Chapter 26: Hair Ribbon

The white doves scattered, and the scorching sun was blocked by the shade.

A single white feather spiraled down, landing in the girl’s palm.

“Xiqiu! It’s windy on the rooftop. Don’t catch a cold!”

her mother’s worried voice came from the stairway entrance.

Ye Xiqiu snapped back to reality.

That elegant woman had disappeared sometime without her noticing.

Like it was all just a dream.

“What’s wrong? Not in a good mood?”

A middle-aged woman crept over, speaking a clumsy yet gentle mix of dialect and Mandarin, with a weariness she couldn’t hide.

The girl’s heart ached again.

‘She doesn’t need to be so cautious with me. I haven’t earned the right to accept this kindness…’

The girl thought back to the cat demon elder sister who had touched her leg earlier. Maybe being treated so casually was what made her feel at ease.

“Sometimes it’s nice to bask in the sun and watch the pigeons…”

“Yeah.”

Ye Xiqiu gave a perfunctory reply. At first, she had actually followed her mother’s request to get more sun, but after hearing it so many times, she’d learned to tune it out.

“Xiqiu… want to go back to your room?”

The middle-aged woman smiled awkwardly. She walked behind the girl and, without asking, started pushing her wheelchair downstairs.

The girl was used to it by now.

‘Since Mom will worry if I stay on the rooftop anyway, going downstairs doesn’t really matter.’

“Oh? Xiqiu, what’s that on your knee?”

On her knee?

Ye Xiqiu was taken aback, then, as if remembering something, she quickly looked down at her legs.

On her thigh was a sky blue hair ribbon.

“Did you buy that new, Xiqiu?”

The woman’s voice was noticeably brighter.

“No,” the girl shook her head. “A friend gave it to me.”

“A friend?”

The middle-aged woman’s pitch suddenly rose, unable to hide her delight.

“Xiqiu, you’ve made a friend?”

“Yeah.”

“A new friend?”

“Yeah.”

“Making friends is great! Young girls need lots of friends,”

the woman’s lips curled up, and much of the worry on her face faded.

“Is it a boy or a girl? A student or someone already working? Where is he now? Is he…”

“Hold on, Mom.”

The girl cut off her mother’s rambling.

“Let’s go back to my room first.”

“Oh, right,”

she suddenly added.

“It’s a girl. Yeah, a very cute… very bold girl.”

“Alright, alright, a girl is good…”

Even though she didn’t understand why “bold” was used to describe a girl, the woman beamed happily.

She shut her mouth and stopped nagging, but the smile at the corners of her lips couldn’t be suppressed.

Back in her room, Ye Xiqiu chatted with her mother for a bit, then used tiredness as an excuse to ask for some time alone.

The woman left with a big smile.

‘Why is Mom so happy today? Did the family business pick up?’

Ye Xiqiu didn’t know, but seeing her mother happy made her feel better too.

‘Actually, Mom hasn’t smiled like this since the car accident.’

Humming a tune, the girl pushed her wheelchair to the desk and opened her laptop.

This laptop was originally a reward from her parents when she was accepted into Aidelisa Academy in Haicheng, but now it had become her live streaming tool.

Except she hadn’t streamed in days, and she didn’t feel like it now.

It booted up successfully. She glanced at the time — a little past five in the afternoon.

The girl vaguely remembered that cat demon elder sister saying she’d come find her at night… It was something like after midnight?

‘What would she want to come to my room so late for?’

‘No matter how I think about it, it’s…’

‘Bah! What a pervert!’

Ye Xiqiu blushed and didn’t dare think further.

She took a deep breath to calm herself, then clicked on the pink cat icon on the desktop — the Two-dimensional Collection Station, commonly known as Second Station or Miaozhan — and opened her personal page.

Shengxia. Followers: 1145.

For a disabled girl who didn’t seriously manage her channel or have a fixed streaming schedule, over a thousand followers wasn’t bad, but it was still far from enough to support herself.

Ye Xiqiu just glanced at it. Seeing that she’d lost a few followers didn’t bother her. She clicked on the follower list and started browsing through one by one.

She specifically picked out followers who had been following her for a while and used cute avatars or white cat profile pictures. She roughly filtered out a dozen users.

‘Maybe Dongxue is among them?’

Holding onto that hope, she clicked on each avatar and checked their personal pages.

But she was quickly disappointed.

They were all male, not a single exception.

‘Seriously, why do boys use such girly avatars? Are they trying to compete with us girls for marriage partners?’

After venting, Ye Xiqiu sighed.

‘Maybe the fairies don’t even use human websites like this. Maybe they just watch directly with their eyes?’

‘Maybe Dongxue is watching me from some corner right now…’

‘Ugh, what am I thinking!’

Shaking off that weird thought, Ye Xiqiu moved the mouse to close Miaozhan, but a sudden notification caught her eye.

[Someone has followed you! Go check it out!]

Someone followed me?

‘But I’m not streaming now, and my last recording was ages ago.’

‘Could it be her?’

Her heart started pounding loudly for no reason. Holding her breath, the girl clicked on the follower list.

At the top was a new follower with a white catgirl avatar and the ID “Jiangbian Youke Chengzi Shu.”

‘Could it really be Dongxue!’

Ye Xiqiu subconsciously clicked on the avatar, her heart leaping into her throat.

This account had quite a few followers. The page had several videos, all showing this girl’s daily family life, with the last one posted a few months ago.

After clicking in, there was indeed a cute white-haired girl, but she was much younger than Dongxue, and looking at the chest area, the comparison was completely off.

‘I guess I’m overthinking it…’

Closing the page, Ye Xiqiu shut the laptop screen, pushed her wheelchair to the bed, and lay down.

The bed was soft and comfortable. Lying on it, her mind started wandering uncontrollably, and she felt drowsy.

‘I’ll just sleep for a bit.’

She figured since she had to wake up at midnight anyway, she might as well nap now and have energy to do other things later…

‘Yeah, normal things.’

Sensing the improper thoughts in her mind, Ye Xiqiu rolled over and buried her face in the pillow.

‘It’s all those weird Penguin groups’ fault!’

‘If it weren’t for my group members constantly sharing that kind of stuff, how would my mind have become so dirty!’

‘Yeah, that’s definitely the reason!’

‘It’s definitely not because I went and searched for it myself…’

As she thought, the girl’s eyelids grew heavy.

She closed her eyes, and her breathing became steady.

Click—

The closed door was gently pushed open.

“Xiqiu, Mom has a night shift tonight. You’ll have to handle dinner yourself…”

Seeing the girl fast asleep on the bed, her mother’s words cut off abruptly.

She silently watched this girl who bore too heavy a burden, standing there for a moment.

Then, the woman walked to the desk and wrote a note.

— Mom’s busy tonight. You’ll have to handle dinner yourself. There’s plenty of food in the fridge.

She found a pen to hold the note down, but her peripheral vision caught a flash of sky blue.

It was the hair ribbon that unknown friend had given to Xiqiu.

She paused for a moment, then picked up a comb and placed the ribbon under the pen as well.

After doing all that, the woman looked at the sleeping girl, thought for a moment, but ultimately didn’t kiss her forehead.

“Xiqiu… see you tomorrow…”

Watching her daughter, she slowly backed away.

She stepped out of the room and carefully closed the door.

Click—

The room fell silent again.

Only the note on the desk told of what had just happened.