Q: Tell me a secret that only you know.
A: Cui Muhuo always eats a mango the morning after drinking. If she doesn’t, her throat starts hurting. She just loves coming down with these little kid illnesses.
–
With a swift motion, Cui Qijin sliced a palm-sized mango cleanly in half.
The peel was already removed, revealing the fresh, tender fruit inside. The sharp blade of the fruit knife cut it into neat slices. She speared one with a fork and brought it to her lips.
The fragrance was fresh and sweet, the juices bursting forth.
It instantly banished the nausea from her hangover and the lingering smell of alcohol that two showers hadn’t fully washed away.
She parted her lips slightly, wincing with effort. The damaged spot on her lip had scabbed over, and tugging at it stung.
Irritated, she squeezed her eyes shut and set down the slice that had nearly reached her mouth.
The next moment, she heard Chen Wenran stifle a laugh with a “pfft.”
Cui Qijin lifted her eyelids.
Chen Wenran was sitting in the sofa area she had designated for guests, her expression serious once more, the laughter gone.
Cui Qijin slowly withdrew her gaze. She clenched her jaw, straightened her neck, and sat primly on the high stool. In a perfectly poised manner, she picked up the fruit knife again and turned to the sliced mango.
She continued cutting, dicing the fruit into tiny cubes.
She didn’t know if it was some innate trait she had always hidden or a habit acquired later in life, but she had a particular fondness for mangoes.
In the end, she chalked it up to a lingering effect from a high fever in her childhood—
She believed it stemmed from that Taiwanese film brimming with island vibes, which had ignited an irresistible craving for the sweet fruit of the tropics.
A craving that went unsatisfied at the time.
A lack or longing for something during childhood often ballooned a hundredfold once adulthood granted the ability for self-indulgence—a psychological phenomenon known as compensatory indulgence.
And so, from that point on, she developed a special love for mangoes.
She had naturally low white blood cell counts, making her more susceptible to viruses than others. Colds and fevers were routine, compounded by her congenital anemia, which made even minor bleeding hard to staunch.
For her, illness wasn’t rare, nor was handling minor ailments on her own.
Her mother, Cui He, and father, Yu Hongdong, had long poured their lives and energy into their careers. When Cui Qijin was eleven and her sister Yu Chenxing five, Cui He headed to Harbin for a long-term project on forest pest control, while Yu Hongdong went to Shanghai University for his promotion evaluation.
She disliked both Harbin and Shanghai. So her sister went with Cui He to Harbin, while Cui Qijin lived alone with her grandmother in Chengdu. On holidays and weekends, her grandmother would drive an electric cart back to Dujiangyan to tend to the cauliflower, lettuce, and cotton plants left at home. Sometimes Cui Qijin tagged along, but most often, illness kept her from wanting to go out. That continued until she started boarding school in junior high.
That particular fever struck during a rare scorching summer heatwave. Her grandmother, worried about the cucumber seedlings at home, left her a full day’s worth of food early in the morning and drove back to Dujiangyan.
Cui Qijin woke at dawn feeling inexplicably feverish, but her grandmother didn’t know. The food left for her was a big bowl of stewed free-range chicken, water-boiled pork slices, and dry pot cauliflower—all too spicy for her sore throat. She wrapped herself in the blanket, groggy and dazed, holding the thermometer in her mouth as she cooked herself some porridge.
The porridge didn’t turn out well; she vaguely remembered it being mushy, overly soft, and utterly tasteless. She’d heard that sick people shouldn’t eat porridge anyway, but it was the only thing she knew how to make.
She couldn’t keep it down and ended up vomiting two or three more times.
The fan whirred relentlessly as sweat soaked her through, sticky and clammy. Her mouth tasted bitter, and she lay listlessly on the bed, watching that Taiwanese film and seeing the lush, refreshing mango.
She slowly spat out the thermometer clutched between her lips.
In that instant, the cicadas’ chorus melted into the summer swelter. Her 39-degree fever made her desperately crave that mango. But in the early 2000s, apps like Ele.me and Meituan didn’t exist yet.
Her grandmother didn’t come back that day.
No one had ever told her that being sick granted the privilege of making demands on others.
Cui He and Yu Hongdong often reminded her: Cui Qijin, you’re grown up now, aren’t you? There are many things you can—and should—handle yourself. I know you’ve always been good at being independent.
She imagined calling either of them.
They probably wouldn’t pick up right away. Hours later, they’d call back, listen to her story, pause patiently in silence, then say—
I’ll ask the fruit shop downstairs for their number and have the owner deliver one. Of course, after this, I suggest you memorize the fruit shop’s number so you don’t have to wait hours next time to get your mango.
By then, the perfect moment for satisfaction would have passed. Through experiences like this, she’d learned time and again that “satisfaction shouldn’t rely on others.”
Foreseeing that outcome, and unwilling to make her grandmother abandon the cucumber seedlings and brave the blazing sun to return, she didn’t call anyone that whole day. And she never got her mango.
Later, whenever a special circumstance arose—like a cold or fever, a hangover headache, nausea with no appetite…
Whenever bitterness filled her mouth, she’d crave fresh mango more than ever.
For the twelve-year-old her, the deepest memory of illness was that mango she couldn’t have.
So the twenty-six-year-old her moved to Love Adrift Street, where the mangoes were delicious, memorized the delivery number for Truth or Dare Mango Store, placed more orders from the fruit shop than any other on her food delivery apps, and steadfastly believed in the principle that “self-satisfaction is the most reliable.”
Until that first snow in Chengdu melted away. After fleeing in a drunken stupor, her head splitting, her mind adrift, she forgot to check if Truth or Dare Mango Store was open.
But then she felt something in her coat pocket: a little mango, warmish-cool. It hadn’t come from her.
In that instant, the fragmented memories of the first snow surged back into her mind—
Snow fell in thick, swirling flakes, shattering the quiet of Love Adrift Street with the flashing lights and siren of an ambulance.
She seemed to be lying in the snow, the thin layer clinging to her spine, the whole world turned a deep burgundy red. She couldn’t open her eyes.
Snowflakes drifted down, the night street blurring into unreality.
“Thud-thud-thud—”
Bouncy footsteps approached. She barely pried open her eyelids and heard Chi Buyu’s bright voice: “Here.”
Then a golden mango thrust right into her view, along with the fingers clutching it—reddened from the cold—and half a slender wrist.
She laughed like a child. “You found one.”
The mango moved away, and those vivid, beautiful eyes entered her sightline, peering at her over the red scarf around Chi Buyu’s neck.
After a moment, a poke at her eyelashes.
Chi Buyu’s fingers were cold; Cui Qijin flinched. Chi Buyu suddenly pulled her hand back.
Both of them were far too drunk.
Soon Chi Buyu couldn’t hold herself up anymore. Her head bobbed, her lips nearly brushing Cui Qijin’s eyes.
Wet and soft.
Cui Qijin scrunched her face. Chi Buyu swayed groggily for a bit, then instead of nodding up and down, she shook her head side to side.
Her fluffy long hair swayed, tickling Cui Qijin’s face.
Just as Cui Qijin was about to say something—Chi Buyu, get away, you’re tickling me—
Chi Buyu moved away. Cui Qijin blinked in confusion, reaching out into empty air after those eyes, suddenly feeling so lonely.
Drunk people were always so emotional. Inevitably, she thought back to that feverish summer without her mango.
Suddenly, in the snow, she felt hot. So sad.
The next moment, something filled her empty palm: a mango. A snowflake drifted down then, landing on her lips—delightfully cool. She squinted, hearing Chi Buyu lie down beside her, rustling softly, breathing a little heavily.
The mango in her palm warmed gradually from her body heat.
Someone tugged her neck, tilting her gaze rightward. Chi Buyu had pulled half the scarf from around Cui Qijin’s neck to cover her own snow-dampened chest, then nuzzled her chin against it contentedly.
Chi Buyu turned to look at her, pausing for a beat.
Slowly, she reached over, wiping the melting snow from around Cui Qijin’s eye sockets. She grinned woozily and inched her head over through the thin snow.
Nose to nose, eyes fluttering shut in a daze, as if about to sleep right there on the ground. But then she mumbled,
“Cui Muhuo, are you such a little kid? Every time after drinking, you cry and fuss for a mango.”
What an exaggeration.
Dissatisfied, Cui Qijin pocketed the mango, clutching it tight in her fist.
Later, the ambulance tore through the street center again. Some remnant shred of awareness told her not to sleep in the snow. Swayed by the alcohol, she took Chi Buyu’s hand, and they staggered across the chaotic, noisy road amid swirling snow.
For a moment, they truly became a pair of tropical fish gasping for air, lost in the drunken night, swimming wildly and kicking up great clouds of snow.
She couldn’t recall when they finally made it back to Chi Buyu’s studio. Chi Buyu clumsily stripped off her clothes and hung them on the shoulder of the prominent headless mannequin, turning back with a grin.
They collapsed side by side onto the soft carpet, heads pillowed on fluff scattered by the AC, black hair mingling with brown as the warm air steamed away the snowmelt. Then, as naturally as breathing, they turned to kiss.
In a hazy gap in consciousness, Cui Qijin suddenly asked where the mango had come from. Chi Buyu nipped her lip, displeased.
Maybe because of the freezing cold, the not-so-hard bite still hurt.
Cui Qijin furrowed her brow.
Chi Buyu cradled her face, the corners of her eyes tinged red from the booze—a color like tipsy guava.
“Sorry about that. It’s my first time kissing someone for so long. Not very practiced.”
“No worries. Forgiven.”
“Then let’s kiss again.”
“…Where’d the mango come from?” She was turning into a broken record. Apparently, kissing really was contagious.
Chi Buyu lifted her chin proudly.
“Borrowed it from the record store boss downstairs.”
What an idiot, Cui Qijin thought woozily. How do you even borrow a mango from someone else?
This one probably wouldn’t taste that great.
Then again, it was the middle of the night after fresh snow, all the shops closed. How much effort must it have taken to find one for her…
In that case, even if it wasn’t all that sweet, it was fine.
She pondered for a moment, but suddenly realized she could no longer hear Chi Buyu’s breathing. Half-opening her eyes, she said, “Weren’t you going to kiss me again?”
“Yeah, but I forgot something…” Chi Buyu wrinkled her nose and said.
She rolled once on the carpet to the other side, pawing at the air, then yanked something off the clothes rack there.
The roll seemed to tire her out; she paused on that side of the carpet, staring blankly like a dazed penguin on QQ.
Cui Qijin laughed until her stomach hurt.
Just as she was about to tease her, Chi Buyu rolled across the fluffy carpet again, her fuzzy head landing on Cui Qijin’s chest.
Chin and hair poked at her collarbone.
She draped whatever it was over Cui Qijin’s face, patted it smugly, and murmured sleepily,
“I’m sleepy. Let’s save the kiss for next time…”
In that instant, her vision went dark, and Cui Qijin felt the world settle into a profoundly safe steadiness.
She didn’t sleep well at the best of times—poor rest often led to migraines, and even then, she needed total darkness. She had to wear an eye mask and draw the curtains tight to drift off.
Not even Cui He or Yu Hongdong knew about this quirk, so how could Chi Buyu—a woman too drunk to even roll over—remember such a minor detail?
But the pitch-black environment was reassuring. Exhausted as she was, Cui Qijin couldn’t muster deeper thoughts. She mumbled hazily, “Okay, I’m sleepy too.”
Chi Buyu fell silent after that. A good while passed, and Cui Qijin was on the verge of sleep.
In her drifting consciousness, she sensed Chi Buyu jolt awake, panicked. She touched Cui Qijin’s eyelid through the cloth, confirming the eye covering was still in place.
Only then did she relax, sliding her hand around to the back of Cui Qijin’s neck and pulling her close. With a sigh that sounded like sleep-talk, she murmured,
“You’re such a little doll~”
The ending lilted upward, her words slurred from the alcohol, the whole phrase rising in pitch.
Chi Buyu wasn’t purely native to Chengdu. From the day they’d met, her Chengdu dialect had always sounded a bit off. She insisted on using it anyway, which gave her speech a distinctive twang—self-invented words popping up now and then, nouns twisted into verbs, odd phrasing scattered throughout.
Under normal circumstances, Cui Qijin found Chi Buyu’s half-baked Chengdu dialect pretty grating.
This line especially.
–
“Why haven’t you eaten a single bite?”
Chen Wenran’s voice cut in abruptly, yanking Cui Qijin from her reverie.
She blinked down, dreamlike, at the mango already diced into perfect little squares. The chunks were piled high in the dish, their juicy flesh giving off a fresh, tempting aroma.
Chen Wenran ambled over at a leisurely pace and took a seat at the designated guest spot on the table—Cui Qijin was strict about those boundaries.
She tsked.
“You’re staring holes right through this plate of mango. What’re you thinking about?”
Cui Qijin replied without missing a beat. “Nothing.”
Chen Wenran let out an “oh,” then spotted the mango she’d cut herself. She reached out.
“Well, your mouth’s all messed up anyway—you can’t eat it. Hand it over to me, then.”
Cui Qijin whisked the entire plate away, eyeing Chen Wenran’s dissatisfied pout.
“No.”
She dropped the refusal and ignored the theatrical wailing behind her. Head slightly bowed, she parted her lips and fed herself the neatly squared mango pieces, one deliberate bite at a time.
The borrowed mango wasn’t sweet, as expected.
It smelled sweet, though—the mango essence blooming endlessly in her mouth. She mashed the flesh against her palate and swallowed it down without expression.
Chen Wenran griped from the side that she was being stingy, monopolizing the plate. All at once, Cui Qijin recalled that line in Chi Buyu’s clumsy, not-quite-right Chengdu dialect.
Then it hit her: Cui He and Yu Hongdong had never spoken dialect to her, either.
One from Shanghai, one from Chengdu—but after years chatting with out-of-towners, they stuck to Mandarin with her too.
Sure, the three of them weren’t the closest. But skipping the dialect didn’t mean much.
They’d always treated her like an adult, communicating in standard Mandarin from the start.
In high school, she’d majored in arts. After graduation, she’d picked Chongqing for university. At eighteen, out of nowhere, she’d declared she’d never marry. Post-grad, she’d nearly jetted off to the other side of the world for a twenty-year environmental initiative…
On all those big and small matters, they’d just nodded, laid out the pros and cons, then offered advice drawn from their own life experiences.
Those times, the three Chengdu natives would sit calmly around a desk, conversing in Mandarin. It didn’t feel like family—it was more like a seminar between mentors and student.
Cui He and Yu Hongdong would sit across from her, elbows propped on the table, speaking kindly: You’ve been independent since you were little. Now that you’ve made your choice, we as outsiders have no right to interfere. You have to take responsibility for yourself.
Grandma was straightforward and no-nonsense. She spoke Sichuanese day-to-day, loved slapping down mahjong tiles, cruising on her electric scooter with permed hair to gossip with her old pals. But she never did the TV-drama thing— no head-patting, no cradling and rocking.
She just bragged to everyone: Little Xi’s been sensible from the start, like a mini adult. I never had to worry about her.
Cui Qijin lowered her lashes and swallowed the last fading trace of sweetness from the mango flesh. That phrase lingered in her mind, persistent and unrelenting.
—”You’re such a little doll~”
No one had ever said anything like that to her before.
