August 17th was the anniversary of Zhou Chuan’s death.

Every year around this time, Zhou Jin would take a day off and return to her hometown of Wucheng to visit Zhou Chuan’s grave. This year was naturally no exception.

Though this year did bring something of a new development — for the first time since she had started working, Zhou Jin had, against all precedent, been suspended. She didn’t need to request time off at all, and could even head back to Wucheng a few days early to visit her parents. Something of a silver lining, all things considered.

And there was one more change: she was not going home alone.

Zhou Jin woke up in the passenger seat, rubbing the drowsiness from her eyes.

Outside the window, the sky had already half-darkened, suffused with a transparent grey-blue.

The car moved smoothly along the road. Street lamps came one after another, leaping rapidly from the front of the car to the window, sliding through her field of vision, and vanishing beyond the roof.

The air conditioning was running inside the car, and draped over Zhou Jin was Jiang Hansheng’s jacket.

That faint, clean scent of mint seemed to seep into her skin.

Zhou Jin pulled the jacket up over her chest, adjusted herself into a comfortable position, and asked him: “Where are we?”

The light near evening was soft, washing over Jiang Hansheng’s brows and eyes, making his profile all the more handsome and cool.

He answered: “Just got off the highway. About half an hour to go — you can sleep a little longer.”

Zhou Jin stretched lazily, glanced at the time — it was seven in the evening — and said: “Let me drive.”

“I’m not tired.” Jiang Hansheng paused, then asked with complete seriousness: “Does your knee still hurt?”

His voice was low and resonant, carrying with it the faintest trace of current that sent a thin film of heat rising across Zhou Jin’s back.

The more she thought about it, the clearer the details of the previous night became, and the hotter her face burned.

She looked at Jiang Hansheng’s perfectly composed expression and couldn’t stop herself: “……Professor Jiang, could you please not ask that sort of question with such a straight face?”

Jiang Hansheng glanced over at her and, seeing that she had pulled the jacket up over her head entirely, a smile appeared in the depths of his eyes.

He asked, with genuine curiosity: “How should I ask, then?”

“Don’t ask.”

Zhou Jin wrapped herself in his jacket, turned to face the other direction entirely, and abandoned all thought of taking over the driving.

She drifted in and out of sleep for another half hour, and by the time she surfaced, the car had already turned into the streets of town.

Along both sides of the road were stalls of every kind — barbecue stands, drink vendors, tea stalls, snack carts — each hung with small, brilliant neon signs, bright and multicolored, strung together like a luminous, many-hued river of stars.

There was warmth in it. The warmth of ordinary human life.

Past that stretch of road, the dormitory building of a middle school came into view. Evening self-study was still in session; every classroom blazed with light, and just as they passed, the dismissal bell rang out — long and unhurried, drifting in through the car windows.

The car couldn’t enter Gardenia Lane, so they left it in the newly designated parking spaces on the outer street.

Jiang Hansheng locked the car, retrieved the gift boxes he had prepared in advance from the trunk, and then accompanied Zhou Jin into Gardenia Lane on foot.

When they reached Number 24, Zhou Jin pressed the buzzer on the iron gate and called out: “Dad, Mom——!”

The door hadn’t opened yet when a motorcycle came roaring in from the mouth of the lane — loud and boisterous, its snow-white headlight blazing straight at them, so bright it was nearly impossible to keep one’s eyes open.

Jiang Hansheng narrowed his eyes slightly and shifted to one side, blocking some of the glare for Zhou Jin.

The motorcycle came to a stop, and the rider tipped the handlebars to one side, angling the beam away, so that it was finally no longer quite so blinding.

The man on the motorcycle removed his helmet, revealing a face of thick brows and wide eyes, strongly and squarely built.

He stared, making sure of what he was seeing, then said: “Damn — Xiao Wu! You’re back? You’re early this year.”

Zhou Jin poked her head out from behind Jiang Hansheng and looked the man over. His name was Yan Bin — a fellow resident of Gardenia Lane, and a childhood playmate of hers.

The moment she saw him, she was already mocking him: “Third Brother, can you not ride that beat-up mule of yours into the lane?”

“What beat-up mule! This is a brand-name bike, all right? Leave it outside and even the wheels would get stolen.”

Yan Bin took in her fair, clear complexion and was just clicking his tongue approvingly, about to say something complimentary, when he glanced up and happened to meet a gaze he didn’t recognize.

There was a man standing beside Zhou Jin — unfamiliar, and yet somehow with a faint trace of the familiar.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

The light fell across the man’s handsome features, his face striking even in the darkness, his bearing cool and refined with an air that quietly warned strangers to keep their distance.

Zhou Jin hadn’t even had a chance to make introductions when the door to the house creaked open.

The person who opened it was Zhou Jin’s mother, Lin Qiuyun.

The moment she laid eyes on them, her face broke into a wide, warm smile, and she opened her arms toward Zhou Jin: “Who’s come home? My precious girl.”

Zhou Jin threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around her: “Mom.”

Lin Qiuyun patted her on the back, though she had barely embraced her for a moment before the words started: “Why have you gone and lost weight again? No matter how busy work gets, you have to eat properly — you’ll ruin your health otherwise.”

Zhou Jin’s arm was still draped over her mother’s shoulder. She nodded distractedly. “I know, I know.”

Lin Qiuyun shot her a look of mild exasperation, then turned her gaze to Jiang Hansheng, the warmth still lingering in the corner of her eyes, and said: “Hansheng, you must be tired after the journey.”

Jiang Hansheng smiled gently in return: “Mom.”

“Mom?!“

Yan Bin reeled as though struck by lightning, and only then did it begin to dawn on him that something was not quite right.