Chapter Text
[BGM: WILDFLOWER - Billie Eilish]
The very first priority when checking in somewhere unfamiliar is to check for safety hazards—especially under circumstances like this.
Zhu Nanxing has already prepared that excuse for herself.
As for why she kept double-checking the fire evacuation map, the escape routes, the locks on the doors and windows for the past few minutes, she refuses to think too much about it.
“Xiao Zhu (Little Zhu).”
She stares at the laminated sheet beneath the peephole, fixing her gaze on the little red star labeled YOU ARE HERE.
“Nanxing?”
Room 404 on the fourth floor, an exceptionally “auspicious” combination of numbers by all means.
Through the peephole, Room 405 is on the left; to the right stretches a hallway that seems endless. Halfway down is a side corridor leading to the emergency exit, the trash room, and the electrical room. Further ahead lays the elevator lobby—there are three elevators in total, all capable of taking people to—
“Zhu Nanxing…”
“… Jinyan.” Reluctantly, she pulls her eyes away from the door.
Voices and the sharp cry of a cat drift in from the outside. Someone has probably dragged that scruffy gray stray out of the battered cardboard box it sheltered in, completely ignoring its futile yowling and frantic scratching.
The woman sharing the room with Zhu Nanxing stands between the two beds, looking rather hesitant and apologetic.
“Sorry, were you on to something?” Wen Jinyan tilts her head slightly. “I just want to ask… which side do you want to take?”
“Well, I’m fine with either.” Zhu Nanxing shrugs. “You go first.”
“Mhm…” Wen Jinyan twirls a strand of hair around her finger, glancing back and forth between the beds. “I guess I’ll take the one near the door, then. The wind from the AC goes directly over there—you might get a cold.”
… I might get a cold, huh.
“I don’t mind as long as you’re okay with it.” Zhu Nanxing said.
She glances at the two single beds that were being pushed together. Somehow, the distance between them feels far too close—too close for two people who haven’t seen each other in years, and had long since become strangers.
“Actually, let’s move both nightstands between the beds.”
Outside, someone cries out in pain. That cat had probably left them a few marks.
“Oh… okay. Sure.” Wen Jinyan answers softly, sounding somewhat disappointed.
How come? Is she expecting something?
Zhu Nanxing doesn’t ask. She drags one nightstand out first, then shoves one of the beds closer to the door before connecting her phone to the building’s Wi-Fi. The network scan shows no suspicious devices nearby—only a couple of personal hotspots named something like someone’s-some-brand-phone.
Everything looks normal. Perfectly normal.
She is merely quarantined in the same room as an old friend she hasn’t seen in years, and that’s all.
Whoosh!
There goes her vision. Yeah, the room suddenly goes dark.
?!
“Ah—sorry!” Wen Jinyan’s voice comes from somewhere across the room. A beam of white flashlight sweeps across the ceiling. Squinting, Zhu Nanxing catches the glimpse of a figure holding up a phone while pulling the curtains shut with her other hand.
“I just want to check if there are any hidden cameras…” she explains sheepishly.
False alarm then.
“… Never mind.” Zhu Nanxing exhales slowly.
Her eyes trace the pale beam that crawls across the walls, gliding over the smoke detector, electrical outlets, and air-conditioning vent. Wen Jinyan’s face flickers in and out beneath the flashlight, her features sliced apart by the shifting shadows, somehow reminding Zhu Nanxing of the streetlights in the evening they had last met.
She looks away.
“So, any cameras?”
“I suppose none…” Wen Jinyan replies.
In the dark, Zhu Nanxing nods before realizing Wen Jinyan probably can’t see her.
“Cool,” she shrugs, uncertain whether she meant the room’s condition or something else entirely.
The noise outside has vanished. Either the person had finally spared the poor cat, or they had taken it somewhere else. Maybe it had been stuffed into a cage. Maybe into a pet carrier. Maybe a sack. Maybe the trunk of some random car.
A prison without daylight. Together with someone familiar but still somewhat a stranger.
“Nanxing, do you want to use the bathroom? I would like to take a shower.” Wen Jinyan pulls the curtains open again. Beyond the glass sliding door, the gray sky stingily withheld its light, brightening the room by only the faintest degree.
She didn’t call her Xiao Zhu this time.
“Go ahead.” Zhu Nanxing watches her from the corner of her eye as Wen Jinyan pulls out a neatly folded stack of clothes from her suitcase and disappears behind the bathroom door.
Everything is arranged meticulously. Wen Jinyan hasn’t changed one bit.
Zhu Nanxing drags out a chair by the desk and sits down, finally allowing herself to loosen up a little. The temporary reprieve from having to speak to Wen Jinyan fills her with secret relief, like slipping away from a gathering where she had to monitor every expression and finally reached her sweet, sweet home, reeking of alcohol while slamming shut the taxi door.
She pushes open that door labeled solitude and steps inside wearily.
Lately, Zhu Nanxing has not been the luckiest person in the world.
She should have been heading home to enjoy her summer vacation, but after a passenger aboard her train suddenly fell critically ill, everyone in that carriage was forced off in an unfamiliar city and confined to an empty college dormitory for quarantine.
It could’ve been worse, to be honest. Better this than ending up in The Cassandra Crossing, trapped in a train where mutiny and catastrophe were equally inevitable. And then she discovered Wen Jinyan was her new roommate—just like how the male lead in that film runs into his ex-wife the moment he boards the train.
To be frank, she couldn’t fathom the comparison one bit. But it just surfaced on its own in her mind, being quite unstoppable. A psychology major may call it an intrusive thought*.*
It’s not that Zhu Nanxing never wanted to see her. It’s simply that a reunion like this had never been part of her plans.
Years without any contact had almost made her forget that Wen Jinyan’s family lives in the same city as hers. They were once neighbors, childhood friends, inseparable companions, and that list goes on.
Growing apart afterward was inevitable. Wen Jinyan had always been the kind of person everyone loved, while the quieter, more reserved Zhu Nanxing never expected to be her best friend’s “one and only”.
She vividly remembers how she used to think back then: People always look upward. She is like a fish swimming toward the shattered silver lights trembling on the ocean’s surface. And naturally, the ocean would raise its tides for a moon far more brighter than herself.
See? Now that is a metaphor she likes.
The shower keeps running in the bathroom, water splashing against tile, punctuated now and then by the faint clink of bottles being picked up and set down. Wen Jinyan is probably washing her long chestnut hair.
A student dormitory isn’t a hotel, and one shall not expect anyone to leave a hairdryer behind during such a long vacation.
Zhu Nanxing thinks for a moment, then turns off the AC.
Wen Jinyan will catch a cold.
“…Nanxing?” Wen Jinyan’s muffled voice drifts through the bathroom door. “Could you hand me a towel? There isn’t one here… I think there’s a small one in my suitcase I can make do with…”
“On it.” Zhu Nanxing walks over to the white suitcase in the corner.
The case isn’t large. No flashy stickers, and the handle is spotless, though there are several dents at the corners. Rough baggage handling, perhaps.
Towel, towel…
Zhu Nanxing squats down and lifts the lid.
The clothes inside are folded with immaculate precision, revealing the owner’s faintly obsessive habits. Zhu Nanxing notices several shirts in nearly identical styles—soft colors, crisp collars.
Hmm, she still likes wearing shirts that much.
The thought makes her pause briefly before she continues rummaging as if nothing had happened.
Oh. She is still using the same glasses case too, though the charm attached to the zipper had been replaced.
What was the old one again?
Frowning, Zhu Nanxing tries to scavenge the image from her memory, but she really can’t remember at all.
The current charm, however, is a yellow plush star with a human face stitched on it.
…Why does its expression look so vicious?
Zhu Nanxing stares at the plush’s ugly face: furrowed brows, bulging eyes, gritted teeth. Must be some kind of bizarre merchandise from a franchise she doesn't know.
She really shouldn’t mess with other people’s belongings.
But curiosity got the better of her, so she reaches toward the plush star—
The star instantly comes back to life. It launches a chaotic flurry of kicks and punches against Zhu Nanxing’s “ oh-so-evil claw,” squeaking incomprehensibly like an enraged little animal.
“…Pfft.” Zhu Nanxing bursts out a little laugh.
Well, that’s unexpected. The thing is motorized.
“Did you find it?” Wen Jinyan calls from the bathroom. “I might’ve put it underneath the clothes—”
Right. The towel.
Hurriedly, Zhu Nanxing sets the flailing star back to where it belonged. Dragging the glasses case along with it, it rolls across the suitcase interior, its furious expression unchanged, as though still condemning her unforgivable offense.
She reaches toward the side compartment, fingers brushing against a pale towel rolled tightly into a cylinder. A thermos pins it down, wedging it firmly in place.
Zhu Nanxing tugs it hard.
The moment the towel came free, her eyes inevitably swept across the combination lock mounted on the side of the suitcase.
There are endless possible arrangements for the three-digit code on a TSA lock: anniversaries, street numbers, easy sequences…
And yet, the combination on Wen Jinyan’s suitcase is Zhu Nanxing’s birthday.