Of course, Tan Xingwei was anxious. She hadn’t saved it yet!
So, Tan Xingwei put on a display of typing speed faster than the wind. The entire office filled with the sound of her keyboard.
Tan Xingwei: “Sister, Sister”
Tan Xingwei: “Aiya, Sister, I didn’t get a clear look!”
Tan Xingwei: “Big Sister Ah Xu, send it again.”
Tan Xingwei: 【Please please please please】
Tan Xingwei: “Big Sister Ah Xu is the best. You’ll send it to me again, right?”
Tan Xingwei: “Too fast, too fast.”
Tan Xingwei: “Big Sister Ah Xu, pay attention to me.”
Tan Xingwei: “Sister~”
Tan Xingwei: 【Sister】
Tan Xingwei: 【Sister, Sister】
Despite how pitiful her words seemed, she was actually smiling so hard her mouth was about to split.
But she couldn’t let it split. She had to restrain herself a little because she was about to launch a voice message assault.
After sending so many messages with no reply from Su Xu, Tan Xingwei switched to her phone and held down the “press to talk” button.
“Big Sister Ah Xu, please send it to me again,” Tan Xingwei said in her absolute sweetest voice. “Sister, Sister.”
Tan Xingwei: “I wasn’t looking at other beautiful women. The beautiful woman I just mentioned…” Here, Tan Xingwei found it a bit hard to say, and she even laughed as she continued, “was myself.”
Su Xu finally responded. She sent a “?”.
Tan Xingwei smiled even wider. She felt so hot.
But she still had to explain properly. “Well, um, Tan Yinqing told me that the person you mentioned in your Moments was a cool, mature older sister type.”
Tan Xingwei was too embarrassed to point out that Su Xu had been talking about her, so she just continued, “I happen to have a glass window here, which can be used as a mirror at night. And I discovered that the me in the mirror… has a bit of that vibe.”
Leaning back in her chair, Tan Xingwei pushed off with her toes, sliding back and forth. “A ‘little cool older sister,’ as you put it.”
Tan Xingwei sent one message after another. “I was just being narcissistic when you messaged me. I was talking about myself.”
Tan Xingwei went back to emphasize again, “I wasn’t looking at anyone else. No other beautiful women. I wasn’t, Sister.”
Finally, Tan Xingwei moved closer to the microphone and whispered, “Sis! Sis~”
After listening to all this, Su Xu on the other end simply sent back two words: “Off work?”
Tan Xingwei replied obsequiously, “Off work, off work.”
Just then, her boss replied on the computer. Tan Xingwei closed all her applications and shut down her computer.
Tan Xingwei: “Computer’s off. Getting ready to go downstairs.”
Su Xu asked: “What are you eating tonight?”
Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Tan Xingwei said, “Send me the photo first, please. I haven’t had enough of the pretty sister yet. It disappeared too fast. Okay?”
But she also had to answer the question. “I’m planning to go downstairs for some rice noodles—pickled cabbage noodles with beef, kelp, and bamboo shoots. The noodles at this shop are pretty good.” Then, in a more coquettish tone, she added, “What about you, Sister? What are you eating tonight?”
The person on the other end, being called “Sister” with every other word, put on a mask.
Sister said: “I have a dinner party tonight.”
Tan Xingwei switched to typing: “Oh! Okay.”
Tan Xingwei: “Photo photo photo”
Tan Xingwei: “Photo photo”
Tan Xingwei: “Thank you, Sister!”
After much pleading, it finally appeared.
Su Xu finally: 【Photo】
Su Xu: 【Photo】
Su Xu: 【Photo】
A buy-two-get-one-free deal. Tan Xingwei almost screamed when she saw the extra one. She quickly saved all three before savoring them in detail.
The first two needed no further comment. The extra third one was also a close-up selfie, but with a different expression: Su Xu was wrinkling her nose at the camera.
Wrinkling her nose at Tan Xingwei.
Tan Xingwei: “Sister, Sister.”
Tan Xingwei: “So pretty, so pretty, so pretty!”
Tan Xingwei: “I’m drooling! I’m drooling!”
That sounded a bit off. Even though she didn’t mean it that way, it was still…
Tan Xingwei retracted the last message and replaced it with: “Big Sister Ah Xu’s peerless beauty!”
She added another message: “My little star brooch matches your clothes so well!”
After sending that, Tan Xingwei got into the elevator.
There was no signal in the elevator. Descending from the 38th floor, Tan Xingwei watched the loading circle spin on WeChat, then glanced at the numbers on the display as they steadily decreased.
The silver elevator doors reflected Tan Xingwei’s expression as she tried to suppress a smile.
Right, she had to calm down.
This moment of fawning over Su Xu reminded Tan Xingwei of some of her past behaviors.
During the days she stayed at Su Xu’s house, she, someone who always slept in on her days off, would wake up at the same time as Su Xu every morning.
She wouldn’t do anything in particular, just wait for Su Xu to emerge from the bathroom dressed for the day. Then she would shower Su Xu with compliments: “Wow, Sister, you’re so pretty! How are you so good-looking today, too? You dress so well! That outfit is perfect for you! How do you look good in everything?” and so on.
They were sincere words, but there were a lot of them.
For the first couple of days, Su Xu would just smile. But as this little routine continued, Su Xu started to play along. She would walk from the bathroom to the bedside as if on a runway, showing off her outfit of the day to Tan Xingwei from the front and back. Then she would gesture her thanks to Tan Xingwei, say goodbye, and finally head out.
She hadn’t written about these moments on her Weibo. The tone of her past posts was a bit too sad. Little X wrote from the perspective of someone who already knew the ending was a bad one, so the entire atmosphere was permeated with the sense that they had no future together. Even the sweet nothings carried a faint ache.
Thinking about it now, that felt wrong. Of all her interactions with Su Xu, only that final night when Su Xu didn’t show up for their appointment was sad. The rest were all very happy.
So happy that, as Tan Xingwei recalled them now, she could even describe them with the word “blissful.”
There she went, getting ahead of herself with happiness again.
The elevator suddenly slowed, pulling Tan Xingwei back to the present. She noticed her reflection in the mirror—her smile had changed, becoming incredibly warm.
Someone had called the elevator on the tenth floor, so Tan Xingwei moved further inside.
When the doors opened, her phone got a signal, and a message from Su Xu came through.
It was a sticker of a little girl curtsying and saying “thank you.”
Tan Xingwei looked down and smiled. That was exactly how Su Xu used to thank her in the past.
Tan Xingwei: 【You’re welcome】
The pickled cabbage noodle shop downstairs from her company was a place Tan Xingwei revisited every so often, so of course, she had to share it with Su Xu.
She also got a bottle of soy milk today and told Su Xu about that too.
After she finished eating, she took a picture of the big moon for Su Xu. When she arrived downstairs at her apartment building, she tried to take a picture for Su Xu of the little cat she often ran into there.
Oh, the little cat ran away. She couldn’t get a picture. Well, maybe next time.
Su Xu’s dinner party had started while Tan Xingwei was eating her noodles, and it still wasn’t over by the time Tan Xingwei had finished her shower. Bored, Tan Xingwei started fiddling with her phone.
First, she changed Su Xu’s contact name. No need to think of anything too complicated. She decided to copy Su Xu and give her an emoji too—a little bubble.
There was no special reason, other than the fact that the bubble was a pretty pink and blue.
Second, the three photos Su Xu had sent were just too beautiful and seemed to tell a story. Tan Xingwei, of course, put them to good use: one became her app’s splash screen wallpaper, one her lock screen wallpaper, and one the chat background for her conversation with Su Xu.
The picture of the coffee she delivered today wasn’t wasted either. Even though she had already posted it on her Moments that morning, that didn’t stop her from setting it as her Moments background image.
In short, her entire phone now looked as if she were already in a relationship.
Haha…
The night was still young, so Tan Xingwei decided to open her AXXX725919 Weibo account.
Perhaps because she had revealed that Sister A was gay and that Little X had kissed her, even though so much time had passed since her last post, she still had many, many new comments and private messages.
Most of them said the same things. Tan Xingwei scanned them briefly before returning to her homepage, tapping the plus icon, and selecting “Compose Weibo.”
And there she stayed, staring blankly at the screen for a full five minutes.
She stayed there so long the screen dimmed and had to be woken up, then dimmed and was woken up again.
She couldn’t believe that after coming in with such high spirits, she had absolutely no inspiration. After a moment’s thought, Tan Xingwei backed out of the composition screen.
She went back to look at her private messages. This time, they were very different from before.
Before her last post, Little X’s persona was that of someone who had fallen for a straight woman, and whose first love was the pinnacle of all loves. In their community, this persona resonated with so many people that over the years, she had received countless private messages from others with similar stories.
But once that post went up, the situation changed.
Although everyone was congratulating her, expressing their envy, and begging for a follow-up, Tan Xingwei had the faint feeling that she had betrayed her “organization.”
It’s not like she wanted to.
Oh, wait, no. She really wanted to.
Tan Xingwei had to admit she’d been feeling a bit giddy and disoriented these past few days.
She read through them one by one, finally stopping on the chat with a user named “Little Scissors.”
Little Scissors was different. She had written:
Little Scissors: “Little X, I’m going to Haicheng on a business trip next week!”
Little Scissors: “I’m planning to stay and explore for the weekend before heading back. Do you have any recommendations?”
Haicheng was a place that was heavily modernized. You could say there were things to do, but you could also say it was uninteresting.
Coincidentally, a university classmate had once asked her the same question, so Tan Xingwei went into her notes app and found the guide she had created back then.
Two years had passed, but it was still almost entirely up-to-date. Tan Xingwei copied the text and sent it to Little Scissors.
Little X: “That’s about it.”
Little Scissors was online: “Okay, okay, this is so detailed!”
Little Scissors: “Thank you so much, this is a huge help! I’ll follow your guide then!”
Little Scissors: “By the way, I made a little something for you and Sister A. What would be a convenient way to get it to you?”
Little X thought for a moment: “Are you free? We could grab a meal together?”
Little Scissors: “Ahhh, yes, yes! I really wanted to meet too, but I was afraid you’d be busy, so I was too shy to ask.”
Little Scissors: “This is great, this is great! Then I can give it to you in person.”
Little Scissors: “And by the way, what’s the latest with you and Sister A!”
Little X: “That’s quite a ‘by the way’.”
Little Scissors: “Hahahahahaha.”
Little Scissors: “Don’t you think it’s cruel of you to keep us in suspense like this!”
Little X: “Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?”
Little X: “I’m writing it, I’m writing it.”
Little Scissors: “Good, good, good! Hurry up and write!”
Little Scissors: “I’ll be waiting right here.”
Tan Xingwei now knew how to start. She entered the “Compose Weibo” page once again.
“Saturday’s dinner party arrived quietly…”
In the past, she had always written her stories from the perspective of unrequited love, and she had been quite open about it. Now that her situation had changed, being in the midst of it all made her feel a little shy.
She started by briefly writing about how she had learned from her sister that Sister A liked girls. Then she continued, briefly describing her interactions with Sister A after finding out, and finally, the night they went drinking.
The night they went drinking…
The more she wrote, the more she got into the flow. Tan Xingwei was now completely immersed in the memory, using words to recall the Su Xu of that day—the things Su Xu said, the look in her eyes, and the lips that couldn’t resist drawing closer.
Just as she typed, “Little X was incredibly dizzy. She gently closed her eyes…” a message popped up on her screen.
It was from none other than Sister A herself, the very person being kissed in the scene she was writing. She asked: “What are you up to?”
A wave of guilt washed over Tan Xingwei. She hastily tapped the back button in the top-left corner. When the prompt “Save Draft” or “Don’t Save” appeared, she chose the latter.
In that instant, the app jumped back to the homepage. Tan Xingwei froze.
?
No, wait.
Tan Xingwei, what did you just do?
She stared at her phone in silence until a second message arrived from “Little Bubble”: “The dinner party is over.”
Only then did Tan Xingwei tap into WeChat.
Tan Xingwei: “…I’m dead.”
Su Xu asked: “What’s wrong?”
Tan Xingwei flopped onto her bed in a starfish position.
She was in despair, but she couldn’t explain why she was dead.
Tan Xingwei picked up her phone, wondering how to reply, when it started ringing.
It was a call from Su Xu. The first thing she said was, “What’s wrong?”
Tan Xingwei had been holding it together, but hearing that question…
“Big Sister Ah Xu~” Tan Xingwei whined, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.
Figuring it wasn’t anything serious, Su Xu chuckled and played along with Tan Xingwei’s tone. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s just,” Tan Xingwei thought for a moment before sighing, “I didn’t save the thing I was just writing.”
“Oh,” Su Xu said. “What were you writing?”
Tan Xingwei could neither say she was reliving the details of their kiss, nor could she admit that Su Xu’s message had startled her so much that her brain had short-circuited and she’d failed to hit “save.”
She could only say, “Some things that needed to be written down.”
Su Xu didn’t press further, simply asking, “How much did you write?”
Tan Xingwei said listlessly, “I don’t know. Probably quite a lot.”
“It’s okay,” Su Xu comforted her. “Pull yourself together and write it again.”
Tan Xingwei sounded a little hopeless. “I don’t want to write it anymore.”
Su Xu thought for a moment. “Could I write it? Why don’t you tell me what it’s about, and I’ll write it for you.”
Tan Xingwei gasped, then broke into a laugh.
“No, it’s okay,” she said, her bad mood vanishing in an instant. Tan Xingwei hugged her pillow. “Big Sister Ah Xu, how can you be so nice?”
Su Xu wasn’t modest at all. “Of course I am.”
Tan Xingwei asked, “Are you back at the hotel?”
Su Xu: “Not yet. I’m about to meet a client.”
Tan Xingwei asked, “How soon is ‘about to’?”
Su Xu: “As soon as this call ends.”
Tan Xingwei let out a long, surprised “Ahhh.” “You made a special call just for me?”
“Yes, I was in the middle of a discussion,” Su Xu didn’t hide a thing. She even added, “I saw your message and got incredibly nervous. I had to pause the meeting to first solve the problem my Xingxing was having. I came out specially for this. Everyone’s waiting for me.”
Su Xu’s teasing made Tan Xingwei giggle. She rolled around on her bed, back and forth.
Tan Xingwei: “Really? Really?”
Su Xu: “Really, really.”
She completely forgot about the lost draft. Tan Xingwei was completely immersed in pink and blue bubbles, just like the one she’d set as Su Xu’s contact icon.
“Big Sister Ah Xu, how can you be so nice,” Tan Xingwei said.
Su Xu chuckled. “As long as you’re okay.”
Tan Xingwei said again, “Big Sister Ah Xu is the best person in the world.”
Su Xu: “Yes, yes.”
Tan Xingwei said yet again, “Big Sister Ah Xu is the person who’s best to me in the whole world.”
Su Xu: “Yes, yes.”
Tan Xingwei pressed her advantage with another sweet attack: “Big Sister Ah Xu, I want to love you for a lifetime.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Su Xu went silent on the other end.
Tan Xingwei also fell silent.
“Tan Xingxing,” Su Xu said after a few seconds.
Tan Xingwei straightened up. “Present.”
Su Xu fell silent again. Soon, someone on her end called out to her. She moved the phone away from her mouth to respond.
“I have to go now,” Su Xu said, bringing the phone close again.
Tan Xingwei: “Go on, go on.”
Su Xu didn’t hang up right away. She let out a soft hum, then said gently, “If you’re lying, you’re a puppy.”
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