What hairstyle should I get?
Bai Su pouted. “I haven’t decided. I didn’t even plan to come here for a haircut at first… Su Su dragged me along.”
His tone implied he wouldn’t have come at all if not for Su Su.
Hearing this, Su Su snorted and rolled her eyes irritably. “Silly brother, did you really plan to keep that long hair of yours? Tie it into a little braid and play artist?”
Even a cute girl’s eye roll looked charming and lively, not rude or ill-mannered at all.
But the sarcasm in Su Su’s words made Bai Su’s face flush crimson, veins bulging on his forehead. “Artists… an artist’s thing—how can you call it long hair?”
Instantly, waves of cheerful laughter burst through Xiao Chou Ju.
Sister Yu doubled over slightly, clutching her stomach, eyes crinkling with mirth. “Bai Su, you little drama queen… you’d be wasted not acting.”
The siblings exchanged a smile.
Yet Su Su felt a flicker of surprise. This Kong Yiji meme had been overused by otaku in her previous timeline, spawning endless parodies.
But Bai Su had suddenly grasped it, almost transcending time to crack the joke. It made her wonder if he, like her, had been reborn from that past life.
Memes, laughter…
Su Su lifted her head, gazing at Xiao Chou Ju’s ceiling covered in fake bamboo leaves. The dense, overlapping green scales sparked an unexpected pang of homesickness.
The chatter of Bai Su and Sister Yu faded into the distance, dissolving into dead silence. Her body felt submerged in seawater, a damp chill swallowing her whole. She couldn’t breathe, suffocating in the void.
Then—a light flared before her eyes.
In it stood her closest friends from middle school, high school, university, and beyond. Some roared with laughter, some wept, some bellowed at the sky with mouths wide open.
The deceased thirty-year-old Bai Su stood among them. Arms linked, they staggered down a dimly lit city street, bottles of liquor in hand, cursing drunkenly.
Su Su… no, Bai Su.
He recognized this moment—right after graduation, when they’d eaten, drunk, and sung karaoke until they were all dead drunk. Like escapees from a mental ward, they’d rambled nonsense, then collapsed on the riverside grass, hugging each other to sleep.
After that final frenzy…
They’d packed their bags, scattering to futures, distant lands, and far corners of the earth.
But… even then, it was good.
Maps had split them by cold numbers, but that was only space.
What about now?
What about now?
Fifteen years. A whole fifteen years!
Trapped on this lonely island, fifteen years from them, everything felt familiar yet terrifyingly alien.
Damn heavens…
Fuck this!
Bai Su squatted down, eyes stinging with unshed tears. He reached instinctively for a cigarette, then froze at his own thin, delicate arms. He remembered his name now: Bai Susu.
Bai Susu—Bai Su with an extra “Su.” Bai! Su! Su!
Fuck this!
He covered his face, tears streaming uncontrollably.
*Don’t I even have the right to smoke now?* he thought.
The vision shifted again.
Bai Su looked on with bloodshot eyes, a tearing pain flashing within them.
He wanted to see what came next—but feared it too.
He knew it was something lost forever.
Back in reality, crushing dizziness eroded Su Su’s mind. Her body weakened. She clutched her head, knelt, then collapsed lifelessly to the floor.
Bai Su, joking with Sister Yu in the mirror, saw Su Su suddenly drop beside him. A cold dread gripped his heart.
“Su Su?” he called.
No response. His sister lay like a broken doll on the icy tiles.
“Su Su!” Bai Su yelled.
Silence.
Sister Yu turned, puzzled. She watched Su Su’s fair cheeks drain to ghostly white, her breaths growing faint.
“Su Su?!” she asked.
Su Su seemed to hear, but turned stiffly like a vegetable, her usually bright eyes now hollow and dead.
Bai Su’s mind went blank.
He lurched up from the chair, barber cloth forgotten, half-cut hair wild, and sprinted to Su Su. He lifted her from the floor, shouting again and again: “Su Su? Su Su? Su Su! What’s wrong? Su Su?!”
But his sister—the one who’d once called him sweetly, made silly faces, and grinned like a sly fox—only gasped weakly, eyelids drooping.
“Su Su? Su…”
As he cried her name, a strong force yanked him back.
“Enough!” Sister Yu’s low roar cut through his panic. “Calm down!”
She gently took Su Su from his arms, cradling the frail girl securely, and hurried toward the back room behind the counter.
Bai Su snapped to his senses. He stepped forward, pulling aside the bamboo curtain for her.
Sister Yu paused, nodded in approval, and gestured for him to follow.
Bai Su trailed her into Xiao Chou Ju’s back room.
The space was serene—clearly Sister Yu’s living quarters—with sparse furniture and no decorations typical for a woman her age.
Bai Su barely noticed.
He stared at Su Su laid on Sister Yu’s bed, panic clawing at his chest.
Only the two of them had each other now. He couldn’t imagine life without her.
Su Su… Bai Susu. She was the only light in his dark world.
He glared at the sky, resentment and helplessness surging.
“Screw you, cruel heavens!”
He roared like a third-rate fantasy novel’s hero. “You killed my parents in a crash—now you won’t spare my last family, my sister?”
No answer came.
Tears streamed down his face as he stood like a ridiculous clown beneath the endless sky.
[To be continued]
