Chapter 1 – I want
Every morning at nine, a whole string of reminders would pop up on Xiang You's phone all at once.
They came respectively from the phone apps “Schedule,” “Reminders,” and “Days Matter.”
She had no idea when she had set them, but somehow she had made the reminder time nine o’clock across the board.
Xiang You couldn’t be bothered to change them. She only knew that whenever her phone went pili-pala every morning, it was exactly nine o’clock.
Although she more or less knew what they would be reminding her about, Xiang You still picked up her phone and glanced at it.
The pop-ups covered one another, and in the end, the last one to appear emerged victorious, taking up permanent residence at the very top of the screen:
“2 and I have been apart for 1,000 days.”
A thousand days.
What an intimidating looking number.
Compared with a life that stretched into the tens of thousands of days, it really wasn’t that long.
But it certainly couldn’t be called short either. At the very least, it was long enough for her to gradually forget someone.
She had been in three relationships in total.
Everyone said first love was the hardest to forget, but the first one had been too short, and too much like children playing house, so she always habitually overlooked it.
When she was in her second relationship, she happened to switch to this phone system and casually recorded the dates they got together and broke up.
After that, every time she changed phones, she transferred all the data over, so those records had remained with her all this time.
She had really only meant to record them. She never expected that, once the thousand-day mark arrived, the app would treat it as something important and solemnly remind her about it.
Xiang You tapped into the app and took a look.
Hmm. A little over six hundred more days, and she would be getting a reminder saying, “3 and I have been apart for 1,000 days.”
Thinking about it, she had almost been single for a year now.
The “2 and I have been apart” reminder she received today referred to Meng Ou.
Besides the record of their breakup, there was also a record of when they had been together.
It clearly said above it: “Together with 2 for a total of 1,499 days.”
Every time she saw that record, she regretted not waiting one more day before asking to break up.
Especially with the thousand-day mark right there, the number triggered another bout of her obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Xiang You returned to the main screen, glanced at the tasks she had to do today, and opened her book.
Today was Sunday, so she didn’t have to work.
There weren’t many tasks, either. They were all study plans she had set for herself.
The end of the universe is the civil service exam. Every extra bit of frustration she suffered at the company, she would go home and memorize ten more questions.
This was her second attempt.
Being employed took away some of the financial pressure. She knew the way out was in her own hands, but it also took away much of the motivation to burn her bridges and stake everything on this one attempt.
But she didn’t dare gamble.
When it came to life, she liked to play it safe.
She was much the same when it came to love.
By the time she finished the last question, it was already two in the afternoon.
Her head was full of all kinds of devilishly tricky logic questions. Xiang You shook her head, trying to clear them out for the moment and give herself a little better mood.
She opened the curtains. The weather was nice today.
Most of the sunlight was hidden behind the dark clouds. It wasn’t too cold or too hot, exactly the kind of weather that was good for going out to clear your head.
Then let’s go out for a walk.
Xiang You didn’t put on any makeup. She threw on a baseball cap and a loose white cotton dress, enjoying the feeling of wandering the streets like a wandering ghost.
She liked to make herself invisible, then observe humanity.
It sounded rather sophisticated, but really, it was just one way of emptying her mind.
For example, she would look at their wildly different expressions and guess at their moods.
Or, when she happened to pass by, she would be forced to overhear a couple of lines of conversation and fill in the beginning and the end herself.
As for the things everyone gathered around to watch, such as scenes of people arguing, scenes of people fighting, car accidents...
Because they were too intense, she actually didn’t like watching them.
It should have been a lively Sunday, but everyone seemed strangely exhausted.
Perhaps the fatigue accumulated over an entire week was never something that could be dispelled in just a day or two.
A sudden “Hey” came from beside her, startling her.
She turned her head and saw a young man standing in front of her.
His bangs covered half his eyes. He smiled with a hint of nervous restraint.
“I’ve been watching you for a long time... Could we exchange contact information and be friends?”
“Ah.” Xiang You responded instinctively.
“Is that okay?” the young man asked again, mustering his courage.
“Okay what?” Xiang You asked, puzzled.
All of her attention was carried away by the first sentence: “I’ve been watching you for a long time.”
It was a very subtle feeling.
When she was observing other people, other people were quietly observing her too.
“You stand upon the bridge and watch the view,
while the one watching the view watches you from the bridge.
The bright moon adorns your window,
and you adorn another’s dream.”
The poem suddenly surfaced in her mind.
She silently recited it to herself.
And just then, she saw the young man’s lips moving.
But she paid no attention at all to what he was saying, completely absorbed in silently reciting the poem in her head.
When she finished the last word, she heard the young man ask again, “Is that okay?”
Okay what?
She really wanted to ask, but asking a second time would seem rather rude.
She really was someone who was easily distracted, anytime, anywhere.
Her high school teachers often said that if she could just concentrate a little more, getting into one of China’s TOP2 universities would be no problem.
And Meng Ou would cup her face in his hands and say, “Give me the next minute. You’re not allowed to think about anything else.”
Meng Ou?
Xiang You looked up at the young man. He was definitely not talking about Meng Ou.
So she got distracted again.
The young man looked rather dejected. He gave a bitter smile and said, “Okay, then,” before turning and leaving.
Xiang You felt sorry about it.
Still, she figured it probably wasn’t anything particularly important. If she missed it, then she missed it.
She had already missed too much in her life because of being distracted.
But every now and then, when she did manage to concentrate, she would discover that some things were better left missed through distraction. That way, she didn’t have to spare a little more brainpower to remember one more thing that would only upset her.
Xiang You continued walking forward.
This was an ordinary commercial street, with streams of pedestrians along the roadside and shops standing row upon row.
The smell of coffee suddenly drifted into her nose. There must have been quite a lot of people who wanted milk coffee, because the milky aroma was every bit as strong as the coffee.
Xiang You turned her head almost instinctively. This seemed to be a newly opened coffee shop. She had come across its advertisement online recently.
Although she always had a bit of an aversion to marketing, the rich aroma of coffee still drew her into the shop before she knew it.
A string of wind chimes hung on the door, ringing “ling ling” as she pushed it open.
Hearing the sound, the barista looked up from behind the counter and smiled at her.
“Welcome to ‘BAILA.’ What would you like to drink?”
Xiang You looked up. The menu on the wooden signboard was a bewildering assortment of choices.
It made her eyes swim and her mind ache, as though she were looking at the logical reasoning questions on the civil service exam.
“One latte, please.” Xiang You hadn’t remembered a single item name, so she just said it casually.
“Would you like the thick milk latte, the matcha latte, or perhaps try our new fresh coconut crispy bobo hazelnut chocolate crumble lat—”
Xiang You started to feel dizzy from listening. “Sorry, just the most ordinary one is fine.”
“Of course. Please wait a moment.” The barista smiled somewhat awkwardly and handed her a numbered sign.
On her way back to her seat, she heard the barista quietly lamenting to a colleague, “When are we ever going to get this new product off the ground...”
“Pfft.”
Xiang You couldn’t help laughing aloud.
It was probably the bitter laugh of someone who was also a fellow wage worker.
A customer in the seat beside her looked up at her.
Xiang You immediately felt embarrassed and hurried to the very corner, where she took a seat.
The latte was brought over soon after.
It had a beautiful leaf-shaped design in the foam, and its aroma was rich.
Xiang You lowered her head and took a small sip while it was still hot.
It was good, certainly, but unfortunately a little expensive, nearly fifty yuan a cup.
She set down the coffee cup and looked up, feeling milk foam stuck to her lips.
Just as she was about to lick it clean, the sound of wind chimes suddenly came from beside her.
Unfortunately, she got distracted at exactly that moment.
She looked toward the door at the sound, and a man walked in.
Calling him “a man” felt too unfamiliar, because this was someone she knew.
So, more accurately, Meng Ou walked in.
Meng Ou?
“Ding.”
The notification sound from her phone that morning replayed in her mind.
The thousandth day since their breakup.
And also the first day they met again.
✦
Notes:
The poem is quoted from Bian Zhilin's "断章" ("Fragment").
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