Chapter 23: “Love at First Sight – P” Part 2

Per aspera ad astra.

Amid the drifting white haze, the woman turned her gaze, smiling faintly.

“We’ve got some shopping to do later, right?”

“What?” Fu Tingli blurted.

The woman let out a sultry laugh, tilting her head, eyes conveying everything. “You sure you’re old enough?”

Fu Tingli caught on and pursed her lips silently. She snatched the cigarette from between the woman’s fingers.

She inhaled deeply—but her first time smoking went about as well as expected. Even with its mild bite and faint sweetness, she choked hard. Smoke billowed everywhere, blurring the encroaching night.

Evidently delighted by her greenness, the woman burst out laughing, plainly mocking her youthful bravado.

Yet in the next instant, she plucked the cigarette back with surprising gentleness. Amid the cloud Fu Tingli had coughed up, she captured her lips without preamble.

She banished every trace of the acrid smoke from Fu Tingli’s mouth, replacing it with nothing but closeness and inescapable desire.

When they parted, the graduated cigarette had burned to the filter, only a dying ember glowing faintly.

Smiling carelessly, the woman flicked the lighter. Blue flames danced, casting fresh shadows over her lurid wound.

Then she said,

“Get me another pack when you buy smokes. I’ll settle up in Los Angeles.”

~~~

This was their second kiss—not as wildly uninhibited as the first.

But it brimmed with an ineffable tenderness, unfolding in thick, faintly sweet white smoke.

The sweetness from the curling tendrils, the richness from her road-trip companion.

As for the third? That would come amid salty, briny sea air.

Or perhaps it wouldn’t count at all.

After all, didn’t this sort of thing only really count like the one before?

The thought flitted through Fu Tingli’s mind as she gripped the woman’s ankle, her ribs pressing into the crook of her knee.

They were in a seaside town hugging the Pacific, holed up in a motel with an ocean view.

Fu Tingli wasn’t a big spender. Keeping a low profile on the road was road-trip gospel for her. This journey, especially, came from her first summer job savings.

Beyond the card Qiao Lipan had slipped her secretly, she carried minimal cash.

Alone, the room would have suited her fine; she wouldn’t have minded the coziness. But with company, she’d frowned in concern before checking in.

The woman, however, seemed utterly unbothered by square footage or amenities—other priorities evidently mattered more.

Their errand run before the motel had been a slog, especially for smokes and condoms. Over a dozen convenience stores later, they’d scored both.

Cigarettes? Everywhere. Even this obscure brand stood out, with its Latin-emblazoned packs and old-school burn-mark engravings on each stick.

Condoms proved trickier.

They finally struck gold at a dingy, half-dead shop. The green-vested clerk’s eyes darted between them endlessly at checkout.

They lingered on the woman’s facial gash before he jabbed the box’s date, grinning. “It expires tomorrow.”

Fu Tingli eyed the date; her face twisted oddly. It clearly hadn’t.

Unfazed, the clerk shrugged and gestured to counter knickknacks—cheap plastic baubles.

Namely, a baggy holding two lone rings.

The packaging bore Per aspera ad astra, with tiny Latin circling the inner bands. Rough, generic stuff—no exquisite jewelry belonged in a 24-hour bodega like that.

Buy ten packs, get rings free, the clerk explained. The cig maker was circling the drain, so this promo for old fans. If investors revived them, it’d make killer marketing.

Fu Tingli snuck a peek at the woman. She scooped everything into the bag without a care.

Right—she’d nearly forgotten. The woman was still committed to her “bad at English” fugitive act.

Even knowing it was bullshit, Fu Tingli shook her head at the clerk. “Thanks, but we’ll hit Los Angeles tomorrow. Won’t need ten packs.”

Little did she know, California Highway 1—a ten-hour cruise sans stops—would stretch to three days and nights. Not just her meandering pace, but this woman, supposedly hunting someone, sticking along for the ride.

“Take a picture of me.”

The words snapped her from reverie. Moments before, strong fingers had pressed her occiput; the knee she leaned on quivered.

From above came the soft request, tone even, husky with humidity-laced lust—oddly melodic.

Fu Tingli looked up, stunned, a dribble of dim light tracing her lids. How could the woman broach this now?

Spotting the shock in her eyes, the woman merely smiled—lazy, world-weary—fingering Fu Tingli’s golden locks.

“Take a picture of me. Right here.”

She wore Fu Tingli’s baggy T-shirt; her facial wound was freshly cleaned, blood gone, sealed under a higher-Density film.

“Okay.”

Fu Tingli never pried on motives. She simply rose, glanced around blankly, and snatched her phone from the floor.

She tidied up the mess on the floor with obedient care, packing away the nearly expired promotional items. Then she raised her phone, trying to focus in the dim indoor light.

“How do you want me to take it?”

As she spoke, she turned around. The woman had already pushed open the window that had just been closed, propping one hand on the windowsill while holding a cigarette in the other, gazing out at the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

Across the Pacific lay their birthplace, a past they had tacitly agreed not to discuss.

“Any way’s fine.”

The woman casually brushed aside her disheveled hair, a cigarette pinched between her fingers—the last one left from the pack the leather-clad woman had tossed them earlier.

“I’m not great at taking photos.”

Fu Tingli said this as she aimed the phone’s narrow lens at the woman.

In the frame, smoke drifted lazily, and the motel room’s bluish-green light and shadows played across the woman’s features, giving the scene an almost cinematic close-up haze.

It was right to capture this, Fu Tingli thought. Then again, the screen was too small; this woman had a rich beauty suited to a big screen.

In the lens, the woman looked back at her, seemingly unconcerned with the final result.

“No worries. Just shoot however it looks good to you.”

The motel room was dimly lit, making focus tricky. Fu Tingli struggled for a moment before thinking to turn on the light.

“Don’t.” The woman cut in emphatically. “Like this.”

“Fair enough.”

Fu Tingli agreed amiably; she thought the woman looked good no matter what. In the end, she snapped a shot of her leaning against the windowsill.

The first photo came out poorly, all murky darkness, with faint bluish-green light and shadows drifting through it, the endless Pacific stretching beyond.

The woman’s black hair and red lips were half-hidden in the gloomy light, a flicker of fire dancing at her fingertips.

Fu Tingli showed her the photo on the phone. “It didn’t come out great.”

The woman glanced at it perfunctorily without even taking the phone, then shot her a careless look. “Is it me that’s not pretty, or something else?”

Fu Tingli found the exchange amusing and curved her eyes in a smile, teasing on purpose, “Everything else is ugly except you.”

The woman laughed too, leaning lazily against the wall as she patted the empty space on the other side of the windowsill. “Come take a look.”

Fu Tingli walked over and peered out from the windowsill. The vast, brooding Pacific stretched into the distance; she could almost smell the churning waves.

Beside her stood the freshly showered woman, emanating the sweet, cloying scent of bath gel.

It was a common bath gel smell, but Fu Tingli found it especially pleasant. She leaned lazily against the woman’s shoulder.

“Aren’t you hot?” Fu Tingli asked, struck by the thought amid the briny sea breeze.

The hastily booked room had no air conditioning, and it was June in California—one of the hottest months of summer.

The room wasn’t spacious, and without AC, closing the windows made it humid and stuffy. She’d sweated again after her shower, and no doubt the woman had too, which was why she was leaning by the window to catch the breeze.

“It’s bearable.” The woman’s hand gently stroked her hair. She seemed to like Fu Tingli’s hair a lot; she’d been playing with it earlier too.

“But I don’t care for temperatures over thirty-seven degrees,” the woman added offhandedly.

Fu Tingli wrinkled her nose. “So you prefer winter?”

The woman turned her head to glance at her, apparently finding the scrunched-up face unappealing. She reached out and pressed Fu Tingli’s nose, as if trying to smooth it flat—or perhaps it was just a subtle caress.

“Don’t tell me you like summer?”

“Compared to winter, yeah, I prefer summer.” Fu Tingli didn’t hesitate. “I’m pretty sensitive to cold. Back in… back home, I’d get chilblains every winter, and my hands and feet were always freezing no matter what.”

“Maybe because I got frostbitten once as a kid during a harsh winter.” She tried not to delve into too many real details, even though this was her first time traveling with someone like this.

The woman looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “Same here, more or less.”

She turned her gaze to the distant sea, pausing before continuing, “I had a bad experience one scorching summer as a kid. So any time it hits over thirty-seven degrees, I really can’t stand it.”

Fu Tingli got what she meant. “I understand.”

The woman shifted her eyes back to her, her expression inscrutable. “Why aren’t you asking why I fixate on thirty-seven degrees specifically?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Fu Tingli smiled faintly.

She raised her hand slightly, her fingertip brushing the skin beneath the woman’s neck—fine beads of sweat glistening like fallen scales in the light.

“The important thing is, it might be over thirty-seven degrees right now,” she said.

The woman spread her hands. “Or maybe it isn’t.”

Her tone was utterly indifferent. “Besides, even if it is, what then?”

“Wait here a sec.” Fu Tingli turned and hurried out the door.

She had no idea what the woman she left behind said or did next, or how long that gaze lingered on her retreating back.

She just dashed back to that nearly shuttered convenience store. The clerk looked surprised—”Used it up that fast already?”—but Fu Tingli ignored him.

Instead, she rummaged frantically through the jumbled shelves, straining her eyes until she found what she wanted.

She paid calmly in front of the baffled clerk.

Then, under his watchful eye, she grabbed her purchase and ran back, sea breeze from the Pacific whipping at her as she panted through the humid, sultry summer night streets to the motel room.

The woman was crushing out her cigarette; the dying ember showed it had burned to the filter.

Seeing Fu Tingli return drenched in sweat, she raised an eyebrow in mild surprise.

“What’d you go off for?”

Fu Tingli caught her breath—no time for water. She just pulled her hand from her pocket.

She extended her left hand: the thermometer she’d just bought at the store.

“If it’s under thirty-seven degrees, great—all good, off to bed.”

The woman’s motion paused as she stared at Fu Tingli, her expression hazy.

She fixed on the thermometer until it read 35.3 degrees, then exhaled in relief.

“Under, so you should sleep well.”

But the woman ignored the number, eyes only on her. “You went through all that trouble just to buy a thermometer?”

Fu Tingli nodded honestly. “I hate ambiguity. If you hate it, you’ll toss and turn, get irritated.

Plus, if I had to sleep in a freezing room, I’d be miserable too.”

She never pried why the woman latched onto thirty-seven degrees, nor did she doubt that human senses could detect such a precise room temperature shift.

But drawing from her own feelings, if it stemmed from a childhood ordeal, it must have been worse than she imagined to etch “thirty-seven degrees” into her very soul.

The woman nodded, accepting her reasoning. Then she asked, “And if it was over?”

Fu Tingli’s right hand had stayed in her pocket the whole time, the edge of the card digging into her palm.

It was the card Qiao Lipan had secretly slipped into her pocket. She’d clutched it the entire way. Now she let go; her hand was sweaty and sticky.

She shook her head. “Haven’t thought that far.”