By the River Dam, in a small house, on a wooden bed.
Tongtong lay under a little cotton quilt, pouting as she played on her phone.
"Damn it, Jiang Ning must be having the time of his life back home. Who knows how glorious he looks!" Xue Yuantong gritted her teeth. "He's having so much fun he can't even reply to my messages!"
She let out a soft sigh, and her little hand dropped, letting her phone land on the fluffy quilt.
Sunlight streamed in through the window, making the room bright. A patch of reflected light from who knew where shone on the wall.
Xue Yuantong stared at that patch of light, recalling how she used to use a lens as a child to reflect a spot of light around the room, shining it wherever she wanted. It had felt practically magical.
A surge of motivation rose within her, and she wanted to get up and recreate that childhood joy.
But the next second, she remembered how, once, she had been playing in Jiang Ning's room while he focused entirely on carving his stupid piece of wood and ignored her completely. So she had taken a lens and shone a spot of light onto his face, waving it around to flash his eyes. When Jiang Ning got angry, she had immediately run home, leaving him no chance to get back at her.
Thinking of that scene, she suddenly found playing alone rather pointless.
"Tongtong, you've been lying down all day already." Chuchu's voice came from outside the window.
Unlike the lazy Tongtong, Xue Chuchu wore a light blue down jacket, neatly dressed with her hair tied up in a fresh, tidy style. In her fair, delicate hands, she carried a stainless steel insulated bowl.
Tongtong lay listlessly on the