“Aren’t you afraid she’ll misunderstand you too?” Li Qiao noticed her fingers whitening from the pressure.
“She won’t.” Kong Liyuan’s eyelashes finally caught a hint of reddish tint in the hazy sunset, fluffy and soft.
“She said that unless it comes from my own mouth, she won’t believe it.”
“Then are you planning to tell her about this? About how you’ve been at the sanatorium these past few days?”
After that question, Kong Liyuan fell silent—a classic defensive posture.
“Alright, suit yourself.” Li Qiao shrugged and didn’t press further.
She just squinted against the breeze for a moment, then pointed at a large group of people streaming into the sanatorium park.
“These are the new batch of volunteers, hired specifically to entertain the kids. They’ve all signed NDAs, so relax. No need to hide away in your room.”
The sanatorium did house some children placed there by their parents. Kong Liyuan didn’t pay much attention, since she herself had been just a child when she first checked in.
Back then, she had spent day and night plotting escapes—swimming across that vast, icy lake, scaling walls lined with spikes, stealing attendants’ clothes to swap identities…
Without fail, all her childish schemes ended in failure.
Later, during one escape plan she thought was foolproof, she met Li Qiao.
After that, the sanatorium got a new owner who moved it from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The environment became far more comfortable, the schedules more reasonable. It gave the residents a real sense of dignity and freedom—no more forcing everyone into their rooms with only a tiny activity area.
It wasn’t managed like a mental hospital anymore but more like a secluded paradise cut off from society. Gradually, she even started coming here willingly every summer.
The place she had once dreamed of fleeing forever had become her only refuge now.
Kong Liyuan glanced lazily in the direction Li Qiao pointed. A few people in oversized mascot costumes were entertaining some kids in hospital gowns.
“Got it,” she said softly.
Li Qiao hummed in acknowledgment, seemed to stare at her for a bit longer, then smiled and said, “Then enjoy the sunset a little more.” With that, she shoved her hands in her pockets and wandered off somewhere.
Kong Liyuan remained seated on the wooden chair, watching a scrawny little cat totter through the twilight. Blood seeped from its bandaged leg.
She had no idea where it had come from, and why it had wandered here of all places? This wasn’t a good spot. Most people here weren’t good people either.
That was what Kong Liyuan thought when she saw a pair of hands suddenly scoop up the kitten. It was a bright-faced middle-aged woman in volunteer garb—a light blue polo shirt. She looked to be in her forties or fifties, with yellowish-brown hair and surprising strength. She effortlessly cradled the cat and stroked it with a beaming smile.
Then she looked over at Kong Liyuan with a smile.
Kong Liyuan watched the woman amble toward her, noting her slightly brownish eyes. She looked Chinese—maybe even Kazakh.
She felt herself being irrational. How could she spot a Kazakh person in a California sanatorium?
And those eyes—they looked just like Fu Tingli’s.
Fu Tingli. The name bubbled up from the depths of her heart like a spreading wildfire, burning everything in her vision to a vivid crimson.
Did Fu Tingli think of her the same way? What was Fu Tingli doing right now? Was she frowning in worry over those trending search terms? Or quietly waiting for her to come back and explain?
Or… had she asked Rong Wu about her? But why hadn’t Rong Wu mentioned anything about Fu Tingli looking for her?
Had she noticed the photo Kong Liyuan had secretly taken? Had she not noticed at all, or had she and was still patiently waiting for it to be returned?
Was she thinking of her? Like right now, as thoughts of her crashed over Kong Liyuan like an unstoppable tide.
Or, as in the past, would she ruthlessly pretend nothing had happened if Kong Liyuan didn’t go to her?
That person had always been like this—innocent at times, yet Li Yi-level cruel and decisive at others.
What had Fu Tingli been up to after that day?
She didn’t think she’d even said “happy birthday” to Fu Tingli that day. After their shared birthday, had Fu Tingli been doing okay without her? Would she have an easier time without Kong Liyuan always seeking her out?
Maybe she shouldn’t have gone to her that day. If she hadn’t, Fu Tingli’s reaction to the news might have been less burdensome now.
For someone who scattered affection so freely, seeing such headlines the day after they’d celebrated their birthdays together—headlines about her “abusing and killing Little Bird,” the video showing her like that…
How would Fu Tingli view it all? How would she get through the day? Kong Liyuan didn’t care about herself—too many bad things had happened to her already.
She just felt like her greed knew no bounds, like a snake trying to swallow an elephant.
She knew full well that nothing around her was good.
Yet she still wanted to drag all these bad, ugly things onto someone so pure and innocent.
Kong Liyuan thought about it all with perfect calm.
She pinched the faint scar on her finger—the bite mark that had long since faded—as the middle-aged woman took a few steps toward her. Her thoughts leaped back and forth in wild abandon.
It was like a one-sided monologue playing out in her mind, heedless of her control.
“I just saw you bandaging this little kitten,” the woman said as she approached, smiling warmly.
As expected, a fellow Chinese. Kong Liyuan thought.
She didn’t answer the woman’s question. Instead, without any basis, she asked, “Are you planning to adopt this kitten?”
The woman seemed caught off guard by the question. She paused for a moment, her tone surprised. “What?”
Kong Liyuan repeated patiently, “If you’re willing to adopt it, I can provide all the funds it needs.”
She had switched to more respectful language.
The woman finally understood. She clutched her stomach and burst into hearty laughter, gasping for breath yet still managing to ask between chuckles, “You’ve already bandaged its wounds. Why don’t you adopt it yourself?”
Kong Liyuan pointed to her hospital gown and shook her head. “I don’t like living animals.”
“Oh, I see.” The woman plopped down beside her, her body carrying a warm, comforting scent. She leaned down, teasing the kitten in her arms until it licked her teeth. “Well, you’re certainly generous—willing to shell out so much money for something you don’t even like.”
Kong Liyuan didn’t deny it. “Money isn’t anything good anyway.”
The woman let out a curious “Huh?” Then, without missing a beat, she stuck out her hand. “You make it sound so simple. In that case, give me thirty million.”
Kong Liyuan glanced at the kitten in the woman’s arms, then at her hazel eyes, her tone casual and unbothered. “Sure, if you adopt it.”
She tilted her head slightly and added, “But we’ll have to wait until I get back home and confirm I have enough funds. Then we can discuss the details.”
It was as if, in her words, she was promising not thirty million, but something utterly trivial.
The woman was stunned by the response. She coughed a few times before asking, still shaken, “Are you really that generous, or do you just not care at all?”
Kong Liyuan smiled without replying.
Once the woman had caught her breath, she sighed and said slowly, “It seems money really is the least of your concerns. But I never expected you’d think of it as something bad.”
“I’d rather it were something good…” Kong Liyuan stated her view matter-of-factly. “That way, I wouldn’t be unable to give it to the person I want to give it to.”
Sometimes she felt like a barren soul right down to her core—unable to give away her love or her money freely, and forever unable to deliver them to the ones she truly wanted to reach.
“You’re such a young woman, but you talk like you’ve seen through the world—like some old nun who’s renounced worldly desires,” the woman remarked with a tsk. She stroked the kitten’s fur as if speaking to it. “Isn’t that right? She just bandaged you up, so clearly she’s got a good heart. Why does someone so kind have such extreme ideas?”
Kong Liyuan smiled but said nothing. She simply pointed to her hospital gown and then to the woman’s volunteer uniform.
These were two utterly different symbols.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The woman disagreed. “I think the kids here are all pretty great—far kinder than all that mess out in the world.”
She ran her fingers along the kitten’s fragile back and sighed softly. “You have to understand: only truly kind people end up with illnesses like these.”
Kong Liyuan listened quietly, neither speaking nor arguing back. In her mind, she thought hazily that if it weren’t for the woman’s hazel eyes, she wouldn’t have chatted with her this long.
People were just irrational, after all.
Hearing those words stirred no reaction in her. Instead, they inexplicably brought to mind another pair of hazel eyes.
Distracted, she interrupted the woman. “Are you Kazakh?”
She didn’t dare hope for so many coincidences—in a foreign land, running into someone from the same homeland with such familiar features. After asking, she lazily lifted her gaze to the reddening sky.
But the woman replied with surprise, “How did you spot that so quickly?”
“Your features looked familiar,” Kong Liyuan said, genuinely taken aback. Her eyes returned to the woman’s deep, striking face. “Are you really?”
The woman laughed heartily and replied directly in Kazakh. Kong Liyuan didn’t understand the words, but it confirmed the woman’s heritage.
The wind tousled her hair. She stared at the face before her, finding it increasingly familiar. As if compelled by some unseen force, she asked,
“Do you know what this phrase means?”
Encountering another Kazakh person suddenly reminded her of something from last year in the Northern Border, when she and Fu Tingli had been stranded in Hewatu.
Fu Tingli had taught her a Kazakh phrase but hadn’t told her what it meant.
Tingli had smiled back then, saying she’d explain once Kong Liyuan pronounced it more accurately.
Was her pronunciation good enough now?
“Men seni jaksi koremin.” The tangled memories and erratic thoughts mangled her delivery.
Kong Liyuan hesitated, asking the woman not to reveal the meaning yet—wait until she could say it more perfectly.
But the woman paused, then gave a strange smile. When she spoke again, her voice had softened. She taught Kong Liyuan to repeat it once more.
The woman’s pronunciation was far more precise. With each word, Kong Liyuan’s thoughts plunged deeper into that Hewatu winter.
The snow was thick and soft, the Northern Border winds howling fiercely. She held that warm felt hat in her hands. Fu Tingli lay back against the snowdrift, gazing up at her with those pale hazel eyes, smiling softly as she said,
“Men seni jaksi koremin.”
Now, in California’s summer, Kong Liyuan repeated the phrase from Hewatu. This time, it came out more accurately. The woman nodded in satisfaction, smiled, and—without revealing the meaning—asked,
“Who taught you to say that?”
“A…” Kong Liyuan felt as if she’d been yanked from drifting clouds back to solid ground, her body suddenly weighed down.
“Friend,” she said.
“Oh, just a friend, huh? Well, to be honest, this phrase isn’t your everyday expression. Don’t you want to hear what it means from me instead of asking your friend directly?”
The woman smiled as she asked, then glanced behind Kong Liyuan and muttered under her breath, “Teaches it but doesn’t explain what it means.”
An intense premonition gripped Kong Liyuan, filling her with sudden anxiety.
“So what does it mean?”
“Fine, I’ll tell you straight.” The woman spread her hands and said clearly, word by word,
“I see you clearly.”
The wind whipped past Kong Liyuan’s ears like pounding drums. She didn’t grasp what was so special about it.
“This phrase—”
“Of course it has other meanings too,” the woman said, addressing someone behind Kong Liyuan.
As if drawn by the same force, Kong Liyuan turned her head.
The woman’s voice lingered in her ear, each word stretched and slowed like a movie’s voiceover.
“Literally, it’s what I just said—I see you clearly. But in Kazakh, it also means—”
“I like you.”
The blood-red dusk had fallen; the fiery sun had fully dipped below the horizon. Amid the howl of wind through rustling leaves and grasses in the stifling air, amid those people in mascot costumes, she spotted one figure with a cast on her leg, leaning on crutches. Cloaked in the hazy crimson glow of sunset, her hair wildly disheveled by the wind, she stood silently watching.
—I see you clearly.
So she’d been watching her all along—watching her, clear as day.
