Cui Qijin replied, “The sky. The clouds up there.”
Most folks would’ve scoffed—Clouds? What’s so special? Chengdu’s got clouds everywhere. Same old, same old. You’re so bored.
But Chi Buyu took a swig of her milk tea, tipped her head back, and joined the skywatch. With sweet breath, she murmured, “Bad weather today.”
Her follow-up? “I’m Chengdu weather.”
Cui Qijin burst out laughing. “Chengdu’s way too lazy to care if you’re sunny or stormy.”
Chi Buyu wrinkled her nose. “Then I’ll throw a tantrum.”
“Throw all you want—Chengdu won’t come cuddle you.”
Chi Buyu sighed. “Why’s it gotta be crappy weather today?”
Cui Qijin strolled on steadily. “Not just today. Chengdu’s cloudy more often than not.”
She tipped her head back without thinking. Those clouds hung low and brooding, as they always did. Chengdu knew overcast skies and drizzle better than most cities—more cloud cover, too.
“Cloudy?”
Chi Buyu latched onto the word like a lifeline and belted out, “Gloomy Day, in a room with no lights—”
She was like a jukebox on autopilot.
Then she blanked on the lyrics, stalled out, gulped some milk tea, and jumped ahead. “Love—is it just spiritual opium?—”
Cui Qijin doubled over laughing, clutching her stomach. She was the only one cracking up on the crowded street.
Chi Buyu finished her line and quit singing. Grinning, she leaned in close, prodded Cui Qijin’s cheek.
“Your mood better now?”
Cui Qijin’s smile faded halfway. “Why say that?”
Chi Buyu rolled her eyes, sipped her tea, and bobbed her head. “Because the weather sucks today.”
Cui Qijin half-expected the drunkard to launch into “Gloomy Day” again—or maybe “Clear Skies.”
Instead, Chi Buyu halted dead in her tracks. Her lips quivered, and she blurted, “Cui Muhuo, I’m so pissed from walking. It’s too far!”
Topic swerve, and deliberate.
“Ten minutes? That’s nothing.” For the sake of the gloomy day, Cui Qijin stayed patient. “Back in college, you swore off weight for a week—chugged milk tea while power-walking the track for ten laps. Longer than this.”
“Come on, you got this. You’re still that girl.”
“I’m not.” Chi Buyu hung her head, surrendering fast. “I’ve grown up.”
Wait, seriously?
Cui Qijin eyed her suspiciously, noting Chi Buyu really wasn’t budging. She stressed, “I’m not carrying you.”
Chi Buyu’s mouth turned down in an ugly pout—like she might actually be mad.
Cui Qijin tried coaxing. “Ten more minutes, and we’re there.”
Chi Buyu thumped her legs pitifully. “I hunted for that cake on Chunxi Road forever today. So many people. My watch said I burned over a thousand calories…”
Cui Qijin watched her, unmoving.
Hesitating, “Then maybe I—”
Before she could finish, Chi Buyu shook her head wildly, scanned around, and bolted for a bus stop shelter.
Cui Qijin hurried after.
Afraid she’d dash into traffic in her boozy haze. But Chi Buyu just huddled at the shelter, studying it intently. Finally, beaming, she jabbed the plastic panel and huffed excitedly.
“Let’s take the bus!”
Middle of the night. Bus ride.
Cui Qijin checked. “It’s one stop. You’ll still have to walk after. You sure?”
Chi Buyu wobbled, head lolling, forehead nearly smacking the panel. “Bus, bus, bus!”
Cui Qijin was quick—grabbed her Barbie wrist bag, tugged her back from the cold metal. Then she leaned in to check herself.
“Last bus is at nine. Probably none now—”
“Here it comes!”
The shout rang out bright before she finished. Cui Qijin whipped her head around on reflex—right into headlights glaring point-blank. Her eyes slammed shut.
When she opened her eyes again, she hadn’t yet made out which bus it was before she felt a soft, cool palm blocking her glasses, a sliver of light peeking through the gaps.
She hadn’t even reacted yet.
The palm covering her face pulled away, then grabbed her wrist and yanked her enthusiastically onto the bus.
In that instant, her face paled as she choked on the air and coughed. She stumbled after this drunkard onto the bus, nearly convinced they were fleeing for their lives—as if missing this ride meant there’d never be another chance.
But as long as she was with Chi Buyu, these out-of-the-blue surprises always cropped up. She was no longer surprised by the unsurprising.
By the time she gathered her wits, the bus door had hissed shut behind them, and the vehicle lurched forward. She and Chi Buyu had taken seats one behind the other. This model still had no side-by-side seating—just the retro wooden benches, an all-wooden interior, cartoonish exterior, and limited seats from a community shuttle over a decade old. It was outdated, with short routes, yet somehow still running.
Chengdu really was a city that clung to its past.
Cui Qijin leaned tentatively against the chair back, staring blankly as the streetlights whipped by outside the window.
She’d barely glanced a few times when Chi Buyu suddenly poked her head over the seat back, draping herself drunkenly across it.
First, Chi Buyu peered out for a few seconds, her head tilted away. After a bit, as if she’d had enough of the wind from that side, she switched, pressing her face toward Cui Qijin instead, squinting as she let the breeze ruffle the back of her head.
Her two little buns were still tied up tight, stray wisps fluttering wildly in the night wind.
That was when Cui Qijin caught her scent—a faint trace of Berlin Girl. She figured Chi Buyu hadn’t even noticed the views she’d been watching.
“Cui Muhuo, my head feels so dizzy,” Chi Buyu mumbled drowsily.
“Hang in there. We’re almost there.”
Cui Qijin straightened her back a little and glanced sideways. Suddenly, she noticed the passing streetlights washing over Chi Buyu’s face—reds, blues, yellows, all colors, like a spilled spice rack splashed across her skin.
Chi Buyu pressed her cheek down, brow furrowed in discomfort.
“Who told you to drink so much?”
Though Cui Qijin said that—and though it was just one stop away—she still fished out the Bluetooth earbuds she always carried.
She connected them to her phone.
She glanced at Chi Buyu slumped over her seat back, her face squished flat.
Cui Qijin sighed. Chi Buyu drunk was such a hassle. With two fingers, she pushed at Chi Buyu’s forehead, lifting her head off the hard chair back and slipping an earbud into her ear.
Then she patted herself down, looking for something to cushion Chi Buyu with. But after rummaging, all she found was the paper bag she’d just stuffed in her pocket.
She hesitated for a second, eyeing Chi Buyu whose cheek was still pressed to her palm. Carefully, she placed the bag on the seat back and rested Chi Buyu’s face on it.
At least the clothes inside were Chi Buyu’s own—she probably wouldn’t mind.
Sure enough, Chi Buyu didn’t. She smacked her lips, her expression easing into something more comfortable.
The wind rushed in from outside as Cui Qijin opened NetEase Cloud Music. She swiped idly and tapped a Twins track from her daily recommendations. A few seconds later, Chi Buyu shook her head sluggishly.
“I want Ordinary Friends.”
Even this smashed, she was still picky?
Cui Qijin eyed Chi Buyu’s scrunched-up nose and gave in, queuing up Ordinary Friends.
Chi Buyu relaxed her brow in satisfaction, then mumbled through the wind, “Aren’t you listening?”
Cui Qijin held the earbud case with its remaining bud. “I’m not used to sharing earbuds with someone.”
What was commonplace intimacy in modern life struck her as awkward. The habit probably dated back to wired headphones, when sharing meant being tethered by a cord—limiting your range, interfering with each other for a whole song, or more.
She’d never done it back then.
Even now, in the Bluetooth era, she still believed sharing a pair wasn’t ideal. It bound two free-moving people to about ten meters.
What should have been nice turned into a constraint.
“Oh,” Chi Buyu said, then grumbled, “Then why didn’t you give me both earbuds?”
One wasn’t enough—she wanted the pair?
“Give you both, and you might run off with them.”
“Wow, am I that bad?”
“How would I know if you’re bad or not.”
“Come on, after all these years, don’t you know what kind of person I am?”
Yeah, all these years. Before we knew it, we’d known each other for eleven. But I still don’t know what kind of person you really are. Sometimes you clash with me completely, sometimes you drag me into trouble, always so sure of yourself, always jumping from one whim to the next.
I say I’m watching the clouds, and you say the weather’s bad today, that you’re generating Chengdu vibes. Then I realize I’m doing the same—why does Chengdu always have so many clouds? But the next second, I wish there were even more. I’m conflicted, I know I’m conflicted.
Every time I think I understand you well enough, some new baffling change pops up.
Chi Buyu, you’re really not simple at all.
“I don’t know.”
Cui Qijin answered honestly, and Chi Buyu let it drop. They sat quietly together as the bus rolled on.
To be fair, it had been ages since she’d ridden a bus, and it felt different.
Modern folks got used to speedy subways, dark tunnels flashing with track lights. They’d forgotten how buses offered open roads, the lively scraps of city life—warm or chatty.
Like now: the community shuttle passed a wobbly e-bike ridden by two women pressed close. Both wore helmets; one gripped the handlebars, the other wrapped her arms around the driver. They huddled for warmth, a rainbow sticker gleaming wet on the front, both grinning ear to ear.
Cui Qijin watched for a while—she wasn’t sure how long. In that time, her mind went blank. Then she noticed Chi Buyu had turned her face to the other side, gazing drunkenly out the window, colors dancing on her features. Cui Qijin wondered what she was thinking, if maybe she was watching the e-bike too, those two women.
As the bike veered off, Cui Qijin looked away—only to see Chi Buyu suddenly turn toward her, slowly opening her eyes.
The window was cracked open; they were the only two passengers on the whole bus, as if they were the only two in the world. She didn’t even know who the driver was, just that the breeze blowing in was chilly, streaked with red taillight glow.
Chi Buyu rested her chin near the seat back, a red imprint pressed into her right cheek. She tilted her head, watching Cui Qijin curiously, blankly.
Finally, she touched a strand of hair the wind had lifted from Cui Qijin’s head. As she pulled back, she blurted, “Cui Muhuo, what would you be like in love?”
Cui Qijin hadn’t expected the question. She froze.
She had no intention of answering, but Chi Buyu stared stubbornly, as if determined to get a reply.
It turned into a staring contest.
Chi Buyu blinked first, handing over the spare earbud. Her cool fingertips slipped it into Cui Qijin’s ear. Then she kept staring with those bleary, drunken eyes.
They were down to sharing one pair, like back in the day.
No—she’d given it up, granting Chi Buyu the freedom to wander ten meters away anytime.
“Probably nothing special,” Cui Qijin said at last, as Ordinary Friends looped back to the start.
“Nothing special?” Chi Buyu blinked in confusion, poking at Cui Qijin’s hair. “What does that even mean?”
“Nothing special means just that.” Cui Qijin explained patiently, though it sounded like a tongue twister.
“Then why nothing special?”
They went back and forth like that over one stop, trading tongue twisters, each trying to trip the other up.
Why, she asked.
Cui Qijin couldn’t figure why the stop hadn’t come yet. Maybe she was drunk too. Maybe this was Chi Buyu’s drunken dream, and she’d stumbled into it—meaning the bus would never arrive. Just like she couldn’t say why she was even answering.
She only knew they’d hit a red light when fine rain drifted through the open window, mist blooming outside in the damp haze. Gloomy day turned to rainy day in a blink.
Then, almost indifferently, she heard herself say, “Maybe because I don’t love enough.”
“Then I must be the total opposite when I’m in love.”
In that moment, Chi Buyu’s bright, shallow gaze misted over too. She giggled right by Cui Qijin’s ear, laughing for a good while before collapsing back onto the seat, murmuring softly, “I think I love too much.”
