‘I must have seen it wrong.’
First of all, it was certain that no matter how one looked at her, Ai Lian was a local through and through.
Broadly speaking, she was Asian.
Even if he stretched the possibility to her being European or American, purple eyes simply did not exist in this world.
It was most likely just a momentary illusion caused by sunlight reflecting off her glasses.
Gu Yebai didn’t take it to heart.
The teacher continued the lecture.
Just as crosstalk actors needed an audience, Gu Yebai was one of the few willing to play the “straight man” for the teacher’s jokes.
Every time he made eye contact with the teacher, he could sense a faint glimmer of gratitude in the man’s eyes.
Gu Yebai never did his homework, yet his grades always remained among the best.
This wasn’t because he was trying to be edgy; it was because he had to spend a massive amount of his time at home writing novels.
Based on his past experience, listening carefully in class was enough to handle most exams.
A few days passed.
Thanks to that one “wife” comment, the bullying directed at Ai Lian had indeed dwindled significantly.
Whenever Gu Yebai ran into Ai Lian now, he would always greet her with a smile, and she would always smile back.
Her smile actually wasn’t bad-looking at all.
Gu Yebai’s social standing in this school wasn’t high, but he was by no means a pushover that people could bully at will.
When he first enrolled, someone had seen his mother coming to the school to register him.
That person had muttered some foul words and made a lewd gesture.
Gu Yebai hadn’t wasted a second.
Without any warning, he grabbed the boy’s collar with one hand and snatched a stool leg with the other, smashing it directly against the person’s head.
There had been no shouting or cursing, only the sound of dull thuds.
Back then, Gu Yebai looked like a man of few words but terrifying ruthlessness.
After that, while people still joked with him, they never dared to joke about his family.
They had found the location of his bottom line.
Other students weren’t so lucky.
In Fifth High School, studying was seen as being spineless, and hard work was considered a disgrace.
Leaving a test paper blank in broad daylight would earn a few shouts of “badass,” but if anyone actually filled out every question, they would be ridiculed as a small-town test-taker.
Most of them imagined themselves to be Chen Haonan.
They took on “big brothers,” formed gangs, and wore T-shirts with “Loyalty” logos.
They treated the small town like a criminal underworld, arranging fights in various places.
They played pranks on teachers in class, and many had spent time in juvenile detention.
When they got out, they strutted around with an “I’m the best, so what?” attitude.
Many students who had originally wanted to study had already been led astray.
Gu Yebai continued to study and write his novels in peace.
Occasionally, he would look back at Ai Lian and find that she was also studying.
In such an environment, being like a lotus flower that remained unstained by the mud was no easy feat.
Gu Yebai felt a certain sense of “comradeship” with her, even though she really wasn’t that pretty.
There was a classic line in Macbeth.
Let us meet the time as it seeks us.
Being in a cage was interesting in its own way.
The things that happened on campus more or less became material for Gu Yebai’s writing.
Regardless, if he wanted to walk out of Linchuan, the only person he could rely on was himself.
He estimated that the online loans he had taken out for his parents’ funeral expenses could be paid off in six months.
After that, he would have to save up some money for his living expenses when he went to college in the future.
Gu Yebai’s favorite day was the 12th of every month.
That was the day the royalties were deposited into his account.
Ding.
This month’s royalty payment was 6,301 yuan.
Of that, 1,400 yuan came from a tip from Yi.
Besides Yi, Gu Yebai had several other major patrons.
He was deeply grateful to these people who provided his bread and butter.
Over the past year, every time his royalties arrived, he had to immediately transfer the money to the hospital.
To pay for his parents’ medical treatments, Gu Yebai had spent an entire year eating nothing but steamed buns and pickled vegetables.
Now, he could finally improve his diet a bit.
However, winter was approaching.
Should he buy himself a few warm clothes?
Or perhaps, to improve the efficiency of his writing, should he buy an external Bluetooth keyboard?
‘Eating KFC today is definitely too extravagant.’
‘It’s not even Thursday.’
‘Rich young ladies like [Yi] or overseas students in Tokyo like [Yukino] probably don’t wait for Thursday to eat KFC. They probably just eat it whenever they want…’
“Forget it. I’ll just go to Shaxian Delicacies and order some duck leg rice,” Gu Yebai muttered to himself.
After school, he headed off to eat his duck leg rice with his backpack on.
The shop at the street corner was lit with a greasy, warm glow.
When he lifted the door curtain, he was greeted by that same greasy warmth.
It smelled delicious.
The salty aroma of various fried foods, soup noodles, and soy sauce mixed together, greatly stimulating his appetite.
“One order of duck leg rice.”
Gu Yebai watched as the balance on his Redmi Note 9, which had a cracked screen, changed from 6,821 to 6,800.
Before long, the plate was brought out.
The white rice was piled up like a small mountain.
The duck leg was soaked a deep brown by the sauce, and the skin at the edges was slightly crispy.
Gu Yebai picked up his disposable chopsticks, firmly gripped the duck leg, and took a bite…
He chewed for half a second.
Tears began to fall uncontrollably.
It was so delicious.
But his parents would never have the chance to eat something this good again.
They had spent most of the last year of their lives in the hospital.
Most of what they ate was liquid food.
His memories were filled only with the never-fading smell of disinfectant, hospital payment windows, crumpled hospital receipts, and the long, agonizing wait as the IV drips fell drop by drop.
They were gone.
But precisely because they were gone, the money finally stopped flowing into the hospital like water.
In the past, as soon as the money arrived, it had to go toward saving his parents’ lives.
Now, he had more money than he could even spend.
But why?
Why did he feel a sense of “relief” deep in his heart?
If his novels had been more popular back then, if he had worked a little harder, would he have had more money to keep them alive?
Why was it that he couldn’t do anything back then?
The duck leg rice was indeed delicious.
But Gu Yebai couldn’t taste any happiness in it.
Eat, survive, and then leave Linchuan.
But even if he left Linchuan one day, he would still be all alone.
Without his parents, he would never look back.
In the deepest part of his heart, he often saw a vision of himself eating steamed buns and pickled vegetables for the rest of his life as long as his parents were healthy and alive.
The bit of pleasure his taste buds felt now wasn’t even worth one-tenth of the happiness he had when they were still here.
“Young man, why are you crying?”
The owner poked his head out and looked at him, his voice tinged with confusion.
He had seen all sorts of people, but not many who cried while eating duck leg rice.
“I ate too fast. I burned my tongue.”
The tears that hadn’t fallen at the funeral now flowed like a broken dam, impossible to stop.
He took two more bites, then grabbed his backpack and practically fled the shop.
It had started snowing at some point outside.
It was the first snow of the year, and the large snowflakes looked like white sugar, dusting every street.
‘I still have to keep writing when I get home.’
Gu Yebai sniffled, lowered his head, and walked quickly toward the stop for Bus 5.
His phone buzzed.
Gu Yebai wiped his tear stains and checked his phone.
His emotions were a bit high right now.
Chatting with his readers helped alleviate his loneliness to some extent.
It was a message from Yi.
[Yi]: Uncle White, do you remember what I mentioned before?
[Walking Alone in the White Night]: Of course.
[Walking Alone in the White Night]: You said you aren’t biologically related to your parents.
[Yi]: The detective my parents hired just got the preliminary results.
[Yi]: I always thought the baby swapped back then was a girl.
I never expected that the one the hospital mixed up was actually a boy…
[Yi]: The hospital really messed up big time.
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