The man Gu Qiao had grabbed wasn’t afraid of her at all. So what if the train police came? A young girl — what could she actually say? Either way there were no witnesses. He knew perfectly well that she had boarded the train just to chase after him. On this entire train, she didn’t know a single person. A young girl — possibly not even of age — what was there to be afraid of? He would be far too cowardly if he were.

“You’re grabbing onto my shirt like this — what will people think about the two of us? Not that I mind, but you’re a girl…”  The man didn’t even finish before he broke into a grin.

Gu Qiao couldn’t afford to feel embarrassed. She immediately recognized the weakness of her position. On a train heading somewhere she didn’t know, she was entirely alone — she didn’t know a single person here. If this man were to…

Gu Qiao immediately raised her voice, making sure every word reached the ears of the other passengers: “This person stole my sachets on the platform and didn’t pay! I boarded this train just to chase after him. If any passengers who bought sachets from me just now would please step forward and confirm — there was only one sachet vendor on the platform.”

“This little girl’s lost her mind — she’s talking nonsense, don’t anyone pay attention to her!” Seeing Gu Qiao’s voice growing louder, the man dropped his flirtatious manner and turned genuinely angry. He reached out to shove her. “I’m not going to stoop to arguing with a girl, but don’t push me! You can’t just make up stories to earn money!”

The man’s face turned vicious. Gu Qiao was actually a little frightened, but the more frightened she was, the louder her voice became: “If you hadn’t taken my sachets, why would I have chased you all the way onto this train?”

“Who knows what you’re thinking? Maybe you’re using this as an excuse to avoid paying for a ticket… honestly, this world really does have all kinds of people.” Though Gu Qiao had some physical strength, she was no match for a grown man. When he shoved her, the basket hanging from her arm was knocked to the floor.

“You…”

The members of Luo Peiyin’s band had bought seats all in a row, except for the guitarist. The guitarist had originally bought a sleeper berth ticket, but found it too lonely traveling alone and had voluntarily swapped it with someone for a hard seat. The journey was dull, and aside from Luo Peiyin, the other four had gathered to play cards. They didn’t like playing cards with Luo Peiyin. He had a particular habit: though he had given up mathematics in favor of physics due to insufficient talent, this didn’t stop his fixation on numbers. Whenever cards were involved, he started calculating.

Luo Peiyin’s mathematical ability might not have amounted to anything remarkable in a mathematics department, but it was more than enough to deal with this group of arts students. Card games were supposed to be relaxing, but this person never stopped his mind from working. He was single-mindedly calculating hands. With him in the game, almost no one else could win.

The most infuriating part was that while it should have been them abandoning Luo Peiyin, it turned out to be Luo Peiyin who didn’t want to play with them anymore — and his reason was: “Winning every time gets boring.” Absolutely inhuman. This group of people who always lost nearly wanted to throw him off the train when they heard that.

The four of them were in the middle of an enthusiastic round of cards when the successive high-pitched sounds made it impossible not to pay attention.

The guitarist was thinking about whether to drop his hand and go help the girl in the yellow dress when he heard Luo Peiyin say: “Give me your school pin.”

“Huh?” The guitarist hesitated for just a moment, but immediately handed over the school pin. Luo Peiyin took it and pinned it directly onto his own shirt.

The guitarist couldn’t recall Luo Peiyin ever having a habit of wearing a school pin. For that matter, he himself had no habit of displaying his alma mater to the world — he didn’t want to represent his school, and he didn’t want his school to represent him. The only reason he wore the pin was that his distinctive hairstyle had made him a point of intense observation on the train, and to reduce the hassle, he wore the pin to make himself look at least somewhat like a respectable young person.

As for Luo Peiyin — with a face like that, he could hardly be mistaken for a delinquent, and there was no need for him to wear a school pin.

The guitarist hadn’t had time to be puzzled before he heard Luo Peiyin providing testimony on behalf of the girl: “There was indeed only one sachet vendor on the platform just now.”

The four card players were momentarily baffled all at once. When the train had stopped at the station, they had not seen Luo Peiyin open his eyes, let alone pay attention to how many sachet vendors were on the platform.

Gu Qiao was crouching on the floor collecting her fallen sachets when she heard someone speak up for her. She looked up and followed the voice to find her witness — she saw a young man in a white shirt, a yellow headset hanging around his neck. His whole bearing was completely at odds with the lively bustle of the train car. Even packed with people, he stood out as someone you’d immediately notice.

He hadn’t bought a sachet from her. She hadn’t even noticed him. Yet now he was willingly stepping forward to testify for her — truly a rare and decent person. For a moment, Gu Qiao thought of the fortune her grandmother had once told her: yellow really did bring her good luck. She sent a grateful smile toward this witness, but the witness gave her nothing in return.

The man who had taken the sachets had been entirely certain that Gu Qiao was all alone, but now that someone had come forward to testify against him, he felt a flicker of unease — though on the surface he blustered: “You saw wrong — don’t talk nonsense!”

Before he had finished, he saw the young man who had just given testimony rise to his feet. The young man was even taller than he’d imagined, and he suddenly felt a twinge of apprehension.

“I didn’t just see that there was only one sachet vendor on the platform — I also saw you take her things without paying.”

Luo Peiyin positioned himself between the man and Gu Qiao. He placed his hand on the man’s shoulder: “She chased you all the way here. You should pay her now.”

The man was about to unleash a torrent of curses when he felt a sharp, dull pain in his shoulder. Grimacing through it, he managed: “You little — what business is this of yours—” He hadn’t even gotten the word “business” out when a kick sent him landing backside-first onto a woven sack in the aisle, right on top of another passenger’s pickled duck eggs. The eggs had been cured to perfection — deep yellow yolks, clean firm whites, the oil practically weeping out in full beads. The moment the man sat down on them, duck egg oil burst straight onto the back of his trousers.

The guitarist, who had been considering getting up to help, took one look at the scene and settled back comfortably into his seat to watch. He offered his commentary: “That guy’s way too fragile. With all those threatening looks from earlier, I actually thought he had something in him.”

The man hadn’t had a chance to get in his cursing before the owner of the duck eggs started in, grief-stricken over his eggs: “Those were top-quality double-yolk eggs! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find double-yolk eggs? All that effort to cure them properly, and you’ve just sat them all to pieces with your backside — pay up, pay up right now…”

By the time the train police arrived, the matter of the pickled eggs had piled on top of the matter of the sachets, giving the train police such a headache they had to deal with the first incident first.

The train police noticed the school pin on Luo Peiyin’s lapel, which automatically lent his words an extra measure of credibility.

Having someone testify for her gave Gu Qiao far more confidence. She wasn’t just asking the man to pay what he owed her — she also wanted compensation for her losses: “If he hadn’t taken my things, I wouldn’t be on this train, unable to get home.”

Luo Peiyin corrected her wording: “You’ve got the terminology wrong — this isn’t called stealing. Stealing is when you can’t see it happening.”

The man hadn’t expected this somewhat forceful young man to turn out to be a pedantic bookworm, but a bookworm speaking on his behalf was still better than the alternative. He momentarily forgot that it was this very young man who had kicked him onto the duck eggs: “Exactly! Now that’s a top university student — precise with words. How could this be considered stealing…”

Luo Peiyin revised Gu Qiao’s term: “This isn’t stealing — it’s robbery.”

Robbery carried a far heavier charge than petty theft. He’d only taken a few sachets without paying — how had it turned into robbery?

The man suddenly realized that the one standing alone was not the young girl in front of him, but himself. He had no choice but to apologize to Gu Qiao repeatedly, asking her magnanimity to forgive his offense. Apologies were possible — but money he genuinely didn’t have. He returned the sachets and asked Gu Qiao to please take good care of them.

Getting actual money out of someone who would steal sachets in the first place was impossible. Gu Qiao looked at the colorful state of the man’s trouser seat and couldn’t be bothered to pursue the matter further.

Gu Qiao turned her gaze toward the young man who had helped her: “Thank you. What’s your name?”

The young man didn’t answer: “There are still three hours until the next stop. You should hurry and go find the train conductor — see if there’s any way to get you back tonight.”

The train conductor, upon hearing Gu Qiao’s situation, was very warm-hearted — but there was no possibility of Gu Qiao riding a train back home. At most she could be connected to the station staff so that Gu Qiao could rest in the duty room for a while.

At the thought of not being able to go home tonight, Gu Qiao nearly burst into tears. Cuicui and her father would be frantic with worry when they couldn’t find her. She held back the urge to cry and asked the train conductor if she could contact the train station in her county and make an announcement — just to let them know she was fine, that she would be back tomorrow, and to ask her father to take Cuicui home first.

The train conductor had a daughter about the same age as Gu Qiao at home. She told Gu Qiao not to worry, and that she would do everything she could to help. Though Gu Qiao was anxious, she didn’t forget to say thank you. She reached into her basket and held out a sachet to the train conductor: “Thank you, Auntie.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I can’t accept gifts from passengers.”

“Then what can you accept?” Without waiting for the train conductor to answer, Gu Qiao understood — a letter of thanks. When she got home, she would definitely write a proper letter of gratitude to the railway system.

What was done was done; there was no use in regret. Besides, there was no way back now. She might as well sell the remaining sachets in the basket — at least that would be something to account for to Cuicui, otherwise Cuicui would have worried for nothing. Gu Qiao made her way back to the car where she’d been before. Since the young man had noticed that she was the only sachet vendor on the platform, he must certainly have been interested in the sachets — she simply had to give him one.

By the time she returned to the car, the train police had just finished resolving the other matter.

The owner of the pickled eggs had insisted on justice for his double-yolk eggs. The man who had taken the sachets tried to defend himself: “If it hadn’t been for that little—” He stole a glance at the person who had kicked him, and swallowed the rest of his words back down. His backside was still sore. Getting hit again was simply not worth it. But as for paying compensation money — he didn’t have any.

Luo Peiyin went straight to the egg owner: “How much for all these eggs?”

“These are top-quality double-yolk eggs — at least twenty yuan…”  Luo Peiyin didn’t bother examining the specific value of the eggs. He reached into his pocket and pulled out twenty yuan for the egg owner.

With that, the matter of the eggs was settled. The egg owner, though he had received his twenty yuan, still couldn’t help mourning the eggs’ fate — and seeing how readily the young man had handed over the money, he felt all the more that he had come out on the losing end: “Double-yolk eggs this good — twenty yuan really isn’t quite enough…”

Luo Peiyin unpinned the school pin and returned it to the guitarist. The four card players couldn’t help being curious — Luo Peiyin had been unusually eager to help today. Intervening to teach a wrongdoer a lesson on behalf of a stranger was about what you’d expect from a proper upstanding young man — but going to the trouble of borrowing a school pin just to make his testimony more credible? That was genuinely out of character.

Luo Peiyin put his earphones back on, shutting out the elegy for the pickled eggs and the questions of the others.

When Gu Qiao returned to the car, the matter of the eggs had already been resolved. She saw that the young man was once again sitting in his original seat with his eyes closed. Afraid he wouldn’t notice her, Gu Qiao reached into her basket and held a fragrant sachet up close to his nose: “I can’t thank you enough from earlier — please accept this sachet as a small token.”

Luo Peiyin opened his eyes. “No need, thank you.”

Gu Qiao found those four words strangely familiar. “Don’t be modest — you did me such a big favor. This is just a small gesture.”

“I’m allergic to floral fragrances.”

“This sachet smells good, but there actually aren’t any flowers in it.” Gu Qiao was puzzled — if he wasn’t interested in sachets, why would he have noticed that she was the only one selling them on the platform?

Gu Qiao repeated the question she had asked before: “Can you tell me your name?”

The young man heard the question and looked her over once more, with something a little sharp in his eyes.

Gu Qiao had just noticed the school pin from Z University on the young man’s chest. “When I get home, I’ll write a letter of thanks to your school.” She knew that for some people, a letter of thanks mattered more than a gift.

The four card players kept their eyes on their cards, but their minds had long since wandered elsewhere. The guitarist, the kind who loved to watch a good scene unfold, took the initiative to reveal Luo Peiyin’s name.

When Gu Qiao heard the three words “Luo Peiyin,” her large eyes went perfectly round. She had an older cousin with exactly that name. She fixed her gaze on Luo Peiyin’s face, trying to determine whether this was a case of identical names, or whether she had run into someone she knew.

She stared so shamelessly that to other people’s eyes, it would have looked like something else entirely.

Gu Qiao noticed that the young man’s expression had finally changed from its usual cool blankness: “Please, whatever you do, don’t write any letter of thanks…”

By the age her older cousin would be now, he should still be in his third year of high school — not a university student. But for some reason, she felt an inexplicably familiar quality about this person.

Gu Qiao tried tentatively: “Older cousin?” Then she immediately introduced herself: “I’m Gu Qiao — Gu as in grain, Qiao with the ‘shining feather’ character.” She didn’t mention that the two of them had met at her little auntie’s wedding. At her age now, she understood perfectly well that attending your father’s wedding to a new wife was not a happy occasion for any child.

Luo Peiyin didn’t seem surprised when he heard those two words. The people beside him were the ones who were surprised.

Gu Qiao was a little surprised herself — surprised by his lack of surprise. Could it be he had recognized her from the beginning and had stepped forward to testify precisely because of that? But it had been so many years, and both their appearances and heights had changed so much — how on earth had he recognized her?

Luo Peiyin neither confirmed nor denied it. He went straight to asking Gu Qiao: “Did you manage to get a return ticket?”

“A ticket’s out of the question, but the train conductor said I can wait in the station rest room.” Even though this older cousin had gone without contact for so many years, now that he was here, Gu Qiao suddenly felt a wave of reassurance. She no longer felt frightened at the thought of spending time alone in a strange city.

“You haven’t had dinner yet, have you? Once I’ve finished selling the sachets, I’ll treat you to a meal at the station restaurant.”

Once she sold the sachets, she would have money, and with money she could treat her older cousin to dinner. And she was also very hungry herself. Besides, she had her own little savings — the lucky money and pocket money that her grandparents and parents had given her over the years. If the sachet earnings ended up going to pay for this, she could replenish Cuicui’s share from her savings once she got back.

“You’re still going to sell sachets?”

Gu Qiao smiled. “What else is there to do? At least this keeps me occupied.” If there was nothing to do, all she’d have left was anxiety — and she still didn’t know whether the train conductor had been able to get word to the county train station.

As she finished speaking, her stomach let out a sound. She stuck out her tongue and gave an embarrassed little laugh.

Luo Peiyin said to the people next to him: “Let’s go to the dining car now.” Then he turned to Gu Qiao: “You don’t mind joining us, do you?”

Hearing her older cousin say this, Gu Qiao felt troubled. She hadn’t sold the sachets yet and had no money to treat him to the dining car.

She was still working out how to say she wanted to decline when she heard Luo Peiyin say: “My treat.”