Chapter 77

Life was always just enough—steady, uneventful, like a thin trickle of water.

After that, Lin Qi almost never mentioned Yu Min again.

It had been a long time since she’d left, and Lin Bai Xin still had the same attitude. Lin Qi knew when to stop pushing. She could barely keep her own life in order; she didn’t have the reach to meddle in someone else’s affairs. So she sensibly withdrew into the little patch of land she shared with Luoshu and focused on their small world of two.

After National Day, they had a new auntie here. Auntie Zeng retired; she could no longer keep working and had to return to her hometown in Xicheng to enjoy her old age.

At times like this, employers were generally supposed to give the auntie a big red envelope, and Lin Bai Xin was no exception, but Auntie Zeng flatly refused to accept it. Lin Bai Xin’s salary had always been above market rate to begin with, and the work here was far easier than at other places. If she hadn’t gotten older and absolutely had to go back to be with her family, Auntie Zeng would have been reluctant to quit in a thousand different ways. Instead, she turned around and gave Lin Bai Xin a parting gift: a wool blanket she had knitted herself.

The only one who still brought up Yu Min was Auntie Zeng, and she also had a gift for Yu Min: another wool blanket, the same style as Lin Bai Xin’s, just a different color. Lin Bai Xin’s was white; Yu Min’s was gray. On the lower-left corner of both blankets was a little golden cat curled into a round ball.

“Ah, I missed her coming back. I originally planned to give it to her when she got home, but it’s been so long, and Miss Yu is busy all day long. So busy you can’t even catch a glimpse of her.” Auntie Zeng said regretfully, with some reluctance. “My ticket’s the day after tomorrow; I’m not coming tomorrow. This is my last time over here, so I’ll have to trouble you, Boss Lin, to deliver it for me. You can give it to her when she comes back, or mail it to her. Either way works.”

Auntie Zeng chattered on and on, saying many things Lin Bai Xin hadn’t known before.

“Miss Yu was really nice. Back when my phone broke, she was always the one who helped me fix it. And she helped me buy tickets too. Once I couldn’t get one, so she booked me a flight. I’d lived more than half my life and had never even been on one. I didn’t know anything, and she sent me all the way to the airport. After I got there, she even found someone to take me inside. I’ve had this old headache problem for ages too, and she bought me medicine from Hong Kong. Even last year she sent over a few bottles. I told her not to send any more; buying it from so far away was such a waste of money. She bought so much I can’t even use it all.”

The two wool blankets were neatly folded together. Auntie Zeng set them on the sofa; she had also knitted a little set of clothes for Lu Dagun, shoes and hat included, treating the cat like a child.

Unfortunately, Lu Dagun liked to go naked and didn’t like wearing that stuff. After struggling a few times, it would just wriggle free and take it off.

The new auntie was younger, not yet forty, and not much older than Lin Bai Xin.

She was good at everything; quick, capable, very proper, and careful about boundaries. The only thing missing was a little warmth. Aside from asking Lin Bai Xin what she needed, the new auntie never struck up a conversation with her. Once the work was done, she left. She handled everything cleanly and neatly, and she didn’t even sit at the table with Lin Bai Xin to eat. She always left a small portion in the kitchen to eat separately, using her own bowl and chopsticks, never touching a single thing in the house.

Lu Dagun became the only one keeping Lin Bai Xin company at meals. At first it had its own room. Since it refused to sleep anywhere else, Yu Min’s original room became its little den; its cat bed and cat bowl were both kept there. Lin Bai Xin didn’t indulge its wishes. When they ate at home, she would carry its cat bowl out and place it beside the dining table.

Fortunately, Lu Dagun had a big heart; the little thing didn’t care about that. It could eat anywhere.

“Can you make cat food?” Lin Bai Xin suddenly asked.

The new auntie didn’t really understand. “What?”

“The kind cats eat; boiled chicken breast, boiled shrimp, that sort of thing.”

“I can learn. I’ll try tomorrow.”

“Mm.”

After thinking about it, Lin Bai Xin lowered her gaze to the little thing busily eating and hesitated. After a moment, she changed her mind and said not to bother.

“Forget it. Just boil a few shrimp. It’ll eat that.”

The new auntie was responsible. Since the employer had spoken, she still learned how to take care of the little cat. Lin Bai Xin paid well; the extra money was more than enough to cover caring for one cat.

Lu Dagun didn’t like ordinary fish, but it liked salmon skin. It took a long time for the new auntie to discover that. It especially liked baked salmon-skin chicken rolls, and it would eat the cat food the new auntie made.

“Last time I saw pictures on your computer and tried making it. It actually worked,” the new auntie said. “I saw online that some cats are like this; they’re picky and like freshly made food.”

The pictures on the computer were ones Lin Bai Xin had taken earlier. At the time, she’d been looking online for cat food tutorials, but didn’t know where to start, so she had photographed the snacks Lu Dagun had eaten and searched that way.

“You really put a lot of care into this cat,” the new auntie said with a rare smile. “Cat food is harder to make than people food. The process is too complicated; it takes forever.”

With someone available to teach her, Lin Bai Xin tried making it again. Still, she couldn’t learn. Not long after, Lu Dagun lost interest in the cat food the new auntie made. The little thing was a troublemaker; it would sniff twice, eat a couple bites, and be done, rather eating cat kibble than taking two extra mouthfuls.

It seemed to have figured out that this wasn’t the original cat food, only something with a similar taste, so it refused to eat it anymore.

Lu Dagun always liked sunbathing, even when the weather was hot.

It often lay on the windowsill in Yu Min’s room, staying there for half a day at a time. To keep it from getting heatstroke or overheated, the air conditioner in the house was on from morning to night.

The little thing actually caught a chill from the air conditioner. A cat getting sick was no small matter; a cold wasn’t the kind of minor illness that would be fine the next day.

Because of that, Lin Bai Xin took a week off to look after it, leaving the shop in Gu Yue’s hands and keeping watch over it every day.

Lin Qi checked in over video call from afar. She had a sharp tongue, and the first thing she said was, “Now you know how to cherish it? What were you doing before?”

There was no deeper meaning in that; she was just talking about the cat. But after the words came out, even Lin Qi herself realized something was off. By then it was too late to take them back.

“That’s not what I meant, don’t misunderstand.” Lin Qi hurriedly covered her mouth. “Pretend I never said it. I was talking nonsense. I didn’t think before I spoke.”

The new auntie was diligent. Once Lu Dagun got better, she took the opportunity to do a full-house deep clean, focusing especially on the places Lu Dagun had stayed, worried that virus particles might still be left behind and cause the little thing to catch a cold again.

During that cleaning, she accidentally found the books and old phone in the drawer; the ones Auntie Zeng had asked Yu Min about, to see if she still wanted them. Auntie Zeng had forgotten, so the items had just stayed in the drawer all this time, only now being discovered.

“Still want them?” the auntie asked, assuming Lin Bai Xin probably didn’t. The phone was too old; it was a model from many years ago, and you couldn’t even find this kind on the market anymore.

“Leave it there.” Lin Bai Xin kept it.

The phone still worked; it wasn’t broken, just out of battery and needing to be charged again.

For reasons she couldn’t explain, Lin Bai Xin bought a compatible charging cable and charged the phone fully, then turned it on.

The phone had long since been unlocked; there was no password.

Except for one of the albums.

On impulse, she clicked in and entered a string of numbers. It actually unlocked immediately.

Inside were old photos, taken many years ago. The only person in the pictures was one woman. There were candid front-facing shots saved secretly, back views snapped on the sly, and some random pictures where the subject wasn’t even centered, some so blurry that even the outline was indistinct.

The password Lin Bai Xin had entered at random was her own birthday plus Yu Min’s birthday: 120714. They were both born in the twelfth lunar month, and their birthdays were exactly a week apart—Lin Bai Xin on the seventh, Yu Min on the fourteenth.

There was no mistaking who the person in the photos was. No one knew her better than Lin Bai Xin. She stared blankly at the phone, not knowing when the other person had saved these pictures, or how long she had kept them.

Lin Bai Xin remembered some of the front-facing photos; they were from ten years ago. She had deleted them all long ago and hadn’t left a single one behind. It took her a long while to recall when those pictures had been taken.

The old phone was put away again, tucked into the bedside drawer in Lin Bai Xin’s room.

But after that, it was never charged again, never turned on.

Zhou Jin posted on Moments once, with a group photo of him and his friends and the caption: Thanks to my big sister and everyone else for keeping me company. Happy birthday to me; let’s celebrate together!

The only two sisters Zhou Jin was close to were both non-biological ones. Which “big sister” he meant was obvious without saying.

Anyway, it couldn’t have been Lin Bai Xin. They were separated by more than a thousand li; it definitely couldn’t be her.

Lin Qi had added Zhou Jin too, and saw the photo as well, but her focus was different. She enlarged one of the pictures and stared at a curly-haired boy standing beside Zhou Jin, looking him over from every angle with confusion.

“This guy looks so familiar. I feel like I’ve seen him somewhere..."

She thought about it for half a day before finally remembering who it was. Understanding dawned on her.

“Oh, I remember. It’s him.”

Luoshu turned his head. “Him? Which one?”

“Her classmate; that kid who always followed her around to study,” Lin Qi blurted out. “You probably don’t know him. What was his name again, Xue... I can’t remember. Anyway, his surname’s Xue. He actually knows Zhou Jin too, and he’s from the same place. The world really is small.”

Lin Qi said this behind Lin Bai Xin’s back. Unexpectedly, when she turned around, she ran straight into Lin Bai Xin standing behind her and got a huge scare.

“Oh my god, what are you doing? Quiet as a ghost. If you were coming, why didn’t you make a sound? I finally came back to see you, and now you’re going to bite the hand that fed you?”

Lin Bai Xin didn’t take the bait. She left without a word.

Xue Zhi Yu; that boy who had written Yu Min a love letter in freshman year.

Lin Bai Xin remembered him too and recognized who it was.

On the day they celebrated Zhou Jin’s birthday, Jiang Zhou also posted a Moments update. She must have been at the gathering; the background of her photo was the same as the one in Zhou Jin’s post. In the group shot, she had specially cropped out the person at the very edge, since that person didn’t want to appear on camera; she could only post it that way.

Lin Bai Xin went to X University to see an old classmate. That classmate had just started working at X University, having transferred from a university in Jincheng.

The classmate was warm and enthusiastic and originally wanted to treat her to a meal at a restaurant, but in the end she went along with Lin Bai Xin’s preference and took her to the cafeteria.

They were lining up to get food when a figure at the very front of the queue looked strikingly similar to the one in her memory. Lin Bai Xin drifted off, not even realizing it herself. At the time, she stood there holding her tray, motionless, as if she’d been nailed in place. By the time the other person finished getting food and left, she still hadn’t reacted; when she finally did, the person was already gone without a trace.

That person probably wasn’t her. Lin Bai Xin knew that clearly; the real one was still in Jincheng, not here.

But she might have been.

Uncle Zhao said over the phone, “Manman went back to your side. She went over a few days ago. Seems like she’s been at the school recently; she often goes back and runs around between both places.”

Her phone slipped from her hand and hit the floor. Lin Bai Xin’s chest tightened, and her throat went dry. For no reason at all, she had a fierce, instinctive certainty.

It wasn’t just someone who looked similar; that person was Yu Min.

She must have spotted her, but didn’t want to see her, so she avoided her and acted as if they’d never met.

As though they were complete strangers.