As soon as the words left her mouth, Zhi Ai performed a sleight of hand, producing Su Yuqing’s powered-off phone from somewhere —
Perhaps it had been in her pocket, or maybe tucked into a crack in the sofa, but there it was, held between her slender fingers.
Time seemed to be stuck in an invisible gel; every passing second carried a heavy, stagnant weight.
Zhi Ai’s arm remained steady in midair, her fingertips gripping the phone.
The cold light reflecting off the screen cast two tiny, icy points of light in her expressionless, glazed eyes.
That light was like a lighthouse guiding a lost soul, yet it led toward a sea of memories that Su Yuqing feared immensely.
The shimmering, cold screen was no longer just a communication tool.
It had transformed into a distorted mirror — one side led to a beautified and cherished past, while the other reflected the pathetic, panicked reality of the present.
It was more like a silent witness stand, and Zhi Ai was the unquestionable judge, waiting for her, the defendant, to personally present the final evidence of her own guilt.
The air was completely sucked out of the room in that moment, solidified into hard amber that encased them both.
The distant hum of the city outside felt like background noise from another world, only serving to highlight the oppressive silence of the room.
Su Yuqing could hear nothing but the frantic thumping of her heart against her ribs.
Thump-thump, thump-thump — it sounded like a dying prisoner beating against the bars of a cage.
The vibration made her eardrums numb and her limbs go cold.
“Hurry up.”
Zhi Ai spoke again.
Though her voice wasn’t loud, it carried a slow, methodical pressure, like a cat toying with a mouse.
Every word hammered against Su Yuqing’s frayed nerves.
“Prove it to me.”
Her gaze was terrifyingly calm, as if she had already foreseen the end of the script and was now patiently waiting for the actor to finish her final, futile struggle.
***
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, inside a quiet suburban villa that felt almost secluded from the world.
The spacious studio was filled with the scent of turpentine, linseed oil, and linen.
Minazuki Ruri, the girl once hailed as an ‘Elf,’ irritably tossed a brush stained with cobalt blue into a nearby bucket, splashing several drops of murky water.
Her striking blue hair seemed to have grown quite a bit longer than it had been in middle school, and it now draped loosely over her shoulders, adding a touch of lethargic and detached artistic flair to her appearance.
‘I have no inspiration… I’m not feeling it at all…’
She muttered under her breath, her delicate brows furrowed deeply as she stared blankly at the fresh canvas before her.
The canvas was a total blank, mirroring her current chaotic yet barren inner state.
Actually, she wasn’t entirely without a concept for the theme of this painting.
A blurry, youthful shadow tinted with warm tones would flicker in and out of her mind.
She wanted to paint a girl — one who seemed ordinary at first glance, but if one looked closely, one could discover something incredibly clean and beautiful in the space between her brows and within her gaze.
That shadow… it seemed related to a trivial, buried memory from her youth. Unfortunately, the identity of the person had long since become a blur to Ruri.
“Sigh~”
She let out a long sigh and leaned back against the chair.
“So annoying. A creative block really is an artist’s worst enemy.”
Just then, there was a soft knock on the studio door.
“Come in,” Ruri responded lazily.
Steward Xu pushed the door open, holding her private phone with a look of measured confusion on his face.
“Miss Ruri, pardon the interruption. You have a call on your private line.”
“Hmm?”
Ruri raised an eyebrow.
After all, there weren’t many people in this world who knew this number.
Steward Xu continued, “It is a bit strange, though… I checked your recent call history and couldn’t find any record of interactions with this number. It seems like… the first time they’ve called.”
A flash of surprise flickered in Ruri’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced by indifference.
She reached out.
“It’s fine, Steward Xu. Just give it to me.”
“Understood. The caller is still on the line, Miss.”
Steward Xu handed over the phone and then quietly withdrew from the studio.
Ruri put the phone to her ear, maintaining her lethargic posture.
She spoke with a hint of irritation at being disturbed, yet maintained a basic level of politeness.
“Hello? To whom am I speaking…?”
The moment the call connected, Su Yuqing felt her breathing stop.
The voice coming through the receiver still held a trace of the clarity from her memories, but it was layered with a strange indifference.
Just that one sentence was enough to nearly shatter all of her courage.
“Ah… I… I-I-I —”
The immense tension and pent-up emotions made her incoherent.
Her throat felt as if it had rusted shut, allowing only broken syllables to escape.
At that moment, Zhi Ai leaned in closer, pressing her lips almost against the phone’s microphone.
In her sweet yet malicious voice, she said clearly:
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. What’s wrong? Did you not recognize her immediately, meow~? Or is it a case of a noble person having a short memory?”
Su Yuqing was scared out of her wits. She slammed her hand over the bottom of the phone — though it did no good — and hissed at Zhi Ai in a desperate whisper:
“Shut up already!!”
She took a deep breath, forcing down the sob and the Trembling in her throat.
She used every ounce of strength to make her voice sound as normal as possible, even adding a hint of cautious flattery:
“Um… Liuli… have you been doing well lately?”
There was a moment of silence on the other end.
Then, Ruri’s voice came through, sounding slightly playful yet detached, like a feather brushing against skin but with a cold texture.
“Personally, I’ve always been quite comfortable. But I wonder… you on the other end of the line, the one who is unwilling to give me your name~ how have you been doing lately~?”
She skillfully avoided the pleasantries and threw the core of the question back, her tone light but carrying a pressure that couldn’t be ignored.
The sentence was like a needle, popping the bubble of Su Yuqing’s forced composure.
‘She actually… didn’t recognize my voice.’
A chill spread rapidly from the soles of her feet to her entire body.
“So you…”
Su Yuqing’s voice carried a hint of a plea she didn’t even notice herself.
“…Do you really want to know my name that badly?”
She was still making one last, humble attempt at testing the waters, hoping the other party would catch a familiar trace from their limited dialogue.
But Ruri’s response completely crushed that pitiful hope.
“Well, obviously?”
Her tone was a matter-of-fact counter-question, even mixed with a light chuckle as if she found the other person’s behavior incomprehensible.
“If you still won’t tell me your name, then I’m afraid you’ll never have the chance to get through to this number again. I’m very busy.”
Very busy…
Those two words were like a final judgment, light as a feather yet weighing a thousand pounds, completely smashing the magnificent statue named ‘Minazuki Ruri’ in Su Yuqing’s heart.
All the struggling, all the expectations, and even all the self-deception lost their meaning in that instant.
She felt an unprecedented exhaustion and emptiness, as if her entire soul had been drained away.
She closed her eyes, and two lines of hot tears finally slid down her cheeks, uncontrollable.
Using a tone of almost numb calmness, she spoke softly into the receiver, and to her own tragic past:
“Uh… alright.”
Su Yuqing paused for a moment, as if making a final confirmation.
Then, word by word, she clearly spoke the name that had long been forgotten by the other person:
“I am Su Yuqing.”
She didn’t even forget to add the footnote that she once thought was sweet but now felt incredibly ironic, as if she were personally carving the final line onto the tombstone of her youth:
“The… big idiot from middle school who secretly gave you a confession letter.”
The other end of the line fell into a brief silence.
This silence was more cruel than any words could ever be.