Early the next morning, while the sky was still a hazy grey, Ruan Yu was jolted awake by the doorbell. She wrestled with herself under the covers for a moment before finally dragging herself up by the hair, threw a coat over her pajamas, and shuffled out yawning — then snapped wide awake the instant she looked through the peephole.

It was that Officer Fang from before. Fang Zhen.

She quickly opened the door.

The unsmiling officer wore a perfectly solemn expression. He clearly remembered her, yet still went through the formalities: “Am I speaking with Ms. Ruan Yu?”

She nodded along cooperatively. “That’s me. What brings you here, Officer Fang?”

Fang Zhen lifted his documents and pen to take notes as he spoke: “We’re gathering information. Ms. Ruan, were you disturbed by a drunk individual between two and three o’clock this morning?”

A drunk? Disturbing her?

Ruan Yu shook her head. “No.”

“You didn’t hear any unusual sounds either?”

“Nothing.” She had been scrolling through Weibo at that hour.

“Thank you for your cooperation.” Fang Zhen gave a nod and turned to leave, then added one last remark before going: “Please make sure to keep your doors and windows locked at night recently. Stay vigilant about security.”

“Has something happened in this area?”

“Based on reports from multiple residents, a number of households in this vicinity were disturbed during the early morning hours — apparently by the same drunk individual. And all of these households share one thing in common.”

Ruan Yu blinked. “What’s that?”

Fang Zhen pointed his pen at the number above her door: “Their unit number is 302.”

What kind of deranged behavior was that? Or did this number hold some special power over people?

He left after saying this, leaving Ruan Yu quietly rattled. This was no longer a figment of her imagination — this was a genuine lawbreaker operating right in her vicinity.

If Officer Fang hadn’t mentioned it, she might have been fine. But now that he had, how was a woman living alone supposed to sleep soundly at night?

Especially since, by all accounts, every other unit 302 in the area had already been disturbed. She was the only one left.

Ruan Yu pulled out her phone and asked Shen Mingying whether she was home alone that night — only to receive a reply of: “My boyfriend’s here, why?”

She couldn’t bring herself to be a third wheel, so she fibbed and said “never mind.” That night, even after locking every door and window, she couldn’t settle down. She tossed and turned until midnight, drifting in and out of a shallow half-sleep.

At a quarter past midnight, a crack of thunder split the sky, and rain began hammering down outside in torrents.

Sleep became even more impossible after that. With nothing else to do, she opened Weibo again and, while she was at it, posted an update: Lying awake late into the night listening to wind and rain — let no drunkard dare come knocking. 🙏

After posting, she watched a few funny videos to take her mind off things. She was just about to lock her screen when a new email notification appeared.

From Xu Huaisong.

She opened it and found a document attached — several new notes regarding the counter palette.

Anyone still diligently working at this hour truly was one of this city’s elite.

Out of respect for that dedication, and a certain kinship felt between two people sleepless in the middle of the night, her resistance toward Xu Huaisong softened just a fraction. She opened WeChat and sent a message of thanks: Attorney Xu, I received your email. Working on my case at this hour — you’ve really gone above and beyond.

Xu Huaisong’s reply came quickly: Just incidentally.

Ruan Yu turned those two words over carefully in her mind.

Ah — if he were in San Francisco, it would only be nine-thirty in the morning there. Either his jet lag hadn’t sorted itself out yet, or he was working across the time zones.

In that case, this hour wasn’t an imposition for him at all.

So she typed: If you have time then, shall we talk through the case?

Xu Huaisong: Video isn’t convenient. Voice call?

That suited Ruan Yu just fine.

She turned and switched on the bedside lamp. The bedroom had barely brightened before his voice call invitation came through.

She accepted the call while sliding out of bed and slipping on her house shoes: “One moment — I need to grab some documents.”

Xu Huaisong gave an “mm.”

When she opened the bedroom door, a bolt of lightning flashed outside the window, throwing the pitch-dark corners of the living room into brief, eerie relief — like a scene straight out of a horror film.

She shuddered, quickly hit the overhead light, and at the same time tried to ease the unease creeping up inside her by starting a conversation: “Attorney Xu.”

“Yes?”

“Is it raining where you are?”

“It just stopped.”

“So the clouds drifted over to me…”

Silence fell on his end — he probably couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

But the documents were nowhere to be found; she had no idea where she’d shoved them.

She had no choice but to open another thread of conversation, suddenly becoming quite the chatterbox: “Attorney Xu, those methods you taught me for dealing with troublemakers last time — they seemed quite professional. Could I ask you one more question along those lines?”

“Go ahead.”

“If a drunk person came harassing you in the middle of the night — would similar tactics apply?”

“…”

Xu Huaisong said absolutely nothing. And at that precise moment, a fierce gust of wind howled outside, rattling the windows loud enough to make them shake.

Ruan Yu heard the silence on his end and asked: “Are you still there, Attorney Xu?”

Xu Huaisong gave a soft cough. “Bad signal. Could you repeat that?”

She finally tracked down the right documents, killed the overhead light, and sprinted back to the bedroom. Once safely tucked under the covers, she answered him: “Oh — never mind. It’s fine.” She settled cross-legged and opened the page corresponding to the email, then said, “Let’s get started.”

Outside, the rain gradually eased, and before long it had settled into complete calm. Only the droplets along the window ledge continued their unhurried trickle.

That image — just after a heavy rain — appeared countless times in her memories of all three years of high school.

The railing of the sports field bleachers, the windowsill in the classroom corridor, the flagpole at the ceremony grounds — each had once held droplets like these, trembling on the edge of falling.

Ruan Yu had never liked the rain, but she loved the look of the world right after it stopped.

She remembered a line she had once written in her diary: Your clean and brilliant youthful spirit brightened all of — every single one of — my rainy seasons as a girl.

The Xu Huaisong of those years had walked through her favourite after-the-rain moments again and again, right before her eyes.

“What are you doing?” His voice broke the silence suddenly — he had probably said quite a bit and realized she wasn’t listening.

She came back to herself, murmuring a soft: “I was looking at… the rain. It stopped.”

“Mm.”

Ruan Yu wasn’t wearing earphones — she had it on speaker.

In the stillness of the night, every sound in the bedroom became unusually clear.

Xu Huaisong said: “Third paragraph.”

She picked up the thread: “Isn’t this section just background context?”

“Mm.”

“I feel like this setup doesn’t need explaining — what high school doesn’t have a strict disciplinary director? Surely you…”

“Surely I what?”

“I mean… didn’t your school have one?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Oh…”

Droplets pattered intermittently against the rain awning outside, weaving a hypnotic rhythm.

Ruan Yu had no recollection of when her eyelids had started losing the battle. All she knew was that when birdsong woke her in the early morning and she looked at her phone screen beside the pillow — reading 05:52:00 above the “End Call” button — she couldn’t hold back a startled sound.

And then, from the other end of the line came a soft shuffling — the rustle of blankets and fabric — followed by Xu Huaisong’s voice, slightly rough and not quite alert: “What’s wrong?”

“…”

Ruan Yu was thoroughly alarmed. It felt for all the world as though he had woken up right beside her.

She quickly grabbed her phone and explained: “I think I accidentally fell asleep last night…” Then a thought struck her, and she asked with a strange feeling: “Why didn’t you end the call?”

Xu Huaisong let out a quiet sigh. “I must have fallen asleep around the same time then.”

“…”

Two people could really discuss a case with this little focus. So much for this city’s elite. Whatever happened to that?

She gave a small “oh” and, feeling awkward about the strange atmosphere between them, was just preparing to take the dignified route and hang up first — when suddenly an abrupt, jarring sound cut through from his end: dee-dah — dee-dah —

She paused. “What’s that sound?”

“An ambulance.”

“Why is there an ambulance?”

Xu Huaisong seemed to shift in bed. “I’m at the hospital.”

By the time Xu Huaisong’s IV drip was finished, it was nearly noon. When Liu Mao and Chen Hui arrived at the hospital ward, the nurse had just removed the needle from his arm.

Chen Hui handed him a container of congee and moved the laptop off the hospital bed. As his eyes swept briefly over the open screen, he paused: “Huh — ‘Ambulance Sound Samples’? Song-ge, why are you looking that up?”

Xu Huaisong opened the congee container and said lightly, “Nothing in particular. Just felt like listening to some music.”

Liu Mao glanced at his wan complexion and shook his head. “Listening to ambulance sounds for a thrill? Some people really shouldn’t go looking for thrills when they haven’t got the constitution for it. You really managed to develop a stomach like that living in America?”

Xu Huaisong was unbothered: “Occupational hazard.”

Liu Mao gave a dry laugh: “I’m also a lawyer — I haven’t got any such illness. Little Chen, you haven’t either, right?” He finished his jab and went on: “You know your stomach can’t handle it, yet you go and eat over a dozen pieces of rice cake and knock back a row of vodka. If I were a woman, I wouldn’t touch a man with no sense and no self-preservation, not for anything.”

Chen Hui, with no idea that Liu Mao’s words carried a pointed double meaning, widened his eyes and said: “Mao-ge, so that’s what you’re into?”

“Get out of here!” Liu Mao shot him a glance and waved him off, then turned to Xu Huaisong: “The police came yesterday?”

Xu Huaisong swallowed a spoonful of congee and nodded. “I’m a man with a record now.”

“I’m never letting you loose on your own when you’re drunk again.” Liu Mao laughed until his sides ached. “In the middle of the night — you really knocked on over a dozen unit 302 doors?”

That wasn’t the remarkable part. The remarkable part was that he had knocked on over a dozen unit 302 doors and perfectly avoided the one correct door the entire time.

That was a remarkably sophisticated way to be drunk.

“What a shame,” Liu Mao said, composing himself.

The words had barely left his mouth when a female nurse knocked lightly on the door and said: “Mr. Xu, there’s a young woman with the surname Ruan here to see you.”

A flicker of surprise crossed Liu Mao’s eyes.

Xu Huaisong gave the nurse a nod, and once she had turned and left, he finished Liu Mao’s sentence for him: “Not a shame at all.”

Liu Mao understood what he meant in an instant.

What kind of man was Xu Huaisong in the courtroom? The kind who moved with calculated precision, measured every step, and believed that anything short of a decisive blow was tantamount to defeat.

He could accept failure, but he permitted no missteps — which was exactly why he refused any advance that came before its time.

For him, matters of the heart operated the same way as the courtroom. Every patient, careful act of laying groundwork was preparation for the final, definitive strike.

And the moment for that strike had not yet come — so the fact that he hadn’t knocked on that particular door was, if anything, something to be grateful for.

Xu Huaisong put the lid back on the congee container and handed it to Liu Mao, asking him to toss it in the bin.

Out in the corridor, Ruan Yu was making her way slowly in their direction, a thermal food container in one hand and documents tucked under the other arm.