Kong Lingrou was stunned for a moment, then smiled slightly: “How could that be?”
Only then did she notice that the incoming call was from Shi Bei.
“Oh.” Unable to parse the meaning behind her smile, Shi Bei had no choice but to tell the truth: “On the day you gave me the sticky note, I memorized every single character written on it.”
“…”
Two nurses pushed the wheelchair over, using a tone meant for soothing a child as they invited Shi Bei to sit down. The younger nurse even bent down, asking gently whether she needed a Chinese-speaking staff member to accompany her.
Shi Bei understood this simple sentence.
Using her stumbled, stiff Japanese, she spoke even faster than Kong Lingrou: “No need.” She yanked the sleeve of Kong Lingrou behind her and said, “She, she accompany, okay.”
“Huh? What?” The nurse behind her didn’t quite catch her meaning right away.
“Ah, is that so? Of course, no problem at all.” The younger nurse, standing closer, immediately understood what she was trying to express. Stepping back with a face full of smiles, she said: “I’ll lead the way in front, Miss Uchiyama, please push the wheelchair.”
And so, the nurse behind gave a very gentle response as well.
She moved behind Shi Bei, giving a gentle prompt before pushing forward:
“Well then, we’re going to move the wheelchair now.”
Shi Bei’s fingers tucked inside her sleeves twitched nervously; she was extremely unaccustomed to such polite medical care and felt a surge of tension, as if she were about to be wheeled off for a dissection.
Kong Lingrou walked alongside her, casually tossing her bag into Shi Bei’s lap as she sat in the wheelchair.
Shi Bei smoothly held onto her bag, a pair of flickering, uneasy eyes glued tightly to Kong Lingrou.
Kong Lingrou looked down at her phone, saved the missed call’s number into her contacts, and re-enabled the feature that blocked unregistered numbers.
When she raised her head again, she met Shi Bei’s pitiful expression.
Just as she was about to find some comforting words to tell her she didn’t need to look like a piglet waiting to be slaughtered…
She heard her ask as if to confirm:
“You said just now that I could move into your place?”
Who knew how many people in the world had a delayed reaction time like Shi Bei’s.
Perhaps it was because she had been treated like a fool when she was young due to her slow responses, causing her words to always be ignored—or perhaps it was being ignored all the time that led to her slow reactions in the first place…
In short, whenever Shi Bei heard something unexpected, she would subconsciously hold it in her heart to load and process for a while.
In fact, for some matters that she recalled after a long time had passed, she would even need to think about them with extra seriousness before she could judge whether they had truly happened or merely existed as fantasies in her mind.
“Go stay at Kong Lingyu’s place,” Kong Lingrou changed her tune. “I forgot just now—my place only has an empty bedroom upstairs, which isn’t very convenient.”
“That works out fine. I’ll sleep on the couch. Separating upstairs and downstairs means I won’t disturb you. If I stay with Kong Lingyu, I might disrupt her dating life.”
“When did she start dating?”
“Soon,” Shi Bei said. “But you won’t have that kind of inconvenience, right?”
“…”
Soon, they entered the X-ray room, where another physician so sweet and amiable that he triggered Shi Bei’s persecution mania was waiting.
Even though he knew the patient herself didn’t understand Japanese, he would still cooperatively point out places on the X-ray scans while Kong Lingrou translated, adding more details in English.
She was recovering well; the reserved single-patient suite didn’t need to be kept for her.
For the upcoming initial recovery month, Kong Lingrou agreed to let her stay over.
“Have Kong Lingyu help bring your essential items over. Throw away everything in the fridge and cut the power for a month. Before you’ve recovered properly, don’t go climbing stairs again.”
“No, I have important things. I have to go back and pack them myself first.”
“Aren’t your important things all stored on an encrypted hard drive? Even if she suddenly decides to peek at your privacy, she wouldn’t have the skill to break the encryption anyway.”
“…”
Kong Lingrou opened the car door for her: “Any other questions?”
Shi Bei sat sullenly inside the car.
After a long pause.
“Do you really want to climb the fifth floor that badly?” Kong Lingrou glanced at the silent Shi Bei through the rearview mirror, letting out what seemed like a sigh. “If your strength gives out and you roll down from that high up, you might die.”
Shi Bei: “…”
Saying that, Kong Lingrou still brought her back and gave her the chance to pack her things personally, standing silently behind her as Shi Bei struggled to climb to the fifth floor.
While working hard to adjust her breathing, Shi Bei tried to ignore Kong Lingrou behind her.
After a long while, the sensation of needles on her back remained.
“Wait for me in the car. You don’t need to follow me up—if I fall, I might hit you too, which is dangerous.”
Behind her, there were only footsteps stepping on the stairs.
Just when she thought Kong Lingrou wouldn’t pay her any mind, she heard her say faintly:
“If you fall down and crush me to death, then even as a ghost, I won’t let you off.”
Shi Bei: “…………”
Baffled, Shi Bei had no choice but to proceed with extreme caution, doing her utmost to make sure every single step was taken firmly and steadily.
It took her an even longer time to climb up to the fifth floor.
She used to have a habit of encrypting digital data, but after moving out to live alone upon graduating from high school, there was no longer a need to guard against anyone, so many things gradually stopped having passwords set.
Shi Bei carefully packed the hard drive into a storage box, placing it inside a suitcase along with the mini-host computer she had assembled herself. Only then did she pull out a backpack to pack a change of clothes.
She opened the wardrobe, but a soft laugh came from behind her.
“What is it?” Shi Bei turned around, puzzled.
“…Nothing.”
There had always been jokes online saying that a programmer’s wardrobe consisted only of T-shirts, hoodies, and plaid shirts in various colors. Before today, Kong Lingrou had thought this was merely a meme.
Shi Bei looked at her with confusion for a few moments.
She first grabbed a few solid-colored T-shirts into the backpack, then carefully selected a black-and-white one from the hanging plaid shirts of various colors, stuffing it inside as well.
“What on earth is so funny?” Shi Bei turned her head once more.
Looking at the plaid shirts of various colors in her wardrobe, Kong Lingrou couldn’t hold it in any longer and asked: “Do all the students studying computer science at your school really dress like this?”
“What’s wrong with the clothes?”
Shi Bei finally realized what she was laughing about.
She closed the wardrobe door, pressed down on the backpack to zip it up, and countered while staring at Kong Lingrou’s attire: “You wear T-shirts and jeans every day yourself—how do you have the nerve to mock me?”
“I’m not mocking you; I’m just curious what kind of antique shop you had to find to get such ugly plaid shirts.”
“Where are they ugly?!” Enraged by her words, Shi Bei unzipped the bag again, pulled out the plaid shirt, and showed it to her. “It’s a bit wrinkled, but it doesn’t look bad!”
Curling her lips, Kong Lingrou nodded and said: “Alright, maybe it’ll be fine once it’s ironed.”
“Exactly.” Only then did Shi Bei contentedly stuff the clothes back, emphasizing once more: “It’s just a bit wrinkled, that’s all.”
After the car passed through the bustling streets and drove into the residential area, the surroundings seemed as though they had been suddenly reset—the crowded throngs of people vanished entirely from view, leaving behind only rows of elegant, exquisite houses and modern, high-rise commercial buildings.
Staring at the scenery outside in a daze, Shi Bei began to feel a bit nervous at this moment.
She hurriedly pulled out her phone, silently reciting idiom stories and sentences of praise and glorification, preparing to find an opportunity to compliment Kong Lingrou.
The car drove into the building’s parking garage.
Just as Kong Lingrou parked the car, she received an incoming phone call right away.
Listening to it, she quickly knitted her brows, occasionally voicing a few brief responses before hanging up. She met Shi Bei’s gaze in the back seat through the rearview mirror.
“They just told me now that the wheelchair kept at the front desk is just the most basic type. If a better electric wheelchair is needed, it will take some time to contact a rental company to get it arranged.”
“Oh.” Shi Bei didn’t hear anything wrong with that: “Is an ordinary one not okay?”
“You have to go to school tomorrow. For the first morning class, even if Kong Lingyu agreed to come earlier to take you to school together, she would definitely oversleep.”
“Why would she take me?”
Kong Lingrou glanced at her without speaking, simply getting out of the car to carry her suitcase down.
Stepping through the doorway from the corner of the parking floor led straight into the building’s lobby. Walking into a famous tower building for the first time, Shi Bei almost thought she was living in a hotel given the decor.
The front desk layout was also identical to that of a hotel.
The moment they entered, a young man in a dark suit in the lobby walked over briskly to take the items from her hands, while another man wearing the same uniform pushed a prepared wheelchair over.
“We are truly very sorry.” Pushing the wheelchair to Shi Bei’s side, he bowed repeatedly and said: “We were not adequately prepared on our end, and we deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.”
“If a task cannot be completed, at least reserve enough time to notify me. Rather than apologizing… could I ask you to immediately make a compensatory arrangement?”
Even though Kong Lingrou spoke entirely in polite honorifics and wore a smile on her face, Shi Bei felt a gust of chilly wind blow over her body regardless.
She believed the person opposite felt the exact same way.
The way he increased the frequency of his bows made him look practically like a flip phone.
Shi Bei couldn’t bear to keep watching, so she sat directly onto the wheelchair they had prepared, interrupting in kindergarten-level Japanese: “It’s okay, I can use it, it’s okay.”
Kong Lingrou glanced at her and walked straight toward the elevator hall.
Anxious, Shi Bei hurriedly lowered her head to figure out how to start this wheelchair.
The wheelchair suddenly started moving.
Like pushing a wheelbarrow filled with cement at a construction site, the young man swiftly transported her over to Kong Lingrou’s side.
He even beat Kong Lingrou to it, lighting up the elevator button and turning his head to offer Kong Lingrou a flattering smile.
The person carrying the luggage behind also caught up.
The two of them placed Shi Bei and the luggage into the elevator one after the other, bowing deeply to Kong Lingrou once more.
“You could have had an electric wheelchair tomorrow morning.”
As the elevator doors shut out the faces of the two apologizing staff members, Kong Lingrou swiped her elevator card and pressed the button for the top floor:
“Because you said it was okay, they will just rest when it’s time to rest next, without making urgent calls to speed up the arrangements.”
“So you had told them to prepare this a long time ago?” Instead of addressing the topic, Shi Bei suddenly realized: “I thought your inviting me to stay over was just something you mentioned casually today.”
“…”
The elevator didn’t stop on the middle floors, reaching the top floor at a rapid speed.
After pushing her out, Kong Lingrou handed her the keycard: “Unlock the door and head in first.” She then went back to the elevator to get the luggage.
The entire top floor consisted of only a single unit.
To the right of the spacious, empty front hall sat a solid wood cabinet holding various disinfectant products—ranging from paper wipes to spray bottles of different sizes.
Shi Bei felt that Kong Lingrou would probably need to disinfect her luggage for a while, so she obediently wheeled herself to the door and swiped the card to unlock it. Before she could open the door completely, she heard a strange sound coming from inside.
Startled, she opened a crack to peek inside.
A fluffy little thing was working hard at pawing at the glass door that separated the entryway from the living room.
“Kong Lingrou,” Shi Bei said in extreme surprise, lowering her voice, “there seems to be a dog in your house.”
The next second, the brownish-black little creature successfully opened the semi-transparent glass door, bouncing and leaping as it prepared to welcome its owner back.
“Sit.”
Kong Lingrou made a gesture from afar.
The excited pup that had rushed out through the door actually slammed on the brakes mid-stride and stopped dead in its tracks. After spinning a few excited circles in the living room, it sat down obediently with its back against the glass door.
“When did you become afraid of dogs?”
She turned around, blocking the mutual gaze between Shi Bei and the dog.
“I’m not afraid; I’m surprised… How come you’re keeping a pet? Is your germaphobia cured?”
Kong Lingrou had always possessed quite obvious germaphobic tendencies. In the past, the very first thing she did upon entering the classroom was to use alcohol to sanitize her desk and chair.
When eating in the cafeteria, she would only use disposable utensils; during PE class, she absolutely refused to touch any sports equipment.
She would even refuse to run together with everyone, giving the reason that the kicked-up dust was dirty, and the people around were dirty…
How could a person like this raise a dog?!
Moreover, this pup had a shiny coat, was smart and enthusiastic, and possessed such high obedience—one could tell at a glance that a vast amount of time and energy had been invested into raising it.
“I never had any germaphobia.” Taking out a pair of spare slippers from the shoe cabinet for her, Kong Lingrou said expressionlessly, “I just hate people.”
Shi Bei had nothing to say.
She recalled how back in primary school, there was a boy who reportedly liked Kong Lingrou very much, so he would secretly use his saliva to smear her desk during breaks.
Although Kong Lingrou’s behavior of being extremely disgusted by humans and repeatedly sanitizing her desk predated that incident, during the times Shi Bei hadn’t known, similar situations had likely occurred more than once.