Renminbi¹Renminbi: means “the people’s currency” — it’s the official name of China’s currency, the yuan (CNY). Here, it’s a nickname. and Tao Zhi met by chance. It was during an outing — Tao Zhi went along with her friends, and he happened to be called out by his friends that same day.

They agreed to meet at a small plaza’s basketball court. Tao Zhi and her friend arrived first. In the noisy summer filled with cicadas, the girl leaned against the basketball post, playing with her phone. When she lifted her head and looked over, her expression was cold and her gaze aloof — she looked at him as though she were looking at a pile of shit.

Renminbi was stunned.

Renminbi fell in love at first sight.

He felt that in his seventeen years of life, it was the first time he truly understood what it meant to have one’s heart moved.

He had always been a man of action. Since he liked her, he went after her the next day — and Tao Zhi agreed readily.

After the two of them confirmed their relationship, they ate together three times, watched two movies, and held hands once. Just when Renminbi was still deeply immersed in the joy of first love and unable to pull himself out of it, Tao Zhi broke up with him.

At that time, Renminbi’s mood collapsed.

He felt that he had encountered a scammer in love.

He called Tao Zhi fifty times. After being blocked, he even wanted to go to her house and demand an explanation in death — only to realize he didn’t even know where she lived.

Heaven did not treat him unfairly, though — a few months later, he ran into her by coincidence in this small, shabby, inconspicuous barbecue shop. Renminbi didn’t want to let go of this chance.

Tao Zhi herself didn’t know how things had developed this way.

The barbecue shop was run-down, and five people crowded around a table meant for four. Tao Zhi sat at the innermost seat, glanced at Jiang Qihuai beside her, then at her ex-boyfriend sitting across.

Renminbi and his two friends squeezed in with them, ordering a whole table full of barbecue and even dragging over a case of beer.

His two friends were the sociable type. Except for the initial awkward tension, once they sat down, they were instantly in their element — acting like everyone present was a sworn brother.

Renminbi, on the other hand, was steeped in sorrow and said nothing, drinking straight from the bottle instead of using a glass.

After a few bottles went down, Renminbi grew talkative. Looking at Tao Zhi, he said, “Tao Zhi, I really can’t figure out why you broke up with me.”

Tao Zhi propped her chin on her hand, her eyelids drooping from drowsiness. “I think we’re not suitable.”

“Where are we not suitable?” Renminbi disagreed. “Look, your family’s rich, my family’s rich too — we’re perfectly matched.”

That was true. Renminbi’s family conditions were indeed good.

Tao Zhi nodded.

“I don’t look bad, right? You’re good-looking too. In terms of looks, we’re evenly matched,” Renminbi continued. “Otherwise, why did you agree to go out with me back then?”

That was also true. Tao Zhi nodded again. “Because you looked like my type.”

“You said I looked like Takeshi Kaneshiro!” Renminbi said in anguish. “You said you wanted to experience what it’s like to date a celebrity! And then you went and dumped the celebrity.”

Tao Zhi lowered her eyes and mumbled, “Later, when I looked at you closely from up close… I realized you didn’t really look that much like him anymore…”

“And besides, you’re bad at studying,” Renminbi slapped the table, raising his voice. “If I score twenty, you score twenty-five. You come second to last, I’ll come last — it’s mutual, there’s give and take, so harmonious!”

Renminbi’s friends: “…”

Jiang Qihuai: “…”

Jiang Qihuai had never heard anyone speak of being bad at academics with such righteousness, such tragic beauty. For a moment, he felt that this ex-boyfriend and Tao Zhi did, in fact, share a few similarities in how their brains worked.

Tao Zhi wanted to say, I don’t score twenty anymore. I got forty on my last monthly exam.

But her eyelids were already fighting to stay open, her mind foggy and full of little stars, and she could only gaze at him vaguely, unable to form words.

“Tao Zhi, I really can’t see where we’re incompatible,” Renminbi concluded in the end. “We’re a match made in heaven. A perfect pair.”

Tao Zhi nodded and forced herself to stay awake. “I must’ve been momentarily possessed by a ghost, bewitched by your looks and agreed to your confession. But later, after spending time together, I felt…”

Renminbi pressed his lips together and watched her nervously. “You felt what?”

Tao Zhi tilted her head, thinking in distress for a while.

Back then, she had actually thought he was quite nice — he really did look a bit like Takeshi Kaneshiro, and even Song Jiang had already dated someone by then, while she hadn’t.

Until one day, during a date at the cinema — Tao Zhi was completely absorbed in the plot, utterly drawn in — when, in the darkness, Renminbi suddenly reached out and held her hand.

Tao Zhi’s first instinct was to grab this clueless person and throw him over her shoulder straight into the toilet to sober him up.

Then she remembered that this person was, at the moment, her boyfriend.

Tao Zhi suddenly realized that her reaction might be a little inappropriate.

A boyfriend-girlfriend relationship wasn’t the same as the kind she had with Song Jiang or Ji Fan, nor was it like what she’d always imagined — having someone to chat with, play games with, and watch movies with would be enough. This was something that involved… other kinds of contact.

She had never dated before, and no one had ever taught her these things. It wasn’t something she could ask Tao Xiuping about either.

So she personally experienced the difference between that kind of “special relationship” and what she had always imagined it to be.

That night, she sent Renminbi an eight-hundred-character essay — sincerely expressing her apologies and admitting her mistake, hoping that the two of them could return to being friends.

Tao Zhi felt she had never been that sincere in her entire life.

In the barbecue shop, Tao Zhi looked at Renminbi and thought hard for a while. Finally, after much effort, she said, “I think you’re too tall. Standing next to you gives me a sense of oppression.”

Renminbi: “…”

Renminbi had never been dumped for such a reason before and was momentarily bewildered. He pointed at Jiang Qihuai. “Isn’t he pretty tall too?”

“He…” Tao Zhi also looked at Jiang Qihuai, hesitated, and said, “He just looks tall. Actually, he’s wearing more than twenty centimeters of height-increasing insoles.”

Tao Zhi said with a perfectly serious face, “He’s only one meter sixty.”

Renminbi: “…”

Jiang Qihuai: “…”

When they had almost finished eating, Tao Zhi got up to tell the boss she would pay the bill — including Renminbi and his friends’ portion, as an apology.

It was only when she reached the small counter that she realized she had left her phone on the sofa when she rushed out earlier.

Since she was quite familiar with the shop owner — she and Song Jiang came often — she had a small personal membership tab there. She could just give her phone number, and the payment would be deducted from the balance.

The cashier calculated and found the remaining balance was short by a few cents, but the boss waved his hand and said to forget about it.

Renminbi and his friends were already drunk. At that moment, they were toasting to his lost youth, and under the goading of his friends, he even added the WeChat of a girl who had recently been pursuing him.

After adding her, he tossed his phone aside, grabbed his friend’s hand, and said heavily, “You know, one meter sixty is really the best height.”

“……”

“Damn it, I wish I really were one meter sixty.”

Jiang Qihuai: “……”

Tao Zhi, humming a tune, had already quietly slipped out of the shop.

Jiang Qihuai followed her. As soon as he stepped outside, he saw the girl staggering ahead in an S-shaped line, about to walk straight into a wall.

He hooked a finger around the sleeve of her jacket and pulled her back. Tao Zhi wobbled forward again, swaying as she walked, gradually leaning closer and closer to him.

Their distance grew smaller and smaller. Her arm brushed against his, carrying a faint scent of alcohol.

It was close to midnight. The night market was nearly deserted, the street empty save for a few roadside food stalls still open. Tao Zhi hung her head, hiccupped from drinking, and, spotting a convenience store, dashed straight toward it.

Just then, a car sped by. Jiang Qihuai’s fingers, which had been holding her sleeve, shifted to grip her arm instead.

His tone was cold. “What are you doing?”

“I want to drink some yogurt…” Tao Zhi said softly, looking a little aggrieved. “Why are you so fierce?”

“……”

Jiang Qihuai loosened his grip.

Tao Zhi slowly trotted into the convenience store, walked to the refrigerated section, clasped her hands behind her back like a little leader on patrol, then pointed at the top shelf of yogurts and ordered, “I want that one.”

Jiang Qihuai glanced at it. “Get it yourself.”

The yogurt was on the topmost row. Normally, Tao Zhi could reach it just by standing on tiptoe a little, but having drunk, she was feeling lazy and petulant. She didn’t want to move. “I can’t reach.”

“I can’t reach either,” Jiang Qihuai said. “I’m only one meter sixty.”

“……”

Tao Zhi puffed out her cheeks and glared at him unhappily. “Your Highness, get it for me.”

Her voice carried that sticky sweetness of someone drunk, the ending of her sentence rising slightly — almost a coquettish whine.

Jiang Qihuai paused. He hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol all night, yet his fingertips tingled faintly.

He didn’t respond for a long moment. Tao Zhi pouted, gave up, and went forward to get it herself.

As she raised her arm, a taller figure behind her extended his arm past her shoulder — the boy’s hand reached from above her, taking the yogurt before she could.

Tao Zhi found herself enclosed between the cold cabinet and his body. The faint scent of laundry detergent mixed with his body warmth drifted from behind. Her already slow, fogged brain stalled completely. She froze in place and only came back to her senses several seconds later.

Jiang Qihuai was already at the counter paying for the yogurt.

He took out his phone and opened WeChat. Tao Zhi had already run over, taken the yogurt, flipped open the plastic lid, and peeled off the foil seal. “Why’d you get it for me again?”

“Not going to bother arguing with a drunk.”

The cashier scanned the payment code. Jiang Qihuai put his phone away, exiting the payment screen, when he noticed messages rapidly popping up in a group chat.

It was the class group that Li Shuangjiang had created earlier when organizing an outing — more than a dozen classmates were in it. Jiang Qihuai hadn’t checked WeChat all evening, and the messages had already exceeded 99+.

He originally thought it was just people talking about the amusement park trip, but then he saw Ji Fan’s message:

【She didn’t bring her phone either. I don’t know where she went. If she doesn’t come back soon, I’m calling the police.】

Jiang Qihuai froze, clicked into the group, and started scrolling from the newest message at the top.

At some point, Ji Fan had been added into the group — and he had already been chatting there for half an hour. The reason: Tao Zhi was missing.

Ji Fan had originally planned to go downstairs to see if Ji Jin and Tao Zhi had finished talking, but when he reached the living room, no one was there. Tao Zhi’s jacket was gone, and her phone was still lying on the sofa.

He thought it was because he had said something wrong, that Tao Zhi had gone out in a bad mood. But after waiting an hour, she still hadn’t come back.

He sent a WeChat message to Li Shuangjiang, who then messaged Fu Xiling, and eventually added Ji Fan into the group chat.

The messages in the WeChat group were still popping up one after another.

Ji Fan: 【I just asked Jishi Yu, she didn’t go find him either. Did she vanish off the face of the earth? Where the hell did she go???】

Jiang Qihuai turned his head slightly and looked at the so-called “vanished” person.

Tao Zhi was sitting backward on a chair by the convenience store’s window table, like a child, holding the yogurt box with both hands. Her head was lowered, drinking it carefully and seriously. She looked rather obedient.

Jiang Qihuai lowered his head again and typed.

Jiang Qihuai: 【Drinking yogurt.】

Ji Fan: 【?】

Jiang Zhengxun: 【?】

Fu Xiling: 【?】

Zhao Mingqi: 【??】

Li Shuangjiang: 【???】

Li Shuangjiang had no idea why Jiang Qihuai was suddenly being so “down-to-earth” today, even announcing in the group chat that he was drinking yogurt.

Li Shuangjiang: 【Huai-ge, alright then, you go ahead and drink.】

Jiang Qihuai: “……”

Tao Zhi’s yogurt was nearly finished. She tilted her head back, trying hard to drink the last bit at the bottom of the box.

Jiang Qihuai raised his phone, snapped a photo of her, and sent it into the group.

The chat instantly exploded into another flood of question marks, one after another flooding the screen.

Li Shuangjiang: 【Huai-ge, the boss is with you?】

Jiang Qihuai: 【Mm.】

After sending a string of question marks, Ji Fan began sending ellipses instead.

No, wait — why are the two of you together?

Why are the two of you still together at midnight?

Why are the two of you not going home in the middle of the night and out here drinking yogurt together??

Ji Fan swallowed down a whole stomachful of roaring questions, and finally managed to squeeze out a single voice message: “Alright then… when is she coming back?”

Jiang Qihuai put the message on speaker so Tao Zhi could hear it.

Tao Zhi finished the last of the yogurt, her stomach feeling much better. Satisfied, she licked the corner of her mouth. “I’ll go back once I’m done drinking.”

Jiang Qihuai lowered his head and typed again.

Jiang Qihuai: 【She said she’ll go back after finishing.】

Jiang Qihuai: 【Finished.】

Ji Fan: “……”

Footnotes

• 1
  Renminbi: means “the people’s currency” — it’s the official name of China’s currency, the yuan (CNY). Here, it’s a nickname.