Ah Heng had imagined a thousand different scenarios of meeting her birth family. They might involve tears, overwhelming emotions, and deeply moving moments like in the Huangmei operas her mother used to watch—the kind that touched people’s hearts to their very core. Or perhaps there would be awkwardness, and discomfort, both sides treading carefully due to a distance created by time that couldn’t be immediately bridged.

She had imagined every possibility, but none matched the reality before her. And this reality felt real precisely because it defied all her assumptions.

“Si Wan, what’s going on?” The elderly man with an imposing demeanor slowly swept his gaze from Ah Heng to the youth who stood dripping wet like a drenched chicken.

“Grandfather, Yan Xi, and I were just playing around, accidentally…” Si Wan seemed unbothered, smiling casually.

The elderly man nodded slightly, then turned his gaze to Ah Heng.

Ah Heng’s heart beat rapidly, feeling as if time had frozen in this moment. The elderly man called “Grandfather” stared at her, leaving her nowhere to hide.

“What was your name before?”

“Yun, Heng.” Having grown up in the south, Ah Heng had studied Mandarin but spoke it awkwardly. She pronounced each word separately, making her speech seem clumsy.

“Following Si Wan’s generation name, I had chosen a name for you when your mother had you—Si Er. But someone else took that name. Keep your original name then, from now on you’ll be called Wen Heng.” The elderly man contemplated, looking at his granddaughter before him, speaking after a long pause.

Did someone else take it? Ah Heng felt confused, her eyes unconsciously glancing carefully at Si Wan, finally fixing on his hands. The youth’s fingers were visibly swollen, water drops sliding down his sleeve and along the back of his hand.

“Zhang Sao, take Wen Heng to rest.” The elderly man instructed the middle-aged woman standing nearby, then looked at Si Wan, “Go clean yourself up. At your age, this is unacceptable.”

Love runs deep, hence criticism cuts sharp.

As Ah Heng followed Zhang Sao up the curved wooden stairs, she recalled how the elderly man had scolded Si Wan, and this phrase flashed through her mind.

When she was very young, her foster father had told her that kinship couldn’t be calculated with addition and subtraction. When it existed, it meant giving everything without expecting returns; when it didn’t, it was zero—there was no middle ground for haggling.

Then what about the absence of love—did that mean coldness?

Even the teachers in her small town had taught about such contrasts.

“Here we are.” Zhang Sao reached the corner of the second floor and opened the bedroom door.

“Thank you.” Ah Heng’s voice was gentle, her Wu dialect-tinged Mandarin pronunciation somewhat comical.

Zhang Sao’s expression was unnatural as she studied Ah Heng for a long while, finally sighing before turning to leave.

Ah Heng dragged her suitcase into the bedroom but suddenly felt confused.

Warm blue everywhere, sophisticated and cozy design, signs of life in every corner. Delicate blue seashell wind chimes, a soft bed big enough for four of her, bedding that emanated warmth.

Had someone else lived here before? Feeling as if she had intruded into someone else’s private space, Ah Heng felt lost. She reluctantly put down her suitcase and gently sat in the swivel chair by the glass round table.

Looking down, she saw several exquisite straw dolls scattered on the round table. There was a stern grandfather with white hair and an upturned mustache, a smiling grandmother with curved eyebrows wearing a cross pendant, a dignified father in a naval uniform with a cigarette, a gentle mother with a beautiful hairdo, and a boy with upturned eyebrows, large eyes, and deep dimples. Was this… the Wen family?

Looking at the endearing dolls, Ah Heng’s nervous mood strangely relaxed. She reached out, her fingertips carefully tracing their outlines.

“Don’t touch Er Er’s things!”

Ah Heng was startled, her hand trembling, and instantly the doll fell onto the carpet. She turned around, woodenly looking at the woman who had suddenly appeared, and oddly felt her nose begin to sting.

When she was little, she knew she didn’t look like her father, mother, or brother Yun Zai. She had once asked her mother: “Ma, why don’t I look like you?”

“Ah Heng looks good just as she is,” her mother looked at her lovingly and smiled. “Mountain-range eyebrows are more noble than willow-leaf eyebrows.”

Yun’s mother had typical willow-leaf eyebrows, the charming style of a Jiangnan woman; while Ah Heng had mountain-range eyebrows, with clear gentle eyes, carrying something of the pure mountain streams about her.

The middle-aged woman before her happened to have exceptionally fine mountain-range eyebrows.

Ah Heng stood up, her body rigid, staring at her without blinking, watching her walk to her side, gently crouch down; watching her tenderly pick up the fallen doll, then stand up.

She didn’t ask her name, didn’t ask her age, didn’t ask if she was well, didn’t ask any of the questions a mother would ask—she just gave her a shallow glance, her eyes first bright, then dim, and spoke coldly: “Don’t touch anything in this room.”

Then she left.

Ah Heng watched the woman’s retreating figure, and suddenly, a profound sense of inferiority slowly released from the bottom of her heart. Who was she? This child who wished she could dissolve herself into the air, become untouchable dust.

Ignorance, it turned out, was crueler than abandonment.

Mama, such a gentle, soft word.

Ah Heng’s mama.

Mama, mama.

Ah Heng hugged her suitcase and cried as if she’d been humiliated.

That evening’s dinner was, as Ah Heng expected, attended only by Grandfather, the head of the household. No father, no mother, not even the Si Wan she had met.

The elderly man asked her many questions, and each time Ah Heng became so nervous she could barely speak coherently until his thick eyebrows furrowed.

“I’ve arranged everything with the school. Tomorrow you’ll go to school with Si Wan. Ask him if you don’t understand anything.”

In the morning, Ah Heng saw the secretary who had brought her to City B again.

Si Wan sat in the front passenger seat, Ah Heng sat directly behind him.

This was Ah Heng’s first time in the north, and naturally, she found everything novel. The overly bustling crowds, the witty Beijing dialect heavy with the flavor of daily life, the tall, orderly buildings, the ingenious square siheyuan courtyards… The same city with different styles, yet miraculously blending like water and milk.

“Si Wan, the traffic ahead is quite bad,” the refined Secretary Li turned his face to Si Wan with a smile, his tone questioning.

“We’re very close to school. Why don’t Wen Heng and I get off here, Uncle Li?” Si Wan contemplated for a moment, looking at the long line of cars that had been stuck at the intersection for nearly twenty minutes, and replied politely with a smile.

Ah Heng carried her backpack, following behind Si Wan, neither too far nor too close—exactly an arm’s length away.

Much later, when Ah Heng stood beside Si Wan, it was always at arm’s length, appearing somewhat stiff.

Si Wan didn’t notice at first but later discovered that among all their friends, only with him did she maintain this distance. Even with his gentlemanly temperament, he couldn’t help feeling annoyed.

“Little girl, I’m your brother, your brother!” Si Wan would gently rest his hand on Ah Heng’s head, half-joking.

“I know,” Ah Heng would answer honestly.

Precisely because he was her brother, she clearly remembered that he didn’t like her getting too close.

This kind of cautious cherishing, Si Wan would never understand, just as he would never understand why he repeatedly gave up on Ah Heng.

Si Wan chose the small road, passing through a narrow, winding alley. Ah Heng silently memorized the route with her head down, until they reached the street corner exit and saw the busy crowd before them.

The power of fate lies in its ability to stand at the endpoint and watch the stunning encounters it has set up along your path. And those encounters, though each one feels irreplaceable in your heart at the time, looking back, seem so natural and inevitable—like a tiny, almost overlooked piece of a puzzle that makes it complete only by its presence.

The second time Ah Heng saw the person she would love for life, he was sitting on the street corner, mixed among a group of elderly people, head lowered, intently sipping Dou Jiang from a rough ceramic bowl.

His long, fair fingers held the edge of the bowl, soft black hair naturally falling along his temple, just hiding his profile, revealing only his tall, delicate nose bridge. Though she could see every slightly upturned fine hair and the loose thread by the first button of his dark blue school uniform jacket, his face remained completely blank.

At that moment, it was 7:58 AM.

“Yan Xi, we’ll be late, hurry up!” Si Wan, as if used to this, patted his shoulder while continuing to stride forward.

Ah Heng silently watched the young man, watched as he lazily raised his slender fingers in Si Wan’s direction, yet never lifted his head.

Yan Xi. It sounded like a girl’s name.

Seeing the doujiang stain that had accidentally brushed against his hair, Ah Heng smiled faintly, quietly took out a white handkerchief from her pocket, silently placed it on the dust-covered wooden table, and then left.

The young man didn’t look up. At this time, he seemed terrifyingly cold to any stranger.