One year later.
“Tangtang, have you packed your things?”
Li Qin tidied her luggage and looked up to see Shen Tangtang still sitting on the bed in a daze.
Shen Tangtang’s consciousness was currently in her spatial dimension, planting the chives she had dug up yesterday. Hearing Li Qin’s voice, she snapped back to reality. She looked down at the large and small bags piled on the floor, then at Li Qin, who was wiping away sweat. “Sister Li, have you, Sister Zhang, and Sister Zhou all found places to stay?”
“Sigh, we went to check them out last week, and finalized the housing with the district chief yesterday. We’re just waiting to move in today. What about you? Have you found a place?”
Li Qin carried a large bundle over to place it by the door, and seeing the bewildered little girl upon returning, she couldn’t help asking.
“Found one, right over in the West City shantytown.” Shen Tangtang answered Li Qin, then briskly hopped off the bed, grabbed her washbasin from underneath, and followed her out of the dormitory room.
“Good thing you found one. I used to think you’d end up living with Daiyu, but I heard yesterday that she moved into her boyfriend’s place last week. You’ll need to watch out for your safety living alone from now on.”
Speaking of this, Li Qin wore a look of mixed emotions. She couldn’t wrap her head around what Lin Daiyu was thinking. Setting aside what kind of person Bai Yanjun was, just looking at his family, very few people could stomach them. Now that Lin Daiyu had moved in, she was sharing a room with his younger sister, with no private space of her own at all.
“Thank you, Sister Li. I’ll be fine on my own.”
Shen Tangtang flashed a sweet smile. Ever since she spoke ill of Bai Yanjun in front of Lin Daiyu, Lin Daiyu had kept her distance. Who knew what kind of bewitching soup Bai Yanjun had fed her.
“That’s good. If you run into any trouble in the future, feel free to ask us sisters for help.”
Zhang Nana, who had been listening from the side, chimed in to agree.
Zhou Zhizhi stood by the front door and nodded at Shen Tangtang as well.
After washing her face, Shen Tangtang stood by the well, watching the three vibrant young women walk out of the concentration camp and toward their futures.
She hung her face towel around her neck and turned to walk back to the dormitory.
“Sister Tangtang…”
Shen Tangtang stopped in her tracks and turned to look at the person approaching from behind.
Compared to a year ago, Lin Qiqi had grown much thinner, her eyes casting a timid look her way.
Shen Tangtang let out a soft sigh. “What’s wrong, Qiqi?”
“Sister Tangtang, when is my sister coming back to take me away?” Lin Qiqi looked at Shen Tangtang expectantly, her fingers clutching tightly at the hem of her shirt. Her sister had been gone for a week, and they had promised to go out and live together.
Yet, she hadn’t seen her sister for a whole week, and she was afraid her sister didn’t want her anymore.
“I don’t know. The next time I run into her, I’ll ask her for you, alright?”
Shen Tangtang patted the child’s head with pity, fumbled in her pocket, and took out the nutrient solution she had acquired yesterday, placing it into the little girl’s small hands.
“Sister Tangtang, I don’t want it. I’m not hungry, I can get enough to eat in the camp.”
Lin Qiqi put her small hands behind her back, refusing to take the nutrient solution from Shen Tangtang’s hand, shaking her head in continuous refusal.
“Be a good girl, Sister still has more. Hurry and hide it so the other kids don’t see,” Shen Tangtang rubbed Lin Qiqi’s head and said gently.
Tears fell silently from Lin Qiqi’s eyes. She hadn’t eaten anything all day; yesterday, she and a little companion went out to the wilderness to find food, but found nothing and even ended up owing the camp 2 points of credit. She wanted to find her sister to ask what to do, but her sister had already left the camp.
Unable to bear the hunger in her stomach any longer, Lin Qiqi finally accepted the nutrient solution handed over by Shen Tangtang. “Sister Tangtang, I’ll pay you back,” she said as tears fell in large drops.
“Alright, I’ll wait for Qiqi to pay me back later.”
Shen Tangtang pinched Lin Qiqi’s little cheek. “Go on and get busy! Next time I see your sister, I’ll ask her for you.”
With a look of gratitude in her eyes, Lin Qiqi gazed at the big sister before her, clutched the nutrient solution tightly in her hands, nodded, and walked away, looking back every few steps.
Watching Lin Qiqi run off into the distance, Shen Tangtang wore a complex look in her eyes. She couldn’t change Lin Daiyu’s choices. In the novel, the original host froze to death, but having already awakened her ability, she had long since broken free from the plot. Yet many things were still proceeding step-by-step just as before.
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“Hello, this is the adult exchange counter.” The receptionist’s gentle voice rang out.
Shen Tangtang extended her wrist wearing the bracelet and offered it toward the window. “Hello, I’m Shen Tangtang from the orphanage concentration camp, here today to exchange my monitoring bracelet.”
“Dawn Orphanage concentration camp, orphan Shen Tangtang, 18 years old, leaving the camp today? Congratulations.”
The receptionist took out a scanner, tapped it against the bracelet which then clicked off, dropped it onto the main system console, and clicked a few times to pull up Shen Tangtang’s information.
The bracelets provided by the orphanage previously could only tell time and monitor health. The new bracelet she was switching to had many more functions: time, health monitoring, messaging, positioning, calling, recording, and some features that required points to unlock.
Before long, a silver bracelet was handed out.
“Your information is already bound to this bracelet. I’ll put it on for you now—don’t break it or lose it, otherwise you’ll have to pay points to buy a new one!”
Shen Tangtang extended her arm back out and said happily, “Thank you.”
“Alright, next.”
Shen Tangtang walked out of the hall and looked up at the sunlight breaking through the clouds, a brilliant smile blooming on her face.
She, Shen Tangtang, had her own independent household registration today.
From now on, she was Shen Tangtang, a resident of Dawn City—no longer orphan Shen Tangtang.
Ahem, even though she was still an orphan.
With a smile on her face, Shen Tangtang walked toward the orphanage.
As luck would have it, she ran into a familiar person right at the orphanage gates.
“Tangtang, didn’t you go out scavenging today?”
Lin Daiyu looked at the approaching Shen Tangtang in surprise, before realization dawned on her. “Today’s your coming-of-age day, you went to change your bracelet, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, isn’t Sister Daiyu busy today?”
Shen Tangtang asked, puzzled. Lin Daiyu was a month older than her; although the orphanage regulations stated orphans of the same year came of age on the same day, many orphans left the camp a few days early, and Lin Daiyu had left just last week.
“Yeah, came by to drop off some points for Qiqi.”
Lin Daiyu lowered her gaze, feeling her face burn with embarrassment as she didn’t dare meet Shen Tangtang’s eyes. “Thanks… for giving Qiqi that nutrient solution. I heard about it.”
“It’s nothing, Qiqi is my little sister too.”
Shen Tangtang didn’t make a big deal of it. She just looked at how someone previously bright and charming had turned out like this, and for a moment didn’t know what to feel.
Perhaps it wasn’t Lin Daiyu’s fault. With a leech and parasite like the male lead, an inescapable blood-sucker, ordinary people had no choice but to accept their fate.
“Thank you, let me pay you back the points!”
Lin Daiyu looked at Shen Tangtang with a pleading gaze, hoping she would go to the exchange counter with her to transfer the points.
Shen Tangtang waved her hand. “No need, Sister Daiyu. You know we don’t need to split hairs over this. It’s just a tube of nutrient solution, just make sure you don’t let Qiqi go hungry in the future.”
“Thank you, and… I’m sorry.”
Feeling she had no face left to face her sisters, Lin Daiyu hurried away in a fluster, leaving only a faint voice echoing in the air.
Shen Tangtang’s gaze deepened. You reap what you sow; she hadn’t failed to consider helping, but she had no idea what kind of reasons had caused Lin Daiyu to change a mindset she had maintained for over a dozen years. All she could do was respect other people’s destinies.
Shen Tangtang didn’t have much to pack. Although she had lived in the concentration camp for 13 years, the belongings that truly belonged to her were pitifully few.
A tattered quilt, a washed-out towel, two sets of patched clothes, and a washbasin.
Packed into a burlap sack, it didn’t even weigh fifty pounds.