Renminbi met Tao Zhi quite by chance, also during an outing. Tao Zhi had gone with her friends, and he happened to be invited by his friends that day.
They met at a basketball court in a small plaza. Tao Zhi and her friend arrived first. In the noisy cicada-filled midsummer, the young girl leaned against the basketball hoop playing with her phone. When she looked up, her expression was cold and her gaze haughty, looking at him as if he were dirt.
Renminbi was stunned. Renminbi fell in love at first sight.
Renminbi felt that in his seventeen years of life, this was the first time he understood what it meant to feel his heart flutter.
He had always been a man of action, so since he liked her, he pursued her the very next day. Tao Zhi agreed quite readily.
After they became official, they had three meals together, watched two movies, and held hands once. While Renminbi was still deeply immersed in the joy of love, Tao Zhi broke up with him.
Renminbi was devastated at the time.
He felt he had encountered a love scammer.
He called Tao Zhi fifty times, and after being blocked, wanted to go to her house to get clarity, only to realize he didn’t even know where she lived.
Heaven hadn’t treated him too badly, letting him run into her months later at this small, shabby, unremarkable barbecue restaurant. Renminbi didn’t want to waste this opportunity.
Tao Zhi also didn’t know how things had developed this way.
Five people now sat around the shabby four-person table in the barbecue restaurant. Tao Zhi sat in the innermost spot, looking at Jiang Qi Huai sitting beside her, then glancing at her ex-boyfriend sitting across from her.
Renminbi and his two friends squeezed at the table with them, ordering another large spread of barbecue and bringing over a case of beer.
His two friends were naturally sociable. After the initial awkward confrontation, they settled in like fish in water, acting as if everyone at the table were brothers.
Renminbi remained tragically silent, drinking straight from the bottle without even using a glass.
After several bottles, Renminbi became more talkative, looking at Tao Zhi: “Tao Zhi, I really can’t understand why you broke up with me.”
Tao Zhi propped her chin up, so sleepy her eyes were almost closing: “I felt we weren’t compatible.”
“How weren’t we compatible?” Renminbi disagreed with her view. “Look, your family is wealthy, my family is too, we’re a perfect match.”
This was true, Renminbi’s family was quite well-off.
Tao Zhi nodded.
“I’m not bad looking, you’re pretty too. In terms of looks, we’re evenly matched,” Renminbi continued. “Otherwise why did you agree to date me back then?”
This was also true. Tao Zhi nodded again: “Because you looked like my type.”
“You said I looked like Takeshi Kaneshiro!” Renminbi said painfully. “You said you wanted to experience what it was like dating a celebrity! Then you dumped the celebrity.”
Tao Zhi drooped her eyes, mumbling: “Well, after I got a closer look at you later, I realized you didn’t look quite so similar…”
“Besides, your grades aren’t good either,” Renminbi slapped the table, raising his voice. “In the future, when I get 20 points you’ll get 25, when you’re second to last I’ll be last — give and take, living in harmony.”
Renminbi’s friends: “…”
Jiang Qi Huai: “…”
Jiang Qi Huai had never heard someone speak about poor grades with such righteousness, such poetic melancholy. For a moment, he felt this ex-boyfriend and Tao Zhi did share some common ground in their thought processes.
Tao Zhi wanted to say she didn’t get 20 points anymore, she got 40 on the last monthly exam.
But her eyelids were already fighting to stay open, her mind foggy and seeing stars. She just gazed at him hazily, unable to speak.
“Tao Zhi, I can’t think of how we’re incompatible,” Renminbi concluded finally. “We’re a match made in heaven, a perfect pair.”
Tao Zhi nodded, forcing herself to stay alert: “I was temporarily bewitched, deceived by your appearance into accepting your confession, but after getting to know you I felt…”
Renminbi pressed his lips together, nervously watching her: “You felt?”
Tao Zhi tilted her head, thinking troubledly for a while.
At the time, she had actually thought he was quite nice, he really did look a bit like Takeshi Kaneshiro, and back then even Song Jiang had dated someone while she hadn’t.
Until later when they went on a date to watch a movie, and while Tao Zhi was thoroughly absorbed in the plot, Renminbi suddenly held her hand in the darkness.
Tao Zhi’s first reaction was to grab this presumptuous person and throw him into a toilet with a shoulder throw to wake him up.
Then she realized this person was now her boyfriend.
Tao Zhi suddenly realized her behavior was a bit inappropriate.
The relationship between boyfriend and girlfriend was different from her relationships with Song Jiang and Ji Fan, different from what she had thought — that kind where you just chat together, play games together, watch movies together. They were supposed to have other kinds of contact.
She had never dated before, and no one had taught her these things. She couldn’t ask Tao Xiu Ping about this either.
So she experienced firsthand the difference between this special relationship and what she had always thought it would be like.
That night, she sent Renminbi an 800-word essay, sincerely expressing her apologies and mistakes, hoping they could return to being friends.
Tao Zhi felt she had never been so sincere in her life.
In the barbecue restaurant, Tao Zhi looked at Renminbi, tried hard to think for a while, and finally said with great effort: “I think you’re too tall, standing together makes me feel very pressured.”
Renminbi: “…”
Renminbi had never been dumped for such a reason before and was momentarily confused. He pointed at Jiang Qi Huai: “Isn’t he quite tall too?”
“He…” Tao Zhi glanced at Jiang Qi Huai too, hesitating, “he just looks tall, actually he’s wearing over 20 centimeters of height increasing insoles.”
Tao Zhi said very seriously: “He’s only 160 centimeters tall.”
Renminbi: “…”
Jiang Qi Huai: “…”
When they were almost done eating, Tao Zhi got up to pay the bill, including Renminbi and his friends’ share as an apology.
But when she got to the small counter, she realized she had left in a hurry and her phone was still on the sofa at home.
Because they were regulars and familiar with the restaurant owner, Tao Zhi and Song Jiang often came here and had set up a private membership with money stored inside — they could just give their phone number and deduct from it.
The cashier calculated that there wasn’t quite enough left in the account, but the owner waved it off and wrote off the difference.
Renminbi and his friends were already drunk, now paying tribute to his lost youth while being encouraged by his friends to add the WeChat of a girl who had been pursuing him recently.
After adding her, he tossed his phone aside and grabbed his friend’s hand heavily, saying: “You know how good it would be to be 160 centimeters.”
“…”
“I wish I was only 160 centimeters tall too, damn it.”
Jiang Qi Huai: “…”
Tao Zhi tilted her head back humming a song, having already quietly slipped out the door.
Jiang Qi Huai followed, and as soon as they got outside, he saw the young girl walking in S-curves, about to crash into a wall.
Jiang Qi Huai caught her jacket sleeve with his fingertips and pulled her back. Tao Zhi walked forward unsteadily, gradually leaning closer as she walked.
The distance between them grew smaller and smaller, her arm touching his arm, a faint smell of alcohol about her.
It was nearly midnight and there weren’t many people left in the night market. The street was empty except for some food stalls still open. Tao Zhi hung her head, hiccuped from the alcohol, saw a convenience store, and rushed straight for it.
Just then a car whooshed past, and Jiang Qi Huai’s grip on her sleeve changed to holding her arm.
His tone was cold: “What are you doing?”
“I want to drink some yogurt…” Tao Zhi said quietly, looking a bit wronged, “why are you so fierce?”
“…”
Jiang Qi Huai’s hand loosened slightly.
Tao Zhi slowly ran into the convenience store, went to the refrigerator, and like a leader inspected it with her hands behind her back, then pointed to the yogurt on the top shelf, commanding: “I want to drink that one.”
Jiang Qi Huai looked: “Get it yourself.”
That yogurt was on the very top shelf. Tao Zhi would need to stand on tiptoe slightly to reach it, normally just a matter of raising her hand, but after drinking, Tao Zhi was being particular. She didn’t want to move: “I can’t reach it.”
“I can’t reach it either,” Jiang Qi Huai said, “I’m only 160 centimeters tall.”
“…”
Tao Zhi puffed up her cheeks looking at him, unhappily saying: “Your Highness, get it for me.”
Her voice had the sticky quality of someone drunk, the end of her words tilting up like she was acting cute.
Jiang Qi Huai paused. Though he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol all night, he felt his fingertips going numb.
When he didn’t react for a long time, Tao Zhi pouted, gave up, and walked over to get it herself.
As she raised her arm, from behind her at a higher height, the young man’s arm reached past her and grabbed the yogurt before she could.
Tao Zhi was completely enclosed between him and the refrigerator, the smell of laundry detergent mixed with body warmth coming from behind. Her brain, already slow from alcohol, stopped working. She stood frozen in place, only coming back to her senses several seconds later.
Jiang Qi Huai had already taken the yogurt to the cashier to pay.
He took out his phone and opened WeChat. Tao Zhi had already run over to take the yogurt, opening the plastic lid and peeling off the foil layer: “Why did you get it for me again?”
“Not worth arguing with a drunk.”
The cashier scanned the payment code, Jiang Qi Huai put away his phone after exiting the payment screen, and then saw WeChat messages popping up rapidly in the group chat.
It was the large group that Li Shuang Jiang had created for the outing with over ten classmates. He hadn’t checked WeChat all night, and the group messages were already 99+.
Jiang Qi Huai had thought it would mostly be about the amusement park visit, but then saw Ji Fan post: [She didn’t take her phone either, don’t know where she went, if she doesn’t come back soon I’m calling the police.]
Jiang Qi Huai paused and clicked in, scrolling from the most recent messages.
Ji Fan had been added to the group at some point and had been chatting for half an hour already, because Tao Zhi had disappeared.
Ji Fan had gone downstairs to see if Ji Jin and Tao Zhi were done talking, but when he went down there was no one in the living room, Tao Zhi’s jacket was gone, and her phone was left on the sofa.
He thought maybe he had said something wrong and Tao Zhi had gone out for a walk in a bad mood, but after waiting an hour she still hadn’t returned.
He sent messages to Li Shuang Jiang, who forwarded them to Fu Xi Ling, and then added Ji Fan to the group.
New WeChat messages kept popping up.
Ji Fan: [I just asked Song Jiang, she didn’t go to him either, has this person vanished into thin air? What is she doing???]
Jiang Qi Huai turned his head to look at the supposedly vanished person.
Tao Zhi was sitting backwards in a chair at the convenience store window table, holding the yogurt box with both hands like a child, eyes lowered as she drank seriously, looking somewhat well-behaved.
Jiang Qi Huai lowered his head again and typed.
[Jiang Qi Huai]: Drinking yogurt.
Li Shuang Jiang didn’t know why Jiang Qi Huai was being so approachable today, even letting them know about drinking yogurt.
Li Shuang Jiang: Brother Huai, well, enjoy your drink then.
Jiang Qi Huai: “…”
Tao Zhi had almost finished her yogurt, tilting her head back trying to drink the last bit from the box.
Jiang Qi Huai raised his phone and took a photo of her with a click, posting it to the group.
The group immediately erupted with another flood of question marks, popping up one after another.
Li Shuang Jiang: [Brother Huai, the boss is with you?]
Jiang Qi Huai: [Mm.]
After sending a string of question marks, Ji Fan started sending ellipses.
Wait, why are you two together?
Why are you two still together at midnight?
Why aren’t you two going home but instead meeting up late at night to drink yogurt??
Ji Fan swallowed a belly full of roars, finally squeezing out a voice message with great difficulty: “Fine, when is she coming back?”
Jiang Qi Huai played this message out loud for Tao Zhi to hear.
Tao Zhi finished the last bit of yogurt, her stomach feeling much better. She contentedly licked her lips: “I’ll go back after I finish drinking.”
Jiang Qi Huai continued typing.
Jiang Qi Huai: [She says she’ll go back after finishing.]
Jiang Qi Huai: [She’s finished.]
Ji Fan: “…”
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