Chapter 9 Part 2

At this point, Bai Xiaochu burst out laughing. “Pfft, I don’t know what came over me, but seeing her cry, I just wanted to laugh. She usually acts so grown-up, but in the end, she’s still just a kid.”

“Crunch.” Yang Yingyun bit into her second-to-last bite of cucumber. “This child has been through a lot in the past, so she probably still has some shadows in her heart. Don’t just secretly amuse yourself; you should chat with her alone more often on regular days.”

“Heaven knows, it’s not that I don’t want to chat with her. One, the factory keeps me so busy I haven’t even learned sign language properly in ages. Two, she’s about to take the primary school promotion exam. After a whole day of school, making her write to answer me all the time is exhausting.”

“Then get Bai Kou to care more about her sister on regular days. Kids can open up about some things.” Yang Yingyun clapped her hands. “Water’s boiling, water’s boiling. Please cook noodles for Director Bai!”

“You’re teasing me again. When are you getting promoted, Head Nurse Yang?”

By the end of April, Bai Kou was still propping her face up yawning in English class in the morning when her two sisters came to the classroom door that afternoon and called her out.

Bai Yuqiao carried Bai Kou’s schoolbag, Yang Wanxi helped her put on a mask.

Bai Kou exclaimed in surprise, “Are you taking me to skip class? That’s so cool!”

Of course it was not skipping class.

SARS was intensifying. The city issued an emergency school suspension notice for all primary and secondary schools, from April 24th until May 7th, with the resumption date to be determined.

The city station prepared televised classes for the sixth graders about to graduate, broadcasting subjects around the clock, and they could call duty teachers on landlines for questions.

To let Bai Yuqiao study with peace of mind, Bai Kou was sent next door to the neighbors again.

Over there, Bai Yuqiao sat in the living room, face full of seriousness, listening to the televised lesson explanations while jotting down key points in her notebook.

Over here, Bai Kou invited Yang Wanxi to sing “Say I Love You” with her.

Yang Wanxi nodded in agreement but asked, “What about the accompaniment?”

Bai Kou: “What’s accompaniment?”

“You haven’t gone singing with your mom? The accompaniment is just background music. You have to sing along with the background music.”

“Oh, I don’t have any background music.”

“Then what should we sing?”

Bai Kou blinked. “I don’t know. I always sing along with the on-demand station.”

One month later, Bai Yuqiao had mastered it.

Bai Kou and Yang Wanxi were chased around.

“Yang Wanxi!!!!!!! Six hundred yuan in phone bills in one month!!!!!!!” Yang Yingyun shouted. “What on earth have you two been doing!!!!!!!”

Actually, Bai Kou didn’t need to run. After all, Yang Yingyun wasn’t her mom and wouldn’t hit her.

But she knew they had to “stick together through thick and thin.” She wanted to hold Little Xi-jie’s hand while running, but Little Xi-jie ran too fast and lapped the coffee table three or four times ahead of her.

“Mom, Mommy! I-I have money! It’s only six hundred! I’ll top up your phone for you!”

Yang Yingyun paused, stopped chasing, stood still, and said gravely, “Only six hundred? Yang Wanxi, get over here.”

Seeing this, Yang Wanxi didn’t dare hide anymore. She glanced at Bai Kou beside her, who still didn’t realize what was happening, then lowered her head and walked silently over to Yang Yingyun.

Yang Yingyun: “Whichever hand spent the money, stick it out.”

Yang Wanxi pursed her lips, first raised her right hand, then her left, and held them together, palms up. “……Both hands spent it.”

“Fine, both hands spent it, huh? Then I’ll hit them one by one.” Yang Yingyun grabbed her daughter’s left wrist first, gritted her teeth, steeled her heart, and smacked down hard. “Pa!”

It hurt so much!

Yang Wanxi pouted, her eyes reddening, but she didn’t make a sound.

Nearby, Bai Kou flinched so hard her whole body shook. It took her several seconds to recover, and then she started toward her big sister.

“Bai Kou.” Yang Yingyun said sternly. “If you take one step, Little Xi-jie gets one extra smack from me today.”

The world went quiet for a few seconds.

Bai Kou was so scared she teared up. She shook her head vigorously, not daring to move forward.

“Mommy, don’t yell at her. This is all my fault……” Yang Wanxi started crying too, sobbing, but still taking the blame and protecting her little sister.

Yang Yingyun just felt exasperated and amused.

In the end, both of Yang Wanxi’s hands were smacked red. Far away, Li Mengjun got a phone call and was roundly scolded by Yang Yingyun—

“Li Mengjun! Stop giving your daughter money from now on!”

Bai Kou returned home scared out of her wits. To make matters worse, the online class had just ended, and Bai Yuqiao had switched to the on-demand station.

A cheerful female voice sang, “From that day on, it upended my own logic~”

Bai Kou, who had just finished crying and hadn’t recovered yet, immediately covered her ears and broke down completely.

“Turn it off! Waaah!”

Late June, Bai Yuqiao finished her exams and received her admission notice to the city’s top junior high.

Bai Kou and Yang Wanxi also returned to school for their open-book final exams.

Perhaps because of their six-hundred-yuan revolutionary friendship, the two hadn’t fought once in over a month.

Bai Kou even seemed to feel like she should treasure and respect her Little Xi-jie.

Everyone ate watermelon. They saved the sweetest, reddest triangular middle piece for Bai Kou, but she turned and offered it to Yang Wanxi with both hands. “Little Xi-jie, please eat!”

Amid the shocked gazes of the adults, Yang Wanxi shrugged and said, “Thanks, Bai Kou.” She happily took it.

The little sisters who used to fight every few days had finally made peace.

Bai Yuqiao felt relieved too. She patted Bai Kou’s shoulder and gave her own second-sweetest piece to Bai Kou.

Seeing Bai Yuqiao had no watermelon left, Yang Wanxi immediately sat up straight and offered her own sweetest piece to Bai Yuqiao.

“……” A perfectly good chilled watermelon was about to turn warm. Yang Yingyun almost wanted to snatch it and eat it herself.

“Look at that look in your eyes.” Bai Xiaochu laughed. “Don’t tell me you want to steal watermelon from a bunch of kids?”

“What’s wrong with kids?” Yang Yingyun withdrew her gaze. “Who doesn’t love the sweetest piece?”

For all their talk, both moms only took corner pieces, finished them, and left the rest for the children.

That evening, after dinner, the two families listened to the news: “Confirmed cases, suspected cases, and previously suspected cases turning confirmed—all zero……”

The two moms, who had been busy for months, exchanged a glance. Bai Xiaochu smiled and asked, “Want to take a long-overdue walk by the river tonight?”

“Are you a mind reader in my belly?” Yang Yingyun joked.

By the riverbank, the sky glowed with sunset hues, and the water sparkled.

Bai Yuqiao trailed behind the three kids on the far right, walking slowly forward, gazing at the sunset with a lonely expression, lost in thought.

Bai Kou walked in the middle, with a pink flip phone hanging from her chest—about the size of two thumbs wide. But open it up, and you’d see it was just a watch styled like a phone, with a white chubby rabbit pattern on the back.

As a reward for scoring 100 on the open-book exam, this was her treasure. Bai Kou usually didn’t take it out for fear of getting it dirty.

She walked a few steps, remembered the watch, pulled it from her chest, flipped it open, looked left and right, then giggled to herself at the face.

Holding the shell in her left hand, she casually pressed the open “phone” to Yang Wanxi’s ear. “Little Xi-jie, someone’s calling you.”

Yang Wanxi went, “Oh?” and leaned down to press it. “Hello? Hi? Who are you looking for?”

“Hahaha, no one! It’s fake!”

Bai Kou happily pulled it back. A moment later, she leaned right toward Bai Yuqiao’s ear. “Big sis! Little Xi-jie’s looking for you!”

Bai Yuqiao froze, stopped, looked left at Yang Wanxi, and raised her hand in sign language: 【What’s up?】

“Heehee, big sis fell for it too.” Bai Kou dropped her arm.

Yang Yingyun, walking behind them with arms crossed, sighed emotionally. “Sigh, we must’ve had friends this good when we were little too. Where’d they all go?”

“Off to work.” Bai Xiaochu said. “Didn’t you say last time one of your classmates went to aid Guangdong and came back?”

“Nah, she quit and stayed there.”

“Huh?” Bai Xiaochu was surprised. “Quit?”

“Yeah.” Yang Yingyun nodded. “It’s not like here. They say during the worst times, they went three or four days without sleep, working non-stop. Someone who came back told me that classmate had a high fever then, thought she was infected, but tests came back negative. She quit on the spot after the fever broke.”

“Oh, then why’d she stay there?”

“Seems she found out making DVD players was really profitable. Didn’t ask details.”

“Oh…… really……” Bai Xiaochu responded slowly, looking thoughtful.

The next year.

Bai Xiaochu quit the factory, rented a storefront, and started a VCD/DVD rental and DVD player sales business. In less than half a year, she made a tidy sum. Happy and wanting to keep up with the times, she immediately bought a desktop computer for her own home and Yang Yingyun’s.

But while Bai Yuqiao and Yang Wanxi could use these two computers, Bai Kou couldn’t for now.

Afraid the second-grade little student lacked self-control and might get addicted and ruin her eyes, Bai Xiaochu mercilessly set a password.

Bai Kou pouted hugely.

What upset Bai Kou even more was that after starting junior high, big sis boarded at school and only came home once a week. Little Xi-jie said because she was in sixth grade, she needed to focus on exams and stopped playing with her every day.

Bai Kou wanted to ask her two big sisters to convince Mom but never got the chance.

She waited and waited, and one day in third grade, who knows how Mom suddenly came around.

Coming out of the kitchen, she said to Bai Kou, sprawled on the sofa reading comics, “The computer password is you and your sister’s birthday. Go play.”

【119095】 Password incorrect?

Bai Kou frowned, thought, then tried it backward with big sis’s first: 【095119】

ENTER!

The computer booted up with a ding!

“Wow!” Bai Kou couldn’t help exclaiming.

The desktop wallpaper was a grassland with blue sky and white clouds—

Not important!

Bai Kou rubbed her hands, grabbed the mouse, and clicked the penguin icon on the desktop.

Register QQ, need a name. Bai Kou figured it meant typing her real name.

She poked at the keyboard with two fingers, fumbling like it was a book from heaven to type out “Bai Kou.”

Confirm!

Then add friends. Hmm, let me think……

Bai Kou hesitated. She was in third grade now; her two sisters—one in first-year junior high, one in second—were busy with classes and probably couldn’t approve her friend request right away.

So add—

【Lu Tongtong】. Bai Kou typed her deskmate’s name. The page jumped to a list full of Lu Tongtongs with various avatars.

Bai Kou’s eyes swam.

But she felt super smart, figuring Lu Tongtong must be the Heyan City one. She picked the first blue-haired girl avatar, added as friend, and wrote: Tongtong, it’s Bai Kou=3=

The next day, Lu Tongtong went “Aiya” to Bai Kou and wrote “Star Rose” on paper.

“My QQ name is this! Who’d be dumb enough to use their real name as QQ name!”

“Huh?” Bai Kou was baffled. “My QQ name is just Bai Kou……”

This story was still something Lu Tongtong bragged about to Bai Kou’s new friends even after they entered the same junior high class and became deskmates again.

“Our Koukou surfs the net with her real name everywhere.”

Bai Kou: “……”

Just as she wanted to say “Too embarrassing, please stop,” someone ran past shouting, “Xiao Yue!”

“……?” Xiao Yue? Big sis?

A segment of deep soul memory suddenly awakened. Bai Kou instinctively looked up.

At the railing leaned a girl in dark autumn school uniform tied at the waist. Under Bai Kou’s puzzled gaze, she turned her head.

Expression cold, a mole on her nose tip.

Ah.

It was Pei Yue, Bai Kou thought.