Chapter 458: Eternity 19.

"That isn’t an answer."

"It is. You just wanted a more detailed one."

Bai folded her arms. "You were standing here when I went to check the

power unit. You were standing here when I came back. You were still here

when I went to put the tools away. I thought you might have forgotten to

eat."

Yan’s face softened a little. "I ate enough. I’m just thinking."

"About Aunt Lan?"

Yan looked back toward the city. For a moment she seemed to consider

denying it, but then she nodded. "About her, and about my mother. She’s

trying so hard not to worry us that I think it’s making her worry more.

She hasn’t said anything about the call since this morning. She keeps

doing little jobs, as though if she can stay busy enough, she won’t have

to think about what she heard."

"It isn’t working," Bai said.

"No. It isn’t."

Bai moved to stand beside her. She was close enough to see the faint

tension around Yan’s eyes, though Yan’s expression was otherwise

composed. "Do you want to go to Shanghai?"

The question was plain. Bai did not say they had to go, and she did not

say that Yan was responsible for deciding what happened to Aunt Lan. She

simply asked what Yan wanted.

Yan’s hand tightened around the notebook. "I do. But I don’t want to

make that decision for everyone. It’s almost three hundred kilometers

from here. The roads are unknown, and the military safe zone might be

dangerous. We have a place here. Lili is safe. My mother is safe. The

building has people who depend on us, and I don’t want to drag them into

a trip they didn’t choose."

"You’re not dragging anyone. We’d decide together."

Yan let out a slow breath. "I know. I just don’t want you to feel like

you have to go because I’m upset."

Bai turned her head to look at her. There were a dozen ways she could

have answered, but most of them were too easy. She could have said that

saving someone was the right thing to do. She could have said they had

enough supplies, or that she was strong enough to handle the road. All

of that was true, but it was not the part Yan needed to understand.

"If you wanted to go, I would consider it," Bai said. "If your mother

needed help, I’d consider that too. And if someone had called from a

place you were afraid to enter, I’d still want to know why. I don’t make

decisions only because I think I can survive them. I make them because I

have to live with what happens afterward."

Yan listened without looking away.

Bai continued, her voice quieter. "Your mother has been trying to reach

Aunt Lan for days. The call finally got through, and the first thing

Aunt Lan did was warn her not to trust the place she’s staying. Someone

was angry enough to curse her while she was on the phone. We don’t know

what happened after the call ended. We don’t know whether she can

contact anyone again. If we stay here, we might be safer for the moment,

but we’ll always wonder whether we could have helped."

Yan’s eyes lowered to the notebook. She knew that Bai was right, but

what frightened her was not the road. It was the possibility that the

world would find another way to take Aunt Lan from them. She had seen

the end of that story before, more times than she could bear to count.

She had lived through nine different versions of the future, and even

though the memories were not identical, the loss had often come too

early for anyone to understand what it meant. In some lives, Aunt Lan

died far from Mother Yan. In others, the truth of the two women’s

feelings emerged only after there was no one left to hear it. Yan had

carried those memories alone because she did not know how to explain the

impossible fact that she had already lived a future that this world had

not yet reached.

She could not tell Bai. Not yet. Their friendship, their trust, and the

growing tenderness between them mattered too much for Yan to risk

turning every future choice into a question about what she remembered.

If Bai asked whether Yan had ever been here before, or why she sometimes

seemed to anticipate a danger before it appeared, Yan would have to

decide how much truth she could reveal. For now, she could say only what

was true in this life: she wanted to go to Shanghai because Aunt Lan

might be in danger, and she could not bear to let her mother spend the

rest of her life wondering whether she might have been saved.

"I want to go," Yan said at last. "I want to find her. Even if we

discover that she’s fine, I want to see her for myself. I want my mother

to know that we didn’t just stop trying because the road is difficult."

Bai nodded. She had made up her mind before she asked the question, but

she wanted to hear Yan say what she wanted rather than decide for her.

"Then we’ll go."

Yan looked up. "Bai Li, you don’t have to say that so quickly. You

should think about it."

"I have."

"You asked me about it thirty seconds ago."

"I’ve been thinking about the call since last night. I’ve thought about

the route, the supplies, the risks, and the things we’d need to prepare.

Thirty seconds ago, I asked you what you wanted because I didn’t want to

make a decision without you. Now I know."

Yan studied her face, searching for hesitation. "And if the safe zone is

as bad as Aunt Lan seemed to suggest?"

"Then we’ll deal with that when we know what we’re facing. We’ll go in

carefully. We’ll find Aunt Lan, and if she needs help leaving,

.

.

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TO BE CONTINUED.