That “sister-in-law” absolutely delighted Lin Luxiao.

Da Liu had sharp eyes — one glance at Nan Chu told him she was wearing Xiao Ye’s clothes, and knowing Lin Luxiao’s nature, he guessed the evening had been plenty exhausting for her.

Before Nan Chu could even react, Da Liu had already let it out — that warm, unguarded “sister-in-law” just came right out. He then turned and tugged at the girl behind him, prodding: “Don’t just stand there gaping — introduce yourself.”

Xu Zhiyi was a little shy. “Nan Chu-jie.”

Da Liu wasn’t satisfied — he pulled her forward and did the introduction properly: “This is my buddy. We’ve been thick as thieves since we were kids.”

Then he turned to glance at Nan Chu, pointed a thumb her way with a grin: “And this is sister-in-law.”

Xu Zhiyi was evidently surprised.

She and Nan Chu hadn’t had much contact, but they’d run into each other at events recently. They weren’t close — just nodding acquaintances.

Nan Chu struck her as somewhat aloof, a bit mysterious — she didn’t talk much, and in her downtime Xu Zhiyi had only ever seen her chatting with her assistant; she’d never seemed particularly close with any of the other artists.

She’d thought the girl ran cold, and was a little hard to read. She hadn’t expected her boyfriend to be someone outside the industry. Xu Zhiyi’s first instinct was — this man is very good-looking, but how does she end up with someone from a completely different world? Though then she thought: what does it have to do with me — besides, hadn’t she herself ended up with Da Liu?

She gave a pretty, bashful smile. Nan Chu, for once, smiled back at her. The two women understood each other silently.

Lin Luxiao pulled Nan Chu to his side, looped an arm around her waist, and looked at the pair across from him with composed ease. “What brings you by?”

Da Liu glanced at Xu Zhiyi. “We were passing by — saw your building and came up to sit for a bit.”

Nonsense.

Lin Luxiao, one arm still around Nan Chu, reached for the door with the other — Da Liu thrust a hand in to stop it, panicking: “No no no. We were being followed by paparazzi just now — I brought her up here to hide.”

Lin Luxiao raised an eyebrow.

It was Nan Chu who spoke first. “Da Liu-ge, have you two eaten?”

Da Liu shook his head. “We ate. Then got hungry again.”

Nan Chu glanced up at her own squad leader, then said: “Come on in and eat something together.”

Da Liu’s face lit up. He said “yes” several times in a row and started pulling Xu Zhiyi inside — but was stopped dead in his tracks by a single line from Lin Luxiao.

Nan Chu felt her waist pinched hard, and heard a slightly displeased voice in her ear: “Hey, I’m going back to the station tomorrow.”

Meaning —

You’re really going to let these two lightbulbs in here?

Nan Chu looked up at him — bright, clear eyes — and pushed out of the corner of her mouth: “Can’t exactly leave them standing in the hallway.”

He said brazenly: “Door’s closed, can’t see anything anyway.”

Da Liu’s face practically crumpled — though he knew Lin Luxiao was mostly joking, he was still indignant: “Choosing your woman over your friends! When you were running through the alley in just a pair of underpants and Lin-shu was chasing you — who took you in? Who? It was me, Da Liu!”

Bang—

Lin Luxiao shut the door.

That particular memory was the one thing guaranteed to rile him up. If he hadn’t been covering for Da Liu back then, he wouldn’t have been chased halfway down the street by Lin Qingyuan in nothing but his underpants.

Da Liu stood fuming on the other side of the door.

Then he remembered something a fortune-teller had once said, and pounded on the door in outrage: “Li Xiazi was right! Can’t read a man, suffer all your life! What a waste of all those years of brotherhood!”

Just as he finished shouting, the door opened again. Lin Luxiao had already turned back into the kitchen. Nan Chu’s face peeked out, smiling. “Da Liu-ge, come in — he’s teasing you.”

“Sister-in-law is the best.” Da Liu’s face was all smiles again.

· · ·

The four of them sat around the dining table.

Da Liu just kept thinking how good-looking this little sister-in-law was.

The table held four bowls of noodles, steam rising from each. All made by Lin Luxiao — but the first pot had been burned and there were only two eggs left, so he put the eggs in the two bowls he gave the girls and sat down to his own egg-less bowl without comment.

Da Liu saw his bowl and pouted. “Brother’s got no egg?”

The words came out before anyone fully registered them — then a brief, uncomfortable silence settled in.

Lin Luxiao looked up from his bowl and gave Da Liu a cool, contemptuous smile, shook his head, and went back to eating.

Xu Zhiyi turned pink. Nan Chu didn’t flinch.

Da Liu cleared his throat and recovered the thread: “You’ve been so thin on provisions lately.”

Lin Luxiao didn’t look up. His bowl was already mostly gone — he ate fast as ever. Voice flat: “There’s food in front of you and you’re complaining — don’t eat and get out.”

He was rarely home; even on leave he bought things in small quantities, just enough for two or three days. There wasn’t much occasion to cook. Yet somehow, in Nan Chu’s eyes, beneath that towering, iron-boned soldier’s image, the sight of him doing something so domestic was unexpectedly endearing.

She felt herself falling a little more in love with him, prodded by something soft and warm.

She’d seen so many sides of him.

At the station during training: face locked tight, as though he could bite someone at any moment. When someone made a mistake, he didn’t spare them — Nan Chu had not been exempt. He’d chewed her out with everyone watching, and then kept at it privately afterward. For a while she’d genuinely been a little afraid of him — she used to go out of her way to avoid crossing his path.

Then Lin Luxiao must have noticed, because afterward he’d brought her a few pieces of candy to make it up to her. At the time she hadn’t thought much of it; now, looking back, that did seem like his way of coaxing her.

Around Da Liu and the others, he loosened up — his whole manner shifted, and he could actually make jokes, tease Da Liu.

And then in bed: his restraint, his suppression, his release — and the tenderness with which he kissed her at the very end.

The blunt, infuriating one was him. The principled, courageous one was him. The quietly devoted, outwardly indifferent one — that was also him.

Nan Chu felt tender toward the effort he’d just spent, and moved her bowl’s egg over to him. “Eat this. You need the energy — you exerted yourself.”

Lin Luxiao had been halfheartedly trading remarks with Da Liu, but at that, both men stopped. Da Liu glanced between them with a knowing look, making a long, drawn-out sound, while Nan Chu didn’t seem to notice anything awkward and went back to slurping her own noodles.

Da Liu made an exaggerated sigh. “So I really did ruin a good thing for you two?”

They were casual enough with each other when no one else was around, but with two girls at the table, Lin Luxiao lost patience — he kicked Da Liu squarely under the table and Da Liu folded with a yelp, going very quiet and very focused on his bowl.

“Does Lin-shu know?” Da Liu, apparently not having made himself sufficiently clear, added: “About you two.”

Lin Luxiao had already finished eating. He leaned back in his chair, one arm resting lazily across the back of Nan Chu’s chair, gaze drifting elsewhere. Voice easy: “He knows.”

Da Liu blinked. “He didn’t come after you?”

Lin Luxiao reached for the cigarette pack on the table, tapped one out, rolled it lightly against the table edge. “What? Did Da Liu’s dad come after you? Looking for someone to commiserate with?”

“You know that’s not what this is — I’m just looking out for you. And on top of that, I want some advice, you’ve always had more ideas than anyone since we were kids.”

At that, Lin Luxiao put the cigarette to his lips, struck a light with a squint, and laughed at himself: “Clay Buddha crossing the river — can barely keep my own head above water.”

“But you can’t just let things drag on the way they are for you two, either.”

Lin Luxiao had the cigarette between his teeth, squinting through the smoke, and turned to give Nan Chu a brief sideways look. Their eyes met — hers were clear and open. Something in him softened. His hand, resting on her chair back, found her earlobe and gave it a light, unhurried squeeze. “Old Lin’s one advantage over Da Liu’s father is that, as long as I can remember, he’s never actually managed me — you really think he’d get himself involved in this? He’d be too guilty. You should be worrying about yourself a bit more. Da Liu’s father held your hand for everything from the beginning — changing diapers included.”

Da Liu flipped his eyes. “You’re the one who needed the diapers!”

Lin Luxiao smoked serenely and said nothing — he was not about to air Da Liu’s history in front of his girlfriend.

Dinner done, the two men went out to the balcony to smoke.

Nan Chu stacked the bowls and carried them to the kitchen; Xu Zhiyi followed to help. From behind, the sight of the two girls moving about one after the other—

Da Liu lit his cigarette, leaned back against the railing, and let out a long, contented sigh. “Days like this are truly something…”

He slapped the railing. “Big city! Your own place!”

Lin Luxiao smoked, glanced at him, said nothing.

Da Liu pointed inside. “The girl you love!”

Lin Luxiao drew on his cigarette, let the smoke sit in his mouth, eyes falling on the middle distance — the corner of his mouth curved slightly. Still nothing.

Da Liu spread his arms wide. “Parents somewhere out there!”

Then he sighed again. “And a child would make it perfect. I don’t need any great storms or epic adventures — if I can just live a quiet, ordinary life, I’d consider myself lucky.”

Lin Luxiao finally spoke. “You’re serious?”

Da Liu let out a long breath. “Serious. You don’t know how hard Xiao Yi has had it. She grew up in the countryside. Did a year as a trainee in Korea — basically inhumane conditions. Her father ran up a pile of debt, and if it weren’t for her younger brother, she’d never have quit school and gone out to work. She really makes your heart ache. I’m genuinely ready to treat her properly. For her sake, I’ve made up my mind to push back against my old man — I can’t keep doing whatever he tells me. This is one fight I need to take on.”

Lin Luxiao took a drag and patted him on the shoulder. “In terms of money, you’re better off than me — I’m still saving up for a wedding fund, so I can’t offer much there. When you two actually get there, I’ll put together a good red envelope. For now, all I can give you is moral support.”

“All right, I know you’re saving up to marry your wife.”

· · ·

Nan Chu finished washing the bowls, stacking them neatly on the drying rack. She turned — and found a dark silhouette leaning against the counter, watching her.

“You’re not going back out with them?”

She didn’t look up, kept wiping the bowls dry one by one.

Moonlight came in through the window, making the skin of her neck look snow-white.

“They’ve gone.”

His voice had something strange in it. Nan Chu turned to look — and the dark shape came across the room and pressed her against the sink, lowering his head to kiss her. He—

Nan Chu nearly dropped a bowl. She pushed at him. “Will you ever stop?”

“Leave the washing.” Lin Luxiao pulled the bowl out of her hand and dropped it in the sink. “This isn’t your thing to do.”

Nan Chu dodged his breath. “I’ll be doing it every day from now on.”

That one line lit something in him — the girl in his arms didn’t realize what she’d done, but inside him it went off like a string of firecrackers. He leaned close to her ear, grinning wickedly: “Oh? In that much of a hurry to marry in? Did I say I was going to marry you?”

“Fine. Don’t marry me, then.” Nan Chu, breezy.

Lin Luxiao drew a slow breath, looked down at her, eyes dark and still as a deep pool — as though he might pull her all the way under.

“Marry you.”

He had imagined many scenes. Many futures. He had even sketched in his mind what his wife might look like.

He had never expected to fall at the hands of this particular girl.

“That sounded a little reluctant. Nobody’s forcing you, my squad leader.”

Lin Luxiao laughed and pulled her into his arms, his head resting on the crown of hers, cheek pressed into her hair. “I’m a nobody soldier. I can’t give you much. And I’m that much older than you. What do you see in me? Hm?”

“You make me feel safe. You can protect me.”

Nan Chu lay against him, thoroughly composed. “You’re the first person who’s ever made me feel safe. At the beginning, it was just that — I felt safe being around you. I felt like you could protect me.”

She really didn’t hide her motivations at all. She was honest — brutally so.

Honest enough that Lin Luxiao found himself at a bit of a loss.

So it turned out the girl had fallen for him because of his muscles?

“So, hypothetically, if Da Liu made you feel safe, you’d have gone after Da Liu?”

Nan Chu said frankly: “Theoretically, yes.”

Lin Luxiao let go of her, face tight. “Why didn’t you just go hire a bodyguard.”