Inside the tin Shelter in the mountainside cave, two very beautiful young women sat on the bed. It should have been a very harmonious scene, but the atmosphere between them was a bit strange at the moment.
More precisely, Anjali had been visually scrutinizing Divya, who was pretending to be nonchalant, with her gaze.
After an entire morning, that scrutinizing look never left Divya. She finally couldnât take it anymore and spoke first:
"What exactly do you want? Youâve been staring at me all morning, are you trying to kill me?" Divya, still feigning ignorance, pretended to be angry.
"You still ask me what I want to do?"
"Donât you have anything to tell me?"
"Or are you saying you and your little lover are having an affair right under my nose, and Iâm not allowed to say a word?"
Anjali ignored Divyaâs feigned anger and scolded her sharply.
"Whoâs having an affair? You need to make it clear today, or Iâll beat you to death!"
While verbally refuting, Divyaâs hands were not idle, and Anjaliâs small face was stretched long.
"Hmph," Anjali angrily slapped away Divyaâs âviciousâ hands and said, "Then tell me, where did the clothes on you come from? Did they fall from the sky?"
"This... Radhika traded for some clothes later and gave them to me, is that not allowed?" Her words were righteous, but her gaze didnât dare to meet Anjaliâs.
Looking at Divya, whose eyes were darting around and whose left hand was unnaturally resting on her right arm, Anjali immediately knew she was lying.
She rolled her eyes, smirked, and then slowly said, "Alright then, Iâll go to the group chat right now and ask Radhika if this really happened."
She deliberately said she would ask in the group chat, certain that Divya was thin-skinned. If someone had really given her a cold-weather suit and she hadnât told her, she would definitely be even more embarrassed for the group members to know.
"You..." Her eyes widened, knowing she was in the wrong, Divya was speechless for a moment.
Seeing Divya speechless, Anjali had no intention of letting the matter rest and continued to speak.
"Tsk tsk tsk, look at this fabric, this material and thickness. It must be a refined grade, right?"
"Caring for someone in the middle of the night and giving such a valuable item, how romantic."
"Such a grand gesture, yet trying to hide it from me. Who could have given it? So hard to guess!"
"It couldnât be Vikram..."
Before she could finish her sentence, an interruption came.
"Shut up, you know who it is, just donât say it." Knowing she couldnât hide it from this clever girl, she admitted it openly.
"Hmph, I knew it was him. Just a few days ago, you assured me you had a sense of propriety and wouldnât mess around. Itâs only been a few days, and youâre already starting to sneak around?"
Ever since her last conversation with Vikram, where he scared her, Anjaliâs impression of him was extremely poor. In her eyes, Vikram was like a dishonest scoundrel. She believed that the resources he obtained in his Shelter were ill-gotten gains.
Upon learning of her best friendâs ambiguous relationship with him, she immediately thought of causing trouble, wanting Divya to stay away from him.
"Donât make it sound so bad, okay? What do you mean sneaking around? He and I are just normal friends. Itâs perfectly normal for him to share an extra item from his Shelter with me, isnât it?" Her tone was sincere, not faked.
"Really?" Anjali was half-convinced. "Then let me see the chat logs."
"Get lost."
Her best friend was unyielding, so she sighed and laid her cards on the table.
"Iâll tell you the truth, Divya. Iâve had contact with that guy, and from my judgment, he doesnât seem like a good person. The supplies in his Shelter are very likely stolen goods obtained through murder and robbery."
"Now, do you still want to have more contact with him, hmph!!" With her arms crossed, she seemed confident in her judgment of Vikram, thinking to herself that it was a good thing she intervened, or her best friend would truly be mired in trouble.
Anjali, with her eyes closed and posing aloofly, was completely unaware that Divya was shaking her head in exasperation.
It wasnât until warmth touched her forehead that she opened her eyes, tilting her head in confusion. "What are you doing?"
At this moment, Divyaâs right hand was on her forehead, and she frowned, looking as if to say, âYouâre hopeless.â
"Have you watched too many detective shows? Murder and robbery? If he really wanted to kill you, youâd be long gone."
"Why donât you guess where Iâve been getting my food all these days, since Iâve never gone hunting?"
The sudden question caught her off guard. She scratched the back of her head and replied earnestly, "Didnât you say some fool traded dirt for food with you, and quite a lot too?"
"Then guess which fool traded food for dirt with me?" Divya first rolled her eyes, then glanced at Anjali from the corner of her eye, the meaning of her gaze self-evident.
"Vikram?" She swallowed hard before giving an uncertain answer.
"If not him, then who? You?" She truly worried about her silly best friendâs intelligence.
"Thatâs impossible. Last time, he said he was going to find me and kill me." She still couldnât believe her misjudgment and muttered to herself.
Unexpectedly, she had forgotten that she had gone to Vikram behind Divyaâs back to ask for favors, and now everything was heard clearly by Divya opposite her.
"Oh, you havenât told me when you went to see him, and why you went to see him last time. Nowâs a good time, explain it."
"Ah!" Realizing she had said the wrong thing, she quickly covered her mouth.
"Quickly tell me the truth, or Iâll use family discipline." She frowned.
"Well, itâs nothing, just a friendly greeting between group members." The tables had turned. Anjali no longer had her earlier belligerence, meekly putting her hands together as she explained.
In reality, cold sweat was pouring down her back. If it were discovered that she had gone to extort Vikram, her backside would truly be in trouble.
"I donât believe you. Open the chat logs!"
"No way. You didnât show me yours, so why should I show you mine?"
"Alright then, if you donât tell me, Iâll go ask Vikram directly. But if what he says is different from yours, hmph hmph." She didnât continue speaking. She had used this tactic to scare Anjali since childhood, and it always worked. She knew it would force her to speak.
Sure enough, as soon as Divya raised her hand, pretending to open the chat channel, Anjali couldnât sit still and immediately pressed her hand onto her left arm.
"Donât ask, Sis. Canât I just tell you?"
"Itâs nothing, really. I just saw that your necklace was still with him, and I wanted to threaten him with the secret of his Shelterâs electricity to get him to return the necklace to you."
Having been scared by Divya many times, Anjali was careful this time, concealing her intention to extort and only presenting the grand image of retrieving the necklace for Divya.
Her half-truths, combined with her innocent eyes, actually managed to fool Divya. Learning that she had gone to Vikram for her sake, Divya felt a surge of emotion.
However, she didnât miss the details. Anjali said she used the secret of Vikramâs Territory to get the necklace. Calculating the time, Divya had just asked her to keep the secret and not tell anyone, but then Anjali immediately used the secret to directly threaten the person involved.
Just as she was about to get angry, seeing Anjali staring at her expectantly, the anger in her heart immediately subsided.
"Ai~"
Anjali, who was observing her reactions intently, knew from that sigh that she had made the right gamble.
"Hehe, little Divya, I knew you couldnât bear to hit me. After all, half of the reason I went to him was for you." Internally relieved to have escaped, her face remained expressionless, appearing slightly innocent.
"Alright, I wonât hit you this time, but if you dare to tell anyone else, I wonât let you off."
Letting Anjali go off to play, Divya opened Vikramâs chat window herself.
[Divya: Vikram, has my best friend Anjali looked for you?]
He was a little puzzled by her sudden question, "That was several days ago, why bring it up now?"
"Unless, this little girl Anjali came to collect a debt secretly, and Divya didnât know about it at the time, only finding out these past two days."
This was just a guess, but Vikram still planned to ask.
[Vikram: She did look for me. Whatâs wrong?]
[Divya: Nothing much, I just wanted to ask if she said anything to you that she shouldnât have?]
[Divya: Tell me the truth, Iâll teach her a good lesson later.]
Just by looking at this, one could tell who was in charge at their Shelter.
With a slight squint of his eyes, Vikram knew there was more drama to watch.
He first told Divya he was busy and asked her to wait, then turned to open Anjaliâs chat window.
[Vikram: Little brat, your good friend Divya came looking for me. Do you want me to put in a good word for you?]
Anjali, sitting on the bed, saw this message and secretly glanced at Divya, noticing that she was indeed staring at her left wrist.
"Hmph, she actually went to that smelly man to ask questions. I even thought of getting the necklace back for her."
Anjali, who thought her plan had succeeded, was furious at this situation and could only vent her anger on Vikram.
[Anjali: What do you mean? Spit it out if you have something to say.]
[Vikram: Hmm?]
[Vikram: Whatâs with that attitude? Iâll give you a chance to organize your words properly, or Iâll immediately tell Divya that you extorted me.]
[Anjali: You villain, I only asked you for the necklace. When did I extort you?]
As she typed, she felt a little guilty, because if Vikram hadnât been so unyielding and unafraid of her threats last time, she really would have considered getting some benefits from him after getting the necklace back.
However, this matter had only been imagined in her mind and never actually happened, so it didnât exist. She wasnât afraid of what Vikram said.