I was walking through a winter alley, and I should have taken a taxi home. But my backpack held only a change of clothes and a bag of travel souvenirs. The waist pack with my phone and wallet was gone. All I could remember was the expedition to an uninhabited stretch of the Tibetan Plateau with friends I had met in college. How I had come back, and why I was alone, had vanished from my mind.
The next thing I knew, I was standing before the door of an apartment. It was on the fifth floor of a 1980s residential building. The old stairwell smelled of damp in the long rainy night. Under a bulb that seemed about to die, I took out the key from my inner pocket and opened the door. Heat and light pulled me into a bright, warm world.
Ningzi and I had moved here in summer. We had been together since high school. In college, with scholarships and part-time jobs, we saved enough to rent off campus without telling our parents. This shabby one-bedroom flat in the old town was all we could afford. But after one trip away, the street outside looked strangely run-down.
“I’m home,” I called. “Ningzi?” No answer.
The shower was running, and I could hear a girl humming absentmindedly through the water. I thought of Ningzi in the steam, and a quiet pleasure rose in me. I did not want to disturb her.
A half pot of cold pork-rib soup sat on the stove. Dishes from dinner were still piled on the table. I put down my luggage, rolled up my sleeves, and began to tidy up. Maybe because my memory was disordered, the things in the flat felt subtly different from when I had left. While I was trying to place the source of that unease, the faint smell of pork-rib soup drifted from the pot. My stomach growled. Only then did I realize I had not eaten in a very long time.
“Ah, so cold! Is the heat broken again? And right after I...” The girl coming out of the bathroom muttered to herself. I turned. Ningzi, wrapped in a towel, stood frozen in place.
Her hair was bound in a drying towel, leaving her pale neck and clear face fully exposed. We had been apart only a few weeks, yet I felt a rush of longing at the sight of her. Ningzi watched me without a word. After a long moment, she drew a deep breath.
“Zhengxia, is it really you?” she asked carefully.
“What nonsense,” I laughed. “Absolutely, positively—”
Before I could finish, she ran to me and held me tight. Even through the thick layers of clothing, I could feel the soft pressure of her body. Her shampoo filled my nose. She seemed taller. Barefoot, her forehead could reach my upper lip. I remembered that before, even in shoes, she had only reached my chin.
“I was only gone for a while,” I said, and kissed her brow.
“Welcome home,” came her muffled voice.
“Yes, Ningzi. I’m home.” I kept my arms holding the dishes suspended in the air, not daring to move. “But I’m dirty, and you just showered. Let me clean up first, all right?”
“Okay. I’ll make you something to eat.”
When I came out of the shower, the flat was full of the smell of dinner. Ningzi was ladling pork-rib soup over noodles at the table. She had changed into a loose deep-pink pajama set printed with rows of crooked little bears. It made her look unbearably cute.
“Come quick, it won’t taste good cold,” she said, looking up. Her face was flushed red from the steam.
“Well, this is a rare sight.”
Ningzi had never been good at cooking. If she went into the kitchen, nine times out of ten something would burn. Even when the pots survived, the first bite would bring her familiar line: “I put in too much soy sauce today. Let’s eat more rice to balance it out.” To keep meals peaceful, I had done most of the cooking, apart from takeout. Whenever she announced that she was going to cook, I would brush her off with “Watch from the side first. Once you understand it, I’ll let you touch the stove.”
“Since you’ve been so diligent today, I’ll play house with you once,” I thought.
Then I took one bite and stopped.
“Takeout?” I asked, unable to believe it.
A foot landed squarely against my leg under the table.
“What takeout? I pulled the noodles with my own hands.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely, positively.” She crossed her arms and glared.
I lifted a strand of noodle and looked at it. The thickness varied from piece to piece, so it clearly was not something from a shop. But the noodles had soaked up the mellow bone broth, and the taste slid straight to the back of my tongue, carrying that familiar, intoxicating gentleness that belonged to Ningzi.
“There’s an old saying: after three days apart, you should look at someone with new eyes. I’m long past being the person I was,” she said smugly, watching me wolf it down.
I looked at her and laughed at how pleased she was with herself.
“By the way, is this for me? It’s so cute!”
She had pulled an ivory hoodie from somewhere. It was the souvenir I had packed in my backpack.
“The local people weave them from pure wool. It’s warm. I picked your favorite color.”
I had not told her about the hoodie. I had wanted to surprise her.
“Eh—” She drew the sound out and looked at me with interest. “Small size?”
“Don’t worry. The shop assistant was about your build. She was wearing this size.”
“That sounds very reliable.” She thought for a moment, gave me a look, and took the hoodie into the bedroom.
By the time she came out, I had finished both noodles and soup. It had been delicious.
“How is it? Does it fit—” I looked up and met her helpless expression.
Had the hoodie shrunk?
Ningzi stood with her arms out, swaying slightly left and right like a spring doll. Below her gray cotton shorts were long, shapely legs. The ivory hoodie I had given her hung at her waist. The hem should have covered the waistband of her shorts, but now it hovered above it, exposing a strip of smooth, firm belly. The sleeves did not look particularly shrunken, but soon I understood that the shortened hem should not be blamed entirely on her height. The graphic on the chest was pushed high by the swell beneath the fabric.
Was this the slender, small girl I remembered?
She sat down beside me and naturally laid a full thigh over my knee. Even through the cloth, I could feel the heat of her body. My heartbeat quickened.
“This hoodie suits me,” she said, a teasing note in her voice by my ear. “But I told you, you can’t keep looking at me with your old eyes.” As she spoke, she leaned closer. There was still a palm’s width between my shoulder and hers, yet my right arm could already feel the pressure from her chest. As if possessed, I put my hand on her waist. What settled into my palm was the mesmerizing line of her waist and belly. She had clearly been exercising in secret.
“Tickles.” She lifted her thigh and bumped me again.
“I thought you hated exercise. You always refused when I asked you to go hiking.”
“Who said that?” she said, indignant. “I’ve been working hard, you know. So I can catch up with you.”
“All right, all right. I’ll look with new eyes.” I held my index finger horizontally over my eyes and fluttered my lashes with exaggerated幅度. Ningzi, pretending to scowl, burst out laughing.
“Don’t underestimate the time you were away.”
She stared into my eyes for a long while, then sighed and spoke with a trace of resignation.
My boyfriend, Zhengxia, disappeared in a mountain accident five years ago.
His guide and four companions all died. A week later, the rescue team turned back because of the weather. They brought back only Zhengxia’s wallet with his ID and a phone so damaged it was unrecognizable. The plateau is harsh. With food shortages and wild animals, even if he had survived the accident, after a week the odds were almost nothing.
“If I hadn’t refused to go on that plateau trip, if I had gone with him, maybe Zhengxia wouldn’t have...”
That thought circled me day and night. After months of nightmares, my body and mind gave out. Just as I was about to end my life, I met an old woman who called herself Granny Rain.
“So young. How did you come to be so attached?” Granny Rain sighed. “Fortunately, his body has not been found. He is most likely still hovering between life and death. I can use a clay effigy to call his soul. If one day he finds his way home, and if he still clings to this world, then after the next mao hour, his body can return to the human realm.”
“When will I see him?”
“Fate cannot be forced. Maybe a year, maybe ten, or perhaps...”
“If I see him, how can I make him stay?”
Granny Rain shook her head.
“‘Don’t let the dead realize they are dead.’ That is the only advice I can give you.”
“...Thank you.”
She left one last sentence before she went.
“The world is unpredictable, and death even more so. Your life is still long. Why go this far for someone already gone?”
I never saw Granny Rain again.
In the middle of the night, I woke from a dream.
In the dream, six people were crossing a glacier when an ice bridge collapsed. They fell into a chasm thousands of meters below. I could clearly remember the panic on their faces and their despairing cries just before I woke. The scene felt unnervingly real, as if I had not been a bystander but someone who had been there. “It was only a nightmare,” I repeated to myself, trying to be calm.
Maybe my body had not fully woken. My torso felt terribly stiff. The rain outside had stopped. Clear moonlight fell on the empty pillow. Ningzi was gone. I saw the bathroom light on beyond the door and heard water running from the tap. I assumed she was washing up, so I closed my eyes to go back to sleep. Before consciousness slipped away, I vaguely heard something from the bathroom, faint as a woman sobbing. Had I misheard?
...
When I opened my eyes again, I had no idea how much time had passed. The moon’s shadow had moved to the floor by the bed. The cold light rippled like the surface of water, making the room feel slightly unreal.
Then I saw Ningzi’s figure enter the moonlight. Her face was hidden in the great shadow. She stopped by the wardrobe. Turning slightly, she rose on tiptoe and took a folded set of cotton pajamas from the upper shelf. Then she lowered her arms and pinched the hem of her top between her long index fingers and thumbs. Slowly, she lifted the top from her waist. Her breasts, full and at odds with her slender waist and arms, emerged in the darkness.
I remembered the first night I had entered the plateau. When I first glimpsed the proud, graceful curve of Lhotse’s summit under the moon, my body had held its breath just like this. I had always thought Ningzi’s breasts were beautiful, but never as striking as this. Her hips and thighs had once been as lean as her waist. Now, in the moonlight, with every bulky layer removed, her body showed a mature fullness.
My thoughts blurred. Having witnessed the beauty of Ningzi’s transformed body tonight, I felt an inexplicable sorrow. It was as if a hidden current of time had quietly divided us. I did not know when it had begun, but though she was only inches away, she seemed as distant as the opposite bank of the Milky Way.
...
The next time I woke, Ningzi, now in thermal underwear, had returned to my side. She was quietly watching my sleeping face. When she saw that I was awake, she blinked playfully.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked.
“My dream made me sweat,” she said, shaking her head. “I just changed clothes. I was about to sleep.”
I turned on my side, moved her bangs aside, and gently stroked her cheek.
“Your hand is so cold.” She pulled my arm against her chest, and I felt that warm fullness again. “Warmer now?”
“My feet are cold too, come to think of it.”
“Honestly.” Ningzi laughed. My curled legs were soon trapped snugly as well. I could feel her feverish body heat flowing into my nerves. My torso was still stiff, but inside I felt warm. I took the chance to move closer and kiss her.
“The moon is beautiful tonight,” I said.
“Natsume Soseki?”
“I mean it,” I laughed. “Like a big round plate sitting right on our windowsill.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I frowned.
A full moon?
“What’s wrong?” Ningzi asked.
“Ningzi, what date is it today?”
“Didn’t I show you my phone just now? Are you still half asleep?”
“That’s true, but maybe I read it wrong.”
She seemed a little nervous. “It’s past midnight. It’s already December 23. Which means, in two more days...”
“Strange,” I muttered. “The moon on the twenty-first day of the eleventh lunar month shouldn’t be this full.”
I was unusually sensitive to the stars because I often used them to judge direction outdoors. Before I could ask more, Ningzi hugged me tight.
She pressed her head against my chest and curled up like a frightened child. Only then did I notice that she was trembling.
“Zhengxia, let’s sleep first. I’m so sleepy.”
“Okay.”
I kissed her bangs. In the dark, I heard her let out a long breath of relief. Her breathing gradually evened out.
About fifteen minutes later, she could not help breaking the silence.
“Your heartbeat is so loud,” she said.
She had stayed in the same position all that time.
“Did it bother you? I’ll try to beat more quietly.”
“Don’t.” She hit me at once. “Why don’t you tell me a story instead? I’m still a little scared.”
“Afraid of nightmares?”
“Yes.”
“I remember one day...” I looked at the bright moonlight and spoke as if thinking aloud.
“A little quieter,” she said, looking at me. “Your voice is loud from where I am too.”
“We were camped halfway up the mountain on a perfectly clear day. I woke in the middle of the night feeling restless and wanted to walk outside. The moment I stepped out of the tent and looked up—bam—a huge moon. Like the wheel of our off-road vehicle. It was just there, without warning, close enough to touch.
“I was so excited. I grabbed my phone and, altitude sickness be damned, ran all the way to an open place and took a photo. I just wanted you to see it too. But there was no signal at all in the uninhabited area. I tried for ages and couldn’t send it. In the end I had to give up.
“Then the cold night wind on the mountain woke me up. I realized I had run alone, excitedly, to a peak where I could take in the moon. But when I looked around at the vast dark night, I could not see a single light from our home. Of course—our home was on the other side of the country, thousands of kilometers away.
“‘The moon and you—which one is farther from me right now?’ That was the thought that came to me then, standing on the Tibetan Plateau at over five thousand meters.”
“That sounds silly,” came Ningzi’s muffled voice from my chest.
“It is,” I said.
The next second, my thoughts melted into her soft kiss. Her body pressed close to mine. I could clearly feel the delicate touch of her lips and every hot breath.
“I’ve missed you all this time,” she said, her eyes glistening. “More than you can imagine.”
I leaned toward her again, wanting to give her a deeper kiss.
“Listen to me, Zhengxia.” She put two fingers against my lower lip to stop me.
“I had a terrible dream. It was so long, as if I would never wake up.
“I dreamed that a giant black-necked crane carried you far away. The crane’s messenger told me that only I knew you had left. I was to keep living as before, not let anyone notice anything strange, and never mention your name or anything about you to anyone. If I kept the promise, perhaps one day I would see you again. So I did. I lived as if you had never existed in this world. I even thought I had succeeded. ‘Love is something you can live without,’ I thought.
“But for some reason, whenever I accidentally said your name in my heart, joy burst out inside me. It was as if every cell and every molecule in my body danced. As if I had struck a match and briefly filled this small room with warmth again.
“Only then did I realize—maybe it wasn’t our meeting that created love. Maybe you have been in my fate since the beginning. I just happened to find you again on the day we met.
“Then I woke from that long dream. I saw you beside me, just like now. Since then, I haven’t dared to sleep again.”
I held Ningzi tightly and stroked her hair with my fingertips again and again, as if holding the most precious thing in the world. After a pause, I spoke as if to comfort her.
“In my long dream, I saw a boy and a girl who loved each other.
“One day, the boy found a beautiful box. He brought it home, wanting to surprise the girl. But he could not contain his curiosity and opened it first. A golden light flashed, and the boy was turned into a wooden puppet.
“The girl waited a long time, but the boy never came home. She was heartbroken. Then she found the puppet on the ground. She thought the puppet was a gift from the boy, so she treasured it. She cared for it carefully and put it in the most visible place in the room. Whatever happy or sad thing happened, she told it to the puppet. Time passed. The girl grew old, and still the boy did not return.
“At last, she discovered the puppet’s secret.
“‘Is it you?’ said the girl, now an old woman. ‘But I’m all wrinkled now, and you’re still so young. Will you still love me?’
“The girl’s true heart was the key. The puppet’s curse was broken in that moment. The boy stepped forward and kissed her cheek deeply. ‘What nonsense,’ he said. ‘All these years, I’ve been by your side.’”
I saw Ningzi in my arms staring at me, her eyes full of astonishment.
“You knew?” she said. “Since when...”
“Ningzi, there’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you. For that one sentence, I walked a long way through the darkness of the whole world.
“‘Even if you stopped waiting for me, I would still come back to you.’” I pressed my lips to her forehead. “You are the meaning of my coming home.”
“I love you,” Ningzi murmured.
“Me too.” I reached out and wiped the tears from the corner of her eye.
“But Zhengxia,” she said suddenly, her voice serious, “there is one thing I can’t agree with.”
“Hm?”
Before I could react, Ningzi smiled slyly and grabbed my wrist. She slipped my hand under the hem of her pajamas. I immediately touched her soft belly, damp with sweat. Then she gently guided me, letting my palm caress every inch of smooth, warm skin she had cared for so carefully, letting my hand measure every curve and rise of her body, letting my fingertips travel over every trace of growth that the time I had lost had left on her... until a century seemed to pass, and every perfect and imperfect corner of her body had been given the warmest baptism of love I could offer.
Then Ningzi raised her face, flushed red with excitement and nervousness, and said proudly, “See, Zhengxia? I’m still far from ‘wrinkled.’”
“Indeed,” I said. “A very fine body, one I’ll need a lifetime to cherish and remember.”