Chapter 5
Edward Quan ·
[At least tell me what I did wrong.]
I looked at it for a while before replying.
[You know. You just never thought those things mattered.]
His reply came quickly.
[They matter to me now. Can’t I change?]
I didn’t answer again.
Realizing you were about to lose something and suddenly valuing it didn’t mean you could put everything back where it had been.
That night, my brother sent me a screenshot.
It was the history of *Four Unlucky Souls*.
Lin Che had asked:
[When did we even start this group?]
Gu Ye replied:
[It’s been so long. I’ve forgotten.]
My brother scrolled back for a long time.
Finally, he posted:
[Found it.]
The first message was nine years old.
My brother had written it.
[Zhiyi’s eighteenth birthday. Anyone who lets it slip is a dog.]
I stared at that sentence for a long time.
The chat that had eventually shut me out completely had begun as a place to plan a birthday surprise for me.
My brother sent screenshots of the earliest conversations to our five-person group, one after another.
Nine years earlier, the four of them had secretly created *Four Unlucky Souls* to organize my eighteenth birthday.
Gu Ye ordered the cake.
Lin Che collected the camera I had wanted for so long.
My brother got me to the restaurant under false pretenses.
Xia Chuan kept reminding them:
[Nobody breathe a word. She’s definitely going to cry.]
I had cried that day.
I had always thought it was the happiest time the five of us had shared.
After the birthday, they never disbanded the chat.
At first, the four of them used it for games.
Then they began talking about exams, internships, and job hunting.
When Wen Li appeared, my brother casually added her.
From that day, their conversations grew livelier.
Our five-person chat, the one with me in it, grew quieter.
When Gu Ye found the day Wen Li had been added, he sent just one word.
[Fuck.]
Much later, Lin Che followed.
[So that’s how it happened.]
Wen Li said nothing.
The next day, she messaged me privately.
I had never removed her from my friends list. We simply rarely spoke.
She sent a long message.
[Zhiyi, I want to apologize.]
I didn’t reply.
She sent another.
[I always thought it was just a smaller group they’d kept from when they first knew each other. I didn’t think much about it after they added me.]
A while later, she corrected herself.
[That’s not true. I did think about it.]
This time, I stopped working.
She continued.
[Sometimes you posted in the bigger group and no one replied, while they were talking about other things in the smaller one. I saw it.]
[I knew there were lots of things you didn’t know, but I never reminded them to tell you.]
[Because I liked feeling like I belonged.]
For the first time, I felt she was actually telling the truth.
She hadn’t stolen anyone’s place.
The four others had given it to her.
But once she was sitting in it, she had never thought about the person outside.
I replied:
[I’ve received your apology. You don’t need to explain for them.]
Her answer came quickly.
[I’m not explaining for them. I’m talking about what I did wrong.]
After thinking for a while, I wrote:
[Then let’s leave it there.]
It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t a demand for accountability either.
I was simply no longer interested in circling around that chat, debating who was more at fault.
Elsewhere, a real argument broke out in the secret group for the first time.
Not over me, but over a question Gu Ye asked.
[Why did we decide Zhiyi didn’t like hearing about this stuff?]
My brother said:
[She always said it was fine.]
Lin Che immediately replied:
[Her saying it’s fine and us not telling her are different things.]
Xia Chuan stayed silent.
Then Gu Ye found a conversation from three years earlier.
That day, I had asked in the bigger group:
[Is anyone free this weekend? It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death. I’d like us to have dinner together.]
No one had replied.
At the same time, they were discussing whether to help Wen Li move for the first time.
Half an hour later, Xia Chuan wrote in the smaller chat:
[Let’s all go. Zhiyi can probably handle things herself.]
After the screenshot was posted, the group stayed silent for a long time.
Finally, Xia Chuan wrote one sentence.
[I said that.]
No one made excuses for him.
By then, even he couldn’t find one.
A week later, Xia Chuan came to Hangzhou.