Chapter 12

After lunch, they moved from the table to the sofa.
Chen Xian dug her tablet out of her suitcase, propped it up on the coffee table, and picked a random movie to pass the time.
They hugged their knees and watched quietly for about twenty minutes. Then 孟頔 suddenly asked, “Once you’re back in Hangzhou, you start work?”
Chen Xian kept her eyes on the tiny people moving on screen. “Yeah. I start in September.”
“State-owned or private?” he asked.
Chen Xian didn’t look away. “Market Supervision Bureau. IT role. The competition was tough—only two spots. A PhD from Zhejiang University got to skip the written exam; I had to fight my way through on my own. When the offer came, the three of us all let out a breath. My parents were especially happy. They immediately dropped my results and the public notice into the family group, and my relatives spammed the thumbs-up.”
She calmly gave a thumbs-up.
孟頔 laughed.
“What about you?” he asked. “How did you feel?”
Chen Xian: “Quietly happy, I guess.”
孟頔: “Because you expected it?”
Chen Xian: “No. I just made peace with whatever outcome—good or bad.” The truth was, she’d never really failed. Her way of avoiding risk was picking the paths least likely to go wrong, then doing everything she could to succeed.
She turned suddenly to look at 孟頔. “Do you like your life now?”
孟頔 paused. “You mean in the big sense, or the small sense?”
Chen Xian answered for him: “You must.”
孟頔 didn’t say, only asked, “What about you? Do you like your life now?”
Chen Xian was sure: “I wouldn’t say I like it or dislike it. I’ve always walked the road I chose. It’s steady. To me, safety is the core of happiness. Some people think hope is the core—always imagining the oasis and garden ahead. But for me, a signpost is enough. Hey, I made it here. Take a photo, check in. I don’t really care if that place is actually beautiful.”
“What about you?” She stopped watching the movie and stared at him. “What’s the core of happiness for you?”
The question seemed to stump 孟頔. He was silent for a long time. “I don’t really know.”
He looked lost.
“Isn’t it your passion? Painting?” Chen Xian was confused by his confusion.
But 孟頔 answered clearly: “Painting is a symbiosis. Like breathing, like the seasons.”
“You make work sound so romantic.”
“Do I?” he asked.
Chen Xian couldn’t ignore the envy that rose in her. In study and work, she could never reach that kind of “heaven-and-man-in-one” state.
“Am I really boring?” She tried to go back to the movie, but the plot had already slipped away.
“No,” 孟頔 said, surprisingly firm. “Why would you think that?”
Because I’m always talking myself into things, Chen Xian answered silently. Talking one version of me after another into accepting things, until I lose the courage to break the shell. But she couldn’t deny it—being at peace with yourself was a rare survival skill.
“Because you’re way more interesting than me.”
“Pretty sure you’re the more interesting one.”
“It’s you.”
They spiraled into a loop of batting it back. Each trying to prove the other’s life was more meaningful, more colorful.
In the end, Chen Xian cut it off and went back to the start. “Got it yet? Your happiness core.”
孟頔 gave an answer she never saw coming. “Could it be you?”
Chen Xian’s eyes went wide.
The boy quickly added, “Just for these few days.”
When he said it, his eyes were as clear as a baby’s. There was a kind of irresistible innocence in him. Chen Xian thought of something she’d read: for women, liking comes from admiration, but love awakens a kind of motherliness—gentleness and pity.
She didn’t know why, but her eyes stung a little. Before he could see, she moved into his arms at record speed—fastest “run into his arms” in history.
孟頔 caught her.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Chen Xian could feel his chest rising and falling, like floating on a clear blue sea.
Tide in, tide out.
It felt like hugging a breathing galaxy.
For a second, thoughts crashed through her mind. “Come with me, 孟頔,” or, “Do you want to be my boyfriend?” But she didn’t say them. It felt too selfish—she was sure he’d say yes. And it wasn’t safe. Love was a probabilistic event; until death, the ending was always to be determined. It was fine, though. She could talk herself down and step back on the tracks. From beginning to end, the person she was best at convincing had always been herself.