Chapter 52: Little White Pear Smokes

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Chapter 52: Little Bai Li Smokes

In the end,

Bai Li left.

She left with the five thousand yuan she had earned and her new schoolbag.

Mrs. Hu pointed at her and said, “If you’re so capable, then don’t ever come back for the rest of your life.”

Bai Li did not argue. She stubbornly made her way downstairs, and only after taking a deep breath did she open the ticket-booking app.

She had originally intended to go to Beicheng.

Yet when she entered her destination, she instinctively selected Lingjiang instead.

By the time she came to her senses and was about to change it, she hesitated.

A selfish thought crossed her mind:

There was still a month before school started. Why not go and take a look?

Wherever she made money, it was still money.

Whether Fang Ye was there or not, Lingjiang was at least a place she knew and loved.

…

The high-speed train was cheaper than a plane ticket, so Bai Li resolutely chose to take the train.

It was the same familiar train number. She found her seat, sat down, and closed her eyes to rest for a long while. She was so exhausted that she did not even have time to grieve.

Seven hours passed slowly.

By the time she arrived in Lingjiang, it was already completely dark.

The early-summer rains in Lingjiang seemed endless. It was a city of ceaseless drizzle, just as it had been when she came the year before. The rain fell with unrestrained force.

When Bai Li stepped out of the high-speed rail station and looked at the city lights, her breathing grew somewhat hurried.

Once again inhaling that moist air, she was suddenly overwhelmed by the reality of having truly escaped from home.

Deep tear tracks ran down her cheeks beneath her mask.

She was free.

This time, perhaps she was truly free.

She stood there in a daze for a long while.

Only then did she manage to pull herself back to reality and use her phone to book a cheap hotel.

Her arrival had been too sudden. She did not know whether Fang Ye was home. She had considered contacting him, but was afraid of causing him trouble.

After hesitating again and again, Bai Li still chose not to disturb him in the middle of the night. She merely planned to sneak over and take a look.

Because of that absurd, uncanny dream, she had to see it for herself and put her heart at ease.

A line of taxis waited in the distance.

Bai Li straightened her back, braved the downpour, and climbed into the nearest car. After giving the driver the address of the little house, she watched the scenery slide past outside the window.

The driver was a local, with smoke-stained teeth and a thick regional accent. When he heard that she wanted to go to the old town, his tone became complicated.

“Hey—you’re a student from out of town, aren’t you? What are you going there for? That whole area’s been contracted out. It’s been demolished into a complete mess, nothing but filthy rubble.”

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“...Demolished?”

Bai Li’s breathing stopped instantly. Outside, the rain pounded furiously against the car window, while the stuffy warmth inside gradually grew colder.

“Demolished. It happened ages ago. Isn’t that area supposed to become a commercial street? Some big businessman wants to build a luxury hotel there.”

As she listened to the driver, Bai Li stared blankly at the curtain of rain outside.

The terrifying suspicion had been partially confirmed.

Her teeth clenched tightly together, and a shuddering sense of dread rose from the depths of her heart.

Because in the dream...

It had been the same.

The little house had been torn down, and Fang Ye had held an urn with red-rimmed eyes.

Could such a dream actually be real?

Then was the urn real too? And whose ashes did it contain?

A thought crawled up the back of her mind like a demon.

If that really was the case...

After going through something so devastating...

How had Fang Ye managed it?

How had he been able to come and celebrate the end of her college entrance examinations with her, then escort her home without betraying the slightest change in expression?

How had he managed, when she asked him about it, to refuse to mention a single word?

Bai Li felt as though something were pressing down on her chest. Her blood roiled, and she was on the verge of suffocating.

Yes.

Fang Ye had always cared for her deeply...

He had kept silent because he was afraid she would worry and that it would affect her examinations.

In the silence, the driver kindly asked another question.

“Do you want to go somewhere else instead?”

Bai Li’s fingers trembled as they tightened around the pear plush toy. Her voice was thick with tears.

“No. Take me there.”

Even if the place had been demolished, she still wanted to see it with her own eyes.

…

The car stopped outside the construction site.

Holding an umbrella, Bai Li stood in the downpour. The once-simple and beautiful old city had been enclosed by corrugated metal fencing. Through the gaps, she could vaguely make out where the little house had stood—but all that remained was a heap of bricks and stones that had yet to be cleared away.

The little house she had missed for nearly a year had become a ruin, perfectly overlapping with the scene from her dream.

She stiffly tried to walk closer for another look. But the moment her hand touched the fence, a worker on patrol stopped her.

“What are you doing? It’s dangerous here. Move along, move along!”

Fear closed in from every direction.

Bai Li stared wide-eyed and stubbornly continued looking inside, only to be helplessly driven away.

Her mind was filled with the same question: What exactly had happened back then?

For one fleeting moment, she even desperately wanted to call Fang Ye and ask whether he had been in pain.

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…

The rainy night grew colder and more desolate.

A narrow lane beside the construction site led directly to the bar district.

It was the busiest time of night. Although the rain had reduced the number of people on the streets, the bars had still drawn in a crowd of customers seeking shelter from the downpour.

There were few pedestrians along the main road. Bai Li walked along the far-right side in a daze.

The cold rain fell onto the stone pavement and splashed against the hem of her skirt.

Suddenly, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

Bai Li instinctively took a step back before turning her head toward the source of the touch.

Standing behind her was the waiter who had once taken her to Lingjiang No. 1 High School to look for Fang Ye. He held an umbrella and wore a black uniform. In an exaggerated tone, he exclaimed, “It really is you!”

Bai Li nodded. She tried to force a polite smile, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not manage it.

The waiter noticed that something was wrong as well. After a brief pause, he asked, “What happened? You’re unhappy?”

Bai Li lowered her eyes and answered honestly, “A little.”

How could she be happy after suddenly learning something like this?

“Hey, don’t be unhappy. Why don’t you come to our bar and have a few drinks?” The waiter was a young man himself and had no idea how to comfort a girl. He could only treat her the way he would console a male friend.

“No, thank you.” Bai Li shook her head. “I’ll walk around by myself and go back later.”

The waiter frowned and scratched his head anxiously. Then he pulled a cigarette from his pack and held it out to Bai Li.

“Here, play with this. When I’m unhappy, I smoke, and it makes me feel a lot better. But don’t actually smoke it. Just hold it under your nose and take a sniff. Maybe it’ll help.”

Before he could say anything more, someone called him away.

Bai Li only had time to take the cigarette.

Amid the light drizzle, a kindhearted customer stepped out of the bar for some fresh air. Seeing that Bai Li had a cigarette but no lighter, he pressed one into her hand as well.

Bai Li tried to refuse, but to no avail. After walking until she was tired, she crouched down by the roadside to rest.

Her finger unconsciously pressed the lighter’s switch. A flame sprang up at once, wavering in the wind and driving away a trace of the chill.

As if possessed, she held the cigarette to the flame.

A faint breeze suddenly brushed past her ear.

Before her eyes appeared a long, slender, fair hand, marked by a pale, winding scar. It closed around the cigarette.

Bai Li’s heartbeat stopped for one second.

A cool, distant voice sounded above her head, carrying a faint note of displeasure.

“Bai Li, are you learning bad habits now?”