"The guest room has been prepared for you, Mom, why are you squeezing Ellie into a room?"
"I'm saving on electricity costs."
"It won't use much electricity for one night, and Ellie might need to study at night. You should sleep in the guest room, Mom."
Lavinia spoke up, "Study? What's the use of studying well? Won't she still end up like her father, with a short life span?"
Ellie, who had been silently listening to the conversation, felt as if she had fallen into an ice cellar upon hearing this.
She had always avoided this topic.
Now it was brutally exposed.
And it was her own grandmother who said it, calling her a short-lived breed to her face.
"Mom, Ellie is your own niece. Even if you don't like her, you can't say that. It's too much."
Ellie, who had been silent, spoke up: "She's not wrong." After speaking, she added, "I won't live long, so I just want to make every day of my remaining life happy, doing what I like, that's all."
Jennifer said, "Ellie, don't talk like that. The doctor said there's still a chance for a cure."
Ellie replied, "That's just to comfort people. Birth, aging, sickness, and death are things everyone has to face."
She then looked at Lavinia and said, "I know you don't like me, and that's okay, I don't like you either. I'm going to rest, you can go back now."
After she finished speaking, she closed the bedroom door.
"You see, you see how rude she is. This is what you've taught her? This is how she speaks to her elders? She doesn't like me and speaks to me like that? Oh my, it's outrageous. I'm so angry, I'm so angry."
Jennifer, hearing her words, was also a bit angry and couldn't help but say, "Mom, it was your words that were too much just now. You should hold back."
"Hold back? I won't, I'm going to say it."
The noisy voices at the door soon disappeared.
It seemed that Lavinia was taken back to the guest room.
Ellie looked at the hourglass on the table, then flipped it over, watching the blue sand pass through the small hole and fall to the bottom.
Human life is like an hourglass.
The hourglass will eventually run out.
And human life will eventually come to an end.
She just wants to live out her remaining days well.
Her phone beeped a few times, pulling Ellie back from her thoughts.
She glanced down at her phone and saw a message from Aria.
[Aria]: Picture.
[Aria]: Picture.
[Aria]: Wuwuwu, Ellie, I love my grandma so much, her cooking is so delicious, I'm going to be intoxicated by the aroma.
[Aria]: Picture.
[Aria]: Hahaha, the fashionable little old lady can even pose with a 'V' sign for the camera.
Ellie opened those two photos and looked at them several times. The first was a kind-looking old lady cooking with a smile, and the second was her making a 'V' sign to the camera, looking very warm.
[Ellie]: It looks so delicious.
[Ellie]: Haha, grandma is so cute.
She suddenly remembered that she seemed to have forgotten to reply to William's message. She opened the chat interface with William and saw his last message was.
[William]: Fell asleep?
[Ellie]: No, I was just talking to my grandma.
William almost instantly replied.
[William]: Didn't you say there was no one at home?
[Ellie]: They said they would stay at grandma's house for a few days, but grandma wanted to go to uncle's house, so they came.
[William]: You don't like your grandma?
Ellie stared at his message for a while, then sent back a question mark.
William, seeing the question mark she sent, felt like he might have thought too much and was about to reply when he saw Ellie's reply.
[Little Prude]: She doesn't like me, but it's okay, I don't like her either.
[William]: That's the right way to think, just like my dad, he doesn't care about me, so I don't care about him either.
William looked at the message he had sent and understood that although she said that, she must have cared to some extent.
[William]: Want to say hello to it?
Ellie looked at his message, not yet understanding what it meant, when a video call popped up.
Ellie clicked to accept.
Seeing a black cat sitting in front of the camera, she couldn't help but laugh, her apricot eyes curving.
Coco looked at Ellie in the screen, seemingly very interested in her, stretched out its paw to pat the screen, found it couldn't touch, then "meowed" a few times, seemingly puzzled.
Ellie saw William's face enter the screen, William reached out and rubbed its head, and said, "Do you like it?"
The teenager's eyes and brows were filled with laughter, wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, with superior bone structure and a high nose bridge. He rubbed the cat in his arms and said, "You can't walk when you see something pretty, you're such a little lecherous cat."
Coco "meowed" a few times, seemingly a bit aggrieved.
William saw Ellie laughing in the camera and said to her, "It seems to like you; it was afraid of me when we first met."
Ellie said, "It should like you; otherwise, it wouldn't have come home with you."
"That's true."
William looked at Ellie in the camera, usually her hair is tied up, now her black hair is obediently spread on her shoulders, wearing a light pink pajamas, with clear apricot eyes, her pupils like colored glaze, and her eyes filled with laughter.
Ellie looked at the cat in William's arms and said, "How do you feed it when you're not at home?"
William glanced at the cat in his arms and said, "I leave food in its bowl before I leave, and then feed it again when I come back at night."
Ellie thought of how it had just eaten the fish with its tail swinging and couldn't help but curve her apricot eyes again.
Coco "meowed" a few times.
William said, "Go to sleep, little prude, even it says you should sleep."
Ellie said, "Okay, good night, and good night to it too."
William chuckled and said, "Good night, little ungrateful one."
Ellie couldn't help but say, "Why is my name changing again?"
"Do you still like it when I call you little prude?"
"..."
"Then good night, little prude."
Ellie hung up the phone directly.
She opened the videos William had just sent over and watched them, and she couldn't help but laugh again.
Coco was drinking water, and it seemed to dive into the bowl because its head was too heavy. William laughed and picked it up.
The second video was still Coco drinking water, and as it drank, its face dove into the water bowl for the second time, with William's unrestrained laughter in the background.
Listening to the teenager's joyful laughter, she imperceptibly curved the corners of her lips.