Chapter 455: Eternity 16.

did not seem to hear when Lili quietly asked whether the call had ended.

It took Yan Cijin touching her arm for Mother Yan to finally lower the

phone. Her fingers had gone pale from gripping it too tightly. She

placed it on the table with careful movements, as though any sudden

action might somehow break the last connection she had with Aunt Lan.

"We can try calling again," Yan said softly.

Mother Yan nodded at once. She called the number back. The response came

before the call could properly ring. The phone was switched off. She

ended the attempt and tried again, then once more, but the result never

changed. The same flat message repeated itself, each time making the

room feel a little colder.

Bai Li did not fill the silence with comforting words. She knew that

Mother Yan would not believe any promise that Aunt Lan was safe, and it

would be cruel to pretend that the man on the other end had merely been

annoyed by a phone call. The warning had been clear. Aunt Lan had chosen

her words carefully, and the background voices had made it obvious that

she was not in control of her situation. Bai could not tell whether the

danger was immediate or whether Aunt Lan had simply been caught breaking

a rule, but she had heard fear beneath the tired humor in the woman’s

voice. That was enough to take the warning seriously.

Yan Cijin stayed beside her mother for the rest of the evening. Mother

Yan tried to return to the work she had been doing before the phone

rang, but her attention drifted away from the page. She entered a number

incorrectly, noticed it, and erased it. Then she began cleaning the

table, even though it was already clean. She kept one hand near the

phone as she moved around the kitchen, as if she expected it to ring

again the moment she stopped watching it.

"Mom," Yan said after a while, "you should sit down. I’ll finish the

list."

"I’m fine. It’s only a list."

"I can see that. Sit down anyway."

Mother Yan looked at her daughter, and for a second the usual firmness

in her face disappeared. Then she smiled, a small, practiced smile that

did not reach her eyes. "You have enough to do. I don’t want you

worrying about me."

Yan felt something tighten in her chest. She had heard that sentence in

more than one life, in more than one room. Mother Yan had always tried

to keep her worries to herself, as though a mother could protect her

daughter from sorrow by refusing to name it. In the lives Yan

remembered, she had often been too late to understand what her mother

had been carrying. She had seen the signs afterward and recognized how

much had been hidden behind ordinary words.

This time, Yan wanted to tell her that she did not have to hide

anything. She wanted to explain that the call could change everything,

that Aunt Lan was not merely an old friend from her mother’s past, and

that there were things Yan remembered about their future that she could

not bear to see happen again. But every version of that explanation

opened a door she could not yet let anyone walk through. If she told

Mother Yan that she had lived this world nine times, that she knew how

some of these tragedies had unfolded, the truth would not make the

present easier to navigate. It would change every conversation between

them. It would turn each ordinary decision into a question about what

Yan knew and why she had waited to say it.

She could not do that. Not now.

So she moved the chair out for her mother and kept her voice gentle.

"I’m worrying because I love you. That isn’t something you need to

protect me from."

Mother Yan’s face softened. She sat down, but she did not answer. Yan

took the notebook and finished recording the supplies, then brought her

mother a cup of warm water. They remained together in the kitchen until

the room grew quiet again.

Bai watched from the far side of the table. She was careful not to

interfere with the conversation between mother and daughter, yet she

could not ignore the heaviness that had settled over Yan. The other

woman kept functioning, answering questions and checking on Lili, but a

part of her attention had turned inward. She was trying not to let

anyone see how deeply the call had affected her.

That was the part Bai understood. She did not know the history between

Aunt Lan and Mother Yan, and she did not know why Yan looked as though

she had heard something worse than a warning. But she recognized the

shape of grief that had not yet found a place to go. Yan had been steady

through fights, repairs, and the long days of keeping their home safe.

Now, after a phone call, she seemed to be holding herself together by

force.

Bai wanted to ask what Yan was thinking. She wanted to take her

somewhere quiet, sit beside her, and let her speak without worrying that

the others might overhear. But she also knew that Yan would not thank

her for pushing. Their closeness had always depended on a certain

patience. Bai would not make Yan explain a feeling simply because she

was worried.

Instead, she washed the cups, dried the table, and made sure the balcony

door was locked. When she passed Yan, she placed a fresh cup of tea

beside her hand. Yan looked up in surprise.

"You haven’t had anything warm since dinner," Bai said.

Yan looked at the cup, then at Bai. "Thank you."

"You don’t need to thank me for tea."

"I know. I still can."

Bai gave a small nod and sat down beside her. Their shoulders touched.

Neither moved away. For a while, the only sound was the distant wind

against the windows and the quiet hum of the power unit. Yan stared at

the surface of the tea, and Bai stayed beside her without asking

anything more.

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TO BE CONTINUED.