The crowd below was a sea of noise. The atmosphere had been lifted to a peak by the little cousin’s sudden declaration.

The chorus of encouragement rose and fell in waves.

The man at the center of the stage stood perfectly straight, his expression unreadable.

The little cousin, buoyed by the response around her, her face flushed red, pressed on: “I could tell you a little about myself — I’m twenty-eight, I work at a securities exchange, I have a master’s degree, I earn somewhere between ten and twenty thousand a month. After we married, if you needed to go back north, I could follow you — that’s not a problem, because I…” She faltered a little. “I really do like you very much…”

Genuinely so.

She liked him enough that when she had heard about this gathering, she had signed herself up without a second thought — because lately she kept thinking of him, inexplicably, his face surfacing in her mind at the most random moments.

A man like him was simply that kind of draw.

The little cousin stood at the center of the stage gripping the hem of her jacket, head down, waiting for a response. She had been so clear. He had to understand.

“I’m sorry.”

Lin Luxiao handed the flowers to the emcee beside him. Two words, and he was done.

The meeting-hall stage stood about a meter high. Lin Luxiao took two steps to the edge, placed both hands on the rim, and vaulted off cleanly.

“……”

“……”

“……”

The smile on the little cousin’s face went stiff. She stared blankly at his retreating back.

She had come prepared tonight. She had known he was difficult, knew he ran cold — she had steeled herself for it. And yet, when he simply walked away from her that calmly, she found herself frozen anyway.

A cold sweat broke out across her back.

Her color had drained. Breathing felt unsteady. Her gaze followed Lin Luxiao’s back with a dark, stricken look.

And then the next second.

Another wave of noise.

The man had dropped from the stage, and though those on it couldn’t see his expression, the ones below — Zhao Guo among them — had a perfectly clear view.

His eyes were on fire. Sparks practically crackling in them, snapping and jumping, and they were aimed in a straight, unflinching line at the person responsible for this.

Lin Luxiao walked directly to Nan Chu, and in front of everyone’s stunned eyes — without hesitation, without any particular gentleness — pulled her up from her chair and hauled her outside.

The room plunged into a brief, uncomfortable silence.

The two of them reached the doorway. The officers, who had only just caught up with events, looked at each other and then at Zhao Guo, one of them giving him a pat. “What are those two doing? You’d better go check — when Luxiao’s temper is up, there’s no telling what might happen.”

Zhao Guo tucked his chin in. He was not going anywhere near that particular situation. “Nothing’s going to happen. Luxiao is crazy about that girl.”

The officer looked skeptical.

Zhao Guo added, with authority, “Seriously. When he first got here, that whole brooding act — that’s what getting dumped looks like. He never got over it.”

……

Outside, the night was entirely dark. The street lamps threw their unsteady light. Snow drifted on the wind.

The woman was crouched at the bottom of the steps, entertaining the little golden retriever. “Your person is almost back — do you miss him?”

The golden retriever wagged its tail with frantic enthusiasm, bounding through the snow.

The woman pointed at its nose affectionately. “Little thing—”

She hadn’t finished when the sound of rapid footsteps came crunching through the snow ahead. She looked up with a smile — and saw a tall figure coming toward her with a smaller one in tow behind.

The dark made it hard to see clearly at first. As they drew closer, she finally recognized Lin Luxiao and Nan Chu.

Neither of them looked particularly cheerful.

With the instinct of someone who had lived long enough to know when to disappear, she scooped up the golden retriever without hesitation and headed indoors. “Come on now! Bedtime!”

Up to the second floor. Door open.

Lin Luxiao pushed her inside. Ever since Nan Chu had maneuvered him onto that stage, the pressure had been building — and now, at last, it gave way.

All of that pent-up fury, compressed and held, broke open in a single explosion:

“Are you done with your games?!”

Nan Chu sighed, genuinely tired. She hadn’t been playing games — she had known full well he was being brought to what amounted to a blind date, had been seething with jealousy, and in a moment of weak impulse, had pushed him up there. It wasn’t a blind date?

— Then go on up there and make the most of it.

The appearance of the little cousin had stung her, honestly. Nan Chu envied her ability to stand in front of all those people and say exactly how she felt — to declare, out loud, her love for this man.

Nan Chu herself could not do that.

If she had rushed the stage, grabbed the microphone, and delivered some heartfelt declaration to Lin Luxiao, tomorrow’s headline would have written itself. And from Nan Yueru, the bombardment that would follow was not difficult to predict.

Until everything was settled, she could not put him back in that position again.

Both of them were carrying anger.

He was angry at her for being reckless and unapologetic.

She was angry at him for being stubborn and impossible.

The door was half open.

Nan Chu had been pushed inside and steadied herself against the doorframe. He stood in the dark corridor beyond — upright in his dress uniform, the brim of his cap cutting a shadow across half his face. In the dark, the precise lines of him were harder to read.

His voice had gone entirely cold, and yet it carried, inexplicably, a certain intensity: “Did you enjoy watching someone else squirm?”

Nan Chu’s eyes were steady and dark. She asked him directly: “Honestly — wouldn’t you be happier with her? At least more comfortable than with me. She would follow you north. She would give up work for you. She would bring you no trouble. Wouldn’t she?”

Something inside Lin Luxiao lurched.

His gaze fixed on her, absolutely still.

Nan Chu gave a small, hollow laugh — the kind that had no real warmth in it. “Lin Luxiao. You resent me. You’re angry I left so easily. But this past year wasn’t easy for me either. I’ve been thinking — it’s true, there are still a lot of storms ahead of you if you stay with me. If you genuinely feel something for that woman… I can understand that.”

She lowered her head, her voice going quieter. “I’m leaving tomorrow. And I won’t come back.”

Lin Luxiao regarded her with the look of someone who sees straight through what’s happening, and said with cold amusement: “Keep performing. Go on.”

Nan Chu stopped. She looked at him, and the hurt in her expression was unguarded.

“What — am I being unfair to you?”

Trust, once it had collapsed, was not rebuilt in a day.

She shook her head. “No.”

The room was dark. The window at her back was open, and the moonlight fell in a cool grey. Wind and snow rattled the glass.

She held the doorframe, and stepped forward.

She went up on her toes, lifted her face, and pressed her lips to his.

Lin Luxiao turned his head to the side. She missed.

She stayed frozen on her toes, lips hovering at the line of his jaw.

Her lashes blinked once.

She followed, and pressed the kiss there — deliberate.

The tip of her tongue moved lightly against him, tracing the edge of his lips in a slow, careful line. Not like before. This kiss carried no desire. It was quiet. Solemn. The kind of kiss that says goodbye.

The next second.

Lin Luxiao bit her lower lip — sudden, like a punishment.

His eyes were fire.

Nan Chu bit back at his lower lip, and the two of them looked at each other, bare and unblinking and completely direct.

As if trying to see all the way through — the sharp look in both their eyes like something that wanted to cut the other apart and work them into their own bones.

Love threaded through with hate.

Outside: wind, and snow, and storm. Inside: cold as ice and hot as flame.

Lin Luxiao looked down at her through half-lowered lids. Her skin was nearly white, warmed now to a faint flush, and the dark of her eyes held a light that was almost wet. He let his eyes close slowly, and then pushed past her teeth — his tongue moving in, searching through her in a way that held nothing back.

He deepened the pressure.

Nan Chu nearly lost her footing. Her hands let go of the doorframe and found his neck, and she hung on.

Lin Luxiao turned her, walked her backward, caught the door closed with his foot, and pressed her against the wall. His eyes were full of everything still unreleased.

Nan Chu met his emotion with her own.

Two of them, like two wild and frantic things, tangled in the doorway.

All the dissatisfaction, all the suppression, all the anger — transmuted into kiss after kiss that was deep and punishing and absolutely consuming.

A feeling neither of them had ever had before.

Love carrying hatred, carrying punishment, carrying the desperate need to press the other so deep into themselves they could never be separated again.

……

……

……

Nan Chu was stripped to nothing and dropped onto the bed.

His voice was low and rough, and still sardonic: “Reacting now?”

Nan Chu lay back on the bed, fingers moving through his dark, close-cropped hair. A soft sound of assent.

He gave a short, knowing laugh. “So what was all that performance about, just now?”

Nan Chu pressed her brow together, bit her lip, and didn’t make a sound.

Lin Luxiao’s eyes darkened further. His voice was pointed. “Never coming back? Can you really do that?”

Her whole body felt like a current had run through it — Nan Chu felt the warmth spread all the way down. She clenched her jaw and bit her lip hard, eyes closing, surrendering.

His intent was explicit, and punishing. He looked down at her, sweat beginning to bead at his hairline. “Enjoying yourself? Then say so.”

Lin Luxiao had never asked her things like this before. When he was tender with her, she hadn’t valued it. And now — he seemed to have stopped being tender.

Everyone had their particular form of anger.

But Nan Chu genuinely felt this love and hatred was grinding her to pieces.

She kept her jaw clenched.

Biting down hard.

Without realizing it, a tear slid from the corner of her eye and soaked into the pillow.

Before she had come here, Yan Dai had told her: men fall fast and pull back fast; women fall slowly, and once in, cannot easily get out.

……

When it was over.

Two bare bodies leaned in silence against the headboard, smoking. Lin Luxiao looked at the time, got up, and began to dress.

Nan Chu watched the clean lines of his back, the deep channel of his spine.

Silence.

The air between them went quiet.

Outside, the snow had stopped.

Lin Luxiao fastened his buttons, looked down at her suitcase open on the floor, and the carefully chosen clothes spread within it. “Roll call soon. I’m going.”

“Hmm.”

She lit another cigarette. The smoke wound up through the blue-grey dark, more arresting than the moonlight beyond the window.

He put on his cap, walked to the door — and stopped. His back still to her, he let something drop: “Smoke less.”

Lin Luxiao didn’t rush off. He stood downstairs in the courtyard and smoked through half a pack, then finally looked up at the window above him and walked away.

In the dormitory.

Zhao Guo was starting to worry — roll call was close and the man still hadn’t come back. He was about to call when he saw the figure coming up the stairs from below, jacket slung over his arm.

“Hey — if you’d been any later, I would’ve gone looking for you!”

Lin Luxiao pushed past him and made a low sound, returning to his bunk.

Zhao Guo trailed after him like a persistent shadow, sharp-eyed as always — and clocked immediately the vivid red lip mark on his collar. He grabbed at the fabric and said, voice rising: “Hey hey hey — Luxiao, that — that — what is — you’ve been up to something!”

Lin Luxiao glanced down, removed Zhao Guo’s hand from his collar with one decisive motion. “Go back to your spot.”

Right. Bad mood. Zhao Guo had enough sense not to push it. He pressed his lips together, swallowed whatever he’d been about to say, and retreated.

……

The following day, training finished.

Lin Luxiao came off the training ground and went straight to the family quarters.

The woman greeted him with her usual warmth. “Xiao Lin, here you are.”

Lin Luxiao smiled faintly. “Where is she?” he asked, without making it sound like it mattered.

The woman replied: “She left. This morning, she took her suitcase and got on the bus.”