I Promise to Walk With You for Half of my Life’s Journey - Chapter 6

The weekend arrived with clear skies.

On this day, Cheng Sutong used the excuse of “expressing gratitude for the medical assistance during the research trip” to send an invitation. She spent a long time agonizing over the wording on her phone, eventually sending a dry, straightforward message:

“Ms. An, if you have time tomorrow at noon, I would like to treat you to lunch to thank you for taking me to the hospital last time.”

She pressed send and waited.

Five minutes later, a reply arrived: “There is no need. Eat well and save your money for buying supplementary textbooks.”

Cheng Sutong stared at the screen and bit her lip before typing another line: “I am already at the restaurant. If you do not come, I will eat two children’s meals by myself.”

The reply came much faster this time: “Send me your location.”

On Saturday at noon, the KFC was bustling with the sounds of children and families. Cheng Sutong chose a corner seat by the window and ordered two sets, one for herself and one for An Chuxin.

When An Chuxin pushed the door open and entered, she looked somewhat out of place in the noisy environment. She was like a still-life painting that had accidentally wandered into a crowded marketplace.

“Ms. An,” Cheng Sutong said, standing up and feeling a bit fidgety.

“Sit,” An Chuxin said as she took the seat opposite her. She glanced at the food on the table. “Why did you choose this place?”

“It is cheap,” Cheng Sutong said honestly. “Also, when I was a child, I really wanted to eat a children’s meal, but my father always thought it was unhealthy.”

An Chuxin glanced at her but said nothing, simply picking up a burger and starting to eat. Her manner of eating was very elegant, even in a fast-food restaurant.

Cheng Sutong observed her secretly. This was the first time she had seen An Chuxin so closely outside of a teaching environment. She noticed that there were always faint dark circles under An Chuxin’s eyes and slight downward lines at the corners of her mouth from long periods of pursing her lips. These were the marks of exhaustion and stress.

Halfway through the meal, An Chuxin’s phone rang.

She glanced at the caller ID, and her expression changed instantly. It was a look Cheng Sutong had never seen before: tension, anxiety, and even fear.

“I am sorry, I need to take this call.” An Chuxin stood up and walked outside the restaurant.

Through the glass window, Cheng Sutong saw her standing under the eaves. She was holding her phone in one hand while unconsciously clutching the hem of her shirt with the other. Her back was slightly hunched; she was no longer the upright figure from the classroom.

The call lasted a long time. An Chuxin nodded occasionally and spoke rapidly at other times, her brow furrowing deeper. When she finally hung up, she did not return immediately. Instead, she stood there looking up at the overcast sky and took a deep breath.

That movement contained so much that was familiar to Cheng Sutong. It was a sense of weariness and helplessness.

When An Chuxin re-entered the shop, she had regained her composure. However, when she picked up her cola, Cheng Sutong noticed that her hand was trembling slightly.

“Ms. An,” Cheng Sutong asked cautiously, “is someone in your family sick as well?”

An Chuxin froze. She looked at Cheng Sutong with a complex gaze, showing a flicker of discomfort at being seen through.

She said softly, “Yes. It is the kind of thing adults have to deal with.”

She spoke dismissively, but Cheng Sutong understood. She was all too familiar with that tone—the one that implies she does not want to say more because speaking of it changes nothing.

“Ms. An,” Cheng Sutong said, suddenly looking up with bright eyes, “you must eat on time. Sick people need care, but the person taking care of them must stay healthy too.”

The words were childish, yet they pierced the softest part of An Chuxin’s heart.

She looked at the girl before her and saw the genuine concern in her eyes. It was not the polite concern of a student for a teacher, but the simple understanding of someone who had also experienced illness and loss.

“Okay,” An Chuxin heard herself say. “I will.”

“Ms. An, I spent quite a bit of your money at the hospital last time. Please give me your WeChat ID so I can transfer the money back to you.”

An Chuxin did not resort to polite refusals or empty social etiquette. Instead, she successfully allowed Sutong to add her on WeChat. “Here, scan this.”

The fast-food meal lasted forty minutes. As they left, An Chuxin took the initiative to clear the tray, her movements as natural as if she had done it a thousand times.

At the entrance, she looked back at Cheng Sutong.

“There is a physics quiz next week,” she said, her tone returning to her calm, teacher-like demeanor. “Focus on Chapter 3.”

“Okay.”

On the second Monday of April, Cheng Sutong woke up to the vibration of her alarm at six in the morning.

The screen lit up, showing an unread text message sitting quietly in the notification bar.

“Heavy rain today; temperature will drop by 8 degrees. Bring an umbrella and wear extra layers.”

The sender was a string of numbers without a saved name, but Cheng Sutong knew who it was.

She stared at the message for ten seconds before slowly typing a reply: “Okay, thank you.”

She sent it. There was no read receipt or further conversation. Every morning, this communication would light up on time. Sometimes it was about the weather, sometimes it was “The air pollution index is high, wear a mask,” and sometimes it was a simple “Remember to eat breakfast.”

It was a secret sanctuary established unilaterally by An Chuxin.

Cheng Sutong sat up in bed and walked barefoot to the window. Fine droplets of water had condensed on the glass, and the world outside was shrouded in a gray curtain of rain. She thought that when An Chuxin said the temperature would “drop by 8 degrees,” her tone must have been that specific, calm tone—like a weather forecast—rather than an expression of care.

But she was caring. Cheng Sutong thought of this as her finger lightly traced the damp glass.

She washed, changed into her school uniform, and checked her bag for her medicine and umbrella. Before leaving, she adjusted her collar in the hallway mirror and looked at her reflection. She had the face of a seventeen-year-old but the eyes of a twenty-three-year-old. That sense of displacement still existed, but it had somehow become bearable.

Perhaps it was because, in this displaced world, someone was trying to catch her in their own clumsy way.

Morning self-study on rainy days was exceptionally quiet. Outside, the rain pattered against the window, while inside the classroom, there was only the rustling of pages and the scratching of pens. Cheng Sutong sat in the third row by the window with her physics textbook open, but she could not concentrate.

She was waiting.

She was waiting for the sound of those footsteps.

At 7:25 AM, the classroom door was pushed open. An Chuxin walked in. The shoulders of her long, dark gray trench coat bore dark marks from the rain, and tiny droplets of water clung to the ends of her hair. She carried a lesson plan and several thick reference books. Her footsteps were light, yet the sound of her heels clicking against the floor was clear in the silent room.

Cheng Sutong kept her head down, using her peripheral vision to track the figure as she walked to the podium, set her things down, and draped her coat over the back of the chair. Then, she looked up, pretending to glance casually at the podium.

An Chuxin was organizing her lesson plan. There were still faint dark shadows under her eyes, but today she wore a bit of lipstick. It was a very pale mauve color that was hard to notice if one did not look closely.

Cheng Sutong thought that she was trying hard to maintain a sense of normalcy. Even though her mother was in the hospital and there were countless things to handle, she still appeared here on time, wearing lipstick and a neatly ironed shirt, playing the role of the impeccable Ms. An.

At that moment, An Chuxin looked up, her gaze scanning the classroom. Her eyes paused for a fraction of a second when they passed Cheng Sutong, and Sutong caught it.

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