Cross the Boundary GL - Chapter 10

It’s 5 a.m., and the streetlights are dim, like peeled, rotting oranges, casting a faint glow on the sidewalk.

Qin Song walks a little ahead, her jacket’s drawstring tied around the wound on her wrist.

Two shadows overlap on the ground. She walks for a while in silence, then raises her eyebrows. “Don’t follow me.”

Li Chu immediately stops. Qin Song doesn’t look back, crossing the street straight through the bushes, not even bothering with the crosswalk.

The apartment is as desolate as ever, as if no one lives there. Qin Song takes out a bottle of alcohol from the fridge, adds ice, and pours it into a glass.

She holds it but doesn’t drink, her hand touching the metal stud embedded under her skin. A sharp pain shoots from the back of her neck through her entire body.

The pain is real, which means everything that happened in the dance hall was also real.

Two hours earlier, inside the bar, Chen Ran had sent four of his men to tell Qin Song there was an urgent matter in the private room. What could possibly be so urgent? Nothing more than the debauchery of a gilded, hedonistic life.

But being coerced to come here, she had no choice but to go to the private room. Suppressing her irritation, she prepared to follow them.

As she placed a champagne glass back on a tray, a sharp, piercing noise suddenly cut through the din. The four men with her and countless others around them were startled, all looking toward the stage.

Qin Song stood with her arms crossed, unfazed, only her eyes flickering.

“Qin Song!”

It was Li Chu, who had snatched the microphone. Her voice, even when agitated, never had much force; she was simply not a person who could be firm.

“Don’t…” Her throat seemed to catch, and she suddenly stopped, her cat-like eyes darting between Qin Song and the four men in black.

Quickly, she changed her tone. “You stop right there! Our feud isn’t settled, so why are you running off halfway through?”

Qin Song lifted her chin and looked over. Li Chu stood with one foot bare, curled up helplessly, looking very pitiful.

“You have to come with me now!” she said, emphasizing the word “now,” her eyes shining brightly as if to hint at something.

Qin Song saw her staring at the men beside her and guessed what was going on. She looked at the four men with dead eyes.

By this time, Li Chu had walked off the stage toward them, her cold fingers clasping Qin Song’s wrist—right on the place where she had bitten her not long ago, a wound that hadn’t yet healed.

The sudden grab sent a jolt of pain through her, but Qin Song didn’t even think about pulling away.

“Hurry, let’s go,” Li Chu said, not wanting to stay for a second longer.

And so, Qin Song was dragged through a beaded curtain.

Halfway there, Li Chu took off her other shoe. As she bent down to pick it up, Qin Song noticed that Li Chu’s hand was still clenched tightly around hers, veins bulging from the effort.

Qin Song had always been uncomfortable with unnecessary physical contact, and sometimes she found it strange herself. But when it was layered with something else, this habit seemed to become insignificant.

“That CEO Chen, I don’t know what he wants to do. I heard two women talking in the bathroom. It’s nothing good,” Li Chu said, barefoot. “I was afraid they’d harm you. It’s true, I’m not lying.”

Of course, Qin Song knew it was true. Chen Ran wanted to do too many things, and he hadn’t held back in recent years.

Like this time, using her last psychological defense as a bargaining chip, there was nothing left to protect.

Li Chu brushed her damp hair back, a look of helplessness on her face. “Will he come after you now that we’ve just run off like this?”

The dark shadows cut across her facial features, her gentle face without sharp edges. She looked kind no matter how you saw it.

From the first time they met, Qin Song had noticed Li Chu’s extraordinary delicacy, but her usual habit of mentally blocking out others meant she just saw it and moved on, not caring much.

Li Chu’s so-called proactive actions were all based on a system of equivalent exchange, just as adding her contact information and buying her dinner were for the purpose of a better payoff later.

Qin Song didn’t know what kind of dirty tricks Chen Ran would use, but walking out was definitely safer than going into the private room.

Still, she didn’t understand. If she remembered correctly, she had recently treated this person with a sense of annoyance. The other person’s almost forceful conditions had made her tear open her wounds and lose control.

Li Chu, who had initially been afraid of her pathology, now seemed to acknowledge and accept it in the next second, as steady as a thousand-year-old tree.

“No.” Qin Song answered and began walking toward her home.

After a while, she was distracted by the overlapping shadows on the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Li Chu’s feet were dirty and torn from walking for so long.

Qin Song felt an unprompted surge of frustration.

What was the point of following her? Wasn’t she afraid of being spoken to harshly again?

This road was always full of late-night diners, and there could be broken glass and trash strewn in the middle. Was Li Chu giving up on her feet?

She walked in silence, pondering how to get the other person to go home, which ultimately turned into a blunt, cold command: “Don’t follow me.”

Li Chu stopped, her figure swallowed by the darkness, appearing lonely and pathetic. For a moment, Qin Song didn’t want to see this scene.

Without looking back, not even waiting to reach the crosswalk, she stepped into the bushes and cut across the street.

…

Li Chu eventually walked back slowly, her feet torn and bleeding the whole way. When she reached her shop, there was a row of eerie dark red footprints behind her.

She felt a sense of defeat. Qin Song’s coldness made her feel defeated and wronged, as if her unrequited drama was being endlessly replayed.

That is, if a relationship with such blurred boundaries could even be called “love.”

Back home, the moment the hot water hit her body, Li Chu couldn’t hold back her tears. She sobbed softly, her tears mixing with the shower water, as her feelings of hurt and disappointment washed down the drain.

After her shower, her phone rang. With red eyes, Li Chu frantically searched for it. She had grabbed her phone on the way out with Qin Song earlier but had no idea where she’d dropped it.

By the time she found it wedged in the bed frame and answered, the person on the other end was already impatiently yelling, “Li Xiaochu! Are you dreaming?”

The voice was so loud that Li Chu was temporarily deaf for two seconds.

Soon, she curled her lips into a smile, confirming the identity of the person with surprise. “Zhiyan-jie?”

“You finally decided to pick up!”

“I was just taking a shower.”

Lin Zhiyan was a sign language teacher who regularly visited the orphanage. Among the children the orphanage took in, some were inevitably abandoned due to physical disabilities, and many were deaf or mute.

Dean Hu, with social assistance, had students from a nearby university’s relevant major come to teach.

Li Chu learned that Lin Zhiyan had returned from an internship in another province and invited her to come to her shop tomorrow and have dinner together.

Perhaps tired from crying, Li Chu fell asleep right after she hung up the phone.

The next day, Lin Zhiyan arrived early, standing outside the kiss.me shop at a little past nine, cupping her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. “Li Xiaochu! Get up and open for business!”

Li Chu was startled awake, sitting up with sleepy eyes.

The second floor had no windows. She scrambled up, washed up, and when she got to the bottom of the stairs, she saw Lin Zhiyan, with a backpack on, about to sit on the tiled ground in front of the shop.

“Zhiyan-jie! Don’t sit, don’t sit, I’m opening the door now!”

Lin Zhiyan had to stand up right after squatting down. She turned around and smiled, pinching Li Chu’s cheek. “I haven’t seen you in a year. You’ve gotten even prettier.”

She had a bright and sunny look, with her curled auburn hair gathered at the back of her head, her hair bouncing with every word she spoke.

Li Chu opened the door, carried the iridescent sign board outside, and propped it up. Lin Zhiyan walked around the board and touched it. “So professional? Your business must be good then.”

“It’s not that good.” Li Chu said, a little embarrassed. “The rent here is too expensive. I haven’t even made enough for rent yet.”

Hearing this, Lin Zhiyan sighed. “Business is really hard to do now.” She stepped back to read the words on the board. “What’s ‘piercing’?”

Li Chu’s movements faltered, and she said a little unnaturally, “It’s just for ear piercings and… other things…”

The “other things” had only ever been tried on Qin Song.

Lin Zhiyan, unaware of their shared history, asked in surprise, “You can do piercings? Then give me two.”

Li Chu nodded and said she could. Having pierced collarbones and the back of a neck, an ear piercing was nothing.

So, today’s first customer became Lin Zhiyan. While Li Chu was sterilizing the tools, Lin Zhiyan chatted with her. “Opening a physical store requires building up a customer base, right? Do you have any regular customers?”

Li Chu became uncomfortable again. “…I do.”

“That’s good. Regular customers know your skill, so they won’t make a fuss.”

“Not exactly…” Li Chu thought, Qin Song was much more difficult to deal with.

Lin Zhiyan glanced at her. “What’s wrong?”

Li Chu forced herself to cheer up. “Nothing… I’m going to pierce it now!”

Lin Zhiyan’s attention was diverted by the pain.

“Does getting an ear-piercing hurt this much?! I thought it was okay for other people!” She wanted to touch it but didn’t dare. “Is it going to get infected?”

Li Chu was still holding the tool. “Just use chloramphenicol drops, and try not to get it wet.” She had never given these instructions to Qin Song; Qin Song didn’t need them and always had a calm, unbothered demeanor.

Lin Zhiyan wanted to look in the mirror, so she stood up and walked to the door, but she was drawn to someone outside.

“Wow!” she said, turning back to Li Chu. “She’s so cool!”

Li Chu immediately tensed up.

Her customers usually said similar things when they saw Qin Song.

Sure enough, Qin Song was standing at the entrance, smoking silently. A section of black hair had grown out from her pinkish-purple hair.

Li Chu thought, what would Qin Song look like with black hair? Colder, maybe. Black hair and red lips, like shattered glass.

“Is she your customer? Why doesn’t she come in?” Lin Zhiyan leaned out for another look. “Am I interrupting your business?”

Li Chu quickly waved her hands. “No, no, that’s just how she is. She’s a bit… introverted.” This was a conservative description.

“So many piercings…” Lin Zhiyan clutched her newly pierced ear, her face not looking so good. “It really hurts! Doesn’t it hurt her?”

Li Chu thought, she probably enjoys it.

Qin Song’s definition of pain was the opposite of a normal person. Li Chu didn’t understand at first, but she had unconsciously come to accept it.

She felt that this was the only thing that could make Qin Song a little less cold and indifferent.

So, the door was pushed open from the inside. Li Chu used her back to hold the handle and said softly, “Come in. She’s already done.”

Qin Song, for the first time, glanced at Lin Zhiyan before stepping inside.

The tattoos on her back and legs weren’t finished yet. Li Chu was afraid she would ask for another piercing or a bite, so she took the opportunity while closing the door to suggest, “I’ll help you finish tracing the design on your leg first, okay?”

Qin Song took off her jacket and casually draped it over the back of a chair.

The two magnificent full-sleeve tattoos were breathtaking, and Lin Zhiyan’s eyes widened like copper bells.

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