Drifting on a String - Chapter 46

Chapter 46

The first snow of the season fell unexpectedly on Saturday night. As a southerner born and raised, it was the first time Chen Piaopiao had ever seen real snow. Even though it was light, like underdeveloped raindrops, she was still thrilled and leaned against the doorframe, watching for a long while.

She couldn't resist digging her phone out of her locker and sending Tao Jin a WeChat message: "It's snowing."

Tao Jin called her. Afraid that Tao Jin would hear the sounds of the bar, Chen Piaopiao ran to the mouth of the alley to answer.

"The snow is so early this year. Did you see it?" Chen Piaopiao's voice trembled slightly.

Tao Jin was standing on the second floor, her gaze fixed on the courtyard. "It's too light. I can't really see it."

"Why do you sound so cold?" Tao Jin listened carefully to the sound of the wind for a moment. "Are you not at home?"

"I just came downstairs to buy something. I'm heading back up now," Chen Piaopiao said, picking at the cracks between the bricks on the wall. "I just happened to see the snow."

"Turn on the heat when you get back inside," Tao Jin instructed gently. "And wear more layers tomorrow. There are some of my thicker clothes in the closet."

"Okay," Chen Piaopiao's feet were a little stiff from the cold—she was still wearing thin shoes. She scuffed the soles against the wet ground and whispered into the microphone, "I miss you so much."

Tao Jin let out a soft laugh, the sound of her breath coming through the receiver. "Me too."

After hanging up, Chen Piaopiao ducked her head, a smile on her lips, and started walking back. She saw Le Chu standing by the wall with her hands in her pockets, speaking to someone in the shadows. "It's snowing. Aren't you leaving?"

Li Yu looked up at her and took an umbrella out of her bag. She had checked the weather forecast, but even if she hadn't, she had a habit of always carrying an umbrella.

"Fuck," Le Chu cursed under her breath, turning her head to the side. She glanced at Li Yu sniffling, then turned and walked back inside.

At the steps, she slowed down and waited for Chen Piaopiao to catch up. She gestured with a hand tucked in her pocket. "Where'd you go?"

"Made a phone call."

"Slacking off."

"...It was only three minutes."

"I said you were slacking off," Le Chu said, casually raising an eyebrow and glancing over. "There's a customer over there, can't you see?"

Huh? Chen Piaopiao followed her gaze and understood.

She invited Li Yu inside. Her gray coat was dotted with snowflakes. Chen Piaopiao served her a hot drink, then after a moment's thought, said to Mu Xing the bartender, "Put it on the boss's tab."

This was possibly Le Chu's thirty-sixth girlfriend this week. And maybe, there wouldn't be a thirty-seventh.

There weren't many customers left. Chen Piaopiao sat by the window with her chin in her hand, watching the snow and occasionally chatting with Li Yu.

She used to be an HR manager at a foreign trade company but was about to quit. The reason was that a senior executive at the company was her ex-wife's older sister, and the boss was that sister's husband.

She hadn't intended to get drunk, but was this any way for a person to live? It was the life of a sandwich.

Chen Piaopiao and Mu Xing asked her why she'd taken a liking to Le Chu. Li Yu answered very poetically, saying that if she were a carp trapped in a fishbowl, and the bowl had just been shattered, she wanted to taste the sea.

Le Chu, sitting on a high stool, sneered. "If you want to eat Poli seaweed snacks, just say so."

Mu Xing and Chen Piaopiao laughed too, but Li Yu didn't. She gave Le Chu a look that was both serious and not, and sipped her hot drink.

Le Chu spun her stool around and said to Chen Piaopiao, who was getting up to clean, "She's got a screw loose. Carp are freshwater fish."

And yet, that night, the freshwater fish got on Le Chu's motorcycle again, claiming she couldn't get a cab because of the snow.

Chen Piaopiao watched them speed off, then took out her phone and hailed a ride instantly.

When she got home that night, she took a shower but didn't draw the curtains. She placed the perfume on her nightstand, draped one of Tao Jin's jackets over the quilt, and lay on her side hugging it, watching the snow outside through the faint scent of cedar.

So it was true that the north didn't have an autumn. When she first came back, she was still wearing light clothes, but this snowy night had rushed in the winter.

She watched eagerly as the small pellets of snow grew larger, turning into a heavy snow of goose-feather flakes that swirled past her floor-to-ceiling window. Dawn was breaking, and tomorrow would be a wintery Beicheng she had never seen before.

Chen Piaopiao suddenly wondered, Am I really going to settle down in Beicheng in the future? She didn't feel a sense of belonging here, but that didn't matter. After all, she didn't feel a sense of belonging anywhere. At least here, there was Tao Jin.

Even though she had only been here for a few months, she had already grown to like the atmosphere of Beicheng. People drifted through the vast city, busy and crowded, like aimless souls. Nothing they saw surprised them, because deep down, they didn't have the energy to care about anyone else. It wasn't like Xindu, where people knew who her father and mother were, who her stepfather and stepmother were, what grade her half-sister was in, and even knew that her sister said they weren't close at all, that she didn't count as an older sister. And this was despite Chen Piaopiao never having spoken a word of it to anyone.

Beicheng was a city where, even if you spoke, there was no guarantee anyone would hear you. It was so big, it was safe.

She drifted off into a hazy sleep and was woken by her alarm at 8 a.m. Tao Jin had said she would be back earlier this week, arriving in the morning.

Chen Piaopiao got up, washed her face, and asked about Tao Jin's general schedule. They agreed to meet at the university. She killed some time at McDonald's, and when it was about time, she walked to the ginkgo-lined path to wait for Tao Jin.

She was wearing Tao Jin's duffle coat. It had a very British style and was a little long, just enough to cover her wrists and fingertips, as if Tao Jin were holding her hand. She hadn't bought any winter shoes yet and was still in sneakers. Beneath the cuffs of her slim jeans, her ankles were whiter than the snow, tinged with a faint red.

She stomped her feet. Her thick hair served as a hat, covering her cold-sensitive ears.

From a distance, she saw Tao Jin approaching. She was wearing a short black top with dad jeans, high-top sneakers, and an oversized jacket over a low-necked black knit shirt. Her neck was bare, strikingly so, and pale.

She walked closer with a smile, looking even more beautiful in the snow. The roots of her eyelashes were reddish, and the hollow of her collarbones was pink.

"Why are you here?"

"It's the first snow. I wanted to see it with you."

Tao Jin looked at her wearing her own clothes, reached out to tug on the coat's pocket, gave it a little shake, and smiled as brightly as the stars.

Chen Piaopiao licked her lips. "They say in TV dramas that you can make a wish on the first snow."

She was a little anxious and glanced at the snow piled at the base of the tree. Will this work? I hope it hasn't frozen solid.

Tao Jin blinked, her gaze also falling to the base of the tree. "So?"

For some reason, Chen Piaopiao felt an urge to laugh. She cleared her throat and kicked at a bit of loose snow. "Dig here. There might be something."

Tao Jin's lips parted slightly. She raised an eyebrow in confirmation. "Me, dig?"

"Find a stick or something. Just... dig it out."

Chen Piaopiao said in a small voice.

Then, under Tao Jin's gaze, she blushed furiously. Maybe her brain had frozen. Her words were a jumbled mess. Or maybe it was because she'd never done anything romantic before. In any case, it was a far cry from how she'd imagined it.

Dig it out, unearth it... sounds like I'm robbing a tomb.

Tao Jin considered this for a second, then her eyes curved into a smile as warm as a spring breeze. She crouched down, picked up a nearby branch, and began to meticulously and patiently brush the snow away. What could it be?

Chen Piaopiao was quite nervous. She looked at Tao Jin's back, then at her hands, then looked down and paced a couple of steps behind her, wondering if the perfume would get icy from being buried in the snow. Probably not, right? It has its own packaging, and I wrapped it in a few extra layers.

Her heart pounded anxiously. After waiting for half a minute without hearing the gasp of delight she'd hoped for, Chen Piaopiao peeked over. Tao Jin was just turning around, frowning. "There's nothing here."

Nothing?

How could that be... Chen Piaopiao crouched down beside her and stared at the completely disturbed pile of snow, dumbfounded. In disbelief, she reached out to dig with her hands, but Tao Jin grabbed her wrist. Tao Jin tucked Chen Piaopiao's hand inside her own coat to warm it, then picked up the branch with her other hand and scraped around a couple more times to show her. "Really, there's nothing."

"What was it?" Tao Jin tilted her head and asked softly. Was it something valuable?

Chen Piaopiao stared blankly for a moment, a cold shiver running through her heart, before she came back to her senses. "Perfume. The perfume I bought for you, the cedar one. I buried it here. Because I'd never seen snow before, and I thought it would be romantic, and... I didn't even walk away."

She spoke slowly, in a small voice, her eyelashes fluttering and her lips pale.

Finally, she pressed her lips together. She remembered now—after burying it, she had gone to the school gate for a few minutes to see if Tao Jin had arrived. The path had been empty at the time; she didn't think anyone would spot it.

That damn thief...

"How could they steal it so fast?" Chen Piaopiao stared dejectedly at the empty patch of snow, her mood scattered and in pieces.

All those late nights I worked... sigh.

She lowered her head, rubbed her hands together, and sniffled lightly. She wanted to say something, but in the end, she just whispered, "I'm sorry."

Her ear felt a little itchy, and she reached up to scratch it. "It's gone, just like that."

She didn't know why she was apologizing. Maybe she felt sorry for her own helpless self.

Tao Jin watched her intently. The little fox still hadn't cried, and her disappointment wasn't obvious, but her expressionless face was enough to send Tao Jin's heart into turmoil, softening it until it was like seaweed drifting in the water.

She reached out and gently pinched Chen Piaopiao's earlobe, then brushed her cheek with her fingertips. "Why did you buy me a gift?"

"Because I like you," Chen Piaopiao said, glancing at her.

Tao Jin smiled, a little shyly. After thinking for a moment, she replied with the same words Chen Piaopiao had said to her at the beach: "Then how many gifts do I owe you?"

Chen Piaopiao's heart skipped a beat. She understood Tao Jin's implication.

She was saying that she liked Chen Piaopiao very, very much, and if liking someone meant giving them gifts, then she already owed her a great many.

Chen Piaopiao crouched silently in front of the snow, listening to the sound of her own fluttering heart.

Tao Jin reached out, brushed her hair aside, leaned in, and kissed her on the cheek. Then, she paused with her face close enough to whisper and asked softly, "Have you eaten?"

"I have. McDonald's."

"I haven't. Will you eat a little more with me?"

"Oh."

The damp branch was tossed aside. The two of them walked hand in hand toward the cafeteria, Tao Jin squeezing her fingertips before tucking her hand into her own coat pocket.

The little fox's small voice seemed to bounce back from the snow to the tree-lined path.

"That thief is the worst. I'm going to post about them on the campus confession page."

"Remember to use a burner account."

"You can count on me."

"Mm."

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