A month passed in a strange kind of quiet.
I poured most of my energy into training and matches. Early mornings at the court, extra drills after classes, film sessions that stretched late into the evening. It was easier to focus on the next game than on the fact that the apartment felt half-empty most nights. Xu’s part-time job kept her out until nine or ten. Sometimes I heard her key in the lock just as I was turning off the lights. We exchanged short updates in the kitchen or the hallway, careful and civil, like two people who had agreed not to reopen old wounds for a while.
That night she was later than usual.
By eleven I had checked the time too often. By half past eleven I was standing near the door without fully admitting why. When the lock finally turned I felt the tension in my shoulders loosen and then tighten again for a different reason. Xu stepped inside looking exhausted. Her bag hung heavy off one shoulder. There were shadows under her eyes.
“You are late,” I said. “Is everything all right?”
She slipped off her shoes without looking at me. “Traffic.”
The answer was too short. She walked past me toward the hallway. I watched her pause at the bedroom door first, step inside for a few seconds, then continue to the bathroom. The shower turned on a moment later. I stood there listening to the water and trying to decide whether I was allowed to be this worried.
When the bathroom door opened again I was already sitting on the edge of the bed. I had told myself I would only ask a few practical questions. Whether she had eaten. Whether something had happened at work. Whether the traffic story was true. The moment she entered the room I stood up. Find the original chapter at NovelPing.
“Linling—”
She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. The hands sat just past midnight.
“Guess it is time,” she said.
I frowned, not understanding. She reached into her bag and took out a small black box. The kind that looked simple on the outside and expensive in the way it caught the light. She opened it with one hand and held it out toward me.
“Happy birthday, Wen Xiao.”
Inside, resting on dark velvet, was a crescent-shaped pendant. The metal was clean and pale, the curve elegant without being delicate. It looked like something chosen carefully rather than grabbed at the last minute.
I stared at it.
The words reached me slower than the object itself. Birthday. Today. I had not mentioned the date to anyone. I had not expected anyone in this apartment to remember. Our father usually sent a transfer and a short message from whatever city he was in. Teammates sometimes offered a group cheer if they noticed. No one had ever stood in front of me at midnight and handed me something like this.
My throat tightened without warning. Tears welled up before I could stop them. I blinked hard, but one still slipped free and tracked down the side of my face. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
It was the first time the person who mattered most to me had wished me happy birthday directly, face to face, with something she had chosen herself.
Xu watched me quietly. She did not look away from the tears or make a joke to break the moment. She simply kept the box held out until I finally reached for it.
I took the pendant carefully, as if it might disappear if I moved too fast. The metal was cool against my fingers. My voice came out rough.
“You remembered.”
“I never forgot,” she answered.
The room felt smaller and warmer at the same time. A month of short conversations and careful distance sat between us, yet the crescent in my hand made all of it feel suddenly less permanent. I closed my fingers around the pendant and looked at her properly for the first time all night.
She still looked tired. She still looked like someone who had worked a long shift and come home later than she wanted. But she had made time for this anyway.
I did not have the right words. I only knew that something in my chest had shifted, quietly and completely, the moment she said my name with those two simple words.