Chapter 13: Neither staying nor leaving felt right. In the end, it was me who ended up apologizing.

She didn't know how long she had been crying, but Gao Qinghe finally cried herself out. The lingering aftershocks of pain and resentment still caused her shoulders to tremble slightly. Her throat felt tight, and she was holding a mug, gulping down water in big, noisy swallows.

"It's okay, drink slowly... Are you feeling a bit better now?" Lin Xi's voice came from beside her, full of concern but with a faint undercurrent of urgency. Clearly, she was already wanting to leave the couch and get on with her own things.

"...I'm fine now. Sister Lin Xi, thank you." Gao Qinghe's voice was hoarse from crying, the end of her sentence rising slightly, soft and pitiful. She lifted her head. Her almond-shaped eyes were still misty, her eyelashes dotted with glistening teardrops that trembled with each blink.

Lin Xi stroked her head, her palm sliding from the crown down to the ends of her hair, her fingers gently combing through the long strands with a hint of heartache.

"Gao Jingdong would be so happy if he knew you were this worried about him." She smiled faintly. "With a cousin like you, at least I don't have to worry about him doing anything stupid."

What could he possibly do...

Before she could figure it out, Lin Xi spoke again.

"I need to go organize my notes. There's still a lot of work to do. Will you be okay alone? Call me if you need anything." She stood up, her movements light and quick. Her knee moved away from the side of Gao Qinghe's leg, the slight separation leaving a cool, empty feeling in the air.

"I... I'm fine. Can I walk around the room? Will I disturb you?... Ah, I can go barefoot." Gao Qinghe hurriedly kicked off her slippers. Her pale, tender feet touched the wooden floor, the coolness creeping up, making her instinctively curl her toes.

Lin Xi watched her actions, an expression of surprise on her face.

She was silent for a long moment, then suddenly laughed.

"Gao Jingdong did the exact same thing the first time he came to my place, to avoid disturbing my work." She paused, looking out the window. "It was the dead of winter, and he ran out barefoot onto the balcony to make a phone call, didn't even wear a jacket. Came back shivering."

...Right, she remembered that too.

Back then, they had just met. He, a guy just drifting through university, thought her experiments, literature reviews, and data were all incredibly impressive. He felt that disturbing her was like hindering the progress of science itself.

"But later, he started playing games while I was studying." Before Gao Qinghe could sink into the memory, Lin Xi's tone shifted, turning cold again. "He at least knew to wear headphones, but the sound of his mouse clicking was still annoying."

...What was he supposed to do then?

His major didn't have that heavy of a workload. If he wasn't playing games, was he just supposed to sit there in her house doing nothing?

Ultimately, wasn't he just trying to spend more time with her...?! If he hadn't done that, it probably would have become another point of contention between them. Many of his buddies' girlfriends fought with them over playing basketball or video games instead of spending time together. At least his efforts in that regard were beyond reproach.

"Forget it, it's all in the past." Lin Xi waved her hand dismissively, a hint of annoyance in the gesture, her fingertips tracing an arc in the air. "Look around as you please, don't mind me. If I really find it noisy, I'll go work in the study myself." After a pause, she added, "Put your slippers back on. I haven't vacuumed this week, there might be some dust."

As she spoke, she opened her laptop on the kitchen island and quickly immersed herself in her work. Her fingers danced across the keyboard, emitting a faint, rapid tapping sound.

Alright then... Since she'd put it that way, Gao Qinghe better not make too much noise.

She stood up barefoot, hesitated for a moment, but still put her slippers back on and sat back down on the couch.

Not knowing what else to do, she started scrolling through her social media feed. Using Gao Jingdong's account, the content was as predictable as ever.

A buddy and his girlfriend celebrating their hundred-day anniversary. Looked like the girlfriend had chosen the angle for the photo.

A high school classmate traveling abroad again. Hmm, as expected, spending the family's money anyway.

A university classmate ate at an Omakase place. What kind of tier is that? Much lower-end than the place Xiang Bei almost treated her to today—wasn't that place supposed to require a reservation a month in advance? Xiang Bei said they could just walk in and eat?

...Thoughts swirled chaotically in her mind. Gao Qinghe didn't intend to seriously ponder anything. She just felt that after becoming a girl, she seemed detached from her previous identity. Seeing these posts no longer gave her that suffocating, breathless feeling. Instead, they just felt distant.

Moreover, after venting her emotions, she felt incredibly lighthearted inside.

How long had it been since she'd felt this way?

All along, she'd felt she had to win Lin Xi back, that if she didn't, she would definitely regret it, and so she'd fallen into a massive cycle of anxiety.

Now it was different.

Now that she had become a girl, the whole "winning Lin Xi back" project was null and void.

On top of that, she was now this perfectly proportioned, flawlessly beautiful woman, not just universally lovable, but seemingly capable of being forgiven for anything.

Who was it that said it before?

"Men don't shed tears easily"—but her tear ducts were a bit overly developed. Every time she cried, she'd be ridiculed. She hardly dared to cry in front of Lin Xi, afraid of seeing that look of disdain in her eyes again.

Come to think of it, being comforted by Lin Xi like this might be the first time in her life.

Gao Qinghe stole a glance at Lin Xi, who was intently typing in front of her computer, her brow slightly furrowed.

The afternoon light slanted in through the window, illuminating half of her face, making the contours of her bone structure even more distinct.

Lin Xi and her current self were completely different types of beauties.

Unlike her own soft hair, soft face, and soft body, Lin Xi was quite bony, with a high-bridged nose, deep-set eyes, and cat-like eyes with slightly upturned outer corners. She was the type of beauty that could seem a bit intimidating.

When they first got together, Lin Xi used to dress in a softer, cuter style. Back then, her hair was still black, paired with light makeup, making her face appear relatively gentle and approachable, her cat eyes always carrying a hint of a coquettish mist.

Later, whether it was Lin Xi who changed or something else, they argued more and more, her hair color became lighter and lighter from bleaching, and she took on an air of aloof, cold elegance.

"Gurgle..." Probably because she had finally relaxed, Gao Qinghe's stomach growled, especially loud in the quiet room.

Lin Xi frowned, seeming rather displeased by the disturbance, her cat-like eyes narrowing slightly. But when her gaze fell on Gao Qinghe, it softened again. She closed her laptop screen, her tone carrying a hint of concern.

"You're hungry? Want something to eat? Or should we order takeout?"

"..." Gao Qinghe was silent for a while, her almond eyes lowered. She bit her lower lip, her fingertips rubbing the edge of her phone. "I want to eat the spring onion noodles you make," she said quietly.