Yu Qinjiu was momentarily stunned. After a few seconds, she tried to pull the corners of her mouth into a smile, but the numbness on her face hadn’t faded yet, making her movements seem unnatural.
Her uncontainable thoughts began to drift far away, floating back to her childhood, making her feel as stiff as the puppet in the drawer with its mouth sewn shut by thread.
Probably noticing her mood, Ji Qingyou turned her head to look at her. The fingers she had curled back slowly reached out again, and the slightly warm tips landed on a spot on her cheek, gently pulling up the mask she had taken down, adjusting the ear loops. She said softly, “You can keep the mask on for a little while longer.”
Yu Qinjiu was silent for a few seconds, then slightly curled her red, swollen eyes. “I look pretty ugly, don’t I?”
Ji Qingyou withdrew her hand and shook her head. “No, you’re very pretty.”
Yu Qinjiu wrapped her arms around her knees, her slightly wavy, soft hair cascading from her shoulders, seeming to ensnare her within it. After a moment of silence, her hoarse voice came out, a little muffled. “Even if it’s just comfort, I’m still happy to hear it.”
Ji Qingyou bit her lip, wanting to say something to make Yu Qinjiu believe her. But soon, Yu Qinjiu looked up at her and changed the subject. “Do you want to know why I’m sad?”
Ji Qingyou looked at her. “Do you want to tell me?”
“Yeah, a little.” Yu Qinjiu said, then looked at her again, slowly calling her name. “Ji Qingyou…”
Ji Qingyou clenched her fingertips. “Hmm?”
Yu Qinjiu looked away, her voice very light. “Can you come a little closer?”
As she said this, her gaze remained fixed on the clock hanging on the wall in front of her, making Ji Qingyou almost wonder if she wasn’t even talking to her.
Until Yu Qinjiu lowered her head slightly, her drooping eyelashes trembling faintly, revealing a palpable sadness. “I saw Yu Muzhou…”
Her voice was so soft, like a feather falling into snow.
But Ji Qingyou heard her clearly. After a few seconds of silence, she moved a little closer to Yu Qinjiu, her fingers on her knees slightly curling. “When you were at the hospital?”
Yu Qinjiu hummed in affirmation, tilting her head towards Ji Qingyou and gently leaning on her shoulder, as if finally finding a landing point. She let out a long breath. “He was probably there to pick up Sister Qin. After all, they’re getting married. He seems like a pretty good marriage prospect.”
Ji Qingyou was silent, feeling the weight on her shoulder.
To be fair, Yu Muzhou wasn’t the villain in this situation. Even though his very identity was a source of pain for Yu Qinjiu, he always seemed deeply aware of this. Over the years, he had always done his utmost for Yu Qinjiu, being a good brother. He had also consistently given his true feelings to Qin Shuangchi, being a qualified, even excellent partner. He not only followed Qin Shuangchi’s every word but had never shown any resentment towards Ji Qingyou’s own coldness towards him.
But Ji Qingyou still couldn’t bring herself to call him “Brother-in-law.”
Just as Yu Qinjiu now couldn’t bring herself to call him “Brother” anymore.
“Maybe he didn’t really do anything wrong…” Yu Qinjiu’s voice came from beside her shoulder, wrapped in deep sadness. “But I just hate him.”
When she said the word “hate,” her voice was mixed with multiple emotions, holding back sobs, and also containing a bit of teenage petulance and grievance.
Sadness surged. Ji Qingyou raised her hand, but when she gently patted Yu Qinjiu’s shoulder, she slowed her movements.
She should say something.
“Yeah, I hate him too.” After thinking for a long time, she gave this answer, even adding the word “too.”
In her nearly thirty years of life, Ji Qingyou had never said she liked or hated anyone, and Yu Qinjiu knew this well, even though they hadn’t seen each other for ten years.
But they understood each other better than anyone else in the world.
Even so, it didn’t stop Yu Qinjiu’s nose from tingling. “He’s going to be your brother-in-law.”
Hearing the term “brother-in-law” from Yu Qinjiu felt unfamiliar to Ji Qingyou. She slightly pursed her lips. “My sister doesn’t mind, and it’s not like I’m the one marrying him.”
She rarely made jokes.
“…Alright.” Probably because of her clumsy joke, Yu Qinjiu’s mood seemed to lighten a bit. “Sister Qin is pretty generous.”
As she spoke, she paused for a few seconds, then suddenly asked, “Is my coming back this time making things difficult for you and Sister Qin?”
“No.” Ji Qingyou denied it. “My sister won’t find it difficult, and I definitely won’t.”
Because we have always been on your side.
And we respect all your decisions.
Yu Qinjiu nodded slowly, hummed softly, and murmured very lightly on her shoulder, “That’s good.”
The clock ticked silently. Yu Qinjiu didn’t bring up the topic again. Before Ji Qingyou left, after ensuring she was better, Yu Qinjiu stood at the door and asked a very strange question.
“Ji Qingyou, if I turned into a snake one day, would you still be friends with me?”
A completely unreasonable question, at a completely illogical time, with an answer that seemed to belong nowhere.
Ji Qingyou often couldn’t pinpoint what Yu Qinjiu was really getting at with her questions. For instance, right now, she had to wonder whether the core of Yu Qinjiu’s question was “turning into a snake” or “being friends.”
But no matter the core.
Her answer seemed the same. “Why a snake?”
Yu Qinjiu leaned against the doorframe, thinking for a few seconds. “Because you’re most afraid of snakes?”
“I remember when we were kids, you met a snake on a night road and were so scared you couldn’t speak for three days. Even though you never admitted it, I knew back then that snakes were what you feared most.”
She seemed to remember their childhood with exceptional clarity.
The sound-activated light in the hallway flickered dimly. Ji Qingyou was silent for a long time, appearing lost in thought. Yu Qinjiu watched her for a while. When the sound-activated light went out, she suddenly laughed. “Alright, if you need this long to think about it, it seems Dr. Ji doesn’t really want to—”
“Yes, I would.”
The soft, slow voice seemed to make the sound-activated light brighten instantly. Ji Qingyou looked at her under the light, and faintly, the corners of her mouth seemed to lift slightly.
“You can become anything.”
Yu Qinjiu’s unfinished words dissipated at her lips. She looked at the gently flickering light in Ji Qingyou’s dark pupils, her eye sockets warming. But she quickly lowered her eyes to hide her emotions, nodded slowly, and said “okay” in a very soft voice.
After Ji Qingyou nodded in return, she tucked away all her emotions and said, “Good night.”
Ji Qingyou said good night back. Before she went inside, she added, “Call me anytime if something comes up.”
Yu Qinjiu hummed in response. Only after hearing the door across the hall lock did she weakly grip her own doorknob, waiting until the hallway light went out again before snapping back to reality.
Before entering, she glanced at the numbers on the doorplate opposite, realizing Ji Qingyou lived in 2201, and she lived in 2202.
The combination lock clicked shut automatically, the sound a bit sudden in the quiet room.
The faintly glowing blue lock soon turned black. She stared at it for a moment, remembering Ji Qingyou’s comment about her password being too simple. Finally, she pressed the “*” key to reset it.
After entering the old password, she hesitated.
Remembering the situation when she had set the old password, and how she had pressed it these past few days without needing to think twice, she felt a reluctance to change it.
In recent years, her memory had been deteriorating quickly. She often forgot things, and the doctor said it was a sign of her sleep deprivation.
That day, after Ji Qingyou left.
She had clearly thought about changing the password, mentally running through all the important dates. Before she could decide, she was interrupted by calls from Yu Muzhou and Yu Cheng. After hanging up, she completely forgot about it. Exhausted, she had a glass of wine and passed out. When she woke up, about to go out, she suddenly remembered she needed to change the password.
But when she stood before the locked door again, she realized she had somehow already changed it. For some reason, a string of numbers surfaced in her mind.
2022.12.24.
She wasn’t sure, but she followed her subconscious and tried the password.
She entered the wrong password many times.
The password she finally succeeded with was:
“42212202YQJ”
The faint light on the lock flickered again and again.
Yu Qinjiu finally snapped out of it and breathed a sigh of relief. Luckily, before Ji Qingyou knew her new password, she had already deleted the four most important digits, making it look like just the apartment number plus the initials of her name, a password so simple it could be easily guessed.
But it really is too easy to guess. She bit her lip and slowly pressed the set password digits and letters. But for some reason, even though she had pressed this string of numbers and initials many times, she still got shaky fingers each time. Sometimes she pressed too lightly, sometimes too hard, and the lock wouldn’t respond.
Maybe this lock’s buttons aren’t sensitive enough.
Thinking this, she entered it two or three times before finally fully confirming the new password:
“212202YQJ”
Actually, it was simple. By just adding two numbers before the old password, she could distinguish the apartment number from the important date, making it less likely for others to guess.
She didn’t remember how, in her drunken stupor, she still remembered she needed to change the password. She only knew that even completely wasted, the first important date she could think of, the one she could remember and would use as a password, was still:
The day she saw Ji Qingyou again.
~ ~ ~
After changing the password, she emptied her mind in the living room for a while, waiting for the stiffness and numbness on her face to fade. Yu Qinjiu walked into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. The sound of trickling water started. She slowly took off her mask and looked at herself in the mirror, a little dazed.
Even though the stiffness on her face had dissipated.
Her expression still seemed a bit unnatural, as if her features, just recently reattached, were trying to resist her control.
Her face was deathly pale, her makeup a total mess, her eyes red and swollen. Her tidied hair still fell messily around her neck, and her lips were so pale they only held a trace of color.
Her condition was better than she had imagined.
She wasn’t referring to herself.
But to the rabbit ears drawn on the mirror with lipstick.
The lines were smooth and round, placed perfectly at her height, so when she looked in the mirror, she could superimpose the top of her head onto the rabbit ears drawn on the glass.
The water continued to run, the temperature rose, and steam clouded the mirror.
For a moment, Yu Qinjiu’s vision blurred. Spotting a sticky note dampened in the corner of the mirror, she hastily grabbed it and read it carefully, not wanting to miss a single word.
