As a first-time traveler abroad, Shi Bei’s luggage was remarkably light.
She stood at the doorway, her carry-on suitcase resting against the wall, as she checked her phone for the address of a nearby supermarket. The single-occupancy dorm room was only a few tatami mats in size, furnished with the barest essentials.
Her English level allowed her to communicate with native English speakers without pressure, so shopping alone wouldn’t pose any obstacles.
However, the problem was that she was currently in Tokyo, Japan.
She didn’t know a single word of Japanese.
Her phone kept popping up notifications the students who had come over on the exchange program together were chatting lively in the group chat. After glancing at it a few times, she muted the chat.
There were also many red notification dots on her private message page.
The agent who usually helped her take freelance jobs asked her when she would be free, as there were more jobs he wanted her to take on. Before she could reply, several requirement documents had already been sent over.
Originally, Shi Bei had at least more than half a year of free time to learn Japanese. However, unable to resist the temptation of high pay, she had taken on the work, continuously grinding through months of intense labor. It wasn’t until the night before her departure that she finally handed off all the project tasks.
On the way to catch her flight, at the boarding gate, and resting during the flight—added together, that was almost her longest period of sleep this week.
Now, she felt slightly nauseous just looking at work.
Shi Bei: [I won’t have time for at least the next half year. Don’t look for me.]
Her phone popped up another reminder of a social media status update.
It was an anime character avatar. Opening it revealed a short text update filled with numerous kaomoji, accompanied by a photo.
A table full of pastries, with various anime merchandise placed beside them.
Shi Bei involuntarily straightened up. Pinching her fingers to zoom in on the photo, she ignored the table full of flamboyant, childish toys and meticulously observed a blur of a figure accidentally caught in one corner of the shot.
It was a blurry smudge; no one could discern more information from such a tiny detail. Yet Shi Bei’s heart rate accelerated significantly.
She attributed the anxiety and tension in her heart at this moment to a stress response.
Because the person in the photo might be that person.
Restraining herself from recalling too much, scenes that had been chewed over countless days and nights quickly flooded her mind with vivid clarity: water suddenly splashed from behind in the dead of winter, being ridiculed, rumored about, and framed by the entire class countless times.
The result of enduring all the way to the end was that, as the victim, she received a notice of suspension from school…
Meanwhile, the person hiding behind the scenes directing everything always wore a faint smile, standing not far away to watch the farces that seemed to have nothing to do with her.
Her best, and only, friend.
Shi Bei immediately grabbed her wallet, put on her jacket, left for the station, and rushed at top speed to the location tagged in that status update just now—a department store located in the center of a bustling commercial district.
Following the navigation, she found the entrance to the department store. After taking the elevator to the top floor, her surroundings suddenly turned quiet.
Afraid of being too conspicuous, she hesitated again and again, not daring to rashly walk into the store with very few customers. Thus, she hid at the corner, pretending to wait for someone.
The occasional passersby brushing past spoke a language she couldn’t understand at all, and the Traditional Chinese signboards on the wall were also mixed with a large number of unrecognizable characters.
Having run to a foreign country almost completely unprepared, she nevertheless felt no anxiety.
She was indifferent to everything around her; none of it mattered.
Her mind was entirely consumed by that figure behind the glass, which might be the shadow in her memory.
There was a high probability it wasn’t her.
But even if she made a hundred wasted trips, she couldn’t afford to miss it once.
After all, having come all this way and tried every possible means to become an exchange student in this unfamiliar country, her sole reason was to find that person—and then take revenge on her.
Someone stopped beside her and said something she couldn’t understand at all.
Shi Bei turned her head to look and saw a bearded, middle-aged man.
He was wearing a loose black suit, his face covered with a flattering smile. Though his hands were empty, he looked as if he were trying hard to pitch something.
After she replied in English with a polite apology stating she didn’t speak Japanese, the middle-aged man suddenly became even more excited.
While pulling out cash from his bag, he gesticulated wildly, sputtering louder, more broken English from his mouth, expressing that he wanted to treat her to a meal.
Shi Bei clearly said no many times, yet the middle-aged man still wouldn’t leave.
He even put on an act of not understanding her words, trying to tug at her.
Shi Bei dodged vigilantly, considering whether she could call the police directly in this situation.
With her phone held in her hand, thinking that calling the police would ruin today’s itinerary, her expression couldn’t help but darken.
She warned the middle-aged man once more.
The smile on the man’s face faded slightly. Hesitating, he still squeezed out a smile while muttering incoherently.
They remained at a standoff for a long while.
Just as Shi Bei was contemplating whether to shake him off first and then loop back later, a cool, gentle, and beautiful voice suddenly sounded from behind her.
It was likewise a foreign language she couldn’t understand, yet it carried a familiarity that sharply clashed with the unknown.
It caused her mind to go blank in an instant.
The middle-aged man’s face turned equally unsightly.
Lowering his head, he gave a hasty bow and walked away quickly.
Shi Bei’s heart rate kept accelerating, her feet feeling weightless as if stepping into thin air. Only after an unknown amount of time did she barely manage to regain her breathing.
Another voice sounded.
This time, it was pure Chinese: “Sister, is she your friend?”
Shi Bei hadn’t turned around the entire time.
Confronting the suspicious middle-aged man only brought annoyance, but now was true tension and fear. Her eyes stared fixedly at the man’s retreat route, pondering whether she should run away as well.
Today she had only come here to observe the situation and gather a bit more information.
—She was completely unprepared to be discovered on the spot!
Yet the person behind her walked up in front of her and said:
“What a coincidence, Bei Bei.”
Her tone was exceptionally natural, even bordering on cordial.
There was no mockery, nor did a single syllable carry disgust.
It was as if she had simply bumped into an acquaintance from school.
Shi Bei could only brace herself and meet her gaze: “What a coincidence.”
Her echoing tone sounded slightly unnatural.
At the same time, her wandering eyes pretended not to care as she sized her up.
She was dressed in very ordinary clothes, without any adornments on her body. Her long hair had been cut shorter, now falling over her shoulders in a medium-long style.
A smile hung on her face, yet for some reason, it didn’t make people feel that she was approachable.
Those dark brown eyes were far too calm and clear, betraying no emotion whatsoever, making others not dare to look her directly in the eye—even if her face and figure possessed lines sculpted stroke by stroke in the palm of the Creator’s hands.
Unchanged for years, the perfect Kong Lingrou.
“Why are you standing here? How about we find a shop and have another round of tea?”
The girl following behind Kong Lingrou spoke up again, holding a bag in her hand that looked quite heavy.
Shi Bei glanced at her and recognized her as Kong Lingrou’s younger cousin, Kong Lingyu.
Kong Lingyu was the person with the highest intelligence value among all the social media accounts Shi Bei had written scripts to track and record. Today, it was precisely by leveraging the information she had posted that Shi Bei had successfully found this place.
Only after asking did Kong Lingyu belatedly realize the atmosphere was a bit strange.
It wasn’t because of the stranger who was clearly somewhat stiff, but rather because of the young lady beside her—there was an indescribable change in her.
Though on the outside she merely looked somewhat quieter.
Kong Lingrou didn’t say a word, that bit of decorative smile remaining on her face.
Her silent, gazing eyes were like the most patient inquiry.
Yet Shi Bei, who had grown up alongside her from a young age and served as her good friend for many years, understood her attitude clearly. That was an unmistakable signal: she didn’t want to be entangled any further.
“No need.”
Shi Bei kept a cold face. Though her words were directed at them, her eyes no longer looked at them.
She spat out a few more dry words: “I still have things to do.”
She turned around and walked quickly toward the exit.
Clenching her trembling hands, she declared in her heart that the plan had failed and she would make other arrangements next time.
After so many years, Kong Lingrou hadn’t changed at all.
Messing up other people’s lives at will, without having to pay any price whatsoever.
The more she thought about it, the deeper the hatred in her heart grew, rapidly turning into a burning fury.
She walked forward with quick steps.
Her brain, focused on processing angry emotions, and the excessively clean glass were both the culprits—before either of the two people behind her could react, Shi Bei had walked straight, bravely, and fearlessly into the glass door.
With a loud clang.
Shi Bei squatted down while holding her buzzing head. While curling up her body to clutch her forehead and endure the pain, she thought with absolute calm in her mind:
What can be done to make the world explode immediately right at this moment?
The two people who had witnessed her crashing into the glass in its entirety rushed over, one fast and one slow.
Kong Lingrou squatted down.
With one hand, she lifted Shi Bei’s chin, and with the other hand, she removed the hand covering Shi Bei’s forehead, examining the reddened patch on her forehead.
“Does it hurt?”
Behind her, Kong Lingyu helped explain to the staff members who had rushed over upon hearing the noise.
Then, the staff members began bowing and apologizing to Shi Bei in unison, centering around her.
Shi Bei, curled up into a ball squatting with her back against the glass, remained silent, her mind entirely filled with thoughts of how to disappear quickly. Yet she was surrounded by the bowing people.
Worst of all, there was Kong Lingrou, who was crouched so close to her.
So close that she was within a distance where one could embrace her just by raising an arm.
The burning sensation from the bumped, swollen spot spread to her face, and soon, Shi Bei’s face turned red. Just as she could no longer bear it and was about to speak—Kong Lingrou stood up.
In a few sentences, she dispersed the crowd of people bowing and apologizing beside them.
“Let’s go. I’ll take you to the hospital to get it checked out.”
“No, I’ll go by myself.”
After taking a long moment to recover, Shi Bei stood up, dusted off her clothes, and said with utmost coldness, “Thank you.”
“Are you sure you don’t need us to accompany you?” Kong Lingyu opened her eyes wide, persuading her with extreme seriousness and patience, “It seems like you don’t really speak Japanese yet. You probably just came over on an English program, right? Even if Japanese people know English, and even if you know both Japanese and English, you might not necessarily understand the English spoken by Japanese people.”
“…”
“How long have you been here?” Kong Lingrou merely asked. “Have you set up your insurance?”
Shi Bei nodded with a blank face.
“Alright then.”
As Kong Lingrou spoke, she flipped through a notepad and pulled out a pen from her cousin’s shoulder bag.
Kong Lingyu took a moment to react, muttering something under her breath that no one could understand, like “That’s brand-new anime merch of my favorite character…”
Kong Lingrou quickly wrote down some words and handed the sticky note printed with cartoon designs to Shi Bei.
“Take it.”
Shi Bei accepted it blankly.
“My phone number and address.”
“If you encounter a situation later where you truly have no one to help you and are about to die, you can contact me.” Kong Lingrou’s voice was very faint, and there was nothing that could be called an expression on her face.