Chapter 19: “Making It Last” Part 2

They weren’t like ordinary classmates, nor were they quite ordinary friends.

If it weren’t for Chen Wenran and Ran Yan, if it weren’t for Love Adrift Street that had never been torn down over all these years, if it weren’t for the class monitor—Crab Boss—who was so nostalgic and always organizing class reunions, if it weren’t for all the troubles over the past decade or so, there probably wouldn’t be any contact between them beyond holiday greetings at New Year’s.

But then she thought that they weren’t ordinary classmates precisely because of Chen Wenran and Ran Yan, because of Love Adrift Street, because of Crab Boss’s class reunions, because of all those troubles over the years… Those things existed, and they kept existing.

Now, they had one more thorny issue on top of that. And they both knew—

The trouble with this one far exceeded anything before. She was still talking about “making up” like always, but this time, there was no “just a little bit more” stroke of fate to make it happen.

“Cui Muhuo?”

A puzzled call drifted over. Cui Qijin felt sticky rain threads clinging to her eyelashes and caught the scent of winter rain.

She pulled her thoughts out of the memory.

The earbuds were still playing “Ordinary Friends,” and she saw “Sustainable Development” printed on the 7-Eleven plastic bag.

“What are you thinking about?”

Chi Buyu leaned in closer, now it was her turn to disrupt Cui Qijin’s line of sight.

Cui Qijin looked at Chi Buyu, who was about to turn twenty-six soon—sometimes she couldn’t believe this woman was already twenty-six, or that she herself was twenty-six.

She often wondered if time was secretly speeding up under some mysterious magnetic field, or if a movie lens with increasingly blurry pixels had quietly frozen it…

In any case, Chi Buyu was still as funny and childish as she had been in high school. When she spoke quickly, she still raised her voice without realizing it. When drunk, she still did hilariously immature things. She still got into all sorts of little troubles that bothered Cui Qijin, still left her with all sorts of unfounded embarrassing stories, and was still just as silly.

And they had always been the kind of relationship she imagined.

In a daze, she reached out and playfully tousled Chi Buyu’s bun, and when Chi Buyu wrinkled her nose in dissatisfaction, she casually gave the same reply as some forgotten time before.

“Let’s make up, then.”

Chi Buyu froze at those words, probably caught off guard, never expecting that one day they would actually “make up.” She opened her mouth dryly, the plastic bag on her face crinkling with the movement. After a few breaths, she still couldn’t say anything.

She stopped blowing on the plastic bag. But Cui Qijin suddenly felt an inexplicable relief about one thing—

Two days ago in Thailand, after filling out the delivery form, she had hesitated and deleted it, refilling it to change the address for that Colorful Leaf Taro plant to her own.

She was glad she hadn’t hesitated back then.

And glad that, for now, there were no little incidents to change this relationship.

–

Finally, Chi Buyu took the plastic bag off her face, crumpled it up flat, tossed the empty Chrysanthemum Joy box, and slowly ambled into the neighborhood. After all this time, the alcohol had worn off, and she seemed more normal, without causing any more trouble.

But for some reason.

When Cui Qijin looked over, she still felt like Chi Buyu’s back was swaying unsteadily, like a tropical fish wagging its tail while pretending to have a full head of thoughts.

She stared for a while.

Until Chi Buyu disappeared into the neighborhood. Cui Qijin shoved her hands in her pockets and strolled back slowly. The rain had started again, and the road was still slick.

Chengdu’s weather was so strange—the boundary between rainy days and gloomy ones was so blurred she couldn’t categorize it.

As Cui Qijin walked, she glanced down at her phone. There were no new messages in the “FamilyMart People” WeChat group. Just then, a convenience store by the road chimed with a ding as it welcomed a customer. She turned her head, not yet making out which chain it was.

Suddenly, a whoosh came from behind. The rain picked up, accompanied by the splash of water. A fierce, rapid force hit her from the side, her coat hem flapping up. The world spun, her foot slipped, and she stumbled forward uncontrollably several steps before grabbing a utility pole to steady herself—

The rain-blurred street made visibility poor.

She looked up in a panic, vaguely seeing an electric scooter’s tire skid sideways in the wet, teetering dangerously before the rider corrected it and slammed to a stop.

The rider, helmeted, wiped rain from their face and shot her a concerned, urgent look. Her face pale, she shook her head, not yet realizing what had happened.

Only then did the scooter rider nod reassuringly and speed off without looking back.

Cui Qijin steadied herself against the pole, staring blankly upward. The rain was even heavier now.

She distastefully pulled her hand from the pole—it was predictably covered in grit and dirty water. Then a faint pain hit. She tucked in her chin and took a step forward with her hand outstretched, thinking nothing of it. But that one step triggered a sharp pain in her waist.

The intense stabbing pain flared up, her face growing even paler. She tried another tentative step and immediately winced, forced to stop in place.

Gripping the pole, she bit her pale lip. After easing for a bit, she wandered dazedly in the street, pondering the odds of getting soaked in this rain without getting sick…

In the end, she gave up and unlocked her phone, which she’d been clutching tightly—Yu Chenxing was in Hong Kong right now; even if she called and they argued, her sister couldn’t get there fast. Chen Wenran was probably already down south by now; it’d take another hour by subway or a cab, and she wouldn’t trouble her to turn back…

As for Cui He and Yu Hongdong, she didn’t even consider it—they might not hear from her for hours. By then, she’d probably be drenched to the bone.

She hesitated as the rain seemed to intensify.

An unexpected name popped into her mind.

Her finger swiped in the WeChat chat box. Cui Qijin pondered for a moment, just as the neighborhood group chat popped up. The screen was too wet; she accidentally tapped in and saw them discussing secondhand goods. Without further hesitation, she scrolled for the local police contact. Rain streaked the screen until it looked like it’d been fished from water, slippery to hold.

She could barely stand now, one hand braced on her waist, the other wiping the phone on the inside of her cotton jacket. She exhaled through the pain and realized rain was streaming down her face too.

The water dripped down, blurring her vision. She barely managed to dial the local police number. Amid the long beeps, hurried pedestrians and vehicles passed by. Countless footsteps splashing through puddles grew louder, approaching then receding. Vaguely, one stood out—distant yet straight toward her, urgent and uneasy…

As if running right for her.

The beeping continued. A car horn blared from the street, and she instinctively stepped left. Whether it tugged her injury or not, her waist pain nearly doubled her over. Sweat and rain mingled, streaming relentlessly from her jaw into her collar, clinging wetly to her neck—miserable.

The footsteps grew nearer, almost upon her, or perhaps about to pass by.

She laboriously lifted her eyelids; her vision turned to an abstract oil painting of color blocks.

Before it fully focused, she vaguely saw a pair of shoes approaching—

A pair of black snow boots that Ran Yan had praised as pretty that afternoon, with white bow details on top. When Ran Yan complimented them, the owner had smugly lifted her calf a bit, chin up, saying “Of course, I only buy pretty things.”

Now, in the chaos, those boots stopped before her, splattered with filthy mud—not pretty anymore. Suddenly, the rain overhead stopped, replaced by the sharp patter on an umbrella.

Cui Qijin braced her waist, her face ashen, as an especially helpless, anxious sob came from above.

“Oh no, oh no, Cui Muhuo, what happened to you?”

Cui Qijin stared at the bow on the black snow boots and inexplicably found it funny. After all these years, something like this was happening again, and this woman hadn’t changed. Back then, socks with brown puppy ears; now, boots with white bows. Still just as noisy, her first words in a crisis always “Oh no, oh no.”

She suddenly laughed out loud, which only made her waist hurt more. Gritting through it, she parted her rain-soaked lips and said something utterly nonsensical.

“Your bow got all dirty. Isn’t that a problem?”

Later, lying in the hospital bed, she couldn’t help reflecting that this line was even more abrupt and weird than “You even carried a mango during military training.”

At that moment, she noticed the umbrella overhead wobbling. The boot’s owner bent down flusteredly. One of the woman’s pupils had gone dark, like a colored contact had fallen out, transparent tears rolling endlessly, fat droplets sliding down full cheeks.

The woman wiped her tear-streaked face, reached out to help her up—but halted midway, withdrew, tried the other side, all flustered and unsure whether to touch her.

Finally, she curled her fingers, barely holding the umbrella over them, her face crumpled in tears as she asked,

“Does it hurt?”

Fifteen-year-old Cui Qijin never would have imagined that the world would one day gain an odd Love Adrift Street, and that on her twenty-sixth birthday, passing by the street next door, a minor accident would trigger her chronic back pain into agony, leaving her soul-lost with only the cops or 120 as safe options—and the first to reach her side…

Would still be Chi Buyu.

Just as twenty-six-year-old her had no clue—

That at this moment, Chi Buyu was crying her eyes red over her pain…

Compared to being fifteen years old, it was ultimately different.