The elegant, stately woman standing in the doorway was, indeed, Nan Yueru.

As the door swung open, the light came in behind her, wrapping her tall silhouette in a soft halo. In Nan Chu’s memory, her mother was always like this — in a fine coat, with meticulous makeup, a composed and cool expression. More than a decade, and her bearing hadn’t dimmed.

She was still young.

Nan Chu had almost forgotten: Nan Yueru was forty-seven now.

And yet not a single line could be found at the corners of her eyes. Standing there so perfectly still, she looked more like a woman of thirty.

How long had it been since they’d seen each other. Last year, or the year before.

Nan Chu lowered her eyes. Even her eyelashes trembled slightly with the instinct to shrink. She said in a low, gentle voice: “Mom—”

What followed immediately was the click of high heels.

She had barely lifted her head to look when a rush of air swept past her ear — and then, with a sharp crack, she was knocked sideways.

The slap came without warning. Nan Chu remained turned to the side for a long moment, half stunned — perhaps she’d been hit so hard she couldn’t think clearly.

Was she still half-asleep?

Maybe this was a dream?

But the burning, stinging heat on her face reminded her very plainly that it was not.

Even Yan Dai hadn’t processed what had happened yet. By the time she did, Nan Yueru’s hand was already drawing back to deliver a second blow. Yan Dai threw herself across the gap — sling and all — and caught the arm. “Auntie! Are you out of your mind?”

The sunlight outside was golden. It lay thin and warm across the floor, across the rumpled bedcover.

She suddenly remembered being very, very small — she loved sweets, and behind Nan Yueru’s back she had eaten candy in secret. She’d had a toothache for two weeks afterward.

Back then, Nan Yueru had also hit her hard for it, until her bottom was swollen. She had been too young to understand, had wailed and cried and howled in her childish way, “Mama you don’t love me.”

Later she came to understand: it had been love that made her do it.

But what about now?

Why was she being hit now?

Nan Yueru didn’t glance at Yan Dai. She pulled her hand back and looked straight down at Nan Chu, her voice cold and remote. “Come back to America with me.”

Come back?

Why the word back?

Nan Chu lowered her head slowly, turning the question over. Did America have anything for her that could be called home?

After all these years, the distance between her and Nan Yueru felt like an invisible barrier — even standing this close, there always seemed to be a transparent membrane between them, something that couldn’t be touched through. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say: from the moment she was born, Nan Yueru had wrapped her in a layer of cellophane and sealed her off.

She pushed Yan Dai gently aside, then looked directly into Nan Yueru’s eyes.

Crescent moons, tilted upward.

People had said it her whole life — that she looked exactly like Nan Yueru, especially the eyes. That same light, upward tilt at the outer corners, like the split tail of a swallow — gentle and arresting at once.

“I’m not going.”

She refused, calmly and without hesitation.

When she was small, every time Nan Yueru left for abroad, she had secretly wished to be taken along.

Now, year after year had passed, and Nan Yueru was finally saying it — and somehow, waiting this long only to finally taste this particular sweetness had made it feel like a piece of candy past its expiration: the flavor wasn’t what she’d once imagined.

Nan Yueru suddenly turned to look at Yan Dai. “Would you mind stepping outside? My daughter and I need to speak privately.”

Yan Dai was reluctant. She was afraid that the moment she left, Nan Yueru would raise her hand again — and she had no desire to add abandoning a wounded comrade to her list of sins.

Nan Chu said mildly, “Go ahead and step out.”

Yan Dai finally yielded, but turned first to Nan Yueru with a warning: “Please don’t get physical, ma’am — she just woke up, she’s still weak.” Then she looked at Nan Chu. “I’ll be right at the door. Call me if you need anything.”

Nan Chu felt a small warmth move through her. She nodded.

She found herself thinking — not so long ago, she and this woman had been literally wrestling in the dirt. And now she understood, just a little, what Lin Luxiao and his band of brothers meant to each other. Soldiers were different, somehow. There was no explaining it.

Nan Yueru pulled a chair over and sat down with perfect, effortless poise. Even the way she sat was flawless.

“If you won’t go back, then end things with that man.”

“I’m not going back. And I’m not ending things.”

Nan Yueru: “Do you think there’s nothing I can do with you?”

As she spoke, her red handbag landed on the bed. Nan Yueru fished out an envelope and flung it onto Nan Chu’s lap.

Nan Chu wasn’t fast enough to react.

A thick stack of photographs spilled out in every direction across the bed. Nan Chu picked up a few and flipped through quickly — photos of her and Lin Luxiao coming and going from the apartment building, and several candid shots of them in intimate moments.

“You’re how old? Living with someone? Even if you have no shame, I do! Either break up with him and come back to America with me, or I’ll have you enrolled in a school there. Go and actually finish your education!”

Nan Yueru’s voice had risen to something close to a shout.

In Nan Chu’s memory, her mother almost never lost her temper — she was always cool and detached. Those eyes seemed to exist in her face purely for decoration, expressing nothing toward Nan Chu but distance and indifference.

And yet when she performed, those same eyes could hold the depth of entire worlds.

The photographs didn’t provoke anger in Nan Chu. Even without them, she had already decided she would tell her. “Mom, I want to marry him.”

She said it almost without emotion, perfectly calm.

The sunlight in the hospital room was warm, in that soft, luxurious way that only a winter afternoon achieves — and yet the air pressure inside had dropped to somewhere explosive.

In Nan Yueru’s eyes, the Nan Chu sitting there now resembled the cloth doll she used to hold and squeeze in the palm of her hand as a child. The girl had turned entirely cold. She drew two deep, steadying breaths, gathered her thoughts, and softened her tone deliberately — she knew Nan Chu’s temperament, had known it since childhood. When she truly wanted something, she would go to the ends of the earth for it. But if she held off and let time pass, the wanting would exhaust itself and fade away.

So she gentled her voice. “Nan Chu, the two of you aren’t compatible. Come back to America with me, make some new friends. You’ll find that there are far better men out there than him.”

Nan Chu said, flatly, “Mom. I only want him.”

Nan Yueru finally lost the last of her restraint. The words came before she could stop them. “Do you even deserve him?!”

Nan Chu stared at her.

Nan Yueru, her voice sharp: “If you really love soldiers that much, at least marry into a respectable branch. What on earth is a firefighter good for? The benefits are nothing, and you can never even reach him! What about when you have children? You raise them yourself? Can you manage that alone? You go over there and marry in with nothing — that man has no mother, just an old father. You’ll be expected to cook and clean and raise his children, and will anyone be grateful? No — they’ll talk behind your back and say you threw yourself at him! And then what about your career? You think you’ll still be able to act? Do you think military wives are actually respected? Every relative and family friend gathering where they watch your dramas — any vaguely intimate scene, and they’ll be covering their mouths laughing behind your back. To your face, they’ll say nothing — but at home, you’ll pay for it. You ignore it once, twice — you endure it. But how long before it wears a man down? No matter how modern they claim to be, the old-fashioned streak is always there. In the end, all they’ll feel is disgust toward you. And then what — divorce? Leave the industry entirely? Oh, perfect — give them more to talk about. Say you can’t support yourself, that you’re dependent on him. On that salary of his, can he even keep you? One of your handbags is worth more than a year of his pay. And if things get that bad and you go looking for work — good luck! You’ve been waited on hand and foot your whole life. You, a pampered young woman, going out there and enduring other people’s moods and orders? I’d like to see how long that lasts!”

Every word from Nan Yueru landed like a blade.

Nan Chu opened her mouth — started to say something — then stopped.

Nan Yueru caught her breath and held up her phone. “Look at this yourself!”

Nan Chu reached out mechanically and picked it up.

Her gaze scrolled downward.

Bold red headlines, one after another:

Nan Chu Reportedly Romantically Involved with Firefighter.

Overnight, every celebrity gossip account seemed to have been bought out at once. The commentary was not directed at her — it was directed at Lin Luxiao. All of it mockery, all of it vicious.

Nan Chu’s temple throbbed. Her pulse beat hard behind her eyes.

The string that had been pulled taut inside her, deep and quiet for so long, finally snapped — and the release that came with it brought a wave of cold sweat down her back.

She didn’t dare open the comments.

Nan Yueru said coldly: “Go ahead. The comments are very colorful.”

She inhaled through her nose, pressed her lips together, and softly tapped.

Tens of thousands of comments poured in.

“A firefighter and a celebrity? Are you serious?”

“That firefighter must be incredible in bed — he’s that good-looking.”

“You can tell how bad Nan Chu’s reputation must be — she didn’t dare find anyone from inside the industry, she had to go outside.”

“I’ve seen this guy shared around before — holy hell, why is he with that woman?”

“Firefighter’s springtime.”

“Didn’t they get together while filming some web variety show? Tsk tsk. Men really can’t resist temptation. Disgrace to the military.”

“Leave it to the worst branch of service to find the worst kind of woman.”

“Isn’t this the one who got caught up in the drug thing a while back?”

“You can’t just say that without evidence.”

“Nan Chu didn’t take drugs, don’t spread rumors.”

“For everyone defending her — make her submit a urine test and show a lab report. A friend of mine says she was taken away that night too.”

……

She remembered things he had said to her before.

“Don’t lose faith in the world. What you see is just a fraction of it — maybe not even a ten-thousandth. In so many places you’ll never see, most people carry good intentions.”

“This is the resolve of Chinese soldiers. We don’t fall easily.”

“As long as there is breath, walk the path of integrity.”

“The national flag is his faith.”

Was she losing faith?

Lin Luxiao — if you could see these things, would you still be losing faith?

Nan Chu couldn’t stop herself. She reached up and wiped at the corner of her eye. It came away damp. She blinked, startled — she had almost never cried in her life. No matter how hard things got, she would clench her jaw and it would pass. This seemed to be the first time. She wiped again, and it only came faster — tears rushing out like a broken dam, steady and unstoppable.

She thought of a line she had once read in a book.

If the Chinese people are renowned for their patience, they are equally renowned for their indifference.

The media and its gossip had buried his profession — and in doing so, had dragged him out onto the public stage, remaking him in the image of someone who had abused his position to pursue a woman of status.

She had been too sheltered before. She had shut herself inside and refused to hear the outside world.

If from the beginning she had been like Yan Dai — fighting to survive in this industry, fighting to climb to where power lived — would today have looked any different?

Every unconventional path she had taken traced back to the same source: she had never been clear-eyed about the nature of things from the start.

She understood now, with sudden clarity. She pulled back the covers, swung her legs over the side, and reached for her slippers. Nan Yueru caught her arm. “What are you doing?”

Nan Chu put on her slippers. Her voice was steady. “I’m going to find him.”

Nan Yueru switched tactics and tried a softer, coaxing tone. “Nan Chu, love alone isn’t enough to carry a life. Listen to me — in a lifetime, a person can love many people. Your life is barely half over. Right now you feel like you love him most — but that’s only because you haven’t met better yet.”

Nan Chu went still. She stood there, blank and unmoving, and said in a hollow voice: “Is that why you kept looking for someone better — and why Dad never married you?”

Crack.

The slap came so fast even Nan Yueru herself didn’t quite register it before it had landed.

Nan Chu’s skin was fair and thin — two strikes in one day, and her face had risen into visible welts, her lip splitting at the corner. She extended the tip of her tongue and touched it — all she tasted was iron.

Nan Yueru had lost all control. “Who told you to bring him up?!”

Nan Chu looked at her evenly. “Mom, if you could see souls, I would want you to see mine.”

To see how faithful it is.

That conversation ended without resolution.

Nan Yueru’s habit of force was something Nan Chu had grown up knowing. She had Nan Chu moved to a single-occupancy room directly, with two large-framed security guards stationed at the door around the clock.

Her phone was confiscated.

She was under lock and key.

On Nan Chu’s third attempt to climb out through the window, both guards physically lifted her off the windowsill and carried her back inside. One on each side, one arm each — and from that point forward, the supervision moved from the doorway to the bedside.

Two stocky men in dark suits and sunglasses, planted on either side of her headboard like a pair of wooden pillars.

When Shen Guanzong came to visit, he was also turned away at the door — and left standing there in the corridor with his hands on his hips, swearing at full volume. “Has your mother gone completely insane?!”

Nan Chu smiled bitterly.

She always had.

The online gossip escalated. A firefighter and a celebrity — this had apparently become the most entertaining topic of the season.

The old story of Nan Chu having been involved in the breakup between Ran Dongyang and Yan Dai resurfaced, but that same night Yan Dai posted a public clarification on Weibo — their split had had nothing to do with Nan Chu. It had been because Ran Dongyang was a genuinely terrible person. Ran Dongyang then hit back, and a new round of very public hostility broke open between them.

A few days later, another piece of information leaked: Lin Luxiao’s background as a second-generation military family was dug up, and alongside it, Lin Qi’s drug arrest, and the old story of Lin Qingyuan marrying above his station when he was young — it was all worked into the coverage with pointed, insinuating phrasing. Someone even tracked down Lin Qingyuan’s office to confront him directly and verify the relationship between Lin Luxiao and Nan Chu.

Lin Qingyuan collapsed into the hospital that same day from the stress.

On Jiang Ge’s end, he was frantically trying to buy public relations cleanup and paid commentary accounts to quiet the wave of coverage — when a call came back: “Second Young Master Jiang, the old master says F&D is not yet yours to command. He strongly advises you to stay out of this particular stream.”

Jiang Ge was already at his wit’s end. Then Old Master Jiang came in with his cane and issued a direct and serious warning. “Don’t get involved in this mess. I’ve already tolerated every bit of nonsense you stirred up for her before — someone is clearly coming for her right now, deliberately. And if you dare to interfere — I will break your legs.”

For the first time in his life, Jiang Ge felt genuinely helpless. He went back to beg his grandfather again. The old man came out and hit him with his cane.

“A man’s knees hold the weight of gold! Who are you kneeling to so easily?!”

Jiang Ge pressed his mouth flat. “You’re my grandfather. What’s wrong with kneeling to you? Grandfather, please — help her.”

The old man gave a cold scoff. “What does she need your help for? Her mother is no wilting flower. Mind your own business. Get out of here!”

……

The fourth day of her confinement.

Xu Zhiyi came to visit, wearing a mask.

Nan Chu felt herself pulled back to the age of sixteen — her whole person sealed off, blank with coldness, wearing a hospital gown that was several sizes too large, leaning against the headboard. “Have you seen Da Liu?”

Xu Zhiyi replied quietly, “I have.”

Nan Chu instinctively asked, “Have you seen Lin Luxiao?”

Xu Zhiyi shook her head. “No.”

“Oh.”

And then silence.

Xu Zhiyi picked up a pear from the side table. “Nan Chu-jie, should I peel one for you?”

Nan Chu shook her head. “Don’t bother. You eat it.”

Xu Zhiyi ignored her and began peeling anyway. As she peeled, she said: “I heard from Da Liu — Luxiao-ge’s transfer political review didn’t clear. In a few days, he’ll probably be sent out to a mountain area to provide support. Gone for a year.”

The hospital room was quiet. Only the soft, rhythmic sound of the paring knife on fruit skin.

Nan Chu looked at her steadily. Those eyes were clearer than still water. “Da Liu-ge is a good person.”

Xu Zhiyi’s hand stilled. A long pause, and then she slowly began peeling again, nodded once, and said in a low voice: “I know.”

……

After Xu Zhiyi left, Nan Chu called Nan Yueru.

“Mom. I’ll go back to America with you.”

Some things are like water spread across the palm of a hand — it doesn’t matter whether you clench your fist or open it flat. It slips through the spaces between your fingers all the same. No matter how much it does not want to go.