4 Unwavering Determination

"Second floor, door number 23. Here is it. Welcome back to your room, Yuelin!" Aoning cheered as she finished typing the password to open the gleaming steel door.

"The password is 271093 in case you haven't recalled it yet." Aoning turned to Yuelin. "Well, have you?"

Yuelin smiled sadly at the friend who had literally saved her and often checked up on her at the hospital.

"I have no collection of anything before I woke up from the coma. It was truly a blank state for me. Aoning, I'm sorry if I-"

Yuelin's sentence was stopped short by a sudden hug that enveloped her.

"It's okay, Yue yue. I understand." Aoning continued in a small voice. "I will do my best to help you adjust to university life again. Next time, just don't... don't sleep too long without telling me first, okay?"

The arms that embraced Yuelin slightly tightened before it was loosened to reveal Aoning's brimming eyes.

"En. I will be in your care."

Aoning laughed. "First, don't be so formal with me. My room is number 25, only two doors away from yours. In the future, don't hesitate to knock or ring me up if you need something."

Yuelin nodded as she dropped two bags of clothes and took in the room that will be hers for the next one year, at the very least.

Aoning helped her unpack. While doing so, the enthusiastic girl kept pointing at random objects in the room and told Yuelin what she remembered about each object.

"That picture is one of your best works. It got a seven mark out of ten and probably the highest score you had ever achieved in aesthetic drawing class."

Yuelin looked at the 60 cm x 60 cm black frame that was divided equally into nine parts of small canvases. There were nine drawings and all of them had the same subject painted on it. But each subject was drawn with different style. "I made this?"

"Yup! Don't worry, those agonizing time when we must use our hand to manually draw and paint in the first two semesters was long gone! We will do more research and analyzing in this fourth year though."

"I see."

"There are more artworks. You probably found some in your room at home."

She did.

In fact, her home at City K was adorned with lots of framed art ranging from a drawing sketch to a fully finished painting. It just never crossed her mind that she might be the artist behind the works.

Maybe Yingjie-gege and mother mentioned about it in the passing, but Yuelin was likely too busy ogling the amazing box called television and the wonder of preserving food via refrigator and oven.

Not to forget a mishap she unfortunately encountered with the air conditioner in her room.

On her third night back at home, she accidentally set the AC at the lowest temperature without knowing how to turn it back to normal.

In the morning, her family found her fully wrapped in blanket, nearly freezing from head to toe. Her father almost rushed her to the nearest hospital right there and then.

The next day, to prevent another accident from happening, little Rui decided to sleep with Yuelin.

They lied side by side since that night.

Little Rui was really a lovely child. He always held her hand before falling asleep. Sometimes little Rui would mumble the word 'big sister' and 'noob' in his sleep.

Yuelin recalled that one time little Rui had a nightmare, he tightened his grip on Yuelin's hand and repeatedly shouted, "Don't go!"

Yuelin was instantly awake. She moved fast and hugged her little brother while saying, "Big sister is here. Big sister is here. Big sister isn't going anywhere, little Rui."

She chanted the words so many times until Little Rui stopped crying. It was when Yuelin finally realized the depth of loss the family must have felt during her coma.

A feeling of guilt rose within her.

But looking at the sleeping little Rui who unconsciously snuggled at her to seek comfort, Yuelin promised to not waste this chance in life. She will love and cherish this family in the original Han Yuelin's place.

Mother, father, Yingjie-gege, little Rui...

"All settled!"

Yuelin's thought returned back to reality.

"I'm finished here. Is there any other stuff we have to unpack?" Aoning asked.

"Ah, no. That was the last bag. We can go now," Yuelin answered, referring to their initial plan.

Aoning glanced at her watch. "There are plenty of time. I can take you around first for the memory-therapy thing. Maybe you will get to recognize something along the way."