In order to find the woman in the photograph, Yan Qing and her party returned to Huxi Town. Long Yunxiao, unwilling to let her go alone, accompanied them the entire way.

When Yan Qing arrived back at the small guesthouse where they had stayed before, she was surprised to find that the tofu shop across the street had reopened.

“Auntie!” Yan Qing was delighted to see the old couple again. “You moved back?”

The auntie spotted her at once and immediately wiped her hands on her apron, beaming so broadly that all her wrinkles creased with joy. “Young lady, you’re safe — thank goodness! I asked around all over when I first came back, and the guesthouse owner told me you had already left. I was worried those people would come after you. Now that I can see you’re perfectly fine, I’m relieved.”

“Auntie, I’m all right,” Yan Qing said with a smile, glancing around the little shop. Small as it was, it was spotlessly clean. “It’s wonderful that you can come back and run the shop again.”

“A neighbor went to all sorts of trouble to find where we’d taken shelter and told us those people had disappeared — said the tofu shop could reopen. I didn’t quite believe it at first, so I crept back and lay low for two days, and sure enough, those people were gone.” The auntie clasped her hands heavenward as she spoke. “Amitabha! Thank heaven and earth — the wicked have gotten their just deserts. I hope they never come back.”

“Auntie, rest assured — those people won’t be coming back,” Yan Qing said, glancing at Long Yunxiao beside her.

The Dragon Cloud Society had its own rules, even though it was a gang: do not bully the people, do not act recklessly. The bald man and his crew had violated Dragon Cloud Society’s rules by forcibly abducting a respectable woman and causing her death. Fearing punishment, the bald man had fled overnight with his subordinates and drifted his way to Huxi Town, where he had colluded with the town magistrate to lord over the area.

Now that Long Yunxiao had personally brought him back to the Five Borders Region to face judgment, that man would never appear on this street again. Peace would return here for a time — as for the future, no one could say.

“Young lady, have you eaten yet? I’ve just made fresh tofu — let me cook you a few small dishes,” the auntie said warmly, pulling Yan Qing into the shop. “It’s plain and simple fare, but please don’t mind that.”

Yan Qing couldn’t refuse the hospitality and sat down at the table. The auntie then said to Long Yunxiao, “Young man, go sit with your wife — don’t stand on ceremony.”

Yan Qing was busy looking around curiously and didn’t catch the auntie’s use of the word “wife.” Long Yunxiao, however, startled at those two characters.

The auntie didn’t notice his reaction and went off cheerfully to prepare the food.

Long Yunxiao stood against the light, his deep gaze resting on Yan Qing, who was leaning in to study the tofu machine with keen interest.

He simply stood and watched her quietly, and a feeling arose in him — a feeling of a life peaceful and serene.

He dared not entertain the thought: if she were truly his wife…

Because merely entertaining that thought would fill his heart with wild joy intertwined with despair — a complex, tangled emotion that could instantly shatter the composure he had worked so hard to maintain.

He knew she was clever, and skilled at reading people. He must not let slip even the faintest hint of his affection for her. Otherwise, she would withdraw from him without hesitation, and this easy, harmonious closeness between them would be no more.

“Long Yunxiao, what are you thinking about, standing there in a daze?” Yan Qing, done examining the tofu machine, turned around to find Long Yunxiao still standing there lost in thought.

Long Yunxiao curved the corner of his mouth. “I was just thinking how curious you are about everything.”

“I used to eat tofu all the time but never knew how it was made.”

“Making tofu is neither particularly hard nor simple — it’s just a laborious process with many steps,” Long Yunxiao said. “Look: first you manually grind the soybeans in that machine into a pulp, then you use a straining cloth to squeeze out the soy milk, and after heating, adding a coagulant, and pressing, the tofu is done.”

“You’ve made tofu before?” Yan Qing asked, surprised.

“Never made it. I’ve watched it being made.”

Yan Qing thought to herself that in modern times tofu was all machine-made, and that machine-produced things clearly lacked the warmth of handcraft.

Before long, the auntie and the old man came in, each carrying two dishes.

“Auntie, that smells wonderful,” Yan Qing said, looking over eagerly.

“Plain home cooking — don’t you dare think poorly of it,” the auntie said, setting the dishes on the table one by one.

The dishes were served in old, dull-white ceramic bowls with chipped rims, but the food inside was vibrant in color and fragrant in aroma.

One dish was braised tofu in a glowing, appetizing color; another was tofu in its simplest, most original form — fresh tofu curd before it had set, drizzled with a sauce made from egg, soy sauce, and garlic and scallion, capturing the tofu’s most primitive flavor.

A third dish was scallion-oil tofu skin: the tofu skin had been blanched, then topped with sliced green onion and chili strips before being drenched in scallion oil — the scent of that scallion oil alone was enough to make anyone’s mouth water.

The last dish was a tofu and dried shrimp soup, the broth tinged with a faint milky-white color, the savory taste of the dried shrimp making the tofu even more tender and fresh.

This simple home-cooked meal delighted Yan Qing, and Long Yunxiao seemed to enjoy it as well — he ate in quiet contentment, and when the old man refilled his bowl of rice, he did not refuse.

Having shared several meals with Long Yunxiao over these past days, Yan Qing knew he was not someone with a particular passion for food and usually didn’t eat much. This was actually the first time she had seen him accept a second bowl of rice.

“You two go on eating,” the old man said, standing up. He filled an empty bowl with food and carried it into the inner room.

There was a worn little door there, left ajar rather than locked.

Then, from behind the door, came a series of loud, inarticulate cries, followed by the crash of a bowl and chopsticks hitting the floor.

Yan Qing was startled and instinctively set down her chopsticks. The auntie beside her quickly said, “It’s nothing, it’s nothing — he’s probably having another episode. Doesn’t want to eat. Ah, if you don’t eat then don’t eat — but every time, he has to smash the bowls and chopsticks. Goodness knows how many he’s broken over the years. Ah, what a misfortune.”

Yan Qing thought back to the last time she’d seen that person, when he had been grinning at her.

“Auntie, what’s your son’s name?”

“His formal name is Liu Xi. His nickname is Xizi.” When the auntie spoke of her son, she couldn’t help dabbing at her eyes. “Xizi used to be so sharp and obedient — from a young age he went with his father on the road, carrying goods for people. We were saving up to find him a wife, and then something like this had to happen.”

Yan Qing had eaten her fill as well. Seeing the auntie in tears, she immediately took out her handkerchief and passed it over.

The handkerchief was fragrant. The auntie couldn’t bear to use it, waved it off, and wiped her eyes with her sleeve instead.

“Auntie, how did Xizi end up this way?”

The auntie gave a soft sob. “One time Xizi went out and came back having been beaten on the head. He collapsed on the floor as soon as he stepped through the door, foaming at the mouth. He lay unconscious for three days and nights before he came to — but when he woke up, he was out of his mind. He started babbling nonsense and flying into rages at anyone he saw. He beat my husband and me many times until finally, with no other choice, we had to tie him up.”

Remembering those days, the auntie was overtaken by grief. “We kept him tied up for about half a year before he gradually started to improve. He’s still not right in the head, but at least he stopped hitting people and smashing things. Sometimes his temper flares and he’ll still throw things, and shout and curse for no reason.”

“When was he beaten and hurt on the head?”

“Fourteen years ago.”

Yan Qing felt a jolt in her chest.

Lin Zhi had been killed fourteen years ago. The nameless woman had taken her own life fourteen years ago. And Xizi had been hurt fourteen years ago.

Could this all be a coincidence?

Yan Qing was certain it was not. Otherwise, Xizi would not have had Lin Zhi’s badge, and kept it hidden for so many years.

“Auntie, do you recognize this?” Yan Qing quickly handed the auntie the small iron box she always carried with her.

The auntie looked at the box and was clearly startled. “Young lady, this — how did this end up with you?”

“Is this Xizi’s?”

The auntie nodded. “When Xizi came home that day, he was clutching this badge tightly in his hand. He was already unconscious. I tried to take the badge away, but his hand wouldn’t release it.”

“Was he saying anything at the time?”

The auntie thought hard. “He kept calling out in his unconscious state — ‘Fangfang is dead.'”

“Did you know who this Fangfang was?”

The auntie shook her head. “That child is introverted by nature. Whoever he met outside, whatever friends he made, he’d never tell us when he got home. So whatever happened to him out there, his father and I were always completely in the dark.”

She went on, “He kept calling out that Fangfang was dead. That truly frightened us at the time. But I don’t recall him knowing anyone named Fangfang. I was just too busy back then — his father was out on the road with him carrying goods, and I was running this tofu shop on my own, nearly from dawn to dusk. I had no time to pay attention to him.”

Fangfang? Lingling?

Yan Qing turned these two names over in her mind, and her thoughts couldn’t help but link them together.

Fangfang — could she be Chen Fangfang? And what was her connection to Chen Lingling?

Sisters, perhaps?

Just then, a low, beast-like roar erupted from the inner room, and shortly after, the old man walked out, his face freshly bruised.

“Old man!” The auntie hurried over and found a clean towel to hand him. “Won’t eat again?”

“No,” the old man said, his expression grim. “I was patiently coaxing him, and he punched me straight in the nose.”

The old man pressed the towel against his bleeding nose. “The child hasn’t been this aggressive in a very long time. Right now he’s completely uncontrollable.”

“When did Xizi start showing this kind of violent behavior?”

“The very day you came,” the auntie recalled. “That night, after we moved out in a hurry, his temperament started going up and down — and it’s been that way ever since. Ah, what’s to be done?”