Chapter Ninety-Six — Sleepless in Different Ways

A single door had separated them into two different worlds.

At the doorway, Tang Chao stood staring at the chestnut wooden panel, yet in the end he could not bring himself to lift his heavy right hand and knock.

The images stored in the hippocampus slipped free of the brain’s control and began to play again and again.

So Tang Dai had been discharged from the hospital. Yi Shu had not expected that. And yet, no sooner had she left the hospital than she rushed to Mango City. Could it be that this lapse had truly grown so grave that action could no longer wait another instant? It seemed unlikely she was mistaken. The tone Shi Xi used on the phone was as if a stone were lodged in his throat; with every word he spoke, the stone scraped the lining of his throat and sank into his stomach. Even speaking had become a difficult thing.

Yi Shu was exhausted. Even the strength to bathe had been worn away by these days of rushing between Kaisen and the physical stores. She collapsed onto the bed, but the more tired she was, the harder sleep became. Her arms ached, her legs ached, every muscle in her body felt as if it had been dusted with freeze-dried lemon powder, making her want to leap up and shake herself clean. Yet the bed was like a flytrap; once she stuck to it, she could not climb back up. The harder she struggled, the more unable to move she became.

She gave up.

Surely she would fall asleep eventually.

Yi Shu had thought too simply of insomnia. It was a plague, an incurable disease. But it would not endanger a person’s life; it would only make them suffer beyond bearing.

She had once known insomnia before. In hindsight, that had been five or six years ago. Now, it seemed to drag her back to that same era once more.

She shook her head, afraid to follow that train of thought any further. Memories were mostly full of sorrow, and if sorrow were added to sleeplessness now, then this pain and torment, in the deep of night, might never see the dawn.

Yet after so many days of continuous rain, even the shape of dawn was nearly forgotten.

Outside the window, the patter of raindrops struck the glass, clear and distinct.

Whenever Shi Xi encountered difficulties at work, she was never able to help him at all, not even with a constructive or useful suggestion. Every time she offered what she believed to be the right idea, she could see from the corners of his eyes and brows that he was suppressing a smile. A basin of cold water would extinguish the tiny flame of hope.

Different trades were as distant as mountains. If she possessed the courage to cross those mountains and pass through those ridges, would she be able to come a little closer to him?

Yi Shu grew envious of Tang Dai’s talent and ability. As a planner for a large company, compared with the mere customer service work of a small company, the difference was obvious. Or rather, there was no comparison at all, because the latter did not even have the right to stand beside the former. To lose was only natural.

Do you really not worry that my sister and Shi Xi might end up doing something together?

Tang Chao’s words gave Yi Shu an excuse for her insomnia.

By now, the two of them had come this far. To speak of believing or not believing would be an insult to both their characters. So that invisible, harmful substance called disbelief had long since been thoroughly treated away by some medication.

In one of the apartments in the building across from hers, one resident had recently taken to switching on every light at midnight. In the midst of all that darkness, the lights stood out, glaringly and painfully bright.

Yi Shu looked at that light, as though she could see through the story hidden behind it.

Even if she could see through it, it would still be someone else’s story.

Watching the light, unable to sleep, was not only Yi Shu. It was also Xu Shi Xi, far away in Mango City. The difference was that one lay down while the other sat upright.

That light seemed like a miraculous object, something that kept him from sinking into sleep.

There was a knock at the door.

The one knocking was Tang Dai; the one who opened it was Qiao Siming.

“So late. You still haven’t slept?” Qiao Siming looked at Tang Dai, neatly dressed, not at all like someone who had spent the night sleepless.

Tang Dai pushed the door open wider and walked straight in.

Xu Shi Xi was seated at a small table in one corner of the living room, his face washed out into a pale glare by the lamp, making his expression impossible to see.

“I want to speak to Shi Xi alone,” Tang Dai said, her back to Qiao Siming.

Alone? Then I’m the unnecessary third person again. Qiao Siming gave a wry smile, nodded, closed the door, and went out. He had long since grown used to such sudden developments eight years ago. Now, eight years later, the past repeated itself, and he only felt more composed and steady.

He walked to the stairwell at the end, opened the door, and sat down directly on the concrete steps. Then he took a cigarette from the pack in his pocket, lit it, and drew a few hard, deep breaths.

A second life.

He watched the red ember on the cigarette burn away at the cost of life. When the cigarette was gone, had life also reached its end? And yet how ironic it was: had the smoker not ended in advance the life that should have faded only slowly?

While Qiao Siming sat alone in melancholy, Xu Shi Xi and Tang Dai were each stubbornly holding themselves together on the other side.

The living-room light laid bare the entire layout of the suite, leaving nowhere to hide.

Tang Dai exhaled and sat down on the sofa.

How much this scene resembled eight years ago, when they had stayed up all night in the clubroom preparing for a competition. Outside the window came the quiet chorus of cicadas, and by the lakeside, lotus blossoms carried on the breeze their faint fragrance.

But outside the window now was a world of traffic and crowds, of glittering lights and wine-soaked revelry. And they were no longer satisfied with that insignificant architectural creativity award.

Xu Shi Xi lowered the laptop lid, pushed back his chair, and walked over.

“If there’s something you want to say, say it tomorrow,” he said, pressing the point between his brows, easing the sting and swelling in his eyes for a moment.

“If I don’t say what I came to say, I won’t be able to sleep,” Tang Dai said, her face bloodless as she looked at him. “You know my temper.”

Xu Shi Xi let out a silent sigh. He knew well that Tang Dai had always been somewhat stubborn and strong-willed, but as the years passed and the times changed, her stubbornness grew along with them, and there had simply not been enough time to keep up with it, much less accept it.

“Then what is it you want to say?” Xu Shi Xi stood before her. “Say everything at once.” I know you have many words bottled up inside you, and every time we meet, you only say a little. As if there were always endless things left unsaid, endless old affairs left to recount.

“Is there still a chance for us?” Tang Dai asked directly.

After months, or perhaps years, of circling around the matter, she no longer had much youth left to waste. Tang Guoguo had been arranging blind dates for her constantly these past two years, with leading figures from the business world and promising young talents from official circles. The candidates ranged in age from twenty-five to forty-one. She had her own tried-and-true methods for blind dates, and could usually make the other side retreat in defeat. But with Tang Guoguo, none of it worked. Before coming to Cloud City, he had delivered his final ultimatum: no matter what the outcome of the Joy City project might be, she must marry the son of the chairman of a clothing design and manufacturing company with whom she had privately been engaged years earlier.

Xu Shi Xi said nothing for a long while. This topic had been repeated countless times, and each answer had differed little from the last. What kind of answer did she need from him before she would awaken completely?

“Tang Dai—” Xu Shi Xi said weakly, “this question already had its answer eight years ago, and eight years later I have said the same thing. Repeating the same exam question has no meaning.”

“All right, then we won’t talk about that.” Tang Dai changed course. “As for the Joy City project, how do you plan to clean up the mess?”

Xu Shi Xi paused. Her question struck like hail, one after another, each blow sharp and damaging. “I may only be able to report the truth to the company,” he said, pressing his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “Something this serious will spread to the company’s ears right away. Even if I wanted to hide it, I couldn’t.”

Tang Dai stood. “If I said I had a way to help you solve the problem before you, how would you repay me?”

Repay? How could one even speak of repayment? “Doesn’t your Tang Group hold shares in this project too? If you have a solution, wouldn’t that be helping yourselves as well as helping me?” Xu Shi Xi asked, confused.

“It’s helping you, not me,” Tang Dai said, drawing a clear line. Everything belonging to the Tang Group was not all hers, not even a trace of it. “Or rather, some part of the Tang Group may be involved, but not me.” She emphasized it once more.

When had Tang Dai’s words become so obscure and difficult to understand? Xu Shi Xi had no time to dwell on it. His left thumb pressed against his temple, and beneath the weight of sleepiness, his eyes were shot through with chaotic red veins.

“If you agree to marry me, all the difficulties before you will be resolved at once.” Tang Dai fixed her gaze on Xu Shi Xi’s dark eyes, giving him no room to avoid her.

Xu Shi Xi froze. His eyes filled with fear and astonishment. It passed almost at once, and he said calmly, “If you are willing to help, I will be very grateful. If you are not willing, I will not resent you. But if you want me to betray myself in order to obtain your help, then you think far too little of me.” He sighed and turned toward the desk. “Do you truly want a hypocritical me, one who changes sides whenever he sees something different?”

The black gleam in Tang Dai’s eyes turned gray in an instant. She bit her lower lip and seemed to want to say more, but when the words reached her mouth, she swallowed them back down.

She understood what he meant.

She understood it completely.

She had once asked Xu Shi Xi whether, if Su Yi Shu had never appeared, she could have filled the empty space of those eight years. Xu Shi Xi’s answer to her had been that the story had already ended eight years ago; though brief, it already contained a complete ending. What came now was not filling a gap, but an ending tacked on too late.