Fu Tingli would never forget that one sentence, not even until the day she died.
—In the instant that woman barreled into her life, she had suspected as much.
It was probably because it happened on the road. Weren’t road trips always like that? Freewheeling, unbound, strange, and downright weird.
That was why anything that occurred during one stuck with you forever.
Few people ever realized just how extraordinary an event was while it was still unfolding.
But Fu Tingli had realized it. And without a second thought, she had been utterly captivated.
“Please, give me a ride. I need to find someone.”
It was the sweltering dawn of late summer in California, on an endless stretch of wide-open highway, behind the wheel of her rickety white vintage convertible.
The California lupine in the passenger seat seemed to feel the impact first. A gust of wind sent it pitching violently forward, tumbling to the floor.
She slammed on the brakes, heart pounding.
A flock of birds scattered overhead in alarm. The woman who had dashed out to block her car stood unmoving in front of the hood, blood still oozing from the gash on her face as she spoke those words.
In Chinese. In California.
Fu Tingli had no choice but to remember them. No choice but to grant the request.
Even so, when the woman hopped nimbly into the passenger seat and scooped up the orange California lupine that had rolled beneath it…
Her heart still raced.
With lingering fear, Fu Tingli reached out. She hesitated in the line of the woman’s vacant stare—maybe a second, maybe two—before blocking her casual motion toward the leaves.
“This flower’s poisonous! Don’t touch it carelessly. It’ll give you a nasty rash on contact with your skin!”
The woman stared at her wordlessly. Fine beads of blood seeped from the slash across her right cheek. Her slender fingers hovered in the air before slowly drawing back from the leaves.
“So you really are Chinese.”
The voice was calm, almost languid—like the purest white flame flickering to life at dawn. Yet it seemed utterly out of place coming from this woman.
A woman who’d flagged down a car on a dawn highway, face bloodied, pleading for a ride to find someone… Her voice shouldn’t have sounded like that.
She appeared with her own whirlwind of contradictions.
“You didn’t even know I was Chinese, and you stopped me in Chinese?”
Once the woman pulled her hand away, Fu Tingli exhaled in relief. She took the flower from her grasp, climbed out, and secured that vibrant, treacherous splash of orange in the back seat, buckling it in tight.
By the time she slid back into the driver’s seat, the woman had made herself right at home, reclining against the headrest. She was still staring, though, and said,
“I just wanted to test it out. But you stopped.”
The engine roared back to life as the dawn embers faded. Bright golden light spilled across Fu Tingli’s fingers on the steering wheel. She couldn’t tear her attention away from the woman beside her.
The woman’s long black hair was pinned up haphazardly, stray strands drifting in the breeze. Her features, steeped in the golden sunlight, were strikingly deep-set.
She wore a classic American plaid shirt—probably picked up somewhere cheap—paired with faded white denim cutoffs. Her long, slender legs were mostly bare, stretched out casually below.
No shoes.
Blood still trickled from the wound on her face, threatening to drip.
This was the third time Fu Tingli had noticed it. She could ignore it no longer.
She popped open the storage console between the seats and flipped down the passenger-side vanity mirror. In a gentle tone, she said,
“There are Band-Aids in there, along with cotton swabs and iodine. That cut looks deep. You should clean it.”
The woman finally tore her gaze away and directed it at the mirror.
“Why’d you let me in your car?”
Fu Tingli found it odd. “Didn’t you climb in yourself?”
In the mirror, the woman’s sharp brows arched faintly, snaring Fu Tingli’s still-fluttering heartbeat. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Nope.”
Perhaps it was the familiar cadence of Chinese, but Fu Tingli felt an instant rapport in the woman’s manner of speaking. Jokingly, she continued,
“What about you? Not scared I’ll drive you to the other side of the planet and sell you off?”
The woman withdrew her gaze unhurriedly and rummaged in the console for a cotton swab and iodine. “You can’t get to the other side of the planet from here.”
Fu Tingli couldn’t help but burst out laughing, swaying side to side as the highway rushed by. When the laughter finally subsided, her eyes remained crinkled into happy crescents, impossible to smooth away.
“Fine, then. The most remote state it is?”
The woman dabbed iodine onto her wound in the mirror, unruffled by the quip. Lazily, she remarked,
“Letting a total stranger into your car out of nowhere… That’s not weird to you?”
Fu Tingli paused to consider. “Trusting some random person who flags you down on the road… Isn’t that the weird part? And that’s you.”
The woman flicked the used swab aside with the ease of someone in her own vehicle. Her tone flowed just as naturally, as if they were old travel companions setting out at first light.
“Your golden hair is beautiful.”
Their back-and-forth had shifted to simple statements—as if explaining why she’d flagged the car down, or perhaps just idle small talk.
Fu Tingli blinked in surprise, glancing instinctively at the mirror. She didn’t catch sight of her own hair color, though—only the woman’s breathtaking eyes.
Deep and lovely, yet marred by the wound beneath, they swirled like a calm madness, harboring countless tiny red flying birds.
Birds poised to erupt at any moment, shattering the world into chaos.
Before Fu Tingli could recover…
The woman laughed suddenly beside her, her lashes quivering gently.
Fu Tingli froze.
She watched as the woman lounged against the headrest and meticulously applied the Band-Aid she’d fished from the console to her wound—neat as you please.
At first, Fu Tingli had no idea what was so funny. Then she spotted it: the blue-patterned Band-Aid on the woman’s face, emblazoned with Buzz Lightyear’s purple head, bushy brows, and bulging eyes.
Out of nowhere, the woman added, “Your Band-Aids are cute, too.”
Now Fu Tingli knew. And she felt a flush of embarrassment.
She twisted the car radio dial, desperate to break the moment. It landed on her go-to station for road trips—FM 93.1.
They were playing an old classic she often heard around California, a song this station loved to loop: “California Dreamin’.”
As the melody looped cheerily on “California dreamin’,” the host mangled her way through some Chinese.
“Today we have a message from Ms. Wang in San Francisco, wishing her good friend Ms. An a happy birthday. She says she hopes you find happiness worth a million tons…”
The car hummed along the highway, sunlight splashing hot across their faces. Fu Tingli had just been on the receiving end of what felt like teasing laughter from the passenger seat. Even for someone as outgoing as her, words failed her now.
In hindsight, she could have simply asked, “Where are you headed?” But it never crossed her mind—and apparently not the woman’s either.
That should have been the most pressing question of all.
Yet somehow, her gaze had been stolen clean away. Amid the looping “California Dreamin’,” she kept stealing glances at the passenger seat.
The woman leaned against the window, face serene in the wind, head tilted slightly back. Her hair whipped wildly, but there on her face was that Buzz Lightyear Band-Aid.
Fu Tingli didn’t dare glance at the blue sticker for fear of cracking up and coming off as strange. Instead, her eyes lingered on the woman’s lower face.
Her gaze fell on lips with flawless contours—neither too full nor too thin, the cupid’s bow perfectly defined.
“Which station is this?” the woman asked abruptly, her sun-kissed lips parting just a touch.
That cupid’s bow looked strangely sensual.
The thought had barely drifted through her mind when a piercing horn blared past. A car cut sharply in front, whipping up a gale of wind and forcing a desperate swerve.
Fu Tingli’s hands clamped the wheel. Heart in her throat, she wrestled the fishtailing car through the turn.
The tires shrieked in a vicious grind against the asphalt.
Her wind-tossed golden hair blocked the woman’s line of sight.
The woman didn’t seem rattled by the near-miss. In the howling wind, Fu Tingli could have sworn she laughed—or maybe it was just her imagination.
Then came the question again. “So, which station are we listening to?”
Only after the car steadied did Fu Tingli snap out of it. “Oh—uh, this is FM 93.1.”
“Birthday wishes every day?”
“No.” Fu Tingli gathered herself and cranked up the volume a bit.
“It’s a twenty-four-hour station, but mornings usually feature a comedy segment with the same American host.”
“Could tell. No wonder I only caught four words.” The woman tilted her head.
Fu Tingli thought of the host’s clumsy Chinese and chuckled. “Her Chinese is about as good as it gets. I’ve heard her butcher Arabic and French—that’s when it’s really incomprehensible.”
“A morning comedy show that international?” The woman seemed full of questions, though maybe she didn’t expect answers.
But Fu Tingli answered anyway. “Because this radio station’s pretty popular in those countries. So whichever country the birthday guest is from, she’ll say happy birthday in that language.”
“In short, only one per day. After the segment ends, the station just plays pop songs.”
“So what’s this song that’s playing now?”
The woman’s voice carried a touch of laziness, laced with that peculiar calm, as if something inside her were smoldering. It stood out sharply against the hot, pulsing rhythm of the music.
A gust of wind parted Fu Tingli’s golden hair, drawing the lower half of the woman’s slightly upturned face into her view.
She usually brimmed with boundless energy. Though she wasn’t overly talkative, her voice often rang out crisp and lively. Qiao Lipan would frequently tease that she chattered like an obnoxious little bird, blissfully unaware of how annoying she was—able to yap away with just about anyone.
But after that question, all Fu Tingli could do was curve her eyes into her usual smile and give an honest answer.
“California Dreamin’. It’s the one this station loops the most.”
~~~
By midday, with the sun hanging larger in the sky, Fu Tingli still had no idea where the woman in the passenger seat was headed or whom she was looking for.
She only knew they shared the same destination for this leg of the journey, so they were still traveling together.
Their car passed through a small town. Fu Tingli pulled over and, catching sight of the woman’s bare feet, stopped her before she could get out.
“Hey, you’re not even wearing shoes. Stay put. I’ll run in and grab some food. Anything you want? I’ll bring it back for you.”
The woman paused as she was unbuckling her seatbelt and regarded Fu Tingli quietly for a moment in the sunlight. “I don’t have any money on me. I can pay you back once we get there.”
“Oh, no worries. We’re both Chinese—you can settle up later.”
At that moment, Fu Tingli wouldn’t have quibbled over such a trivial expense. And she certainly wasn’t about to make a barefoot woman with wounds on her face dig out cash right then.
She closed the car door, then suddenly turned back, leaning against the open doorframe as she grinned at the woman in the passenger seat.
“You haven’t told me what you want to eat yet.”
The woman’s hand rested on the door, propping up the side of her face where the sunlight streamed across it. “What do you like to eat?”
Fu Tingli bent down a little to peer at the woman’s bare feet tucked onto the seat, her hands clasped behind her back as she pondered for a moment. “I like burgers. Let me treat you to a burger.”
With that, she headed off and bought two hamburger combo meals—and a pair of shoes.
They weren’t the most attractive shoes: a common style sold at rest stops everywhere, brown Martin boots that no one wore in the sweltering summer heat. They were clearly a size too big for the woman, yet later on, they would chafe her delicate ankles until they were red, swollen, and raw.
The woman seemed to like them, though. She wore that single pair for the entire three-day journey.
And so afterward, every time they finished making love, with Fu Tingli still hazy and unfocused, she would carefully cradle the woman’s ankles. Sometimes she’d sit casually on the hotel room floor; other times, she’d squeeze awkwardly into the car. Under the moonlight or dim lamplight, she’d meticulously apply the ointment.
The woman, for her part, never seemed to mind. Only when a cigarette, redolent with that familiar scent, had burned down to ash would she prop her chin in the thick haze of smoke and ask lazily,
“You care that much?”
On the day they bought the Martin boots in that small town, Fu Tingli had scoured the shop without finding anything suitable.
She was hesitating when the plump shopkeeper recommended this pair. He said they were perfect for the highway—comfortable, durable, and even better once broken in. In truth, they were just unsold inventory.
Fu Tingli bought them anyway. They were the only shoes in stock. She’d even guessed the size by eyeing the grid pattern on the passenger-side floor mat—and ended up with a pair that was too big.
As a result, every time the woman walked in them, her footsteps sounded oddly loose, the heels flapping slackly against the ground. Yet she wore them with utter nonchalance, never caring a bit.
Unlike Fu Tingli, who would often regret it later. She thought she should have gone back to ask the woman’s size, picked out something more fitting—something she could wear without a shred of guilt.
If only she had.
Then, when she returned to the car, struggling under the weight of two hamburger combo meals and a pair of bulky yellow Martin boots, she wouldn’t have kept glancing down at the woman’s bare feet. She wouldn’t have had to keep remembering the feel of that slender ankle in her grasp.
But things never unfolded in ways one could predict.
Fu Tingli hugged the bundle as she wobbled back to the car. She set the shoes down outside the door, her hands now clutching the two hamburger combos. That’s when she noticed the woman holding that bunch of orange California lupine she’d fetched from the back seat.
A fierce gust whipped through the burger bags and set the orange blossoms swaying in the wind. The woman’s hair flew into disarray; so did hers.
Through the tangle of flying strands, the woman suddenly reached out. Her fingers threaded into Fu Tingli’s wind-tossed hair, stroking it slowly. Then she said,
“Do you want to fuck me?”
Even now, Fu Tingli remembered that scene in vivid detail.
Not because of the California lupine clutched in the woman’s hand—beautiful yet uniquely poisonous. Not because of how she suddenly cupped Fu Tingli’s chin from within the white car door…
But because she delivered those wildly brazen words with the same serene calm as if she’d said, “Your hair’s a mess.”
No emotion at all—yet sexy as hell.
