Lou Fan leaned against the doorframe and lit a cigarette for the first time in ages.
She wasn’t actually a smoker, but due to constant socializing, she had been forced to pick up the habit. Qin Peiran disliked the smell of smoke, which was why she had never smoked inside the house.
Two suitcases lay open on the bedroom floor. Qin Peiran stood in front of their shared wardrobe, painstakingly separating her own belongings from the rest.
Catching the scent of smoke, Qin Peiran couldn’t help frowning as she looked back toward the bedroom doorway.
Lou Fan was still wearing that white silk nightgown. As she leaned sideways against the doorframe, the silk curved gracefully around her waist, exposing her long, delicate legs.
“Bothering you?” Lou Fan held a slim cigarette between two fingers. She wasn’t really smoking it, and the rising smoke blurred her delicate, striking face.
Qin Peiran shook her head. She was leaving immediately anyway.
Lou Fan stayed leaning there for a long time, letting the smoke sting her eyes, until Qin Peiran zipped up the final suitcase and stood it upright. Only then did Lou Fan walk over and stub out the cigarette butt in the kitchen sink.
“I’m leaving.” By the entryway, Qin Peiran said this while pulling two full suitcases.
When she first arrived, she hadn’t brought much. A single backpack was enough to hold it all. Now that she was leaving, she didn’t have much either; just two suitcases.
Lou Fan threw on a light jacket and pulled the door open for her. “Text me to let me know you’ve arrived safely at the company dorms.”
“Mhm.” Qin Peiran looked at Lou Fan’s thin nightgown and pulled the door slightly shut. “Don’t see me off.”
And just like that, Qin Peiran left. No looking back, no parting words, no lingering affection.
Lou Fan couldn’t quite describe what she was feeling. Through the peephole on the security door, she watched that receding figure step by step until it faded from view.
She figured she probably needed to get her eyes checked. Otherwise, how could she have mistaken the other woman for her own younger self from a few years ago, just arriving in Haishi?
“Safe journey, and a brilliant future.” Lou Fan smiled and waved her fingertips slightly, though it was unclear who she was saying it to.
The apartment Lou Fan rented wasn’t large, just big enough for two people. But perhaps because someone had just left and half the wardrobe was empty, Lou Fan began to regret not listening to the real estate agent’s advice back then to rent the smaller single-room unit next door.
It was still far too desolate. After finishing her work and closing her laptop, Lou Fan thought this to herself as she unlocked her phone and opened WeChat.
Lou Fan: [Want to come over for hot pot tonight?]
You Ye: [Oh? Aren’t you afraid I’ll interrupt the two-person world with your college student?]
Lou Fan: [No, she moved out this morning.]
You Ye: [Fine, I’ll be right over.]
You Ye was Lou Fan’s college roommate. The two had stayed close throughout university, and after graduation, both remained in Haishi for work, meeting up every few days.
Aside from Qin Peiran, You Ye was easily the person Lou Fan chatted with most frequently on her personal WeChat.
You Ye arrived quickly, making sure to bring a few cans of beer, terrified that the moment she opened the door, she would find Lou Fan weeping and wailing.
Little did she expect that before she even reached the doorway, the music blasting from inside was so loud it made You Ye want to file a noise complaint with property management on behalf of the neighbors.
Just as You Ye sent a text reading “I’ve arrived,” the security door swung open in response. Lou Fan was wearing a wine-red long dress, her long hair simply swept to one side, and she wore a rose-scented perfume that blended with a faint trace of alcohol. She looked precisely like some wild rose reincarnated.
You Ye pointed at Lou Fan’s red lips, then at her slender eyeliner. “When other people go through a breakup, they act like their world is ending. Why are you all dressed up like a peacock all by yourself at home?”
Lou Fan rolled her eyes and motioned for You Ye to come inside.
“I’ve told you countless times, she and I are not in that kind of relationship.” Lou Fan picked up a wine glass from the table, swirled it, and drank the tiny remaining drop at the bottom.
“Right, right, right. Funding a financially struggling female college student while conveniently fulfilling some exchanges of mutual devotion.” You Ye gave Lou Fan a look of disdain, walked straight toward the television, tossed her bag onto the floor, turned down the volume of the speakers, and then resumed teasing Lou Fan. “An old cow wanting to graze on tender grass is fine by me. I’m not going to judge you. Why keep dragging in nonsense like being a sugar mommy?”
There was no helping it. As a model youth of the new era, You Ye simply could not accept her good best friend engaging in some shady sugar relationship.
Even though Lou Fan had repeatedly emphasized this for four whole years, You Ye chose to cover her ears and pretend not to hear it.
“Why did you break up then? Did you argue? Did someone cheat? Did you cheat, or did she?”
Lou Fan held a half-full glass of red wine in one hand, walked gracefully toward You Ye with slightly unsteady, soft steps, and handed her a glass. “She has a job now. She doesn’t need my money anymore.”
You Ye fell silent. After a long moment, she said, “Four years. You’d develop feelings even if you were raising a cat.”
“That’s different.” Lou Fan crossed her legs, humming a tune as she looked completely disconnected from someone experiencing a breakup. “We were just a transactional arrangement to begin with.”
“I fancied her face, and she fancied my money. Oh, well, maybe she fancied my face a little too, but mostly it was the money.” Lou Fan took a sip of wine, her upturned outer eye corners narrowing slightly before opening again with a smile as she looked at You Ye. “Let me tell you, her job is fantastic! Her starting internship salary alone is this high. She really is a top student from Hai University. Hey, if my brain were just a bit sharper, I should have tested into Hai University back then.”
She rambled on about Qin Peiran’s bright future, her expression of pride and self-satisfaction making her look as though she were bragging about a work of art she had created herself. Looking at Lou Fan like this, You Ye didn’t quite know what to say, so she simply asked, “Then why did you call me over? I thought you were going through a crisis, crying and threatening to throw your life away, and that I needed to rush over here to save a precious maiden’s life.”
At that moment, Lou Fan set down her wine glass and scanned her surroundings.
When her dark pupils landed on the Keep fitness medal resting on the TV cabinet, they trembled almost imperceptibly.
She had originally wanted to tell You Ye that the house felt too empty and ask her over to liven things up. Now, she suddenly felt the exact opposite, realizing that the house was far too full.
Even though Qin Peiran had packed up and taken every single one of her belongings, the traces inevitably left behind over the course of four years still crammed this home to the brim.
You Ye stayed with Lou Fan, drinking bottle after bottle of wine and smoking pack after pack of cigarettes. By the end, both of them were a bit tipsy. You Ye sat on the rug, tilted her head back, and asked Lou Fan, who was curled up in the corner of the sofa, “Did you never think about keeping it going? Not as a sugar arrangement, but actually dating her for real?”
With a soft snort of laughter, Lou Fan burst out laughing.
She giggled uncontrollably, hugging her drawn-up knees as her long hair slipped down to her pale, slender ankles. “What are you talking about? She’s a top student from Hai University, and her very first job pays way more than mine. Besides, I’m ten years older than her. Ten years, do you understand? By the time I’m nearly forty, she’ll barely be in her twenties.”
Lou Fan waved her hand with a smile, as if You Ye were telling some childish fairy tale. “Besides, I was just too lonely and wanted a companion. Anyone would do, you know? Furthermore, she’ll have a much better life once she leaves me.” She paused. “As long as she has a good life.”
Too lazy to listen to this woman’s self-contradictory denial, You Ye asked, “Well, leave you out of it then. What about her? Did she never think about it?”
“You’re an idiot.” Lou Fan looked at You Ye as if looking at someone lacking basic cognitive function. “I don’t believe in any of that love nonsense, let alone the idea that she’d want an old woman ten years older than her.”
You Ye fell silent. She wanted to refute the term old woman, and she wanted to say that there would genuinely be someone in this world who would love her, but everything she thought of sounded like vague, hollow clichés, so she swallowed them back down along with the wine in her glass.
Perhaps due to the arrival of summer, Lou Fan’s work-related social dinners became increasingly frequent. The hangover medicine had been accidentally tossed into the trash can by Lou Fan while she was cleaning up the day Qin Peiran left, and she had never remembered to buy more.
Yet Lou Fan seemed to have built up her alcohol tolerance through these day-in, day-out drinking sessions. Not only was she much more composed at the banquet tables, but even after returning home, she would still pour herself a few private drinks, unsatisfied to stop.
“Have a safe trip, President Zhang.” Lou Fan was wearing a tailored black velvet long dress as she stood at the entrance of Yongfu House, seeing them off into a business van before returning to the car where Chen Man was seated. Bending down, she reported on her work: “Director Chen, regarding the localization issue President Zhang mentioned earlier, I’ll discuss it with the department head tomorrow when I return to the company. We should have a preliminary report ready by tomorrow afternoon or the day after.”
Chen Man raised a hand, interrupting Lou Fan’s speech. “What’s wrong with you lately?”
Lou Fan froze. Her alcohol-soaked brain reacted a bit sluggishly, assuming something had gone wrong with her work. “Then I’ll try my best to have it by tomorrow noon.”
“No,” Chen Man shook her head, tapping her finger downward against Lou Fan. “The amount you’ve been drinking during your client dinners lately is a bit too much.”
“I apologize, Director Chen. Because this client is relatively important…” Lou Fan believed she had performed quite well today; not only had she coaxed President Zhang into signing the contract early, but she had even extended the final payment deadline by three months.
“Sigh.” Chen Man let out a long sigh. “Your work is flawless. You could even say you’ve been even more responsible from the company’s perspective.”
“Then…”
“Has something unhappy happened recently?” Chen Man changed the subject and looked toward the streetlamps along the roadside.
A moth was relentlessly slamming itself against the scorching glass lampshade.
“Why hasn’t your younger sister come to pick you up lately?”
Lou Fan was stunned.
“Her? She… She…” Lou Fan’s eyelids felt a bit sore, and she blinked rapidly, watching the moth trace chaotic shadows under the dim yellow halo as she spun a lie. “She found a job out of town and moved away a while ago.”
“I see.” Chen Man nodded thoughtfully. “It’s getting late. You should head back and get some rest early.”
“Have a safe trip, Director Chen.” Lou Fan took a step back, straightened up, and waved. “See you tomorrow.”
Watching the black sedan drive off into the distance, Lou Fan pulled out her phone to hail a taxi. Just as she was about to input the address, she suddenly remembered that she had finished the last bottle of beer in the fridge the night before.
Go to a supermarket? It was a bit late.
A convenience store? Lou Fan carefully recalled, realizing that convenience stores didn’t seem to carry the kind of alcohol she liked.
After a moment of thought, she unhesitatingly set her destination as a bar just seven hundred meters from her home.
I can just walk home after finishing a drink, Lou Fan thought, tugging at the hem of her skirt which had been ruffled by the wind.
There weren’t many people at the bar on a weekday evening, and most of them looked like ambiance staff hired by the establishment. Lou Fan picked a corner seat at the counter.
She had never been to a place like this before and understood very little of the flashy names on the menu, so she simply ordered a few drinks based purely on feeling.
“A Long Island Iced Tea, a Dry Martini, an Irish Coffee. Is that correct?” The bartender held a cocktail shaker, tilting his head slightly to confirm with Lou Fan. “Your alcohol tolerance must be pretty decent, miss?”
Lou Fan thought about how her capacity had indeed improved over this recent period. “Mm, it’s alright.”
Since her home was close by anyway, she might as well drink until she was thoroughly drunk.
She couldn’t articulate what exact emotions she was trying to mask behind the alcohol. She only knew that the more she drank, the more her head hurt, and the more it hurt, the more she wanted to drink, as if the physical discomfort brought on by artificial means could mask the long-standing emptiness she had felt lately.
Her empty skin was filled with the misery of drunkenness. Finding a solution to her pain, Lou Fan rested her forehead on the bar counter and giggled endlessly. The bartender slid the fresh drink she had just ordered across the counter with a hint of concern. “Miss, do you have a friend coming to pick you up?”
“Friends…” Lou Fan pressed one cheek against the cool marble countertop while flipping through her phone, murmuring a count. “You Ye has to work tomorrow, she’s definitely asleep. Qin Peiran… Qin Peiran has to work too. Her job is so good, I can’t hold her back. I can’t contact her. Yeah, I mustn’t contact her.”
A sudden wave of acid churned in her stomach. Lou Fan felt a sense of impending doom, tossed her phone aside, and bolted toward the restroom.
Just as her hand brushed against the door panel of the toilet stall, Lou Fan felt the world spin violently. Then, everything went pitch black, and her entire body collapsed limply to the ground.