Chapter 14: Not Fate

Mei Xiaoran opened her flat door in a sleeping mask pushed up into her bleached hair.

"It's eleven at night," she said. "Who died?"

"Nobody. Can I sleep on your couch?"

Mei looked at Tang Yu's face, took the laptop bag off her shoulder, and stood aside.

"I'll make instant noodles," she said. "You're going to tell me, and I'm going to be calm."

She was not calm.

"She did what?" she shouted, twenty minutes later, with a noodle fork in the air.

Tang Yu only nodded.

"For two years?"

"Two years. In secret."

Mei sat down hard on the arm of the couch and stared at the noodles.

"Then she wrote the thing that matched you with her, and sent for you under a fake ticket."

"It wasn't a fake ticket. It was real. She really did ask for me."

"Tang Yu."

Mei put the fork down.

"I cannot get my cousin to learn spreadsheets."

"She did this for you and didn't even ask for a thank-you."

"She also lied."

"Did she say a false thing?"

Tang Yu thought about it.

"No," she said slowly. "She can't. She just didn't say the true ones."

"I would punch her," said Mei. "And then I would name my firstborn after her."

"Mei."

"I'm just saying, you've got the good problem. Go and read."

Tang Yu took the couch and the laptop and a blanket that smelled of laundry soap.

She opened the history in the dark.

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