Su Xu’s navigation said they would reach the destination in thirty-five minutes.
With thirty minutes left, Su Xu turned on the car’s music, making the atmosphere a little less stiff.
With twenty-five minutes left, they finally started their second conversation of the evening.
Su Xu asked Tan Xingwei, “You have to work overtime on a Saturday?”
Tan Xingwei thought for a moment and only told half the truth, “I didn’t finish yesterday’s work.”
Su Xu: “I heard from your sister that you’re in planning now.”
Tan Xingwei hummed in agreement. “I’m still in my internship period. I’ll become a full-time employee next month.”
“That’s impressive,” Su Xu said again. “I thought you having work was just an excuse.”
Tan Xingwei was completely choked up after hearing that. Her story was half-truth, half-lie, and Su Xu had singled out the false half. How could Tan Xingwei not feel guilty?
“Why… would I,” Tan Xingwei wasn’t paying attention, and the words came out haltingly, “need… to make that excuse.”
It was hard not to laugh at that, so Su Xu laughed as expected.
“It’s not?” Su Xu asked.
Tan Xingwei tried her best not to stutter. “I really do have work.”
Su Xu: “Okay, alright.”
“You used to always make these kinds of excuses to stick to me,” Su Xu added after a moment.
That sentence alone was enough to make Tan Xingwei’s scalp tingle. Not to mention Su Xu then added, “It seems I’m the only one trapped in the past.”
Tan Xingwei clenched her back teeth, completely unsure of what to say.
A casual remark from Su Xu meant a lifetime of torment for Xingxing.
Based on Tan Xingwei’s understanding of Su Xu, it wasn’t anything serious. This was purely Su Xu’s brand of humor; she was the type of person to suddenly drop a line like that.
It had been too long since she was teased by her chosen sister. Tan Xingwei had almost forgotten this feeling.
Really, she was enjoying this, hehe.
After another period with only background music, a call suddenly popped up on the car’s display.
It was Su Xu’s mother.
“Mom.” Su Xu answered, putting the call on speaker.
Su Xu had her own apartment, which her parents had bought for her when she was in university. She had been living there ever since Tan Xingwei met her. Su Xu’s parents were also in Haicheng, but they often traveled for their family business and weren’t home much.
Su Xu would occasionally go back to her parents’ home, like once or twice after they first met, and also today, upon her return to the country.
Her mother’s call was to ask if Su Xu was home yet, reminding her that it was late and to drive carefully.
Tan Xingwei had always found the Haicheng dialect unpleasant to the ear and disliked speaking it. Moreover, the older generation in her family always lectured her and her parents, telling her to learn and speak more of the dialect instead of just being taught Mandarin. This made her resent it even more, so she wouldn’t speak it even though she could.
But the dialect sounded lovely when Su Xu spoke it. Sometimes she would speak a full sentence in it, sometimes she would mix in Mandarin words that couldn’t be translated, and other times she would sprinkle a bit of dialect into her Mandarin. In her mouth, the dialect became very cute, soft, as if she were whining playfully.
Tan Xingwei was also glad that she and Su Xu were from the same place, so she could understand her.
In the end, Su Xu told her mother she would be home in half an hour and that they should go to bed early if they were tired and not wait up for her. Then the call ended.
The music started playing again. After two seconds of the instrumental intro, Tan Xingwei realized she had been smiling the whole time.
Afraid of being discovered by Su Xu, Tan Xingwei immediately wiped the smile off her face.
Such a long-lost feeling of happiness.
She was always happy just being with Su Xu. She loved listening to whatever Su Xu said and watching whatever Su Xu did. She savored every feeling Su Xu gave her: Su Xu’s concern, her teasing words, her proximity, her casual jokes, and the thrill, whether good or bad.
It was so crazy, to love her this much. I’m really done for.
For example, right now, the playlist skipped to the next song.
The first song on the random playlist just so happened to be a sweet little love song.
Wow! We’re married!
Thank you all for attending our wedding!
Since Su Xu had said that Tan Xingwei had become more sociable, she might as well ask.
“When do you start work?” Tan Xingwei asked after the sweet song ended. “This new job you came back for.”
Su Xu said, “Next Monday.”
Tan Xingwei was surprised. “Huh? The Monday that’s the day after tomorrow?”
Su Xu smiled. “Yes.”
Tan Xingwei: “You’re starting work right after coming back?”
Su Xu hummed. “It’s a job I’d already arranged.” She paused for a moment, then explained, “I signed on for this start date. It’s just that something came up in the UK that delayed me, otherwise I would have had half a month off.”
Tan Xingwei: “Isn’t that too rushed?”
Su Xu: “Can’t be helped. I already agreed to it.”
Tan Xingwei turned her head slightly and asked Su Xu, “Aren’t you tired?”
Su Xu let out a soft sigh.
Tan Xingwei answered for her: “You are.”
Su Xu said, “I’m used to it.”
Tan Xingwei felt that perhaps she should say something comforting at this moment, but she struggled with it as she rarely comforted others. First, she wasn’t sure if this was a situation that required comforting, and second, she didn’t know what to say.
So she just decided to say what she wanted to say: “Big Sister Ah Xu, you look very beautiful today.”
Yes, just that suddenly.
See? Big Sister Ah Xu smiled at once.
“Not at all,” Su Xu said.
Tan Xingwei: “You just are very beautiful.”
“Hmm~” Su Xu didn’t want that answer. “Specifically?”
Tan Xingwei thought Su Xu was just being polite.
And so, her mind dredged up another memory of Su Xu’s personality.
That’s right, why would Su Xu say “not at all” when someone complimented her? How boring. She was Su Xu, the best Su Xu in the whole world. She didn’t need to be modest.
Sigh… Tan Xingwei, calm down.
“Specifically?” Tan Xingwei repeated Su Xu’s words.
Since Su Xu had asked, Tan Xingwei brazenly leaned over to get a good look at her. “Specifically…”
The car was dim. Tan Xingwei used the faint light to observe the person before her, openly and without restraint.
She looked at her hands on the steering wheel, the ring on her finger was different from the one she wore in the afternoon, the watch on her wrist, the slightly rolled-up sleeve of her jacket, the brooch on her collar that was definitely a bluebell, her undeniably beautiful neck, beautiful jawline, beautiful mouth, beautiful nose, beautiful eyes, the small hoop earrings, hey.
Why were her ears a little red?
“Is it that difficult?” Su Xu spoke after a moment.
Tan Xingwei snapped back to her senses and retracted her gaze. “Of course not.”
Su Xu: “You’re making me flustered by staring like that.”
Tan Xingwei was confused. “Huh? Why?”
Su Xu shook her head, seeming to smile again. “It’s nothing.” Her voice lowered, as if complaining, “If you can’t say it, then forget it. I won’t make things difficult for you.”
“Of course not,” Tan Xingwei naturally refuted this. “If I were to really start praising you, an entire exam paper wouldn’t be enough to write it all down.”
“Alright,” Su Xu chuckled. “I’m very happy you could come pick me up today.”
A battle of equals, I see. Su Xu, you’re also very sudden.
Tan Xingwei: “Oh.”
So suddenly, Tan Xingwei felt her face start to burn again. She could even relate to the phrase “You’re making me flustered.”
“Hehe.” Not knowing what to say, she just laughed again.
But after laughing, Tan Xingwei immediately knew how to respond. “I saw your social media post.”
Su Xu: “I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to sense my mood, so I wrote a little something for you to see.”
Tan Xingwei: “It was for me?”
Su Xu: “Who else?”
Tan Xingwei’s lips were about to curve into an uncontrollable smile again.
Su Xu added, “I thought you wouldn’t remember.”
Tan Xingwei was even more overjoyed. So Su Xu also remembered their conversation.
And so, the memory was reawakened once more.
It was a rainy evening. Su Xu had come to see Tan Yinqing, but because of the rain, their plans changed and they couldn’t go out. The three of them found a movie to watch in Tan Yinqing’s room.
It was also on that day that Tan Xingwei vaguely gathered some information from Su Xu and Tan Yinqing’s chat, concluding that Su Xu would be going abroad in a while.
So, during a moment when Tan Yinqing went to the bathroom, Tan Xingwei asked Su Xu, “Big Sister Ah Xu, are you going abroad?”
At that time, they had only recently met and were still in a polite and formal stage.
“Yes, next month,” Su Xu replied.
Tan Xingwei asked again, “Then when will you be back?”
Su Xu shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Tan Xingwei: “Will you come back?”
Su Xu didn’t answer directly, instead asking, “What’s wrong?”
Tan Xingwei didn’t know what was wrong with her either. She had originally thought that getting into a university far away meant she wouldn’t see this older sister for a very long time after starting school. Now, great, the person was going abroad next month.
Perhaps it was a sense of disappointment that things hadn’t gone as expected. Tan Xingwei gave a casual reply, “Is anyone seeing you off at the airport?”
Su Xu laughed at once. “You want to see me off?”
Back then, Tan Xingwei didn’t understand that some questions from adults carried subjective implications. Because she said that, Su Xu naturally misunderstood.
But when Su Xu replied that way, she naturally gave it some serious thought.
“I can,” Tan Xingwei nodded. “I can see you off.”
Su Xu said, “My parents are seeing me off.”
Tan Xingwei immediately said, “Oh, then I won’t go.”
Su Xu smiled and said, “Then when I come back in the future, will you come pick me up?”
Tan Xingwei perked up again. “Okay, okay.”
In that instant, many scenes of picking someone up at the airport flashed through Tan Xingwei’s mind. She thought that she must stand in the most conspicuous spot, so Su Xu would see her the moment she came out. And in her hands…
“I’ll bring you flowers,” Tan Xingwei said.
Su Xu smiled. “Okay.”
Su Xu was probably also surprised that Tan Xingwei had actually done it. After all, Tan Xingwei had thought back on that day countless times and always felt that Su Xu’s spontaneous words were just a casual remark to ease the potentially awkward atmosphere.
So even Tan Xingwei herself was quite surprised.
“Of course I remember,” Tan Xingwei said, tucking a little hidden meaning into her words. “I remember everything you say.”
Su Xu: “Really?”
Tan Xingwei: “Of course.”
Su Xu said, “Thank you, Little Sister Xingxing.”
Tan Xingwei: “You’re welcome, Big Sister Ah Xu.”
So familiar. It was this exact feeling of happiness, melting and spreading ever more thickly in the bottom of Tan Xingwei’s heart.
Tan Xingwei remembered that Su Xu had once bought her cotton candy—the kind made from spun sugar granules on a thin stick, forming a huge cloud of cotton candy.
Su Xu had picked a pink, star-shaped one for her, saying she was giving a star to Xingxing.
At this moment, Tan Xingwei felt just like she did when she took a bite of that cotton candy. It was as if she hadn’t eaten anything at all, yet it was fluffy and sweet.
