Chapter 97
Cheng Guiyuan landed in the morning, and Gu Yanqiu had specially taken half a day off to pick her up at the airport. Schrödinger, the Ragdoll cat, had been sent to the quarantine center for a week-long quarantine, so Cheng Guiyuan was staying temporarily at Gu Yanqiu’s place. They would sort things out properly when Gu Yanqiu got off work that evening.
Cheng Guiyuan slept in the guest room all afternoon. By the time she woke up, it was already dark. She grabbed her phone and saw that ten minutes earlier, Gu Yanqiu had sent her a message: [I’m off work. I’m heading back now; think about what you want to eat.]
Cheng Guiyuan bit her lip. She wasn’t in the mood to think about food at all, and typed furiously:
[Big Kite: Don’t eat. Let’s go drink]
Gu Yanqiu: “……”
Fine. Then they’d drink.
The two of them went to a quiet bar and sat across from each other. Cheng Guiyuan ordered a whole bottle of strong liquor. Her tolerance was decent; when she was abroad, she often went to bars and the like, and claimed to be “never drunk after a thousand cups.” She looked at the drink in front of Gu Yanqiu with disdain.
Gu Yanqiu smiled and explained, “I’ve been socializing nonstop lately. I’m so sick of drinking I could throw up. Please forgive me.”
Cheng Guiyuan said, “Fine. You still have to drive.” Then she poured herself half a glass of whiskey.
Gu Yanqiu sipped her drink through a straw. “What happened on your end? Weren’t things fine at first?”
“Don’t even mention it.” Cheng Guiyuan’s brows and eyes were full of barely restrained irritation.
Gu Yanqiu waited patiently for her to continue.
After calming down for a moment, Cheng Guiyuan said, “I was too naive.”
“Hm?”
Some time ago, Cheng Guiyuan had said she was coming back to China to see Gu Yanqiu’s partner, but she never made it back because something happened to her girlfriend in M Country. She got clipped by a car on the road and injured her leg, so she had to stay in the hospital for a while. As the perfect girlfriend, Cheng Guiyuan chose romance over friendship without hesitation and stood Gu Yanqiu up. It wasn’t a big deal; the domestic matter wasn’t urgent anyway. She had only needed to tell Gu Yanqiu she couldn’t come. Gu Yanqiu had heard her mention it before.
“And then? How did you two break up?” Although Gu Yanqiu knew Cheng Guiyuan was the type to lose interest in three minutes, every time she ran into something like this, she still wanted to ask why. Her own romantic experience was scarce, so she treated it as learning from others’ mistakes.
Cheng Guiyuan grinned. “You guess.”
Gu Yanqiu silently drank her beverage and didn’t dare guess.
Cheng Guiyuan’s expression twisted for a moment before she recovered her composure. “A full-blown soap opera. I’ve never run into anything this melodramatic in my life.”
While Cheng Guiyuan’s girlfriend was in the hospital, Cheng Guiyuan looked after her tirelessly, never leaving her side. She had this habit: when she was in a relationship, her girlfriend mattered more than anything. She couldn’t always go to the project team’s side, so they communicated by phone and messages; for things that absolutely required her presence, the other two friends helped shoulder them. Once her girlfriend was discharged, Cheng Guiyuan would take over again.
“Do you remember that high school girl?” Cheng Guiyuan asked.
“Which one?”
Cheng Guiyuan clicked her tongue and puckered her lips.
“Oh, her. I remember now.” The last time Gu Yanqiu had been in M Country, there had been a somewhat mature-looking high school girl clinging to Cheng Guiyuan and refusing to let go. She even bit Cheng Guiyuan on the lips and drew blood.
“That’s the one.”
“What about her?”
“You have no idea how much of a piece of work that girl was,” Cheng Guiyuan said through gritted teeth, her voice low. “That bastard drugged me.”
“Huh?” Gu Yanqiu nearly sprayed her drink.
“My girlfriend was in the hospital, and by then she was almost ready to be discharged. She could even get around on crutches by herself. That day I had something I couldn’t get away from and had to go to a meeting, so I left her alone in the hospital. When I came back, she wasn’t in the room. I figured she’d gone out somewhere. I’d been busy all day and was thirsty as hell, so I drank the water by her bedside.”
Gu Yanqiu guessed what came next. “You were careless, too.”
Cheng Guiyuan said, “I had been there that morning. I personally poured that water and set it there. When I came back, it was still sitting there, so I thought she’d refilled it. Besides, I was thirsty then; I’d just come out of a meeting and hadn’t even eaten lunch.”
“You really were devoted to your girlfriend.”
“Back then, yes.”
“And now?”
Cheng Guiyuan gave a cold laugh.
The moment Cheng Guiyuan drank the water, she knew something was wrong. She’d been in the scene for many years, after all, and immediately recognized that there was something in the water; it was a strong drug, too. She was furious on the spot.
That scheming high school girl had closed the door, deliberately leaving it unlocked.
“What happened then?”
Cheng Guiyuan stared at her blankly.
Gu Yanqiu said, “Go on.”
Cheng Guiyuan said, “We didn’t finish, but it was pretty much there. Anyway, the clothes were all off, and my ex walked in on us. The remaining water got splashed all over my face, and she walked out limping on one injured leg.”
“You didn’t explain?”
“I did. She didn’t believe me. That bastard even sent a bunch of photos to my ex from back when I was younger than I thought she was—such a troublemaker. I told her a million times I’m not interested in children, but she wouldn’t listen and kept pestering me.”
“And the girl?”
“I sued her.”
“What happened with the project team?”
That part was relatively simple. Cheng Guiyuan’s mood had been poor for those few days after the breakup, and she’d delayed work for two days, missing something. It wasn’t a big issue; it could have been patched up. But while Cheng Guiyuan was busy taking care of her girlfriend, the project team couldn’t afford to wait. They brought in a new friend who wanted to join, and that person took over half of the work Cheng Guiyuan had handed off, without the other friends telling her. By the time Cheng Guiyuan returned, her original tasks had all been handled in good order, while she herself had run into one small problem after another, leaving the team with complaints about her.
Cheng Guiyuan had originally stayed in M Country on the strength of her sense of responsibility and her girlfriend. Now that she had lost both, she simply went all in and chose to return home voluntarily. Saying she’d been kicked out was technically true only in the sense that she had withdrawn on her own; it just wasn’t very dignified.
“You’ve had quite the eventful life overseas,” Gu Yanqiu sighed.
“It was my first time getting dumped.” Cheng Guiyuan slammed her glass hard against the table, startling Gu Yanqiu.
Cheng Guiyuan grew more and more unwilling to accept it. “I’ve been invincible in love for so many years; this really was my first time.”
So she was mad about that.
Gu Yanqiu smoothed her fur, figuratively speaking. “It’s because you were too nice.”
Cheng Guiyuan said angrily, “Exactly, wasn’t it?”
If they kept talking, she looked ready to blow up again, so Gu Yanqiu hurriedly changed the subject. “Now that you’re back in China, what are you planning to do?”
“Me? Rest for a while first.”
“Go back to your family company?”
“What else? Start from scratch? Even thinking about it tells you it’s impossible.”
Gu Yanqiu nodded and raised a brow.
With a bit of sulkiness, Cheng Guiyuan said, “Besides, my company has so many pretty young girls. What if I find true love again?”
Gu Yanqiu smiled and remained noncommittal about her supposed true love.
Cheng Guiyuan was getting a little drunk and carried herself with a childlike air; she would never usually be like this. She truly had liked every girlfriend she had ever dated, and this time, perhaps because she had been dumped, that liking seemed deeper than before.
In the end, Gu Yanqiu hauled the drunk Cheng Guiyuan back into the car and drove her home before finally finding time to reply to Lin Yuewei’s messages:
[Two Trees: Asleep yet?]
The time stamp was half an hour earlier.
[Xi Gu: Just got back. I’m about to shower]
[Two Trees: Where did you go?]
[Xi Gu: A bar. Drinking with a friend]
Lin Yuewei, who had been on the verge of falling asleep, snapped instantly awake and asked warily: [Which friend? What bar?]
[Xi Gu: I didn’t drink; I had orange juice. I told you about her before; Cheng Guiyuan]
[Two Trees: She’s back in the country?]
[Xi Gu: She arrived this morning]
[Two Trees: Then why didn’t you tell me sooner?]
Gu Yanqiu froze when she saw the message pop up so quickly.
[System message: Two Trees withdrew a message.]
[Xi Gu: I’ll remember next time]
[Two Trees: Forget that sentence.]
The two messages appeared at the same time, and both of them fell silent for a moment, not knowing where to begin.
Lin Yuewei was the first to break the silence.
[Two Trees: Is Miss Cheng okay now?]
[Xi Gu: I helped her back to her room. She’s asleep now]
[Two Trees: Did she shower?]
[Xi Gu: No. She can shower tomorrow morning after she wakes up]
Lin Yuewei propped her chin on one hand and thought with satisfaction: thankfully, Gu Yanqiu hadn’t been considerate enough to bathe her best friend.
[Two Trees: Are you going to shower and sleep now? If so, hurry up]
[Xi Gu: Good night]
[Two Trees: Good night]
Because Cheng Guiyuan had returned home, Gu Yanqiu felt a flicker of comfort. She had a good dream that night. When she came back from morning exercise, Cheng Guiyuan was already downstairs in the kitchen making breakfast, and the living room TV was playing the morning news.
The two of them had lived together abroad for several years, so their routines were fairly similar.
“Morning,” Cheng Guiyuan said, nodding toward the refrigerator. “You came back just in time. Bring me some milk.”
Gu Yanqiu changed her shoes at the entrance and walked toward the fridge. “Coming.”
Cheng Guiyuan cracked an egg into the frying pan and tilted the pan very slightly so it heated evenly. “You really do have a pretty good life here; all paired up like that.”
Last night, Cheng Guiyuan had been busy dealing with jet lag and venting her frustrations. Only this morning did she walk around the house and notice that many of the shoes by the entryway, the cups on the coffee table, and the mugs in the kitchen were couple sets.
“She’s busy with work, so she doesn’t stay here very often,” Gu Yanqiu said. She was genuinely happy, but didn’t want to irritate her freshly dumped friend.
“She’s an actress, right?”
“Mm.”
“That’s pretty busy. Filming can go on for months at a time. Didn’t you try to talk her out of it?”
“What would I say? Tell her not to act?” Gu Yanqiu laughed.
“That’s true.” Cheng Guiyuan checked the color of the sunny-side-up egg and, seeing it was about right, slid it onto a plate with a spatula, then cracked another egg into the pan. “But however you look at it, you’re not alone anymore.”
“Mm.”
“I really didn’t think you’d ever get into a relationship,” Cheng Guiyuan said with sincere emotion.
Gu Yanqiu feigned anger. “That’s going too far.”
Cheng Guiyuan laughed. “Just kidding. I’m happy for you.”
The anger vanished from Gu Yanqiu’s face, switching seamlessly to a gentle expression. “Then I’m happy for you too. The old is gone and the new will come.”
Cheng Guiyuan looked around for alcohol. “I feel like having a toast.”
“No alcohol. Once the milk’s heated, we can toast with milk.”
Cheng Guiyuan shrugged. “Fine.”
Neither of them said much during breakfast; when eating, they didn’t talk. Gu Yanqiu changed clothes and went to work. Cheng Guiyuan followed her out the door, and Gu Yanqiu asked in surprise, “What are you doing?”
“Where’s the supermarket near your place?”
“What for?”
“There’s no alcohol, right? I’m going to buy some.”
“……”
Gu Yanqiu dropped her off at the entrance to the mall and drove off. Cheng Guiyuan shoved both hands into her trench coat pockets, her long hair flying as she strode into the mall against the wind.
After staying home and drowning her sorrows for a full week, Cheng Guiyuan finally dragged herself back to life. She went to the hair salon, got a mid-length wavy perm, and full of vigor, drove a flashy little sports car to the quarantine center to pick up Schrödinger.
Cheng Guiyuan scratched Schrödinger’s snow-white belly with her fingers and pressed her face against the soft fur now and then to nuzzle it affectionately. Schrödinger let out a coaxing little “meow” under her hand.
Cheng Guiyuan said, “Auntie missed you to death.”
Gu Yanqiu watched her from the side and said, “Why don’t you take Schrödinger back to your place? After all, it’s used to following you.”
Cheng Guiyuan had adjusted her state by now and needed to go home.
She said, “A friend’s cat is not to be bullied. Besides, didn’t I tell you my mom is afraid of small animals? Cats, dogs, turtles—there’s nothing she isn’t afraid of. It’s inconvenient for me to bring Schrödinger with me.”
She picked Schrödinger up and placed it in Gu Yanqiu’s arms. The cat was shy with strangers and immediately jumped down from Gu Yanqiu’s lap. It looked up with its head tilted, its blue eyes fixed on Cheng Guiyuan; its soft little meows were even gentler now, and the sound made Cheng Guiyuan’s heart soften.
Cheng Guiyuan was afraid that if she stayed any longer, she’d forcibly take the cat with her, so she hurriedly said, “I’m going.”
Schrödinger: “Meow…”
Cheng Guiyuan said, “See you.”
She wouldn’t let Gu Yanqiu see her off and rushed out directly.
Gu Yanqiu looked down at Schrödinger. The cat had curled up into a little snowball on the floor. Gu Yanqiu: “……”
She smiled, picked up the snowball, and placed it on the sofa, smoothing its fur while with her other hand she opened her phone and scrolled through emails in her work inbox. By the time it was completely dark, Gu Yanqiu turned on the living room light and switched from reading work emails to reading a book. Her hand resting on Schrödinger’s back suddenly felt wet and slick; the tiny barbs on Schrödinger’s tongue tickled her.
Schrödinger lifted its chin, looking proud and unyielding. “Meow.”
Very cold and very aloof.
Gu Yanqiu poured it some cat food and, while watching it, prepared dinner for herself.
Both the person and the cat were full.
Gu Yanqiu washed the dishes while Schrödinger licked its fur in the living room. The moment Gu Yanqiu came back out, its airplane ears perked up. Gu Yanqiu held up both hands to show surrender, took a detour around it, and went to do her own thing.
Schrödinger tilted its fluffy head, its nose twitching: Hmph. Cowardly human.
Before bed, Gu Yanqiu checked the doors and windows to make sure Schrödinger wouldn’t accidentally slip out at night, then returned to her room to sleep. She left the bedroom door cracked open a little and sat on the bed with her laptop open.
The computer was logged into the WeChat web client, and she was chatting idly with Lin Yuewei.
[Xi Gu: Schrödinger was sent back by Cheng Guiyuan]
The cat-loving player Lin Yuewei: “!!”
[Two Trees: Photos?]
[Xi Gu: It’s outside. It isn’t close to me yet]
[Two Trees: Will it be like that when I go back too?]
[Xi Gu: By the time you come back, I should already be very familiar with it. Don’t worry]
[Two Trees: Okay. I’m going back to filming now. Luckily there aren’t any mosquitoes now, or I’d be bitten to death]
[Xi Gu: Mwah]
Lin Yuewei handed her phone to Wang Yuanyuan and didn’t reply anymore.
Gu Yanqiu minimized the chat window and opened a planning document. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. Out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly caught a white blur. Gu Yanqiu glanced toward the crack in the door; a ball of white fur had just retreated.
Gu Yanqiu pretended not to see it and let that white little sphere sneak through the crack and hide behind the corner of the bed.
Schrödinger had been spoiled rotten abroad. Whenever Cheng Guiyuan wasn’t dating anyone, she would sleep with the cat at night. It was used to human body heat, and now that the temperature had suddenly dropped, the warmest place in the house was Gu Yanqiu’s bedroom; of course it would try to come in.
Gu Yanqiu turned off the light and closed her eyes. Not long after, she felt a light body land on the bedspread. Schrödinger padded from the foot of the bed to the head with cat-like steps and sat right beside Gu Yanqiu’s shoulder.
Gu Yanqiu could feel its gaze fixed on her. She lay perfectly still for a long time. Then that gaze disappeared, and a strip of soft warmth pressed against her shoulder.
Gu Yanqiu fell asleep in peace.
When she woke up in the morning, Schrödinger was already gone; only a few cat hairs had been left by her pillow. Gu Yanqiu smiled and placed cat food in the same spots as last night, making it walk a little farther to get fed.
Schrödinger’s daily food intake needed to be controlled. Cheng Guiyuan was the textbook example of a spoiling type; she gave it whatever it wanted, to the point that its stomach had grown larger and it was much fatter than cats its age. Gu Yanqiu planned to help it lose some weight.
It had gone without enough food last night, fine; after all, they weren’t familiar yet. But today, after all, they’d already “shared a bed.” Schrödinger jumped around and ate all its morning ration, only to discover it was still only half full. It immediately exploded with outrage; the white fluff puffed up into a pinecone ball, and its cries were heart-rending enough to move anyone who heard them to tears.
But Gu Yanqiu was no ordinary person. She turned a deaf ear to it. Then Schrödinger came over pitifully and rubbed against her trouser leg: “Meow…”
Gu Yanqiu crouched down and wagged a finger at it. “No. Not allowed.”
Schrödinger let out a short meow and then collapsed stiffly onto the floor, motionless.
Gu Yanqiu: “……”
So it had even learned to fake death now?
Gu Yanqiu called Cheng Guiyuan.
Cheng Guiyuan laughed out loud. “As expected of the cub I raised. It’s really doing Aunt Cheng proud.”
Gu Yanqiu said, “How do I solve this?”
Cheng Guiyuan spread her hands. “If I knew how to solve it, would it be this fat? Do you think I don’t want it to lose weight? Forget it. The moment it pretends to be dead, I feed it, and it pops right back to life.”
Gu Yanqiu said, “So it’s all because you spoiled it.”
Cheng Guiyuan said, “What can I do? When it meows at me, I’d even give it my life.”
Gu Yanqiu got no useful advice from her. Looking down, she saw Schrödinger open its two blue eyes; the moment it met her gaze, it immediately shut them again.
Gu Yanqiu: “……”
Impressive. It had become a spirit.
Gu Yanqiu took a cat carrier with an opening from the cabinet and simply put Schrödinger inside.
Schrödinger was baffled. “Meow? Meow meow meow?”
Gu Yanqiu tapped its forehead with one finger, laughing despite herself. “Why aren’t you pretending to be dead now?”
Schrödinger fluffed up in protest: “Meow meow meow——”
Gu Yanqiu lifted the cat carrier with one hand and went out for her morning exercise. She ran ten kilometers in the residential complex. Schrödinger refused to admit defeat and insisted on sticking its head out of the carrier; what had been a sleek, obedient coat got blown into a golden-maned lion king, and by the time they got back, the entire cat had gone stupid.
Gu Yanqiu brushed its fur and said earnestly while brushing, “Be good and lose some weight. Once you slim down, you’ll look better and be healthier. If there’s a chance later, I’ll find you a wife.”
Schrödinger: “……”
It was a female cat.
Every day, Gu Yanqiu took photos of Schrödinger and sent them to Lin Yuewei. Every single time, Lin Yuewei responded with squealing and rainbow-colored praise. Gu Yanqiu roughly counted and found that Lin Yuewei mentioned the cat far more often than she mentioned Gu Yanqiu, so she deliberately stopped sending photos to her.
Lin Yuewei was puzzled and even asked: Where’s my baby?
Gu Yanqiu replied: Does Schrödinger know it has another mommy?
Lin Yuewei laughed and asked to video call Schrödinger.
A few weeks passed, and Schrödinger had already been trained into obedience by Gu Yanqiu. The whole cat had slimmed down a circle, and the photos no longer needed any filters to look incredibly good; it was the Audrey Hepburn of cats.
Once, Gu Yanqiu’s fan account on Weibo posted a photo of Schrödinger and actually gained a few followers. You had to know that posting photos of Lin Yuewei had never gained her even half a follower, which was rather funny.
Lin Yuewei didn’t mind at all, and even said, “Mommy’s baby is more promising than Mommy. Mommy is so relieved.”
Gu Yanqiu smiled as she started the video call, and the person and the cat appeared in the frame.
Holding up Schrödinger’s paw, Gu Yanqiu curved her eyes with a smile and greeted Lin Yuewei, “Hello, baby’s mama.”
Schrödinger, the baby himself, was angry but didn’t dare speak. He gave a weak little “meow.”
Lin Yuewei couldn’t help laughing. “Hello to you too, baby’s papa, hahaha.”
Gu Yanqiu made Schrödinger perform a “rolling on the floor with its head in its paws” talent show for Lin Yuewei. Lin Yuewei was so moved she nearly teared up, getting an advance taste of being a mom, and said, “I remember that a while ago it still wouldn’t listen to you.”
“Only Dad is good in this world. Maybe it’s finally realized that now,” Gu Yanqiu said, propping her chin on her hand.
Lin Yuewei asked, “What about me?”
Gu Yanqiu smiled. “Mommy is good too.”
Schrödinger sold its looks in front of the camera and won over a lot of Mommy’s affection. After completing its mission, Gu Yanqiu generously rewarded it with a late-night snack. Schrödinger’s figure was now nearing perfection, so eating a little extra occasionally didn’t matter.
Schrödinger ate its snack in a dumb, adorable way while Gu Yanqiu sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, looking on with gentle eyes. Warm lamplight fell over them and formed a particularly lovely scene in the camera.
Lin Yuewei suddenly clenched a fist and said, “There are still twenty days.”
“Twenty days until what?” Gu Yanqiu moved her gaze from Schrödinger to Lin Yuewei’s face.
“In twenty days, I’ll wrap filming,” Lin Yuewei said.
Gu Yanqiu’s lips held a smile. “I’ll wait for you to come back.”
She reached out and ruffled Schrödinger’s back. The cat snapped out of its daze, blinking up at her with its blue eyes. Gu Yanqiu said, “Quick, go charm Mommy a little.”
Schrödinger: “……”
Gu Yanqiu pointed at its cat food, clearly threatening that if it didn’t comply, it wouldn’t get to eat.
Human beings die for wealth; cats die for food. A great woman can bend and stretch as needed. Schrödinger immediately flopped onto the floor, its soft white belly rising and falling. Its fake-death technique had clearly regressed.
Lin Yuewei laughed happily, her whole heart soaking in a jar of honey as though she’d lost her way in sweetness.
Gu Yanqiu, watching, felt a little jealous.
Even though Schrödinger seemed to be making their relationship better and better, it was also taking up a lot of the weight it held in Lin Yuewei’s heart.
Lin Yuewei’s vision suddenly blurred; on the screen, she saw a figure shift, and Gu Yanqiu also dropped straight onto the floor, lying in the exact same pose as Schrödinger.
Schrödinger opened its eyes in shock. “Meow meow?”
Gu Yanqiu half-squinted too. “Meow.”
Author’s Note:
Schrödinger: (staring) What now? You’re even stealing our cat’s food bowl?