Chapter 10

This season, Tanhualin's shops were wrapped in clustered vines, green shade, and flowers. One kind was especially common—like morning glories with different-colored skin, but the petals weren't quite the same. Orange-gold, like the color of sunset. In the city where Chen Xian lived, these flowers were everywhere too.
At first Chen Xian hadn't known their name. Then one year, a particular Korean drama featured them throughout. Only then had she looked them up.
Along the way, one house's door was almost covered by these plants. A mottled iron gate, lush flowers and leaves, giving off an urban wildness. An old man in a white tank top sat in front, hunched over, smoking. One drag after another. He didn't look at passersby, just sat there with the smoke rings, quiet. Chen Xian took a photo from a distance.
孟頔 waited for her. These days, he'd barely taken out his phone to record scenes or images. Maybe, as he'd said—he'd "brought his eyes." His pupils and brain were the best lens.
Chen Xian kept walking, looking down at the photo, and suddenly recited: "If I love you…"
孟頔 stopped. His eyes flickered slightly.
She went on: "—I will never be a clinging trumpet vine, using your high boughs to show off my height."
孟頔 got it and smiled, a little embarrassed.
"If I love you,
I will never learn from the infatuated birds
who repeat their monotonous songs for green shade…"
He finished the next lines silently in his head.
Chen Xian tapped the phone screen: "Have you painted this flower?"
孟頔: "Trumpet vine?"
Chen Xian: "Yeah."
孟頔: "I have. In middle school."
Chen Xian: "Did you like painting that much in middle school?"
孟頔: "I think I've liked painting since I was born."
"What," Chen Xian couldn't believe it: "You remember being born? People basically don't have memories before three."
孟頔 insisted: "I do."
Chen Xian: "What do you remember?"
孟頔: "Before I could walk, my mom bought a bright red goldfish and kept it in a white ceramic bowl at home. It often swam in circles around the rim. In elementary school, my dad got into aquariums. We had more fish. When I mentioned it, my mom was surprised. She said she'd almost forgotten."
"That clearly?" It was outside Chen Xian's understanding.
She had almost no memories before three. Even if she did, they were just "fragment films" built from old photos and stories from adults—not real memories.
"Yeah," 孟頔 said: "I think it's a kind of gift. I remember things by color, habitually. It started in infancy. When I began to recognize colors, color became the whole world around me. Later, real colors weren't enough for how I perceived color, so I started painting."
Chen Xian got goosebumps: "Sounds like a superpower."
孟頔 denied it: "No. Color memory. Lots of people have it." He turned to her, serious: "Do you remember what color I was wearing the first day you saw me?"
White.
Chen Xian answered instantly in her head. Out loud she said: "I don't remember."
The boy blinked, a little surprised.
Chen Xian laughed: "What? Do I have to remember what you wore? Pretty confident."
She teased: "Okay, handsome guy in white from next door. You made a big impression."
The whole time, 孟頔 had been watching her, unblinking. His bright eyes gradually filled with a smile.
Then he smiled and looked away.
"Hey," Chen Xian called: "If… I mean if, if you wanted to remember me, what color would you use?"
She ruled out everything external: "Can't say my clothes, my contact lens color, my hair, or my lipstick."
孟頔 looked at her again: "You're making this hard."
Chen Xian looked innocent: "Come on, superpower guy. This isn't hard."
"Sunset," he said: "Every sunset from now on, I'll think of you."
—
By the time it was fully dark, they'd moved from the artsy alley to the bustling food street. Wansongyuan at night was packed, fragrant, the restaurant signs and neon stretching like a golden ribbon.
Even without doing any research, Chen Xian was paralyzed by choice.
Especially since every place was busy… and every place smelled amazing…
“Which one should we eat,” she toggled between Xiaohongshu and Dianping, “crab-leg noodles or Liangliang Steamed Shrimp.”
孟頔 said, “Let’s do rock-paper-scissors. Winner decides.”
“Who’s crab-leg noodles, who’s steamed shrimp?” Chen Xian slipped into character at once.
“You pick first,” 孟頔 said.
Chen Xian: “I want to be crab-leg noodles.”
孟頔: “Then it’s decided. We’re having crab-leg noodles.”
Chen Xian blanked for a second, not following: “Why? We haven’t even started.”
孟頔 said, “Because you want crab-leg noodles to win.”
Chen Xian frowned slightly. “How do you know I don’t want steamed shrimp to win?”
孟頔 said, “You make the choice, I follow you. If you change your mind and want steamed shrimp, we can go have steamed shrimp.”
Chen Xian didn’t change it. “I’m still picking crab-leg noodles.”
孟頔 smiled.
They sat on the second floor. The server quickly cleared a small table and told them to scan the QR code to order.
They both opened their phones and scanned.
“Mm…” Chen Xian hesitated. “You order yours, I’ll order mine.”
Result: under the same interface, every selected dish accidentally became double portions—and, in perfect sync, disappeared from the menu.
Chen Xian sighed. “Let me do it.”
孟頔 obediently put his phone down.
The food came fast.
In a flash the signature dishes filled the table. A huge basin of crab-leg noodles sat in the center. Chen Xian fished a few chopsticks’ worth into her bowl and ate. It wasn’t as good as she’d imagined.
But she wasn’t disappointed, because the plain-looking cold tossed edamame on the side was enough to make you swoon.
It was her first time having edamame with this texture—completely different from the salted edamame back home. So crisp, so tangy and tender, and the little bird’s-eye chilis in the brine were just right. Everything was just right.
“This is so good!” she almost cried out in delight. “Try it.”
孟頔 picked one up. “That good?”
“That good.”
Without realizing it, Chen Xian shelled an entire plate; a little green mountain of pods piled up in front of her.
She ordered another.
By the time she was working on the second plate, sipping her icy beer, she sighed, “How do they season this brine? What if I can’t eat it after I go back?”
With a buzz of courage from the alcohol, she murmured, “孟頔, you’re like this edamame. You’re not like anyone else. You’re a flavor I’ve never tasted. When I go back and eat our salted edamame, I’ll remember this kind I had in Jiangcheng—completely different.”
Rare. One of a kind.
She propped her cheek with one hand. The oily haze and soft light in the room seemed to lay a moving layer of makeup on her face. She suddenly let out a self-mocking smile: “I’m done… I’m so not romantic. You say you’ll think of me at sunsets, and I compare you to edamame.”
The gap between people is huge.
Chen Xian’s face grew even redder.
孟頔 shrugged. “What’s wrong with being compared to edamame?”
Chen Xian said, “It’s kind of crude. Especially for someone like you.”
孟頔 said, “At least it means you like me. Maybe you’ll miss me later.”
The tears she’d held back at sunset spilled out now. Chen Xian sniffed. “Yeah. I like you.”
She rubbed the corner of her eye. “Do you like me?”
“I like you,” 孟頔 said—then repeated, “I like you.”
He didn’t know why he repeated it, as if saying it only once wasn’t sure enough, sincere enough, brave enough.
In this noisy, greasy, smoky space full of people and chili oil, they confessed to each other—on the fourth day of knowing one another.
On the way back, they couldn’t get a car, so they walked.
Fifty minutes. Hand in hand the whole way. They never let go.