Xia Xia’s throat felt dry, leaving her speechless.

Xie Huai sat on the edge of the sink, swinging his legs. His face was expressionless as if the person who owed eight million wasn’t him but someone else.

Xia Xia knew she had misspoken and scratched her head. “…Actually, eight million isn’t that much. I’m inexperienced, so to me, it’s an enormous sum, but for some people, it’s just the price of a house. It shouldn’t take too long to pay it back, right?”

“That’s right,” Xie Huai said.

“Paying twenty thousand minimum monthly, that’s two hundred forty thousand a year. It won’t even take forty years to clear.”

Xia Xia: “…”

“Just pretend I never said anything,” she said glumly.

For some reason, hearing about Xie Huai’s eight-million-yuan debt made her feel worse than her debt.

“Eight million isn’t much,” Xie Huai said expressionlessly. “When my father was alive, what he owed to banks, suppliers, partners, relatives, and friends added up to over a billion. ‘Death clears all debts’ sounds simple, but how could it be that easy?”

“But they can’t make you pay it back,” Xia Xia said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Who cares whether it was wrong or not? A debt is a debt,” Xie Huai said flatly. “If Zhu Ziyu borrowed twenty thousand from you and unfortunately passed away, could you not ask her family for the money?”

Xia Xia fell silent.

She knew she couldn’t do it. Even if she couldn’t bring herself to aggressively demand payment at their door, she would have to mention it.

If that was true for twenty thousand, let alone two hundred million.

Xia Xia: “Then about the eight million loan shark debt…”

“My father borrowed it,” Xie Huai said. “He had no liquid assets. Workers’ severance pay, compensation, death benefits – he borrowed five million piece by piece. He didn’t keep a cent, gave it all to the workers’ families.”

“He borrowed from loan sharks a week before jumping into the sulfuric acid pool,” Xie Huai said with a slight curl of his lips as if trying to smile but finding it bitter. “The lender had been in the underworld for decades, with strong backing and deep pockets. My father was clever all his life, but when he tried to rob the rich to help the poor, he probably never thought he’d stumble.”

Xia Xia was bewildered, not understanding Xie Huai’s meaning.

Xie Huai: “Things kept going missing from the factory during that time. The supervisor had just installed cameras at the acid pool a few days before. He didn’t know.”

“The medical examiner said jumping into sulfuric acid is one of the most painful ways to die. No one would choose this method to commit suicide.”

“Before the surveillance footage came out, everyone thought he was pushed in. After my father went bankrupt, if he had nothing else, he had countless enemies and debt collectors.”

Xia Xia understood.

Xie Huai’s father went bankrupt, and then a major accident occurred at the factory.

Unable to repay his debts, he had long planned to die with them.

Before dying, he borrowed money from underworld loan sharks to distribute to workers who died or were injured in the accident. He never intended to repay this money.

Call it robbing the rich to help the poor or call it irresponsible – a debt is a debt. He would rather take on loan shark debt to compensate his workers.

Among countless ways to die, he chose the most brutal one because he didn’t want people to know it was suicide.

With his death, the debts would be cleared.

Xie Huai might never live like a young master again, but he wouldn’t have to struggle daily to repay debts.

Suicide and homicide are completely different. Though both end in death, one is escaping responsibility while the other is a tragic fate. The dead don’t care what others say, but the living must continue living properly, decently, and with dignity.

Xie Huai’s father thought of everything, yet until death couldn’t anticipate his plan would be foiled by a newly installed camera.

It was suicide – borrowing money, giving it all away, then resolutely dying. To the lender, this was nothing short of mockery.

Since loan sharking itself was illegal and the lender was from the underworld, they certainly wouldn’t swallow this anger.

Xia Xia had seen many TV dramas and knew loan sharks had countless ways to torment people. She dared not imagine what methods they would use to torture Xie Huai and his family.

“He was always calculating and vicious, had to harm a few people even in death,” Xie Huai said. “But he wasn’t that bad, just a bit foolish and stubborn.”

Xia Xia suddenly recalled Xie Huai’s earlier joke: “You said before that every month a bunch of guys would kneel at your home calling you father…”

“Mm, you figured it out,” Xie Huai replied blandly. “They do come every month, but I’m the one kneeling.”

Xia Xia: “…”

She fell silent again.

Xie Huai smiled and pinched her soft cheek. “Just kidding. They know to leave some leeway. If they push too hard, I could follow my father and end it all. Then they wouldn’t get a cent. Better to let me pay back slowly.”

Xia Xia asked: “Do you have to pay it back?”

“I could choose not to,” Xie Huai said casually. “One limb for one hundred thousand. Chop up me and my mother into human mincemeat, that’s exactly eight million.”

Xia Xia: “……”

“Could you not say such things in that tone?”

Xia Xia felt inexplicably sad and angry seeing his carefree attitude, acting like nothing mattered.

“Then what tone should I use?” Xie Huai asked. “Should I kneel and cry, saying I don’t want to die, begging the brothers to spare me?”

“I do want to kneel, but my knees won’t listen to me,” he said carelessly. “They were never taught how to bend.”

Xia Xia was speechless.

Xie Huai spoke of miserable things, yet his expression remained as proud as an unseasoned child.

She couldn’t help wondering what Young Master Xie Huai used to be like.

Even fallen so low now, his pride and arrogance hadn’t diminished one bit. The former Xie Huai must have been even more dazzling, his radiance burning people’s eyes.

Zhao Shanqi caught up with them, panting as she stood before Xie Huai, her eyes bright as she looked at him: “Xie Huai, don’t be angry. I apologize on Li Zhelin’s behalf.”

“Why are you apologizing for what he did?” Xie Huai said dismissively.

Zhao Shanqi glanced at Xia Xia, then asked: “So will you still join the basketball tournament?”

Xie Huai also looked at Xia Xia, who was still confused when he suddenly ruffled her hair again.

“Of course,” Xie Huai’s lips curved slightly. “Of course, I’ll join.”

He started walking toward the basketball court with Xia Xia following.

She walked quietly beside Xie Huai, passing through the hazy dusk marked by a faint trace of the moon.

She stopped, looking at the sky where half the sunset remained while a crescent moon rose in the other half.

“Huai Ge.” She called Xie Huai.

The young man turned back, and she looked at him seriously: “It’s nothing really, I just wanted to say…”

“…Someone like you can achieve whatever you want to do. Eight million isn’t such a big deal. You won’t be poor forever.”

Xie Huai smiled: “Then I’ll take that as a blessing.”

The temperature in South City plummeted to freezing in December. People who wore thin jackets in November all switched to thick coats and down jackets. Xia Xia bought a thick cotton coat online at a clearance price – just a few dozen yuan, but warm despite being oversized.

South City had large temperature differences between day and night. Previously, Xie Huai was the most cold-resistant, wandering around in just a T-shirt in November, but now even he couldn’t withstand the severe cold.

He bought a military coat to wear while running his stall at night.

Several months into the semester, Xie Huai had changed his merchandise multiple times – from water bottles and desk lamps at first to second-hand books and notebooks later. Now he switched to selling snacks, all loose dried fruits, and Southeast Asian snacks that supermarkets didn’t carry, cheap and plentiful, suitable for students’ budgets.

Every evening after late classes was the busiest time on Spring Harmony Street. There were always many people gathered at Xie Huai’s stall.

He also set up a small table beside it to apply phone screen protectors, twenty yuan each, with twenty to thirty customers every night.

When Xia Xia had nothing to do, she disliked staying in the dorm and often ran to Spring Harmony Road, sitting behind Xie Huai’s stall to play with him.

With final exams approaching, while Xie Huai sold goods, she sat beside him studying. When busy, she helped him collect money.

Christmas Eve was coming in a few days, and the Christmas atmosphere at school gradually thickened. A brightly decorated Christmas tree stood in front of the teaching building, and Christmas Santa stickers were pasted on every door glass of the dormitory buildings.

Tired from studying, Xia Xia put her notes aside.

Xie Huai was applying a screen protector for a girl who looked like a freshman based on her dress. Xia Xia found her familiar, seemingly someone who often ordered takeout from Xie Huai – she had seen her many times while delivering.

The girl wasn’t looking at her phone but staring at Xie Huai: “You apply these so quickly.”

Xie Huai responded: “Doing it every day, you’d be this fast too if you were practiced.”

In less than ten minutes, he finished and handed it back to her.

The girl seemed reluctant to leave and pulled another phone from her pocket: “As it happens, my old phone’s protector is cracked too. Could you apply one for this as well?”

Xia Xia: “…”

After the girl left, Xia Xia propped her chin: “Huai Ge’s charm is something. Screen protectors fall for you – I couldn’t even tell hers was cracked until she mentioned it.”

Xie Huai hummed: “You’re just now realizing Huai Ge’s charm?”

He picked up Xia Xia’s notes from the ground, glancing at them: “Finals are coming up. Every major has the same general courses in freshman year. Your notes are detailed and your handwriting is clear – you could make copies to sell.”

Xia Xia hadn’t thought of this and humbly asked: “How do I sell them?”

“I have friends at the supermarket who can connect you. If you print in bulk, it’s only half a cent per page,” Xie Huai tapped on a calculator. “A notebook isn’t very thick – sell it for five yuan and you can still net two-fifty profit.”

Xia Xia nodded: “How do you think of all these things?”

“You haven’t thought of them because you haven’t hit rock bottom yet,” Xie Huai said. “When you reach my level, you’ll find money is everywhere. You can dig it out from every corner. Even walking down the street and seeing dog droppings, you’ll instinctively think about whether you could collect it, dry it out, and sell it to someone.”

Xia Xia: “…Don’t let your snack customers hear that.”

The cold wind rose at night, stinging their skin as it swept across their faces. Xia Xia felt warm wrapped in her scarf with her hood up.

Xie Huai’s military coat had no hood. He turned up the collar to block the wind, wearing a low-necked sweater underneath, but his face and neck still inevitably turned red from the wind.

Xia Xia scolded him: “Show-off.”

Even in a military coat, Xie Huai dressed stylishly and handsomely. He hadn’t bought the traditional army green coat but chose a navy blue one with grey fleece lining, a smartly upturned collar, and even gold buttons.

The coat fit him well.

When he sat there, rather than wearing it for warmth, it seemed more like he was wearing it to show off.

Far from looking rustic, it particularly drew people’s attention.

Xie Huai was indeed quite vain – even with his ears frozen red, he refused to wear the ear-warming cotton hat that came free with the military coat. He had complained to Xia Xia many times that the hat looked too silly and made him look foolish. The next day, Xia Xia saw that foolish hat on Liang Yuantai’s head.

Xie Huai’s collar let in the wind, making his teeth chatter.

Yet his expression remained arrogant, faintly disdainful: “Why would I need to show off? I’m handsome, to begin with.”

As Xia Xia packed up her books to return to the dorm, Xie Huai said: “The Mathematics Department is having a pillow fight on Christmas Eve. Let’s go play together.”

At South University, each department had its special activities, like the Mathematics Department’s pillow fight, the Economics Department’s stock market simulation, the Law School’s debate competition, the Art School’s masquerade ball, and the Management School’s wishing corridor. There were all kinds of activities every month, but since school started, Xia Xia had been busy with part-time work and classes, not attending any of them.

Xie Huai said proudly: “I don’t like these kinds of activities, but I’m worried you’ll get beaten up if you go alone. With two people, I can protect you along the way.”

He asked: “Want to go with me?”

Xia Xia smiled sweetly: “Sure.”

On her way back to the dormitory, Xia Xia noticed a few stalls set up along the road.

Since the start of the semester, many students had followed Xie Huai’s example and set up stalls on Spring Harmony Road, selling various small items – some sold bracelets and earrings, others headphones and data cables, and some their own used clothes. Xia Xia occasionally browsed these stalls.

She stopped at one stall, bending down to look at the various colored yarn balls.

The vendor was a girl who smiled when someone approached, showing two little tiger teeth: “Junior, want to buy some yarn? Thirty yuan per ball.”

Xia Xia felt the yarn’s texture and asked: “Do you have any better quality ones?”

The girl pulled out a ball from her bag behind her: “This one’s sixty yuan, it feels very nice.”

Xia Xia rubbed the yarn ball against her face, finding the texture indeed nice. Thinking of Xie Huai’s navy blue military coat, she specifically chose a dark grey yarn ball.

The girl said: “I think lighter colors would suit you better, and complement your skin tone.”

Xia Xia said: “It’s not for me.”

The girl suddenly realized: “Oh, for Huai Ge, right?”

Xia Xia: “…”

“No, no,” she said with a reddened face, frantically waving in denial. “…How do you know me?”

The girl shrugged: “Who in the department doesn’t know you two? Aren’t you already together? You’re practically an old married couple, what’s there to be shy about?”

Xia Xia’s face reddened even more at the ‘old married couple’ comment: “That’s not it.”

The girl packed up her chosen yarn ball and knitting needles: “You’ve even delivered takeout to me before, don’t you remember?”

Xia Xia had no impression of her, stammered a few words, and with her face burning from the girl’s earlier comments, quickly ran off after paying.

Seeing her return with a bag, Zhu Ziyu thought she’d bought snacks and came over to mooch some.

Xia Xia pushed her away, throwing the bag on the bed: “Don’t look.”

She changed clothes and climbed into bed, staring at the yarn ball, then rolled around covering her face, silently cursing her weakness.

It’s just knitting a scarf for Xie Huai, she thought, why act like a thief?

She pressed her palm to her cheek, still burning hot, the girl’s words echoing in her ears.

— Aren’t you already together? You’re practically an old married couple.

“Who’s together with him,” Xia Xia muttered softly. “That damn Xie Huai, ruining my reputation.”

Her bed was surrounded by light blue curtains which, though not blocking light, screened off outside views.

Xia Xia sat on the bed, unwinding the yarn ball. Since childhood, she’d learned housework from Wu Li when she had nothing else to do, so she knew all these detailed handicrafts and could knit several different patterns for a scarf.

She knitted several dozen stitches, then unraveled and scrambled it all, feeling this pattern wasn’t warm enough or suitable for Xie Huai, and started over with a different method.

She knitted and unraveled, unraveled and knitted again, managing only a dozen or so stitches after a whole evening.

Zhao Shanqi returned from outside carrying a shopping bag.

Zhu Ziyu asked: “What did you buy?”

Zhao Shanqi hurriedly said: “Nothing, nothing.”

She furtively hid the bag in her wardrobe, leaving Zhu Ziyu puzzled: “Why are you all so strange today?”

Snow started falling on Christmas Eve evening.

South City hadn’t seen snow for several years, and though the snowfall was light, it sparked great enthusiasm among the South City residents who rarely saw snow.

After evening classes, Xia Xia left the teaching building to find people everywhere watching the snow.

The ground temperature was high, and the fine snowflakes melted immediately upon touching the ground, not even forming a layer of snow.

Spring Harmony Road was very lively today. The custom of giving apples on Christmas Eve had been popular since Xia Xia’s high school days. Apples that usually cost five yuan per pound would sell for five yuan each on this night. Xia Xia never bought them, and wouldn’t let Ping Jiapeng buy them for her either.

She didn’t think a misshapen apple was worth five yuan and thought Ping Jiapeng was a bit foolish for wanting to buy them.

There were many people selling apples on Spring Harmony Road.

Several male students sat by the roadside with a box, of apples wrapped in colored plastic paper – small ones for five yuan, large ones for ten, and exceptionally large ones with good appearance for fifteen.

Xia Xia thought even bandits weren’t this extortionate.

She looked around for Xie Huai but found he hadn’t set up his stall yet.

The last afternoon class was Psychology Education. The teacher’s lecture was dull, just reading from the textbook, and the students below were drowsy. Xie Huai had skipped this class, and Xia Xia thought he’d gone to set up his stall, but he wasn’t there.

She was about to call Xie Huai when she saw him pushing a small cart from the direction of the supermarket.

She ran to help him carry things, discovering he wasn’t selling snacks that day.

The two boxes on the cart were full of Christmas snow spray and streamers, roughly over two hundred bottles, and the box at the bottom contained twenty square wooden boxes, each with a hole on the side holding a fresh flower.

“What’s this?”

Xia Xia picked up a box to look at, finding the wood very thin and something seemed to be inside.

Xie Huai said: “Open it and see.”

Xia Xia carefully opened it to find a bright red Fuji apple inside.

She looked at the flowers beside the boxes and found each box had a different flower.

Some were roses, some daisies, some hyacinths, some small lilies.

“You’re selling these?” Xia Xia asked, “How much each?”

Xie Huai: “Eighty-eight.”

“Isn’t that too expensive?” Xia Xia held the small box in her palm, thinking it was exquisite, but eighty-eight yuan seemed a bit steep.

“Each box comes with a flower, all different, with different flower meanings,” Xie Huai said. “Next door they’re selling one apple for fifteen yuan, am I really expensive?”

“Let Huai Ge teach you another lesson.” He smiled: “An item’s true value isn’t in how much it’s worth, but in how many there are. Their basket of apples may be cheap, but for girls who like exchanging apples on Christmas Eve, there’s no sense of ceremony or uniqueness.”

“I’m only selling twenty. If you were a girl, would you want your boyfriend to give you a five-yuan plastic-wrapped apple, or Huai Ge’s exclusive limited edition Fuji apple?”

Xia Xia answered without hesitation: “Yours, of course.”

Xie Huai said proudly: “There you have it?”

“The pillow fight starts at nine-thirty. It’s cold outside, go back to the dorm first and come find me at nine.”

Xia Xia kept looking back as she walked, watching Xie Huai fuss with his apples and Christmas snow spray.

She greatly admired Xie Huai – though he earned a lot, he also put in a lot of thought.

Others’ apples were all wholesale, but she felt Xie Huai’s things certainly weren’t ready-made.

Buying Fuji apples, ordering boxes, and those twenty different types of fresh flowers – he had gathered them bit by bit, and the process couldn’t have been simple.

Thinking of this, she felt eighty-eight wasn’t expensive at all – even eight hundred and eighty-eight might not match Xie Huai’s hard work.

Xia Xia waited in the dorm until eight-thirty, unable to sit still any longer.

She dressed, put the finished scarf in a pretty paper bag, and went downstairs to find Xie Huai.

Xie Huai wasn’t at his stall. In three hours, he had sold out all twenty apples and two hundred bottles of snow spray.

Xia Xia thought he must have gone to the supermarket to avoid the wind and chat with the cashier. Just as she was about to go find him there, she saw Zhao Shanqi and Cai Yun walking this way.

She stood in the corner of the flower bed behind the stall, neither of them noticing her.

Zhao Shanqi also held a paper bag. She looked around and, seeing no one nearby, took out the receipt inside and stuffed the bag into Xie Huai’s cardboard box pile by the road.

Cai Yun seemed rather regretful: “You’re not giving it to him in person, and you didn’t even leave the receipt inside. It’s a three-thousand-yuan wool scarf – how will he know if you don’t tell him?”

Zhao Shanqi: “I just want to give him a scarf, it has nothing to do with how much it costs.”

After they left, Xia Xia emerged from behind the bushes.

She crouched down and took out Zhao Shanqi’s bag, which indeed contained a plaid scarf.

She felt it – smooth and silky, made of material she’d never even seen before.

Xia Xia looked at the scarf she’d knitted from sixty-yuan yarn, her eyes darkening.

She put Zhao Shanqi’s scarf back and turned toward the dormitory.

Liang Yuantai saw her from afar and waved with an outstretched arm: “Xia Xia!”

Xia Xia: “Why are you here?”

“Grandmother asked me to bring apples for you and Huai Ge.” Liang Yuantai carried two bags of apples and gave one to Xia Xia.

Xia Xia took it: “Grandmother is quite fashionable, thank her for me.”

Liang Yuantai asked: “Is that a scarf in your hand?”

Xia Xia nodded, and Liang Yuantai asked: “Is it for Huai Ge?”

Xia Xia thought for a moment, then shook her head: “No, I was planning to throw it away.”

Liang Yuantai scratched the back of his head, looking at her eagerly: “Then give it to me. Grandmother always says she wants to knit me a scarf, but her eyesight is poor and she can never get it right.”

“This is something I was going to throw away, you don’t mind?”

Liang Yuantai said: “Of course, I don’t mind something you give me.”

Xia Xia smiled and took out the scarf, tying it around Liang Yuantai’s neck, carefully making a knot: “Yuantai looks so handsome.”

Liang Yuantai wore a bright yellow down jacket today, and with the dark grey scarf, he looked quite spirited. He smiled shyly.

Xia Xia said: “Xie Huai should be back soon, wait for him here, and please tell him I won’t be going tonight.”

Liang Yuantai seemed to half-understand.

Xia Xia walked toward the dormitory.

The evening snow had stopped, and thick clouds covered the sky, hiding the moon and stars, making it oppressively hard to breathe.

Xia Xia was almost at the dormitory entrance when Xie Huai’s voice came from behind.

He ran over: “Xia Xia!”

Xia Xia stopped and turned to look at him.

Xie Huai was breathing heavily from running too fast: “Yuantai just told me you’re not going, why?”

Xia Xia looked dispirited: “Don’t want to go.”

“Not feeling well?” Xie Huai felt her forehead temperature with the back of his hand.

Xia Xia felt miserable inside and stepped back petulantly to avoid him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just don’t want to go.”

She couldn’t explain clearly what was wrong, but her heart felt blocked, so blocked she didn’t want to talk to Xie Huai.

Xie Huai looked at her, eyes bright: “If you’re not feeling well, go back and rest.”

He reached out: “Give me the thing before you go.”

Xia Xia was confused: “What thing?”

“Still pretending?” Xie Huai pinched her face. “You knitted a scarf for Yuantai, you must have one for me too, right?”

He looked expectant: “Hand it over, or Huai Ge will get you.”

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

Author’s Note: Some readers mentioned this earlier, so let me explain again. Legally, there’s no concept of children paying their parents’ debts, unless inheriting assets or other circumstances (though seeing how poor Huai Ge is, he has no inheritance). So the billion-plus that Huai Ge’s father owed doesn’t need to be repaid by Huai Ge. What he needs to repay is the loan shark debt. Simply put, Huai Ge’s father tricked people before dying, angering the underworld boss – if he doesn’t repay, they’ll cut off his hands. The law can hardly constrain such situations. This makes it easier to understand.