Q: Why can’t SpongeBob and Octopus Bro be friends?
A: I think it’s because Octopus Bro has a shameful earth-shattering secret that only SpongeBob doesn’t know—Chi Buyu.
—
“You two aren’t going to start fighting, are you?”
The class monitor had just pulled open the car door when she suddenly paused. She turned back with clear reluctance, eyeing the pair standing in the street with deep suspicion.
Cui Qijin peered at her through the half-face Octopus Bro mask, her tone calm. “You’re overthinking it.”
She paused for half a second, then tugged at the corner of her mouth. “Her? Fight with her? Impossible.”
She seemed a bit more sober than she had been two hours earlier. The class monitor finally relaxed a little and glanced leisurely at Chi Buyu beside her.
Chi Buyu was leaning against a utility pole, looking unsteady on her feet. Yet she found the falling snow so novel that she kept gazing around, her whole body swaying unsteadily.
“What about you?” the class monitor asked.
“Huh?” Chi Buyu looked up blankly, her eyelashes damp and thickly cloaking her slightly reddened eyelids from the alcohol.
She pointed at herself. “Me?”
She glanced dazedly at Cui Qijin, pondered for a long moment, then raised the SpongeBob mask in her hand.
“Do you know how many episodes SpongeBob SquarePants has?”
She mimicked SpongeBob’s voice, her tone flat and deflated. Before anyone could answer, she crookedly held up two fingers.
Then she hid behind the mask and laughed, burying her chin in the thick, soft red scarf. She poked randomly at nothing in particular and fell silent.
It was a complete non sequitur. The class monitor sighed.
By now, it was the early hours of the morning, and the snow was nearly stopped. The streetlights cast a yellowish glow, and a thin layer of snow had piled up along the roadside. Chengdu never seemed to get a full blizzard, just these leisurely, scattered flakes drifting down.
It was like someone puffing out their cheeks and blowing desperately at the air—one puff sending a few snowflakes floating lazily onto the two women’s shoulders.
The class monitor sighed again.
After Chi Buyu finished speaking, she lowered her head and stomped on the thin snow, found it amusing, and stomped again. She caught a snowflake, examined it for a bit, then puffed out her cheeks and blew hard at the scattered flakes.
Chi Buyu was clearly drunk out of her mind.
So the class monitor turned back to Cui Qijin. She stood ramrod straight the whole time, utterly unfazed by Chi Buyu’s little antics.
She even stayed perfectly calm when Chi Buyu tried to blow snow down her neck, pressing her palm to Chi Buyu’s forehead and gently pushing her away.
She wasn’t constantly laughing or indulging every request. Very okay. But what about Chi Buyu? The class monitor worriedly checked on her again.
Chi Buyu pouted in clear dissatisfaction after being pushed away, then slipped on the snow and nearly fell.
Cui Qijin instinctively reached out to steady her but missed.
She grasped at empty air.
In the ensuing chaos, disaster struck. Chi Buyu somehow managed to steady herself after wobbling. Cui Qijin, on the other hand, ended up choking on the cold air after a few futile swipes, doubling over in a fit of coughs.
Her face instantly paled.
Chi Buyu could barely stand herself, yet she shuffled unsteadily over on slippery feet to pat Cui Qijin’s back with her fluffy gloves, trying to help her catch her breath.
After a few pats, she grew confused. Her face pressed against Cui Qijin’s back, drowsiness overtaking her. Her eyes barely open, she kept patting away. Her chin went limp, resting on the crook of Cui Qijin’s bent arm, nearly sliding right off into the snow.
The two of them stood there all crooked and tangled in the vast white expanse, like two balls of black and brown yarn twisted together. They looked downright odd at first glance, but on second thought, strangely in sync. If one fell, the other probably would too, kicking up a huge cloud of snow.
The farce finally ended when Cui Qijin straightened up and swiftly caught Chi Buyu.
“Whoa, you okay?” The class monitor, having witnessed the whole thing, hurriedly shut the car door and reached out to help.
By the time she approached, the mishap was over—
Cui Qijin had a firm grip on the hood at the back of Chi Buyu’s neck, while Chi Buyu clung tightly to Cui Qijin’s sleeve cuff.
The two of them seemed perfectly stable now, with no need for a third wheel.
The class monitor awkwardly withdrew her hand, gazing at them with lingering concern.
“No… cough… we’re fine.”
Cui Qijin stopped coughing and shook her head. She glanced down at Chi Buyu’s fuzzy head, tugged the earflap hat’s strings tight, and pulled the hat—and the person attached—into her grasp.
Chi Buyu’s face was flushed inside the hat’s cocoon. She didn’t seem keen on being left alone, sticking close to Cui Qijin and trying to burrow into her belly.
Cui Qijin could only let her cling to her arm to steady herself. She turned to the class monitor. “I’m fine. You should head back—the others in the car are still waiting for you, right?”
She looked relatively normal now. The class monitor breathed a sigh of relief. “Chi Buyu’s pretty wasted, so I figured dropping her here keeps things close to you. You sure you don’t need a ride home?”
“No need.” Cui Qijin shook her head. She didn’t like anyone intruding into her private world.
The class monitor nodded, recalling that near-fight at high school graduation. It had been an accident, all things considered. This was 2024 now—they were both twenty-six. They shouldn’t come to blows over nothing.
“Then promise me you won’t end up almost fighting like you did back at graduation?”
“Can you manage that?”
The class monitor stepped down from the curb and opened the car door, emphasizing once more.
The taxi driver, having endured all the back-and-forth, finally burst out laughing. “Come on, get in—you’re a big girl now. No need to keep thinking everyone’s gonna fight or something.”
Cui Qijin nodded. “He’s right.”
Chi Buyu, a beat behind, nodded too. “She’s right.”
The class monitor felt bad for making the taxi wait so long, so she didn’t say more.
As she got in, though, she stole one last glance at them. Outside the window, the two stood at the roadside—
One in a big puffy coat holding an Octopus Bro mask, the other in a fluffy horn-buttoned overcoat with a SpongeBob mask. They leaned on each other amid the wind and snow, slowly seeing her off. It seemed that after all these years, the two had finally grown up.
Everything was calm and peaceful.
No “surprises” were in store tonight. The class monitor gazed at the pair shrinking into tiny dots, thinking with satisfaction.
—
They watched the taxi’s yellow lights fade away.
Cui Qijin lowered her mask and stared at the Octopus Bro face for a long moment, a smile tugging at her lips.
“SpongeBob SquarePants has a total of 241 episodes.”
“You’re so smart,” Chi Buyu’s voice came faintly, a bit muffled.
“Are you mocking me?”
“No, I really don’t remember.”
“Didn’t you say you love watching SpongeBob SquarePants?”
“Yeah, but I still… don’t remember.”
“Your memory’s terrible.”
Chi Buyu fell silent. Cui Qijin’s eye twitched faintly.
“But why’d you laugh at 241 episodes?” Chi Buyu piped up out of nowhere.
“I didn’t laugh.”
“You laughed at 241 episodes.” Chi Buyu sounded like a broken record.
“That doesn’t count.”
“Then laugh one now.”
“No.” Who was it that said she granted every wish when drunk? Clearly a rumor.
“Come on, laugh one, and I’ll do a magic trick for you.”
Your magic tricks are always lame. What’s there to see?
Chi Buyu wouldn’t let up. Cui Qijin narrowed her eyes and curved her lips slightly.
She didn’t particularly want to smile, and it wasn’t like Chi Buyu could make her. She just wanted to end this pointless exchange quickly.
“There, done laughing,” she said crisply.
But Chi Buyu suddenly went quiet.
The only sound was the whistling wind. Cui Qijin lifted her slightly heavy eyelids and turned her head. The fuzzy head on her shoulder was gone.
“Chi Buyu?”
She was still smiling. “Cut it out. I’m not scared of ghosts.”
The empty early-morning street echoed her words back with only cold air and snow.
Had she really vanished? Did Chi Buyu magic herself away?
Cui Qijin shook her head in bewilderment. The light, floaty post-drinking haze felt awful. She took two careful steps forward, stumbling a bit before her feet found solid ground.
She looked up with some effort. The not-so-bustling night street crawled by slowly. There were few people and cars, scattered here and there, with a few small shops still open, spilling faint yellow warmth.
Spotting the familiar “Truth or Dare Mango” fruit shop, she rubbed her eyes and smiled faintly. The mangoes here were better than anywhere else—bigger, sweeter, juicier.
She was picky about people and things alike. Ever since moving here after graduation, she’d only eaten mangoes from this place.
Too bad Truth or Dare Mango was closed now.
So where had Chi Buyu gone? Was she planning some big reveal right under her nose?
She passed Truth or Dare Mango and frowned again. The road ahead seemed to twist more and more, the utility poles warping drunkenly. That idiot was running around drunk.
The street wasn’t long. Back when she’d first moved here right after graduation, she’d had just a tiny rental. Now, over five years later, her independent studio was at the street’s head, her apartment at the tail. Once, bored exploring a local public account, she’d timed it: at a normal pace, it took about ten minutes end to end.
Nothing special at first. But in 2016, a low-budget indie film called Love Adrift had shot here.
The ambitious young woman director, fresh out of school, declared that walking from one end to the other at 1.25 meters per second took exactly thirteen minutes and thirteen seconds—just one second shy of “love.”
The movie flopped, but the street caught fire. Suddenly, artsy types flooded in to check it off their lists.
And so it became Love Adrift Street.
Cui Qijin trudged through the crunching snow, past three shuttered steamed bun shops, one closed fruit stand, and two barbershops with spinning neon signs. Amid the swaying lamplight, she stopped in front of a newly opened record store.
Not at the head, not at the tail.
In the heart of Love Adrift Street stood a record store open in the dead of night. The record store boss was a woman with long curly hair and a denim jacket. There she lay on a rocking chair outside, sipping beer and watching the snow—pure leisure.
Nothing strange ever happened on Love Adrift Street at night. Cui Qijin thought fuzzily. Then she heard Chi Buyu call her.
“Cui Muhuo.”
Cui Qijin looked up. The voice came from above the record store. A snowflake slipped past her glasses lens, landing perfectly on her eyelash.
She blinked instinctively. When her eyes opened, they were unfocused, misty with melting snow turning to fog.
Chi Buyu leaned out from the second floor, her earflap hat’s straps swaying. In the drifting snow, under the flickering streetlamp, she gazed down—as if smiling at her.
Found her.
“You found me again, huh?” she called from upstairs.
Cui Qijin dimly remembered: this was Chi Buyu’s studio above.
So she had run off here, after all.
Cui Qijin’s neck was starting to ache from craning upward. She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked back up at Chi Buyu, who was still leaning out and peering down. Raising her voice, she shouted,
“Chi Buyu, don’t fall!”
Chi Buyu didn’t seem to hear her. She even stretched her hand out farther, trying to catch snowflakes from the second-floor window.
Cui Qijin decided she had no choice but to go up and remind this drunkard of the danger. She’d said it before—Chi Buyu’s alcohol tolerance was truly abysmal.
To reach the second floor, she had to climb a narrow, cramped staircase. Along the way, she passed the record store boss, who was lounging downstairs. The boss glanced up lazily, took a swig of her drink, and suddenly asked,
