Probably to let the patients sleep, the hallway lights weren’t fully on; far at the end, thick night could be seen outside the windows.

But Liang Xumo’s gaze was fixed on Liang Yan’s face; he sat on the hallway bench, back curved forward, but his face was lifted, looking this way.

She paused for a moment. “Why are you sitting here?”

Liang Xumo’s condition had clearly improved a lot by now, but because of her foot injury, she could only manage to stand on one leg.

Seeing her awkward stance, Liang Yan hesitated a moment before standing up anyway; he walked over to support her, not looking at her, instead lowering his head slightly and asking, “Where are you headed?”

Liang Xumo smiled. “Nowhere in particular. Just wanted to see if you were still here.”

Liang Yan gave a soft “mm,” “Let’s get you back to lie down, then.”

Liang Xumo agreed.

The two of them returned to the room; Liang Yan helped her onto the bed, but instead of sitting casually on the edge of the bed as he usually did, he retreated to sit on the empty bed beside it.

“I’ve hired a caregiver for you, to look after you here for the time being. Once the doctor says you can be discharged, you can decide whether to go home or whatever else.” Liang Yan said.

Liang Xumo laughed. “I know already, so nagging.”

Liang Yan’s mouth twisted slightly, but he said nothing.

The room fell into sudden silence, and it was only then that Liang Xumo sensed something was off.

Usually, wherever Liang Yan was, things didn’t just go cold like this.

Unless he wanted them to.

Liang Xumo froze, looking at Liang Yan.

Liang Yan kept his head lowered slightly, seemingly lost in thought.

Liang Xumo, inexplicably uneasy, ventured, “What’s wrong? Why do you look so unhappy?”

At the sound of her voice, Liang Yan lifted his gaze, meeting Liang Xumo’s eyes directly; his voice, for once, lacked his usual carefree tone—it was serious, unusually so.

“How could I be happy, after something like this happened?”

Liang Xumo understood then, and smiled, returning to her usual warm, gentle manner. “It’s fine, this hasn’t really had any bad effects, has it? I’m okay.”

Liang Yan gave a soft “mm,” his eyes never leaving her face, and said, “Mom and Dad must be very sad.”

Liang Xumo’s smile faded slightly.

Liang Yan seemed not to notice, continuing, “They’re probably feeling very guilty, blaming themselves a lot.”

“Actually, so am I,” Liang Yan added.

By now, all trace of a smile had vanished from Liang Xumo’s face.

Liang Yan kept looking at her, his voice dry and tight, and after a long pause said quietly, “I always have been.”

He’d always believed that his own youthful ignorance had ruined someone’s life.

Believed he had to carry that weight for the rest of his own life.

Believed he was, in some way… a sinner.

“Liang Yan…” Liang Xumo was momentarily at a loss.

She looked into Liang Yan’s deep dark eyes and suddenly flinched away in alarm—only realizing afterward that this was the first time, the very first time, Liang Yan had dared to look her directly in the eye while discussing this matter.

And it was also the first time that she was the one to flinch away instead.

Her heart skipped, and she abruptly looked back up at Liang Yan.

He had already lowered his head at some point, without her noticing.

Quietly, Liang Xumo let out a breath of relief.

She quietly tightened her grip on the blanket, and after a good while forced her stiff lips into a smile. “You don’t need to do this, really. Haven’t I told you before? Don’t take it to heart.”

As she spoke, she tried to get out of bed; Liang Yan noticed but didn’t move.

Liang Xumo stretched out her arm to pull at his sleeve, looking at him, her eyes crinkling gently, her voice soft, “It’ll all pass, in time.”

Liang Yan looked down at his hand, held in Liang Xumo’s, his expression darkening like spreading ink.

He curved his lips and said quietly, “Is that so.”

—

In the hospital parking lot, Liang Yan adjusted his seat, reclining slightly, thoroughly worn out.

He opened the sunroof, one arm pillowed behind his head, staring up at the long stretch of sky above.

Darkness gradually gave way to the peaceful years of the past playing out before his eyes, frame by frame, clear yet distant.

Some things, once tainted by human bias, changed in nature.

Like feelings.

Like Liang Xumo’s feelings for him.

How much of it was real.

And how much…

Liang Yan slowly closed his eyes.

His phone suddenly buzzed twice.

A WeChat message.

Liang Yan lazily opened his eyes, fumbled around for a while before finding the phone, opened one eye, and saw it was from Qiao Qi.

Liangou’s Little Treasure: [suddenly-appearing.jpg]

A sticker.

A small child raising both hands, popping up in a mischievous, spirited pose.

The child looked nothing like Qiao Qi, and yet somehow Liang Yan felt like he was looking at Qiao Qi anyway.

He finally let out a small, relaxed smile, shifted his position, and replied.

Liang: Off work?

Liang: Home already?

Liangou’s Little Treasure: Mhm.

Liangou’s Little Treasure: What about you?

Liang: Not yet.

Qiao Qi had guessed Liang Yan might be staying at the hospital with Liang Xumo tonight, but she hadn’t expected he’d reply with “not yet”?

Not yet, as in—?

7: Where are you?

Liangou: Hospital.

Liangou: Out front.

7: ?

7: Setting up a street stall?

7: What are you selling in front of a hospital?

Liangou: Selling smiles.

Qiao Qi: “…”

Talking absolute nonsense, eight out of every ten words made up.

Truly the killer of B-site and every major interview reporter alike.

Cold and merciless.

And rude, too.

Qiao Qi couldn’t help pouting, replying quickly.

7: Playing games with people?

7: If you’re not gonna say, forget it!

The moment Liang Yan got this message, he pictured Qiao Qi’s pouty, aggrieved expression in his head and couldn’t help laughing for a good while before typing thoughtfully.

Liang: Fine.

Liang: I’ll tell the truth then.

Liang: Selling barbecue tonight.

Liang: Selling with a coworker.

The coworker who’d been selling barbecue with him: “…”

Back in the day, Qiao Qi would definitely have chased after Liang Yan to pry into who this “coworker” was.

But right now, all Qiao Qi wanted to do was run.

Guilty conscience really does make cowards of us all.

Liang Yan was feeling equally guilty—probably because his emotions had swung a bit too visibly tonight, leaving his head not entirely clear either.

The moment he sent it, he regretted it.

But he also secretly hoped Qiao Qi would catch on to something.

So he clutched his phone and waited quietly for a good while before a reply came through:

Liangou’s Little Treasure: Oh.

Liangou’s Little Treasure: Wrap up early.

Liangou’s Little Treasure: I know it’s really cold out.

Liang Yan: “…”

You know nothing, you little troublemaker.

—

The weather really was cold.

Inside the car, the temperature dropped gradually, and Liang Yan’s gaze, fixed on the sky, cooled along with it.

Along with it, his heart sank too.

It wasn’t until he sat up and accidentally touched the back of his own hand, finding it icy cold, that he made a decision in his heart.

—

Zhou Jiaye seemed to have been waiting for Liang Yan’s call all along; the moment Liang Yan dialed, the call connected instantly.

“Should I send you the IP address?” he asked, without even waiting for a greeting.

Liang Yan fell silent instead. In his heart hung a scale that swayed side to side without any wind needed to move it, weighted by time, by feeling, by the unknown.

He couldn’t weigh out an answer, and rarely as it happened, he turned to Zhou Jiaye for help.

“Tell me…”

He’d only gotten that far before Zhou Jiaye understood exactly what he meant.

“Do you want to know?” Zhou Jiaye asked.

He probably did.

Wanted to know why.

Liang Yan closed his eyes, then opened them again, his gaze now perfectly clear.

“Is the IP address from the hospital?”

Zhou Jiaye said yes.

The answer was self-evident.

Whether or not he’d braced himself for it in advance, Liang Yan found he felt far calmer than he’d expected.

Except his chest felt as if he’d been punched square on, a corner of his heart caving inward, making it hard to breathe.

He let out a long breath before saying, “Then please trouble your wife to look into a few more people for me.”

Zhou Jiaye was the same age as Liang Yan, only two months older.

By rights, he should really call Zhou Jiaye’s wife “sister-in-law.”

But this was the first time in twenty-five years he’d acknowledged Zhou Jiaye as his brother.

“Already looked into it,” Zhou Jiaye said, already knowing who he wanted checked. “The moment I saw the IP was from the hospital, I looked into it.”

Speaking of those people, Zhou Jiaye’s tone turned rather dismissive. “Those people—you know the type, useless back then, and no better these years either. A few we couldn’t even name at the time, still can’t name now, honestly. Just drifting through life, nothing much worth noting.”

“A few more are long-time petty criminals, regulars at the police station—I pulled their records without any trouble. Their social lives are about what you’d expect, probably don’t even know anything worth mentioning.”

“But there’s one who did well for himself—got married, has a proper job, but…”

Zhou Jiaye paused here, his voice growing heavier.

Liang Yan asked, “But what?”

“But he went to prison a couple years back.”

Liang Yan still had the mind to joke, “Guess they all ended up in the same place, one way or another.”

But Zhou Jiaye couldn’t laugh. “For embezzling company funds. Not a small amount either—got ten years.”

Liang Yan didn’t respond, sensing Zhou Jiaye still had more to say.

“I looked into it,” Zhou Jiaye said, “and this company… had pretty close dealings with Liang Corporation a few years back.”

Liang Yan’s gaze, which had been lowered, lifted slightly; through the windshield, he looked toward a corner already swallowed by night.

After a long pause, his lashes flickered lightly, and he asked, light as air, “What’s his name.”

“Hu Cheng.”

Liang Yan started the car. “Alright. Please arrange for me to meet him, if your wife wouldn’t mind.”

—

The prison visitation room.

The door opened, and a man in prison uniform walked in, hands and feet shackled. He wasn’t old—somewhere around thirty.

But two years of prison life had aged him to well past forty.

This was Hu Cheng.

Liang Yan remembered this person—when he’d been in middle school, this man had attended the vocational school next door, and had been fairly notorious back then.

Notorious in the bad way.

“Well well. The guard wasn’t lying, someone actually came to see me.” Hu Cheng dropped carelessly into the chair; even with his shackled feet, the injury didn’t stop him from sprawling into it with his usual careless swagger.

The prison guard, used to this, saw nothing particularly out of line and left him be.

Hu Cheng looked at the man on the other side of the glass; the man wore a baseball cap, the brim shielding half his face—from this angle, all he could make out was a thin, pointed chin and a high, straight nose bridge, and occasionally, when the man raised his face, a pair of dark eyes flickering faintly beneath the shadow of the brim.

Cold light cut across the visitation glass and struck Hu Cheng’s eyes; for a dazed instant, he suddenly widened them, the wrinkles carved by years and torment around his eyes flattening out at once. “You’re Liang Yan?”

“That’s me.” Liang Yan admitted, brief and to the point.

He had no interest in reminiscing with this man; he clasped his hands together on the table, leaning slightly forward, staring at Hu Cheng, and got straight to the point. “How did you end up in here.”

Hu Cheng looked as if he’d heard a joke.

He’d gotten ten years, with eight more still to go, and with Cai Hong holding the reins behind the scenes, he knew there was no chance of parole.

Besides, times moved so fast these days—even if he got out in ten years, the world might not have a place for him anymore.

Might as well stay in here, fed, clothed, and looked after, and enjoy the ease of it.

So facing Liang Yan’s question, Hu Cheng wasn’t the least bit rattled—instead, he laughed carelessly and said, “What, you two siblings didn’t get your story straight?”

He meant it as a deliberate jab, but Liang Yan showed no anger at all, still wearing that same cold expression, repeating the question, “I asked, how did you end up in here.”

“Walked in on my own two feet.” Hu Cheng still wasn’t taking Liang Yan seriously.

Liang Yan curved his lips into a smile, released his clasped hands from the table, and crossed one leg over the other unhurriedly, leaning back lazily.

As he lifted his chin slightly, those deep, dark eyes beneath the cap’s brim emerged, calm as still water.

He looked at Hu Cheng, seeming to smile almost carelessly, then spoke without any urgency: “When you went in, your wife was pregnant. Did you know that?”

The ease and satisfaction on Hu Cheng’s face vanished instantly; his eyes went wide with disbelief. “What did you say?”

No—impossible, that damn woman had already run off… no, wait, no one had ever told him she’d run off.

That woman had simply never come to visit him.

So now, was his son already two years old?

Two years old, and still hadn’t come to see him?

Could it be that Cai Hong— Hu Cheng exploded with rage, both fists slamming onto the table, the handcuffs rattling.

“Damn it! It’s Cai Hong, isn’t it! That damned woman actually dared to stop my wife from visiting me?!”

Liang Yan still showed no anger, even curving his lips into a mocking, watching-the-show smile, saying nothing else.

“How did you end up in here.”

Hu Cheng panted heavily, his back curling like a beast poised to strike.

Except two years of captivity had already dulled his claws and his bite. He glared at Liang Yan for a long while before finally slumping weakly back into his chair.

He’d learned two years ago: in this world, people simply weren’t equal.

Some people were just born standing at the top of the pyramid.

Like Liang Yan.

Crushing him wouldn’t be as easy as crushing an ant, but it wouldn’t take much effort either.

And then there were people born in the mud who somehow picked up a lucky card.

Rising step by step from there.

Like Cai Hong.

It had proven true: if Cai Hong wanted to destroy him, it would be easy too.

Cai Hong… a woman he’d found suspicious from the very start.

“I did embezzle the company’s funds.” Hu Cheng seemed to age even further in an instant; he wouldn’t even look at Liang Yan anymore, staring instead at his own wrist, the handcuffs reflecting a cold light.

He continued, “But it was Cai Hong—that woman—who lured me into it, step by step! She’s the one who gave me the opportunity!”

“I don’t have proof,” Hu Cheng said, “but I know it was her! I originally just wanted her to find me a job, never expected she’d actually be capable—she got me a decent position, and the company was pretty big too.”

“I figured, since it wasn’t bad, I’d stay long-term—it was already the best life I could hope for.”

“I wasn’t greedy.”

“But!” Hu Cheng, recalling it all, gritted his teeth with hatred. “It was her! It must have been her!”

“For a while, my phone kept getting these strange ads, the kind for online gambling sites, and I couldn’t resist, so I went for it. The returns were high at first, and I… I lost my head for a while.”

“Then… then I couldn’t cover it anymore.”

“I went to find her, but she wouldn’t see me. It was her assistant or whatever who met with me instead, said she was busy handling some subsidiary employee’s embezzlement case.”

“Damn it! I understood it all later! She was setting me up the whole time!”

Liang Yan lost interest in listening to the rest, his fingers tapping rhythmically against his knee. After a few seconds, he lifted his chin slightly, looking at Hu Cheng’s now-bloodshot eyes.

“Why would she find you a job.”

“Hahahahaha, because she was scared!” Hu Cheng, feeling like he’d scored a point, grew smug again. “You don’t know, do you? That kind, innocent-looking sister of yours has killed someone before!”

Liang Yan’s eyes narrowed instantly.

Hu Cheng sneered. “Don’t not believe me—I saw it with my own eyes.”

Liang Yan stopped tapping his fingers. “Thirteen years ago, the day you cornered me—you’d cornered her too, hadn’t you.”

Hu Cheng admitted it readily. “That’s right.”

Since entering this visitation room, this was the first time Liang Yan had paused. He asked, “And then?”

“And then?” Hu Cheng thought back, and something crossed his mind—he flashed a sly grin, then shook his head with an air of feigned regret. “Nothing much after that. Ran into a familiar face, and since you were her brother, of course I gave her some face and let you off.”

“Is that so.” Liang Yan’s voice was light as air. “But someone’s saying that back then, you… violated her.”

For a moment Hu Cheng didn’t understand what “violated” meant, but once it clicked, he burst into curses. “The hell! Who said that! I never did! You think I’d want that broken shoe of a girl? She was already something her own father had used up and ruined!”

Liang Yan’s temper flared. “Watch your mouth.”

Hu Cheng didn’t seem to care, but didn’t keep cursing either, instead saying, “Back then I did want to have some fun with her, but she threatened me—said she was part of the Liang family now, and if I touched her, the Liang family wouldn’t let it go. Honestly, at the time I didn’t even know the person I’d cornered was your sister. If I had, I wouldn’t have gone near her at all.”

Liang Yan didn’t care about any of that. “Didn’t you say you saw her kill someone? Then why would you still be afraid of her?”

Hu Cheng’s face stiffened.

Liang Yan leaned forward sharply; despite the glass between them, Hu Cheng flinched backward in fright.

Liang Yan pulled off his cap, eyes fixed tightly on Hu Cheng. “Talk.”

A sudden chill ran through Hu Cheng’s whole body.

The world before his eyes was suddenly yanked back nearly twenty years, to when he was still in school.

Living in a rundown building.

Upstairs there’d been a man who liked to drink, and every time he did, he’d smash things around; word was he kept some kid locked up in there too, who screamed every night.

People in the building said all sorts of things about it; once, unable to hold back, he’d gone to peek.

The window was cracked and broken too; through the narrow gap, he saw the man pinning the kid down beneath him, thrusting; the kid’s voice had gone hoarse from screaming, and when she accidentally scratched his face, the man, drunk, backhanded her across the face.

The kid passed out.

Later, he ran into that “kid” once.

It was a very thin girl.

Truly a beast of a man.

The girl had been fairly well-behaved, and quiet too; sometimes people in the building, unable to bear watching, would give her a piece of bread.

That one time, Hu Cheng happened to have some free time, and brought a piece of bread back too.

He’d joked with the girl, telling her to get the man drunk and kill him.

The girl said timidly that she didn’t have any alcohol.

The beer at home wasn’t strong enough to get that man drunk.

Hu Cheng, his head apparently muddled at the time, brought the girl a bottle of hard liquor the next day.

That night, Hu Cheng couldn’t sleep, feeling a bit scared; he’d sneaked upstairs and seen everything through the crack in the window.

The next morning, before dawn had even broken, the police arrived.

Before the police took the girl away, she’d told him thank you.

It had been the hottest part of summer at the time; looking at the girl’s face, Hu Cheng had felt as if he’d fallen into a deep well in the middle of December.

Later, when they crossed paths again at the alley corner, he hadn’t expected the girl to have grown into someone with looks. He’d wanted to try something, but she’d threatened him with the Liang family’s name.

Was he scared?

He had a bigger card to play.

But she’d simply said, “You were an accomplice too, weren’t you.”

Hu Cheng hadn’t read many books, but thinking it over, he supposed he really had been an accomplice.

So he’d fled.

“I…” Hu Cheng struggled to speak. “I was just joking around back then, I never thought…”

He suddenly raised his voice. “She’s insane! She’s a lunatic!”

Liang Yan didn’t linger any longer; he stood to leave.

Hu Cheng called after him, “What about my wife, really—”

“Two years old,” Liang Yan said. “It’s a son.”

—

The visitation room felt confined, suffocating.

Stepping outside, he saw daylight again.

The weather was good today—blue sky, white clouds; squinting, one could just make out the trail an airplane had carved across the sky.

In this world, everything left a trace, no matter what.

The truth lay beneath those traces.

The traces themselves, understated.

But the truth—cruel, and stripped bare.

Liang Yan reached up to settle the cap back on his head, walking toward the car with his head down.

The moment the car door shut, his phone buzzed.

Liang Yan pulled it out and saw it was a message from Qiao Qi.

Liangou’s Little Treasure: What are you doing!!

Liang Yan curved his lips into a smile and replied easily.

Liang: Thinking of you.

Also miss you a lot.

Author’s Note: 7: ? / 7: Getting bold all of a sudden?