“What is this?” Xuanxi asked.
Hildegrif did not respond. Instead, she unfolded the handkerchief and handed it to her. On the inside of the handkerchief were two lines of embroidery that looked like Eastern characters.
Xuanxi had seen similar characters in the book Records of the East from the academy library, but she still couldn’t read the full text of that book.
“This was brought back from the Eastern Dragon Domain by my great-great-grandfather,” Hildegrif said.
“When he traveled the East, a friend from the Eastern Dragon Clan gave it to him. After he returned, this handkerchief was passed down through generations until it reached me.”
Xuanxi took the handkerchief. Her fingertips gently traced the embroidery threads. It felt very soft, like touching a light, fluffy cloud.
“What is embroidered here?” she asked.
Hildegrif paused for a moment. “The first line is ‘Within the seas, there are close friends,’” she said softly. “The second line is ‘The ends of the earth are like next door.’”
Her pronunciation was not very standard.
The tones of the Eastern language were skewed by Western Dragon speech habits, but she spoke every word very seriously, as if she had practiced it many times. Xuanxi stared at those two lines and suddenly felt her eyes sting.
She understood the meaning of those two lines: there are close friends everywhere within the four seas, and even if they are far away, they are like next-door neighbors.
“You…” she opened her mouth, but found she didn’t know what to say.
“My great-great-grandfather wrote in his diary,” Hildegrif said, her voice returning to that flat tone as she looked at the sunset sinking behind the ridge.
“He said that among Easterners, there is a saying called ‘using objects to convey emotions.’ Some words are hard to say out loud, so they are placed in objects, letting the other person discover them on their own.”
She paused. “I think there’s a subtle beauty to it.”
Xuanxi looked down at the handkerchief in her hand, at the two crooked lines of embroidery.
“So this is…”
“Lend it to you,” Hildegrif interrupted. “You sweat too much. Use it to wipe during training. Remember not to get it dirty.”
Xuanxi looked up. The afterglow of the sunset shone on Hildegrif’s face, and the light of the evening clouds reflected in her amethyst-colored eyes.
Her expression was still cold, but the tips of her ears had turned a very, very faint pink. Xuanxi folded the handkerchief and clutched it in her palm.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Mm.”
“I’ll wash it and return it to you.”
“You don’t have to return it,” Hildegrif said, then added, “Forget it… suit yourself.”
She turned around and walked toward the exit of the training ground. After two steps, she stopped.
“Tomorrow.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“At this time tomorrow, I’ll come by to see you again.”
The silver-white figure quickly disappeared through the exit of the training ground.
Xuanxi stood there, clutching the old handkerchief embroidered with classical Eastern poetry in her hand. There was a very faint scent on the handkerchief. She unfolded it and read the two lines again.
“Within the seas, there are close friends; the ends of the earth are like next door.”
She curled the corners of her mouth, carefully folded the handkerchief, and placed it in her inner pocket.
“Mm, see you tomorrow, Xige.”
***
By the time Xuanxi returned to the dormitory, the sky was completely dark.
The lights in the corridor had been thoughtfully switched to night mode. Pale blue fluorescence seeped from the cracks in the walls, dyeing the entire corridor the color of deep sea. Her footsteps echoed in the empty hallway. One, two, three.
Pushing open the door to Room 404, Xuanxi realized the room was dark.
Hildegrif was sitting on her own bed, leaning against the wall, with a book spread open on her lap. Her silver-white hair was scattered over her shoulders. The moonlight coming through the window gave it a cold sheen.
The whole scene looked like a beautiful landscape painting. Hearing the door, she didn’t look up—but Xuanxi noticed that the page number of the book in her hand seemed exactly the same as when she had left in the morning.
The whole day, not a single page had been turned.
Xuanxi didn’t turn on the light either. She changed her shoes, took off her jacket and hung it in the wardrobe, and placed the book Records of the East borrowed from the library on her desk.
She deliberately slowed down while doing these things, as if waiting for something, or as if she didn’t want a certain atmosphere to dissipate too quickly.
There was no sound from behind the folding screen either. No page-turning, no breathing—no, to be precise, there was breathing, but it was deliberately suppressed very, very softly, as if waiting for something.
Xuanxi decided to do something. She got up and walked to the screen.
“Hildegrif,” she said.
“Mm.” The voice from behind the screen was very calm, at least Xuanxi thought so.
“I wanted to say,” Xuanxi paused, unfolding the thing clutched in her hand. It was a neatly folded moon-white handkerchief. “Thank you.”
“You already said that,” Hildegrif’s voice came from behind the screen.
“That was in the afternoon,” Xuanxi said, looking down at the handkerchief. “I want to say it again, seriously.”
Another silence fell. This silence was longer than the previous ones. Then came an unexpected reply: “Just call me Xige.”
Xuanxi was stunned. The conversation from the first day of enrollment immediately came to her mind: “Your name is so long, can I call you Xige?” “No.” That had been their first exchange, making her think the name “Xige” was forever sealed.
“Didn’t you say I couldn’t call you by a nickname?” she asked.
“You haven’t called me that yet.”
Xuanxi opened her mouth, then closed it.
She suddenly realized something. Hildegrif hadn’t relented—she had been waiting for Xuanxi to bring it up. She had long wanted Xuanxi to call her by her nickname.
“Good night, Xige.”
There seemed to be no answer from behind the screen, but Xuanxi heard it.
Amidst the steady breathing, there was an extremely brief pause, just enough to say a single “Mm.”
Xuanxi turned and walked back to her own bed. She spread out the blanket and lay down, still clutching the handkerchief in her palm.
She pulled the blanket up to her chin and closed her eyes. The faint fragrance of the handkerchief lingered at the tip of her nose.
Behind the screen, the sound of page-turning finally started. But the rhythm was different from before—a little faster, a little lighter, as if hiding something like a maiden’s secret.
Xuanxi didn’t call her out on it. They both had things they needed to hide. They were silent proof that some words didn’t need to be spoken to be heard.
No words were exchanged that night. From then on, that handkerchief became something Xuanxi carried with her at all times.
It wasn’t that Xuanxi deliberately did so; rather, every time she changed clothes, she told herself it was so she could “wipe sweat anytime during training.” But in truth, she also carried it on days she didn’t train. And Hildegrif showed no intention of taking it back.
Days passed like this. Every afternoon at two o’clock, Xuanxi appeared on time at Training Ground No. 3, and an hour later—that silver-white figure would walk in through the entrance of the training ground on time.
“Just passing by.” That was always the word.
Xuanxi gradually got used to this “passing by.” After Hildegrif arrived, the content of her training changed. She no longer ran foolishly by herself, but instead sparred with the young lady—or rather, got “smacked around” by the young lady.
The first week, she couldn’t even touch Hildegrif’s sleeve.
The second week, she could last a dozen more seconds before being knocked away.
On the last day of the second week, she dodged Hildegrif’s lightning strike for the first time—not by predicting it, but by instinctive body reaction.
“Not bad,” the young lady said.
Just two words, but Xuanxi felt happier than any praise.
After training, the two would sit side by side on the bench by the training ground. Hildegrif didn’t initiate conversation, but if Xuanxi spoke, she would respond, using her usual short sentences.
But every sentence seemed filtered, leaving only the most informative parts. This made Xuanxi feel that chatting with Hildegrif was very comfortable.
No need to force conversation, no need to worry about awkward silences. Silence wasn’t embarrassing—it was just two people being quiet together in the same moment.