Drifting on a String - Chapter 29
Chapter 29
For the first time, she felt like the numbers on the elevator weren't going up, but counting down.
Chen Piaopiao and Tao Jin stood side-by-side at the very back, watching the elevator doors open and close. As the girls reached their floors, they walked out one by one, like a sturdy tree sprouting forked branches.
Tao Jin's branch was on the 11th floor, Chen Piaopiao's on the 9th.
The elevator ascended. After the doors closed on the 8th floor, Tao Jin handed the kimbap to Chen Piaopiao, watching carefully to make sure she had a firm grip. Then she raised her hand and discreetly ruffled the back of Chen Piaopiao's head.
"Bye-bye," Chen Piaopiao said softly.
"Mm."
The atmosphere of the dorm was a world apart from the residential complex. Chen Piaopiao found it hard to adjust, like a lawless adult suddenly being forced back into a tiny bottle, compelled to be a "child" again.
A classmate eating a popsicle walked past in the hallway with a "pat, pat" sound and greeted her, "Piao~"
"Going to eat?" Chen Piaopiao responded with a smile.
The classmate was slightly taken aback. Usually, Chen Piaopiao was very quiet and introverted, typically just offering a smile when they met.
After exchanging a few pleasantries, Chen Piaopiao tucked her hair behind her ear and entered her room. The electric fan was still whirring, the hot air turning the dorm into something like a steam basket.
The faint, musty smell of a towel that hadn't dried properly lingered in the dorm. Chen Piaopiao twitched her nose, slid a chair out with her leg, and sat down. She placed the kimbap on the desk and habitually turned on her computer.
The metal bed frame creaked. Qi Mian craned her neck to look at her. "Are you feeling better?"
Only then did Chen Piaopiao remember her excuse about having a cold. She sniffled. "Pretty much."
"Whoa," Qi Mian climbed down. "Should you drink some more hot water? Why is your voice so hoarse?"
Chen Piaopiao hummed in agreement, opening her thermos and then closing it again. She picked up a bottle of mineral water from the floor, twisted it open, and took small sips.
"Is it a cold?" Qi Mian was quite worried. "Did you go to the hospital to get it checked out? Your voice is so raspy."
Of course it was a cold. Chen Piaopiao took another sip of water. Was she supposed to say she'd been done by her senior for two days and two nights until her voice was hoarse?
Right, that same gentle senior who everyone thought didn't need love.
Chen Piaopiao's lower abdomen twitched with a dull ache.
Her back, too. She silently stretched it a little, glanced at her phone, and thought of Tao Jin, feeling an inexplicable sense of satisfaction.
She had discovered the strangest thing about being in a relationship: a sense of fulfillment. She was like a poor person who'd suddenly struck it rich, who'd come into a windfall. Her wallet was bulging. No one knew, but she always wanted to open it and check her bank account balance.
She would feel rich at any moment—while greeting a classmate she barely knew, while picking up a bottle of mineral water from the floor, while glancing at her dark phone screen.
In short, she had developed a sense of abundance, a feeling of being the chosen protagonist, completely different from everyone else in the world.
Chen Piaopiao didn't possess a huge fortune, but it seemed she possessed Tao Jin. The mere thought made even breathing feel exceptionally good.
She changed into her slippers, opened her phone, checked the notifications in her class group chat, and searched the campus forum for recent lectures that offered academic credit. While browsing the posts, she glanced at the QQ and WeChat clients running on her computer.
They were as quiet as sleeping pigs.
A sense of disappointment piled up like sand in an hourglass. She checked the time in the bottom-right corner; only ten minutes had passed.
Chen Piaopiao once again felt that Tao Jin had cast a spell on her, and this time, it wasn't just physical.
She's back in her dorm, shouldn't she say hello? I'm her girlfriend, aren't I?
Or is she waiting for me to report in first? The little fox was in her first relationship and had no experience; she couldn't be sure.
She hissed softly through her teeth, opened WeChat, and was about to send a message. But seeing that their chat history stopped last week, she lost the desire to. A few twisted thoughts flashed through her mind. She pulled up the Lesbian Chat Group and sent a "peeking" sticker.
Rabbit: Peeking.jpg.
Miaomiao: Rabbit's here?
Shimo: The lurking rabbit has surfaced.
Patrick: What's the deal with you and Lao T, anyway? Did you meet up?
At the sudden mention of "T," the scales in Chen Piaopiao's heart swayed. But she deliberately ignored that message. Tao Jin hadn't contacted her, and she felt vexed.
So she replied: So tired.
Shimo: What were you doing?
Rabbit: Climbing a mountain.
Roro: What mountain, Fragrant Hills?
Rabbit: Carrot Mountain.
Shimo: Hahahahahahahahaha.
Roro: Hahahahahaha.
Another inside joke. Chen Piaopiao propped her chin on her hand and clicked the mouse with the other, but the person who loved these jokes the most didn't react.
Her new girlfriend, who had been so inseparable from her, had no reaction.
The profile picture was gray. Chen Piaopiao clicked on it. There was nothing in the profile—what a dutifully maintained side account. She closed it, opened it, then closed it again. Suddenly, she felt this profile picture was quite dignified.
Not at all like those other flirts.
Fine, since she was so special, Chen Piaopiao could be the one to contact her.
She opened WeChat and "patted" Tao Jin.
Five minutes later, Tao Jin finally replied: "Just got back to the dorm. Tizi seems to have symptoms of heatstroke, we were finding some Huoxiang Zhengqi Liquid for her."
Oh, a reasonably urgent excuse, and she knew how to explain it properly. Chen Piaopiao was a little satisfied. She bent her legs and hugged her knees. "How did she get heatstroke?"
"She was lifting dumbbells on the balcony. I think."
Pfft. Chen Piaopiao laughed. For some reason, she found the "I think" tacked on the end of Tao Jin's sentence particularly funny, particularly cute.
It's over, Chen Piaopiao. Her heart suddenly sank. Back when she used to comment on TV dramas in the forums, she couldn't stand those lovesick protagonists. What could she say now?
To use a popular internet phrase: "Look up if you don't believe it—has heaven ever spared anyone?"
She cupped her face in her hands and stared blankly at the WeChat conversation.
Perhaps many people who thought they were experienced believed that the push and pull would end the moment they "got together." It wasn't until they truly experienced love that they realized how one-sided and shallow those imaginings from "outside the city walls" were.
The second-guessing and the fear of loss were perhaps just beginning.
Her vision blurred as she zoned out, then sharpened again with a blink, because a message from Tao Jin had arrived: "Playing in the group chat?"
Chen Piaopiao pressed her lips together. "You saw?"
"So, after you got back to the dorm, you went to the group chat first, instead of looking for me?" Tao Jin sent this line.
There was no emoji, but Chen Piaopiao could almost hear her tone. A smile instantly reached her eyes. She pressed her upturned lips against her knee and waited a moment for the turbulent tide in her heart to calm down before replying, "Yeah, what about it?"
What about it, are you unhappy?
She didn't need Tao Jin's answer, because no matter what it was, Chen Piaopiao would be satisfied. She reached out to pick at the dust on her keyboard, her eyelashes lowered as she smiled quietly.
After chatting with Tao Jin for a while, Chen Piaopiao thoughtfully decided to let her get back to her own things, perhaps also unable to stand how clingy she herself was being. So she said she had homework to do and ended the conversation.
She opened Word. The cursor blinked, and she typed and deleted, but no inspiration came. She was still stuck on the first line.
She clicked on her browser and searched for the perfume Tao Jin used.
She had seen it on the sink in her room. It was by Chloé, probably the Northern Cedar one. It smelled of cool pine nuts and snow-covered fresh tea. Chen Piaopiao recognized the scent but wasn't sure of the current price. She wanted to buy a bottle for herself, but a search revealed it was quite expensive.
She didn't have that much money.
Closing the webpage, Chen Piaopiao finally settled down to study.
As night fell, dots of light appeared outside the floor-to-ceiling window. Chen Piaopiao got hungry and ate half of the kimbap, then washed up and watched the street scene with a face mask on. Behind her, her clothes, not wrung out completely, dripped water into a basin with a soft "plink, plink." She watched the endless stream of traffic and listened to the dripping water, still thinking about Tao Jin.
She probably hadn't showered either, since they had both washed in the little apartment.
She suddenly felt that sticking together for two days hadn't been the right choice. The abrupt separation was hard to get used to; it made her even more curious about what the out-of-sight Tao Jin was doing.
Tossing the face mask, Chen Piaopiao meticulously completed her skincare routine. Wearing a slip dress, she went out into the hallway to get some air. Then she pushed open the door to the emergency stairwell and started climbing to the 11th floor.
It wasn't lights-out yet, and the 11th floor was brightly lit. Chen Piaopiao clutched the little rabbit in her heart and shuffled along. At the corner, she saw 1105, its door still slightly ajar.
She hesitated for a moment, then walked past the doorway, glancing inside. She didn't see Tao Jin.
She took a stroll to the hot water room, then turned back, peeking in again. This time, she saw her.
She was walking from Lao Hai's direction back to her own seat, holding a piece of dried mango. She was smiling as she ate it with restraint. As she sat down, she turned back to chat with Lao Hai for a couple more sentences, looking quite happy.
Chen Piaopiao wasn't so happy anymore. They had just gotten together two days ago, and here she was, laughing and talking with someone else as usual, while she herself had run all the way up here to see what she was doing.
Unfair.
Was she really that exceptional? Even her rhythm in a relationship was so calm, so effortless.
She was about to go back downstairs when she suddenly saw Tao Jin turn her head as if sensing something, look up, and meet her eyes.
Then Tao Jin smiled. "You're here?"
The words were very soft, and the curve of her lips was very slight, which was why Chen Piaopiao heard the difference.
Before, Tao Jin would have greeted her openly, invited her in, and called her, "Piaopiao."
But in her gaze and tone just now, Tao Jin had a hint of unexpected shyness.
"Yeah," Chen Piaopiao stood at the door. "I was just passing by, looking for a senior."
Tao Jin didn't move. She leaned her back against the chair and looked at her, a smile in her eyes, but her lips were pressed together. She moistened them, showing no intention of speaking.
The atmosphere was rather subtle. Xiao Ma looked at her, then at Chen Piaopiao, and couldn't help but speak up. "Hey junior, come on in and sit down. Why are you standing in the doorway?"
With the second half of her sentence, she shot a look at Tao Jin. What's wrong with you? Aren't you the most sociable one?
"Do you… want to come in?" Tao Jin bent her forearm, resting her wrist on the back of the chair, her fingers idly tracing the grain of the wood.
Amidst her soft-spoken words, Chen Piaopiao's gaze met hers for a brief moment. "I'm going down."
"I'll walk you." Tao Jin stood up and led her toward the stairwell. Her left hand rested on Chen Piaopiao's shoulder, patting it gently twice. With her other hand, she pulled the door shut.
What was going on? Xiao Ma grabbed the back of her chair and exchanged a look with Lao Hai.
She didn't invite the person in, but she was going to walk her downstairs, and on top of that, she closed the door on them?
Isn't it hot?
😂😂😂😂
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