So, very abruptly, she took off her glasses. In the blurry world of smeared colors, she asked out of nowhere, “What about me, then?”
Chi Buyu looked utterly bewildered. “What about you?”
Cui Qijin patiently pressed on. “Am I ugly right now too?”
“My contacts fell out, so I can’t see all that clearly…” Chi Buyu shook her head and studied her with grave seriousness. “Right now, though? I can only make out that your skin is great—super fair, your eyes are huge, and there’s a little person reflected in them, all fuzzy…”
Cui Qijin laughed as she listened.
Chi Buyu chuckled along too, nearly doubling over with laughter. Then she leaned in, a vague silhouette in the haze, blinking her big eyes as she went on. “And when you smile, it’s pretty nice too. Red lips, eyes curving up—just at a glance, you’re a total knockout…”
Cui Qijin accepted the assessment with perfect equanimity, “just at a glance” included.
Once Chi Buyu had finished, Cui Qijin pinpointed her position amid the color blocks and flicked her lightly on the forehead. In a soft voice, she said, “That’s how I see you now, too.”
—Just like Chi Buyu saw her: red lips, flawless pale skin, big eyes with a little person inside…
And that smile, so captivating.
She had taken off her glasses and found her proof. That made it fact.
–
When Chen Wenran returned, arms laden with a huge bag of meds, she was greeted by the sight of two weirdos squinting like moles—
One looking sickly, propped up in the wheelchair she’d brought; the other feeding the patient bites of a mangled, half-eaten mango.
Chi Buyu, eyes narrowed, tilted her chin up. “Tell me, doesn’t Truth Mango taste better, for real?”
Cui Qijin got poked in the mouth by the incoming mango but stayed perfectly even-keeled. “Sure does.”
Chi Buyu nodded. “I think so too.”
Then she squinted harder, stretched her hand out farther, zeroed in on Cui Qijin’s mouth, smooshed the mango against it, and asked out of nowhere, “Do you know why Truth Mango’s called Truth Mango?”
Huh?
Chen Wenran had never pondered that one. She rubbed her chin thoughtfully, on the verge of voicing her profound conclusion—
Maybe because mangoes taste sweeter when you tell the truth?
Over there, Cui Qijin took a bite of mango and beat her to it, squinting as she said, “Because it’s Truth Bliiiind-go.”
Chi Buyu triumphantly waved the mango aloft. “Bingo!”
? What a bizarre answer.
Chen Wenran blanked for a second, mulled it over, then had a lightbulb moment. Finally, she cracked the equation—
Big Mango = Big Blind-Go = Big Dare = Cui Qijin + Chi Buyu.
The revelation hit her like Edison inventing the lightbulb. She burst out laughing, only to freeze mid-chortle, face wooden as she wondered why on earth she’d thought of a lightbulb.
Chen Wenran squinted her own eyes now, leaning against the doorframe without stepping in, content to watch and see how long it would take these two to notice her.
She watched one feed, the other eat—like they were playing some game, stubbornly refusing to wear glasses, eyes perpetually narrowed.
Weird, but weird in perfect sync.
Even their nonsensical back-and-forth sparkled with wit, as if no third wheel could ever squeeze in.
But she hadn’t expected that after Cui Qijin polished off a whole mango and wiped her mouth, and Chi Buyu tidied up still squinting like a blind woman, neither had spotted her.
With a sigh of resignation, Chen Wenran gave up waiting and walked over.
“I swear, even if I hadn’t shown up, you two could’ve entertained yourselves here for a year.”
As she spoke, the wheelchair spun around. Two pairs of squinting eyes fixed on her at once—one gripping the chair, the other seated in it, both sporting dark circles heavy enough to make instant pals with the panda cubs and rice-ball triplets at the Panda Base. Chen Wenran nearly cracked up at the sight but held it together with a wave of her hand.
“What’s the deal? Cui Qijin, why’d you suddenly take your glasses off? Six hundred diopters in one eye—you can’t see a thing without them, right?”
Cui Qijin cleared her throat, hands resting calmly on her knees. “Didn’t sleep well. Glasses were making me dizzy.”
“Oh.” Chen Wenran glanced at Chi Buyu.
Chi Buyu promptly ducked her head, ears turning pink as she adjusted the back pillow strapped to Cui Qijin’s wheelchair. “This thing’s electric, huh?”
Classic topic dodge.
“It is.” Chen Wenran mimicked her tone on purpose, then added, “Everything’s going electric these days—like how you two are close enough to feed each other mangoes now.”
Chi Buyu’s mouth snapped shut. Cui Qijin, half-lidded in her wheelchair, spoke up. “First off, that’s not ‘feeding each other.'”
Once Chen Wenran grudgingly conceded the point—
Cui Qijin glanced at Chi Buyu and dropped the second bomb, cool as ever. “Second, I was planning to eat it myself. Chi Buyu insisted on feeding me. She was worried my left eye at six hundred diopters and right at five seventy-five meant I couldn’t see a thing.”
Chi Buyu chimed in, still squinting. “She nearly chomped her own finger just now.”
Cui Qijin squinted back placidly. “I didn’t.”
“You did. I saw it.”
“You saw wrong. You’re nearsighted too.”
“No way. I’m only three hundred something. I can tell a mango from a finger.”
“…Are you mocking me?”
“You just admitted it!”
“…”
The bickering was painfully juvenile. Even Chen Wenran couldn’t stomach it.
“Alright, alright.”
Sensing they might actually start arguing, she stepped closer and fiddled with the wheelchair’s control handle.
“How’s it feel? Comfy? Ran Yan’s aunt bought this after breaking her leg last time. Barely used it before she healed up and headed back to Meishan. It’s just been sitting at our place. That lumbar pillow’s from home too—perfect support for back injuries. Strapped it on for you. Make do; didn’t buy a new one.”
Cui Qijin looked it over. “It’s great.”
She fiddled idly with the electric controls on the armrest. “Send me the price and that med receipt. WeChat or Alipay?”
The chair scooted forward a bit.
“Either works.”
Chen Wenran knew better than to argue with her. She jerked her chin. Chi Buyu caught the cue and, before Cui Qijin could joystick her way around to avoid collision and creep forward at snail’s pace—
The two of them took the reins together. Under Cui Qijin’s feigned unflappability, they whooped, “Checkout time!”
They turned the wheelchair into a race car.
Cui Qijin was stuffed—chair, person, and all—into Chen Wenran’s car with a straight face, of course. Wheelchair went in the trunk; she took the back seat. Chi Buyu, perpetual motion sickness sufferer, claimed shotgun.
When they first piled in, Chi Buyu kept twisting back every three steps, fretting that Cui Qijin might struggle alone in the rear.
But not even a minute into the drive—
Chi Buyu was out cold, dead to the world. Not even nearby car horns could rouse her.
Cui Qijin, seated right behind her, could only see the back of her head thrown back, hair tousled loose now, the bow of her pretty beige silk ribbon all askew amid the strands, fluttering every which way in the breeze.
The sun blazed bright. The wind wasn’t chilly—Chengdu’s weather wasn’t usually great, few full blue-sky days, but this was one. Even carried a whiff of mango.
Maybe because Cui Qijin had just eaten one.
So she breathed mango-scented wind. Sunlight danced. The beige silk ribbon bobbed before her eyes. No sleepiness for her—instead, the ribbon struck her like some tantalizing bait, stirring an itch to reach out and snag it.
Her hand stayed put on her knee. That’s when Chen Wenran murmured low, “Looks like Shuishui got a real scare last night.”
The words jogged Cui Qijin’s memory. “She called you over?”
Chen Wenran sighed, glancing at the soundly sleeping Chi Buyu up front, then at Cui Qijin via the rearview. “Around eleven-ish. That’s when Shuishui finally reached out.”
She fished her phone from her pocket, unlocked it, swiped a few times. Hit a red light and awkwardly passed it back over her shoulder.
“What?”
Cui Qijin took it. Her question answered itself—the screen showed the three-person “Save Cui Muhuo” group chat. Dead silent at first, just a plain text WeChat message—
【Ranran, Chen Wenran, you guys awake?】
No replies from Chen Wenran or Ran Yan then. Followed by a string of long voice notes.
“We were actually asleep,” Chen Wenran said. “Drank a bit at your place, showered, crashed hard. Totally missed all this. If we’d seen it at night, we’d have rushed right over—not left it till morning. Oh, Ran Yan couldn’t come ’cause of work first thing. Don’t overthink it.”
“Of course.” Cui Qijin nodded, handing the phone back. Quietly, she added, “Just a little thing. Not like I was dying. No need for everyone to drop by.”
“How could we not? You go through something huge, and we’re snoozing away at home? What kind of friends would that make us?”
Chen Wenran said it so matter-of-factly, like companionship was a sacred duty. She didn’t take the phone back either, just nodded at it. “Might as well listen to those voice notes while you’re at it.”
Voice notes?
Under Chen Wenran’s watchful eye, Cui Qijin pocketed the phone, popped in her earbuds, and hit play on the first one. It came with a choked sob: “Ranran, what should I do?”
She paused, eyed Chen Wenran. Chen Wenran glanced at Chi Buyu and shook her head. Cui Qijin kept her cool and clicked the second—
Chi Buyu’s end sounded chaotic, probably somewhere in the hospital—not outside the ER, since Cui Qijin hadn’t noticed yesterday. The background thrummed with gut-wrenching wails and sobs. Naturally, late-night hospitals reeked of that desperate helplessness.
The sounds wrapped Chi Buyu’s voice like black oil—cold, gloomy.
Chi Buyu must have been huddled away crying. Her words came muffled and weepy, lost amid the clamor, distorted slightly over the signal.
The first voice message ended in a stifled sob. Amid the Chengdu wind, Cui Qijin surprisingly caught a salty, damp scent—like the taste of tears. It was very bitter.
She took a gentle breath. The bitter wind rushed straight into her heart and lungs. No wonder, she thought. No wonder Chi Buyu’s face had been covered in so many water droplets when she returned. It must have been from crying before washing up—not from smeared makeup making her look unattractive.
Chi Buyu must have been in such a rush that she had only quickly washed her face before hurrying back. Yet she had still returned before the IV drip was even half-finished. And at that moment, she had sung “Clouds, clouds, go away” to her.
The third message came five minutes later. It seemed Chi Buyu had used those crucial five minutes to compose herself, maybe even to search for the report one more time. But in the end, she couldn’t hold back anymore and let her voice spill out in self-abandonment.
“And Cui Muhuo—she looked like she was in so much pain. She was sweating so much, more than I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen her like this before. I’m afraid something might happen to her and I won’t react in time to save her. I’m afraid if I do something wrong, I’ll be one step too late and make her hurt even more. I don’t know how to make the pain stop. I secretly touched her hand—it was ice-cold. I even thought she was about to die.”
