“I left something at school. I’ll go get it — you head upstairs first.”

Shen Yi was still sitting on his bike and waited until Rong Qian had walked to the building entrance before saying this to her. Rong Qian didn’t register it at first and reflexively said, “Okay.”

By the time Shen Yi had turned back the way they came, Rong Qian finally realized — but by then it was too late. She tried to call out to stop him, and he was already gone, like a boy riding on the wind, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

Rong Qian pressed her palm to her forehead in irritation. “This kid — why does he have to be so sharp when it doesn’t matter?”

She didn’t need to guess to know Shen Yi had gone back to the restaurant to find Lu Xuan and Lin Feng. She still couldn’t figure out how his mind worked — she had played it so casually, so unbothered, and he could still tell she was hiding something from him?

And to make it worse, just to get her out of the way, he had calmly escorted her all the way home without so much as a hint of anything unusual? As if nothing at all were on his mind?

Rong Qian genuinely began to suspect her professional instincts had dulled. It seemed comfortable living really did dull the mind and judgment over time if you weren’t careful.

Her fighting spirit reignited, Rong Qian charged up the stairs with renewed fire. But the moment she saw the apartment door standing wide open, every nerve in her body jolted as though she’d been electrified. Her pupils contracted sharply, and she froze completely.

There was someone inside.

The room was dark — but the landing outside was brightly lit, and tonight’s moon was full and round, casting moonlight through the windows into the room, making everything inside clearly visible.

A man sat on the sofa with his head bowed, in a posture of complete ease. His suit jacket had been tossed over the armrest. Both hands rested casually on his knees, one of them pinching a cigarette, the glowing ember burning in the dark like a bright red ember suspended in the night.

A glass of water on the table was being used as an ashtray, and from the number of cigarette butts inside, it was plain the smoker had been sitting there for quite some time.

The man raised his head. Rong Qian, standing in the doorway, met his gaze head-on.

In the dim amber light of night, the man’s cold eyes were shrouded in an unfathomable darkness. The scar across his face seemed to be conveying something to her.

Rong Qian’s expression cooled. Though she had imagined this moment many times, she still hadn’t anticipated that they would meet under exactly these circumstances.

He was Shen Yi’s father — Shen Chi.

Meanwhile at the restaurant, Lu Xuan and Lin Feng were walking out chatting and laughing. At first neither of them noticed anything. But a few steps out, they both stopped dead in their tracks at the same moment.

They slowly turned their heads — and found Shen Yi standing in the doorway, arms folded, back against the wall, watching them.

No wonder they’d both just felt that sudden creeping sensation of being watched. Sure enough, it was him.

“Want to talk?”

Shen Yi barely parted his lips, his tone thoroughly indifferent — yet both Lu Xuan and Lin Feng felt a palpable, invisible pressure bearing down on them from this lean sixteen-year-old.

Though Rong Qian had told them not to say anything to Shen Yi, with him pressing them so, they couldn’t hold out and told him everything.

“Joseph brought a whole crew to the restaurant — they were planning to start trouble with you.” This was exactly what Lin Feng had told Rong Qian as well. The only difference was that “you” had now become “Shen Yi.”

The reason Lin Feng had come rushing to the restaurant in such a panic was to warn Shen Yi to make himself scarce for a while. But when he discovered that Rong Qian had come in his place, he figured there was nothing to worry about since Shen Yi wasn’t there.

What Lin Feng hadn’t counted on was Rong Qian pressing every single detail out of him. He’d had no choice but to tell her the truth.

Lin Feng hadn’t originally intended to tell Rong Qian — he was afraid she’d be scared. But what she did after learning the truth nearly dropped his jaw to the floor.

Before explaining to Shen Yi what Rong Qian had done, however, Lin Feng first asked him something.

“Shen Yi, remember I told you not long ago that Joseph was going to ambush you on your way home, but it fell through because someone apparently beat them up beforehand — do you remember that?”

Shen Yi nodded. “I remember.” He had already guessed what was coming.

Lin Feng’s expression was almost theatrical. “Can you believe it — it was her who did it!”

“Yes, I can believe that.” The latter replied with complete composure.

Lin Feng clapped Shen Yi on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up, then said just two words: “Respect.”

Strictly speaking, Rong Qian hadn’t done anything dramatic at the restaurant either.

When Joseph’s crew arrived, a server went over to seat them. They made every possible kind of difficulty and picked fights over nothing.

Then Rong Qian slapped a menu down on their table. That was what finally settled them.

She had pulled over a chair and sat herself down, crossed her legs, swept the entire group with a sharp, cold gaze, and in the whole exchange said exactly one sentence: “Either order something, or get out.”

The bearing she carried — anyone who didn’t know better would have thought she was some underworld boss.

Joseph’s crew still had fresh wounds from their last run-in with Rong Qian and didn’t dare try anything. They obediently ordered a few dishes, barely touched them, and slipped away with their tails between their legs.

“Anything else?”

Shen Yi didn’t believe Rong Qian would keep something from him over something like this. Lin Feng had been hoping to gloss over it, but seeing there was no way to conceal it, he came clean.

“Among the crew Joseph brought along, there was one fat guy — he was the one who picked the lock on your door before.”

A single sentence, and Shen Yi understood everything.

Rong Qian had already been drawn into his mess.

Back at the Saint Roe Street apartment, Rong Qian stood at the window, watching Shen Chi below climb into a black car, and only pulled her gaze away once the car had vanished entirely from sight.

She glanced at the glass on the table, now crammed full of cigarette butts, sniffed the air, and then decisively opened every window in the apartment to air it out.

The cigarette butts and the glass she tossed into the rubbish bin downstairs.

Even so, Rong Qian worried that when Shen Yi came home, he’d still be able to smell the lingering trace of tobacco in the air.

And just as that thought crossed her mind, she heard the screech of bicycle brakes outside. Rong Qian knew — Shen Yi was back.

She had thought it through carefully. If Shen Yi noticed anything, she would tell him the truth — Shen Chi had come.

Having prepared herself mentally, Rong Qian sat down to wait for Shen Yi to come through the door.

But after quite some time, the door she had left deliberately ajar had still not been pushed open.

Rong Qian was baffled. Where was he? Surely he wasn’t planning to play hide and seek with her?

She walked over and opened the door. No sign of him. She followed the staircase downward and, before long, found him at the second-floor landing.

She was just about to ask why he was sitting there instead of coming up, when something came to her in a flash. The color drained from Rong Qian’s face, and she broke into a run toward him.

Shen Yi was in terrible shape.

He was sitting with his back against the wall, one hand pressed to his head, brow knitted tight, his face as white as paper. Cold sweat had drenched him as though he’d been pulled from water. His breathing was sharp and labored, and his lips had gone pale — he had bitten through them until they bled.

Rong Qian knew that his lingering condition was chronic headaches, but this was the first time she had witnessed one of his attacks, and she had not imagined it could be this severe.

“Shen Yi! How are you feeling? Can you hear me?”

She pulled him upright and supported him. He was utterly depleted — not a shred of strength left in his body, the full weight of him leaning almost entirely on her.

“Huh… huh…”

Shen Yi’s breath came in heavy waves. His head rested on Rong Qian’s shoulder, very close. His warm, shallow exhales seemed to fall directly at her ear.

Rong Qian’s ears were her most sensitive spot and impossibly ticklish. Her legs went weak without warning and she lost her footing, causing both of them to topple over with Shen Yi landing over her.

The landing was already a narrow space. With both of them occupying it, Rong Qian felt as though the very air had gone thin.

With enormous effort, she maneuvered him upright again and coaxed him gently, “Shen Yi, please don’t breathe so close to my ear — I’m ticklish. Be cooperative, okay? Tuck your chin down, and I’ll have you back in the room very quickly. Can you do that?”

She reasoned with him calmly. Whether Shen Yi had actually heard her or had already drifted into unconsciousness, she couldn’t be sure — but he did lower his head.

Rong Qian guided him up the stairs, and once they were inside the room, she helped him onto the bed. She immediately began pulling open drawers while asking, “Where do you keep your headache medicine? Is it in the drawer?”

“Mm…” Shen Yi’s voice was barely a breath.

Rong Qian found the medicine in the second drawer. She opened the box and dashed out to the kitchen for water.

Shen Yi’s head was splitting with pain. He gritted his teeth and endured it. He tried to open his eyes, but his vision was blurred. He gave up and closed them. In the darkness, Rong Qian’s voice became startlingly clear.

He heard her flustered exclamations coming from outside the room.

“Where’s the water? How is there not a drop of water left in the kettle?”

“Hurry, hurry! Boil some water — wait! How is the drinking water from the tap not working?”

“Of all the times to cut it off — this is going to be the death of me!”

There in the thick of his agony, listening to Rong Qian’s voice, Shen Yi felt an unfamiliar sense of peace wash over him. Without realizing it, he drifted into a heavy, drowsy sleep.

Many years later, when Shen Yi thought back to this day, most of the details had faded. But two things he remembered clearly.

One: from that point on, Rong Qian developed the habit of boiling water every night and keeping the kettle full.

Two: Shen Yi never forgot that Rong Qian’s ears were sensitive, and that she was ticklish there.