Qi Da looked up, his gaze falling with interest on the girl in the rearview mirror.

The car’s heater was running high. She was soaked through, wearing his coat, tiredly resting her head against the car window.

The girl seemed to have exhausted all her strength. Since getting in the car, she hadn’t spoken a word, silent in her world.

The highway had been treated with de-icing salt. The snow-covered road surface left black slush where car wheels passed over it.

The tires rolled slowly forward, making crunching sounds against the snow stuck to the road surface.

“Hey,” Qi Da smiled, “don’t you think you should thank me? Even though how you met wasn’t exactly beautiful, I’m still the one who matched you and Xie Huai up.”

The girl’s downcast expression finally shifted slightly.

Her tone was puzzled: “Didn’t you just hear Xie Huai break up with me? What should I thank you for? Thank you for giving me a failed relationship experience?”

Qi Da smirked: “Such a pretty girl shouldn’t have such a hot temper.”

Xia Xia silently banged her head against the window: “Xie Huai that dog, is he sick? I—”

She thought of Qiao Ruchun’s gentle, spring breeze-like temperament and her kindness and tenderness toward her, forcing herself to swallow back the “fuck him” that was about to escape her lips.

Qi Da: “Stop banging your head. It doesn’t matter if you break the glass, but if you get a bump on your head, Xie Huai will give me trouble.”

Xia Xia’s eyes reddened: “He broke up with me, he won’t care anymore…”

Qi Da didn’t respond. The atmosphere in the small car cabin grew heavy. The snowy night was quiet, with only the sound of the girl’s suppressed sobs breaking the silence. Qi Da pulled into a service station and sent Xie Huai a message.

[Your little sister is crying her eyes out in my car, not only are her eyes swollen, but she’s also got a big bump on her head. I’m in a tough spot.]

Seeing him messaging Xie Huai, Xia Xia leaned forward to grab his phone and quickly typed out several lines.

[She’s running a high fever, calling your name in her sleep.]

[Should I take her back to your place?]

Qi Da warned: “I advise against it. The police let Hu Shurong escape tonight. Someone like him holds grudges, and if given any chance to breathe, he’ll come back for revenge.”

“Xie Huai asked me to take you home because he’s worried about your safety.”

Xia Xia: “Xie Huai is just a self-righteous idiot. Even if Hu Shurong wants revenge, he won’t just target him. What difference does it make if I go back to Chang City? It’s only a three-hour drive from Zhang City to Chang City, how hard would it be for him to find me? If you take me back now, I might end up in tomorrow’s Chang City Evening News—”

“—Young Girl Raped and Murdered by Gang Members, Body Found on New Year’s Day.”

The girl’s expression was eerily calm as if the person she spoke of being found dead wasn’t herself: “Call Xie Huai right now and tell him to think carefully before driving me away. Ask him if he could live with himself if something happened to me in Chang City?”

“If Hu Shurong comes for revenge, he’ll have to step over Xie Huai’s dead body first.”

“You’ve been with Xie Huai for so long, don’t you understand him?” Qi Da said calmly. “If Hu Shurong touches you, Xie Huai would die to drag him to hell with him.”

It was two in the morning, and everything was silent.

The festive New Year’s atmosphere had completely disappeared. The dome of heaven no longer held the brilliance of fireworks, only deep darkness remained.

The service station was empty, with only the blue light of the self-service coffee machine glowing in the darkness.

Qi Da bought two Americanos and handed one to Xia Xia.

Xia Xia’s hair had dried in the car’s warm air. Wearing Qi Da’s coat that fell to her calves, she didn’t feel cold.

She leaned against the car and said wearily: “I don’t want Hu Shurong to go to hell.”

“I just want Xie Huai to be okay,” Xia Xia held the warm coffee, her hands slowly warming up after being chilled by the river water. “I endured eighteen dark years of life and finally met Xie Huai. I haven’t even had the chance to properly live life with him, haven’t had the chance to let him properly love me.”

The hot coffee’s steam dispersed in the cool night air as the cold wind blew.

“That kind of trash,” Xia Xia drank half her cup of coffee, frowning at the bitter taste. “What right does that kind of trash have to make Xie Huai go to hell with him?”

She murmured: “Bitter.”

Qi Da held the creamer, opening it a beat too late.

Xia Xia poured out the remaining half cup of coffee, then decided: “I’m going back to find him.”

Qi Da blocked her: “No.”

“Are you hiding something from me?” Xia Xia stared at him steadily. “What exactly does Xie Huai plan to do?”

“I don’t know,” Qi Da avoided her searching gaze and explained, “I barely communicate with Xie Huai. He called me last night saying Hu Shurong took you away, making me miss going home for New Year’s, but besides that, he didn’t tell me anything…”

“Besides that, he didn’t say anything…” Xia Xia paused, mercilessly exposing his lie. “Then how did you know we were at Wolong River? When Xie Huai left, Hu Shurong’s men were following him and had installed a listening device on his phone. He couldn’t call the police, so how did they know where Hu Shurong was?”

Qi Da smiled awkwardly: “Xie Huai and I have known each other since we were kids, we’re as close as can be. We’ve played games together for over ten years and have lots of code words others don’t understand. Hu Shurong was watching him closely, so when he called me asking to borrow money, only I understood what he meant. As brothers, I had to help.”

Xia Xia: “As brothers who are as close as can be, you can’t even guess what he’s thinking?”

Seeing that Xia Xia wasn’t easily fooled, Qi Da dropped the act and said frankly: “I’m sorry, but even if I could guess, I can’t tell you.”

Xia Xia said: “You don’t need to tell me, just take me back.”

“That’s not possible, I promised Xie Huai,” Qi Da said seriously. “If anything happens to you, I can’t take that responsibility.”

“Really won’t take me?” Xia Xia looked at him quietly.

“No.”

Xia Xia took off his coat and opened the car door to throw it inside.

She was still wearing the T-shirt from home last night, now filthy after everything that had happened. Her lotus-root-white arms quickly turned red in the cold wind. She hugged herself as the wind tousled her bangs.

“I’ll walk,” she said coldly.

Qi Da: “…”

“…Do you know how far it is to the city? It’ll be dawn by the time you walk back.” He narrowed his eyes threateningly, “If you keep acting up, I’ll call Xie Huai and let him deal with you himself.”

“Has Xie Huai replied to your message?” Xia Xia asked.

Qi Da glanced at his phone. There were no messages; who knew what Xie Huai was doing?

“Do you know why he’s not responding?” Xia Xia said flatly. “I just remembered, that Xie Huai’s phone was in his pocket when he fell in the water. Even if it wasn’t washed away by the river, it’s probably ruined after being soaked for so long. Still want to call him?”

Qi Da put down his phone and looked up at the sky helplessly, trying to buy time to think of a solution.

But he couldn’t see anything. There was nothing in the sky except thick clouds and snowflakes falling on his face.

Xia Xia turned and walked alone along the empty, endless highway.

Qi Da: “Sort out your problems with each other, stop torturing an outsider like me, okay!”

Xia Xia ignored him, stubbornly treading through the not-yet-melted snow at the roadside, leaving footprints as she walked toward Zhang City.

Qi Da chased after her, nearly driven to breakdown by the girl:

“—What kind of wild behavior is this?”

Dawn.

The light was hazy, with the sun not yet fully risen above the horizon.

The streets were sparsely populated, with occasional vehicles traversing the straight city roads. The sound of New Year’s Day firecrackers reverberated like surround sound, and countless startled dog barks echoed between the city’s towering buildings, joining the crackers in making eardrums throb painfully.

Xie Huai walked out of the police station as the officer beside him repeatedly reminded him: “If Hu Shurong comes looking for you again, contact us immediately.”

Xie Huai nodded indifferently. The officer’s words reached his ears but were scattered by the louder firecracker sounds, passing through without registering.

His wounds had been simply treated. After nearly thirty hours without sleep, wrapped in cold and exhaustion, he was almost numb, barely aware of the pain anymore.

The crackling sounds continued for a long time, carrying Xie Huai’s thoughts back to long ago.

He vaguely remembered hearing similar deafening firecracker sounds on some clear winter day in some year, some month.

Back then, he was always surrounded by people wherever he went.

—Some carefully smiling and cautious, others arm-in-arm causing trouble together.

During the first-year final exams, a usually quiet girl in class was raped by the math teacher. Lacking sufficient evidence to file a case, the criminal smugly called the girl to his office to verbally abuse her. A classmate accidentally overheard this and angrily told others back in class.

Xie Huai had been playing games all night and was napping at his desk when the noisy voices around him woke him up.

The classmates were furious, shouting about skipping afternoon math class together and writing a joint letter to the education bureau requesting the math teacher’s dismissal.

Xie Huai sat by the window, brilliant sunlight falling on his handsome face, creating white halos on his long eyelashes.

The light dazzled him, and he frowned his distinguished brows in irritation: “What’s all the noise about?”

Seeing his detached attitude, one male student couldn’t contain his anger: “Young Master, just keep sleeping. Our noise has nothing to do with you. You never care about anything outside your world anyway. Such a big thing happening at school probably sounds like just someone farting to your ears.”

Though mocked, Xie Huai didn’t lose his temper. Suppressing his irritation, he asked again: “What are you all arguing about?”

That afternoon, the students failed to skip class. The homeroom teacher rushed over and scolded them all soundly in the classroom. By the time he finished, class time had already started, but the math teacher hadn’t arrived. Also missing was Xie Huai, who never studied and only read manga in the corner during class.

…

Xie Huai still remembered how he felt when tying ten thousand firecrackers to that man’s body.

Calm as a waveless, surfaceless water, without any excess worry or sympathy.

His thumb pressed the lighter, eyebrows slightly raised: “Either turn yourself in, or I light this. Choose one.”

The man was terrified: “Xie Huai, I’m your teacher! How dare you act so recklessly!”

Fear made sweat pour down his face, making it look oily as he muttered: “Mustn’t act recklessly, mustn’t act recklessly— murder is illegal, aren’t you afraid of going to jail?”

Xie Huai reminded him: “Teacher, I’m not even sixteen yet. I won’t go to jail for killing you.”

He asked puzzledly: “Besides, what’s there to be afraid of? Murder is illegal, true, but do you even qualify as human?”

…

After the math teacher wet himself in fear and went to turn himself in at the police station, all the subject teachers avoided Xie Huai when they saw him, afraid of carelessly provoking this fierce god and ending up tied with firecrackers. The classmates’ attitudes toward him also became peculiar.

Girls who previously only dared to secretly watch him play basketball became brave overnight, filling his desk compartment with love notes and sticky notes.

Boys who used to look down on him no longer sarcastically called him Young Master, instead gathering in groups during breaks to invite him to play basketball on the playground.

Xie Huai nestled behind a pile of books, listlessly fiddling with the new smartphone he’d bought with his allowance at the beginning of the month: “No, too sunny.”

Boy: “Xie Huai, you’re too brave, doing something like that was fucking cool. What were you thinking when you tied up that beast?”

The screen played the opening theme of Xie Huai’s favorite Zorro animation:

“In the deep night, I put on my mask and set out, raising my sharp sword to uphold justice—”

“Wasn’t thinking anything,” Xie Huai put on his earphones and said flatly, “Just being Chunibyo.”

…

What Xie Huai never said was that besides a youth’s passionate hatred of evil, he had also acted with the fearlessness of someone from a powerful family background. Even when Xie Zhisheng later cursed him until blood nearly spurted, he didn’t care, just carelessly shrugging it off like the buzzing of a mosquito.

Back then, his hand holding the lighter hadn’t trembled at all, steadily hovering above the firecrackers. No matter how hysterically the man screamed in fear, he remained unmoved, not even considering what would happen to this life if his hand slipped.

—The young Xie Huai never looked before he leaped.

His nature was inherently rebellious and unruly, and he had a mighty tree sheltering his entire life behind him. No need to think about consequences; after all, Xie Zhisheng could handle everything.

Seven hours after crossing into the lunar New Year, twenty-one-year-old Xie Huai stood at the police station entrance.

The thin winter sun showed a soft red edge in the distant mountain valleys. In those few short minutes, many things flashed through his mind—the past, the present, and the future he had once imagined.

Most frequent in his mind was the girl’s face, sometimes gentle and playful, sometimes angry and unpredictable.

“For every hour you’re late, I’ll let them have her for an hour.”

“If you can’t gather the money by the time they’re done with her, don’t bother coming back.”

“Go fish her out of Wolong River.”

Hu Shurong’s words echoed again and again in his ears.

The sentences weren’t long, but they were enough to ignite all the violent flames in his heart.

Xie Huai bought a pack of cigarettes from a nearby store. His friends had taught him to smoke before, but he disliked the smell and never developed a habit, only smoking one or two occasionally when under extreme pressure to clear his head.

He hadn’t slept for too long, his nerves taut as a thin string. After one cigarette, his mind felt much clearer.

A car stopped by the road, and Xia Xia got out.

Her thin T-shirt couldn’t block the early morning chill at all, as cold penetrated through every pore of her skin into her body.

Qi Da ran down with his coat, looking awkwardly at Xie Huai: “She won’t wear my clothes…”

Xie Huai stubbed out his cigarette and turned to leave.

“Xie Huai.” Xia Xia called out to him, “Are you leaving?”

The girl’s voice was soft, with a tremor that needed no careful listening to detect, speaking with broken, watery tones.

All the violent flames in Xie Huai’s heart were extinguished in an instant, all turning to tenderness around his finger.

He turned back to see the girl’s eyes and nose red with tears.

“You broke up with me in the early hours of this morning.”

“I know you’re afraid of me getting hurt, afraid of Hu Shurong taking revenge on me as your girlfriend, but I’m really sad, I’ll take it seriously.”

Xia Xia looked at him: “I’ll ask one more time, do you want to break up with me? If you say yes, I absolutely won’t cling to you.”

She choked up: “Think carefully, if you still insist on breaking up, even if you solve everything and come back to find me, I won’t accept you anymore.”

“What makes you think that you can forbid me from staying by your side when you’re at your most difficult time, and I’ll still forgive you afterward?”

Xie Huai’s eyes hurt as if something had stabbed them.

He saw Xia Xia crying with tears all over her face, and some nerve in his body connected, making his heartache too.

The bloodshot in Xie Huai’s eyes was frightening. He looked at her silently without a word.

Xia Xia said through her tears: “I’ll call Ping Jiapeng right now, and Zhao Jinsong too.”

“So many men like me and are lining up to chase me. If you don’t want me anymore, I’ll go find someone else right now—”

Xie Huai’s voice was hoarse and cold: “You dare.”

Though his words were domineering, Xia Xia didn’t get angry, instead asking gently: “So are we still breaking up?”

Xie Huai’s thin lips were pressed tightly together, like a troubled child, his thoughts swinging constantly between two poles.

Xia Xia didn’t pressure him. She wiped away the tears on her face: “I’m so cold, will you hug me?”