Winter Returns

Chapter 119 Provocation (Thanks to Alliance Leader sd林林 for the donation)
Zhang Shutong hung up the phone, feeling a weight lifted from her shoulders.

He stood quietly by the window as darkness fell completely and the moon hung high in the sky.

He was surprised to see the moon today; he had almost forgotten what the moon looked like.

He held the medicine bottle in one hand, as if it were a wine glass, and touched it to the moon in the distance.

Unfortunately, Sailor Moon is fake.

Zhang Shutong didn't draw much energy from the moonlight; he just wanted to sit back and rest for a while.

Back on the sofa in the ward, Zhang Shutong pulled her down jacket over herself, and her eyelids started to droop again.

The news of Lao Song's escape from danger lifted his spirits, but the effect of this boost didn't last long, or rather, it was this news that relieved him.

Zhang Shutong thought of the story of Bi Gan having his heart cut out. Vegetables can live without hearts, but what about people without hearts? The answer is naturally death. Sure enough, the old man died as soon as he heard the story.

Although Zhang Shutong was still close to dying, once he breathed a sigh of relief, he felt every cell in his body sending out an emergency signal.

His brain was now issuing an urgent command, telling him to sleep, the kind of sleep that wouldn't wake him even if the alarm clock rang. Zhang Shutong's head slumped down little by little, then lifted up again. He was so sleepy that he couldn't stay awake any longer, and in desperation, he quickly called for a nurse...

The nurse rushed over, thinking he had some kind of adverse reaction.

"What should I do if I always feel sleepy?" Zhang Shutong said, struggling to keep her eyelids open.

"Then go to sleep," the nurse said curtly. "The medication you received contains this ingredient. It's normal to want to sleep. Do you think you can defy the laws of nature?"

"But I don't want to sleep," Zhang Shutong said listlessly. "Is there anything that can cheer me up?"

The nurse was so angry she laughed:
"You smoke?"

"Don't smoke."

"Well, there's nothing I can do about that." She thought for a moment, "You're quite handsome, do you have a girlfriend? Why don't you have a long phone call with her?"

Zhang Shutong became even more dejected upon hearing this.

Please, please, I already have a fever, don't stab me in the back, okay?

"Is there really no other way?"

"There's really no way around it." The young nurse had never seen such a strange request before. "Even if you wanted to study like a madman, there's no way to do it here."

Zhang Shutong nodded, then struggled to keep his eyelids open.

Half asleep, Zhang Shutong felt someone sit down next to him. He thought it was his older brother who had eloped back, but then a hand was stretched out in front of him:
"Want some? I'll share some with you?"

The nurse handed me a handful of sunflower seeds.

Zhang Shutong shook his head.

"Look at you, I tried to find you something to cheer you up, but you don't want it anymore," the nurse said, feigning anger.

"We don't have enough hands," Zhang Shutong explained.

"Then put them on your clothes." The other person scattered a handful of sunflower seeds on Gu Qiumian's down jacket. "Put the sunflower seed shells on top too, and throw them away when you leave."

Zhang Shutong didn't want to get the other person's clothes dirty, but since the sunflower seeds had already been placed there, he picked one up and started cracking it open. It tasted like sunflower seeds... It turned out he was really out of his mind; what else could a sunflower seed taste like but sunflower seeds?

"Thanks." Chatting with someone is nice; it can lift your spirits. "Aren't you on duty?"

“It’s worth it, of course it’s worth it,” the young nurse said happily, cracking sunflower seeds and crossing her legs. “I’m on duty right now, and the chairs in the pharmacy are too hard.”

As expected of an island, the hospital is wild, the nurses are wild, but he himself isn't much better; as a patient, he's quite wild as well.

"What kind of look is that?" The nurse switched legs and crossed them. "You're the only one left now, so don't tell on me for the sake of the sunflower seeds."

He looked up and around, only to find that the entire ward was empty, with only himself sitting on the sofa.

"It's almost 10 o'clock now. Except for those who come to the emergency room in the middle of the night, who wouldn't be home at this hour?" the nurse said again.

She was quite carefree, and only realized her mistake after speaking, so she apologized, saying, "I didn't mean what you said, it's just that we don't usually see people on our island getting IV drips this late."

What time should I have the needle removed?

"It'll probably be past eleven. What, you want to leave halfway through and come back tomorrow?"

Zhang Shutong shook his head and said no, he was thinking that he would remove the needle and rush to the villa when the time came, and the timing would be just right.

"You're quite strange. When I was in school, if I got sick, I just wanted to get an injection and get better quickly. I could sleep it off and be fine. Why are you forcing yourself to be sick?"

"I have something to do later," Zhang Shutong said absentmindedly.

"Come on," the nurse laughed. "I'd believe you if this were in the city, but where can we go for fun on this island?"

"I'm not going to have fun, I'm going to see someone." Zhang Shutong ate some melon seeds from someone else and became a little more talkative.

"Looking for a girl? It's so late."

"How did you guess that?"

"Women's intuition is usually very sharp, so isn't it?"

"more or less."

"What do you mean almost?"

"What I mean is, I just went to her house, but I didn't see her," Zhang Shutong said, speaking in a way that even he found difficult to understand.

"What kind of melodramatic romance movie is this? Did you upset that girl?" The two started exchanging words across different channels.

"I do not know."

“That’s it.” The nurse finished her sunflower seeds and grabbed a handful from his down jacket. “You young men are all like this. You do things that make people sad or angry, and you don’t even know it yourself.”

"Maybe," Zhang Shutong yawned lightly, "but I don't care much about it now."

"Then why are you still looking for her? Aren't you trying to win her back?"

The young nurse, with her eyes wide open, had already made Zhang Shutong her go-to person for passing the time during the night shift.

Let's save her life.

Zhang Shutong said casually.

The content was absurd, yet it didn't sound like a joke. He didn't look good, and in the other person's eyes, he really seemed aloof, especially since he always wore black. He hadn't let go of his phone since he sat down, as if he was on some secret mission and had just accidentally wandered into this small hospital for an IV drip.

The nurse stared at him blankly for two seconds before bursting into laughter:
"You seem so aloof and serious, how come you're so glib? Stop talking nonsense. With the public security improving, whose girl needs your help to save her life?"

Zhang Shutong was stabbed in the back again.

The original intention was to save her life.

Zhang Shutong thought to himself.

But what can you do when someone's dad comes back?

"I'm not kidding you, I see you're always staring at your phone, waiting for someone to message you?" the nurse asked again.

Zhang Shutong nodded, and the two resumed their cross-channel communication.

The nurse then offered her advice:
"I think you should stop talking about such vague and abstract things as human life. If you want to win a girl back, be more grounded. All that talk about 'I want to save your life' or 'I want to protect your safety' is too grand and abstract. It's like the moon tonight—beautiful, right? But you can't touch it even if you jump. It's much more touching to take her for a walk tonight. Protecting your feelings is more important than protecting her life."

"If you really want to protect her safety, then prove it with your actions. Saying a thousand empty words is not as good as protecting her when crossing the street. If you really care about her, then stop waiting for news. Waiting all day is not as good as taking the initiative to ask her."

Zhang Shutong thought it made a lot of sense, but he wasn't talking about anything vague or unrealistic.

Moreover, he almost got led astray and stopped pursuing girls himself.

He was just so tired he wanted to talk to someone.

And the situation is exactly the opposite of what you guessed. She didn't think I was talking nonsense; on the contrary, she didn't want to bother herself anymore.

Zhang Shutong couldn't explain the details, but he was very grateful that the other person was willing to talk to him about it.
"I seem to understand."

The nurse asked again:
"To be honest, if you don't care what she thinks, then why bother going to see her?"

“It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I never know what she’s thinking.” Zhang Shutong was unusually helpless. “I used to think I understood, but I didn’t.”

"There's nothing you can do about this. There are definitely girls who are hard to figure out. Just keep trying."

"We've done our best," Zhang Shutong said without hesitation, "but the result wasn't very good."

"How to say?"

"Every time I try to do something, I always end up making a mistake."

"What do you mean? What did you do to them?"

“I told her I’d take her fishing, but she didn’t like fishing; I took her to the movies at school, but we didn’t finish the movie; I took her out for a day, but it didn’t seem like she had a very good time; I wanted to help solve a case, but we almost had a misunderstanding; she asked me to watch a movie, but I always left halfway through, I…” Zhang Shutong was recounting the story in detail, but paused here for a moment and then said, “We finally got home, but then she got into trouble again.”

The nurse was startled:
"No way, little brother, listen to me, whatever you do, don't go looking for her. It'll be a waste of time. Just go wash up and go to bed. You're not just trying your best, you're doing everything you can to mess things up!"

Zhang Shutong smiled upon hearing this:
"A little bit, indeed."

She sighed:
"In that case, there's nothing anyone can do. It's good enough that she doesn't hold a grudge."

"She didn't really complain about me."

"Then keep going? I feel like you've already done your best. Why don't you get some sleep and go see her tomorrow?" The nurse yawned. "Anyway, I can't hold on any longer. I'm leaving now. Remember to call me when you need your dressing changed."

Zhang Shutong gave a soft "hmm".

When they left, they turned off the lights, leaving only an old wall lamp that was barely lit.

The white paint on the walls is peeling off; it's better to be noisy than to be quiet, because if it's quiet, it will just be a desolate wasteland.

Zhang Shutong was the only one left in the ward. His head drooped again, but fate seemed to have no intention of letting him fall asleep, and his phone rang again.

Zhang Shutong looked up and saw that it wasn't a message from anyone, but a friend request.

He never adds strangers on QQ, but this time the visitor was a bit special because the nickname was:

"I'm Qiu Mian's best friend. I have something urgent about her. Please let me know if you see this!"

Zhang Shutong frowned subconsciously.

I don't know why it was her best friend who came to find Gu Qiu Mian when she needed something.

He clicked "agree," and sure enough, the matter was urgent; the other party immediately made a video call.

A short-haired girl appears in the picture, smiling and showing her canine teeth:
"Hello, handsome, I thought you wouldn't pass."

"It's you." Zhang Shutong held up his phone, realizing it was his secretary.

"It must be fate."

"What's up with her?"

"You're always like this when you talk to anyone. Hey, aren't you curious how I found out your QQ number?"

"I'm hanging up now, it's nothing." Zhang Shutong realized he'd been tricked; it was clearly a harassing call.

"Don't hang up, I really have something to tell you," the other person said hurriedly. "Don't you want to hear how Qiu Mian's day went?"

"Do not want to."

"If you really didn't want to, you would have hung up the phone long ago, right? You hesitated, you wavered, you were wavering." She seemed to be declaring victory.

"What a perceptive fellow," Zhang Shutong sighed.

"Then you agreed."

"Can you be a little nicer? I'm just trying to be helpful. I've already talked to Qiu Mian and now I'm talking to you. It's the middle of the night, so even if you don't appreciate the results, you should at least appreciate the effort you've put in!"

"Why are you trying to comfort her?" Zhang Shutong asked, unusually curious.

The other person suddenly narrowed their eyes:

"Hey buddy, there's no point in pretending to be stupid."

Zhang Shutong couldn't handle this overly familiar young girl, but he wanted to find something to perk him up, so he nodded to signal her to continue, treating it like listening to an evening radio show.

The host's very first words were astonishing:
"Did you take Qiu Mian's down jacket?"

"You know?" Zhang Shutong asked curiously, his sleepiness suddenly fading away.

"So you comforted her because she found out and was unhappy?" Zhang Shutong asked again, seemingly incredulously.

"Oh, right, right! She's furious that you secretly wore her down jacket, okay? One isn't enough, you have to pay for two! I'm here to ask you for money! What kind of nonsense is this?!" the secretary wailed. "Seriously, didn't you realize? You can't be that stupid, can you? Handsome, please try to recall what happened!"

Zhang Shutong, without thinking, thought to himself, "Girl, you weren't even there at the time, so how come you know more than me, the person involved?"
"You might as well just say it."

"Say no more, I wasn't even there!" The other person sighed. "Fine, I'll send you this, see for yourself."

Two vibrations came from his phone. Zhang Shutong really didn't have the energy to play games of suspense. He made up his mind that if these two photos were still a charade, he would hang up the phone the next second.

He lowered his head, clicked on the picture, and seemed to see the phone credit he had just topped up about to run out again.

The picture was taken with a mobile phone.

To be precise, it's a photograph of a photograph.

— Take a picture from another phone using one phone.

The surroundings should be very dark when taking the photo, and the image quality should be blurry, but it should still be legible enough for people to recognize the content at a glance.

Because the first photo depicts something he had experienced.

Inside the train carriage, I was sitting in the driver's seat, turning halfway around.

Zhang Shutong remembered it; it was during driving lessons when he embarrassingly stalled the car, and Gu Qiumian took the opportunity to snap a photo of him. He thought to himself, "What am I trying to do by secretly taking a picture of my best friend and sending it to me?"
Did they think this was some incredible discovery?
He used to ask the other person what they meant, but now he just wants to quickly slide to the second card.

Zhang Shutong was stunned for a moment.

The first photo is of myself, and the second photo is also of myself.

But this one is a bit creepy.

The background is the courtyard of a villa, and the time is early in the morning.

The perspective is from a room on the second floor.

He is in the center of the picture, wearing an ill-fitting down jacket, shoveling snow with his head down.

"So, what are your thoughts?" the girl asked.

Zhang Shutong looked away from the screen and asked instinctively:
Where did you take this picture from?

"Of course I secretly took the picture from Qiu Mian's phone. I went to her house to play today!"

He looked at the screen again, and it was clear how short the down jacket was—it would expose his waist if he bent over, yet it was wrapped so tightly that it reminded him of a Swiss roll.

The boy in the photo was covered in snow, and someone captured this disheveled scene.

The photo was blurry. He didn't know if it was because he was in too much of a hurry when he took the picture... or if the photo was originally blurry because its owner was laughing so hard that his hands were shaking when he took it.
What was she thinking at that time?
"Why does she have this photo?" Zhang Shutong asked in surprise.

The girl said:
"I don't know, try to remember it yourself."

Zhang Shutong can clearly recall what happened that day.

It was December 7th, a completely different Friday.

He got up early from his second-floor guest room and found that the heavy snow had submerged the entire courtyard. He went downstairs and was called out by Old Song to shovel snow.

The snow was so thick that it almost covered a quarter of the fence, so he shoveled a path wide enough for a person to pass through from the front gate.

If I remember correctly, the photo was taken at this time.

But why?
Zhang Shutong clearly remembered that Gu Qiumian should still be sleeping at that time.

Although he had knocked on her door earlier, out of some concern and knowing that she had low blood sugar, he left after she slowly responded.

Shouldn't she go take a nap?

"You still haven't figured it out?" the girl reminded her at the right moment. "Then let me help you recall. Do you really think that she didn't know anything when you took her coat without saying a word?"

Regardless of whether Gu Qiumin knew or not, Zhang Shutong now only has one question left:
"how do you know?"

"Of course I know. I just asked her last night. I wanted to borrow this down jacket when I went out, and she said she lent it to someone else yesterday. I didn't think much of it at first, but then I realized something was wrong!"
“I know all of Qiu Mian’s female friends. No one has come to visit her these past few days, so it must be someone else. Plus, I looked at her photo album before and found this picture in it. Then I thought, could it be that you’ve taken it?”

Her reasoning was truly brilliant, leaving everyone in awe. The secretary delivered the final blow:
"Sure enough, I made a video call to you, and you really did manage to get through to me."

"But I'm not trying to be mean, senior, but could you please not be so sloppy? Since you're wearing someone else's clothes, can't you at least take better care of them? They lent them to you to keep warm, and now you're using them to eat sunflower seeds?"

Zhang Shutong was a little embarrassed. He shook his down jacket and scattered the sunflower seed shells on his lap.

“But you’re wrong about one thing,” he explained. “It’s not as complicated as you think. My teacher found it. He probably didn’t even know whose clothes they were. He just grabbed them as soon as he saw them.”

The secretary was exasperated:

"I'm telling you, you're acting like you have a fever, your brain is all muddled. Is your teacher her nanny or her father? How do you know where she put her down jacket? And let me ask you another question, where was she at the time?"

Zhang Shutong wanted to say that she hadn't gone upstairs, but then she remembered that she had gone out to make a phone call and then went upstairs when she came back.

"It could also be a nanny..."

"What nanny? How could a nanny lend clothes to someone else without permission?" Xu Zhiruo said angrily. "I just want to say, didn't you realize that Qiu Mian gave you that down jacket?"

Zhang Shutong choked for a moment.

Because he genuinely didn't notice.

Or rather, it's unlikely.

Because she had already gone upstairs when he left, it was Lao Song who picked up the down jacket from the sofa and handed it to him. Although he had put the jacket back in the closet after shoveling the snow, he didn't know where Lao Song had found it from.

Zhang Shutong can clearly remember every detail of that morning:
For example, Lao Song said that the snow was too heavy and the school was closed. Which news would you like to hear first, the good news or the bad news?

For example, Gu Qiu Mian was inexplicably aloof that day. The nanny said that if she had done something embarrassing the day before, she would deliberately put on a serious face the next day.
For example, he had promised not to hide it from her anymore, but he still went to the mountain without saying a word;
For example, the day the tires weren't delivered, they were stranded in the villa. They could have had a leisurely and peaceful morning, but the snow was so thick that they were shivering from the cold, and even the Doberman was eating in its kennel.

For example, he still called his mother for help, but when he returned, Gu Qiu Mian had already gone upstairs.

For example, when he returned to his room, he found the movie he hadn't finished watching the night before playing on TV, but by the time he realized it, the living room was empty, and the tea had gone cold since he left.

Finally, he put on the down jacket and rushed out of the room. He was so focused on walking fast that he didn't even look back once.

Zhang Shutong could clearly remember every single detail, but when these details were strung together, they suddenly became something he couldn't understand. Only then did he realize that there was something else hidden behind them all along.

But I never noticed it.

He said again on the phone:
"Take another look at that photo, in the bottom right corner!"

Zhang Shutong looked at the photos again and found some graffiti in the corner. First, there was a simple number, 1207, which turned out to be the date. He flipped back to the photo of him learning to drive and found that there was also graffiti there.

December 7th, the third day.

和；
December 6th, the second day.

This seems to be some kind of commemoration.

But Zhang Shutong didn't understand what was being commemorated.

All he knew was that the day he became Gu Qiu Mian's deskmate was December 5th, the first day after that date, when their relationship officially thawed.

But what does it mean for Gu Qiumian?
The only thing he could make out was a really ugly ghost face drawn in the corner of the photo. It was so ugly that Zhang Shutong was all too familiar with it. It looked like a sheep and a cloud, and it was the work of some young lady in a good mood.

When she's in a good mood, she breathes on the glass and her fingers fly out a bunch of messy lines. She says they look like sheep, but in Zhang Shutong's eyes they always look more like funny faces.

So Zhang Shutong often joked that she was ruining the glass again, but now it has been ruined into two photos containing herself.

He looked at the two photos in silence.

This is a girl who still types with one finger. What is she thinking when she clumsily draws those patterns?
he does not know.

Zhang Shutong only knew that a girl got up early that day. With inexplicable feelings, she drew back the curtains and saw the white snow, the silent wilderness, and a small black shadow on the snow. She smiled and drew the curtains back up. Then, she hurriedly found her phone, took a picture through the gap, and her body trembled with excitement.

This photo was left on Zhang Shutong's phone without her knowledge, along with a string of numbers. What was she keeping as a memento? And what were her feelings when she drew a funny face on the phone's glass?
Many people are like raindrops that streak across the windowpane of your life. The raindrops vary in size; some can flow mightily, while others can spread in lines, but they will always pass away in an instant.

But what about the fog left on the glass?
It's so hard to see, yet you can't bear to erase it?
In the end, I still broke my promise.

He went out alone that morning, leaving her in the villa, and tonight is no different.

It was a palace-like building, lit up even at night, but Zhang Shutong also knew that it was the most remote place on the entire island, and no matter what, he could not see the bright lights of the city.

There are countless reasons: because it's dangerous, I can't take her; because it's important, I can't tell her—these reasons are all valid...

But what does she think, having been kept in the dark all this time?
They didn't even say goodbye when they left that day.

He wanted to save his farewell for next time because he didn't know how to say it, but the opportunity wasn't always there.

Zhang Shutong finally felt a deep sense of exhaustion.

He successfully messed up something again.

Life isn't a case; even if you find all the clues, it's hard to get the right answer.

"So you finally understand?" the girl said coldly. "Qiu Mian said I wronged you, but you don't think that sending a few perfunctory greetings on QQ counts as caring, do you?"

"Anyone can do that. There are tons of guys who have a crush on her, and plenty of guys would be willing to do it. They'd want her contact information but couldn't. Besides, do you think you're so funny or something? You're not the type to make girls happy. You're as cold as ice, you know that..."

"I see."

"what do you know?"

Zhang Shutong said in a low voice:

"Actually, I haven't tried my best yet."

"Please, senior, what do you mean by 'try your best'? Are you telling a lame joke? I've already talked to Qiu Mian and she's completely moved on. What's the use of saying 'try your best' now? Stop bothering her, okay? Just send her a message asking 'How are you?' to save on data charges. Besides, she has bodyguards and a dad at home, what does she need you for..."

But before she could finish speaking, she was interrupted.

"It's not about trying your best; you wouldn't understand."

"What? I don't understand... Hey, what do you want to do?"

She saw the other person raise their hand, and when she looked over, she realized they were removing the IV needle from their hand. She then noticed that the other person seemed to be in a hospital, receiving an IV drip.

His voice was low, but it became strong and resolute:

"I mean, you don't understand what I mean by not trying hard enough, and you don't understand what I'm doing. But that's okay, it's enough that I understand."

He seemed to have suddenly become a different person; he became colder, but also more resolute.

As the phone's angle rose, Xu Zhiruo met Zhang Shutong's dark eyes.

The other person had already pulled out the needle, forcibly pulling it out, which made her gasp. The other person then smiled at her.
"Thank you. I've already messed up a lot of things, I can't afford to mess up again this time."

He added:
"I'll hang up now. I need to keep one hand to press on my veins, otherwise I'll have to get my foot pricked tomorrow."

Then he turned off his phone.

Zhang Shutong finally understood what he had been waiting for.

All that insistence, all that explanation, all that arrogance—it's all lies.

He's just hesitating.

Since the other party's father has come, it's not my place to handle this matter.

why?
It's nothing more than being petty and calculating.

Why bother arguing about who should be in charge of this matter? Since someone more powerful is in charge, doesn't that mean you're no longer needed?

Ironically, after all that fuss, they just backed down.

The saddest thing in life is to deceive yourself.

People are always troubled by the question of whether something is worth it, but why think so much about it? Whether the girl is silly or shrewd, whether he will be seen as crazy, whether he can trust her or not... these are never things he should be thinking about.

What he should be thinking about is how to get that girl out of the villa. Whether it's appealing to her emotions, reasoning with her, or even kidnapping her, he absolutely cannot let her stay in the villa or that room on the second floor tonight.

He wasn't in very good condition; his head was heavy and his body was cold. His skill in removing the needle was far inferior to that of a professional, and blood was seeping from his skin. If he could, he really wanted to just fall asleep and never wake up again.

Did they really try their best?
No, not yet.

His motorcycle still had fuel, his body could still move, and his brain was still functioning.

If that's the case, why insist on going for a walk around the villa at this time of midnight?
Zhang Shutong simply didn't want to see that silver hair fall to the ground; it would cause people to regret it.

Why wait until dawn? He rubbed his face and pressed the tape firmly against the wound. Opportunities only come in the present moment.

It's exactly 10 o'clock now, and he still has two hours to get Gu Qiumian out of the villa.

Zhang Shutong started running again.

He has long legs, so he runs very fast. He was about to leave the ward in just a few steps when the nurse came running.

"Hey, are you kidding me? Why did you run away again?"

"Sorry, I have to go win that girl back!" Zhang Shutong shouted, his voice echoing in the empty hospital room. "Although I'll have to trouble you to give me another injection tomorrow, one shouldn't always make empty promises..."

The nurse behind them was both anxious and angry, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, but Zhang Shutong had no time to explain.

He ran down the stairs quickly, carrying the black down jacket in his arms, got on his bike, and with his other hand opened his contacts, found Gu Qiu Mian's number. This number hadn't been called for twenty-four hours, and he was about to dial it.
however.

At the same time, a phone call came in.

It was Gu Qiumian's.

Zhang Shutong's heart suddenly clenched.

An ominous premonition welled up in my heart.

It felt as if some terrible news was about to arrive.

……

Who knows——

Are you still out there, riding your motorcycle around recklessly?

Zhang Shutong stood there, stunned, and subconsciously looked back.

"How could you be so stupid! Didn't I tell you I was fine? If I hadn't called you, were you planning to keep lying to me, riding your bike outside all night until dawn, and then collapse somewhere with a fever?"

"Haven't I told you countless times before to go home and rest? Don't hide it from me! Why won't you listen!"

"I..." Zhang Shutong felt that Gu Qiumian and her best friends had special abilities; how could they know where she was?

"You've wanted to take me away ever since that day, as if something bad would happen if we stayed at home, but no matter how I ask you, you won't tell me!"

"Calm down, let me explain..."

"But I don't want to be calm, I don't want to be rational, and I don't want to hear your explanation!"

For some reason, her voice was trembling, and her hot breath seemed to travel over the microphone to this end:
"Come pick me up, I'll go with you right now!"

(End of this chapter)