Ruan Yu hung up the call and sat on the sofa staring into space, phone in hand.

It wasn’t the news itself that gave her pause — it was the fact that Fang Zhen had said Xu Huaisong had privately brought up the case with him at some point.

Xu Huaisong was not someone who drew conclusions easily. When they had first discovered that photograph, he had been remarkably measured and rational about it. Even after Wei Jin’s arrest on drug charges, he hadn’t gone making baseless accusations. He had flown to America as planned, and during their video calls hadn’t breathed a single word about any of it.

But a person was still a person, and the pull of emotion was unavoidable.

He had been carrying this quietly all along — and had asked the police to keep an eye on any developments in the case.

Some knots only the person who tied them can undo. There was nothing Ruan Yu could do to help him in this. The only thing she could do was buy a high-speed rail ticket to Su Shi, tell him the moment his flight landed, and ask him to meet her there directly.

Because the airport was considerably closer to Su Shi than to Hang Shi.

By the time Ruan Yu arrived at Su Shi’s train station it was nearly evening, and she hadn’t waited more than a few minutes before Xu Huaisong arrived too.

His own car was still at the dealership, and he had borrowed one from somewhere.

The moment Ruan Yu got in, she was greeted by a hand on her head.

He leaned across to help her with her seatbelt, then gently pinched her nose and said: “Even if I handled things here first, going back to Hang Shi afterward wouldn’t add more than a few hours. And you still came all the way out here.”

“I was worried you’d still be busy when you finished and would have to spend the night here.”

They had been apart for ten days, surviving on video calls alone. Never mind a few hours — Ruan Yu hadn’t wanted to wait even one more minute to see him.

Xu Huaisong smiled. “Do you know what my colleagues in America call you?”

Their video calls over this period had been even more frequent and indulgent than the last time they were apart, and several of his foreign colleagues had come to know about Ruan Yu.

Ruan Yu touched her nose. “What?”

Xu Huaisong started the car, turned the wheel, and pulled away from the train station, the corners of his lips curved. “Clingy cat.”

Ruan Yu choked. “It was clearly you who insisted on staying on a call with me while we slept. Didn’t you set the record straight?”

“I did.”

“What did you say?”

“I said — maybe I’m not entirely human either.”

“…”

On the way to the police station, the two of them talked about everything and nothing.

There was perhaps something of the sweetness of reunion after a short separation — but more than anything, what lay beneath it was a mutual, unspoken unease.

Both of them felt a quiet dread about the truth they were about to face, and so both reached instinctively for lightness and banter to ease the tension between them — and it had evolved into exactly this.

But that carefully constructed ease dissolved entirely when they saw Jiang Yi standing outside the police station entrance.

When Xu Huaisong pulled into the parking space, Jiang Yi was just following two officers through the entrance — apparently brought in for questioning.

Xu Huaisong’s brow creased. He parked the car, unfastened his seatbelt, and was just about to speak when Ruan Yu said first: “Go on. I’ll wait here.”

Xu Huaisong had at least some connection to the case, but Ruan Yu was an outsider entirely — she couldn’t exactly walk into a police station as though it were a marketplace.

She waited in the car, and the image of Jiang Yi walking in kept floating into her mind.

He had been wearing that same yellowed, worn undershirt as always, his back bent, his spine curved. When he looked up and saw the station, saw the police emblem above the door, both legs had been visibly trembling. On the way up the steps, he had nearly tripped and fallen.

Ruan Yu could even picture the expression in his eyes — it would have been full of terror.

Not the terror of a guilty conscience, but genuine, bone-deep fear.

When the whole world was saying you are guilty — she understood exactly how frightened a person could be in that moment.

She had lived through that same desperate hopelessness herself, when no amount of protest could make anyone listen.

Ruan Yu exhaled slowly, watching the sun sink lower along the horizon. About an hour later, she saw Xu Huaisong emerge from the building alone.

The moment the car door opened, her heart seized. She turned instinctively to read his face first.

His expression didn’t carry the look of someone freed from a burden. Ruan Yu couldn’t help but ask: “Is there still no conclusion?”

He shook his head, settled into the seat without starting the car, leaned back against the headrest, and let out a long, heavy breath: “There should be a conclusion now. It’ll still need to go through trial, but it’s more or less certain.”

“Is it really… Wei Jin?”

“When the police were investigating him on the drug charges, they looked into his financial records over the past several years, and in doing so traced a suspicious account. Wei Jin had been making one-sided transfers into it for ten years — always large sums. The trail wound through many channels and ultimately led to a Hong Kong property tycoon.”

“This property tycoon was once a forensic examiner in Su Shi.”

Ruan Yu felt something snag in her throat. She had already begun to guess where this was going.

Xu Huaisong swallowed with visible difficulty: “Police have confirmed that this forensic examiner, at Wei Jin’s direction, tampered with the victim’s body, causing the officially determined time of death to be recorded significantly earlier than the actual time of death. The consequence of this was that Jiang Yi’s alibi was rendered invalid — while Wei Jin obtained a seemingly valid alibi for himself.”

“In reality, Wei Jin had been in a corner stall of the men’s bathroom at the very moment the victim and Jiang Yi were together in there.”

Xu Huaisong didn’t continue. He seemed reluctant to go into further detail in front of Ruan Yu.

But she could piece together the rest on her own.

That night, everyone had just been through a night of revelry at the bar. Wei Jin had certainly been drinking. By sheer coincidence, he had been an unwilling witness to what was happening in that stall. When Jiang Yi hurried off for some reason and left, Wei Jin — drunk and with his inhibitions stripped away — turned his intentions toward the victim.

It had likely been a killing during a physical struggle that got out of hand.

Faced with the choice between turning himself in and fabricating an alibi to escape punishment, Wei Jin had chosen the latter. And from that point on, there had been no stopping his descent — assault, drugs — beneath his polished exterior, a deeply warped soul.

“After all these years, why didn’t Wei Jin just silence the forensic examiner at some point?”

“For one, silencing someone carries its own risks. For another, the examiner was no fool — to protect himself from being discarded once he’d served his purpose, he had certainly kept some form of evidence. If he died under suspicious circumstances, that evidence would find its way to the police.”

Ruan Yu closed her eyes gently, and when she opened them again, she saw Jiang Yi emerge from the police station alone. He stumbled as he walked — and when he pushed open the glass door, his legs gave out entirely. He crumpled onto the edge of the front steps.

Then, without warning, he broke into loud, heaving sobs.

A man in his mid-thirties, crying like a child — mouth wide open, wailing without restraint, gasping for breath, releasing sounds that were strange and raw, somewhere between grief and keening.

In the blood-red light of the setting sun on that day ten years in the making, he cried out to the sky with a voice that demanded the whole world hear him: “I didn’t kill anyone! I didn’t kill anyone—!”

Sobbing and shouting all at once, his tears laced with the ghost of a smile — yet a smile so bleak, so gutted, it was almost harder to look at than the tears.

Ruan Yu watched through the car window as passersby exchanged looks of startled incomprehension, their gazes falling on Jiang Yi with the expression reserved for someone dangerous and unhinged.

Then Xu Huaisong opened the car door.

He walked over, crouched down in front of Jiang Yi, and gently patted him on the back. “It’s over now. Everything’s alright.”

Jiang Yi stopped shouting. He brought his calloused hands up to cover his face.

Tears ran down through the gaps between his fingers. Xu Huaisong looked at him with a quiet warmth and said: “Let me take you home, alright?”

By the time they had seen Jiang Yi home, night had fallen. The two of them found a restaurant at random and ate, and afterward Xu Huaisong was about to drive back to Hang Shi when Ruan Yu suggested: “Why don’t we go see your mom?”

Xu Huaisong understood the unspoken meaning behind her words. The news about the case was something Tao Rong ought to be told.

He lowered his eyes. “Give it a couple of days. I haven’t figured out how to bring it up yet.”

So many years had passed. Now that the truth had finally broken through the surface, even the person at the center of it all didn’t quite know how to untangle a knot that had been pulled so tight for so long.

Stating the facts was the easy part. But what came after? Could a family broken for ten years be mended — and if so, how?

Xu Huaisong was still working through it all himself, let alone talking it through with Tao Rong.

Ruan Yu thought for a moment. “That’s fair. But it’s already dark — let’s not drive back tonight.”

Xu Huaisong tilted his head toward her. “Find a hotel?”

She shook her head and took his arm. “Let’s just stay at your place. Your grandmother invited us last time, remember.”

Xu Huaisong let out a quiet laugh: “I’ve heard of men tricking their girlfriends into coming home with them. Never heard of a girlfriend tricking a man into going back to his own home.”

She gave him a sideways look. “So are you going to fall for it or not?”

“Falling for it.”

Xu Huaisong called home, then let Ruan Yu drag him to a shopping mall, where they swept through it enthusiastically before heading to his family’s home together, arms laden with bags large and small.

Tao Rong and Xu’s grandmother welcomed them through the door with cheerful faces.

Since it was a weekend, Xu Huaishi was home too, working on her homework. When she spotted the two of them and all their bags, she let out a delighted “wow!” and came running to the living room, pointing at the pile of gift boxes. “Is any of it for me?”

Xu Huaisong said yes, and handed her a thick stack of forty-eight premium mock exam papers.

Xu Huaishi: “…”

Ruan Yu leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Nothing to do with me — your brother wanted to get you that.”

Xu Huaishi pouted: “How can even you not be able to manage him anymore, Sis?”

“Some things don’t need managing.” Xu Huaisong steered her toward the study. “Go do your homework.”

“Don’t senior-year students have any rights?” she shot back — then shrank her neck down before he could level a cold stare at her. “Fine, fine, no rights at all!” And she scurried back to the study, pausing just before she shut the door to mouth at Ruan Yu: Don’t marry him! Don’t marry him!

Ruan Yu laughed and waved her off, gesturing for her to relax.

Tao Rong and Xu’s grandmother brought the two of them to sit on the sofa. This time both sides came prepared, and the atmosphere was warm and easy.

When Tao Rong asked what had brought them to Su Shi, Xu Huaisong was about to say “errands,” when Ruan Yu stepped in: “Huaisong only just got back from America today — and the airport is closer to here, so we came over.”

Xu’s grandmother clicked her tongue warmly: “All that traveling back and forth must be exhausting. Huaisong, have you given any thought to—”

Xu Huaisong paused briefly, then answered plainly: “I have. Once I’ve wrapped up the remaining work in America, I won’t need to be going back and forth much anymore.”

Tao Rong’s gaze flickered noticeably at that.

Xu’s grandmother broke into a smile, her tone turning fond and familiar when she addressed Ruan Yu: “I was just telling your mother — the way Huaisong takes care of you, it’s clear he has his mind made up. That’s good, that’s very good…”

After a moment of quiet, Tao Rong asked: “And your father?”

Xu Huaisong paused before answering: “The way he is now, he can’t be left alone in America long-term.”

Tao Rong’s smile turned slightly stiff. “Can he… board a plane?”

Xu Huaisong kept his reply measured: “I asked the doctors over there. They said it’s possible, but the risk is still there. We’d either need to wait until his condition improves a bit more, or arrange a private charter.”

A private charter flight from America could easily run to hundreds of thousands — or even into the millions. Clearly Xu Huaisong wasn’t in any rush to make that decision.

Tao Rong nodded and let the subject drop, shifting the conversation to lighter topics. After a while she said: “You’ve just been on such a long flight. Take Yuyu and get some rest — your room’s been tidied up.”

Xu Huaisong said “alright” and brought Ruan Yu to the bedroom. The moment the door was closed, he gave her cheek a light pinch and asked quietly: “What are you up to?”

It was fairly obvious that the entire evening’s direction had been gently steered by Ruan Yu. She had come here with exactly this purpose in mind.

Ruan Yu leaned against the door and gave him her most innocent smile. “What did I do?”

Xu Huaisong let a trace of resigned helplessness show in his eyes.

He had that rift with his family, and like the closed-off person he was, he wasn’t going to go about opening it himself. So she had found a way to nudge the ice apart for them.

He sighed and let it go: “Go wash up.”

They took turns in the bathroom.

Ruan Yu had changed into a sleeping dress she’d bought at the mall earlier — an adult cut, with a neckline that sat rather low. When she climbed onto the bed, she reflexively raised a hand to cover it.

Xu Huaisong was already sitting up in bed. He watched her with a smile. “What are you covering up?”

It had only been an instinctive gesture on her part. She murmured under her breath: “I was worried about inflaming your passions…”

This was his family’s home, after all. She felt it only right to be a little more restrained.

Xu Huaisong pulled her into the covers and said with complete seriousness: “That won’t be happening.”

Ruan Yu assumed he meant that of course he wouldn’t do anything in this situation — but before she could settle into that thought, he added with a composed expression and a slight curve of his lips: “There’s nothing much worth looking at anyway.”

“…”

Ruan Yu bolted upright out of his arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shook his head to indicate it was nothing, and pulled her back. “Sleep.”

“Not until you explain yourself.”

“If I explain, sleep will be even less possible.”

Ruan Yu drew a deep breath.

Right. He was just saying her chest was small. That’s all there was to it.

Books really did have a point — once a man had what he wanted, his whole attitude would change.

She turned her head away with a sulky expression. “Xu Huaisong, you’ve changed. You’ve gotten completely comfortable with yourself. You treat me the same way you treat Liu Mao now.”

He looked down at her and laughed. “Would I sleep with my arms around Liu Mao?”

“You tease him and take advantage of him and bully him!” Ruan Yu huffed and turned her back on him.

Xu Huaisong reached out and turned her back around: “When I said there was nothing much worth looking at, it was a psychological suggestion. To myself.”

“Suggesting what?”

He took hold of her hand and guided it downward slightly, then let out a sigh. “Wasn’t it you who insisted on staying at my place? My mother is across the hall, my grandmother is diagonally across, my younger sister is right next door. Other than talking myself into behaving like a decent person, what else am I supposed to do?”

Author’s Note: Liu Mao: Achoo — who’s been thinking about me? And apparently wanting to cuddle me?