The WeChat chat stayed silent. Diao Zhiyu had added her and then said nothing at all, and after having her eyes teased at the door earlier, Hu Xiu felt a little humiliated.
She had run upstairs, and her breathing still hadn't settled. Her hands and feet were cold with nerves and her stomach was cramping, as if she had just run a marathon.
It must be the nerves that were draining her, the same way interpreting made her brain burn.
Holding back the urge to message Diao Zhiyu, she paced circles around the living room. If she went straight to bed now, she might collapse and die.
She opened the fridge, and the elegant GODIVA box steadied her.
That was it. Diao Zhiyu hadn't turned and left because there was something wrong with her. He was jealous.
What did she have to be embarrassed about? The seesaw was still rocking, and she was nowhere near the losing side.
The twelve chocolates were each a different shape, every one plump, as exquisite as a small work of art and fragrant with cocoa.
The chocolate was so sweet it made her throat ache, but it eased her nerves. Hu Xiu carefully opened Diao Zhiyu's Moments, terrified of accidentally liking or commenting on something and getting caught snooping.
He hadn't hidden anything, and he had posted plenty, enough to enjoy for a whole evening. Her own Moments, by contrast, gave her nothing to worry about. Lately she had shared only posters for medical summit forums and recaps of medical interpreting salons, so dull that Diao Zhiyu would fall asleep after a few glances, or simply decide he'd added the wrong person.
His profile picture was a still from A Street Cat Named Bob: James feeding the cat by the canal in Little Venice, the lingering mist and sunlight softening the sky, the man and the cat looking very warm together.
His Moments were pure artsy youth with the boyishness still on him: storyboards from comics he had drawn himself, photographs he was pleased with (in the style of Araki Nobuyoshi), a promotional shot taken while he was playing Qin Xiaoyi (from behind), film textbooks studied in his spare time inside the Snowpiercer set...
Nothing aloof, nothing mysterious, just an earnest young man recording his life. What pleased Hu Xiu most was how many photos of him there were.
Polaroids, film shots, costume test photos. He made no effort to hide how good-looking he was. Hu Xiu saved every one, made an album called Qin Xiaoyi, and flipped through them one by one until she froze.
The night scene in one photo was familiar. An orange figure stood slightly right of center, zoning out in the rain. It was her.
Before Qin Xiaoyi had held an umbrella over her, he had quietly photographed her, turned it into a photographic work and posted it to Moments, with the caption I-s.
Hu Xiu understood the letters at once. It was Katsura Masakazu's shoujo manga. That night, with her bare calves and old leather shoes, standing in the rainy dark, she really had looked like Aizawa Iori from his drawings.
A boy born in '96 who liked Katsura Masakazu. How retro. As she thought it, she felt as if rain were pouring past her ears.
Don't read too much into it. This wasn't proof that he liked her. He posted often to catch the attention of female players, and maybe plenty of other players had his contact details besides her.
It was just one photo. Maybe he thought the composition looked good and pressed the shutter.
But he had come looking for her, and that was real. He had taken her home, and that was real. He had nearly kissed her outside REGARD, and that was real too.
He surely didn't take every female player home. Diao Zhiyu was flirting with her, he was interested in her, and that was an absolute fact.
Only after she had eaten half the box did she come to her senses and check the price. Her eyes doubled in size. 490?
Twelve chocolates for 490? Twelve pan-fried buns cost her only thirty-six yuan!
She had eaten 250 yuan worth while scrolling through Moments. One thought filled her head: trading pan-fried buns for luxury chocolate, how high was Pei Zhen's salary?
She wasn't foolish enough to think Pei Zhen was actually interested in her. She only felt that this favor had put her in far too expensive a debt.
But a voice kept circling her. Her luck with men really had improved lately. Was her fortune finally turning?
She was too wired to sleep anyway, so she might as well work. Lying in bed, she listened to an obstetrics and gynecology report and took notes: embryo transfer in IVF, complicated postpartum scar removal, caesarean section care...
Specialized treatment terms needed to be checked with someone in the field. She hadn't taken her senior colleague's phone remarks to heart either. A permanent position lasted only if you earned it. Staying in a hospital through a relationship meant being looked at through tinted glasses forever. A career choice ran in both directions: even if the hospital thought she was suitable, she might not be happy working there.
She used to be timid at work and anxious in every relationship, but now that she had begun to take the initiative, the things she cared about were no longer so easy to lose.
And she had learned all this bit by bit in Snowpiercer.
She had spent three days preparing her interpreting materials, and the terms GnRHa, abdominal wall hematoma, and VASCPP were dizzying. She took a screenshot and sent it to her senior colleague, hoping to find someone who could explain them properly.
At noon she crossed the road to the infertility clinic and knocked on an office door. Two people sat inside.
One had faint creases at the corners of his eyes, and the words "attending physician" stood out on his badge. He wore glasses and a white coat, drinking coffee by the window, unsmiling. The other held a coffee cup, legs crossed, leaning back on the sofa with his eyes closed. It was Pei Zhen.
On the coffee table sat takeout boxes that hadn't been thrown away. They looked like friends. Pei Zhen opened one eye. "What are you doing here?"
"I have an interpreting job this weekend, and I need to find Dr. Jin. My senior colleague spoke to you about it..."
Dr. Jin pointed at the sofa. "Sit..."
Pei Zhen stood up instead. "Should I give you some privacy?"
"Don't be ridiculous." Dr. Jin pulled up a stool opposite the sofa and took the materials from Hu Xiu's hand. "She's here to ask about cases. What's going through your head?"
"True. After all, your girlfriend is right next door." Pei Zhen showed no sign of leaving. He just sat down at Jin Junming's computer and moved the mouse.
To the sound of the mouse clicking, Hu Xiu earnestly asked about treatment plans for endometriosis and listened to how ovarian cyst surgery was handled. She went from lost in the clouds to understanding it completely, and it ate up the whole lunch break.
She wanted one last round of questions about suturing and scars, but Dr. Jin stood up. "My clinic hours are starting. Ask him."
"But you're in completely different departments..."
"Isn't plastic and reconstructive surgery more qualified to talk about scars?" Dr. Jin tapped the file folder against the top of Pei Zhen's head. "Do a good job..."
Pei Zhen raised an eyebrow, probably a running joke between the two of them. "Let's talk while we walk. It's about time anyway."
It took five minutes to cross the road and return to the main building, and Hu Xiu followed Pei Zhen the whole way, listening to him explain caesarean scar repair, until she was hearing about fear of marriage and fear of childbirth.
His hands stayed tucked in his white coat pockets. He walked on the street side, keeping her on the inside, and spoke calmly, as if describing the most ordinary treatment plan. "Ordinary scars can be treated with scar-removal injections. If there's adhesion, the wound has to be reopened and sutured again with fine stitches, layer by layer.
The abdominal cavity has many layers. If it doesn't heal well, the wound can liquefy, and then you're in trouble.
This usually happens to mothers who are anemic, obese, or diabetic, and for them giving birth is already a serious risk."
"It sounds like sewing a quilt. I thought you only did cosmetic surgery, I didn't realize you studied this too."
"Plastic and reconstructive surgery is a big field. Cosmetic surgery is just one part, and it's popular right now.
Fine suturing is used in plenty of procedures. Do you know cleft lip? Last week I did an operation on a child who was only three."
"That's amazing..."
"Interpreting is amazing too. Our hospital doesn't have many interpreters of its own, and even fewer come to ask questions on their own initiative. You're diligent and eager to learn."
Without noticing, they had reached the office. She seemed to remember something suddenly. "About the chocolates last time... my pan-fried buns weren't that expensive. It's embarrassing to accept such a pricey gift in return."
"It's nothing. Think of it as bribing you. Next time the head nurse tries to set me up on a blind date, you give me a copy of the duty roster and I'll hide."
The roster came from the head nurse in the first place. That made Hu Xiu laugh. "You make it sound like the head nurse sets you up every day."
"Close to it. Her hobby outside work is probably introducing girlfriends to me and Lao Jin, the Dr. Jin you just met.
Unfortunately he ditched me and got himself a girlfriend. If I hide in his office, the head nurse can't find me."
"If you don't want a girlfriend, you can just say no."
"That's the thing. I don't really want to say no to dating."
Everything was hinted at and stopped there, sharp enough to read every sense. Hu Xiu was dazed, too awkward to know how to respond, and Pei Zhen didn't continue. He smoothly changed the subject. "Your name, the Xiu of shy. How did your parents come up with it?"
"Probably because I started talking late as a child, and my mom always thought I was shy. She's a very romantic person.
Your name is interesting too. Let me guess: 'The stars divide at Yi and Zhen, the land borders Heng and Lu.' It's from the Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng, right?"
Pei Zhen, who had been so casual, looked genuinely surprised. "In all my years, you're the first person to say the reason outright, and to get it right."
With that, Pei Zhen went upstairs without even saying goodbye. Hu Xiu watched his back and felt there should be a conclusion after that sentence. It seemed unfinished.
And he sent no WeChat message either. All afternoon, aside from documents to write and a venue to arrange, there were no private messages.
What was wrong with men lately? They only said half of what they meant, always leaving things in a to-be-continued state.
Zhao Xiaorou's explanation was that it was just a man's routine. Like Ning Zechen telling her it was his first time dating a woman as beautiful as she was. While showering, she had accidentally seen his phone's photo album. The girls in it were like a deck of playing cards, Hong Kong style, Japanese style, sexy, sweet, too many to count, and she was just one card among them.
Li Ai wasn't in the café when she said this. Only a few scattered customers sat typing with earphones on, ignoring the gaze of the unfamiliar barista. Zhao Xiaorou said that a man who wanted to sleep with you could probably make up all kinds of lies with his eyes closed.
Hu Xiu was momentarily speechless. The two of them were having afternoon tea at REGARD on the weekend, one radiant from a brand event, the other bare-faced after two days of grinding through the interpreting conference.
Zhao Xiaorou still smiled when she mentioned Ning Zechen, but it wasn't entirely happiness. It was more that the feeling had faded with time, and with a shallow, hollow man, there was nothing to appreciate but his body.
Ning Zechen really was like a piece of chewing gum: fresh and chewy, quick to lose its flavor, though you wouldn't be in a rush to spit it out while it was still in your mouth.
Zhao Xiaorou rested her cheek on her hand. "Lately I've noticed Li Ai is often not in the shop."
"Maybe he has other things to take care of, not just the café."
"The lawsuit, I think. Since I paid off the rent, he's been going out a lot. Once I even saw him take a taxi with a cane.
I don't know what's wrong with his leg. Maybe it's gotten worse. Before, I only knew it ached on rainy days."
"How much about him do we not know?" Hu Xiu sipped her coffee and looked at Zhao Xiaorou, whose concerned expression was almost gritted teeth. "We don't know. He says we matter to him, but he never shares any secrets with us. Friends, supposedly, but only for the good times and never the hard ones. No fun."
"You're not still hung up on Li Ai, are you?"
Zhao Xiaorou didn't look at her. She just stared out the door. The autumn afternoon was warm, yellow and bright, and that was the spot where Li Ai usually stood smoking. "That night with you and Diao Zhiyu, did anything happen? Did he go upstairs?"
"No..." Hu Xiu didn't want to bring up the night she had leaned in for a kiss and found nothing there. "He took me home and left."
"When I heard the name Pei Zhen on the phone last time, I watched Diao Zhiyu's face turn green.
Hu Xiu, your love luck has arrived. Whether it's the young, handsome younger guy or the wealthy doctor, both are far better than your exes and blind dates.
It's best that nothing happened the other day. From here on, you need to write yourself a careful script: what to wear, how to talk, which direction things between you should develop. Plan it all clearly, list every possible development you can think of, then set the scenes and take Diao Zhiyu into them to perform."
"Is that really necessary..."
"It is. I used to think that once love arrives, you should just go with the flow. Wang Guangming got married in a flash, and Ning Zechen I slept with. Neither turned out well.
But after playing the poor victim to remove Wang Guangming from my life step by step, and then setting three rules with Ning Zechen, I realized how important it is to steer the people around you in the direction you want.
Acting on impulse leads to regret. If you crash into things without preparing, you'll be at a loss. Understand?
Planning before things happen, nipping trouble in the bud, is much better than being helpless once something unexpected hits.
It's like ice hockey. You have to chase the puck and keep changing direction to score. If you let it slide freely on the ice, the chance of a goal is tiny."
It wasn't that easy. Two people weren't playing ice hockey, and this wasn't a solo act. A puck is struck back and forth with sticks, built from one line answering another. It was a two-hander.
Back then, Qin Xiaoyi had been on a stage, and she had been the lonely lead of a one-sided crush. Now he had burst into her one-act play and truly become part of her life. If she had to talk about acting, all she could say was that she would try to catch every pass and deliver every line so that it wasn't boring. Those dating handbooks and tutorials amounted to nothing more than that.
Li Ai pushed the door open and greeted them. "When did you get here?"
"Not long. Just chatting."
"I brought back some new beans." Li Ai carried a bag, and he did have a cane in his hand. There was definitely something wrong with his leg.
Before Zhao Xiaorou could ask, he spoke first. "Diao Zhiyu might come by later."
"What?"
"He's coming to shoot some promotional footage for the café."
She had come straight from interpreting without taking care of herself for two days. Hu Xiu checked her reflection in her phone screen, ran through every shop on the street in her head, steeled herself, ducked into the restroom, bent over, and began... washing her hair.
As she squeezed out the hand soap she thought: so much for not wanting to perform. Her strange pride was like this sticky, fragrant liquid, nothing but the work of her flustered feelings.
She stuck her head under the hand dryer and squatted against the wall, her legs shaking. "He'd better not come now. Drying it like this will take at least half an hour."
Zhao Xiaorou took a photo on her phone and laughed so hard she made a crowing sound. "You two don't even message each other on WeChat, just wait for the other to say hello first. So prim.
If you talked properly, you'd probably know ahead of time that he was coming, and you wouldn't have left the house without makeup."
"No..." Remembering Diao Zhiyu's provocative look outside her building door, Hu Xiu was, unbelievably, competing with him.
Li Ai turned his head. "Hu Xiu, stop squatting. There's a hair dryer on the shelf behind me."
He could have said so sooner. Hair hanging over her face in a tangle, Hu Xiu pushed aside the curtain and walked into the storeroom. She saw a pair of sneakers on the floor and was wondering why Li Ai would leave shoes in the middle of the open space when she tripped over something.
Her view was blocked, but she knew the thing on the floor was a person. Then she smelled mint candy and froze on the spot. What was Diao Zhiyu doing lying on the beanbag in the storeroom?
And she was lying on top of him?