Cui Qijin wasn’t sure why she’d said it either. To her, those words were no different from saying “I love you.” She must have gotten drunk again without realizing.
She coughed lightly, took a sip of her beer, and was about to explain.
But then Chi Buyu said, “Cui Muhuo, I think I see us—the two of us?”
What kind of talk was that?
Cui Qijin looked up instinctively. In her haze, she really did spot two figures pushing through the crowd toward them—one in a black New Balance short-sleeved tee, the other in a white one with a faded print on the front.
Their faces were blurry, but they both looked thrilled, like they’d struck gold, hurrying right up to them.
“Uh-oh,” Chi Buyu said gravely. “They’re heading straight for us.”
“Are they?”
Cui Qijin didn’t buy it. She shook her head, trying to shake out the alcohol fog, but the two figures didn’t vanish. If anything, they were drawing closer.
“Should we make a run for it?” Chi Buyu suggested.
“Why run?” Cui Qijin frowned. “We’re not fugitives!”
“!”
An exclamation point seemed to pop onto Chi Buyu’s face.
Hearing that, she grew solemn and leaned in close to Cui Qijin’s ear, stating a very serious fact.
“People in love are fugitives too!”
Cui Qijin didn’t agree with that at all.
When had she ever been the lovesick type? Chi Buyu was. Chi Buyu had said so herself. Cui Qijin had never claimed to be one.
She opened her mouth to argue back.
But by then, the two figures—who were dressed exactly like they had been back in 2016—had reached them. They crouched down with big grins, sizing them up for a moment before saying,
“Long time no see, you two little kids.”
Chi Buyu gripped Cui Qijin’s wrist tight, poised to bolt, eyeing them warily. “Who are you?”
Cui Qijin frowned. “We’re not kids.”
The pair burst out laughing, their guffaws like torpedoes ready to blow up the whole street.
The one in the black New Balance tee caught her breath and said, “I’m the assistant director of Love Adrift.”
She pointed to the woman in the white tee. “And this is our director.”
They both looked at them expectantly, hoping the two tipsy women would get why they’d pushed through the crowd for this introduction.
Chi Buyu pressed her lips together, glanced at Cui Qijin, and said with a troubled frown,
“Have we time-traveled or something?”
Cui Qijin squeezed her beer can. “No. We can’t time-travel.”
The director nodded, relieved.
Cui Qijin added, “You need cherry blossoms falling at five centimeters per second for that. No cherry blossoms here.”
The assistant director went quiet for a beat, then said, “Our director’s name isn’t Makoto Shinkai.”
Cui Qijin nodded, wondering why she’d even bring it up. “Of course I know that.”
Chi Buyu nodded too, puffing out her chest proudly. “Of course she knows!”
Then she eyed them both in confusion. “So why are you wearing our clothes?”
The director sighed, pointing to herself and then the assistant director.
“We’re here shooting the second half of Love Adrift.”
Chi Buyu went wide-eyed. “You guys have funding for a second half?”
Cui Qijin politely tugged at her sleeve. “Sorry, she’s drunk. No offense meant.”
Chi Buyu nodded obediently and apologized. “Sorry, I’m drunk. My tolerance is terrible.”
“No worries.” The director waved it off wistfully. “We didn’t at first, but I’ve made a bit from live-streaming sales these past few years. Gotta save the country the roundabout way, right?”
Cui Qijin said, “Oh. Nice.”
Chi Buyu gave a thumbs-up. “You’ve worked hard!”
“Anyway…” The assistant director, looking more weathered after all these years, pointed to their outfits. “We were looking for you two back then, but you were in such a rush—super drunk—and your class monitor, all out of breath, dragged you off. She thought I was trying to scam some drunk kids and wouldn’t even give me your contacts. Now we’re shooting that scene again for the second half. We were gonna do it ourselves, but then we run into you after all this time. Fate, right?”
She grinned wide and clapped them on the shoulders. “How about coming back to shoot the movie with us?”
Cui Qijin wasn’t having it. No way was she leaving another black mark on her history. This was HD cameras now—she couldn’t stomach a 4K version of that embarrassment.
She opened her mouth to refuse.
But Chi Buyu was already nodding vigorously, raising her hand high like a high schooler with the answer to a tough math problem.
“Sure!”
Cui Qijin couldn’t stop her.
Not this time. Not any time.
By the time it sank in, the alcohol had really kicked in. She found herself back at the head of Love Adrift Street, in the exact spot from their first visit, everything hazy.
Crowds of passersby swirled around her. Intimidating camera equipment loomed to one side. In the foreground was that same fish shop, the owner craning his neck with a grin to watch the spectacle.
They were background extras again.
Right in front of her was the drunken, wobbly Chi Buyu.
It all felt the same.
Except they were adults now, dressed like adults.
The director explained that it was always a story about the passage of time. She and the assistant director hadn’t quite matched the body types, so they’d dug out old tees to look more authentic. But then they showed up and just stood there, and boom—it was those kids from the first half. Even without showing faces, it’d be a fun Easter egg for the audience.
Eight years later, even Love Adrift had a sequel. And here was Chi Buyu, still standing across from her, about to bicker like a couple of kids.
Cui Qijin found it unbelievable.
“Summer’s almost here,” Chi Buyu said out of the blue.
“It’s already summer.” Cui Qijin glanced at her bare wrist like there was a watch there and stated firmly, “It’s May 10th today. A few days ago, on the 5th, was Lixia.”
“Already?” Chi Buyu seemed stunned. “Has someone stolen my time?”
They weren’t shooting yet, just whispering like sneaky middle schoolers.
“You’re the one who stole mine,” Cui Qijin said, working herself up for the argument.
Chi Buyu puffed up indignantly. “You’re cheating! I’m no thief!”
“Aren’t you, though?”
Cui Qijin didn’t know why these thoughts had suddenly come to her—as if something was glaringly on the verge of spilling over.
You stole my first mango from September 2013, stole the earphones from my Sony Walkman, stole my unchanging high school life, stole the love that blossomed during rainy season, even stole the many years that followed, and stole my resistance to it all…
Was it the alcohol? Or… love?
“No way!”
Chi Buyu stood with her hands on her hips, but she still couldn’t win the argument. Her cheeks were flushed bright red—whether from the booze or something else, Cui Qijin couldn’t tell.
“Cui Muhuo, you’re so annoying! You blame me for everything!”
Yeah, why did she blame Chi Buyu for everything? Cui Qijin didn’t know. Maybe… maybe it was because Chi Buyu had shattered every expectation she’d ever had for her own life.
Cui Qijin kept her cool. “Haven’t you ever blamed me?”
Chi Buyu suddenly fell silent.
The onlookers crowded around the two leads. Their shadows swayed back and forth on Love Adrift Street, like two lonely trees that couldn’t help but tangle with each other.
Chi Buyu stammered but managed to keep up her bravado. “What are you even talking about? Blame this, blame that!”
Then she clapped her hands over her ears and shook her head vigorously. “I’m telling you, I’ve got night blindness! I can’t hear anything at night!”
Cui Qijin shook her head. “Chi Buyu, you’re being childish.”
Chi Buyu cracked one eye open, reluctant to admit it. “Fine, yeah, I definitely blamed you before. You never told me anything, and you kept it all bottled up for years. Of course I felt super wronged! And then, and then…”
“And then what?” Cui Qijin prompted.
Chi Buyu’s face crumpled. She sniffled, her eyes slowly turning red. Finally, she let it all out.
“I was already feeling so confused and unhappy! When I heard you had an ex-girlfriend, it made me so sad. And then, back in Leshan, you always looked like you couldn’t let go. I ended up crying in Grandma’s arms, telling myself—and her—that it was just an ex. No big deal. Everyone has one! And it was all in the past anyway. I told myself to have more confidence. But… but I still got scared. I had no idea what kind of person could make you like them so much, make you remember them for so long!”
By this point, it was as if she were right back in that moment. Chi Buyu wiped away a tear, her eyes red-rimmed. She went all out, glaring fiercely as she said,
“Then it turns out that person was me? You were so good at bottling it up, not saying a word and fooling me for so long? And…”
Cui Qijin watched her, trying not to lose it again amid this backdrop of her own dark history. “And what?”
Chi Buyu was still puffed up with indignation.
“And every time, you had to find me! When you were drunk, when you were sad, when you ran into trouble—even today! I told you not to come looking for me anymore! So why did you still show up?”
Cui Qijin found her words odd. Clearly, that’s not what Chi Buyu had said before. “So what if I found you? Is that a bad thing?”
“It just makes it impossible for me to stay mad at you for long!” Chi Buyu snapped, trying to sound harsh, though it didn’t quite land that way.
“If you brush it off that easily, you won’t cherish me later!”
Cui Qijin’s eyes widened at the “threat.” “What did you say?”
Chi Buyu gritted her teeth, refusing to repeat it. “Nothing!”
Cui Qijin frowned and glanced at her nonexistent watch. One, two, three, four, five… She counted in her head, trying to calm down and make sense of Chi Buyu’s rambling words with her booze-addled brain. “You mean…”
Chi Buyu flushed with embarrassment and lunged to cover her mouth. Just then, the director called out “Action!” from afar. Chi Buyu stomped her foot and wobbled as she issued a feeble threat.
“Cui Muhuo, don’t you dare think about that!”
Cui Qijin’s mouth was covered.
But her eyes weren’t.
The wind whipped wildly, her heart pounding just as fast. It felt like rain had started out of nowhere, fine droplets misting down. She stared at Chi Buyu—Chi Buyu’s lashes seemed damp from the rain. What about hers? Were her own lashes that wet too?
She couldn’t look away from Chi Buyu. She had no idea what else she could do in that moment, or how not to dissect the messy meaning behind Chi Buyu’s earlier words. Her mind wouldn’t obey her, tangled up like a ball of yarn clawed to pieces by a cat. She couldn’t even hear the sounds of Love Adrift Street anymore. In time, even her memory of that night grew hazy.
It wasn’t until the movie hit streaming again that the director sent her the raw footage of their scene. Only then could Cui Qijin dimly recall what had happened. The tape captured it all perfectly—
A hazy rainy night, neon lights gleaming wetly.
The shot was from the fish shop’s angle, inside a glowing red tank. The two were too close this time, both partially obscured by the same blue tropical fish.
Chi Buyu carefully pulled her hand away first. Two black hair ties circled her wrist. She fiddled with them awkwardly, then started fussing with her hair, avoiding Cui Qijin’s gaze. Their argument hadn’t made it into the shot.
In a brief pause as the leads locked eyes, Cui Qijin—still half-blocked by the fish—muttered something faint and distant.
“Isn’t it that…
Her tone strained for composure. “…finding you the third time means falling in love with me all over again?”
“Cut—”
The director yelled from off-camera.
Lixia, May 5th, rainy night—this seemed like a day worth remembering. Everything was blurred by the rain, turning suddenly comical, almost fun—
The record shop obligingly switched back to “Ordinary Friends.” Chi Buyu froze at those words, like a black cat that had swallowed a whole egg.
Cui Qijin went rigid too.
Their dangling hands fidgeted awkwardly—one moment touching their hair, the next their collars. Neither knew where to put them.
Finally, Chi Buyu snapped out of it, mumbling in confusion,
“So that’s it… I accidentally let it slip that day? And you… you heard it too?”
Right then, the last community bus pulled up with a “whoosh,” doors hissing open nearby.
Chi Buyu bolted like a bird with drenched wings—awkwardly same-side limbs flailing—clutching her ears, which were red enough to explode. She dove into the bus without looking back.
The bus sped off, leaving a puff of exhaust.
Cui Qijin remained stiffly in place, like a machine glitched by a single line of code. Her glasses fogged up again, hiding her eyes behind the lenses.
She must have been drunk. She stared blankly at the camera, then blankly at the departing bus. Awkwardly same-sided, she turned a corner—and wham, her head smacked right into the stoic bay laurel tree, symbol of eternal love. The impact was hard; the director yelped from off-camera. The lens zoomed in as Cui Qijin glanced at it—her forehead red, even the lens on that side cracked from the blow.
A long moment passed.
“Bzzz—”
One of the two phones she always carried with her buzzed.
The record shop’s “Ordinary Friends” had ended, replaced by Guo Fucheng’s “Love.” The owner dragged out stools to watch the show, rain still misting down. The air hung heavy and damp. Cui Qijin, one lens shattered, felt rationally ridiculous in that instant—but through the fogged remaining lens, she saw a fresh QQ message on her cracked old Samsung:
SpongeBob Afraid of Water: 【Gunalala Dark God—Woo-hoo-la-hoo—Black Magic Transformation!】
It was about a dare from Valentine’s Day, a grand adventure concerning first loves.
But why send it now? What did it mean?
Cui Qijin decided love was really hard to figure out.
