Chapter One Hundred and Six — Silver Tongue

After finishing the last produce section, Yishu brought her one-hour shopping trip to an end.

"Let's go. I'm done," she said, turning to the person behind her.

He stared at her in such astonishment that he looked as though he had just heard some dreadful calamity. His small eyes, set deep in their single-fold lids, strained outward with all their might.

The look on his face was so corpse-like and terrifying that Yishu lurched backward in fright, nearly toppling the little mountain of apples stacked behind her.

"Are you all right?" Tang Chao came hurrying over at the news.

His voice was deep and lingering. Following the sound, she looked over and, before long, felt his steady hand support the small of her back.

Tall and slender among the crowd, he was the sort of person she could spot at a glance, no matter the distance.

Yishu was still rattled.

"I'm fine." She let out a long breath and put the two apples that had rolled away back where they belonged. "Where did you go?"

"Whose fault is it that you take forever buying groceries? I went off to look around on my own," Tang Chao said, his face full of smug pride.

It seemed men were born with an aversion to shopping.

Yishu grew curious. Wearing such fashionable clothes, he must have been carefully chosen and matched from head to toe to achieve such a striking effect. So was someone else buying them for him, or did he simply prefer wandering through clothing stores to wandering through supermarkets?

She turned the questions over in her mind for a long while, but in the end she still did not ask.

Tang Chao took the cart from Yishu and went to the cashier to pay. She followed behind him.

From the way they looked, they might easily have passed for a couple deeply in love.

In truth, compared with standing beside Xu Shixi, she looked even more like Tang Chao's girlfriend. Yishu had a plainly delicate, proper sort of beauty; even if the other person were younger than she, there would be no pressure at all. Of course, that was only in appearance.

Still, Yishu was more inclined toward a mature and steady type, which was probably one reason she had once admired Xu Shixi. No matter how brave and resilient a woman might be, there would always remain, deep inside her, a tender place that could not withstand wind or rain.

The line at the checkout stretched six or seven meters long. At five people to a meter, there were at least thirty of them.

"Are you feeling unwell?" Seeing Tang Chao's cheeks flushed nearly scarlet, Yishu could not help worrying about him.

"I'm fine," Tang Chao said, forcing it out. "Stop cursing me all the time. If you really curse me to death, you'll have to be responsible for me for the rest of your life."

Still able to speak so clearly and spout nonsense, he must be all right.

Yishu looked away and no longer at him.

"Move aside."

A pair of middle-aged women, each carrying a basket, squeezed in between Yishu and Tang Chao through the narrow gap. Their tone was not the least bit polite; it was more like a command.

Yishu blinked hard and stepped back, leaving room for them to pass.

"Back up a little more," one of the plump women said coldly.

But there were already people crowding behind her; there was no extra space to retreat into. If the people behind her were to back up one by one, it would be no small undertaking. Yishu looked ahead, then behind, and in the end could only step out of the line.

Did they have to stand side by side to pass?

"All right, all right, there, there's a spot now."

Having gained the empty space for nothing, the plump woman said to the other plump woman, "Every night the line is this long, and there are still so few cashiers. This supermarket is probably doomed."

Yishu, pushed out of the queue, stood alone in a straight line, looking foolish. Beneath those long snaking lines, she seemed so abrupt and so lonely.

"You two are cutting in line," Yishu tried to reason with them. "I thought you were just passing through, so I let you by kindly. How can you cut the line?"

"Which eye of yours saw us cutting in line?" The two women raised their voices like thunder, like a crashing wave scattering frothy spray. "We've been standing here all along."

"Whichever foot you used to cut in line, I'll break that leg first," Tang Chao said furiously, whirling around in a rage. "Two old women bullying my girlfriend because no one backs her up?"

"My left foot was the one that came first..." the middle-aged woman blurted out reflexively.

"Oh, so the two of you are singing in duet now, planning to put on a show, are you?" She did not yield an inch, and in fact only grew more aggressive. "So many people are watching. Do you dare lay a hand on us?" Arrogant and overbearing, she muttered under her breath, "Little corpse."

Just as a fight seemed about to break out, Yishu suppressed her anger. At a time like this, she had to stay calm. At least one of them had to remain calm.

"We won't make a move, and you don't need to shout either. It's not as though the louder you are, the more right you are," she said evenly, her words measured and clear. "He said he'd hit you only in anger. But cutting in line is a fact, and so many people here saw it."

"Who saw anything?" The middle-aged woman jabbed a finger at the people behind her to intimidate them.

From their expressions, Yishu could see anger, disgust, irritation, resentment, and every other emotion that signified outrage. Yet not one of them stepped forward to tell the truth.

The first to rise is the first to rot. Perhaps if just one person were willing to speak up, others would follow.

No one wanted to be the one to take responsibility.

"Yishu, give me the cart," Tang Chao said with the air of someone who had seen through the vicissitudes of the world. "Since they won't admit it, and everyone else is willing to play blind, we don't need to stoop to their level. Anyway, I'm the one in front, so whatever happens behind me has nothing to do with me. Give me the cart. I'll pay."

Yishu hesitated as she pushed the cart back and forth. Earlier, when they walked from the produce section to the checkout, Tang Chao had already snatched it away, insisting on paying.

There was no way she could let a nineteen-year-old college student pay. Setting aside the fact that he was using his parents' money, even if he had earned it himself, one could only say the old maxim still stood: gifts without merit should not be accepted.

Tang Chao's entire sequence of maneuvers had exceeded everyone's expectations.

The two middle-aged women were dumbfounded, and the crowd behind them still remained silent.

Once out of the supermarket, Yishu headed toward the bus stop.

"You're still taking the bus?" Tang Chao called after her. "You bought so many things. Taking a cab won't cost much more."

"Then I'll take the bus, and you can take a cab," Yishu said, turning back. "I'll carry everything."

"Are you stupid? One person and two people pay the same fare in a taxi. Why waste that one bus fare?" Tang Chao argued with impeccable reason.

"Why don't you say it's you who's wasting over ten yuan on a cab?" Yishu replied, holding her ground. "Penny wise and pound foolish."

"I don't care. I want to take a taxi." He resorted to the tactics of a three-year-old throwing a tantrum. "Otherwise I won't move."

"Suit yourself." She lifted her brows. "I'm leaving first."

"If you leave, I'll say in front of everyone here that you— that you..." Tang Chao threatened her. "I'll say you're secretly in love with me."

"You dare!" Yishu cried, panic-stricken, trying to stop him.

"See whether I dare or not." Tang Chao exaggeratedly opened his mouth as if he were about to shout at the top of his lungs. "Su Yishu, she—"

"All right, all right, stop acting crazy. I'll take a cab back with you," Yishu said miserably. "I give up on you."

"You should have agreed from the start," Tang Chao said, pleased with himself now that he had gotten his way. "Saved me all that effort."

They say that only women and petty men are hard to manage. It seemed that when men threw a fit, they could be just as troublesome as petty men. In this world, after all, strengths and flaws do not belong to one sex alone.

After more than an hour roaming the supermarket, Tang Chao, who was still recovering from illness, was exhausted. The air inside a taxi was always stuffy and pungent; the result was usually either motion sickness or drowsy sleep.

That was fine. Let him sleep quietly like this.

Like a child with endless energy, he had finally tired himself out, unable to resist the creeping tide of sleep.

Yishu gazed at his sleeping profile and found, to her surprise, that he had a little something about him that was rather adorable. That striking face, those chiseled, sculpted features—his only flaw was a mark near the left temple, shaped somewhat like an eyebrow. Given his temperament, it was probably a souvenir from a fight with someone.

He was such an exceptional person. Why would he take notice of someone as ordinary as herself? Yishu felt puzzled to no end. She was not one to be easily ruled by inferiority, and although she could not exactly be called confident, still, still... perhaps she was insecure after all?

The few short hours they had spent together today seemed to have given her a completely new understanding of him, one that differed from all her previous assumptions. It was, for the most part, a complete overturning.

She did not know whether she ought to be pleased.

Looking out through the car window at the figures and scenery drifting slowly backward, Yishu thought only that Xu Shixi could return soon. With him by her side, all these wild and restless thoughts would vanish without a trace.