Chapter 5: Night Light

Yuan Xi decided to stay.

After taking her medicine, Qi Huaiyu returned to her bedroom with her phone, saying she needed to catch up on work. Yuan Xi didn't say much, just reminded her to get some rest early. Qi Huaiyu hummed in response and closed the door without even looking back.

The living room fell silent once more.

Yuan Xi sat down at the dining table and opened her laptop. She had a presentation on AI-driven molecular design for a department seminar the next morning and still needed to refine her report. She turned off most of the lights, leaving only the wall lamp beside the table.

The pitch-black night outside swallowed the city's scattered lights as time slipped away, second by second.

Having finished a section, Yuan Xi momentarily pulled herself out of her focused state. She went to the kitchen to boil a kettle of water, brought it back to the living room, and set it to keep warm on the coffee table. As she passed the bedroom door, she paused for a few seconds. It was quiet inside.

Yuan Xi gently pressed the doorknob and pushed the door open. The overhead light in the bedroom blazed, casting an almost unreal brightness. Knowing Qi Huaiyu's lifelong fear of the dark, Yuan Xi saw her curled up under the covers, her phone screen still lit. She must have fallen asleep while working.

Yuan Xi entered the room, gently retrieved her phone from Qi Huaiyu's loosened grip, turned off the screen, and placed it on the nightstand. She pulled the blanket up higher, covering Qi Huaiyu's exposed shoulder.

Qi Huaiyu was fast asleep, her thick eyelashes fluttering gently like folded butterfly wings with each breath. Yuan Xi gazed down at her harmless, sleeping face, unable to reconcile it with the cold, sarcastic sister of her memory.

Leaving the dim nightlight on, Yuan Xi withdrew from the room and returned to the dining table to continue working on her report.

According to her original plan, she should have been fully preparing for the seminar that afternoon. But this wasn't the first time she'd altered her schedule for Qi Huaiyu. Yuan Xi's thoughts stalled, and her progress slowed. Her hands hovered above the keyboard, flexing and relaxing. A tearing pain shot through her right wrist and down her forearm. The wound had healed, but the ache lingered.

The night seemed to stretch on. When Yuan Xi typed the final sentence, she glanced at the clock.

1:10 AM.

Just as she was about to review the literature again, the bedroom door creaked open. Footsteps approached, slow and dragging with a hint of languor.

Yuan Xi looked up.

Qi Huaiyu stood in the center of the living room, wearing a form-fitting satin slip dress. Her hair was slightly disheveled, and her face still held the dazed look of someone just waking up. She watched Yuan Xi at the dining table, her brow furrowing slightly.

"What are you doing, Yuan Xi?" Her voice carried a hint of displeasure.

Yuan Xi's gaze swept across the screen to meet Qi Huaiyu's. The silk of her slip dress clung to her curves, the thin straps highlighting the sharp lines of her collarbones and shoulder blades. The slight crease between her eyebrows was the telltale sign of her sulking.

Yuan Xi's gaze lingered for a few seconds before she calmly shifted her attention. This was the first time she had seen Qi Huaiyu at this hour and in this place. "There's warm water in the pitcher," she said, knowing that a severe cold often left one parched.

Qi Huaiyu walked grumpily to the coffee table and poured herself a glass of water. The warmth was just right, soothing the dryness in her throat.

After taking a few sips, she set down the glass and looked at Yuan Xi. The glow of the computer screen illuminated Yuan Xi's silhouette. Wearing her half-rimmed glasses, she stared intently at the screen, appearing both exhausted and vulnerable. Her eyes were slightly red, and her straight shoulder blades stretched thin under her shirt, making her look pale and drained.

"Mom always says my late nights are a slow form of suicide," Qi Huaiyu said coldly, her voice sharp and cutting. "But you're staying up even later than me. What, is getting a PhD so special?"

Yuan Xi raised her hand, removed her glasses, and rubbed her temples.

"I have a report to finish," she said, her voice husky from lack of sleep. But her tone was so gentle it still sounded soft and sweet. "I was going to wait until you fell asleep before going back to school."

Qi Huaiyu's sensitive nerves seemed to have been struck. She sneered. "So you can't stand being here, huh? Fine. Don't wait for me to sleep. You can leave now."

The water glass made a soft clink as she set it back on the coffee table. She turned and sank into the sofa, her back to the dining table, and pulled out her phone to check the backend data.

It was as if Yuan Xi had already left, as if she had never been there at all.

Yuan Xi was long accustomed to Qi Huaiyu's coldness. She glanced at her watch, then returned her gaze to the computer screen and continued working on the report.

Silence fell over the living room, broken only by the clatter of the keyboard and the occasional background music from Qi Huaiyu's video.

After a while, Yuan Xi began to drift off.

At the edge of her vision, Qi Huaiyu's figure lay, a silent magnet pulling at her attention, making it impossible to focus on the computer screen.

She glanced over instinctively.

Qi Huaiyu was leaning against the sofa, her head tilted, watching her.

Yuan Xi couldn't make out her expression. The dim wall light cast blurred shadows across Qi Huaiyu's face.

Yuan Xi vaguely recalled a set of photos she had seen a month ago on It's Q's homepage.

They were from a shoot Qi Huaiyu and her team had done in Tokyo, in a spacious hotel suite. Outside the window, a heavy curtain of rain fell, blurring the lights of the Tokyo Tower into a hazy orange-red mass. Qi Huaiyu knelt by the floor-to-ceiling window, wearing a fitted dress with intricate patterns, her slender waist relaxed.

The moment she turned her head to look at the camera, the shutter clicked, capturing a fleeting expression in her eyes—focused yet hazy, like smoke-shrouded, full of alluring mystery.

As Yuan Xi was lost in thought, Qi Huaiyu's voice suddenly cut through the silence.

"Yuan Xi."

"Hmm?"

"Have you ever been in love?"

For a few seconds, Yuan Xi felt as though the moment wasn't real.

From childhood to adulthood, Qi Huaiyu had shown little to no interest in her affairs. She didn't know Yuan Xi's favorite color, her friends, or what happened in her life. They had lived under the same roof for over a decade, yet remained like two parallel lines, occasionally intersecting due to their parents, only to quickly diverge again.

Now, Qi Huaiyu suddenly wanted to know if she had ever been in love.

Could this be some... belated show of sisterly concern?

Yuan Xi pondered for a few seconds.

She had nothing to hide. The feeling was strange; even though her relationship with Qi Huaiyu wasn't close, she felt no desire to lie or evade the question.

"Yes, I have."

The answer clearly surprised Qi Huaiyu. Her eyebrows rose slightly. "Oh? When? And you kept it from the family." Her tone sounded casual.

Yuan Xi answered truthfully, "After the freshman fall sports meet."

"That early?" Qi Huaiyu stared at Yuan Xi, something flickering in her eyes. "With whom?"

Yuan Xi was silent for a few seconds. "With an upperclassman from the Foreign Languages Department."

The atmosphere instantly froze. The flame in Qi Huaiyu's eyes abruptly extinguished, replaced by a dazed, unfocused look. She took a moment to collect herself, struggling to process this.

"What did you say?"

"With an upperclassman."

"Yuan Xi." Qi Huaiyu's voice tightened. "Are you coming out to me?"

Her pupils widened slightly, her expression a complex mix of emotions.

She had never considered this. Never even cared.

Yuan Xi likes girls. Her first thought was: Am I the first one to know? Do Mom and Dad know?

Yuan Xi looked somewhat innocent. "Didn't you ask me?"

Qi Huaiyu took a deep breath, suppressing her turbulent emotions. "How long were you together?"

Yuan Xi lowered her eyes, as if genuinely recalling the past.

Suddenly, Qi Huaiyu felt an inexplicable surge of frustration. The sensation was unfamiliar, like something was blocking her chest, heavy and suffocating. She didn't know what she was angry about, or why Yuan Xi's wistful expression was making her so agitated.

Yuan Xi thought for a moment before answering, "Six months. Then she went abroad as an exchange student."

"She knew she was going to be an exchange student, and she still dated you?!" Qi Huaiyu's hackles rose almost instinctively.

The moment the words left her mouth, she froze.

Yuan Xi looked at her silently, her expression impassive. "Is that what you're focusing on, Sister?"

Qi Huaiyu paused, realizing her reaction was somewhat unusual.

Yuan Xi dated someone, a girlfriend, and then got dumped—what does that have to do with me, Qi Huaiyu? Why am I angry? Why do I feel the need to defend her?

With that thought, Qi Huaiyu forced herself to suppress her emotions.

"I just think your taste is terrible," she said, standing up and resuming her casually cutting tone. "Dating for only six months, and getting dumped on top of that—Yuan Xi, you're quite the failure when it comes to relationships."

Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked toward the bedroom.

"Though that's normal," her voice drifted back from the hallway, laced with mockery. "After all, you spend all your time trying to please your parents."

The bedroom door clicked shut.

Yuan Xi sat at the dining table, staring at the closed door for a long time without moving. To please her parents? she thought. The person I've always worked harder to please has been Qi Huaiyu. She pressed her temples, feeling a wave of fatigue.

So, I came out. My position in Qi Huaiyu's eyes is already at the bottom of the pyramid. Things can't get much worse, and maybe this will at least free me from having to hide.

But after saying those words, Yuan Xi had expected Qi Huaiyu to show disgust or some other negative emotion. After all, Qi Huaiyu had hated her since childhood, hated everything about her.

Yet Qi Huaiyu's reaction had been unexpected. Maybe this is why I've never been able to let go of her all these years, Yuan Xi thought. That sliver of withheld care and concern keeps me like a moth drawn to a flame.

The sky outside was beginning to turn a pale gray. It was past two in the morning; dawn was only a few hours away. Yuan Xi closed her laptop and put it in her bag.

She stood up, took Qi Huaiyu's water glass to the kitchen, washed it thoroughly, and inverted it on the drying rack. After tidying up the remaining clutter, she tiptoed out of the room.