Mid-July, the heat was relentless. Cicadas buzzed in the treetops. Sunlight poured down from above, the ground scorched to near-burning, and every gust of wind that stirred was thick and stifling.

Lin Luxiao had one hand braced against the car door. He turned around. The girl was standing right behind him — pale and slender and tall, striking enough to draw the eye, and when the sunlight hit her she seemed to glow.

“Where are you going?” Nan Chu tilted her face up and asked again.

Lin Luxiao crossed his arms and leaned against the car door. The furrow between his brows made it plain he was more than a little impatient. He looked at Nan Chu, then reached into his pocket for a cigarette case, took one out, bent his head to light it, and asked in return: “You know Lin Qi?”

Nan Chu nodded.

He flicked off the ash, continuing: “Where’d you meet him?”

“Milan.”

He took another drag, his throat moved, and his gaze drifted idly to one side. “Alright. Package delivered. I’m going.”

Nan Chu reached out and grabbed his arm.

The man’s bare forearm was hard and powerful — the moment she closed her grip it felt like closing her hand around a block of iron, solid and unyielding, and warm.

Her heart gave a sudden lurch.

Lin Luxiao pulled his arm free. “Something else?”

“Give me your number.” Nan Chu held out one hand, palm up.

Lin Luxiao looked down at it. The girl’s palm was snow-white and delicate, the lines in her palm clearly visible, her fingers long and slender — like the tips of young bamboo shoots after the rain.

He looked away. His voice was completely flat: “Don’t have one.”

“Then when’s your next leave?” Nan Chu pressed, watching him steadily.

Lin Luxiao leaned against the car, smoking. Hearing this, he narrowed his eyes and studied her for a moment, then drew the cigarette away from his lips, bent forward until his face was level with hers, and the space between them collapsed — sharp brows carrying a warrior’s spirit, dark black eyes, lips pressed into a flat line, and yet something in his expression was not quite a smile.

He hadn’t changed. After all these years, the force of him was even more overpowering.

The distance closed.

The air pressure seemed to drop. His breath was right there, winding around her. The sudden nearness made Nan Chu instinctively step back.

Lin Luxiao was still bent forward, both hands tucked in his pockets.

He gave a low laugh and looked away with something contemptuous in his eyes, then turned and got into the car.

A quiet afternoon.

The engine started. Tires rolled over the ground, sending up a wave of heat.

Then a car pulled out of the film base and drove away into the distance, swallowed by the haze of exhaust and blazing air.

Nan Chu had first met Lin Luxiao when she was sixteen.

Back then, Nan Yueru was constantly flying all over the world. Nan Chu was alone in the house. A faulty wire somewhere started a fire, and by the time she woke up, flames were roaring to the ceiling and smoke was choking the air. It was Lin Luxiao who pulled her out of the blaze.

By the time she came to, she was already in a hospital.

In those days Nan Chu didn’t yet have a management team. When she woke, her first thought was to call Nan Yueru.

She had just been through a brush with death, and even though she and her mother weren’t close, Nan Chu had wanted to hear her voice.

“Mom, the house just caught fire, but I’m okay now…”

The little girl gripped her phone, trembling and tentative, terrified of saying something that might worry her mother.

Nan Yueru’s voice on the other end was unreadable, entirely without inflection. “Are you hurt?”

Nan Chu looked down at her ankle. “No. Just a burn on my foot. The doctor says it might scar.”

“See if they can do a skin graft. I’m busy — I’ll call when I have time.”

It was always like that.

Never more than three sentences before the line went dead.

Nan Chu put down the phone, hollow. She knew clearly: Nan Yueru had never truly wanted her.

Years of grief compressed into a single moment and broke open all at once.

The head nurse only discovered Nan Chu was gone when someone came running in: “Quick, call 119 — there’s a girl on the roof trying to jump!”

The head nurse went pale with fright. “Who?!”

The person was too frantic to remember the young celebrity’s name. “The one who just came in — the one who was burned and unconscious!”

The hand that dialed 119 was trembling.

By the time Nan Chu was pulled back from the rooftop, she was still in a daze.

She lifted her head — and saw Lin Luxiao’s face.

He was in a dark fire-fighting uniform, helmet on, features hard and unyielding. When he caught sight of Nan Chu, he visibly startled. “You again?”

That instant when she’d ended the call — she had thought about ending her life.

But the moment she stepped to the edge of the roof, her hands and feet had begun to shake. She couldn’t move — just stood there frozen for half an hour.

“Thank you for the trouble,” Nan Chu said, lowering her head.

Lin Luxiao understood immediately: yet another last-minute retreat. He tugged the corner of his mouth. “Don’t mention it.”

As he was about to leave, Nan Chu suddenly caught his arm.

Lin Luxiao looked back. The girl was staring up at him with wide eyes, her voice coming out thick and small: “Does your station have somewhere for patients to stay? Or you could just take me back to yours — I’ll pay you.”

She didn’t know where the courage came from to make that request of a strange adult man. But in that moment, she knew — the sense of safety she felt around Lin Luxiao was something she desperately wanted to hold on to.

Lin Luxiao just thought this little girl was funny — not an ounce of self-preservation instinct. He laughed and teased: “If I took you back to my place — would you dare go?”

But the girl squared her thin shoulders like someone facing a firing squad and said: “Of course I would!”

His teammates burst out laughing. Lin Luxiao’s smile slowly faded.

That year, Lin Luxiao was twenty-four — still a young man who could barely take care of himself.

That Saturday, a silver-grey van travelled north toward the outskirts of Beixun City, winding along a mountain road, its tire tracks pressed into the dust.

Eight in the morning.

The car stopped at a small hillside.

A person climbed out and began ascending the hundred-odd stone steps cut into the slope.

Jiumang Mountain Summit. A sacred Buddhist site.

Morning light radiated through the mist. Nan Chu was dressed simply — a white T-shirt, black trousers, a pair of long straight legs, and a grey lettered duck-bill cap on her head. She followed the winding mountain path deeper into the forest.

Through a grove of green bamboo, the corner of a dark red curved eave gradually came into view. At the entrance, a dark reddish-brown plaque hung across the gate, weathered and worn at the edges by wind and sun, with four large characters inlaid in the center:

Qingchan Temple.

Jiumang Mountain, Qingchan Temple — serene and apart from the world, a place to still the mind like a quiet courtyard.

Taoist shrines, Buddhist light — all find their meeting through fate.

And fate, in all things, works this way.

Nan Chu took three sticks of incense at the entrance, climbed the steps, and made her way to a small courtyard at the rear of the temple. It was a modest square space; a little novice nun passed by carrying a water bucket and gave her a small bow.

In the center of the courtyard stood a large black bronze incense burner, sending up thin wisps of pale smoke.

Nan Chu lit her incense, lifted the sticks, and stepped into the main hall. Inside there was not a soul — sandalwood fragrance drifted through the still air. Three meditation cushions were arranged at the entrance. She looked up: the Buddha at the center of the hall gazed out with compassionate eyes.

After paying her respects, Nan Chu made her way to the Hall of Prajna. Someone was seated cross-legged on the low prayer platform.

Nan Chu bowed respectfully. The person on the platform opened her eyes, looked at Nan Chu, and beckoned, passing her a cushion.

“Looking at your complexion, you seem to have been doing well recently,” said the abbess.

The room was thick with sandalwood incense — enough to make one’s eyes water. Nan Chu arranged her cushion and sat cross-legged opposite her. “Not bad,” she answered.

The abbess was nearly sixty, and she studied Nan Chu with a kindly expression. “And your sleep — is that better?”

Nan Chu nodded. “Much improved.”

The abbess wore a dark robe, her hands tucked into her sleeves, and closed her eyes. “Something weighing on your mind?”

Nan Chu shook her head.

The abbess seemed to sense otherwise, still with eyes closed, her voice quiet: “Every time you come to find me, you have something on your mind.”

“I came to return your book.” Nan Chu slid the sutra across toward her.

The abbess glanced at it without much interest. “Is it still because of those people attacking you?”

“No.”

The abbess closed her eyes and let out a slow breath, and didn’t say more.

The room was silent for a long while.

Then the abbess asked: “Is it because of Commander Lin, then?”

That made Nan Chu genuinely surprised. “You remember him.”

“We crossed paths once. When there is a connection, one remembers.”

The two of them had come here to pray together once. Lin Luxiao had no faith in such things — he hadn’t even stepped through the gate back then. It was remarkable the abbess had remembered him at all.

As the words settled, a small novice nun came in with tea.

When she left and closed the door behind her, Nan Chu finally asked: “Does Buddhist teaching say anything about matters of love and fate?”

At that, the abbess turned and looked at her for a long moment. “It does.”

“Please,” said Nan Chu, all attention.

“All loving unions, impermanent, cannot last long. From love arises sorrow; from love arises fear. For one who is free from love, there is neither sorrow nor fear.”

The oil lamp in the meditation chamber cast a soft, warm yellow light. Nan Chu found herself gazing at it without meaning to.

“……Is there more?”

The abbess continued: “Life has eight forms of suffering — birth, aging, illness, death, the parting from those we love, the meeting with those we despise, the failing to get what we desire, and the inability to let go. Four of the eight arise from love.”

Nan Chu pressed a hand to her forehead. “Is there nothing encouraging to be said?”

“Buddhist teaching forbids relations between men and women. What pleasant things did you expect to hear from me?”

“……”

“There is a teaching session today. Come listen. And as I’ve told you before — if you cannot shut others’ mouths, cover your own ears. The voices that attack you will fade on their own. Misdeeds have their own reckoning.”

The two of them stepped down from the prayer platform and walked out.

At the doorway, Nan Chu crossed the threshold and paused. “And what of Commander Lin?”

The abbess didn’t turn around. “Are you praying on his behalf — or on your own?”

“On his behalf.”

The abbess finally stopped and looked back at her, a long, deep gaze. “Obstinate and blind.”

Nan Chu followed her out, and they nearly walked into someone coming the other way.

Two girls — one with short hair, one with long. The long-haired one had a pretty face, her half-length hair gathered into a small bun at the back of her head. She wore a pale yellow dress, and in the sunlight, it was almost dazzling.

Both girls bowed to the abbess, and then the long-haired one glanced at Nan Chu before asking: “Abbess, may we consult the oracle about matters of romantic fate today?”

Nan Chu felt a flicker of recognition — she looked more carefully and realized this was the female doctor she’d seen at the hospital that evening.

The abbess pressed her palms together in greeting. “The appointed time for matters of love has already passed today. Come back another time.”

The two girls exchanged a glance, unwilling to leave. “Abbess, you say that every time!”

“All things require the right conditions.”

Both of them clearly understood — they were more than a little put out. The short-haired girl rolled up her sleeve and began arguing with the abbess, until the long-haired girl pulled her back. “You follow your own mood entirely, don’t you, Abbess?”

The abbess smiled gently. “I do not.”

The abbess was firm and the two had no choice but to leave, frustrated.

When they’d gone far enough, Nan Chu quietly asked: “You know them, Abbess?”

“Two girls studying medicine. They’ve been here many times.”

“Why won’t you divine for them?”

“Buddhist teachings — they hold for those who believe, and hold nothing for those who don’t. They come seeking guidance from the Buddha without believing in the Buddha. Do you think the Buddha will respond?”

After the teaching session, the abbess asked her to stay for the simple vegetarian meal, and by the time Nan Chu came down the mountain, it was already evening.

The sky blazed with the colors of sunset, spreading wide across the mountain fields.

The violin recital started at six. Nan Chu arrived just as it was beginning; the lights in the audience hall had already been dimmed. She looked out over the seats and found Lin Qi already onstage, violin tucked under his chin.

Nan Chu scanned the room, and her gaze settled on the back row.

She pulled her cap lower, crouched slightly, and made her way along the row to the person at the aisle end: “Excuse me, would you mind tucking in your feet?”

The person didn’t move.

Nan Chu frowned and looked over.

There sat Lin Luxiao, arms folded, leaning back in his chair, long legs stretched out at ease, watching her with a loose, unhurried gaze.

What a coincidence.

“Commander Lin. Move your feet.”

He looked at her for two or three seconds, then slowly, unhurriedly, drew his legs back.

Nan Chu slipped past and sat down in the seat beside him.

The performance had officially begun.

The person next to her had already returned his gaze to the stage. Nan Chu turned her head and studied him sideways. He’d changed into plain clothes — a simple white T-shirt and black trousers. The whole person looked clean and trim, only the line of his jaw, tight and unyielding, seemed to say: Stay away.

She wasn’t exactly a stranger, was she?

Nan Chu felt quite good about herself.

She nudged him with her elbow.

He didn’t react.

She nudged again.

Still nothing.

The man was perfectly still — like a statue.

The fifth nudge.

Lin Luxiao turned to look at her, his signature deep-furrowed brow carrying a clear warning — settle down.

And then he turned back.

Only to find the girl tugging at her own T-shirt, looking unbearably pleased with herself: “Commander Lin — matching outfits.”