Chapter 22: “Panicked Pulse” Part 2

Fu Tingli stared at the glowing ember of the cigarette, struck by a sudden urge to take a drag. But what came out of her mouth was:

“What did I forget?”

She even wanted to blurt out, heedless of everything, that in all her days, those three had been the most unforgettably vivid.

But in the end, she held back.

Kong Liyuan didn’t press further. She just watched her through the drifting smoke, as if determined to wear down every last bit of her pretense.

Fu Tingli parted her lips. In the end, she managed only a strained smile. She meant to say she was leaving, but then she saw Kong Liyuan’s expression shift subtly.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, puzzled.

She could tell something was off with Kong Liyuan’s face. This woman never truly smiled when she did, and her blank expressions weren’t truly blank.

Contradictory and inscrutable, like an enigmatic shell—nothing she revealed could be taken at face value.

Yet Fu Tingli had somehow learned to detect the subtle differences, to grasp that sliver of truth amid the illusion.

Kong Liyuan’s brows furrowed slightly. The fingers holding the cigarette trembled faintly, as if she were enduring something.

“What’s wrong? What’s going on?” Fu Tingli grew frantic, watching water droplets slide from Kong Liyuan’s lashes as she fought it. She nearly jumped to her feet.

But she didn’t dare touch her rashly, afraid of making it worse by brushing the wrong spot.

Kong Liyuan drew in a slow breath, her lips pressed into a thin line. The natural flush of her mouth had faded to pale.

“You’re like this and still holding out!” Fu Tingli huffed, wrinkling her nose in dissatisfaction.

Kong Liyuan’s face looked awful, but after enduring for a moment longer, she finally murmured,

“It’s a cramp.”

Fu Tingli reacted instantly. “Hand or leg? Left or right?”

“Right leg,” Kong Liyuan whispered softly.

Without pausing to dissect the tone, Fu Tingli squatted down, straightened her own legs, tossed her towel on the floor as padding, and said,

“Sit against the wall first then. Don’t just stand there toughing it out.”

Politeness could wait. She lifted Kong Liyuan’s right leg onto her own lap, pressed down, and massaged in the opposite direction.

Warm air cascaded down in a rush. Fu Tingli pressed hard for a while, feeling sweat bead on her forehead—whether from the effort or the worry, she wasn’t sure.

As she gripped Kong Liyuan’s ankle again, she didn’t overthink it. She just focused on easing the cramp.

But Kong Liyuan seemed to notice something. She shivered almost imperceptibly.

Fu Tingli followed suit, suddenly aware. One hand held the ankle, the other massaged the foot.

Her fingers registered the delicate texture of the skin, like a jolt of electricity.

Both hands jerked away in panic. Seeing Kong Liyuan’s brows crease again, Fu Tingli resumed the massage, licked her dry lips, and offered a stiff explanation.

“You might need to massage it for a minute or two, or it’ll cramp up again after just a couple steps.”

“Isn’t it dirty?” Kong Liyuan asked.

Only then did Fu Tingli realize they were both sitting on the floor, backs to opposite walls in the hallway—disheveled, yet more relaxed than before.

She glanced down at the water stains smeared on her pants and smiled indifferently.

“Dirty? It’s your own clothes and pants anyway.”

Kong Liyuan fell silent.

Then Fu Tingli remembered something else. “Do you get cramps often after swimming?”

Kong Liyuan’s earlier reaction had seemed too practiced, like she was used to powering through them.

“Not really,” Kong Liyuan said. “Just occasionally.”

Fu Tingli looked up at her expression and nodded her chin. “You swam too long, and you didn’t change for ages after. The temperature shift is what triggers it.”

Kong Liyuan tilted her chin up slightly—perhaps in acknowledgment, or maybe she wasn’t listening at all.

“Is that so? My swim coach never mentioned it.”

How could she not? Fu Tingli thought oddly. She recalled how Kong Liyuan hadn’t even known how to swim back in their California days, yet now she pushed herself to the point of cramps.

“You’re not a repeat offender, are you?”

Fu Tingli joked, trying to distract her from the pain.

“Do you always swim until your legs cramp before you stop?”

Kong Liyuan gazed at her and smiled too, though it carried a lazy weariness, as if just playing along.

“Is that bad?” Kong Liyuan asked.

The leg resting on hers shifted casually—perhaps on purpose—brushing against her thigh.

It brought a faint, teasing itch. Fu Tingli’s throat tickled inexplicably, and she coughed once. But the more she coughed, the worse it itched.

After a few coughs, she heard Kong Liyuan say, “Sometimes don’t you need that extreme edge to make it worthwhile?”

“Wow, Teacher Kong really goes all out, even for a swim.” The restless leg kept her from parsing the words or discerning their sincerity.

She paused, then added,

“But still, Teacher Kong, you should be more careful. Pushing to extremes isn’t always good. Don’t treat your body so carelessly.”

Kong Liyuan smiled faintly. “Got it.”

Fu Tingli wasn’t sure if she truly had.

She released Kong Liyuan’s leg, drenched in sweat herself. Her heart and lungs felt overheated and restless.

“Better now?” she asked.

“Should be,” Kong Liyuan replied offhandedly, clearly unconcerned.

Yet she didn’t draw her leg back. It stayed draped over Fu Tingli’s knee—a startling flash of white. Fu Tingli stared at it in silence.

Neither spoke again.

The hallway light dimmed after that, leaving only the glow from the open changing room spilling across their profiles, threading through the air between them.

It felt on the verge of melting, leaving neither willing to break the silence first.

They remained seated on the floor, facing each other, legs crossed, bodies close. It evoked a memory of some California room, both of them lying back slick with sweat, legs sprawled every which way, wind blowing in from the Pacific.

Fu Tingli banished the stray thought. She curled her fingers, trying subtly to shift Kong Liyuan’s leg away.

But Kong Liyuan seemed to see right through her, giving a light, ambiguous kick.

“You forgot to answer my question.”

So that was the “forgotten” thing. The hallway light flickered on again. Fu Tingli met Kong Liyuan’s deep gaze and knew she couldn’t dodge it.

They weren’t in so deep yet—at least, not to the point of holding back words.

She sighed.

Seeing the cigarette nearly burned to Kong Liyuan’s fingertips, she didn’t shy away. Instead, she leaned in familiarly.

That tiny ember glowed in her light brown irises, flickering like a stubborn, scattering flame on the brink of dying out.

Kong Liyuan understood what she meant and let out a lazy chuckle. It wasn’t clear whether she was mocking Fu Tingli for overreaching herself—clearly unable to handle cigarettes yet still leaning in anyway. Still, she indulged her, offering the cigarette pinched between her fingertips right to Fu Tingli’s lips.

Fu Tingli took a drag from the filter mouth where Kong Liyuan had just smoked. The familiar taste shot straight into her lungs, choking her in a messy cough.

Amid the swirling haze of smoke, she suddenly remembered something—four whole years later, was this brand still in production? Hadn’t the company gone under?

She coughed a few more times, well aware this was always the outcome when she tried smoking, so she didn’t press on.

Leaning against the wall, in no rush to stand, she fixed her gaze on Kong Liyuan. This angle wasn’t anything new to her.

She’d always loved watching like this in silence. Under the pale moonlight, in the vivid glow of sunset, beneath the dim yellow lamplight, even on the tiny glow of a phone screen—she loved it all, watching Kong Liyuan’s nose nuzzle into her collarbone, Kong Liyuan sprawled supine across her waist, occasionally lifting her eyes with tenderness pooling in their depths.

Just like right now, with light and shadow drifting lazily across her. Kong Liyuan’s black hair was damp, her features deep and striking, clad in a vivid slash of red swimsuit.

Beautiful and decadent, like something out of the late twentieth century.

“Teacher Kong, are you going to pay me?”

Fu Tingli’s lowered lashes trembled faintly. After mulling it over, it was the only question she could muster.

Kong Liyuan’s fingertips paused for a split second. But she didn’t stop, seemingly finding the question amusing. She drew deeply on her cigarette and exhaled a slow plume of white mist.

“Do you want me to give it to you, or not?”

“If you do, it hurts my feelings,” Fu Tingli said. “If you don’t, it’s too predictable.”

“Giving money is predictable too,” Kong Liyuan replied coolly.

The unexpected retort made Fu Tingli burst out laughing, doubling over as her eyes crinkled into happy slits. When the laughter finally subsided, she let out a languid sigh.

“You’re so stingy… but you’re right, Teacher Kong.”

“So?”

“It’s no good, and it won’t work,” Fu Tingli said frankly. “You’re this huge female celebrity, with fans who love and adore you, holding you up like a star in the heavens.

I’m just a lowly crew hand, same orientation as you, and I’ve got nothing else going for me. If anyone found out, I’d end up heartbroken anyway.”

“Since I’m doomed to heartbreak either way, better to drop it.”

That was the conclusion she’d reached after that earth-shattering coughing fit.

Kong Liyuan showed no surprise, as if she’d anticipated it. After a brief silence, amid the drifting play of light and shadow, she nodded slowly.

Then she melted back into the dim glow, exhaled her final puff, and ground out the butt with deliberate force.

A faint rustle filled the air, and the single spark that could have set the room ablaze flickered out. Even after it died, the rustling persisted.

“Let me rephrase, then.”

The warm draft scattered the lingering smoke. Kong Liyuan leaned back against the pristine white wall, a smile curving her lips, her features sharpening into even clearer focus as she regarded Fu Tingli.

That vivid red drew the eye, pulling one under.

“Are you willing to be with me?”

Fu Tingli froze, words catching in her throat.

To do it or not, willing or not—it sounded like two different things, but they might be one and the same.

She couldn’t quite grasp the distinction. In the end, she shook her head gently, pushing aside the dull ache in her chest.

“After thinking it over, let’s just forget it, Teacher Kong,” Fu Tingli said, deciding to lay her cards on the table. “I’m not the type who can easily separate love from sex.”

With that out in the open, she saw no point in saying more.

She planned to pull away from Kong Liyuan, stand up, and walk out of this spacious, brightly lit house.

Back to her twenty-square-meter rental, and best of all, banish that glaring one-fiftieth sliver of space from her mind.

After all the day’s chaos, exhaustion weighed on her. She just wanted to zone out in her own little corner of the world.

But before she could rise—

A smooth touch encircled her wrist, the grip firm enough to hold her fast.

It was Kong Liyuan who’d seized her.

Fu Tingli whipped her head around in shock. The corridor’s motion-sensor light flicked on abruptly. Kong Liyuan clutched her wrist, her face half-veiled by damp black hair, her expression shrouded in shadow.

“What do you mean…?”

Kong Liyuan lifted her gaze, eyes like bottomless voids swirling with unreadable emotion—like that morning in the car when she’d woken and murmured, “Your hair’s a mess.”

Now, the seeping light frayed at the edges, their locked stares smoldering like embers on the verge of flame.

Kong Liyuan watched her with that same intensity.

Her fingers brushed the pulse point at Fu Tingli’s wrist, where her heartbeat quickened steadily. Amid that frantic, alarming rhythm, Kong Liyuan’s soft voice cut through.

“Back in California… were you in love with me?”