Chapter 14

After school in the afternoon, Bai Kou chatted with Lu Tongtong about Pei Yue and sighed about encountering someone with such a poor memory for the first time.

Lu Tongtong focused on the key point: “So you didn’t have your phone that day! No wonder you ran off so suddenly! Were you scared to death!”

Bai Kou still felt a lingering fear: “It’s hard to describe… really hard to describe… It wasn’t even about life or death. At the time, I felt like I wasn’t myself anymore.”

“I’ve never lost my phone,” Lu Tongtong said. “But back in third grade, my mom had her PHS stolen, and she reacted pretty much like you—dragged me around Jingtai City for five or six loops searching for it.”

As they chatted, the bus arrived. The two junior high students got on, inserted their coins, and hurried hand in hand to the back seats.

They had come downstairs early and lined up first, so they luckily snagged the two seats in the second-to-last row.

Bai Kou gazed out the right window and saw the leaves starting to turn yellow. She was just about to turn back to tell Lu Tongtong when she glimpsed, among the cluster of first-year uniforms that had just boarded, one particularly eye-catching white sweater.

Pei Yue.

Didn’t second-years have evening self-study? Why was she out?

Bai Kou felt puzzled inside and couldn’t help recalling the note she had handed to Pei Yue—she had originally planned to invite Pei Yue to the cafeteria at noon, but Pei Yue said it wasn’t necessary, so she took a step back and gave her the QQ number she had prepared in advance, so Pei Yue could add her and contact her anytime she needed help.

Pei Yue had taken the note.

But a day had passed, and Bai Kou hadn’t received any friend request. It even led to her checking her phone frequently during breaks, nearly getting caught by the teacher.

Throughout the bus ride, Lu Tongtong leaned her schoolbag on Bai Kou’s shoulder and slept. Bai Kou watched Pei Yue with a mix of confusion and curiosity.

—So she actually didn’t want to add me? Did she not even want the note back then?

Pei Yue only got off at the New Hua Bookstore stop in the city center, interrupting Bai Kou’s thoughts. She turned her head and watched as Pei Yue walked away.

Lu Tongtong’s home wasn’t far from Bai Kou’s—just one stop earlier. By then, there were only five stops left to the terminus, and the bus had emptied out.

After hopping off through the rear doors, Lu Tongtong raised both hands high: “Bye-bye!”

Bai Kou waved back with a smile: “Bye!”

After seeing off her friend, Bai Kou took out her phone and opened QQ, feeling a bit annoyed.

At that moment, Yang Kuikui messaged her: 【Bai Dou, where’s your bus at?】

【You’re back?!】 Bai Kou immediately asked.

The National Day holiday had flown by. On the first day back at school, Bai Kou had been so sleepy she nearly went mad, her head slumped against the bus window as she dozed and envied Yang Kuikui, who had gotten a week’s leave from school.

Before long, the bus reached the stop, and Yang Wanxi was waiting at the platform.

Bai Kou spotted the familiar figure and called out lightly through the window: “Yang Wanxi! Yang Wanxi!” If she hadn’t needed to stand up to get off, she probably would have jumped around on the bus like Super Mario.

“Hey, easy there—”

Yang Wanxi was suddenly hugged, stumbling back from the force. With her right hand holding a gift bag, she could only use her left to steady herself on Bai Kou’s waist.

Bai Kou didn’t so much get off the bus as fly right out.

After Bai Kou stuck to her shoulder and gooily repeated “I miss you, I miss you, I miss you so much” seven or eight times in a row, Yang Wanxi raised her right hand and twisted her wrist slightly.

“Rice noodle rolls and claypot cakes like you wanted, but they’ve been sitting a while, so they might not be as good as you imagined.”

“Wow!!” Bai Kou took them with both hands and immediately pulled out a plastic box from the bag. Inside were five bowl-shaped round cakes—white and yellow, each studded with large red beans on top. “Just like in the TV dramas!”

“Of course they are—I went out of my way to find them.” Yang Wanxi patted the top of Bai Kou’s head. “Aren’t you going to thank your big sis?”

“Thank you, big sis!” Bai Kou hugged Yang Wanxi again. “Wah, a day apart feels like three years!”

Yang Wanxi chuckled twice: “Now you know how great I am, huh? With me gone over National Day, no one to play with you, right? You went to Dream Fantasy Plaza with Lu Tongtong to grind for exchange coupons again, didn’t you?”

“Mm-hmm.” Bai Kou smiled obediently and muttered, “Mainly because neither of us had much money…”

Yang Wanxi narrowed her eyes and poked Bai Kou’s forehead: “Got it. Just wait—this weekend, I’ll take you both out for a big meal.”

On the way home, Yang Wanxi took the bag from Bai Kou’s hands to carry it, grabbed her schoolbag too, and slung it over one shoulder, leaving Bai Kou free to enjoy the claypot cakes unburdened.

Bai Kou took a bite, and with her peripheral vision, she noticed Yang Wanxi’s right-hand bag was still bulging. Curious, she asked:

“What else did you buy?”

Commemorative stamp sets—for Aunt Bai.

An MP4—for Sis Yuqiao.

And besides the rice noodle rolls and claypot cakes, there were butter cookies, butterfly pastries, egg rolls… all those snacks were for Bai Kou.

On the sofa, Bai Kou was surrounded by a pile of colorful aluminum boxes of all sorts, blissfully happy like a little mouse that had fallen into a rice vat.

She opened a cookie box, pinched out a curly one, and took a cautious bite. Deng deng deng! Her eyes lit up: “So yummy!”

She offered the remaining two-thirds to her Xiao Xi-jie’s mouth: “Ahh—”

A look of great satisfaction appeared on Yang Wanxi’s face. Though she didn’t love sweets, she cooperated by opening her mouth and taking a bite.

Crunch crunch, crunch crunch…

For a moment, the entire living room filled with the sound of the two munching on cookies.

Yang Wanxi stayed until Bai Xiaochu got home in the evening. She carefully introduced the commemorative stamps to Aunt Bai again, charming smiles onto Bai Xiaochu’s face.

Finally, she stood up and said: “I can just deliver the MP4 to Sis Yuqiao at noon tomorrow.”

Bai Xiaochu: “Sure, you two live close anyway.”

Bai Kou, bath towel in hand and heading for a shower, hit the brakes at those words. She spun around and ran back to the living room: “I wanna go too!”

“No afternoon nap at noon?” Bai Xiaochu asked.

Bai Kou shook her head rapidly: “Sis has been back at school since National Day and hasn’t come home. I miss her. I wanna go see her.”

The next day at noon, when the bell rang, Bai Kou rushed out of the classroom. At the twelve o’clock bell, by twelve-oh-four, she was already on the bus to the high school section.

From afar on the bus, she spotted two figures in school uniforms outside the high school gate. Bai Kou felt a bit dazed yet excited. She had just stuck her head a little out the window.

When the driver suddenly shouted inside the bus: “Hey, kid in uniform in the back! Pull your head in!”

At the sound, the three people in front all turned to look at Bai Kou.

Bai Kou wanted to burrow into the ground.

The high school section was the end of the line for this bus, but because of her violation half a minute earlier, she felt especially embarrassed. She dawdled until the people in front had all gotten off before shrinking her neck and stepping down half a beat late.

As a result, her excited mood plummeted. Awkwardly and clumsily, she shuffled up to her two big sisters and said obediently to Bai Yuqiao: “Sis.”

Yang Wanxi burst out laughing: “What’s with you today… Been too long since seeing your sis, so you’re putting on a cool act too?”

Bai Kou glared at Yang Wanxi: “No!”

After glaring, Bai Kou turned back to look at her sis.

In the gentle sunlight, Bai Yuqiao’s eyes curved slightly. She first pointed at Bai Kou, then raised her arm higher, circled her index finger around her temple twice, pointed at herself, and drew a question mark in the air.

【Do you miss me?】