To Qianling’s surprise, Yangxia was the one to start the conversation.
She crossed one leg, resting the base of her palm against the flowerbed, and asked Qianling in a listless tone, “My sister sent you, didn’t she?”
“It was my idea…”
However, Yangxia didn’t care about Qianling’s answer from the start. Before she could even finish, Yangxia continued, “Honestly, just how much do you like her?”
“…?”
Stunned for a few seconds, Qianling shot back, “What are you bringing that up for?”
“Can’t you tell? I’m being sarcastic.”
Yangxia snapped. Her voice suddenly regained some of its original vigor.
This explanation, however, put Qianling’s mind at ease.
Seriously… if you hadn’t said that, I would have thought you meant…
Meant…
…
Before her mental state could be compromised, she decided to put that thought aside for the moment.
She told Yangxia, “I won’t get into the details, but anyway… I really did come here to find out why you’re not going to the aquarium.”
“And now? Did you find out?”
“If I had found out, I wouldn’t have come to ask you personally.”
“Fair enough. It would have been a problem for me if you actually managed to find out.”
Yangxia spoke with an air of profound mystery.
But when it came to watching animation, Qianling hated characters who spoke in riddles more than anything, so she didn’t intend to give Yangxia any room to be indirect.
“So? Why aren’t you going?”
“I was just about to explain from the beginning. What’s the rush…”
“Can you just get to the point?”
“I told you not to be in such a rush.”
“Can you say it now?”
“Fine, fine, fine! I’ll tell you! I’ll give you the conclusion right now, are you satisfied!”
Hearing Yangxia say that, Qianling crossed her arms and nodded.
Yet even then, when it was actually time to speak, she hesitated and stammered.
“It’s… it’s because…”
As Yangxia’s face gradually turned red, Qianling silently fixed her with an even sharper gaze.
Under this pressure, Yangxia finally reached her limit and shouted the real reason in one breath.
“It’s because my friend’s younger brother is going too!”
“Huh?”
Qianling was dumbfounded, her jaw dropping involuntarily.
What kind of reason was that? She didn’t understand it at all.
She was going to reject her sister’s important invitation for a reason like that?
Seeing her expression of pure disbelief, Yangxia hurriedly waved her arms to stop Qianling from jumping to conclusions.
“That’s why I said I needed to explain from the beginning! Look at you, you don’t understand it at all, do you?”
“I… I see,” Qianling replied, feeling a bit embarrassed.
Realizing the problem lay with her, she placed her hands on her thighs and sat properly on the flowerbed in a well-behaved posture, waiting for Yangxia to continue.
Yangxia sighed and said, “Qianling, don’t tell anyone what I’m about to say. Not even my sister.”
Qianling tactfully remained silent this time, simply nodding and continuing to listen.
Seeing her reaction, Yangxia felt a sense of relief.
From there, she finally began to tell the whole story. Her gaze slowly lowered, and her voice grew calm.
“Actually, you can probably imagine it, right? No high school girl talks non-stop about deep-sea creatures during class breaks.”
She gave a bitter smile as she said this.
“Maybe my sister will be like that when she gets to high school, but I know… ‘normal’ high school girls would find that a bit weird. Especially rushing over there on opening day like some child full of curiosity.”
“And the friend’s brother I mentioned is an elementary student. So… I’m worried that if I’m seen, people will say I’m childish, like an elementary kid.”
Given Yangxia’s personality, it wasn’t hard for Qianling to understand. She didn’t want strange rumors about her to spread.
But it was just a trip to the aquarium; she was being way too dramatic.
So, Qianling interrupted her and asked, “But would that really happen? For example, I don’t find it childish at all.”
“Neither do I. After all, my sister is exactly like that, and I’ve never thought she was childish.”
“Then there’s no problem, right?”
“It’s not like that, Qianling.”
After disagreeing, Yangxia leaned back slightly, bracing her hands further back on the flowerbed. Her posture looked a bit more relaxed than before.
She continued, “Actually, it’s quite hard for me to get along with other girls. My hobbies are different from theirs, and I’m not very good at reading the atmosphere.”
“But even so, I still managed to make friends… so I want to appear as ‘normal’ as possible in front of them. Do you understand?”
Yangxia threw the topic to Qianling, who replied, “I understand…”
So the thing Yangxia truly feared was losing the friends she had finally made because she didn’t fit in. That was why she rejected the aquarium invitation.
Only… it seemed so exhausting.
If that was the case, did she plan to suppress her true self for the rest of her life?
That was a life Qianling didn’t want to imagine. So, she decided to tell Yangxia exactly how she felt, even if those feelings were a bit harsh.
She looked at Yangxia with a determined gaze and asked in return:
“Then have you ever shown them even a glimpse of the real you?”
“Maybe not…”
Yangxia answered without any confidence.
Qianling continued to press, “And how long do you plan to stay ‘normal’? Are you ‘Yangxia’ or just a ‘normal high school girl’?”
“Maybe… one day I’ll be able to become a ‘normal high school girl’ for real.”
To Yangxia’s answer, Qianling stated decisively, “No, you won’t.”
She then crossed her arms again and criticized Yangxia mercilessly. “Because Yangxia, you’re someone who is uniquely annoying in a very specific way.”
“What… did you say?”
The peaceful atmosphere of sharing and listening was wiped away by those explosive words.
Yangxia was dazed for a moment, then stood up from the flowerbed immediately after processing the situation.
“Qian, Ling, you…”
Her expression grew increasingly sinister, and her voice became heavy.
Ignoring her reaction, Qianling continued to express her view.
“You’re always incredibly stubborn about the weirdest things, and then you’re so hesitant and wishy-washy about other weird things. I used to really hate that about you. I thought your personality would eventually screw everything up.”
In truth, in Qianling’s eyes, it wasn’t that she *would* screw things up; she had “already” screwed up once before.
Even as Yangxia approached her with the face of a demon, Qianling kept talking to herself.
“However, every time you think you’ve screwed up, you reflect on it properly. You act out of kindness, you put yourself in others’ shoes, and you cherish your friends. It’s because you never hid those things from me that I was able to see them. Now, I’m slowly starting to like you.”
As Qianling fully conveyed her true feelings, Yangxia’s demonic expression rapidly shifted into confusion and a deep blush, especially at the final sentence.
In a slightly trembling voice, Yangxia asked:
“Hey, why did you suddenly start praising me! What exactly are you trying to say!”
“What I’m trying to say is…”
Qianling looked up with a smile and held up a finger in front of Yangxia, who had walked over to her. “I hate the version of you that you show to your other friends the most. Before I said it, you probably didn’t know what parts of you were hated and what parts were liked. Everyone puts on an act sometimes.”
At this point, she thought of Yangxia’s friends. During their interaction earlier, they had been very kind to her, so she added a bit more.
“And… even if there are things they don’t like, I don’t think they’re the type to gossip behind your back over something like that. You probably know that yourself, don’t you?”
“I…” Yangxia tried to answer, but stopped halfway.
So Qianling continued to press, “Or is your ideal friendship just a relationship where you’re constantly testing each other? You’ll never make real friends that way, you know?”
“Enough, enough! …I get it!”
As Yangxia spoke, she hurriedly placed her hands on Qianling’s shoulders and shook them twice, signaling her to shut up.
She سپس sighed and retreated to her original seat, saying in an exhausted tone, “I know I might be overthinking it, but why did you have to be so mean about it… couldn’t you have been a bit gentler when advising me?”
Qianling spread her hands and shrugged. “It seems I should have been even meaner, otherwise you wouldn’t have listened seriously. Besides, I already explained why I wasn’t being gentle.”
Yangxia immediately remembered that in her speech just now, Qianling had expressed her “hate” more than once.
Amused by the reason, she couldn’t help but laugh and confirmed with Qianling, “So, are you just settling a personal grudge?”
“Guess.” Qianling answered nonchalantly.
After catching her breath, Yangxia turned her head and said solemnly to Qianling, “How should I put this… thank you, Qianling. The aquarium… I’ll go with you guys.”
After saying that, she absentmindedly scratched her cheek.
Qianling didn’t respond with words.
She simply held up a hand as usual, making a confident peace sign.
It meant that her purpose for this trip had finally been fulfilled.