“Those bastards must be born in the year of the rat—ran off so fast…”

Ren Jianbai had a cigarette hanging from his mouth, his voice muffled, “But good thing you had the foresight to have that sly little A’Feng snap photos of their license plates beforehand. Don’t worry, I’ll go without sleep tonight if I have to, and dig up where these bastards came from.”

“And what if you catch them? Will that let me smash a couple beer bottles on that fat pig’s head too? Or let me chop off that filthy pig hand of his?”

Fang Long was still fuming, arms crossed, staring out the car window at the streetlights receding, her tone sarcastic. “What’s the use of being tall and burly? Plenty of bluster when arguing and fighting with me normally, so why’d you go soft this time? Getting bullied like that, and you didn’t even dare curse back!”

Zhou Ya sat on the other side of the back seat, letting the girl beside him curse him out as all bark and no bite, useless and gutless.

Fang Long chattering away cursing at him was still much better than her holding it all in, not even letting out a fart.

The space inside the police car was limited; Zhou Ya had to keep his legs spread wide to sit somewhat comfortably, his right hand resting on the car door, elbow bent, his well-defined fingers hanging loosely in the air.

The spot on his forearm that had been bitten still throbbed faintly.

And the pain was turning into a tingling numbness, fine and dense, like ivy soaked in rain climbing all over his body.

Nearly overwhelming his reason and willpower entirely.

Ren Jianbai had rarely seen this kind of situation before, glancing up frequently, watching Zhou Ya’s flustered expression in the rearview mirror, secretly delighted.

“But little sister, your brother has his reasons for doing this.” Ren Jianbai pinched his cigarette in his left hand, tapping the ash out the car window. “Your brother used to have a temper just like yours back in the day—in middle school, he once took on six guys alone in a billiards hall, even knocked out two of a guy’s teeth. Wow, that guy crying for his mommy and daddy while spitting blood—I still remember it to this day.”

Zhou Ya frowned, glaring at the front seat: “Would it kill you to talk less?”

Fang Long finally turned her head back, looking at him with a scoff: “Oh, so that temper had run away from home just now? Finally coming back now, huh?”

Zhou Ya fell silent again.

Seeing the mood finally lighten a bit, Ren Jianbai’s mouth curled up too, continuing to reminisce: “Your aunt and uncle got called to school by teachers more times than I can count. Later, when he went to vocational school, your brother got recognized as ‘big brother’ by a whole gang of ‘little brothers,’ and everyone called him… called him some ‘Top Dog of Anzhen’!”

The nickname was so cheesy that Fang Long couldn’t help laughing out loud, the bad mood dissipating quite a bit instantly.

Zhou Ya couldn’t stand to listen anymore, turning his face to look out the window.

If Ren Jianbai hadn’t still been wearing his police uniform, Zhou Ya definitely would have kicked him.

“When your brother first opened the shop, occasionally there’d be hoodlums or drunks like tonight, drinking and drinking until a group of them would kick up trouble. Your brother was too young back then, too hot-headed—one wrong word and he’d flip the table. The staff weren’t pushovers either; seeing the boss go all in, how could they hold back? So the two sides would fight, and everyone would end up in the station.”

The cigarette between his fingers had never gone back to his mouth; Ren Jianbai glanced at it, already nearly burnt to the end.

He simply flicked the butt away and rolled up the window, his voice no longer scattered by the wind, much clearer now: “As you get older, that hard-headedness gets worn down bit by bit, and once you have people and things you actually care about, naturally you don’t act as recklessly as when you were young.”

Fang Long caught the key point: “People and things you care about?”

“Yeah, like me—now before I do anything, I think of my wife first. As for your brother, the food stall and your aunt are his heart’s treasures.” Ren Jianbai thought about it, then added, “And you too, now you’re also your brother’s—”

Zhou Ya couldn’t take it anymore, kicking the back of the driver’s seat hard to cut Ren Jianbai off: “You talk too much.”

Ren Jianbai yelped: “Hey hey hey, this is public property, watch it or I’ll report you!”

“Drive faster, I reek of beer all over, it’s disgusting.”

“Sure you don’t want me to take you to the hospital to get checked?”

“Why would I go to the hospital?” Zhou Ya leaned back against the seat, closing his eyes. “Nothing wrong.”

For the rest of the five-minute drive, Ren Jianbai kept rambling on about tonight’s events.

And in the back seat, the two of them—one resting with eyes closed, the other resting a cheek against the window looking out—neither responded to Ren Jianbai anymore.

Ren Jianbai dropped the two of them off at the alley entrance and turned the car back to the police station.

Fang Long walked ahead, Zhou Ya following behind, the shadows beneath their feet drawing near and far.

Going up the stairs, Zhou Ya finally spoke: “Fang Long.”

The stairwell light at the second-floor landing had recently broken; the stairwell was soaked in moonlight. Fang Long stopped, turning to look down at the man standing half a flight below her.

“Don’t take tonight’s business to heart, that group came for me.” One hand in his pants pocket, the other hanging at his side, Zhou Ya’s voice was hoarse and dry from overusing his throat. “If it wasn’t you, it would’ve been some other staff member harassed, or having the food criticized—the goal was to get me to show up regardless.”

Fang Long’s eyes widened slightly; she hadn’t thought of it that way.

She asked: “How do you know that group came for you?”

Zhou Ya explained: “That bald bastard confirmed I was surnamed Zhou, the shop owner, before he started escalating things.”

Fang Long’s eyes went wide: “But why would that be?”

Zhou Ya smiled faintly: “The town’s only so big, and my family’s business has taken over most of it. Others are left with nothing, naturally they get jealous.”

Hearing this, Fang Long again felt as if someone had pinched her heart.

And this time it hurt a bit more.

“Hearing your tone, you sound almost proud of it?” Fang Long unconsciously picked at the dead skin around her nail, muttering. “So this kind of thing happens often? Why haven’t I heard you mention it at home?”

“What’s there in this trivial matter worth bringing home? They don’t have the guts to really escalate things, all they want is to watch me suffer a bit.”

His throat was very dry; Zhou Ya’s Adam’s apple bobbed before he continued, “Suffer through it, and I’ll keep the shop open, keep making money.”

When he said this last sentence, his tone really did echo what the bald man had said tonight—”arrogant.”

Zhou Ya neither liked nor cared for competition with rivals, always thinking he’d just focus on running his own business well, but he couldn’t control what others thought.

The town was too small, the market only so big; with him taking a large share of that pie, naturally others would set their sights on him.

Lately “A’Ya”‘s reputation had indeed grown, business better than other places too—the tallest tree catches the most wind, and Zhou Ya had long expected things wouldn’t always go smoothly.

It was just that tonight, with Fang Long dragged into it, there’d been moments when Zhou Ya had wanted nothing more than to charge forward recklessly and beat that bald bastard to a pulp.

Zhou Ya walked up two more steps, looking at Fang Long: “Also, don’t tell my mom about tonight.”

Perhaps because of the moonlight, Fang Long felt his features and outline had softened quite a bit.

The line between light and shadow grew very faint, like a net that could be torn through at any moment.

She found her way back to their usual bickering dynamic, deliberately laughing loudly: “Well, how the tables have turned—it used to always be me saying this to you.”

Zhou Ya smiled faintly: “Yeah, didn’t expect I’d ever have a day where I’d be begging you not to ‘report to the parents.'”

Fang Long stared at him fixedly for a few seconds, and before her heartbeat could start racing, quickly turned and walked up briskly: “Fine, you used to keep my secrets before, now I’ll keep yours once too.”

Back home, the two of them, in perfect unspoken agreement, didn’t turn on the living room’s main light, moving quietly, heading straight to their respective rooms.

Fang Long went to shower first; she didn’t wash her hair, just rinsed off quickly, and soon went back to her room, leaving the bathroom free for Zhou Ya.

Zhou Ya went into the bathroom, took off his clothes, standing with his back to the mirror.

The shoulder hit by the beer bottle had reddened somewhat, but there was no wound.

The wound was at the side of his neck, just a scratch about the size of a fingernail, already stopped bleeding by now.

Not painful or itchy, Zhou Ya paid it no mind, showering as usual.

Fang Long’s clothes and pants were already in the washing machine; Zhou Ya put his own in too, added detergent, and started it.

The two of their clothes tumbled together quickly in the drum—her red, his black.

Zhou Ya felt somewhat restless all over, wearing only a pair of athletic cotton pants, bare-chested and not even toweled dry, smoking a cigarette on the balcony, waiting until the moisture on him was half-dried by the night wind before heading back to his room.

Fang Long’s bedroom door was closed, no light showing through the crack; he stood outside for a few seconds.

In the end, he still didn’t knock.

It was only when he pushed open his own bedroom door that he froze again.

His room was lit only by the small bedside lamp, a thin layer of warm yellow light falling gently on the girl sitting cross-legged on his bed.

This scene was identical to one from many of his dreams, leaving him momentarily unable to tell reality from illusion.