After falling asleep on the bus, Su Cui drifted into a dream, hazy and confused.
She usually slept well, so why was she dreaming? Su Cui turned over uncomfortably, unable to get comfortable against the seat back. Only when Su Baixue noticed and gently moved her grandmother's head onto her own shoulder did Su Cui's furrowed brow relax as she sank into a vague dream.
It was a magnificent dream. She seemed to be in a lavishly decorated hall, with the fragrance of perfume and the shimmer of silk. The lights overhead were blindingly bright.
Su Cui felt herself walking unconsciously until she stopped before a table. In front of her was a woman with heavy makeup. Suddenly, all the light in the hall vanished, leaving only the woman's face glowing. Su Cui wanted to see her face clearly, but she couldn't.
She must be a very beautiful woman, Su Cui thought.
She urgently pushed through the surrounding crowd, trying to get closer to see the woman's face, but everything was blurry. She could only make out the woman's big wavy hair cascading over her shoulders, her red lips, and the teardrop-shaped gem earrings she wore.
"Big, come on!"
"Small!"
"Big, big, big!"
"Small, small, small!"
The sudden increase in chaotic shouts startled Su Cui.
Only then did she realize she seemed to be next to a gambling table. Besides the woman in front of her, there was also a short-haired woman wearing a mask shaking a dice cup. Her jade-white arms moved like magic, flipping back and forth, shaking left and right, sometimes fast, sometimes slow...
Su Cui realized she was dreaming.
Because the sounds around her were sometimes loud and sometimes soft, and the movements of the dice cup were sometimes fast and sometimes slow, like an old silent film clashing with a vivid, colorful scene. It was dizzying.
Su Cui's head hurt.
The sound of the dice cup grew louder, like amplified noise cutting through her ear canals.
Finally, the short-haired woman slammed the dice cup onto the table with a "smack." A sweet voice came from behind the mask with its eerie smile. "Place your bets. No more changes."
She was going to lose, Su Cui thought.
The dream seemed to be covered with a black cloth. Everything went pitch black and fell silent.
"...Did I win?" a man asked from the dark shadows.
Su Cui saw the woman in front of her flip her curly hair over her shoulder and say flatly, without any emotion, "You lost."
"What now? You're out of chips. Want to keep gambling?" Another voice, magnetic and slow, spoke in the darkness. Its deliberate tone seemed to carry a strange pleasure, as if sure it would get a satisfying answer.
"How is that possible? How could I lose?" The owner of the voice was utterly incredulous, even angrily provoked.
"You're out of chips. Want to keep gambling?"
"No chips? How... I... how?! Please, let me gamble one more time!"
"Then trade with that woman..."
Su Cui saw the red lips curve into a smile, full and seductive, glowing brightly in the darkness.
She was dead.
Even though she could still breathe.
In the overwhelming sorrow Su Cui felt, she tried to grab the woman with her hand, but her hand passed through. The crowd grew crowded, and all the strange faces appeared like ghosts, twisting into elongated figures.
"Grandma."
"Grandma, we're here."
"Grandma, wake up. We're home." A soft, clear voice was very familiar.
Su Cui woke up dazedly.
Su Baixue couldn't help but laugh at her grandmother's rare, blank expression. She said softly, "Grandma, we're home. Let's get off."
"Oh... oh." Su Cui stood up with help from Su Baixue. Su Baixue's arm was numb, but she didn't say anything. They hurried to the back door of the bus.
Getting off the bus, the cold wind blew, and Su Cui gradually became more alert.
She rubbed her throbbing head and looked back as the bus slowly drove away.
The distant sun had already set, and black bugs danced around the streetlights. In a daze, Su Cui remembered she had just had a dream.
But she couldn't recall the content.
Only the bright red lips from the dream remained.
Thinking of this, she looked at her granddaughter beside her. Su Baixue's lip color was very pale. At her age, a girl's greatest beauty was her youth—pure and simple, like a tender bean sprout.
"Let's go back, let's go back."
...
The start of high school in the book was the opposite of Su Cui's original reality.
The first year started in September. After persistent heat, it quickly turned cool, then came the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. In the blink of an eye, Su Cui had been in the book world for four months. From unfamiliarity to gradual adaptation, time was always powerful, enough to soothe all changes.
He Li was still in the hospital. The thugs stayed out of trouble. The remaining small fry were dealt with by Su Cui quickly—some were caught in sacks, others knocked out in advance. The first semester of high school passed very peacefully, and soon it was finals.
On the eve of the exam, Su Baixue took her notes to the office to ask questions. Before leaving, she helped the teacher print the exam roster.
Near the printer were scattered a few sheets of Class 10's exam roster. She glanced and saw the last line.
It read: Absent, Su Yang.