The computer screen showed it was 8:00 PM.
Wen Qi felt suffocated.
His supervisor was a native Englishman. However, the supervisor's wife was a professor in "East Asian Studies"—she was fluent in Chinese and Japanese. She would definitely be able to read this email.
The email's subject line even included the Indian senior's name.
In the body of the email, there were scattered English words like "supervisor" and "viciouswitch."
As long as the Indian senior copied and pasted the email content into an online Chinese-to-English translator, she would roughly understand what Wen Qi meant to express.
Wen Qi had never encountered such a situation before.
His face turned pale, and as soon as his fingers touched the keyboard, he knocked over his coffee cup. Warm coffee splashed onto his legs, and his email notification chimed again.
He glanced over and saw that the Indian senior had sent an email.
The subject of her email was "weotalk (we need to talk)."
We need to talk.
Wen Qi did not reply to the senior.
His soul had left his body. His physical form remained in the dormitory, but his consciousness had shattered into countless fragments. He was no longer a complete, independent person; he was a broken, tattered doll.
It was a dark and gloomy night, with torrential rain pouring down. Wen Qi could neither go out to clear his mind nor hide in his dorm room to smoke—every student room was equipped with fire alarms that would emit a piercing, terrifying shriek at the slightest detection of smoke.
Wen Qi pulled out his phone, wanting to chat with his undergraduate classmates. He wondered how other students would handle such a situation. Since last year, he had been using a social app called "WeChat." He sent a message to one of his undergraduate classmates: "Hello."
A prompt appeared on the phone screen: "The other party has enabled friend verification; you are not yet their friend..."
Wen Qi had been deleted from his classmate's friend list.
His WeChat contacts originally had seventeen people.
Now, there were only sixteen left.
Growing increasingly anxious, he immediately pressed the power-off button.
Outside the window, the rain poured down relentlessly, showing no signs of letting up.
The next day, Wen Qi did not come to the Laboratory.
He had turned off his phone and was not responding to any messages, as if he had vanished from the face of the earth.
Most of the students in the research group had used a "Chinese-to-English translator" to read Wen Qi's email. The morning meeting felt slightly awkward; no one brought up the incident from the previous night. Aishwarya misspoke two words in a row during her presentation.
Aishwarya's expression was grim.
She held a marker and wrote a formula on a whiteboard.
With her back to everyone, she suddenly spoke: "aytosolvethatproblebeforebeingasupervisor. (If a student dislikes me or fails to meet my expectations, what should I do? I wish I had considered how to solve this problem before becoming a supervisor.)"
Senior Aishwarya's attitude was very sincere.
At that moment, their supervisor spoke up.The advisor said that all students in the group would play important roles in their respective fields after graduation. He hoped everyone could remain patient, and he would always be available to offer assistance.
Thus, their morning meeting concluded in a harmonious and friendly atmosphere.
Senior aishwarya stood up to leave. Her figure was reflected on a glass door, the white light from the grid lamps spilling over her head, making her silhouette appear particularly lonely.
Lin Zhixia quickly called out to stop her.
They stood together outside the meeting room, and Lin Zhixia sincerely apologized to her.
Lin Zhixia explained that the reason Wen Qi had sent the wrong email was because she had asked him why Senior aishwarya—such a kind and intelligent person—had been complained about by undergraduates. Since Lin Zhixia was about to become a teaching assistant next semester and had never taught foreign students before, she was especially afraid of making mistakes.
After hearing Lin Zhixia’s words, aishwarya didn’t seem angry with her at all.
Lin Zhixia felt relieved.
However, aishwarya then immediately said that Wen Qi had greatly disappointed her.
Disappointed?
Was Senior still upset?
As it turned out, aishwarya was more than just angry—she was furious.
aishwarya and Lin Zhixia had collaborated on a paper. That paper had included some contributions from Wen Qi, but aishwarya outright deleted all of his work and replaced it with a different experimental method.
And Wen Qi hadn’t shown his face for an entire week.
He had emailed the advisor, lying that he was feeling unwell and needed to rest at home for a few days. He quietly stayed in his dorm reading papers, waking early and sleeping late, maintaining high study efficiency.
During this time, the only person willing to chat with him was a young woman he had met at a banquet. Her name was Miao Danyi, and she spoke excellent Chinese with a deep interest in Chinese culture. Wen Qi could exchange about ten sentences with Miao Danyi each day—which, for him, was already tremendous progress. His conversations with his parents usually consisted of just one line: "I'm alive, I'm studying."
Wen Qi’s parents ran a business in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region. He had an older brother and an older sister at home. His parents didn’t pay much attention to him, and aside from sending him money, his siblings rarely communicated with him.
So, sooner or later, he was destined to get used to a solitary life.
Yet his peaceful world was shattered at noon on Saturday.
At twelve o’clock that day, he first received a WeChat message from Miao Danyi: "Where do you live?"
He didn’t reply.
Moments later, Miao Danyi sent another message: "I asked around and found out. I’m coming over."
He nearly lost his mind.
At twelve-thirty, his phone buzzed again.
This time, it was Lin Zhixia: "Wen Qi, you haven’t been to the lab for a week. The advisor said you’re sick, and we’re all a little worried about you. Are you feeling okay? I promised the others I’d check on you. Can I visit with my boyfriend? I’ll bring some food—hope you don’t mind. (I was thinking of bringing Claypot Rice—I remember you often eat it at school.)"
Wen Qi’s gaze fixed on one line: The advisor said you’re sick, and we’re all a little worried about you.
He couldn’t help but feel dazed.Having spent so many years in England, how many times had he endured illnesses on his own? Stomach pain? Take painkillers. Fever? Bundle up under the blankets and sleep it off—drowsy, half-dreaming, only to wake up to a cold stove and empty pots.
The weather was exceptionally clear today, and Lin Zhixia was in high spirits.
Holding Jiang Yubai’s hand, Lin Zhixia walked with him toward Wen Qi’s student dormitory. Jiang Yubai asked her, “Did Wen Qi only reply with one word?”
“Yes,” Lin Zhixia relayed honestly, “He said, ‘okay.’”
Jiang Yubai suggested, “Let’s leave the plastic bag at his doorstep, and you can come home with me.”
Lin Zhixia linked her arm with his: “We should say hello to him.”
Jiang Yubai carried a plastic bag in his right hand. Inside were a portion of Claypot Rice, a plate of chicken wings, a box of strawberries, and a bottle of orange juice that Lin Zhixia had bought from a restaurant.
At noon, Lin Zhixia had made a special trip to the restaurant to personally buy lunch for Wen Qi.
Jiang Yubai felt a faint sense of unease. He knew that Lin Zhixia’s nature was inherently kind and soft-hearted. Back in elementary school, she had been quite good to Ding Yan and Dong Sunqi, even treating everyone to strawberry candies—those candies from back then were no different from today’s lunch.
Moreover, international students abroad, far from home and without relatives, were like rootless duckweeds. Life wasn’t easy for anyone, and looking out for one another embodied the traditional virtues of “unity and kindness.”
In just a few seconds, Jiang Yubai suppressed his jealousy and rationalized his thoughts. Calmly, he said, “Wen Qi sent the wrong email. No one in your group has brought it up again, so it’s pretty much over. If there’s a chance, it’d be best for him and the senior to talk it out.”
“Right, that’s what I think too,” Lin Zhixia agreed.
Jiang Yubai left it at that: “You’ll still need to collaborate on papers in the future.”
Mentioning the paper troubled Lin Zhixia: “The senior removed all of Wen Qi’s contributions. This article could have been published in Nature , which would have been good for Wen Qi. It’s because of my issue that he sent the wrong email.”
Jiang Yubai tightened his grip on her hand: “Don’t take all the blame on yourself…”
Jiang Yubai’s words trailed off.
“What’s wrong?” Lin Zhixia asked him.
At the foot of the student dormitory, Jiang Yubai spotted Miao Danyi.
The dormitory building was close to the street, where pedestrians streamed past continuously. For the moment, Miao Danyi hadn’t noticed Lin Zhixia and Jiang Yubai nearby.
Just then, Wen Qi, draped in a trench coat, stepped out of the main entrance. Wen Qi and Miao Danyi seemed very familiar with each other—Miao Danyi jumped up to pat his shoulder and naturally straightened his collar for him.
He didn’t resist much, yielding half-heartedly.
“Is that his girlfriend?” Lin Zhixia asked.
Jiang Yubai pondered for a moment before replying, “Hard to say.”
“What do you mean?” Lin Zhixia reacted swiftly. “Do you know that girl?”
Jiang Yubai was honest with her: “She’s the girlfriend of one of my classmates.”
This was Lin Zhixia’s first time facing such a situation. She tended to think optimistically. With a composed expression, she said, “Maybe she knows Wen Qi too, is concerned about him, and dropped by to check on him.”
Beyond that, Lin Zhixia made no further assumptions.
OpenNovel