Chapter 60

Regardless of whatever nonsense Cui Muhuo spouted, I decided to respect her wishes for the time being.

But the very next day, I quietly began preparing to move.

As I packed my things, I tugged on one ear of the Strawberry Bear and asked why Cui Muhuo wasn’t the one moving in with me. Then I yanked the other ear, replying in the bear’s squeaky voice—

Because waiting for Cui Muhuo to adjust to such a big change before letting her move into my home might take another hundred centuries.

Haste makes waste.

If you’re too laid-back, you’ll miss out on even the cold leftovers.

That very night, during our friendly negotiation about living together, she didn’t stuff me into her pocket and drag me home. Instead, she held my hand properly and squeezed onto her sofa with me, both of us slathered in face masks as we watched SpongeBob SquarePants.

She was clearly distracted the whole time.

I yawned and asked if she was sleepy. To my surprise, she replied,

“My closet is only 7.4 square meters. Will that be enough?”

“What?” I swallowed the rest of my yawn.

“Nothing,” she said calmly, staring intently at the TV screen as if she were utterly absorbed in SpongeBob.

I waved my hand in front of her face.

She didn’t react at all. Her eyelashes were damp, but she didn’t so much as blink.

I nestled softly into her arms. With my eyes half-closed and my lips pursed, I leaned in for a kiss, aiming to plant one right on the glistening mask covering her face. But before my lips could make contact, she suddenly grabbed both my hands and pushed me entirely out of her embrace. She fumbled for her glasses and slipped them on.

“Move over for a second.”

?

Okay, fine.

She had just pushed me away like that?

I opened my mouth, ready to belt out, “Cui Muhuo, you’re so annoying!” But the face mask hampered my jaw, limiting my outburst. Furious, I ripped off half my mask and stomped into her bedroom, my anger vibrating through the floorboards. Even my shadow seemed to tremble in fear.

Approaching the bedroom doorway, I saw she had flung open the closet door. She sat primly on the edge of the bed in a full set of plaid pajamas, sporting the messy bun I’d tied for her after she washed her face. The face mask stretched across her features behind her black-framed glasses as she stared into the closet crammed full of clothes, her expression one of puzzled contemplation.

I sulked in the doorway, refusing to step inside or say a word. After a thoughtful moment, she suddenly called out to me.

“Chi Buyu.”

“What!” My tone was sharp.

She propped her wet chin on her fist—her signature thinking pose.

“Come here.”

Still pondering, she patted the spot beside her.

“Hmph!”

I bared my teeth, determined to keep sulking, but I was too spineless to resist. I plopped down next to her, and together we stared at the overflowing closet.

I crossed my arms, expecting her to pull me in for a kiss or a hug. After all, that’s how you soothe a girlfriend, right?

But no.

The moment I sat down, she sprang to her feet. Before I could erupt in anger, I watched her yank out every last piece of clothing from the closet—neatly organized and color-coordinated as they were—and pile them haphazardly on the bed. She didn’t seem to care about the mess.

Instead, she kept going like a hoarding hamster emptying its stash.

In the end, more than half the closet stood empty.

Her face mask had been on for ages by now. With her glasses perched over it, she looked both profoundly wise and utterly adorable. She measured the empty space with her fingers, first gauging the full expanse, then eyeing the pile of clothes, all while striking a classic thinker’s pose before asking me,

“Now is it enough?”

I was buried under the mountain of clothes she’d just emptied out, practically sinking into a cloud of fabric. The air around me was thick with Cui Muhuo’s scent—warm and inviting, like wood baked under the summer sun.

Perched in the heap, I puffed out my cheeks and began folding the scattered garments.

“Enough for what?”

She glanced back at me, her own face creased in confusion. “Enough room for your clothes, obviously?”

It took me a beat to process and look.

She pointed at the newly vacated half of the closet. The mask clung tightly to her mouth, making speech a challenge, but she explained anyway. “I’ve left you about 4.5 square meters. Is that enough, Chi Buyu?”

That same evening, I’d asked her if we could move in together.

Half an hour later, she’d listed the pros and cons and suggested waiting a week.

Two hours after that, she couldn’t even focus on SpongeBob anymore. Her mind wandered endlessly as she cleared out her closet to make room for my arrival.

Her face mask was on the verge of drying out completely.

“Still not enough?” Seeing I hadn’t replied, she started grumbling at me.

“Yeah, makes sense. Your wardrobe could fill a hundred square meters easy.”

She adjusted her slipping glasses and muttered to herself in doubt. “Or should I build you a whole new closet?”

I let out a sigh.

I knew I was about to go in for another forceful kiss.

She didn’t seem to realize it, though. She still looked so anxious and unsettled about everything. To her, this was a brand-new venture—one that demanded meticulous planning before she could commit.

I set down the hoodie I’d just folded.

I hopped off the bed.

Darted right up to her, peeled the lower half of her mask away, and cupped her damp face in my hands. I pressed my nose against her glasses and planted a kiss on her lips.

“Don’t be scared, Cui Muhuo.”

She kissed me back, insisting, “I’m not scared, Chi Shuishui.”

I wrapped my arms around her and buried the freshly unmasked lower half of my face into the crook of her neck, where she smelled just like catnip. I took a deep breath.

“I know you love me so much.”

She’d grown used to hearing things like that from me lately. She hugged me for a bit, patted my back, and then bluntly remarked,

“You’ve gotten mask water all over me.”

It seemed like a non sequitur, but she didn’t push me away.

Moving day dawned as a brutally scorching summer scorcher. The forecast called for thirty-seven degrees Celsius—a rare heat wave even for Chengdu.

It was a weekday, but all four of us had the day off.

Ranran declared that calling a moving company for such a short distance would be a total rip-off.

She had a point.

So the four of us handled it ourselves.

The car couldn’t get past Love Adrift Street, but once inside the complex, we faced a steep slope. We piled out and trudged upward like a line of ducks waddling to the diving board, each rolling a piece of luggage while the blazing sun left us dazed and sunburned.

Chen Wenran and Ranran struggled to shove the lazy sofa they’d gifted me for the move along the gravel path. Panting, Ranran gasped, “Chi Shuishui, once this is done, you owe me ten rounds of ice-cold beer.” Chen Wenran jabbed a finger at the sun overhead. “This has gotta be fifty degrees, no doubt about it.”

Cui Muhuo, towing two suitcases with a trio of colorful bags slung over her shoulder, shot back without turning around. “At fifty, you’d already be dead.”

My head swam, and I wondered if I had heatstroke. I led the way, desperate to crest the slope with my luggage. I’d just shoved my two suitcases to the top and reached for an ice-cold soda when a gentle breeze swept through. I hadn’t even taken a sip before my lemon-yellow and olive-green cases teetered, stumbled, and went tumbling back down the hill with a series of thuds.

Ranran and Chen Wenran gawked for a split second before hunching over and pretending not to notice, muscling the packaged sofa up the incline.

Those two couldn’t share the highs and lows to save their lives.

Feeling utterly wronged, I shot Cui Muhuo a pitiful glance.

She barely reacted.

With calm efficiency, she rummaged through one of the three or four bags on her shoulder, produced a bottle of Huoxiang Zhengqi Water, twisted off the cap, and shoved it into my mouth. Then she hauled her own suitcases to the top of the slope first. She watched me grimace at the bitter taste and said,

“Look here, Chi Buyu.”

I glanced over.

She pointed to the wheel locks on the suitcases and flipped one with the tip of her shoe. Now they wouldn’t roll.

Miserably choking down the Huoxiang Zhengqi Water, I trudged back down in a daze to retrieve my suitcases, which had bounced several times already. Feebly, I told Cui Muhuo,

“I’m not actually that hopeless. I just forgot.”

I hoisted the two suitcases and prepared to push them up. Glancing back, I saw Cui Muhuo right behind me. Her face was flushed red from the sun, sweat pouring off her, those colorful bags making her look a bit ridiculous.

And yet, she’d run down to help.

She took one suitcase, leaving me the other, and we pushed them up together.

I nearly collapsed against her, my lips quivering as I whined, “Cui Muhuo, you’re the best.”

She sighed. “Chi Buyu, it’s so hot.”

We started up again, but after a few steps, we saw that the two suitcases Cui Muhuo had locked earlier had been knocked over by a frisking little puppy.

The pup bumped them and scampered off.

We watched helplessly as the cases staggered halfway down the slope before friction brought them to a halt.

Ranran and Chen Wenran peeked out from amid the greenery. Now the four of us were divided between the top and bottom of the slope. It reminded me of our university days in Chongqing—another sweltering, humid incline. Ranran and Chen Wenran led the way, holding hands and sharing ice cream cones in the heat. Cui Muhuo and I trailed behind, bickering over whether shredded or sliced potatoes were better.

Back then, they’d pause under a shady tree, glance back at us squabbling our way up in sync, and call out in exasperated amusement,

“Come on, you two! What are you doing?”

Now, drenched in sweat, Ranran and Chen Wenran dashed down from the top, scooped up the remaining suitcases with resigned shakes of their heads, and looked back down at us.

“Come on, you two! What are you doing?”

I wasn’t sure who cracked first, but staring at each other’s heat-flushed faces, the four of us dissolved into undignified laughter.

–

Our life together unfolded smoothly from that day onward.

Cui Muhuo had a real knack for folding clothes—not just neatly, but sorted by color too. I’d started picking up the habit, and opening our closet now felt like a visual delight. I might even be catching a touch of her OCD.

Not everything was perfect, though. Maybe it was my messy diet, but I shed a ton of hair. Cui Muhuo often donned gloves to scour the house for my stray strands. One day, she collected a bunch behind my back and held them out like damning evidence, utterly speechless as she said—

“Chi Buyu, come look. This is how much hair you shed in a single day.”

I didn’t buy it. I figured she’d tossed in some of her own to trick me.

She sighed in exasperation. “Mine’s black, remember?”

I stared in horror.

Clamping my hands over my ears, I chanted, “Not listening, not listening!”

She burst out laughing, cradling my head and stroking, patting, and kissing it while gleefully teasing,

“Keep pulling all-nighters, and one day you’ll be Little Baldy.”

I clutched my hair, overcome with worry, and resolved to go to bed at ten o’clock every night from then on.

That very night at ten o’clock.

Cui Muhuo lay down beside me at exactly ten to supervise, as if there was nothing she couldn’t accomplish. She said ten o’clock, and her eyes closed right on cue. Hands clasped neatly over her stomach, she lay there calmly preparing to drift off to sleep.

Even though her girlfriend of less than a week lay right next to her—even though the camisole nightie she’d bought just for their cohabitation hadn’t even been worn twice yet.

She looked like she could sleep through an earthquake.

I puffed out my cheeks and said, “Cui Muhuo, I can’t sleep.”

She took a moment before replying. “Chi Shuishui, you’ll go bald.”

?

She really knew how to talk.

I wasn’t having it. I sneaked a finger toward hers to hook it, then rolled over and gently bumped my face against her sternum over and over. “People say that… that one… is good for your health too.”

She laughed so hard her chest shook. Only after a long while did she reach out and pat my cheek. “Then what about all the hair you’ve already lost from staying up late?”

I turned shameless rogue.

I darted to her mouth and planted a quick peck, then flipped over entirely and sprawled across her. “Then how about we do some math?”

She cracked her eyelids halfway open, utterly defeated by my antics. “What new mathematical theorem have you dreamed up that only you could possibly believe?”

She had it wrong.

It wasn’t just me who believed it. She would too.

I pondered for a moment.

My chin shifted as I declared with perfect self-righteousness, “Stay up late once, lose one hair. But do that… that two times, and you grow back two.”

“See? Doesn’t that make perfect sense?”

She laughed until she had no breath left. “Yes. It does.”

I let out a triumphant “hmph.” “Then why aren’t you hurrying over here to kiss me?”

And she really did.

Between kisses, her eyes gleamed damply, and her long, straight black hair fell softly across my face. She scraped a wet fingertip along the corner of my eye, then suddenly said, as if struck by some profound wonder,

“You can’t even see me right now, can you?”

I lunged at her finger like a hooked fish and mumbled around it, “Come on, Cui Muhuo. Sure, I’ve got a touch of night blindness, but I’m not blind.”

She smiled. “You’re right.”

We started holding hands as we commuted back and forth to Love Adrift Street every day. Once summer ended, we moved houses again because the old place couldn’t hold the two of us anymore.

Love, it seemed, had a way of multiplying.

Ranran even came by to check out our stuff one day and waved her hands emphatically. “Please tell me you’re hiring a moving company.”

We filled the new house bit by bit. It was a little farther from Love Adrift Street now, so getting to the studio meant taking a single bus or subway stop. On the way home, Cui Muhuo would bring me oranges, or chunks of fresh pineapple, or a cup of fresh coconut milk loaded with boba pearls. I learned how to pick out the slender, delicious mangos for her.

In autumn, Chengdu’s ginkgo leaves began to drift down, carpeting one road in the pungent mush of crushed white fruits. Every time we walked that ginkgo-lined stretch, I’d bury my face in Cui Muhuo’s collar and breathe like a fish using its gills. She thought our waddling gait was exaggerated and ridiculous. But she’d secretly spritz perfume on her clothes beforehand, and every single time, she’d scoop me up and carry me straight through.

One time, we even bolted across it like we were in The Matrix. Onlookers probably pegged us for lunatics. But every time we traversed that road, I couldn’t help thinking—no stretch of pavement could possibly make me happier.

The next time, we did SpongeBob chasing jellyfish. I figured the time after that would always be the happiest.

I had no idea when the next winter would arrive. But the joy of that one autumn felt like enough to carry me through a hundred centuries.

One day, I tied on an apron and took my stance in the kitchen like a master chef, ready to boil tea eggs for Cui Muhuo’s breakfast. She couldn’t stomach plain boiled eggs, after all—she was a picky little doll at heart. Staring at the pot of dark, murky tea eggs, I reflected on all the happiness I’d gathered lately. Suddenly, it hit me: I’d achieved what so many people dreamed of as love’s ultimate pinnacle.

I’d seen the sea. I’d seen the sunrise. I’d carved our names into the sea of love. Now we were living together. And we were raising a little turtle named Little Snail.

My reflection paused there.

I went to check on Cui Muhuo. She was carefully feeding turtle food to Little Snail in its tank and meticulously logging on her phone exactly how many shrimp bits it had eaten that day…

The tea eggs bubbled away in the pot, the dark brine seeping in, the aroma wafting out. I remembered how, back when I’d first suggested living together, Cui Muhuo had approached the idea with the same earnest seriousness.

I glanced at the tea eggs—the ones I’d botched once before, underseasoned and bland—then at Cui Muhuo. Suddenly, I said very seriously, “I think I need to learn your approach to handling problems.”

Take these tea eggs, for instance.

I sighed to myself. Why had I failed to get the flavor right after three tries? Cui Muhuo would have looked everything up on the first go, nailed every proportion of seasoning, and whipped them up flawlessly.

Cui Muhuo said nothing.

After a moment, she set aside the turtle food, abandoned Little Snail, and hurried over. She peered into the pot at the tea eggs that smelled divine on a test nibble but tasted of nothing.

Still silent.

She lifted the lid and stirred the contents with a ladle, apparently committing the water-to-brine ratio to memory in her head and puzzling out how to tweak the cooking time.

Standing beside her, I pulled out my phone, ready to whip open my notes app the second she spoke and jot down her tips. That way, next time, I could make her the universe’s most invincible tea eggs.

But she set the lid and ladle back down. She looked at me and hesitated, saying nothing.

I fidgeted beside her, scratching my ear.

Suddenly, she snatched my phone, locked the screen, and shoved it into her pocket. Before I could react, she wrapped me in a sneak-attack hug. After a long, quiet pause, she actually said,

“Don’t.”

How rare—Cui Muhuo turning down a request like that.

I blinked. “Don’t what?”

Like a petulant child, she replied, “I don’t want to tell you how to make the best tea eggs. And I don’t want you to learn my way of solving problems.”

I got mad.

I poked her cheek. “Grandmaster Cui, you’re so stingy.”

To my surprise, she didn’t argue. “If you say so.”

I cradled her face and planted a fierce kiss on her. “Then you’re doomed. You’ll miss out on having a Tea Egg Xi Shi for a girlfriend.”

She stood there in front of the bubbling pot of tea eggs, holding me—this failed Tea Egg Xi Shi—and laughed.

I huffed again. “Why won’t you teach me?”

She thought about it for a long time, looking as puzzled by it as I was. Only after a while did she work it out and explain.

“I need you to need me.”