Chapter 10

Cui Xuan died on April 3, 2030.

Zhao Mingyue had never imagined that she could return to twelve years ago and see the eighteen-year-old Cui Xuan.

A Cui Xuan who had not yet become lame, had not yet become utterly alone, had not yet been forced into madness.

Zhao Mingyue had so many things she wanted to ask, but in the end, she did not ask a single one. She only simply accompanied her through a birthday.

After Cui Xuan and Grandma went into the room, Zhao Mingyue did not return to her bedroom. She did not want to sleep, nor did she dare.

She was afraid this was only a dream. Afraid that when she woke and opened her eyes, there would be only a cold headstone and ashes buried deep underground. She was afraid that after waking, she would remember all of this, and even more afraid that she would remember nothing.

The world from twelve years ago was already strange to her. Even after returning to the place she had once lived, it still felt unreal. The only thing that allowed her to truly touch emotion and sense that the world was real was Cui Xuan.

It was as if, so long as Cui Xuan was by her side, emotion, the world, everything would seem so real. As if she had truly passed through twelve years of time, from the future’s past, and arrived at this present filled with infinite possibilities.

In the darkness, Zhao Mingyue tossed and turned in bed, repeatedly ​unauthorized copy​rubbing the bandage on the back of her hand.

Cui Xuan had put this on her.

It really was Cui Xuan who had stuck it onto her hand.

A faint medicinal smell spread beneath her nose. The real texture of the bandage’s nonwoven fabric beneath her fingertips made her tense nerves gradually loosen, and belated exhaustion swept over her.

She was truly too tired. It had been too long since she had properly rested. The wakefulness she struggled to maintain blurred at some unknown point, but every time her consciousness was about to slip into chaos, she would abruptly jolt awake as if stepping into empty air.

Only after turning on the bedside lamp, seeing the room’s layout, and touching the bandage on her hand could her panicked heartbeat slowly calm.

Nearly half the night passed. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Only then did she finally close her eyes completely in exhaustion, her consciousness falling into deep, endless darkness.

It felt as if only a brief instant had passed, and also as if a long lifetime had turned. After a void that stripped away both time and sensation, she heard the sound of wind.

Tree branches swayed in the howling wind, wrapped in a continuous dripping like rain, pushing and striking against the doors and windows. She heard heart-rending sobs coming from behind her.

Zhao Mingyue suddenly turned back. A familiar, tightly shut door stood right before her eyes.

She remembered this scene. She remembered this day.

This was Cui Xuan’s birthday. It was the first and last argument between her and Cui Xuan. It was the time she had wounded Cui Xuan the deepest, the cruelest.

After this day, Cui Xuan’s life had also entered its countdown.

She gripped the handle hard. The door clattered under her pushing and pulling, yet still did not move in the slightest.

Leaving the door, she rushed to the window. Through the transparent glass, Zhao Mingyue saw a familiar figure, hunched over and kneeling on the ground, clutching tightly at the clothes over her chest.

“Cui Xuan.”

“Cui Xuan.”

Zhao Mingyue pounded the window with all her strength, but her cries were like they had been sealed inside a jar, stripped of their hoarseness and fear, echoing dully.

Again and again, without awareness, using all her strength, she smashed at the window. After several breaths, the glass finally shattered with a crash.

With no time to think, Zhao Mingyue climbed through the broken window and stumbled toward Cui Xuan. The instant she was about to reach her, the ground collapsed with a thunderous roar.

Zhao Mingyue stepped into empty air. After a moment of sudden weightlessness, she crashed hard onto the ground.

Wet, cold liquid surged beneath her palm. She lowered her head and saw blood-red water covering the floor.

The dripping sound that had been covered by the crying just now grew clearer and clearer, as if it were right beside her ear.

Zhao Mingyue’s expression stiffened. In a daze, she lifted her head and saw another tightly shut door. A steady stream of blood was slowly flowing out from the crack beneath it.

Drip.

Drip.

Zhao Mingyue climbed up with weak hands and feet and threw herself hard against the bathroom door. After several attempts, the bathroom door finally burst open. She fell to the ground, her palm pressing into the blood-water covering the floor.

The splashed blood landed on her face, ​read the original at bailiantales.com​her lips, and in her eyes, blurring her vision into a wash of red.

Drip.

Drip.

The sound of dripping blood was like a stopwatch of time. One drop, one sound. One sound, one drop. Each struck heavily against her heart, making Zhao Mingyue’s heart tremble and her thoughts slow.

The emotions piled inside her chest scattered into her limbs, yet she felt as cold and empty as if she had been hollowed out. She forgot to breathe. The air seemed to become very heavy. The chill pierced through the cracks of her bones, and she could almost hear the stiff, muffled creak of each section of her cervical spine as she lifted her head.

Her gaze moved upward, inch by inch.

Blood-water slid continuously down the porcelain surface. The cold white bathtub overflowed with blood.

Someone lay with eyes closed in the pool of blood, head tilted to one side, face white as paper, utterly lifeless.

Through her blurred, blood-red vision, Zhao Mingyue finally saw that face clearly.

It was like falling into an ice cave.

When someone woke her from her dream and she opened her eyes to see Cui Xuan, Zhao Mingyue could not even tell whether she had truly woken up or had fallen into another layer of dreams.

Seeing that Zhao Mingyue had finally opened her eyes, Cui Xuan quietly let out a breath of relief. She was just about to straighten up when Zhao Mingyue suddenly grabbed her hand and yanked hard.

Cui Xuan staggered and fell forward. Fortunately, her arms caught against the side of the bed, or she would nearly have landed on top of Zhao Mingyue.

“Zhao… Zhao Mingyue…”

Zhao Mingyue said nothing. Her hands trembled uncontrollably as she pressed down on Cui Xuan’s arm, her gaze urgently sweeping over Cui Xuan’s wrist.

The skin was smooth, with no cuts. The skin beneath her palm was slightly cool, but a faint, weak pulse beat under her fingers.

She lifted her head and stared at Cui Xuan.

Thin, young, pale, yet also alive.

The terror from her dream slowly faded, but its lingering force still battered her heartbeat and refused to disappear for a long time.

Cui Xuan did not know whether Zhao Mingyue had a bad temper after waking up, and that was why she looked so fierce right now. “S-Sorry for waking you, but breakfast is ready…”

Zhao Mingyue took more than ten seconds to recover. Only then did her tense mind slowly calm. Letting go of Cui Xuan, she propped herself against the side of the bed, bent her knees, and sat up.

“You… why didn’t you apply the medicine?”

“It’s already fine.” Cui Xuan withdrew her hand, somewhat uncomfortable as she tugged her sleeve down and walked toward the door. “Breakfast is warmed up. Hurry and get up to eat. I, I’ll go scoop rice for you!”

Zhao Mingyue’s gaze followed her until Cui Xuan walked out the door, until the bedroom door closed. Only then did she lower her eyes.

She sat there blankly for several minutes before slowly running a hand through her messy long hair, only then belatedly realizing that her forehead was covered in sweat.

Lowering her head, she pinched her own arm. In the clear, real pain, Zhao Mingyue slowly released a long breath. She lowered her head until it rested against her knees. In the soft quilt gradually warmed by her breathing, she could not help laughing.

She had slept, woken up, and Cui Xuan was still there.

Cui Xuan was still there.

Cui Xuan was still there.

She clearly had not rested well, yet some inexplicable force supported her spirit, leaving Zhao Mingyue unable to feel the slightest bit of sleepiness. She was even somewhat excited.

After changing clothes and going out, she discovered that the living room had been cleaned. The bathroom mirror, the sink, the trash can—everything within sight had been tidied until it was spotless.

The clock showed it was not even six. To clean it to this extent, who knew what time they had gotten up, or how many hours they had slept.

By the time Zhao Mingyue finished washing up and sat at the dining table, Grandma Cui placed a freshly peeled boiled egg into the small bowl in front of her and greeted her warmly.

“Hurry and eat while it’s hot. Don’t be late for school.”

“It’s still early. No rush. This place is very close to school. We won’t be late.”

Zhao Mingyue swept a glance over the table and estimated that Grandma Cui had only boiled two eggs, and had given both of them to her. So she pushed the small bowl with the eggs forward.

“I don’t like boiled eggs. Grandma, you and Cui Xuan eat them.”

Grandma Cui’s lips moved. She instinctively wanted to say that eating eggs was good, that eggs were nutritious, but she was afraid Zhao Mingyue would not like hearing that. In the end, she still closed her mouth and stuffed both eggs to Cui Xuan.

Seeing that Cui Xuan was pushing them back and forth with Grandma again, Zhao Mingyue cleared her throat and said, “Who cleaned this room? How did they clean it so thoroughly? Even cleaner than when I spend a few hundred yuan to hire someone.”

Grandma Cui immediately forgot about pushing the eggs Cui Xuan had given her back. Her attention was completely drawn by Zhao Mingyue’s words.

“A few, a few hundred yuan? Isn’t it just tidying up a room? How could it cost that much?”

“That’s just the going rate for in-home cleaning. Cleaning the whole apartment isn’t easy.” Zhao Mingyue smiled and said, “You saved me several hundred in one go. I’m embarrassed now. You should stay here a few more days. It just so happens that after class this afternoon, we’ll have a break, so you can spend a few more days with Cui Xuan.”

If she could make Grandma Cui stay, Cui Xuan naturally would have no way to leave either.

Grandma Cui shook her head. “No staying. I have to go back to feed the chickens and the dog, water the vegetable seedlings, and tomorrow I still have to visit the graves and burn paper.”

In truth, she still felt more comfortable in the village. The city had changed too quickly. There were not even conductors on the buses anymore. Once you got on, they told you to scan a code or swipe a card. She had no code and no card. When she put in two yuan in paper money, everyone stared at her with great novelty.

Then she knew.

In other people’s eyes, someone like her was very strange.

In the city, she was strange. But if she walked through the village with a basket on her back, no one would look at her that way.

But if she said she wanted to go back because she felt uncomfortable, it would make her seem ungrateful. So it was better to mention the proper things she had to do.

Zhao Mingyue tried to persuade her a few more times, but seeing that Grandma Cui still insisted on leaving, she said no more.

After breakfast, there was still plenty of time. Cui Xuan wanted to send Grandma Cui to the bus stop, but Zhao Mingyue directly called a car to take Grandma Cui home, making up an excuse that the fare could be reimbursed through public accounts and would not cost money.

Grandma Cui did not understand and had not really followed, but she did not doubt it either. In her eyes, Zhao Mingyue was a city girl, and there was nothing strange about her knowing how to do anything.

Before leaving, while the driver was moving the things, Grandma Cui held Cui Xuan and Zhao Mingyue’s hands. First, she reminded Cui Xuan to study hard and eat properly at school, saying that once vacation came, she would come pick her up and take her home.

Then she placed Zhao Mingyue’s hand over Cui Xuan’s and patted the back of Zhao Mingyue’s hand, saying many words of thanks.

Cui Xuan’s shoulders unconsciously hunched slightly, her body somewhat tense. The warmth belonging to another person suddenly became so clear where their skin overlapped, [read the original at bailiantales.com]hot enough to make the tips of her ears itch.

From childhood to adulthood, aside from Grandma, she had rarely had physical contact with anyone. Holding hands was especially rare.

Zhao Mingyue lowered her eyes and looked at the hands Grandma Cui had stacked together, hers and Cui Xuan’s. Beside her ears were Grandma Cui’s rambling instructions, telling Cui Xuan to bring Zhao Mingyue local specialties in the future, to bring her tasty things, and telling Zhao Mingyue and Cui Xuan to get along well as friends.

Zhao Mingyue bent her fingers and held Cui Xuan’s hand. Smiling, she glanced at the dazed Cui Xuan, who seemed to have drifted off somewhere, and promised Grandma Cui,

“Don’t worry and just leave Cui Xuan to me. I’ll definitely get along well with Cui Xuan and take good care of her.”