Chapter Sixty-One – Come and Go in the Blink of an Eye

Yesterday, as soon as Xu Shixi boarded the high-speed train, he logged into the ticketing app and purchased his return ticket.

In the past, when he was single, loneliness was nothing more than an inconspicuous noun. Now, it had gained a few threads of movement.

He arrived at Xiamen North Station at 1:50 in the afternoon, and his return train was scheduled for 3:15. Xu Shixi escorted his colleagues from the department to their hotel, explained the reason to Qiao Siming, hailed a taxi at the entrance, and headed straight back to the high-speed rail station.

Before Qiao Siming could even react to the abruptness, Xu Shixi, along with the spinning wheels, vanished at the end of the road. It was as if he had never been there at all.

The temperature in Xiamen in October was dictated by the weather—if it rained, each wave of chill quickly overtook the last; if the sky was clear, it clung on as summer’s final struggle. National Day happened to fall on a sunny day. The day before, September thirtieth, had seen a gentle drizzle, but after midnight, the clouds dispersed and the clear sky returned.

Yet some people’s moods were not brightened by the sunshine. They rejoiced in things, but grieved for themselves.

Standing behind was Tang Dai, caught between reality and dreams. She wore a watercolor-pink dress, her carefully tended hair cascading down her back. For these few days, she had made ten times the effort.

When the car disappeared from her sight, she turned away, stubbornly convincing herself that the scene just now was nothing but a mirage, a trick of the light. He was, in fact, in his hotel room, gathering his strength, shaking off the fatigue of travel, preparing in advance for the official agenda of the following day.

With her shoulders drooping, Tang Dai stood in the hotel lobby, the world spinning around her. The receptionists were frazzled, as crowds surged in, wave after wave, group after group, like a breached dam, the floodwaters quickly widening the cracks.

Four attractive greeters—two men and two women—had smiles plastered on their faces, as if fixed by glue, their professional grins locked in place.

After regaining her composure, Tang Dai threaded through the crowd, heading toward the guest rooms.

“Where are you going?” Qiao Siming, noticing something was wrong, grabbed her arm from behind. “Are you alright? Do you want me to walk around with you?”

Tang Dai shook off his hand without a word and strode toward the elevators on the left side of the front desk.

Qiao Siming froze in place. Silence was the most precise and thorough reply. Everything that could not be explained with words was filled in by reasonable imagination, injecting fresh blood and vitality into the mundane narrative.

Was it truly fresh blood? Or was it simply the blood that had flowed out, injected back in with a syringe?

The elevator doors opened, and Qiao Siming, in a flash, appeared before her. At that moment, he seemed to realize that if he stayed put any longer, even the last, faint, inexpressible things would fade away with time.

“Wait!” He braced his hand against the elevator doors, stopping them from closing.

“What do you want?” Tang Dai’s eyes, dark as black crystal, flickered.

“Step out for a moment. I have something to say to you.” Qiao Siming’s tone was conciliatory.

What could he possibly want to say to me? Tang Dai regarded his tall figure—imposing, like Xu Shixi in stature. But aside from height and age, there was nothing else in common.

“Are you two going to talk or are you going to let people get upstairs?”

“Yeah, what kind of manners is this?”

In the crowded elevator, resentful voices spread like a plague.

Qiao Siming knew Tang Dai would not listen to him; she never had, not even to the smallest request. They were merely acquaintances, nothing more.

He squeezed into the elevator. In the cramped space, everyone’s breath merged into a wave of heat, suffocating in place of the needed oxygen.

“What exactly do you want to say?” Tang Dai had neither the mood nor the mind to tangle with him.

“Are you planning to go back as well?” Qiao Siming blocked her path.

Tang Dai was forced to halt, glaring at him. “So what if I am? Qiao Siming, it’s best if you stay out of my business. What I want to do is my own freedom. What right do you have to interfere?”

“I have no right to interfere,” Qiao Siming soothed her agitation. “I just want to tell you, Xu Shixi isn’t worth your time and energy, isn’t worth degrading yourself over.”

In truth, this was not the first time Qiao Siming had told her it wasn’t worth it. On that trip to Chang’an Old Town, Tang Dai had asked him to accompany her, deliberately orchestrating a so-called chance encounter. Back then, his mood was as oppressive and heavy as an ink-stained sky. He’d thought of refusing, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He’d thought of giving up, but couldn’t bear to let go.

In matters of the heart, the passive one is always led by the nose by the active one.

Was he happy? More than anything, he felt helpless.

Tang Dai had told Qiao Siming that, in Yun City, he was the only one she could trust unconditionally and rely on. Apart from him, she could not, and would not, turn to anyone else for help.

Did words coated in honey become sweet nothings?

Qiao Siming knew they did not.

“I don’t think it’s a waste of time, nor am I degrading myself,” Tang Dai said firmly. “On the contrary, I think I’m proving myself. I could enter his heart eight years ago, and there’s no reason I can’t do it again eight years later. The door to his heart has already been opened once, I know the way, and the distance to the finish is already halved. In my view, I won’t lose to Su Yishu, who started from the same starting line.”

Qiao Siming shook his head in disagreement. Neither of them could hope to persuade the other. Still, he tried. “So, you’re going back now?”

She lifted her chin in stubborn defiance. “That’s right.”

“Why go back?” Qiao Siming pressed relentlessly.

Could a heart so thoroughly filled, with not even a crack left, possibly hold another person? Like a balloon stretched to its limit, another breath would only make it burst.

“What can I possibly do by staying here?” Tang Dai retorted.

The more proud and beautiful a woman, the more she attracts the envy of her kind. Admiration from others is not the nourishment she needs to survive. In this world, only two things can sustain her—one is the man she loves, the other is herself.

“Must you go back?” Qiao Siming persisted, unwilling to give up.

“Why are you so annoying? What’s the point?” Tang Dai swiped her key card over the sensor. With a beep, the door opened. “I never knew you were so stubborn. Do you like me or something?”

Such a candid question caught Qiao Siming off-guard. He blurted out, “If I said yes, would I have a chance? Or rather, would you give me a chance?”

Tang Dai snorted coldly. “Do you think you have a chance? Let me tell you, don’t delude yourself. If I liked you, I’d have been with you eight years ago. Why would I wait until now?”

The world above Qiao Siming’s head collapsed with a thunderous crash. He stood amid the barren ruins, eyes unfocused, dust swirling, no sunlight, no hope. Yes, eight years had passed. Words he hadn’t had the courage to speak back then—what meaning could they possibly have now? A sapling uprooted eight years ago—if you tried to plant it again now, would it still flourish? It was all just imagination, and even in imagination, the truth was plain to see.

Qiao Siming looked at her graceful back. Wasn’t she also someone who insisted on the impossible, determined to do what she knew she shouldn’t? Xu Shixi had used all his strength and flesh to erase the past, while she cruelly returned every shard of pain to him.

“But you and he are not who you were eight years ago,” Qiao Siming said weakly.

Could she ever enter his heart again? The door to his heart had closed the day she left. All these years, it had never opened for anyone—in other words, no one had the power to pry it open.

Su Yishu—perhaps she was an accident? She happened to step into his world at just the right moment.

“Eight years ago or eight years later, what does it matter?” Tang Dai was stung. “Qiao Siming, if you can keep your place, we can at least be friends. But if you cross the line I’ve drawn, we won’t even have that.”

Qiao Siming staggered back, his balance lost. Such cruel words. It was like dousing a rekindled flame with a water gun, extinguishing it completely. He watched helplessly as she humbled herself for Xu Shixi, powerless to stop it.

He hated Xu Shixi—he always had, at least since meeting Tang Dai. Many nights, while his roommates slept, he would stare into the darkness, eyes cold and sharp, but, unfortunately, a look could not kill a man.

His so-called rakishness was just a façade, a self-deception to cover his hourglass heart. Others, even Xu Shixi, mistook the illusion for truth.

Even when Tang Dai saw him again after so many years, her first words were, “Since when did you become a ladies’ man?”

With a single sentence, she shattered the carefully constructed illusion.

In the echoing silence of the valley, Qiao Siming heard the mountain collapse.

“I’ll go back with you,” Qiao Siming said, almost begging. “I don’t feel at ease letting you go alone.”

“Suit yourself.” Tang Dai pulled up the handle of her suitcase, glanced at Qiao Siming’s somewhat bleak profile, and could not bring herself to speak a decisive word. “I’m leaving now. If you want to come, pack up and catch up.”

“Hey—” Qiao Siming could not hide his joy.

His heart, like the sky washed clean and blue, had cleared from yesterday’s rain through to today, from overcast to sunny.