Lend Me a Tear? I’ll Coax It Out of You

The car came to a smooth stop downstairs from Xi Zhen’s home.

Outside the window was a familiar streetscape; the old locust tree was still there, and so was the bench beneath it. Xi Zhen glanced over, reached for her seat belt, and was just about to open the door and get out when a hand caught her wrist.

Following the hand to its owner, she met Li Xingqing’s blazing gaze. “Sis, aren’t you going to invite me upstairs for a bit?”

Xi Zhen knew she should refuse. She should have yanked her hand back without mercy and told her that the two of them were nothing like they had been before. Then she should have closed the car door cleanly and gone upstairs without looking back.

But Li Xingqing’s hand was ice-cold.

Xi Zhen lowered her eyes to the hand gripping her wrist; the knuckles were faintly white, as if she were using an awful lot of strength. The chill seeped through her skin, little by little, softening Xi Zhen’s heart.

“...Come up.”

Li Xingqing’s eyes lit up at once. She unbuckled her seat belt in a flash, moving so quickly it was as if she were afraid Xi Zhen might change her mind. Before pushing open the door, she even looked back at Xi Zhen, the corners of her mouth lifted high.

Xi Zhen didn’t know whether to laugh or be annoyed. Just as she was about to get out, she suddenly seemed to remember something and froze.

Slowly, she drew her hand back and sat up straight again, trying to sound casual. “Forget it. I just remembered I’ve got something to do today. Why don’t you head back first?”

The car fell silent for a moment. Li Xingqing didn’t move. She stayed half-turned toward Xi Zhen, one hand braced on the door, the smile on her lips not even having time to fade before it froze on her face.

“What?”

“I said forget it today,” Xi Zhen said without looking at her, lowering her head to rummage through her bag. “I haven’t cleaned up at home either; it’s a mess. Another day.”

Silence. A long silence. Xi Zhen had no choice but to look up at her expression.

Li Xingqing hadn’t changed position. Her gaze moved slowly from Xi Zhen’s face to the fingers gripping her bag strap, then to the way Xi Zhen had unconsciously averted her eyes.

“Sis,” Li Xingqing’s voice suddenly went very even. “Is there someone at home?”

Xi Zhen froze. “What?”

“You won’t let me go up,” she said word by word. “Because there’s someone else at home?”

“...” Xi Zhen’s lips parted slightly; she realized Li Xingqing had misunderstood. This child was even more sensitive than she had been five years ago, treating any hint of movement as if a storm were coming.

But Xi Zhen also really hadn’t figured out how to explain the little black cat that had somehow ended up in her home. Instinctively, she didn’t want Li Xingqing to know that all these years she had still harbored certain vague, unspoken fantasies. Whether it was the materials she had kept asking Shi Fengyu to preserve, or the cat she had brought back from City D after a thousand-mile drive, she didn’t want Li Xingqing to know about either of them.

Xi Zhen’s silence, unable to find a way to speak, fell into Li Xingqing’s eyes as outright confirmation. Those bright eyes from a moment ago contracted slightly. Li Xingqing pressed her lips into a straight line; the line of her jaw turned sharp and stiff.

She didn’t lose her temper; she didn’t lock the door, didn’t force a kiss as she had just now, didn’t use caprice and stubbornness to trap Xi Zhen.

The best method, once used, became a discarded move. Li Xingqing simply looked at Xi Zhen calmly. Like a little rabbit shut out by its owner, still refusing to believe the door was really closed.

“...Who is it?” Her voice was a little hoarse.

Seeing her like this, the thought that explaining would be too much trouble shattered to pieces inside Xi Zhen’s heart. She sighed and reached out, intending to ruffle her hair.

Li Xingqing tilted her head, quietly dodging her hand.

Xi Zhen’s hand froze in midair. She blinked, then saw Li Xingqing lower her lashes, casting a small shadow beneath her eyes, as if silently speaking of the fear in her heart.

“Li Xingqing,” Xi Zhen said, pulling her hand back. Her voice softened. “Look at me.”

Li Xingqing didn’t move; she was pretending not to hear.

“Be good. Look at me.” Xi Zhen knew how awkward she must have felt at that moment, and she was willing to understand how hard it must be for the younger woman.

Li Xingqing slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were already red-rimmed. She didn’t cry, only looked at Xi Zhen with stubbornness and resolve, as if bracing herself for Xi Zhen to say something terrible.

“There’s no one at home,” Xi Zhen said, enunciating each word clearly.

“...Then why won’t you let me go up?” Her voice trembled.

“It’s not that I won’t let you; it’s just...” Xi Zhen felt a headache coming on again. How was she supposed to explain this? That she still had feelings for Li Xingqing? That even knowing she was dead, she still kept everything related to her, and even drove two thousand kilometers round trip to bring a cat home and take care of it properly?

Over these five years, Xi Zhen had gradually come to understand that she and Li Xingqing were simply people from two different worlds. Age, family, experience; not a single thing matched. So Xi Zhen believed she shouldn’t tell Li Xingqing about her feelings. This was the reasoning she had spent five years repeatedly convincing herself of.

What good could come from forcing together two people from different worlds? Xi Zhen knew that too well. Feelings were never something that could be sustained by attraction alone.

From Song Xunqing back then to Shi Fengyu at the breakup, she didn’t think Li Xingqing and she could smooth over everything standing between them. She was so much older than Li Xingqing; maybe before long, Li Xingqing would regret it.

And then what would she do? Smile and say, “It’s fine, I knew it all along”? Or cry and say, “You promised me”?

Xi Zhen felt that she no longer had the courage she’d had in her early twenties; when she fell, she could still brush off the dust and stand back up. Now, she had learned to calculate risk, learned to weigh pros and cons, learned to ask herself before giving her heart: can you afford to lose?

Maybe it had been Li Ji’s threats back then; maybe the helplessness of facing public opinion five years ago had finally woken Xi Zhen up. She knew she couldn’t afford to lose, and she didn’t have the capital to start over.

So she had to push Li Xingqing away, not because she didn’t like her, but precisely because she liked her too much.

Liked her so much she was afraid she’d regret it; liked her so much she worried she’d get hurt; liked her so much she presumptuously decided for her.

“Li Xingqing, we... aren’t suitable.” Once the words were laid bare, there was no room left to maneuver. Xi Zhen instinctively told herself to be even harder, even more decisive, so the damage between them would be as small as possible.

The car was very quiet, so quiet Xi Zhen could hear her own heartbeat. Thump, thump; muffled, as if something were pressing down on it.

Li Xingqing didn’t speak immediately. She withdrew her hand from the steering wheel, slowly clenched it, then loosened it again.

“...Why?”

Xi Zhen closed her eyes. Because of age, because of family, because of everything and anything; she had prepared these reasons for five years, each one clear, each one seemingly able to stand on its own. But at this moment, they crowded her throat like a ball of wet cotton, blocking her so completely that she couldn’t get out a single word.

“There is no why,” she heard herself say. “I don’t love you anymore.”

The moment she said it, she regretted it. The line was too false, so false she could hear her own guilt in it. And yet Li Xingqing believed her.

She curled her lips into a faint, mocking smile and repeated Xi Zhen’s words. “Don’t love me anymore? Heh.” Suddenly, she reached out and took Xi Zhen’s hand, pressing it to her chest. “Sis, can you feel it?”

Her heartbeat was pounding, one beat after another. “It’s still beating for you every moment of every day. On what grounds do you say you don’t love me, and that means we’re not suitable?” Saying that, she released Xi Zhen’s hand, almost as if speaking to herself. “You say you don’t love me, but you don’t even dare look at me. You can’t even give me a reason, and you’re still stubbornly hanging on.”

By the end, the mockery on Li Xingqing’s face had deepened. “So in the end, isn’t it just that you’re too selfish?”

Xi Zhen listened without refuting her. Li Xingqing still felt it wasn’t enough. “But I accept your selfishness, Sis. I’ll prove it to you; our love is right, so it’s destined to last.”

Li Xingqing’s eyes were unwavering, just like they had been that night five years ago.

For several days after that, Xi Zhen didn’t see Li Xingqing. But the bouquet of roses that arrived at the company every day without fail made her realize Li Xingqing had no intention of giving up on her original plan.

Still, there was plenty of good news too. Even Xi Zhen could tell that Li Ji had been rather occupied lately.

First, news broke that several core projects under the Li Group had been poached one after another. Then word came from the board of directors that several old shareholders had suddenly switched sides, their stock quietly changing hands. Even the photos of Li Ji attending events these past few days were spread wildly by the media; he was still the same person, but the dark circles under his eyes were impossible to hide.

The industry was buzzing that Li Ji had probably offended someone. But in the short term, no one could figure out exactly which god or demon he had managed to provoke.

Looking at the photo on her phone screen, Xi Zhen suddenly remembered what Li Xingqing had said that night. “He’ll know soon enough.” At the time, Xi Zhen knew Li Xingqing would be prepared, but she hadn’t expected her methods to be this clean and decisive. It seemed that in the five years she’d disappeared, Li Xingqing had really grown a great deal.

The day the news came was an ordinary afternoon. Xi Zhen was in front of her computer handling work when her phone suddenly pushed a news alert: “Former chairman of the Li Group, Li Ji, has been formally arrested by police on suspicion of staging a car accident and intentional homicide.”

Xi Zhen’s hand stopped above the screen, motionless for a long time. She suddenly thought of that afternoon when Li Ji had come looking for her, of the tea room, and the way he had spoken to her with “my condolences.”

However, the message in the phone news report did not mention “Li Xingqing” even once. The target of Li Ji’s attempted murder was no one else; it was his biological father, Li Taihong.

At that, Xi Zhen put down her phone, her fingers trembling slightly. She felt a surge of relief; relief that Li Xingqing had gotten away back then, relief that the name appearing in today’s news was Li Taihong, a stranger.

The phone buzzed again. It was a message from Li Xingqing.

Only a few words: “Sis, me.”

No explanation, no credit-taking, not even an extra punctuation mark. As if she merely wanted to tell Xi Zhen one thing: she had done it, and she was fine.

With the Li Group changing hands, Li Xingqing was at her busiest. And yet she still hadn’t forgotten to have her assistant deliver a bouquet of flowers to Xi Zhen every day; even the cards tucked into them were handwritten by Li Xingqing herself and placed inside by the assistant.

By the time Xi Zhen’s office had been surrounded by a sea of flowers, Li Xingqing finally found a chance to ask Xi Zhen out to meet.

As expected, Xi Zhen politely declined her invitation and said she was busy.

Li Xingqing didn’t force it. If not today, then tomorrow; she had always been the most patient. That habit, when applied to Xi Zhen, was especially so.