Lin Yingtao remembered when she was little, Jiang Qiaoxi lifted her mosquito net and suddenly squeezed into her small world. Later, he kissed her lips open, stealing her first kiss. This was how he gradually occupied her childhood, her youth, and her heart.
From the lipstick on her lips to the shoes supporting her feet, even the cherry amber full of good wishes given by her aunt imperceptibly became the necklace Jiang Qiaoxi gave her, still hanging on her chest.
Lin Yingtao couldn’t imagine what she would do if the person with her in the future wasn’t Jiang Qiaoxi.
“Yingtao, are you afraid?” Jiang Qiaoxi asked her in the cramped rented room that felt like a cave.
Outside the window, someone was singing on the streets of Hong Kong. Lin Yingtao stayed in Jiang Qiaoxi’s arms, shaking her head, her sweet long hair brushing against his shoulder.
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his head to the cup and kissed her face.
Lin Yingtao felt she would never forget Jiang Qiaoxi in this lifetime. She was like the little rabbit he once “hypnotized,” falling into his hands, unable to move. It hurt, and she cried continuously. She softly told him it hurt while in his embrace, kissed by him until her face was covered in tears. Lin Yingtao’s wrists were pressed between them; she wanted to push him away but feared he might leave. She was held by Jiang Qiaoxi, and she held him too.
Lin Yingtao’s face rested on his chest. She cried incessantly, unsure if it was from discomfort or the overwhelming happiness filling her heart.
She woke up in the middle of the night.
Dazed, Lin Yingtao opened her eyes, first smelling the sweet scent in her hair, then the familiar smell of Jiang Qiaoxi. She felt weak all over, carefully wrapped in a thin blanket, feeling especially warm. Turning her head, she saw Jiang Qiaoxi beside her, sleeping facing her, with one arm draped over her outside the blanket.
Jiang Qiaoxi slept deeply, his broad shoulders shielding Lin Yingtao, ensuring she wouldn’t fall.
After just half a night, when Lin Yingtao looked at Jiang Qiaoxi’s face again, he was no longer someone she could easily say goodbye to.
Recalling the events from a few hours ago, Lin Yingtao still felt dizzy. She only remembered it hurting a lot at first, then less so later. At one point, she leaned against Jiang Qiaoxi’s chest, drinking the frozen yuanyang milk tea he had bought. He asked if she was still in pain. It did still hurt, though not as much as the first time, but Lin Yingtao tried to be strong and didn’t say anything.
She regretted that the lace underwear she bought was ruined after wearing it only once. “It was expensive,” she told Jiang Qiaoxi, “You don’t know how to cherish things at all…”
Jiang Qiaoxi laughed, seeming to be in a good mood. He lowered his head to kiss Lin Yingtao’s nose and cheeks, letting her criticize him.
Lin Yingtao felt like one of those heartbroken housewives from TV dramas, married to a man who didn’t understand how difficult life could be.
She must have fallen asleep in Jiang Qiaoxi’s arms because she had no memory of being covered with a new blanket. Now, Lin Yingtao opened her eyes, her cheek pressed against the pillow, quietly studying Jiang Qiaoxi’s features in the night – his eyebrows, the curve of his nose, and his thin lips. When she first met him, Lin Yingtao could never have guessed they would become so intimate when she grew up.
There were too many things Lin Yingtao couldn’t have guessed. She snuggled up to Jiang Qiaoxi, and when she woke up again, the sky outside the window was dimly lit. Lin Yingtao opened her eyes, unsure if it was early morning or if she had overslept into the following afternoon. Jiang Qiaoxi was awake too. As soon as he looked down and saw her, he rolled over. The bed sank, and he kissed Lin Yingtao through the blanket.
The small plastic box had fallen to the floor, with only one packet left out of the original five. Jiang Qiaoxi initially forgot, but he pulled out midway, hurriedly reaching under the bed to find and quickly tear open the last packet.
Daylight flooded in, and Hong Kong outside the window resumed its busyness – it was a workday. But what did that matter to the young couple pressed tightly together in the rented room?
Lin Yingtao’s tears flowed as she struggled to breathe. “Yingtao…” she heard Jiang Qiaoxi call her name softly, the young man seemingly lost in a trance.
Jiang Qiaoxi left the rented room, his body covered in sweat and the sweet scent of Lin Yingtao’s hair. He went to the bathroom to shower, bare-chested.
He brushed his teeth, looking in the mirror, opening his eyes that hadn’t slept much but showed no signs of fatigue. He examined his face, then shaved off the stubble that had grown overnight.
Jiang Qiaoxi received a call from his sister-in-law at the hospital, saying his brother had woken up this morning and was speaking more clearly than the night before. Jiang Qiaoxi was stunned for a moment, then smiled. He hadn’t told Yingtao about this yet; he had originally planned to take her to the hospital this morning to see his brother and share the good news.
Who would have thought there would be unexpected developments?
“We’ll… go in a few days,” Jiang Qiaoxi said.
His sister-in-law asked, “Is something wrong?”
Standing in the laundry room, Jiang Qiaoxi inserted coins and stuffed the dirty bedsheets and a few pieces of clothing into the washing machine. “Yingtao isn’t feeling well,” he explained.
His sister-in-law asked worriedly, “She’s not running a fever again, is she?”
Jiang Qiaoxi made a vague sound of agreement, to which his sister-in-law scolded him, “You don’t know how to take care of a girl properly!”
Jiang Qiaoxi looked down at the laundry detergent Lin Yingtao had “carefully compared prices” for at the supermarket yesterday. After the call ended, he put away his phone and poured a generous amount onto the soaked sheets.
Lin Yingtao was still buried in the blankets, curled up into a ball, probably really not wanting to face Jiang Qiaoxi anymore. He thought for a moment, guessing she would wake up hungry around ten o’clock. He put on a jacket and went down to the nearby supermarket to buy some things they had run out of at home.
Standing by the roadside, Jiang Qiaoxi pocketed his change. Suddenly, he craved a cigarette.
Perhaps only Jiang Qiaoxi himself knew how addictive a person he was.
In the past, he had grown accustomed to pretending to be a person who never smiled, someone who had to be uninterested in all happiness and joy from a young age, never envious, never complaining, never competing with his deceased older brother.
But people’s thoughts are strange. As Jiang Qiaoxi walked down this road, turning a corner to find a place to smoke, he recalled the first time he truly remembered Lin Yingtao as a little girl. It was because she had asked him, “So what color do you like?”
Lin Yingtao didn’t care about Jiang Mengchu at all and didn’t care about math scores. In Lin Yingtao’s eyes, there was only him, just him alone.
Even his name, carelessly given by his father, which made Jiang Qiaoxi feel cold and resentful every time it was mentioned, became “an especially beautiful poem” in Lin Yingtao’s heart. The way she said it was sweet, crisp, with a smile, melting his heart.
If there was an addiction Jiang Qiaoxi couldn’t quit, it was far more than just cigarettes.
Jiang Qiaoxi bought a pack of cigarettes, opened it, took one out, and put it in his mouth, lighting it. He took a long drag.
Yingtao was finally, completely, thoroughly his. From the very beginning, she had belonged only to Jiang Qiaoxi.
Suddenly, Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t want to doubt anything anymore.
Whether his brother’s illness could be cured, whether he could have a good future, whether he and Yingtao could make it, whether he could give her a better life… There was no “whether” – he had to make it happen.
Jiang Qiaoxi extinguished the half-smoked cigarette in a trash can and took a deep breath of fresh air.