Sun Xi had booked just an ordinary standard room with a king bed. The lights were off, blackout curtains drawn tight all around. Only two recessed wall lamps near the bathroom corridor were lit, and the room was filled with a faint fragrance mixed with wisps of tobacco scent—his smell.

Yu Jiuqi had never been able to figure out where this scent came from. He didn’t use any particular cologne, his daily skincare products were simple, his smoking habit wasn’t heavy, and he never used aromatherapy oils at home. Yet somehow it all pieced together, fused and evaporated, refined over the years into this unique scent on his body.

And this scent was extremely invasive. Any clothes worn close to his skin, anyone he held tightly, any room he’d slept in for a night would carry traces of it. Xiao Jiu sniffed, judging from past experience that he’d been sleeping with his head buried in this hotel room for at least a day.

That scent suddenly drew closer.

Xiao Jiu leaned against the wall by the door, lifting her head to look at him.

“Aren’t you hot?” Sun Xi’s disheveled head was lowered, his eyes locked on her.

The hotel heating was on full blast, steaming people from inside out until they felt stuffy and dry. Her face was probably flushed too. Xiao Jiu lowered her head to untie the scarf around her neck, but inexplicably became clumsy with her hands.

He came over, reaching out to slowly and methodically remove the scarf that was wrapped twice around her neck, bit by bit.

“Did you come straight from the bank?” His voice was lazy, as if he hadn’t woken up.

His fingers inadvertently brushed against the skin of her neck, the dryness stirring up a slight itch. Xiao Jiu made an affirmative sound, counting as an answer, but her heart hesitated, unclear and ambiguous.

She suddenly wasn’t clear why she had come just now, yet it also seemed she absolutely had to come.

The hotel address had been asked by Officer Li when they were leaving the criminal police station—whether he had a temporary address in Stone City. He had given this room number without any evasion, and Xiao Jiu, just a few steps away, had heard it word for word.

“Did anyone see you?”

The scarf was removed, but his hand still lingered there, a touch that was neither close nor distant. Xiao Jiu said, “I don’t know.”

That touch became clearer again: “Are you in a hurry to go back?”

Xiao Jiu looked up again. He was backlit in the darkness, his eyes covered with a layer of black gauze, inscrutable. She reached out and tugged at his white T-shirt, wanting to pull him closer, to find that answer for why she had to come.

But Sun Xi suddenly pushed her back, then cupped her face and kissed her.

Instantly, she could see nothing.

He kissed urgently, leaving her no moment of hesitation or transition. His tongue pressed in and curled around, his thumb and forefinger gripped her chin to lift it higher, somewhat roughly indulging his temperament. Yu Jiuqi couldn’t catch her breath, her hands on his chest wanting to push, then suddenly stopped.

She touched something real, scalding hot, extremely powerful—a vigorous heartbeat like a thousand troops and ten thousand horses—and suddenly understood.

Understood that after this ordeal after ordeal of heart-grinding coldness, the repeated twists and turns of entanglement, and the enormous physical and mental exhaustion, she was both weary and excited, moved and resentful. She couldn’t reconcile herself, didn’t know how to relieve or balance it, only suddenly realized she needed him very much. Needed his vitality, his warmth, his understanding.

That’s why she had turned around without hesitation.

When Sun Xi clearly felt Xiao Jiu responding, he released her, looked at her hard once, held her, and went straight to the bed.

The quilt was spread out messily. He swept it aside with one hand, no longer methodical, but urgent and hasty. Xiao Jiu remembered their first time was also on a hotel king bed, in Beijing’s spring. That day there had been a torrential rain, they’d missed the time to return to the dormitory, so Sun Xi had opened a room at his hotel.

That day he’d sent her to the room and lingered, not leaving. Xiao Jiu had been direct, asking if he wanted to stay. He said he still had work downstairs, but just half a minute after leaving, he knocked on the door again. She asked why he’d come back, and he just looked at Xiao Jiu and said, have you thought it through?

I’ve thought it through, Xiao Jiu had said. From the moment I saw you again, I’d thought it through.

Then she asked in return, what about you?

Sun Xi had stared at her and said something that almost made Xiao Jiu kick him out.

“What are you thinking about?”

Kisses began falling again from behind her ear, then he lightly bit and teased her earlobe for a while in the way he liked. Seeing her smile gently, he asked in a low voice by her ear, his voice already hoarse beyond recognition.

“Thinking of you.” Xiao Jiu answered honestly.

His lips slowly slid downward in circles, while his hands slowly kneaded upward. His palms, slightly calloused, pressed against her skin, wave after wave of unbearable sensation. Xiao Jiu picked up one of his fingers and held it in her palm.

But Sun Xi instead clasped her hand, threaded their fingers together, pulled them down with the clasp, his whole body leaning forward and up, lowering his head to look at her, in a haze: “What about me?”

Xiao Jiu thought he looked like a disheveled, impatient little dog at this moment. On a whim, wanting to tease him: “Thinking of what you said at that Beijing hotel.”

Sun Xi paused: “Which sentence?”

Xiao Jiu saw he was getting into it and suddenly regretted it a little, but it was too late.

“Oh.” He pinched her slender, soft fingers, his words wicked, “The one about wanting to sleep with you since the day I bought you milk tea?”

Xiao Jiu called his name, scolding.

Sun Xi responded, but in a different way.

Sun Xi rarely asked Yu Jiuqi’s opinion on this matter. He was completely in control, couldn’t be called too gentle, even a bit fierce. Of course, occasionally he would pay attention to Xiao Jiu’s feelings, but always seemed ill-intentioned. For example, when Xiao Jiu frowned and tried to avoid him, he would lean close, moist, and ask, does it hurt?

Often at such times Xiao Jiu didn’t know how to answer. If she said it hurt, he would ask in detail where it hurt and how it hurt. If she said it didn’t hurt, he would find ways to make her hurt.

Yu Jiuqi never doubted that Sun Xi was fundamentally a gentle person, but in bed, most of the time he was an absolute bastard. She didn’t know what other men were like. They said some were gentle and attentive from start to finish, but thinking about it, she didn’t like that. She liked Sun Xi’s way.

Sex should be uninhibited, wild, experiencing the violence of being dominated by primal desire, and the bottomless demands of addiction, shameless and unrestrained, shattered and reassembled. This way, in those brief moments of losing reason, one could be immersed and expose a trace of true self—fear, loneliness, or love.

In that moment, nothing could be hidden.

Finally, Sun Xi held Xiao Jiu tightly in his arms, soaked in sweat, kissing her softly, calling her, saying baby, baby. Yu Jiuqi responded once, but he didn’t stop, as if he couldn’t hear, as if the person in his arms wasn’t real, continuing to call like that, like calling out to someone else in a dream, or like pitiable self-talk.

Xiao Jiu gently held him, looking up at the wallpapered ceiling. Somehow, tears suddenly flowed, at first just silently letting them slide down, then crying aloud, sobbing softly, then weeping bitterly.

Sun Xi didn’t ask why, just helped her wipe her tears, propping himself up on his arms to watch her, patiently waiting for her to vent completely. Only then did he gently support her face, making her look at him, kissed her lips, and said with difficulty in a low voice:

“It’s all in the past.”

Xiao Jiu looked at him with reddened eyes.

He said again: “It’s all in the past.”

“Is it?” she asked softly.

“I won’t let you experience those things again.”

Is it?

Yu Jiuqi stared blankly at Sun Xi. His face still had fine beads of sweat, his hair was wet and messy too. In the dim room it was hard to make out his expression, but his eyes clearly conveyed heartache and promise.

But somehow, although that last questioning response wasn’t spoken aloud, Xiao Jiu didn’t feel the relief he expected.

Sun Xi naturally didn’t miss it and asked: “Don’t you trust me?”

Yu Jiuqi’s eyes dodged for a moment, looking toward the bedside table beside her, muttering one word: trust.

He naturally heard the perfunctory tone, turned her chin back, pinching her face: “Why?”

Xiao Jiu was forced to look at him, rolled her eyes, and randomly found a reason: “They say, books say, TV shows say too, you can’t trust anything a man says in bed.”

Sun Xi knew she was being difficult, but still smiled: “This is already finished.”

“Finished is still in bed.”

Sun Xi seemed to seriously consider this, nodding: “You’re right.”

Xiao Jiu didn’t understand what he meant.

He explained: “After finishing, we can go again.”

Sun Xi’s hand reached under the covers again, entangling her. Xiao Jiu rolled over, turning toward the bedside table, casually picking up an opened medicine box sitting there to look at it.

“Sun Xi, why are you taking sleeping pills?” She suddenly frowned and looked back at him, “Can’t you sleep here?”

His hand paused: “It’s okay.”

Xiao Jiu observed him, then glanced at the floor. She’d been in a hurry when she came in, only now noticing an open suitcase on the floor with two kraft paper file folders inside.

Guessing he must have been packing his luggage, she wanted to say something, but hesitated.

Sun Xi understood the hesitation in her eyes, said nothing, wrapped his arm around her, and leaned in again.

It wasn’t until evening that they separated.

When Yu Jiuqi walked out of the hotel, it was already dark. She stood by the roadside in the wind for a while, opened the WeChat family group chat, scrolled through everyone’s chat records—mostly about tonight’s birthday dinner.

Looking at the time, it was about right. Xiao Jiu replied: [I just got off work, heading over now.]

No one doubted this ordinary message. Two minutes later, Zhu Duomei tagged Xiao Jiu in the group, saying hurry over, you can still catch the mermaids!

Zhu Duomei had been added to the group by Ge Fan yesterday. The day Xiao Jiu was kidnapped, the whole family rushed to the county town without bringing her. She called everyone’s phone but no one answered. She rushed to the police station in a panic, but was stopped outside. So angry that the next day she had a fight with Ge Fan. Ge Fan said you deserved it, who told you to be antisocial and keep leaving the group. Zhu Duomei joined back on the spot. Ge Fan added that whoever leaves the group again is a dog. His sister glanced at him and immediately barked for him in advance.

Yu Jiuqi remembered once chatting with Zhu Duomei about her going in and out of the family group, about her relationship with Meng Huihong that couldn’t be severed but couldn’t get close either, asking her what she thought family was.

At the time they were eating hot pot. Zhu Duomei thought for a while and said she didn’t know. When eating duck blood and beef, you want to cook them in the spicy pot, otherwise it’s too fishy. But these leafy vegetables need to go in the clear broth pot, otherwise it’s too greasy and choking.

She sighed, saying Jiu ah, if only life were like a mandarin duck pot.

The group rang again, still Zhu Duomei, asking if Xiao Jiu had arrived yet, saying today there are two mermaids, come quick!

Yu Jiuqi had already arrived at the entrance of Stone City’s most luxurious seafood restaurant. She followed the crowd that came to watch and walked into the lobby, around to the aquarium on the east side, where the recently internet-famous live mermaid performance was.

Mermaids weren’t anything special, but this restaurant’s merpeople were male—to be precise, pot-bellied old men wearing red bellybands and dancing gracefully. Originally they were female mermaids, but one day she suddenly took leave. The aquarium couldn’t be empty, so the boss found a chef who was good at swimming to temporarily stuff in there. Unexpectedly, having an old man wriggling around in the aquarium, posing and flirting, went viral on Douyin and Kuaishou that very night.

These past few days, probably to attract customers for the Spring Festival peak season, they’d stuffed another one in. Zhu Duomei was very enthusiastic, standing in her high-heeled boots in front of the several-meter-high aquarium interacting with the two uncles dancing belly dances in the water, even pulling Xiao Jiu over to join.

Yu Jiuqi wasn’t very interested. After accompanying her for a while, she said they should go, everyone’s waiting. Zhu Duomei said okay, but then had her help shoot two short videos before reluctantly waving goodbye to the two wriggling mermaids.

“You’re a bit different today,” Zhu Duomei said with her arm around Xiao Jiu as they walked toward the private room at the end of the first-floor corridor.

“How so?”

“Maybe being a year older, more mature.”

Xiao Jiu just smiled. She was about to push open the door to the private room when Zhu Duomei called out, saying wait, let me do it.

At that moment Yu Jiuqi knew, knew what awaited her ahead.

Sure enough, as Zhu Duomei pushed the door open, confetti poppers at the entrance went off with a crisp bang. Under the fluttering ribbons, Xiao Jiu heard different familiar voices neatly saying happy birthday to her, and vaguely saw a cake in the private room, English letters spelled with balloons on the backdrop wall, and a handwritten couplet pasted on both sides.

Actually, when Zhu Duomei was killing time at the aquarium earlier, she’d had a premonition there would be such a surprise, so she’d already prepared her emotional response. This wasn’t difficult for her.

So she covered her face exaggeratedly, screamed, laughed, hugged and thanked each person, mobilizing every cell in her body to stay full and enthusiastic, accepting every gift without hesitation, then giving feedback of equal measure. The laughter and noise grew louder and louder, most of it her own voice. For a moment, Xiao Jiu was even deafened by herself.

Until she quieted down, lifted her eyes, and saw the handwritten couplet on the opposite backdrop wall, she suddenly couldn’t keep up the act.

Written there was: “Carefree and without further disturbance” / “Food, drink, and beauty to boot”

The horizontal inscription read: “My Little Jiu, Twenty-Five”

Yu Jiuqi suddenly felt immense guilt, like a poisonous plant had been planted in her body, quickly taking root and sprouting, branches and tendrils spiraling and extending to every nerve cell, making her feel at a loss, ashamed beyond words. She felt so hypocritical, so unworthy. She didn’t deserve to sit here, didn’t deserve to receive this love.

The birthday hat on her head felt like a crown on a criminal. She looked trembling at everything before her.

Seeing her dazed and stunned appearance, Yu Kaixuan grinned and laughed, mentioning her childhood embarrassment of wetting her pants but not daring to say so when she got home. Wen Wen didn’t want to hear it and wouldn’t let Second Brother Kai bring up this topic. The two even argued a few sentences. Auntie Hong said on the side that Xiao Jiu was actually an easy child to raise. If she wrote down all the trouble these two she gave birth to had caused since childhood, it could fill a book. Zhu Duomei and Ge Fan weren’t having it, and for once formed a united front to argue with their mother.

Amid the noisy quarreling, Xiao Jiu looked at each person one by one, laughing foolishly along, then suddenly heard someone call her. Ge Fan reminded her, saying Jiu, time to eat cake, time to make a wish, quick, think of your wish.

Okay, she said.

But what wish should she make?

Yu Jiuqi thought carefully but couldn’t find a wish that could accurately express the anxious contradictions filling her heart at this moment.

She hoped for less love, and also hoped for more love.

She hoped to satisfy others, but even more wanted to make herself happy first.

She didn’t want to let anyone down, yet was bound to let down everyone present.

Suddenly remembering Zhu Duomei’s metaphor, she’d said Jiu ah, if only life were a mandarin duck pot.

Finally she closed her eyes, made no wish at all, and blew out the birthday candles.

Halfway through the meal, two rounds of drinks later, they reached the most exciting essential segment of bathhouse boss family gatherings—talent performance.

The first to perform was naturally retired professional errenzhuan actress Meng Huihong. Everyone egged her on, even Wen Wen chimed in saying do one. Auntie Hong stood up, saying if you want one I’ll do one, today is Xiao Jiu’s birthday, Xiao Jiu picks, whatever you want Auntie will sing.

Xiao Jiu was familiar with quite a few classic errenzhuan selections, but she especially loved hearing Auntie Hong sing that folk song popular throughout the North. She said I want to hear “Seeing Off My Love”! Everyone present made disapproving sounds, laughing at her rustic taste, saying change it. Xiao Jiu said no, I just love hearing “Seeing Off My Love.”

Meng Huihong said fine, “Seeing Off My Love” it is. Then she held her arms up, turned a circle gracefully, then lightly lifted one hand, formed an orchid finger, her eyes flowing gently with her fingertips, looking around affectionately, finally landing delicately on Yu Kaixuan’s face, opening her mouth in a melodious tune.

She sang: “First, I won’t make you worry, second, I won’t make you fret.”

Then sang: “Third, I won’t let you wear my little bellyband wrong.”

Yu Kaixuan responded in a hearty voice: “Good! Won’t wear it wrong.”

Meng Huihong shot him a flirtatious glance. Everyone laughed uproariously. She turned to the other side, continuing to sing to others. Although just unaccompanied singing, it was melodious and moving. Listening, one became immersed. Xiao Jiu watched Auntie Hong in a daze—when she sang opera she seemed twenty years younger—until her phone lit up and she snapped back to attention.

She jerked alert, hastily grabbed the phone on the table, glanced at it—just a spam advertisement.

Barely relieved, she felt inexplicably strange, tugging at her sweater sleeve, elbow propped on the table, covering her face, focusing on watching Auntie Hong sing. Suddenly, faintly, she caught that tobacco-laced light fragrance. Her heart skipped, remembering something, she turned her head and sniffed at her wrist.

It was his scent.

Then as Meng Huihong’s final note fell, Xiao Jiu smiled and swept her gaze to the side, suddenly meeting Wen Wen’s probing eyes looking over from across one seat.

Xiao Jiu’s face wore a smile, applauding along, making noise, asking Auntie Hong for another one, but from the corner of her eye she caught that her mother’s expression had already darkened, tense, lips pressed together.

The poisonous plant in her body seemed to receive some nourishment and began spreading and growing again.

Yu Jiuqi remembered again that strictly speaking, today wasn’t actually her birthday, but the day when Wen Wen, in the most desperate moment of her life, had picked her up from the frozen riverside and brought her home.

Twenty-five years ago today, Wen Wen had picked up the sickly baby girl wrapped only in a small cotton blanket, carried her back, saved her life, gave her a name, and gave her a family.

Because they didn’t know what day she was born, they simply decided: the day you and Mom met would be your birthday.

Each year on this day commemorated not just your rebirth, but also mine.

Guilt devoured Xiao Jiu, slowly pulling her down, down…

Sun Xi had endured in this hotel room for a day and night, still unable to sleep. After she left, he had even less desire to sleep.

He yanked open the blackout curtains violently. Outside was pitch black. Across from the hotel was Stone City’s moat park, long since closed for the night. He opened a small window, letting in some fresh minus-twenty-degree air.

Much more clear-headed now, sitting on the messy bed, staring at the open suitcase on the floor, naturally thinking of those hesitant eyes.

His gaze shifted away. He took out his phone and scrolled randomly. After two swipes, he came across Zhu Duomei’s Moments that he’d added a few days ago.

It was a video, filming Meng Huihong singing in the birthday party room. The camera mainly focused on Meng Huihong but also swept past others briefly.

Just a flash, but he saw Yu Jiuqi.

He pressed pause, zoomed in, saw her smiling as she watched family members celebrating and singing for her. Her face was full of smiles, but her eyes were completely hollow.

Zooming in more, he saw the couplet on the backdrop behind her. The left and right sides weren’t very clear, but the horizontal inscription was striking and eye-catching.

“My Little Jiu, Twenty-Five”

Exiting that video, he discovered that the caption of Zhu Duomei’s Moments post was also these words.

“My Little Jiu, Twenty-Five”

Putting down his phone, Sun Xi sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. Still feeling hot, he tucked the sleeves of his short-sleeved T-shirt in, folding them up to his shoulders, exposing his muscular arms. He leaned forward, propping himself on his legs, staring at the suitcase, watching for a while.

Then he took a hard drag on his cigarette, lifted his foot, and kicked the suitcase lid closed.

One file folder slid out. He didn’t bother with it.