The Twelfth Orange

In the dream, the evening's events replayed themselves.

Shen Qiancheng had asked a question without thinking—it slipped out before she knew why. The speaker meant nothing by it, but the listener took it to heart. Liao Xue, who had heard clearly, paused mid-motion, then said after a long moment, flatly, "Thank you for the offer, President Shen, but you don't need a lame assistant."

There it was again—the same refrain, over and over. Was she never going to let it go?

Even though Shen Qiancheng couldn't see her own expression in the dream, she didn't need a mirror to know how it felt to be slapped down and rejected. Her face must have been red as a boiled shrimp, and she must have looked as dazed as an idiot.

"Thank you for the offer, President Shen——"

Hmph. There wasn't a shred of genuine gratitude in that "thank you."

And she'd been turned down, to boot. Who did that woman think she was? Since when had Shen Qiancheng ever begged anyone for anything? The first time she'd ever lowered herself to ask, and she'd been rejected. Heh heh heh.

She didn't want Liao Xue back as her personal assistant one bit. Not one single bit!!!

Even in her sleep, Shen Qiancheng wanted to slap herself. Why had she opened her big mouth? Now she had to live with the humiliation.

After enduring a nightmare, Shen Qiancheng snapped her eyes open. She remembered the plan they'd made yesterday—today she was supposed to go up the mountain with Liao Xue to catch rabbits.

Shen Qiancheng took out the leather wallet from her backpack; it held loose change from buying instant noodles at the village shop, not even a few hundred yuan in total.

Shen Qiancheng sighed. Xiao Sui hadn't prepared much cash to begin with, and her cards—needless to say—had all been frozen by Shi Jianren. The money she had on hand right now wasn't even enough to get her out of the province.

From her backpack, Shen Qiancheng pulled out a bracelet—the one Su Tongqin had given her. A fire lily carved from brilliant, glittering gemstones, it shimmered in the sunlight with a radiance that didn't belong to this humble place.

If she sold the bracelet, she could leave it all behind.

But Liao Xue's medical bills were still...

Shen Qiancheng shook her head. What was wrong with her, clinging to a few thousand yuan worth of medical fees like some sicko?

Shen Qiancheng got out of bed, annoyed at herself. The air carried a faint mist, the fresh scent of morning grass, mingled with birdsong—a rural symphony of early dawn.

Shen Qiancheng took a deep breath. The air in the village really was better.

She bent over and splashed cold water on her face. After half a month here, her skin wasn't as soft as it used to be.

Shen Qiancheng dressed neatly and set out up the mountain, wondering along the winding path where Liao Xue might be waiting for her.

A pitch-black hole appeared in a clearing. Shen Qiancheng stood at a distance; the mouth of the hole was like a demon's gaping maw, as if it would swallow heaven and earth whole.

Shen Qiancheng's footsteps were crisp and clear, and a frail voice floated up from inside the hole: "Is someone there? I accidentally fell into this hole. Could you help me out?"

Shen Qiancheng's eyes narrowed. Since when did Liao Xue speak so logically?

"No," Shen Qiancheng said, her mouth unyielding even as her body proved far more honest—she leaned forward and peered down into the hole in the ground.

She saw a pile of weeds, dead leaves, and branches at the mouth of the pit. Through the gaps, she spotted Liao Xue sitting on the ground, something squirming in her arms. "How did you fall in?"

Liao Xue pressed her lips together and lowered her head. "I... I... was catching rabbits and fell in."

Shen Qiancheng chuckled at that. Chasing a rabbit and falling into a pit? That was the kind of scene you'd only see in cartoons.

Liao Xue really was the dumbest creature alive—and it served her right for rejecting Shen Qiancheng's kindness yesterday.

Shen Qiancheng gloated, "Haha, so you say you fell in while catching a rabbit? And where's the rabbit? You didn't catch one AND you fell into the pit, right?"

Shen Qiancheng laughed with the relish of one who had finally avenged herself, smug as could be. But her laughter soon died in her throat.

Liao Xue raised both hands, and a gray-furred rabbit with two long, drooping ears appeared before Shen Qiancheng's eyes.

What an ugly little thing...

Shen Qiancheng instinctively recoiled, then looked again—long ears, short tail. It was a real rabbit, all right.

At the same time, Shen Qiancheng noticed that Liao Xue had been sitting on the ground the whole time, and when she straightened her upper body, her two legs came into view. The leg that had been in a cast was now caked with mud.

And Liao Xue had been moving carefully to avoid straining that leg.

Liao Xue held up the rabbit, but instead of the delight she'd hoped to see on Shen Qiancheng's face, she saw a faint trace of dejection.

Why was President Shen unhappy again?

"Have you had your leg re-bandaged?"

Liao Xue was caught off guard by the question. She glanced back at her leg. She'd jostled it a little when she fell, but it didn't hurt much anymore, and she could stand it.

"I have," she said.

Shen Qiancheng didn't let the slightest change in Liao Xue's expression slip past her. When Liao Xue stared straight back at her without blinking and said she'd had it done, Shen Qiancheng was absolutely certain Liao Xue was lying.

Shen Qiancheng sighed. "Wait a moment. Let me see if I can find something to pull you up with."

Branches? Too thin. Vines? Too brittle. Rope? She didn't have any on her.

The pit was an old trap that had been used for years, dug deeper and deeper over time. Liao Xue, sitting at the bottom, didn't even reach half its depth.

Shen Qiancheng stood at the edge and reached her hand down toward Liao Xue. "Give me your hand. I'll pull you up."

Liao Xue braced herself against the dirt wall and slowly rose, shifting all her weight onto her uninjured leg, and placed her hand in Shen Qiancheng's outstretched one.

Liao Xue might have looked thin and frail, but under the force of Earth's gravity, she was as heavy as the elephant in the old Cao Chong weighing story. There was no way Shen Qiancheng could drag her up.

And standing forced Liao Xue to bear the ache in her injured leg; her breathing gradually grew heavier. Shen Qiancheng felt it and let go.

Shen Qiancheng was panting from the effort. She sat down by the edge of the pit and complained, "Had to catch a rabbit, just had to catch a rabbit. Now you can't get out. You came up the mountain behind my back just to catch some rabbit..."

!

A sudden realization struck Shen Qiancheng.

"If I hadn't shown up, and you hadn't fallen into this pit—were you planning to sneak off with the rabbit?"

Shen Qiancheng's accusation was utterly unreasonable. The trap was Liao Xue's, and the rabbit was caught by Liao Xue. It had nothing to do with Shen Qiancheng at all.

Though Liao Xue couldn't guess why Shen Qiancheng was angry, she could hear the fury in her tone.

Liao Xue apologized immediately. "I'm sorry, President Shen. I didn't mean it."

Watching Liao Xue cradle the rabbit in her arms and apologize with such a meek, delicate look only made Shen Qiancheng angrier. "Give me the rabbit."

Liao Xue handed it over without hesitation. The rabbit, still warm, was placed into Shen Qiancheng's hands, and the soft feel of it startled her.

Then she looked back at the "rabbit" in the pit—always like this, apologizing at the drop of a hat, like an overripe persimmon.

Shen Qiancheng declared, "Stay down there, then. I'm not saving you."

Shen Qiancheng marched straight back to the Village Chief's house. When the Village Chief's Wife saw the rabbit, she exclaimed in delight, "You really caught one! I'll cook it up for you tonight."

Compared to the Village Chief's Wife's high spirits, Shen Qiancheng wore a blank expression as she turned and went inside. The Village Chief was rolling tobacco leaves. Without looking up, he said, "Dinner's ready already? Let me finish this smoke and we'll eat..."

"Liao Xue's fallen into a pit on the back mountain," Shen Qiancheng stated flatly, as if reading the weather.

The tobacco leaves in his hand trembled, scattering across the table, leaving only a thin, narrow strip of paper between his fingers—the cigarette was beyond saving now. The Village Chief looked up in shock, his voice as if he hadn't heard clearly. "Liao Xue fell into a trap?"

Shen Qiancheng gave a faint "Mm," then added in a tone of command, "You'd best go save her, and quickly."

The Village Chief set down his tools, went out, grabbed the rope hanging from a nail by the door, and headed for the back mountain.

The Village Chief's Wife came out of the kitchen; it was mealtime, yet her husband was heading out. She asked anxiously, "Dinner's almost ready—where are you off to?"

The Village Chief tossed back a vague "Up the mountain" and kept walking without slowing.

Shen Qiancheng stood in the courtyard, watching him go. So, she thought, this wouldn't count as her having saved Liao Xue herself.

The Village Chief's Wife said, "Shall we eat first?"

Shen Qiancheng waved a hand. "No, I'll have the rabbit tonight."

The Village Chief's Wife nodded—then she and her husband could eat once he returned. She was about to go back inside when Shen Qiancheng called out to her.

"Do you have a hunting rifle for rabbits?"

The Village Chief's Wife's frame wobbled. She couldn't have heard that right—a gun!

Shen Qiancheng asked again, "No hunting rifle?"

The Village Chief's Wife explained, "That's a gun, you know—who would have one of those? The country has a complete ban on firearms."

Shen Qiancheng wouldn't give up. "Not even a hunting rifle?"

The Village Chief's Wife said, "We're farmers, not hunters."

How useless. Shen Qiancheng turned and left, though she'd been thinking a gun would kill the rabbit faster.

Back at Qiwu, Shen Qiancheng had taken a shooting course and scored well. She'd wanted to show off for Liao Xue... ah, no, no—show off for whom? She meant nothing.

Shen Qiancheng was gone, but the Village Chief's Wife's heart was still racing.

Little Xue, come back soon and rein in this terror—she's already asking for guns.

The Village Chief was gone all afternoon. Going up and down the mountain should have taken that long; the Village Chief's Wife had craned her neck toward the gate several times without spotting him. He hadn't taken his phone, so there was no way to reach him.

Shen Qiancheng, meanwhile, wasn't worried in the slightest. She calmly picked up a piece of the freshly cooked rabbit meat with her chopsticks.

As the saying goes, rabbit meat tastes like whatever you stew it with—a very obedient ingredient.

Shen Qiancheng had never been one to wait for others before eating. She picked up a piece of rabbit, blew on it twice, and put it in her mouth.

But the meat, which looked glossy and tender, turned into some inexplicable, unnameable strange flavor the moment it touched her tongue.

Her first impulse was to spit it out. Her second was that it was a shame Liao Xue had caught the rabbit. Her third was to set down her chopsticks—she had lost all appetite.

Shen Qiancheng sighed. She could tolerate even the worst Western food, yet here she was, defeated time and again by the Village Chief's Wife's cooking. It seemed she needed to leave Liao Family Village as soon as possible.

The Village Chief came through the door just then, and Shen Qiancheng's sharp eyes caught a smear of blood on his pant leg.

An inexplicable tightness seized her chest, but before she could ask, the Village Chief's Wife snatched the words away.

"What's that blood on your pants?!" The Village Chief's Wife flew over and grabbed hold of him.

The Village Chief's eyes darted away. He picked up his cup and drained it in one long gulp, then waved a hand. "It's not mine. It's Little Xue's. She fell into a trap and cracked the bone again."

He glanced at Shen Qiancheng almost casually and added, "She's at the village clinic. The bleeding's stopped."

Shen Qiancheng caught his look and understood the words were meant for her. The string in her heart didn't loosen—quite the opposite; it grew tauter.

The undisputed queen of stubborn mouths, Shen Qiancheng kept her face perfectly composed. "Oh. What's that got to do with me? This time, I didn't make her go up the mountain."

No sooner had the words left her mouth than she added, "I'm going to town tomorrow. Arrange someone to drive me."

She had come to Liao Family Village to make trouble for Liao Xue, so why had Liao Xue become the biggest trouble of all?

She didn't want to stay in the village another day. Tomorrow, she'd sell the bracelet and fly far, far away.

Shen Qiancheng dragged herself back to her room in a daze. It suddenly dawned on her that she had been hurting Liao Xue, deliberately or not, again and again, each time worse than the last.

Even if that had been her original purpose in coming here, Liao Xue herself hadn't done anything wrong, had she?

Shen Qiancheng pressed her back against the door. She had to admit now: every word she'd spoken just now had gone against her own heart.

Liao Xue, just like her, hadn't lived a happy life. So why did she keep hurting her?

The next morning, Shen Qiancheng inexplicably found her toothpaste already squeezed out and a thermos of warm water waiting for her. After washing up, the very person she'd been about to go fetch appeared at the door, dressed in a white dress. The moment she laid eyes on Shen Qiancheng, a smile curved at the corners of her lips—light and gentle as a spring breeze.