Drifting on a String - Chapter 37
Chapter 37
It really was an ex-girlfriend, after all.
And Xiao Ma knew.
Those two sentences tumbled over and over in Chen Piaopiao's mind, playing on a random, shuffled loop.
The fact that even the most carefree and devil-may-care Xiao Ma knew meant that Tao Jin had never hidden it. But Chen Piaopiao didn't know. The one person who should have known was kept in the dark.
Humans have a sixth sense for self-preservation, to seek advantage and avoid harm, but this time, Chen Piaopiao's use of her sixth sense had only hurt herself.
Seeing that she hadn't replied, Xiao Ma called her.
"What's up, babe?" The four words came through as soon as she answered, as if summoning Chen Piaopiao's soul back to her body.
"Nothing," Chen Piaopiao said, pausing for a moment. "Why did you say she would come looking for me?"
Xiao Ma didn't answer.
Chen Piaopiao mulled it over for a second, then said, "Tao Jin doesn't know yet, so don't tell her."
Perhaps because her tone was so unlike the usual Chen Piaopiao, Xiao Ma's silence was even longer this time. After a while, she asked, "Is anyone in your dorm? I'll come down and find you."
"No," An Ran had gone to visit a friend from her hometown in their dorm. "Come on over."
In the few minutes she waited for Xiao Ma, Chen Piaopiao changed her clothes, bent over to tidy her desk, and opened the door in advance. Then she rested her arm on the back of her chair, staring blankly at the motionless electric fan.
The weather was cool in November, so the fan no longer swayed, but Chen Piaopiao truly wished for some kind of movement right now, anything to bring the dorm room back to life.
When Xiao Ma arrived, Chen Piaopiao turned and smiled at her. "Have a seat, senior."
Xiao Ma's sealed lips turned down slightly at the corners. She stood at the door and gave her a helpless look, then sighed, came in, and closed the door. She pulled out An Ran's chair and sat down opposite her.
"How'd you find out?" she asked, jutting her chin toward the phone on Chen Piaopiao's desk.
"I was just scrolling around and saw their past interactions."
"She didn't tell you?"
Chen Piaopiao shook her head, then remembered the day they got together. It seemed like Tao Jin had been about to say something, but she had said that unless Tao Jin had committed a crime, nothing else mattered. She didn't need to confess anything; she just wanted to be with her.
She wondered if that was what Tao Jin had wanted to talk about then.
At the time, Chen Piaopiao had never considered that Tao Jin, who seemed to have no need for love, would have a past. But even if she had known, she wouldn't have thought it was a big deal.
It was just that finding out so suddenly had left her a bit stunned.
She needed time to digest the fact that Tao Jin had an ex-girlfriend, and talking to someone in the know was the best way to do it.
"She was about to, but I didn't want to hear it at the time," she said in a low voice.
"Oh."
"When were they together?" Chen Piaopiao's hand rested on the back of the chair, her chin propped on her hand. She looked very calm.
Xiao Ma glanced at her expression. She wasn't angry. Tsk, what a little kid, she thought. Too jealous to hear it from Tao Jin, but still wanted to know about the ex, so she came to her roommate. This was Xiao Ma's specialty. She immediately began to stoke the small flames of gossip.
"Back in our freshman year." She habitually tugged her chair forward, as if she were still in her own dorm.
"You know that annual intercollegiate basketball league? Back then, our university was playing against theirs. You know her, right? From the Academy of Fine Arts next door, studies painting."
Chen Piaopiao nodded. She turned around, pulled an orange from a bag hanging on the closet door, and handed it to Xiao Ma. She then placed the trash can in the empty space between them, took an orange for herself, and squinted as she began to peel it slowly.
"We had nothing better to do back then, so we went to their university to watch the game. That girl set her sights on our Baby Jin."
Xiao Ma pouted. Although she hadn't said anything particularly nasty, she'd used "that girl," and you could tell right away she had a bad impression of her.
A small part of Chen Piaopiao's heart felt a bit of comfort.
She secretly ground her teeth against the inside of her cheek, as if chewing on her own small, dark side that never saw the light of day.
"And then? How did they get together?" she asked quietly.
Xiao Ma peeled her orange in a flash, frowning as she separated the segments. "She chased her relentlessly, of course."
She had pursued her like her life depended on it, always using mutual friends as an excuse to ask Tao Jin out, texting and calling her every day. "Oh, it was one art exhibition after another, one concert after another. Baby Jin was so young back then, how could she handle all that?"
She popped a segment of orange into her mouth and chewed.
She had to admit, gossip was truly healing. It was just like how Chen Piaopiao used to go on forums whenever she was unhappy. By looking at the latest happenings under the sun and stirring her own trivial matters into the pot of others' amplified emotions, her own little worries would be churned into nothing more than sesame seeds.
Xiao Ma was an excellent gossip partner. Not only did listening to her make Chen Piaopiao feel better, but she even felt a little like laughing.
"My tone is bad because I can't stand her. We don't talk about you behind your back, okay?" Xiao Ma's cheeks were puffed out as she chewed on the orange. Chen Piaopiao was a good girl; the "evil mothers-in-law" of Room 1105 were all very satisfied with her.
"Why can't you stand her?" Chen Piaopiao handed her a tissue.
"She was so dramatic!" Xiao Ma said with a look of utter grief. "A real piece of work."
Her tone took on a bit of a Northeastern accent, making her sound like she'd walked right out of a comedy troupe.
Chen Piaopiao couldn't hold back. She raised a hand to cover her nose and let out a soft laugh. Xiao Ma shook her head and sighed, wearing an expression that said, "You don't get it, but your big sis Ma does."
Chen Piaopiao said, "She doesn't seem like it."
She had a very good, artistic temperament.
"Oh, come on," Xiao Ma said, annoyed. "I've never seen anyone so dramatic. Give me another orange."
"Oh." Chen Piaopiao turned and grabbed one for her.
The juice from the orange peel sprayed into Xiao Ma's eyes. She frowned again as she peeled it, complaining all the while. "It was Baby Jin's first love, and she was so good to her. They didn't have many major-specific classes back then, and she wasn't in any clubs or student unions, so she had more free time than us. She was always asking Tao Jin to go eat with her. Sometimes we'd be in the cafeteria, already eating, and she'd call and say she had no appetite and wanted Tao Jin to go find her."
"Oh, and one time she said it was their one-month anniversary and Tao Jin forgot. She was unhappy, so Tao Jin asked her what gift she wanted. She said she wanted to drink milk tea from a shop in Liulizhuang, an influencer shop she saw online. That's over twenty kilometers away, sis."
"Baby Jin took a taxi to buy it for her. And then I saw that girl's post on her Moments. She was holding up the milk tea in a photo and said it tasted average, not as good as people online said, maybe because the ice had all melted."
The photo only showed the milk tea and her new manicure.
She spoke quickly and bluntly. Chen Piaopiao kept her chin propped on the back of the chair and didn't reply.
From the moment Xiao Ma said, "and she was so good to her," her heart began to ache, as if being pricked by a needle, stabbing at its very tip again and again.
Her mind couldn't help but picture what Tao Jin was like when she was good to her, the images growing more and more detailed. Her throat grew tight and raw, but her chest felt empty. All her emotions were contracting and expanding, making her unbearably miserable.
She was jealous, and she was angry.
She didn't like Tao Jin being gentle with others, didn't like Tao Jin doting on others, didn't like Tao Jin being good to others, or smiling at others. She didn't like Tao Jin taking a taxi for dozens of kilometers to buy someone else a cup of milk tea, didn't like Tao Jin eating with someone else.
She even thought of more—she didn't like Tao Jin blushing for someone else, being shy with someone else, being...
Her heart was squeezed viciously, and the pain made her instinctively flinch.
She skillfully put on a blank expression, pressing her chin hard against the back of the chair, leaving a deep red mark.
"Did they live together?"
She suddenly thought of that apartment. Something had felt off about it from the first time she went there. It looked like it hadn't been lived in for a long time, and Tao Jin didn't seem like someone who needed to rent a place.
"Oh, that was the most outrageous part," Xiao Ma said, rolling her eyes, speechless.
"They were only freshmen, and that girl made her rent an apartment off-campus. She probably thought Tao Jin's family was rich and renting was no big deal." Xiao Ma tossed the orange peel, and it landed in the plastic bag with a soft thud. "Baby Jin's family is rich, but how much money could they give a new college student? And she didn't dare let her family know."
Even though she had already guessed it, Chen Piaopiao's head was still buzzing. Xiao Ma's voice sounded like it was coming from a loudspeaker, metallic and grating.
She couldn't stop herself from wondering. That complex was very artistic and romantic, low-density Western-style houses with a vintage British feel. So, was it Tao Jin who picked it, or that girl?
And it was located right between An University and the Academy of Fine Arts.
No wonder.
She suddenly felt like a third wheel, standing nameless and placeless in the middle of their past, utterly mortified.
So it turned out this wasn't Chen Piaopiao's Plan B.
It was that girl and Tao Jin's Plan A.
"Back then, to afford the rent for that apartment, Tao Jin took a part-time job as a model, the kind you see in shopping malls. Malls have a lot of foot traffic, you know, and an acquaintance of her family saw her. Her dad gave her a real scolding."
"So then she started acting in plays, and at night she'd perform with a band in bars. She said her dad wouldn't find out in places like that."
Chen Piaopiao frowned, her lips parting as she drew in a soft breath.
She couldn't take it anymore. Her heart ached for her so much it felt like it would kill her.
Her expression was obvious this time, and Xiao Ma saw it. She felt bad too and tried to comfort her. "But later her mom increased her allowance. I don't know the specifics, but anyway, she stopped working part-time."
"How did they break up?" Chen Piaopiao didn't know what else to say. Her lips moved, and in the end, this was the only question she wanted to ask.
"Not sure," Xiao Ma said, shaking her head. "Jinjin initiated it. She just said she didn't want to be in a relationship anymore."
After that, no matter who confessed to her, she always had the same indifferent look.
Her roommates had originally thought she was heartbroken, but she wasn't. She was perfectly fine, and in fact, she got better and better, only keeping her distance from anything related to romance.
Xiao Ma and the others always teased her, calling her an AI.
But they were actually very happy that she was with Chen Piaopiao.
Her WeChat vibrated. Chen Piaopiao turned to pick it up. Her palm was already slick with sweat. She entered the password incorrectly the first time, only unlocking it on the second try.
"Are you in the dorm?" It was a message from Tao Jin.
They must be done talking.
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