“You mean.” Jin Zhuo couldn’t help smiling. “I can sleep here now?”
Somewhere nearby, a neighbor’s rooster was crowing. Half-asleep, Xun Long felt a splitting headache. One hand massaging her temple, she pointed toward the door. “You can leave now.”
Jin Zhuo still wanted to massage her temple for her. Xun Long asked, “If you don’t listen, I will.”
“I’m listening, I’m listening.” Jin Zhuo hurried out of bed. Out of habit, she instinctively made toward the window, but under Xun Long’s steady gaze, she reluctantly walked over to the door. “I’m leaving.”
“Wait a moment.”
Jin Zhuo stepped right back inside.
Xun Long pointed toward the wardrobe. “Help me get a new quilt.”
Her bedroom was small, just a bed, a desk, and a wardrobe, retaining the exact layout from her childhood.
The air conditioner and bathroom had been newly installed that year. The washing machine was kept out in the courtyard, though her grandparents still preferred washing clothes by hand and rarely used it.
Elderly habits differed from those of the younger generation. Since Xun Long had returned to live with them, her grandparents never pried too much into her life.
Had Xun Long not complained of being bored, they probably wouldn’t have even asked her to help make lanterns.
Xun Long still owned an apartment in the city where she worked, so she hadn’t brought many belongings back with her.
These days, courier deliveries could reach the doorstep in Feixian Town, but the old street housing the lantern shop had become a tourist attraction where electric bikes were restricted during the day. Delivery vans couldn’t drive in, so packages were usually left at the logistics station at the intersection.
Xun Long rarely bought anything. After returning to her hometown, she couldn’t even be bothered to open shopping apps.
The light summer quilt was a new purchase, picked up from the station just last week with her grandmother’s help. After washing and drying it, she had assumed she wouldn’t need it for a while and had tucked it deep inside the wardrobe.
Jin Zhuo flicked on the light and squeezed into the wardrobe. Her nose was filled entirely with Xun Long’s scent; she had no idea what kind of fabric softener Xun Long used, but it was faint, carrying a hint of mint alongside some other herbal notes.
“Where is it?”
“Right at the back. The cyan one.”
“Oh.”
Jin Zhuo dawdled deliberately, seizing the opportunity to take deep breaths and inhale the scent. Anyone watching would have thought a police dog was on duty.
Xun Long truly couldn’t fathom where Jin Zhuo’s affection came from, attributing it entirely to her being a hopeless flirt.
By now, Jin Zhuo had firmly claimed the top spot on the leaderboard of lechers she had ever encountered, and her eccentricities were on full display.
Xun Long asked, “Still haven’t found it?”
Only then did Jin Zhuo walk over carrying the quilt. “Found it. Let me tuck you in.”
“No need.” Xun Long was extremely sleepy. She pointed to the discarded fabric on the bed. “Wash this.”
She turned over onto her side. “Remember to turn off the light.”
Jin Zhuo switched off the light, closed the door, and climbed back over the wall to her own side before realizing something was off.
Xun Long’s reaction had been far too calm, as if she had been waiting all along to catch her out.
Mirroring the layout of the lantern shop’s backyard, Old Jin’s blacksmith shop also had two rooms at the back.
However, Jin Zhuo’s parents had later bought a house on New Street and practically never stayed here.
After graduating from college, Jin Zhuo returned to start her own business. Leveraging a bit of her aging father’s prestige and using the savings she had accumulated over the years, she bought the adjacent storefront and renovated it into a handicraft experience space.
The front hall was spacious, while the backyard merged with the blacksmith shop’s rear yard to form a three-bedroom, one-living-room layout, with one room designated as a guest bedroom.
She returned home just as the sky was turning pale at dawn, still hugging a quilt. As she hopped down, she ran right into her younger sister, Jin Yao, who was on her way to the restroom.
The girl, who was about to start college, jumped in fright, thinking a thief had broken into the house.
A moment later, she realized her own older sister was the thief.
Yawning, Jin Yao glanced at the brightening sky outside and asked, “Sis, why are you hugging a quilt at the crack of dawn?”
Ever since Xun Long returned, Jin Zhuo had been plotting her climb into bed operation.
Executing it, however, had been exceptionally difficult. Just testing out the wall climbing took her a full month. During that time, taking advantage of Xun Long being out, she used the excuse that something she was drying had blown into the backyard to conduct an on-site reconnaissance of Xun Long’s room.
Xun Long locked her door when sleeping, but not her window.
The window frame of the newly renovated room remained the old outward-opening style, making it convenient for Jin Zhuo to break in.
She had even figured out what medication Xun Long took, never expecting that after trying only three times, she would be caught red-handed on the fourth.
Even her sister, who lived in the same house, hadn’t noticed she was missing in the middle of the night.
Who on earth was the one taking sleeping pills?
Jin Zhuo stared at her sister for a moment, leaving Jin Yao bewildered under her gaze. “What is it?”
Jin Zhuo said gloomily, “Your sleep quality is truly impressive.”
Jin Yao trailed behind Jin Zhuo, yawning, completely oblivious to what her sister had been up to.
“You say that like yours isn’t. You fall asleep in five seconds flat.”
Jin Zhuo was twenty-five this year. Although her income from both her side business and main trade was decent, her expenses were equally high. This place needed renovating, that place needed replacing; while she wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck, she could only comfort herself by thinking the future was promising.
For someone desperate to come out of the closet, having no partner was unnecessary, and lacking ample financial resources was equally unnecessary.
Therefore, Jin Zhuo chose to keep it a secret from her parents. She had originally intended to confess to Jin Yao, but seeing that her sister was even clumsier than herself, she decided against it.
Better to avoid extra trouble.
Even though she had gone through with it and achieved her wish, whether climbing walls or climbing beds, it wasn’t exactly honorable.
Events proved that taking calculated risks was worth it. Not only did Xun Long refuse to press the matter, but she intended to put her to good use.
Fantastic.
Since it was still early, Jin Yao planned to catch a bit more sleep. But seeing her sister doing hand-laundry in the dim morning light, and doing it by hand, no less, the more she thought about it, the stranger it felt. She walked over to take a closer look.
Jin Zhuo coaxed her away. “What are you looking at? Go back to sleep.”
Jin Yao, who had just graduated from high school, was admitted to a university in Ning City, leaving a little over a month before the semester started.
Last month, Jin Zhuo sponsored her to go on a trip and bought her a new phone and computer. Starting this month, she began working for her sister, tending the shop and greeting scheduled guests.
The basic renovation of the adjacent tea-beverage space was already complete, and Jin Zhuo had recruited a barista online who was still in the middle of negotiations. Jin Zhuo had already booked the person’s train ticket, waiting for them to arrive next week.
Being your own boss meant worrying about everything. Jin Zhuo usually tossed her clothes into the washing machine, but today she was being unusually and uncharacteristically diligent. Jin Yao asked, “When did you ever buy a quilt like that?”
Jin Zhuo answered, “I stole it.”
Jin Yao refused to believe it. “You couldn’t possibly have stolen the neighbor sister’s quilt.”
Jin Zhuo, busy hand-washing the quilt, smiled brightly. “Why couldn’t I?”
Jin Yao knew Jin Zhuo liked Xun Long, but she had never suspected it went that direction.
After all, her sister’s penchant for good looks had reached a point where she couldn’t even distinguish between humans and animals.
When walking the fat dog across the street whose rear end wobbled back and forth, Jin Zhuo would actually follow it all the way with stars in her eyes, exclaiming how much of a gorgeous, round little darling it was.
Jin Yao found it completely incomprehensible.
According to Jin Zhuo’s aesthetic standards, if the pinnacle of beauty was Xun Long, then Jin Yao could finally understand.
In Jin Yao’s vague impression, the neighbor sister was like a legend, living entirely in other people’s conversations.
Jin Zhuo was four years younger than Xun Long, which meant Jin Yao was even further behind and had barely seen Xun Long a few times.
Whenever Xun Long was brought up, her sister praised her appearance without reservation.
Their mother always said looks were secondary, and that the woman had a brilliant mind.
Inevitably, that would be followed by the remark, “Why couldn’t I give birth to such a fine daughter?”
In Jin Yao’s memory, Xun Long always served as the benchmark. Both parents deceased, she grew up raised by her grandparents yet remained incredibly driven. With stellar grades and scholarships, she required zero worry from the adults and effortlessly tested into a top university.
A successful person was how Jin Yao defined Xun Long.
Even though Xun Long was now visually impaired and walked with a limp, Jin Yao could still perceive Xun Long’s extraordinary beauty through the thin paper of those lanterns.
She truly wondered how dazzling Xun Long must have been during the peak of her life.
Previously, during Jin Yao’s high school graduation break, she happened to catch a glimpse of Xun Long right after she returned.
Xun Long was undoubtedly pretty, but that beauty resembled distant mountains shrouded in a thin mist.
Any child raised in the countryside knew that deep mountains were the most perilous places, let alone a mountain summit forever wreathed in thick fog and perpetual rain.
Loving the deep mountains would only lead to a shattering end, Jin Yao had told her sister. She genuinely couldn’t imagine what kind of person could ever be matched with someone like Xun Long.
They surely had to be an equal match.
Jin Zhuo was finishing up an order for a client, tapping rhythmically on a piece of iron to chisel out a pre-designed pattern.
Confirming this thought, Jin Yao asked Jin Zhuo whether Xun Long liked women.
Feixian Town had very few schools, and even heading into the county seat yielded only a handful of institutions. Xun Long was a renowned alumna; years after graduation, she had still left her mark at the school.
Jin Yao brought up Ding Hanxing, then clicked on gossip shared by a friend.
Nowadays, anyone with good looks had a chance to go viral. Xun Long’s account was untraceable, but Ding Hanxing’s existed, working at a prestigious company while still finding time to run an account, she looked very much like the urban elite many young girls yearned to be.
Xun Long only appeared in her videos for a few seconds before being pinpointed.
Countless university alumni claimed her, while middle school alumni posted yellowed newspapers from school bulletin boards, showing group photos of campus stars on faded pages where the two stood side by side.
What a wonderful match they made.
Jin Zhuo spoke casually, though the movements of her hands were heavy. Fortunately, iron plates couldn’t be beaten into pieces, just like her affection.
Even if thrown into water, it would still hiss and sizzle, whether the cold water turned boiling hot, she still couldn’t suppress her craving for Xun Long.
As long as there was an opportunity.
That opportunity had arrived quite cunningly. A twenty-five-year-old Jin Zhuo possessed far more capability than a fifteen-year-old Jin Zhuo.
And a twenty-nine-year-old Xun Long was no longer as untouchable as a nineteen-year-old Xun Long.
Separated by a single wall, Jin Zhuo climbed across with effortless ease and transgressed with brazen audacity.
“No way, you stole Sister Xun Long’s quilt just to bring it back and wash it yourself?” Jin Yao hadn’t considered that angle at all. “Don’t tell me you actually dirtied her quilt?”
Jin Zhuo nodded. “If you say so, then yes.”
Jin Yao had no interest in bickering with her. “Too lazy to humor your jokes, I’m going back to sleep.”
The young girl had decent taste after all, recognizing just how comfortable that quilt looked. “Buy me one too; the quilt I have now is way too thick.”
Humming a tune, Jin Zhuo scrubbed away at the marks she herself had left, her mind filled entirely with Xun Long’s visage. “I’ll deduct it from your salary.”
Her younger sister whipped her head around. “That’s so harsh! Evil capitalist!”
The capitalist, perhaps thinking of something, stared at the soaking quilt in the misty morning light and grinned foolishly.
After the accident, Xun Long’s sleep quality had plummeted.
Since childhood, she had never been phased by pressure. No matter how significant the life event, she could always fall asleep peacefully the night before.
It had been the same when competing in competitions as a teenager; the atmosphere inside the coach was oppressive, yet she simply pulled her school uniform over her head and slept like the dead.
Age twenty-seven proved to be a turning point, severing her healthy physique, her within-reach promotion, and a friendship she had assumed was well-maintained.
Even though the compensation payout from the car accident was substantial, and her company offered her the option of taking a leave of absence while retaining her position.
Xun Long still refused.
Everyone assumed she and Ding Hanxing had fallen out because the latter had stolen her clients and stepped over her to secure a promotion.
Only Xun Long understood what it was like to experience life slipping away during a blizzard car accident, wondering why she was even alive.
In that single instant, work suddenly didn’t seem all that important anymore, and the flashing tunnel-vision life review commonly depicted in movies actually felt real.
Yet she still couldn’t recall the faces of her parents who had passed away early; instead, she only remembered her hometown far beyond a thousand mountains, the Feixian Town she had once been desperate to leave, and the lantern shop smelling faintly of paper and bamboo strips.
When disaster struck her, the only family members she could reach were her aging grandparents.
Clearly, wanting to leave in the past had been driven by a desire to provide a better life for the old folks.
Yet when Xun Long attained everything she thought she wanted, she discovered her grandparents didn’t need the kind of life she assumed they needed.
When she woke up in the hospital, the enucleation surgery to remove her eyeball was already over, and medical gauze represented her future field of vision.
Her elderly grandparents had traveled an immense distance to care for her, only to be squeezed into the absolute corner by visiting colleagues, looking thoroughly ill at ease.
Xun Long found it all even more meaningless.
She congratulated Ding Hanxing, who came to visit, on her promotion, and told Jiang Keming, who had returned from abroad, that he probably no longer stood a chance.
Those who pitied her ranged from colleagues to industry peers. Upon returning to her hometown, many assumed her self-imposed isolation meant she no longer wanted to live.
Her grandparents never asked about Xun Long’s plans for the future.
Ever since childhood, Xun Long had always managed her own affairs; neither her studies nor her daily life required intervention from elders, and she even brought back scholarships.
She didn’t know what else she wanted, nor did she know what she was capable of doing.
The future she had meticulously planned out during childhood had already been realized, it just hadn’t lasted, easily shattered by a single car accident.
She was just like a snowflake, melting away with absolute ease.
Why did summer cicadas live such brief lives yet cry out so loudly, making as much noise as the fire-pot next door?
Irritated, Xun Long blinked her eyes open, thinking she heard Jin Zhuo’s voice.
Knock, knock, knock.
A knock at the door, accompanied by her grandmother’s voice.
“You could have just handed it to me, there was no need to bring it over yourself.”
“It’s fine, it happened to blow over to my place, so I washed it and thought I’d check on her.”
It wasn’t her imagination, it really was Jin Zhuo’s voice.
Her grandmother said again, “She’s not up yet. She hasn’t eaten breakfast or lunch.”
Jin Zhuo let out an oh. “Must be tired, I suppose.”
Xun Long rubbed the bridge of her nose. When getting out of bed, she still had to manually lift her numb right leg.
Her movements were practiced, her expression detached, making no unnecessary noise.
The door suddenly swung open, bringing Jin Zhuo and Grandma Xun’s casual chatting to an abrupt halt.
The octopus-headed girl holding the hand-washed cotton quilt stared at Xun Long as if seeing her for the first time, her gaze fixed and unblinking.
It was Grandma Xun who spoke first. “You’re awake? This is old Jin’s daughter from next door, Huoshao, do you remember her?”
Xun Long hummed in acknowledgment. “I remember.”
Grandma was delighted. “I’m glad you remember. She said your quilt got blown over to their place. I honestly don’t even remember hanging it out to dry.”
Jin Zhuo was still staring at Xun Long.
Xun Long smiled. “It blew over to her place?”
Grandma murmured assent and moved to put the quilt away. Only then did Jin Zhuo snap out of her trance. “It’s fine, Grandma Xun, go tend to your chores. I want to have a few words with Sister Yuelong.”
Usually, Xun Long never went outside, so having visitors made the old woman happy. With dusk approaching, she went off to prepare dinner.
Summer nights fell late. Jin Zhuo stood off to the side as the slanting rays of the setting sun fell squarely upon the woman sitting in the wheelchair.
During the day, Xun Long wore medical gauze to cover her empty left eye.
She asked Jin Zhuo, “What is it you want to say?”
Through running her shop over the years, Jin Zhuo had seen all sorts of people, yet she could never quite read Xun Long’s mind.
She had assumed Xun Long would reject her absurd request, but Xun Long had agreed.
Was she planning to go back on her word now?
Jin Zhuo grew a fraction more nervous, hugging the quilt to her chest like a pitiful creature about to be thrown out. “You didn’t forget, did you?”
“How could I?”
Xun Long’s remaining right eye looked striking in the slanting sunlight, her eyelashes seemingly gilded with gold, though her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Didn’t we agree? Without my permission, you’re not allowed to come over.”
Perhaps due to lying down for too long, her complexion lacked color entirely, making Jin Zhuo desperately want to hold an umbrella over her for fear she might evaporate into thin air.
Feeling even more tense under that gaze, Jin Zhuo explained, “But I came to return your quilt.”
Xun Long replied, “That’s still not allowed.”
Jin Zhuo pressed her lips together. “Then how am I supposed to talk to you? You didn’t even ask for my contact info.”
She delivered her final verdict. “This time doesn’t count. Hurry up and add me on WeChat.”