When he counted it up, it had been a very long time since he’d been back to Heng Street.

The days when a group of boys chased each other about, pushing and shoving, in the third alley — those had truly been the most carefree and the happiest of all.

When Lin Luxiao was first born, his father had been only a deputy section chief at the fire safety office, and the family’s finances were a modest, comfortable enough. But after Lin Qi was born, his mother had just lost her job in the wave of layoffs, and the household finances contracted considerably. In his memory, life during that time was tight, but it was at least genuinely happy. Later, his father was transferred to a better post, life improved day by day, but with more things to worry about, he was somehow less happy than before.

During the final push before the university entrance exam, there was a time when a group of them stood at the base of a wall, huddled around a cigarette, chatting.

Big Liu had wanted to follow Lin Luxiao to military school. But his scores weren’t good enough. Lin Luxiao suggested he listen to his family and study business, then later sit the civil service exam. Big Liu wouldn’t hear of it. Back then, two-hundred-plus kilograms of thick-set, broad-shouldered, heavy-waisted chubby man rolled up his sleeves and declared: “I just want to be with you!”

Even now, thinking back to the way Big Liu had looked at that moment, Lin Luxiao felt a shudder go through him.

Sun Mingyang and Shen Mu had mocked Big Liu at the time, saying he’d definitely swung the other way.

But Big Liu said: “Li Xiazi said it — I’m someone who can’t recognise people, so a whole life of hardship for me. Others I can’t speak for, but following Luxiao is a sure bet.”

“So the two of us are just ornaments, are we?”

When Sun Mingyang and Shen Mu heard that, they’d been ready to cut ties with Big Liu on the spot.

The fortune-teller in the alley had the surname Li. His name nobody had ever learned. Over time, having grown familiar with the neighbourhood folk, everyone just called him directly Li Xiazi — Blind Li — and he didn’t seem to mind one bit.

Li Xiazi had at the time given each of the four of them one sentence.

Sun Mingyang’s was:

— A man of true spirit does not shed his tears lightly; a man of hot blood has no home to return to.

To Shen Mu, Li Xiazi gave a line from a Buddhist scripture:

— Only when all living beings have been ferried across shall one attain enlightenment.

When Li Xiazi turned to Lin Luxiao, Lin Luxiao waved him off directly. “No need to give me one. I don’t believe in these things.”

Li Xiazi had only shaken his head and smiled at the time — and indeed said nothing.

When the exam was over and he was leaving to attend military school, the two of them met again at the alley entrance. Li Xiazi, unusually, took the initiative and called out to him.

Lin Luxiao was genuinely surprised — he hadn’t expected the old man to recognise him. He waved his hand in front of Li Xiazi’s face. Li Xiazi knocked his hand aside and said: “Don’t wave. If I didn’t have that much ability, this stall of mine would have been overturned long ago.”

Lin Luxiao at the time was wearing all black — simple, clean, and sharp — with a black mountaineering pack on his back. He found the whole thing rather amusing, and in a rare moment of easy good humour, he leaned against the alley wall and started talking with the man.

“How did you recognise me?”

“If I told you, what would I have left?”

Lin Luxiao lowered his head and smiled.

But Li Xiazi did eventually say.

“The wind. Footsteps. Breath. You’re a bit different from those three boys. Your breathing is steadier. Your footfall is heavier. Big Liu is always panting loudly, and his smell is strong.”

These were things that could only be understood by feel, not conveyed in words.

Lin Luxiao nodded and said nothing.

Li Xiazi said: “Big Liu came to see me when he left. He asked what that sentence of his meant.”

Lin Luxiao crossed his arms, the mountaineering pack resting against the wall, one foot bent up against the wall, the corner of his mouth curving slightly. “He’s a timid one — your words gave him quite a fright.”

“You truly don’t want to hear yours?”

Lin Luxiao looked at him: “Go ahead.”

Li Xiazi would not say more than two sentences no matter what — those same two lines, back and forth.

“You, child, have an unyielding spirit, a man of fire in your blood, your bones unbreakable. You will certainly be a hero.”

“It is only that since ancient times, heroes have always struggled to pass the beauty.”

Lin Luxiao: “That’s all?”

“Remember what I’ve said and it will not lead you wrong!”

Lin Luxiao stood straight, shedding the easy ease of moments before. His smile was gone now, and his voice was low: “Since you can read things so accurately — did you ever read why my parents divorced?”

Li Xiazi said no more.

That was likely their last meeting. When Lin Luxiao went back again, he heard that Li Xiazi had gone — no one knew where.

……

The clock hands pointed to a little past eleven.

Big Liu swept a glance at Lin Luxiao on the sofa, then exchanged a meaningful look with Sun Mingyang and Shen Mu, and asked Lin Luxiao hesitantly: “Should we — shall we call it a night here?”

Lin Luxiao had a cigarette between his lips and gave a slight nod.

Big Liu pulled up the other two to stand, said his goodbyes to Nan Chu with a grin on his face: “Little sister-in-law! It was so great meeting you today. Come hang out whenever you like — or how about we exchange numbers?”

He was already fishing out his phone.

Lin Luxiao smacked it out of his hand. “Get out.”

Big Liu gave an awkward laugh. “Right, right, leaving, leaving.”

The three men left. The flat was a scene of chaos — bottles and cans toppled every which way, cigarette butts scattered across the floor.

Lin Luxiao came back after seeing Big Liu and the others off, arms crossed, leaning against the wall by the entryway. “Sending you home?”

Nan Chu, without batting an eye, offered a considerate suggestion: “How about I sleep here? You wouldn’t need to send me anywhere — I’ll get up and leave on my own tomorrow morning.”

It was deep in the night. The living room lights were off. Only a small wall lamp in the entryway was still lit — warm, amber-toned, the light soft and cosy. Lin Luxiao was leaning against the wall, looking as though a gilded edge had been cast over him. Nan Chu would often think back to his reaction that night.

Lin Luxiao had at that moment run the tip of his tongue along the corner of his mouth, and gave a low laugh.

Nan Chu thought he really was handsome, in a way different from ordinary handsomeness — something like a man’s essence.

“Let’s go.”

After a moment of laughing, he said.

Lin Luxiao took his car key and went to get the car, then turned and tossed her a black outer jacket — very clean, as if just taken from the wardrobe. Nan Chu looked it over carefully and judged it to be his spring jacket.

“Put this on first.”

Nan Chu put it on and looked down at herself — a low-cut, figure-hugging long dress paired with a wide, loose men’s black casual jacket, reaching just past the tops of her thighs. It somehow produced a strangely inexplicable sense of being protected and kept safe. She found herself amused by her own reflection.

“Does it look good?” she asked Lin Luxiao.

Lin Luxiao opened the car door, glanced back at her briefly, then quickly looked away. He climbed in: “Is looking good the purpose of wearing clothes?”

Nan Chu went around the front of the car, pulled open the passenger door, and climbed in. “If it doesn’t look good, I’d rather not wear anything.”

“……”

“I look better with nothing on.”

“……”

He couldn’t be bothered to engage with her further. “Where do you live?”

“Xinghui.”

Lin Luxiao was the quiet type when driving — he didn’t say much, just like before. Waiting at traffic lights, he would habitually rest one hand on the steering wheel and let the other hang at the car window, looking out at the night scene.

The car soon stopped at the bottom of her building.

Nan Chu returned the jacket before getting out. Lin Luxiao took it and tossed it onto the back seat, then leaned back in the seat and waited for her to get out.

Nan Chu stood outside the car, leaning through the window toward him: “One week from now — let’s go for dinner together. I’ll come find you, or you can call me.”

She bent forward slightly, and there was a view to be had — not entirely on display, just that faint almost-there quality of it, thoroughly arresting.

Lin Luxiao leaned in his seat, one hand resting on the window ledge, sizing her up at his leisure. When he wasn’t speaking, the slight tension in his brow made him look very serious — his thoughts impossible to guess. After a long moment, he reached into the centre console for a cigarette, lit it, tossed the lighter back into the box, and asked flatly: “What do you want from me?”

But this was precisely that quality of his that left Nan Chu helpless.

The night was deep, the trees still. The girl’s eyes were bright and shining, brighter than moonlight. She turned the question back on him: “What do you think you have that I could possibly take?”

Lin Luxiao gave a cold laugh. He took a half-drag of the cigarette and exhaled it, then stretched his arm out the window, narrowing his eyes, flicking off the ash. His tone was sardonic: “True enough — you lack for nothing. Didn’t you walk away that year tossing that stack of money with great flair too?”

“Did you spend that money?”

“Spent it all long ago.”

“Spent it on what?”

Truth be told, when Nan Chu had given him that money at the time, he had felt quite unsettled about it. And that girl’s silent, unassuming manner irritated him every time he thought of it. He had originally thought to throw the money away — but as a soldier, how could he possibly throw away a portrait of Chairman Mao? He’d taken two steps, thought better of it, turned back and picked it up again, and the next day contacted Big Liu who helped him connect with a welfare home and donated it.

It simply could not be kept.

“What’s it to you?” Lin Luxiao tossed the words out, plain and direct: “And don’t bother coming to find me either. What happened back then — I would have done it for anyone. I was living at the barracks anyway, and the flat was sitting empty. Renting it out would have brought in extra income.”

Nan Chu looked at him quietly, her gaze flowing with meaning. “You came back three times in between, though.”

Lin Luxiao started the car. “I hadn’t adjusted yet. For a moment I forgot someone was in the flat.”

“You forgot the first time. And the second? And the third?”

“……Tch, you can’t honestly think I had some kind of feelings for you as a little girl, can you?”

Nan Chu shrugged. An expression of: how would I know what was going on in your head.

“……” There was no way to continue this conversation.

After a silence, Lin Luxiao decided not to keep tangling with her, and urged her upstairs.

“It’s this late already. Go on up.”

“One week from now — dinner together?” Nan Chu still hadn’t forgotten about that.

Lin Luxiao looked at her for a long moment, and discovered this girl was truly tenaciously persistent. He improvised: “I might not have leave. We’ll see when it comes.”

Nan Chu put on a face that said she was not going up until he agreed.

Lin Luxiao frowned, impatience breaking through. “Fine, fine, fine.”

“Give me your phone.” Nan Chu held out her hand.

“Are you done?”

“What if you run off again like last time — where would I go looking for you?”

Lin Luxiao glanced at her, fished his phone from his trouser pocket and handed it over. Nan Chu took it firmly, called her own phone with it, confirmed it connected, then returned it to him. Satisfied, she smiled at him, giving a little wave, and said softly: “Commander Lin, good night!”

Lin Luxiao sat back in his seat, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding the cigarette, hanging out the window. Half the cigarette had already burned down, un-smoked. The tip glowed and drifted with wisps of pale blue smoke. A gust of night wind broke the half-column of ash, sending it torn into fragments that scattered into the dust.

He watched Nan Chu’s retreating figure.

He ran the tip of his tongue along the corner of his mouth and gave a low, quiet laugh.