Crossing the Clouds and Sky to Fall in Love with You - Chapter 5

That night, I finally went to Hanjun’s place, with Lu She (Lu Snake) accompanying us; I never imagined Hanjun rented such a large apartment! I should call it a family-style apartment. Usually, three or four people would pool their money to rent one, and I couldn’t believe he had the financial means for this!

I asked him how his parents could allow him to rent such a place, and he just smiled, saying it would be convenient if anyone needed to stay over, whether for practice or for a party. Indeed, even a two-bedroom, one-living room place was a significant upgrade from the student studio I was crammed into.

Perhaps because Lu She was the same year as us, the dynamic was less constrained by the usual senior-to-junior pressure, and conversation flowed easily. We cooked a Shacha hot pot, and after we were full, we watched a movie. It was nearly one in the morning when it finished, and coincidentally, a heavy rain started outside, so Hanjun suggested we stay the night.

“I didn’t bring any clothes!”

“Wear mine!” he teased, then changed his mind, saying we could just throw them in the washing machine. Spin-dry and tumble-dry, easy-peasy. I was persuaded just like that.

After washing away the hot pot smell, we playfully roughhoused our way into bed until we were too tired to talk. I rested my head on his chest, closing my eyes, and he gently patted my back before softly calling my name.

“Xiaoning.”

“Hmm?” I reluctantly opened my eyes. My stomach was still a bit full, so lying like this was a little uncomfortable, but I felt very content.

Compared to the usual “Xiaoxiao” used by the band Renmianyu (Face-Man-Fish), I preferred being his Xiaoning.

“Do you think my singing is any good?”

Was he asking about when he subbed as the lead singer? “Do you want to hear the truth?”

His voice sounded a little disheartened, “Saying that means I don’t sing well, right?”

I pouted and shook my head, saying, “No! I really like your voice, even if your vocal range is a bit narrow, but it’s passionate, just like when you play the guitar. Your voice is a little husky, but it has great recognizability—it has its own character. It’s just…”

“Just what?” His level of focused attention surprised me. After all, I was an outsider who couldn’t play or sing, but his value for my opinion was clearly beyond what I’d expected.

“Hey, my opinion isn’t professional, why are you taking it so seriously…”

“No way! I want to hear what you think. Just what?”

“I think there aren’t many songs that suit you. If someone was willing to produce for you, then you could unleash your true potential… I think that’s about it.”

He held me, not saying a word for a long, long time, and I waited until my eyelids felt heavy. He let me lie beside him, and much later, I faintly heard him ask again: “…Produce…myself…what do you think…”

I was too tired to hear clearly. He tapped my face, making me slightly startle awake. “Huh?”

“What do you think?”

What about what… I yawned, snuggling closer to him. “Whatever you like… I want to sleep…”

He was silent for a while, then finally whispered in my ear, “Sleep.”

When I woke up, I still couldn’t recall what exactly he had asked me.

But afterward, nothing special happened with Renmianyu or between him and me. I went to Plato’s a few more times and even dragged Yiting along! Going in and out of the backstage area became completely normal, so I felt reassured.

One day after a performance, Hanjun walked me home. It was rare for him to remember to do homework! Midterm exams were next week, and he had to rush to his classmate’s place for intensive tutoring on his Exegetics course, so he just rode off. Watching his taillights fade into the distance, a rush of reluctance swelled in my heart… We were only separating temporarily, yet why did I feel a bitter ache?

I always felt that since we started dating, both emotionally and practically, I had become more dependent on Hanjun than before. I longed for him to notice me more, to close the distance between us, to spend more time snuggling together…

Sigh! Staring for a thousand years wouldn’t make him suddenly turn around! I forced myself to cheer up and head upstairs. As I passed the second floor, I heard the sound of the iron gate opening.

It was Sister Tao! “Sister Tao, you’re back?” For some reason, seeing her appear made me exceptionally happy; I felt like there was someone else around…

Yu Xiaoning! When did you become so afraid of being alone?

Sister Tao was still wearing a large backpack; she must have just returned. “Xiaoning? Seeing you the moment I get back, what a coincidence!”

“I know, right…” She didn’t rush into her room after opening the iron gate. I noticed a camera hanging around her neck. “Where did you go to take photos this time?”

Since she moved in across the hall, we would occasionally run into each other on the stairs for the first few days. She went to the ramen shop and the teppanyaki place I recommended and would share her thoughts with me! I quickly closed the distance with this easygoing beauty.

But she was a backpacker, after all. One day I’d hear her planning a trip, the next she’d be off, only to disappear for a few days and then return. Meanwhile, I had been worrying about Renmianyu and focusing on my studies… so I never had a chance to have a good chat with Sister Tao.

Oh, and through chatting, I found out she was already twenty-eight. After graduating from university, she didn’t pursue further education but obstinately made a living with her camera—that’s all she would say.

“I went on a trip to Snow Mountain… and then I met up with a friend to discuss some things when I got back.”

“Snow Mountain! That sounds like fun.”

She smiled, “If there’s a chance next time, how about I take you with me?”

“Sister Tao, are you serious?”

“Of course, you’d have to be interested in the itinerary… but we’d also have to see about the opportunity. My trips aren’t limited to Taiwan; I might go abroad too.” She patted her backpack strap. “If you’re interested, we can talk later? I need to put my gear away first.”

“Ah! I forgot… I’m sorry!” I was so busy talking to her that I didn’t think about how heavy the stuff she was carrying was.

I promptly entered my own room, but before I could fantasize about traveling, I flipped on the light, and a strange “foreign object” on the floor instantly terrified me!

“Aah aah aah!” What is that… a fuzzy, eight-legged monster!

“Th-there’s a SPIDER!”

Damn, why is this weird, scary, fuzzy, eight-legged monster in my room, and where did it come from?!

The sudden appearance of the ugly insect scared the wits out of me, and Sister Tao, hearing the commotion from next door, rushed over. Before she could even take off her coat, I pushed her in front of me to fight the “enemy”!

“What is it! What did you see…”

“That thing! The one crawling on the floor… Holy crap! It crawled toward the guitar!” That was Hanjun’s! Oh no!

“Do you have a broom or anything?”

“In, in, in the corner…” It was a distance from the door, and I’d have to go around the spider to grab it… What if it suddenly climbed onto me as I passed by?

Sister Tao put an arm around my shoulder and blocked my view with her left hand. “It’s okay, this one isn’t poisonous. I can probably just grab it.”

What? Just grab it? “Sister Tao, what are you saying! Don’t do anything foolish!”

“I’ve grabbed bigger ones! It’s no problem.” Even so, she picked up a plastic folder nearby, skillfully and carefully scooped it up, and then released it by the window.

“It’s over.” She rinsed the folder with water and returned to my side with a warm smile.

“Really? Will it run back into my room…” I pointed at the window, then looked at the spot where I first discovered it upon entering. Even though it was gone, I still felt a shiver!

“No, it won’t. If it comes back, I’ll have to reluctantly kill it.” She gazed at me, as if making a silent promise. My tears couldn’t help but fall; she wiped them away and suddenly chuckled, “Speaking of which… you screamed so loud just now, the whole apartment probably heard you!”

“Because… because it was really scary!” I was embarrassed and blushing.

“Alright! Are you okay now? I still haven’t finished unpacking. I’ll go back now. If you have any other problems, just come call me, okay?”

I took a deep breath and nodded, deeply feeling how reliable she was. She was basically Spider-Woman! The fact that she could catch it without killing it was impressive!

But Sister Tao had barely left before I was still feeling a residual fear, my hands shaking a bit as I took my phone and wallet out of my bag…

Just as I was about to go wash my hands, a strange “shuffling” sound came from the corner again! Ugh! What is it this time?

J-just so you know! I’m not afraid of cockroaches; I-I’ve been living alone for three years, and I’ve personally killed at least twenty, if not thirty, of them. If that spider just now hadn’t been so big, so hairy, and so ugly, I actually, actually could have dealt with it myself…

“Shuffling”! Ugh! What is it?! I grabbed my house slipper and tiptoed toward the trash can. Just as I was about to lift the lid to check, a brown object darted out of the bin opening. The instant I raised my slipper, it flapped its wings and flew straight toward my face!

“Sister Tao—!”

The elegant, calm, intellectual beauty in front of me was now laughing hysterically, lying on the bed with all four limbs in the air! What kind of reaction was that…

“You’re laughing too hard…”

“I’m sorry… haha… what did you say just now? Say it again?”

“A flying cockroach and a crawling cockroach are completely different animals…”

Sister Tao collapsed in laughter again! I pouted, sitting in her room, with no choice but to wait for her to finish laughing.

“Oh my… Xiaoning, you’re… you’re really hilarious!” She finally sat up in bed, wiping her tears—mine were from fear, hers were from laughing so hard! “Oh… I’m exhausted, phew! Okay, well, we’ve ‘closed the door and let the dogs out,’ so you just wait. Rest here for a bit. I just moved in and I don’t eat in my room, so you can relax.”

“Closed the door and let the dogs out” meant that I had rushed to the convenience store to buy a water-based insecticide fogger, which was currently working, and I’d need a few hours before I could go back.

“I’m sorry for bothering you.” I sat on the small single armchair Sister Tao had set up and quietly watched her unpack her luggage.

“It’s no trouble, I told you you could come find me anytime you had a problem… Besides, you’ve helped me quite a bit, haven’t you?” Sister Tao looked back and smiled. Having taken off her coat, she was now just wearing a gray cotton tank top, revealing her slender yet toned arms and a cool-looking men’s watch.

“I only gave you some tips about the neighborhood, nothing like you helping me drive away a spider and catch a cockroach.”

“Providing local information is important too!” She was packing up her dirty clothes, probably planning to take them downstairs to the coin laundry later. Besides that, she had a hiking stick, notebooks, a personal calculator, and I even saw an unopened package of emergency rations.

Even though all those things were important, the most important was still her camera.

“Sister Tao.” I was incredibly curious about backpackers, perhaps because of watching Chu’s travel logs? I had one right in front of me, so how could I not take the chance to chat? “Do you always travel alone?”

“Mostly. Occasionally, when I go abroad or to other places, I meet local friends and form some relationships, but aside from hiring guides, I’m usually alone.” She knelt by the bed, looking down and operating her camera, perhaps checking photos?

“Don’t you get bored? And a woman traveling alone… it’s a bit dangerous.”

“It depends on how you travel. So far, I’ve encountered petty thieves and been stranded in the mountains for a night or two, but nothing that threatened my life.”

“How do you earn money? Traveling like this… do you have an income?” Before I knew it, we had gotten into a very realistic question.

“I live off the savings from my previous job! Besides… traveling isn’t as expensive as people think, and the reason I came back to Taiwan this time is because a magazine finally agreed to talk about a column with me, and I also plan to write and publish a book about my experiences over the past few years, so I’m finally starting to have some income.” She sighed contentedly, placing her precious camera on the bed.

She walked over to the fridge and asked what I wanted to drink. I didn’t want any more cola, but then I heard her say, “Are you sure you don’t want anything? I bought black tea and milk tea.”

In that moment, I realized: she bought those for me? “Then… milk tea, please!” Since it was her kind gesture, I couldn’t bear to refuse!

Sipping the sweet milk tea, the lingering effects of the fright gradually subsided. Sister Tao was still drinking beer. She was still wearing boots, and her fitted leather pants accentuated her great figure. Moreover, she was sitting with her legs crossed, and even though the weather was a bit chilly, she was only wearing the cotton tank top.

There was something undeniably cool about her like this, wasn’t there?

I suddenly felt very curious about the things she had mentioned before, including her education and work history. “Sister Tao said before that you make a living with your camera.”

“That’s right! Ever since I graduated and bought my first high-end camera.”

“But I still don’t understand. You said you’re finally starting to have an income, but you also said you live off previous savings.”

Sister Tao glanced away, and the atmosphere instantly became a bit heavy. But it didn’t last long. Her lips curved into a smile. After chugging some beer, she said, “I used to shoot weddings for people. I was a wedding photographer.”

A female wedding photographer! That sounded really cool! “So you’ve shot a lot of wedding photos?”

“Mmm. Right after I graduated, I was young and naive. I refused financial help from home and didn’t want to work there, so I joined a wedding photography studio started by friends.” As if a floodgate had opened, Sister Tao spoke freely about her former job. “…I was incredibly busy back then. I once worked twenty-five days in a row without a single break!”

I only vaguely knew that wedding photographers were busy, but I didn’t realize it could be that intense! “Does your family have a business, Sister Tao?”

“Yeah, they do, but I don’t like it.” She tilted her head back and finished the rest of her beer, a faint blush on her fair face. “Anyway, I earned quite a bit of money back then.”

“If that’s the case, why did you change?”

“Because of some things that happened, some entanglements, you could say? Also, I genuinely love to travel. A wedding photographer doesn’t have much room to go anywhere. I just love photography, and switching from shooting weddings to being a backpacking traveler is just a matter of changing the subject I photograph.”

Sister Tao spoke of this transition lightly, as if it were nothing.

However, I could only imagine the huge difference: the subject changed from blissfully happy newlyweds to natural or human landscapes. The shift was from busy work to free-spirited travel. The gap between them was surely much more than “changing the subject I photograph.”

“It’s hard to imagine, being a wedding photographer…” I couldn’t help but observe the beautiful woman in front of me, imagining her holding a camera and taking pictures of a couple. “Oh… that reminds me! Sister Tao, since you’ve shot weddings, could you…” help me take pictures with Hanjun…

“I’m sorry, Xiaoning, I don’t photograph people anymore!”

The smile froze on my lips.

Sister Tao’s refusal was too absolute.

So absolute that it almost hurt my feelings.

“Why?”

She closed her eyes briefly. “The last set of wedding photos I took before I quit, that was the last time in my life. Since then, I’ve decided not to deliberately capture people’s appearance and smiles. My lens won’t be pointed at people anymore, so… I’m sorry.”

She took the empty beer bottle and her camera toward the bathroom. I stared at Sister Tao’s slender and beautiful back, and somehow, I suddenly felt—

Very lonely.