The bloodstain was vivid — looked freshly set. Nan Chu first swept a quick glance over herself, then looked up and fixed Lin Luxiao with a stare. He had the expression of a man caught out, scratching at his brow.

Nan Chu reached to pull his arm toward her. He blocked it slightly, trying to talk his way past it: “In a minute—”

The little girl was insistent. Her face had drawn together into a knot, expression fierce. Lin Luxiao felt something drop in his chest. Over.

The moment his guard slipped, she turned him around by force and looked at his back — and there across the military-green undershirt was a spreading patch of deep crimson.

Suddenly she understood why, no matter how carried away things had become, he had refused to take the shirt off.

There were no words for how she felt in that moment.

She seemed to simply freeze — staring fixedly at that spot, expression blank. It frightened Lin Luxiao. He turned back quickly and pulled her into his arms, holding her, his voice quiet and coaxing: “There was a small accident during the bomb disposal. It just needs time to heal — the wound probably split a little. I’ll re-dress it when I get back. Don’t overthink it. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry.”

When Lin Luxiao had first come back, he’d already been thinking about this.

He’d had no contact with her during this time — if the girl got upset, how would he handle it? He had no experience whatsoever with coaxing someone.

Shen Mu had given him a suggestion: play the sympathy card.

One look at the wound on his back, and whatever temper she’d had would vanish — though he found the idea a bit beneath him, he thought it wouldn’t be the worst thing if the little girl felt some concern for him.

The wound, honestly, was nothing to him.

It was more that the little girl probably hadn’t been through much and the sight of blood had thrown her. Her eyes were full of distress — looking at him that way made him feel, inexplicably, settled inside.

Being cared for felt quite good, actually.

It wasn’t something he’d known much of growing up. Boys got bumps and scrapes — that was perfectly normal.

That single expression of hers had already pleased him thoroughly. He felt only a desire to hold her close and keep her there — so he tightened his arms around her, bent down to press his lips to hers, then rubbed her shoulder. “One small thing like this has got you rattled? That won’t do — you need a bit of the spirit of a military wife.”

Nan Chu’s eyes went wide as she reached to pinch him. He dodged; she was caught and turned around, her hand captured in his, her fine, pale fingers pulled apart and toyed with one by one.

All while he talked into her ear, filling it with guidance on how a military wife ought to conduct herself.

“Chief Meng — do you remember? Back when he was going to the front lines, the danger was something else entirely. Equipment wasn’t nearly as safe as ours is now. Sometimes conditions were bad enough that he’d go in with bare hands to pull people out. He came through all those years of it, with more injuries — large and small — than anyone could count. Don’t blame him for being as unyielding as he is; the environment genuinely shapes a person. The men of his generation are simply different from ours. They’ve eaten more hardship than we’ve tasted salt. He’s just like that — can’t let anything go, won’t tolerate the slightest thing out of place. Whether or not he likes you, that’s normal — he doesn’t like anyone. Except his wife. He cut off his own son cleanly enough when it came down to it, so what does a little disapproval matter? Really.”

“Is his wife a soldier?”

Nan Chu had settled into his arms, genuinely drawn in by what he was saying.

Lin Luxiao remained in the same position as before — one arm around her, one hand toying idly with her fingers. He spoke without much urgency: “She’s not. Auntie Meng is a doctor — senior attending physician at Hospital Three. You met her once, actually — she was the one who treated Lin Qi last time.”

Nan Chu thought back to that brief encounter in the outpatient department — a poised, elegant woman, warm and kind. It was difficult to picture her alongside Meng Guohong. Nan Chu had assumed that the wife of a man like Meng Guohong would be a steely, sharp-spirited female soldier.

“Once, Chief Meng was carried out of a fire ground — completely black, covered head to toe in ash, like something hauled out of a coal mine. His face was so caked you couldn’t make out his features. I was there with Lin Qi and his son — the three of us crouched at the door to the operating room crying. When Auntie Meng came, she gave each of us a solid slap across the face, and shouted at us — what’s all this crying for, you’re acting like you’re at a funeral.“

“…”

“The thing is, the state he’d arrived in was genuinely awful. Lin Qi and I had convinced ourselves that if someone was burned that badly, they weren’t going to make it. At one point the doctors even issued a critical notice — all three of us could barely stand up, tears just streaming down our faces. Then Auntie Meng took us home, packed her things, and went back to the hospital herself to stay with him. When unit leadership came to offer their condolences, she received them with a bow and a composed thank you for your concern — perfectly dignified, completely unshaken. There were some people in the neighborhood who loved to gossip — said all kinds of unkind things, said she was too young to already be a widow. She didn’t take any of it to heart. She’d smile briefly if she saw them and wouldn’t engage beyond that. And then — Chief Meng woke up half a month later. Recovered quickly. In all the time since, Auntie Meng has only cried once, and said she always felt that Chief Meng wouldn’t leave her behind. You see — that’s the will of a Chinese soldier. They don’t go down easily. As a fellow military wife, you should learn from Auntie Meng.”

The topic had grown weighty.

The future, for the two of them, was genuinely unknown — and having said all of this, Lin Luxiao fell into a quiet silence, as if something had settled into place. There were certain things, perhaps, that were worth thinking through properly.

This was not a passing thought.

A moment ago, when Nan Chu had leaned down and taken care of things for him — he’d never actually wanted her to do that. Something in him had always felt it wasn’t right to ask that of her. Call it old-fashioned, call it rigid — the truth was he couldn’t bear the thought of her doing that to please him.

Thinking of it now, he lowered his head slightly.

The girl was nestled in his arms — soft, pale, every joint delicate, not a single unnecessary curve anywhere, her body’s proportions exactly right, the texture of her skin extraordinary beneath his hands. Lin Luxiao bent his head and pressed a reverential kiss to her brow, then moved slowly down along her cheek — even her nose and chin received the same unhurried attention.

This kiss was devout. It held no desire. It was tenderness.

When it finally reached her lips and deepened, he found himself thinking — what on earth did this girl grow up eating, that every single inch of her should be this soft.

Night always carries a particular mystery that draws out the blood in a man, and the pride in a woman.

The particular quality of Lin Luxiao’s that quality was not simply spoken of — it was something inherent, something in his bearing that others simply couldn’t match.

Some minutes passed.

He released her, looked down at her kiss-swollen lips, and let out a wicked laugh, pinching her cheek with satisfaction: “The little girl has very sensitive lips.”

Insufferable.

Nan Chu gave him a hard pinch in the pectoral — solid muscle, her own fingers aching from the attempt. Lin Luxiao’s brow didn’t so much as twitch. He kept smiling.

Apparently provoked, Nan Chu released him. She appeared to think something over, then said, in an entirely serious tone: “As the boyfriend of a female actress, you also need to keep yourself in good shape.”

Lin Luxiao turned to glance at her sideways, and heard her say: “It’s actually quite tiring having someone who’s jealous all the time.”

Then she even sighed.

Lin Luxiao found that genuinely funny. His peach-blossom eyes curved, and he flipped her over and pressed her back against the seat, bending down to bite at her lips again.

His scent was very clean — pleasant and faint.

Nan Chu had sent him several bottles of cologne later on, matched closely to what he naturally smelled like. He never used them. Put them neatly away in a cabinet and said: what does a grown man want with perfume.

Nan Chu thought about it and figured he was right. She liked him for exactly that.

The entanglement of lips and teeth dragged Nan Chu’s thoughts completely apart. She made small, muffled sounds of protest — which sent a tremor through Lin Luxiao. He intensified the pressure, drawing on her, their tongues meeting, shifting, sighing low. He kissed his way to her ear, bit down, and laughed quietly against it: “Whoever’s jealous here is someone’s grandson!”

Nan Chu returned evenly: “Fine. Whoever’s jealous is someone’s grandson.”

……

When Shen Mu came back, Nan Chu was in the car touching up her makeup. Lin Luxiao was leaning against the door smoking.

The two of them made eye contact. Shen Mu pointed meaningfully toward the car interior, all knowing and suggestive.

Lin Luxiao had the cigarette in his mouth. He gave a short, unconcerned laugh and said nothing.

Shen Mu leaned in and pinched the hem of Lin Luxiao’s military undershirt, then pointed at two distinct red lipstick marks on it. “At least clean yourself up properly. Go back looking like that and the old man will think I took you out drinking and carousing.”

Lin Luxiao looked down at it, a brief glance, then brushed it off with one hand and kept smoking. “Still going on inside?”

“Just about.”

Then Shen Mu gave a small sigh. “Poor young man is heartbroken—”

Before he’d finished, Nan Chu had pushed the car door open and stepped out. “Who’s heartbroken?”

Lin Luxiao glanced at her, his tone flat: “None of your business.”

“…”

Nan Chu shut the car door with a sharp smack. “Fine by me!”

And with that, without giving Lin Luxiao a chance to say another word, she turned and walked away with her small clutch bag swinging.

Shen Mu watched her go, slightly transfixed, standing with his hands in his pockets. He offered his verdict: “That girl has some real fire in her.”

Lin Luxiao watched her affected departing figure for a moment before he said: “A menace when she puts her mind to it.”

The body, the voice, the whole effect — genuinely capable of leaving a man half-dead.

Shen Mu glanced at him. He let out a chuckle. “You get into a relationship and you’re an absolute disaster zone.”

……

Shen Mu drove Lin Luxiao back to the hospital.

Lin Luxiao got out of the car, pulled the black windbreaker around himself, and headed inside. The lights on Lin Qingyuan’s side were off — he must have gone to sleep. Lin Luxiao slowed his steps, tucked his hands into his pockets, and made his unhurried way toward his own room.

And then he saw a silhouette standing outside his hospital room door. He wouldn’t have noticed it at all if he hadn’t looked carefully — he’d had his hand on the doorknob before he caught sight of the figure to one side of it. He looked closer.

It was Xu Ya.

Xu Ya had come to see Lin Qingyuan. She’d stopped by Lin Luxiao’s room on the way — at least, that was how she framed it to herself. Only Lin Qingyuan had told her Lin Luxiao had gone out for a walk.

She’d thought, he’ll be back soon enough. So she’d stayed and kept Lin Qingyuan company for a while, and waited.

Three hours.

Not many people came up to this floor; the corridor lights weren’t bright. She had no idea where she’d found the nerve to simply sit there for three solid hours.

“What brought you here?”

Lin Luxiao’s voice was even, as always. He opened the door and went in.

Xu Ya was in civilian clothes. She was not unattractive — there was a clean, bold quality to her looks, but she was not quite the type men were drawn to.

“I heard you were injured on the job. Thought I’d come see how you’re doing.” Her tone was studied in its lightness.

Lin Luxiao turned on the light and sat down on the bed, his manner unhurried: “Appreciate it.”

Xu Ya pulled a stool over and sat across from him, undisturbed by his cool reception: “You’ve done well for yourself — even the city leadership is paying attention. They gave Special Operations Unit One a commendation for excellence. The certificate was just finished; they’ll have someone bring it over to you in a few days. You timed this injury rather well.”

He had his arms folded across his chest, still without much expression. “Hardly deserved. Haven’t done anything worth note for the country this year.”

Xu Ya: “If you say you haven’t done anything worth note, then the rest of us don’t even dare speak. Every disaster response, every emergency — your team is always first in. It’s well earned. Don’t be modest.”

Lin Luxiao gave the slightest twitch of the corner of his mouth and said no more.

Xu Ya lowered her head, hesitating: “I—”

In the middle of her sentence, Lin Luxiao, sitting at the edge of the bed with his arms folded, felt his pocket vibrate. He pulled out his phone, glanced at it, and cut her off: “I need to take this.”

Nan Chu was not the clinging sort — in private she could be as sweet and close as anything, and at other times she could show a real edge, but she wasn’t demanding of his time. Partly because she was busy with work, she rarely called him unprompted.

“Mm?”

Lin Luxiao moved out to the balcony off the hospital room, leaned against the railing, and took the call.

“Have you re-dressed the wound yet?”

Her voice was quiet, a little tired.

Lin Luxiao: “Not yet. The nurses have all gone to sleep.”

“Gone to sleep?! Nurses don’t sleep! Hospitals have shift rotations, don’t they?”

Lin Luxiao laughed quietly. “I just got back to the door. I’ll go in a bit.”

“Go now!”

“Mm. Get to bed early. I’m hanging up.”

Inside the hospital room, Xu Ya sat in the chair, watching his profile through the balcony door — the lines of his face unexpectedly soft in the light, his features clean and well-made.

There had been a high school reunion recently. Quite a few people had come. Lin Luxiao had been caught in the blast just then and had just been hospitalized; Da Liu passed on the message for him and he hadn’t shown up.

He wasn’t there, and Xu Ya had little heart for it. She’d barely finished a few drinks before she stood to leave, only to be pressed back down by some classmates who wanted to talk about the old days. People have a way, in moments of deep emptiness, of being pulled into some half-remembered fragment of the past by just one sentence.

Lin Luxiao had always had such a strong presence in high school that even at reunions where he didn’t appear, after a few rounds of drinks, the conversation would somehow circle back to him.

His good qualities, his bad ones — the mischief and the occasional kindness — all of it had been carved into her memory, and hers alone, or so she’d always thought. Now here was everyone else talking about it freely, and she realized: back then, everyone had pretended not to notice each other’s circumstances and grades — but in private they’d all kept careful track.

She also knew Lin Luxiao genuinely didn’t hold any of it. When she’d occasionally tested him by bringing up the name of some mutual classmate and where they were working now, he would look utterly blank, turning it over in his mind for a long time without being able to match a name to a face. Many of them he couldn’t even recall by name.

Scattered bits of conversation, half-heard.

Xu Ya had caught someone saying, without intending to: “Heard he’s in the fire station now. About to turn thirty, isn’t he? Just a fire station company commander.”

It was her old desk neighbor from back then — the one who’d done nothing but study through every break and lunch hour. Thirty now, balding early, apparently a doctoral researcher at the Academy of Sciences. His standing really had changed, and he’d made himself proof of what sheer effort could do, transformed his own fate — but the words he chose to express it were not pleasant to hear.

Their classmates split into two camps.

— Soldiers are admirable. Men with spirit. I’d want to marry a soldier someday.

— People with no prospects join the military. Why would anyone who’s good at studying want to be a soldier?

The balding former desk neighbor was particularly cutting: “That’s just what soldiers are like — good physical stamina, what else? The pay and benefits aren’t good. If he didn’t have family backing, could he afford a place in Beixun on his own? If you’re going to be a special forces soldier, at least if you die you get named a martyr. Firefighting? What’s the point of that?”

Never mind Xu Ya — Da Liu had been nearly incandescent with rage and had almost rolled up his sleeves right there. Shen Mu had held him back.

Da Liu went to the hospital that same night to vent to Lin Luxiao about it: “That Zhang Mian’jian — what an absolute waste of space. Made it into the Academy of Sciences and acts like he’s ascended to heaven. You should have seen the arrogance on him — if it hadn’t been for Shen Mu holding me back I would have knocked him flat right there. He needed someone to teach him a lesson. Not yet thirty and that bald patch makes the Mediterranean look lush!”

Lin Luxiao had looked up from his game with complete blankness: “Who’s Zhang Mian’jian?”

The guilelessness of the expression nearly made Da Liu want to cry and laugh at once. “The question king! The one who studied through every single period — we were out kicking a ball, he was studying. We were playing five-in-a-row in the grid, he was studying. We were watching the NBA, he was studying. Even when we went to the bathroom he was somehow still studying. He got first in class on every single exam — except the one time he didn’t, and he put his head down on his desk and cried like a baby for an entire afternoon. You know the one.”

“Who got first that time?” Lin Luxiao had gone back to his game.

Da Liu: “You! There was that one time you got hurt in a football match and Uncle Lin was so furious he locked you in the house for a whole semester. That one term you stayed in and didn’t go anywhere, didn’t do anything — and you tested ahead of him. Don’t tell me you’ve actually forgotten?”

“Honestly I had.” Lin Luxiao was completely unconcerned — that was just how he was. He’d drift along carelessly without a serious plan, and with exams he was the same — he had no ambition beyond the top three, because anything short of that would bring Lin Qingyuan down on him.

“That man treated you as his lifelong rival, and you don’t even remember he existed. Poor question king — his number one nemesis never once had him in mind.”

That was just the person he was.

And Xu Ya found that particular quality of his utterly captivating.

He had his serious side too. When things got urgent, his temper could be genuinely sharp.

Whoever she compared against him, it never came out in that person’s favor — more unruly than him but not as handsome; more handsome than him but lacking his quality of spirit.

What Xu Ya had come to say tonight was this:

Last time had been an impulse. She hoped he wouldn’t take it to heart, and that they could still be friends the same way they’d always been.

But seeing him on that balcony, she suddenly regretted having come at all.

……

Just before hanging up, Nan Chu paused and called out to Lin Luxiao: “Hey—”

“What?”

“Is the nurse pretty?”

Lin Luxiao understood at once. He settled comfortably against the railing, drawling his answer out long and lazy: “Very pretty—”

On the other end, Nan Chu said something he couldn’t quite make out. Lin Luxiao’s laugh deepened.

By the time he ended the call and came back inside the hospital room, the chair was empty. Xu Ya had already gone.

Lin Luxiao slipped his phone back into his trouser pocket and sat on the bed for a while. To be honest, he genuinely couldn’t remember many of his high school classmates — that balding doctoral student Da Liu had mentioned was a complete blank. He never even looked at his own ranking after exams. He remembered Xu Ya only because of Da Liu — Da Liu had been close with her and often brought her along; she’d even joined in when they played football. She had a determined, almost combative streak in her that felt more like one of the boys — they’d all joked around together and nobody really treated her as a girl.

But that was the thing — she was, in the end, a girl.

Before Nan Chu, he could have let Da Liu and Shen Mu make whatever jokes they liked without thinking twice about it. He wasn’t that petty by nature.

But with Nan Chu in the picture, certain things needed to account for her feelings. He couldn’t let his own carelessness cause her any hurt.

He was still thinking this through when his pocket started vibrating relentlessly, one message after another arriving in rapid succession. Could the little girl possibly already be missing him again?

He pulled out his phone and looked — a string of picture messages, all from the same number.

He unlocked it with some amusement and scrolled through — a series of photos of a beautiful woman fresh out of the shower, bare-faced, wrapped in nothing but a bathrobe. One could easily imagine there was nothing underneath.

“Sending me unsolicited photos like this — you’re lucky I haven’t reported you.”

A few more came through almost immediately. One of them was a back shot — she was in a translucent robe through which one could clearly make out the fine details: a light-blue lace brassiere and small shorts beneath. She was very slender; her back was mostly bone, but the proportions were beautiful — smooth lines, a deep groove down the spine, a visible curve at the small of the back, a high and defined rear, a pair of long, even, straight legs. An altogether alluring figure.

Lin Luxiao made a small sound and typed back: Anyone else at home?

The reply came: Mm. One girl.

Good thing it’s a girl.

Nan Chu didn’t respond to that. She sent instead: Look carefully. This is what a pretty person looks like.

Well, well. Still holding a grudge.

Lin Luxiao replied in the tone of someone managing important affairs: Keep those photos safe. Don’t let your phone get lost one day and have all this plastered across the city. That would be something.

Jinx.

Go to sleep.

Mm.

……

Shortly after Lin Luxiao was discharged from hospital, he reported back to the unit. Word came from Meng Guohong’s side: prepare yourself — the second round of interviews for the reassignment was set for the end of the month.

As soon as the notification came through, Yang Zhenggang got ahead of himself and offered his congratulations: “Getting into the main brigade ought to put some sense into you.”

Lin Luxiao paid it no mind. He walked to the office door, where Shao Yijiu was standing to rigid attention, head down, not daring to look at him.

Yang Zhenggang said: “Young Shao’s been blaming himself these past weeks.”

Lin Luxiao glanced at him, called him in, and told Yang Zhenggang to close the door on his way out. Yang Zhenggang looked at Shao Yijiu, then left.

Lin Luxiao set his cap down on the desk and ran a hand through his hair.

Shao Yijiu had been called in by leadership for questioning what felt like hundreds of times, but none of those times had made him as nervous as this one. He had a death grip on the hem of his uniform.

Lin Luxiao glanced at where his hands were. “All right. You can go. I have nothing to say.”

Shao Yijiu stared.

Lin Luxiao was giving up on him? Any time he’d done something wrong before, the commander had torn into him thoroughly. This calm was completely unfamiliar.

Lin Luxiao gave a small smile. “Not leaving? Waiting to be told off?”

Shao Yijiu said, distressed: “If you don’t shout at me, I’m going to feel strange about it.”

Lin Luxiao waved a hand. “If you think you’re not getting enough, we can deal with it later. I just got out of hospital — I don’t have the energy for it right now.”

“…You’re still not healed, sir?”

“Obviously. Try splitting open your back and see how it feels.”

That evening, Da Liu made arrangements to have dinner with Lin Luxiao at the Yaju restaurant — a small celebration for his return.

Yaju had a refined atmosphere — classical Chinese decor, a sandalwood incense burner in the center of the main hall, wisps of smoke rising and coiling, genuinely tranquil.

He’d only just parked the car when, right there at the entrance, he ran directly into Nan Chu leaving with her production crew.

The little girl was anything but well-behaved — as the whole group passed him, she used the crowd as cover and scratched lightly across his palm.

Lin Luxiao caught her hand before she could pull back.

So much for her stealth. The main group was already moving away.

The man beside her still hadn’t let go. Nan Chu panicked quietly: “Everyone’s waiting for me—”

Lin Luxiao raised a brow, his eyes glinting with mischief, while his expression stayed deliberately flat — and he held on.

Then, from somewhere behind them, a voice rang out clearly: “Lin Luxiao.”

Both of them turned.

It was Xu Ya.

Lin Luxiao distinctly heard what Nan Chu said against his ear as she pulled away:

You’re finished.