Chapter One Hundred and Five — Shopping Together

She always felt as though time had been seized by one of its own feet, limping forward with great difficulty, or perhaps missing a leg altogether, unable to stride ahead with any real speed.

The moment Yishu stepped through the door at home, Tang Chao’s call came through.

In fact, she had been bombarded with his calls and messages all day long.

People were strange creatures indeed: ignored, they felt as empty as a valley; pestered, they became restless and frazzled.

Yishu took the bag from her shoulder and hung it on the wall hook. When she went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, she found it utterly bare. She had not gone to the market to buy ingredients for several days.

Xu Shixi was not at home, and an entire table of dishes would have to be dealt with by her alone.

Food had no taste.

Since the start of November, her workload had suddenly increased, and even buying groceries and cooking had become a rare form of leisure.

Yishu closed the refrigerator door and saw Xu Shixi’s handwritten note stuck to it. His elegant, flowing handwriting carried a faint charm reminiscent of slender gold script, perfectly suited to his appearance.

Two knocks sounded from outside. In this quiet residential district, the sound cut through the stillness like a gust of wind, and Yishu’s heart was lifted briefly by an unseen hand.

“Why did you only just open the door?” Tang Chao stood in the doorway wearing a short brown shearling leather jacket, looking irritable. Below, he still had on thick pajama pants covered in polka dots, and a pair of cotton slippers with little dog ears. He must have been in such a hurry when he left that he had not even had time to change his shoes.

“You’re sick, and you still won’t stay home and rest properly. What are you doing at my place?” Yishu blocked his way inside. “Go back now, or your cold will only get worse.”

“So you do care about me,” Tang Chao said with a slight smile. His gloomy expression cleared at once. “Hurry up and let me in. It’s freezing out there. If I collapse at your doorstep, you’ll be the prime suspect.”

When had he learned that sort of nonsense from detective dramas? Yishu frowned, the muscles of her face tightening upward. Yet his words were perfectly airtight, impossible to refute. If she refused to obey his demand, he might really do exactly as he threatened and fall to the ground pretending to be ill, or even play dead. But if she gave in to his shameless request, then she would be the fish on the cutting board, at his mercy, certain to become hostage to his whims.

“Don’t go in there. I didn’t say you could go in,” Yishu called after his back.

Taking advantage of the moment when Yishu was distracted, Tang Chao turned sideways and forced his way through the gap. “I knew you couldn’t bear to see me freezing outside.”

Yishu tucked the loose strands of hair at her temples behind her ears. Seeing how much of her hair had come undone, she simply removed the elastic band, smoothed it out again, and tied it back neatly.

“How long do you plan to stay here?” Yishu asked as she looked around for Tang Chao.

“I plan to live here,” Tang Chao said without blushing or even drawing breath. “That way I can see you every day.”

“I have a boyfriend.” She had lost count of how many times she had said it. Still, faced with his persistence, she had no choice but to keep stating her position clearly. “You’re so outstanding. You surely cannot be short of admirers. Why waste your time on me?”

“You have a boyfriend, but you don’t have a husband,” Tang Chao said, clever enough in his own mind to avoid the loophole in her words. “Why don’t we just skip the dating stage and get married instead?”

He was getting more and more ridiculous. A man’s eloquence seemed to exist entirely for sweet talk and flowery lies. Many inexperienced girls were easily beguiled by the song of a siren, but Yishu had already spent years struggling through the world. Such coarse and shallow tricks would not fool her, nor would she allow herself to be fooled.

“If you keep spouting nonsense, don’t blame me for being rude,” she said, and her face showed signs of volcanic eruption, molten anger bubbling beneath the surface.

“All right, all right, I won’t say any more.” He could feel her anger and knew enough to stop while ahead. “Don’t be mad. I’m only telling you what I really think. I’m not trying to upset you on purpose.” As he spoke, he walked toward Yishu’s bedroom.

For some reason, at the doorway of two unmarked rooms, he instantly decided that the one farther outside must be Yishu’s bedroom. He opened the door, and a faint, elegant scent of jasmine drifted out.

Before Tang Chao could make sense of everything inside, Yishu was already striding over in three quick steps and pulling the door shut.

“What exactly are you trying to do?” she demanded, tilting her head and glaring at him. “Don’t you know it’s incredibly rude to go snooping around someone else’s room, especially a bedroom?”

“Courtesy is something you show to strangers,” Tang Chao said, one hand resting on the doorframe. “With people you know, being polite is just hypocrisy.”

“Fine.” Yishu yielded in defeat. Women were good at arguing; men were good at twisting logic. “I can see your cold has improved quite a bit. If you want to go back now, thank you. If you don’t intend to leave, I won’t force you.” She shook her head with a sigh and headed toward the entryway. “I’m going to the market to buy some groceries. Make yourself at home.”

And so Yishu left Tang Chao alone in the house and went out by herself. By her reckoning, Xu Shixi should have finished dealing with his work in Rongcheng and would be back within the next couple of days. If he saw that she had not been taking proper care of herself and had merely made do when it came to food, he would surely be heartbroken.

At the very least, until he returned, she ought to create the illusion that all was well in this world.

Wasn’t a kind lie still not a lie?

From Fuyuan Garden to the supermarket was more than a dozen bus stops away. Yishu found herself missing the old days, when she rode her electric scooter freely through the clogged streets.

It had been more than half a year since she had last ridden one.

At this hour, taking the bus would mean being trapped in traffic.

Across from her, in the resettlement housing complex, several days of overcast weather and drizzle had driven many small vendors away. The few stalls remaining sold vegetables that were not especially fresh.

After waiting at the stop for more than ten minutes, a bus finally arrived.

There was even a seat in the back.

Yishu went straight toward the rear.

“Miss, could you move in a little farther?”

“Of course.” Yishu instinctively shifted toward the window seat inside.

Wait, that voice sounded familiar.

“You followed me?” she asked, turning her head to see Tang Chao’s bright smile spread across his entire face.

So the true purpose had nothing to do with shopping.

“You’re going to buy groceries?” Yishu laughed. “Can you even cook?”

“Buying groceries doesn’t mean you have to know how to cook,” he said. “Can’t I buy them just for fun?”

“Sure.” Yishu nodded helplessly. “You’ve got money and the freedom to be willful.”

Willful for you, rather.

Since boarding the bus, Tang Chao had not once taken his eyes off Yishu, not even for a second. The scenery outside the window, the fallen leaves drifting past, and the flowers planted in the flowerbeds in some of the city’s gaudy ornamental greenhouse style all tried in vulgar ways to decorate the view. Yet none of them could compare to even a ten-thousandth of her.

Yishu had truly had enough of bickering with him. In a bus full of passengers, they would only draw curious looks, or worse, disapproving ones.

The supermarket at evening rush hour was as crowded as the roads. One glance showed a sea of people without end. Yishu had always thought that shopping in a supermarket was a torment, a hard labor that tested one’s patience.

She passed through the automatic doors and chose a relatively clean blue plastic basket.

“Don’t take that,” Tang Chao said, pulling a shopping cart out from behind them. “Take this.”

“I’m not buying much.” Yishu looked troubled. “I don’t need such a big cart. Besides, it’s hard to move around with it.”

“I’ll push it. You just buy what you need.” Tang Chao leaned on the handlebar.

The few things she needed to buy had already been decided on the bus ride over. Thus the entire shopping process proceeded in an orderly fashion.

For women, discounts and promotions were perhaps eternally irresistible temptations. Yishu was no exception. She had a nose as keen as a hound’s; the moment she entered the supermarket, she seemed to receive some kind of summons and guidance, and headed straight for the promotion section.

The Double Eleven frenzy still lingered, and some unsold goods stubbornly occupied the most visible spots on the shelves.

Yishu picked up a bag of fine salt from the rack. The original price was one yuan eighty, now one yuan fifty.

“Choose this one,” Tang Chao said, picking up another brand of fine salt. “This one is better.”

Yishu looked at the price tag. For the same net weight, this salt was actually one yuan more expensive. “What’s so good about it?”

“It’s more expensive,” Tang Chao said matter-of-factly. “If it’s expensive, it must be good. You get what you pay for. How can you not understand such a simple truth?”

“Of course I understand,” she said with a slight smile. “It’s just that this salt is only for seasoning. There’s no way anyone could taste the difference between one fifty and two fifty, so why should I waste money?”

Yishu had many theories like that. For example, when buying mineral water, she would only buy the one-yuan bottle of Binglu and never the two-yuan bottle of Nongfu Spring. In her view, they were both just plain water, both quenched thirst equally well, and paying twice as much was simply a waste.

Their disagreement over shopping grew fiercer as more items were added to the cart.

“This toothpaste from Crest is better.”

“The three-yuan-eighty Colgate works just as well for cleaning teeth.”

“Tissues should of course be Qingfeng. At the very least, they should be C&S or Vinda.”

“This pack of tissues from Paper Sound is nine ninety-nine. There are six packs inside, four hundred sheets each. Why should I ignore the cheaper one and insist on the expensive one?”

...

“Why do you keep taking them out one by one and choosing the one from the very back?” Tang Chao asked in confusion.

“Because the ones in front are close to their expiration date. The ones in the back are fresher,” Yishu said with some confidence.

...

“I’ll say this: women are troublesome when they shop. Just grab a pack, pay, and leave. No need to be so fussy.”

“That’s why women keep house, while men only know how to ruin it.”