Yu Jiuqi knew why Yu Kaixuan wanted to take her out to eat—he was here to smooth over her relationship with Wen Wen on her behalf.

Yu Jiuqi used to really enjoy going out to restaurants alone with Yu Kaixuan, especially when she had just started middle school. That year, Shicheng opened its first Western restaurant. Xiao Jiu particularly loved the spaghetti and steak there, pestering her dad to take her every week. She gained ten pounds within a year.

Yu Kaixuan couldn’t get used to Western food. He thought it was all just snacks, not filling enough. Fortunately, to attract customers, the restaurant had adapted to local customs by adding quite a few regional dishes. In this American-style Western restaurant, you could also order authentic sweet and sour pork and sauerkraut blood sausage. There was even boiled edamame and peanuts on the dessert menu. Yu Kaixuan appreciated this greatly—doing business required flexibility and adaptability, without taboos.

Wen Wen almost never went with them. During those two years, she’d become obsessed with Latin dance, spending every waking moment in the dance hall.

However, that time in the dance hall wasn’t wasted. As an amateur, she actually represented Shicheng in a Latin dance competition in Shenyang and even won a prize. Wen Wen used the prize money to tour Hong Kong and even attended a Nicholas Tse concert. After returning, she suddenly had an epiphany. She said she wanted to live a different life.

She didn’t yet know exactly how to live it, nor did she want to know such specifics—the unknown was what made it interesting; life was an adventure. However, she was very certain that to achieve rebirth, the very first step was to divorce Yu Kaixuan.

By now, Yu Jiuqi wouldn’t be surprised by any outrageous thing Wen Wen did. Even if she said she wanted to ascend to heaven, Xiao Jiu could silently see her off. But back then, this cruel decision announced unilaterally without any room for negotiation had shattered their family of three and completely changed Yu Jiuqi’s life.

One consequence was that from then on, she rarely ate alone with her father anymore.

After the divorce, Yu Jiuqi stayed with her mother. Yu Kaixuan moved out alone. After Grandfather passed away and left the bathhouse to him, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to it. Later, as Xiao Jiu’s academic workload grew heavier, in high school Wen Wen sent her to a semi-closed boarding school. During breaks she occasionally went to her father’s place, only to discover Yu Kaixuan was dating someone. Before long he remarried, and she went less often.

After that came four years of university in Beijing. Even after graduating and returning, she was busy with interviews and certification exams. After entering the bank, she became even less free—working at the counter during the day, attending meetings after work. When she did have spare time, she still had to deal with various assessments. The days just drifted by like this, bland and uneventful, for many years.

Now, as the nearly twenty-five-year-old Yu Jiuqi looked back, she suddenly felt that Wen Wen’s cruel decision back then wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. At least the two of them had each found more comfortable ways of living.

Moreover, unlike those bitter couples who turned hostile after divorce, they had actually become more harmonious than when they were married.

As for herself? Xiao Jiu inhaled a breath of air that was more than ten degrees below zero. That cold air floated lightly up to the top of her head, choking her and leaving her no time to think further.

She kept her head down, treading on the packed snow, following her father’s footsteps along Shicheng’s most prosperous food street. At this moment, the only thing she wanted to do was hook onto his forearm and hold on tightly, as if afraid she might fall, or perhaps afraid he might slip away again.

Yu Kaixuan turned back and tugged his daughter’s forearm, breaking the mood with one sentence: “Let’s have a drink together.”

“Let’s drink then.” When Xiao Jiu smiled, her eyes sparkled.

Yu Kaixuan asked what she wanted to eat. By coincidence, as soon as she turned her head, she saw that same Western restaurant from years ago that served local dishes.

Now this place not only served regular dishes but also had lamb skewers. Yu Kaixuan ordered some drinking snacks and grilled skewers, got two bottles of Tsingtao beer. Xiao Jiu ordered all the pasta, steak, and appetizers she used to love.

The father and daughter first hastily picked their favorite foods to eat half-full while hot, silently each tending to their own business, their eating mannerisms surprisingly similar. Only after drinking half the beer did Yu Kaixuan cut to today’s main topic.

However, his approach was anything but smooth—simple, direct, charging straight ahead.

He said, “Why don’t you just move back to your mom’s place? I saw her yesterday. She’s lost a lot of weight. She says she hasn’t been eating or sleeping well these past days. I think she knows she was wrong. Forgive her.”

Yu Jiuqi gnawed on a chicken wing, completely unsurprised that her dad brought this up, her expression calm and unruffled: “I’m not refusing to forgive her.”

“Then why won’t you go back? Dad’s not kicking you out. Your Auntie Hong welcomes you living with us too, but she is your mother after all.”

“I’m afraid of going back and disturbing her and General Manager Fu.”

“Xiao Fu doesn’t live there.”

“How do you know he’s not there?”

Yu Kaixuan got a bit agitated. “Xiao Jiu, let me ask you, can you still not let go of Xiao Fu?”

“I’ve let go.”

“Tell me the truth!”

Yu Jiuqi pulled out a napkin and wiped her hands, lifted her head. On the girl’s full, delicate oval face were scattered a few fine little freckles. A pair of clear, bright eyes looked seriously at her father as she told the truth: “All in all, I’ve only eaten four meals with him. I don’t have such deep feelings for him.”

“So you just blame your mom for having no boundaries.” Yu Kaixuan took a sip of beer. “Your mom, all these years later, still hasn’t grown up. Still so unreliable.”

Interestingly, Yu Jiuqi detected a trace of helplessness, understanding, even indulgence in her father’s tone—like an old father mentioning his wayward, immature daughter, rather than the scoundrel ex-wife who’d stolen his daughter’s boyfriend.

But this wasn’t hard to understand either. Wen Wen had always possessed an enviable kind of magic—she could openly and selfishly bully you while simultaneously making herself seem pitiful enough that you’d willingly work for her again.

Yu Kaixuan was completely susceptible to her tactics. He’d already forgotten about the embarrassing experience of sleeping in the bathhouse for half a year after she dumped him. Right now he was single-mindedly busy helping her smooth over this sordid melodrama and restore his daughter’s respect.

Not many outsiders knew about this family scandal of a love triangle. The neighbors only knew that Wen Wen was dating a boyfriend about the same age as her daughter, surnamed Fu, a second-generation rich kid who owned two shopping malls. But very few people knew that General Manager Fu had initially been Yu Jiuqi’s blind date match, and that he’d even met Wen Wen through Xiao Jiu.

Yu Kaixuan’s household had been turned upside down over this matter, but the one who’d led the charge wasn’t Yu Jiuqi—it was Meng Huihong, the wife Yu Kaixuan later married, because General Manager Fu was someone Meng Huihong had introduced to Xiao Jiu.

Meng Huihong had kindly wanted to select a quality match for Xiao Jiu. After careful selection, she’d settled on General Manager Fu. She’d even specially gone to play mahjong with General Manager Fu’s mother to build the relationship. As a result, Wen Wen had intercepted him. She couldn’t explain herself to either party and couldn’t save face, so she called Wen Wen to Wendu Water Pavilion for a talk. Her intention was to advise her to have some shame and not interfere, but after just a few words, they started fighting. The altercation became so serious that Yu Kaixuan had to clear out and temporarily close the chess and card room area on the third floor.

On the day of the fight, it was Sister Xiao Man who contacted Yu Jiuqi. After receiving the call, she hurriedly requested leave and rushed to Wendu Water Pavilion. On the second floor, she could already hear the arguing upstairs—crackling and clashing, with dramatic highs and lows, dragging up old grievances plus personal attacks, completely lacking logic or order. It was even difficult to discern the main point of their argument.

Though there were only two women, their momentum rivaled a thousand soldiers.

When she rushed up to the third-floor chess room in one breath, the verbal battle was already nearing its end. She only caught two attacks that had no direct logical connection to the core conflict, yet were the fundamental reason for escalating the verbal battle into physical combat.

In her youth, Meng Huihong had been a famous two-person comedy performer. Her voice was loud and her presence strong. Even when arguing, her basic skills hadn’t deteriorated. Before Yu Jiuqi even pushed open the chess room door, she heard Meng Huihong’s melodious tones with theatrical inflection, though the words coming out weren’t so pleasant to hear.

“Ah, so you’re actually proud and pleased with yourself, aren’t you? Changing boyfriends every few days, and getting younger and younger each time. Fine, you’ve got charm, you do whatever you want, but you can’t go around seducing Xiao Jiu’s match, can you?” Meng Huihong stood on her tiptoes as if standing center stage, raising her pitch another level. “I see you as a shameless hungry wolf who hasn’t tasted meat in several lifetimes, so desperate you’re even stealing from your own child!”

It was at this moment that Yu Jiuqi pushed open the door and saw everyone present gasp, their eyes darting wildly between the two parties involved. Aside from Yu Kaixuan, no one dared make a sound.

But the usually swagger Brother Erkai also lost his confidence when faced with the muddled accounts between his two wives. He could only weakly advise, “Alright, alright,” before being waved off by Wen Wen, the gesture meaning: you shut up, this has nothing to do with you.

Yu Jiuqi followed Wen Wen’s hand—with its bright red painted nails—and looked over to see her sneer coldly, her eyes completely red. In that moment, Xiao Jiu unexpectedly and inappropriately zoned out, marveling that even when arguing, Wen Wen exuded an alluring beauty. Strangely beautiful.

Beautiful as she was, her words were just as unpleasant. Wen Wen narrowed her seductive eyes, her tone carrying light, dismissive contempt: “Hello, how great you are. You performed opera, changing locations every couple of years. Changing locations meant changing partners, and changing partners meant having a child. All those years, you left a child behind wherever you went. What’s the difference between you and a hen laying eggs everywhere?”

Everyone gasped again, followed by a silence. No one dared exhale that breath, afraid of triggering a new round of slaughter.

But with things said to this extent, continuing to argue was meaningless. If they didn’t physically fight, they’d be doing a disservice to each other’s honesty.

Before Yu Jiuqi and Yu Kaixuan could step forward to restrain them, the two women were already grappling together.

First, Meng Huihong grabbed Wen Wen’s freshly permed long hair and slammed her against the wall. Wen Wen then randomly grabbed a water cup and hurled it at Meng Huihong’s forehead. Both women were desperate and seeing red, as if they wanted to tear each other apart alive.

Meng Huihong had a foundation from roaming the entertainment world. The pampered Wen Wen was clearly no match. Like a leopard, she nimbly charged forward, knocked Wen Wen down, straddled her body, and raised her palm. Following two crisp slaps, Wen Wen swept back her waterfall of long hair and touched the corner of her mouth, stained with a trace of blood.

When Meng Huihong raised her palm again, Yu Jiuqi suddenly rushed over, using all her strength to block her hand, shouting, “Auntie Hong, Auntie Hong, that’s enough!”

Meng Huihong seemed to freeze as if only just seeing Xiao Jiu, trying to push her away: “Move aside, don’t be afraid, today Auntie will stand up for you!”

Xiao Jiu gripped her wrist tightly: “This isn’t my mom’s fault. It’s me, it’s my problem.”

“What problem do you have?”

“Auntie, let me tell you the truth.” Yu Jiuqi lowered her head slightly to glance at Wen Wen, saw her face completely expressionless, paying no attention to herself, but still gritted her teeth and lowered her voice to continue, “I don’t like Xiao Fu. The two of us aren’t suitable. I’m quite happy they’re together, really, I support them.”

Xiao Jiu said it all in one breath, her voice getting softer and softer, so soft she didn’t even know what she was saying anymore.

Meng Huihong looked at Xiao Jiu with disappointed frustration, then glared at Wen Wen: “Don’t interfere. Even without this matter, today I still need to beat her!”

Yu Jiuqi was half-kneeling on the ground, her eyes red-rimmed: “Please, Auntie Hong!”

Meng Huihong saw Xiao Jiu’s tear-filled eyes, so earnest and sincere, then swept a glance at several employees watching from behind, understanding that besides fearing Wen Wen would be hurt, she also wanted to preserve some dignity for her mother at Wendu Water Pavilion. So she swallowed her anger, lowered her hand, and only said to Wen Wen:

“Someone like you really doesn’t deserve to have such a child.”

Wen Wen suddenly closed her eyes, threw her head back on the ground, took a long breath, and seemed to purse her lips slightly. A moment later, she abruptly opened her eyes, stood up in confusion, pressed the trace of blood at the corner of her mouth, her expression alarmed and confused.

She hurriedly asked Xiao Man, “Xiao Man, Xiao Man, my face is okay, right? Quick, check if my face is messed up?”

Xiao Man said it was fine, probably just bleeding from the teeth.

Yu Jiuqi was just about to step forward to speak to Wen Wen, wanting to say she’d take her to get checked out, when Wen Wen ignored her, walked straight past her, and had Xiao Man accompany her home.

From beginning to end, Wen Wen didn’t say a single word to Yu Jiuqi.

After that day, it was Xiao Jiu who stayed behind to clean up the chess room. After tidying inside and out, she suddenly saw Meng Huihong standing at the door. She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there. After holding back for a long time, she finally spoke: “Jiu, why don’t you move in and live with us?”

Yu Jiuqi didn’t agree, smiling and saying it was fine.

“All these years, how long are you going to accommodate her?” Meng Huihong’s voice suddenly choked up. “She’s stopped being human, but doesn’t she think about how you’re supposed to be human?”

Yu Jiuqi’s nose stung. She quickly lowered her head and continued wiping the floor, taking a long time to say: “It’s not that serious, Auntie.”

“What exactly are you afraid of? I don’t understand what you’re afraid of with her?” Meng Huihong’s quick temper flared up, and without regard for propriety, she blurted out, “Even if she showed you kindness back then…”

Yu Jiuqi, as if worried about hearing something terrible, suddenly looked up and interrupted her: “Auntie, my mom definitely didn’t do this on purpose.”

Meng Huihong simply waved her hand dismissively, saying she was too lazy to care anymore, turned around and left.

Yu Jiuqi truly believed Wen Wen hadn’t done it on purpose—at least she wouldn’t deliberately embarrass her, much less intentionally hurt her. Like so many times before, going home and coaxing her would make everything fine.

But when she got home, she saw that someone was already coaxing Wen Wen.

General Manager Fu was sitting on the sofa with Wen Wen nestled in his arms—one softly persuading, the other sobbing. Neither noticed Yu Jiuqi.

No, to be precise, General Manager Fu saw her. He raised a finger at her and shushed her, signaling her not to make noise and disturb the person in his arms.

Like a ghost that shouldn’t be there, she tiptoed back to her room and slowly closed the door, not daring to make a single sound.

Yu Jiuqi waited until deep in the night, after Wen Wen and General Manager Fu had both fallen asleep, before leaving with her suitcase.

She carried the suitcase downstairs, out of the building corridor, before standing it upright to drag it along.

After walking just a few steps, she saw scattered snow dots on the ground at her feet. Looking up, beneath a full moon, snowflakes rustled down toward her from all over the sky—silent and without warning.

She just watched the moon for a while like this, calm all over, just a bit cold.

Then she laid the suitcase flat on the ground, took out a pack of cigarettes from the inner compartment, knocked one out, rummaged through her bag for a lighter, sat on top of the suitcase, and with a flick lit it, skillfully taking a drag.

The snow quickly covered the street with a rustling sound. The moonlight was bright, making the human world seem like a silver daylight.

The weak flame before her eyes seemed like the only light in this silver day. Somehow, it reminded her of the little match girl from the fairy tale. Watching the ash about to fall, it was like an illusion about to collapse.

She suddenly seemed spurred by something, quickly pulled out her phone, opened WeChat, and dialed that black profile picture that had been buried in her contacts for so long.

After waiting a long time, just as the call was about to disconnect, the other party answered.

They were silent for a while first, as if diagnosing each other through the breathing sounds transmitted via the airwaves, gauging each other’s thoughts. Ultimately it was Yu Jiuqi who spoke first, though the other party had obviously guessed her intention.

Xiao Jiu went straight to the point: “Does what you said before still count?”

His voice was very low: “It counts.”

“Then come back.”

“Are you serious?”

She hummed in acknowledgment.

The voice on the other end tightened: “Do you know what it means for me to come back?”

“I know.”

“Say it. Tell me then.”

Xiao Jiu stared at the burning cigarette before her eyes, surprised that such a weak spark could be so dazzling: “When we were in Beijing, you asked me—if you could return to Shicheng, would I be willing to try again.”

The other side pressed relentlessly: “Willing to do what? Try what? Say it clearly.”

Xiao Jiu sat up straight, her tone light and airy, like talking in sleep: “Sun Xi, this time I’ve thought it through. I’m willing to be your girlfriend. Should we try harder together?”

The snow fell heavier and heavier, blotting out heaven and earth.

A moment later, he laughed out loud: “But I already changed my mind long ago.”

The cigarette went out. The phone was also cut off.