Ye Zhibai slipped the ring onto her finger and quickly clenched her fist, rather than stretching it out straight.
She didn’t want to stir up those sweet yet painful memories again.
Now that she had received the ring, Ye Zhibai figured it was time for her to go.
After all, she and Lin Zihan weren’t close enough to call it a real friendship.
There was nothing obvious they could bond over right now.
Ye Zhibai had been dirt poor before and was well-off now.
Lin Zihan had been loaded once and was scraping by these days.
They couldn’t even swap tips on surviving poverty.
But even after Ye Zhibai drained the last of her drink…
She still couldn’t find a smooth way to make her exit!
I want to bolt, she thought. But she’s staring right at me! What are you looking at?
Lin Zihan had bought herself a drink, but she wasn’t touching it.
Talk about playing games!
Her cup sat right between them, doing nothing to block the line of sight.
Sure, her body couldn’t lean over.
But the way she stared at Ye Zhibai was like she was some rare zoo exhibit she couldn’t tear her eyes away from.
And she wasn’t saying a word to ease the awkwardness.
Quit staring!
Even at a zoo, you had to pay for tickets!
Ye Zhibai squirmed in discomfort.
Fine. If you’re not going to talk, then I will!
Luckily, Ye Zhibai had always been good at finding conversation starters.
As Guang Yu would put it, she was a chatting prodigy.
She quickly sized up the Lin Zihan sitting across from her.
Confidence bloomed in Ye Zhibai’s chest.
This time, high-EQ Little Zhibai was about to deliver her usual steady performance.
“Are your eyes okay?”
“!”
“!”
What the heck did I just say?!
Her eyes clearly weren’t!
This wasn’t starting a chat—this was picking a fight!
Guang Yu was cracking open her second drink.
She shook her head repeatedly. She had seen this “steady performance” coming a mile away.
—She was used to it.
Lin Zihan blinked her right eye in a daze at the question.
She clearly hadn’t expected Little Bai’er to be so blunt.
But that was it.
Then, she slowly raised her left hand, covering her left eye beneath that thick fringe of golden bangs.
Ye Zhibai was sure she’d hit a nerve and gone and made her sad.
She hurried to smooth things over in a calm tone. “What I meant was… your eyes. How did the treatment go? Is there any chance of regaining your sight?”
In truth, for all her tangled worries, Lin Zihan wasn’t actually that upset.
She suddenly sat up straight, facing Ye Zhibai head-on.
Slowly, she brushed back her golden bangs, revealing the black eyepatch hidden underneath.
It appeared in Ye Zhibai’s view almost instantly.
As she showed it off, Lin Zihan answered with a smile. “Yep, my right eye’s fine~ But the left one’s probably blind for good, right? Did Zhiyun tell you about it, Little Bai’er?”
“Yeah… She told me about what happened to you.”
“Aw! See, Zhiyun shouldn’t have blabbed about that stuff.”
As she spoke, Lin Zihan let her bangs fall back into place, smoothly hiding the eyepatch over her left eye again.
She even waved a tiny fist in mock protest at Ye Zhiyun—though it was always her who ended up getting thumped.
“Little Bai’er should be all smiles! Hearing my sob story must’ve bummed you out, huh?”
“It’s… okay.”
“Wait, you’re feeling great about it?!”
“Nope.”
Then what do you want me to say! Good or bad, both are wrong. Should I cry for you?!
The topic was a bit heavy, sure. But it did crack open the conversation between them.
Lin Zihan bent her legs slightly and stared down at her shoes, tapping the toes of her little white sneakers together.
She didn’t really want to talk about her eyes.
But… telling Little Bai’er? Maybe that was okay?
“My eyes? Honestly, it’s better this way. I was such a disappointment back then. Mom cried every day, and it got to me—I cried right along with her. Call it an emotional chain reaction! One slip-up, and I cried my eye blind. Heh… Little Bai’er, don’t you think I deserved it?”
“No one wants to cry. Sometimes it’s just… inevitable.”
“Pfft… Little Bai’er really has gotten so much wiser since waking up.”
Don’t talk about me—look at yourself.
Lin Zihan clasped her hands together.
She suddenly looked up at the sky. She was telling her own story, but her expression was so casual, like it was no big deal at all.
Lighthearted and indifferent.
“The doctors said my condition’s super rare. To have any shot at recovery, it’d take at least twenty years of monitoring—and even then, no guarantees. If it worked, my vision probably wouldn’t be the same anyway. And that’s not even counting the endless tests and treatments draining money the whole time.”
Her tone finally grew a touch heavier.
“Little Bai’er, I don’t know if Zhiyun mentioned this, but the Ye Family covered my treatment costs, you know? Heh… I was broke and useless about it. I’m super, super grateful to the Ye Family! And to you, Little Bai’er! But… twenty straight years of taking handouts from the Ye Family? I think… my mom might just break down. You get it, right? She’s all about pride. Every time she picks up the money from the Ye Family, she comes home and bawls her eyes out.”
Lin Zihan had said a lot today.
These were things she usually kept buried deep inside, things she never voiced.
But for some reason, facing Little Bai’er made her want to keep talking.
Ye Zhibai paused for a second, processing it all.
But Guang Yu didn’t get it. “Ye Zhibai, we don’t quite follow. What’s the conflict with pride and taking money? With cash, you can have even more pride! Like us—if you give us money, we get drinks, and we feel super proud!”
“Don’t even start. Remember what I said before about not accepting food offered in humiliation?”
“Oh… right, those 200 million. Yeah.”
“…”
You couldn’t reason with a deity.
No winning even half a move against the heavens.
Lin Zihan laughed bitterly even as she recounted that time.
“Losing one eye isn’t the end of the world. I figured trading it for some peace later—for days where Mom doesn’t cry every night—was worth it! So~ I told the doctors straight up: I’m done with treatment~”
“!”
“Well… Mom wouldn’t sign off on it, but what could she do? The legs are on my body. Good thing I was a stubborn little brat back then. I could just hide! No me, no treatment! Haha… In the end, we missed the window, and it was too late to fix. Mom had no choice but to accept it and get on with life. Better a short pain than a long one. After that, she opened her own flower shop and stopped crying so much. See? Life’s about smiling more! That’s what I call a big win!”
A big win?
This… is a win?
Ye Zhibai’s slender hand tightened around the empty bottle.
It trembled.
After hearing the whole story, she felt utterly unsettled.
Lin Zihan back then… she was just a middle schooler, right?
And she’d made that kind of sacrifice? Gambled her own eyesight?
Suddenly, a lock of golden hair brushed past her vision.
It was Lin Zihan. She had stood up.
And now she was squatting right in front of Ye Zhibai.
Her smile was brilliant as she playfully shook her head side to side.
Like she was trying to cheer Ye Zhibai up.
“Don’t be sad, Little Bai’er! How come you went quiet all of a sudden… Sigh, I knew it’d be like this, that’s why I didn’t wanna tell you. But…”
Lin Zihan slowly rose to her feet.
Her reddish right eye swept across the endless sky, free and unfettered.
Then it settled on Ye Zhibai’s blue pupils.
“But… I’m really, truly not dissatisfied with how things are. Because even with just this one eye, I can still see all of you perfectly, Little Bai’er.”
