Mu Dai finished peeling the apple, cut it into small pieces, placed them in a glass bowl with a lid, and then went to the electric kettle to pour water. She filled a glass cup and carefully walked back holding the rim with two fingers.

Perhaps the rim heated too quickly, for after taking two steps, she hurriedly put it down, shaking one hand frantically, then rubbing her fingers and bringing them to her mouth to blow on them gently.

In his heart, Luo Ren sighed softly.

This visit was actually to talk with her.

Perhaps influenced by his experiences in the Philippines, Luo Ren admitted that emotionally, he had a certain degree of fastidiousness. These emotions included romantic love, as well as familial love, brotherhood, and friendship.

He deeply despised the scheming and deception of those days—too much betrayal, killing, and uncertainty about the future. After returning to China, he desperately craved simplicity.

He wanted the simplest mutual support and everyday familial affection, which is why, despite having a family, he preferred to treat Pin Ting and Uncle Zheng as his relatives.

He wanted the simplest friendship of standing together through thick and thin, which is why, among all his friends, he liked Yan Hongsha the most. Her way of handling matters might not be as flexible and diplomatic as Yi Wansan and Cao Yanhua’s, but she was the most straightforward and loyal, saying exactly what she thought.

He also wanted the most wholehearted love.

When he first met Mu Dai, he was certainly attracted by her pure simplicity. At that time, he thought: A girl who could be scared to tears…

Truly a rare sight in his life.

But as it turned out, it was precisely Mu Dai who grew increasingly distant from his expectations.

When he accidentally saw that video on He Ruihua’s computer, his feelings became indescribably complex, and he admitted that mixed within this complexity was anger.

If the feeling didn’t exist, why maintain a pretense? I’m not so desperate as to need this kind of superficial comfort or charity.

But now, he didn’t want to say anything anymore.

Or perhaps, he was reluctant to speak.

Suddenly, he felt that what he wanted—those fierce declarations of “wholeheartedness” spoken aloud—actually couldn’t compare to this ordinary evening, with him quietly falling asleep from slight intoxication while she cared for him, gently peeling an apple and brewing a pot of light tea.

Didn’t he have secrets, too? Just a few days ago, he had asked Xiang Silan to conceal certain things from Mu Dai.

Why must he insist that her decision was false and irritating?

Luo Ren made an indistinct sound in his throat, then braced himself against the sofa and sat up, rubbing his forehead.

Mu Dai quickly came over and asked, “Are you dizzy? Are you drunk? Do you want an apple?”

Let’s just pretend to be drunk.

Luo Ren nodded, and Mu Dai picked up two toothpicks and handed them to him along with the bowl of apple slices. “Yi Wansan said he wanted you to drink slowly, but you tilted your head back and downed a glass of B-52 bomber in one go. He even saw you swallow the fire in your mouth.”

That cocktail truly didn’t make him drunk, but it did leave him unintentionally thirsty.

Mu Dai asked, “Would you like some water? It’s not cool yet.”

“Then let’s wait for it to cool.”

He ate two slices, put down the bowl, and took Mu Dai’s hand. “Come, come here, let me look at you.”

She was still thin, with delicate white skin, a calm gaze that occasionally evaded his, lowering her eyelashes to smile faintly.

Luo Ren reached out to embrace her.

He could feel her tension, a barely perceptible tightness, and then she smiled, extending her arms to gently encircle his neck.

Luo Ren kissed her forehead and asked, “Have I told you about Eureese and his Malay girlfriend?”

Mu Dai shook her head, curious: “What about his Malay girlfriend?”

Eureese was a young Black man who boasted of being from Hawaii and claimed he could dance the Hawaiian hula.

However, Luo Ren had once inadvertently seen his passport documents and discovered that he had no connection not just to America, but to the entire American continent.

He was short, with a smile full of even white teeth. He liked to squat by the roadside, whistling at pretty girls in revealing clothes. When making love, he wore two condoms because his family tradition was to never abandon one’s children—they must be kept close and raised to adulthood. Eureese said he didn’t want to take many children back with him when he eventually left the Philippines.

Then, suddenly, one day, he stopped his flirtatious ways. The reason? He had fallen in love with a Malay woman.

Luo Ren couldn’t for the life of him understand how Eureese could have fallen in love with that woman.

She was a dancer at a bar, not pretty, with dark yellow skin, short, somewhat fat, with rolls of flesh around her waist. Yet she liked to wear shimmering golden spaghetti-strap dresses, with the lower half made of dense, thin tassels. When she danced passionately, one could see her underwear.

She also loved money. Every time, she would wrap her arms around Eureese’s neck, pout her bright red lips, and hold up her chubby finger, saying, “Here, here, it still needs a gold ring.”

How could he have fallen in love?

Perhaps that’s just how love is. If you could analyze it clearly and rationally, it wouldn’t be love at all.

Eureese had fallen into sweet melancholy. At night, he would toss and turn in his bed, then suddenly yank away Luo Ren’s pillow to wake him up.

“Luo, what should I do? My father says the purity of Black bloodlines is above everything else. He would never approve of me marrying a Malay woman.”

Luo Ren replied, “Your father has a point.”

…

However, neither Eureese’s worries nor his brothers’ concerns lasted long. There were various signs indicating that the woman had other lovers outside and had taken a lot of Eureese’s money, planning to run away.

Heartbroken, Eureese went to confront her.

Luo Ren was elected by everyone to accompany him, not because they feared a fight breaking out between Eureese and another lover, but because they worried that Eureese, blinded by emotion, might foolishly spend more money on her.

It was daytime, and the bar was not crowded. Eureese and the woman were arguing near the backstage area. Luo Ren stood at the entrance, arms folded, watching casually.

Then, Eureese and the woman embraced passionately.

In retrospect, it was probably just Eureese who was “passionate,” because the woman suddenly pulled out a fruit knife and stabbed him in the chest, then fled in panic, successfully escaping.

The incident aroused great anger among Qingmu and the others, but not directed at the woman. Instead, they were furious with Luo Ren and Eureese.

“You, as a member of a mercenary group, capable of firing dual guns, and while not the best at hand-to-hand combat, certainly not bad—how could you let a woman stab you with a knife?”

“Luo, you just stood there watching. You saw that woman take out a knife and didn’t warn Eureese. The woman ran away, and you didn’t chase her!”

“A dancer with a fruit knife I could snap with one hand took down two of our men. If this gets out, people will call us weaklings!”

Eureese was injured and needed rest, so the punishment fell on Luo Ren: for that period, he had to wash everyone’s underwear and socks. Of course, this punishment soon stopped because everyone without exception discovered that the underwear and socks he washed always seemed to wear out exceptionally quickly.

Mu Dai asked Luo Ren, “Did you see the woman take out a knife but didn’t warn Eureese?”

Luo Ren thought about it and, feeling he couldn’t deny it, reluctantly nodded.

There’s an old saying about having one’s mind clouded by a ghost—that was probably it. Reflecting on his psychological reaction at the time, it went something like this:

When the woman took out the knife, he thought: This must be a joke. Would Eureese snatch it away and throw it, or stubbornly let her stab him?

When the woman plunged the knife down, he thought: This is getting serious. You can’t have drama without a little blood, right?

When the woman fled in panic, his first reaction was actually: Is she going to find bandages?

So, dramatically, the woman got away, taking her lover and Eureese’s money with her.

Mu Dai still couldn’t understand and couldn’t help laughing: “When you saw the knife, how could you not sense any danger at all?”

Luo Ren couldn’t answer, and after a long while said, “Probably because they were embracing before that, and in my mind, an embrace is the most intimate form of relationship between a man and a woman.”

Mu Dai didn’t understand. To her, embracing was like holding hands—just an intimate gesture.

Luo Ren said, “On my first day of mercenary training, it wasn’t practical combat but classroom instruction. The Philippines is very hot, with eight fans blowing at us from the four corners of the room. A diagram of human vital points hung on the wall. The instructor focused on the vital organs in the chest and abdomen, reminding us how to avoid and protect them during close combat.”

“Finally, he warned us that even if we fall in love with a woman, we shouldn’t embrace her easily. When you open your arms, you’re exposing all your vital areas to her.”

Mu Dai looked up at him: “Then why do you still dare to embrace me now?”

Luo Ren replied, “I’m quite nervous.”

His chest rose and fell. Mu Dai leaned her ear against it and could hear his heart pumping.

She said, “Your instructor was far too pessimistic. I guess he never found a wife?”

Luo Ren thought about it and realized that it was indeed the case. He was an American man in his fifties, with a physique that stood out among the crowd—when he rolled up his tank top, his eight abdominal muscles were as refined as iron.

Mu Dai said, “Why always think about exposing your vital areas to a woman? Don’t you realize that when you embrace me, we’re both hiding each other’s vulnerabilities?”

This perspective left Luo Ren stunned for a long while. Finally, he said, “That’s true.”

The next few days were quite peaceful—washing dishes, feeling relaxed, dealing with matters that had been neglected earlier, and even hiring an assistant for Uncle Zheng’s shop.

However, Uncle Zheng wasn’t grateful at all. Instead, he pointed his finger at Luo Ren’s head: “Little Luo Knife, you hired an assistant for me—aren’t you hinting that you people will never learn your lesson? One day I’ll look up, and you’ll all be gone again?”

Luo Ren thought to himself: This is probably inevitable.

He found time to contact Shen Gun several times.

Shen Gun was still lingering at Yin Erma’s house, and Yin Erma hadn’t driven him away.

Yin Erma was a lonely old man, and many in the village considered him abnormal. He was quite bored living alone. With Shen Gun beside him, voluntarily helping with farm work and occasionally telling mysterious stories from his travels, life was much more interesting than before.

Luo Ren reminded Shen Gun, “You can gradually lead the conversation toward the Fatal Tallies. If necessary, you can also appropriately disclose our situation here.”

Shen Gun responded irritably, “Little Radish, do I need you to teach me? Don’t I slip in hints every day in my conversations?”

After talking more frequently, some clues gradually emerged. Shen Gun began to feel that Yin Erma wasn’t refusing to talk but rather… he truly didn’t know much.

For instance, he didn’t know that each Fatal Tally corresponded to specific tally words, nor did he know that the power of the Phoenix-Luan Clasp could be attached to ordinary people, and he certainly didn’t know that the five elements—gold, wood, water, fire, and earth—could temporarily contain the Fatal Tallies.

The first person who mentioned the seven Fatal Tallies to him was revealed by Shen Gun’s questioning: it was Yin Erma’s father.

When Shen Gun probed further, Yin Erma became agitated and would lose his temper, saying, “Well, when the seven stars shine brightly, I have to do something—something I can’t talk about.”

Luo Ren felt that from the sound of it, this Yin Erma didn’t seem like some key figure harboring secrets, but rather like just one link in a chain, arranged to do a particular task.

Shen Gun agreed: “The first person to mention the seven Fatal Tallies to him was his father, which means this assigned task has been passed down—he’s now a lonely old man. If something happened to him, how would this task continue? This could be an entry point. I need to keep pressing him on this matter.”

After a pause, he suddenly thought of something else: “At night while he’s sleeping, I’ve heard him talk in his dreams twice now, something about a key, and observing the four-gated pavilion. There might be something significant here.”

…

Whatever it might be, they’d have to wait patiently. Luo Ren had a feeling that whether it was the hint from the Phoenix-Luan Clasp or Yin Erma’s secret, when the time came, it would reveal itself.

And before all this happened again, it was better to enjoy the relatively peaceful days.

But unexpectedly, these peaceful days were quickly interrupted by a sudden event.

It all started with a… family letter sent by Cao Yanhua’s second cousin.