Short, Light, Free

I caught a glimpse of Xiaoqiao and had long lost the mood to continue with the film.

I turned the time back to eight years ago.

I texted Jiajia. He should be off from school by now.

“Jiajia, I’m facing a love crisis.”

I’d thought that he would’ve taken a long time to respond, but within seconds, my phone lit up from his reply.

“You haven’t contacted me in a while.”

I looked at the date. I’ve been too busy chatting with Xiaoqiao to realize that half a year had already passed in the real world and the world from eight years ago.

“Been busy with school.”

“Busy, but not busy enough that you found the time for love? And falling into a crisis at that. I’m going to your school to lodge a report.”

It was then that I recalled that Jiajia was still a junior high schooler.

“Jiajia, if Ultraman loses his voice-changing device and you happen to find it, would you return it to him?” I tried changing the context.

“Dang! Am I a kid? What Ultraman and voice-changing device…”

I couldn’t help but laugh as I read his reply. It was childish indeed. I stared at my phone screen, thinking of a response.

Another message came in. “Will I be able to transform if I use that voice-changing device?”

I was stunned.

Transformation…

I applied this thought back to the current context.

I clasped my phone tightly.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll transform, have all the fun that I want, and when I get sick of it, I’ll return it to him”

All the fun…

Get sick of it…

I started getting antsy.

I must be overthinking.

We were talking about Ultraman and transformation device, not anything indecent.

Before I could return his text, a slender, lily-white hand swept past my eyes and took my phone away from me.

“Eh? I haven’t seen this mobile.”

“Oh, this is an old phone that I use as a spare so I have a separate phone for work and my personal use.”

I didn’t rush to take the phone back to avoid suspicions.

“Who is this is? Why are you guys talking about Ultraman?”

“Oh. He’s a distant relative. My nephew. He’s young so I can only talk about animated films with him.”

Xiaoqiao clicked on the home screen but there was nothing much on there.

Unable to spot anything out of the ordinary, she returned it to me. “That is childish.”

I was relieved. It was fortunate that she hadn’t scrolled through the conversation between Jiajia and me.

“This film is surprisingly lame,” she complained.

I sent her home and I contemplated what Jiajia had said.

Returning after getting sick of it? A kid is a kid.

It was something that hadn’t crossed my mind.

Should I carry on pretending that this guy doesn’t exist?

Or should I tell her the truth and let her make a decision?

I was in a dilemma.

Wait, wait.

Why don’t I ask her directly?

Of course, I wasn’t thinking about the present Xiaoqiao but the one in the future.

I took out my psychic phone and fast forwarded the time to twenty-five years.

I’d planned for a fifteen years leap but my finger slipped.

So be it.

I was in the year 2016 and the phone had been adjusted to the year 2041.

Won’t everything be settled if I just ask if she’s my wife?

“You there, Xiaoqiao?”

Ten minutes…

Twenty minutes…

“Yes. You are?”

Oh my god!

I quivered in nervousness. Wait. Perhaps I never used this number to talk to her.

I didn’t dare to tell her my name. My chest was aching. “I’m your old friend. Are you married?”

“No. Now’s not the time.”

Not the time?

“Are you still in touch with Lu Qiao?”

“Yes. Who are you exactly?”

I turned the time back, unable to continue conversing with her any longer.

25 years later and she was still not married.

I stared at my phone screen grudgingly.

Not married. Not the right time.

Then why was she in a relationship with me?

To kill time? Can’t find the guts to reject me?

At this point, that man came to mind.

I turned the time back to present day and sent him a message with this number.

“I’ve heard about your story. Why couldn’t you just give her a text while you were serving in the army?”

A long while later, a response came.

“You know her?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Zhou Yu. The nature of my job doesn’t allow me to contact family members and friends. I didn’t wish for things to turn out this way. I’d finally managed to transfer to another department but happened.”

I pondered over his words.

“You really like her?”

“Yeah.”

It felt as though I was offering my last piece of candy to a child that I disliked.

“I can help you woo her back.”

I regretted it almost instantly but the text was already delivered.

“Really? That’s great.”

I asked Xiaoqiao out to a nearby cafe that very weekend.

I thought about what I was going to say but nothing seemed right.

At the scheduled time, Xiaoqiao appeared wearing a floral maxi dress. Her lipstick was fresh red in color. She must have spent a lot of effort on her make-up.

I smiled and waved to get her attention.

We sat across each other and started chatting.

The waitress appeared and Xiaoqiao ordered her usual caramel macchiato.

I asked for an espresso.

As if sensing something amiss, she asked, ” Why are you drinking something so bitter today?”

“Nothing, just tired.”

It was the truth. I hadn’t been sleeping well.

Well, here goes nothing. “Do you know who Zhou Yu is?”

Her face immediately flushed bright red.

“How do you know him?” she asked, eyes wide and unbelieving.

“By chance.”

“He was my childhood friend.”

“You haven’t forgotten him, have you?”

She wordlessly nodded slowly.

The speech I’d prepared earlier vanished in a puff of smoke.

Seeing no point in continuing this relationship, I lowered my head and forced out, “Let’s break up.”

Silence.

“Wait, how do you know him? He’s been dead for half a year now.”

“What?”

A minute of tensed silence.

“It can be a fake death, right? Isn’t he an undercover? This…” I blabbered out of confusion.

“What are you talking about?” She quickly covered my mouth.

“I… I…”

“Hush. Follow me,” she ordered while pulling my hand.

She called the waitress over with surprising calm. “Bill please.”

Thirty kilometers away was Martyr Cemetery.

“Why are we here?”

“You wanted to know if he’s dead or alive.” She stopped before a nameless gravestone.

Upon taking a closer look, I saw the words “Martyr of the Revolution”.

“This is him?” I asked, pointing at the gravestone.

“Yes. He can’t even reveal his name after death.”

After staring at it for a long time, I hummed and hawed, “Is it possible that he’s faking it like in dramas?”

“He left me a voice message that day but I heard it only a week after. When I called over, the receiver was the local civil police. He was already dead by the time I got there. It was said that in an attempt to nab the big boss, he’d been shot six times consecutively. I was the one who took him back, I was the one who pushed his remains into the crematorium, I was the one who carried his ashes in and I was the one who chose this grave site. Now tell me, how would I not know if he’s dead or alive?” Xiaoqiao finished, tears falling down her face.

“I, him. Which phone?” I spoke very incoherently.

“I haven’t asked you. How did you know him? Did you see my profile space? You snooped didn’t you?” she cried out.

I took my phone out and blurted, “It’s this. It allows you to text people from different times. It… I used it to look for Zhou Yu.”

Xiaoqiao stared blankly at the phone screen, which contained Zhou Yu’s number.

She’d long engraved his number in her mind. This was it.

She retrieved a telephone card from her own bag.

It belonged to Zhou Yu and the number on the card matched that on Lu Qiao’s phone.

She stared blankly at the phone as she read the conversation Zhou Yu and I shared the previous night.

She took the mobile device from me.

I had no idea what text did she sent.

I just knew that the receiver responded because I heard the notification ring.

“Is this for real?” she asked, getting ready to make a call.

“Yes, but you won’t be able to get through the line.”

“Can I borrow this for a day? Just one day.”

I nodded.

My love seemed to have ended in this pathetic way.

I went back home. It was Monday the next day.

I should’ve gone to work but I chose to take a leave instead.

At this point, I was even considering if I should resign.

I was feeling so downhearted that I drowned my sorrows in a whole bottle of vodka.

My world turned dark.

I have no idea how long I’ve slept.

I felt hungry the moment I woke up. My head was feeling faint.

Looking down at the phone, I saw that it was 9 pm on a Monday.

I should eat something.

I opened the door and I saw Xiaoqiao sitting against the wall, fast asleep, with her knees propped up and hugged close to her chest.

“What?”

She woke up and smiled at me. “I thought you were outside. Why didn’t you answer the door when I knocked? You reek of alcohol.”

I smiled helplessly. Xiaoqiao looked like an angel.

“I’m hungry, join me for a bite?” I suggested.

She nodded before saying, “After you take a shower.”

It turned out that when she found out that I wasn’t at work earlier, she got hold of my address from the office.

In the restaurant, she returned the phone to me.

“It’s settled.”

“Settled?” I repeated.

“I told him about the phone, and that in this world, he’s already dead. Since the Xiaoqiao in that other world refuses to pick up his calls, I taught him how to woo her back.”

“How to woo you?” I was confused.

“Yes, using your phone. I listed places that he might find me at. and indeed, he did it. Whether or not he manages to fight for her is no longer my business.”

“You’re saying…” I was shocked.

“I love you even though you’re stupid enough to be willing to help him win me back. How can you easily hand over someone you like to someone else?”

“What?Then what about the Lu Qiao in that world? What’s he going to do?” I questioned.

“Ask him yourself,” she smiled.

I looked down at the phone and I stashed it inside my bag.

Half a year later.

We got married.

And I left that phone at home.

Whenever I was free, I would chat with Jiajia.

Yet another half a year later, Xiaoqiao got pregnant.

“I’m going to be a father,” I texted Jiajia.

“Damn. A year ago you were telling me you had a love crisis and now you’re telling me that you knocked her up?”

I burst into laughter.

Later, I found out that Zhou Yu and Xiaoqiao didn’t end up together in that world either.

Many years later, I received a text.

Zhou Yu said Xiaoqiao was pregnant and she had a man beside her named Lu Qiao. He then added that they were a happy couple and he was happy for them.

Epilogue.

Xiaoqiao got pregnant.

Ten months later, a beautiful baby girl arrived in this world.

Xiaoqiao’s father suggested that we each used a character from our name to create a name for her.

Combining my surname with Xiaoqiao’s name, our daughter eventually got the name ‘Lu Luqiao’.

And from that day on, I had two Xiaoqiaos by my side.

Luqiao opted to study in another city when she turned 16.

Unable to let her go, my wife had me hand over the psychic phone to Luqiao.

Luqiao continued using the phone and number even after she started working at age 21.

One day, she sent me a screenshot with a caption attached to it: This is how swindlers cheat people nowadays, Dad. Be wary.”

The screenshot contained a series of text from twenty-five years ago.

“You there, Xiaoqiao?”

“Yes. Who are you?”

“I’m your old friend. Are you married?”

“No. Now’s not the time.”

“Are you still in touch with Lu Qiao?”

“Yes. Who are you exactly?”