The Early Spring - Chapter 42

Chapter 42 - The Anchorage of the Heart

Shang Zhitao's very first project was completed quite smoothly, aside from that initial interlude. That afternoon, as she sat in the conference room and completed the project handover, she felt a subtle stirring of excitement. Although it was just a completely ordinary small project, it represented a huge step forward for her.

She lingered in the conference room for a little while longer, feeling an urgent desire to share the moment with someone. The first person who came to mind was Luan Nian. He had constantly guided her on what to do, and Shang Zhitao was deeply grateful to him. She wanted to share her joy with him, and as she thought it, she did it. She sent Luan Nian a message: "Hello, the first independent project of my life has been handed over. I'm a little happy."

Luan Nian was right in the middle of a shareholders' meeting when he saw the message. Breaking all precedent, he replied with a single sentence: "Congratulations."

A moment later, he sent another message: "Are you going to treat me to dinner?"

"Yes!"

"Want to go up the mountain for fish?"

"Okay."

Shang Zhitao's joy found an anchorage, and she felt as happy as a child. She found a spot a bit far from the company to wait for Luan Nian. When he drove up to pick her up and she got into the car, he asked her, "Why pick such a far place?"

"I was afraid someone would see."

"...Not because of work?" Luan Nian asked. Seeing the look of sudden realization on her face, he couldn't help laughing. "You're probably a bit foolish."

The two of them drove up the mountain. Near the fish restaurant, Luan Nian turned into a small side road, prompting a soft, surprised sound from Shang Zhitao: "Eh?"

"You didn't tell your roommate you were coming out with me today, did you?"

"No."

"Good. That makes it convenient for me to murder you and dump your body." Luan Nian kept a straight face, noticing Shang Zhitao's breath hitch as he glanced over at her. He drove up to a dilapidated old residential house and parked the car.

Shang Zhitao followed closely behind him and stood in front of the house. In front of the building was a large open space that could serve as a natural parking lot.

"I want to open a bar on the mountain and I'm looking at sites. How does this place look?"

"Huh?" Shang Zhitao had no concept for these things; she only felt that the place looked a bit run-down. "Do we need to renovate?"

"Knock it down and rebuild from scratch."

"...Then why open it on a mountain?"

"It's convenient for stargazing."

Shang Zhitao looked up. The stars on the mountain really were much prettier than the ones down below. She sneezed; the mountain nights in winter were far too cold.

"Let's go."

They got back into the car, and Luan Nian asked Shang Zhitao, "What do you think of this place?"

"Stargazing here is really nice."

"Then this is it."

"Ah?"

Luan Nian was never a person prone to hesitation. Someone had sent him this address, and today was his very first time looking at it, but Shang Zhitao's pretty appearance as she stood in that open space looking up at the stars made him make up his mind on the spot.

The owner of the fish restaurant actually remembered Shang Zhitao and asked them, "Catch them now?"

"Yes, thank you. Today's meal won't be charged to my card—this lady is treating," Luan Nian said with a straight face to the owner.

"Right, right." Shang Zhitao nodded.

"Catch a big one. If we can't finish it, I'll pack the rest to go," Luan Nian added.

"That's really not necessary," Shang Zhitao protested.

The owner stood off to the side, smiling. "I'll go catch the fish."

It had just snowed on the mountain, leaving a blanket over the lanterns and the branches of the trees. Shang Zhitao liked it a lot; she stepped onto a rock, shook the snow off a branch, and laughed softly to herself. Luan Nian simply stood there watching her, not joining in her fun.

Shang Zhitao felt that this night was wonderful. She asked for very little—just like today, having made some progress and having Luan Nian willing to celebrate with her was quite enough.

In the blink of an eye, winter deepened.

Sometimes Shang Zhitao would expect more, such as the company holiday for Christmas. Young people loved Christmas, and Shang Zhitao was no exception. However, Luan Nian was about to take a vacation—to Hokkaido. Shang Zhitao felt a faint touch of disappointment.

Shang Zhitao wrapped up her work early and called Yao Bei: "Senior, I've completed the handover for that project, and there's a project bonus! I want to treat you to dinner."

"Alright. I'll come pick you up after work."

"Can I bring my roommate along? And my mentor too."

"So the girl from the Ice City is starting to summon her crew?" Yao Bei laughed.

In Shang Zhitao's hometown—not a particularly large city—winters were long, and the most common pastime for everyone was drinking. People scattered across all corners of the city could quickly gather together with just a few phone calls. Before drinking, the most common question asked by people from the Ice City was: "Are you summoning the crew?" This habit had been well-learned by Shang Zhitao.

Shang Zhitao laughed. "It's more lively with everyone together. Don't drive, and I won't let my mentor drive either; let's go grab a few drinks."

"That sounds great, especially since it's snowing. But aren't you going to work tomorrow?" Yao Bei asked her.

"Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and our company gives us a three-day Christmas holiday."

"There's actually a luxury holiday as practical as that?" Yao Bei was genuinely envious.

"Well, it's an American enterprise."

The slight disappointment Luan Nian had brought her dissipated in an instant. Breaking all her usual habits, she didn't work overtime and packed up her things to leave right away. Lumi asked her from the side, "Is that the sister I drove home last time?"

"Yeah."

"Then I'm going to drink properly with this sister tonight!" As she spoke, Lumi looped her arm around Shang Zhitao's neck, pulling her close in a side-hug. "Let me ask you, you've been in Beijing for almost half a year now. Have you found a boyfriend? How are you spending Christmas?"

How would she spend Christmas? Shang Zhitao hadn't thought about it. Luan Nian's flight was leaving that same evening; Shang Zhitao had listened to him make phone calls at his place, seemingly confirming that a group of friends got together every year from Christmas through New Year's. This year, he was heading to Hokkaido.

"I want to sleep for three days straight at home." She had already made up her mind. She had been working too hard lately; she would drink a little wine today and sleep the world away tomorrow.

"What a waste that would be." Lumi smiled at her. "How about I introduce you to a boyfriend?"

"Huh?"

"My childhood friend, three years older than you. He runs a small restaurant of his own, has three apartments in the city, and looks quite decent. Would you consider it?" Lumi really hoped Shang Zhitao would date her childhood friend because she liked Shang Zhitao; if they got together, they could always hang out together in the future.

"But I don't want to find a boyfriend yet," Shang Zhitao hurriedly said. She felt that her relationship with Luan Nian wasn't exactly clean, and she had no intention of extracting herself from it just yet. She didn't want to wrong anyone.

"Fine. But we can at least have dinner together another day, right?"

"Haha, sure."

The two of them left the company to take the subway, heading to eat sizzling mutton barbecue near Lumi's old neighborhood. Upon exiting the subway, they saw Sun Yu already waiting there. It was snowing, and she was entranced by the sight. Shang Zhitao called out to her, and Sun Yu smiled at Lumi, showing no shyness at all. Yao Bei wasn't shy either. Thus, the group of them came together for the very first time.

Yao Bei said to the other two, "Little Peach was super popular back in school, and plenty of guys liked her. Right?"

Shang Zhitao blushed slightly from the praise and hurriedly shook her head. "No! Only Xin Zhaozhou!"

"No, lots of guys liked you. You just didn't know it. You're so thick-headed that only someone with Xin Zhaozhou's kind of exclusive favoritism could ever get through to you."

Shang Zhitao thought of Xin Zhaozhou.

Yao Bei was right; Xin Zhaozhou really had favored her exclusively. But what good was exclusive favoritism if it still meant ending up with one person heading north and the other heading south? With the holidays approaching, Shang Zhitao felt a bit fragile. She wondered how Xin Zhaozhou was doing down in Shenzhen.

She picked up Lumi's drink and took a sip, her eyes turning slightly red. "Xin Zhaozhou really did favor me. I feel like I'll probably never encounter someone who loves me as openly and brightly as Xin Zhaozhou did for the rest of my life."

She was feeling quite pessimistic.

When it snowed, she admitted that she liked Luan Nian, yet she didn't harbor any extravagant hopes that Luan Nian liked her back. When Luan Nian made phone calls, he didn't avoid her; she had heard him talking to another man, who asked, "This time going to Hokkaido, will you and Zang Yao finally achieve a happy ending?"

Who was Zang Yao? Would Luan Nian give her a bouquet of flowers on a holiday? Shang Zhitao liked flowers. She still remembered Christmas during her junior year of college, when Xin Zhaozhou had stood outside the dormitory building holding a bouquet. Fearing the flowers would freeze, he had kept his coat unbuttoned, sheltering the bloom against his chest—a clumsy sort of romance.

After they finished eating, Lumi loudly declared that she wanted to go to a nightclub. She told them, "Don't be good little girls! Let's go to a club to dance and drink! Once you get inside, you'll realize—fuck men!"

Having never set foot in a nightclub before, the women followed right behind Lumi and went in anyway. It wasn't until Shang Zhitao stepped inside that she realized how naive she had been. Within the first two minutes, she felt as though her heart was about to leap out of her chest. Yao Bei and Sun Yu adapted quite quickly, dancing along with Lumi. They wouldn't let her just sit there, nor would they let her drink plain lemon water, insisting on ordering a cocktail for her. Lumi shouted into her ear, "We're not going home tonight!"

Shang Zhitao thought she was hilarious, bursting into laughter as she imitated Lumi and took a sip of the alcohol. Shang Zhitao started drinking from that very day. However, she was picky about her drinking companions, only drinking with people she liked. Back then, her alcohol tolerance was still poor; half a glass of cocktail had her feeling dizzy and lightheaded. Fortunately, she remained relatively coherent, sitting there swaying along to the music. When Luan Nian's call came in, she didn't look closely at the screen; seeing the phone light up, she answered it on autopilot: "Hello?"

As luck would have it, having sat there ignored for so long, the moment she answered the phone, a strange man leaned right up beside her ear: "Beauty, come dance!"

Shang Zhitao instinctively pulled away from him and checked the phone, only to find the call had already ended. She opened her call log, brought the phone closer to her face, and saw Luan Nian's name. So she politely called him back: "Is something wrong? I couldn't hear clearly just now."

"Where are you?" Luan Nian asked her.

"I'm at a nightclub." Shang Zhitao didn't see anything wrong with being at a club; aside from being far too loud, everything else was quite fun, and she was gradually getting into the swing of it.

Luan Nian didn't reply. He knew that young girls liked to play, and no matter how well-behaved they seemed on the surface, they still had their rebellious phases. Shang Zhitao being at a nightclub didn't have any fundamental connection to him; even if she went home with some guy tonight, he wouldn't mind. It wasn't until much later that he sent her another message: "Please take care of my fish for me."

Shang Zhitao didn't reply to him.

To be precise, Shang Zhitao had gotten drunk; she didn't even know where her own phone was, and she was escorted back home by the other three women. When she opened her eyes the next morning, the snow had already piled up into a thick layer.

She felt a sense of lingering loss.

Was it snowing this heavily in Hokkaido too? She pulled out her computer to check the weather in Hokkaido. Sure enough, the snow in Hokkaido was massive, and Otaru looked truly breathtaking. There were only a few travel blogs about Hokkaido on the website, and she read them over and over again, losing count of the times. It was on the night of Christmas Eve that she suddenly came across a short travel log that had just been uploaded. The post contained a group photo, and in one of them, a familiar figure appeared—Luan Nian.

Luan Nian had his hands under a young woman's arms, hoisting her up and tossing her straight into the snowbank. He was laughing radiantly.

So he was capable of being that happy after all.

Shang Zhitao found the young woman in the photo familiar as well. After pondering for a long, long time, she remembered it was the same woman who had gone up to Luan Nian's hotel room that night in Guangzhou. So her name was Zang Yao.

Zang Yao really was stunning. No wonder his friends were urging them to finally settle down and tie the knot.

Shang Zhitao read through that travel log dozens of times. She could even recite Zang Yao's description from memory, where she wrote: "In this lifetime, you simply must visit Hokkaido with the person you love. Drink sake in Otaru, watch the snow at Lake Toya, soak in the wild hot springs, and get slightly tipsy with a group of friends before looking into each other's eyes and saying: Let's stay together forever."

That passage was written so beautifully that Shang Zhitao almost wept. She liked that photo of Zang Yao best—standing in the thick snow, dancing on her tiptoes.

It was a life she had failed to possess.

Her Christmas Eve had felt a little lonely. Downstairs, adults were carrying children and gifting each other apples; in those years, everyone was full of enthusiasm for foreign holidays. She felt like she should eat an apple too, so she jumped out of bed and headed to the living room, only to find an apple resting on the dining table. A piece of paper was pinned underneath it, with the handwriting: "For Shang Zhitao. Merry Christmas Eve. Sun Yuanzhu."

Shang Zhitao suddenly burst into tears.