Chapter 24: “Little Turtle” Part 1

“Tell it again, please~” Chi Buyu pleaded pitifully through the fluorescent blue glass tank.

The water in the tank was crystal clear. Considering the size of the Brazilian turtle, the water level was no longer shallow these days. A lamp tube hung from the top of the tank, turning the water into a gelatinous shade of blue—very faint.

Cui Qijin fiddled with the angle of the lamp but didn’t respond.

The Brazilian turtle had eaten its fill and drunk its fill. It lazily pushed ripples across the surface of the water, blocking Chi Buyu’s line of sight as she peered through from above. Cui Qijin let out a quiet sigh of relief.

Then, the very next second—

Chi Buyu lifted her chin, poking her whole face into view above the turtle. As she spoke, it was almost like she was blowing bubbles.

“Tell it just once~”

…What kind of weird quirks did this woman have? She actually liked hearing people repeat themselves?

Cui Qijin thought back to just moments ago, when Chi Buyu had ignored her. In her desperation, she wasn’t sure if her brain had frozen or her mouth had gone dry, but she’d blurted out, “Please, just help me.” And now Chi Buyu had latched onto that rare moment of vulnerability… Cui Qijin’s eye twitched. Say it again? Like hell.

“Impossible.”

Cui Qijin showed no mercy.

The Brazilian turtle was slowly crawling onto the platform, lazily settling in to bask under the lamp. Chi Buyu let out a sigh, lowering her arduously raised chin. Her voice fell flat as she said,

“Okay.”

She sounded genuinely disappointed.

Cui Qijin finished adjusting the lamp. She peered across the surface of the water at Chi Buyu’s eyes and unconsciously cleared her throat. Before she could say anything, though, Chi Buyu suddenly poked at the spot where the Brazilian turtle’s shell pressed against the glass and blurted out,

“Why on earth would you keep a little turtle?”

Cui Qijin furrowed her brow. She had no idea why she’d cleared her throat just now. Nor did she understand why Chi Buyu insisted on calling it a “little turtle.”

A Brazilian turtle was a Brazilian turtle—it wasn’t some little turtle.

But she was too lazy to correct Chi Buyu’s bad habit. “Cats shed fur. Dogs need walks. Fish die easily. Snakes are creepy. Rats are noisy at night…”

She listed off the alternatives matter-of-factly. Cui Qijin realized she really was an extremely picky person. Pretty much every pet that ordinary people adored had been rejected by her at some point.

She waited for Chi Buyu to call her picky.

But Chi Buyu just nodded. Then she blinked and asked, “Still, between keeping nothing at all and keeping a turtle, you chose to keep the turtle.”

She even said “turtle turtle.”

And her turtle—at this very moment—was basking its back in lazy comfort. Cui Qijin stared at it idly for a few moments.

“Because turtles…”

?

Cui Qijin closed her eyes wearily. In a fit of self-abandonment, she even parroted Chen Wenran’s absurd line. “Keeping a Brazilian turtle is like falling for someone. There’s no reason needed.”

Chi Buyu sighed in admiration. “That’s so profound.”

“Where’s the profundity?”

“It’s philosophical. Like something a master would say.”

“…”

“Grandmaster Cui.”

“…”

“Grandmaster Cui.” She kept calling until she got a response—relentless.

“What?” Cui Qijin finally humored the nickname.

“Is your little turtle a boy or a girl?”

“Female.”

“Is she the playful type or the lazy type?”

“Those aren’t antonyms.” To be precise, playful was the opposite of serious, and lazy was the opposite of diligent.

“Okay, fine. What about your first love?”

?

Cui Qijin looked at Chi Buyu in surprise. The blue light cast down on her. Chi Buyu was propping up her face, gazing at the turtle sprawled on the platform. Her expression grew a little blurry amid the rippling water.

“Why ask about that all of a sudden?”

“What?”

Chi Buyu kept her head lowered, staring intently at the turtle in the water. The eyes behind her glasses blinked slowly, as if she were only just realizing what she’d said. Her pupils contracted sharply, and she stammered,

“I think I went off track. Pretend I never asked.”

With that, she clamped her mouth shut. She didn’t look at Cui Qijin—instead, she watched the Brazilian turtle. Her eyelashes draped over her eyelids, casting wavering shadows. After swaying like that for a good while, her lips pouted, as if she’d worked herself into a sulk. At last, she whispered,

“So, what was she like anyway?”

“She?”

Cui Qijin narrowed her eyes. Perhaps it was the double layer of glass, or all the water sloshing between them, but somehow she locked eyes with the Brazilian turtle as it slowly turned its head.

She glanced at Chi Buyu, whose cheeks were puffed out and who still refused to meet her gaze. For no reason at all, Cui Qijin smiled. And just like that, she gave a light answer.

“She can be playful sometimes, lazy other times. Super serious at one moment, then diligently like a whole different person the next…”

“What kind of answer is that…”

Chi Buyu wasn’t satisfied with the vague response. She even seemed a little angry. She finally lifted her eyes to meet Cui Qijin’s, huffing out a breath through her nose. “You might as well not have said anything.”

“Oh? Is that so?”

“Yeah!”

Chi Buyu sounded utterly righteous. She pressed her hand against the glass tank, forming a circle with her fingers like a microscope lens. Peering through the makeshift hole at Cui Qijin, her eyes narrowed in feigned fierceness.

“I advise you to come clean! Don’t even think about fooling me!”

The first half was in standard Mandarin; the latter half switched to flawlessly authentic Chengdu dialect. Cui Qijin probably should have asked—Why should I confess to you? Fool you how? What, you gonna hit me?

But Chi Buyu had amused her so much that she laughed until her waist ached. When the laughter subsided, Chi Buyu was still glaring at her, her eyes sparkling brightly behind the lenses.

So Cui Qijin drawled leisurely,

“Okay, she’s pretty fierce, too.”

–

Cui Qijin actually liked fierce people? And she said it with a smile—”pretty fierce.”

Chi Buyu found it utterly inconceivable.

This was Cui Muhuo—the one who scowled impatiently while changing lightbulbs, the one who wouldn’t crack a smile at the hilarious SpongeBob episode where he competed in weightlifting. And now, just thinking about some fierce person had her grinning so wide her eyes had vanished. In Chengdu dialect, you’d call that a real spitfire, a tough cookie. Okay, maybe not the politest way to describe someone she’d never met.

In any case, Cui Muhuo was smiling so hard now that her eyes were completely lost.

Chi Buyu wasn’t having it.

She wanted to press further, but Cui Qijin had already begun wheeling her chair away from the tank at a leisurely pace. Chi Buyu hurried after her. She circled along with the wheelchair, firing off a barrage of questions that she figured ought to be easy to answer—

“How fierce, exactly?”

“You like the fierce type, huh?”

“She didn’t hit you, did she?”

“You’re not still into her, are you?”

“When did you two meet? You still keep in touch?”

…

Cui Qijin didn’t answer any of them. She simply glanced patiently at her phone amid the barrage and said,

“The doctor wants me on bed rest.”

Chi Buyu let out a reluctant “oh.” She gripped the handles of Cui Qijin’s wheelchair and started pushing her toward the bedroom. Cui Qijin seemed surprised. “You’re not heading back?”

“Yeah, right.” Chi Buyu replied.

But secretly, she wondered…had that person ever come to Cui Qijin’s home? If they had, would Cui Qijin let them do all sorts of things no one else could?

Like munching crumbly cookies on her sofa, blasting SpongeBob at full volume while she read, or padding barefoot across the carpet to feed her a mango she’d already taken a bite from…

So before Cui Qijin could say another word—

Chi Buyu suddenly tightened her grip on the wheelchair handles. She pushed up her glasses, which had slipped down her nose, and said very seriously,

“I have to stay. I advise you not to try talking me out of it.”

Cui Qijin was speechless. She stared at Chi Buyu for a moment, looking conflicted. In the end, she nodded.

“Okay. But I’m not going to the bedroom.”

“The doctor said bed rest—where else would you go if not the bedroom?” Chi Buyu halted, utterly baffled.

“The bedroom is for sleeping. Isn’t it weird to go there when it’s not bedtime?”

“Lots of people would gladly spend twenty-five hours a day in bed.”

“I’m not ‘lots of people.'” Cui Qijin found Chi Buyu strange—and she knew Chi Buyu thought the same of her.

“Okay, then. Where do you want to go?”

Chi Buyu spun the wheelchair in a circle. Cui Qijin pointed to the recliner on the balcony.

“The weather’s nice today. I plan to sunbathe.”

“All afternoon?” Chi Buyu asked cooperatively, already pushing her that way.

“Sunbathing boosts the immune system and slows aging.”

Cui Qijin put it simply. As they passed the sofa, she casually scooped up a magazine. Then she asked Chi Buyu,

“Don’t you have work?”

“Hm?” Chi Buyu feigned a dramatic startle. “It’s only the sixth day of the Lunar New Year. You might not realize it, but us Chinese need our holiday time.”

“…”

Cui Qijin was suddenly at a loss for words. Chi Buyu grinned, humming a tune as she adjusted the angle of the recliner.

She’d always believed people weren’t machines—they needed a balance of work and rest. That went double for designers like them. They had to get out there, experience the world, rub shoulders with new people. That was how you got fresh inspiration. Even on a plain old vacation…

She couldn’t stand being idle. She always wanted to find something to do—or someone to hang out with. Aside from sleeping, she never spent more than ten hours alone in a day.

The recliner could lie completely flat; it was made of solid hardwood. Chi Buyu patted it uncertainly, then fetched a lumbar pillow and tucked it under Cui Qijin’s waist.

Once settled into the recliner, Cui Qijin lay serenely with her hands folded over her stomach. She asked about Chi Buyu’s workload since returning from Hong Kong.