The rain poured down violently.

The car sped along the coastal highway, her foot pressed hard on the accelerator, the dashboard indicators soaring. Her nails dug into the steering wheel, her entire body felt cold. The passenger seat was empty—she was the only one in the car, driving at maximum speed. Vehicles in the left lane whooshed past. Her phone buzzed and vibrated in the back seat as Lao Ping’s calls came through—one, two, three.

Half an hour ago, when she took Lao Ping’s car keys, he hadn’t noticed.

Her mind was consumed by those words Bai Aiting had casually uttered. She thought of every detail from the past year, every moment in time, imagining Jin Yiken and her alone together as international students in a foreign country. She recalled his phone calls that often wouldn’t connect and his delayed text replies when he first went abroad. She remembered that bite mark on his waist she had discovered one day but never mentioned!

All of this connected together to form an enormous emotional net, stuck in her throat, blocked in her chest, building into a pressure that needed immediate release. Her foot pressed harder and harder on the accelerator! The vehicle following close behind flashed its lights through the rain and fog, as if warning her of her loss of control, but she didn’t care, couldn’t care—the impulse in her blood overrode reason, refusing to subside.

…

Fortunately, she didn’t die.

After racing for forty full minutes, the car finally came to a halt due to fuel exhaustion at a desolate dock by the sea. The windshield wipers were still sweeping back and forth. She lay slumped over the steering wheel. The vehicle behind also slowly stopped. A car door slammed shut. Zang Xipu braved the rain to reach her car door and tapped his knuckles against the window glass.

She was lost in thought.

Zang Xipu knocked forcefully a second time before she turned her head half-heartedly.

Outside the car, the rain was torrential, accompanied by the howling of wind. The dock’s waves grew higher and higher. Zang Xipu squinted and bent down, his shoulders and body completely soaked in just a few seconds. Long Qi unlocked the car.

Zang Xipu opened the door, leaned down and asked, “Out of gas?”

“…”

He continued, “Get in my car.”

She didn’t move. Zang Xipu said again, “Wait a moment.”

The car door closed and the interior became quiet again. He returned to his car behind to get an umbrella. Already soaked through, he still thought to bring an umbrella. Long Qi watched him in the rearview mirror. He came to the car, the door opened again, a burst of cold air rushed in, rain hitting her calves, but was quickly blocked by the umbrella he raised. He said, “Come out.”

Perhaps because she still showed no response, he said again, “It’s typhoon season now. Staying at the dock isn’t safe. Come out first, and we’ll treat your wound.”

His gaze fell on her hands. She released the steering wheel—there was a bloody mark on it. Her palm stung faintly from where she had scraped it earlier when throwing the plate.

Regarding her reckless driving, Zang Xipu said nothing.

Regarding her emotional outburst at the dining table, Zang Xipu also said nothing.

He was driving Wu’er’s car, an old SUV. Five minutes later, Long Qi sat in the passenger seat with the heat on, her palm facing up on her knees. Zang Xipu held the umbrella while searching the trunk for a first aid kit, calling Wu’er at the same time.

Wu’er said there was no first aid kit in her car.

By the time he got back in the car, there was hardly a dry spot on him. He looked at the road while reversing. Long Qi said, “Forget it, it doesn’t hurt much.”

“No, there are still fragments in your palm. It’ll be troublesome if we don’t treat it.” The car turned right onto the road. The navigation showed the nearest hospital was a half-hour drive away. The rain was fierce, the road ahead covered in water vapor, making oncoming vehicles nearly invisible. Zang Xipu looked in another direction—not far from the dock was a resort hotel with a visible sign. After brief consideration, he turned the car toward the hotel.

The hotel at least had a basic first aid kit.

As Zang Xipu helped her remove fragments from her palm in the lobby rest area, the receptionist and the doorman both watched, eyes slanted, saying nothing. Outside the glass wall, palm tree leaves swayed wildly in the wind. He glanced outside, and within two seconds, his attention returned to her palm. “Does it hurt?”

She said nothing.

“I told Lao Ping you’re with me. He’s relieved and has already returned to the hotel. I’ll take you back later.”

Another strong gust of wind blew through, causing the hotel’s glass doors to sway with the wind, creaking. The doorman pressed against them in time, but several potted welcome plants at the entrance toppled over. Long Qi turned toward the sound, looking at the torrential rain outside and the darkening sky. Zang Xipu glanced at her and removed the third fragment from her palm, saying, “If you don’t trust my driving skills and are afraid of dying, we can stay at this hotel for the night and return tomorrow morning after the typhoon passes.”

…

After a long while, she said, “I don’t want to go back and see Lao Ping.”

“Alright.”

He kept his head down as he responded, removing the fourth fragment from her palm.

Two rooms were booked.

Zang Xipu’s room was right next to hers. He said almost nothing about this arrangement, focusing entirely on bandaging her hand. Only when leaving did he notice her continued silence and left these words: “Don’t overthink things, don’t look at stuff online. This just happened, catching everyone off guard. I suggest you give him some time. If he cares about you, he’ll try to contact you within reasonable limits.”

…

During the long hours that followed, Long Qi sat alone by the window, watching the sea in front of the hotel. But the night was thick and dark—except for the beacon lights and fishing boat lights near the dock that faintly outlined this stretch of sea, everything was dark.

What was going on? Clearly Zang Xipu’s words were meant to comfort her in Jin Yiken’s favor, yet they didn’t make her feel any better.

The gauze wrapped around her palm throbbed with pain. After sitting absent-mindedly for a while, she picked up her phone. The videos online were still there, not deleted quickly as Jin Yiken had handled any previous online public opinion. Among the tens of thousands of comments, one message had been pushed to the top of the hot comments.

User 58241693578: It’s already confirmed that the child isn’t the youngest son of the Jin family. I don’t think it’s this girl’s in the video either—it’s Long Qi’s. Long Qi has a brother called Long Xinyi who used to make money off his celebrity sister. If you paid him enough, you could visit Long Qi’s room at his house. My friend went and found an ultrasound report in her desk drawer. Well, I won’t say how many months along. Besides, only this reason could make the Jin family put out a smokescreen. Otherwise, why would they bother claiming their granddaughter is their daughter?

…

Impossible.

She had moved out of Long Xinyi’s house long ago. There couldn’t possibly be any paper records about that matter left there. This account had no identifying information—clearly a temporary fake account spouting nonsense for attention. But Long Xinyi’s business exploiting her was well-known in fan circles. Mixing truth with lies made it all seem true. Many onlookers followed these fabricated clues upward, once again firmly pinning this blame on her head.

But before she could sort it out, Weibo prompted that the account was abnormal. She was forced offline. When she tried to log back in, she couldn’t. She knew with certainty that Lao Ping had taken measures—unable to remotely control her and afraid she’d act impulsively, he hijacked the account and changed the password. He was thoroughly practiced at this routine. Sure enough, within half a minute, his phone call came through to Long Qi.

She rejected it.

Then she dialed Jin Yiken’s number.

…

“Hi, this is the owner’s iPhone voicemail. The owner cannot take your call right now. If you need to leave a message, please…”

She didn’t finish listening before hanging up.

Half an hour ago, after that condemning phone call ending with the word “liar,” Jin Yiken had called her back a total of eight times, but she had been angry then and rejected each one as it came. When Jin Yiken’s eighth call came through, she had just started Lao Ping’s car. She answered the phone and told him to go die.

Go die.

Two words, delivered with conviction, mixed with heavy sobbing.

And then he really didn’t call again.

Now at ten o’clock at night, slightly calmer, the first call she made to him went to that annoying voicemail again. She was exhausted, had no energy to make a second call, no energy to send him any message. She sat absent-mindedly on the sofa chair, eyes red and sore, looking at the pitch-black sea outside the floor-to-ceiling window.

She even began to wonder—if Jin Yiken really couldn’t give her any explanation, what would she do?

It wasn’t anger—it was a subtle panic, as if her faith had collapsed. How could the person who had been willing to follow her to hell without a second thought back then now hide such things from her? His entire being should belong to her alone—there shouldn’t be a moment allowed for anyone else. He had adhered to this even more strictly than she had.

Yet countless threads of evidence pointed to him.

This moment felt quite lonely.

Lao Ping’s call came through again, vibrating continuously on her lap. She pressed her forehead and pressed the power button on the right side of the phone.

The screen went black.

The rainstorm lasted all night.

Around five in the morning, the typhoon finally showed signs of retreating. She was still sitting on the sofa with a thin blanket draped over her, her mind clear but her eyes still red, watching the gradually deepening blue sky. She could now faintly see the color of the sea. Just then, there was a knock at the door—two light taps.

“Who is it?”

“I saw your light has been on the whole time,” Zang Xipu’s voice came slowly through the door. “If you can’t sleep, how about going to watch the sunrise?”

…

Previously, she couldn’t feel the sea breeze through the glass, but now with her feet pressing into the wet, soft, fine sand and hearing the heavy sound of waves, she truly felt the weight of this sea. Her long hair flew in the salty wind. The blanket slipped from her shoulders. She hugged her arms and walked slowly behind Zang Xipu.

Just the two of them on the beach.

In the distance, a cruise ship moved slowly across the sea.

The phone that had been off all night finally powered back on, placed on a beach chair more than ten meters away from them. She walked into the wind without speaking. Zang Xipu’s sleeves also blew back at an angle in the wind. He said, “I’ve wanted to see the sunrise since coming here, but the schedule was too busy and I never had time. Now suddenly having this opportunity is quite nice.”

At the horizon, red light emerged from deep within the clouds, gradually spreading out. She gazed at it and said, “I’m sorry, Teacher Zang, for wasting a day of your schedule.”

Zang Xipu glanced back at her, then turned back, squinting at the horizon. Pale light fell on his shoulders and body.

“Did he call you back?”

“No.”

Hugging her arms, without emotional fluctuation, without waves in her eyes, she quietly watched the golden light slowly penetrate the clouds. Zang Xipu paused for a few seconds, facing the wind, and continued, “Have you ever considered that every day I don’t spend on you during my time here is the waste?”

…

Long Qi looked at him.

He turned sideways ahead, his steps not stopping, maintaining his original pace. “I set myself a deadline, Long Qi. Do you want to hear it?”

She didn’t want to ask. Zang Xipu’s hands were in his pockets.

“Before sunrise, if you and your boyfriend reconcile, then I’ll put away my feelings and continue to treat you as a junior. But if before sunrise he still hasn’t given you any call, then…”

The red morning glow was gradually covered by the golden light of sunrise, piercing through the clouds beam by beam. Long Qi looked at Zang Xipu as he said, “Then I’m going to pursue you less politely.”

The sea breeze blew the hair at her temples. Her heart rose and fell calmly once.

“You’ve known my feelings for you for a while now, haven’t you?”

Perhaps already familiar with her straightforward personality, Zang Xipu spoke of romance very directly. Three seconds later, she replied, “I know.”

…

“But Teacher Zang,” she said slowly, “right now, all my thoughts are on my boyfriend. It took me four months to reconcile with him. Without him, those four months, every single day I was unhappy, so…”

He picked up her sentence. “My four days here, every day I came for you. You, this young person, have left me with no options. I’ll listen to whatever you say, except when it comes to pursuing you—you don’t need to feel any pressure. You just have one more admirer. Besides, I told you, don’t generalize from limited experience. Look around more.”

She paused.

And the beams of sunrise grew more dazzling, shining on her and Zang Xipu’s shoulders. The sea surface glittered with golden light. Long hair and shawl flew wildly in the wind as he gazed at her.

The wind grew stronger and stronger.

The moment the shawl nearly flew away with the wind, he suddenly reached out to embrace her waist, securing the shawl. Her steps immediately moved forward half a step due to the force he applied. The two bodies drew close in the sea wind. Her forehead touched his chin, then touched his lips—just like that, caught off guard, Zang Xipu kissed her forehead. She then lifted her head, meeting his eyes while retreating half a step. Their close bodies instantly separated, the shawl sliding from her shoulder down to her arm.

From over ten meters away came the sound of her phone ringing.

So “timely” and “disappointing”—their eye contact lasted no more than five seconds before she took another step back toward the beach chair. “I’ll go answer the phone…”

…

The wind beneath the parasol was slightly gentler than at the seaside. Taking the phone from the beach chair, her hair kept flying across her cheeks. She brushed it aside and saw Jin Yiken’s incoming call on the screen.

She breathed softly.

But didn’t answer first. She exited that screen, and sure enough, in her text inbox she saw missed call records from the carrier. Starting from one in the morning, Jin Yiken had called her phone fifteen times, about every twenty minutes. This was now the sixteenth call. She glanced once more at Zang Xipu on the beach, switched to the incoming call screen, pressed the green answer button, and held it to her ear. “Hello?”

…

But Jin Yiken didn’t speak on his end.

There was a faint sound of waves, but it also seemed like it was coming from afar more than ten meters away. She hugged her arms and asked flatly, “Jin Yiken?”

The cruise ship on the sea let out a long whistle—”Beep——”

She turned toward the sound, looking at the ship. At the same time, the same sound came through the phone, accompanied by waves and howling wind. Her fingers paused while brushing her hair. She said again, “Jin Yiken?”

The row of palm trees behind the beach chair swayed with the wind, their interlocking leaves separating and closing again with a rustling sound. She looked over.

As she looked, she instinctively walked inward, passing through three or four layers of tree trunks. When she reached the innermost layer near the hotel building, the finger bones holding her phone trembled slightly. Listening to the sound of the sea, buffeted by the wind, she saw before her, sitting quietly on a white wrought-iron chair against the wall, Jin Yiken.

Jin Yiken, who had been two thousand kilometers away before dawn but after dawn had appeared in this island city along with the typhoon.

He looked like he had collapsed once.

Elbows on his knees, shoulders bearing the water stains from being drenched in rain all night, holding the phone through which he was connected to her call, he looked at her expressionlessly. But his eyes were clearly red—as red as hers had been in the early morning. They gazed at each other silently—love, hate, jealousy all mixed together. He wanted to say something, but anything seemed like a waste. In the end, it all compressed into one sentence: “In the end, you’re still the same old you.”

Her hand holding the phone gradually dropped from her ear to her side.

“How did you find this place?”

…

“iCloud account password, Find My iPhone function.”

He slowly leaned back against the chair. After saying these two strings of words, his expression had already changed, eyes still red, but he smiled silently. “Just how many more times do I have to forgive you?”

In that sentence was the meaning “prepared to forgive her.”

When he asked this way, she heard it—it meant that as long as she apologized a little, he could compromise again. It meant he was very angry now, but because he liked her too much, he would continue to be a glutton for punishment, and if given a step down, he could still forgive her. She heard all of it.

But she said, “Don’t forgive me anymore. Hate me forever.”

Jin Yiken looked at her.

As she turned to leave, he stood up. Her wrist was suddenly grabbed and pulled back, returning her to face him. The force was particularly strong—there was no possibility of breaking free. His expression at this moment was truly dark, and he truly didn’t believe she could say what she had just said. He asked what she wanted to do.

“I want to kill someone!” she shouted back.

Shaking off his hand, staring into his eyes, she said, “When it’s your turn to explain, you don’t explain. Now that you’ve settled things in your backyard, you come looking for me. Who knows how many of your words are true! Right now, whenever I think of you and Bai Aiting, I want to kill someone. Whether or not you two actually had anything, I’m angry enough to want to kill you!”

“I have absolutely nothing with her,” Jin Yiken grabbed her face forcefully, pointing with one hand toward the beach. “But what about you and that person?!”

“Then whose child does Bai Aiting have?”

“The child isn’t hers!”

“Then whose is it!”

Eyes still staring dead at him, insisting on asking. Jin Yiken pressed closer step by step. “Tell me if I’ve been played by you like an idiot. Three plane rides in two days—once to watch a movie with you, once to explain things to you in person. When you called me a liar and told me to go die on the phone, my first reaction was to come find you. Those three hours on the plane felt like three days and nights! And what were you doing?”

He shouted, “What were you doing!”

“We’re even then!”

From the beach, Zang Xipu looked over at the sound.

And her eyes at this moment were full of fire, her chest heaving. After hearing this sentence, Jin Yiken moved his hand from her face to her neck, gripping the back of her neck. The two stared at each other with red eyes.

“Why do you do this every time?”

“Jin Yiken, tell me clearly and plainly about the matter with Bai Aiting.”

“Every time, just when I think we can have a good life together, you slap me in the face. Relying on the fact that I like you, doing things beyond boundaries again and again, acting without restraint, with a stubborn temper that never changes, always being fickle.”

“Whose child is it?”

“Can you not learn how to love someone, or do you simply not love me!” As Jin Yiken roared out this sentence, he punched the wall beside her. Her back pressed tightly against the wall, shoulders trembling from his sudden violence. Her eyes still fixed on him, breathing moistly.

“Jin Yiken, my love for you is premised on whether you’re honest with me. You know perfectly well what I most want to know right now. Why won’t you tell me? I’ve been forced by you to peel off layer after layer of skin, presenting a completely transparent version of myself before you. Why do you get to have secrets?”

“This is what you’re dying to know right now, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You just can’t be bothered to think about my feelings, can you?”

…

“I can tell you everything in detail right now, but after you hear it, we’re done. Do you still want to hear it?”

Their eyes met at a distance of less than ten centimeters. She didn’t answer. At this moment, he truly was just a guy in his early twenties—all that usual calm and maturity had shattered. With a sense of spite, glaring at her, her neck trembled slightly as she replied, “Yes.”

Words released like knives—one stabbing into her body, two stabbing into his heart.

He nodded slowly.

The back of her neck received sudden force, pulling her a step closer to him, foreheads touching. He leaned toward her ear and said, “The apartment you lived in wasn’t Si Bolin’s—it was Si Bolin’s sister’s. The apartment I lived in was my father’s. Think about why they happened to be right above and below each other?”

She turned her head to look at him.

As if seeing the question in her eyes, he immediately continued, “Did you really think it was for the reason I told you? What kind of feng shui suppression is calculated that way? The diamond ring you found in that apartment—my mother also has one.”

“Si Bolin has a sister?”

“Si Bolin has a sister. Seven years ago, because of the matter with my father, her family sent her to France—just like my family sent me to England because of you. Think about who was at the peak in this circle seven years ago, then suddenly withdrew and disappeared.”

“Si Bolin’s sister was in the entertainment circle?”

“The big star the paparazzi wanted to follow wasn’t my mother—it was his sister. The one about to have a child wasn’t my mother—it was his sister. Bai Aiting happened to appear in that place at that time. She caused such a scene in England that the entire international student circle thought you were the mistress. My mother, who couldn’t stand it anymore, brought her to France for round-the-clock monitoring. The paparazzi released the video to extort ten million from Si Bolin’s sister. You and I are both smokescreens in this extortion case. Now the Si family wants to protect their daughter, and my family wants to protect the stock market. Once the child’s birth mother is exposed, both sides lose. I didn’t tell you on the phone because my phone has already been wiretapped. I’m a victim too. And you?”

…

“You only know how to vent your emotions. You never once want to stop and think about everything. You believe whatever Bai Aiting says. Have you ever believed me?”

“Long Qi.” At this moment, a voice suddenly came from the side. Zang Xipu walked through the palm grove to a distance of three meters from the two of them.

She turned her head. Jin Yiken also turned his head.

But emotions hadn’t stabilized yet. Before she could respond, Jin Yiken grabbed her arm. With a push from behind, he did it all so quickly, almost without thinking, forcefully “throwing” her to Zang Xipu’s side, accompanied by words of complete despair: “Just live your whole life with someone else like this.”

Zang Xipu quickly supported her. Long Qi’s tears that she had held back for so long finally fell—two drops. The force from the previous second still ached faintly on her arm. The moment he pushed her away, her entire head went blank. Zang Xipu immediately spoke up, “Do you know what that action just now means to her?”

“I don’t want her anymore. She’s yours.”

Jin Yiken replied quickly.

He retreated backward, turned and walked away. Long Qi immediately shouted after him, “What’s wrong with how I live!”

“Long Qi.”

She ignored Zang Xipu, shaking off his hand, her whole body trembling with explosive emotion. “Only your sacrifices count as sacrifices, only you’re so fucking noble! I loved you like an idiot and then you say it doesn’t count, it just doesn’t count! At the slightest thing wrong, you completely negate everything. Besides disappearing, what else can you do! If you had any ability back then, you shouldn’t have provoked me in the first place. Living my own way, I could have had a better life than you for the rest of my life!”

Jin Yiken, five meters away, eyes red, replied, “Then you’d better be careful, because in the days to come, I’ll do everything I can to destroy you. Whether burning money or burning connections, don’t expect to have it better than me!”

“Scumbag!!”

The final words were heart-wrenching. Zang Xipu held her tightly, preventing her from collapsing. They had never fought so fiercely before. Her whole person felt dehydrated and weak, yet her bones still wanted to kill someone. In the end, it became a stifled breath impossible to release. After Jin Yiken completely left, she grabbed the armrest of the wrought-iron chair and let out one mournful cry. Sunrise—golden light pierced through the palm leaves, falling scattered upon her and Zang Xipu.

Dawn had arrived.