They left the Civil Affairs Bureau.

Lin Luxiao drove out to the suburban rehabilitation center to collect Lin Qi. The road was clear, the trees on either side flickering past in a blur. A single song played on repeat in the car: The Ordinary Road.

Nan Chu sat in the front passenger seat, head bowed over the little red booklet in her hands, still not quite back down to earth. Everything felt dreamlike — only a few days ago they had been in the middle of an argument.

Lin Luxiao drove attentively, and when he noticed her drifting in thought, he turned to glance at her. Compared to Nan Chu, he was considerably more composed.

He had collected the certificate calmly.

He didn’t appear particularly stirred either.

“Open the compartment in front of you,” Lin Luxiao said, eyes forward, without much inflection.

Nan Chu reached down and felt for the center console armrest. “This one?”

He glanced over and nodded.

Nan Chu pushed it open. Inside lay a small, perfectly square little box.

“Take it out.”

Nan Chu did as she was told. The moment the small square thing was in her palm, she knew — a ring box. Without waiting for him to say anything, she opened it herself, delighted, and slid the ring straight onto her finger, stretching out her hand and turning it this way and that to see.

The design was quite simple — plainer, perhaps, than some of the jewelry she’d worn before. And yet it seemed different in a way she couldn’t name. She looked at it for a long while and felt that this ring suited her perfectly — as if it had always belonged there.

Nan Chu smiled, bright-eyed. “How did you know my size?”

Lin Luxiao kept his hands on the wheel, not looking over. The faintest smile curved his mouth. “Is there any part of you I don’t know?”

The car moved along the road, stretching out the long memory of time.

Nan Chu recalled that in the early days when he’d first filed the marriage application, Lin Luxiao had taken to fiddling with her fingers for no particular reason, on and off. She’d found it a bit odd at the time — she thought he must have some sort of fixation, the way she had with hands herself.

She hadn’t thought too much of it. She’d assumed he was simply a hand person — it would explain why he always seemed particularly responsive when she used hers.

Looking back now, she realized she had been the vulgar one.

Neither of them spoke for a while after that.

Lin Luxiao was never much of a talker. Marriage wasn’t going to change that.

The car pulled up soon enough at the rehabilitation center.

Lin Qi had cropped her hair close and clean. She was dressed all in black, her frame lean and straight, her skin pale as light in the sun — the complete opposite of her brother in coloring. Compared to the darkness she’d carried before, she looked healthier now. More whole.

A small black bag hung from one hand.

When she spotted Lin Luxiao’s car, she walked over, went around the front of the vehicle, and headed straight for the front passenger door.

She opened it. And stopped.

“Nan Chu?”

Nan Chu smiled at her. From beside her, Lin Luxiao said with flat indifference: “Sit in the back.”

Lin Qi blinked. “Oh, oh, right.”

Once Lin Qi was in, Nan Chu watched her quietly through the rearview mirror. She looked much healthier — but she was quieter too. There was a different quality to the quiet, though. More clarity. Like something had opened up.

The three of them barely exchanged a handful of words before the car stopped at the hutong entrance.

Lin Luxiao went to park. Nan Chu and Lin Qi got out at the corner. Lin Qi looked at her and said: “You and my brother—?”

Nan Chu gave the little red booklet a small wave. “Just registered.”

Lin Qi’s jaw nearly came unhinged.

It wasn’t until Lin Luxiao came walking up from behind and gave her a solid smack on the back of the head that she was convinced she wasn’t dreaming.

“Let’s go.”

And he walked ahead down the hutong.

The alley bore the marks of time in every worn surface — through one latticed window after another, the long river of years flowing past.

The courtyard lay deeper in: a gate of aged bronze with carvings that traced childhood’s handprints. This was Nan Chu’s first time here. She had heard that this corner of Northern Xun was home to the old-stock Northern Xun families — people who had kept the culture of the hutong alive through the generations.

Nan Yueru’s ancestral roots were in Changnan. She had later settled in Northern Xun after becoming famous, then spent most of her adult life abroad.

But this was where Lin Luxiao had grown up.

That fact made Nan Chu want to examine everything with close attention — trying to find, in each detail, some trace of him.

When the three of them stepped inside, Lin Qingyuan and an old friend were in the middle of a chess game. Secretary Zhang was in the other room, arranging a full table of dishes.

“Dad.”

Neither of them could have said who said it first.

Lin Qingyuan’s hand paused mid-move over the board. He looked up. When his eyes landed on Lin Qi, his expression cooled involuntarily. Then he turned to look at Nan Chu, and it eased somewhat.

“Come in.”

But the moment Nan Chu saw Lin Qingyuan, something in her mind began to slowly come into focus. She felt as though she had seen him somewhere before — yet she couldn’t place it, even after turning it over for some time.

Lin Qingyuan was the first to speak. “Forgotten me already, little one?”

The memories of childhood rushed back in a single wave. “Uncle Lin?!” she exclaimed.

Lin Qingyuan smiled. “Still calling me Uncle Lin?”

Nan Chu’s head dipped. Her voice came out softly: “Dad.”

She had never called anyone “Dad” before. The word surprised even her when it came out — it felt strange on her tongue, like an unfamiliar piece of clothing. Lin Qingyuan understood this perfectly, and covered her awkwardness with a quiet laugh.

Then he patted the chair beside him. “Come sit for a bit.”

Nan Chu glanced at Lin Luxiao. He said: “Go sit. I’ll check on the kitchen — we’re almost ready to eat.”

Nan Chu nodded obediently.

Her quiet compliance gave Lin Qingyuan a moment’s pause — this girl was too well-behaved. He had met Nan Chu once, when she was small. Back then she had been an unreadable child, too composed for her age, with none of the brightness or guilelessness one expected from a girl of that age.

That was part of why he had been against it at first. Girls who were too inwardly contained tended toward extremes. Beautiful, certainly — but unlikely to be easy to live with.

Though, in the end — there had been the other consideration.

And then he figured: if Lin Luxiao really wanted her that badly, it wasn’t worth the trouble of opposing it.

Nan Chu sat down, and Lin Qingyuan asked: “Is your mother keeping well?”

“Very well, thank you.”

Lin Qingyuan studied the girl — well-mannered to an almost improbable degree. He smiled and shook his head. “You haven’t told your mother about you and Luxiao, have you?”

Nan Chu lowered her gaze. She didn’t want to pretend. A muffled yes.

Lin Qingyuan was a seasoned reader of people, and he understood immediately. He nodded, kept his composure, and returned to his chess game as if nothing had been said — but the words were directed at Nan Chu: “Arrange for me to take your mother to dinner sometime.”

Nan Chu: “Of course.”

“When does Luxiao leave?”

“The evening train.”

The old man nodded. “Lushan is a good place for forging character. I heard you went up to find him?”

“I went once, before the new year.”

An old man and a young woman, sitting together in quiet conversation. Outside, the light was failing softly — bare, dark branches of trees etched against the gray. The scene had, in its way, a quiet harmony.

Lin Luxiao took off his jacket and left it on the sofa, then went into the kitchen to find Secretary Zhang.

Secretary Zhang smiled and teased him gently: “Getting married really does change a man.”

Lin Luxiao crossed his arms and leaned in the doorway, bowing his head in a quiet laugh. “You’re imagining things.”

The clay pot on the stove held a braised fish. Steam hammered steadily at the lid.

Secretary Zhang ladled in some soy sauce and said as he poured: “Time really flies — the Director was just saying yesterday, he always thinks of you as a half-grown boy, and now look at you, already with a wife. No time to waste — strike while the iron is hot, have a child soon. The Director is still in good health — while he can still hold a grandchild.”

Lin Luxiao shook his head with a resigned smile.

“When I was small, you and Dad were always pushing me and Lin Qi to study harder, get into university. When I got into the military academy, you started pushing me to find a girlfriend. When I didn’t, you pushed me to get a job. Once I had a job, you pushed me to get married. Now I’m married and you’re already pushing me to have children. You’ve been herding me along this entire time — can you let me breathe for even a moment?”

Secretary Zhang brought a spatula around at him. “Oh, you ungrateful thing!”

The truth was — though they had just registered, a full year apart meant that they were strangers to each other in many small ways. Both of them were trying hard to accommodate the other’s habits, and they could both feel it — this effort between them. They were like two pieces of wood that had broken apart and been pressed back together, and no matter how carefully they fit the edges, the years in between had changed the grain: this corner slightly off, that edge fractionally wider, and they could never quite fit as seamlessly as before.

Like yesterday evening, for instance.

Halfway through a phone call, both of them ran out of things to say. They sat there holding their phones in silence until finally, awkwardly, they hung up. That easy, cloying closeness of before — it couldn’t be found again in a moment.

Or just now in the car.

He driving, Nan Chu looking at her phone.

Both of them happened to reach for the drinks in the center console at the same moment — there were two bottles of water side by side, and yet both of their hands went for the same one. Their hands touched.

Both looked down instinctively. A pause. Then, in the same instant, both pulled back.

An awkwardness briefly filled the space.

These were not the behaviors of newlyweds. Before they had even started dating, the two of them had done things far more brazen than this.

And yet it felt strange. Like unfamiliar territory.

That was what this past year had left behind — a distance that couldn’t be erased in one go.

Both sides were trying hard to show the other that nothing had changed. But both of them knew, underneath, that the effort was hollow — like trying to hold sand in a closed fist.

What he could do now was simply follow her lead in everything.

As for a child — even if she conceived right now, he wouldn’t be there. No matter how he looked at it, the timing was wrong.

Lin Qingyuan was genuinely content this evening — both sons at the table, and a daughter-in-law beautiful as a painting. Even Secretary Zhang stayed on for dinner, which was rare.

Lin Qingyuan picked up his chopsticks, added food to his bowl, and said with a trace of wry complaint: “It takes this younger generation to get you to stay for a meal. I’ve tried to keep you for dinner for years and you’re always too busy — but today you’ve put your son aside to come eat with us, and I have you lot to thank for the favor.”

Secretary Zhang laughed. “You’re too modest. My son is impossible to manage — nothing like Luxiao and the others were as children. Leave him alone for five minutes and he’ll be dismantling the roof.”

Dinner was warm and easy.

Nan Chu was caught up in the spirit of it and, without thinking, placed a piece of fish into her husband’s bowl. “Have some more.”

Lin Luxiao’s chopsticks stalled mid-air.

Lin Qingyuan and Secretary Zhang exchanged a glance. The room went briefly quiet. Lin Qi blurted out: “Sister-in-law, my brother doesn’t eat fish—”

Nan Chu froze. The past came rushing back — but she couldn’t quite remember, could she? They had spent so little time together, and whenever they went out to eat, Lin Luxiao always ordered whatever she liked.

She only remembered that he didn’t seem to be picky.

So he didn’t eat fish.

Right. Noted.

Nan Chu had just moved her chopsticks to retrieve the piece of pale fish and put it in her own bowl when Lin Luxiao picked it up and ate it himself, without any change of expression. “Don’t listen to her nonsense.”

Lin Qi: …

Lin Qingyuan gave a quiet cough, caught Secretary Zhang’s eye. The two of them shared a look — tsk tsk tsk, said that glance. Decades of stubbornness, and she corrected it in an instant.

From the time he was small, fish — anything with so much as a hint of that smell — Lin Luxiao simply would not touch. They had tried force. They had tried starving it out of him. He had been immovable.

Lin Qingyuan let out a long sigh.

By the time dinner wound down, it was past eight in the evening.

Lin Luxiao came out of the kitchen after washing up and went to retrieve his jacket from the sofa. Secretary Zhang was coming from the other direction, and he found himself asking almost without thinking, the words out before he’d formed them: “Where’s my wife?”

Secretary Zhang pointed toward the study. “In there, chatting with the Director.”

Lin Luxiao glanced at the closed door, then turned and went to the entrance to smoke.

When Nan Chu came out, he had just finished one cigarette. He pinched it out and bent down to press it into the soil of the nearby flower bed. “Done talking?”

Nan Chu nodded. She walked up behind him — his tall back framing her slight figure with an oddly perfect fit.

He glanced down and noticed a bracelet of vivid green jade had appeared at Nan Chu’s slender, pale wrist. He understood immediately, and asked nothing about what they’d talked about. He simply started the car. “Let’s go — I’ll drop you off and then I have to leave.”

The car pulled up below Nan Chu’s building.

She didn’t rush to get out. She unclipped the seatbelt and sat for a moment longer. “The final payment on the new place isn’t done yet — it’s a basic fit-out, still needs some furniture. Once that’s sorted, I can move in. Your next holiday — when do you think it’ll be? I’ll wait so we can buy the furniture together.”

Lin Luxiao lowered the window and lit a cigarette. “You decide. My holidays are hard to predict. Your rental is running out — don’t let it drag.” He tapped the ash off, and took his own set of keys from the console. “Just had these cut. If it comes to it, you can stay at my place for now — everything’s been left on.”

Nan Chu took them. The keys felt warm, almost burning.

“All right. Can you call me from over there?”

Lin Luxiao looked at her. “When I’m not too busy, I’ll call.”

“Good. I’ll wait for your call.”

She bowed her head. On the way here she had thought of many things to say — and now couldn’t recall any of them.

Seeing her go quiet, Lin Luxiao said: “If you need anything while I’m gone, contact my dad, or Shen Mu, Big Liu, or Secretary Zhang. I’ve already spoken to all of them.”

Not exactly “spoken to.”

He’d made a quick visit to Shen Mu and Big Liu before leaving, and mentioned the marriage in passing while he was there.

They were probably still not quite recovered from the news.

He was leaning back in his seat, one arm resting idly across his leg, the other hanging out the window, cigarette pinched between his fingers, brought to his lips occasionally for a drag. His whole manner was unhurried.

“Anything else to say?”

Nan Chu shook her head. There was a hollow feeling she couldn’t quite name — two people who both clearly loved each other, and yet something felt like it was running on empty.

Lin Luxiao turned to look at her, not quite meaning to.

Moonlight fell softly over everything, casting a cool gray wash. The trees shifted, heavy with shadow. The wind moved through them like a dance.

Something stirred.

He stubbed out the cigarette, reached across and curved his hand around the back of her head, and leaned in, pressing her down into the passenger seat.

Nan Chu’s breath came softly. Lin Luxiao moved from her ear along her jaw to her neck, one hand cupped against her face, his thumb pressed to her cheek, four fingers threading through her hair.

Through all this time. What hadn’t changed was this.

His kiss — fierce enough to unmake her entirely.