"What to do When the Pretty Woman I Kissed is My Best Friend's Professor" - Chapter 2

The stirring music swelled. The heroine on the stage spun and soared, but at the music’s peak, she fell, dying in the hero’s arms.

“My God! Please save her!”

“…She is dead.”① Pale lighting shone upon the deceased character. As the curtain fell, Yan He felt her heart tighten, as if bound tightly by a sexless chain, unable to move. She trembled all over, tears welling in her eyes, the veins on her hands bulging. Finding courage from an unknown source, she suddenly wanted to ask the woman beside her a question.

But stolen courage could only fuel momentary recklessness. She ultimately didn’t dare to ask. Her chest throbbed dullly from her own cowardice. Yan He knew she didn’t have the nerve to speak first.

“A wonderful opera.” When they stood up to leave, the woman smiled and said this to Yan He.

Yan He could see the ecru turtleneck wool sweater beneath the woman’s gray overcoat, which enveloped the woman’s slender waist and beautiful bust. The garment was completely modest, yet Yan He’s ears flushed crimson. She wanted to say something to agree with the woman, like chatting with an old friend, but she could only respond mechanically and stiffly: “Yes, a wonderful opera.”

The woman smiled. Yan He noticed she liked to smile. When she smiled, her eyes curved, and her demeanor was gentle. “A love story.” She paused, seemingly feeling her previous wording was too broad, so she added an adjective to describe this tragic romance: “A poignant love story.”

Yan He nodded, feeling a bitterness on her tongue. Her brain completely failed to function in the face of the woman’s smile, so she could only respond mechanically again: “Yes.”

The woman smiled at her one last time and said, “Goodbye.” As she walked away, Yan He noticed a delicate wristwatch on her left wrist and saw her hair briefly lift, creating a captivating curve. Following that, the lingering fragrance also dissipated, and Yan He leaned back in her seat, lost in thought.

Amidst the bustling crowd, the woman’s back seemed to glow. Yan He’s eyes automatically focused on her receding figure, hoping to see more through that slender back, but she soon realized it was futile.

“So you chatted with the pretty older sister?” Li Xiuxi’s words interrupted Yan He’s reverie. She also stood up. The people around them had mostly left, and the theatre was nearly empty.

Yan He gave a faint smile. Only after smiling did she realize that her expression resembled the woman’s somewhat. Did it? But also, no. A smile is always humanity’s best shield for perfunctoriness and concealment, regardless of the situation.

“Let’s go.” Li Xiuxi looked around, then checked the time. “We should get our luggage and leave, or we’ll miss the train to the airport.”

Yan He stood up, pulled her coat around herself, and watched the woman’s back merge into the crowd, then disappear, like a drop of water that never truly belonged to her dissolving into the ocean. She briefly possessed the drop, but ultimately, she had returned it to the sea.

They had a flight to Vienna tonight. The price of a red-eye flight was always so low it made people overlook the discomfort. Yan He wasn’t sitting next to her friend. She sat by the window, the night view outside being the same as the one she saw when she first arrived in this city. Seen from an airplane, the late-night ground lights seemed identical in every city.

This hour should have been Yan He’s sleeping time, but she wasn’t the least bit sleepy. The woman she saw at the opera house earlier made her heart tremble. She was split into two parts: emotionally, she felt she must have met her somewhere before, but her rational mind sharply told her that this was just her wishful thinking—she would never see that lady again.

This excessively rational realization made Yan He’s heart ache. She took a deep breath, lowering her gaze, trying to suppress the feelings that shouldn’t have arisen in her heart.

The German grandmother sitting next to her, noticing her state, softly asked in German, “Are you alright?” Seeing the look of confusion on Yan He’s face, she smiled gently and repeated her question in English.

Yan He offered an apologetic smile and replied in English: “Thank you! I’m fine!”

The German grandmother smiled kindly at her, then quietly began to tell her in English the reason for her trip to Vienna. Her children were all in Vienna, and Austria was also a German-speaking country…

“Are you Chinese, child?” The German grandmother’s eyes were a little clouded, but when she asked this question, Yan He felt a sense of familiarity. She vaguely thought, Perhaps this is how the kindness of the elderly towards the young is throughout the world.

Yan He replied: “Yes, I am here to study.”

The German grandmother smiled, finally saying in Italian, “Ti auguro tutto il meglio (I wish you all the best).”

The plane taxied and took off. Looking out at the airport through the window, Yan He was startled to realize that whether in Rome or Beijing, the view of the airport from high above was almost the same.

She suddenly had the feeling that she was already home.

After a little over an hour of flight, the plane arrived at Vienna International Airport—from the air, the difference between Vienna and Rome wasn’t truly noticeable.

Yan He waited by the elevator at the gate for Li Xiuxi, pulling her carry-on suitcase. Several groups of people passed by. She was starting to get sleepy. After carelessly running her fingers through her messy, sleep-tousled hair, Li Xiuxi finally sauntered over.

Li Xiuxi quickly walked over, smiled, and said “Thank you” to the flight attendant standing by the cabin door. She looked up and saw Yan He. She pointed at Yan He’s bird’s nest hair and laughed for a long time, then pulled her suitcase and walked out with her.

“Let’s go! Time for a drink?”

Yan He looked at her with the expression one reserves for lunatics, pointing at the LED clock on the wall: “Now? It’s 12:30 AM Austrian time?”

Li Xiuxi was completely justified: “Old Zhou is waiting outside the airport! We’re going to have a drink with a few of our classmates! If we don’t drink tonight, we won’t have time! We have to be back at the airport tonight!”

Yan He thought she was overly energetic and said weakly, “I need to go back to the hotel to sleep… I’m too tired…”

An hour later, Yan He sat expressionlessly by the bar counter in the hotel’s downstairs bar, watching the men and women gyrating nearby.

“Perhaps you need a drink?” the bartender smiled and asked her.

Yan He threw up her hands and smiled helplessly: “Yes, I need a refresher—at least something to keep me from being this sleepy.”

In reality, what she most needed was the courage to go back to sleep right now. She glanced down at the time, deciding to sit for ten more minutes before telling Li Xiuxi and the others she was going back to sleep.

“I know just the thing!” the young bartender snapped his fingers, skillfully mixing a drink. Finally, he clapped his hands over a few mint leaves and placed a cocktail next to Yan He.

“Mojito,” the young bartender said with a slight Spanish accent. He winked at Yan He: “I put a lot of mint in it. Maybe it will help you—wake up a bit.”

Yan He instinctively rubbed her hair again, pulled her wallet out of her pocket, but was stopped: “This one’s on me.” He winked at Yan He again.

Yan He was stunned, gratefully saying, “Thank you.”

The soda water and rum mixed together had significantly reduced the alcohol taste. Yan He took a sip and immediately tasted a strong burst of mint—it shot straight to her head.

Too mind-clearing, too mind-clearing! Yan He felt she could stay awake until tomorrow morning.

Time passed unknowingly, and the glass in front of her was half empty. Yan He’s tolerance for alcohol was good, but she vaguely thought she heard Chinese dialogue besides her friends.

—Is it because I’m too tired? Or am I drunk? Why do I think I just saw that familiar gray overcoat?

That patch of gray was in a corner of the bar, only a sliver of the hem was visible, but Yan He knew she hadn’t mistaken that familiar gray—she didn’t know if that person was the woman from before, but her heart pounded wildly. Yan He knew that if she didn’t go and see, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

At this moment, she couldn’t even hear the clamor of the bar, her eyes fixed on that piece of cloth.

How should I go and look? How should I start a conversation? What should I say so I don’t seem too abrupt?

She could hear her own rapid breathing, feel the hot blood surging from her heart and spreading throughout her body. The whole world seemed to be reduced to just her and the woman in the gray coat. In the dim light, the world felt like it was collapsing on all sides, every path disintegrating, except for one—the only path between her and the woman still existed.

Yan He felt dizzy, thinking, One wrong step, and it’s an abyss, isn’t it? If the ground between them wasn’t a normal bar floor but a sea of lava, she would still be willing to cross it.

But—how strange—even if it were lava, she would be willing to wade through it, yet this short, ordinary distance felt like an insurmountable chasm. Her feet were rooted in lead, and she couldn’t walk across.

She hesitated—and just as she hesitated, she seemed to hear the woman’s laughter. Following that, she saw the woman stand up and walk toward her.