Jiang Hansheng drove, following the directions Yan Bin had given him. In under twenty minutes they pulled up outside a hot pot restaurant.

The décor leaned toward a classical style. The place was still in its trial period, offering complimentary vegetables and drinks, and business was booming. The main hall was in full roar — nearly every seat taken — clouds of white steam blurring the light that poured down from the ceiling.

Yan Bin led them to a relatively quiet private room tucked in the corner. A server lifted the door curtain and stepped inside, addressing Yan Bin as Manager with careful deference. Yan Bin took charge of ordering, and finished by calling for three pitchers of beer.

“Two is enough,” Zhou Jin said. “He doesn’t drink.”

Yan Bin finally flicked his gaze over to Jiang Hansheng, who had been sitting in silence this whole time. “Is it that you don’t drink,” he asked, “or that you don’t want to drink with me?”

“I drove,” Jiang Hansheng said.

“Fair enough.” Yan Bin gave a knowing nod, then turned back to Zhou Jin with a grin. “Then Xiao Wu drinks with me. How about something stronger — the clear stuff?”

“No thanks. Beer is fine,” Zhou Jin said.

“Two pitchers of beer, then.”

Yan Bin relayed the order. The server left, and he reached over and unwrapped Zhou Jin’s full set of cutlery for her, then asked: “Well? Does Third Brother’s place pass muster?”

“You’ve finally managed to do something useful,” Zhou Jin said.

“Underestimating me?” Yan Bin clicked his tongue. “I may not be much of a student, but I’m not thick.”

“Then stick with it this time. No quitting halfway through.”

Hearing her earnest, almost lecturing tone, Yan Bin let out a light scoff. “Now you’re the one giving me speeches? I used to think we were comrades in arms — fellow academic disasters. Then you go and pull the rug out from under me, hide your ability, and get yourself into the Jingzhou Police Academy just like that.”

“I dragged you to tutoring sessions and you never showed,” Zhou Jin shot back. “You were too busy chasing girls every day. And now you’re blaming me for abandoning you?”

“Can’t blame you. I blame the tutors for not being as pretty as the girls.”

He laughed heartily at his own joke and launched into a proud retelling of his youthful pursuit strategies.

Zhou Jin countered with her own grievances — how Yan Bin used to rope her into covering for him constantly, making her tell his mother he was at a classmate’s house studying, when he was really off on dates with his girlfriend.

“Got found out eventually, didn’t I?” Yan Bin said. “My mom chased me up and down the whole alley with a broom.”

Zhou Jin raised an eyebrow. “And when my dad found out I’d been lying for you, he came after me with one too.”

“You had it easy — Zhou Chuan always shielded you. He took the beating for you. Your dad never landed a single hit. I had nobody in my corner, and then the girl turned around and broke up with me.”

Zhou Jin brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear and smiled at him: “I still remember when you had your heart broken and came running to cry to me. I’d never, in all the years I’d known you, seen you cry like—”

Something nudged gently against her elbow. She paused, and turned to find Jiang Hansheng’s eyes on her.

“Sorry,” he said.

…

She and Jiang Hansheng were sharing one side of a small sofa, sitting at an easy distance from each other. Jiang Hansheng’s expression was as calm as ever, yet somehow Zhou Jin felt it — a faint, almost sharp pressure emanating from him.

“It’s nothing.”

She said it quickly, feeling oddly unsettled without quite being able to name why.

Her gaze drifted sideways, landing on his dark hair, the composed line of his profile, and the faint reddish marks along the side of his neck.

She didn’t immediately register what they were. Then she thought about it — and arrived at a rather telling conclusion.

She couldn’t stop herself. She erupted into a sudden fit of coughing.

“What’s wrong?” Yan Bin asked.

Zhou Jin shook her head, hand pressed over her mouth, face gone scarlet, entirely unable to remember on which evening she had been responsible for that particular piece of work.

After a moment, Zhou Jin recalled there was still something important she hadn’t done.

“I haven’t made a proper introduction yet. This is Jiang Hansheng.”

“Oh, I know him — the young lord from Number 23.” Yan Bin grinned. “Xiao Wu mentioned you’re a teacher?”

“Yes,” said Jiang Hansheng.

“Which school?”

“The University of Science and Technology.”

“Oh, a university professor, no less?” Yan Bin’s smile grew more mischievous. “Still the young lord through and through — extraordinary as ever. Xiao Wu, what stroke of luck landed you someone like this? Quite a stretch up, isn’t it?”

Zhou Jin’s brow furrowed slightly. Something in Yan Bin’s tone was off — but she knew him well enough to know that this was just how he’d always been, as rough-edged as ever, saying things without a filter, and usually without any real malice behind them.

She was about to respond when Jiang Hansheng spoke quietly from beside her: “It’s not a stretch. Zhou Jin is exceptional.”

Yan Bin grinned and half-rose from his seat, reaching over in a teasing gesture to ruffle Zhou Jin’s hair: “I really can’t see it — what’s so charming about you, you little wretch?”

Jiang Hansheng’s hand closed into a fist.

Zhou Jin batted Yan Bin’s hand away immediately, irritation flashing in her voice: “How old are you? Keep your hands to yourself!”

She was about to retaliate when her phone rang, cutting her off. She glanced at the screen — a string of familiar digits. She raised an eyebrow, tossed a quick word to the others, and stepped out: “I’ll go take this.”

The moment Zhou Jin left, the private room fell abruptly quiet. On the table, the hot pot broth was beginning to bubble.

Yan Bin let his easy smile drop.

He leaned back, fished out a cigarette, and flicked his lighter. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked Jiang Hansheng.

There was no expression to read on Jiang Hansheng’s face. “I mind,” he said, coolly.

“Good.” Yan Bin lit the cigarette without a shred of hesitation and blew a long stream of smoke in Jiang Hansheng’s direction. “You remember me, don’t you?”

Jiang Hansheng said nothing.

“Haven’t seen each other in years,” Yan Bin said. “But looking at you now, I still find you just as unpleasant.”

A child’s dislike never requires a strong rationale. Back then, it had taken nothing more than Jiang Cheng saying once that Jiang Hansheng was strange — and from that day on, Yan Bin couldn’t look at the boy without his hackles rising.

Jiang Cheng had considered Yan Bin beneath his notice, but Yan Bin had been more of a troublemaker as a child and openly admitted he lacked that kind of restraint — so he had done more than a few things he wasn’t particularly proud of.

Thinking back on it now, Jiang Hansheng hadn’t really done anything that warranted it. But even now, facing him again, Yan Bin felt no great remorse.

Because he had become Zhou Jin’s husband.

If Zhou Jin’s final choice had been some stranger, Yan Bin wouldn’t have thought anything of it — he would have offered his blessings with a genuine heart. But the fact that it was Jiang Hansheng left a peculiar feeling sitting at the bottom of his chest that he couldn’t quite put words to.

A peculiar coincidence.

“There’s a saying I’ve always liked: the dog that bites doesn’t bark. Back then you were following Zhou Jin around like some kind of obsessive, day after day, and she wouldn’t even spare you a glance — yet somehow you’ve ended up married to her…”

Yan Bin leaned forward and fixed his eyes hard on Jiang Hansheng. “Why are you with her? Is it because you genuinely care about her — or because you couldn’t stand to lose?”

Men like Jiang Hansheng, Yan Bin had seen plenty of. Accustomed from childhood to getting whatever they wanted with ease, everything smooth and untroubled — and then they encountered one woman they couldn’t catch, and that woman became everything.

Was that love? Not necessarily.

In Yan Bin’s eyes, the only person who had truly ever loved Zhou Jin was Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Hansheng smiled faintly.

Yan Bin’s eyes narrowed. “What are you smiling about?”

“Yan Bin. Neither of us is a child anymore. Petty, juvenile provocation doesn’t do anything for me.”

The smile remained — but his eyes shifted in an instant. Something cold and nearly predatory surfaced within them.

Jiang Hansheng raised his hand and slid the ashtray across the table toward Yan Bin. Yan Bin moved on instinct to catch it — but the ashtray came straight and fast, and thudded squarely into his ribs with a dull impact.

Yan Bin’s face twisted in pain, brow cinching tight. He looked at Jiang Hansheng. “What the—”

“I told you,” Jiang Hansheng said, his voice flat and cold. “I mind.”

Yan Bin stared at him for a moment, and felt something he hadn’t expected — a flicker of unease.

He suddenly remembered the eyes Jiang Hansheng had turned on him all those years ago. Black and white, sharply defined. Cold in a way that didn’t belong to a child’s face — no excess emotion of any kind.

In that gaze, it had always felt as though it was Yan Bin who was the pitiable one — the wretch being pushed around.

“…”

Yan Bin sat there, a breath stuck in his chest, fury with nowhere to go. He picked up the ashtray and set it back in place, then ground the cigarette out with force.

“Thank you,” said Jiang Hansheng.

A short while later, the server arrived with the two pitchers of beer.

Yan Bin tipped his head back and took several long, deep swallows, dousing some of the fire in his gut, then said: “In my eyes, you don’t come close to Jiang Cheng.”

“What you think of me doesn’t concern me,” Jiang Hansheng said.

Yan Bin let out a short, scoffing laugh. “And Zhou Jin? Does her opinion concern you?”

“…”

“If it weren’t for her parents getting on in years, and her being the only one left at home — marriage wouldn’t have crossed her mind.” Yan Bin said. “You lived in Gardenia Alley. You know who she cared about.”

“…”

Jiang Hansheng’s silence was answer enough. Yan Bin raised his glass in his direction, an expression on his face like a man watching a show play out. “I’ll drink to you, then. Cherish what you have.”

Zhou Jin finished her call and pushed back into the private room, lifting the door curtain — just in time to see Jiang Hansheng pick up the glass, tip his head back, and drain it in a single swallow.

The tips of his ears flooded red in an instant. His voice, however, stayed steady. “I will,” he said, brief and certain.

Yan Bin stared at him. “…”

Zhou Jin startled and reached quickly for Jiang Hansheng’s back. “I thought you don’t drink?”

For some reason, Yan Bin suddenly burst out laughing. He waved Zhou Jin over to sit down. “He’s fine! Of course he can drink!”

He snapped his fingers and called the server back in to order a bottle of baijiu.

Zhou Jin couldn’t work out what Jiang Hansheng was trying to prove — but every time Yan Bin clinked his glass, Jiang Hansheng accepted without flinching.

The sharp burn of alcohol scorched a path from his throat all the way down to his stomach. He bore it with only a slight tension in his brow, cup after cup, without slowing.

Zhou Jin sat beside him, growing more unsettled with every passing minute.

She hadn’t known Jiang Hansheng for a long time, but she knew he was always a measured, controlled person — someone who didn’t touch alcohol. To be drinking like this on what must be his first time, throwing back glass after glass — it wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right at all.

Before long, Zhou Jin couldn’t hold back any longer. She closed her hand firmly over his glass and said sharply: “Enough. We’re going home.”

She stood and reached for Jiang Hansheng’s arm to help him up.

Yan Bin was already well into his cups, and the liquor had loosened whatever remained of his filter. “Let him drink. He overestimates himself — who’s to blame for that?”

The sharpness of Yan Bin’s hostility was barely concealed at this point. Zhou Jin’s eyes went cold quickly. “Did you say something to him?” she asked, her tone clipped.

Yan Bin shrugged. “What could I have said? Just brought up some old things.”

Old things. What old things could there be, other than Jiang Cheng?

Zhou Jin gave a slow nod, then said through her teeth: “Yan Bin. You’ve got nerve.”

Hearing his full name said without any warmth — without even a trace of it, only something close to hostility — Yan Bin’s temper surged. The liquor was already pushing from behind, and the last of his restraint gave way.

“I’m doing this for you!” he shouted. “Zhou Jin, what the hell kind of marriage is this?!”

“To ease your parents’ minds, you just grabbed whoever was available?! This is your whole life we’re talking about! Do you even know him?! Do you know that this guy is out of his—!”

“I don’t know him.” Zhou Jin’s hands were trembling slightly. “I thought I knew Jiang Cheng. What good did that do me? I thought I knew you too — which is why I brought him here to meet you.”

Yan Bin’s voice died in his throat. “…”

“If you want to say something for my sake, say it to me,” Zhou Jin said. “Jiang Hansheng has nothing to do with any of this. Don’t take it out on him.”

“XIAO WU! ZHOU JIN——!!” Yan Bin’s face was blazing, and he was half out of his seat.