Including the rotation leave he already had saved up, Lin Luxiao took seven days of marriage leave in total.

Before he boarded the vehicle, Zhao Guo and a few of his brothers clamored to see him off — Lin Luxiao waved them back. “It’s not like I’m never coming back.”

Zhao Guo grumbled: “What if your wife lures your soul away and you can’t bring yourself to return? What happens to all these young recruits of ours just waiting to be trained up?”

“I said end of year is end of year. No transfer order — can I just walk off on my own? Go on, back to training.”

Only then were they reassured.

From the moment Lin Luxiao got in the vehicle, he kept calling Nan Chu’s phone — not a single call went through.

His expression flat, he turned to look out the window. The scenery was beautiful — rolling greenery in every direction — but he had no heart for it. Trees fell away behind the car window one after another, and his thoughts had already flown several thousand miles ahead.

Homecoming urgency — he finally understood what that felt like.

He had nothing to do, so he scrolled through his WeChat chat history with Nan Chu.

“When are you coming back…”

“My rent ran out — I’ve moved into your place! Where do you keep your bedsheets?”

He had replied a week later: “Top shelf of the wardrobe. Did you find them?”

She replied the next day: “Couldn’t find them. I bought new ones — black.”

“…When I’m back, I’ll show you where everything is.”

“Okay. Yesterday I ran into my childhood idol.”

“Oh?”

“I adored him when I was little. Listened to his music all by myself. He’s aged really well. Sigh… Captain, did you have an idol when you were young?”

When he was young?

Premier Zhou Enlai? Chairman Mao Zedong?

“Probably Chairman Mao.”

The other side: “…”

He explained: “When I was little, my grandfather kept telling me and Lin Qi about these two men — the ten-mile farewell to the Premier, the portrait of Chairman Mao on every banknote — I got curious and found biographies of them both.”

And in the end he had genuinely come to admire them.

Mao Zedong’s poetry especially — vast and sweeping, encompassing mountains and rivers.

He was strong with numbers, quick with formulas, could derive equations without even needing to look them up — but memorizing poetry gave him the most trouble. Classical love poems especially: he’d sit in the morning classroom staring at the page for an entire period, close the book, and his mind would go completely blank.

Not at all like Da Liu, whose grades were average at best but who could recite love poetry without missing a word.

The only poems he could actually recite were Mao Zedong’s verses.

Her reply had come quickly that day: “You really have ambitions, Captain…”

He curved the corner of his mouth.

Altogether just a handful of messages, and yet he had read through them several times — each time they felt fresh.

Seventeen-odd hours on the train. The moment he stepped off, the wind that greeted him told him he was home — though spring had nearly arrived, that wind still had a blunt, aching edge to it.

Lin Luxiao hadn’t brought much — just a black shoulder bag on one side, carrying a few changes of clothes.

He hadn’t told anyone he was coming, but last night on the train he’d gotten a call from Shen Mu, who had heard he’d be back today and was already waiting at the entrance. A black off-road vehicle was parked out front, two loud horn-blasts aimed in his direction.

Lin Luxiao went over, threw his bag in the back seat, and settled into the passenger side, shaking off the cold air from outside.

Shen Mu was wearing glasses today — frameless ones — and a shirt with the cuffs rolled up past the elbow, his arm resting on the window frame as he looked him over. “How many days’ marriage leave did you take?”

After the long journey, Lin Luxiao was visibly tired. He settled back against the seat and put his hand over his eyes. “Seven days.”

Shen Mu nodded, started the car, and needled him: “Nice terms. I just called Da Liu — he already knows you’re coming back and has a place picked out. Come for a few drinks?”

Lin Luxiao shook his head. “Maybe later. I want to go home and check on Nan Chu first.”

Shen Mu: “What’s wrong with Nan Chu?”

Lin Luxiao took his hand from his eyes and sat up, glanced out the window, and let out a breath. “Not sure. Can’t reach her — she’s not picking up, not replying. Drive.”

Shen Mu didn’t say another word and stepped on the gas.

Midway, Shen Mu took a call. His tone cooled considerably. Lin Luxiao looked over at him.

Shen Mu had his Bluetooth earpiece in, eyes on the road, speaking to whoever was on the line in an emotionless, mechanical manner.

“I’m driving.”

“No time today. Tomorrow — not certain.”

He gave a cold, sudden laugh.

“Fine. Do what you like.”

Then he pulled the earpiece out, slightly irritated, and tossed it in the storage compartment.

From as far back as either of them could remember, Shen Mu had always been the one with the least temper — and the most. He was slow to anger, and when he finally was, he showed nothing — which, in its own way, was unsettling.

Lin Luxiao glanced at him for a moment, then turned away and looked back out the window.

When they got back to the apartment, Lin Luxiao took his things upstairs; Shen Mu parked and followed.

He opened the door and went in. The apartment had been swept clean and bare — no trace that anyone had lived there. Even the spare key he’d had made was sitting on the entryway console. The curtains drifted in the breeze, and on the floor, every pair of shoes had been neatly lined up — all of them his.

Shen Mu: “How long since you’ve lived here?”

In the afternoon light, dust floated in the air.

Lin Luxiao dropped his bag on the sofa, pulled out his phone, and kept trying to call Nan Chu.

The call log already showed 103 attempts.

The same cold, mechanical female voice told him the phone was switched off.

Lin Luxiao stood with one hand braced on his hip, chest heaving with restrained breath. His expression — Shen Mu reflected on it later — had even made him feel a trace of unease.

Despair, and something dangerous beneath it.

Lin Luxiao gathered his last thread of composure and dialed Secretary Zhang.

Secretary Zhang had no idea: “Nan Chu? She hasn’t come back.”

Beyond Secretary Zhang, he had no one else to call — he didn’t have her manager’s number, or her assistant’s.

He sank wearily onto the sofa, phone tossed to one side, one hand draped over his eyes — as if he’d been stripped of his last reserves of strength.

If she really had gone and disappeared.

He wouldn’t forgive her again this time.

Until —

Shen Mu, sitting on the sofa, made a call, then turned to look at Lin Luxiao. “She’s at a film set. You didn’t know?”

Lin Luxiao immediately reached for his messages, then settled back helplessly against the sofa cushion. “Didn’t know — she didn’t say.”

The person Shen Mu reached was an actor in the same production — someone he’d met briefly once at a charity event. What the person looked like, Shen Mu had long since forgotten, but when someone had just given him the name and number while helping him track things down, he’d remembered.

The other person laughed and said a few things. Shen Mu asked coolly: “Which film set?”

“Mingshan Film City — want to come? I’ll buy you a drink.”

Shen Mu thanked them politely, ignored the invitation, ended the call, and told Lin Luxiao: “Mingshan. Just joined the production — I’ll drive you over?”

…

The weather had been unpredictable that year — in April, Mingshan had even seen a light snowfall, something that in past years would have been unheard of in what was usually warm, flourishing spring season.

The young assistant squealed in Nan Chu’s ear that it was snowing, it was snowing.

Since they had been shooting summer scenes, the surprise snowfall caused the production to cancel that afternoon’s filming.

Nan Chu finally had a free moment, and she cornered one of the crew members. “Is there anywhere around here to get a replacement SIM card?”

As the first crew member to be approached by the National Goddess herself, this person went into a flustered stammer: “Car — car — car — mountain road, there’s — there’s — a service centre, your card broke?”

“I lost my phone.”

The crew member helpfully pointed her to a phone shop as well.

Nan Chu had just finished getting changed and walked out the front gates of the film city — and there, parked along the roadside, was a car. A man in a black fleece jacket leaned against the door, standing in a sky full of drifting snow.

Snowflakes like cotton wisps floated over his head, and behind him the red-walled buildings were embedded with white snow.

Lin Luxiao was in the snow, lighting a cigarette — the cigarette between his lips, not yet lit, one hand already out of his jacket pocket with a lighter, cupping it to strike a flame, lowering his head to touch the tip of the cigarette to it — and at that moment, someone came thundering toward him from ahead.

Like a gust of wind.

On instinct he snuffed out the flame just as Nan Chu flung herself into his arms, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her face into his chest. “What are you doing here?”

Before coming, he had been thinking the whole drive over.

Nan Chu hadn’t told him because she was afraid of being photographed if he came looking for her, or she was worried his coming might be too presumptuous — but letting him just turn around and leave didn’t feel right either. He’d taken seven days of marriage leave and come all this way home, only to find no one there.

But Nan Chu didn’t seem to mind at all, throwing herself into his arms just like that, wide open.

Lin Luxiao took the cigarette from his mouth, broke it, and put it in his jacket pocket. Nan Chu looked up and was about to kiss him when he pushed her head back and pulled her into the car.

Expression stone-cold, he let loose without preamble: “What’s going on with your phone — permanently switched off whenever I call? Do you ever stop to think about how other people feel? I’ve been running to Shen Mu every day to have him track you down — do you think this is funny? Do you think Shen Mu has nothing better to do than help me find you? If you thought my coming would be inconvenient, at least say something — tell me you’re busy lately and I shouldn’t come. If you’d said even that much, I wouldn’t be this angry —”

Nan Chu stood there, stunned, receiving the full force of it.

Before he’d even finished, Lin Luxiao noticed the bandage strip on the corner of her forehead. His heart clenched. He swallowed his next words, looked away, steadied himself, then turned back, tilted his chin slightly at her, voice a little softer. “What happened to your forehead?”

The young woman stared at him, her eyes clear and black and white and perfectly guileless.

“The way you just yelled at me — I feel wronged.”

Lin Luxiao paused. She turned her head away, wouldn’t look at him, sniffled. “My mom came a few days ago and smashed my phone. The SIM card was in it. I still haven’t gone to get a replacement — today was the first chance I had. You said last month you wouldn’t have time for leave until next month — I didn’t know you’d be back so soon. I’m not here for long — this is a short run in the production and my scenes wrap tomorrow. I thought the trip was too brief to bother reporting in to you…”

She finished talking, and then she really cried.

Tears streaming down freely, with an almost petulant flourish of wiping them away. “I’ve noticed that since we got our marriage certificate, you’ve been getting harsher and harsher with me — nothing like before. This is proof that men go bad after they get married. I’m leaving. Let’s both cool down.” She made to push open the car door and get out.

Lin Luxiao panicked, hooked her by the shoulder, and dragged her back into his arms.

Nan Chu shot him a sideways look. “Don’t grab me — let me calm down.”

Lin Luxiao held on tight, pressing her firmly against him. He buried his face in the curve of her neck and said in a low voice, “My fault.”

Nan Chu kept “crying,” glancing at him again. “Not your fault — mine. My mistake was letting myself like you. I don’t think you even like me. You’ve never once told me you like me.”

Hearing that, Lin Luxiao grew anxious. He turned her toward him directly, locking eyes with her. “Not supposed to like who?”

“You!”

Lin Luxiao’s brow tightened. He went straight for her lips and bit down hard.

“Say that again?!”

Nan Chu bit him back. The two of them were like two wild animals in a corner, clawing and gnawing at each other as though trying to peel the other person’s skin off.

By the time they were done kissing, Lin Luxiao had her pressed down against the back seat, tension coiled — and yet still he spoke in a low, controlled voice, and apologized: “I shouldn’t have been harsh with you — I’m sorry. Back at the apartment, when I saw that all your things were gone, I thought you’d disappeared again. Shen Mu told me you were here filming — you hadn’t mentioned it, so I thought maybe you didn’t want our relationship made public. That’s fine if you don’t. Leave it, then — the certificate’s already done anyway. Maybe we take things slowly — we have a long life ahead. But if you ever again say you shouldn’t have liked me, or that you want to leave me — I will genuinely be angry. We can argue, you can make as much of a scene as you like — just don’t use that as a weapon against me, and I’ll give in on everything else.”

This was probably the longest speech Lin Luxiao had ever given.

“Just don’t run off again. Everything else is negotiable.”

Nan Chu licked the tip of his throat. “Does that include shooting bed scenes with other people?”

Lin Luxiao suppressed the flare of anger in his chest, his deep dark eyes fixed on her for a long stretch without speaking. Nan Chu nudged his earlobe softly, and his voice sank completely, jaw tight as he said, “You mean actually in the flesh?”

It would be unnatural not to be annoyed.

“I’m not teasing you anymore — I don’t need to film anything like that.” Nan Chu curled in his arms and laughed. She lay back, pulling at his fleece jacket. “Was my acting just now good?”

She had been quite moved by her own performance — the tears had come the moment she needed them, more genuine than any scene she’d filmed.

Lin Luxiao suddenly stopped moving. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her. “Acting?”

Nan Chu nodded, touched the bandage strip on her forehead. “The head injury is real. Everything I said was fake — just to get to you.”

How could she possibly regret liking him.

Lin Luxiao narrowed his eyes dangerously. “Getting to me?”

Nan Chu pressed her lips together and said nothing.

Lin Luxiao said each word clearly and slowly: “You’re done for.”

…

(Dialogue version)

As soon as they got inside the hotel.

“Lin Luxiao —”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t —”

“Can’t stop.”

…

“This sensitive? Mm?”

“Do you have anything?”

“Maybe skip it — you’re thirty already. Time we could have a child.”

“Really?” He had a trace of boyish excitement about him.

…

Noise of the storm.

“Finished?”

“Yeah.”