Chapter 1

Chapter 1

On the day I decided to break up with Chi Heng, he sent me a bunch of messages.
A hotel location, a few heart-hands emojis.
[I made some money from a side gig.]
[Come find me here at 8 p.m. tonight, okay? It’s a private room, I’m having dinner with my friends.]
[Dress nicely, I want to give you a surprise.]
I stared at the messages, silent for a long time.
I already knew he had been lying to me.
Just yesterday.
I had been telling everyone that the poor student on the graduate school exemption list was my boyfriend.
Then the actual poor student came looking for me.
The young man had delicate, refined features. He stood below my dormitory building, politely introduced himself, his voice clear and gentle.
“Hi, I’m Lu Lin.”
“I hear we’ve been dating for a year and a half?”

It was nearly 8 a.m., so there was barely anyone around.
I clutched my books, rooted to the spot, so embarrassed I could curl my toes into the ground. “You mean, you’re also Lu Lin?”
I even gave up on going to the library.
I put down my books, pulled out my phone, and asked around frantically, nearly blowing Chi Heng’s cover wide open.
Finally, when Lu Lin showed me his ID and student card, the tears slowly rolled down.
“Oh no, my boyfriend impersonated you to date me.”
He pressed a hand to his forehead, looking confused. “Uh, someone actually impersonates a poor person?”

Those beautiful times.
In the end, they were like a sheet of seaweed.
Crunch, and they shattered.

I squatted on the ground and cried for half an hour.
Lu Lin stood beside me, handing me tissues, his eyes lowered as he repeated feeble, pale words of comfort: “Don’t cry.”
“Don’t be sad.”
“No one is laughing at you.”
“You can find someone else.”
I wiped my tears and covered my swollen eyes with a tissue.
“You’re such a good person. Wait for me, I’ll go swindle some money out of him, and we’ll spend it together.”

I decided to go see Chi Heng.
I brought a printed bill and rode my electric scooter for half an hour.
The wind was so strong.
It chilled my heart just as much.
Six degrees of separation: a friend of a friend of my roommate sent me a photo of Chi Heng driving.
He has a Bentley.
Yet he still made me give him rides on my electric scooter, which got me fined fifty yuan by the traffic police.
The holes in his clothes weren’t from wear and tear; they were part of the brand’s design.
Once, he came to see me wearing a new pair of shoes, the tag still attached.
I asked him why he hadn’t cut it off.
He looked away, a bit embarrassed, and said, “My scissors are rusted, I haven’t bought new ones, so I can’t use them.”
Thoughtfully, I snipped the tag off with a swift scissor-cut.
He never wore those shoes again.
Turns out they were a collaboration model, and cutting the tag ruined them.

When I knocked on the private room door, my eyes were still red and swollen.
I’m so pathetic.
I already cried in front of Lu Lin, then went home and cried under my blanket for another three hours.
Chi Heng opened the door.
He frowned slightly, lowered his head, and brushed a thumb over the corner of my eye.
“Why are your eyes so red?”
“Did you stay up late last night?”
I shook my head.
“Got some sand in them.”

Today, Chi Heng was wearing a new-Chinese-style jacket.
This time, he really put on a show right in front of me.
Not long ago, I had forwarded this very jacket to him, its price equal to four years of my tuition.
Back then I said, “I had hoped to float through the rivers and lakes in this robe, but this price likely severs my fate with it.”
He chimed in with “this truly ruins the pleasure,” yet turned around and bought the men’s version for himself.
He actually looks good in it.
The sharpness is subdued, the black fabric making his skin appear even paler.
Like a Beijing-circle Buddhist disciple, both roguishly handsome and classically elegant.
Simply elegantly roguish.

Chi Heng took my hand and led me inside.
It was lavishly decorated.
A few of his friends were sitting on the sofa, not looking me straight in the eye, whispering and exchanging snide smiles.
Like a clique of tastemakers.
“He really got himself hooked on a little innocent flower?”
“Couldn’t keep up the act for a full two years like the bet demanded, huh?”
Every word was grating.
I felt a sudden urge to lecture them.
Close your little mouths.
But in the end, I never said it.

I let go of Chi Heng’s hand and clutched the bill in my pocket.
Thinking that I’d soon be playing the lion’s mouth, just a little, my fingertips shook with nerves.
“What did they mean by that?”
I asked, knowing full well.