After school, she returned to her temporary rental apartment. Abel sent her a text asking if she was coming to an event. She typed: Not coming.

Abel replied: Aren’t you short on money?

Response: Made enough.

Reply: Girl, you really have no ambition. Every time you’re on the verge of making it big, you back out. Your market value is amazing right now, you know that?

She went to the bathroom to run the water, replying to him: Really not coming, senior year, I have college entrance exams.

Then she turned off her phone and went to shower. After showering, she got on the bed and opened her laptop. Abel was predictably urging her again online. She blocked this person’s messages, eating an apple while opening the campus network.

The campus network was always restless, always had her name and related photo albums, always had notifications of Bai Aiting’s latest status updates. She gently moved the mouse to the search bar, typing one character at a time: Dong Xi

Beifan High School.

After buffering for a few seconds, the searched account appeared. The profile showed enrollment at Beifan High School. The account name was simply the two characters “Dong Xi,” with no messy symbols or cumbersome prefixes or suffixes. The profile picture was an artistic rendering of a magnolia plant. She moved the mouse over the avatar, which changed color, waiting to be clicked.

Click. Enter.

The webpage silently displayed a notification box: You are not her friend yet. The other party has only made some information public.

Her lips pressed together lightly at that moment. She set the apple aside, placing both hands on the keyboard.

No typing. Her fingertips just tapped lightly on the keyboard with a tap-tap-tap sound. After hesitating for a quarter of an hour, she finally clicked the “Add as Friend” option. The webpage brought up a “Verification Message” box. She took a bite of the somewhat oxidized apple, her fingers brushing over the keyboard, typing letter by letter.

Long… qi

—I am Long Qi.

Just after typing it, she deleted it and typed again.

Tong… ban…

—Your classmate.

After typing it, she pressed the enter key again to delete everything. She took another bite of the heavily oxidized apple and finally typed:

Dui

B… u

Qi

I’m sorry.

After typing, she right-clicked to send the message.

At the same moment, considering another matter, she quickly returned to her homepage and deleted the ambiguous photo she’d posted a week ago. She checked through her photo album again, deleting all photos with improper implications.

The bottom right corner of the webpage chimed with a system notification. Long Qi’s busy movements slowed. Her eyes stared at that spot. The mouse moved over and clicked.

Long Xinyi’s message popped up: Do you know Jin Yiken?

The lower lip she’d been biting gently released. She clicked the X in the upper right corner to close the window, then refreshed the page. No new messages.

She refreshed every five minutes, every ten minutes, every half hour. Looking at the time, it was nine forty-five. With a normal homework load, students would work until eleven. Good students could finish by ten, but good students liked to spend time reviewing and going over their lessons, so they’d normally go to sleep around eleven thirty. Around eleven thirty, Long Qi opened the webpage and refreshed again. Still no messages.

She propped her chin up with her hand, her fingertips tapping on the table with a tap-tap-tap sound.

During this time, she received another online message from Long Xinyi: Reply to me, do you know him or not?

She still ignored it. Long Xinyi immediately sent a third message: “Sis, I was wrong, I really was wrong, I’m sorry, just reply to me.”

She typed: Did he beat you up?

Long Xinyi replied: No.

She sent again: Did he go after your girl?

Reply: No.

Neither thing happened. Just as she was about to add him to her block list feeling bored, Long Xinyi sent a message: He gave me a computer set, damn, the specs are insanely awesome.

She immediately slammed down the mouse, went to the bathroom to get her phone, and dialed Jin Yiken. As soon as he answered, she shouted with extreme anger: “Are you sick!”

Jin Yiken’s side was particularly quiet, as if he were in his home study reviewing his lessons. As soon as he heard her cursing, he laughed. Long Qi continued shouting: “Are you bored out of your mind or have too much money to burn! Or are you planning to go after Long Xinyi this time for a change of taste, Jin Yiken, why don’t I go to the broadcasting room tomorrow and shout to help you confess, how does that sound! Pervert! Psycho!”

But no matter how much she cursed at him, he just laughed, laughed hard. Only after she finished cursing did he say: “Qi, you really don’t leave yourself any escape routes. Your man is paving the way for you.”

She clicked on Long Xinyi’s account to add to her block list, her hand poised to hang up the phone. Jin Yiken asked: “You’ve moved out now?”

“Hanging up!”

After hanging up, her anger hadn’t subsided. She turned off her phone before he could call back, then forcefully threw the phone onto the sofa across from the bed!

After that, she redirected her attention back to the page, but her inner fire was truly surging fiercely. The sound of clicking the mouse was very loud, very loud.

After refreshing several times, still no new messages.

She tossed aside the pillow, got out of bed again, walked to the sofa to get her phone, and called Jin Yiken back. As soon as he answered, she said: “Shut up.”

“Hmm?”

“Answer what I ask. If I don’t ask, don’t make a sound. Dong Xi was in the same class as you before, right?”

“Dong Xi,” his tone still carried traces of laughter. He paused for two or three seconds, as if doing the recognition work of matching the name to a face, then said, “Oh, yes.”

Her restlessness slowly subsided. She asked: “Does she normally use her campus network account?”

“Haven’t paid attention to her.”

“Who are her particularly close friends?”

“Haven’t paid attention.”

“Then what’s her relationship with Bai Aiting like?”

“No relationship.”

Long Qi paused for a moment, then slowly said: “Something’s off with you. You don’t know anything about her at all.”

He fully understood the meaning in her words, replying: “Pretty is pretty, but unfortunately she’s a nun, the highbrow type, the most boring type.”

Then he added: “Besides, I don’t like women I can grasp with one hand anyway.”

He emphasized the six words “grasp with one hand.”

Long Qi hung up without a word, deliberately waiting until after she’d turned off her phone before returning to bed to look at the page again.

No new messages.

She propped up her chin, checking the update time of the only recent status visible on her homepage. It was from dozens of days ago.

Throughout the night, seconds tick-tocked away in the process of repeatedly refreshing the webpage. She didn’t know when she fell asleep, didn’t know if she’d finished her homework. The curtains weren’t drawn. Early morning sunlight shone on her hair, and only then did she have the awareness that a night had passed.

When she got up, her elbow touched the mouse next to her laptop. The sleeping screen lit up. The webpage displayed a new notification.

—Dong Xi has accepted your friend request.

…

…

The morning light was faint, the bird songs shallow. In the first second after waking, she looked at this line of text on the screen. Her right hand stroking her forehead stopped moving. Her long hair, marked with sleep creases, slowly recovered its original state and fell upon her shoulders. Her eyes held the light of the entire screen. Her pressed lips slightly parted.

The bottom right side of the website also had an automatic system message sent to users: We are now friends, start chatting now.

…

【Dong Xi has accepted your friend request】

【We are now friends, start chatting now.】

She stared at these two lines of text for a full five minutes before belatedly shifting her attention to Dong Xi’s homepage.

She didn’t have many friends, truly the legendary single digits. Her own addition had just made it an even 10.

Upon this discovery, the finger she’d been biting throughout the webpage-refreshing process left her teeth. There was a drumming sound in her ears. Her heart stirred.