Chapter 41: “Love Adrift” Part 1

“Shuishui, Shuishui!”

Ran Yan called out twice in a row.

Chi Buyu was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt. Even indoors, she had pulled the hood down tight over her head as she stood in front of a whiteboard covered edge to edge with sketches.

At the sound of Ran Yan’s voice, she didn’t pause. Still facing away, she seemed lost in thought. It was a long moment before she peeled a few sheets of paper from the board.

She muttered something to herself. Only when she caught sight of Ran Yan did she reply absentmindedly,

“Ranran, just wait a sec.”

Chi Buyu clutched the messy sheets of paper as she shuffled back to the workbench, sat down, picked up a colored pencil, and adjusted the frame glasses perched on her nose. Then she dove back into revising her drawings.

With a few quick strokes on a blank sheet, she frowned again, clearly dissatisfied.

She stood up once more.

Dragging her feet slowly, she held the papers up against a few others on the whiteboard, comparing them this way and that. After a while, she clipped them all back onto the board. In the vast, empty studio, she darted back and forth, hauling over a stack of magazines piled up to her chin. She flipped through them while snipping out images, the clippings scattering onto the edge of the desk, under the desk, piling up in a messy heap.

She paid them no mind, still bustling about as she rifled through the magazines. Every so often, she pushed up her glasses and clipped out more pictures. After a few cuts, she rummaged through a heap of fabrics for buttons, only to painstakingly restore the pile afterward. Clutching a button, she held it up against the clothes on a plastic mannequin, found it didn’t match, and started digging through the fabrics again…

Ran Yan watched Chi Buyu the whole time. She had been in this state for over two hours already—who knew if she’d spent the past few days like this before Ran Yan even arrived.

It was obvious that something heavy weighed on Chi Buyu’s mind ever since returning from Meishan.

Chi Buyu had always loved the bustle of company.

She could never stay alone for long. The moment she had free time, she’d want to hit the streets, grab tea, and chat with friends. In her own words from before, “Staying by myself? Wouldn’t even the air feel that lonely?”

Especially when something was troubling her?

Ran Yan had rarely—if ever—seen Chi Buyu face a problem by holing up alone, refusing to seek help from anyone, and insisting on processing it solo.

For the longest time, Ran Yan had assumed Chi Buyu would always turn to others first thing when trouble hit, whether to her or to family.

When Chi Buyu was sad, she let it show. She never faked cheerfulness or bottled up her tears.

Even that time in Leshan—

Ran Yan had found her hiding in a stairwell, crying in secret, and only then learned that Chi Buyu had already vented her frustrations at her grandmother for a good while.

But that day, returning from Meishan—

You Ying must have noticed something was off, because she offered, “Want to come stay at my place for a few days?”

Chi Buyu shook her head.

Ran Yan chimed in, “Need me to keep you company for a bit?”

Chi Buyu had leaned on her shoulder then, phone in hand, as a long breeze ruffled them both. Softly, she said,

“Ranran, don’t worry about me. I just need some time alone to process this.”

Most likely, from that day on, Chi Buyu had been alone the whole time—and stuck in this very state.

Hoodie on, hood up, too lazy to deal with her hair. Frame glasses hiding dark circles that screamed sleepless nights. Barely any makeup, save for a swipe of lipstick. She ran back and forth between her place and the studio, keeping herself convinced she was busy.

Ran Yan watched as Chi Buyu lugged over another armful of magazines and started clipping again. Finally, she couldn’t hold back. She snatched the scissors away.

“Shuishui, stop for a minute.”

Chi Buyu’s scissors were gone.

She didn’t get mad. She just stared down at the floor, arm outstretched, and said in a small voice, “Ranran, give it back.”

Ran Yan didn’t.

She cut straight to the chase. “You said you needed to process it alone, so these past few days, you’ve just been doing… this?”

Chi Buyu fiddled with the hoodie drawstrings, mumbling unhappily,

“Not entirely.”

“So what else have you been up to?”

Chi Buyu twisted the two strings together, pondering for a long moment before drawling slowly,

“Deep-cleaned the house three times, tried watching an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants but couldn’t get into it, went to Truth or Dare Mango every day to pick out mangoes but didn’t find any good ones so bought none, called Mom three times a day to check if she’s eating properly. Oh, and I realized it’d been ages since I wrote in my diary, so I pulled it out and read from the start… but only managed one entry before I couldn’t go on…”

Her voice trailed off lighter and lighter, as if sinking into storm clouds. But the next second, she seemed to catch herself. She sniffled, narrowed her eyes at Ran Yan, and forced a smile. “When you put it like that, it sounds like I’ve actually done a ton.”

“Yeah, right.” Ran Yan shot her down with one line.

“Yeah, right? No way.” Chi Buyu shot back.

Ran Yan said nothing, just looked at her for a moment before handing back the scissors.

Chi Buyu took them.

She bit her lip, intending to keep clipping the magazine in her hands. Her head dipped, and she made a cut—but it went crooked, lopping off the model’s head.

Her hand froze. It trembled.

She tried to keep going with the scissors.

She pressed down hard, but they didn’t move.

In the end, she could only set them down slowly. She slumped into her seat, arms crossed on the table, cheek pillowed on them. She tilted her head up, peering at Ran Yan from under the hood’s brim, blinking with visible effort.

Tears quickly welled in her eyes.

Her mouth crumpled. “Ranran, how could that person be Cui Qijin? How could it?”

Ran Yan sighed.

She had no idea how many times Chi Buyu had questioned it, deluded herself, or wandered lost in confusion these past few days.

Leaning against the table’s edge, Ran Yan patted Chi Buyu’s head. “Have you asked her?”

Chi Buyu nodded.

Then shook her head. “Just that day. I asked if it was really her.”

“And after…”

She pressed her lips together. “We haven’t talked since.”

Ran Yan nodded. “After lying to you all those years, she deserves a taste of her own medicine.”

Chi Buyu nearly laughed at her deliberately fierce tone, but her head was too muddled for it to land.

So she asked flatly, “And… her?”

Ran Yan glanced at her. “Chen Wenran checked on her today.”

Chi Buyu avoided her gaze, poking at the desk with a finger, crumpling a clipped image.

A long pause.

Finally, she couldn’t hold it in. “How is she?”

“Worse off than you. But still kicking,” Ran Yan said bluntly.

Chi Buyu let out an “oh,” trying hard not to fall into Ran Yan’s trap. “She’s probably still living her super structured life, right on schedule.”

Ran Yan stayed silent.

Chi Buyu’s eyes darted up in a hurry. “She’s not?”

Ran Yan changed the subject. “Worry about yourself first, okay?”

Chi Buyu tapped the desk, chin tucked like a kid bragging. “I’ve been doing great these past few days.”

“Then why can’t you face anyone?” Ran Yan nailed it.

Chi Buyu’s tapping finger halted, slowly retreating into her hoodie sleeve. After a long beat, she said, especially lost, “I just keep wondering—why did something so simple turn into this mess between us? It’s all so chaotic and complicated.”

“Simple?” Ran Yan crossed her arms. “I don’t think so.”

Chi Buyu looked up, her eyes rimming red in an instant.

“How mature can you be at that age? Doesn’t everyone complicate simple things?” Ran Yan sighed as she spoke, patting Chi Buyu’s head through the hood. “You two were just kids. Isn’t everyone like that at your age? No dating experience, nothing to draw from—the first time you like someone, it’s a huge puzzle. Does she like me back? Why didn’t she show up? Should I keep liking her? Those are massive headaches already.”

“Ranran…”

Chi Buyu rubbed her chin on her hoodie. “You’re so wise.”

Ran Yan smiled, accepting the praise without modesty. After a moment, she asked,

“So what are you thinking now?”

“I…”

Chi Buyu hugged her arms tighter, burying the lower half of her face in her sleeves. She stared blankly at the papers spread across the desk.

“Truth is, I still can’t make sense of it.”

“Can’t figure out why Cui Qijin did this?”

“Or why all three… are her.”

“Three?”

Yes, three.

The first was wkeinauadqtqb.

With that one, all Chi Buyu could see was a string of letters, an avatar, walls of text—a virtual persona online, her teenage self’s hazy grasp of first love.

She hadn’t known what love even was.

Jealousy, possessiveness, dependence… was that it?

Later, her older female cousin explained that the key to distinguishing love from other feelings was whether you placed demands on that person.

Demands? That rang true.

She never demanded anything from her close classmates or Ranran. She didn’t need them to love her most, reply instantly to everything, show up exactly when she wanted, or shower her with emotional support…

Was that teenage her too demanding of Mine?

Was that why Mine hadn’t come that day?

So when Mine suddenly said without reason that she couldn’t make it, why had she been so stubborn, so angry, so heartbroken? Why had she sulked and refused to leave, insisting she’d wait forever if she had to?

That was why she’d held her ground.

Even as the rain poured outside, she clutched her things, jaw clenched, standing firm by that photo booth. When someone entered, she stepped aside. The click of the camera inside sounded like raindrops hitting her heart. She’d already scoped the place out, planned to snap purikura pics with Mine to stick on their phones. She’d even researched poses that’d make her look cute… But if Mine didn’t like them, she’d let Mine pick.

But when the mall finally closed its doors, when the sticker photo booth had clicked and flashed time and again, the security guard came to shoo her away. Before leaving, he kindly asked if she wanted to snap one last photo before going.

She gazed at the photo booth plastered with couples’ pictures, tears streaming down her face as she shook her head. She hadn’t waited for her. The rain outside had poured for ages. Clutching the flowers, dressed in what she had thought was her prettiest skirt at the time, adorned with a hair clip and carrying the gift, she had wailed amid the endless loop of “Ordinary Friends” playing in some nearby store. She cried until her secretly applied makeup ran in black streaks, until her tear-blurred eyes made every passerby look like Mine…

But none of them were.

In the end, she sobbed until she was gasping for breath, her very inhales shuddering. In a fit of pique, she tossed the flowers—and the gift she had so carefully prepared for her confession—into the mall’s trash bin. Before that moment, she had been so innocently thrilled, beaming with joy even as she headed out, dreaming that night of Mine accepting the gift. Back home, she would “accidentally” discover it was meant to say “I love U~.” How romantic that would be.

But that night, all that romance shattered into heartbreaking despair.

Later, she wondered: what if that person had been Ranran?

Surely, she never would have acted out in such a petty way.

Looking back, in that relationship, she had thrown plenty of tantrums and sulked endlessly. Unfortunately, she hadn’t seen it that way at the time.

She still had so many, many demands of Mine. She didn’t understand that real people rarely matched perfectly from birth, that no one’s flaws and virtues were automatically the perfect complement to another’s. At thirteen or fourteen, she couldn’t grasp that love wasn’t just “I want,” “I love,” “I want love,” or “I want you to love me the way I love you”…

It was the first time she felt this emotion—a kind of intense demand toward another person. She had no idea if it was good or bad.

In her heart, if Mine had made demands of her, she probably wouldn’t have seen it as a burden. She would have viewed it as just another form of sweetness.

But Mine never made any demands of her.

It was as if, from start to finish, she was the only one asking. She demanded a response, and Mine gave it.

During those few days hospitalized in bed, the moment she woke, she checked her phone. But all through the night, Mine had sent only three messages.

Why was it like this?

She stared at her phone, unwillingly scrolling through it over and over, but there were still just three.

Why was it like this?

She stared blankly at the screen, tears spilling unbidden down her cheeks, sliding to her chin and dripping onto the blanket one by one—that pink, bubbly blanket cover her mother had brought from home, worried she wouldn’t be comfortable with the hospital sheets.

Her older female cousin peeled an orange and held it to her lips, gently wiping her tears with the back of her hand, her face full of worry. “What’s wrong, Shuishui? Why the sudden tears? Is it because that tree branch poked your eye, and it’s still bothering you?”

Her aunt couldn’t sit still upon hearing this. She rushed outside to call the doctor, dragging him over and hovering anxiously as he examined her. Even when he said she was fine, she followed him out, peppering him with questions over and over.

Why was it like this?

Chi Buyu no longer knew if she was sad or just throwing another tantrum. She burrowed under the covers, not wanting her red eyes to be seen by her parents, aunt, or cousin. They would only worry.