Inertial Dependence - Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Her Cloth Doll

Yan Ciwei’s birthday was in early April, roughly half a year apart from An Chixu’s. She was intelligent and precocious; once they became familiar, An Chixu began to view her as an older sister.

In the spring of their senior year, during the most stressful period, Yan Ciwei invited An Chixu to her secret birthday party. She told no one else; even though Yan Ciwei had a few other friends, An Chixu was the only one to receive a unique invitation. They were no longer in the same study group, but Yan Ciwei still came to find An Chixu during every break. An Chixu’s seatmate was tactful and would leave as soon as class ended, having grown accustomed to the routine.

Yan Ciwei quietly slipped the handwritten invitation into An Chixu’s desk.

“What is it? Why so mysterious?” An Chixu said while still in her seat. She watched Yan Ciwei’s arrival with a beaming smile, just about to lean her head in. Yan Ciwei’s hand reached out, but before An Chixu could catch it, it was withdrawn. An Chixu’s face was flushed with confusion, waiting for Yan Ciwei to explain.

“A secret,” Yan Ciwei winked at her. Her other open eye was full of cunning, hooking An Chixu’s heart in an instant.

“Tuantuan,” Yan Ciwei leaned into An Chixu’s ear. “Did you prepare a gift for me?” She couldn’t resist revealing the surprise ahead of time.

An Chixu understood immediately.

“Definitely! I started preparing last year.” An Chixu glanced at the calendar. April 9th was a weekend. Her heart had already flown away; she even caught herself daydreaming for a moment while solving problems in class.

During a gap in evening self-study, An Chixu opened Yan Ciwei’s invitation away from prying eyes. She requested leave from the dormitory warden in advance, and on Saturday night, she followed Yan Ciwei back to her rented room.

“Tuantuan, I only invited you.” Yan Ciwei held An Chixu’s hand. Outside the campus on a Friday night, it was noisy, but they walked along the dim lights of the small path, leaving all the clamor behind them.

“I’m so happy.” Seventeen-year-old An Chixu didn’t yet understand what this joy was. She simply moved closer to Yan Ciwei by instinct and was caught by her. Watching her like this, Yan Ciwei was so joyful she started humming a song. An Chixu kicked small stones as a beat. The ten-minute walk felt like a mere instant.

Upon entering the apartment, An Chixu relaxed completely. The mock exam scores from the morning, the unfinished test papers, and the recitations and transcriptions she needed to catch up on all vanished. It was as if the dormitory wasn’t where she belonged—Yan Ciwei’s rented room was her home.

They watched a horror movie together and ate the birthday cake Yan Ciwei had prepared in advance. The midnight alarm rang out from amidst a pile of cream. An Chixu threw herself into Yan Ciwei’s arms and stuffed a scarf she had spent over half a year knitting into her embrace. There were also handwritten greeting cards, paper-folded flowers…

An Chixu’s family didn’t care about her; her meal allowance was deposited onto her school card every semester. She had no spare money to buy gifts for the person she liked; the only thing she could give was a piece of her sincere heart.

Yan Ciwei, of course, understood this. She had never cared about An Chixu’s money; in fact, An Chixu’s lack of money was what mattered most.

“Tuantuan, you’re so good.” Not minding the spring warmth, nor caring that the scarf was made from unraveled old clothes, Yan Ciwei put the scarf on. The bright red color suited her unexpectedly well, and her skin flushed with a joyful color.

“Don’t the others give you gifts?” An Chixu helped Yan Ciwei straighten the scarf, her face blooming with smiles again.

“They don’t. Only my Tuantuan is this good.” As she spoke, Yan Ciwei turned her face. She was half a head taller than An Chixu; turning sideways, she could block the dim light of the living room. They hadn’t turned on the main lights for the sake of the atmosphere, and the room grew darker as the night deepened.

Yan Ciwei blocked the only light source. The night light flickered behind her, tracing her outline and making her appear cold and somber. Her towering stance was a bit eerie, like the ghost they had just seen.

Yet, An Chixu only saw the smile in Yan Ciwei’s eyes. If Yan Ciwei were a scary ghost, she would surely give An Chixu a hug. At that time, An Chixu loved her just like that—she would embrace Yan Ciwei’s kind words even in the pitch black.

She didn’t know that Yan Ciwei was very private and had never told anyone else her birthday. So no matter which year or month, only An Chixu would give her a gift.

That night, An Chixu slept very deeply. Yan Ciwei was somewhat restless, waking up many times, tossing and turning until she entered An Chixu’s dreams. An Chixu dreamed of two months later, five months later. Their high school days were coming to an end. Would they still be this close in the future?

Waking up the next day, An Chixu grabbed Yan Ciwei’s arm, not letting her go to prepare breakfast.

“What’s wrong, Tuantuan?” Yan Ciwei lay back down. She blinked her tear-filled eyes, her movements slightly stiff. The uneasy An Chixu didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

“We’re going to university soon,” An Chixu’s voice was hoarse.

“Yeah. The college entrance exam is in two months.” Yan Ciwei simply pulled her over. During their tight embrace, Yan Ciwei lowered her eyelashes. Just like in the dream… soft.

“Don’t want to be apart from me?” Yan Ciwei was always like this. She could see through An Chixu’s unease at a glance, gently lifting the veil she struggled to maintain. An Chixu would only smell Yan Ciwei’s jasmine fragrance. There was no pain in the process of removing the veil. She didn’t need to speak. Yan Ciwei would say everything she was thinking for her. She only needed to hold Yan Ciwei and look up at her with red, aching eyes.

Yan Ciwei caressed the top of An Chixu’s head.

“Then we can test into the same school.”

She gently caressed the panicked kitten, without mocking her fragility. She understood An Chixu’s fear like a mature older sister, enticing An Chixu step by step to speak her mind and reach a win-win conclusion.

“The same school, the same major. We’ll likely be in the same class then. Even if we aren’t in the same dormitory, we can move out together.” Yan Ciwei looked down at her Tuantuan. Like an older sister, like a mother. She was always the one who guided.

An Chixu was too embarrassed to tell her that she had once described Yan Ciwei as a mother in an essay, saying she was her eternal lighthouse, the glowing fuse.

An Chixu’s eyes crinkled. In her first year of high school, her target school was within the province. She wanted to join that school’s computer science department; she heard the employment prospects were very good. She couldn’t rely on anyone else; she could only search for herself to find out what was better—employment, future development predictions… No one could give her a guaranteed future. Fear and unease were a dull ache, vaguely piercing into An Chixu’s veins, becoming her growing pains.

But now, she no longer needed to worry. She had an older sister who would be weary on her behalf. She only needed to listen to her sister’s words.

“I know our Tuantuan can definitely get in.” Yan Ciwei had always been talking about her target school. She had been teaching An Chixu for over two years. An Chixu’s performance in the last mock exam was similar to hers; there was no reason she wouldn’t get in.

“If I fail by accident… let’s make a pair of dolls for each other.” The tense kitten breathed a sigh of relief, subconsciously becoming pessimistic. Yan Ciwei had led her from the lower-middle ranks to the upper-middle. Her highest rank was tenth in the grade. But she knew that in her bones, she was still that cowardly, confused, and pitiful person; she had to prepare for the worst in everything.

Yan Ciwei’s expression twitched for a moment; she wouldn’t give An Chixu even a “what if” possibility of failure.

“…What kind?” She ultimately restrained her temper. With An Chixu, “gentle” was her persona; it couldn’t break.

“Like you and me.” An Chixu reached out to trace shapes in Yan Ciwei’s palm. “Otherwise, I’ll miss you very much.” If she left Yan Ciwei, she feared she would never meet such a good person in this lifetime.

Seventeen-year-old An Chixu looked at her hazy sweetheart, her eyes filled with the innocent brightness of youth.

“I miss you so much…”

The night was heavy. Yan Ciwei gasped for air by the bed, clear tears hanging from the corners of her eyes; her longing was about to turn into frost. An unusual object in her pocket was bothering her, preventing her from even completing a single thought of longing.

She pulled it out. It was the cloth doll she had been stabbing during the day. And An Chixu had seen it. So embarrassing.

Yan Ciwei raised her hand and ripped the head off the doll. After staring at it coldly for three seconds, she threw it into the trash can.

In the trash can, besides paper, lay an identical doll—battered, pierced through by a knife, its cotton stuffing leaking all over the place. The workmanship was crude, obviously a mass-produced item, completely different from the one in An Chixu’s hand.

But the features were distinct. They had ebony hair, slightly curled and long, scattered in a mess. There was a conspicuous red mole at the corner of the eye—the place that should be caressed most, yet was also the most hated; it had been pierced by a knife so many times that its old appearance was unrecognizable. Further down was the short, thick body of a cotton doll, and the only place that didn’t look like anyone was specially embroidered with two red moles.

This was a cloth doll Yan Ciwei had made in her own image.

The one that just “died” was already the 98th. In the days since separating from An Chixu, Yan Ciwei had killed herself for the 98th time. Carrying blood, tears, sweat, and absolute misery. Still, she had not received her lover’s kiss.

Yan Ciwei ripped out her IV needle, turned off the light, and collapsed onto her desk, letting the fever wrap around her as she drifted into a stupor. The phone screen left on her nightstand flickered.

“Miss, why haven’t you replied? Has work been too busy these past few days?”

An Chixu was full of questions when she received the message from Pei Yuxi. She opened Pei Yuxi’s alternate account and didn’t see any messages. However, the videos she had sent over the past few days had received no response.

An Chixu took a screenshot of the chat box and sent it over. Then she received a screenshot from Pei Yuxi. Both of them left a string of question marks in the main chat box.

“Maybe the messages were swallowed.” An Chixu didn’t think much of it. This sort of thing happened; she had had many messages swallowed before. However, in the past, the only person she messaged would be holding her, listening to her speak in person. Now that messages were swallowed, if they didn’t cross-check, they wouldn’t find out at all.

“True. Are you free these next two days? I want to spend a final few days with Orange ><“

Pei Yuxi wanted to rescue her kitten from this “fake cat slave”! How could there be such a cold cat slave who didn’t even understand a cat’s purring? Pei Yuxi was grumbling on the other side of the screen.

An Chixu couldn’t hear her inner thoughts, and she didn’t know how many passive jokes she had caused while forwarding messages. Seeing Pei Yuxi’s eagerness to see the cat, she naturally agreed.

“I’m free this afternoon, you can come pick her up. I can charge by the day for this month.” An Chixu even agreed to take less money.

Pei Yuxi felt a little moved and silently updated her impression of An Chixu. Although she didn’t know how to take care of cats, she seemed like a decent person. In the future, she could reluctantly lend Orange to her for a two-minute pet.

At the end of the workday, An Chixu left under Shen Jibai’s hesitant gaze. After she left, Shen Jibai stood in place looking a bit lost, her hair appearing like it had been caught in the rain, scattered into individual strands.

“Time to rehearse, Jibai.” At her teammate’s call, Shen Jibai had no choice but to turn back and walk away. She gripped her phone tightly, having made a decision.

It was the weekend again. Shen Jibai had sent an invitation for a meal.

An Chixu had sent Orange away on Friday. Right now, she was alone, looking at the cat tree and missing the cat, reluctantly opening her chat with Shen Jibai.

That video of Shen Jibai had indeed gone viral. Her manager saw her potential and had arranged many more activities for her recently. Shen Jibai credited this to An Chixu and wanted to treat her to a meal as a reward.

An Chixu shouldn’t have been meeting privately with the idol she managed. Moreover, An Chixu suspected Shen Jibai had something to say. But it was hard to refuse; Shen Jibai had asked many times. If she didn’t agree soon, this girl would become too famous, and they truly wouldn’t be able to have a meal together.

An Chixu arrived on time at the private room Shen Jibai had booked. Five minutes after she closed the door, Yan Ciwei arrived at the location and looked at the room number.

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