Chapter Two: The ATM Girl
Cheng Yin pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the high-speed train, her eyelids heavy but unable to fall asleep.
The bruises on his knees were still throbbing, and the ointment Xu Chen had applied had a faint medicinal smell.
Her phone vibrated. It was an email from the company's HR, asking why she hadn't come to work today.
Cheng Yin replied briefly, "Sudden emergency, I have applied for time off," and then opened a document named "C" in her phone's notes app.
"August 13, 2023: KTV expenses 5,000 yuan, fruit platter and drinks 980 yuan, round-trip high-speed rail 536 yuan, ointment (bought by Xu Chen) 0 yuan."
Her fingertip paused on the screen for a moment, then she added: "Knee bruise (expected to heal in a week), none."
The train entered the tunnel, and darkness suddenly engulfed the carriage. Under the cold light of her phone, Cheng Yin saw a line of red text at the bottom of her memo:
Total expenditure: RMB 247,836 (as of August 13, 2023)
Two hundred and forty thousand is enough for a down payment on a small apartment or a decent car.
Most of her college classmates used their savings to do these things, while her money went to Xu Chen and his girlfriends, to KTVs and casinos, and to those late-night transfers that would never be repaid.
Cheng Yin locked her phone and pressed her forehead against the car window again.
"Go to the convenience store across the street and buy a box of Okamoto cigarettes." Xu Chen, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, stuffed the change into her school uniform pocket. "The rest is your errand fee."
The girl giggled and looked Cheng Yin up and down: "What the hell?"
"It's my dog." Xu Chen pinched the girl's waist. "Want to see it catch a frisbee?"
When Cheng Yin returned with the condoms, the two men were gone. She placed the condoms on top of the fire hydrant Xu Chen had specified, as if completing a sacred ritual.
"You shameless slut!" My aunt's curses still echo in my ears. "Just like your mother, you're so young and you're already trying to seduce men for money!"
She blinked her sore eyes and continued flipping through the memo.
One record from April 2018 stands out:
"The abortion cost was 3,000 yuan (surname Li?), and there was no receipt."
That time, Xu Chen called in the middle of the night, and there was a girl crying in the background. He said succinctly, "I need money for an abortion. Send me three thousand." Cheng Yin didn't even ask who it was, just as she never asked him why he needed that money.
The bank transfer record the next day showed that the recipient's surname was Li, but she still doesn't know which of Xu Chen's girlfriends she was at the time.
The train burst out of the tunnel, and sunlight flooded into the carriages like a tide.
Cheng Yin squinted subconsciously, her fingers tracing the edge of her phone. She knew many people would call her cheap, like her aunt, Xu Chen's girlfriends, and the men and women laughing in the karaoke room.
But they didn't understand that this wasn't love, or even Stockholm syndrome.
This was merely a protracted act of gratitude, a morbid habit she couldn't break on her own.
Every month on the 5th, three thousand yuan would be deposited into my aunt's account on time, with the note always saying "living expenses". As for Xu Chen, she gave more and more frequently, but didn't even need a name for it.
She recalled the only time Xu Chen had tried to sever this relationship since he became an adult.
That was the year she graduated from university. Xu Chen cornered her at the door of her rented apartment, his eyes filled with a murderous glint. "If you follow me again, I'll have you gang-raped." He grabbed her chin, his thumb roughly grazing her lips. "I mean what I say."
Cheng Yin simply looked at him calmly and said, "Do you need money? I just got paid."
Xu Chen shoved her away abruptly, and the back of her head hit the wall with a dull thud. He turned and walked away quickly, his back view radiating anger.
Two weeks later, Cheng Yin found him drunk at a bar, dragged him home, cleaned up his vomit, and stuffed two thousand yuan into his wallet.
My phone vibrated again. It was a voice message from Xu Chen, with background noise mixed with Cantonese broadcasts.
Cheng Yin held the receiver close to her ear. "I received the money." Xu Chen's voice was hoarse from a hangover. "Don't fucking transfer it anymore, it's annoying."
When the audio played a second time automatically, Cheng Yin noticed a female voice calling "Brother Chen" in the background.
She put down her phone, opened her notes app, and added to the latest entry: "August 14: 5,000 yuan remitted from Macau."
The train began to slow down, and Cheng Yin packed her backpack.
The bruises on her knees caused sharp pain when she stood, but she had gotten used to this level of pain.
As she exited the station, she passed a pharmacy, its glass window displaying various birth control pills and pregnancy tests. Cheng Yin's steps didn't falter, just as she had been numb and practiced in the face of Xu Chen's every demand over the years.
Back home, Cheng Yin threw her clothes into the washing machine and took a hot shower.
What did Xu Chen say back then?
"Serves you right." He glanced at the bloodstains seeping through her school uniform. "Who told you you couldn't fight?"
The washing machine beeped, and Cheng Yin dried herself off and changed into clean pajamas.
She made herself a cup of instant coffee and opened her laptop to handle work emails.
Outside the window, dusk gradually enveloped the city. Cheng Yin's coffee had gone cold, but she still finished it sip by sip.
People are often unable to abandon obviously wrong choices because they have already invested too much.
Cheng Yin shut down her computer, went to the balcony, and lit a cigarette.
The night breeze dispersed the smoke. She stubbed out her cigarette, went back inside, and neatly hung the clothes she would wear the next day behind the door.
This is a morbid balance between them, a twisted bond destined from the age of seventeen.
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