“She wasn’t wrong. If I had a lover, it could only be her.”
Li Qiao let out a “hey” and followed Kong Liyuan’s line of sight to the photo she’d brought and stuck up herself. All Li Qiao could make out was “Little Jade Hair Salon” printed boldly in the center.
“Then why won’t you see her? You two playing lovey-dovey is your business, but don’t drag me into it.”
“Does love mean shoving all your bad, ugly, selfish sides right in the other’s face—forcing them to accept every rotten bit? Is that what makes someone your lover?”
Kong Liyuan sighed. “I’m nowhere near as open about it as she is.”
“That’s too abstract for me. Never been in love—can’t wrap my head around it.”
Li Qiao waved the idea away and pointed to the meal container she’d just brought in.
“All I know is your lover made me promise to watch you eat this, and she specially added extra chicken for you.”
Kong Liyuan laughed. “I hate chicken more than anything.”
“You hate chicken? Who in their right mind hates chicken?”
“That trip we took to Kanas—she ordered a massive plate of chicken stew. I didn’t touch a single bite. She scolded me for wasting food, said I should’ve spoken up sooner about hating chicken. Her face scrunched up; she wasn’t happy. But she ate the whole thing herself. From then on, she never ordered chicken once when we ate together.”
The woman was off again. Back in her manic phase, she’d prattled endlessly about a bird. For the past five years, it had been nonstop stories about someone else.
Li Qiao had heard it all for years now, so this fresh tidbit piqued her interest. She sat down and pressed on.
“Then why go out of her way to add chicken this time?”
Kong Liyuan had already popped open the container lid, staring at the box brimming with chicken. After a long moment, she burst into laughter and murmured slowly,
“Because she’s mad at me.”
From then on, every meal delivered to Kong Liyuan came with an extra serving of chicken.
She never dodged it, never sent it back, never left a scrap behind. She ate every morsel, polishing it off clean.
Once finished, she’d return to the window, watching the woman on crutches lounge in the sun downstairs—either cuddling a kitten with relish, chatting idly with the other loiterers, or propping up her injured leg for all to see.
Day after day, she showed up to make her presence known, ensuring Kong Liyuan saw it all—but never once glancing upward.
What a contradictory person.
That was Kong Liyuan’s thought, even as she accepted the punishment willingly. She had no idea how long Fu Tingli would stay angry before leaving, or when she herself could face her with open honesty.
The mild manic phase had ended long ago.
But she still didn’t dare step out that door, hiding day and night—both of them fully aware of it, yet avoiding each other all the same.
In the humid California summer night, she tossed and turned sleeplessly, her mind swirling with a torrent of thoughts.
She thought about their reckless road trip through California five years ago, about last winter when they’d sunk side by side into the snowdrifts of Hewatu, about how that woman turned out to be Fu Tingli’s mother.
And what must Fu Tingli’s mother have thought? That straightforward, kindhearted woman, seeing the person her daughter cared for—loved, even—and realizing that this person suffered from the same illness as the one in the movie Life who’d tried to harm her daughter.
But the thought that weighed on her most was “love”—that elusive, hard-to-grasp word.
She puzzled over it until even she felt lost and muddled. Everything she gave Fu Tingli now was ugly and toxic. Without her, Fu Tingli never would have chased her all the way to California, never would have gotten hurt, never would have shed so many tears for her sake…
So why, when she knew she had no chance at all, did Fu Tingli still love her?
Why did she stay by her side every day, as if punishing her?
Had she truly won Fu Tingli’s love so easily? Had this intangible, ethereal thing become something she could reach out and grasp with a single hand?
Then why was she still too barren inside to even try?
Why had someone told her she already possessed more love than anyone in the world—so much that she deserved to die in it?
Why did others give her so much love without keeping score, showing her through their words and actions that love wasn’t a zero-sum game, that there was no law of conservation of energy? It wasn’t about taking from one person only for them to lose, or turning to bitter ashes the moment after you claimed it.
So where did the love she could give fall in all this?
Kong Liyuan felt the question was too complex, and she didn’t need to unravel it completely before she could walk out that door into the world below the window.
Countless people went through life without ever figuring it out, yet still savored every moment.
Why couldn’t she?
—Right. Why couldn’t she?
After days of lying in a muddled haze in her hospital room, Kong Liyuan changed out of the stark white hospital gown and into her own clothes.
The familiar scent of her old outfit enveloped her steadily, leaving her dazed for a moment before she came back to herself. She tore down the photo she’d secretly taken.
The photo had been warmed by the day’s sun, radiating a cozy heat that felt like a glowing ember against her chest when she pressed it there.
She drew back the curtains, sunlight flooding in, but Fu Tingli wasn’t downstairs.
The entire garden felt empty, as if missing just one person had drained it.
She stared blankly at the people below, going about their everyday lives as usual, and suddenly envied those who could interact with Fu Tingli openly, chatting without a care.
Even the person who’d left a scar on her hand trailed after Fu Tingli all day, calling her “Muse” endlessly without tiring—and without Fu Tingli ever getting annoyed.
They all wore the same hospital gowns as she did, trapped in the same circumstances.
How could everyone else be so endearingly honest, while she alone was too lacking to offer even a shred of genuine love?
Before she could dwell on it further, her packed phone buzzed to life.
It was a video call from Li Qiao.
Kong Liyuan answered, and the screen filled with surging traffic and cityscapes.
Then it shifted to the side of the car, where a bouquet of California lupine swayed in the wind, tied to the door of a white convertible with a red ribbon.
The wind roared deafeningly through the video at first, and no one spoke.
Kong Liyuan gripped her phone tighter but didn’t call out to Li Qiao.
The California lupine fluttered the whole way, the wind whipping relentlessly. Then Fu Tingli’s voice broke through, mingling with the gusts yet ringing out exceptionally clear.
“Kong Liyuan, don’t say anything yet. Just listen to me.”
Kong Liyuan felt the faint scent of California lupine drift to her nose.
Fu Tingli’s voice cut through the wind, loud almost to a shout, like a sharp wake-up call meant to jolt her.
“Today, we’re not talking about you. Just my own stuff.”
“Do you remember Doctor Mu? The doctor from that rescue station we met in Hewatu.”
“Last New Year’s Eve, I went to see her. She told me her story—how more than a decade ago, she and her lover had gone on a road trip, and her lover died in a blizzard. So she stayed at the rescue station.”
“I said her dedication was noble, born of love. She laughed at me, said I was just a kid putting the label of ‘love’ on it. If I had to praise her, she said, I needed to understand that in all of it, what was truly great wasn’t the love—it was her, the person herself.”
“I thought she was joking back then and didn’t dwell on it. But these past few days, it hit me again. Love is so intangible. If we insist on defining it, we have to look to concrete people to find the shape of it.”
Fu Tingli spoke through the lashing wind and rain-like gusts, while Kong Liyuan simply listened, quietly.
“So today, no debating love. Just people.” At that, Fu Tingli laughed freely on the other end.
What person are you going to tell me about? Kong Liyuan wondered silently.
And the next instant, as if hearing her, Fu Tingli continued.
“I’ve always thought everything in the world has an expiration date—past it, it vanishes, no longer mine.”
“But now I know that’s not true. Of all things in the world, only people don’t expire. Even death isn’t the end of it. Like Doctor Mu—she still wears the red scarf her lover left her. As long as she’s alive, her lover hasn’t expired. And even if she’s gone one day, I’ll remember her, remember that red scarf. Then neither of them will ever expire.”
“Now, about us two.”
Will we expire? Or be like Doctor Mu and her lover?
“Five years ago, you flagged down my car and said you needed to find someone. To be honest, I knew you were lying even then—I could tell you didn’t have anyone to find. Now I know you weren’t lying.”
“But five years later, I still don’t know who exactly you were looking for—or if you ever found them.”
“All I know is, in 2017, I was your fellow traveler for three days. And in 2022, I still want to be.”
Fu Tingli was calling from a speeding car, the audio a chaotic mix of honking horns, rushing traffic, snippets of music from passing restaurants, chatter from strangers at red lights—real-time slices of the road.
She sounded excited too, her words—meant to flow like a movie monologue—coming in fits and starts, like water poured in unsteady splashes.
Yet to Kong Liyuan, they rang out with perfect clarity, as if etched straight into her mind, leaving no room for doubt.
At the same time, after a sharp jolt, the narrow screen shook violently.
It was as if Fu Tingli’s car had slammed to a stop.
In that instant, everything in the frame dissolved into a thick, hazy inferno.
A flickering white blaze.
Only the small screen remained sharp—capturing the journey from open highway to the echoey thud of stairs thick with footsteps, then to the narrow garden path. A long road.
The California lupine trembled at the center, as if the whole world shook around it.
Footsteps clattered in fragments.
Mingled with ragged breaths, and words cutting clear through the gasps.
“The person you were looking for five years ago—if you never found them—I want to go search with you again.”
With those words, the video suddenly framed Kong Liyuan standing by the window.
She wore a rumpled old plaid shirt she’d grabbed at random, her well-worn Martin boots on her feet.
—An outfit achingly familiar.
Looking down, Fu Tingli had appeared below.
Through the hazy glass, she was a squat little dot, head thrown back stubbornly to gaze up.
But to Kong Liyuan, it felt like they weren’t one above the other at all.
—More like she stood barefoot on rough asphalt, Fu Tingli screeching her car to a halt beside her, the California lupine in the passenger seat spilling over.
She locked eyes with those hazel-brown ones, captured forever. Fu Tingli recovered from her shock and flashed her a soft smile.
A sheet of clear car glass between them, an open highway stretching behind.
A streak of gold fluttered through their midst, like a bird gently beating its wings.
The image blurred into memory, layers overlapping.
The glass before her was thin and translucent, their reflections stacked one atop the other. Fu Tingli’s head was bowed low, while she strained to tilt her own upward. Her shadow hovered there, overlapping her silhouette.
The wind roared fiercely over the phone. She heard Fu Tingli’s laughter—distorted, yet utterly genuine—as she said,
“Let’s drive Highway 1 all over again. This time, from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Okay?”
It felt just like the thirteenth hour of their road trip, when they would share their first kiss.
