Having performed major surgery the previous day and gone to bed late, Lu Xian slept until noon the next day—though early in the morning, he had gotten up to use the bathroom and, out of professional responsibility, checked on Nie Jiuluo in the operating room, concluding she was doing well and had passed the danger period.
He remembered Yan Tuo smiling at him then.
When he woke again, it was noon. The sunlight was pleasant. Lu Xian yawned, and just as he opened his bedroom door, he was greeted by the tantalizingly delicious smell of instant noodles.
Yan Tuo sat at the dining table, eating noodles with large bites, gesturing toward the kitchen: “Left some for you. Hurry, before they get mushy.”
Lu Xian responded eagerly, but duty-bound, glanced into the operating room before heading to the bathroom.
That glance turned his face pale. He rushed inside, and then frantically searched the other rooms.
Yan Tuo continued eating without looking up.
After searching everywhere, Lu Xian returned to the dining table and shouted: “Where is she?”
Yan Tuo unhurriedly swallowed his last bite of noodles and took a sip of soup: “Who?”
What act was this? Lu Xian jumped up and down: “The woman!”
Yan Tuo wiped his mouth with a tissue: “Which woman?”
“The one you brought back in the box, the one we stayed up watching last night!”
Yan Tuo crumpled the tissue and threw it in the trash, walked past Lu Xian to the bathroom to rinse his mouth. Through his gargling, he muttered: “Must have been dreaming.”
Damn…
Lu Xian pushed open Yan Tuo’s bedroom door, pointing at the suitcase on the floor: “This is what you used to—”
He had to swallow his words midway: the suitcase was fully packed with clothes and toiletries.
Looking at Yan Tuo again, he had finished rinsing and was wiping his face with a towel, not even glancing his way.
I don’t believe this!
Lu Xian searched the place again determinedly.
Everything was gone. Yan Tuo must have cleaned up in the morning—all the surgical waste he had carefully sealed in plastic bags, was gone; the shopping bags Yan Tuo had brought back last night, vanished; the operating table wiped spotlessly clean, not a mark remaining; they say women shed hair easily, but even crouching to search the floor, he couldn’t find a single strand.
The surveillance cameras! Right! But his excitement deflated immediately: there were cameras, but only outside the door, and if Yan Tuo had been thorough enough to clean up every hair, he wouldn’t have missed the cameras.
He looked at Yan Tuo, feeling unsettled: “Was all this necessary?”
Yan Tuo frowned and reached for Lu Xian’s forehead: “No fever… why are you talking nonsense after waking up?”
Lu Xian irritably knocked his hand away.
Yan Tuo remained impassive: if Lu Xian could be trusted, that would be good; if not? Better to prevent problems before they arise. Better safe than sorry—he couldn’t afford to fail and needed to be extra careful.
He dried his hands on the towel, went inside to organize his suitcase, and pulled it out: “I’m leaving. I’ve talked to A Peng, he’ll get you an old phone to use for now. Come find me in Xi’an for the new one.”
Lu Xian watched Yan Tuo leave dejectedly, even the joy of his upcoming new phone diminished.
This family…
Yan Haishan, Yan Tuo’s father had died early but not before establishing a scholarship fund that had supported his studies.
Lin Xiku, Yan Tuo’s young and beautiful aunt moved in shadowy circles and whom he idolized.
And Yan Tuo himself, seemingly the most normal but suddenly distant and secretive.
None of them were the sort ordinary people like him could truly befriend, he thought.
He shuffled to the kitchen in his slippers, picking up the mushy noodles one chopstick at a time.
Time to think about his future.
Save more money, and hopefully, get out before the company’s illegal operations are exposed. Otherwise, if he got caught up in it, he wouldn’t even have mushy instant noodles behind iron bars.
***
Yan Tuo took the elevator straight down to the underground garage.
The garage held only two or three cars, all belonging to “their people.” Lu Xian’s car was parked in the farthest corner.
Yan Tuo walked to his car and first opened the back door.
Nie Jiuluo lay peacefully sleeping on the back seat, wrapped in a blanket, her lower legs slightly bent because the seat wasn’t long enough.
Yan Tuo placed the suitcase vertically in the gap between the front and back seats as a barrier to prevent her body from rolling during emergency braking. He tucked in the edges of her blanket, and as he was about to pull away, suddenly remembered something and searched his pockets, but found nothing suitable.
He rummaged through the food bag on the passenger seat and finally picked out a small kumquat, placing it in her palm. He had bought them to stay alert while driving.
Her fingers curled inward, holding it.
…
Nie Jiuluo’s sleep was long but unsettled. Occasionally conscious, she could perceive some surrounding movements but couldn’t form thoughts, too exhausted.
Too exhausted to spare any mental energy.
She only remembered being cold at first, then warm and fuzzy later, then feeling like she was on a pleasure cruise, countless car sounds—fast and slow, light and heavy—floating past her ears. They seemed to pass under orange trees, the sweet-sour scent stimulating her taste buds to wake before the rest of her body.
When she hazily opened her eyes, it was already dark.
The room was lit, but her eyes hadn’t adjusted. She could only make out simple, modest furnishings that seemed somewhat old.
A man stood by her bed, looking down at her. She couldn’t make out his features, only that his tall frame blocked half her view.
Nie Jiuluo tensed immediately.
She heard him say: “It’s me.”
The voice was familiar. She thought hard, then realized.
It was Yan Tuo.
Ah, Yan Tuo…
Her body relaxed again, her eyelids closing once more. She didn’t know what had happened after she’d slipped into the well, but had a vague intuition: Yan Tuo posed no threat to her.
That was good enough—she could sleep peacefully again.
Yan Tuo said: “Miss Nie, do you know you almost died?”
What an annoying noise. Nie Jiuluo’s brows furrowed slightly, her head burrowing impatiently into the pillow. Soon, the whole world quieted again, her body sinking back into darkness.
Seeing her reaction, Yan Tuo knew she wouldn’t be fully conscious anytime soon.
Understandable, given she had crossed death’s river.
Yan Tuo left the room. In the living room, Liu Changxi was peeling an apple for him. Seeing him emerge, Liu Changxi stood up nervously, the half-peeled apple skin dangling tremulously: “How… how’s the room? Is it satisfactory?”
***
Liu Changxi received Yan Tuo’s call at noon.
Yan Tuo hadn’t explained specifically, only saying a friend was injured and he wanted to send them to Liu Changxi’s place for care.
Liu Changxi agreed immediately, leaving the shop to his assistant and rushing home to clean thoroughly. He had initially planned to offer the master bedroom but worried it might smell lived-in, so he focused on cleaning the guest room, even putting out fresh bedding.
Still, he felt anxious: Yan Tuo had grown up wealthy, and Liu Changxi worried he might find the place too humble.
Yan Tuo said: “It’s fine.”
With injuries needing a hundred days to heal, Nie Jiuluo needed a quiet place to recover. Liu Changxi’s place was perfect.
He thought for a moment: “The heating’s too dry. Get her a humidifier. I’ll reimburse you for any expenses.”
Liu Changxi: “Hu… humidifier?”
He wasn’t up to date with modern conveniences—he’d heard of them but never used one.
Yan Tuo realized this: “I’ll buy one and have it delivered. Since it’s inconvenient for you to care for her, find an auntie to make her some nutritious soups and help with washing her hair and body. Call me when she wakes up. Also, take her to check her arm in a few days—her left arm is fractured…”
Liu Changxi couldn’t remember it all and hurriedly put down the apple to find paper and pen: “Slow down, let me write this down. First is the humidifier…”
Yan Tuo smiled: “Don’t bother writing, I’ll remind you later. I need to go now, but I’ll come to check on her in a few days.”
Though his visit was brief, this was typical of him, and Liu Changxi was used to it.
He walked Yan Tuo to the building entrance and watched him get in his car before hesitantly asking: “Little Tuo, is she… your girlfriend?”
Yan Tuo paused, then laughed: “No, nothing like that.”
But Liu Changxi was delighted—in all these years, this was the first time he’d seen Yan Tuo bring a female friend here: “Relationships develop through spending time together. Even if it’s not like that now, it might become that way. I think she’s quite pretty. Time flies… if your mother knew, she’d be happy. You don’t know, but when you were little, your mother once said…”
Yan Tuo cut him off: “Uncle Changxi, I’m leaving.”
He closed the car window and started the engine. The complex was old, the roads narrow, and the car seemed to scrape against the curb as it left.
Liu Changxi stood watching the car disappear: though the complex was old, its landscaping was good, planted with evergreens that kept their leaves in winter. The wind rustled through the leaves overhead, mixing with subtle sounds, sifting through memories like fine debris.
Liu Changxi thought of Lin Xiku.
When Yan Tuo was very young, Liu Changxi had once visited with fruit, and while chatting with Lin Xiku, the conversation turned to Yan Tuo’s future marriage.
Lin Xiku had said: “Wonder what kind of person Little Tuo will find, whether she’ll be pretty. Surely… prettier than me.”
Liu Changxi had blurted out: “Not necessarily, Sister Lin, you’re the prettiest.”
He blushed as soon as he said it, not knowing what to do with his hands.
Lin Xiku was busy watching Yan Tuo crawl around on the bed, not noticing Liu Changxi’s awkwardness: “I hope she’s pretty, but I worry pretty girls are too flighty… ah well, we’ll see when the time comes.”
When she spoke of “the time to come,” she probably hadn’t imagined she would have no future just a few years later.
So Liu Changxi kept it in his heart, wanting to watch and judge on her behalf.
After Lin Xiku’s accident, Liu Changxi never appeared around Yan Tuo again, until Yan Tuo turned twenty and he needed to give him something.
This had been the dying wish of cancer-stricken Yan Haishan, who had pleaded: “Changxi, I’m entrusting this to you. Don’t approach him too early—wait until he’s grown and mature, or he might act rashly if he’s too young. And watch carefully, make sure he’s still a good kid… that woman raised him, who knows where his loyalties lie.”
At twenty, Yan Tuo was in university, a campus celebrity. Handsome and wealthy, he was the object of many girls’ affections. Liu Changxi remembered he had a girlfriend then, very fair and well-behaved, reportedly the campus beauty.
Even prettier than Lin Xiku.
Liu Changxi had thought she might be the one, but they broke up soon after, not long after he had given Yan Tuo the item.
***
Yan Tuo drove through the night, reaching Xi’an and Xiong Hei’s villa around midnight.
At first, he’d assumed Xiong Hei wouldn’t be there, probably staying at the farm at such a critical time.
But surprisingly, he saw Xiong Hei’s car in the garage. Yan Tuo’s heart raced: Chen Fu was still in his trunk, and parking right next to Xiong Hei’s car seemed absurdly risky—even though the most dangerous place could be the safest, being this close made him uneasy. Besides, who knew how keen Xiong Hei’s sense of smell might be?
Yan Tuo backed the car out and parked in the villa complex’s public lot, then walked back.
Entering through the back door, he was about to press the elevator button when it started descending from the third floor. Yan Tuo quickly ducked into a dark corner.
Before the doors opened, Xiong Hei’s voice boomed from inside: “Hello? Hello! I’m in the elevator.”
A moment later, he stepped out: “Signal was bad just now. What? Not there yet? You haven’t called Chen Fu? What about Han Guan, did you call him?”
Hearing these two names suddenly, Yan Tuo’s heart pounded. He held his breath and pressed further into the shadows.
“Can’t reach either of them?”
In his view, Xiong Hei’s back was turned as he scratched his head: “They’re probably still on the road. Going to South Monkey Head isn’t a one-day trip. Mountain areas have bad signals—it’s normal not to get through. Just wait!”
He hung up, cursing: “Idiots! What’s the point of having brains if you can’t use them to reason?”
***
After Xiong Hei left, Yan Tuo let out a long breath and took the elevator up.
Thinking of Xiong Hei’s comment about “not being able to reason” was both irritating and amusing, but then a doubt arose: Xiong Hei usually stayed close to Lin Xiku—if Xiong Hei was here, Lin Xiku must be too. Why would they be at the villa at this time?
Soon, the elevator stopped on the third floor. As the doors opened, Yan Tuo heard Lin Ling’s tearful voice: “I just don’t want to!”