Running away from the Love-Brain

It's All True

By the time she turned twenty-seven, Cui Xijin believed she had no interest in snow or the sea.

She had visited cities with heavy snow and vast oceans before. As a child, she had once gone to Harbin, and over the years, there had been several snowy days in Chengdu. However, she never played in the snow, as if she had been an adult since birth, carrying an "unacceptable" dictionary in her universe, but lacking any entries for "I like."

Chi Buyu had taken her out to play.

In the winter of 2023, during a light snowfall in Chengdu, they drunkenly lay in the snow while passersby fell in love under the first snow. They tasted the snow, saying it was a bit sweet, and later squatted by the roadside like two fools trying to reconstruct a snowman that had been kicked apart, nearly getting elbowed when they stood up. Six-year-old Cui Xijin had thought to herself that these two adults were so childish.

After growing up, Cui Xijin had visited many coastal cities: Sanya, Bangkok, Dalian... Each trip was for work or some necessity; she had never felt the desire to go to the seaside or "play in the ocean."

Chi Buyu had invited her to see the sea.

But Chi Buyu was a typical person with few extra thoughts. When an idea popped into her head, it was always something simple, like in cartoons when a light bulb "dings" and appears on the ceiling...

Then there was no follow-up from Chi Buyu.

The rest was left for Cui Xijin to handle the "then."

An idea took shape in Cui Xijin's mind. She needed to make plans. That very night, after proposing the idea, she began a video call to sort out all the known details of the plan.

First, they needed to set a date.

After showering, she took her laptop and, wearing her thick prescription glasses, leaned against the bed and asked Chi Buyu when she would be free.

On the video call, Chi Buyu was applying a white clay mask and wearing a strawberry bear headband. After staring at her for a while, she suddenly complained, "Cui Xijin, you look like you're in a meeting with a client right now."

Cui Xijin looked at her checkered pajamas and replied with a roll of her eyes, "I wouldn't hold a meeting with a client while wearing pajamas in my bedroom."

"Fair point."

Chi Buyu was silenced by her remark, pouting, "Well, I'm free all of June and early July."

All of June and early July. Cui Xijin noted the keywords in OneNote, planning to check her schedule after ending the call.

"What about the location?" Cui Xijin asked, staring at her notebook.

Suddenly, Chi Buyu went quiet on the video.

"Chi Buyu." Cui Xijin called her name.

There was still no response.

Feeling puzzled, Cui Xijin shifted her gaze from her cluttered OneNote page to the tiny video window in the top left corner—

She found Chi Buyu pouting and narrowing her eyes dangerously as she stared at her, "Cui Muhuo, you don't even look at me during the video call."

While Cui Xijin cared more about whether their plan to see the sea would succeed, Chi Buyu was more concerned about whether Cui Xijin was looking at her at that moment.

"I'm taking notes," Cui Xijin explained.

"Are my notes that important?" Chi Buyu asked seriously.

"At this stage..."