“Is it really snowing?”
Her heavy eyelids suddenly felt something cool land on them, slowly seeping through the thin layer of skin to tingle her sensitive nerve endings.
Fu Tingli mumbled the words in a daze.
A laugh came from beside her, wrapped in dense body heat—like a soothing, languid sea that enveloped her unhurriedly.
She struggled to open her eyes.
It wasn’t snow, after all. Right—they’d just been out in the wilds of California. What she’d been imagining was the fake snow that Zhu Muzi and Amanda had bought, those white flakes spraying out.
How could it snow in a California summer?
Fu Tingli came back to herself a little. The dampness on her eyelids was somewhat sticky, clouding most of her vision and turning everything blurry and hazy.
Then it gently slid away from her eyelids, making her lashes tremble faintly.
It was cool, yet it felt like a slender fuse, leaving behind traces of intense burning wherever it touched.
Fu Tingli felt an itch.
Before her hazy vision could focus, her hand lifted lazily, trying to capture that fuse in her palm.
But the fuse was too slippery; she couldn’t catch it.
So in her muddled state, her hand followed its path, chasing after it.
Dim yellow light and shadows flowed through the room, tinged with a listless blue—like a watered-down psychedelic painting projected on the ceiling.
When her gaze settled on the woman lying on her side beside her, her vision finally sharpened.
It focused slowly on the woman’s waist, right at the spot of that vivid red flying bird tattoo.
Strands of black hair covered part of it, the damp tips curling slightly where they brushed against the vibrant red bird.
Under the light, it even took on a hint of grape-purple in the red tones.
The skin at her waist was exquisitely smooth and unfairly pale, contrasting with the wet black hair and making the bold, intense red flying bird seem all the more gorgeously bewitching.
As if it might take flight at any moment, beautiful in a way that evoked a desperate flight into the unknown.
“Are you sober now?” The woman lit a cigarette, the flame flickering faintly.
Fu Tingli stared dazedly at the woman’s waist and back.
So that damp fuse had been the woman’s hair tip.
Was that the thread leading the red flying bird?
Maybe the alcohol had hit her too hard. She’d only had a sip or two, and already her thoughts were drifting to the ends of the earth.
Seeing no response for a long time, the woman turned her head slightly, lifting an eyelid to look at her with some surprise.
“Does the alcohol allergy really hit that hard?”
“No, just a bit dizzy. I can’t remember things.” Fu Tingli snapped back and leaned in closer, eyeing the cigarette between the woman’s fingers.
The woman laughed heartily and extended it naturally.
Fu Tingli leaned forward and took a drag, coughing out all the smoke that had scorched her lungs. She seemed hooked on the sensation already—a little painful, but intensely so.
Perfect as a marker for this trip, she thought. From now on, whenever she smoked this brand, she’d recall this brief, stunning journey.
Would she think of this woman, too?
“You don’t even remember what just happened?” The woman’s voice was clear yet lazy, cutting through her thoughts.
“Of course I do.”
How could she forget something like that? The end of this explosive night couldn’t possibly be mundane.
She remembered arriving at the hotel, the air carrying a faint citrus freshener scent. She remembered being pinned against the wall by the woman, her hands raised high and pressed there as they kissed wildly. She remembered the feel of the woman’s legs wrapping around her waist.
The citrus note in the air had faded by then.
But with just one more breath, it was as if the woman’s intense, lingering kiss still lingered in her lungs.
Fu Tingli’s buzz hadn’t fully worn off. She rested her chin on the woman’s arm, studying the red flying bird.
“When did you get this little bird tattooed?”
The woman chuckled, probably at the eager lift in her voice when she said “little bird.”
After her laughter subsided, she exhaled a plume of white smoke and answered slowly, “Not long ago.”
“Just recently?” Fu Tingli was a bit surprised.
“Yeah, I saw it a while back and thought it looked good, so I got it.”
Fu Tingli nodded; it fit this woman’s logic perfectly. If she did things by the book, she never would have flagged down Fu Tingli’s car in the first place.
“It really is pretty, this little bird.”
Her finger lightly traced the red bird’s wing, following some of the looser lines.
The woman lowered her lashes and gently stroked Fu Tingli’s golden hair, lost in thought.
Fu Tingli studied those lines for a good while before something clicked in her mind.
Then she suddenly remembered something else. She threw on a T-shirt haphazardly and padded barefoot onto the carpet.
“What’s up?” The woman watched her rummaging through the luggage.
“Putting medicine on your foot.”
Those Martin boots hadn’t fit quite right, and after two days on the road, the woman’s ankles were rubbed raw and red.
She somewhat regretted buying those Martin boots.
But the woman didn’t care and wouldn’t let her buy a new pair. She just kept wearing them everywhere.
Fu Tingli knew the woman would claim she wasn’t afraid of pain.
Still, she’d bought the ointment. Every time they stopped or finished making love, catching sight of the woman’s chafed ankles made her worry.
Was this guilt? Pondering that, she dug through her bag for the ointment she’d bought yesterday.
Her fingers brushed an icy chain in her jacket pocket—it was the necklace.
She paused for a second.
Resisting the urge to peek at it, she just grabbed the ointment and left the necklace where it was.
Turning around, she met the woman’s gaze fixed on her.
She was glad she’d held back, not letting idle curiosity break their rules.
She unscrewed the ointment and sat cross-legged on the floor casually, taking the woman’s foot in her hands. In the blue-yellow light and shadows, she applied it.
Smoke wafted through the air as the woman gazed down at her, black hair falling loose.
“You’re really that bothered by it?”
“Aren’t you the one who’s completely unbothered?” Fu Tingli’s head was still spinning a little, but she replied good-naturedly. “I know you’re not afraid of pain, but if it keeps up, it’ll get infected and pus up. Then it won’t look good anymore.”
“Just because it wouldn’t look good?” The woman’s voice drifted down from above, lazily teasing.
“Something like that.” Fu Tingli didn’t overthink it and answered honestly. “I really like pretty things, so I want them to stay pretty.”
The woman fell silent for a long moment, saying nothing.
When Fu Tingli finished applying the ointment and looked up, she found the woman staring at her, deep in thought.
As Fu Tingli raised her head, the woman slowly extinguished the cigarette—its length fully burned—and let out a soft, ambiguous laugh.
Then she gently lifted Fu Tingli’s chin and kissed her again. In the brief space between breaths, she murmured lightly, “Then you and I are total opposites.”
Total opposites? Did that mean the woman didn’t like pretty things at all? Or that she did, and took pleasure in destroying them at their peak?
Fu Tingli thought this because she’d encountered people like that before—ones who were crazily obsessed with it.
She couldn’t accept or condone those lunatics who saw destroying life as entertainment.
But was this woman one of them?
She didn’t think so.
Because this woman’s loves and hates were too ambiguous. She seemed indifferent to herself, to anyone in the world.
Her understanding of this woman was like a computer stuck on a blue screen at initialization.
It looked busy spinning, but the progress bar never budged.
Yet from the very first moment, the instant she’d looked into those eyes, Fu Tingli had felt this woman absolutely wasn’t bad.
As she drifted off into a hazy sleep, Fu Tingli mulled this over, chiding herself for being overly naive—but stubbornly clinging to the belief anyway.
If she were bad, why had she held Fu Tingli’s hand and run with her through those streets?
No matter what, Fu Tingli only trusted the reality she’d witnessed with her own eyes.
When she woke again, the sky was dimly lit. Fu Tingli was a good sleeper; a few hours were enough to leave her refreshed.
But she had a bad habit of lingering in bed.
Even after waking, she’d squeeze her eyes shut for a bit longer. In that drowsy state, light from the horizon washed over her face.
Cool fingers slowly brushed the stray hairs from her forehead, one stroke at a time, carrying some intense emotion she couldn’t quite sense but felt profoundly anyway.
The woman was stroking her hair again. She was so fond of Fu Tingli’s golden locks? Fu Tingli even considered asking, Why not dye your own?
But she thought better of it and found the idea silly.
Maybe it was just a habitual gesture, nothing more—no hidden feelings.
Her mind wandered in a jumble.
Then she heard an extremely faint sigh, followed by an even lighter kiss.
Not on the lips, but on her eyes.
Or maybe it wasn’t a kiss at all—just the barest touch.
Fu Tingli was surprised.
Because in these past few days, there’d never been such a simple, yet utterly unusual gesture between them.
Kissing her eyes?
But before she could dwell on it, she vaguely heard the woman shift away slightly, as if gazing at her—or perhaps at something else.
It was a good while before the woman softly let fall a single sentence.
“Day three.”
~~~
This morning marked Nicole’s first time taking part in a fashion show.
Though it was merely a small town’s celebratory event, for Nicole it was a rare, hard-won chance to appear publicly as a special invited model.
Fu Tingli and the woman hurriedly got ready and rushed to the venue.
After a night of raucous festivities, the town felt unusually serene in the early light.
The streets had been swept clean of holiday debris, leaving the roads bright and open, carrying a faint chill amid the lingering sticky heat.
Few people had come to see the fashion show. To guard against those blond thugs causing trouble like they had the night before, they had coordinated with the organizers to ensure Nicole’s safety. For now, no one suspicious lurked around the site.
Fu Tingli breathed a sigh of relief.
“Take a picture of me,” the woman said suddenly.
“Sure thing.” Fu Tingli was used to the request by now.
After checking with the staff whether photos were allowed, she pulled out her phone and opened the camera.
The phone screen shifted from the empty stage to the milling crowd.
Then it settled on a casually unbuttoned American plaid shirt, drifting to the neckline of the woman’s white T-shirt and the smooth, pale skin of her collarbone.
“Why’d you stop lifting it higher?”
A stray lock of black hair had fallen into the top of the frame, swaying lazily before the lens.
“This looks good.”
Fu Tingli bent down a little, wrinkling her nose as she angled for the shot, snapping the first one just like that.
The woman must have noticed her awkward pose; she laughed, and the sound filtered into the lens.
When the laughter faded, a pale hand entered the frame, gently tucking the loose strand behind the woman’s ear.
It was Fu Tingli’s hand.
“Your hair’s a mess,” she explained with a grin from behind the phone.
“You’re awfully chipper this early,” the woman remarked casually.
“The weather’s perfect today!”
With that, Fu Tingli raised her phone toward the reddish edge of the sunrise, giving it a little shake. The light halo bloomed outward.
