“The monster devoured a thousand moons, leaving only the last one, standing on the hanging beam, its gentleness filling the sky, buried within the vast Milky Way.”

Shi Niannian finished reading the last paragraph from the reading material handed out by her Chinese teacher, closed the paper, rubbed her eyes, and looked at the clock on the podium.

It was already eight twenty.

Evening self-study would end soon.

After the division between arts and sciences, Shi Niannian had chosen science and had just completed her first week of the new semester.

On this early September evening, the weather was still sultry. The ceiling fan whirred overhead, dispelling the threatening heat wave like two beasts fighting.

“Niannian.” The girl in front of her bumped her desk and extended a snow-white palm. “Have you finished the math homework?”

“Mm.” She responded softly, taking out two math papers and handing them to Jiang Ling.

“I love you most!” Jiang Ling turned back to her with an exaggerated smile.

Her voice wasn’t kept down, and the supervising teacher on the podium looked up and knocked on the desk: “What’s all this noise? Huh? What’s with all the chatting! Has class ended for you to be talking?”

Jiang Ling immediately shrank back and lowered her head. Shi Niannian reacted half a beat slower, instinctively looking up, receiving a glare from the angry English teacher, and quickly lowering her head too.

Some people noticed she was being scolded and started snickering quietly.

Two minutes later, that snow-white hand reached back again, placing a milk candy on her desk.

“Ring-ring-ring!” The dismissal bell sounded.

In an instant, the previously quiet classroom became lively as everyone sprang from their seats.

Shi Niannian slowly packed her schoolbag, the last to leave the classroom, turning off the lights as she left.

The corridor was very dim. She had night blindness, so she took out her phone and turned on the flashlight to light her way. After walking a few steps, she heard a strange sound.

Without thinking much, only afraid of falling because she couldn’t see clearly, she raised her phone light toward the source of the sound.

The glaring flashlight illuminated two people. One was a girl with an exquisite, beautiful face, long hair that fell to her waist, bright red lips, and uniform pants that had been altered to be skinny. She was hanging on a tall, thin boy.

She recognized this girl, also from Class 3, Grade 2, named Cheng Qi, a popular figure at school, beautiful and exuding a strong presence.

Realizing what was happening, Shi Niannian immediately turned her phone around, pressing the flashlight end tightly against her clothes.

Cheng Qi frowned as she looked over, but her expression changed to a smile when she recognized Niannian. “Don’t you know the rules? Shining a light in people’s eyes at night.”

She spoke with flirtation and feigned anger, her voice dripping with sweetness.

“S-s-sorry.” Shi Niannian had a stutter, and being frightened by her made it even harder to speak.

“S-s-sorry,” Cheng Qi mimicked her, then bent over laughing, the sound particularly jarring in the gradually quieting school.

She beckoned to Niannian, “Come here, I’ll teach you how to speak.”

Shi Niannian silently gripped her bag strap tighter, her face deathly pale in the flashlight’s glow, her feet nailed to the spot.

Cheng Qi was very dissatisfied with her reaction and raised her voice: “I told you to come here! Didn’t you hear me?”

Shi Niannian took a step back, bumping into the stairs with a dull sound.

Seeing that Cheng Qi was about to walk toward her, Shi Niannian took a deep breath and, regardless of whether she could see the ground clearly, started running.

She didn’t stop even after leaving the school, only stopping when she was almost home. Her hair tie had slipped down, loosely hanging on the last strand of hair. Shi Niannian took it off.

She circled it around her wrist, a small dark green loop.

She caught her breath as she rested, hearing the voices of several men sitting on the steps across the road, smoking and chatting. There were more than a dozen of them, looking to be around 20 years old.

Shi Niannian held her breath, hiding in a dark spot without lights, then raised her gaze and saw the characters on the shining copper plaque.

—Detention Center.

The door opened from inside, and the previously relaxed group suddenly stood at attention, almost as if they were about to salute. Shi Niannian’s heart beat faster as she looked over to see a man in a police uniform standing there, talking to someone behind him.

The policeman moved aside, and Shi Niannian saw the person behind him.

What followed was a resounding, uniform shout.

“—Welcome out, Brother Wang!!”

Shi Niannian: “…”

The young man stepped out of the doorframe. The dim streetlight fell diagonally, cutting his facial contours distinctly and deeply, half hidden in darkness, the other half a sickly white.

Perhaps from being inside for too long, his skin was extremely pale, his facial features clean and sharp, with strong brow bones, a lean jaw, and he appeared cold and hard.

A pair of fierce eyes, with lowered brows, his entire being exuded a capital-letter keep-away attitude.

His hair was very short, especially at the temples, with the outer corners of his narrow eyes forming an extremely narrow crease.

Sharp-featured, with unyielding defiance.

He didn’t look like he belonged with these pretentious youths outside.

Summer night cicadas shrilled, and small insects flew in the streetlight.

Shi Niannian stepped back twice, covering her mouth with her hand. Being timid, she didn’t dare to leave now and could only try to hide herself.

Hiding herself.

It was what she did best.

The young man on the steps, with an erect figure, had light coming from behind him, faintly outlining broad shoulders and a narrow waist beneath his clothes.

The youth frowned as he scanned the two rows of people before him, then kicked one person’s leg.

Shi Niannian heard him curse “idiot.”

After cursing, he walked forward, and the others followed, joking and laughing.

She had moved to this city since starting high school, a place where land was precious, with an intricate transportation network and tall skyscrapers.

She lived with her uncle’s family.

Her uncle was an impressive person who had started a business early and had become a renowned businessman.

Shi Niannian turned several corners to reach the villa district, which was by the water. Across was the central commercial area, bustling with traffic, commercial buildings, and huge billboards that never dimmed.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with this girl,” said one of the security guards at the entrance of the villa district. “She always seems a bit dazed, despite being so pretty.”

“I heard from that household, not her mother, but they say her grades are exceptional, ranked first in the key high school.”

“Really?” The security guard cast a doubtful glance at her. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Probably a bookworm, buried in studies until becoming silly,” another said indifferently.

…

The girl seemed to hear nothing, continuing forward with her schoolbag.

The hem of her blue school uniform had some dirt on it, already dried and stuck to it, which she hadn’t noticed.

“Niannian, you’re back.” Her aunt smiled, beckoning her over. “I just made dumplings. Are you hungry? Come and eat some.”

“Aunt.” Shi Niannian put down her bag. “I’ve already… eaten dinner.”

“It’s almost nine o’clock, of course, I know you’ve had dinner. This is a night snack.” Her aunt served her a bowl and placed a spoon on the table.

Shi Niannian ate one: “Aren’t you on a diet?”

“Xu Ningqing, that debt collector, is back. He just called saying he’s hungry and wants a midnight snack!” Despite her words, her aunt’s face still beamed with happiness.

Xu Ningqing was Shi Niannian’s cousin who had just finished the college entrance examination during the summer holiday and had only just returned from traveling, with university about to start.

“Brother is back?” Shi Niannian stopped what she was doing and looked up to ask.

“Yes, he just said he was at the convenience store up ahead, but he still hasn’t returned,” her aunt complained.

Shi Niannian ate the last dumpling and jumped off her chair: “Aunt, I’ll go find, find brother.”

When she had passed by earlier, she had seen a crowd of people at the convenience store from a distance, with occasional cries of pain.

Next to the convenience store was a basketball court, now with its lights on, illuminating the court surface green.

There were two groups of people fighting fiercely. The lighting on the court wasn’t good, and Shi Niannian couldn’t find Xu Ningqing even after watching for a while.

The hot summer wind could melt a person. Her shoulder-length hair was blown into disarray, and a layer of sweat formed at her temples. After watching from outside the wire fence for a while, she still stepped inside.

The first person she saw was a young man under the basketball hoop.

He sat there lazily, revealing a slender, lean ankle. A basketball lay beside his foot, along with a few cigarette butts. His dark eyes casually observed the intense group fight nearby, the open collar revealing distinct collarbones.

He showed no intention of joining.

Shi Niannian recognized him as the person she had seen at the detention center entrance earlier.

Jiang Wang squinted slightly, his weariness and impatience directly written in the corners of his narrowed eyes, looking ill-tempered.

In his second year of high school, he had stabbed a man in the abdomen with a knife, followed by various entanglements that delayed his imprisonment until half a year later, and today he was released.

His hearing had declined sharply due to an accident. He tilted his head slightly, adjusting the hearing aid hidden in his ear, producing a series of static sounds.

It made his head hurt.

At the end of the jarring noise came the girl’s somewhat stiff voice: “H…hello.”

Halting and stuttering.

First, he saw a slender, fair ankle in slippers.

Jiang Wang looked up and saw a pair of clear, limpid eyes, calm to the point of having no ripples, which didn’t quite match her stuttering speech from moments ago.

Yet they instantly calmed his heart.

What a damn wonder.

He raised an eyebrow: “Hmm?”

“Can, can… would you, help, help me…”

Her face gradually reddened as she spoke, appearing very difficult. Finally, she took a breath and continued, “Call… call Xu Ningqing for me?”

The three words “Xu Ningqing” came out quite smoothly.

The girl before him had a slightly oval face shape and wore loose school uniform pants. When the wind blew, it outlined her thin figure, empty and floating. Her skin was white to the point of transparency, and because of that string of words she had just struggled through, her face was a bit flushed, showing a very pretty pink.

Her voice was soft and light, sweet.

Pity she was a stutterer.

Jiang Wang laughed, his voice a bit hoarse.

Carelessly casual, seeming both mocking and disdainful, permeated with weariness and a nasal tone.

He tilted his head and pinched near his ear, asking: “What?”

Shi Niannian’s eyes widened slightly. It was difficult for her to speak, and her stuttering voice couldn’t be loud. The fight on the other side was getting intense, and she didn’t want to be caught up in it, so she mustered her courage to ask him.

Only now did she realize that this young man with the mischievous smile was deliberately teasing her.

She turned to leave, taking a few steps toward the crowd.

A voice sounded from behind: “Hey.”

She stopped, not turning back.

Jiang Wang leaned back on his hands, his eyelids drooping as he squinted at her: “Little Stutterer.”