Early morning, someone knocked on the door.

Using “knocked” would be too elegant a description—it was more like pounding.

Ma Tuwen was in a daze, exhaling a breath that reeked of alcohol, making himself wince. He vaguely remembered what had happened last night, the key word being “breakup.”

Breaking up with his girlfriend, Ba Mei.

When ordinary couples break up, the reasons are usually mundane domestic issues: money, stability, housing, and prospects. He and Ba Mei each represented typical young people who were lost, failing, and unable to see a clear path forward. Their union and separation were commonplace.

The only difference was that when Ba Mei slammed the door on her way out, she forgot to take the bag of beer that hadn’t sold at the food stall last night.

So Ma Tuwen drank it all.

After finishing it, fueled by alcohol, sorrow welled up inside him. He thought about men and women in this world, love and romance, how fucking empty and boring it all was. So he held his guitar, played and sang to himself, using lyrics from “Carmen” that he had altered.

“Love is nothing but a damn thing, nothing special at all. Women are just neurotic things, what’s so great about them…”

His performance was forcibly interrupted because the woman renting the room next door rushed out of the tiny shower wrapped in a towel, her head covered in bubbles from cheap shampoo, pounding on his door while shouting: “Are you sick? It’s the middle of the night, can’t a person take a shower in peace?”

Ma Tuwen, holding his guitar, thought: women truly are neurotic things. If you were angry because the noise kept you from sleeping, I could understand, but you’re fucking taking a shower—what does my playing have to do with your shower? Did I play you to orgasm?

Then, still holding his guitar, he collapsed face-first into a deep sleep.

So when someone pounded on the door early in the morning, his first thought was that the showering woman was persistently complaining, and his second thought was that Ba Mei had returned to claim money for the beer.

The latter seemed more likely. Yawning, he got up, and only after finding his wallet did he go to open the door.

Standing there was a courier.

Not from SF Express, STO, YTO, or YunDa, but a high-level courier from Wan Fenghuo.

Ma Tuwen’s brain was still soaking in beer, and he asked, “What are you doing here?”

The courier handed him a document envelope. “Please take this. I need to take a photo to prove the document was delivered to you personally.”

Ma Tuwen was surprised. “Why would I need documents? Aren’t you forcing this on me?”

The courier ignored him, raising his phone despite the alcohol fumes. “Come on, stand straight and smile.”

Ma Tuwen gave a wide grin, his eyes still bleary.

After the courier left, Ma Tuwen shuffled back inside, reaching into the envelope as he walked, hoping to pull out a steamed bun or a hot pancake wrapped around a fried dough stick.

He was holding the envelope upside down, and a photo fell out, landing right by his feet.

Tilting his head, he looked down at a very pretty girl smiling sweetly at him.

Oh, he remembered who she was.

He carelessly stepped on the photo as he walked past, leaving a large footprint from his slipper right on the girl’s smiling face.

Yawning, dizzy, and slurring his words, Ma Tuwen called Luo Ren, saying, “Luo Ren, do you want to come over? I might have found your girlfriend.”

Luo Ren asked something, but he didn’t hear clearly. The morning air suddenly stirred his melancholy thoughts, and tears of sorrow streamed down his face as he answered Luo Ren: “Ba Mei, that heartless woman.”

Then he collapsed face-first into the mess on the floor.

When he woke up, he saw Luo Ren sitting on the sofa with the document envelope beside him, along with the photo that had been picked up and cleaned of footprints.

Ma Tuwen swayed, trying to stand up, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. He ended up crawling over on all fours and hugging Luo Ren’s legs.

Luo Ren looked up at him.

Ma Tuwen spoke with anguish: “Luo Ren, forget about finding your girlfriend. Women are all unreliable, always complaining about this and that, leaving without warning. Let’s live together, you and me, loyal to each other until we’re old and gray…”

He was speaking with tears and snot, wiping it all on Luo Ren’s pants.

The next second, Luo Ren grabbed him by the collar, yanked him up, and dragged him toward the bathroom.

Ma Tuwen struggled: “Hey, hey, Luo Ren, Luo Ren, old and gray together…”

Once in the bathroom, Luo Ren shoved Ma Tuwen’s head into the sink and turned on the faucet. Cold water gushed out, making Ma Tuwen feel like the skin of his scalp was peeling back. He shuddered as an injection of sobriety washed through his heart and lungs, right down to his feet.

Five minutes later, he came out wiping his head with a towel, smiling awkwardly at Luo Ren, who stood outside. Water droplets kept dripping from his hair.

Luo Ren ignored him.

Ma Tuwen tried to make conversation: “I remember now. I’ve seen your girlfriend before. Isn’t she the girl with the little cat-head bracelet? She came looking for someone last time, and now you’re looking for her. Are you two just playing hide and seek?”

He’d intended it as a joke to lighten the mood, but realized it was inappropriate as soon as he said it, so he gave an awkward laugh.

He continued searching for topics: “Is it that you’re not getting along with her family? Did they take her away without telling you?”

Luo Ren said, “I’m leaving now.”

Ma Tuwen watched his retreating figure and felt empty and bored. The woman had left, his friend was leaving—were all his relationships just these abrupt comings and goings? Was there nothing more stable?

His legs gave way, and he fell to his knees, one knee pressing down on an empty beer can, denting it.

Ma Tuwen mumbled, “Luo Ren, you don’t seem like the type to chase girls around.”

Footsteps sounded, and Luo Ren returned, crouching down to look him in the eye.

Ma Tuwen taunted, “What now? Decided to come back and live with me after all?”

Luo Ren smiled slightly: “We’ve known each other for many years. I have something to tell you.”

Ma Tuwen raised his head to listen.

“Big Mosquito, you have no talent for singing. For a person to waste a year or two pursuing something unattainable is called willfulness, but to waste any longer is called stupidity. Ba Mei is a good woman, she’s stuck with you for quite a while. Don’t always leave her feeling insecure.”

Ma Tuwen kept his head up, his chest heaving heavily.

Luo Ren stood up and walked toward the door.

A beer can flew from behind, hitting his shoulder. It didn’t hurt. Ma Tuwen howled from behind: “What do you know? Do you understand what a dream is? Huh?”

Luo Ren didn’t turn around. As he went downstairs, he heard Ma Tuwen’s almost whimpering wails, and thought: He and Ba Mei should be fine.

But what about himself and Mu Dai?

In the document folder, apart from Mu Dai’s photo, there was another one secretly taken by someone from Wan Fenghuo. It showed Huo Zihong sitting by the iron fence of a garden outside a private psychological clinic, smoking with his head lowered. Zhang Shu stood nearby, his face as sorrowful as if he were sighing.

These people were not playing fair.

Of course, it was partly his fault for not standing guard outside the hospital room twenty-four hours a day.

He would occasionally leave temporarily for certain matters—to ask the doctor about Mu Dai’s condition, or to contact friends for information about better hospitals and resources. During one of these absences, Zhang Shu had taken Mu Dai away, somehow reaching an agreement with the medical staff beforehand to maintain a consistent story. No one had notified him before the next visiting hours.

When he saw the nurses changing the empty bedding, he couldn’t describe how he felt. As they were changing the sheets and quilts, lifting the mattress with a bit too much force, the small knife that had been tucked underneath fell from the head of the bed, like an abandoned, ownerless object.

Luo Ren was extremely angry. Only then did the ICU nurse hesitantly tell him that Mu Dai had woken up the day before.

There were many things he couldn’t understand.

Zhang Shu didn’t seem like a decisive person; Huo Zihong must have been behind it. Why did they take Mu Dai away without telling him? What did they take her for?

Most importantly, Mu Dai was his girlfriend—why did she leave with Zhang Shu without a word? And why could he no longer reach her phone?

Later, he learned that Yi Wansan had received a call from Zhang Shu, vaguely telling him to pay attention to work at the bar. Yi Wansan hadn’t taken it seriously at first, but after discussing it with Luo Ren, he realized it was a euphemism.

The correct interpretation should have been: Please look after the bar for a while.

Luo Ren had a somewhat perverse nature: if they were hiding something from him, he was determined to find out; if they took Mu Dai away, he would find her.

He contacted Ma Tuwen, and as usual, Ma Tuwen reached out to purchase information from Wan Fenghuo—information about Mu Dai.

Regardless of cost, with only one requirement: Speed!

Wan Fenghuo indeed lived up to expectations, capturing photos of the relevant personnel and providing an address.

The private psychological clinic was located in Kunming.

The document included a background introduction of the clinic’s director, named He Ruihua, who had previously worked at a famous domestic hospital that was a national key base for neurological disease rehabilitation and treatment.

After He Ruihua’s name followed a long list of titles: member of the Chinese Mental Illness Rehabilitation Association, director of the Psychiatrist Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, had participated in academic exchanges in the US, Germany, and Sweden multiple times, and was a visiting professor at the psychology department of a well-known university.

Luo Ren had a bad feeling.

Before driving, Luo Ren smoked a cigarette.

The cigarette was bought on impulse; he didn’t have a smoking habit. His previous work had been high-risk, and he instinctively eliminated anything else that might trigger a butterfly effect of danger: smoking irritates the eyes, nose, and throat, reduces oxygen and blood circulation to the brain, leading to intellectual decline and vascular spasms. He needed wolf-like eyes, a dog’s nose, and a brain many times clearer than ordinary people’s.

Not just him—his brothers didn’t have this habit either. They might drink occasionally, but they rarely smoked cigarettes.

But this time, he made an exception.

The smoke slowly rose, irritating his eyes and nasal membranes. For him, smoking wasn’t relaxation; it was more like self-punishment and torture.

Luo Ren felt he had made a mistake.

If he had recognized Mu Dai’s problems earlier, he should have directly asked her or faced them together, rather than pretending not to see them because he liked her and indulged her.

Those small hidden dangers were like poisonous plants in rock crevices. You might think you can ignore them or dismiss them, but they seize on your blind spots and grow wildly. By the time you look down again, what extends at your feet might be knee-high weeds.

And you don’t know what you might step on when you take that next step.