“Yes… freedom…” Du Lai gazed up at the boundless sky above and exhaled a long, slow breath.

On this isolated island, stripped of every social tie — no parents, no family, no colleagues, no work, no friends, no neighbors…

If he were truly to live here the rest of his life, he’d never have to worry about creditors coming to his door again. He’d never have to agonize over the futures of those children. Every burden, every pressure — all of it would simply cease to exist.

Free. And unburdened.

Every day, the only thing he’d need to think about would be three meals.

But the emptiness was just as real.

Du Lai felt a kind of contradiction within himself — or perhaps human beings were just inherently contradictory. On one hand, wanting solitude. On the other, unable to truly break away from the world of people.

It wasn’t that he could let go of those children entirely either. And yet severing that emotional tie completely was something he found himself unable to do.

“Ah…” Fu Miaoxue breathed softly. “It got dark.”

Du Lai found that amusing: “It was already dark.”

“No — the moon’s been covered by clouds. It’s so dark…” she murmured.

Du Lai said: “Stop looking. Go to sleep.”

“…I can’t sleep.” Fu Miaoxue shifted and turned. “Du Lai, tell me a story.”

Du Lai declined: “I don’t know how to coax children.”

“Your whole job on the cruise ship was making people happy, wasn’t it?” Fu Miaoxue said. “If you don’t want to tell a story, then do a magic trick for me.”

Du Lai said: “Just go to sleep. What magic trick are you going to do in the pitch dark…”

Fu Miaoxue was quiet for a moment, then spoke again softly: “I ate too much — can’t fall asleep just yet… What if we just… talk for a while?”

Du Lai actually wasn’t sleepy either.

But he had no idea what to talk to Fu Miaoxue about.

The two of them came from entirely different social strata, entirely different worlds.

“What do you want to talk about?” Du Lai said with a small smile. “I’d imagine we don’t have a single topic in common.”

Fu Miaoxue thought for a moment. “How about… your life before all this? How did you become a magician?”

“How I became a magician…” Du Lai thought back to those years. “A few years ago, a friend put me in touch with a job on a ship — as an assistant to a magician. I followed him and learned for two or three years. Then one day the magician left the ship and never came back. I naturally ended up taking over his act and started performing magic on the ship myself.”

“You learned everything in just two or three years?” Fu Miaoxue asked curiously. “Could I learn it? I want to do magic tricks too.”

“Depends on your aptitude.” Du Lai smiled. “And I had an advantage learning it, because I used to be…”

He paused. He hesitated over whether to tell her.

It wasn’t exactly something to be proud of. But in front of her, maintaining appearances didn’t seem like something he had any particular need to do.

“Used to be what? Why did you have an advantage?” Fu Miaoxue pressed.

Du Lai was quiet for a moment, then smiled and glanced at her. “I used to be… a man who walked the beams.”

“A man who walked the beams?” Fu Miaoxue furrowed her brow, genuinely puzzled. “What does a man who walked the beams do?”

This time it was Du Lai’s turn to frown. He turned onto his side to look at her: “You don’t know what ‘walking the beams’ means? Don’t tell me you’ve never studied.”

“Of course I have — I had private tutors!” Fu Miaoxue shot back immediately. “It’s just that classical Chinese literature wasn’t part of my curriculum. In Singapore, we don’t study that. Foreign languages were the priority — I had English, Spanish, and a bit of French as well.”

Du Lai laughed. “And Shanghainese, apparently. I noticed you curse quite fluently in Shanghainese — where did you pick that up?”

“My mother is Shanghainese.” Fu Miaoxue replied. “Our old housekeeper back home was from Shanghai too. When she cursed, she was absolutely masterful.”

“Your housekeeper sounds quite bold — cursing in her employer’s household,” Du Lai said, amused.