Chapter 5: “Pear by the Waterside”

“Give me thirty million, and I guarantee I won’t breathe a word about that summer in California. I’ll delete every single photo you left behind, clean as a whistle.”

—If Fu Tingli were truly shameless enough, given her current situation, she might actually say something like that.

But she wasn’t the type to cling like a shameless stalker. Not unless she really had no shame left.

Brushing aside that messy thought, she realized: she was sitting in a car with this woman again.

A pure black G-Class, understated and silent… As Kong Liyuan drove it slowly forward, it seemed to foster a wild, absurd emotion—or perhaps just desolation.

Kong Liyuan was driving her home.

Damp rain threads clung to the windshield like misty velvet, building a thick fog that blurred the yellowish-green headlights outside into soft, hypnotic halos.

“Fu Tingli.”

The three words came out calm and unhurried, blended into the rhythmic swish of the wipers.

Fu Tingli didn’t react at first.

Not until the wipers cleared the glass and the city’s dawn landscape sharpened into focus all at once.

She snapped back to attention, her gaze shifting from the steadily sweeping wipers to the woman beside her.

Kong Liyuan was driving, her profile half-hidden in the yellowish light and shadow from outside, her neck so pale it was nearly translucent, faint blue veins visible beneath the skin.

It was as if she hadn’t called out at all.

Fu Tingli casually looked away, resting her head against the car window. The car turned a corner, and the yellowish-green lights slowly washed over her body, then across to Kong Liyuan’s wrist on the steering wheel.

Kong Liyuan shifted her hand slightly, letting it slip back into the shadows.

“‘Pear by the waterside’—is that a good omen?”

This time, Fu Tingli heard clearly. Kong Liyuan’s voice sounded a bit lazy, prompting her to wonder what this woman was doing pulling into the garage at this hour.

“Pear trees thrive near water,” Fu Tingli explained after a moment’s thought. “My mom craved pears when she was pregnant with me. She said she named me Tingli hoping I’d live a life full of abundance and joy, free from sickness or pain, safe from disaster all my days.”

They hit a red light just then, and Kong Liyuan brought the car to a smooth stop. The wipers hurried across the sticky rain, and her fingers tapped the steering wheel a few times before she said,

“That’s a good name.”

“Teacher Kong’s name is nice too.” Fu Tingli tapped the car window glass casually; it was soaked like an unbreakable film.

“If it weren’t raining, you’d probably see little birds flying overhead if you looked up right now.”

She always liked to add little flourishes when she spoke. Others said “flying birds,” but she insisted on “little birds.”

As if saying it that way made the birds soaring over her head lighter and more graceful than any others.

Outside, the sky was a murky gray, veiled in fog. The car fell quiet for a moment as the light turned green. Kong Liyuan paused for two seconds, then let out a lazy chuckle.

She smiled often enough, but even a casual smile like this one had the power to captivate, to demand a sacrifice—however insignificant.

The car started up again amid the rain mist. Fu Tingli heard the laugh and turned slowly to look, catching a faint, elusive whiff of smoke at her nose.

Smoke? No way.

She dismissed it as her sense of smell, dulled by a bad cold.

Kong Liyuan glanced at her, her left hand hovering over the door button for a second before pulling back to the steering wheel. She noticed Fu Tingli’s hands on her lap, fingers red and numb from the cold.

“Why aren’t you wearing gloves?”

Fu Tingli tucked in her stiff fingers and pulled out the keycard she’d stuffed in her pocket before getting in the car, placing it on the dashboard.

“Teacher Kong, it looks like you left something in the glovebox. I couldn’t sleep tonight, so I thought I’d drop it off for you.”

With those words, she neatly signaled: she no longer remembered anything about California, and she certainly hadn’t recognized Kong Liyuan as the woman she’d met four years ago.

She figured Kong Liyuan would get the hint.

Sure enough, Kong Liyuan just hummed in acknowledgment. Fu Tingli let out a breath of relief, thinking the matter was settled.

But Kong Liyuan looked at her again, her eyes and brows awash in shifting light and shadow, hiding a whirlpool of flickering brightness and dark. “So when you can’t sleep, you like heading fifteen kilometers out to stand in the cold wind?”

Fu Tingli gritted her teeth. “I’ve got a frail constitution, scared of the cold. I need to exercise more, get more fresh air, if I’m going to survive a Shanghai winter.”

Kong Liyuan tapped the car window casually; cold wind howled past outside. Fu Tingli hunched over a little, on the verge of coughing again. Kong Liyuan shot her another glance.

“Even exercising in the rain?”

Fu Tingli nodded. “That’s what makes it effective.”

Kong Liyuan didn’t press further. She watched her for a moment, then seemed to let out the faintest sigh.

“I thought you weren’t the type to lie.”

Fu Tingli couldn’t hold back a cough after all. The hair she’d loosely pinned up before heading out had come partly undone, stray black strands drifting across her face—silent, fragile.

Kong Liyuan handed her a tissue.

She took it and said, “Thanks,” with a smile. “In this world, who doesn’t tell lies now and then?”

Even the purest heart couldn’t avoid it entirely. She knew she hadn’t reached that level of innocence herself, so how could anyone think she never lied?

“When did you dye your hair black?”

Kong Liyuan asked abruptly, shredding their polite small talk in an instant.

No point pretending anymore. Fu Tingli actually felt relief at the question. She leaned back against the headrest in a daze, watching the world outside the foggy glass sway unsteadily.

“After I got back to the country, I think. It’s all a blur.”

She’d always preferred warmth to cold. She couldn’t recall the exact day when California’s blazing golden sunlight had filled her up, prompting her to dash into a hair salon and tell the stylist—who raved about the beauty of black hair—

“I want hair like sunlight.”

Nor could she remember the day when, homeless and dragging her suitcase, she’d sheltered in the doorway of a hair salon during a downpour. Through the open glass door, her reflection looked bedraggled and weak, her golden hair frizzy like a bad wig, the new black roots starkly segregated.

Back then, she had the time, energy, and money for upkeep—even touching up the roots every couple of weeks kept it soft and shiny.

—Hair like sunlight.

“That salon was just the owner running it solo. She was swamped that day, so she charged me cost and let me dye it myself.”

Fu Tingli casually chewed on the hair tie she’d bought from a street vendor, gathering the loose strands around her ear.

She redid her ponytail using the rearview mirror. “It’s not even, but it was cheap—and better than faded color.”

That much was true.

Kong Liyuan could tell. The car cruised straight down the avenue. She watched silently for a moment—or maybe not.

All Fu Tingli knew was that by the time she’d finished fixing her hair and slipped her idle hands into her pockets, brushing against the cool necklace there, Kong Liyuan spoke up again.

“How old are you this year?”

Now that was just ordinary chitchat. Fu Tingli answered easily. “Twenty-four.”

Kong Liyuan fell silent.

This woman was impossible to read.

She wouldn’t explain the keycard or demand silence about California. Instead, she asked about the hair dye and her age?

As if they were just chance fellow travelers, catching up lightly before politely forgetting the past.

But who would think it should be any different?

Fu Tingli stared blankly at the halos of car lights streaking past her view until Kong Liyuan spoke again.

“The age I was when we met.”

“What?” Fu Tingli asked.

The stream of traffic stretched into an endless line, turning the world beyond the windows into a fragmented underwater tunnel.

Kong Liyuan faced that tunnel sideways, half her expression veiled by straight black hair.

It made one wonder if, even if they drove this car straight into the depths to die, she could still recount it all with the same languid calm.

“That year in California, I was twenty-four too.”

The rain continued outside, the sticky threads like some kind of glue, binding their barely audible breaths—subdued as they were—fiercely together.

Fu Tingli realized she was four years older.

Just four years, yet it felt like four centuries—leaving Fu Tingli forever the younger, greener one, forever at a loss against her offhand tone.

The rest of the drive passed without small talk. The rain tapered off, the tunnel of rain threads dissolving. They turned from wide roads onto narrow lanes.

It was dawn by then; the farther they went, the brighter it got, and the smoke shops lingering in alleys and the chaotic street scenes sharpened into clarity.

Through the silent glass, Fu Tingli spotted the hair salon where she’d dyed her hair as they passed.

The owner, with her stylish curls, a cigarette dangling from her lips, stood on tiptoe propping up a clothes pole. The sky wasn’t clear yet, but she was already hanging damp laundry on the crisscrossing lines in the alley.

A passerby got drenched and stomped his foot, muttering, “Damn! I just washed my hair this morning!”

The owner planted her hands on her hips and blew out a smoke ring. “Then don’t walk this way!”

“Teacher Kong.” They’d passed the salon; ahead lay crowded alleys too narrow for the car.

“You can stop here. It gets too tight up ahead, and it’s crowded.” Fu Tingli spoke softly.

Kong Liyuan pulled into a secluded corner. As the door opened, it nearly clipped an old motorcycle and bicycle parked haphazardly in the lane.

Thank goodness Fu Tingli had quick reflexes and managed to hold the car door shut, narrowly avoiding the new debt she had almost incurred on herself.

“Teacher Kong.”

As the drive came to an end, before stepping out of the car, Fu Tingli turned her back to the woman in the driver’s seat, dressed in a black trench coat. Suddenly, she felt an urge to ask a question.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Just ask if you want to,” Kong Liyuan replied from behind her.

Fu Tingli’s hand was still pressed against the car door, keeping her balance. She felt a little dazed as she made her way to her cramped nook amid the bustling, chaotic alley.

At last, she caught sight of the huge, brightly lit window. Then she asked,

“Did you ever find that person you were looking for?”

A damp, chilly breeze swept in, carrying faint horn blasts from the distance, one after another.

Fu Tingli was about to close the car door and pull her coat tighter around herself. But perhaps her attempt at small talk had misfired, needlessly rubbing the other woman the wrong way.

She had always been so young and inexperienced, fumbling even at casual chit-chat, utterly unable to read this woman at all.

Then came a soft click from behind her, followed by the hazy drift of cigarette smoke and a sigh so faint it was almost inaudible.

Just when Fu Tingli thought Kong Liyuan wouldn’t answer, she did.

“In a manner of speaking, I did find her once.”