Fu Tingli thought of the ear muffs as a gift from someone else. By the time she reached the iron gate at the bottom of the building, she had already climbed two steps up the stairs.
She turned back to remind her,
“It’s just a loan—you have to give it back. Regifting someone else’s present isn’t polite.”
Kong Liyuan stood at the base of the stairs, gazing up at her with a smile under the dim yellow light. She made it seem as if Fu Tingli were the one being unreasonable.
“It looks like you’re not planning to invite me up?”
The motion-sensor light at the base of the building seemed to be broken. Fu Tingli stomped her feet twice on the steps, but nothing happened. She gave up with a sigh and pointed at the patch of darkness overhead.
“The motion-sensor light here is busted, and so is the one on my floor. What’s the point of you following me up six flights in the pitch black while I fumble for my keys?”
The apartment building where she lived was an old-style complex, with outdated facilities. A short overhang extended from the gate below, which didn’t do much to shield from wind or rain on ordinary days.
But right now, it created a stark contrast of light and shadow, ruthlessly dividing the world into two separate realms.
All because of two lights.
The streetlamp still glowed reasonably bright over Kong Liyuan, while the cheap motion-sensor light under the overhang left Fu Tingli in the dark.
Fu Tingli had always thought of herself as fairly open and resilient. Even in tough spots, she held her head high and never let herself look defeated in front of anyone.
Yet these two lights alone made it suddenly unbearable. How could she stand it if Kong Liyuan actually came up to her tiny twenty-square-meter rental?
“Then I won’t go up.”
After a long pause, Kong Liyuan replied. But she stayed rooted at the bottom of the steps, staring straight up at her with calm intensity.
“Go on up and turn the light on yourself. I’m worried you’ll slip in those slippers climbing in the dark with no one to call an ambulance for you. At least this way, I’ll have a signal.”
Fu Tingli’s hand paused on her keys. This woman always knew exactly how to make her grit her teeth in frustration.
“Ambulances are too expensive. I can’t afford one.”
“Perfect.” Kong Liyuan offered a casual, indifferent smile. “I have a car.”
Fu Tingli felt her retort catch in her throat. Just as she was about to fire back, she caught a faint sigh—so subtle it was almost imaginary.
It was as if all the microscopic dust particles on the verge of exploding in the air had been drawn together in an instant, condensing into a swirling mass of rain clouds before being swept away by a sudden downpour.
Kong Liyuan’s voice lingered like the unyielding clouds that even the rain couldn’t disperse.
“Hurry up and go. I’ll leave once I see your light turn on.”
If she was a cloud, she was an unreasonable one—drifting aimlessly, untouched by anything that mattered.
Fu Tingli turned her back on that cloud.
She finally fished out her keys and unlocked the gate. Her fingers brushed the cold iron, and it felt like touching the chill of her rental apartment itself. Then she remembered something.
“Teacher Kong, how about we call it even with that hamburger combo meal for today?”
“I’m not great at ripping people off. Getting a hundred back for throwing one away feels too good to be true.”
Standing there in the darkness, she muttered to herself with her back to Kong Liyuan. She had no idea what expression was on Kong Liyuan’s face or how she might react.
Kong Liyuan didn’t respond.
Just when Fu Tingli thought there would be no answer, Kong Liyuan spoke up.
“We’ll talk about it later. Return the ear muffs tomorrow.”
The words were so indistinct they blurred together, two sentences fused into one.
Fu Tingli couldn’t tell which part was actually her answer.
But she climbed the six flights in the dark, wrestled with the door handle that needed to be turned backward first before it spun freely, and finally opened the door to her rental.
Her first act was to flick on the light.
She had always been sensitive to lighting. From childhood, she demanded bright rooms; dim environments made everything feel lifeless and oppressive. She insisted that everything around her in daily life stay vibrant.
When she first moved into the rental, her initial purchase—after fumbling through an online shopping app she wasn’t adept at—was a thirty-watt light bulb for thirteen yuan.
So even though her place was cramped and tiny, cold and empty, with thin walls that let in every noise, noisy neighbors, and outdated fixtures…
She was grateful for the thirty-watt bulb glowing overhead.
It made everything feel a little more bearable.
This light only reached twenty square meters, but at least she stood beneath it, glancing down at the scene below.
The narrow alley looked desolate in the night. With her numb fingers, she pried open the window. The dim streetlamp stretched the shadow of the woman downstairs into a long silhouette.
The woman had already turned and was walking toward the alley mouth. From Fu Tingli’s vantage point upstairs looking out, it resembled a slow-advancing long shot tracking the woman’s steps.
Yellowish-green light and shadows intertwined. Parked in the long alley were an old motorcycle abandoned by its former owner and a bicycle with its chain fallen off, battered by wind and rain.
At the alley mouth stood a pure white car, its interior warm and inviting, its sleek lines elegant—like a cloud paused just outside the narrow entrance.
The inside of the alley and the outside formed a paradox.
One that even the thirty-watt bulb couldn’t illuminate. Fu Tingli wished her eyesight weren’t quite so sharp.
She closed the window and glanced at the distant glittering cityscape across the way. She heated a basin of hot water to wash her face and soak her feet. As the warmth seeped into her soles, she felt better again.
Sure enough, the weather had the biggest impact on her mood.
She reached into the pockets of her coat and felt a crumpled sheet of glossy paper.
She knew what it was.
Her freshly warmed fingers were still a bit clumsy as she pulled it out. It was a sticker.
A half-body portrait of Kong Liyuan—Kong Liyuan skiing.
Before Kong Liyuan had tossed her hamburger combo meal, Fu Tingli had torn the wrapper poorly and accidentally peeled off this sticker. Not wanting to get up to throw it away at the time, she’d pocketed it, planning to ditch it at the next trash bin.
But after seeing Kong Liyuan confront a trash can full of the same stickers…
She could no longer bring herself to toss this one.
Time to throw it out now, right?
She thought so, but realized the trash bin was by the window—out of reach while she was soaking her feet and couldn’t easily move.
So she smoothed out the wrinkled sticker and placed it casually on the table edge.
That’s when she noticed the flying bird sculpture, the necklace, and the gloves already sitting there.
The thirty-watt bulb flickered once, like it was squinting, roughly calculating for her:
In this twenty-square-meter space, fully one-fiftieth of the area didn’t belong to her.
It belonged to the world outside the alley.
~~~
Filming had settled into a steady rhythm, with the sculpture scenes slotted into the daily schedule.
Fu Tingli stayed on set every day, ready at a moment’s notice.
As Li Weili had said, this job wasn’t pure busywork, but it was hardly something anyone in the industry respected.
There were two reasons.
First, it wasn’t really “consulting”—just keeping watch, pointing out issues when they arose, pitching in on tasks, and clocking out if nothing needed doing. The pay was modest at best: 150 yuan a day, barely a drop in the bucket in Shanghai.
Second, the female lead was genuinely skilled. She had no trouble with the sculpture techniques, and she handled all the required close-ups of her hands herself, leaving no chance for Fu Tingli, the hand double stand-in, to step in.
She only dealt with minor details.
For instance, during the clay sculpting scenes, the clay couldn’t be too soft or too hard. The props team had added too much water at first, making it look too pliable on camera and missing the desired effect.
Fu Tingli adjusted it hands-on. Then, with clay still caked on her fingers, she checked the monitor for Kong Liyuan.
Actors were magical creatures. No matter their off-camera personality, once in front of the lens, they became the character—potentially someone entirely opposite to themselves.
Kong Liyuan was a prime example.
As soon as the take wrapped, she dropped the stubborn, arrogant expression from the scene and smiled warmly at her scene partner.
“Good work.”
At moments like this, Kong Liyuan showed none of that vague, distant air.
She was magnanimous and sincere, kind to everyone.
She addressed everyone in the crew respectfully as “teacher,” bought coffee for the gaffers on cold days, and politely excused herself from smoky areas because she “couldn’t stand the smell.”
Fu Tingli had learned from others that the Kong Liyuan they knew was always even-tempered and polite, with no temper to speak of—and indeed, she didn’t smoke and disliked the smell.
But Kong Liyuan clearly did smoke.
Back in California, she would maliciously blow long, reckless streams of white smoke right into Fu Tingli’s face. She’d drag her oversized Martin boots along the highway, stretch her arms out laughing in the open-top car, gently grip Fu Tingli’s fragile neck, then prop herself on one elbow to watch her gasp for air until she couldn’t take it anymore. Only then would she kiss her, passing breath to her magnanimously until Fu Tingli’s eyes grew wet.
In Shanghai, she alone would toss Fu Tingli’s hamburger away, lean against the car puffing a cheap red wine burst-bead cigarette, smile at her through the haze, and say,
“Your hair’s a mess.”
This woman was a contradictory, insane polyhedron—always hazy and remote.
Impossible to discern which face was real and which was fake.
Fu Tingli looked away.
She turned and left, washed her hands, then returned to log the day’s shooting notes on her phone—even though Wen Yingxiu hadn’t asked for them.
It was work, after all. She compiled a daily document on the sculpture-related shots and sent it for review.
The film set bustled with people crisscrossing every which way. Fu Tingli must have been too focused on sorting her documents while walking with her head down, because she didn’t notice the woman approaching head-on—or even hear her footsteps before she stopped right in front of her.
Her lowered head bumped straight into the woman’s chest.
Fu Tingli hadn’t hurt herself and hadn’t yet lifted her gaze when the woman above her let out a muffled grunt.
She looked up in a fluster. The sun overhead was a bit blinding, so her eyes could only settle on the woman’s lower face.
There were lips neither too full nor too thin, with elegant lines that somehow drew the eye like a magnet.
Their owner steadied her with gentle hands.
Then she leaned down, her gaze meeting Fu Tingli’s amid a sigh so close yet hazy,
“Are you sleepwalking, Teacher Fu?”
It was like a slow-motion shot softening at the edges under a lens flare as the woman slipped the ear muffs gently over her ears.
Her fingers grazed Fu Tingli’s ear, brushing her hair with the lightest touch,
“Watch where you’re going next time.”
Just then, amid the clamor, someone called out, “Teacher Kong, the director’s asking for you.” Fu Tingli finally snapped back to reality. She took a cautious step back and smiled.
“Thank you, Teacher Kong.”
Kong Liyuan held her gaze for a moment before acknowledging the shout. She flashed a leisurely smile and turned toward the director.
Fu Tingli exhaled slowly. A gust of wind swept through, loosening a few strands from the casual updo at the back of her head. They fluttered against her earlobe, where the skin still seemed to hold the warmth of the woman’s fingertips—an itch, a heat that tingled.
Like California’s carefree breeze, sweeping whimsically through Shanghai in that one instant.
Under the glow of a thirty-watt set light, it pierced the fragile membrane of her sealed little world in one tiny spot—one-fiftieth of her awareness—releasing something scorching and insistent that swelled to the surface.
It surged between them, battering her exquisitely sensitive nerves.
And so, when Fu Tingli looked up once more at the woman smiling with such tender warmth,
She suddenly wanted desperately to ask:
Kong Liyuan, is that Red Flying Bird that once lingered at your waist still there?
