Chapter 30

Before late autumn had fully set in, Yu Min received a package from a distant city: a handmade gift, a fired ceramic pen holder. The body of the holder was covered in cute, lively cartoon rabbits, and at the bottom were two huge, eye-catching red hearts.

It was a gift from Li Xue Ting. She had made four pen holders in all, one for each person in their group chat.

The package was sent to the school. Li Xue Ting didn’t have Yu Min’s new address, and naturally assumed she was still living in the dorms, so she sent all the gifts straight to each of their schools.

Yu Min went to the courier pickup point after class in the afternoon and waited in line for more than ten minutes before she finally got it.

Ceramic items were fragile, so after taking delivery, it had to be opened and checked. It wasn’t damaged; it was intact.

She snapped a photo and sent it to the group chat, tagging Li Xue Ting: -Got it, thank you. It’s great; I really like it.

Li Xue Ting replied instantly: -I worked on that for several days; it represents my deep longing for you three. Remember to put it on your desk; when you look at it, it’s just like seeing me. @Everyone

Zhao Shi Yu and Wen Yun had picked up their packages before Yu Min did; without needing Li Xue Ting to remind them, the pen holders were already on their desks. There was no reason to waste a friend’s kindness; of course they had to use them.

Zhao Shi Yu: -Photo.

Zhao Shi Yu: -@Li Xue Ting Look at me.

Wen Yun: -Thanks for the trouble. I was just thinking I needed a pen holder.

Zhao Shi Yu: -We sent you some local specialties too; we mailed them this morning and forgot to tell you. They should arrive in a couple of days, so keep an eye out for them @Li Xue Ting.

When Yu Min got home, she put the pen holder on her desk. Then she copied them and took a photo for Li Xue Ting. Seeing that she wasn’t living in a dorm, Li Xue Ting couldn’t help asking a little more. Since she knew it was concern for her, Yu Min didn’t hide anything and honestly admitted that she was living at Lin Bai Xin’s house and not on campus.

Li Xue Ting didn’t think there was anything strange about that at all, and said with feeling: -Your Sister Bai Xin is really, really, really good. The nicest person in the whole world.

The pen holder was a festive, bright red, so it stood out sharply on the desk; in the room’s pale color palette, it was especially conspicuous.

That night, when Lin Bai Xin passed by the bedroom door, she noticed it very quickly. But she didn’t pay much attention then, assuming Yu Min had bought it herself, though it didn’t really look like something Yu Min would buy.

Lin Qi came over to freeload a meal and discuss work with Lin Bai Xin. At the time, the bedroom door was wide open, and Lin Qi also spotted the pen holder. Thinking it was rather distinctive, she assumed it had been bought too, so she turned around and asked Yu Min which shop it came from.

Yu Min said, “Someone gave it to me.”

“Who?”

“A friend.”

After learning it was handmade and that you couldn’t buy an identical one, Lin Qi praised it with, “That’s pretty impressive,” and said, “Then I’ll make one myself someday too, but I can’t draw, so I can’t make one like this. I’ll have to ask the boss to help me.”

The pen holder wasn’t especially practical, and it was a bit heavy, which made moving it around troublesome.

During the day, Yu Min liked to sit by the living room sofa and read; often she would just sit directly on the carpet. For convenience, she put the pen holder on the coffee table, so she wouldn’t have to go into the bedroom every time she needed a pen.

Lin Bai Xin was out during the day, and weekends were even busier than weekdays. On Monday evening, Lin Bai Xin came home first. After turning on the lights, she saw that the coffee table from the night before was still a mess; a big stack of books and papers lay piled up haphazardly there. She casually helped clean it up. When she bent down to pick up one of the pencils and put it into the pen holder, she accidentally caught sight of the pattern at the bottom of the holder...

Lin Bai Xin froze with her hand in midair. Lowering her eyes, she stared at it for a while before putting the pencil inside.

There was no further reaction.

At seven-thirty, Yu Min came home from school. Seeing that the coffee table had already been tidied, she carried her books back to her room, while the pen holder remained where it was.

By then, the matter of the confession letter had already come to an end. Yu Min refused to say more, and she didn’t want the older sisters to ask any further either. Yu Min insisted that the letter had no follow-up; that was the truth, not a lie, but whether the older sisters believed it was another matter.

Lin Bai Xin had never once expressed any opinion on the matter, but tonight she was acting differently. Most likely she had been influenced by Lin Qi’s constant nagging, so she took a roundabout approach and said a couple of things. She didn’t really care whether Yu Min and that boy were dating; it was just that Yu Min had been coming home later and later lately. Two days ago, she hadn’t gotten back until almost ten at night. Under the same roof, that was something they couldn’t ignore.

In fact, two nights earlier she had gone to the library. The reference books she needed couldn’t be checked out, so Yu Min had to finish using them before leaving. By the time she got home then, Lin Bai Xin had already gone into her room to rest. Yu Min had also sent a WeChat message in advance, explaining why she would be late and telling her not to wait up.

She didn’t connect Lin Bai Xin’s words with all the other nonsense; taking them only as concern, Yu Min nodded and agreed. “Mm. I’ll try to come back earlier from now on.”

Try...

The soup simmering in the pot rolled in gentle bubbles, its fragrance filling the air. Lin Bai Xin lifted the lid and stirred it with a ladle, stopping there without lecturing her further.

Lin Qi was a copycat by nature. Not long after, she really did make a ceramic pen holder. However, her drawing talent was truly limited and her hands were hopelessly clumsy; in the end, she managed to turn the pen holder into a hideous long-necked vase.

She brought the ugly thing over here and generously gave it to Lin Bai Xin, boasting that it was a work of art and insisting that Lin Bai Xin put it in a prominent place in the house.

Lin Bai Xin didn’t indulge her. She refused to take it; if Lin Qi dared leave it here, she’d throw it out.

“Don’t be like that,” Lin Qi said, hugging the ugly vase as if terrified Lin Bai Xin really would toss it. “I spent two days learning to make this. It’s one of a kind, understand? It’s unique in the whole world. Do you know how valuable that is? You’re so dull, completely unromantic. That’s so boring.”

In the end, she carried the ugly vase back home herself. Before leaving, she couldn’t help sighing heavily at Yu Min. “Your friend is so loyal. To spend that much time and effort making this—I’m impressed. Even if you killed me, I still wouldn’t make a second one. It’d kill me, seriously.”

Another half week passed, and the pen holder was still eventually brought back into the room.

Lin Bai Xin wasn’t very good at accepting things that clashed with the house’s original style. Yu Min had noticed her frown; she seemed to dislike the pen holder quite a bit.

Besides, the thing was too eye-catching. Twice, when Lin Bai Xin had other friends come over, the first thing they noticed was that pen holder. Her friends reacted with surprising consistency; whoever saw it would ask about it.

Yu Min took the initiative to put it away so she wouldn’t keep getting asked.

Around the same time, Li Xue Ting would contact Yu Min every few days to talk things through. Yu Min was busy during the day, so Li Xue Ting often called at night.

Li Xue Ting still hadn’t gotten used to being separated from the four-person group. Her new school was nowhere near as comfortable as Siping No. 1 Middle School. Out of town, she couldn’t understand the local dialect, and she wasn’t used to the food there either. The city she was in didn’t eat spicy food, and a lot of the dishes were sweet. Li Xue Ting had plenty to complain about, sighing that she had sacrificed too much for her dream.

Yu Min comforted her, but the effect was minimal; listening was more practical and useful than saying nice things. Most of the time, Yu Min just listened patiently, only speaking a couple of times after Li Xue Ting had finished.

The calls were made with the door shut. Sometimes Li Xue Ting could ramble all the way until midnight, until Yu Min was so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open before hanging up.

Because of this, over several days Yu Min stayed up too late so many times that on several mornings she nearly couldn’t get up. It was still Lin Bai Xin who knocked on the door to wake her; otherwise she would definitely have been late.

Dark circles had begun to show faintly under Yu Min’s eyes. They weren’t obvious, but combined with the fatigue on her face, and the fact that when she was waiting for Lin Bai Xin at the shop she had actually been standing against the wall and dozing off, it was hard not to be suspicious.

Lin Bai Xin tapped her once. “Go rest in the lounge.”

Yu Min yawned, eyes hazy, and didn’t move.

“I’ll sleep when we get home. I’m waiting for you.”

Glancing over her sleepy face, Lin Bai Xin seemed to realize something. There were still one or two hours before work ended, so she sent Yu Min to wait in the back office, found a cloak, and tossed it over. She told her to wrap it around herself and sleep carefully so she wouldn’t catch cold.

In the end, Yu Min couldn’t hold out against the overwhelming sleepiness and fell asleep on the single reclining chair in Lin Bai Xin’s office. When Lin Bai Xin went in midway through and saw her, she lightened her steps, walked slowly to her side, and covered her with an extra thick wool blanket.

Yu Min had been on the phone at night, and Lin Bai Xin knew it perfectly well. Living together made it impossible not to notice everything. Lin Bai Xin wouldn’t interfere too much with this, but she didn’t know who exactly was on the other end of the line; she hadn’t expected it to be Li Xue Ting.

At their age, it was rare to have a best friend who could chat on the phone every night until the wee hours of the morning. It was almost certainly a relationship; otherwise they wouldn’t be talking on the phone every night like that.

On the way back, Lin Bai Xin found something to talk about and chatted with Yu Min for a while, all of it inconsequential. When the topic finally shifted to school, Lin Bai Xin said, “You should start getting ready for exam week.”

Yu Min said, “Mm. It’s about time. I need to start memorizing things now.”

“Start studying early. Clinical programs are harder than other majors, and the exams are different from the ones you used to take.” Lin Bai Xin reminded her.

Yu Min took it to heart, and when she took Li Xue Ting’s calls at night, she only talked for half an hour. The rest of the time, she spent reviewing.

Medical school exams were brutally difficult, and Li Xue Ting understood that perfectly. Worried about delaying Yu Min, she didn’t call as often afterward and went back to venting in the group chat.

Exam week for medical students was hell on earth; there was more to memorize than could fit in a lifetime. Yu Min knew it well, and in the days that followed, she threw herself completely into studying and no longer let anything else distract her.

The first to notice something was off was still Lin Qi. Lin Qi didn’t love studying, and Yu Min’s serious, focused look scared her a little. She judged others by herself and didn’t think Yu Min was simply studying. She nudged Lin Bai Xin with her elbow and watched Yu Min carefully, lowering her voice. “What’s going on? She was listless all the time before, and now she’s studying so hard. What happened?”

After finishing with the computer, Lin Bai Xin slowly picked up a hot drink and took a small sip. “No idea.”

“Could she have gotten dumped?” Lin Qi guessed reasonably, her train of thought racing ahead. “No way, it hasn’t been that long, has it? Wasn’t she still dating someone a few days ago? And now they’ve already broken up?”

Lin Qi was fiercely protective of her own people. After saying that, she immediately wanted to go comfort Yu Min like a caring older sister, but she had only taken half a step forward before Lin Bai Xin grabbed her and stopped her.

“Don’t go bother her.”

Breakups were a big deal. Lin Qi was dependable, and this time she listened to Lin Bai Xin; she absolutely wouldn’t make trouble. Afterward, she brought over a plate of sweet little cakes and set it in front of Yu Min, comforting her by saying, “It’s okay. We’re here for you. We’ve got your back.”

Yu Min had no idea what nonsense this was supposed to mean and looked up in confusion, but before she could respond, Lin Qi had already walked away, leaving only her back behind.

The little cakes were bought by Lin Bai Xin; they were Yu Min’s favorite strawberry flavor. During a break from reading, Yu Min went into the office to find Lin Bai Xin and happened to run into Lin Qi there. Lin Qi was still the same as ever, patting her shoulder and saying, “Little sister, if you need anything, you can come find me. I’m always here.”

Yu Min was utterly baffled and completely at a loss. After Lin Qi went out, she turned to Lin Bai Xin. “What’s wrong with Sister Lin Qi?”

Lin Bai Xin said flatly, “She’s not normal. Ignore her.”