bar’s First Snow event. She’d stepped in through the light snow and caught snippets of the intro. White half-masks base-coated with colorful graffiti from seven-year-old deaf kids—childish lines, wildly vibrant colors.

Cui Qijin’s was Octopus Bro.

The hazy lights turned the air into a flowing ocean. She stared at the mask—one, two, three, four, five… five disdainful Octopus Bro faces, scrutinizing each.

The singer switched songs. The class president’s chat drifted to her ears.

“Chi Buyu? She went to that fashion course in Hong Kong last June. With New Year’s coming, she should be back, right?”

“Is she coming to the reunion?”

“She was kinda vague on the phone. Not sure if she can make it. Why? Looking for her?”

“Nah, just old classmates, been ages—wanna catch up. Speaking of which—”

The distant female voice grew nearer, almost brushing Cui Qijin’s ear, snapping her wandering thoughts back.

She flipped the mask over with a snap, turning calmly just as a classmate leaned in, blinking expectantly.

“Were you in Hong Kong on that business trip last time? Did you see Chi Buyu? How’s she doing?”

Chi Buyu, Chi Buyu—always Chi Buyu.

The venue amplified every sound to Cui Qijin’s ears. Too sharp-hearing, too quick calculations—she irritably figured she’d hear the name a hundred times in ten minutes.

Most buzz was about Chi Buyu’s fashion design course in Hong Kong half a year ago. Everyone knew her new cheongsam brand had been trashed online by rivals for repetitive designs.

Was that why the idiot had up and gone to study there? Cui Qijin thought if it were her, no one’s opinions would sway her like that. Criticism or blame wouldn’t alter her routine.

People weren’t the force driving her to change. She preferred constancy; her life needed no surprises.

Of course, Chi Buyu wasn’t her. Folks who knew Cui Qijin called her aloof, devoid of camaraderie. Those who knew Chi Buyu said she was a bit spoiled but loyal and easy to get along with.

So naturally, all their old classmates cared more about Chi Buyu’s situation.

Cui Qijin rubbed her slightly throbbing temple and said slowly, “I don’t really remember. It was probably pretty good.”

That was half a year ago—who could remember such details so clearly?

She fiddled with the stiff edge of her mask with her fingers, silently counting down the passing minutes in her mind, thinking nonchalantly to herself.

—Eight more minutes.

“Alright, as long as it was good.” The female classmate who had asked picked up the thread, apparently accepting Cui Qijin’s vague assurance at face value. She didn’t press further and sat back down.

Cui Qijin returned a friendly smile. Once their gazes shifted away, she slowly let the corners of her mouth drop.

After that, the conversation at the table steered clear of both Chi Buyu and Cui Qijin.

She narrowed her eyes a fraction, already sensing her nostrils filling with a haze of cloying, sticky scents. She had never cared for crowded social scenes like this.

With five minutes to go, the resident singer stepped off the stage. The First Snow Activity was about to kick off, and the speakers began playing an old tune—David Tao’s “Ordinary Friends.”

20:56. She could leave right then without a second thought. But she truly despised upending any plan, set or otherwise—even a makeshift one like sticking around for eleven minutes. Failing to see it through would leave her with the nagging sense that she’d abandoned something here. That incomplete feeling sat poorly with her.

Such sensations arose without reason, which led her to dismiss them as a universal human flaw.

When David Tao hit the opening line—“I can’t just be your ordinary friend”—she passed the time scrolling on her phone and noted that “Ordinary Friends” clocked in at four minutes and fifteen seconds.

If she bailed now, what she’d miss would be the full span of one “Ordinary Friends.”

The bar event was ramping up; the lights dimmed gradually, bearing down from overhead. The organizer, sporting a “Sandy” mask and a cascade of golden hair, clutched a DV camcorder and darted between the tables, eagerly capturing the scene.

The swelling crowd waved like a tide, their voices merging with the speakers in a chorus—“I only wanna be your friend.”

“Sandy” was nearing their table. Cui Qijin turned her face to the right, dodging the camera’s lens.

To her right was a glass window, its surface veiled in ethereal mist from the condensation. Outside, fresh snow had just begun to fall.

She wondered when Chengdu had last seen snow. 2020, maybe—the year she’d graduated university.

It wasn’t odd for the city’s young crowd to belt out tunes in a cozy bar on a snowy night, caught up in the thin layer of flakes.

The delicate snowflakes continued drifting lazily through the air. Cui Qijin watched them for a moment as the song’s easygoing arrangement wound down. Then, with a sudden boom, all the lights plunged into darkness.

The bar turned pitch-black, like peering into an endless void. The glow on nearby faces shattered and smeared like spilled paint.

Sandy grabbed the mic and hollered, “Event’s starting! When the lights come back up, everyone better have their masks on—or it’s penalty shots, haha!”

Her audience replied with the line “But I can’t take back the love I gave you just yet,” drawing a ripple of easy laughter.

Cui Qijin felt like a fish out of water in this vibe. She lit up her phone screen again, enduring it—

20:59. The crowd pulsed like rising bubbles, on the verge of spilling over. Thud—someone’s elbow clipped her Octopus Bro mask from the table.

Neon glow seeped through the glass from outside. She watched the mask tumble with little clatters before it wedged into the corner by the window, right within arm’s reach if she bent down.

Flashing colors played across Octopus Bro’s teal skin, making it look like five deadpan Octopus Bros were hitting the dance floor.

Still 20:59. The minute dragged on forever. She creased her brow and eyed the fallen mask for half a second before stooping to retrieve it.

Her long cotton coat trailed on the floor. She crouched, fumbling for its position amid the swaying crowd. Glancing up through the gaps, she spotted the bar’s outdoor neon sign.

A line of text swayed lazily across it.

Her astigmatism must have worsened; the letters’ edges shimmered. She hadn’t deciphered them when a sharp clang rang out from beyond the glass—

Just then, her fingers brushed the mask’s hard rim.

The crowd’s final line stretched out hazy and drawn, blending with the swirling melody. It all rushed in like an ocean tide seeping slowly into the snow-dusted city.

That fuzzy neon script lurked behind the flutter of coat hems outside the window, shadowy and luminous. She scooped up the mask and glanced up as the sign’s words flickered to life one by one, absurdly sharpening into focus on her glasses—

Today’s Love Weather Forecast: First Snow.

“Hey, Octopus Bro classmate.”

A muffled female voice cut in from overhead. Cui Qijin squinted and made out a silhouette blotting the misty glass from outside.

The figure pressed a palm to their forehead against the pane, peering intently into the darkened bar with wide eyes. Then, with exaggerated caution and in a near-whisper, they asked,

“Is Cui Muhuo here?”

“Ordinary Friends” hit its finale right then. Her phone flipped to 21:01, and the bar flooded with light the next instant…

Everyone else was masked up. Just the two of them weren’t.