WF | Chapter 12

In early March 2011, Shen Lian had made it through unscathed, and with an EJU score of 751 and a TOEFL score of 108, she was admitted to the University of Tokyo’s four-year pharmacy program, becoming a legend among that year’s batch of international students.

She did not tell any of her relatives back home the good news. The only person she cared about was Zheng Tingyu, and the only thing she wanted was to share her success and joy with Zheng Tingyu.

She could tell Zheng Tingyu was happier than anyone else. When she showed Zheng Tingyu the admissions webpage and told her the result, Zheng Tingyu’s face broke into the brightest smile she had seen since they met. She even couldn’t help clapping and spinning once in place, like a child whose biggest wish had just been granted.

Shen Lian’s lips curved into a smile too.

Zheng Tingyu said that in a couple of days, when she was off, she would treat Shen Lian to a meal, first to celebrate her getting into the University of Tokyo, and second to reward her for all the hard work she had put in over this long stretch of time.

Shen Lian refused. She said, “It should be me treating you. Thank you for all your help and care this whole time.”

“Give me a chance, Zheng Tingyu.” She looked at her earnestly.

Zheng Tingyu met her eyes for two seconds, then smiled faintly and looked away, yielding at last.

“Then let me thank you in advance.”

“It’s only right.” Shen Lian replied with a smile.

With the money she had earned from her convenience store part-time job over the two months after the EJU exam, she booked a Japanese restaurant with a window view of Tokyo Tower at night, bought a bouquet of red roses, and while Zheng Tingyu had to leave first for something during the day, she quietly brought the roses home ahead of time and hid them in the curtains behind the sofa in the living room, then went out with Zheng Tingyu.

They arrived at the Japanese restaurant before sunset. Just as the appetizers were served, the streetlights outside the huge glass windows began to turn on one by one, and then the Tokyo Tower in the distance suddenly glowed with an orange radiance, lighting up the bluish-gray dusk of Tokyo in an instant.

Zheng Tingyu rested her chin on her hand and looked out the window, her eyes rippling with that fleeting moment.

She said, “Although I’ve seen Tokyo Tower lit up many times, this is the first time I’ve seen the moment it turns on.”

Shen Lian gazed at her smiling face, her own heart swaying with the bright delight in Zheng Tingyu’s eyes.

She repeated to Zheng Tingyu the words Zheng Tingyu had told her at the observation deck on last year’s Valentine’s Day: “As long as we work hard, this view at this very moment can also become an ordinary sight we pass by and look at whenever we want?”

Zheng Tingyu couldn’t help turning back to look at her, one brow lifting.

Shen Lian, unusually unrestrained, copied Zheng Tingyu’s usual sly expression, tilted her head, and smiled at her with hooked lips.

Zheng Tingyu froze for a few seconds, then lowered her head and let out a soft laugh. After that, she lifted her glass and invited Shen Lian, “A toast?”

Shen Lian also raised her glass and gently touched hers against it, saying softly, “A toast.”

With a light chime, the red wine swayed in the glass. Tokyo’s brilliant, dazzling night, the restaurant’s mellow and elegant music all met in their eyes, turning into a feeling that was half-hidden, lingering, and difficult to put into words. It was almost the most buoyant, triumphant moment of Shen Lian’s nineteen years of life.

Several times, Shen Lian nearly could not stop herself from using the atmosphere to confess to Zheng Tingyu, but reason returned and she held herself back.

She was sincerely grateful to Zheng Tingyu. No matter what, she hoped Zheng Tingyu could enjoy this dinner, and these happy moments, lightly and without any burden.

They spent a very pleasant evening together. After dinner, they strolled through the glittering streets of Roppongi, listened to a street performer sing for quite a while, and only when it was almost time did they take the subway back home to Shinjuku.

Shen Lian used her key to open the door.

She could feel the feelings flowing through Zheng Tingyu’s eyes, which repeatedly met hers and then drew away. She guessed there was a very high chance Zheng Tingyu would accept her. She was tormented by the unknown, by nervousness and unease, and she could not wait any longer.

Distractedly, she answered Zheng Tingyu while changing shoes and washing her hands, then walked toward the sofa in the corner of the living room, pulled out the bouquet of roses still beaded with water and blooming in full force from behind the curtain, and called out to Zheng Tingyu just as Zheng Tingyu finished washing her hands and was about to go upstairs to shower and change.

“Tingyu.” She spoke, her voice trembling slightly.

Zheng Tingyu turned around from the foot of the stairs.

The motion sensor light at the entrance had gone out after not detecting any movement for a long time, plunging the room into darkness, but moonlight illuminated their faces.

It was obvious. Shen Lian saw Zheng Tingyu’s gaze freeze the moment it fell on the bouquet of red roses before her. She could not tell whether Zheng Tingyu was happy or unhappy.

Her heart was beating so hard it felt like it might leap out of her chest, and the hand holding the roses was trembling faintly, but she still mustered the courage to say it.

She said, “Zheng Tingyu, I have something I want to say to you.”

Zheng Tingyu looked at her across half a living room’s distance. Her gaze was clearly tender, but the action she gave in reply was cruel.

She shook her head, signaling Shen Lian not to say it.

Shen Lian’s heart suddenly sank, and the light in her eyes went out in an instant.

She tightened her fingers, her throat choking over and over, but still couldn’t help asking, “Why?”

She did not want to force Zheng Tingyu in the slightest, but she didn’t understand, and she was unwilling to accept it.

She stared at Zheng Tingyu without blinking, her voice very soft, very gentle, almost pleading. “Can I ask why, Zheng Tingyu?”

Clearly, she liked her too.

Why not choose her, why not want her.

Perhaps it was the broken, tearful quiver in her voice that moved Zheng Tingyu, perhaps it was the shimmering moisture in her eyes that softened Zheng Tingyu, because Zheng Tingyu’s own eyes also filled with a layer of mist.

She said, “Shen Lian, in our lives, when we’re at our lowest points, or when we’re weak and lonely, we will always meet a few people, go through a few moments, that make you want to lean on someone, make you want to surrender. But at times like that, the fondness and liking that arise may not really be love. Just like what we’ve heard before, the imprinting instinct.”

“You’ve already defeated life. You’re the bravest, most amazing person I know. Don’t lose to a moment like this, and don’t bind yourself into such a misaligned emotional relationship.”

Shen Lian was stunned. Her mind took a few seconds to catch up, and only then did she understand what Zheng Tingyu meant.

She asked, “Do you think I don’t really like you, that it’s only because you helped me and I became dependent on you, wanted to rely on you, so I wanted to be with you?”

She felt a little hurt. She had never expected Zheng Tingyu to think of her like that.

Zheng Tingyu shook her head. “No, that’s not what I mean.” She was a little anxious, and the mist in her eyes thickened into tears that rolled from the corners of her eyes. She said, “It’s just that life is hard. When a person has nowhere to lean on, it’s easy to become vulnerable, easy to develop feelings for someone who has given her warmth, easy to mistake it for love, isn’t it?”

Shen Lian instinctively shook her head. “No.”

A little post-trauma, carefully tentative hope rose in her heart.

She replied, “I won’t deny that the reason I first developed feelings for you was partly because you were gentle and kind to people. But isn’t gentleness itself a quality that shines and attracts others? Isn’t mutual attraction and mutual fondness between people something that happens through getting along and interacting? Does it still need to be limited by specific situations and conditions?”

Zheng Tingyu nodded in agreement, but then she asked, “Shen Lian, if we hadn’t met in Japan, if we hadn’t gotten to know each other under these conditions, if you had followed your original path, gotten into Tsinghua smoothly in China, then gone to the United States for graduate school and a doctorate, with a bright future ahead of you, would you, after walking into a barbecue restaurant at some classmates’ or coworkers’ dinner gathering, have fallen in love with a barbecue restaurant employee who had no education and with whom you had almost nothing in common?”

“You wouldn’t.” Zheng Tingyu answered her own question.

Shen Lian was silent for a moment, then answered firmly, “If it were you, I would.”

As long as they met, got to know each other, understood each other, no matter how many times it took, she would definitely fall in love with Zheng Tingyu. The first time one notices someone, perhaps it is because of outside conditions, perhaps because of her superior academic background, perhaps because of her outstanding looks, or perhaps because of her remarkable way of speaking, but loving someone is not. She loved Zheng Tingyu’s shining soul.

Besides, how could they not have anything in common? Were all those endless conversations, all those feelings that poured out the moment they shared them, fake?

But Zheng Tingyu still did not believe it. “You’re lying. Before that, you would have already fallen in love at university with classmates or older and younger schoolmates who shared your ideals.”

Shen Lian had no answer for that. She could not deny the possibility, but there are no ifs in this world. That possibility no longer existed.

She set the roses on the sofa by her leg, walked closer to Zheng Tingyu, looked into Zheng Tingyu’s eyes, and said, “But we met in Japan.”

“Without the ifs you’re talking about, I already love you now.”

“Zheng Tingyu,” under the moonlight, she confessed, “my heart is very small. After I’ve fallen in love with you, there can be no one else who can enter my eyes or my heart. The things you’re considering, the things you’re worrying about, none of them exist.”

Zheng Tingyu’s eyelashes trembled. It was obvious there was no lack of emotion in her eyes.

Shen Lian tentatively reached out and gently took her hand, gazing at her as she said softly, “Zheng Tingyu, I like you, not because you’re good to me or because you’ve helped me so much. Don’t think of me as so weak, and don’t deny yourself like this, okay?”

“I like your gentleness. I don’t only like how gentle you are with me. I like how gentle you are with other people, with customers, with flowers, plants, cats, dogs, with this world. If one day you no longer want to be gentle with any of those things, I would still like you. Because what I like is not gentleness. What I like is you yourself.”

The words of confession, the unadorned love, flowed out like water from the depths of her heart and throat. The more she spoke, the firmer she became, the hotter her gaze grew.

“I like the slightly trailing way you pronounce things when you speak Japanese, I like the little unconscious tilt of your head when you eat something you like, I like your habit of reaching for water when you feel uncomfortable, I like the soft, dazed way you speak when you’re sleepy, I like your slyness when you’re being a little mischievous and teasing someone, I like the brightness of your eyes when you smile, and I also like the coldness they can seem to have when you’re unhappy, I like the fragrance on your body, but when you’re drunk and smell like alcohol all over, I still want to hold you.”

“I really like your smooth hair, and I like it when it’s frizzy too. I really like your long eyelashes, and I like the faint mole by your eye too, I like your nose, I like your lips... I...” Her gaze moved with her words, shifting continuously.

The heat in her eyes was almost enough to burn Zheng Tingyu.

Zheng Tingyu’s cheeks grew redder and redder with each word she spoke, until at last she could not help reaching out to cover Shen Lian’s mouth, pleading in a trembling voice, “Stop saying it.”

Shen Lian could feel her attitude softening.

With Zheng Tingyu covering her mouth, she spoke in a breathy whisper. “But even if my mouth doesn’t say it, my eyes will betray me. Can’t you see?”

“Zheng Tingyu.”

Zheng Tingyu had never known that Shen Lian’s usually cool red lips could also call out in such a tender voice.

Water shimmered in her eyes, as if she wanted to speak but stopped herself.

Shen Lian lifted her chin slightly and gazed at her, kissing the palm of her hand as she pleaded, “Zheng Tingyu, I really, really like you. Promise me, be with me.”

The girl’s kiss was too hot, her gaze too ardent, too sincere, and too enticing. Zheng Tingyu’s hand over her mouth slowly weakened.

Shen Lian moved half a step closer, extending her other hand to loosely circle Zheng Tingyu’s waist, coaxing in a low voice, “Zheng Tingyu, all you need to think about is, do you like me? Do you want me?”

Zheng Tingyu still said nothing, but the look in her eyes as they met clearly said: I like you.

I want you.

I like you so much it’s unbearable.

So Shen Lian curled her red lips slightly, her eyes wet, and asked carefully, “Can I kiss you, Zheng Tingyu?”

“I’ve held myself back for so long, so long.”

Even though she had such a soul-stealing, breathtaking face, so beautiful it felt aggressively so, right now she was obedient as a puppy soaked by rain, pure and harmless.

Zheng Tingyu studied her, her eyes like water. She did not answer for several seconds, and just as Shen Lian almost thought she had misread the signs and offended her, and was about to apologize, Zheng Tingyu suddenly lifted the corners of her lips.

Tears slid down her cheeks.

Zheng Tingyu raised both hands to wrap around Shen Lian’s neck, stood on tiptoe, and kissed her first.

Shen Lian was startled for an instant, then broke into a radiant smile, wrapping both arms tightly around Zheng Tingyu’s waist and steadying her.

Moonlight covered them and fell on the steps where they had talked at length.

Their shadows entangled with each other for a long, long time.

That night, Shen Lian and Zheng Tingyu became girlfriends.

She had gained a home in Tokyo, put down roots in this world, and she began to feel that she was the luckiest and happiest person in the world. She also started to learn from Zheng Tingyu, learning to love life, to love this scorching, fervent, twisting and turning life.

Author’s note:

(I saw the little cuties calling for bonus updates, but considering everyone’s reading experience, I’m planning to put the bonus updates later.)