Chapter 26: “Pink Virus” Part 1

Before spring fully arrived in Chengdu, Cui Qijin received two packages.

One came from Lady Wang. When she opened it, out came the Annabelle doll from the movie. Touch it, and it would start wailing and shrieking wildly. Once it finished that, it launched into an eerily off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday”—in Sichuan dialect, no less.

It scared Chen Wenran so badly that she flailed her arms and legs on the spot before hurling the doll right onto Cui Qijin’s wheelchair. Cui Qijin, utterly calm, clamped down on the puppet doll and lifted her chin. “You’re scared of this?”

Chen Wenran shrank back, but she wasn’t ready to concede. “Well, you’re scared of SpongeBob burying fish corpses, aren’t you?”

Cui Qijin smoothed the doll’s hair, flicking her eyelids up. “When did I ever say I was scared?”

Chen Wenran stood her ground. “Then why, last night past one in the morning when you still weren’t asleep, did you suddenly run over asking if I’d ever seen SpongeBob bury a corpse—and whether I thought the human was a ghost or not?”

Cui Qijin didn’t even look up. She decisively chucked Annabelle right at her. Chen Wenran let out a shriek and bolted, ending up wailing and shrieking in harmony with the doll.

The other package came from Bangkok: that pot of colorful leaf taro that had drifted over from several countries. The shipping time had been excruciatingly long, and by the time it reached Chengdu, the leaves and stems seemed to have wilted completely. Cui Qijin spent quite a while tending to it.

By then, she could already sit in the wheelchair for longer stretches. With Ran Yan’s help, she successfully repotted the fresh colorful leaf taro with new soil one afternoon, adjusted its lighting, and gave it a dose of diluted liquid fertilizer.

Ran Yan had never seen this kind of plant before and rarely spent time alone with Cui Qijin. Watching her bustle about all afternoon, she sighed with genuine admiration.

“I feel like, compared to people, you probably prefer hanging out with plants.”

“Everyone says that.”

Cui Qijin was used to hearing it. Truth be told, most of the time, she felt the same way herself.

Sometimes, she wished she could cast aside most social interactions unrelated to survival—the sticky entanglements of intimacy, the excess complexities of emotion. Things like disease germs; she didn’t need any of it.

If she could choose, she’d rather spend her life with plants and a single Brazilian turtle. That would be enough. Of course, she knew this was just an ideal existing in a vacuum.

Even as she thought this, she picked up a small watering can and inspected the colorful leaf taro. Its leaves curled slightly in the sunlight, splashes of pink in varying shades dancing across the deep green, each one like a watercolor splash painting.

“You really like this plant… Right, what’s it called again? Colorful leaf taro?” Ran Yan asked.

Cui Qijin nodded slightly.

They’d been getting along quietly, but total silence felt a bit awkward, so she explained. “Actually, colorful leaf taro is a very unique plant.”

“How so?”

“No two are exactly alike—not even any two leaves. The colors and patterns shift endlessly, easily influenced by light, water, and other conditions.”

“It feels a lot like people.”

“When I bought it, the vendor said the same thing—using a Chinese translator app. Asked if looking at it made me think of someone.”

“That’s some clever salesmanship,” Ran Yan laughed. “So, did it?”

Cui Qijin paused, setting down the watering can. She stroked one of the leaves—

A high concentration of pink was spreading across the dark green surface. At first just a spot, then with added light and water, the pink would splash and diffuse further: mottled, hallucinatory, brilliantly fierce, even with the potential to invade the entire green expanse.

“It’s not like a person.”

“Then what is it like?”

Cui Qijin fell silent again, picking up the watering can once more. Ran Yan quieted down. She gazed at the translucent leaves, at the freewheeling pink splashes, and suddenly had a wildly romantic thought—maybe it was like love.

Insidious and silent at first, then impossible to contain, spreading like a virus, utterly out of control, dictated by some external force. Thriving under light and water. She reached out to touch a leaf, then her mind flipped—how ridiculous, she chided herself. Spending too long in love turns everything into some ethereal romance. Classic lovestruck brain.

She figured Cui Qijin wasn’t like that.

And sure enough.

After a moment, Cui Qijin refuted her. “It’s like nothing. It’s just a simple colorful leaf taro. It’s itself.”

In a way, Cui Qijin felt more like a plant than the plant resembling a human.

Now that she had stabilized into a growth phase, she rarely had these forced idle periods—like abruptly shifting from vigorous growth to dormancy. Under this unnatural schedule, endless weeds sprouted in her mind, disrupting all her work, vacation, and leisure plans for the next two weeks.

After lounging in a deck chair and sunning herself for two straight days, she felt her limbs veering dangerously toward retirement. Rehabilitation couldn’t come soon enough.

The worst was the inconvenience of cleaning.

Unable to stand for long or move easily, the bathroom had become a hazardous zone. Her hair washes and baths were always rushed.

So one day, Chi Buyu solemnly hauled in a folding chair and had her lie back on it in her pajamas.

Chi Buyu herself wore denim overalls and a pink hoodie. She rolled up her sleeves, pulled on the hood, and tied the drawstrings into a wobbly bow under her chin.

She looked ready for battle, just like an agouti from South America rearing up on its paws. She even curated a full outfit for every task. This time: shampoo agouti.

“What are you doing?” Cui Qijin had a bad feeling, but she asked anyway.

Chi Buyu flexed her paws in the air, noting she hadn’t done her nails in ages. “Washing your hair.”

Cui Qijin swiftly wheeled her chair around.

Yu Chenxing leaned against the bar counter, lazily stretching out one leg to block her path. She crunched into a juicy apple, the studs under her lip glinting.

“Or pick me first—I can wash your bath.”

Cui Qijin frowned, wheeling in another direction. “I’m picking neither of you.”

Then strong hands gripped her wheelchair. She couldn’t budge.

Looking up, she met Chi Buyu’s beaming confidence. “Relax, I won’t make you uncomfortable. I practiced on Emily beforehand—her technique’s flawless, and she didn’t complain once.”

“Who’s Emily?” Cui Qijin assumed it was some new friend Chi Buyu made studying fashion design in Hong Kong.

“Emily?” Yu Chenxing took another bite of apple. “That name rings a bell. Friends?”

Chi Buyu shook her head, jiggling the bow under her chin. She whispered, “The cotton doll Mom gave me for my eighth birthday.”

“…”

Cui Qijin was speechless.

But after the chaos died down, she willingly lay back on the folding chair. Somewhere along the way, her resistance cracked—maybe at the absurdity of Chi Buyu practicing on a cotton doll’s hair, or perhaps when Chi Buyu patted her head and cooed, “Be good now, Cui Muhuo.”

That phrase had apparently become Chi Buyu’s secret weapon. Cui Qijin wasn’t entirely on board with it. But as she lay there, water streaming through her hair, and heard Chi Buyu’s tentative “Is the water temperature okay?”…

She couldn’t help recalling Cui He’s words: “Be good, on your own.” Yet every time Chi Buyu said it, the meaning was the polar opposite—”Be good, and let me help you.”

Yu Chenxing finished her apple but stayed busy, rolling up her sleeves to assist Chi Buyu. From this angle, the studs on her body looked even stranger.

Cui Qijin furrowed her brow.

Yu Chenxing sprinkled water on her hair. “I wouldn’t say anything you don’t want to hear.”

Cui Qijin closed her eyes. “I’m too lazy to talk about you.”

Chi Buyu worked bubbles into Cui Qijin’s hair, clearly amused by the sisterly dynamic. She chimed in between them. “Why isn’t Xingxing’s name Muhuo too?”

Yu Chenxing held the showerhead, ready to spritz Chi Buyu anytime. She snorted. “Who knows what Professor Cui and Professor Yu were thinking.”

Cui Qijin’s hands rested peacefully crossed over her stomach. She said nothing.

Chi Buyu diligently lathered.

Yu Chenxing leaned in, squinting down at Cui Qijin. The moment Cui Qijin opened her eyes, Yu Chenxing’s magnified face loomed in hers, so she calmly shut them again.

“You’d better stay away from me.”

Yu Chenxing scoffed.

When Chi Buyu announced it was ready, she began rinsing. After a long moment, she drawled, “I’m so jealous. Almost thirty, and someone’s washing your hair. Professor Cui never washed mine, even when I was little.”

Cui Qijin didn’t even glance up. “Jealous? Lie down in a bit, and I’ll call Emily to do yours.”

Yu Chenxing demanded loudly, “Why don’t I get Sister Shuishui to wash mine?”

Chi Buyu raised her foam-covered hands. “Actually—”

A glob of foam dripped onto Cui Qijin’s face. She blinked it away, cutting Chi Buyu off. “You’ve got hands and feet—embarrassed to ask someone to wash for you?”

Chi Buyu hurriedly wiped at it, only smearing more foam everywhere. Cui Qijin turned into a bubble monster.

Yu Chenxing used the showerhead to rinse the foam from her eyebrows, then tightened Chi Buyu’s chin bow. “What if we charge for it?”

Chi Buyu grinned. “Thanks, Xingxing.”

Cui Qijin’s face stayed impassive. “No.”

Chi Buyu kept wiping, hands full of bubbles, then suddenly giggled amid the sound of running water. For no reason at all, Cui Qijin—head full of foam—laughed too, her mouth curving just slightly. Only Yu Chenxing fumed, grabbing the showerhead to blast all the bubbles between the two of them.

After washing her hair, Yu Chenxing grabbed her bag and returned to school. It seemed she’d come solely to help Cui Qijin with her hair and nothing more—no opportunity for sisterly catch-up or displays of affection. Naturally, there was no chance she’d actually give her a bath. It was much like the previous time Yu Chenxing had suffered an asthma attack at school; Cui Qijin had hurried over to take care of it and left once she confirmed her friend was on the mend.

With the third visitor gone, Chi Buyu insisted on blow-drying Cui Qijin’s hair. Moments later, Cui Qijin watched in disbelief as Chi Buyu emerged from the bathroom cradling a hairdryer adorned with an ice-pink silk ribbon bow. She untied it with utmost gravity, as if unveiling a princess’s bridal veil.

“What is this?” Cui Qijin asked, finding the whole scene profoundly odd.

“A hairdryer,” Chi Buyu replied, completely missing the point.

“I mean…” Cui Qijin rubbed her twitching eyelid, struggling to make sense of it all. “My hairdryer—why is it… why is it…”

She fumbled for the right words to describe the transformed appliance.

“Didn’t I mention it last time?” The dryer’s roar filled the air as Chi Buyu proclaimed confidently, “Should I tie a ribbon on your poor lonely hairdryer too?”

She’d personified the inanimate object with “lonely,” even though it probably felt no such thing. Undeterred, Chi Buyu added shamelessly, “Besides, you agreed!”

Cui Qijin racked her brain, wondering if she’d blacked out. “When did you do it?”

“Just now,” Chi Buyu said.

?

So she’d brought the ribbon into the bathroom, tied it on, carried it out, and then performed this ritual untie right in front of her?

Even with Chi Buyu’s solemn demeanor.

Still, Cui Qijin eyed the discarded ribbon and couldn’t shake her discomfort. “Fine, but I never agreed to pink.”

“Pink is the best-looking,” Chi Buyu said sagely. “You wouldn’t understand. Only kids hate pink—grown-ups love it.”

She’d found yet another excuse to call her a little doll.