The person close to her? That had to be Ji Feifei, right? After all, the first person she saw after waking up was Ji Feifei. They must be close.
However, putting the warning aside, there was something about Ji Feifei that made Li Lanni instinctively want to hide away and protect herself. Was she being paranoid?
If she looked at Ji Feifei right now, she would realize that the latter's face had paled with fright... and a pinch of regret.
"Lanni..." she laughed. "When we were younger, you would receive similar notes. They are all pranks."
"Really?" Li Lanni laughed too. Was Ji Feifei that bad at making excuses or did she take her for a fool? Li Lanni made a mental note to keep some distance from her.
Ji Feifei continued chattering on. "Yes. Everyone is so jealous of you. You are beautiful, have excellent grades and are basically everything any young woman would ever wish to be. It would be surprising if those jealous b*tches didn't come up with ways to make you misunderstand everything. You know, many people know about..."
Li Lanni was no longer listening. She studied the girl before her inch by inch. There was definitely more to this girl than meets the eye.
"I want to be alone." She dismissed.
Ji Feifei scrunched her eyebrows into a frown while her lips curled into a sneer. It was just for a brief second, but it did not escape Li Lanni's sharp scrutiny.
What left her mouth was anything but. "Then I will see you later. I will also bring your favorite chocolate when I visit you again."
Li Lanni almost rolled her eyes.
Although they had not interacted very much, one thing was apparent. Ji Feifei did not like her.
Which made her wonder... why, then, was she pretending to be her friend? The thought of it made Li Lanni shiver.
Just a few hours later, Li Lanni noticed something that was a strange coincidence. While she was looking through her books, she noticed that her handwriting and that on the note....were at least 80% similar!
She definitely did not write it. How strange...was there someone from her class with a similar handwriting?
Apparently, that was the same thing Ji Feifei was thinking. She wanted to know if it was written by someone from their class. The person cleverly did not use text or email because that could be tracked.
For a reason she did not understand, Li Lanni kept the note safely and looked through her books hoping to find a diary. Most girls kept some, right? It would be great if she kept one too. Maybe it would help her remember something as well as answer some questions.
___
For the following few weeks, Li Yuming spent most of her time taking care of her daughter.
Li Lanni's health improved a great deal.
Ji Feifei would drop by a few times too. However, Li Lanni was already uneasy about her presence so she would find all sorts of excuses to send her off.
But in this period, she had realized that Ji Feifei seemed to be very close to her mother. And according to the latter, she and Ji Feifei had been friends for many years.
How was that even possible?
Thus Li Lanni believed that there had to be a reason why she was Ji Feifei's friend. It must be the same reason why Li Yuming trusted her. She even had a weird instinctive feeling that she needed to know as much about Ji Feifei as possible.
For that to happen, she could not show her claws yet. The best way was to pretend to not suspect a thing. She should act as clueless as possible.
That was why when Ji Feifei told her about a welcome party that had supposedly been organized by their classmates, she agreed to to.
That was right. They were in the same University.
Because she had been missing for six months, Li Lanni had yet to decide whether she should go back to school. However, this was just a welcome party. It shouldn't matter much.
That Saturday evening, Li Lanni took a bath and changed into a simple black dress and a matching pair of high heels. Then she let Ji Feifei pick her up.