The visitor was Lu Tingfeng, who had clearly already left moments ago.
Earlier, from a distance, Ji Lin hadn’t noticed how pale Lu Tingfeng’s face was. Now that the boy was closer, he saw that his lips were devoid of color. Ji Lin stared at him for a moment, and recalling what Jiang Taian had said, he decided not to treat the person in front of him as a madman. Instead, he spoke to him calmly. “I’m Ji Lin.”
Hearing his answer, the boy seemed delighted, and his previously dull eyes lit up. “I’m Lu Tingfeng.”
Ji Lin wanted to say he already knew that, having heard it from Li Sang, but at the last second, he changed his wording. “Lu Tingfeng… is something the matter?”
If not, he was going to cook his snail rice noodles. Although Li Sang’s suggestion sounded absurd, Ji Lin still wanted to try it. What if she was right? He wouldn’t know for certain until he actually tried it for himself. However, with someone standing there, he needed to wait for them to leave before he could start.
Lu Tingfeng thought for a moment before asking, “Do you like the things I made?”
He didn’t.
“I like them,” Ji Lin lied, looking at the pale face before him.
This made Lu Tingfeng’s eyes shine even brighter. “Then this is for you!” With that, he shoved the object in his hand into Ji Lin’s grasp and quickly hurried away.
Feeling the stickiness in his palm, Ji Lin looked down stiffly and saw the very same object that Li Sang had thrown back at Lu Tingfeng’s face earlier.
“…”
If I’d known, I wouldn’t have lied…
Li Sang spent a few minutes quickly brushing her teeth and washing her face before collapsing onto the bed. She was truly exhausted. However, just as she was about to drift off, her phone rang.
Yes—just when she wanted to sleep, someone called. The moment the ringtone sounded, Li Sang wanted to hurl the phone away. But she had enough sanity left to stop herself; after all, she’d have to pay to replace it. Instead, she simply hung up.
But a second later, the cursed ringtone sounded again. It was the same caller. This time, Li Sang was fully awake. She sat up abruptly and answered the call with enough force to nearly crack the screen.
Before she could even begin to roar, a voice roared from the other side: “Li Sang!!!”
The voice called her name and sounded familiar. Li Sang’s resentment dissipated significantly upon hearing it. She soon remembered who the voice belonged to and confirmed it by checking the contact name.
It was Xu Jiao—the same Xu Jiao she had sent off earlier that morning.
Li Sang wanted to hang up immediately, but for the sake of their meager friendship, she chose not to. Instead, she carefully moved the phone a bit further from her ear.
“What’s wrong?” Her voice was very soft, as if she were afraid the person on the other end would actually hear her.
Hearing Li Sang’s voice, Xu Jiao’s anger finally found an outlet, and she began to pour out her grievances. “Do you remember what you said when you tricked me into joining?”
What happened to “using the space only when necessary”? What happened to “freedom”? Why was she seeing none of it? All she saw was exploitation!
At this moment, Xu Jiao had just left a military restricted zone. After working non-stop for several hours, she thought she could finally rest, but she was wrong. She could leave, yes, but not to rest—she was being moved to another location. Currently, she was sitting in an RV bound for another province. To make it easier for her to sleep, they had provided an RV. They had originally planned to send her by helicopter, but since flying at night wasn’t safe, they switched to the motorhome.
She could sleep there, but at the thought of having to start a new round of work as soon as she opened her eyes, Xu Jiao couldn’t sleep at all.
“I…” Li Sang felt unusually tongue-tied. After a moment, she added, “After all, these are special circumstances.”
She attempted to comfort Xu Jiao with those words. Even though Xu Jiao hadn’t said exactly what was happening, Li Sang knew she was likely frantically moving supplies into her space. Or perhaps… she was being moved again. She thought she heard a car horn.
Suffice it to say, Li Sang’s hearing was very keen. It was indeed a horn, as the RV had stopped for a red light.
“I know it’s a special circumstance, but you didn’t say… it would be this exhausting!?”
Xu Jiao now wished she could just hand over her necklace and let them put the things in themselves. But she still had her sanity and knew she couldn’t just do that, so she endured it. She might be able to give it away, but whether she could get it back was uncertain. To protect her “cheat code,” Xu Jiao gritted her teeth and bore it.
“To tell you the truth, everyone is exhausted. At a time like this… I’ve been working fifteen hours straight today,” Li Sang said, her voice also carrying a hint of irritation. She slowly lay down, wishing she could fall asleep right then and there. But she forced herself to counsel Xu Jiao. “Look at it this way: the more supplies we stockpile now, the fewer will be destroyed later. That means you’re doing more for the country.”
Hearing this brainwashing-like talk, Xu Jiao snorted. “Don’t try to brainwash me.”
“How is it brainwashing? Isn’t it the truth? If it weren’t for that, the state wouldn’t have you working non-stop, would they? They certainly don’t want anything to happen to you, but in this situation, there’s no other way…”
Li Sang’s voice grew quieter and quieter until it finally faded into silence. Realizing Li Sang had likely fallen asleep, Xu Jiao guessed her call had caught her just as she was nodding off. She thought about Li Sang’s words, curled her lip, pulled up the blanket, and lay down.
Early the next morning, there was a knock on Li Sang’s door. The sound came almost exactly at the same time her alarm went off; one might have thought the person was timing it with a watch.
Li Sang instinctively grabbed her phone and saw the battery was at a dangerous 1%. She woke up instantly and plugged it in before attending to the door. She didn’t need to guess who it was—it was definitely Jiang Taian.
She opened the door, and sure enough, there he was.
“Captain Jiang, why are you up so early?” Li Sang rubbed her eyes, feeling weak. “Where are we going today?”
“Peking University.”