Accident

Ksenia wearily closed her laptop, turned off the dorm lights, and stood alone by the window, lost in thought.

Suddenly, her phone lit up. It was a message from Hesta:

"Have you been working really hard lately?"

Ksenia smiled faintly. "It's nothing."

"Let's have lunch together tomorrow."

"I don't have time at noon. How about tonight?"

"Ah, tonight won't work. I'm going to see a friend tonight."

"Don't you have class Thursday night? How are you going to see a friend?"

"I'm planning to skip it... It's not an important class or anything."

"What friend?"

"The girl who attended the Drama Club event with me last time. Her mother recently came to Orange Town, and things haven't been going very well for her."

Ksenia's expression tightened slightly. The one who had gone hiking with Hesta last time... Oh, the girl with long black hair.

"Is she your classmate?"

"No, we met in Mei County, then came to Orange Town together."

Ksenia's brow twitched—met in Mei County... but Hesta was already getting involved in matters concerning the girl's mother coming to Orange Town?

"All right. When are you leaving? I'm free tomorrow after four-thirty, at Wenhui Building."

"I'm planning to leave at five." Hesta's reply came almost immediately. "I'll come find you."

The dorm lights suddenly flicked on, jolting Ksenia back to reality. She turned around and found that several of her roommates had returned.

One of them glanced at Ksenia's desk. "Don't tell me you spent the whole day holed up in the dorm?"

"No." Ksenia put away her phone. "I went out to study this afternoon."

"Your self-control is incredible. Something this big happened, and you managed not to go watch the excitement?"

Ksenia's expression remained flat. "I'm not really interested in that—"

"I mean what happened to Sister