Not Just Best Friends

In Jiangshi First Hospital, the wind stirred the curtains in a single room.

Xu Zhitong stared blankly at the “herself” reflected in the mirror.

She had far heavier dark circles than she had back in school; her face was pale and sullen, her expression dull, and a row of ear piercings lined her ear.

Blue hair that grazed her neck made her look strikingly delinquent. Let alone if the dean had seen it—Lin Yang probably would have dragged her by the arm and made it ache.

It wasn’t that Lin Yang was especially strict. It was just that she was on student council duty, standing at the school gate twice a week to check students’ appearance, her high ponytail tied tight and a red armband on her arm.

The famously beautiful ice princess of No. 1 High was cold to everyone. Every student who passed by would obediently glance at her, then down at their school badge, then at her again.

But when Xu Zhitong came walking over with her schoolbag in hand, Lin Yang would secretly smile at her, and as she passed, lightly hook a finger with hers.

Xu Zhitong knew herself well enough. At seventeen, she had indeed been a notorious troublemaker in Class Three, Grade Two at Jiangshi No. 1 High School, but that was only within the class…

With Lin Yang as her best friend, at least she had never been penalized for her appearance and grooming.

Xu Zhitong asked herself honestly: had she pushed herself too hard while studying? Why had she become this rebellious after growing up?

Yes. When she woke up, Xu Zhitong discovered that she had “grown up” by eight years.

Yesterday, she had still been at a café, bent over the table frantically making up the homework she’d fallen behind on during the National Day holiday, while regretting reading one extra novel and playing games for two extra hours the night before.

Before handing her phone to her mother, she had called Lin Yang and made plans to go back to school the next day. After class, they wouldn’t go home for dinner; they’d go eat spicy hot pot together at the back gate.

Yet after one night had passed and she opened her eyes again, Xu Zhitong was lying in an unfamiliar hospital bed, and time had jumped forward eight years.

Her attending physician said that at twenty-five, she had been in a car accident and hit her head. A detailed brain scan had been done, and by every measure it was only a mild concussion.

But for some unknown reason, she had remained unconscious for five days. After waking, she was also found to have suffered memory loss.

To be safe, they could keep her under observation for a few more days; it would be best if someone familiar came to pick her up.

Just now, the family of the driver who had hit her had rushed over. They had paid her hospitalization fees, and when they saw her wake up, they were nearly in tears with relief.

After all, it really had only been a mild concussion; even her external injuries had already scabbed over, yet she had stayed unconscious all this time. If there were really some other problem, the amount of compensation would be unimaginable.

Xu Zhitong had first tried to contact both mothers, but her mom and mommy were traveling in a country abroad with a very long name, and the signal was poor. Voice calls felt like listening to a fill-in-the-blank exam.

Xu Zhitong had been independent since childhood and was used to being left to her own devices. Since she had already woken up, she decided they could deal with it after they came back from their trip.

Not to mention that if something really came up, she could always hire a hospital attendant—she had already checked; the balance in her bank account was so large it made her stare, as if she’d been doing something illegal after growing up.

And as for Lin Yang, she would definitely come take care of her.

Last semester… no, during the first-year sports meet, she had accidentally twisted her ankle while doing hurdles, and Lin Yang, someone who rarely showed much emotion, had been so heartbroken that her eyes turned red. She had taken care of her every day.

Thinking of that, Xu Zhitong did as she said.

She opened WeChat and easily found Lin Yang’s profile card among her only starred friends.

After eight years, Lin Yang’s WeChat avatar had changed too.

In second year of high school, Lin Yang’s avatar had been the matching best-friend icon Xu Zhitong had pestered her for a month before finally getting—a little anime-style animal.

Now, Lin Yang’s avatar was a slender back turned toward the rainy night outside a window.

Xu Zhitong enlarged it to take a closer look, surprised that Lin Yang was even prettier now than she had been in school; the A-line dress accentuated the lovely curves unique to an adult.

But her waist was very thin, with a fragile, breakable sort of feel.

Was Lin Yang not eating properly again? Even as an adult, Xu Zhitong wasn’t supervising her, and her figure was even slimmer than it had been in school.

Forget it. Xu Zhitong glanced at the mirror; twenty-five-year-old her didn’t seem to be eating properly either. Maybe it was a trend.

Her long hair fell in slightly curled ends, probably permed, and was neatly draped down her back. No. 1 High did not allow hair to be worn loose, and the thing Xu Zhitong had seen most often was Lin Yang’s high ponytail.

The whole photo showed only half her side profile, so Xu Zhitong made a great effort to enlarge it with two fingers.

The picture was dimly lit, and the side profile was so small it blurred. Xu Zhitong could tell that Lin Yang’s skin was still fair, her lashes were long and curled, and she didn’t seem to have lost much fullness in her face.

That was good.

Xu Zhitong suppressed the urge to check her Moments and, with restraint, opened the chat window.

Then she was shocked:

Why was the chat window completely empty, with not a single message in the history?

What happened?!

Had twenty-five-year-old her just changed phones before the car accident?

Xu Zhitong examined the phone. It was very new, and didn’t even have a case on it. She didn’t recognize the model from eight years later, so she could only judge by how it was used.

She must have changed phones recently; otherwise, how could there be no chat history with Lin Yang?

Sigh. This was the one bad thing about WeChat—if you changed phones, the chat records couldn’t sync.

Xu Zhitong accepted that explanation and immediately sent Lin Yang a message.

ZZZ: [Location · Jiangshi First Hospital]

ZZZ: Second inpatient building, room 405. I got into a car accident, waaah TT

ZZZ: When are you coming to see me?

Almost instantly, Lin Yang changed to “typing.”

The status lasted three minutes.

Xu Zhitong stared at it with full concentration as she waited.

Two more minutes passed before Lin Yang replied.

Y: …

Y: Is this really you?

What did that mean? Did she think she was a scammer?

Xu Zhitong frowned, then quickly relaxed.

As an outstanding student, Lin Yang had even given an anti-fraud speech at the morning assembly when school had just started. These messages probably did look like a scammer trying to trick her into sending money.

Xu Zhitong opened the camera and took a photo of herself with a slightly aggrieved expression.

Her blue hair was a little messy, wrapped in several layers of gauze. There were scabbed-over injuries on the side of her face and a few bruises from being thrown when she was hit by the car. She was wearing a hospital gown; her face was pale, her eyes wet as she looked into the lens, and the hospital logo was visible behind her.

She sent it to Lin Yang.

Y: …

Y: Okay.

See? I told you so.

Xu Zhitong was very happy.

Lin Yang was cold to everyone, but softest toward her.

Whether she was hospitalized or not, as long as she showed this aggrieved expression, Lin Yang would definitely care about her most.

While waiting for Lin Yang to come, Xu Zhitong started scrolling through her phone.

First, she opened the thing she most wanted to see: Lin Yang’s Moments.

Twenty-five-year-old adult Lin Yang seemed to have a very colorful life. Xu Zhitong scrolled all the way down and began reading upward with full immersion.

Lin Yang had set her Moments to be visible for only half a year, so there weren’t many posts. Most were food, scenery, and small animals; only one photo out of every three had her in it.

Xu Zhitong had only looked at two posts and saved a few photos when her brows suddenly drew together.

Why hadn’t she liked them?

Xu Zhitong refused to believe it and looked through all twenty-odd Moments posts, only to confirm this astonishing fact.

Twenty-five-year-old her hadn’t liked a single one of Lin Yang’s posts.

Why? Was twenty-five-year-old her very aloof and not interested in Moments?

But seventeen-year-old her had been the kind who would fight even for Lin Yang’s first like; if she didn’t get it, she’d whine and make Lin Yang repost.

Xu Zhitong was furious with her future self. She stabbed at the screen viciously and liked every single one of Xu Zhitong’s posts.

After that, she read through them from the beginning three times.

Still not enough. Lin Yang had never been someone with much urge to share in the first place; over the past half year, these posts hadn’t revealed much about her life. One could only tell about the stray cats she fed, the park she liked to go to, the kinds of food she liked to eat…

Xu Zhitong wrote all of these down, yet still wasn’t satisfied.

She had made up for half a year’s worth of updates, but she had still missed seven and a half years of Lin Yang’s life.

Why didn’t she have the habit of keeping a diary…

Passing the message list, Xu Zhitong glanced through it. There were many group chats with obscure names—VIP Group 1, Level-16 Fan Group 2, moderation groups—each with a pile of unread red dots, all incomprehensible.

Did she like chasing celebrities after growing up? She’d even joined other people’s VIP and moderation groups.

Xu Zhitong curled her lip at her future self, thinking that if she had the time, she might as well play a couple of games. Mindful of nothing in particular, she exited WeChat and opened the photo album.

As soon as it opened, a prompt popped up suggesting she clean up similar photos.

The dozen-plus photos she had just saved from Lin Yang’s Moments actually all had similar ones already in the album, and the system suggested she could delete them.

Xu Zhitong compared the photos already in the album with Lin Yang’s Moments posts and discovered that they were the exact same shot taken on the same day.

Conclusion: the photos in Lin Yang’s Moments had definitely been taken by twenty-five-year-old her.

Xu Zhitong was instantly delighted.

She still didn’t know why she hadn’t liked them, but Xu Zhitong had always been good at making things make sense to herself.

At twenty-five, she had been out in the world for many years already; adults definitely had hardships she couldn’t understand. Her mother was like that too. At worst, she could ask her best friend later.

There were also some photos of Lin Yang in the album that she hadn’t seen in Moments. Xu Zhitong looked through them one by one with great seriousness, convinced they were stockpiled shots she had taken but not posted.

Sure enough, they really were each other’s best friends. Just like before, they had taken so many photos of Lin Yang and saved them on their phones.

The Lin Yang in the photos was living an exciting life, eating, drinking, and traveling in all sorts of unfamiliar places.

Unfortunately, there were a few fewer group photos.

But it didn’t matter, because Xu Zhitong herself also had selfies with similarly themed food.

They must have been sitting together eating; they just hadn’t taken a photo together.

After browsing for a while, Xu Zhitong felt much more secure. She couldn’t help opening the novel app on her phone.

The two long serial novels she used to be able to follow only on weekends back when she was in school—after eight years, they must have already finished, right?!

How blissful!

-

The smell of disinfectant was one Lin Yang hated.

She sidestepped an oblivious patient without leaving a trace and walked into the inpatient elevator carrying a basket of fruit with both hands.

In the elevator mirror, the reflection showed the woman’s cool, indifferent face; her eyelashes were long, her eyes clear and black-and-white distinct.

On the drive to the shop, she received a WeChat message from Xu Zhitong and nearly dropped her phone. Thinking that Xu Zhitong hadn’t been streaming these past few days, she subconsciously told the driver to come straight over.

She hadn’t dressed with any special care: an off-white one-shoulder top, a light purple fishtail long skirt, nude high heels. Her manicure was already a month and a half old and still hadn’t been changed; none of the jewelry she wore was even worth six figures.

She touched her face; her makeup was very light too, making her look plain overall.

Not like the polished photos she posted on Moments.

The only bright point was the long waist belt on the dress, which made her slim waist stand out completely. The curves she had trained over the years were still decent, but no matter how decent, they probably wouldn’t catch Xu Zhitong’s eye.

It was annoying. She didn’t know what Xu Zhitong wanted to do.

When she was waiting at a red light, she even saw Xu Zhitong like every single one of her Moments posts. There were only a handful of posts visible for the last half year, and Xu Zhitong had liked them all.

Had she only just suddenly realized that there was someone like her in her WeChat contacts?

Lin Yang thought bitterly that over the years, she had carefully posted so many Moments photos, yet Xu Zhitong really hadn’t looked at a single one.

And yet she also felt a little regretful. If she had known she’d be meeting Xu Zhitong today, she should have put more effort into her outfit when she left home. Xu Zhitong had just finished looking at her carefully curated Moments, and the Lin Yang she was about to see was so plain; it was easy to create a contrast.

But her expression remained unreadable. She ran her fingers through her long hair; when the elevator arrived, she softened the sound of her high heels and stopped in front of room 405.

After a pause, she looked inside through the glass window in the door.

The hospital bed, which should have held a person, was empty.

“…”

Lin Yang closed her eyes and bit down hard on her lip.

She’d been tricked.

Her grip tightened on the fruit basket; blue veins stood out on the back of her slender, pale hand, and her fingers trembled slightly.

She should have known.

Was this some kind of truth-or-dare game?

Xu Zhitong had plenty of friends these days; why bother contacting an old high school classmate she’d cut off for years just to have fun at her expense.

Her lower lip was almost bitten white, nearly to the point of breaking the skin, when a shoulder was suddenly tapped from behind.

The person behind her seemed uncertain too, speaking in a small, tense voice.

“Yangbao?”

[Reading Notes]

1. My writing is pretty amateurish. This story will include livestream content and bullet comments, as well as lots of mutual stalking, deception, and a massive amount of overthinking.

2. The top is an online streamer, with no real-life model. She has memory loss, is very dog-like, and her thought process is rather unusual. Because of the amnesia, the bottom does more spoiling of the top, so it’s somewhat like a younger seme/older uke dynamic.

3. Everyone has different tastes. Writing this is basically to satisfy my own kinks. If it’s not your thing, please let it go; speak kindly, and kindness will bring kindness in return. Cruel words hurt hearts -3-

4. Before VIP chapters, updates will be every other day as scheduled; after VIP, daily updates.

TL Note:

National Day holiday (国庆) = China’s Oct. 1 National Day holiday break.

Level-16 Fan Group 2 / moderation groups: Chinese social platforms have fan and admin chat groups based on fan level.