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

Bai Ci looked up, momentarily at a loss for words, her ten fingers unconsciously twisting together.

Shen Tinglan just stared at him, his eyes appearing exceptionally deep in the dim light, like two pools of still water covered with thin ice.

"It's okay," he said.

Bai Ci's fingertips curled slightly.

"It's okay if you're afraid of me," Shen Tinglan said earnestly, with a weariness that Bai Ci couldn't describe. "It's not just you. Others have been like this before. When they get close, when they see me, they become afraid. That's right. You don't need to feel sorry for it, nor do you need to feel burdened. Being afraid of me is for your own good."

"Brother Shen, I didn't..."

"Let me finish speaking." Shen Tinglan interrupted him, her tone unusually gentle, so gentle that Bai Ci almost thought that the person in front of him was not the same person as the cold and stern figure in the fog.

"Bai Ci, you must be very confused right now. You're thinking about why everyone has their own secrets. The Bai family has them, Ji Huaizhou has them, and I have them too. Why do you know nothing and can't grasp anything? You feel like everyone is arranging things for you, pushing you along. You're afraid I'm fake, yet you're also afraid I'm real. Because you simply don't know who to believe."

"If you feel uncomfortable having me in this building, I can move out. Ji Huaizhou is here, and Lu Ciyuan will be back too, so you won't be left unattended. If you want anything to eat or need anything, just tell Ji Huaizhou. He won't let you suffer; I trust his character."

Bai Ci suddenly turned to look at him, a hint of urgency flashing in her eyes: "I didn't say you had to move out—"

"Shen Tinglan." Bai Ci called him by his full name.

"Whenever something happens, you take it upon yourself to arrange everything perfectly. But did you even ask me? What makes you think that if you move out, I'll be more comfortable? You didn't even ask, yet you made all the decisions for everyone. When you said those things, did you give us the right to choose and care?"

Shen Tinglan was about to speak when Bai Ci interrupted him.

"Brother Shen," he said, "I'm not afraid of you."

He spoke clearly, without a trace of bravado.

"I've never been afraid of you. I just... suddenly don't know what to do with you."

Shen Tinglan paused slightly.

His usual gentle expression was ripped open by Bai Ci's words. His eyelids drooped slightly, his long eyelashes concealing the turbulent emotions in his eyes, and at that moment, his back began to ache untimely, quietly tormenting his mind.

"In the fog, you told me to close my eyes, and I did. You told me not to move, and I didn't. When you stood in front of me, separating me from those things, I knew you were protecting me."

"I wasn't scared, I was... panicked."

"What's the panic?"

"Were you kind to me before because of me as a person, or because of something else, as A-Yao said?"

Shen Tinglan looked at Bai Ci. The boy asked the question earnestly, yet his eyes held a vulnerability, a readiness to be stung by the answer. He wanted to smile and brush the question aside, just as he always had. But the dull pain in his back prevented him from doing so.

"The day you climbed out the window," Shen Tinglan suddenly said.

Bai Ci was stunned.

"He squatted under my window and buried a dead pill bug in the flower bed, even carefully making a small mound of soil," he said. "From that day on, I told myself, 'I want to get to know this person.'"

Bai Ci was stunned.

He had expected Shen Tinglan to deny it outright, or at least make a few casual jokes. He never anticipated that she would bring up that morning.

"At that time, I didn't know you very well. I just felt that this person was so strange, strange in a rather interesting way, yet exceptionally clean and pure. There was no other reason; I just saw that kind of you."

Bai Ci's eyelashes trembled slightly as he gazed at Shen Tinglan.

"Later I also realized that there was something... different about you." Shen Tinglan continued slowly, "But by then, to me, you were no longer just those special qualities. So my answer is that my special feelings for you have never been for anything else. Not before, and not in the future."

Bai Ci's nose stung with tears. He couldn't quite put his finger on what this meant. It wasn't a denial, nor was it entirely an answer. But it seemed to be the most honest answer he could get. When he met Shen Tinglan, he was just a simpleton who could climb through windows, retrieve shoes, and dig graves for pill bugs. Back then, he didn't know who Shen Tinglan was; Shen Tinglan had only just met him. They were simply two people living in the same building who happened to be awake at night.

Bai Ci nodded and gave a soft "Mmm".

"And you?" he asked. "Who are you?"

Shen Tinglan leaned back on the sofa, resting her neck against the backrest, as if a string that had been taut had been released.

"I came from a very far place, I know some things I shouldn't know, and I have some old debts. Later, I paid a great price to get the life I have now." He said it very simply, "I wanted to live an ordinary life here, but they still came looking for me."

"them?"

"The Shen family from the other side. Not the Shen family in Yunliu City." Shen Tinglan lowered her eyes. "If we don't go back, more people will come."

"Are you in danger?"

Shen Tinglan didn't answer, but turned her head and glanced at Bai Ci.

"Don't worry, I will do everything I can to keep you safe. You can take this as a promise or just empty words."

"But I have something to say to you today," Shen Tinglan said in a low voice, "Bai Ci, don't trust me too much, and don't trust anyone else too much either."

Bai Ci looked at him.

"If you want to live a more peaceful life, start today by learning to make your own judgments. Don't entrust yourself entirely to someone just because they're nice to you. Don't actually hand your life over to me just because I say I won't hurt you."

Bai Ci stiffened slightly. Although it was meant to be a message of consideration for him, it sounded like a distant boundary.

"Are you going to be included too?"

"Including me," Shen Tinglan answered crisply, without the slightest ambiguity.

He was unwilling for Bai Ci to place all his sense of security on himself, since even he himself could not guarantee 100% what the future would hold.

"I will protect you, but I might not be able to. I'm not someone who can cover for everything." Shen Tinglan spoke slowly, each word carefully chosen for Bai Ci's ears. "You can't put all your eggs in one basket. People change, and bodies can go out of control. If I fail to protect you one day, at least you'll know how to hide yourself."

"So... even if it's you, should I still keep a degree of caution?"

Shen Tinglan gazed at the watery light in the boy's eyes.

"Yes," he said slowly, "Prioritize your own safety; always put it before trusting anyone else."

"Bai Ci." He suddenly called him by his full name, his voice much lower than before.

Bai Ci was facing him, waiting quietly.

Shen Tinglan slightly averted her gaze, her shoulders slumping slightly due to the dull pain in her back. When she looked up again, there was a very faint, almost imperceptible smile in her voice.

"In all my years, this is the first time I've ever taught someone. The first lesson was 'Don't trust me too much.' There's no more incompetent teacher in the world."

Bai Ci stared blankly at him, the suffocating feeling in her heart mixed with an indescribable bitterness pressing down on her chest.

"I wasn't qualified to teach you these things. You've taken advantage of me by accepting me as your teacher. So whether you listen to this lesson or not is up to you. If you think it makes sense, keep it in mind; if you don't, just pretend I never said it."

Bai Ci didn't speak. His throat felt like it was stuffed with a wet cotton ball, both sour and weak. He wanted to say "I believe you," but he felt those three words were too light, too light to match the words Shen Tinglan had just spoken. So he said nothing, only nodded very slightly.

"I've remembered your lesson, Teacher Shen," Bai Ci said. "I've taken the lessons to heart. But my own judgment is that I choose to believe you."

"Teacher Shen."

"Um?"

Did I pass today's class?

Shen Tinglan turned her head and saw that he was tilting his head slightly, with a small, defiant light in his eyes.

"Not bad." Shen Tinglan raised an eyebrow and gently patted the top of his head. "It's just that as a student, you have too many distractions when listening to lectures."

Bai Ci didn't dodge; she just smiled, her eyes crinkling.

"It was clearly the teacher who lectured the longest and talked the most."