The moment she finished speaking, the voice on the other end—Lu Wenxi—sounded plainly flustered.
She forced her tone back to calm. “He will, Qingmian. Chi Yu will get better.”
Lu Wenxi tried to steady herself as she explained.
“Qingmian, how did Chi Yu's ears get hurt?” Qingmian asked.
Lu Wenxi had expected a breakdown, a torrent of tears she could soothe. Instead, Qingmian’s voice was far steadier than she’d imagined.
Hearing that, Lu Wenxi knew she couldn’t keep everything buried. If Qingmian already knew part of it, she might as well tell the whole story.
“Chi Yu had people escort Anya and that impostor back to the capital. Anya had just landed when your brother took her away. Xiang Yun was taken by Brother Zuo,” she said. “Chi Yu drove the car that had been traced, to cover for Brother Zuo. That man’s men crashed it into the river.”
Lu Wenxi’s voice grew smaller with each word. She couldn’t tell how Qingmian was reacting on the other end, and there was no time to linger. She kept talking.
“He suffered multiple organ damage… was in a coma for half a month before he woke up. When he did—he couldn’t hear anything.”
“The doctors said it’s temporary. His hearing will come back; it’s only a matter of time.”
Qingmian’s fingers tightened on the phone until the tips went pale. Aunt Jiang’s earlier words suddenly snapped into focus—Aunt Jiang had been protecting her son, hiding the worst of it from her.
Relief and cold fear collided in Qingmian’s chest. Losing his hearing was terrible, but the fact that he was alive at all felt like a mercy.
Then anger flared. If Anya hadn’t tangled with the wrong people, Chi Yu wouldn’t have been in danger. Qingmian’s expression hardened.
She lifted her eyes and spoke steadily into the receiver. “Where is Anya now?”
Lu Wenxi shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Chen Yian had taken her, and no one knew where. He hadn’t told a soul. During Chi Yu’s unconscious stretch he’d only come by once. Lu Wenxi had always felt Chen was hiding something, but his protectiveness over Anya made it hard for her to stay mad. Now, though, he’d simply spirited the girl away.
“I’m sure it was my brother,” Lu Wenxi said, her voice sharpening when she mentioned Anya. “Who else would bother about that two-faced girl?”
Listening to Lu Wenxi’s indignation, Qingmian’s face darkened further. Years ago Chen Yian had sent her out of the country to protect her because of Anya; he’d been motivated by care then, but now he’d hidden the girl from everyone. It left a bad, uneasy taste in Qingmian’s gut.
Lu Wenxi, seeing Qingmian’s silence, called out a few times. Qingmian snapped back to herself.
“Wenxi, I have a class—can’t talk longer.” Before Lu Wenxi could answer, Qingmian ended the call.
At that moment Ji Bai pushed open the door and saw Lu Wenxi staring blankly at her phone. He waved a hand in front of her face. “Wenxi?”
She blinked and brushed Ji Bai’s hand away. “Why are you back?”
Ji Bai nodded at the phone in her hand. “I walked out and realized I’d left my phone.”
Seeing her still dazed, he pinched her cheek. “What are you staring at? You haven’t installed some secret spyware in my phone, have you?”
Lu Wenxi wasn’t in the mood for jokes. She handed the phone back. “Qingmian called you.”
“To me?” Ji Bai’s face shifted. If Qingmian was calling him this late, it couldn’t be idle chatter—only something about Chi Yu would prompt that.
Lu Wenxi met his gaze and nodded. “Yeah. She knows.”
“I knew Chi Yu would have to tell her eventually. You can’t hide things from her—she’s too sharp.” Ji Bai sounded unsurprised. They’d hidden things because they were unsure when Chi Yu would wake, and after he did he’d asked them to keep Qingmian in the dark. But now the secret had slipped.
“It’s not that I’m worried about that,” Lu Wenxi sighed. Thinking back to Qingmian’s voice on the call, she felt uneasy. More than anything she had wanted Qingmian to be frantic, to sob a little—anything to be the same person she’d always known. Instead Qingmian had been calm, almost too composed. It reminded her of the way Qingmian had been the year she returned from Mexico—steady, distant.
“What’s bothering you?” Ji Bai sat beside her and reached out to smooth the worried line between her brows.
“Qingmian just felt…different.” Lu Wenxi chewed on the words. “I can’t say exactly how, just…harder, I guess?”
She frowned at the helplessness of her own description.
Ji Bai took her hand and tapped her knuckles reassuringly. “She isn’t a child anymore. People change—she’s been through a lot. If she’s decided to go to Country A and focus on herself, that’s not a bad thing. You’ve always hoped she’d learn to look after herself, haven’t you?”
Lu Wenxi let out a small breath. “You’re right.”
All her life Qingmian had seemed like someone who needed protection—someone Chen Yian or Chi Yu or Lu Wenxi herself might shield. But tonight, in that phone call, she’d sounded grown up. Cold, rational. As if everything had been measured and put away overnight.
After the call, Qingmian’s fingers hovered over the screen. She began to type a number—one she’d learned by heart long ago but hadn’t dialed in ages. Her thumb paused, then continued, pressing the familiar digits, each press a small, steady beat against the past.