Chapter 1

On the way home for the Mid-Autumn Festival, my brother handed me his phone while he drove.

“See if the directions group has sent the location.”

I unlocked it. At the top of the screen was a group chat called *Four Unlucky Souls*.

Its picture showed my brother, my boyfriend, our two childhood friends, and Wen Li.

Wen Li had just sent a message:

[Zhiyi will be here soon, won’t she? Hide the cake first.]

My boyfriend replied:

[She always takes forever. Let her get here on her own. We’ll eat first.]

One of our childhood friends immediately added:

[Don’t let her find out about this group. I let something slip last time, and she wouldn’t stop asking.]

A string of laughing emojis followed.

I couldn’t help scrolling back.

Camping trips. Dinners. New Year’s Eve. Even photos of my brother moving house six months earlier.

They had had this group for a long time.

My brother glanced over and saw the screen. His smile stiffened for a moment, but he quickly took the phone back as though nothing had happened.

“It’s just a gaming group. We chat about random stuff. You don’t play games. What would be the point of adding you?”

I didn’t ask any more questions.

Then, over dinner, Wen Li casually mentioned wanting to see the cherry blossoms the following year.

My brother immediately said, “I’ve already looked at flights.”

My boyfriend asked, “The same guesthouse we talked about last year?”

Our two childhood friends started discussing car rentals.

The four of them chipped in, and before long they had all but settled on a departure date.

No one asked whether I was free.

Until that day, I hadn’t even known they were planning this trip.

I thought back over the past six months.

Wen Li’s new job. My brother’s move. Our childhood friend’s breakup. They always knew first.

Whenever I asked, all I got was, “Forgot to tell you.”

They hadn’t forgotten.

I had never been in the group where they shared their lives.

That evening, I unpinned the five-person chat we had had for nine years and accepted a transfer to another city.

If they already had their five people, I wouldn’t be the extra one anymore.

…

The next afternoon, I arrived at the mall twenty minutes early.

Xia Chuan had asked me to buy the movie tickets the night before.

He said it was the last day of the Mid-Autumn break. The five of us had to get together and have some fun. No standing anyone up.

But I waited beside the ticket machine for fifteen minutes without a single reply in our five-person chat.

Then Gu Ye called.

Shouting and laughter filled the background.

“Zhiyi, why are you still downstairs? We’re already in the escape room.”

It took me a couple of seconds to answer.

“Weren’t we going to a movie?”

Gu Ye sounded surprised too.

“Didn’t we change the plan last night? Wen Li can’t watch horror movies, so Xia Chuan suggested an escape room instead. Everyone in the group agreed.”

My grip tightened on the phone.

“Which group?”

For a moment, the other end went silent.

Then Gu Ye laughed and changed the subject.

“Oh, just come upstairs. Return the movie tickets.”

I went up with all five tickets in my hand.

The five of them were already wearing their wristbands outside the escape room.

Wen Li looked startled when she saw me, then smiled and shifted aside.

“You’re here too, Zhiyi? I thought you knew we’d changed the plan.”

Xia Chuan frowned slightly and took the tickets from me.

“Gu Ye and the others didn’t tell you? Never mind. We’ll return them afterward. The game’s about to start.”

He sounded perfectly casual, as though leaving me out were a minor mistake anyone might make.

The attendant explained that one of our six players would have a separate task: entering a dark room alone to find a key.

Gu Ye handed me the gray wristband almost without hesitation.

“Give this one to Zhiyi. She’s the bravest, and she’s the best at puzzles.”

Wen Li immediately sighed with relief.

“Thank goodness you’re here. Being locked alone in a dark room is what scares me most.”

I took the wristband without objecting.

As the door shut, Wen Li screamed outside.

Then I heard my brother and Xia Chuan laughing, gently reassuring her.

“It’s fake. Don’t be scared. We’re right here.”

The dark room was so quiet that all I could hear was the machinery moving.

I remembered the first escape room I had tried in college.

I was afraid of the dark too.

The power had gone out that time. I had clutched Xia Chuan’s sleeve and refused to let go.

He had crouched beside me until the lights came back on.

When had I become the one who needed the least looking after?

Twenty minutes later, I emerged with the key.

They had solved almost all the main puzzles. Only the last door remained.

Its combination lock needed four digits.

Lin Che glanced at the clue and entered 0716.

The lock clicked open.

All five of them burst out laughing.

I asked what the date meant.

My brother patted my shoulder.

“The first time Wen Li got blackout drunk last year. It’s normal you wouldn’t know. She made quite a fool of herself.”

Wen Li blushed and chased him, hitting him.

Xia Chuan doubled over laughing beside them.

I stood where I was.

For the first time, I realized how many memories they shared without me.

After the game, the attendant offered to take a group photo.

Wen Li raised her phone.

“Our group picture is still the camping photo from six months ago. We can finally update it today.”

Then, as though suddenly remembering I was still there, she hurried to add, “You should be in it too, Zhiyi. Otherwise people might think we’re excluding you.”

Everyone smiled at me.

I smiled a little too and handed the attendant my phone.

“Go ahead without me. I’m going downstairs to return the movie tickets.”

This time, no one followed.

On the subway home, Xia Chuan sent a message to our five-person chat.

[Why has Zhiyi been acting so weird lately?]

Five minutes passed without a reply.

Looking at the empty conversation, I understood.

What they really wanted to say would never be said here.

Nine years earlier, when we had first created the group, it was called *No One Left Behind*.

Back then, if one of us changed a profile picture or display name, the other four would tease them for ages.

After Wen Li appeared, our shared chat grew quieter and quieter.

Even the digital red envelopes rarely set off a scramble anymore.

I had thought we were simply growing up, each busy with our own life.

Now I knew.

They hadn’t run out of things to say.

The lively conversations had moved somewhere I couldn’t see.

On the third morning, Xia Chuan didn’t come to pick me up for work.

In the past, if something came up, he would at least let me know.

I waited until noon. Then I saw a hospital receipt on Wen Li’s feed.

Xia Chuan’s name was clearly visible in the corner.

I called him at once.

“You’re in the hospital? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

He sounded as though he had just woken up. His voice was a little hoarse.

“My stomach hurt last night. It’s only acute gastritis. You’re busy with your project, so I didn’t call.”

Wen Li’s voice quickly came from the other end.

“Don’t worry, Zhiyi. We all happened to be nearby last night, so we took Chuan to the hospital together.”

There it was again. *We.*

Holding the phone, I asked, “My brother and the others know too?”

Xia Chuan murmured yes.

“I told the group. Don’t overthink it. It really isn’t serious.”

I remembered his appendectomy three years earlier.

I had rushed to the emergency department in my pajamas and stayed awake all night outside the operating room.

The first thing he said when he woke up was, “From now on, if anything happens to me, you’ll be the first person I call. Then you won’t have to cry in secret again.”

He still told the people closest to him first.

I just wasn’t one of them anymore.

That afternoon, I brought him some clothes.

There was nothing missing beside his bed.

My brother had brought porridge.

Gu Ye had bought a phone charger.

Lin Che had brought the laptop Xia Chuan had left at work.

Wen Li had even brought his usual pillow from home.

A card stood at the head of the bed.

[A friendly reminder from Four Unlucky Souls: Make it out alive. We still have partying to do this weekend.]

I stood there with my bag for a few seconds, wondering what I could possibly bring him now.

A nurse came in to confirm his details.

“Mr. Xia, is Wen Li still your emergency contact?”

I looked at him instinctively.

He visibly stiffened for a moment, then reached for me.

“She helped fill out the forms at my last company checkup and put herself down. I keep forgetting to change it.”

Wen Li hurried to explain too.

“He didn’t want to bother with the forms, so I filled them out for everyone. It really didn’t mean anything.”

I didn’t ask why *everyone* had not included me.

The answer was simple enough.

They had been together when the form appeared.

I hadn’t.

When I said nothing, Xia Chuan sounded almost exasperated.

“It’s just an emergency contact. Don’t take it personally again. I’ll change it when I’m discharged.”

I nodded and put his clothes in the cabinet.

As I was leaving, Wen Li followed and pressed an extra portion of the porridge my brother had bought into my hands.

“Chuan said not to wake you last night. He knows how busy you’ve been these past two days.”

Looking at the cold porridge, I remembered 1:07 a.m.

I had still been awake.

I had even sent Xia Chuan a message.

[What time are you picking me up tomorrow morning?]

He still hadn’t replied.

That evening, back home, I changed the emergency contact in my contacts list to myself.

Then I found a health-check card from seven years earlier in a drawer.

On the back was the phone number Xia Chuan had written himself.

He had told me to call him first, whatever happened to me.

I stared for a long time at the number I had long known by heart. Finally, I picked up a pen and crossed it out.

I wasn’t sulking.

Someone who had stopped putting me first didn’t need to keep the first place on my list.

The transfer paperwork went through quickly.

HR told me to report to Hangzhou on Monday.

I told no one.

It wasn’t a deliberate attempt to get back at them.