She looked at the white-haired girl soaking in the medicinal bath.
When she had just said, “I’m happy to have one more friend,” Qi Lai Ling Qin heard Rinna’s response…
No polite refusals, no social niceties of overdone modesty. She simply acknowledged her loneliness quietly, and to the goodwill of a stranger, she softly said “okay.”
Qi Lai Ling Qin couldn’t help but let out a quiet exclamation.
“Rinna really is a gentle person.”
Her voice was softer than usual when she said it.
It wasn’t flattery; it wasn’t formality. It was the instinctive, unpolished reaction of an adult whose chest had been lightly bumped by a child’s sincerity in an unguarded moment.
She remembered the night Suzune had tugged on her sleeve, shoved her onto the sofa, lost one of her slippers, and with eyes sparkling with excitement, told her the whole story about the train at least three times from start to finish.
Back then, Qi Lai Ling Qin had just listened with a smile, thinking her sister had probably run into some interesting friend at school.
But now, looking at the girl soaking in the medicinal bath…
She suddenly felt that the weight behind Suzune’s words “so cool” was probably much heavier and thicker than Suzune herself realized.
This girl wasn’t some omnipotent hero…
But on that crowded rush-hour train, when everyone else pretended not to see, she stepped forward.
Suzune’s shoulder wasn’t bumped for nothing. Suzune’s grievance wasn’t conveniently forgotten by everyone.
That was enough.
“Suzune will be really happy when she finds out.”
Her tone carried a hint of teasing that only came out during breaks from work.
“That idiot might even start looking forward to school more after she learns about this.”
Rinna’s eyebrow twitched slightly at that.
‘Do I really have that much influence?’
She muttered to herself internally, but didn’t say it out loud.
In her own self-perception, she had only done something she considered morally mixed on that train.
When she yelled at that man, she was staring at the system panel the whole time, calculating the rise in malice value.
Even the line “Spend your whole life stuck in a broken train like this” was a precision strike she’d improvised on the spot.
It wasn’t pure “righteous intervention”—it was a system quest she’d been forced to execute just to survive.
But of course, she couldn’t say that.
She couldn’t exactly tell Dr. Qi Lai, “Actually, I was just grinding points back then.”
Even if Dr. Qi Lai understood, she’d probably look at her with those gentle, unsettling eyes and say, “Even so, you still helped her.”
So Rinna just pressed her chin a little deeper into her arms.
Dr. Qi Lai, as if sensing she’d achieved her goal, didn’t push the topic any further.
Qi Lai Ling Qin knew exactly where the boundaries were.
The letter she had delivered on behalf of her sister had reached its destination, and the recipient had opened the envelope herself.
The rest was no longer her business.
Whether Suzune could become real friends with this white-haired girl, whether she could graduate from “admirer” to someone who exchanged messages, ate lunch together, and walked to the station after school…
That was no longer something her older sister could do for her.
A sibling’s interpersonal relationships were ultimately theirs to manage.
After she got home tonight, Suzune would probably pester her with questions like, “What did you say to that white-haired girl?” “Did she mention me?” “Did she agree? Did she agree? Did she agree?”
She stood up.
She looked down at Rinna.
Hearing her stand, Rinna lifted her head from her arms.
“Rinna.”
Those amber eyes met Dr. Qi Lai’s pale gray-blue pupils.
“What is it?”
Dr. Qi Lai looked down at the girl and spoke:
“You’ve soaked long enough. You can get up now.”
When Rinna heard the name “Kurose,” the tips of her ears turned redder.
It was because she’d just been replaying in her head the impure motives of grinding points on the train, and now suddenly being asked, “Should I call Kurose to help?”—her brain hadn’t had time to switch channels, and it jumped straight from one topic to another.
She hesitated for a few seconds.
In those two seconds, a few images flashed quickly through her mind.
Standing up from the bath barrel, the medicinal broth dripping off her body, her skin flushed red from the soak, every inch wet…
And when Fei came in, she’d probably wrap her from head to toe in that white bath towel with a strength Rinna had already memorized.
Not too tight, not too loose—just enough to transmit warmth through the fabric without making her feel constricted.
She didn’t resist Fei’s help anymore; she knew that herself.
But every time she changed clothes, when Fei’s hands moved gently over her body, her heartbeat would involuntarily speed up, and her ears would burn.
She had experienced this reaction countless times, yet still couldn’t fully suppress it.
So she hesitated.
Then, softly, she let out an “Mm” to Dr. Qi Lai.
Qi Lai Ling Qin watched Rinna’s reaction…
That still slightly childish face was tilted downward, her lashes resting lightly over her eyelids, her lips moving but not saying anything more.
The redness on her ears—starting from the very bottom of the earlobe and spreading toward the helix—was uneven, tinged with a bit of nervousness and self-aware embarrassment…
She understood.
Dr. Qi Lai was a girl herself.
She knew that this blush came from a certain string being plucked inside the heart when someone’s name was mentioned.
Between Miss Kurose and Rinna, there probably existed a delicate, shifting relationship—more than friends, but less than lovers.