Chapter 4: Discharged and Moving Out

Truthfully, even the “minor injury” the nurse had mentioned was agonizing for her. The gash on her waist had begun to scab over, itching and aching in equal measure, forcing her to sleep only on her side.

Maybe the nurse had a point, she thought with a dose of self-mockery. She really had been spoiled rotten. When Qi Jianguo hit her, it was always with a slipper or a skipping rope. At worst, it left bruises and swelling. A tearing wound like this was a first for her.

What really made her uncomfortable was Tao Xiao, who never left her bedside. Qi Ran genuinely had no idea what kind of expression she was supposed to wear to seem normal. In the end, all she could do was lie still, pretending to sleep to pass the time. When Tao Xiao cut fruit and offered it to her, even saying a simple “thank you” felt agonizingly awkward.

Didn’t Tao Xiao have a job? Had she taken leave? The questions were always on the tip of her tongue, but she could never manage to voice them honestly.

It didn’t take long—just a week before she was discharged. The overly familiar nurse praised her physical constitution, saying she healed remarkably fast. Although a shallow scar was left on her waist, Qi Ran wasn’t bothered by it much.

After being discharged, she immediately had to return to school. With senior year of high school approaching, there seemed to be no such thing as sick leave privileges.

While driving, Tao Xiao said they would rent an apartment near the school so Qi Ran could have an easier time going to and from classes. Her voice was as gentle as ever, but her attitude was uncharacteristically firm. Perhaps out of guilt or some other form of unease, Qi Ran could only nod in acceptance.

After packing up everything in the house, Qi Ran realized the sum of her belongings was shockingly small. It didn’t even fill one large suitcase: apart from her Jiang High uniforms, her daily clothes seemed to consist of only two shirts, washed so many times they were faded white, and three pairs of pants. All three were her old middle school uniform trousers, bought a size too big back then so she could grow into them. As a result, she had to tie a rope around her waist to keep them from falling down and roll up the legs several times.

Qi Jianguo hadn’t planned on buying her new ones. He’d told her to just grab something passable from the school’s lost and found—that uniforms were a rip-off, and there was no need to let the school make that money. But her old class teacher was a shrewd one and didn’t let him exploit that loophole, because the uniform fee had to be paid together with the tuition. In the end, Qi Jianguo could only grumble and curse as he paid the hundred and sixty yuan.

Qi Ran actually thought it made no difference. She didn’t care whether a uniform was new or used. But seeing Qi Jianguo forced into a corner was something she found genuinely amusing.

As for sanitary pads and underwear, almost all of them were bought for her by Tao Xiao. Her birth mother had perhaps forgotten she was, after all, a girl, or maybe she simply couldn’t fathom that Qi Jianguo would make her get by with repeatedly washing and reusing a towel. More likely, though, her mother just didn’t care what Qi Ran used to get through her periods. After all, in every conceivable way, Qi Xin was far more of a mother’s child than Qi Ran. Apart from their similar appearances, the two sisters were worlds apart in temperament. Qi Xin knew how to make people cherish her, something Qi Ran admired from the bottom of her heart, because she couldn’t bring herself to dislike Qi Xin either.

There’s a saying: you need to trade sincerity for sincerity. Qi Xin never caused anyone worry about her studies—rumor had it she’d ranked in the top fifty of the entire province on her high school entrance exams. She spoke gently and politely to everyone, acted spoiled and dependent on their mother, and knew exactly when crying would make their mother dote on her and when it would just be annoying. If Qi Ran were the mother, she’d definitely prefer Qi Xin too. People should be reasonable, Qi Ran thought. Qi Xin put in the effort, so it was only normal she reaped the rewards.

As she packed, her thoughts wandered aimlessly.

Perhaps in her mother’s eyes, Qi Xin was her child alone, with absolutely nothing to do with Qi Jianguo. Meanwhile, Qi Ran was rotten to the core, filled entirely with Qi Jianguo’s blood. There wasn’t a single thing she did that pleased her mother. Her mother thought long hair was pretty on girls, but Qi Ran, finding it a hassle, took a pair of scissors and butchered her own hair. Her mother thought girls should learn piano or violin for elegance, but Qi Ran was completely clueless about music. She did, however, have a bit of talent in track and field. The elementary school’s track team had even approached Qi Jianguo to ask if she could join for training, which would make the transition to middle school easier as an athletic specialized student. Qi Jianguo’s first question was whether the school would give them a subsidy for her joining, shutting down the conversation instantly. The school then contacted her mother, but she also didn’t want Qi Ran doing sports, thinking the daily afternoon training would interfere with her studies. A girl had no future only in sports, so the matter was dropped just like that.

In a sense, to her mother, Qi Ran was just as much a stain on her refined life as Qi Jianguo was. Thinking this, Qi Ran suddenly felt the urge to laugh. She realized she was truly destined to be scum. Her old class teacher had also once called Qi Ran a stain on her teaching career. She single-handedly tarnished so many people’s lives—she hadn’t lived in vain.

But then, a wave of frustration hit her as her thoughts landed on Tao Xiao again.

When she finished packing all her belongings, she turned off all the lights and closed all the doors. Staring at the empty, clean living room, she felt a strange, fleeting sense of disorientation.

It was as if she wasn’t just leaving temporarily to rent another place, but bidding farewell forever, never to return.

She only snapped out of it when Tao Xiao called her name.

“Goodbye,” she said to the dark, empty space, and closed the door.

The rented apartment wasn’t large—two bedrooms and a living room. The wooden furniture in the rooms was a bit old but kept very clean. The slightly warped wooden floorboards bore the marks and textures of years of use. On the bookshelf were books that seemed to belong to the previous tenant, or maybe the landlord himself—all very old, their covers worn and yellowed. The collection was surprisingly eclectic, a clear sign of an avid reader. There were professional books on architecture, pulp story digests, philosophy and history texts, and a thick stack of sci-fi magazines. Qi Ran flipped through one and found it was published in ’94, much older than she was.

The rented apartment was indeed much more convenient for school, less than a five-minute walk away. When she got to her classroom the next day, before Qi Ran could even take her seat, Xu Yan and Liu Xu were already at her desk. Liu Xu was holding what looked like a string of beads, drawing crosses over his chest in a spooky, ritualistic manner.

Seeing Xu Yan’s hesitant expression, Qi Ran was a little uncomfortable. “What’s all this? It’s just a flesh wound. You’re making it too big a deal.”

“Don’t say that, Qi Ran. That’s being too hard on yourself,” Liu Xu sighed. “Haven’t you noticed everyone admires you now? Haven’t you seen the video online? I’ll send it to you. It’s just too epic. ‘Collapse of a mountain without a change of expression, confronted by danger without a flinch’—you would’ve been a general in ancient times.”

Qi Ran froze, took out her battered cell phone, and opened the video Liu Xu sent.

The video was filmed from a weird angle, not like surveillance footage. It clearly showed a young girl in a school uniform standing at a crosswalk, waiting for the traffic light. After a moment, the light turned green. When the girl was right in the middle of the crosswalk, a sharp screech of brakes rang out. Three cars flew right past her face and collided not far away. The chaotic crashing sounds were jarring. The girl seemed to react only then, backing up a half-step too late and falling, the back of her head hitting the ground.

Qi Ran awkwardly closed the video. She finally understood why everyone else in the class was looking at her with such complicated expressions. They wanted to laugh but were too embarrassed to.

“Won’t this get taken down? It is a car crash scene,” she asked.

“Ah, probably not. How should I put this… the star of this video isn’t really you anyway. It’s the youngest son of the Bai Family,” Liu Xu sighed. “Everyone’s just gloating and popping champagne. It’s like those popular online crash compilations of street-racing punks. Times change; these kinds of videos have way more flavor than the public executions during the noon market back in the day.”

“Is that youngest son of the Bai Family very famous?”

Xu Yan said, “I remember the three Bai kids were on the news, right? Something about their looks. The two boys and the girl are all good-looking, said to be too good for the entertainment industry. According to the marketing accounts back then, they were rich young masters and missuses straight out of a novel.”

Liu Xu shrugged helplessly. “The online debates were pretty heated back then, so a lot of people are enjoying this. A Bai Family fangirl even committed ‘cyber love suicide’ online… Everyone seems to have a bit too much free time. A spectacle this big is impossible to pass up.”