When Lou Yixuan received Lin Huayan’s first WeChat message, she had just changed clothes and stepped out the door, planning to jog at the nearby park.
She’d drunk two cups of coffee that afternoon. If she didn’t tire herself out a bit, she feared she wouldn’t sleep that night. And the consequence of sleeplessness was being tormented over and over by memories.
When she replied to Lin Huayan’s second message, she had just arrived at the park.
She did warm-up stretches while waiting for Lin Huayan.
Her heart was calm, with no expectations for what was to come.
Because she knew Lin Huayan wouldn’t say anything on WeChat that she wanted to hear.
Lin Huayan was very cunning. The message she sent asked—【Are you coming early next Wednesday at noon?】
“Coming” rather than “able to come.”
Should you come? felt like showing weakness. Can you come? would seem a bit pushy.
It looked like she was giving her options, handing her the initiative, but in reality, the one who was always “able to advance or retreat, attack or defend as needed,” the shrewd one, was Lin Huayan.
And her one time overstepping her bounds had been that night when Lin Huayan was drunk, when she’d gotten carried away and misread the situation.
She’d also overestimated herself.
Her phone vibrated in her armband pouch.
After finishing a set of warm-ups, Lou Yixuan stopped to check the new message.
【Lin Huayan: Nothing much. Just asking if you’re coming to Tianmu Middle School for lunch. I can take you for beef noodles and apologize for my slip-up yesterday.】
But Lin Huayan, don’t you understand that what you wanted to eat yesterday might not be what you want today?
【Lou Yixuan: Lunch break time is precious. I won’t disturb your rest at noon. If it’s convenient for Teacher Lin, how about evening instead?】
She also marveled at Lin Huayan’s “obliviousness.”
What she wanted today was an explanation about “Qin Fengru,” yet Lin Huayan had only just remembered to apologize for snapping at her with that line about “childish tricks.”
What about Qin Fengru?
Would Lin Huayan explain that to her?
Or would she wait until Lin Huayan realized she’d hurt her again, only to belatedly patch up another wound?
【Lin Huayan: Okay, evening then. Same time, same place.】
They’d only met at the South Gate once—how was that “same time, same place”?
Lou Yixuan didn’t reply. She pocketed her phone and started running.
No one stays a child forever, and no one remains immature indefinitely.
In the recent past, she’d just been fantasizing about going back to being that kid who could make Lin Huayan happy.
…
The weather didn’t cooperate. Wednesday turned out to be a rainy day.
A drizzly rain fell from morning until evening, stopping and starting, soaking the ground and moistening hearts alike.
One autumn rain brings a chill.
Lou Yixuan stood by the office window, pushing the glass open just a sliver to keep rain out while letting cool air in to freshen the space.
The autumn breeze laced with raindrops was truly cold.
She held her phone in her left hand, typing one-handed to message Lin Huayan, while buttoning up the few open buttons on her shirt with her right.
【Lou Yixuan: The rain won’t stop, and the ground is all wet. How about eating in the cafeteria tonight?】
The cafeteria had noodles too, including beef noodles, which she hadn’t tried.
But Du Heming said the cafeteria’s noodles weren’t good—the contractor was from the north, and the chili sauce wasn’t authentic enough.
Lamen would be okay, though.
Lou Yixuan wasn’t particularly fond of noodles and had no preference for northern lamen. The reason she wanted beef noodles was the beef and Huai’an spice.
【Lin Huayan: The cafeteria’s noodles aren’t your style. The rain’s light. Let’s walk.】
【Lou Yixuan: Okay.】
Just a short week later, same time, same place, but no longer the same weather.
The one arriving first at the South Gate wasn’t Lou Yixuan anymore.
Lou Yixuan held a frosted transparent umbrella and walked steadily toward the woman holding a large umbrella at the school gate.
The sky was dark.
Lin Huayan’s umbrella was a dark color too.
Different from the black windcoat she wore, though.
The coat was definitely black.
The umbrella was some deep shade close to black.
She guessed.
Three minutes early for their appointment, she wasn’t late—Lin Huayan had arrived early.
Today, she no longer felt that eager anticipation from the first time here, craning her neck for Lin Huayan. Her “smile” had been dismissed by Lin Huayan as childish tricks, so she wouldn’t smile.
It wasn’t hard.
Though the world said girls with dimples had magical charm, cute and healing when they smiled.
But dimples could be sweet, sexy, or cold, like her dad’s.
Or they could simply…
not appear.
In the twilight gloom, Lin Huayan couldn’t make out Lou Yixuan’s expression under the umbrella.
When Lou Yixuan was just two or three steps away, she pulled her left hand from her pocket: “I thought you wouldn’t bring an umbrella.”
So she’d dug out that navy-blue ten-rib big umbrella from Teachers’ Day years ago, still with the “Tianmu Education Group” logo on the handle.
What an unexpected opener, unexpected enough that Lou Yixuan nearly blurred the lines again.
She noticed carefully, and sniffed too—Lin Huayan’s hand holding the umbrella was steady, no ointment smell on her. The “strain” must be healed.
“Adults are their own big trees, sheltering themselves from wind and rain. What’s wrong with that?”
Lou Yixuan pulled her left hand from her pocket too, took the school card Lin Huayan offered, pocketed it, then pocketed her hand again.
She liked hair-fine rain.
Liked ambling lazily in such rain without an umbrella.
Letting the non-soaking rain wet her hair, seeking inspiration in the hazy beauty.
Or, using it as an excuse to duck under Lin Huayan’s umbrella.
Once upon a time.
Back then, what she’d sought wasn’t anyone’s shelter, but the security only Lin Huayan could give her.
In her heart, Lin Huayan was omnipotent, indestructible, strong yet gentle—a true “goddess” incarnate, the epitome of “perfection.”
She worshipped her lofty stance, yet schemed to draw that lofty figure into her arms, to touch her, make her cry, possess her exclusively.
Step by step, biding her time.
But one night of folly, one wrong move, and it was game over.
“Nothing wrong with it.”
Lin Huayan’s heart twinged. She slipped her left hand back into her windcoat pocket.
Her once-warm hand turned icy after a mere instant in the cold air, cooling even the rain-blocking pocket.
Lou Yixuan wore a light blue cotton shirt under an apricot sweater.
Khaki casual pants, laced Martin boots.
Artistic to the core.
“Let’s go. Sorry to trouble Teacher Lin to lead the way.” Her flat tone chilled Lin Huayan like the autumn rain.
Lou Yixuan didn’t say “thanks” or anything else, walking in silence all the way to the noodle shop.
Rain beads densely dotted the umbrellas but hadn’t yet coalesced to drip down.
They closed their umbrellas and placed them in the bin the owner had set by the door.
Both long-handled auto umbrellas leaned together without support, tilting easily.
Hearing the rustle, Lou Yixuan reached out to steady them. They wouldn’t have fallen out of the bin even without her.
“They’re borrowed. It’d be bad if they got dirty or damaged.”
“Wipe your hands.” Lin Huayan pulled a few napkins from the table and handed them over.
“Thanks.”
Lou Yixuan quickly wiped the water stains, tossed the dirty napkins in the trash. “Windy at the door. Sit farther in?”
The shop was small and boxy.
Aside from the wall-side ones, there were roughly eight long tables.
Lin Huayan murmured agreement and picked a spot with no one behind or in front.
With them, the shop had all of seven customers.
“Boss.”
Lin Huayan was about to order beef noodles when Lou Yixuan spoke first: “Boss, one bowl of Sanxian Meatball Rice Noodles for me.”
She immediately gave Lin Huayan the reason she wasn’t ordering beef noodles: “It’s been weirdly cold these days. Chili oil stains are hard to wash off clothes, and I don’t like hand-washing.”
Lin Huayan knew why Lou Yixuan liked beef noodles and why she disliked hand-washing. The explanation was superfluous.
But she didn’t know why Lou Yixuan had wanted them last week and not today.
And Lou Yixuan’s dislike for hand-washing had nothing to do with the weather being cold.
“Two bowls of Sanxian Meatball Rice Noodles, one… never mind, just those for now.”
Lin Huayan ordered the same as Lou Yixuan, glanced at the wall menu, then added, “One fried egg each.”
“Boss, one without tomatoes.”
Lin Huayan’s unspoken addition was supplied by Lou Yixuan.
She couldn’t tell what Lin Huayan meant by trailing off.
Was it overstepping, or did she think they could still be like before, clipping her unwanted tomatoes to Lin Huayan?
In soups, tomatoes were an essential flavor booster, and tomato-egg stir-fry a classic home dish.
She was weird about it.
She liked the taste of tomatoes but not eating them, especially loving the eggs in tomato-egg stir-fry or tomato-egg soup.
So later, when Lin Huayan made those, she’d use just one tomato and three eggs.
Tomatoes in big chunks to burst juice without flipping, eggs in large pieces, unscrambled.
She ate the eggs, Lin Huayan the tomatoes.
Lin Huayan would eat eggs too, when she couldn’t finish them all.
All these todays and yesterdays, countless details showed how special she was to Lin Huayan. How could that one time of getting carried away count as “overestimating herself”?
After ordering, they sat in wordless silence, neither pulling out a phone to kill time.
Lou Yixuan gazed at the umbrellas, the rain, the ads—anything but Lin Huayan.
The table to the right had a young man and woman, each with a bowl of rice noodles, each glued to their phones, not exchanging a word, just like them.
The man finished eating, wiped his mouth with a napkin without setting his phone down. Totally absorbed, his page-swiping gestures suggested a novel.
The woman had a video on—sounded like a shopping live stream.
“I’ve got too much here. Eat some more.” The woman’s eyes briefly left her phone as she pushed the bowl to the man.
He glanced at it—half the noodles left, even the two duck feet intact—then took it up and kept eating. He used her chopsticks from the bowl.
Lovers or couple, obvious.
“The house special Sanxian Meatball Rice Noodles! Enjoy, careful, it’s hot.”
The server’s voice yanked Lou Yixuan’s wandering thoughts back.
“Thanks.”
The rice noodles were cooked in a clay pot but served in other bowls. She nudged the bowl by the rim; it wasn’t too hot to handle.
There were small soup spoons, chopsticks from the sterilizer—not disposables.
On a drizzly day, sipping steaming fresh broth, eating hot rice noodles.
Mouthfuls of savory warmth, body thawing through.
Lin Huayan didn’t eat out often, but she knew which spots had good reps.
After eight years, after all.
Once Lou Yixuan had sipped a spoonful of soup bit by bit, Lin Huayan picked up her spoon and asked: “Taste okay?”
“Delicious.”
After that single “delicious,” silence again.
Lin Huayan really wanted to say: Soup with tomatoes would be even better.
We can try it next time.
Next time, give the tomatoes to me.
But would there be a next time? With Lou Yixuan not wanting to say even one extra word to her, would there be?
“Friday evening, you free?”
Lou Yixuan, midway through her focused noodle-eating, was caught off guard by Lin Huayan speaking.
She wondered if her ears were failing her.
“You free?” wasn’t a line she’d expect from Lin Huayan.
She looked up suspiciously, spoon still holding the broth she’d been about to sip.
Lin Huayan met her eyes once, then quickly looked down, skimming green onions from the broth surface with her spoon: “Treating you all to dinner, like we said end of last month?”
They had said it, but wasn’t that Teacher He talking to Teacher Du?
Lin Huayan hadn’t made a peep then, yet here she was first to follow through. Sun rising in the west.
Friday, end of month.
October 24th—Lin Huayan’s birthday.
Lou Yixuan hadn’t forgotten.
So Lin Huayan wanted to treat them on her birthday? But that didn’t sound like her style at all.
As she thought it over, Lou Yixuan felt her heart ache again.
She hadn’t been in touch with Lin Huayan for eight whole years—hadn’t had any contact at all. Maybe Lin Huayan had changed her old ways and was now happy to gather with friends on birthdays or holidays, sharing tea and drinks.
“Youjian Little Tavern at Boss Xu’s works, or any other place you all want to go—I’ll foot the bill.”
“I don’t have as many classes as you do. Aside from Wednesdays, my evenings are mostly free. Whatever works for Teacher Du, Teacher He, and the others schedule-wise is fine with me.”
Lou Yixuan’s response echoed Lin Huayan’s from last time, almost word for word.
The moment the words left her mouth, she ducked her head and brought the soup spoon to her lips, slurping down a mouthful.
She had just buried her face back into her rice noodles when, across the table, Lin Huayan lifted her eyelids again. “Mm, I’ll check with them and let you know.”
More synchronized than perfect understanding was their game of cat and mouse.
Neither called the other out.
They finished eating unhurriedly. Lin Huayan stood and headed to the register to pay, only for Lou Yixuan to block her.
I’ll treat you. We agreed on it.
Lin Huayan pocketed her phone, which she’d aimed at the QR code, and didn’t argue. Better not to settle the bill right now, anyway.
The tab between her and Lou Yixuan had been murky for eight years already.
The sky had gone fully dark.
The rain had fully stopped.
They grabbed their umbrellas and stepped outside. Lou Yixuan glanced back at the shop and muttered, almost to herself, “The sign says ‘Noodle Shop,’ but the specialty is sandpot rice noodles.”
“Noodles are beef noodles, rice noodles are the Sanxian meatballs we just had.”
“Ah, got it. Thanks for clearing that up, Teacher Lin.”
As they exited, Lin Huayan held her umbrella in her right hand and walked on Lou Yixuan’s right side.
In the space of those few exchanges, Lou Yixuan had unhitched the umbrella she’d hung on her left wrist after paying and hooked it onto her right hand instead. With a subtle shift of her steps, she slipped to Lin Huayan’s right side.
They hadn’t gone more than a few meters before Lin Huayan soundlessly switched her umbrella to her left hand. She dangled it from her wrist and shoved her hand into her pocket.
Noticing the shift beside her, Lou Yixuan suddenly halted. She turned her face slightly toward Lin Huayan, whose hands were both jammed in her pockets.
Her gaze swept over the pocket of Lin Huayan’s trench coat—hand tucked away nice and tight.
That pocket’s got some serious depth.
So she raised her left hand, tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and asked with faint hope, “Teacher Lin, got any gum?”
