Lin Qing’s mother went home to her hometown for two days.

“You just got here — why are you leaving already?”

“We sold the house back home. I need to go back to handle the paperwork. I’ll be there and back.”

Having seen that Lin Qing was settled in well, Lin Qing’s mother put her mind at ease and left to take care of things properly.

Lin Qing watched her mother bustle around packing, and pressed her lips together.

In the end, she let silence say everything.

Night.

Lin Qing lay in Lu Zhou’s bedroom, curled in the smooth, minimal softness of the sheets, her heart sinking a little further into the dark.

In the past, Lin Qing had never given a second thought to buying property in a big city.

Young as she was, she had never quite understood why so many people would spend half a lifetime working like cattle, just to get their hands on a few square meters with a leaking roof to call their own.

But tonight, the moment she had brought Liang Meng back here, she understood the confidence that comes with having a home.

With a home, she could bring a friend over whenever she felt like it.

With a home, she could have a warm little corner of the world, where she and her mother could sit down to a hot pot whenever the mood struck.

She wouldn’t have to tread on eggshells around a landlord, terrified that a single splash of hot pot broth on the wall would mean losing the three-month deposit she’d paid up front.

She wouldn’t have to consider how her housemates felt, coming and going as she pleased, free to be as noisy as she liked.

At Lu Zhou’s place, Lin Qing also had complete freedom over what she wore.

She could put on whatever she wanted — and after a shower, she could even run around the apartment without a stitch of clothing on.

At that thought, Lin Qing buried her face in the covers. Her face flushed hot with embarrassment.

She had actually — actually — gone running around Lu Zhou’s room completely bare.

Different worlds, different times.

Lu Zhou’s presence seemed to still linger in this room, like something suspended in the air — enough to make her face go red.

Then, suddenly, Lin Qing’s sense of inadequacy deepened.

Having a home or not — it was like a dividing line drawn across a battlefield.

Or like the golden hairpin the Queen Mother of Heaven dragged across the sky to part the Milky Way — cleaving people who looked the same age on the surface into two entirely different worlds.

And now Lin Qing had even sold the house back home.

It left her with the bleak, hollow feeling of having her last refuge pulled out from under her.

Just then, a WeChat message came in from Lu Zhou.

[Asleep?]

Lin Qing replied: [No.]

[Something on your mind?]

Lin Qing bit her lower lip, turned over, and typed: [The gap between people is so huge. We’re the same age, and you already own a place in Shanghai. I still…]

[First of all, I’m a year older than you. Second, I’m an athlete — I’m on borrowed time. You studied mathematics — you only get better with age.] Lu Zhou replied instantly.

Even through the screen, Lin Qing couldn’t hold it back — a burst of laughter escaped her, and the corners of her mouth refused to come back down.

On borrowed time? Gets better with age?

Lu Zhou, did you actually hear yourself just now?

The grey shadow that had settled over her lifted in an instant, bright and clear.

Her “personal therapist” certainly knew how to make someone feel better.

One way or another, the question of having a home or not couldn’t be solved overnight.

Lin Qing decided: time to sleep.

……

Tanshan Villa.

Liang Meng sat inside the Ferrari, unwilling to get out.

Jiang Han, in a light shirt, stood on the rooftop terrace, silently watching the red-roofed car below where Liang Meng sat.

Stars filled the night sky. A cool breeze drifted past.

After a long while, the car door opened.

Liang Meng swung out her slender legs and looked up.

Jiang Han turned away at once.

By the time Liang Meng looked up, all she saw was the cold light of a lamp above the wall.

Jiang Han went back to his room to read. Liang Xing came in, still in her moonlit-white robe, and placed a cup of ginger tea on the table beside him.

Jiang Han left it untouched and turned a page.

He and Liang Xing had been “a couple in name only” for some time — but they had known each other long enough that a certain quiet understanding had developed between them.

He already had a sense of what she wanted to say.

“Don’t worry. I already told little Meng about the blind date. I said I’d be the one to play the villain, so I’m going to follow through.”

Jiang Han stood up, slid the book back into its place on the shelf, and turned his back to Liang Xing. Then he asked the question that had been nagging at him: “Didn’t you say you can’t stand President Wang’s wife? So why did you agree to let the two of them go on a blind date?”

Liang Xing did indeed have no patience for Wang’s wife — they were like fire and water.

These years, Liang Xing had kept Longquan afloat on her own, clinging by her fingertips. It was forbearance and quiet calculation that had made her that way — composed, reserved, rarely given to smiling or warmth.

Wang’s wife, by contrast, was all charm and sociability, gliding through the circles of wealthy socialites and privileged wives with effortless grace and a flourish that drew everyone in.

A red rose and a white camellia could never understand each other. The wind that blew across the northern mountain never reached the southern slope.

Liang Xing and Wang’s wife were simply not the same kind of people. They had never gotten along — and that was an open secret in those circles, one everyone knew and no one spoke aloud.

Liang Xing drew the floral trim of her robe closer and bowed her head with a helpless sigh: “As if I had a choice.”

That afternoon, after President Wang had paid Jiang Han his visit, Liang Xing received a call from him.

President Wang and Jiang Han were equals — they could sit across from each other and negotiate.

But with Liang Xing, with Longquan, President Wang had nothing left to offer but threats.

Liang Xing was caught with no way forward and no way back. If she refused President Wang’s proposal of a match between their children, he would threaten to short-sell Longquan. But if she agreed, President Wang’s intentions were as obvious as could be — a union between the second generation was merely a stepping stone toward swallowing Longquan whole.

Either way, what he wanted was Longquan.

“In your heart, which matters more — Longquan, or Liang Meng?”

Jiang Han climbed the nearby stepladder as he spoke, reaching up toward a higher shelf for a book he wanted.

Liang Xing glanced at him with a quiet, unreadable look and said nothing.

In Liang Xing’s heart, of course, Liang Meng mattered most.

Liang Xing had been only twenty-two years old when she took Longquan from Jiang Han’s hands.

She had poured an entire decade of youth into that inheritance, tending it with everything she had — watering it from a seedling into a towering tree.

But in the end, it was only a money tree.

Everything had grown from a past too painful to put into words.

Years ago, Liang Meng’s parents had remained childless long after marrying, and so they adopted Liang Xing, said to be fated by destiny to bring a younger sibling into the family. And indeed, Liang Xing had not disappointed them — her arrival had “brought” a child: Liang Meng.

But Liang Meng had been born right at the start of Longquan’s founding, when her parents were run ragged from every direction. They had no time to spare — not even for their biological daughter, the very child they had so desperately longed for. Liang Meng was left largely without care or attention.

In those circumstances, someone suggested to Liang Meng’s parents that two children were too much of a burden. The solution was simple: return Liang Xing — the “catalyst child” — to the welfare institute.

As it happened, the paperwork for adopting Liang Xing had never been completed properly.

So in practical terms, as long as they brought Liang Xing back to the orphanage, it would be as if nothing had ever happened.

At the time, Liang Meng was two years old. Liang Xing was already eight — old enough to remember.

She would never forget that dark and moonless night.

Liang Meng’s parents drove along a dirt road scattered with stones, the car lurching and jolting over every bump.

With each jolt, that tremor worked its way into little Liang Xing’s fragile heart, unsettling everything inside her.

Liang Xing had been four when she was first taken in. Life at the welfare institute had left her with wounds that never fully healed. Before she was adopted, the staff were too few and there were no cameras — older children had bullied her in unseen corners, and there were times she hadn’t had enough to eat.

So the thought of “being sent back” filled Liang Xing with profound, bone-deep terror.

But against reality, a child’s resistance meant nothing.

On the way there, Liang Meng’s parents even put on a show of comforting her: “Sending you back is for your own good. Your father and I are in the middle of starting the company right now — we’re so busy we can barely breathe. Even little Meng is about to be sent to her grandmother’s. Grandma’s getting old — she can’t look after two children at once. The ladies at the welfare institute will take good care of you. Once you’re a little older, Father and Mother will come back for you.”

After Liang Meng’s parents left, Liang Xing felt the sky had fallen — the whole world had gone dark.

It wasn’t until the sun rose again the next day that Liang Xing woke up alone on a cold iron-frame bed and found, once more, a reason to hope.

Little Liang Meng, not yet three years old, had been held in her mother’s arms — and she had cried herself into a state of total despair.

She couldn’t speak in sentences yet, but she stretched her arms out urgently, reaching toward Liang Xing again and again.

“Sis… sister…!”

And so Liang Meng’s parents turned around and brought Liang Xing home.

This time, they went through every step of the formal adoption process.

While little Liang Xing was waiting for the paperwork to be completed, she happened to overhear a conversation between two staff members at the welfare institute:

“Terrible thing to do. Shuttling a child back and forth like a package.”

“I heard that couple had their own biological child, so they didn’t want the adopted one anymore. Human nature, I suppose.”

“Then why do they want her back now?”

“Oh, don’t get me started. Turns out the fortune-teller was right — Liang Xing really did have the fate of bringing a sibling. From what I heard…”

The staff member’s voice dropped noticeably. Curious little Liang Xing pressed her ear harder against the wooden door.

“I heard the biological child — the moment she realized the ‘sister’ was gone, she cried and fussed the whole night through. Cried herself breathless, fainted several times over. Those two parents must have been terrified something would happen to her, so they came back to get the adopted daughter.”

“Tsk, tsk — the two adults had less conscience than a single small child.”

“Isn’t that the truth.”

……

It was because of this past that a rift opened in young Liang Xing’s heart toward her adoptive parents. Even after she returned to that “home,” the wound of abandonment — like a cat that has been turned out and then let back in — never fully closed. Liang Xing seemed to grow up overnight. She was perfectly well-behaved every single day, terrified of being discarded again.

Beneath the surface of that model behavior was a heart growing more stubborn and more fortified by the day.

From that point on, Liang Xing was certain: in this life, she had only one true family — only one person who truly mattered. That was the little sister who had pulled her back from the welfare institute: Liang Meng.

In all honesty, when Liang Meng’s parents weren’t buried in work, they treated both Liang Xing and Liang Meng very well.

But it was precisely because of Longquan —

Little Liang Xing could never understand how two words could hold such power — enough to make her adoptive parents harden their hearts and send her back to the welfare institute.

Back then, she was still a child, and the word “ambition” meant nothing to her yet.

Ten years had passed.

The past was gone with the wind.

The love and resentment Liang Xing held toward Longquan could no longer be untangled in a sentence or two.

She resented it — and yet, when Liang Meng was still young, she had had no choice but to take it on.

Now, Liang Xing was unwilling to let Longquan become the axis around which Liang Meng’s whole life turned.

Longquan and Liang Meng had become a paradox inside Liang Xing’s heart.

Her half-withdrawal and half-continued involvement with Longquan — that, too, was the result of waging war against herself.

She wanted to be the one who always came first in Liang Meng’s heart — before anything else.

She did not want Liang Meng to build the same unshakeable dedication to Longquan that her adoptive parents once had.

Liang Xing did not love Jiang Han, either. The reason she had agreed to the “sham marriage” with him was that she had seen the feelings Liang Meng carried for Jiang Han.

Without Jiang Han in the picture, she would be the only person in this world Liang Meng could lean on.

But with Jiang Han — Liang Xing was not confident that, if she and Jiang Han were placed side by side and Liang Meng was asked to choose, Liang Meng would choose her.

And to this day, Liang Xing still hadn’t been able to figure out why their adoptive parents had taken their own lives all those years ago — nor why Jiang Han had been willing, all these years, to help them unconditionally.

Liang Xing had a nagging feeling that something about all of it was deeply wrong.

Jiang Han was dangerous. She did not want her little sister anywhere near him.

To love someone too completely was a very difficult way to find happiness.

And so three people who loved too completely lived together in this villa, their relationships warped into something that defied all ordinary sense.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

A knock at the door broke through the quiet of the room and the conversation within it.

Both Liang Xing and Jiang Han guessed at once that it was Liang Meng.

They each composed themselves with practiced ease, and Liang Xing spoke: “Come in.”

It was Liang Meng, as expected.

She stepped inside — and immediately caught sight of her sister, in a low-cut robe, rising tenderly from Jiang Han’s shoulder.

Jiang Han sat on the chaise lounge with his collar open, one leg folded beneath him, his other arm draped around her sister’s shoulder. He looked up with impatient eyes.

The scene painted itself clearly enough in Liang Meng’s mind — what she must have walked in on, right before she arrived.

She was furious.

But fury did nothing. They were a legally married couple.

“Sis, how could you just agree on my behalf to —”

The words burned at the back of Liang Meng’s throat, almost spilling over.

“Jiang Han, will you please leave. I need to speak to my sister alone.”

Liang Meng used the last of her composure to hold back what she had been about to say, and asked Jiang Han to go first.

She did not want to scream at her sister in front of Jiang Han. She did not want Jiang Han to see her sister disrespected.

But she was so furious she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop herself.

So asking Jiang Han to leave was the most sensible thing to do.

Jiang Han gave Liang Meng a cold glance, then deliberately pressed a fleeting kiss to Liang Xing’s forehead — light as a dragonfly skimming water — before walking out.

That needlessly inflammatory kiss made Liang Meng feel as though her lungs were about to explode with rage.

“Sis, I don’t want to go on a blind date with some Wang Zaiwu!”

Once Jiang Han was gone, Liang Meng dropped onto the seat in a fit of pique.

Liang Xing let out a slow breath, then stood and walked to the liquor cabinet behind her. She pulled out the stopper and poured herself a glass of whiskey.

“This isn’t a question of what you want. You have to go.”

Liang Xing’s voice left no room for argument.

“On what grounds? What gives you the right to make decisions for me?” Liang Meng refused to accept it.

“On the grounds that I’m your sister.”

Liang Xing didn’t want to explain herself. She invoked her authority as the elder sibling and went straight for the pull of family hierarchy.

But even if it were your own biological child, a child was not your property — you had no right to decide their fate for them.

And so Liang Meng snapped back: “You’re not even my real sister! Even if my own mother walked in right now, she couldn’t force me to go on a blind date with someone I don’t like!”

“Not even my real sister” — that landed like a blade straight to Liang Xing’s heart.

She had intended to brush things over and send her sister away without too much fuss.

But reckless words, once spoken, were like swords drawn from their sheaths — they ground against each other and drew blood until reason was gone entirely.

Liang Xing kept a cool head at all times — but the moment anyone suggested that Liang Meng wasn’t her real sister, she lost herself completely.

And today, the one saying it was Liang Meng herself.

So she struck back with full force: “I want you out of this house and married off — what of it? After the new year, you’ll be twenty-nine by Chinese reckoning! If you don’t get married soon, you’ll be left on the shelf!”

“Whether I’m ‘left on the shelf’ is my own business.” Liang Meng was unflinching.

No one could use the world’s judgment to force her to surrender to a fate she hadn’t chosen.

“You might not care.” Liang Xing’s chest heaved. She stood. “But have you ever once thought about me?! What will people say? What will people think? They’ll say I failed to look after you properly, failed to raise you right — and that’s why you ended up unmarried! If you stay single your whole life, how am I supposed to face our parents when I’m gone from this world?”

“What do you mean, ‘failed to raise me right’? Is staying single a personal failure? Will society discard me if I don’t get married? Will I mutate into an alien if I stay unmarried?” Liang Meng’s voice rose as she launched into a sharp, furious argument with her sister. “What kind of logic is that?!”

The greatest mistake a person makes in this life is being too polite to strangers and too ruthless to the people they love.

Walking on eggshells in relationships that barely last, while saying whatever comes to mind in the ones built on years of closeness.

Liang Xing already had a fire burning inside her — and now she stoked it deliberately, pushing Liang Meng further: “I just want you out of this house and married off as soon as possible — what’s the problem?! You traipsing around this house every day makes things very inconvenient for me and Jiang Han!”

“So there it is. You’re finally telling the truth.”

Liang Meng bit down on her lip and gave a slow, firm nod.

She had wondered, all the way home tonight, whether this was the real reason Jiang Han and Liang Xing were pushing her into a blind date.

And now her sister had said it herself, out loud and without any shame.

Good.

Perfect.