Chapter 8 Five Yuan

“Are you talking to me?” Wang Jiexiang asked Yin Xian.

She regretted it the moment she said it—what a dumb question.

Just by age alone it didn’t add up. How could the voice she heard have come from him?

Once he recovered from the shock, the boy glanced at their tightly held hands and awkwardly pulled his away.

Sigh. Wang Jiexiang was tired of treating strangers like familiar faces.

“Don’t you remember me?”

She couldn’t help feeling a little defeated—surely she had to have left some trace behind, or else what was the point of everything she had done?

“Maybe when you were four? Do you remember me?” she asked without much hope. “It was pouring rain, and we were stuck in the back of a cart. We escaped together and recited poetry in a little pavilion.”

Yin Xian’s eyes were full of blank confusion.

“……”

Wang Jiexiang really wished she had a system.

One of those systems that explained the situation, laid out stage goals and end goals, showed task progress, and killed you if you disobeyed.

What exactly was she supposed to do in these houses? How did she get the Key? And once she had it, then what?

Was the space she entered real? Was the child version of Yin Xian real? If nothing they experienced together would affect his future, if he wouldn’t even remember it—how was she supposed to help him?

Just because she could freely come and go from Little Rabbit Island didn’t mean “Yin Xian must need Wang Jiexiang’s help” was a valid conclusion.

When she was running down the stairs, she’d heard a couple of mocking lines—and remembered again that the person she was facing was her scumbag ex-boyfriend, the one she hated the most… Meanwhile, she was exhausting herself, overthinking every move, and Yin Xian was mocking her for being unoriginal.

Her kindness was being treated like garbage, as if she really wanted to save him.

“I brought you out of your house—shouldn’t that count as completing the task?”

Wang Jiexiang held out her hand to Yin Xian.

Since he didn’t remember anything, he shouldn’t be holding any grudges either. She might as well treat him like an NPC in a game. Task complete—time for the NPC to hand over the next Key.

Yin Xian looked at her quietly, his gaze shifting from confusion to wariness.

Only then did Wang Jiexiang realize—since they met, he hadn’t said a single word to her.

Yin Xian rummaged through his pocket and actually pulled something out, placing it in her hand.

Wang Jiexiang looked down…

It was a wrinkled five yuan note in her palm.

She was so mad she almost laughed. This really was the Yin Xian she knew as a kid—the early signs of the future little bastard were already there.

“Hey.”

Wang Jiexiang tried to give the money back. Seeing her move, Yin Xian raised a hand to cover his face and backed away.

She couldn’t help asking, “What’s this supposed to mean?”

Behind his hand, Yin Xian mumbled.

“Protection fee.”

Then, in a voice so small it was almost inaudible, he thanked her.

“Thank you… for protecting me, for speaking nicely to me.”

Wang Jiexiang’s heart twisted a little.

She felt like a terrible person. The kid had just escaped from a terrifying home, hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet she had treated him so badly, even thinking the worst of him.

“If it’s really a protection fee, then you shouldn’t be thanking me. That’s not protection. That’s jumping from one fire pit to another.”

She returned the five yuan and held his hand again, the one he had used to cover his face.

“Come on, let’s go out and have some fun. The weather’s so nice.”

Just like that, she snapped back into her gentle big-sister role.

“Is there anything you want to do? I’ll go with you.”

“I haven’t done my homework.”

He was so obedient it was scary—like a baby lamb even softer than a regular lamb. He’d barely been outside and was already worrying about homework.

“Not study-related!”

Yin Xian thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“Really? When I was your age, I wanted to do all kinds of crazy stuff all day long. Too bad the adults never let me.”

He looked at her face, puzzled. “Are you a lot older than me?”

“Yup.”

Wang Jiexiang stood on tiptoe and ruffled his hair.

“What do you want to do?” he asked, letting her choose.

“Me…” Wang Jiexiang immediately thought of something. “Treat me to ice cream, Yin Xian.”

In the end, half the five yuan still ended up in the “protection fee offender’s” stomach.

Wang Jiexiang and Yin Xian each bought an ice cream and sat at the grocery store entrance to eat.

Basking in the sun, she squinted in contentment, holding her ice cream and licking it slowly.

“This is so good. I finally got to try one. When I was a kid, I never had one—not even once. I just watched other people eat.”

She kicked her legs, acting more like an eight-year-old than the actual eight-year-old beside her.

“Why couldn’t you buy one?”

Kids on bicycles kept riding past the store. Yin Xian watched them intently.

“We were poor. Even if my grandma bought ice cream, it was for my little brother—not me.”

At that, Wang Jiexiang slowed her eating. Such a small piece of ice cream—it was precious.

“I just watched my little brother lick his ice cream, drooling. He was younger, so I had to let him have it. Back then, I prayed every day that next time my grandma would remember me—not just buy one for my brother…”

Yin Xian didn’t seem to be listening, absentmindedly mumbling an “Mm.”

Wang Jiexiang turned to look at him. His ice cream had melted.

He was staring off at the kids on the bikes. They were racing, chasing each other, laughing with sweat-soaked hair.

Wasn’t that what he wanted to do? This kid.

She saw right through him and made a suggestion.

“Yin Xian, let’s ride bikes too once we’re done eating.”

She remembered his dad had said Yin Xian had a bike—he just wouldn’t ride it.

Yin Xian reacted to her words instantly.

“You want to ride?”

Wang Jiexiang took one last bite of ice cream, tossed the wrapper, and clapped her hands.

“Yup yup, I really want to. Desperately.”