Su Ziyan could feel that Su Xiaoyan’s grip was incredibly strong, as if she wanted to press him into her body.
“So it turns out I’m just a half-baked person after all,” Su Xiaoyan said, hugging her brother tightly with a crying tone.
“I want to be a good child, but I’m jealous of others. I want to be a bad person, but I can’t bring myself to make up my mind…”
Her crying was not loud at all.
It was nothing compared to the roaring from earlier.
It sounded like an injured little animal secretly whimpering, yet too afraid to make too much noise.
This made Su Ziyan feel even worse.
If possible, he would rather she cried her heart out than desperately hold herself back like this.
She held back everything she wanted to say, swallowing her words because she did not dare speak them.
She held back the tears she wanted to shed, letting them pool in her eyes because she did not dare let them fall.
Su Xiaoyan tried her best not to make any sound.
She simply let her tears flow quietly, allowing the silence to spread throughout the room.
Su Ziyan remained silent too, because he was only a thirteen-year-old child.
For a moment, he could not think of any way to comfort the girl in his arms.
He just felt that he was truly so unnecessary.
It would be better if he did not exist.
If he did not exist, he would not have come to disturb his mother’s family.
Uncle Su would not have had to scold his own daughter because of a guest like him.
His sister would not have fallen into this strange cycle, feeling sad again and again at night…
His elder sister would have already graduated from university long ago, obtained a diploma from a prestigious school, found a great job, and lived a glamorous life.
So he could not speak.
He wanted to gently hug the girl in his arms to comfort her, but he was also afraid of startling her.
It was not until who knows how much time had passed that Su Xiaoyan’s quiet crying finally subsided.
It was not him who broke the silence, but Su Xiaoyan in his arms.
Su Xiaoyan lowered her head again and rubbed her cheek back and forth against Su Ziyan’s chest, wiping away all her tears.
Then she took a step back and said, “I’m sorry, brother. I lost control just now.”
“I’ll borrow your clothes for now and return them to you tomorrow.”
With that, she lowered her head, picked up Su Ziyan’s jacket from the floor, wrapped it tightly around her body, and left his room.
Su Ziyan simply stayed silent.
The girl thought that wiping away all her tears would make her no longer look pathetic, but her smudged makeup and slightly red eyes could not fool anyone.
He grabbed the tissues on the bedside table and wiped the front of his shirt clean.
Then, facing the night, he walked downstairs.
He remembered there was a supermarket not far from the hotel downstairs.
He suddenly wanted to buy a pack of the cigarettes he had seen his elder sister smoke when he was little and try them.
After all, back then, whenever she was upset, she would squat in the hallway and smoke.
But he could not even remember what brand she smoked, so he simply bought a pack with packaging colors that matched his memory and sat down by the roadside.
He lit one, took a deep drag, and immediately coughed until tears came out.
He did not know how to smoke at all.
He took out his phone, found the net friend who often complained, and began today’s daily rant.
The other person still responded gently and comforted him.
But he could only feel endless emptiness.
No one understood better than him that the internet was fake, but in reality, he no longer had anyone he could complain to so freely.
Emptiness and sadness seemed to have a threshold.
As long as it did not exceed that threshold, even if he did nothing, it would slowly fade away.
But once it crossed that threshold, emptiness and sadness would turn into a flood that broke through the dam and could no longer be stopped.
In this emptiness and sadness, the cigarette—which he had only taken one puff from—burned to the end.
It scalded Su Ziyan back to his senses, and he threw the butt on the ground and crushed it.
He suddenly sent a message to that net friend: “I feel like I’m just an unnecessary person. Do you think it would be better if I did not exist?”
The other person on the phone showed “typing” for a long time.
Su Ziyan smiled and turned off the phone screen, but in the next moment, the phone vibrated.
He opened the screen again, only to find that the other person had replied with a seemingly unrelated sentence.
“Have you ever watched a magic show?”
Su Ziyan was stunned for a moment and replied, “I saw one on the Spring Festival Gala.”
“Stay where you are for fifteen minutes. I’ll perform a magic trick for you. After you watch it, you won’t feel like you’re unnecessary anymore.”
“So you’re a great magician? Performing one trick can make someone feel that life has value?”
The other person did not reply again.
Su Ziyan looked up at the dim yellow streetlights, thinking that he was really pathetic for pinning his hopes on a net friend he had never met.
Yet even though he clearly knew how foolish this behavior was, Su Ziyan could not help but feel… full of anticipation.
It was like the only piece of driftwood a drowning person could see.
Time became so slow.
He just sat by the roadside in a daze, waiting for the “magic trick” to arrive.
He wanted to check the time on his phone several times, but each time he held back that urge.
What if the net friend was just messing with him for fun?
He was so scared.
So, in this mix of fear and anticipation, on this summer night without the sound of cicadas, he spent these long fifteen minutes.
Until the sky grew dark.
Had the streetlights turned off this early?
Su Ziyan was stunned for a moment.
He looked up and found a delicate face staring directly at him.
The woman bending down blocked the light.
She was wearing a women’s blazer and a burgundy tie that matched the color of her eyes exactly.
Her smooth black hair was tied into twin ponytails that hung down on both sides of Su Ziyan’s cheeks, making it impossible for him to avoid her gaze.
He could only look straight into those burgundy eyes.
Perhaps he did not want to avoid them anyway, because he had wanted to see this face for a long time.
“Xu Duyan?”
Su Ziyan felt that even his voice sounded dry.
Then the tall woman behind him demonstrated astonishing flexibility.
She lowered her head directly, letting their foreheads bump together.
“Ah…” Su Ziyan cried out in pain. “It hurts…”
“It hurts because you were so rude. You should call me Elder Sister,” Xu Duyan said as she straightened up.
She reached out, grabbed the back of Su Ziyan’s collar, and forced him to stand.
“And what was with that look in your eyes just now? I rushed all the way here, yet in your eyes, seeing me looks like seeing something unbelievable.”
“Because it really… feels unbelievable…”
Su Ziyan, who had been forced to stand, looked at the woman in front of him who showed little expression and said softly, “I thought I would never see you again.”
“Silly boy, if you want to see me, am I not available anytime?”
Xu Duyan reached out and roughly ruffled Su Ziyan’s hair.
“You’ve grown so tall. You really couldn’t tell from the photos. Looking at you now, it seems you haven’t suffered in life.”
“Yeah…”
Su Ziyan reached up to scratch his head, a little embarrassed as he said, “I’ve been doing pretty well.”
“You’re even lying to me? If you were doing well, I wouldn’t have come looking for you.”
Xu Duyan reached out and snatched the cigarette pack that Su Ziyan was clutching.
“How did you even learn to smoke? I’m confiscating this. You’re not allowed to smoke anymore.”