Chapter 21

On a bright, crisp day, they spent the entire afternoon at a café. Lin Baixin wore a retro-style casual dress that made her look mature and elegant; Yu Min was in her loose blue-and-white school uniform, her hair tied into a low ponytail. The two of them looked nothing alike, as different as could be.

Lin Baixin didn’t answer her question directly. Some things weren’t as simple as giving a straight answer.

Coffee without sugar was bitter. Even after all this time, Yu Min still couldn’t get used to the taste.

Lin Baixin ordered her a glass of juice instead, then went to the counter for paper and a pen, wrote down her address in Kyoto, and handed it over with the drink.

Phones were forbidden at No. 1 High School, so writing it on paper was more reliable than sending it by message.

“I live here now. It’s not far from X University—just a few kilometers.” Lin Baixin’s voice was soft. “If you ever go over there, you can come find me.” She paused, then added, “If I move somewhere else one day, I’ll let you know. For now, though, I probably won’t be moving.”

The juice was sweet and tart; Yu Min could just barely accept it.

She took the note. The address was short, and after reading it twice, she could practically memorize it.

After graduation, Lin Baixin hadn’t gone looking for a job. She didn’t need to work for anyone else. She started a business in Kyoto with a friend, opening a secondhand luxury resale shop together. As for the properties in Siping and Jincheng, she was preparing to handle them all at once. The real estate market had been booming these past few years, and housing prices rose day by day. In the better neighborhoods of Siping, prices were already over ten thousand per square meter. Back when Lin Baixin sold off the family assets her parents had worked so hard to build, she really had been left with no other choice. Who could have guessed that something planted by accident would grow into such success? Now that she had risen so suddenly, she wouldn’t be returning to Siping to live there permanently. The villa in Heyuan, however, would be kept; she wouldn’t sell it in the short term. Even if she ever did decide to sell, the earliest that decision would come would have to wait until the year after next.

By then, Yu Min would have graduated from high school and be heading to university.

Lin Baixin chose to tell Yu Min only some of these plans. Although many of them had little to do with Yu Min, she still wanted her to know.

“Does Uncle Xiao know?” Yu Min asked, her fingers resting on the cold cup as her fingertips rubbed over it unconsciously.

“I didn’t tell them.” Lin Baixin tried to put it as gently as possible. “Uncle Zhao doesn’t want me too far away, but this place… isn’t suitable for me.”

What her uncle meant was that he was worried Lin Baixin would have no help or care if she lived alone outside, so he hoped she would stay closer to home. But Siping was never Lin Baixin’s hometown; her ties there weren’t deep. Sometimes too much concern became a kind of restraint. Besides, a family without blood ties was still separated by that thin line. Blended families were complicated enough as it was, and Lin Baixin’s situation was even less straightforward than Zhou Jin’s carefree one. In her case, keeping a proper distance was better than staying. A lot of things Yu Min wouldn’t understand at her age; in a few years, she would.

After taking a sip of juice, Yu Min stayed quiet all the way until they left the café. The tightness in her chest only grew heavier, so heavy that even when she wanted to speak, she couldn’t get the words out.

The high school entrance exam countdown calendar beside the blackboard had been replaced with a new one. Once this year’s seniors finished their exams in June, Yu Min’s cohort would become the next group of prospective seniors.

At this stage, some subjects in Class 32 were moving fast, and teachers had already started teaching senior-year material. All new coursework had to be finished by the first semester of senior year at the latest. No new lessons would be taught in the second semester at No. 1 High School; the final term would be devoted entirely to review.

They had entered a crucial transition period. Not only the rest of the class, but even the people in their group, like Zhao Shiyu and the others, had become steady and disciplined. Fewer people were rushing to the snack shop during the ten-minute breaks to crowd in for snacks. It was either study like mad or die trying to study; everyone wanted to stretch one minute into two.

The Yu family’s ugly business had already spread to school. Fortunately, most students were single-minded and focused only on their studies. Unlike outside school, nobody would use it as gossip for tea-time conversation, much less make fun of her openly or secretly.

Yu Min’s grades stayed steady as always; she was still strong, with no decline.

Teacher Qi had called her into the office twice for a talk. He never mentioned her family or her parents directly; he only expressed concern in roundabout ways. Teachers were more responsible than parents. Yu Min was a promising student, and the teacher truly feared that she might be affected and throw off her exam performance, so he was effectively doing a bit of psychological counseling for her.

“You are you. Nothing is more important than yourself, understand?” Teacher Qi said earnestly. “You’re still young. You still have a long road ahead of you. People are lonely by nature. What’s bad now doesn’t mean it’ll be bad in the future. You have to move forward; look ahead.”

Even though Yu Min had memorized the slip of paper Lin Baixin gave her, she still tucked it into her notebook and pressed it flat, keeping it safely.

“Want an ice cola?” Li Xue Ting asked everyone in the group in turn. “My treat. Raise your hand if you want one.”

Zhao Shiyu shot her hand up immediately—both hands, actually—and raised one for Wen Yun too. “Two bottles. My little sister and I both want one, thanks.”

Then she turned and saw Yu Min reading, so she did the good deed all the way and even raised a foot to help her out too. “No, three bottles. Add one more—one for Yu Min. I want Coca-Cola, and they want Pepsi.”

“What about sausages? How many? Want chips too?” Li Xue Ting was generous; whenever she treated, she really didn’t mind spending.

“Yes, yes, all of it. Three of everything. Thank you, rich lady, for keeping us! Your great kindness will never be forgotten; I can only repay it in the next life!” Zhao Shiyu was a bit of a show-off, a born clown and a natural tease. With her in the group, the atmosphere was always cheerful and harmonious.

Li Xue Ting went downstairs to buy the food and drinks. Zhao Shiyu deliberately slid into her seat, then after a while leaned close to Yu Min and, under the pretext of borrowing stationery, whispered, “Yu Min, you’re not happy, are you? You’ve been off these past two days. Did something happen? Uh… if you want, you can tell me. I promise I’ll only listen and absolutely won’t tell anyone. If I do, I’m a dog. I swear.”

Yu Min denied it, brushing it off as the recent overcast weather making her feel listless.

“Then when the sun comes out, let’s go to the field and soak up some sun, get some exercise.” Zhao Shiyu was lively; seeing that Yu Min was hiding something, she sensibly didn’t pry.

Yu Min agreed. “Mm, okay. We’ll go together then.”

The girls in the group were all softhearted, lovely girls. They were one hundred percent united and friendly; whatever they did, they always included Yu Min. Anything that shouldn’t be mentioned, they firmly kept their mouths shut about. Zhao Shiyu and her sister often even took Yu Min along when they went to the bathroom, dragging her along wherever they went.

Lunch in the cafeteria was even more needless to say. Before the class split, the four of them had eaten at the same table every day; after the split, they were even more inseparable. The two day students mostly had meals sent from home, and they always brought extra to share with Yu Min.

“Try this. Braised chicken wings. I had my grandma make them especially. They’re so good.” Zhao Shiyu was enthusiastic. As she called out to everyone, she habitually wiped the chopsticks first, then handed them to Wen Yun beside her before picking up her own bowl.

Wen Yun divided the soup into four portions, pushing one over beside Yu Min’s tray.

Li Xue Ting followed right after, sliding two meatballs from her tray over to Yu Min as she kept saying, “Mine’s good too. So fragrant. I added arrowroot. Yu Min, eat mine first.”

In mid-June, after the previous year’s college entrance exam ended, they officially became prospective seniors. The first big thing when they returned to school that day was changing classrooms, moving from Building One to Building Three. Class 32’s new classroom had been moved to the top floor. Zhao Shiyu brought two hand carts from home to school, and everyone used them to move all the books from their group to Building Three, then carried them upstairs stack by stack.

While moving the books, Yu Min dropped her notebook, and the note fell out. They were in the stairwell then, and the wind on the fifth floor was strong; the note was blown straight away.

Yu Min instinctively let go of the books to grab the note, but fortunately Li Xue Ting grabbed her just in time. Otherwise, she would have stumbled and fallen, and that would have been terrible.

“What are you doing? That’s dangerous. What if you trip? Don’t rush; if it falls, just pick it up later. Nobody’s going to steal it from you.” Li Xue Ting was blunt and straightforward; she couldn’t understand Yu Min’s reaction, and her palms were already sweating with fright. “If I hadn’t reacted fast, you would’ve almost hit me just now.”

Yu Min apologized. “Sorry.”

“Aw, it’s nothing. I’m just reminding you to be careful.” Li Xue Ting was easygoing. “Go pick it up then. Leave your stuff here; I’ll watch it for you and wait for you upstairs.”

Yu Min went to retrieve the note first. It hadn’t been lost; the wind had blown it onto the railing on the third floor. Li Xue Ting was curious. What kind of note would make her this nervous and protective?

“A password or something?”

Yu Min vaguely replied, “Something like that.”

“I always can’t remember that stuff. You should write it in your book. I wrote mine in my math book. Books don’t get lost; just flip through and you’ll find it.”

“Mm.”

After Lin Baixin came back last time, they had once again cut off contact for a short while. Most likely, it was because she couldn’t fulfill Yu Min’s request, or perhaps for some other reason; once Lin Baixin arrived in Kyoto, there were no more stirrings from her side.

Yu Min had made things too difficult for her. Zheng Qing and Yu Shengyu were still there, alive and well. Yu Min was not a completely helpless orphan; she had legal guardians. How could the other side possibly handle this matter?

Lin Baixin was twenty-five. Yu Min wouldn’t come of age until the twelfth month of the lunar calendar, when she turned eighteen. To put it plainly, even if she were an adult, she was still a child; she was still a high school student. Lin Baixin couldn’t, and shouldn’t, interfere too much. To say it more seriously, if Lin Baixin took Yu Min away now, her parents could call the police. That would be a crime.

A child could act impulsively and foolishly; Lin Baixin could not.

Yu Min regretted it. She wished she hadn’t said that then. But once water was spilled, it couldn’t be gathered back. Words had left her mouth like water poured from a bowl; they couldn’t be taken back.

Had she frightened Lin Baixin?

Who would be willing to take on such a burden? Wouldn’t that just be asking for trouble?

Lying on the desk in the new classroom, Yu Min kept flipping through her notebook. The small slip of paper had been rolled into a little ball, which she held in her palm.

She had crossed the line; she had been too rash, and too rude.

Yu Min knew this clearly. At the time, she had been focused only on feeling hurt; now that she had calmed down, she truly felt conflicted and miserable.

Now, none of the relatives in the Yu family dared touch that mess. Much less anyone else. Lin Baixin was different; she definitely wasn’t that kind of person, but even so, there still had to be some limit.

After Li Xue Ting moved the books, she started complaining. She wasn’t complaining because the work was tiring; she was complaining because her mother wouldn’t buy her an iPad. She was learning digital painting and wanted a tablet, absolutely not for playing games, but no matter how she begged, her mother simply wouldn’t buy one.

“Is that even a real mother? Am I even her biological daughter? She won’t even buy me this. It’s breaking my heart.”

Zhao Shiyu was a master at stirring things up. She immediately replied, “What’s so weird about that? My mom doesn’t even want me either, and I’m still her biological daughter. What’s so special about not buying a tablet?”

“...” Li Xue Ting looked stricken. “That’s not the same, is it?”

“It’s not the same,” Zhao Shiyu said solemnly, nodding. “Mine is worse than yours.”

“..."

“My little sister isn’t my biological sister, but as long as she asks, my grandma will buy her anything. Never mind a tablet; even the stars and moon in the sky would be fine.”

Li Xue Ting couldn’t take it anymore. She shouted, “Then die!” and then, “Zhao, I’m fighting you!” Zhao Shiyu grinned and kept teasing her on purpose. When she got hit, she would hide in Wen Yun’s arms and ask Wen Yun to save her.

Zhao Shiyu’s mother and Wen Yun’s father weren’t married, so the two sisters had no blood relation whatsoever; legally, they didn’t have the slightest connection either. And yet the Zhao family still kept Wen Yun, raised her as she grew up, and let the two sisters keep each other company.

Seeing them out of the corner of her eye, Yu Min felt increasingly uncomfortable, with a bit of envy mixed in.

Noticing her gaze, Wen Yun looked over. After Zhao Shiyu and Li Xue Ting had finished roughhousing and run off, Wen Yun asked softly, “What’s wrong? Are you uncomfortable somewhere?”

Yu Min said, “No. I’m just a little sleepy. I didn’t sleep well last night. I’ll take a nap.”

Yu Min was a little off. Maybe it was because she was too weighed down by her worries. For several days, she kept sneaking glances at Zhao Shiyu and Wen Yun from time to time, making Zhao Shiyu extremely uncomfortable. She finally couldn’t hold back and asked in confusion, “Yu Min, why do you keep spying on us? Do I have something on my face?”

Caught red-handed, Yu Min didn’t panic. Instead, she asked back, “You and Wen Yun… have always been like this?”

Zhao Shiyu didn’t understand. “Like what?”

But Yu Min couldn’t quite say it. After thinking for a moment, she replied, “It’s nice like this.”

Zhao Shiyu opened her eyes wide and lied through her teeth, turning right and wrong upside down. “Of course. We’ve been wearing the same pair of pants since we were little. You have no idea how clingy my little sister is. She follows me everywhere, always hanging off me. Especially back when she first came to my house; she went wherever I went and couldn’t be shaken off. Now that she’s grown up, don’t let her look so cold and distant outside. She’s not like that in private. At night she even has to study next to me, and she wants to sleep in the same room as me. She’s scared to sleep alone. She’s got the guts of a gnat.”

“Who’s clingy to you?” Wen Yun gave her a sideways look.

Zhao Shiyu turned her face away and played dead.

By senior year, there were even fewer vacations. Before September had officially arrived, Teacher Qi patted the podium and announced that the upcoming breaks would be drastically shortened, changed to one and a half days off per month.

The whole class groaned in misery, but Yu Min didn’t feel much. Whether it was a holiday or not, she was still at school anyway, basically studying on her own in the library.

In senior year, Yu Min no longer hid her phone; she turned it in obediently and took it back whenever there was a break.

That week, she received a package. The item had arrived three days earlier, but because her phone had been off, she hadn’t received the notification.

The package was sent to the school and left at the security room by the front gate.

It came from Kyoto; Lin Baixin had sent it. It was a box of snacks and some daily necessities, packed into a large cardboard box. There were also two stuffed toys inside.

Another pair of Bugs Bunny dolls.

Lin Baixin had bought them recently. They were plush toys she had found while taking in secondhand luxury goods. The shop didn’t sell this kind of thing; keeping them would have served no purpose, but she still kept them and mailed them to No. 1 High School as a gift.

Lin Baixin left a message on WeChat, basically telling Yu Min to remember to pick up the package.

Her voice was as gentle as ever. Yu Min put on her earphones and listened to the voice message only after she had opened the package. She sat there in a daze and replayed it several times before her roommate called to her, and only then did she take the earphones off.

Her roommate had thought it was something Yu Min had bought online. Her eyes widened; the cardboard box was almost as tall as a person.

“Whoa, that’s a lot. Your parents sent this?”

Yu Min shared some of the snacks with her roommates and didn’t explain who had sent them. Later, after staring at her phone for a long time, her roommates urged her all the way to the library; if they were any later, they wouldn’t get a seat. Only then did Yu Min send the message.

- Got it.

After reaching the library and finding a seat, she sat down and felt that sending only that one line was too dry and stiff. After thinking about it, she pulled out her phone and added another one:

- Thank you.

After sending that second line, it felt even more distant. She wanted to take it back, but unfortunately more than two minutes had passed, so she couldn’t retract it.

She sat there for a long time without opening her books, staring at her phone in conflict. Yu Min racked her brains, wondering whether she should say something else, but for a moment she got stuck and couldn’t think of how to continue.

At some point, Li Xue Ting had come up behind her. She had no intention of peeking at the phone screen, but when she saw Yu Min looking so lost and dejected, as if something terrible had happened, Li Xue Ting bent down curiously. A moment later, she suddenly read the nickname at the very top of the screen aloud: “L—X—Who’s this?”

Yu Min hurriedly put her phone away and stuffed it into her backpack, her heart jumping into her throat. Her hands even trembled a little.

“Don’t scare me. Seriously.”

“You’re acting all sneaky; anyone could tell something’s up. Look at how guilty you are, like you’re hiding something huge.” Li Xue Ting lowered her voice and flopped down into the empty seat on Yu Min’s left. “I wasn’t trying to scare you. I’ve been here for a while; you just didn’t notice me. I stood there forever and you didn’t even look at me.”

Yu Min zipped up her backpack. Thankfully, there was nothing in the chat that couldn’t be seen. She changed the subject rather than arguing with Li Xue Ting. “Did you finish your homework? Isn’t there only one Chinese worksheet? Anything else?”

“Of course there is. We just got a break; I’m not a god. How could I finish that fast? Did you finish yours? For Chinese there’s still the white workbook, remember the teacher told us to mark the questions in class? You didn’t note that down?”

“I’ve done more than half of it.”

Li Xue Ting had a strong curiosity. Since Yu Min refused to admit anything, she pondered it herself. Later, when they left the library, she suddenly had an epiphany and draped an arm over Yu Min’s shoulder, deliberately drawing out her voice to test her. “LX… let me think. Who could that be? Mm… L, X, who, who… Ah, could it be your Sister Baixin?”

Yu Min refused to admit it and pushed her arm away. “You’re so boring.”

As if she had discovered a new world, Li Xue Ting pressed on, like someone who had caught her tail. “There it is, there it is. It’s always like this. Whenever you lie, you get like this; you dodge around and won’t look people in the eye. Yu Min, you’re really honest. You don’t even know how to lie.”

Yu Min pressed her lips together and held on. “I wasn’t lying.”

The more she said that, the more certain Li Xue Ting became. After teasing her for a while, to the point where Yu Min almost buried her face in her collar, Li Xue Ting finally backed off.

“What’s the big deal? I was just asking. Your Sister Baixin is pretty great; I just asked casually. Fine, fine, I won’t tease you anymore. Let’s go to the snack shop; I’m hungry. I’m buying a cup of instant noodles to fill my stomach.”

Everyone in the snack-sharing group got a share too. The happiest by far was Zhao Shiyu. Yu Min didn’t say the snacks were actually not bought by her, and Zhao Shiyu and the others all assumed they were. Li Xue Ting, who knew the truth, smiled while eating a fruit candy and nudged Yu Min with her elbow, winking to show that she would keep Yu Min’s secret and never leak a single word outside.

Yu Min couldn’t quite handle it; she turned away and ignored Li Xue Ting. After a while, she also put a candy in her mouth.

It was a sweet strawberry flavor; it was the taste she liked.

Girls were the easiest to coax. She didn’t even have to do anything; she would comfort herself right back into happiness.

Of course, in the end, Yu Min wasn’t angry with Lin Baixin. She wasn’t that petty. She simply couldn’t turn the corner for a while; once that wave of emotion passed, the tight, stifling feeling in her chest dispersed with it.

It was still Lin Baixin who called. At the next monthly break, Yu Min had only just gotten her phone and turned it on when, less than ten minutes later, the other side called as if she had timed it exactly.

Yu Min answered immediately, afraid that if she were a second too slow, it would hang up. At the time, she was out shopping with Li Xue Ting and the others, and the three of them had just gone into a store to buy milk tea. Yu Min walked to a corner and found a quieter spot.

As always, Lin Baixin just asked how she had been. Nothing else.

Lin Baixin had only just taken a break too. Her shop with her friend was still in its startup phase, and she was busy from morning till night, barely touching the ground. Even making a call required her to squeeze in the time.

Yu Min had nothing pleasant to say. After listening to Lin Baixin for two minutes, she could only manage, “Mm. Don’t work yourself too hard.”

Her tone was obviously soft, and on the other end Lin Baixin was silent for two or three seconds before letting out a laugh, then going straight to the heart of the matter that had been between them this whole time. “You’re not mad at me anymore?”

Yu Min was stubborn. “I was never mad.”

“I was wondering what I’d do if you still wouldn’t talk to me today. It’s been cold for months.” Lin Baixin said helplessly, “You wouldn’t even give me a chance to apologize.”

Lin Baixin was open and generous; she didn’t hide a thing. Yu Min opened and closed her mouth, but all she could say was, “I wasn’t giving you the cold shoulder. It wasn’t like that.”

Standing by the roadside talking to Lin Baixin for two minutes, Yu Min was tongue-tied. Some of her thoughts couldn’t be explained clearly; her own heart was a tangle, and she couldn’t sort it into a proper thread. She didn’t know how to explain herself.

Still, at least things had eased up. This matter could finally be put behind them.

They couldn’t talk for too long. Li Xue Ting and the others came out after buying the milk tea, so Yu Min had to end the call in a hurry and said she would call Lin Baixin back later.

“Yu Min, who were you talking to? Why did you even hide to answer it? Something up?” Zhao Shiyu asked with concern. “Here, your milk tea. My little sister helped you order it; she didn’t know which one you wanted, so she got pudding milk tea.”

Yu Min brushed it off and told a lie. There was nothing she couldn’t say, but she still told them it was a telecom customer service call, not anything else.

Zhao Shiyu and the others didn’t suspect a thing and believed her.

By the agreed-upon “later,” when the call was finally returned, it was almost evening. On Lin Baixin’s side, things had gotten busy again; the call didn’t have time for much talking before a friend called her away. Lin Baixin said, “We’ll talk next time. You should be heading to self-study too, so go on.”

She should have talked a little more during the day.

That night, lying on the dorm bed, Yu Min turned over and over, unable to stop herself from replaying it. Next time, she would answer the call first. Lin Baixin wasn’t always free; she was a very busy person now.

Recently, Aunt’s family had also been worrying over Yu Shengyu’s mess. Lin Baixin hadn’t informed them ahead of time about selling the house; by the time everything was mostly settled, the family only slowly learned what had happened.

Zhou Jin could hardly believe it. Seeing that Yu Min didn’t know, he tipped her off. “My mom and my dad even argued about it because of this.”

“Why?” Yu Min turned her head.

Zhou Jin said, “I’m not really sure either. I only heard half of it. My mom wouldn’t let me listen, so she kicked me out. Anyway, they had different opinions; my mom wasn’t happy, and my dad was pretty angry too.”

Lin Baixin sold her house. What were other people unhappy about? It was none of their business. At times like this, they were the ones treating Lin Baixin like their own daughter.

Every family had its own unspeakable troubles. Yu Min didn’t judge that; and in front of Zhou Jin, that fool, she didn’t feel like saying much either.

Zhou Jin sighed and sighed again, not understanding the adults’ conflict. He felt awful—not because his parents were fighting, but because Lin Baixin probably would be coming home even less in the future.

He didn’t have the ability to get into a top university in Kyoto. It would already be heaven’s grace if he could get into a local 211 university or above. Besides, Lin Baixin had never told him anything about hoping he would go to Kyoto.

After venting his frustrations, Zhou Jin suddenly remembered something. “Isn’t the school holding an adulthood ceremony this semester?”

Yu Min didn’t pay much attention to that. “I don’t know.”

“Seems like it’ll be after the semester starts.”

“Oh.”

Zhou Jin said, “Aren’t you turning eighteen this year?”

Yu Min said, “Seems like it.”

Bringing up this matter was obviously not to wish Yu Min a happy birthday. Zhou Jin didn’t say it outright, but Yu Min understood perfectly well.

More than three months later, Zheng Qing and Yu Shengyu’s lawsuit was still ongoing. By then she would be eighteen, and the two sides would no longer be fighting over custody… In theory, she was still in school, so her parents would still have to be responsible for her education, but how things would ultimately be decided was still unknown.

“My uncle asked my mom about you,” Zhou Jin said, trying to comfort her. “He actually wants to come see you.”

“And my aunt… your mom, she came to our place a few days ago too. You didn’t know, right? My dad said to hide it from you first, but I feel like you should know. You can’t not know everything.”

Yu Min didn’t answer. She smoothed the hem of her school uniform and looked silently at the gray-white ground.

No. 1 High School’s adulthood ceremony was fairly simple. Basically, all the senior students were gathered in the auditorium; the host gave an impassioned speech, then student representatives went on stage to read their prepared remarks, followed by the school leaders talking at length, and after a closing segment, that was considered a complete success.

Yu Min was one of the student representatives. She had written the speech herself, just the usual old lines about “studying hard” and “hard work brings reward.” Teachers and leaders liked that sort of thing. For it, she even received a school-level certificate commending her excellent speech.

On the day of the ceremony, Lin Baixin mailed her another gift. As before, Yu Min only got her phone a few days later, after the item had already arrived. It was a rechargeable night light.

Yu Min placed the night light on the upper-left corner of her desk. Every time she looked up, she could see it. The night light was prettier than practical, but as a decoration it was quite nice; its shape was delicate and lovely, like a lily.

“Your lamp looks nice. Did you buy it online?” a roommate asked. “I want one too. Do you have a link? Can you send me one?”

The same model couldn’t be found online. Lin Baixin had specifically picked this one out; how could it be so easy to find an identical one?

Yu Min didn’t say who had bought the night light. She just said a friend had given it to her and that it had been bought in a physical store.

“Then could you ask your friend to buy one for me too? I’ll add money and pay for the errand, okay?” The roommate really wanted one.

Yu Min said she could ask around, but when she next contacted Lin Baixin, she didn’t mention it at all from start to finish.

Lin Baixin: -This is my sincerity for the apology I owed you last time.

She deleted and rewrote that line over and over, spending a long time on it. In the end, Yu Min went against her true feelings and replied:

-I’m not mad.

At the end, she added:

-I’m not lying to you.

Once the adulthood ceremony was over, senior year officially entered countdown mode. The two of them kept up their once-a-month contact. It seemed Lin Baixin knew Yu Min’s exact vacation schedule; every time, either Lin Baixin called her or Yu Min called Lin Baixin, and Yu Min’s calls could always go through. No matter when it was, the other side could always pick up.

Once, Lin Baixin happened to be in a meeting. Yu Min didn’t know this. It was already 7:30 p.m.; normally by then Lin Baixin would have long finished work and been home, but she still answered. She raised her hand to signal the meeting to pause and took Yu Min’s call first.

Only later did Yu Min realize something was off. Hearing voices talking on the other end, she froze. “You’re still not off work?”

“Almost.” Lin Baixin said.

“Then I’ll hang up. You get back to work first.”

“It’s fine. I’m not busy.”

Yu Min felt embarrassed; she was afraid she was delaying Lin Baixin’s business. Lin Baixin smiled, made a gesture for the meeting to adjourn, and stood up to walk outside. “All right, the meeting’s over.”

Yu Min was still a little dazed and didn’t understand how it had ended so suddenly.

“It wasn’t a very important meeting; we were basically just chatting.” Lin Baixin said. “Don’t be nervous. None of them are under pressure, so what are you nervous about?”

Their calls were never long, usually only three to five minutes; the longest didn’t exceed twenty.

Yu Min wasn’t good with words. Many times, she had already decided what she wanted to say before making the call, but once she heard Lin Baixin’s voice on the other end, she would forget the words she had prepared in a blur, forgetting everything completely and frequently getting stuck.

Lin Baixin’s secondhand luxury shop was doing well, better than she had expected. That line of work was fairly profitable, with a pretty high return.

Uncle Xiao opposed Lin Baixin doing this. Elders always had high hopes for the younger generation. Uncle Xiao wanted Lin Baixin to do something proper, such as carrying on the legacy of her biological parents. To him, dealing in pre-owned luxury goods was not a respectable career; wasn’t that just flipping merchandise, and secondhand merchandise at that? Lin Baixin had studied for so many years, and now doing this was simply wasting her talents.

Lin Baixin refused to discuss things with her elders. Her belated rebellion meant that no matter how Uncle Xiao and the others tried to persuade her, she wouldn’t listen.

Yu Min was one of the few people who supported Lin Baixin, even if that support didn’t carry much weight.

The last long holiday of high school was expected to be about a week. Yu Min’s vacation plans were simple: stay home, read, and go nowhere.

“Not going to have some fun for a couple of days?” Lin Baixin asked.

“After the exams,” Yu Min said.

“The high school entrance exam is still far off. There are still several months.”

“There are only a little over a hundred days left.”

Lin Baixin asked directly, “Do you want to come over here and take a look?”

They were on a video call. Yu Min was in the dorm; her roommates had all gone to class, and she was the only one there. Facing the camera, Yu Min didn’t show much change in her expression, but her movements slowed by half a beat. After hesitating for a moment, she still shook her head.

“Time’s too short. I might not make it.”

Seven days off; there was no way she wouldn’t make it on a plane. It would have been more than enough even to go abroad.

Because of the unpleasantness with Uncle Xiao’s family, and for various other reasons, Lin Baixin wasn’t coming back this year. When the next chance to come back was, that was uncertain too.

Yu Min knew her place. Last time, she hadn’t thought it through; she wouldn’t let the same trouble put someone in a difficult position twice.

She wouldn’t make things hard for Lin Baixin.

On the other side of the video call, Lin Baixin froze. She probably hadn’t expected Yu Min to refuse. The rest of what she wanted to say stuck in her throat; after a long while, she only answered with a quiet, “All right.”

In fact, the plane tickets had already been booked; not only Yu Min’s ticket, but Zhou Jin’s too. It didn’t seem right to let Yu Min go alone; if the two children went together, that was different. It would be perfectly reasonable.

Zhou Jin was overjoyed. At first, he really thought Lin Baixin had invited him over. This was the first time in his life that he had ever gotten news like that. The day he heard it, he packed his luggage and waited for the time to come so he could fly over. In the end, it was all for nothing. The excitement hadn’t even worn off yet when the good news was gone.

“What was that about? Now we’re not going? You got me all excited for nothing.” Zhou Jin complained. “My sister is such a liar. She changes her mind faster than anyone.”

Yu Min carefully organized her notes. Hearing that, she didn’t like Zhou Jin talking behind Lin Baixin’s back, but she didn’t know how to refute him.

Zhou Jin was a chatterbox; once he started rambling, he went on and on. Yu Min’s brows twisted together, and only when she finally lost patience did she say, “You’re very annoying. You’re disturbing me.”

Author’s note:

There will be another chapter tomorrow. The next chapter is when she turns eighteen; huu.

TL Note:

211 university (211) = a Chinese designation for top-tier universities.