Yan Lie’s day could only be described as a disaster.

In the morning, a supplier who had a business partnership with Yan Chengli came to pay a visit and brought a heap of gifts.

Yan Lie had been in the study playing on the computer when Yan Chengli called him out to entertain the guest.

The two sides gathered around the coffee table and began chatting with warm, flattering enthusiasm. Yan Lie sat to one side, staring blankly at the baffling programs on the television, chiming in with a word or two whenever the guest mentioned his name, just to prove he existed.

He held his irritation in check and let none of it show.

This was the beginning of the disaster. He had sensed from that moment that the day was going to be a bad one.

In the afternoon, the two of them — dressed up with care — took him out for the New Year’s Eve dinner.

They had booked a private room at a hotel in advance and shared a meal with a few close friends.

Time at the banquet table passed with excruciating slowness. The group spoke loudly and toasted one another. Amid the clamor of clinking glasses, they laughed until their faces flushed red, trading memories of a youth that had gone unseen for years — yet Yan Lie alone was utterly out of place in the whole atmosphere.

He took in none of it. He helped himself to a few bites of the food in front of him, found it flavorless, and then waited quietly for another half an hour, pulling out his phone to pair up with Zhao Jiayou in a game.

There was a girl at the table around his age, seated not far from him. Her gaze drifted his way from time to time, and she asked him several times whether he wanted a drink.

Yan Lie was working hard to maintain his composure; he had no spare energy to spare a thought for her attempts to strike up a conversation.

The uncle at the table introduced them, and it was only then that Yan Lie could no longer keep up the pretense, so he made the effort to add her on WeChat.

The girl asked, “You’re taking the college entrance exam this year, right? Have you decided which university you’re aiming for?”

Yan Lie could feel that the game wasn’t going particularly smoothly today either — he and Zhao Jiayou were in the same team but had been matched with terrible teammates, losing one round after another. He pressed his lips together and answered after two seconds: “University A.”

“University A is fine, but isn’t University B better? I heard from my uncle that your grades are excellent. Have you considered University B?” The girl rested one hand on the table and turned her body to talk to him. “Isn’t your uncle’s business mainly concentrated in Province B? I also go to university in Province B. If you come, maybe your senior classmate could look out for you.”

The word Defeat lit up on the screen. Yan Lie drew a stifled breath and only then turned to look at her, replying, “I like University A.”

“Why?” the girl asked. “Do you have a special attachment to University A?”

Yan Lie’s tone was so flat that one could not read any emotion from it — only that he was not a particularly warm person.

He kept his eyes fixed on the game interface on his screen and said simply: “Mm. My friends are all there.”

Yan Chengli noticed the exchange, patted him on the shoulder, and said, “That’s just his personality — doesn’t like to talk, only likes to study. Quite the brooder, isn’t he?”

The people around them laughed. The corners of Yan Lie’s lips tightened almost imperceptibly.

He didn’t quite understand why it was that whenever he was together with his parents, things always went so wrong.

He couldn’t draw even a scrap of warmth from their company — only the weariness of keeping up appearances.

And the two of them couldn’t sense his feelings at all. If he showed the slightest unhappiness, they would look at him strangely and say, “Why are you upset?”

It was like two people living in two separate worlds, communicating through different languages and different rules.

When they came out of the hotel, Yan Chengli was drunk.

He had been away from City A for too long, and returning to this place brought back the bleak memory of his business failures all those years ago.

Men are probably like that — when they achieve success and then face the setbacks of the past again, they feel a particular kind of magnanimity. Their emotions surge easily, and they open up to others about their history. As if doing so could make up for the bitterness of their youth.

But Yan Lie had no interest whatsoever in his father’s past.

He called a designated driver, propped up the unsteady man and helped him into the car, and shut the door.

In the enclosed space, the smell of alcohol grew steadily stronger. With every breath Yan Lie took, a dull ache pounded through his head.

Yan Lie’s mother took off her coat, leaned back against the seat, and began to sober up.

The car’s heating blew out slowly, making everyone more drowsy.

Outside the windows, the streets were decorated with lanterns and lights. Wherever the eye landed, there were red lanterns and celebratory couplets.

At a traffic light, a group of people dressed in cheerful new clothes walked together across the crosswalk.

On this day, in this world, it seemed as though there was festive noise everywhere — which only made him feel more like an outsider.

By the time the car reached home, Yan Chengli had fallen into a dead sleep. Yan Lie called his name twice, and the man only waved a hand and muttered a few slurred, unintelligible words.

Yan Lie had no choice but to carry him on his back to the bedroom.

Yan Lie’s mother followed closely behind, let out a sigh, pressed her forehead to ease the discomfort from the alcohol, and gave instructions: “Help look after your dad for a bit — I’m going to take a shower first.”

Yan Lie silently laid the man down on the bed, helped him off with his clothes and shoes, then loosened his tie, fetched a damp towel, and wiped his face.

A person who had drunk too much had heavy, unwieldy limbs, yet in a sudden lurch they could muster a surprising amount of force. Yan Lie breathed in the smell of alcohol emanating from the man, and every last trace of his good humor crumbled away, sinking down along the negative half of the axis, drifting further and further from zero.

It was awful.

What a terrible year.

He had absolutely no need for these two people to set aside their work, sacrifice their careers, and put themselves through the “hardship” of keeping him company.

The bond that couldn’t be forged when he was a child — why on earth did they think that once a person grew up and became more capable, they would be able to give unconditionally?

Yan Lie walked to the balcony and splashed water on his face.

The ice-cold liquid drew away his body heat and numbed his sense of touch. The chill that shuddered through him with each breath forced him to press down the fire burning in his chest.

Only when he could no longer smell the alcohol on himself did he stop this near-masochistic behavior.

His fingers had swollen red and stiff, too rigid to move easily.

He leaned his back against the balcony wall, let out a long, heavy breath, and fished out his phone, attempting to unlock it.

The screen showed two short messages from Fang Zhuo.

The first had come an hour ago, just as they were leaving the hotel.

The second was from fifteen minutes ago, and it contained a string of QQ numbers.

Yan Lie’s gaze lingered on the numbers for a moment. Coming back to himself, he was surprised to find himself selecting and copying them, then pasting the string into the search function of the app. After pressing the confirm button, he found a user by the name of “Little Sun.”

The profile picture was a cartoon sun, its expression uncannily similar to a fake smile — it had a strangely spirited look to it. Yan Lie stared at it for a long while and felt, oddly, like laughing.

By the time he switched to the main screen, the other party had already accepted his friend request.

He Whose Name Burns Bright: Zhuo?

Little Sun: Lie?

Yan Lie felt a little rush of excitement.

He would never again have to feel a pang of heartache over the one jiao it cost to send Fang Zhuo a text message.

And so he sent a string of emojis, one after another, to express his delight.

Fang Zhuo apparently couldn’t stand the barrage. She sent an ellipsis.

Yan Lie released his grip on the phone and waited patiently for her to type.

Little Sun: What are you doing?

Yan Lie turned around and snapped a photo facing the window outside, then sent it over.

Before long, Fang Zhuo replied.

Little Sun: Don’t send photos. Not enough data.

He Whose Name Burns Bright: ……

Right. Still watching every last drop.

Yan Lie laughed, raised his hand, and scrubbed his face hard, wiping away the gloom.

He Whose Name Burns Bright: I absolutely hate it when people drink. Why does everyone insist on pressuring others to drink during New Year’s? What joy could anyone possibly get from being drunk?

Fang Zhuo looked at the bowl of stewed yellow rice wine sitting in front of her and found it difficult to respond to that question objectively.

Ye Yuncheng wiped his hands as he came out of the kitchen. Seeing her in a daze, he urged, “Drink up while it’s warm. I almost forgot, but I thought of it just in time — a stewed egg in rice wine is wonderful for the body. This is yellow rice wine your Uncle Liu brewed himself; it’s sweet and rich. Drink it and get to sleep early. Rest well during the holiday, all right?”

Fang Zhuo furrowed her brow and, against her better judgment, typed out a reply.

Little Sun: You’re right. Completely incoherent.

He Whose Name Burns Bright: Why did you download QQ?

Little Sun: My uncle is going to sleep. He lent me his phone so I can send out a few blessing messages when the clock strikes twelve.

Little Sun: After twelve, I’m uninstalling QQ.

Yan Lie didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh.

So this was a time-limited feature.

He Whose Name Burns Bright: Wouldn’t that use a lot of individual messages at one jiao each? You’d be better off keeping the app and adding their QQ accounts to send the blessings.

Little Sun: [Troubled]

Little Sun: I just found out his texts have a package deal — two hundred free messages per month.

He Whose Name Burns Bright: ??

Little Sun: So I can send you one too.

Little Sun: But not many, because I won’t have time to count, and if I go over the limit one day I’ll feel terrible.

He Whose Name Burns Bright: Thanks, I appreciate it.

Little Sun: I’m not being stingy.

That sounded a little too much like protesting too much.

Fang Zhuo decided to change the subject.

Little Sun: I heard the city center is doing a fireworks display at midnight.

Yan Lie instinctively looked up toward the sky.

The moon was bright, the stars sparse. The sky wasn’t pitch black — backlit by all the city lights, it held the faintest tinge of blue.

From somewhere across an immeasurable distance, faint sounds of laughter drifted over.

He had a very urgent feeling — an urge to share something with Fang Zhuo. As for what exactly he wanted to share, he couldn’t quite articulate it in that moment.

Little Sun: I probably can’t see it from here.

Little Sun: When the time comes, you can send me [one] photo.

She had been very precise about the emphasis.

Fang Zhuo held her phone and waited for Yan Lie to reply.

But this time it was clearly not a text message situation, yet Yan Lie once again went silent.

Little Sun: Is your connection bad?

Five minutes passed, and there was still no word from him.

Fang Zhuo stared at the “Online via phone” indicator at the top of the chat window, lost in thought. She scrolled the chat up a little to confirm she hadn’t said anything upsetting just now.

Little Sun: The day after tomorrow, Xiao Mu comes back, and I’ll have to go back to the countryside. When that happens, I’ll show you a photo of our chicken mascot.

Fang Zhuo waited and waited, but no reply came. She switched over to the Candy Crush app, cleared two levels, then switched back — and found Yan Lie had still not responded.

This was definitely payback, wasn’t it?

It had to be.

He didn’t even care about his beloved chicken mascot anymore.

She decided that from now on, whenever she texted Yan Lie, she would add a note at the end: “I might not reply to the next one — don’t wait for me, because texts are expensive.”

That way no one would get hurt.

Fang Zhuo took her phone and walked to the windowsill.

Their neighborhood wasn’t in a busy district, so it wasn’t particularly lively. There weren’t many people out in the residential compound at this hour either.

She tried to gauge the direction of the city center, cross-referenced it against the distance on the navigation app, and confirmed once again that catching a glimpse of the fireworks from this vantage point was almost entirely out of the question. She couldn’t help but sigh.

Not that she had been expecting much to begin with, but Yan Lie’s silence had somehow made her inexplicably invested.

Fang Zhuo scrolled to Liu Qiaohong’s contact and sent him an early New Year’s greeting.

Fang Zhuo: Uncle Liu, Uncle Liu, happy New Year.

Liu Qiaohong: Zhuozhuo? Happy New Year to you too! Give your uncle my regards.

Fang Zhuo: Uncle Liu, what are you doing?

Liu Qiaohong: I’m on holiday!! Just finished eating dumplings, hahaha!!

Even through a screen, Fang Zhuo could feel his joy radiating off the messages.

Downstairs, a flash of white light suddenly appeared, sweeping back and forth, catching Fang Zhuo’s attention.

She stood on her tiptoes and leaned down to look, but before she could make out what it was, the movement stopped.

Right on its heels, her phone buzzed, and the missing person finally returned.

He Whose Name Burns Bright: I’ll take you to see it. Come down.