Yu Jiuqi wasn’t wealthy, but she’d never really lacked money either.
Like most only daughters of that era, Xiao Jiu had never been without pocket money growing up. Wen Wen was never stingy, and Yu Kaixuan always worried his daughter would lose face in front of classmates. The two didn’t coordinate with each other, constantly asking Xiao Jiu if her pocket money was enough.
Yu Jiuqi refused no one—when asked, it was never enough; when given, she took it. Combined with occasional secret handouts of ten or eight yuan from Grandfather, over time she’d accumulated a modest little treasury.
But she had no concept of money until the summer she was eight years old, when the family of three went on vacation to Qingdao. Wen Wen fell in love with an elaborately crafted Bohemian long dress in a clothing store, but they’d spent most of their cash and were still over two hundred yuan short. Yu Kaixuan rolled up his sleeves and passionately haggled with the shop clerk while Wen Wen stood to the side with crossed arms, her expression growing worse and worse. That’s when Xiao Jiu pulled out a whole handful of change from the inner pocket of her small backpack and timidly asked the owner: is this enough if we add this?
After buying the dress, Wen Wen struggled to lift the round little Xiao Jiu into the air, spun her around twice, then kissed her hard twice, praising her with a sweet-smelling fragrance coming from who knows where: “How can my baby be so good? My baby is truly a little angel. Mommy loves you so much, loves you to death!”
Yu Jiuqi was pressed into Wen Wen’s embrace until she could barely breathe. For the first time, she had a visceral, bone-deep understanding of money. Money was good, it was sweet-smelling, it was dizzying, it could easily make her mother shout her love to the whole world.
And most importantly, she felt the security of being needed.
Even an eight-year-old girl understood that simple truth: being needed meant having value, and having value meant not being easily discarded again.
From then on, Yu Jiuqi was enthusiastic about saving money to spend on Wen Wen.
After her parents divorced, she naturally received two allowances, most of which she saved up. On holidays, she’d buy gifts for Wen Wen and Yu Kaixuan. Yu Kaixuan was always easy to satisfy—a bag of peanuts for his drinking snacks was enough. Wen Wen was much harder to please; besides thoughtfulness, you couldn’t be too cheap either.
But Xiao Jiu had always been able to precisely grasp Wen Wen’s preferences—her favorite clothing styles, electronic products, even celebrities she’d mentioned once while watching TV. Xiao Jiu could go through countless QQ groups to buy autographed photos for her.
She didn’t think the money spent was wasted—after all, it all came from her parents anyway, so spending it on them was normal. Later, after returning to work, the salary at the small-city bank wasn’t high, but fortunately there were no major expenses in Shicheng. Besides continuing to spend most of her money on Wen Wen, she’d also saved a little herself.
She kept all her money in her payroll card. She knew it wasn’t much, but she didn’t live counting numbers either. She rarely paid attention to the balance in those incoming and outgoing transaction messages.
Until recently, she could accurately state the exact number of all her savings—9,811.25.
How did she arrive at this number? Simple—she’d calculated it easily after transferring it all away bit by bit.
The first time was under the streetlight across from Sister Jin’s cold noodle restaurant. After Xiao Jiu hung up the phone, her already reddened fingers from the cold clumsily swiped open her phone screen. Under the tapping sound of her nail extensions hitting the screen, in the blink of an eye she transferred 5,000 to that black profile picture.
Then she saw Sister Jin returning while holding a disheveled child crying so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. Yu Jiuqi quickly went over and told her about things at the shop. During this, her phone vibrated twice. She looked after a while—one was a transfer notification from the bank, one was a payment received reminder from WeChat.
A day later, Yu Jiuqi sat at the bank counter all morning. Only during lunch did she have time to glance at her phone and saw that two hours earlier, the black profile picture had sent two concise WeChat messages: one photo and one sentence.
The photo showed several hospital examination receipts, indicating the patient had a viral cold, along with an IV drip order and some prescription medications.
The sentence below said: **Still need a few hundred.**
Yu Jiuqi bit into her sandwich, directly transferred 1,000, and turned off her phone.
After that came when she went to Wendu Water Pavilion to find Yu Kaixuan for dinner. Blocked at the second-floor stairway by the disco crowd, already cursing internally, she still paid 3,000 for his drunken revelry with beer and foreign liquor at the KTV.
It’s just that the last sum he requested—Xiao Jiu ignored it. She exited WeChat, hooked her arm around her father’s, and walked through the snow to eat at the restaurant she’d loved in her youth.
Let this be the end of it.
Yu Jiuqi was clear that Sun Xi wasn’t someone to mess with. If you got involved with him, even if you could break free, you’d tear off a piece of flesh in the process.
But she thought Sun Xi should also be clear that if Yu Jiuqi really got desperate, whose flesh would be torn off was uncertain.
She didn’t care about this money. The money was transferred voluntarily. Besides somewhat remedying the trouble caused by that phone call, she just considered it paying for the past.
Even if I owed you something, even if you want to use this method to collect a debt from me, let this be the end.
Just like with the past—if we keep entangling, it won’t end well.
But she never imagined that just over an hour later, she’d see Sun Xi again at the Western restaurant.
Halfway through the mixed Western meal, after Yu Kaixuan bluntly advised Yu Jiuqi to go home and make up with Wen Wen, Xiao Jiu put down her fork wrapped with spaghetti and seriously pondered whether to tell her father that it was inconvenient to go home because she was afraid of disturbing General Manager Fu’s plan to marry Wen Wen.
Even if General Manager Fu hadn’t explicitly said so, Xiao Jiu could see he already had a concrete plan, and had probably already implemented part of it. He’d specifically come to inform Xiao Jiu—besides pulling in an ally, it was somewhat also meant to give her some space.
But thinking about it again, there was no need to add to Brother Erkai’s worries with something that hadn’t materialized. If Auntie Hong got involved, it would be even worse. Forget it.
Xiao Jiu stuffed that bite of spaghetti in her mouth and smiled cheekily at her dad. Suddenly a thought sprouted—perhaps she should also move out and live alone.
Just then, a burst of cool air swept behind her along with several crisp sounds of leather shoes on floor tiles, followed by a familiar voice.
“Dad! How are you here, old man!” A bright, resonant voice, full of vigor. A carefully groomed buzz-cut head turned over: “Xiao Jiu’s here too!”
Yu Jiuqi didn’t need to look to know who had arrived—it was Auntie Hong’s son, Ge Fan.
Meng Huihong had been married three times total. Ge Fan was the child from her second marriage, and had always lived with her. Not even two years after she married Yu Kaixuan, Ge Fan started calling him Dad.
Ge Fan called him Dad willingly and sincerely. He greatly admired Yu Kaixuan—laughing proudly through the martial world with heroic chivalry in his youth, optimistically accepting fate with great wisdom appearing foolish in middle age. He was a male role model, a lifelong idol, closer than his biological father.
Ge Fan had actually pondered taking Yu Kaixuan’s surname, but when his biological father, who sang opera in a small theater in Harbin, found out, he took an eight-hour overnight train over and beat him with a rolling pin. Ge Fan got a concussion and stayed in the hospital for half a month. After being discharged, he never mentioned it again.
But this didn’t prevent him from being filial to his spiritual father at all—always thorough and thoughtful, respectful and reverent, never missing a beat.
Ge Fan glanced at the table, frowned, hitched up his nine-tenths pants, and leaned forward to shout at the counter server not far away: “Beautiful lady, get my dad another beer, not this kind, switch to dark beer, then give my sister another serving each of these chicken wings, fries, and fried fish.”
The server muttered: “Bro, we’re out of dark beer.”
Ge Fan’s eyes turned: “Then do this—help your bro go next door to the craft beer bar and fetch a pitcher. I’ll transfer the money separately to you. My dad rarely comes here.”
The server pursed her lips: “It’s not that I won’t go, bro, but what about the shop?”
Ge Fan smiled. Despite having peach blossom eyes, his smile carried a roguish air: “Look, what are you afraid of with me here? Plus, don’t you know my dad? Boss Yu from Wendu Water Pavilion. Having Boss Yu here is better than having Lord Guan enshrined. What’s the problem?”
The server leaned over to look: “Oh my, I didn’t recognize you just now, Uncle! Okay, Uncle, wait for me, I’ll be right back!”
Yu Jiuqi wanted to laugh listening to this, but she wasn’t surprised anymore.
Although Yu Kaixuan had long stopped being involved in the underworld, Brother Erkai’s reputation remained. Over the years, doing business, he’d gotten to know people from all walks of life and had mediated various social matters. When Shicheng locals mentioned Yu Kaixuan and Wendu Water Pavilion, everyone knew that was a place not to mess with.
After Ge Fan’s series of operations, Yu Kaixuan was obviously quite pleased. Like a simple-minded smiling cat, layers of smiles piled across his face. He asked with satisfaction: “You came alone?”
“No, with a friend. He’s parking.”
“Which friend?” Yu Kaixuan’s words had subtext, thinking Ge Fan was dating someone.
“No.” Ge Fan scratched his head, glanced at Xiao Jiu. “Just a new friend I met at our KTV. We’ve had drinks a couple times. He’s a good guy.”
“Oh, from Shicheng?” Yu Kaixuan asked casually.
“His hometown is here. He came back from elsewhere. I saw his license plate—seems to be from Beijing.”
Yu Jiuqi involuntarily felt a tremor in her heart. Immediately she had an ominous premonition, but couldn’t rationalize it. She only hoped it was her guilty conscience making her imagine things.
Ge Fan stood in the middle of the aisle, glanced around the shop, and found no empty seats: “Dad, you guys eat. I’ll just grab something across the street. If the drinks and food aren’t enough, add more—I have a card here.”
Yu Kaixuan waved his hand grandly, not even asking Xiao Jiu’s opinion, readily saying: “There’s just two of you, right? Join us, there’s room.”
“Okay.” Ge Fan was even more forthright. “Haven’t had drinks with Dad in a long time anyway.”
The unease in Yu Jiuqi’s heart hadn’t dissipated yet, but because of her father’s presence, she could only tactfully stand up and sit next to Yu Kaixuan, giving up her seat to them.
But the moment she sat down, she saw a young man in a black stand-collar down jacket walk in through the door.
He stopped at the entrance, stomped his feet, as if trying to shake off the snow stuck to his shoe soles. His head tilted slightly down, a few messy strands of hair covering his eyes. His sharply defined profile was extremely angular. The down jacket wasn’t particularly thick, yet his shoulders looked very broad. As if afraid of blocking pedestrians, he shifted to the side, turning his head to look into the shop.
Actually, she didn’t even need to see his face—just from that profile, Yu Jiuqi recognized him.
It wasn’t her guilty conscience, nor was she imagining things. It was that person who’d repeatedly borrowed money from her, haunting her like a persistent ghost.
Xiao Jiu felt the whole world roaring, as if singing praises to her stupidity. Was this necessary?
How did he end up drinking with my brother? How did he chase all the way here? Does he want to have another drinking session with Dad too?
How dare he.
“Sun Xi, over here!” Ge Fan waved at him, calling his name loudly.
He looked over at the sound, his footsteps suddenly halting.
Xiao Jiu sat at the innermost position. Across almost the entire length of the shop, amid the noise and smoke and fire, their eyes met briefly, then broke apart as if electrocuted.
Instinctively, Yu Jiuqi slightly turned her head to look at Yu Kaixuan beside her, seeing that after hearing that name, his entire body had obviously stiffened, and the hand loosely gripping the beer glass had unconsciously applied more force.
Then Yu Jiuqi heard Yu Kaixuan squeeze out a sentence through his teeth: “How did he come back?”
Ge Fan didn’t hear clearly and turned his head: “Dad, what did you say?”
Only then did Yu Jiuqi cautiously look at her father’s face. The smile that Ge Fan’s flattery had built up had long since disappeared. His brow furrowed, his expression sinking along with his weathered wrinkles, revealing a cold severity Xiao Jiu hadn’t seen in a long time.
That kind of cold severity belonged to the young, ruthless Brother Erkai.
Yu Jiuqi had no time to think. Before he could walk over, she quickly pulled out her phone, found Sun Xi’s WeChat, opened the transfer function, entered 1,000 and her bank password, but what displayed was—Insufficient balance!
She then found her bank text messages and looked at the balance after the last transfer. It was at this moment that Yu Jiuqi knew precisely what all her liquid assets amounted to.
Without hesitation, she transferred all the remaining 811.25.
Then sent two more messages consecutively: **This is all my money, giving it all to you.**
**Get lost quickly, don’t come over.**
Sun Xi had just walked to the middle position at that moment, clutching his phone. After hearing the notification, he picked it up, opened it to look, and then stood in place, motionless.
After several long seconds, he slowly raised his head, his gaze looking straight over, landing flatly on Yu Jiuqi’s face.
Although this wasn’t the first time seeing him, only in this moment did Xiao Jiu seriously look directly at him, finally seeing clearly what he looked like now.
Those eyes of his, just like many years ago, looked like a wolf.