It had taken Ruan Yu nearly eleven years to finally say those words — “I miss you” — on the evening of this heart-stopping day, just as it was drawing to a close.

It wasn’t that she had suddenly changed her nature. It was that on this day, having witnessed with her own eyes a missed connection that would leave someone with a lifetime of regret, she had suddenly realized that in matters of the heart, there was no point in tallying up who had the upper hand.

No point in calculating who had gotten the better of whom, who had spoken first, or who had been the first to yield.

Because you never knew — while you were busy making all these pointless calculations — whether some sudden, unforeseen catastrophe might come along and separate you completely, forever, leaving you without even the chance to keep score.

So while you could still say “I miss you,” you had to say it. Say it to him.

Even if it meant losing.

The moment the words left her lips, the other end of the line seemed to fall into perfect stillness, not a single sound echoing back.

Ruan Yu blinked, slightly dazed. She was just about to pull the phone away to check her signal when she heard Xu Huaisong say: “The signal hasn’t dropped.”

Xu Huaisong was leaning against the railing along the hospital corridor. He lifted his head from the warm amber glow of the lights and slowly straightened up.

The signal hadn’t dropped. It was his own brain that had short-circuited.

He suddenly said: “Hold on a moment.” Then he walked quickly toward the end of the corridor and headed down the stairs.

Ruan Yu was thoroughly bewildered. After quite a long pause, she finally heard the footsteps on the other end come to a stop, and a slightly breathless voice came through: “Same.”

“What?” She had nearly forgotten what she’d said.

“Miss you too. Or… possibly… I miss you even more than you miss me.” Xu Huaisong said each word deliberately, then instinctively held his breath.

Only when Ruan Yu let out a small laugh on the other end did he finally let the tension leave his body completely, and began breathing normally again with relief.

Once he’d caught his breath, Ruan Yu asked: “Why did you have to run off somewhere before you could say it?”

He stumbled slightly, then answered: “There was a nurse on duty in the corridor outside the ward just now.” That was why, even though he had clearly understood from the start that she was hoping to be comforted, he had played dumb and hadn’t said anything too revealing.

“So what? Could she understand Chinese?”

“…”

Fair point. He’d forgotten.

Xu Huaisong lowered his head with a quiet laugh. “Today’s been draining. I think I may have gotten a bit muddled.”

“Draining from what?”

He gave a helpless look. “What do you think?”

Ruan Yu muttered: “I don’t know — that’s why I’m asking.”

Xu Huaisong pressed his teeth together and forced himself to say it plainly: “Worrying about you.”

Ruan Yu laughed again softly.

See? Speaking directly wasn’t so hard.

She mulled it over, then said: “But over the phone earlier, you seemed so calm. You even said the police would protect me, and there was nothing to worry about.”

“That was to comfort you.”

He hadn’t truly been that confident in the police. Even a one-in-ten-thousand chance that something might happen to her was enough to make him unable to sit still.

This was already the second time. She would never know how suffocating and helpless it felt to be separated from her by a thousand mountains and rivers, hearing bad news about her from so far away. He had only pretended to be calm for her sake.

He moved his phone aside, pulled up the flight booking page, and sent her a screenshot.

Ruan Yu opened the message and found that it was a flight departing San Francisco at eleven o’clock at night, bound for mainland China.

Within five minutes of receiving her call, he had already bought the ticket. It was only after he’d confirmed she was safe that he hadn’t gone to the airport.

Her nose stung, and she drew in a quiet breath, her voice carrying the faint waver of tears alongside the warmth she felt.

That little waver of tears reminded Xu Huaisong of something, and his voice became slightly stern. “In the future, if you absolutely have to cry over the phone, say what you need to say first, then cry.”

That tone of his instantly dissolved every ounce of warmth Ruan Yu had just felt.

He continued, with the same gravity: “You might be fine. But my heart will give out from fright before you can tell me that.”

Ruan Yu paused, then said “Oh.” But she had gotten the comfort she’d been hoping for, so she let his bluntness pass. She said: “Understood. Go back to the ward and keep an eye on your uncle.”

Xu Huaisong stood under a streetlamp, phone in hand, glancing toward the inpatient building. “It’s alright. The caregiver is there. Things have mostly stabilized, and he’s asleep right now.”

“You really enjoy standing outside feeding the mosquitoes, don’t you?”

“Mm. I still feel a little bad about squeezing that one on your chin to death last time. Might as well look after its kin.”

“…”

Ruan Yu smiled, phone in hand, stepping away from the door. She exhaled slowly and collapsed onto the bed.

Hearing the rustle of movement, Xu Huaisong asked: “What are you doing?”

“Tired. Lying down for a bit.” She let out a sigh. “Actually, I was really scared today. My legs completely gave out. I had no idea they were going to have me go up the aerial ladder beforehand…”

“You went up the aerial ladder?” Xu Huaisong’s tone carried a note of surprise. “Aren’t you afraid of heights?”

Now it was Ruan Yu’s turn to be puzzled. “How did you know that?”

It had been the day of the fortieth anniversary celebration at their middle school, when many students had been assigned by their teachers to help set up the reception venue. Probably because there was so much to do, the teacher had handed out tasks at random, without much thought to whether they suited boys or girls. Ruan Yu had initially been assigned to hang ribbons — they needed to be wound around the rods along the window ledge — and because she was too afraid to climb up, she had gone around trying to swap tasks with someone else.

And then he had appeared.

By the time she had found someone to trade with and come back, she looked up to find the ribbons already neatly tied, and had assumed someone had done the wrong task by mistake.

In the night, Xu Huaisong was silent for a long time. Finally, he tilted his head back to look at the waxing crescent moon hanging above and said: “I’ll tell you when I get back.”

What was that about — being all mysterious.

But Ruan Yu was genuinely exhausted, and didn’t think too deeply about it. She turned over on the bed and said, thinking out loud: “What do you think will happen to Zhou Jun? This afternoon when I went to give my statement, I saw him go into the interrogation room, and he didn’t come out for a long time.”

Xu Huaisong had already gotten a general picture of the case from the police. He said: “The way things stand, the objective evidence points to him, and his subjective account is nothing more than his own word. Even if he didn’t kill anyone, it won’t be easy to clear himself of suspicion.”

Ruan Yu’s throat tightened slightly. She listened as he continued: “There are two possibilities for his release. First, before the trial, another suspect emerges, and all the evidence currently pointing to him is reasonably refuted. Second, he is acquitted at trial due to insufficient evidence.”

“Given the current circumstances, assuming a real culprit does exist, they would have to be a highly experienced repeat offender, and may not be caught any time soon. So in all likelihood, he’ll have to try for the second path.”

Ruan Yu murmured an acknowledgment. “You can’t be his defense attorney, can you?”

“No.”

Setting aside the fact that he hadn’t yet sat for the domestic bar exam — even if he had passed and obtained his license, he was not a criminal defense specialist. This was something that called for expertise in the right field.

He said: “As for the defense attorney, I’ve already asked Liu Mao to start making arrangements. I’ll discuss the details with them once I finish up here and get back to the country in a couple of days.”

Xu Huaisong stood outside feeding the mosquitoes until well past two in the morning before finally returning to the ward.

Ruan Yu got up to cook, then went to bed early — and ended up having nightmares all through the night. So the next morning, seeing the dark circles under her eyes, her parents promptly sent her back to the city.

The place was too close to where the incident had occurred. She had always been timid, and staying in that house, she would likely keep having nightmares.

Ruan Yu agreed it was probably the location, and that things would be better once she was back in the city. So she listened to her parents.

But as it turned out, even in the city, the moment she stepped away from a lively environment and returned somewhere quiet — especially at night — she still felt deeply unsettled in body and mind.

Since Shen Mingying happened to be out of town these past few days restocking goods for her online shop, Ruan Yu checked into a hotel in the city and picked up Xu Pipi. For two nights in a row, it was only with the cat beside her, and with Xu Huaisong on an open voice call, that she barely managed to fall asleep.

Her nights were his days. For two consecutive days, Xu Huaisong was hardly able to get anything else done. On the rare occasion something needed handling, he would close the call for a moment — but the instant Ruan Yu woke and heard dead silence on his end, she would immediately ask “why has it gone quiet?” He would then have no choice but to open the call right away and explain, and start coaxing her back to sleep all over again.

He knew she was someone with a sense of limits.

If she weren’t truly frightened, she would never have allowed herself this kind of indulgence.

So by the third day, when Xu Huaisong’s father was moved from the ICU to a regular ward — eating and drinking normally, everything stable — Xu Huaisong began to think about returning home.

As it happened, Lu Shenglan came to the hospital that day. She entered the partition in the ward, saw him wearing earphones, with his phone beside him displaying an active voice call interface, and understood without a word being said. She picked up a piece of paper and wrote: “I’ve wrapped up the case I was working on. I can work from here for the next few days. If you have things to take care of, go on back.”

Xu Huaisong looked at the note but didn’t respond immediately.

She wrote on: “Uncle Xu is the mentor who guided me into this field. Looking after him is the least I can do. Don’t worry.”

Xu Huaisong was just about to pick up a pen to write back when he heard Ruan Yu’s drowsy murmuring through the earpiece — it sounded like she had cried herself awake again.

He didn’t have time to write. He immediately spoke into the microphone: “Did you have a nightmare? I’m right here.”

Ruan Yu’s voice on the other end was muffled and vague. It was a long while before she steadied. “Mm… I’m fine. Let me get up and get a glass of water…”

“Alright. Turn on the bedside lamp first. Remember to put your slippers on. Watch your step. Don’t drink cold water.” Xu Huaisong slowed his pace of speech — it wasn’t that he was truly giving her instructions, so much as keeping a steady stream of sound going, so she wouldn’t feel afraid walking out to the living room.

Once she had finished her water and settled back into bed, he added: “Pull your covers up. Go back to sleep. I’ll stay on.”

A little over twenty minutes later, Ruan Yu’s breathing evened out into something steady and calm. Believing she could sleep soundly for a while, he quietly closed the microphone, then looked up at Lu Shenglan, who had been standing nearby for quite some time. “Sorry about that.”

Lu Shenglan shook her head to indicate it was fine, then hesitated a moment before asking: “Did something happen to her?”

Xu Huaisong gave a brief explanation: “A suspect took a hostage. The police asked her to assist with the negotiation.”

“Did it succeed?”

“Yes.”

“Was she very composed at the time?”

Xu Huaisong’s brow furrowed.

Lu Shenglan continued: “I’ve done research in this area. Given her personality — if she forced herself to suppress her stress response in the moment in order to carry out the negotiation, she may very likely experience a psychological rebound afterward.”

Xu Huaisong’s brow furrowed deeper. “Are you saying she needs to see a psychologist?”

“It probably hasn’t reached that point yet. But if there’s no one around her right now, and no other significant event to redirect her attention, the longer this persists, the greater the impact on her mental and physical wellbeing. Either find someone else to look after her for a few days, or get back as soon as you can.”

Xu Huaisong took out his phone and opened the flight booking page.

“If she’s having difficulty falling asleep, try to book a flight that doesn’t land during her sleep hours,” Lu Shenglan added.

He acknowledged this, then looked up. “Thank you.”

When Ruan Yu woke early the next morning, she found that Xu Huaisong’s voice call had disconnected.

There was a message from him in the chat, sent half an hour ago: I’m about to board. I’ll make it back before you go to sleep tonight. Eat properly and wait for me at home.

She tapped into the input box and typed “okay,” then thought about the fact that he wouldn’t see it and simply deleted it.

She was just about to get up and wash her face when her phone buzzed — another WeChat message.

From Xu Huaishi.

When Liu Mao had driven Xu Huaishi back to Su Shi a few days ago, she had asked him for Ruan Yu’s WeChat.

Xu Huaishi: Sister, the package I sent you is out for delivery now — make sure you sign for it!

Ruan Yu shook herself out of her lingering drowsiness and typed back: What on earth did you send?

Two days ago, Xu Huaishi had asked for her address, saying she had something very important to send her — but refused to say what.

Xu Huaishi: You’ll find out soon enough!

The moment that message came through, the doorbell rang.

Ruan Yu threw on a coat, scrambled out of bed, and went to the door. She took a package from the delivery person, closed the door, and used a box cutter to open it.

And then she saw an old-model mobile phone — the kind that looked like it had been around for years.

Author’s Note: Some terrible news — Director Gu’s workstation has been moved right next to the supervisor’s. Starting now, slacking off at work is officially a thing of the past. Sobbing violently. Please leave lots of comments to comfort me.