When Dong Yin got up in the morning, hotel staff knocked on her door to deliver clothes: a dress with a Peter Pan collar, white collar and pink skirt, very sweet and ladylike. She took it straight into the bathroom and changed into it.
The staff also asked if she wanted yesterday’s clothes dry-cleaned. The hotel offered dry-cleaning, but Dong Yin had already washed her clothes herself and hung them out on the balcony.
“Then we’ll help you dry them, okay?”
Dong Yin handed the clothes over, acting perfectly calm.
“Thank you.”
The staffer smiled back, thinking this girl had a really nice temperament.
Breakfast was still in the same private room as yesterday. Dong Yin remembered the floor number and took the elevator there on her own. When she pushed the door open, she saw Chu Ningan and Lu Hanqiu.
Lu Hanqiu was sitting at the small table on the balcony, fingers clacking on a laptop keyboard. Chu Ningan was stretching. She twisted her head and saw Dong Yin, then jabbed her elbow over and over at Lu Hanqiu.
“See, I told you, Dong Yin’s really pretty, she just doesn’t like dressing up.”
Even though she kept her voice low, Dong Yin still heard it. She felt a little embarrassed and took the initiative to greet them.
“H-Hi. I’m making you treat me again.”
“Don’t be so polite, the one treating is Xie Xie.”
Chu Ningan smiled, little dimples appearing at the corners of her lips. She raised her voice toward the sofa opposite.
“Xie Xie, look at Dong Yin’s outfit today. Isn’t she adorable? Isn’t she gorgeous?”
Xie Mingjun was sitting on the sofa. Coincidence or not, it was the same spot where they’d kissed yesterday. She was sitting inside, head tilted up to look at Dong Yin. Her gaze lingered a moment, then she said, voice flat,
“It’s okay.”
Today she wore a white shirt and wheat-colored trousers. It clashed completely with Dong Yin’s pink dress. Dong Yin had thought they might show up in matching outfits, like a couple look.
“Come sit with me.”
Chu Ningan waved her over.
Dong Yin walked over and sat down beside her, but her eyes kept drifting to Xie Mingjun. Xie seemed utterly unbothered, as if she’d deleted all of yesterday from her memory.
Chu Ningan was extremely chatty, a one-woman hype squad. She kept talking, telling how yesterday they’d asked Xie Mingjun to go bungee jumping, and Xie had said she was going to deliver clothes to Dong Yin at school.
She turned to Dong Yin.
“Did she give you the clothes?”
Dong Yin shook her head. Chu Ningan kept going, saying not only had Xie not delivered the clothes, she’d also stood them up again after agreeing to go out for a meal.
Stood… stood them up? Not really. The two of them had been messing around in this hotel for ages.
Chu Ningan sighed.
“She bails way too much. If we hadn’t spam-called her this morning, she would’ve ditched us again. We better order a ton and fleece her later.”
The truth was they’d spent the whole night in the hotel room together, basically glued to each other. Xie just hadn’t told anyone.
Like it was some kind of secret.
Xie didn’t say it, and Dong Yin wouldn’t either. She couldn’t even get the words out.
“Come on, let’s go pick dishes.”
Xie Mingjun got up and took a seat at the table. She picked a spot at random. Dong Yin thought she would sit in yesterday’s spot and subconsciously moved that way, but then Chu Ningan and Lu Hanqiu pulled out chairs over there.
That side was where they’d sat yesterday.
Dong Yin glanced over, then deliberately pretended not to notice.
Chu Ningan could talk more than ten designated “atmosphere makers” combined. Her voice babbled on and on, loud enough to fill the whole private room.
Xie Mingjun let out a breath, about out of patience.
“Lu Hanqiu, control her.”
“Hm?”
Lu Hanqiu closed the laptop, lifted her head and pulled the Bluetooth earbud from her ear.
“…Which one of you was talking just now?”
“…”
“Just now Ningan asked if you’re eating. If you’re not, you can get lost,” Xie said.
Lu Hanqiu frowned and looked at Chu Ningan. Ningan immediately argued back. Two sentences in and the two of them were trading barbs.
Propping her chin on her hand, Xie watched them bicker. Dong Yin noticed the slight curl at the corner of her mouth. It looked a little wicked, and Dong Yin ended up hiding a quiet smile of her own.
After ten minutes of verbal sparring, Chu Ningan took the menu to order. She dragged her chair closer and sat right beside Dong Yin.
“I came here to eat yesterday. These dishes are pretty good. Take a look, see what you want.”
“You guys ate here yesterday?” Dong Yin asked softly.
“Yeah.”
Flipping through the menu, Chu Ningan enthusiastically recommended dishes. Dong Yin squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could bury her head under the table. In the smallest voice, she asked,
“Then… what color was the tablecloth yesterday?”
“The tablecloth?”
Ningan looked around, frowned a little.
“I honestly don’t remember.”
She pinched the cloth.
“I think it was white, right? How come they changed it to red today? You don’t like this color? We can ask them to change it.”
“N-no…”
Dong Yin shook her head quickly. She had no such intention. Just thinking about it made her so embarrassed she wanted to disappear. She kept her head ducked. She could feel Xie looking at her and snuck a sidelong glance.
Xie was holding a drink, lips slightly curved in a smile. She took a sip, expression deliberately playful.
Dong Yin put it together. Xie must have told them to change it on purpose, and was now just teasing her by not saying anything.
A flicker of annoyance made her act without thinking. Under the table, she kicked Xie in the leg.
Only after kicking did she snap back to her senses. She opened her mouth to apologize, but seeing that Xie was still smiling and didn’t look angry at all, the words changed shape.
She kicked again. Twice in total. Xie turned to look at her, and Dong Yin whispered,
“That’s for bullying me.”
“…You’ve got some nerve.”
Xie lifted her leg and patted imaginary dust off her trousers.
Dong Yin kept her head down and murmured an “mm.” She bit her lip, then started laughing softly. Her clenched fists slowly relaxed, and she reached for the juice on the table, taking a sip along with her.
Xie bit her own lip and hissed under her breath.
She clearly wanted to tease her back, but for the moment didn’t know how.
Dong Yin really had no memory for consequences.
Too shy to actually place an order, Dong Yin just took the pen and flipped through the menu pictures, then passed it over to Xie. Xie randomly ticked a bunch of items.
The dishes came on big plates but tiny portions. A few chopsticks in and whatever made it into your bowl was barely a bite. It almost made them embarrassed to keep eating.
“They taste good, but the portions are stingy. Not satisfying at all,” Chu Ningan complained.
Dong Yin looked at her and thought she was really carefree, casual about everything she did.
“You’re kind of funny,” Xie said. “I’m the one footing the bill, and you kick me, then turn around and gaze gratefully at someone else.”
They’d eaten a big breakfast and were quite full, so someone suggested going to wander the commercial street behind the hotel.
They walked over. At the plaza, Chu Ningan and Lu Hanqiu were about to go up to buy clothes. Xie refused, plopping down by the little fountain on the first floor.
“She’s so weird… Last time she was the one saying Chller had new arrivals and we should go look at clothes,” Chu muttered to Lu as they turned away.
“You think she doesn’t want to go?” Lu said. “She’s just not going because she thinks Dong Yin would feel awkward, that’s all.”
Chu rolled her eyes.
“You think I’m stupid? If I don’t say it out loud, how is Dong Yin supposed to know Xie’s little thoughts?”
“You think I really think you’re stupid? If I didn’t say it that way, would you have said that last sentence?”
“Screw you, Lu Hanqiu, you’re sick.”
Their voices melted into the hum of the crowd.
Xie let out a deep breath and shook her head.
“Finally quiet. My ears were going numb from her chatter. I’m never going out with those two again. They’re exhausting.”
“I feel like… they’re actually pretty nice.”
Dong Yin genuinely thought so. They were warm and enthusiastic. Very few people had ever been that warm toward her, constantly trying to talk to her, and even if she accidentally killed the conversation, they never made her feel bad about it.
After saying that, she sat down beside Xie, like she was silently adding: but the one I like best is still you.
Xie tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“Do you even know what ‘annoying’ is?”
Dong Yin said everything was good. So good it blurred into having no opinions of her own. Sometimes, before she even had time to think about how she felt, she’d already defaulted to going along with someone else’s wishes.
“I don’t really know,” she admitted.
Xie’s expression darkened.
“That’s called being a people-pleaser, you know.”
Her words hit home. Dong Yin lowered her gaze. When people wanted to hang out with her, she was happy, uncontrollably happy.
“I don’t know what to do. It’s not that I want to go out of my way for people. It’s just… when they’re good to me, I can’t help being good to them too. But I don’t know what ‘good’ is, so I end up giving them everything.”
Silence fell for a moment.
When Xie spoke again, her tone had softened. She held out a coin.
“Make a wish to the little turtle in the fountain. Do it properly. Say you won’t be nice to everyone anymore, that you’ll learn to be ruthless, and that your own happiness comes first.”
Dong Yin blinked, dazed. Then she reached into her backpack and fished out a coin of her own for Xie.
“Do you want to throw one in too?”
Xie stood up, hands in her pockets. She didn’t take the coin and didn’t make a wish. She walked ahead, Dong Yin following. As they passed, Dong Yin tossed her own coin into the fountain and slipped the one Xie had given her into her bag.
There wasn’t much fun in the mall. It was either clothes and shoe stores or the food court. The only slightly interesting place was the arcade, but neither of them knew how to play.
Wandering aimlessly, time passed quickly. When they walked by a little accessories shop, Xie went in to look at keychains. Dong Yin glanced at the prices and really, really wanted to tell her, Don’t buy it, you can get the same thing online for a fraction of the price! It pained her heart.
Xie picked up a little car ornament, a snowman with a tuft of green grass on its head. When the snowman’s neck tilted, the grass bobbed along with it. She fiddled with it twice, clearly about to buy it.
She took the ornament down and was about to pay with her phone when it rang. The number on the screen was painfully familiar to both of them.
Xie hung up. A text came in right after.
Dong Yin couldn’t see the messages and didn’t know if she replied to Zou Yuxi or not. She took the little ornament, went to the counter and paid for it first. When Xie finished paying for her own things, Dong Yin lifted the small shopping bag and held it up in front of her, smiling.
“This is for you.”
Xie was holding her phone, screen lighting up then going dark as she kept pressing it. Dong Yin said,
“Do you like it? You were holding it just now and wouldn’t let go.”
A crease formed between Xie’s brows. She looked like she wanted to say something. Her hand lifted and Dong Yin shrank her head back, thinking she was going to get smacked. But Xie didn’t hit her; she just took the gift and shoved her phone into her pocket.
That tiny ornament had actually cost forty-five yuan.
Still, Xie kept the little snowman swinging in her hand as they walked, tilting it now and then. Watching her, Dong Yin thought that even if it was expensive, it was fine. What mattered was that she liked it.
Behind the commercial street was a “foreign-style” avenue, lined with buildings modeled after other countries’ architecture. They would have looked really nice, if not for all the garish advertisements plastered over them, instantly cutting their aesthetic value in half.
Xie’s phone kept ringing.
They took a break at a milk tea shop in the corridor. Xie bought drinks for both of them. While they sipped, Xie kept glancing at her phone every so often.
After another few sips, she stood up.
“I’m going to the restroom.”
She left her jacket and phone on the table.
“Watch these for me.”
“Mm.”
Dong Yin nodded earnestly.
Xie disappeared around a corner.
Her phone lit up again, a text notification. It sounded like a bank transfer alert. Immediately after, a call came in. From Zou Yuxi.
Beep… beep…
The sound drilled into Dong Yin’s ears.
Xie had complained that Chu was noisy, but this wasn’t the same. Ningan was way quieter than this. This ringtone felt like it was about to tear her eardrums.
How could it be this loud?
It was ruining their lovely date.
Irritating. So irritating she wanted to scream.
Dong Yin’s hand brushed over the phone, and she killed the noise.
The call connected. On the other side, Zou Yuxi said,
“Mingjun, you got your salary for this month, right? Oh yeah, where are you? Wu Mingwei asked us out to eat, he’s bringing his girlfriend. Come with me…”
But before he could finish, a coquettish little whine cut him off.
“Mm…”
Dong Yin let out a soft sound, biting her lip. Her voice came out light, sticky-sweet, almost unrecognizable.
“Xie Mingjun, d-don’t… don’t kiss me there. Your phone’s ringing. Stop kissing me, please…”
She didn’t get to finish before the call abruptly dropped.
She was the one who hung up. She flipped the phone face-down and pushed it back to where it had been. Her face flamed, burning hot, like fire was about to burst from her skin.
The milk tea shop was small, with people packed in close. A lot of them were staring at her: men, women, kids, old grannies and grandpas, every gaze complicated.
Mortified. Absolutely mortified.
Her skin prickled with goosebumps.
Her toes were curling hard into the soles of her shoes when a group of young girls in line over there shot her thumbs-up and mouthed,
“Legend!”
A few minutes later, Xie came out of the restroom, wiping her hands with a paper napkin. She sat back down across from Dong Yin, reached for her phone, glanced at Dong Yin, and tapped the table.
“You’ve been drinking my milk tea, huh?”
“Uh? I’m sorry…”
Dong Yin hurriedly pushed the cup back to her.
The straw was already chewed soft. There was no way Xie was drinking from that now. She picked up her jacket and bag and went to line up again for another one.
Dong Yin trailed over slowly. Just then, Xie’s phone rang again. Maybe it was too quiet around them, because the ringtone came in like a battering ram.
Just as Xie’s finger slid toward the answer button, Dong Yin said under her breath,
“It kept ringing just now. Over and over. Everyone else was quietly drinking their milk tea, and only your phone kept going off. They kept staring at me. It felt kind of rude.”
Her voice grew smaller and smaller.
“It was really awkward. Really embarrassing.”
Her cheeks turned pink, all her emotions plainly written on her face. Xie’s brows tightened, and her gaze held a hint of apology.
She hit “reject” and turned the volume down to minimum. She’d noticed something felt off when she came back earlier. One look around and it was obvious people were watching them.
Dong Yin stepped in front of her, blocking her from view, like she was saying: go ahead, laugh at me, just don’t laugh at Xie.
Looking at her, Xie’s lips curved.
“Relying on the big bad wolf to scare the villagers, huh?”
When it was their turn in line, Xie ordered another drink and handed one cup over.
Dong Yin accepted the fruit tea.
“Thank you.”
Once they left the milk tea shop, the stifling atmosphere finally eased, though Dong Yin’s face was still quite red. Xie checked her phone: over a dozen missed calls. Zou Yuxi really could call. Her frown deepened.
“You’re pretty gutsy, you know. Why didn’t you just pick up and cuss him out?”
“Answering someone else’s phone isn’t very polite… And you could just block him, couldn’t you? You haven’t blocked him either, have you?”
The next time the phone rang, Xie picked up. She didn’t bother listening to what he said before snapping,
“Get lost.”
Then she shoved his number straight into her blacklist. She held the screen up to Dong Yin.
“See this? Read it.”
“Contacts… Blacklist.”
Dong Yin read it out one character at a time.
Xie gave a short laugh and slid the phone back into her pocket.
“So you do have a bit of temper. If you’ve got guts, save it for going head-to-head with Zou Yuxi…”
Dong Yin hurried to walk next to her, changing the subject.
“Um, Mingjun, do you like the flavor of this milk tea?”
Xie didn’t actually like milk tea—too rich. She liked fruit teas even less—too sweet. She’d ordered pure green tea with no toppings.
Sticking the straw in, she took a sip.
“Plain green tea. It’s all right. Better than the last cup, anyway. Why?”
Dong Yin nodded, smiling at her, sweet as sugar.
“No reason. I just think… as long as you like it, that’s good.”
