Chapter 38: The Price of Closeness

Qian Surou quickly realized that she had, in fact, been resisting Jin Xiaoyue’s request from the very beginning, resorting to such a childish method to express her protest.

Yet, having accepted, she knew she shouldn’t leave a blemish on their nascent friendship. Ji Yushu, if it had been her, certainly wouldn’t have been so awkward. ‘Perhaps I’m not a considerate person at all,’ Qian Surou mused.

“Do you feel unwell?”

“Ah, I’m not a child prone to motion sickness. Still, the odors here are undeniably giving me a headache.”

“It’s a long-distance coach, after all. If it were a local city bus, the environment would probably be a little better.”

‘Motion sickness has nothing to do with age,’ Qian Surou thought, feeling as though her susceptibility to it had been exposed and might be mocked.

To be frank, she was already feeling a little dizzy. Perhaps that was why she wasn’t even sure what the latter half of her sentence meant. Was she defending the poor conditions of the coach?

“May I lean closer to you? Qian Surou has a pleasant scent.”

Jin Xiaoyue leaned against Qian Surou. Whether the question received an answer was irrelevant, as she was already doing so.

The mention of her scent made Qian Surou incredibly self-conscious, yet she couldn’t seriously ask what her own scent was like.

Could her budget-friendly shower gel truly rival the lasting power of perfume? For the first time, she felt it wasn’t brave to speak of trivial matters.

“Um…”

“What is it, Qian Surou?”

“This is a little too close.”

“My apologies. The air conditioning is too cold, and the draft will give me a headache. It might be due to the alcohol from earlier. If I’m making you uncomfortable, should I move to another seat?”

Jin Xiaoyue’s voice was remarkably pitiful. She gazed at Qian Surou with an expression of profound reluctance.

Fiddling with the air vent above the coach seats, Qian Surou discovered it was stuck for some unknown reason, blowing directly onto the inner seats no matter what.

Changing seats was a good suggestion. They should both move, she thought. Just as she was about to suggest this, the coach’s broadcast chimed, announcing the arrival at the new stop.

In the instant the doors opened, shadows cast by the setting sun surged in like a dark tide, and Qian Surou distinctly felt the coach sag.

The stop was right in a residential area. Although it was rush hour, people always had various reasons to travel to the city center, and the coach was undoubtedly the most economical and practical mode of transport.

Jin Xiaoyue was pressed almost intimately against her lower abdomen. As several young men and women passed by in the aisle, observing their embrace, Qian Surou could even discern excitement in the periphery of their gazes.

The long-deferred question finally had an answer.

The nature of the relationship between two people so intimately entwined on a public coach—the conclusion was so obvious it needed no articulation.

Qian Surou’s discomfort stemmed not only from the misunderstanding but also from the coach suddenly being filled to the brim with passengers. Changing seats had become an outdated proposition.

‘What if I switched with Xiaowan?’

‘No, that would merely shift the headache to myself. I might even become so dizzy as to vomit. If I were to throw up on the bus, both my public image and sense of social decorum would suffer.’

Qian Surou profoundly regretted not having prepared motion sickness medication or a ‘miraculous’ plastic bag.

“If you’re uncomfortable, just sleep. I’ll lend you my lap for a while; just turn your head this way.”

There was no divider between the two adjacent seats.

Qian Surou allowed Jin Xiaoyue’s shoulder to rest on her lap, while she cushioned her abdomen with her arm, forming a gentle curve to make Jin Xiaoyue’s neck as comfortable as possible.

Compared to their previous posture, a lap pillow was more acceptable to Qian Surou. Ji Yushu and she had rested their heads on each other’s laps before; it was quite natural among close friends.

“You’re truly considerate.”

The compliment was exceedingly abrupt.

Qian Surou felt a flush creep up her cheeks. ‘If I were truly considerate enough, I would have chosen a different mode of transport,’ she thought.

‘This is merely a belated attempt to mend things. No, not at all, I should have just called a taxi,’ she told herself.

With her back to Qian Surou, a troubled expression crept onto Jin Xiaoyue’s face.

‘If she had a choice, she wished Qian Surou weren’t so considerate. If she treated someone she’d just befriended this way, strangers would surely receive a share of her kindness.

She didn’t want a Qian Surou who was gentle with everyone, but a Qian Surou who only had eyes for her. Still, there was no need to let jealousy overshadow her current happiness.’

Jin Xiaoyue embraced a sense of security she had never known.

“Xiaowan, wake up, we’re here.”

Qian Surou gently stroked the fine, silky strands of hair, thinking how childlike she seemed, remarkably smooth to the touch.

“—Mm, ugh. How long did I sleep?”

Her consciousness, nestled in a haven of comfort, clamored against waking as Jin Xiaoyue rubbed her bleary eyes. The comfort had been so profound that she couldn’t be certain of the duration.

“Less than forty minutes. It’s quite comparable to a car ride; the driver is truly an efficient person.”

Helping Jin Xiaoyue up, Qian Surou found her arm had gone numb, leaving her unable to exert any force. Then, as the bus’s chime rang out, she quickly rose, waiting for other disembarking passengers to pass by.

Since there was a large shopping mall not far from the residential complex, it was nearing dinner time.

“Indeed. Although the initial acceleration had been quite wild, the ride itself had been remarkably steady, and fast too.”

Qian Surou heard that Jin Xiaoyue was merely expressing a genuine observation. Unless she herself lacked proper decorum, her Qian Surou would certainly never offer a sarcastic remark.

After standing, she noticed the setting sun had fully transformed into a fiery red orb, and the mall across the road outside the bus had already illuminated its lights.

“Now I need to go to the mall to buy ingredients. Xiaowan, will you wait for me at home, or come with me? If you come along, there’s a small snack as a bonus.”

Jin Xiaoyue grinned delightedly: “I’ll come along.”

But she still pouted—

“Am I a child who can be tempted by snacks?”

‘She used to be.’

“It’s too troublesome to go home first and then head out again, so I added a little incentive to the latter option. Don’t you want snacks?”

‘There were a thousand kinds of snacks, some of which could add a certain spice to things, but there was no need for them yet.’

“Of course, I do.”

“Then, little one, the price is you’ll have to carry the bags for me!”

“Say that again, and I swear I’ll just sit in your shopping cart! My greatest virtue, you see, is my shamelessness.”

‘I don’t believe you,’ Qian Surou thought. In just half a day, she had grown accustomed to Jin Xiaoyue’s playful antics.

If she truly disregarded her dignity, she wouldn’t adopt such a serious expression and speak in such a low tone now.

Though she claimed to be thick-skinned, Qian Surou thought that face was so smooth and delicate it seemed water could be squeezed from it. Ultimately, she conceded—

“Please don’t do that. I’m already exhausted from resisting a full day of curious stares.”

“Even if Qian Surou does nothing at all, you’ll still draw attention.”

The troublemaker seemed utterly oblivious. Qian Surou truly wanted to list all of Jin Xiaoyue’s actions on bamboo slips and discuss the underlying issues.

However, it was getting too late; she should focus her energy on shopping and preparing dinner instead.

Remembering she still had to paint that evening, Qian Surou couldn’t help but quicken her pace, after which Jin Xiaoyue, as if in a perfectly coordinated move, playfully jogged to embrace her arm.

“By the way, you should be sober now after that nap, right?”

Disregarding those who drank themselves into a stupor and suffered hangovers, Jin Xiaoyue, who had only had one drink, had used alcohol as an excuse for the entire afternoon.

“I am.”

“Then why are you still clinging to me?”

“Because I arrived too late, and to quickly become Qian Surou’s good friend, I had to employ a circuitous strategy.”

“No, you can hardly call this ‘circuitous,’ can you? If anything, it’s overly direct. Are you a parasitic plant?”

“Mistletoe is a commensal organism, so it’s fine, isn’t it?”

Qian Surou was rendered speechless. She couldn’t exactly argue back by listing other botanical families, or by bringing up the detrimental impact of parasitic plants in agriculture and forestry.

Ultimately, aside from being a little clingy, Jin Xiaoyue had done nothing to harm her. On the contrary, she felt an outpouring of affection, as if a parasitic plant unreservedly supplied nutrients to its host.

‘What was the reason?’

Qian Surou had always wanted to ask, but seeing Jin Xiaoyue’s persistent demeanor, she instinctively felt she would never uncover the truth. ‘What if,’ and she meant ‘what if,’ ‘the answer proved entirely unexpected? How should she react?’

She felt angry at her own indecisiveness.

‘Breaking down her name further, the ‘gentle’ part likely reflected her true self, often leading to indecision. Her one truly pivotal decision, however, had also been a mistake.

Her insistence on correctness and adherence to standards led her into such predicaments. Although she understood this, Qian Surou could no longer excise this particular trait.

This personality trait must have formed at the very beginning of her life.’

Suddenly, a tall, blurred double image appeared before her eyes.

‘—Don’t make mistakes, Xiao Rou.’

“Qian Surou, what’s wrong?”

Jin Xiaoyue’s voice pulled her back to reality. Coming back to herself, she realized she had stopped in front of a toy store, watching a mother scolding a crying little boy.

‘Don’t be so willful, dear,’ the mother said softly and gently, while the little boy’s eyes were filled with longing for the exquisite models in the display window.

‘What was I like as a child?’ Qian Surou suddenly couldn’t recall. Memories from her previous life were also hazy; only vague outlines remained.

This prompted her to muse that memory was truly something that deteriorated so easily, like a clay model that had been flattened; one could only guess at its former shape.

“I was thinking… if I had refused, Xiaowan might have ended up just like that boy.”

Qian Surou used a smile to gloss over the truth.

And she truly felt it.

Seeing Jin Xiaoyue’s little disgruntled expression, Qian Surou felt a strange sense of satisfaction.

But with that came an even tighter grip on her arm.

“Then I absolutely cannot let the treasure I’ve found slip away. When that little boy grows up, he will surely feel ashamed of his current self, and then use the money he earned with his own hands to buy more model toys.

Everyone is like this: people make mistakes when they are powerless, and they compensate when they have the means. Childhood regrets inevitably deepen with time, gradually becoming the most profound hue in one’s life.”

Once she started speaking, she couldn’t stop. She knew she shouldn’t say too much, but Jin Xiaoyue couldn’t resist pouring out something that had always been buried in her heart, in a veiled manner.

She instantly understood why the weighty characters in books loved to reveal their secrets to the public, or leave behind cryptic clues, or write them into books at the brink of death.

The act of unearthing them was exciting in itself, but revealing them brought an even greater thrill of destruction.

As she spoke these words, she felt her legs trembling, fearful that Qian Surou might notice.

“You speak with such profound philosophy, Xiaowan.”