The sickly one in F4 was the group's darling.

"He reminded me at noon," Bai Ci's voice was low and hoarse from the smell of medicine. "I already promised him. He's still worried, so he came to bother you."

Ji Huaizhou didn't answer immediately, but his lips curved slightly: "It's not necessarily that he doesn't trust you."

Bai Ci looked up at him.

"He's worried about your health. As for troubling me—" Ji Huaizhou said slowly, "Your second brother rarely asks for help. The fact that he was willing to write the words 'trouble you' is enough to show that your matter is far more important than you realize."

Bai Ci placed the card back on the bedside table and remained silent. The pill had completely dissolved, its bitter taste lingering in his throat. The trembling in his limbs gradually subsided, and his heartbeat began to steady. Yet, the chill in his heart remained, as if it had been soaked in ice water. He shrank back under the covers and closed his eyes.

"Are you still cold?" Ji Huaizhou asked.

Bai Ci shook his head gently. He could no longer tell. The chill in his bones had mostly subsided, but the heavy knot in his chest remained unmoved. He turned over, burying half his face in the pillow, and mumbled, "Much better, I want to sleep."

Ji Huaizhou did not expose this pretense.

He simply dimmed the bedside lamp by one notch.

"I'm right here. Call me if you feel unwell."

Bai Ci did not respond. With her eyes closed and hidden in the shadows, she finally managed to squeeze out a very soft "hmm" after a long while.

He suddenly realized that all the hands reaching out to him were warm. But he himself was so cold that he couldn't even tell which one to hold.

-

Shen Tinglan did not turn on the light.

He leaned against the door, the back of his head against the cold wall, motionless, like a solitary statue sunk in darkness.

The red marks on my knuckles have stopped seeping out, but there is still a lingering, scorching sensation in my palm, as if a layer of transparent embers is firmly stuck to my skin.

He casually placed the tube of ointment on the low cabinet by the entrance, the seal intact, without opening it or even glancing at it.

Standing there in the deep darkness for a moment, Ji Huaizhou's words when he handed over the ointment suddenly came to mind—"Apply it yourself, don't let Bai Ci see."

Shen Tinglan turned his head slightly, his gaze piercing through the dim light to fall on the tube of ointment on the low cabinet. The small, silvery tube lay quietly on the counter, like a sentence he had set aside and failed to say.

He walked over slowly, bent down, and picked up the ointment. His fingertips touched the cold tube; his movements were slow, showing no sign of the urgency one would expect when treating a wound.

I unscrewed the cap, squeezed some onto my fingertips, and hastily smeared it on the back of my hand and knuckles. My movements were clumsy and the pressure was too heavy, as if I were applying medicine to someone else's hand.

He lowered his eyes and slowly rubbed his wounds in the darkness. He never cared about having a few more scars on his body, but now, in order to prevent another person from seeing them, he had to patiently treat this insignificant burn.

A strange sense of self-mockery crept into my heart. Even getting hurt now requires consideration.

After applying the ointment, he casually closed the cap and tossed it back into the cabinet.

Ji Huaizhou came out of Bai Ci's room and gently closed the door behind him.

He stood at the door for a moment. The lights inside were off, and only very soft breathing could be heard, occasionally skipping a beat before slowly settling back down. Bai Ci wasn't asleep, he knew. But Bai Ci didn't want him to stay any longer, and he knew that too.

Instead of returning to his own room, he turned and walked towards Shen Tinglan's door.

The corridor lights were off, only a sliver of grayish-white light filtering in from the windows, dividing the corridor into sections. He walked to the door, raised his hand, and knocked three times.

There was no sound from inside the door.

He waited a moment, then knocked again, so softly it was almost inaudible.

"it's me."

A moment later, Shen Tinglan's voice came from inside: "...The door isn't locked."

Ji Huaizhou pushed open the door and went in.

Shen Tinglan leaned against the windowsill, a cigarette between his fingers, almost burned down to the base of his fingers. He didn't turn around. The window was only slightly ajar, and the night breeze couldn't carry the smoke away in time. The whole room was shrouded in a thin layer of grayish-blue smoke, thick and choking.

Ji Huaizhou stood at the door, his expression turning icy cold the moment he stepped inside.

He strode over, snatched the cigarette from Shen Tinglan's fingers, and tossed it directly into the glass of water on the windowsill, which had already gone cold. With a hiss, the cigarette butt spun in the water, leaving a small wisp of grayish-black smoke floating to the surface.

"You're actually smoking in your room." Ji Huaizhou looked at him, his voice extremely low, each word seemingly ground out inch by inch from the bottom of his throat. "The window is only open a little bit, where can the smoke go? Whose room is it going to drift into?"

Shen Tinglan slowly turned her head and met his eyes. There was a faint bluish-gray under his eyes, his lips were paler than usual, and he was leaning slumped against the windowsill, looking exhausted.

"It's already destroyed," he said.

"So what if we put it out?" Ji Huaizhou took a step forward, his shoulders ramrod straight. "Bai Ci just experienced acute stress in this house; his heart and lungs are already weak. Tell me, are you planning to expose him to this smoke, or are you trying to contaminate everyone in the house?"

Shen Tinglan's expression finally changed.

"I didn't take many puffs," he said.

"Not even a single puff." Ji Huaizhou coldly interrupted him. "What if Bai Ci's cough flares up in the middle of the night from the smell of smoke? Do you want his condition to worsen? You can't touch it either. Don't you have any self-awareness? You used the power of the old world today, and the backlash hasn't subsided. Your spiritual veins are exposed, and you dare to dig this stuff out and smoke it. Shen Tinglan, do you know what state you're in right now? An ordinary person might cough twice after smoking a cigarette. You're using your lung meridian to face the backlash. Do you not want to live anymore, or do you think it doesn't matter whether you live or not?"

Shen Tinglan didn't speak again. He looked down at his empty hand, slowly pulled it back, and placed it at his side.

Ji Huaizhou did not stop there.

"Where did the smoke come from?"

Shen Tinglan did not answer.

"I'm asking you where you got these cigarettes." Ji Huaizhou's voice grew even heavier, as if something was stuck in his throat, ready to burst at any moment. "When did you start using this stuff? You didn't before, at least not since I came to this building. Did you just decide to smoke today, or have you been smoking behind my back all along?"

"Not always," Shen Tinglan finally spoke, her throat dry. "Just today."

"Today." Ji Huaizhou repeated, his gaze shifting from Shen Tinglan's face to his hand, then sweeping over the windowsill, desk, and bedside table, before finally settling back on him. "What about the rest?"

Shen Tinglan didn't move.

"Where did you hide it?" Ji Huaizhou asked, his tone so cold it was almost commanding. "Don't force me to search it myself."