When Tao Zhi closed the bedroom door and walked back into the kitchen, the noodles were ready. A clear tomato and egg flower soup noodle dish – white, tender noodles with bright green scallions sprinkled on top, and a small soft-yolk fried egg laid over the bowl.
Jiang Qi Huai turned around, placed the noodle bowl on the table in front of her, and handed her a pair of chopsticks.
Tao Zhi sat at the long table that served as the kitchen divider and poked through the fried egg with her chopsticks.
The tender yellow yolk oozed out from beneath the thin egg white, flowing onto the noodles below.
Tao Zhi ate two slices of tomato, then put down her chopsticks.
Jiang Qi Huai looked up from across the table: “What’s wrong?”
Tao Zhi propped her head on her hand: “Don’t want to eat anymore.”
Jiang Qi Huai also put down his chopsticks: “Not good?”
“No, it’s not that it’s not good,” Tao Zhi seemed distracted, looking wilted, “I just suddenly don’t want to eat anymore.”
“What do you want to eat?” Jiang Qi Huai asked, “Would you like chicken wings?”
Tao Zhi paused, raising her head: “Do you have any?”
“As it happens, yes,” Jiang Qi Huai glanced at his watch, “though it’ll take a little while before they’re ready.”
Tao Zhi remained silent.
The strawberries were a coincidence, the chicken wings were also a coincidence.
Meeting at the Japanese restaurant was a coincidence, and her good friend of many years being his direct superior was also a coincidence.
Even the photos that no one wanted just happened to be in his possession.
Tao Zhi looked at him and suddenly asked softly: “Were they really all just coincidences?”
Jiang Qi Huai had just stood up to open the refrigerator door. He pulled out a bag of frozen chicken wings from the freezer compartment, holding it in his hand as he turned around at her words.
Tao Zhi walked over and took the bag of chicken wings from his hand, looking down: “Why did you come back?”
Jiang Qi Huai looked at her without speaking.
“Why did you give up your great job in America and come back?” she asked quietly, “Was it because you were headhunted with a high salary?”
Jiang Qi Huai lowered his eyes: “No.”
Tao Zhi took a deep breath: “Last time, meeting again at the Japanese restaurant, was that a coincidence?”
“No.”
“The photo,” Tao Zhi asked again, “that one in your bedroom – when it was taken, did you not know who the photographer was?”
Jiang Qi Huai paused before answering softly: “I knew.”
Tao Zhi squeezed her fingertips hard, her dark eyes staring straight at him as she asked her final question: “Do you still like me?”
Jiang Qi Huai looked at her.
His thick eyelashes lowered, his glass-like light brown eyes staring at her unblinkingly. Some intense yet suppressed emotion surged uncontrollably upward. He opened his mouth but couldn’t make a sound, only letting out a soft, breathing-like sigh.
After a while, he said quietly: “I do.”
His voice was hoarse as he slowly, word by word, enunciated softly yet with seeming weight: “I’ve always liked you.”
Tao Zhi didn’t speak, her fingers gradually relaxing their grip on her fingertips before dropping down.
This was probably what she had been waiting for all along.
Sometimes Tao Zhi couldn’t help but wonder if everything would have been different if she and Jiang Qi Huai hadn’t been so young back then.
She originally had so many things she wanted to say, so many words that never made it past her lips, but when she heard him say “don’t come again,” all her rationality and patience were shattered by an indescribable anger of betrayal.
She had never hated him for choosing to leave; she only resented that he hadn’t chosen to trust her, and himself, just once.
She had left at that time with the resolution to never meet again, no longer fantasizing about any future. But she hadn’t expected that when she saw Jiang Qi Huai again, her heart would still secretly awaken, beyond her control.
Even she had underestimated how much she liked him.
An Se Se had told her earlier that she shouldn’t let him off so easily. At the time, Tao Zhi was still in a daze and couldn’t quite understand.
She still liked Jiang Qi Huai – actually, just this point was enough. As long as she still liked him, whether she was at a disadvantage or taking advantage, what did it matter? Who could really say?
What was there to avoid or feel insecure about? What was there to feel wronged about or complain about? No one had really done anything wrong. Between two people, as long as they still liked each other – as long as she liked him and he still liked her – Tao Zhi felt there was no need to calculate so much.
She was a warrior who neither avoided nor retreated, a sun that pressed ever forward. Now that she had sorted out her previous confused emotions, she could just continue moving forward.
Tao Zhi stuffed the chicken wings back into his hands, then leaned against the dining table with her hands behind her back. She cleared her throat and glanced at him, saying seriously: “So, do you have anything else to say? Number 3821.”
She looked at him with a straight face, her beautiful black eyes unable to hide a hint of expectation.
The emotional shift was so quick that Jiang Qi Huai hadn’t quite caught up.
He looked down at the frozen chicken wings she had stuffed back into his hands, then looked up, not knowing what she wanted to hear or what he could say that wouldn’t scare her away again.
She loved to eat so much; surely talking about food couldn’t be wrong.
Jiang Qi Huai patiently asked, testing: “Do you still want the chicken wings?”
Tao Zhi: “…”
Tao Zhi was so frustrated her vision went black for a moment. She closed her eyes and walked to sit on the living room sofa in her slippers.
Jiang Qi Huai threw the rock-hard frozen chicken wings into the sink. They hit the sink wall with a “thunk,” but he ignored it, washed his hands, and walked over to her.
Hearing him approach, Tao Zhi immediately grabbed a throw pillow to hug, burying her head in it, not wanting to deal with him.
How could there be such a dense person in this world!
Hadn’t her hints been obvious enough?!
She hugged the pillow and stayed buried in it for quite a while, not hearing any sound from beside her.
Tao Zhi’s fingers picked at the soft fabric of the pillow as she peeked her head out, revealing a pair of bright eyes.
Jiang Qi Huai was sitting next to her, his upper body leaning slightly forward, arms resting on his knees as he turned his head to look at her.
Their eyes met, and he suddenly spoke: “I didn’t buy the photo just because you were the photographer. You took a really beautiful picture.”
Tao Zhi paused, resting her chin on the soft pillow as she looked at him.
After leaving First Experimental High School, Jiang Qi Huai hadn’t contacted anyone from there.
Except for Ji Fan.
It was quite strange, really. Jiang Qi Huai had always felt they had a mutually antagonistic relationship, and Ji Fan never hesitated to show his dislike for his deskmate, but when they communicated privately, many aspects of their interaction were surprisingly smooth.
In their communications, Ji Fan usually did most of the talking, while he only occasionally asked questions. Ji Fan would tell him about various things.
Like how her test scores had dropped by a hundred points recently, how she studied even more relentlessly than before, barely resting, how she finally scored 700 points and was practically flying around the house with joy.
How she had finally found a school that admitted students based solely on academic performance, allowing her to study the major she wanted, how she had her first exhibition, how she submitted a photo to an international competition and won an award.
That photo was from Tao Zhi’s first participation in a very small-scale private auction exhibition organized by just a photography enthusiast, where all participants were unknown amateur enthusiasts. At that time, he had watched from afar as she crouched beneath the frame of that photo, head propped in her hands, looking at her creation seriously and patiently, waiting for a long time, yet no one stopped to look at her work.
She waited like that all afternoon, from high noon until sunset. Jiang Qi Huai saw her stand up, rubbing her numb legs, her eyelashes lowered, looking like the cat that used to curl up on the wall of the alley back home – lonely and disappointed.
The photo wasn’t expensive because she wasn’t a famous photographer and no one bid on it, but it still took all of Jiang Qi Huai’s remaining money at the time.
He watched as the exhibition staff carefully wrapped the photo layer by layer. In the photo, the warm red sunset had dyed the vast sea, but the girl’s feet and calves seemed to refuse to be submerged by these rich colors, just like her whole being – eye-catching and vibrant, warm and alive.
As always, just like now.
Jiang Qi Huai turned his head to look at the girl who was staring at him blankly, as if still unable to process everything, and continued: “I came back to China to find you. I went to the Japanese restaurant because I knew you’d be there. As for the chicken wings, that really was just habit,” Jiang Qi Huai said somewhat helplessly, “because you always used to show up at my house without warning.”
As he spoke one sentence after another, Tao Zhi’s ears had already started burning. When she heard this last part, she couldn’t help but protest quietly: “Who always showed up without warning? I only did that because I thought you were seriously ill.”
And what really made her unable to sit still was Fu Xi Ling’s words about “the academic god being alone.”
She slowly processed all his previous messy, roundabout direct hits, her fingertips picking at the tassels on the pillow, then said: “So?”
She looked at him expectantly for the second time.
“So,” Jiang Qi Huai took a deep breath and continued, “it wasn’t on a whim. From the day I left, I was thinking about coming back. I know you might not be able to accept me again right now—”
Before he could finish, Tao Zhi raised her hand, palm facing him high in the air.
She closed her eyes and said calmly: “You better shut up now, or I’m afraid this hand might end up slapping your face.”
Tao Zhi was so frustrated she wanted to bite him.
How could there be such an unromantic man in this world?
Was she not being obvious enough?
But Tao Zhi was also enjoying his current eager-to-please appearance, like a big puppy. What if she took the initiative and the puppy Jiang turned back into that annoying wolf from before?
As she was thinking these random thoughts, the fingertips she had raised in front of him were suddenly caught.
Tao Zhi paused and opened her eyes.
The man’s fingers were a bit cool as they pulled her fingertips closer, gathering them in his palm and holding them gently.
As their fingers intertwined, Tao Zhi’s heart skipped a beat.
Jiang Qi Huai leaned in slightly, pulling the pillow in her arms up a bit to stay between them. The distance between them was extremely close, with only the soft pillow as a barrier.
Jiang Qi Huai rested his chin on the pillow, seeming to press half his body weight onto it: “Zhi Zhi, I’ve always liked you,” he pressed his forehead forward slightly, his eyes narrowed as he looked at her, his gaze deep and lingering, his voice low and muffled, “I want to be with you again.”
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