“Sister.”
“Hug me.”
If this were her past life, Lou Fan would undoubtedly have burst into tears of joy, beaten gongs and drums, and lunged in for a hug without a second thought. After all, Qin Peiran had never once taken the initiative; that icy demeanor had treated Lou Fan with equal aloofness, keeping her at arm’s length.
Yet in this lifetime, Lou Fan’s expression froze. She couldn’t feel happy no matter what.
The person on the other end was unwilling. Whether it was intimate behavior or this sort of tentative, normal-looking physical contact, Qin Peiran found it agonizing to endure. Lou Fan had known her for four years and forced her for four years; she remembered every single time Qin Peiran’s brows had knitted in distress.
And she herself was unwilling, either. Saying this wasn’t her putting on airs of false purity; she genuinely didn’t want to watch Qin Peiran flash her payslip at her once more before turning around and walking away without a backward glance.
What was the point?
From start to finish.
“What kind of hug?” Lou Fan clicked her tongue, landing a sharp knuckle rap right on Qin Peiran’s forehead. “Go on up, it’s getting so late.” She turned around, reaching to open the car door, only to find it still locked.
She looked toward the driver’s seat. Qin Peiran sat there motionless, showing no intention of unlocking it.
“What’s wrong?” A faint sense of oddness rose in Lou Fan’s chest.
“I just…” Qin Peiran suddenly lowered her head, her voice trembling slightly. “I’m a little scared, Sister. I’m scared.”
Like a floodgate suddenly ripped open, all those long-suppressed feelings of helplessness rushed forth from Qin Peiran’s mouth, tumbling over one another.
“Sister, why do you think Lu Wang got beaten up? He got mixed up with people from the underworld. What about me? I even brought a stun gun that day. Could I also end up…”
“If you hadn’t come to save me that day, I right now…”
“They definitely remember me, right? What if I accidentally run into them on the street next time? They know my school, too. What if they stake me out at the school gate?”
“I’m so scared, Sister. I’m not Lu Wang. I can’t just fly far away. I only have you.”
She couldn’t pinpoint which exact sentence it was that finally made Lou Fan give in to the request for an embrace. At first, Lou Fan merely wrapped her arms lightly around the girl, supporting the back of her head with her right hand and stroking it gently.
As Qin Peiran’s emotions grew increasingly agitated, the arm wrapped around Lou Fan’s waist tightened correspondingly. Lou Fan tried to soothe her, urging her to relax, but the more she tried, the more Lou Fan felt her waist being encircled by bloodthirsty vines that constricted inch by inch.
Two hearts separated by a decade beat at a similar rhythm. Qin Peiran was terrified of what might have been, but Lou Fan was hardly unaffected.
Lou Fan had already stripped off her padded jacket and left it in the back seat before getting into the car. Qin Peiran’s long, strong fingers with their defined joints now clutched wildly at Lou Fan’s waist through just a single layer of shirt, brushing over skin and tracing across bones.
Qin Peiran was striking in appearance; this was an accepted fact. Her features were long and refined, much like bamboo stalks shooting up in spring, adorned with sharp, slender bamboo leaves along their lengths.
Graceful. Piercing.
Combined with that unique, unyielding resilience born from her upbringing.
Everything about Qin Peiran, good or bad, dazzling or gloomy, tough or fragile, made Lou Fan’s heart hammer frantically right at that moment.
Qin Peiran’s hands tightened behind her back, stroke by stroke, tracing along her spine and pressing down as if trying to knead Lou Fan right into her own bones. Her trembling voice seemed to shift, taking on a trace of huskiness.
She raised her head, pressing close against Lou Fan’s chest from a position of absolute vulnerability: “Why is your heart beating so fast too, Sister?”
“I’m not, it’s not.” Lou Fan lowered her eyelashes, their long hair tangling together. That gaze capable of seeing through people’s souls hooked like a cunning snake’s tongue, drawing Lou Fan’s eyes inward.
She panicked and shut her eyes, then opened them again like a child playing ostrich, her gaze shifting from Qin Peiran’s eyes down to her lips.
Those restrained, cold-hearted lips currently carried a hint of temptation. Lou Fan knew very well that it was her own hormones acting up.
“Get out of the car already.” Lou Fan hastily pushed the girl away, turning around to grab the padded jacket from the back seat.
Qin Peiran calmly watched Lou Fan tidy her clothes, reached out to unlock the doors, and then followed a beat behind Lou Fan as they headed upstairs.
Lou Fan entered the apartment first, washed up, changed clothes, and went into the bedroom. She had to work tomorrow; she needed to get to sleep early.
The bedroom door was shut tight, letting only a sliver of light pierce through the gap at the bottom, unconsciously slicing across the shadow outside.
Tap, tap. Slippers treading upon Lou Fan’s nerves. Plop, plop. Water droplets falling onto Lou Fan’s heart.
She tossed and turned under the covers. Those tiny droplets rolled right off her chest, scattering all across the bed, leaving her skin tingling with an unbearable, maddening itch.
Lou Fan ground against that tingling sensation, listening to the muffled rustling coming from next door.
The buzzing hum of the hair dryer, the hard wooden floor, the soft, fluffy quilt. Lou Fan could practically picture how Qin Peiran’s hands, hands that had once made intimate contact with her skin, hands that possessed not only brute strength but also clever leverage, calloused at the fingertips, made every single furnishing in that room obey her command.
The hair dryer clicked obediently back into its place, the quilt draped submissively over Qin Peiran’s body. Silence settled over there, while turmoil raged over here.
Lou Fan did not sleep peacefully that night. She was an apple washed clean on a cutting board, and Qin Peiran was that calm, razor-sharp paring knife. The knife sliced across with cool precision while Lou Fan whimpered in restrained silence; the blade tapped against the pool of juice on the cutting board, then lifted high once more in apparent mockery.
A single droplet of clear, gleaming juice rolled down the tip of the blade, splashing straight onto the corner of Lou Fan’s slightly parted lips.
Lou Fan woke up with a start.
Her phone was ringing insistently by the bedside. Lou Fan snatched it up, silenced it, and then stood by the wardrobe for a moment, clutching the device.
She fished out a pair of clean underwear, changed into them, and walked out of the room as if nothing were amiss.
Right as she stepped out, she collided with Qin Peiran walking out of the bathroom.
“Achoo!” Qin Peiran hadn’t washed her hair; only the ends were damp. Carrying a towel to dry the tips of her strands, she turned her back and sneezed.
“What’s wrong?” Lou Fan glanced at the bathroom, where the mist hadn’t cleared yet, a trace of reproach coloring her words. “Why are you taking a shower in the morning?” Despite saying that, she still went to the cabinet, fetched a packet of cold medicine, brewed it with hot water, and handed it to Qin Peiran.
Qin Peiran blew against the rising steam in the cup, her long eyelashes drooping under the moisture. She took a tiny sip, let out a sharp hiss, and then raised her eyes, looking at Lou Fan with that pair of refined brows that were usually clear-headed but now looked mist-soaked and hazy: “Hot.”
It sounded like a statement of objective fact, yet imperceptibly blended with a couple of parts grievance.
“Drink it slowly.” Lou Fan reached out to cup the ceramic mug, saying helplessly, “Cold medicine has to be drunk hot. What? Do you want me to drop a couple of ice cubes in for you?”
Qin Peiran’s eyes shifted, as if she were genuinely weighing the feasibility of that idea.
“Forget it.” Lou Fan walked toward the bathroom, casually patting the top of Qin Peiran’s fluffy head on her way past. “Take your time drinking it, I’ll make you breakfast in a bit.”
“Mhm.” A low hum came from behind her. Had Lou Fan not spent a full four years living with her, she might never have noticed the slight upward inflection at the end of the sentence compared to usual.
It didn’t seem to be her imagination; this kid really had grown a bit spoiled.
By the time Lou Fan finished washing up, plated two servings of pan-fried fish fillets, and sat down to eat while managing messages on her phone, she suddenly heard Qin Peiran speak up: “Does Sister have any plans for New Year’s Eve?”
Lou Fan thought about it. You Ye was heading home, and her other colleagues and friends probably wouldn’t choose this specific time to make plans with her. Just as she was about to shake her head, her phone vibrated.
“I have to work.” Lou Fan sighed, her fingertips pinching a metal fork as she tapped it impatiently against the ceramic plate. “The notice just came down. There’s some issue with the opening spring exhibition in Singapore, though it shouldn’t be anything major. If only it wraps up by morning, I could head to the supermarket in the afternoon, cook a big feast, curl up on the sofa to watch a movie at night, take a bath, and get some proper rest.”
“I was even thinking about stewing some mutton, lighting some fireworks, and all that.” Lou Fan licked the sauce from the corner of her lips, pulled her knees up to press her face against them, while the fork in her hand kept relentlessly torturing her plate. “I always say I’m going to jump ship sooner or later.”
Yet reality proved far worse than imagined.
“No way, are the agents in Singapore out of their minds? With less than two months left, they’re telling me the business visas haven’t even started processing yet?” Lin Yao started cursing the moment she hung up her call.
Wang Yuan refused to be outdone on her end either: “Are people abroad really this relaxed? The exhibits shipped to Japan, have their declaration customs documents been stuck for two months now? And they’re still just stalling? Hurry up and dispatch a brand-new batch!”
The busier they were, the faster time flew. Seeing the sky grow increasingly heavy and snow pile up outside the window, Lou Fan balanced a Zoom meeting with the Japanese branch while stealing glances at the clock on the wall.
Before she knew it, it was already 7:00 PM.
“Let’s wrap it up for today.” Across the screen, General Manager Yoshikawa uttered those words, and Lou Fan let out a long breath of relief.
At least this damned, long-winded meeting was finally over.
She pulled out her phone and saw a few new notifications.
Lou Fan automatically ignored a couple of hypocritical messages and tapped on her pinned chat.
Qin Peiran: [What time are you coming home?] That was sent two hours ago.
[Still busy?] That one was from ten minutes ago.
Lou Fan tapped the screen: [Going to be pretty late, grab something yourself and don’t wait up for me.]
Qin Peiran’s phone must have been right in her hand because she called back the very next second: “Busy until now, have you eaten?”
Lou Fan held the phone with one hand while digging through her bag for her Bluetooth earbuds with the other, replying somewhat perfunctorily: “Not yet, I only ate half my lunch. Tonight, well, tonight…”
She finally fished her earbud case out from beneath a messy pile of documents, flipped the lid open, popped them in, placed her phone beneath the monitor, and resumed typing on her keyboard as she continued: “I’ll just grab cafeteria food or takeout. Isn’t that what we always eat at the office?”
“The cafeteria isn’t opening today, oh.” Yan Li poked her head out from the cubicle opposite, wagging her index finger. “We’re working today, but the cafeteria aunties aren’t working. As for takeout…” She tapped the yellow app on her phone as if she had already searched it earlier: “The only takeout left is coffee.”
The company’s location was already a nightmare for food delivery anyway, and this was an evening just five hours shy of New Year’s. To even have a single coffee shop operational was a miracle from the heavens. Lou Fan stood up, leaning over to peer at Yan Li’s phone screen. “It’s fine, I’ll just order a cup of coffee plus a bread roll or something.”
“Sold out.” Yan Li scrolled down to the greyed-out section, pouting before smiling triumphantly. “Luckily I still have a stash left. Come, come, come, I’ll share half with you.”
With that, Yan Li dove beneath her desk. Lou Fan heard a drawer being yanked open, followed by a rustling sound of rummaging.
A moment later, Yan Li popped back up with a palm-sized mini bread roll in a bag: “Tada! Good thing I resisted the temptation last time.”
“It’s so tiny.” It wasn’t that Lou Fan didn’t know; everyone had been running themselves ragged to the bone today, everyone was desperate to wrap things up and head home early, and nobody had managed to eat a decent lunch. “You keep it for yourself.”
“Aw, come on, we’re besties, aren’t we?” Yan Li tore the plastic packaging open with breezy enthusiasm, snapping the palm-sized roll in half. She shoved the remaining half straight into Lou Fan’s hands, chanting playfully, “Half for you and half for me, you are my other half.”
The other end of the phone had been quiet for a long while. At that moment, a soft snort of breath drifted through.
The sound was too faint, and the office was too noisy; Lou Fan didn’t hear it.
“Hey, hey, hey, hoarding all the good food for yourself?” Lin Yao had just finished her call, her stomach growing loudly as she tapped her desk with a pen and eyed the two of them.
The end result was that the bread in both of their hands was snatched away in halves by Lin Yao and Wang Yuan.
“Alright, alright, I can’t talk anymore.” Lou Fan chewed and swallowed her quarter-piece of bread in two bites, pressing her earbud with one hand while picking up her folder with the other and standing up. “I’ve got work to do, hanging up now.”
The call disconnected in a rush, and the sound of a quiet, stealthy door click drifted past Lou Fan’s ear.