Chapter 457: Eternity 18.

She did not ask about the call directly, but

she looked at Yan as if checking whether she had slept. Yan answered

that she was fine before Bai asked anything. Bai did not challenge her

answer. She simply moved the bowl of fruit closer and told her to eat

something before it became warm.

Breakfast passed with more ordinary conversation than anyone felt. Lili

wanted to know whether she could use her toy toolbox to help fix the

plant shelf. Mother Yan said they should check the plants first. Bai

explained that the shelf was already secure and that there was no reason

to repair something that did not need repairing. Yan looked at Bai

pointedly. Bai ignored her. Lili giggled because she had figured out

that this was another one of their jokes.

After breakfast, the household returned to work. Bai inspected the water

system and checked the stored supplies. Yan reviewed the training

schedule with Mother Yan, then helped Lili with her little plant chart.

Mother Yan spent part of the morning recording the food inventory and

part of it preparing a small amount of medicine for one of the residents

in the building. She was careful, efficient, and polite whenever someone

approached her, but the life seemed to have gone out of her usual

warmth.

Yan tried to draw her into conversation several times. She asked whether

the training session should be moved to the afternoon. She asked whether

her mother wanted help organizing the medicine. She asked whether they

had enough clean cloth for the next week. Mother Yan answered every

question, but she did not volunteer anything beyond what was necessary.

When Yan asked if she was feeling unwell, Mother Yan gave her a look of

mild surprise and said that she was perfectly fine.

Bai watched the exchange from the kitchen doorway. She had seen Yan push

herself to keep moving when she was upset, but Mother Yan’s silence was

different. She seemed to be protecting everyone else from her worry,

perhaps because she did not want them to feel that the call had become

another responsibility. Bai understood the impulse. She had hidden

things for much the same reason, though her secrets were far larger and

harder to name.

Near midday, Bai found Yan standing by the balcony doors, looking across

the complex toward the road. She had a notebook in one hand, but she was

not reading it. Her gaze remained fixed on the distant streets where

abandoned cars filled the intersections.

Bai approached quietly. "You haven’t looked at that page in five

minutes."

Yan blinked and lowered the notebook. "I was thinking."

"About Shanghai?"

Yan studied Bai’s face, perhaps wondering how much the other woman had

noticed. "About my mother. She keeps saying she’s fine, but she isn’t."

"No," Bai said. "She isn’t."

Yan seemed relieved that Bai had not tried to deny it. She looked back

through the window. "She won’t say anything to us."

"Maybe she doesn’t know how to say it. Maybe she thinks it would make us

worry."

"It already makes me worry."

Bai stayed silent for a moment, then leaned her shoulder against the

wall beside Yan. "You don’t have to solve it all by yourself."

Yan’s expression changed. She looked at Bai, and for a moment the

careful control she had been maintaining loosened. "I know."

Bai wanted to tell her that she would go wherever Yan needed to go. She

wanted to promise that no person important to Yan would ever be lost if

Bai could help it. But those promises were dangerous, and she did not

want to make them lightly. She did not know what waited in Shanghai, and

she did not know whether Aunt Lan was in a place where Bai’s strength

could help. So she kept her voice steady and said, "We’ll figure out

what we can do."

Yan nodded. They stood together for another minute, the sunlight pale

through the glass, the distant city quiet in the way it became quiet

when everyone was hiding. Yan’s shoulder touched Bai’s. Neither stepped

away.

When Lili called them from the kitchen, they returned to the ordinary

work of the apartment. Bai checked the water filter one more time, Yan

finished the inventory, and Mother Yan prepared lunch. The day

continued, but the call had changed its shape. It was no longer only a

frightening interruption. It had become a question waiting for an

answer, and everyone in the apartment could feel it even though no one

wanted to be the first to say what it meant.

The Decision at the Balcony Doors

The decision did not come during a dramatic argument or a moment when

somebody finally lost patience. It came quietly, the way many important

decisions had come since the apocalypse began. Later that afternoon,

after the dishes had been washed and the apartment had settled into a

brief lull, Bai found Yan standing near the balcony doors again. The

notebook was still in Yan’s hand, and the page had bent slightly where

her fingers had held it for too long. Beyond the glass, the city

stretched away in layers of gray buildings and pale sky. The streets

were broken, the traffic lights had gone dark, and the occasional

movement far below reminded them that the dead were still out there. But

there was a road leading away from the complex, and somewhere at the

other end of it was Shanghai.

Bai did not approach too quickly. She had learned that Yan often needed

a little time to arrange her thoughts before she could speak about them.

If someone interrupted too soon, Yan would tuck the important part away

and offer a practical answer instead. Bai had done the same thing for

years, though she was less skilled at making it look natural.

"Have you eaten anything since lunch?" Bai asked.

Yan turned. "Yes."

"What?"

"Lunch."

"What part of lunch?"

Yan glanced toward the kitchen, then back at Bai. "The part that was on

my plate."

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TO BE CONTINUED.