At eight o’clock in the evening, the rain stopped.

The sky had completely darkened.

Shen Mo stood under the eaves, looking at the pitch-black sky, thinking: They couldn’t leave tonight either.

Clearly only less than an hour’s journey remained, yet they had to delay another day. Driving at night was too risky; they could only wait until tomorrow morning before setting out.

No electricity, no network signal, Yangzhou’s situation unknown—all these worries weighed on his mind, leaving Shen Mo with an indescribable irritability.

Tan Xiao and Teacher Cheng set up the pot again, adding several broken chair legs to the fire pile, boiling water to cook noodles.

Houzi used iron wire to pick open the doors of several dormitory rooms. Inside were single beds and tables. They didn’t know if the bedding was clean, but making do for one night shouldn’t be a problem.

They ate dinner around nine o’clock—still instant noodles, plus the roast duck and roast goose they’d brought from the food processing factory. Without rice or vegetables, everyone ate in silence.

Bai Youwei hadn’t eaten much for lunch and didn’t eat dinner either, saying she had no appetite. She wheeled herself to the dormitory room to rest.

Since childhood, she’d been particular about her food. Three meals a day were prepared by a housekeeper according to her tastes. It was normal that she couldn’t eat these things. Shen Mo didn’t take it to heart.

After dinner, Teacher Cheng specially boiled another pot of hot water. He scalded the cleaned glass jar bottle two or three times, then filled it with hot water and let it cool in cold water.

When the water temperature wasn’t so hot anymore, Teacher Cheng handed the jar to Shen Mo, saying, “Your sister seems a bit unwell. Have her drink more hot water.”

Shen Mo froze.

Seeing no response from him, Teacher Cheng kindly reminded: “She only ate a little bit at noon and hasn’t drunk a single sip of water until now. This won’t do—she’ll get sick.”

Tan Xiao was tilting his neck back, pouring water into his mouth. Hearing this, he paused, put down the water bottle, and asked: “Why isn’t she drinking? Isn’t she thirsty?”

After asking, he answered his own question: “Oh, I know! She’s been sitting still the whole time. When the mind is calm, the body naturally cools. When cool, she doesn’t sweat. When she doesn’t sweat, she won’t feel thirsty!… Burp…”

What kind of talk was this?

Teacher Cheng looked at Tan Xiao, utterly speechless.

Shen Mo’s expression, however, gradually darkened.

He picked up the jar and turned to leave. Bai Youwei’s dormitory was in the second room next door. He gripped the door handle and twisted—the door was locked from inside.

“Bai Youwei!” Shen Mo raised his hand to knock on the door, his tone suppressing a barely perceptible anger.

No movement from inside.

Shen Mo endured and endured, somewhat gritting his teeth: “Bai Youwei, open the door!”

Tan Xiao, Teacher Cheng, and Houzi all sensed something wrong and came out to look. “What’s going on…”

Shen Mo stood outside the door, his expression gloomy enough to rain.

What else didn’t he understand? Bai Youwei wasn’t refusing food because she wasn’t hungry or thirsty—she was making a fuss with him over the game incident, feeling she couldn’t rely on him anymore! So she was refusing food and water to avoid needing the toilet and having to look at his face!

Just how stubborn was she?

To fight over one breath of pride, she didn’t even care about her own body?!

Rage churned in waves. Shen Mo felt even his scalp tingling, unable to say where his anger came from—perhaps because of her terrible temper, perhaps because of his own carelessness.

No matter how much he disapproved of her actions, he wouldn’t ignore a disabled young girl over a few words of argument. But it was also true that because of his negligence, she’d endured hunger and thirst for most of the day.

After waiting half a minute, Bai Youwei still wouldn’t open the door.

Shen Mo stopped knocking. He turned around with a dark expression, took a deep breath, lifted his foot, and kicked hard!

Bang—a thunderous sound!

The door opened!

—Bai Youwei lay on her side on the bed, her back to him. Despite such a loud commotion in the room, she didn’t turn her head to look even once.

Shen Mo didn’t speak either. His eyes quickly swept around the single dormitory room. He grabbed her folding crutches and bags large and small, hanging them on the left and right of the wheelchair, then bent down to pick up the girl from the bed.

Bai Youwei was like a cat with raised hackles, turning to claw at Shen Mo’s face!

“You let go of me!!!” she screamed.