The next day, the meeting at the base proceeded as usual.
Gao Jianhong had been talking for a while when he noticed that Zhu Yun seemed distracted.
“Something wrong? Any questions?”
“Hm?” Zhu Yun snapped back to attention and shook her head. “No, nothing.” She glanced around. “Where’s Li Xun today?”
Gao Jianhong: “No idea. He called me this morning and said he had something going on — asked me to handle the base today.”
Something going on?
Was it related to that woman from last night?
Zhu Yun didn’t want to let her mind wander, but couldn’t help it.
“Come on, let’s keep going.” Gao Jianhong crooks a finger at her.
Li Xun skipped every class that day. When Zhu Yun arrived at the base after afternoon sessions, she found him already back — curled into his chair writing code as usual, as though nothing had happened.
Zhu Yun sat down and asked, as casually as she could: “Where did you go today?”
Li Xun: “Wandered around the city center.”
Zhu Yun: “The city center? What were you doing there?”
Li Xun glanced at her, his tone sardonic. “What — has Her Royal Highness’s competition project reached such a flawless state that she now has the mental bandwidth to concern herself with other people’s affairs?”
“…”
Like I actually care about your business, you debt-ridden top scorer.
Zhu Yun harrumphed internally and turned back to her own work. Her eyes drifted without thinking to a bag sitting at Li Xun’s feet — it looked like it was from the central sports stadium…
That evening, Gao Jianhong called Zhu Yun to go eat dinner together. He was still mulling over the competition project on the way there. “Analysis of malicious programs is something quite a few teams have already done in previous competitions. Should we try to do something more original?”
Zhu Yun said: “Sure, but security competitions only have so many major directions. What if we approached it from the hardware side—” She stopped mid-sentence. Gao Jianhong asked, “What is it?”
Zhu Yun was looking toward the school gate. There seemed to be someone standing on the other side of the road.
“Zhu Yun?”
“Uh…” Zhu Yun opened her mouth. Gao Jianhong said, “Come on, let’s go — what do you want to eat? Should we go somewhere outside?”
Zhu Yun: “It’s fine, let’s just eat at school and then head back to work.”
Gao Jianhong smiled. “No need to be in such a rush. Take it easy — I’m not Li Xun.”
They walked toward the cafeteria. Zhu Yun kept her head down the whole way, counting the stone slabs underfoot, not registering a single word Gao Jianhong said. Finally, at the very moment she set foot on the steps leading inside, she stopped.
“Actually…” Zhu Yun called after Gao Jianhong. “I just remembered something. I need to make a quick trip back to the dorm.”
“What for?”
Zhu Yun improvised: “My mom asked me to mail something for her and I completely forgot. You don’t have to wait for me — go ahead and eat. I’ll see you at the base tonight.”
“Alright then.”
Gao Jianhong headed into the cafeteria alone. Zhu Yun half-jogged to the school gate.
Is she there? Is she there? Is she there?
Zhu Yun scanned in every direction and finally spotted that figure at the entrance of a dessert shop across the road.
At this distance, making out someone’s face was genuinely difficult — Zhu Yun mainly identified her by the outfit, which was as hopelessly unfashionable as she remembered.
She pretended to be just passing by, walking past the woman and using her peripheral vision to sweep a quick assessment as their shoulders nearly brushed. The woman’s complexion was sallow, her skin in poor condition. She had a large bag hanging from one hand, shoulders slouched, looking thoroughly exhausted.
After passing, Zhu Yun turned around and walked by again.
She did this three or four times in a row before finally stopping, taking one last look back toward the school to confirm there was no sign of Li Xun, and then walking straight up to the woman.
“Oh!”
Zhu Yun bumped into the woman from behind and immediately began apologizing profusely: “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!”
The woman seemed startled too, but collected herself quickly. “It’s— it’s fine.”
Zhu Yun: “I really am sorry, I was lost in thought and just wasn’t paying attention…”
The woman shook her head. “It’s alright.”
She had a strong regional accent, but her voice had no force behind it. She was thin, visibly weighed down by worry.
Zhu Yun struck up a casual conversation, probing gently: “Carrying all that luggage on your own — are you visiting from out of town?”
“What? Oh… yes, yes, from out of town.”
“Here for sightseeing?”
“No…”
“Then what brings you here?”
The woman was slow to respond. After each question Zhu Yun asked, several seconds would pass before an answer came.
“…I’m here to find my younger brother.”
Zhu Yun took one second to process that sentence, and then her mind erupted.