But after faking it for just a few minutes, Chi Buyu couldn’t keep it up anymore. She simply threw in the towel, pretending to choke on the air with a cough, then mumbled groggily,
“Cui Muhuo, whatcha listening to?”
Cui Qijin tilted her head slightly. “Just listening casually.”
Chi Buyu let out an “oh dear,” then hemmed and hawed. “I think I’m getting a bit motion sick from the bullet train.”
As she spoke,
she half-cracked one eye open, sneakily gauging Cui Qijin’s reaction. When Cui Qijin glanced over, she put on a sigh and said,
“I wanna listen to some music.”
Cui Qijin found it amusing.
Probably because the weather was truly so nice today.
She didn’t call out Chi Buyu’s clumsy theatrics. Instead, she just slipped out one earbud—without even turning her head—and handed it over.
Chi Buyu took it with glee, popped it in her ear, and heaven knows if she even listened to a note before humming along all sloppy-like to Sun Yanzi coming through the earbud. Then, in the middle of an interlude, she said wistfully, “As a kid, I always figured I’d become a big-shot Hong Kong or Taiwan pop singer.”
She’d even picked out exactly where she’d make her debut.
Cui Qijin gave a lazy laugh and turned a page in her book. “What happened? Did you snag a Golden Melody Award?”
“Nope.”
The sun beamed down warmly on Chi Buyu’s wistful face. She hummed “honey honey,” sighed once more, and went on, “Once I grew up, I learned Sun Yanzi was actually from Singapore.”
Cui Qijin laughed.
Chi Buyu laughed too. Then she added, “Yeah, right.”
“Truth is, I got hooked on Moumou later and started dreaming of going Western. Mom called me scatterbrained—one hammer here, one hammer there—so she hauled me off to learn calligraphy to settle me down.”
“So your mom doesn’t always go along with you.”
“Of course not. If she did, I’d be some gutter punk by now.”
“Fair enough. Then what?”
“Then? Well, I still say ‘Good Luck Comes’ is the absolute best in the world.”
Cui Qijin cracked up, every page of her book trembling like it might flutter away any second.
Seeing her laugh, Chi Buyu first pulled a dissatisfied face and stressed how ‘Good Luck Comes’ was unbeatable, flat-out. But then she lost it too, collapsing into giggles against Cui Qijin’s shoulder like a goose wobbling this way and that.
The fifty-two-minute bullet train swayed back and forth.
Villages and small towns outside the window, mountains and sun—they all rocked along as if tipsy on booze. Cui Qijin rocked with them, feeling like she was perched on a rocking horse.
She said she’d never ridden one as a child.
Chi Buyu claimed she’d ride every single one she passed on the street—if they wouldn’t let her, she’d throw a fit: astronaut rides, Rainbow Cat Blue Rabbit, windmill cars, fake old-time trains, little hobbyhorses, Hello Kitty, giant pandas, little yellow ducks… there wasn’t a kiddie ride she hadn’t conquered.
Cui Qijin laughed so hard she forgot to turn another page. Chi Buyu laughed so hard she skipped yawning altogether.
It got so bad that Chen Wenran and Ran Yan up front, drifting in that hazy space between asleep and awake, both twisted around groggily at the same time.
Chen Wenran’s sunglasses had slipped down to the bridge of her nose, her eyes heavy with exhaustion. “You two? Sneaking giggles behind my back again?”
Ran Yan’s eye mask covered half her face. Unfazed, she twisted Chen Wenran’s face forward. “Please ignore them. You’re like a hall monitor on patrol every damn day.”
Chi Buyu and Cui Qijin both clammed up at once.
The train pulled into the station.
They wheeled their luggage out.
Chen Wenran, fully awake now, asked once more what joke had them cracking up so hard.
Cui Qijin said, “You really are that curious, huh?”
Chi Buyu repeated the whole story for her. Chen Wenran laughed along at first, all exaggerated and over-the-top, then whipped around to Ran Yan with deep suspicion.
“Is it really that hilarious? Explain it to me, pretty please. Am I over the hill or something? Can’t even get these little doll jokes anymore?”
Ran Yan rolled her eyes.
Chi Buyu dissolved into giggles again.
Their home base for the Leshan trip was Chi Buyu’s grandma’s place—a bit out from the city center. They cabbed over, dropped their bags, and there she was: Chi Buyu’s grandma.
A spry old lady in round sunglasses and a permed bob, decked out in the dopamine tang suit Chi Buyu had handmade for her. She puttered out on a three-wheeler to buy veggies. Spotting them, she held her kindly smile steady, but with slick moves, chucked the milk tea dangling from her handlebars into the veggie basket.
A lot of Sichuan folks call their grandma “granny” or “nainai,” but Chi Buyu stuck to her childhood habit—straight-up “Grandma,” and even her full name at that. The second they arrived, she bolted to the three-wheeler, pinched her grandma’s waist, and grinned fiercely. “Meng Yuhong! You’ve put on weight again! Not listening to me—back on those fried skewers and milk tea!”
Without waiting for an answer, she hopped down and started rummaging through the veggie basket up front.
Chi Buyu’s grandma was quick on the draw. She snatched the basket to the other side, blew off Chi Buyu’s building steam, hopped down herself, yanked the key out, then bustled over. With warm cheer, she zeroed in on Cui Qijin, clasped her hand, and gave it a pat.
“You girls must be Shuishui’er’s friends? All so sweet-looking.”
Right there in plain sight, she slipped that double-boba milk tea into Cui Qijin’s hand.
Chi Buyu blew her top. “You even roped in backup!”
She spun back around like a gingerbread man about to burst into flames, flailing her arms in fierce threat. “Cui Muhuo, you help hide that contraband and you’re an accomplice—we’re hauling you both in!”
Cui Qijin didn’t even get a word out.
She was already being towed along by Chi Buyu’s grandma’s grip on her hand, the old lady saying, “Come on in, come on in—we’ll talk inside.”
Chen Wenran trailed behind, doubled over with laughter. Ran Yan wrestled the chattering luggage along and soothed Chi Buyu. “I peeked—it’s sugar-free. No biggie, just this once.”
Chi Buyu scrunched up her face and laid down the law, dead serious.
“You know what, Ranran?”
Ran Yan blinked, clueless. “Know what?”
Chi Buyu sighed. “Finding one cockroach in the house means you’ve already got a whole army of them crawling around.”
Ran Yan nearly choked on the spot-on analogy.
Chi Buyu sighed again, twirled in a circle, and stared at her empty hands, totally lost. “Where’s my luggage?”
Ran Yan nudged her onward. “You leaped straight onto your grandma’s bike the second we stopped. Only now you remember those two suitcases?”
Chi Buyu caught on late. “I didn’t leave them behind, did I?”
Chen Wenran shook her head—”nope”—then jabbed her lollipop toward the receding Cui Qijin.
“You tell me?”
Chi Buyu peered over.
There was Cui Qijin, looking utterly bewildered as her grandma shoved her along, single-handedly wrangling three suitcases with great effort. A sloshing cup of milk tea dangled from the crook of her left arm to boot.
Catching Chi Buyu’s stare,
Cui Qijin quietly swung the milk-tea hand behind her back. She nodded along to whatever Grandma was saying while subtly beckoning her over.
Chi Buyu planted herself right there by her side.
And so the first milk tea showdown of their Leshan trip came to a close… Chi Buyu victorious, her grandma ruing her poor judge of character, the drunk ghost couple applauding madly, and Cui Qijin the turncoat—
Officially over.
–
Leshan was a pint-sized city, even thicker with everyday bustle than Chengdu. Street corners brimmed with old-school alley grills hawking skewers and bobo chicken alongside trendy youth haunts in trackside dollhouses styled like Little Kamakura.
The spring dusk didn’t scorch like summer.
Instead, it draped the little city like a particularly bold and vivid old New Year’s painting—smothered in the aromas of home cooking from every household, amid the fresh crush of streetlights. In a blink, it shifted through countless indescribable shades before gradually fading out.
By then, they’d scarfed down some bobo chicken that had the drunk ghost couple all hyped. They’d split night-market bites on the way too: tofu pudding, sesame cakes, fried ice, roasted sweet potato skins. All four waddled along, bellies stuffed, weaving through the crooked, thronged streets.
Finally, Chi Buyu cradled a cup of refreshing pineapple sparkling ice, gnawing the straw and rubbing her stomach. “My four stomachs are bursting. No more—gotta bail on this gauntlet of temptations and head out of the night market.”
So off they went toward quieter spots. They walked who-knows-how-long until the food settled some. The roadside had lost its buzz now, under a low gray-blue sky. The elevation dipped lower here, the greenery trimmed flat along the road like a straight horizon line.
Chen Wenran twisted her head blankly. “Where the heck are we?”
Ran Yan checked her phone. “Looks like we’re pretty far from home base.”
Chi Buyu clutched her pineapple sparkling water with total confidence. “No sweat—we’re in Leshan country. Can’t get lost around here.”
Streetlights glowed dim, the road stretched wide open. A big truck barreled past, whipping up wind that sent all their hairlines sailing backward. Chen Wenran clutched her gut, doubled over laughing. “Ran Yan’s hairline crept up again—wig time next outing?” Ran Yan fired back mercilessly, digging a wad of earwax right into her.
Chi Buyu slung her new camera over her shoulder. “I can’t see it.” Another motorcycle roared by. Cui Qijin yanked Chi Buyu—who’d nearly stumbled back—with a cool snap: “Eyes on the road first, night-blind.”
Chi Buyu took the cue and peered both ways like a traffic boss, pineapple sparkling ice in hand. She waved them forward single-file. “One at a time, girls—no side-by-side. Too dicey.”
And so they marched like a line of ants, spaced by the river breeze and damp mist, strung out along the nighttime highway. They were purely strolling off dinner, nothing more. Even the last in line chatting up the lead had to fire off WeChat voice notes—or belt out a name like in some teen flick. Cui Qijin found the whole thing utterly daft.
“Ranran!”
Chi Buyu really shouted. Her voice was swallowed a little by the night wind, but it was still exceptionally bright. Everything around them was dark, a blue so deep it shaded into gray. If her voice had a color, it would surely be a vivid red.
Cui Qijin was walking at the back. Ahead of her was Chi Buyu, and to her right stretched the river, carrying the faint scent of gardenias on the breeze.
“Shuishui’er!”
Ran Yan called back too. She even twisted her head around to look, her face a blurry smile in the dim light.
Chen Wenran, walking in second place, didn’t want to be left out. She simply turned herself into a human megaphone. “Shuishui’er!”
