Nan Chu wanted to ask what exactly “last time” meant — but thinking about it, given his personality, he would never actually say the words “low-cut little black dress” out loud. So she decided to ignore the question and sent back only one message:

——【I’ll send you the address next Friday. We meet Saturday night.】

Lin Luxiao gave a quiet laugh, let one corner of his mouth curl up, tossed his phone aside, and leaned forward with both hands braced on his thighs, gaze settling on the stack of books on the desk.

At that moment his phone rang again. He glanced sideways — a familiar number from the headquarters bureau. He’d gotten a call from this number at the station just one week before he set out for training; they’d cycled him through all the same well-worn talking points and left him with that stack of books to read before the exam.

Lin Luxiao’s performance in the special operations unit had long been noticed by the higher-ups. They also knew that this young man, when he was in a casual mood, could banter and joke around with you like nobody’s business — but on a fire ground, at an emergency scene, he was absolutely someone you could count on. That was exactly why they kept coming at him from every angle.

He stared at the long string of digits, thought for a moment, then answered.

The man on the other end had a deep, gravelly voice — a typical northern man. It was the former Party secretary of Lin Luxiao’s special operations unit, a man with the surname Zhang.

“When does training wrap up?”

Lin Luxiao held the phone. “Three more weeks.”

The man on the other end said, “Alright. Come see me once you’re done.”

“……Can’t a person get any peace?”

“What — you want to spend your whole life in that unit? Wind and fire, rain and rubble, for the rest of your days? Once you find yourself a wife, you’ll live to regret it!”

“……”

“I know what you’re thinking. I’ve had plenty of conversations with several of the leaders — they kept coming to pick my brain.” Secretary Zhang paused, then launched into a surprisingly accurate impression of their superiors’ way of speaking: “In all my years of leading soldiers, I’ve never seen a young man with a temper that stubborn! And the most infuriating part is, every time he argues back, I end up with nothing to say!”

Lin Luxiao tilted his head to cradle the phone between ear and shoulder, bent forward, and reached toward the pack of cigarettes on the desk. He took one out, put it between his lips, and said, “Doesn’t sound like him — every time I see those leaders, they look like they’re about ready to throw an ashtray at me.”

Secretary Zhang laughed heartily on the other end. “Don’t play coy — your old squad leader told me everything.”

Lin Luxiao kept his head down as he searched his trouser pocket for a lighter. “Told you what?”

“The year of the Pinglin earthquake, you found a small boy — you couldn’t get him out. You carried a lot of guilt over that for a long time. We all knew that. Everyone was clear on what the situation was at the time — a steel beam had pierced the chest cavity. Even if you’d managed to dig him out, with the state of medical care available at that site, the chances of him surviving were slim. The unit made the call to stop because every second was needed for other rescues. And with no way of knowing when the next aftershock would come…”

Lin Luxiao understood all of this himself. Setting aside the fact that there had been no way to dig him out, even if they had — with medical resources that stretched thin at the site — the boy’s chances would have been almost none. The unit’s decision to stand down was also to preserve precious time for other rescues. And there had been no way of knowing that the next aftershock would arrive just as it did.

In the moment just before the aftershock leveled the mound.

The boy’s gaze — for many years afterward, the moment Lin Luxiao closed his eyes, those eyes seemed to materialize before him.

Secretary Zhang asked, “What was the look in them?”

He had no words to describe it — but if he had to say something:

Lin Luxiao lost any desire to smoke. He pulled the cigarette from between his lips, set it on the desk, leaned back against the headboard, and said quietly: “Bitter.”

Helpless. Grief-stricken. Bitter.

People are funny that way — they can suffer, endure suffering, but somehow they cannot bear to witness suffering in others.

“Actually, moving to the brigade would suit you well. At least all that would be behind you — the work would be lighter. I know that feels like the years of training would all have been wasted — but sometimes rescuing people doesn’t have to mean being at the front line. Firefighting has two sides: the fighting and the preventing. If we do the prevention well enough, there’s less fighting to do. Don’t you think?”

Secretary Zhang went on: “Over the years, I’ve heard plenty of complaints from the soldiers — no days off, giving everything for the people, and yet some members of the public still feel like we’re wasting taxpayers’ money. We reach the scene as fast as humanly possible, and people still feel we’re not fast enough — like we should materialize the instant the call is made. As if we’re all Wolverine, Spider-Man — able to walk through walls, fly, scale skyscrapers. At rescue scenes, they practically demand we go in and trade our lives for their loved ones. Hearing enough of that wears on you — it really does. And yet these officers and soldiers — some of them barely eighteen or nineteen years old, covered in scars — swallow every one of those words without a sound. What the public doesn’t see is that we’re on call twenty-four hours. The moment the alarm goes off, you’d have to clench and run even if you’re in the middle of using the toilet. They see us in neat, pressed uniforms from the outside — what they don’t see is that in the dead of winter, some of our men charge out in nothing but a single undershirt under their gear.”

And none of that was even the most painful part.

The most painful part was being on a fire ground, watching from a distance as a teammate was blown back by a shockwave — and knowing you couldn’t turn back for him. You had to keep moving forward with your casualty in your arms.

But what could you do?

Someone had to do this work.

Secretary Zhang let out a long sigh. “I went to see the old squad leader recently. He’s doing well — tending flowers, growing plants. He mentioned you quite a bit. Old age does that to a person — the years pile up and you start drifting back to the old days, all the little fragments of memory. He was talking and it was actually pleasant to sit and listen. He said, out of all the soldiers he ever trained, you had the most character. He also told me — once you’ve moved to the brigade, rein in that personality of yours a bit! Oh, and one more thing, Luxiao — there are certain matters you need to start thinking seriously about. Matters of your future.”

Lin Luxiao was quiet for a long moment, then gave a quiet acknowledgment and hung up.

……

The old squad leader was a career soldier through and through — he’d worked his way up from a grassroots unit over more than a decade before being transferred to the special operations unit as commander. He was a man from the south side of the mountain, and his home was near the county where Lin Luxiao was training.

When Lin Luxiao went to visit him, the old squad leader was strolling through the park with a birdcage swinging in one hand, back held as ramrod straight as a pen. He parked his car, got out the back seat and carried over two jugs of fine grain liquor.

The old squad leader was delighted to see him — and even more delighted when he looked down and saw the liquor. His eyes lit up like copper bells. “You rascal, you actually showed up?”

Lin Luxiao, in his everyday clothes, gave the old man a crisp military salute. “Training nearby. Secretary Zhang mentioned you yesterday — I rushed over to bring you some liquor before he could report me to the higher-ups.”

The old squad leader was approaching fifty — posture still impeccable, his face lean and sharp-edged, the ghost of his youthful commanding presence still visible.

“Oh, come off it — you still remembered to come see me. I’ll give you that much credit.”

The old squad leader was the classic tough exterior with a soft heart. Even if that was what his mouth said, having Lin Luxiao show up genuinely pleased him. He grabbed him and pulled him back toward home. “Come on — come in and see the old woman.”

Lin Luxiao supported him as they walked, and midway through, a text from Nan Chu arrived.

【Little Miss Troublemaker: Six o’clock tonight. I’ll come pick you up at your building. Remember to bring your ID.】

A few days without any messages, and the moment Nan Chu texted, she just had to tack on that last line to poke fun at him.

Lin Luxiao supported the old squad leader with one arm, phone in his other hand, single-handedly tapping out a quick reply.

【You don’t bring an ID to dinner.】

The old squad leader glanced at him, birdcage in hand. “Your girl?”

Lin Luxiao sent the message and slipped the phone back into his pocket, quietly laughing. “Not quite. Just some little girl.”

The old squad leader’s eyes were sharp as ever. “Little girl’s taken a shine to you?”

“……If you put it that way, there’s nothing more to talk about.”

The old squad leader chuckled, reaching out to poke him. He clicked his tongue. “Remember back in the day, when the unit held that social event with the Red Triangle Hospital next door — wasn’t there a little nurse who was quite fond of you? That young man of yours always had a good run of luck when it came to that sort of thing.”

Just as he finished speaking, the phone buzzed again. Lin Luxiao took it out.

【Little Miss Troublemaker: You know what I mean.】

Lin Luxiao couldn’t be bothered to reply and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He didn’t expect the old squad leader to read the text aloud, his voice resonant and bold as a bell: “Little Miss Troublemaker — you — know — what — I — mean —”

Lin Luxiao stopped walking and looked at him. He was almost laughing despite himself.

The old squad leader paid him no mind, striding ahead, from time to time clicking his tongue at the little bird in the cage. “What is it with young people nowadays — what goes through their heads! All this nonsense!”

Lin Luxiao stood there with his hands on his hips, watching the old squad leader’s retreating back, helpless and amused.

The old squad leader walked on a couple of steps, then turned back and pointed at Lin Luxiao. “Well — since she’s already texting you — you’d better bring that Little Miss Troublemaker to meet me.”

“……”

Even though both of them liked to bicker, the two had genuinely not seen each other in quite a few years. For a soldier who’d made it safely through to retirement, all that was left in the end were those feelings. The old squad leader wasn’t the type to wear his heart on his sleeve, but he did genuinely have a soft spot for Lin Luxiao. Smart and fast-thinking, decisive and unhesitating at emergency scenes — he was genuinely a likeable young man.

Inevitably a few extra cups were had, and conversation flowed freely — round and round it all came back to those same things, the same memories. By the end, the old squad leader had simply keeled over face-down on the table — rare to have someone from the unit come and visit, and his favorite student at that. It was hard not to let feelings run away with you. Lin Luxiao helped his wife carry the old squad leader into the room and put him down, said his goodbyes, and left only after pressing a red envelope into her hands.

……

Saturday. Nan Chu finished the ad shoot, didn’t wait for Shen Guanzong to say a word, just grabbed Xi Gu and headed home. The moment she stepped out of the car, she slammed the door shut and told the driver to take Xi Gu home. Xi Gu pressed her face against the window and shouted after her: “Where are you going again?!”

Nan Chu ran upstairs in one breath.

The driver obediently drove off. As the car put more and more distance between her and Nan Chu’s receding figure, Xi Gu was on the verge of tears. All that ran through her mind was Han Beiyao’s that unsettlingly handsome face, and Shen Guanzong’s earsplitting roar: “Do you know what the big boss used to do?!!”

Xi Gu couldn’t help it — she burst out crying on the spot.

She was one barely-graduated intern assistant-slash-makeup-artist navigating a whole cast of impossible people — and they expected it to be easy?!!

Meanwhile, Nan Chu had already stripped down to nothing and was standing in front of the wardrobe, going through her clothes one piece at a time.

She propped her chin in her hand, brow furrowed in concentration. Not like last time.

He didn’t like long dresses — so what about a little short skirt?

Which led to the next question.

How short was short enough?

Nan Chu methodically pulled three mini skirts of different lengths from the wardrobe.

Knee-length? Mid-thigh? Or thigh-grazing?

She puffed out her cheeks, bent down, and immediately tossed the knee-length one aside. Too long.

Then she held up the other two against the mirror and deliberated for a long time. Right — the mid-thigh one was definitely more aesthetically pleasing.

Then the next question arose.

Fitted or relaxed?

Fitted showed too much figure — she didn’t want to overwhelm him all at once. Once there was nothing left to discover, there would be nothing left to anticipate. Better to start loose.

Slow and steady was more enticing.

Outfit chosen.

Nan Chu did her makeup in front of the mirror — light, a fresh, dewy look. She gave her face a casual pass with the powder and left it at that. Her features weren’t suited to heavy makeup — it would make her look aggressive and severe. A light foundation to even out the complexion was more than enough.

She looked at herself with satisfaction, pressed her lips together, then pushed up the corners of her own mouth with her index fingers — doing her best to coax a sense of warmth into the reflection. The girl in the mirror had pale, composed brows and eyes; cool, remote.

When everything was done, Nan Chu had just bent down to pick up her bag.

Her phone rang. She fished it out and saw it was Lin Qi. Before he could say a word, she said directly, “I am not going drinking with you tonight under any circumstances.”

Lin Qi’s voice on the other end was urgent with panic: “Emergency — get to the back entrance of the Jiangse Bar right now and pick me up!”

Nan Chu paid him no attention and calmly looked at herself in the mirror, smoothing her bangs. “I’m hanging up. I have something on tonight. If this date gets ruined, I will have you killed. So don’t mess with me.”

Lin Qi: “I’d rather you killed me than have somebody shove something up my rear end!”

Through the receiver, the surrounding noise was chaotic. Lin Qi seemed to be running while knocking things over — a clatter of metal falling in all directions behind him. Nan Chu held the phone, closed her eyes, and steeled herself. “Fine — let them. Maybe you’ll discover an entirely new world.”

“……”

Lin Qi clearly wasn’t listening to a word she said. There were shrieks, and the receiver was swamped with the sound of rushing wind.

A beat later, a thud — the phone seemed to have dropped.

“Damn it — these little bastards hit hard!”

“Ugh, should’ve called my brother first! You’re useless, you know that!”

Nan Chu: “What on earth are you doing?”

“That overseas Chinese guy from Milan! The one we totally destroyed! I just ran into him at the bar! He’s been chasing me since!”

Nan Chu’s jaw tightened. She swore under her breath.

“Find somewhere to hide and stay there. And don’t you dare call your brother — you hear me?”

Lin Qi: “Obviously not calling him! Hurry up!!”

He wasn’t about to court death. If Lin Luxiao ever found out what he’d gotten up to in Milan, he’d skin him alive.

The first time Nan Chu met Lin Qi, they were drinking buddies — they kept running into each other at that bar, and Lin Qi had been buying her drinks. They got to know each other gradually. Lin Qi had been going through a rough patch around then — his mother had just passed away, his career had hit a wall, performances were being cancelled one after another, and he was in a very dark place.

Two miserable people colliding and spiraling together.

As it happened, a very wealthy overseas Chinese man who frequented the bar had a particular kind of appetite and had someone slip something into Nan Chu’s drink. Lin Qi ended up drinking it instead. He wasn’t about to let that stand, and the two of them cooked up a plan to get back at the man at the bar.

They staked the place out for two whole nights, and when the opportunity finally came, they tied the overseas Chinese man up and dumped him in a hotel room — covered head to toe in scrawled ink drawings — and photographed it, then uploaded the photos straight to the man’s own Instagram.

The man usually projected the image of an elegant, refined gentleman. After this, his company’s stock took a noticeable hit, and his own father had him placed under house arrest for six months before releasing him to come home.

And now — of all the luck — he was back. And they’d crossed paths.

……

The back entrance of the Jiangse Bar required going down a sloped alley, a narrow and shadowed lane. Through the darkness came the earth-shaking roar of an engine, and a red sports car threaded its way through the alley.

Nan Chu hit the brakes sharply, stopping at the back entrance.

She sat in the car and called Lin Qi. When she hung up, within thirty seconds, Lin Qi came bursting out of a narrow wooden side door. Nan Chu gave a tap on the horn. Through the blinding car headlights, a figure appeared ahead — face marked with cuts and bruises, one cheek swollen and red, forehead scraped open. Clearly there had already been a close-quarters brawl.

Right on his heels, three or four more figures came rushing out of the wooden door.

Nan Chu started the car, put it in gear. Before Lin Qi had even properly settled, she hit the accelerator with the door still hanging open and launched them onto the road.

The men behind quickly got into a car. “Quick — follow them!”

Lin Qi shut his door, heart still hammering, glanced back, and couldn’t help cursing under his breath. “These little bastards!”

The car wove out of the alley and hit the main road. Trees blurred by on both sides. Nan Chu checked the rear-view mirror — the car behind was relentless, even trying to overtake and block them. She executed a beautiful power slide around a corner — and then two more clean, precise drifts in rapid succession. The gap between them and the car behind stretched wider and wider. Lin Qi’s heart, which had been lodged in his throat, finally dropped back down. That rush of adrenaline after a brush with death was overwhelming; he couldn’t help letting out a low whistle and giving Nan Chu a thumbs-up. “You’re unbelievable.”

Nan Chu shot him a glance. “What time is it?”

Lin Qi pulled his face back. “Six fifty. You’ve got someone else to meet?”

“Alright. Prepare to face your doom.”

……

In the pursuing car, someone was on the phone.

“Young master — that car went toward Zhonggu. The driver was a woman, very skilled. We couldn’t keep up.”

After hanging up, the person was still yelling at everyone else in the car. “Damn — that driving is genuinely something else.”

……

The clock hands had moved to seven.

Dusk was settling. The street lamps in the residential complex had come on. Lin Luxiao stood beneath a lamp post at the corner of the street, head bent, lighting a cigarette. Clean white smoke drifted upward in wisps, curling and coiling in the amber lamplight, the shadow of the man stretching out long behind him.

He pulled out his phone and checked the time, exhaled a stream of smoke, and put it away.

The contours of his face were half light, half shadow in the lamplight.

Stood up?

Fine.

……

At that moment, Nan Chu’s car had been boxed in and forced to stop.

A black Bentley sat blocking her red sports car from the front, its headlights blazing and blinding. Nan Chu raised a hand to shield her eyes.

A tall man in a dark cap climbed out of the car opposite and walked up to her window. He rapped on the glass.

Lin Qi whispered in a shaking voice: “Don’t open it — open it and we’re dead tonight.”

The man outside, getting no response, bent down and rapped on the window again. With his back to the light, his face was hard to make out — only his hand was visible, pointing at Nan Chu. His voice came muffled through the glass, low and heavy: “You. Get out.”

“Don’t,” Lin Qi said.

Nan Chu’s hand was already on the door handle.

Then, ahead of them, another light suddenly came on. Someone came running from behind their car, shouting: “Young master — the police are coming!”

Nan Chu looked sharply at Lin Qi: “Did you call the police?”

Lin Qi shook his head frantically: “Of course not — I’m not stupid!”

From behind, the bar owner emerged leading a group of uniformed figures who surrounded them in a ring, waving his arms and yelling: “That’s them! They’re the ones who trashed my bar!!”

……

Eight o’clock that evening.

Nan Chu came out after giving her statement. Lin Qi was slouched on a bench looking defeated, his forehead a colorful arrangement of bruises — like someone had painted a festival across it.

Nan Chu walked over and sat down. She was just about to call Lin Luxiao when she heard Lin Qi say: “What do I do — the police called my brother. I’m done for.”

“……”

“Lin Luxiao?”

Lin Qi gave a miserable nod. “You’re going to have to help me explain this.”

Explain — explain what exactly, when she could barely save herself.

Nan Chu stood up to leave. Lin Qi grabbed her arm. “Where are you going? Don’t leave me — I’m scared by myself. When my brother loses his temper I need you there to say something on my behalf!”

Nan Chu looked down at him and said in a cold, flat voice: “Let go before I hit you.”

Lin Qi, in a flash of desperation, grabbed Nan Chu with both arms and clung on like a koala — hanging off her, pressing his head against her shoulder. “I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna! Stay with me!”

Nan Chu said icily: “Lin Qi!”

The moment the words left her lips, a voice came from the entrance:

“What are the two of you doing?”

Both of them went still. They looked toward the entrance at the same time. A tall silhouette stood in the grand doorway, dressed casually, hands in his pockets, the moon at his back. His face wasn’t fully visible, and there was no reading the expression on it. The voice was very low.

A cold jolt went through both of them.

This was bad.

……

The two stood there, stiff as boards.

Lin Luxiao didn’t come over right away. He stayed at the entrance and looked at the two of them for a while. A police officer walked over to speak with him; they were too far away to hear clearly. He listened quietly, occasionally flicking a glance at the two of them.

The depth of that gaze sent a chill running through Lin Qi.

When the two finished speaking, Lin Luxiao patted the officer on the shoulder and gave a rare small smile: “Thank you.” The man from behind then called out to his back: “Luxiao — come over to my place for dinner tomorrow. Xiao Siwei’s coming too — it’s been ages since we’ve all been together.”

Lin Luxiao said that sounded good, then walked straight toward them. He stopped in front of them, reached out, plucked Lin Qi off Nan Chu, and dumped him onto the bench behind them. Then he bent forward, level with Nan Chu’s eyes.

“Fighting?”

“Racing?”

“Tired of living? Hmm?”

His voice was quiet as he spoke, his eyes narrowing slightly, the outer corners tilting upward — a warning. Quietly dangerous.

Upcoming preview:

Nan Chu quits smoking. The two are sitting on a hillside.

“I want a cigarette.”

Lin Luxiao tossed her the candy he’d scrounged from the station the day before. “Eat some candy.”

Nan Chu finished the candy and held her hand out toward him again.

Lin Luxiao dug the last of the candy from his pocket and dropped it into her palm. He patted his pockets — empty. The wide military trousers shifted in the breeze. “Last piece.”

Nan Chu chewed through it and held her hand out again. “More.”

Was there no end to this?

“Don’t push your luck.”

Lin Luxiao frowned with impatience and turned his head — and the girl’s vivid red lips were right there, inches from his face.

The two stared at each other.

Breathing tangled.

Three seconds of silence.

The man’s throat moved as he swallowed.

Nan Chu smiled and pulled back, triumphant: “Admit it — you wanted to kiss me.”

Lin Luxiao: Damn it, you little brat.