Chapter 42: Lipstick

That summer, the cicadas chirped as if they were going to boil the whole world.
“Hey, Xiaolan, can you please walk faster?”
Lin Xiaomei, holding a saltwater popsicle that was about to melt in her mouth, turned back impatiently and urged.
The hem of her school uniform shirt was tied loosely around her waist, revealing a T-shirt with the band’s name printed on it.
There were a few scratches on her arms that had not healed yet, and she looked like a little wolf ready to fight at any time.
“Here… here…”
Behind her, Wen Xuelan was jogging after her, holding an old schoolbag that had been washed so much that it looked bleached.
Her forehead was covered in sweat, and a few strands of hair stuck to her cheeks, like a wolf cub following its mother.
Their destination was the abandoned riverbank on the edge of the town.
There used to be a small pier here, but now all that remained was a moss-covered concrete platform and a few crooked iron stakes used to tie boats.
“Sit.”
Lin Xiaomei pulled out an old bed sheet with cartoon patterns on it from her schoolbag, skillfully spread it on the relatively clean cement platform, and then sat down on it.
Wen Xuelan followed and sat down beside her carefully.
She put down her schoolbag and took out mercurochrome and a pack of clean cotton swabs.
Lin Xiaomei stretched out her arm, and there was a long, new wound with a blood scab on the back of her hand.
Wen Xuelan pulled her hand over, dipped a cotton swab in red medicine, and carefully helped her treat the wound.
“Hiss… be gentle.”
“You… just bear with it for a moment… are you going to fight with someone again?”
“Those guys are so rude.” Lin Xiaomei curled her lips nonchalantly, “I’ll teach them a lesson for you.”
Wen Xuelan didn’t say anything else, but just lowered her head and helped her apply the medicine more attentively.
This was almost their daily routine during the long, idle summer vacation after graduating from the third year of junior high school.
Lin Xiaomei was the fearless protector, while Wen Xuelan was the dependent who always followed her and was responsible for treating her wounds.
They were two people who were isolated by the whole world, but naturally, they had everything in each other.
“Hey, look at this.”
After Wen Xuelan finished treating the wound, Lin Xiaomei took out something mysteriously from her pocket and shook it in front of her.
It was a crumpled page from a fashion magazine, featuring a model with heavy makeup and a haughty look in her eyes.
“Look at her,” Lin Xiaomei pointed at the model’s bright red lips, her eyes gleaming with desire. “It’s this thing. As long as we have this, we’ll look… different, right?”
Wen Xuelan looked at the photo, feeling a little scared and curious.
“Are we… going to become like that too?”
“Of course!” Lin Xiaomei said matter-of-factly. “Once we get to high school, we can’t be like this anymore. We have to become the most powerful women and never let anyone bully us again.”
So they started a money-saving plan.
They collected all their pocket money, stuffed it into a rusty biscuit tin, and hid it in a tree hole by the river.
But that amount of money was still far from the price of a lipstick.
They started collecting scrap and selling soda bottles, but progress was hopelessly slow.
That day, after they counted the pitiful amount of money in the iron box again, Lin Xiaomei’s patience finally ran out.
She brought Wen Xuelan to the road that led to the Children’s Palace and asked Wen Xuelan to keep watch at the entrance of the alley.
She stepped forward and, with just a few half-true and half-false threats, “borrowed” five dollars from some unlucky guy.
When she proudly took the money and returned to Wen Xuelan, what she saw was Wen Xuelan’s face full of uneasiness and disapproval.
“Xiaomei, we… we can’t do this. Stealing other people’s money… is wrong.”
“No? Then tell me, what is right? Like you, blocked in the alley, not even daring to fart?”
“But…”
“Don’t say but!” Lin Xiaomei interrupted her irritably, “If you think it’s wrong, then don’t use the money! I’ll buy it myself!”
After she finished speaking, she grabbed the iron box and left angrily.
That was their first quarrel.
For the next two days, neither of them went to look for the other.
Wen Xuelan suddenly felt that the abandoned riverbank had become so empty and cold.
It was not until the third day that Lin Xiaomei appeared at Wen Xuelan’s door with a dark face.
Without saying a word, she stuffed a girl’s comic book that Wen Xuelan had stared at for a long time in the bookstore window but had never been willing to buy into Wen Xuelan’s arms.
Then she took out a handful of crumpled banknotes from her pocket.
“…That’s all I have left.” She turned her head away, her voice muffled, “I returned the money to that guy.”
Wen Xuelan looked at the pitiful amount of money on the ground, then looked at Lin Xiaomei’s face that was secretly observing her expression, and her eyes suddenly turned red.
She squatted down, picked up the banknotes one by one, and smoothed them out carefully.
“…Fool.”
After that, although their iron box filled up more slowly, Wen Xuelan would show a relieved smile on her face every time a coin was put in.
Finally, one day at the end of summer vacation, they collected twenty dollars.
Like two spies about to carry out a secret mission, they walked into the small commodity market in the town for the first time, a place they had never dared to set foot in before.
Under the impatient gaze of a wrinkled old woman, Lin Xiaomei carefully selected for a long time like an adult.
Finally, she slapped the twenty yuan on the counter in exchange for a lipstick.
Returning to their riverbank, Lin Xiaomei carefully opened the lipstick.
She squeezed out the cream, which was a gaudy and cheap rose-red.
But they didn’t care.
Lin Xiaomei pinched Wen Xuelan’s cheeks roughly and smeared the lipstick on her lips, drawing a crooked outline.
“Don’t move!”
“Itch…”
Then, they looked at each other’s funny appearance, laughed so hard that they fell backwards on the old bed sheet.
Enough laughing, it was Wen Xuelan’s turn.
She carefully dipped her fingertips into the rose-red paste and gently applied it on Lin Xiaomei’s lips.
“Xiaomei,” she looked at her and asked softly, “Will we… really be together forever?”
“Nonsense.” Lin Xiaomei looked at her and suddenly became serious.
She looked at the sparkling river and stretched out her little finger.
“We’ve agreed. From now on, only the two of us can come to this place.”
Wen Xuelan nodded heavily: “Yes!”
“Even after we go to high school, we will always be together.”
The setting sun made their shadows very long.
They made a pinky promise, with silly yet happy smiles on their faces.
There was still a crooked red mark on Wen Xuelan’s lips.
That was their agreement to “become adults.”

A hard object with a plastic texture touched her lips.
The reality was a dark, damp forest that smelled of decay.
Wen Xuelan was pressed tightly against a rough tree trunk by two tall girls, her face covered with sticky filth splashed by slop.
Pressing against her lips was the muzzle of the water gun, which was still dripping with disgusting liquid.
Lin Xiaomei looked at Wen Xuelan’s dazed face.
She threw the water gun to the ground.
Then, she slowly took out another thing from her pocket.
It was that lipstick.
She unscrewed the lipstick that carried all their promises.
“Xiaolan, let’s fulfill… our final promise.”