“I can choose not to take this path,” I replied. “As long as I can follow you, I’ll take whichever path you want me to.”

Master Rong’s expression changed, and he said in frustration, “A’Jin, I don’t need anyone following me anymore. I have enough money to last me until I die of old age! You’re dragging me down, you understand?!”

“I…” Master Rong’s words made me feel terrible.

Maybe I had too much to drink. After all, I’d never felt this bad before.

Master Rong didn’t need me anymore, and Jiu Zi didn’t need me anymore either.

I had become a fist floating in midair, without a body or a brain.

Where should I land? Where should I settle?

“I understand,” I nodded, feeling something uncomfortable in my eyes and nose. “Master Rong, I won’t cause you any trouble. I’ll leave when dawn breaks tomorrow.”

Back at Master Rong’s place, I lay on the sofa, unable to fall asleep.

What had happened?

Why had everything changed?

That foolish “Brain”—with the “Fist” gone, couldn’t he just run?

Why did he have to sacrifice himself?

Where had all his usual cleverness gone?

Damn it, I don’t think you’re a “Brain” at all. You’re just an idiot.

The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. The night grew deeper, but I could no longer calm my mind.

Every time I closed my eyes, Jiu Zi’s face appeared before me.

Those nonsensical things he used to say that seemed like farts at the time—now I remembered them all too clearly.

“A’Jin, if you didn’t have me as your ‘Brain,’ what would you do?”

“A’Jin, you need to smile more often. Right now you look like a block of wood.”

“A’Jin, learn from me—say ‘I throw’! It sounds more imposing when you say it like that. ‘I throw’! You don’t like it? Then how about ‘whole family shovel’?”

“A’Jin, remember to put on your shirt! Why are you going out like this again?”

“A’Jin, protect me! I throw! If the ‘Brain’ gets damaged, you’ll become stupid too!”

“A’Jin, if one day I’m not around anymore, find yourself another ‘Brain.'”

“A’Jin, if you can’t find a ‘Brain,’ then just smile more. At least be a laughing ghost.”

I touched my cheek and discovered something flowing down—cold and icy.

“I throw…”

I smiled bitterly. Living in this world was truly difficult.

At this thought, I got up, took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, quietly opened the door, and went up to the rooftop.

“A’Jiu, is it because you knew all along how hard it is to live that you always kept smiling?”

I sat on the edge of the rooftop, my two feet dangling outside.

Looking down at the brilliant neon lights below, at this moment I felt as if I were stepping on the entire city, with an indescribable sense of freedom in my heart.

I took a drink of beer, then poured some on the ground.

The early morning breeze made my body feel ice-cold. I had forgotten to put on my shirt again.

“Jiu Zi, today let’s drink to our hearts’ content.”

“Aiyah!” A sudden cry of alarm came from behind me, nearly scaring me into jumping off the building.

I steadied myself and turned around to see an auntie sitting collapsed on the ground. She held a broom in her left hand and a stack of yellow paper in her right hand.

She looked at me trembling, as if she had seen something extremely terrifying.

I sensed something was wrong and immediately climbed back over, going to check on her condition. “Auntie, are you alright?”

“You… you…” The auntie furrowed her brow, but her expression quickly calmed down. “Young man, are you trying to scare me to death?!”

“I…? I don’t understand. I was just sitting here drinking. How could I have scared you?”

“You!” The auntie pointed furiously behind me. “Your tattoo! Who told you to get it tattooed like that?!”

I seemed to realize something and said, “Auntie, don’t worry. I have tattoos, but I’m not a bad person.”

“Who’s talking about that?” The auntie stood up and brushed the dirt off herself. “Of all the things you could tattoo, why did you have to tattoo a line of text? I thought I’d seen a ghost.”

Something suddenly flashed through my brain.

“Auntie… have you seen someone else with a line of text on their back?”

“That’s right…” The auntie squatted down and spread out the yellow paper on the ground. “There was a young man before with a tattoo very similar to yours on his back. He jumped off this building last week. If you two didn’t look different, I really would have thought I’d seen a ghost.”

“What did you say?!”

“What? Would I come all the way here in the middle of the night to lie to you?” The auntie carefully spread out the yellow paper, then took out a lighter from her pocket. “Today is that young man’s seventh day after death. Even though I’m just a garbage sweeper, I still need to observe the proper customs.”

She lit the yellow paper, put her palms together, and murmured, “I’m just a sweeper, I don’t mean to disturb you. Please don’t take offense, please don’t take offense…”

The flickering firelight swayed in the early morning hours, reflecting my eyes that were like a pool of stagnant water.

“Auntie, stop burning it.” I turned around expressionlessly, showing her the tattoo on my back. “Look carefully. Are you sure his tattoo was very similar to mine?”

The auntie looked at me impatiently and said, “Similar, of course it’s similar. Just different characters. Yours says ‘Heaven and Earth originally’ something or other, his was ‘wind and flowers’ something. His had a few more characters than yours.”

Hearing this, my heart completely died.

“Ay, the police said that young man wasn’t even a resident of this building. Why would he insist on jumping from here? Made me…” After saying this, the auntie realized she had misspoken and slapped her mouth three times. “Bah bah bah! Said the wrong thing, don’t take offense, don’t take offense!”

I finally understood.

Jiu Zi had jumped from this building seven days ago.

So Master Rong had lied to me.

I turned my head to look toward the edge of the rooftop, as if I could see Jiu Zi’s shadow standing there.

He was bare-chested, with a line of flowing cursive calligraphy on his back as well—

“Wind, flowers, snow, and moon are originally leisurely, yet the disturbers make themselves busy.”

“But why did you jump off the building?” I asked.

Jiu Zi’s shadow smiled bitterly and said, “A’Jin, live on carrying my smile.”

I blinked, and the shadow disappeared.

I didn’t know if it was because I had drunk too much tonight, or if Jiu Zi had truly returned on his seventh day after death, but in that moment I felt as if I had really seen him.

His expression was extremely sorrowful.

I understood Jiu Zi. If he had been hacked to death by someone, he wouldn’t have shown such a sorrowful expression.

He would have arrogantly told me to help him get revenge.

But why was he so sorrowful?

Because he didn’t want to die at all.

I imitated Jiu Zi’s manner and put on that carefree smile of his, trying to think from his perspective.

“This time, lend me your brain.”

Before, with Master Rong and Jiu Zi around, I never needed to think for myself. But now things were different.

So then…

What was Master Tong’s purpose in hunting down Master Rong?

He wanted money.

So Master Tong couldn’t possibly kill him. Otherwise, with both the person and money gone, he would be the one with the greatest loss.

Moreover, the “hunt” had been delegated to Brother Chong, and Brother Chong wanted to recruit me for Master Tong.

Because even when he found out Master Rong’s location, he didn’t send people to kill Master Rong directly.

So this “hunt” didn’t actually exist at all.

The idea that Jiu Zi had been hacked to death was even more ridiculous.

I raised my head to look at the moon and asked, “Out of a sense of duty or other considerations, you wanted Master Rong to return the money to Master Tong, right?”

The sky was completely silent.

“Not only did Master Rong refuse to listen, he even thought you were betraying him, right?”

I asked the moon again. No one answered.

“You had no idea Master Rong wanted to kill you, so you came to the rooftop with him without any guard, right?”

That moon looked fluffy, hidden in the early morning mist.