When they entered the jewelry section on the first floor of the mall, Zhong Qi seemed to understand what Lin Shiyu wanted to do.

Lin Shiyu was still thinking about the day last summer when he stood motionless outside the jewelry store window until now.

“Do you want to buy jewelry?” Zhong Qi asked.

Lin Shiyu nodded. “It’s my mom’s birthday today.”

He walked past rows of counters, looking at the sparkling gold and silver accessories in the glass display cabinets, as if pondering which one to buy, and Zhong Qi followed behind him.

So going to the photo studio was to buy a birthday present for his mother. Zhong Qi understood, but he clearly remembered that Lin Shiyu had run out of the photo studio in a huff, interrupting the photo shoot, and had been very annoyed, saying, “Not enough money.”

Zhong Qi looked at Lin Shiyu silently for a while, then suddenly spoke. “Have you started working again recently?”

Lin Shiyu was surprised for a moment and looked at him. “I did find some work during the winter vacation. How did you know?”

“What kind of work?”

“At my Aunt’s restaurant.”

Zhong Qi nodded, answering his own question. “Just a guess.”

It sounded very perfunctory.

Lin Shiyu couldn’t be bothered to argue with him and continued to browse.

A salesperson came over and politely asked, “Little boy, what would you like to buy?”

“I want to buy a gold necklace.”

“May I ask who it’s for?”

“My mom.”

The salesperson took out a very beautiful necklace from the glass cabinet. “This necklace is 24k pure gold. This type of delicate chain is particularly suitable for women to wear, and the pendant is Maitreya Buddha. Wearing it can bless the person with health and good fortune.”

Lin Shiyu glanced at the price, feeling a bit uncomfortable. “Do you have anything cheaper?”

The salesperson then showed him a few more necklaces, all very beautiful, but Lin Shiyu said they were too expensive, and in the end, the atmosphere between them became a bit awkward.

“Lin Shiyu.” Zhong Qi called out to Lin Shiyu from the side, motioning for him to come over. “How about this one?”

Lin Shiyu went over to take a look, and Zhong Qi pointed to a pair of earrings, very delicate and exquisite, mainly in gold with embedded diamonds. The price was much cheaper than the necklace.

In the end, Lin Shiyu bought the pair of earrings, packed them nicely in a box, and put them in his backpack.

The two of them didn’t talk much on the way home, until the bike stopped at the entrance of the residential area. Lin Shiyu jumped off the bike, said goodbye to Zhong Qi, and turned to leave. Zhong Qi didn’t say much either.

Although he had heard Li Zhong scolding Lin Shiyu in the corridor, and had seen Lin Shiyu moping all day, no one could comfort him.

When Lin Shiyu returned home, Lin Hui was cooking in the kitchen. He put his backpack aside, took off his coat, and went into the kitchen to help. Seeing him come over, Lin Hui said, “You go do your homework, I’ll cook.”

Lin Shiyu didn’t listen and took the cutting board and knife to start cutting vegetables by himself, saying, “I’ll do it.”

Unable to persuade him, Lin Hui had no choice but to wash and select vegetables on the side. After a busy hour, Lin Shiyu finally made a large table of dishes, much more abundant than usual.

Lin Wanyue was attracted by the aroma of the food throughout the house, and ran to the table, her eyes shining as she stared at the steaming dishes, looking very happy. “Let’s eat!”

Lin Shiyu washed his hands, took off his apron, and served Lin Wanyue a large bowl of rice, placing it in front of her. “Enjoy.”

The three of them sat around the table, and Lin Hui naturally knew that this table of dishes was all made for her. She gently touched Lin Shiyu’s face, her eyes filled with both touched and distressed emotions. “Brother, you’ve worked hard.”

Lin Shiyu didn’t feel that he had worked hard. Making a large table of dishes was nothing to him. If anything, it was much simpler than doing homework and taking exams. He ate his meal with his head down, feeling very depressed at the thought of having to get his mom to sign the test papers later.

The siblings had big appetites, and they managed to finish almost half of the large table of dishes. Lin Wanyue ate until her mouth was oily and her belly round. Lin Shiyu cleaned up the dishes and table, tidied up the kitchen, and then went back to his room.

After a while, Lin Hui tiptoed into his room. “Little Shiyu, are you doing your homework?”

“No.”

Lin Hui came over and sat on the edge of the bed. The room’s incandescent light wasn’t turned on, only a warm yellow desk lamp was on. It was Lin Shiyu’s habit. He didn’t like turning on the main light, always preferring to stay quietly in his dimly lit room.

“I’ll take care of the housework from now on. You just need to focus on studying and doing your homework.” Lin Hui said gently.

“I’m not good at studying.”

“Work hard, and you’ll get better.”

Lin Shiyu was silent. He didn’t know how to discuss this issue with his mom. His grades were poor, and his mom knew that. Even during the high school entrance exam, even though he was lucky enough to be admitted to Wenhe Middle School with the expanded enrollment, Lin Shiyu just barely scraped through, and always ranked last in the class.

He didn’t know where his mom’s inexplicable confidence in him came from.

Lin Shiyu didn’t dwell on this issue. Today was his mom’s birthday, and he had a more important gift to give.

Lin Shiyu grabbed his backpack, took out the beautifully crafted jewelry box from inside, and handed it to Lin Hui.

Lin Hui was surprised and didn’t react for a moment. Then she took the box in a daze. “What’s this?”

“A gift.”

Lin Hui opened the box, took out the beautiful gold earrings, looking surprised and puzzled. “This is so beautiful, did you buy this, Shiyu?”

“Yeah.”

“Where did you get the money?”

“I helped out at my aunt’s restaurant, and my aunt paid me. I also saved some money.” Lin Shiyu said, not mentioning the photo shoot at the studio before. “This wasn’t expensive, I didn’t spend much money.”

“But it looks expensive…”

Lin Shiyu stubbornly emphasized again, “I said it wasn’t expensive.”

Lin Hui looked at him holding the earrings. Her expression went from surprise to mixed feelings. She finally calmed down, revealing a smile that was both happy and a little sad.

“Thank you, little Shiyu.” Lin Hui put on the earrings and shook her head gently. “How is it, do they look good?”

Lin Shiyu finally relaxed and nodded. “Yeah.”

Lin Hui put the opened box aside, leaned over and raised her arms to gently hug Lin Shiyu. A faint fragrance enveloped Lin Shiyu’s nose, calming his restless emotions throughout the day.

After taking a deep breath, Lin Hui let go of Lin Shiyu when the slight teary feeling in her eyes faded, and then gently touched his head. “I’ll always wear them.”

Lin Shiyu wasn’t used to speaking in such a warm and affectionate atmosphere, so he nodded when he heard this. “There is one more thing.”

“What?”

“The final exam scores for last semester are out, and we need parental signatures on the papers.”

“Okay, bring the papers over, and I’ll sign them for you.”

Lin Shiyu spread the papers out on the table, and Lin Hui took the pen, lowered her head to look through them, and hesitated when she saw the scores for each subject.

“It seems… the scores aren’t very high.”

“Last in the class,” he said softly.

“Oh.” Lin Hui nodded, signed each paper, hesitated, and then reassured him gently. “It’s okay, just try harder next time.”

Lin Shiyu didn’t say anything. Lin Hui finished signing the papers, placed them neatly on the table, and then said to Lin Shiyu, “Study well, don’t worry about things at home, your sister and I will take care of it.”

Lin Shiyu didn’t know how to talk to her about this matter, so he just nodded and said he understood. Lin Hui then felt relieved, put away the jewelry box, and left his room.

After his mom left, Lin Shiyu took out today’s homework. As soon as he opened it, he saw a pile of questions he didn’t understand at all. Lin Shiyu had a headache, so he patiently wrote a few questions, but as he progressed, he became more and more irritable. He decided to take a shower to calm himself down, then returned to his room to reluctantly finish his homework, only to realize that it was already past ten o’clock in the evening.

Lin Shiyu turned off the lights, pulled back the covers, and crawled into bed, hugging the blanket tightly without moving.

At that moment, his phone, which was tossed on the desk, suddenly rang. Lin Shiyu was abruptly interrupted from his introspection, so he got up and checked his phone. It was a message from Zhong Qi.

[I’m online, accompany me to a dungeon.]

While internally grumbling about how Zhong Qi only seemed to play games all day and still managed to get good grades, Lin Shiyu replied with a simple [Oh] and logged into the game.

Zhong Qi made a voice call, and Lin Shiyu put on his headphones to answer.

“Come to my coordinates.”

Lin Shiyu accepted the team request and headed in the direction of the blue marker on the map. Rain bounced around through the forest, ran through winding valleys, and turned around on cliffs until he stopped.

“I’m near you, why can’t I see you?”

A sigh came through the headphones. “Stay still, I’ll come find you.”

“…Why are you sighing?”

“Nothing, just a habit.”

“What do you mean?”

Rise suddenly appeared behind Rain, inadvertently bumping into him.

[Rise wishes to hold hands with you]

This time, Lin Shiyu didn’t refuse. Rise held Rain’s hand as they walked down the cliff, the wind brushing over the grass beneath their feet, the sky above them deep blue with fleeting clouds passing by.

“You’ve gone the wrong way, the entrance to the dungeon is down there.”

“What kind of map design is this, it’s so complicated.”

A low chuckle came through the headphones, vibrating softly against Lin Shiyu’s ears. He felt a slight tingling sensation. Zhong Qi had approached him to speak more than once, and each time it felt like a deep bass note resonating directly into his mind.

Lin Shiyu took off one earphone, rubbed his ears, and put it back on.

The two of them spent some time completing a high-difficulty dungeon. Rain picked up dropped items and fish food, while Rise picked up a special dropped item. Opening it, Rise said, “A parachute.”

Rain wasn’t interested. “You can have it.”

Rain followed Rise back to his storm center, feeding all the fish food to Rise’s fish, causing the fish’s growth value to skyrocket, leveling up to LV18.

Now Zhong Qi couldn’t nag him about his fish being hungry anymore.

Rise opened the new umbrella he had picked up and waved it around, walking over to sit beside Rain. “Using an umbrella together increases our friendship level, come on.”

So the two little characters sat together under an umbrella, sitting on a rock by the sea in the sunset. The tide rose and fell beneath their feet, the sound of the waves washing over the sand was real and gentle. Occasionally a bird’s call flew across the distant horizon, accompanying the flickering light and shadow on the surface of the sea filled with the evening sun.

“Did your mom scold you?”

“Why would she scold me?”

“You got last place in the class after all, which must have been tough.”

“Are you annoying or what!”

“I just wanted to ask, when I was helping you with your homework before, were you actually listening?”

“I was listening.”

“And then?”

“Some I didn’t understand. It was the same formula, but I don’t know how to apply it to new questions.” Lin Shiyu propped his phone up on the bedside table, lying in bed and looking at the evening sea scene on the screen, his voice tinged with subtle frustration. “Anyway, I just can’t study well.”

Zhong Qi was quiet on the other end, with only occasional sounds of the bedsheet rubbing softly. He must have turned off the lights and lay down on his bed too. He said, “You’re a bit slow, but at least there’s room for improvement.”

Lin Shiyu was annoyed enough to turn over in bed. “You’re smart, aren’t you.”

“Smarter than you, at least a bit.”

“Zhong Qi, I have nothing to say to you!”

“If you don’t understand, just ask me.” Zhong Qi remained calm. “No matter how sulky you are, your grades won’t improve.”

Lin Shiyu quieted down, holding the blanket and resting his head against the wall, lost in thought.

He wasn’t sulking; he was just confused, not knowing how to take a better path. He had never felt that he had other choices before. Now both his teachers and his mom were urging him to take a different path, and Lin Shiyu felt stumbling and unsure if he could do it.

“Lin Shiyu?”

The response to Zhong Qi was slow, drawn-out breaths.

Did he fall asleep again? Zhong Qi was a bit incredulous at first, until he saw Rain sitting obediently under Rise’s umbrella in his phone. There was no sound from the other end of the headphones, confirming that this person had fallen asleep again while talking.

“This call to you is in vain,” Zhong Qi whispered to himself. “I can eat and sleep this way.”

 

 

Edited by: Jaisland

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