Taking Shelter from the Rain
The temperature had dropped today, and misty rain veiled the world.
It was three in the afternoon on a workday, an awkward hour. The bus stop was empty, and Xue Ling sat alone on the bench, sheltering from the rain.
She’d just finished browsing the mall. Beside her was a paper bag from the bookstore containing two newly released volumes of Mily, a short girls’ manga by a domestic artist she liked. The eight-chapter story followed a girl whose secret crush finally came true.
Mily had also gotten a radio drama adaptation. Wearing white wired earbuds and sipping hot milk tea, Xue Ling gazed at the nearly deserted road, blurred by fine rain and mist, and listened quietly.
Her favorite part had come on again. The story was nearing its end, and the main couple had finally gotten together. Mily at last found the courage to tell her lover what it had been like to secretly love him.
It was a happy moment, but as she spoke, her voice wavered with a faint catch of tears.
The voice actress captured the emotion perfectly, just the right amount of bittersweet ache, and the sweetness of finally coming through the hard times.
Her love interest was a gentle person who listened quietly as she spoke. In the background, fabric brushed softly against fabric: a silent embrace.
Xue Ling felt her eyes grow warm.
That was when someone pulled out one of her earbuds, breaking the spell. A surprised woman’s voice sounded beside her. “Xue Ling?”
Xi Shan had just finished presenting a proposal to a client when she spotted a familiar figure at the bus stop in the distance. She told her colleagues to go on ahead, then walked over to take a closer look. Sure enough, it was Xue Ling.
She’d hardly changed at all since graduation three years ago. She still had that student air, as if she’d never been through the grind of the real world.
“When did you come back?” Xi Shan asked, sitting beside her with the proposal tucked in her arms.
Xue Ling took out her other earbud and stared at her for a moment before remembering who she was. “A month ago,” she replied softly.
“Oh…” Xi Shan gave her a once-over. “I didn’t even know you were back. We get together all the time, the girls from our dorm, but you were all the way overseas, so we couldn’t get in touch.”
Xue Ling nodded without saying anything.
“Did you go to school while you were abroad?” Xi Shan asked.
Xue Ling shook her head.
“So what kind of work do you do now?”
Xue Ling took a sip of milk tea and looked at her. “I’m a freelance artist.”
Xi Shan was taken aback. She realized it was probably a polite way of saying she was unemployed, and curved her lips into a smile. “It’s not easy to find work these days. Your personality really isn’t suited to the workplace. Don’t rush, take your time… Oh!”
She’d just noticed the plain, understated ring on Xue Ling’s left ring finger.
“You’re married?”
Xue Ling lowered her eyes to the ring and nodded.
“There isn’t even a diamond…” Xi Shan blurted out, then immediately explained, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s fine,” Xue Ling said.
Xi Shan ventured, “Did you get married overseas?”
“Here.”
“So you came back just to get married?”
She was practically prying, trying to get every detail of Xue Ling’s life. Xue Ling stopped answering and quietly drank her tea.
When she got no response, Xi Shan hugged the proposal to her chest and started talking about herself.
“I’ve been working at a small studio these past few years, drawing all kinds of things. I’m putting together a portfolio now, hoping to move to Tianxing as a concept artist. You know Tianxing, right? It’s a major game studio under Zhongqi Group. The CEO is…”
She suddenly stopped, bumped Xue Ling’s shoulder, and winked. “Guess who the CEO is?”
“Who?” Xue Ling asked.
“Xu Jingzhuo! I mean, once you heard Zhongqi, you should’ve guessed. His game team was so famous in college. I heard that after graduation they merged with Zhongqi’s old game division and formed a brand-new studio, Tianxing. A bunch of students started a little indie studio, and the next thing you know, it’s a major company.”
Xi Shan sighed. “That’s what happens when you’re Young Master Xu. The whole group belongs to his family, so he can do whatever he wants.”
Tianxing had a bright future ahead of it. It was exactly the company Xi Shan had always wanted to join.
“…What are you doing?”
Xue Ling was startled when Xi Shan shoved her phone’s front-facing camera in her face. Xi Shan had started a group video call, and besides the two of them, two other girls’ faces appeared on the screen.
At last, all four former roommates from college were together again.
Xue Ling had blocked all three of them the year they graduated.
Yi Han was killing time in the restroom at work. The instant she recognized the face on the screen, she yelled, “It really is Xue Ling!”
A coworker nearby reprimanded her, and she hurriedly apologized.
Jiang Xiya was lying on her couch at home in her pajamas, wearing a face mask. She rolled her eyes conspicuously and greeted her lazily. “Long time no see, Lingling. Am I still on your block list? You’re something else. Over something so small, you blocked your friends over a guy.”
“She was young back then,” Xi Shan said with a giggle. “A girl with a crush is bound to get a little lovesick.” She grabbed Xue Ling’s left hand and showed the ring to the others. “Xue Ling’s married now.”
“No way!” Yi Han exclaimed.
Jiang Xiya abruptly sat up and shoved her face toward the phone screen. Her face mask nearly slid right off.
Xue Ling frowned slightly and tried to pull her hand away, but couldn’t. Xi Shan had a tight grip, pushing it toward the camera, eager for the other two to get a good look at the ring.
Once Jiang Xiya had seen it, she leaned back down and lifted a hand to fix her mask, her diamond ring pointed squarely at the screen.
“Good for you. Now you won’t be pining after Young Master Xu anymore. That whole thing is in the past, so take us off your block list. We should get together sometime and catch up. You can tell us about your husband, too.”
Xue Ling wrenched her hand free and rubbed the half of her palm that had gone red from the tight grip. “In the past?” she asked coldly.
“What else?” Jiang Xiya gave a soft laugh. “You haven’t forgotten, have you? There were over two hundred replies on that post calling you a jealous, lovesick mess. You were in the wrong, you know. I thought all that criticism would’ve knocked some sense into you.”
When Xue Ling was in college, she had a secret crush on Xu Jingzhuo. She often snuck sketches of him onto her drawing paper, sometimes his face, sometimes his body.
At first, no one else knew. Then one day she lent Xi Shan a book, forgetting that a quick sketch of Xu Jingzhuo playing basketball was tucked inside.
And just like that, the whole dorm knew.
They teased her, snickering behind her back.
The other three girls in the dorm were all outgoing. Xue Ling was the only one who rarely spoke, and she’d never really fit in with them. After that, she became a favorite topic of conversation whenever they had time to kill.
They always said, “Xu Jingzhuo would never like you. You’re too scared to even talk to him. Even we think you’re boring. Young Master Xu loves having fun and has friends everywhere. To him, you’re like plain water. He’d pour you out without even taking a sip.”
They said things like that, then still insisted on acting like her closest friends. Xue Ling liked eating alone and going to class alone, but they’d insist the four of them do everything together, and then go right back to saying things like that.
It was graduation season, and it happened to be her birthday. Jiang Xiya and Yi Han had mysteriously dragged her to the sports field, saying they had a birthday surprise for her.
The surprise was that, while Xu Jingzhuo and a group of friends were fiddling with instruments and singing on the field, Xi Shan rushed over and confessed to him aloud, holding up a drawing.
She’d taken it from the pile of sketches on Xue Ling’s desk.
The crowd erupted in cheers.
Xu Jingzhuo was seated in front of a microphone, tuning his guitar. He glanced at the drawing as his friends passed it from hand to hand.
“Nice drawing.”
“But it doesn’t quite make me want to fall in love.”
His voice boomed across the whole sports field through the speakers.
Xi Shan regretfully said, “All right, then,” took back the drawing, and left the field. She walked toward the three of them nearby, handed the drawing back to Xue Ling, and said with a smile, “I tried it for you. No luck.”
The singing started up on the field. No one thought the little scene that had just unfolded was worth a second thought.
Everyone acted perfectly at ease. No one was embarrassed. No one blushed.
Only Xue Ling stood frozen in place, trembling from head to toe, cold all over.
She’d put up with them for so long, and still it wasn’t enough. They’d gone and humiliated her even worse on her birthday.
It was the most outrageous thing Xue Ling had done in her twenty-three years.
She trashed the dorm and beat up all three of her roommates.
Her mother’s new boyfriend had connections, and he helped keep the incident under wraps. The story never got out.
The three of them posted about her on an anonymous forum. There, she was called Roommate A. Roommate A was possessive of her crush. She was too cowardly to confess herself and wouldn’t let anyone else confess either. One of her roommates had simply been braver and confessed first, so she’d gone crazy and gotten violent. She’d fallen out with her dormmates over a man she could never have.
Xue Ling had no idea what forum it even was. The three of them just took screenshots of the replies as they piled up, sent them to her one by one, and condemned her along with the other users, telling her to reflect on what she’d done wrong.
Xue Ling left the country soon afterward.
Three years passed. She’d all but forgotten the whole thing, and could barely remember their faces. Yet here they were, inserting themselves into her life, bringing it up themselves, and trying to act as if nothing had happened so they could see her again.
She didn’t care that it was still raining. She took a deep breath, picked up the paper bag of books, and stood to leave. Xi Shan instinctively grabbed the bag to stop her. “Wait…”
Even one more second with Xi Shan and the two women on the screen made Xue Ling feel sick. She yanked the bag toward herself. Xi Shan reflexively pulled back, too. There was a sharp rip, and the paper bag tore open. The two manga volumes fell out and slapped down in the filthy rainwater in front of the bus stop.
The books were still in their plastic wrapping. Xi Shan apologized as she bent to pick them up.
“I don’t want them anymore,” Xue Ling said, holding the torn bag. Her voice was cold. “They cost 70 yuan. Pay me back.”
“They’re still wrapped. They’re not even dirty inside…”
“Pay me back!”
Xi Shan flung the book she’d just picked up back down, her expression sour. “Why are you yelling?”
She looked up, then froze in shock.
The former classmate who had always kept quiet and lowered her head whenever anything happened was staring right back at her, eyes icy and unyielding. Even though her eyes had reddened from the rush of emotion, it didn’t weaken her presence in the slightest.
Xue Ling was 165 centimeters tall, with a sweet face and a quiet, mild-mannered personality. She didn’t seem remotely threatening. Back in college, Xi Shan had liked spending time with her. Every time she saw Xue Ling looking awkward, nervous, and at a loss, it gave her a rush of satisfaction.
Xi Shan was open and straightforward. She was simply a cut above timid little girls like Xue Ling.
After she started working, Xi Shan was constantly pushed around by her boss and more experienced coworkers. She often found herself longing for her school days.
She’d been so happy to run into Xue Ling this time. Maybe they could hang out again. Xue Ling had been in the wrong back then, daring to hit them. Three years later, Xi Shan was magnanimously putting the past behind her, so surely Xue Ling would feel guilty.
And Xue Ling was doing poorly, just as she’d expected.
Xi Shan really did want to keep seeing her. Work was so stressful, pressing down on her until she could hardly breathe. She desperately needed a friend like Xue Ling to help her recharge.
But the Xue Ling standing before her now had none of the weakness she’d shown back then. If anything, she seemed ready to bite.
The cold disgust in Xue Ling’s gaze made Xi Shan feel as if her whole body were covered in prickles. She wanted nothing more than to end the conversation at once.
“Fine, I’ll pay you. It’s only 70 yuan. You’re really going to make a fuss over that? At your age, you’re still reading girls’ manga, dreaming those ridiculous little dreams…”
She kept muttering as she exited the video call and tapped the scan-to-pay button in the upper right corner.
Xue Ling brought up her payment code and held it out to her.
As Xi Shan scanned it, a message suddenly popped up on Xue Ling’s phone.
Editor Mian Yun: [Teacher Lan Song, the first volume of Chatterbox is still flying off the shelves! The editor-in-chief asked me to…]
At the sight of that name, Xi Shan’s pupils contracted sharply.
The message preview didn’t show the whole thing. Xue Ling received the payment and was about to leave.
Xi Shan panicked and took a step forward, reaching for her wrist. “You…”
Then she abruptly stopped.
A man holding an umbrella had appeared at Xue Ling’s side without her noticing.
He wore a black shirt and black trousers. Tall and striking, his bold, sharp features carried an innate air of pride and nobility. Even just standing there, he radiated such an intimidating presence that it was hard to stay on your feet.
The silver wire-frame glasses hanging from his collar were the only touch of refinement in his overwhelming aura.
He lowered his eyes to the girl’s reddened, restrained gaze, then lifted his left hand and gently wiped the moisture from the corner of her eye with his fingertip. The plain ring on his ring finger, matching hers, caught a brief flash of light.
“You’ve been cooped up at home for a month, and the second you go out, you end up getting wronged. Looks like I’ll have to go everywhere with you from now on.”
He paused. As he watched the tears keep coming, he rubbed the corner of her eye with his fingertip and sighed softly. “Wife.”
Xue Ling tilted her head up to meet his gaze. Her lashes trembled, wet. She hadn’t wanted to cry, but the moment he acted like that, she couldn’t hold it in.
If he hadn’t spoken, she wouldn’t even have felt wronged at first.
The man didn’t spare a glance for anything else. He kept his attention fixed on Xue Ling until she tugged at his sleeve. Then they left together.
Xi Shan stood rooted to the spot, her blood seeming to freeze in her veins. Her face had gone so pale it was nearly colorless.
Staring blankly after them, she thought back to the message preview that had appeared on Xue Ling’s phone.
Of course she knew Lan Song, one of the most popular artists on the country’s leading manga platform. Her art was exceptional, she had nearly ten million followers across the platform, and she was adored by her fans. Her new series was a huge hit. Its beautiful art and the sweet, distinctive romance between its leads were so popular that the first volume of the print edition had already sold like crazy after just one chapter of the second volume was released.
Someone that famous… Xue Ling… How could that be possible?
There was no way she could connect the two of them.
And that man, she’d recognize him even if he were reduced to ashes.
The big name on and off campus when they were students. The head of Zhongqi Group. The CEO of Tianxing, the major studio she was desperate to join. The man she’d once confessed to in front of everyone, using Xue Ling’s drawing…
Xue Ling’s hus-band?
In the group chat, Jiang Xiya was still talking, but Xi Shan couldn’t pay attention anymore.
She clenched her hand and dropped heavily onto the bus stop bench.
“Ah!”
She sat right on the hot milk tea Xue Ling had barely touched. Pearls stuck to her pants, ruining the new outfit she’d bought for today’s proposal.