I kept my promise. Kind of.

Like she had said, Xi Hua called her friend Ning Ling to come stay with Chen, then she left after saying goodbye to Chen.

Yu Chen stretched as she closed her laptop and gave an apologetic smile to Ning Ling, who was sitting on thr couch, browsing through the channels on the T.V.

"I'm so sorry. I told Hua that I would be just fine by myself." She said.

Ning Ling looked at her with a kind smile, "Don't mention it. Hua is always covering my shift anyway. I'm just happy to do something for her."

Chen: "Really?"

Ling: "Yeah. She's always saying that she has too much free time, what with her boyfriend so absorbed in work."

Yu Chen tilted her head as Ning Ling went on, "Still, I admire Hua's boyfriend. He's the CTO of such a successful company at such a young age! It's almost unimaginable."

Chen picked up the glass of milk Xi Hua had set out for her as she listened to Ning Ling talk. No wonder she was such good friends with Xi Hua, they both seemed to love talking.

Just as Yu Chen brought the glass to her lips, she frowned.

Ling's talk broke almost instantly as she asked, "What's wrong? You're not feeling well?"

Chen shook her head, "Something's wrong with my stomach. Just the smell of this makes me feel weird."

Ning Ling frowned as she sniffed the milk, "Seems fine to me. Anyway, you shouldn't waste perfectly good milk."

Chen said as she got up, "I feel like drinking coffee. I'll make coffee from this milk."

Ling frowned, "Coffee isn't good so late at night. Milk is best. Best I can do is juice."

Chen sighed. All these health conscious people were really getting on her nerves.

She said, "Okay. Juice it is. Do you want something? I can re-heat this milk for you."

Ling smiled, "That would be great. I love milk!"

Yu Chen sniffed at the milk again as she entered the kitchen.

She sighed, "Hua, you could have done better than that. Anyway, I was looking for a opportunity. And you just gave me the perfect one!"

She then re-heated the milk and went back to the living room with it and a glass of juice.

The two girls sunk in silence as they watched T.V. It was fine while she was on her laptop, Chen forgot everything while she coded, but now all that swam through her mind was Si Xia's words and face from this morning.

She looked up from her thoughts after some time to find Ning Ling's breathing had deepened.

"Seems like you wanted to take no chances, huh?" Chen muttered to herself as she sneaked into the bathroom.

As she opened the window, a gust of cold wind blew in. Yu Chen shivered.

"It's cold. But I don't have any time. Xia might come back any time. Maybe he's already back. All I need is for him to stop ghosting me." Chen thought to herself as she climbed on the bathroom window.

After she had climbed down, Chen looked up at the apartment building and muttered, "Sorry Hua. But I kept my promise. I didn't take a step out of the door. Not really."