I changed into a black dress. She changed into a light pink dress.
I stood before the full-length mirror. The floating interface lit up. The livestream camera started on its own.
"Darlings, this girl here is at the Cloudtop Restaurant." I panned the camera slowly across the outline of the city outside the window.
[chat] Daughter is so beautiful today ✨
[chat] Sister is so cute ❤️
[chat] Who's that guy
[chat] I want to try that rice-paper bill too 😆
"Zhao Dayong is already waiting downstairs." Tsukago picked up her light pink chain-strap bag. "This girl's first time wearing a dress out the door."
The elevator descended. In the lobby, Zhao Dayong stood beside the revolving door. Dark blue shirt, laptop bag slung over his shoulder, the strap pressing a few fine creases into his shirt.
"Little misses."
The Cloudtop Restaurant's floor-to-ceiling windows covered an entire wall. Modu's skyline spread out below us. Zhao Dayong sat down, the chair leg scraping the carpet. He set his laptop bag by his feet.
I handed him the menu. He opened it. His eyes stopped on the price column. His hand pulled back. I took the menu from him and closed it.
Tsukago leaned sideways. "You can turn back anytime. If something feels off, tell this girl here. This girl here will stop."
Zhao Dayong's lips moved.
I met his eyes. "From now on, listen to me. I'll make you forget every trouble."
"I've thought it through. I don't want to live without money anymore."
I slid a glass of champagne toward him. "Then that's enough. This girl here is Jiecheng Hanzi."
"This girl here is Jiecheng Tsukago. She's the older sister. This girl here is the younger sister."
"Zhao Dayong." He said his own name, then fell silent. After a few seconds, he nodded.
Tsukago took the squirrel out of her light pink bag and set it on the corner of the table, facing him. "This girl here knows you introduced yourself before. But today is different. Today you said yes to us. So this is the first time you've said your name with a new identity. Lychee doesn't make choices, because it doesn't need to. But you do."
Zhao Dayong looked down at the squirrel's black bean eyes. His lips moved. He didn't speak.
Tsukago turned the squirrel to face herself. She spoke in the squirrel's voice. "Lychee says it remembers. Last time you said your name. This time you said a promise."
Zhao Dayong lifted his glass and took a big gulp. He choked. He set the glass down. "You'll really take care of me."
"Of course. You won't have to worry about anything from now on."
The server brought the first course. A white porcelain plate. At its center sat a translucent sphere, with a small mound of ginger-yellow powder beside it.
"Steamed crab roe dumpling. The skin is made from seaweed gelatin. The filling is crab roe consommé. Bite it whole."
Zhao Dayong went at it with his chopsticks. The sphere rolled half a circle on the plate. He changed angles and tried again. The sphere deformed under the chopstick tips. He got it into his mouth and bit down. His eyes went wide. "The skin is cold. The filling is hot. It's like eating a raindrop with a soup dumpling inside."
"Like what." Tsukago tilted her head.
"Like a soup dumpling. But the skin is cold and the filling is hot. Like eating a raindrop with a soup dumpling inside."
——The taste inside the shell—no one knows what it is until they bite through. But once they bite through, there's no going back.
Tsukago's hand jerked. She knocked over a whole dish of ginger-vinegar sauce spiked with super-spicy mustard. It splashed onto Zhao Dayong's cuff and wrist. She hurriedly handed him a napkin.
"Oh dear, this girl here was just so happy you said yes to Sister. The hand slipped. See, even the dipping sauce got excited and jumped. Faster than your heartbeat, right?"
Zhao Dayong looked down at the vinegar stain on his cuff, then at the napkin Tsukago was holding out. He took it and pressed it twice against his cuff.
"Faster than my heartbeat. The heartbeat I can stand. This I can't." He rolled his cuff up another fold.
The liquid-nitrogen foie gras arrived shrouded in white mist. The ice shell cracked, and the liver flavor seeped upward slowly. He bit into the caramel lollipop. Sweet came first, then salty, then sweet again.
The Longjing-smoked salmon arrived. He lifted a slice. "Like drinking tea, but when you bite down it's fish. The smoke hits first."
The last course was the rice-paper bill. Zhao Dayong bit off a small piece from the edge. The rice paper dissolved between his teeth. "It tastes like paper. Then after you swallow it, it's sweet."
He swallowed. His gaze settled on the empty plate. "Before tonight, I thought my life would stay underwater forever. Now it feels like I've surfaced. Just a little."
Tsukago set the squirrel back down in front of Zhao Dayong. "Lychee says surfacing is good. Once you surface, you can see the shore. Lychee won't sink, because it's fake. But you surfaced for real."
[chat] ????
[chat] Black card
[chat] Is that a black card 😱
[chat] The kind with no limit???
Zhao Dayong looked at the squirrel. "But I don't know where the shore is."
"You don't need to know. Just follow."
He was silent for a few seconds. He lifted his head. "Those dishes. Every one of them you had to put the whole thing in your mouth, and once you bit through, the taste was different. Why."
"The real flavor isn't on the surface. It's inside the shell. If you never bite through, you never know what's inside. Once you bite through, you can never go back."
Zhao Dayong looked at his hands. He pulled them back from the edge of the table.
The server approached and set the bill folder at the corner of the table. I retrieved a black card from the Lingguang Armlet. Silver edges lined its border. The server took the card and inserted it into the terminal. The screen lit up once and went dark. He returned the card to me with both hands.
I put the card back into the Lingguang Armlet. Zhao Dayong's eyes followed it until it vanished into the cold light.
Tsukago put the squirrel back into her light pink bag. I stood.
"Darlings, this girl here is signing off for today."
[chat] Bye, daughter
[chat] When's the next stream 😢
[chat] Waiting for you to come back 👏
The elevator descended. Beyond the car, the city sprawled out. The office-building cubicles slid slowly past the window.
Zhao Dayong stood in the corner, looking down at his laptop bag. That faded keychain on the zipper hung still and quiet. The car was silent except for the faint hum of its movement.