Zhu Ling went into the restroom to touch up her makeup—two layers of lipstick, slightly expanded dark circles, and re-fixing the false lashes that had gone crooked from their weight. She sat on the toilet and played a round of mobile gaming. When she figured enough time had passed, she came out, took the elevator down to the first floor, and went to meet up with her friends.
She pressed the floor button and leaned against the elevator, continuing to text her boyfriend. He said he'd been busy lately, needed to meet up with some old friends to discuss some matters, and might be slow to reply. She said okay.
She was heading down, but before stepping in she hadn't noticed this elevator was going up, so she had to ride it all the way to the top before going back down. On the way down, the elevator stopped two or three times—people came in, people went out. After several rounds of doors opening and closing, she was alone again. Feeling a bit bored, she fished out some gummy candies, popped one in her mouth, and hummed a random tune.
At the 22nd floor, the elevator stopped and the doors opened. A man stepped in mid-hum of her song, with a group of men and women bowing and seeing him off behind him. At the head of the group was a woman with red lips, beaming like a flower, making a phone-call gesture with her hand and saying, "Let's hang out again!"
The man stood still, and a faint fragrance drifted over. Zhu Ling stopped humming and quietly took two sniffs of the scent—it seemed to carry the atmosphere of a sunny island beach. It was unique, and she liked it. She put away her phone and glanced at the man.
He looked about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with very fair skin, a tall and straight nose bridge, deep-set eyes and brows—quite handsome. And judging by his upright, well-built posture, he'd clearly trained before. Not only did his cologne smell good, but his fashion sense was on point—a thin hoodie underneath, casually thrown over with a black biker jacket. Edgy and cool.
Zhu Ling liked jackets of all kinds too. She had a few flight jackets and biker jackets at home, but she didn't have this exact one the man was wearing. She'd seen the same style a while back on a display ad in a storefront on the first floor of Plaza 66. She'd fallen in love with it at first sight, and every time she passed by, she'd stand in front of the window and take a few looks.
She'd imagined many times what this biker jacket would look like on herself—she felt she'd look great in it. The men's size might run a bit big, but that didn't matter; she was tall enough to pull it off. So she cleared her throat and struck up a conversation: "That leather jacket of yours is really nice. It looks so cool."
There were only two people in the elevator, so she was undoubtedly talking to him. But the man didn't recognize her, so he wasn't quite sure. He looked left and right before speaking: "Are you talking to me?"
Zhu Ling nodded and said, "That jacket of yours is really something. You've got great taste."
The man had been staring at her face the whole time and hadn't actually caught what she was saying. He raised an eyebrow and asked again, "Excuse me?"
Zhu Ling pointed at his biker jacket: "Your jacket—it's really, really cool."
Finally catching what she said, the man let out an "Oh," as if it suddenly dawned on him: "Thanks."
His gaze lingered on her face for another moment, as if trying to see through the heavy false lashes to what kind of eyes lay beneath. But she had on double-stacked lashes, thick as Zhuge Liang's feather fan, completely obscuring her pupils—there was really nothing to see. So he let his gaze drift downward a bit. Her face was a sight to behold, hard to look at directly, but below the neck she wasn't bad at all—by his standards, she was even pretty.
The girl's vintage denim jacket hung open, revealing a camisole underneath—tight and short, with large expanses of skin exposed. Unlike the heavy, painted-on whiteness of her face, the skin below her neck was a translucent, luminous white. Especially the hollow of her collarbone—delicate and slender, with graceful lines that invited plenty of imagination.
While the young man was studying Zhu Ling with some curiosity, her eyes never left his jacket. She praised it again: "It really looks so good. So stylish."
She kept complimenting, kept praising. The man looked utterly incredulous at her flattery—a bit dumbfounded, a bit like he wanted to laugh. He held it in with effort and said nothing.
Her praise grew even more earnest: "Your jacket is really, really nice. I genuinely love it."
Drawing on what she'd learned from her elective psychology course in college, she could tell that every pore and every cell in her body was craving this jacket on him. But he was too stunned to speak, so he just listened in silence, watching her quietly, his gaze roaming back and forth across her face. Until she finally asked: "Can you give me this jacket?"
He hadn't expected her to just naturally ask it out loud like that. The man was taken aback. Perhaps to stop hearing her compliments, a few seconds later, he still took off the jacket and silently handed it over.
Zhu Ling was delighted. She quickly reached out to take it, thanking him as she did: "Ah, I'm really so embarrassed about this. I'll take it then—thank you so much!"
"……"
From the 22nd floor to the 1st floor, in just a few dozen seconds, Zhu Ling successfully scored a cool, stylish men's jacket and was thrilled. The moment the jacket was in her hands, without a second's delay, she slipped it on—still carrying the body heat and scent of a strange man—and walked happily out of the elevator, leaving behind Huo Shize, who was still in a state of shock.
Huo Shize stood at the elevator entrance on the first floor, looking utterly bewildered, hands in his pockets, watching the girl with the dark, edgy makeup meet up with her group of friends at the building entrance. Her friends were a mix of guys and girls, all decked out in alternative fashion—the girls were all skinny, looking like a gust of wind could knock them over, and the guys all had bleached hair and bodies covered in tattoos.
Seeing her, the alternative friends called out in unison: "Lady Zhu Ling!"
She waved to the red-haired girl in gothic Lolita attire at the front: "Milia."
The red-haired girl named Milia hurried forward, and as soon as she got a clear look at the oversized biker jacket on her, she immediately gasped: "Oh my god, that's so cool and gorgeous! Where did you get that leather jacket?"
She had her hands in the jacket pockets, looking a bit smug but trying to play it cool, saying: "Oh, I ran into someone in the elevator. I complimented him for a few floors, and he just gave me his jacket."
The group of alternative friends all started flattering her: "That jacket really suits you! You're so tall, your skin is so pale, your waist is so tiny—honestly, even if you wore a burlap sack, you'd still look good!"
Milia reached out to touch it, and the moment she did, she shrieked: "Whoa, the leather is so soft, it feels amazing to the touch! I wonder how much it's worth!"
One of the bleached-haired guys said eagerly: "You can get it appraised on Xianyu. Want me to post it there and ask?"
A minute later, Daniel's car pulled up from the underground parking garage to street level. He rolled down the window and waved: "Jason!"
When Huo Shize got closer, Daniel gave him a once-over and noticed he was only wearing a hoodie—his jacket was gone—and the only thing in his hands was his phone. He reminded him: "Where's your jacket? Did you forget it at the studio? Where did you leave it? I'll call someone to bring it down."
Since the talk show didn't require him to appear on camera, Huo Shize had dressed casually—a hoodie with a biker jacket thrown over it. The jacket was a bit flashy, studded with metal rivets here and there, and he'd been wearing it all evening. When it suddenly disappeared, Daniel noticed right away.
Huo Shize said: "Didn't forget it. I just gave it away."
Daniel's reaction was the same as his had been in the elevator—surprised, he couldn't help letting out an "Ah?": "Gave it away? To who?"
Huo Shize was still completely baffled and answered truthfully: "Someone I don't know."
Daniel burst out laughing, then lamented on his behalf: "Come on, that was Balenciaga!"
The two had agreed to head to a bar on Hengshan Road for drinks with friends after the show. The show ended at 6:30 PM, right in the middle of rush hour, and the traffic was impossibly congested. The car crawled along at a snail's pace, and by the time they reached the next intersection, ten minutes had already passed. While waiting at a red light, Huo Shize happened to glance out the window and spotted the dark, rebellious girl from the elevator again. What caught his eye was probably her overly flashy outfit and those two impossibly long legs.
There was a Mixue Bingcheng at the intersection, and her group of alternative friends were each holding a drink, standing around in small clusters, laughing and chatting loudly. She, on the other hand, was leaning against a streetlight pole smoking a cigarette. Maybe she was hot—she'd taken off the biker jacket and was holding it in her hand, kicking at a pebble by her feet.
The group of alternative kids were laughing loudly, and when they spotted Daniel's low-slung red Ferrari in the traffic, they craned their necks, pointing and commenting on it. Checking out fancy cars on the street was one of their favorite ways to kill time.
Daniel's podcast studio was at the other end of this road, so he knew the area well. Seeing Huo Shize looking out the window, he explained: "That road up ahead is Tianlin Road—there's a night market street there, it gets pretty lively in the evenings." He pointed at the teenagers at the intersection. "Every night, a lot of rebellious kids like them gather here."
Huo Shize's residence was also in Xuhui District, not too far from here—about seven or eight kilometers, less than a twenty-minute drive—but he was usually busy, and on the rare occasions he drove through this area, he'd never seemed to notice this kind of crowd existed. Still, he wasn't particularly interested, just said "Oh" and asked casually: "What do they gather here for?"
Daniel looked at the rebellious kids: "They come here, spend most of their time drinking drinks, hanging out in groups, doing nothing until midnight. Occasionally they get into fights—jealousy, bullying, turf wars, stuff like that. Almost all of them are kids with family problems, lacking parental guidance and discipline."
Huo Shize turned his face once more to look at the dark-haired girl smoking under the streetlight. Because of the car window glass, the outside world seemed to be muted, the streetlight growing even brighter in the tranquil night. She leaned diagonally against the lamppost at the roadside, her figure bathed in that beam of light, a cigarette held between her fingers, the flame flickering on and off, illuminating half of a young face.
After a long moment, Huo Shize withdrew his gaze and asked, "How do you know so much?"
The next second, the red light turned green, and Daniel pressed the accelerator, laughing as he said, "I previously considered making a program featuring them as the main subjects. I did some research, but later shelved it for various reasons. Of course, this is also why I enjoy being a self-media creator: in the morning, you might be discussing global warming, ocean pollution, and the end of the world with scientists, and in the afternoon, you can witness the animal instincts of the ecosystem—from the central nervous system to the baser urges, from the spiritual world to hormones. And this city, Shanghai, seemingly a hundred feet, yet truly a thousand fathoms deep, its all-encompassing charm is also captivating."