Chapter 23 Part 1

Jiang Min had fallen asleep, a flush of fever spreading across her cheeks.

At a red light, Lin Xuqing leaned over to look at her, hesitantly touching her forehead with her palm—burning hot.

Some low fever. Some “it broke.”

This woman had probably been running a high fever for a whole day.

Yet she’d insisted on working all day, and dinner with the team in the evening. Even half-asleep she’d said she wouldn’t go to the hospital. Stubborn beyond belief.

“What are you doing?”

Jiang Min’s eyes suddenly opened; she caught her wrist and looked at her.

Lin Xuqing felt inexplicably guilty. “Checking whether you still have a fever.”

“Oh… just a little. No need for the hospital.”

Jiang Min released her, turned her head away, and closed her eyes again.

Lin Xuqing withdrew her hand, clenching it into a fist, and glanced at the navigation. According to the location Jiang Xuezi had sent, nearly twenty kilometers remained.

She ached to floor the accelerator, but for safety’s sake didn’t dare drive too fast; it took nearly half an hour to arrive.

The moment the car stopped, Jiang Min woke.

Perhaps because of the fever, her eyes were very bright, faintly misted with moisture—so much softer than usual.

“Fairly obedient,” she said, her voice husky. “You didn’t take advantage of my sleep to haul me off to the hospital.”

Lin Xuqing unbuckled her seatbelt and got out, walked around to open her door, bent down to undo her seatbelt as well, and extended a hand. “Can you walk?”

“A few steps—surely you don’t mean to carry me?”

“I…”

She’d meant it as an offhand joke, but Lin Xuqing couldn’t find a reply.

“Just kidding. I can walk myself.”

Having slept half an hour in the car, Jiang Min felt somewhat better; bracing on Lin Xuqing’s hand, she got out.

Lin Xuqing followed behind, watching her unlock the door.

Quite a few flowers grew in the yard. No wonder she lived so far out—probably for the sake of having her own little garden.

Jiang Min fumbled the front door open. It was only a few steps, yet she seemed to have spent all her strength; she sank onto the sofa with no energy left to rise.

“Rest a moment first,” Lin Xuqing said, coming over and leaning on the sofa’s arm to look at her. “Where do you keep medicine at home?”

“Medicine… in a cabinet in the living room. I forget which—look around. There’s ice in the fridge.”

Jiang Min spoke with her eyes closed, her mind still fairly lucid, only her speech slower.

Lin Xuqing went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, took out ice and put it in water, soaked a towel, and laid it on Jiang Min’s forehead. “Cooling you down physically first.”

She turned the place upside down, hunting for medicine.

She opened several cabinets in the living room in a row without finding so much as a shadow of medicine. In the end she found it in a kitchen cabinet—fortunately, it hadn’t expired.

Jiang Min seemed to have fallen asleep again.

Lin Xuqing had no choice but to wake her—and for a moment didn’t know what to call her. After a hesitation, she said, “Sister Jiang Min?”

“Mm… what is it?”

It took great effort for Jiang Min to open her eyes, straining to gather her wits enough to speak, her whole body weak and boneless.

“Take some medicine.”

“Mm…”

Lin Xuqing helped her up, half-cradling her, and held the cup to her lips. Jiang Min drank the medicine from her hand. “There. I need to rest now.”

“Then rest in your room.”

“I don’t want to move.”

“It can’t be comfortable sleeping on the sofa. You…”

“Stop fussing over me. Let me sleep a while.”

Jiang Min gave her cheek an absent pinch and drifted off again.

She really must have felt terrible—and been utterly exhausted.

Lin Xuqing raised a hand and poked the spot on her own cheek where she’d just been touched, the corner of her mouth curving involuntarily.

Listening to Jiang Min’s steady breathing, watching the loose strands damp with sweat from the fever, she moved to reach out—stopped midair—slowly withdrew, and simply watched her in silence.

Lin Xuqing sat on the carpet, leaning against the sofa’s edge, just watching her like that.

Watching the faint lines at the corners of her eyes, watching her long lashes.

The towel had gone warm; while searching for medicine she’d spotted the Fever Cooling Patches in the fridge, so she replaced it now. A blanket lay on the coffee table; she brought it over and set it nearby, afraid Jiang Min would chill once the fever broke in the small hours.

Only after all this did she remember—she’d promised Jiang Xuezi she’d call once they got home.

She opened her phone and, sure enough, found several missed calls.

Seeing Jiang Min sleeping soundly, Lin Xuqing tiptoed outside, stood in the yard, and returned the call.

The call connected quickly—Jiang Xuezi had clearly been waiting up for her.

“Little Lin, how is it? Are you there?”

“We’ve been here a while. Sorry, Sister Xuezi—I forgot to call you back first.”

“It’s fine. I figured as much.”

“She’s taken her medicine and is asleep now.”

Relieved, Jiang Xuezi thought for a moment, then asked anyway, “So—do you want to tell me now what you two argued about in the car?”

Earlier, when Lin Xuqing had called for the location, she’d mentioned in passing that they’d been arguing in the car.

“Or, tell me—this afternoon with A-Min, did you two fight?”

“I… we didn’t fight.”

“Because she’s sick and still refuses to rest?”

“Mm. Yes.”

“That’s not all, is it? What else?”

“And also… she took Sister Ning Rou’s call, and said she’d go see her after work.” Lin Xuqing drew a deep breath, as if summoning all her strength to say what was so hard to utter. “I can accept that she doesn’t see me.”

“But I—” she stopped again, forcing herself onward, “I can’t bear to watch her neglect herself for someone else’s sake.”

Many years ago, it had been like this too.

That time, Jiang Min and Ning Rou had come together to Mingchuan University to see her. Ning Rou had bought her several pieces of clothing, in a soft, sweet style. She hadn’t wanted to take them, but had no choice; she’d accepted them and said a polite, courteous thank you.

As was their custom, they’d have dinner with Lin Xuqing at the student cafeteria before leaving. Lin Xuqing had swiped her campus card and ordered three portions of boiled dumplings.

Jiang Min had gotten an unexpected call from a colleague, and told them to eat first.

Ning Rou took one bite of a dumpling, seemed to find it hard to swallow, and set it down.

Lin Xuqing was at a loss. Hesitating, she still asked, “Sister Ning Rou, what would you like? I’ll get you a fresh portion.”

Ning Rou smiled and said no need—but that bowl of dumplings went untouched.

When Jiang Min returned from her call and sat down, her mind was probably still on work; she noticed none of these details.

After dinner, Lin Xuqing walked them to the school gate.

Ning Rou knew they had things to say; cradling her phone, she stood by the roadside, photographing the moon in the sky.

Jiang Min asked whether her money was holding out, and whether, with the cold snap, she needed a new down jacket.

Listening to her talk, Lin Xuqing was more silent than usual. “Enough money. And I have clothes.”

In the midst of this conversation, a sports car came tearing toward them from not far off.

Lin Xuqing startled and instinctively reached to pull Jiang Min away—but missed. Jiang Min had already spun around, shielding Ning Rou behind her first.

The sports car shot past, nearly grazing Jiang Min.

The driver was a student with dyed silver hair, looking drunk, who even waved at them through the window.

Heart still pounding, Lin Xuqing rushed over—but before she could speak, she heard Jiang Min ask Ning Rou, “Are you okay? You’re not hurt?”

But the one who’d nearly been clipped by the car just now had been her…

“Little Lin?”

Jiang Xuezi, having heard those two sentences, had expected her to keep going—but she’d stopped. Jiang Xuezi waited patiently a long while before speaking up.

“Sorry, I drifted off,” Lin Xuqing said, gripping her phone. “Today it was my fault. I shouldn’t have been angry with her.”

“Let’s leave the Ning Rou matter for now. Keep those words of yours in your heart—and rather than telling them to me, tell them to A-Min herself someday.”

“Me? What standing do I have?”

Lin Xuqing gave a self-mocking little laugh.

“It’s not like that,” Jiang Xuezi cut her off. “A-Min is actually very good to you.”

“I know. When she’s willing, she can be good to me. When she isn’t, she can simply ignore me.”

Between them, it was never equal.

Jiang Xuezi said gently, “She cares about you a great deal. You are not as unimportant as you imagine.”

“I don’t know why you two fought back in your school days. I’ve asked her; she won’t tell me. But I’d guess you have no idea—she was having a very hard time then too.”

Lin Xuqing froze. “She… what happened to her?”

“Her finances were in bad shape too. Late that summer, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, with other complications after the surgery. It cost a great deal.”

“One day I went to see her at home. She was eating dinner—just a few steamed buns, nothing more. Worried about her, I sneaked a look in her kitchen, and in her fridge I saw half a cabinet of steamed buns.”

“But that year, your tuition and living expenses—she still scraped them together for you.”

At the end, Jiang Xuezi’s voice softened. “Really, none of this should come from me. A-Min doesn’t want me telling you, and of course I respect that. But I wanted you to know all the same.”

“She has always been very good to you.”

“So be a little better to her, too.”

Lin Xuqing didn’t know how she’d hung up the phone, nor how she’d walked back into the living room.

She tried to control her thoughts, but was powerless to. This thing, carried in her heart all these years—heavy, heavy, pressing until she could hardly breathe.

Lin Xuqing sank down onto the carpet, into the spot where the sofa cushion had been pressed hollow by her leaning. She buried her face in her arms. Scalding tears fell in great drops.

Silently, in her heart, she said: I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

How could she have, back then…

She’d made that decision behind Jiang Min’s back, and then said so stiffly, it’s none of your business. How could she have treated her that way?

When everything she had, she owed to her.

The past replayed scene by scene, and guilt surged over her like a flooding sea, drowning her.

She forgot everything of the present entirely.

Until a warm palm passed over the crown of her head.

“Lin Xuqing—what are you crying for?”