Chapter 55: “Two Idiots” Part 1

Their second date ended in an unexpected mishap.

Love Adrift Street was littered with colorful ribbons scattered by the film crew. After they wrapped up for the day, the director and assistant director were miserably sweeping them up with little brooms. Chi Buyu, who always had a soft spot for spreading love, couldn’t help but feel sorry for these familiar faces and ran over to lend a hand.

Chi Shuishui was never the type to demand that others follow her lead. She had no qualms about throwing herself into thankless tasks, and she didn’t care whether anyone else joined her or not.

Cui Qijin, who generally had little patience for the rest of humanity, had zero interest in wasting her time on something like that.

But for the sake of that bay laurel tree, Chi Buyu could make even Cui Qijin pitch in.

Cui Qijin carried a black trash bag, wrapping two more around her hands as makeshift gloves. Expressionless, she trailed behind Chi Buyu, picking up the ribbons that clung stubbornly to the misty rain. Only now did she realize that if she’d gone to South America to pick up trash, she probably wouldn’t have found much joy in it either.

The thought crossed her mind.

For some inexplicable reason, she glanced at Chi Buyu—though perhaps she’d been looking at her all along.

Chi Buyu was smiling.

Chi Buyu was smiling again.

Why could Chi Buyu smile so brightly at everyone?

She was a night-blindness sufferer.

Out running around at night, squinting with her phone flashlight on, picking up trash alongside “strangers,” and grinning so wide her eyes curved into upside-down crescents.

Cui Qijin wanted to know what Chi Buyu was smiling about.

She always wanted to know.

Adjusting her glasses, she edged closer without a word. She caught Chi Buyu tucking down her skirt, lowering her voice as she spoke to the director.

“Guess what! The two of us are together now!”

The director played along with an exaggerated “Whoa!” “So this means you two are on a date right now?”

Cui Qijin looked down at the three black trash bags clutched in her hands and thought to herself that this was one hell of an original date. Then she heard Chi Buyu nod proudly on the other side.

“Yeah!”

And just like that, she wondered again—who else but Chi Shuishui could bring this kind of novelty into her life?

The next second, her phone rang. It was Yu Chenxing, her counselor.

She and Chi Buyu dumped their bulging trash bags, hiked up their skirts, and rushed through the late-night streets, arriving disheveled at 363 Hospital near the school. They greeted the counselor, who looked pale and shaken from the scare, thanked her profusely for looking after things, and urged her to go home and rest. This time, they really had forgotten to bring flowers. They found Yu Chenxing, who had been rushed to the ER and then moved to a regular room—

Her lips were pallid, a clear oxygen tube snaking across her philtrum. She stared blankly out the window, dressed in a hospital gown. All the piercings on her body were gone, leaving her looking like a docile doll. An IV stand nearby dangled several bags of ominous fluid.

When she saw them arrive,

Yu Chenxing turned her head. She gave a faint smile first to the visibly worried Chi Buyu, drawling lazily, “Sister Shuishui, you came too?”

Then her gaze shifted to the calmly composed Cui Qijin. “Why are you here again, Cui Qijin?”

Finally, her eyes dropped to their joined hands, and she arched a brow.

“So you two are really together now?”

Cui Qijin caught her breath from the hurried trip over, frowning as she stepped forward.

“Don’t talk.”

Yu Chenxing often didn’t act like an asthma patient at all.

Staying put and behaving was the best for treatment, yet she insisted on pushing herself, doing all sorts of things asthma sufferers shouldn’t. It was as if she relished that desperate struggle against suffocation. Even in the throes of an attack, with her throat constricted to a razor-thin passage for air, she’d force out words—plenty of them—in a voice so light and airy, as if she couldn’t care less about her own life.

Yu Chenxing shrugged, then suddenly dissolved into coughs. An asthma cough was terrifying, like the entire airway sealing shut.

It was probably Chi Buyu’s first time witnessing something like this. She froze in place, scared stiff, tugging anxiously at Cui Qijin’s sleeve but at a loss for what to do, reduced to standing there helplessly.

Cui Qijin stayed calm and called for the doctor, pulling Chi Buyu aside to a safe distance while holding her hand.

Once the doctors had stabilized Yu Chenxing, Chi Buyu noticed that Cui Qijin’s palm was drenched in sweat.

She froze.

Looking up at Cui Qijin’s face, she saw almost no sign of panic. In fact, after Chi Buyu glanced over, Cui Qijin even patted her hand gently, murmuring reassuringly,

“It’s okay. This isn’t her first time. She’ll pull through.”

Chi Buyu wasn’t sure who Cui Qijin was really trying to convince with those words. She pressed her lips together, steadying herself, then firmly threaded her fingers through Cui Qijin’s, interlocking them tightly. She gripped that hand, concealing the panic, fear, and unease Cui Qijin didn’t want anyone to see.

Then, with her other hand, she patted their intertwined fingers.

Cui Qijin was surprised by Chi Buyu’s sudden gesture but made no move to pull away or offer thanks.

She simply fell silent.

In silence, she glanced at Chi Buyu, then at Yu Chenxing—

Yu Chenxing was hemmed in at the center of her bed by a swarm of white coats bustling in and out, tossing around medical terms Cui Qijin couldn’t follow—symbols from another world floating in the air.

Through the gaps in the white coats and alien jargon, she glimpsed Yu Chenxing’s current state: breathing labored and ghostly pale, like a bellows on the verge of collapse.

She stared intently at this version of Yu Chenxing.

Not for the first time.

She had sat alone like this in countless hospital rooms, within five meters of Yu Chenxing, watching helplessly as they pulled her back from the brink again and again.

Yu Chenxing especially hated it when Cui He and Yu Hongdong showed up at times like these.

So it had always just been Cui Qijin.

And now, another hand clasped firmly in her own palm.

Someone to hold her through this.

Cui Qijin let out a breath, feeling as if her own airway had narrowed to a thread.

Right then,

A soft, warm palm lifted her glasses and covered her eyes. The room remained a chaotic flurry, but Chi Buyu’s voice emerged softly by her ear.

“Don’t be scared.”

She parted her lips but couldn’t make a sound.

She felt like that little kid again, pretending to hold it together while witnessing an even smaller life struggling in scant oxygen.

This was how she’d grown up.

Cui Qijin blinked uncertainly beneath the hand, her lashes brushing Chi Buyu’s palm. Then she heard Chi Buyu say with utter conviction,

“If you don’t want to look, then don’t.”

“Don’t worry.” Perhaps afraid of heightening her helplessness, Chi Buyu added firmly, “I can be your eyes for you.”

Yu Chenxing’s crisis passed after two or three hours. It was deep into the night now, the darkness outside so thick it seemed the sky itself might cave in. Chi Buyu had promised to be Cui Qijin’s eyes and stuck to it without flinching. Once everything settled, she steeled her expression, patted Cui Qijin’s hand, and followed the doctors out. Gravely, she pulled out her phone to record, absorbing details that had flown right over Cui Qijin’s head on her first visit.

Yu Chenxing lay in the bed, the collar of her hospital gown torn open with a few buttons missing from the ordeal.

In this moment, she seemed quieted at last, though her eyes still burned with restless fire—anything that fell into them would be incinerated clean. Sometimes Chen Wenran would look into Yu Chenxing’s eyes and remark that in some ways, she and Cui Qijin were alike: both so stubbornly defiant.

Cui Qijin propped a soft pillow under Yu Chenxing’s back, then sank into the wooden chair by the bedside. Gazing at her, she said, “Rest properly. Don’t think about anything else.”

Sometimes Cui Qijin wondered if she should be more controlling, forbidding Yu Chenxing from doing the things she loved. But then she thought those very things might be the oxygen Yu Chenxing could grasp in a life mostly confined to hospital beds—something tangible she could seize. Cui Qijin had no right to dictate how she lived.

Yu Chenxing couldn’t speak.

Even her breaths were faint. After a long, long pause, she glanced at Chi Buyu talking with the doctors outside, then at Cui Qijin sitting before her. Bewildered, she rolled her eyes. Finally, with great effort, she picked up her phone and typed.

Cui Qijin’s phone buzzed once.

She didn’t check it.

She just looked at Yu Chenxing, silent.

Yu Chenxing looked back at her, silent.

When Chi Buyu returned, she found the two of them staring each other down—like a tense standoff or the aftermath of an argument.

“What’s wrong with Xingxing?”

She asked, concern lacing her voice.

She sat beside Cui Qijin and naturally took her hand again, lacing their fingers together.

“The doctor just said Xingxing’s out of the woods and needs rest, right? What’s going on with you two?”

Yu Chenxing still didn’t speak.

She glanced at Chi Buyu, then back at Cui Qijin.

Cui Qijin sighed, squeezing Chi Buyu’s hand in return and saying softly, “She’s fine. Don’t worry.”

Then she pulled out her phone and read the WeChat message Yu Chenxing had just sent—

【Do Cui He and Yu Hongdong know yet?】

【About you dating】

“That’s a relief.” Chi Buyu exhaled, then suddenly stood. “Should I go grab some food for Xingxing?”

Off she went on her own, still muttering as she left, “Oh right, I should ask the doctor what she can eat at this hour!”

She flung open the door and dashed out, her footsteps echoing thump-thump-thump through the hushed ward.

Both Yu Chenxing and Cui Qijin watched her go.

Until even the strands of her hair vanished from sight.

Only then did Cui Qijin look away, turning to Yu Chenxing. She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed. After another beat of their standoff, she finally said curtly,

“I’m not eighteen anymore. I won’t let whatever they say smash my cake to bits. Whether they know about this or not means nothing to me.”

Back then, she had always hoped that they could be closely involved in her life. They would call her “grown-up,” yet she never quite managed to grow up. Nowadays, she no longer needed anyone else to serve as her core driving force. Perhaps that was what true maturity looked like. Or maybe it was because Chi Buyu had always treated her like a little kid—and in doing so, had helped her actually grow up.

The lights in the hospital room flickered as the door swung fully open, no longer forming that ever-widening triangle of shadow.

In the bright light, Yu Chenxing gazed at her for a moment before breaking into an inexplicable smile. Probably just exhaustion, she said nothing more and finally closed her eyes.

When Chi Buyu returned, Yu Chenxing was already fast asleep. Cui Qijin remained seated there, staring at Yu Chenxing without so much as blinking, lost in her own thoughts.

Chi Buyu had known something for a very long time—

Cui Qijin was the type who wouldn’t realize she was tired unless someone pointed it out to her. She was also the type who, when hurt, wouldn’t acknowledge the pain unless someone else named it. She had grown up like a tree in the forest, figuring everything out on her own. She seemed clever, but in truth, she was profoundly naive.

The room was utterly quiet, filled only with the sound of Yu Chenxing’s breathing. Cui Qijin sat motionless, barely breathing herself—as if afraid that even the slightest movement might steal away Yu Chenxing’s oxygen.

Chi Buyu set down the porridge she’d bought and settled beside Cui Qijin. Full of heartache, she wrapped her arms around Cui Qijin’s shoulders from behind.

Chi Buyu said nothing. She even held her breath.

She would join Cui Qijin in this, surrendering every bit of oxygen to Yu Chenxing.

Cui Qijin stayed silent too.

Held by Chi Buyu, she suddenly felt the weight of exhaustion. She turned, pulling the beautifully dressed Chi Buyu—who had come out for their date—into an embrace. Cui Qijin rested her head on Chi Buyu’s shoulder, her arms clamping tightly around Chi Buyu’s waist, her face nearly buried there. After holding her breath for a moment, she suddenly let out a laugh.

“Chi Buyu, don’t hold your breath with me. We’re both being so stupid.”

Chi Buyu exhaled with a soft, faint hum. “No helping it. Even when my girlfriend does something idiotic, I’ve still got to stick by her side.”

She knew.

Cui Qijin wanted to understand just how agonizing it felt to suck in with all her might and get no air.

But Chi Buyu didn’t know.

Just how many idiotic things like this Cui Qijin had done before.

Still, if Cui Qijin insisted on doing something like this, Chi Buyu had to be right there with her. No question.

That was what Chi Buyu resolved, firmly.

A long while later, Cui Qijin—still slumped against her shoulder—murmured something as faint as a dream.

“Idiot Shuishui, thank you for coming to keep me company today.”

Those words made Chi Buyu’s nose sting, her heart soften. She hugged Cui Qijin even tighter, speaking with all the solemnity of a heartfelt vow.