Diagnosis: Friend [Rebirth] - Chapter 34

Chapter 34

As the final exam ended, the boarding students returned to their dorms, packing their belongings in a whirlwind of excitement.

Seeing that Gu Yining’s suitcase only held a few pieces of clothing and her backpack was nearly flat, Chen Yiyi reminded her: “Gu Yining, aren’t you taking your summer homework and books home?”

After the summer break, they would be seniors. Teachers and parents were incredibly tense, which manifested in mountains of homework for every subject and constant reminders to bring books home to review.

Gu Yining’s eyes flickered as she lowered her head. “Oh, I took some home at noon.”

In reality, since Jiang Qing was staying at school for the summer, Gu Yining intended to return frequently. It would be more convenient to keep her books in the dorm.

Dragging her suitcase out the school gate, she found Zhou Xuening and Gu Xi waiting in the car. Likely due to a poor performance on the exams, Gu Xi’s expression was sour.

To lighten the mood, Zhou Xuening mentioned that she and Gu Shao planned to visit France for a few days and invited both girls along. Gu Xi’s dull expression finally showed a spark of life. “Auntie Zhou, I want to go! I haven’t been abroad in so long; I’m bored to death.”

Zhou Xuening turned to the backseat. “Xiao Ning, Xi Xi is going, won’t you join us?”

Gu Yining was yawning. “Huh? Oh, Auntie Zhou, you and Xi Xi go. I want to study hard this summer; I don’t want to go out.”

She had already been to those places. She would much rather stay by Jiang Qing’s side.

“Going to relax for a week is fine; it’s about balance,” Zhou Xuening said. “If you don’t go, Xi Xi won’t have a playmate. She might not have fun.”

Gu Xi glanced at Gu Yining and huffed, turning her head away. “Who wants to play with her!”

Gu Yining tilted her head at her sister. “Xi Xi, I really don’t have time. Why don’t you ask your friend Wen Tao if she wants to go? You two would have a great time.”

The back of Gu Xi’s round head remained turned, but she thought it was a good idea and immediately began texting Wen Tao.

The tutoring sessions for Tan Baozhu began on the very first day of the break. The location was a study room Tan Baozhu had rented—small, but enough space for the two of them.

The weather was scorching. Tan Baozhu had uncharacteristically ditched her long JK skirt for ultra-short shorts, a pale yellow camisole, and a light blue cardigan. She dumped her textbooks onto the desk and looked up at Jiang Qing. “Which subject first?”

“Which is your worst?” Jiang Qing asked.

Tan Baozhu propped her chin on her palm, looking thoughtful. After a moment, she said, “All of them.”

The final exam results weren’t out yet, so Jiang Qing leafed through Tan Baozhu’s notes. “Where are your report cards from the last few monthly exams? Let me see.”

Jiang Qing studied them for a while before pressing a hand to her forehead. “Getting you into the top 500 is going to be quite a challenge.”

“I know,” Tan Baozhu spread her hands. “That’s why I hired you.”

Jiang Qing met her gaze and said honestly, “I’m good at taking exams, but I might not be good at teaching.” A top student isn’t necessarily a top teacher.

Tan Baozhu narrowed her eyes and laughed softly. “If you can’t teach me, I’ll just ask Jian Wenxin to do it. After all—” Catching the sharp “eye-dagger” Jiang Qing sent her way, she burst out laughing. “So we both need to work hard to get me into the top 500, Student Jiang.”

Jiang Qing lowered her eyes and let out a faint sigh. “I’ll do my best.”

The morning sun slanted into the study room and eventually faded as the day wore on. By twilight, the sun was golden, but the temperature showed no sign of dropping.

Jumping off the air-conditioned bus, the muggy air hit Jiang Qing’s forehead. She quickly pulled a handheld fan from her bag. The breeze blew across her sweaty brow, providing a small relief.

Walking back, she thought about Tan Baozhu’s state in the study room—the girl was like she’d been injected with chicken blood. From 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, excluding lunch, Tan Baozhu was reading or memorizing every second. Sometimes when Jiang Qing got tired and napped on the small sofa, she’d wake up thirty minutes later to find Tan Baozhu staring at her with an expressionless face: “I’ve memorized these formulas and examples, but the practice problems are still wrong. Come teach me.”

Jiang Qing rose from the sofa, thinking to herself: If Tan Baozhu had applied this drive to her studies earlier, the top 50 rank wouldn’t even be a problem, let alone the top 500. However, after looking at the mistakes in the problems Tan Baozhu had just finished, Jiang Qing silently retracted her thought, realizing that for some things, hard work isn’t always enough.

The next few days followed the same pattern. Tan Baozhu would arrive at the study room earlier than Jiang Qing, with steamed buns and soy milk waiting on the desk.

After breakfast, Jiang Qing would mark the rote knowledge points for Tan Baozhu—things that required no deep thought, only memorization, to score points. Tan Baozhu’s foundation was too weak; for a quick score boost, memorization was the most reliable path. While Tan Baozhu memorized, Jiang Qing worked on her own summer assignments.

Returning to the school dorms, Jiang Qing found the campus much quieter. The thud of a basketball echoed from the court, and a flock of pigeons blocked the path, feeding and precessing with no regard for anyone.

At the dormitory entrance, the iron gate was rusty, and the golden sunlight was blocked by the tall building, leaving the entrance in dim shadow. As Jiang Qing stepped into the shade, she saw someone squatting there. A girl with a low ponytail was breaking a ham sausage into tiny bits for the pigeons.

Hearing footsteps, the girl turned and smiled. “Jiang Qing! You’re back!”

“Gu Yining?” Jiang Qing frowned, inserting her key into the lock. “What are you doing back at school?”

The iron gate creaked open. Gu Yining said, “I came to play—I mean, to study with you.” She explained, “Gu Xi and the others went abroad. I’m so bored at home with no one to talk to. Plus, I forgot to take my summer homework home, so I came to the school to find you.”

Jiang Qing locked the gate behind them and massaged her aching shoulders, seeing through Gu Yining’s half-truth. “Forgot? You never intended to take it home, did you? You plan on staying in the dorm with me?”

Gu Yining stepped up to massage Jiang Qing’s shoulders. Her pressure was perfect, and Jiang Qing’s brow relaxed.

Gu Yining asked, “Where were you? Why are you so tired and back so late?”

“I… actually found a tutoring job,” Jiang Qing said as she opened the dorm door. A cool breeze rushed from the room into the corridor. Jiang Qing threw her bag onto her bed and collapsed.

Gu Yining followed her in. “Are you short on money?”

Jiang Qing, face-down on her quilt, let out a muffled “Mhm,” spinning a white lie: “I’ll be a senior after summer, and then university. I need to plan for my tuition and living expenses.”

Gu Yining sat beside her, finding the reasoning strange. “If you need money, you can just tell me; I can give it to you. Or you can get a student loan from the Education Bureau. As for living expenses, you’ll get scholarships, or you can tutor after you get into A-University. With the ‘A-University’ and ‘Science Top Scorer’ titles, parents will pay a premium.”

She straightened her back and looked intently at Jiang Qing. “Jiang Qing, you’re lying. There’s no reason for you to do this now.”

Jiang Qing remained face-down. “Gu Yining, you should be a detective. Fine, it’s a child from a relative’s family. That relative helped me before, so I’m returning the favor. Since I have nothing else to do, I went.”

Gu Yining was relentless: “Then why did you lie just now?”

Jiang Qing thought: Because I hadn’t finished making up the story yet. She smoothed her hair. “It wasn’t a total lie. They pay me, and I’m saving it for university.”

Gu Yining leaned back on her hands. “Do you go every day? For how long? Where is it?”

“Yes, every day.” Jiang Qing closed her eyes, the exhaustion finally catching up to her.

A while later, she got up to wash. Gu Yining announced she intended to stay the night. Jiang Qing, squinting through face wash foam, looked at the narrow bed. “It’s too hot. Go back to your own dorm to sleep.” Gu Yining was like a human heater; fine in winter, but a furnace in summer.

Gu Yining said “Oh” and left. But minutes later, a knock came at the door. Gu Yining was standing there clutching her quilt with a pitiful expression. “Can I sleep on the floor?”

Jiang Qing sighed and let her in. “Gu Yining, you’re just looking for a hard time.”

“I’m not. My dorm is empty. The whole floor is empty. I don’t want to be alone.”

Jiang Qing watched as Gu Yining spread a straw mat on the floor. “You could go home.”

Gu Yining knelt on the mat. “But I want to be with you.”

Jiang Qing went silent, turning her gaze to the “Juice Balcony” rose on the windowsill. It had new buds; the room would soon be fragrant.

The floor was hard, so Gu Yining layered two quilts over the mat. She used a small blanket for cover. She then moved all her toiletries and homework into Jiang Qing’s room, clearly planning a long stay.

Jiang Qing told her, “I only have one set of keys for the room and the main gate. I can’t give them to you, and my return time every day is uncertain.”

“I know,” Gu Yining replied. “I’ll wake up when you do and head home.”

By 10:00 PM, the school was silent. Jiang Qing was exhausted. “Gu Yining, turn off the light.”

The room plunged into darkness. As Jiang Qing drifted toward sleep, she heard a whisper: “Qingqing, I want to touch your hand.”

In her daze, Jiang Qing moved her arm so her left hand draped over the edge of the bed.

In the dark, Gu Yining reached up and found that hand. She didn’t “grip” it, but merely “touched” it, afraid of waking her. The steady breathing told her Jiang Qing was asleep. She traced the hand—delicate and cool, like jade. She hooked her pinky around Jiang Qing’s, content.

Eventually, her own hand slipped as she fell asleep. The sudden loss of contact startled her awake. Like a nightmare, she frantically reached back out in the dark until she found that familiar coolness again. She scraped her finger against the skin to reassure herself. Her fear subsided.

She sat up and leaned against the bed like a puppy, watching Jiang Qing. She couldn’t see her, but the sound of her breathing allowed her mind to fill in the image.

After a long while, she shrank back, put on her shoes, and ran to her own dorm. She returned minutes later, her phone flashlight cutting through the dark corridor. Back in Jiang Qing’s room, she felt safe again. She crept to the bedside, found Jiang Qing’s hand—still cool—and tied a red string around Jiang Qing’s wrist.

The other end she tied to her own wrist.

Now, if she felt anxious, she didn’t have to reach up and strain her arm; a gentle tug on the string would tell her Jiang Qing was still there.

However, she underestimated her own insecurity. She ended up tugging the string countless times throughout the night.

Jiang Qing didn’t wake up, but in the morning, she looked at the red string and the faint red marks on her skin. “Gu Yining… what did you do last night?”

Gu Yining rubbed her eyes. “Oh, that? I wanted to hold your hand, but I was too tired, so I tied us together with the string so I’d know you were there.” As she raised her hand, Jiang Qing’s wrist was yanked upward.

Sunlight hit the floor. Gu Yining looked at the pale wrist covered in crisscrossing red marks from the string. The vivid red of the yarn against the pale skin and the marks created an indescribably sensuous and striking image.

Gu Yining’s heart hammered. She lunged forward to untie it, but she had tied a knot in the dark that had tightened into a dead end overnight. “Do you have scissors?” she asked guiltily.

She hadn’t realized she’d pulled it so many times. As she cut the string, she peeked at Jiang Qing. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really,” Jiang Qing said, rubbing her wrist. But it looked strange—the kind of strange that would give people ideas. She put on a long-sleeved jacket before heading out.

However, during the tutoring session, her sleeve slipped. Tan Baozhu froze, her gaze fixed on Jiang Qing’s wrist.

Jiang Qing pulled her hand back. Tan Baozhu smirked, tucking her hair back. “Teacher Jiang, you have unique tastes. Did you do that yourself, or did someone else do it?”

“It’s not what you think,” Jiang Qing snapped.

“Oh,” Tan Baozhu looked back at her math problems. A moment later, she looked up again. “My technique is better than hers. If you need help, Teacher Jiang, I can oblige.” She narrowed her eyes. “Free of charge.”

Jiang Qing stared at her blankly. “Are you going to study or not?”

“I am, I am!” Tan Baozhu lowered her head immediately.

Two weeks passed. Tan Baozhu was surprisingly cooperative, though they occasionally had heated arguments when she couldn’t grasp a concept. But they always made up quickly, remembering their respective goals (and leverage).

One day, as Jiang Qing got off the bus for the session, the weather turned. The clear sky was torn apart by dark clouds rolling in like an army. The wind whipped her hair. She hurried into the building.

Nearby, a black car sat in the dim light. In the rearview mirror, a girl watched the pedestrians. The driver asked, “Miss, Madam Gu just called to hurry you along.”

The atmosphere in the car was like frost. Gu Yining stared at the “Tianyang Study Room” sign on the building. “Uncle Chen, let’s go,” she said slowly.

As the car moved, a familiar figure entered her vision. A girl in a navy blue JK skirt stepped out of a taxi, checked her phone, glanced at the sky, and ran into the building.

Tan Baozhu.

The car accelerated, and the building vanished from sight. Gu Yining’s brow furrowed, her fingers tapping the door frame.

Was it a coincidence?

Jiang Qing said she was tutoring a relative’s child. Why go to a study room instead of a home? Was she tutoring a relative… or was she tutoring Tan Baozhu?

Her lips thinned into a line, her breathing heavy in the silence of the car.