Rong Qian was feeling a little unsettled today.

From morning until now, late at night, her eyelid had been twitching incessantly — so much so that she had delivered several wrong dishes because of it.

Rong Qian had always been helping Shen Yi share the burden of his part-time work at the restaurant, and Shen Yi had assumed the boss had arranged simple, easy tasks for her, so he hadn’t tried to stop her again after that.

Whenever Rong Qian came to the restaurant, Shen Yi would always pick her up and drop her off. But tonight was unusually different — it was already eleven o’clock, and Shen Yi still hadn’t come.

He was an hour later than usual.

Rong Qian had assumed something had held him up and waited at the restaurant, but gradually she began to sense that something was wrong. Just as she was about to call a cab to head home, she heard someone calling her name from far away — “Rong Qian!”

Rong Qian looked up and saw Lu Xuan pedaling over on a bicycle, gasping for breath as he rode toward her.

Her very first instinct in that moment was: something’s wrong. Something has happened.

And indeed something had happened. The first thing Lu Xuan said when he reached her was: “Rong Qian, Shen Yi is at the hospital — come with me, quick!”

The bicycle was too slow. Rong Qian grabbed Lu Xuan and hailed a cab, heading straight for the hospital.

When Rong Qian arrived at the hospital and found Shen Yi, he was sitting on a bench in a hospital corridor.

His head was bowed low, the hair across his forehead veiling his eyes and obscuring his expression. His shirt was soaked in blood, and his hands were smeared with it — a sight that struck her with a jolt of horror.

Rong Qian’s heart plummeted. She slowly lifted her gaze and realized that where Shen Yi was sitting — it was right in front of the door to the morgue.

On the way over, Lu Xuan had told her everything.

Earlier that evening, Thomas had brought men to smash up Jessie Ni’s family shop, and beaten Jessie Ni until he was coughing up blood.

After that, Thomas had dragged Jessie Ni into a sports car and taken him to the bar where Lin Feng worked.

Thomas had booked out the entire bar. His only purpose that night was to get Shen Yi to come and face him.

Back at school, Thomas hadn’t dared to go too far, but now it was the holidays — the school had no jurisdiction over him, and he was free to do as he pleased.

But Lin Feng and Jessie Ni were made of stern stuff. They gritted their teeth and refused to yield, refusing to betray their brother — not a chance in hell.

Thomas hadn’t anticipated that these two could protect Shen Yi to such a degree. And so he could only vent his fury on them. Fortunately for him, he had recently come across something rather interesting — a gun.

Thomas had only meant to frighten them, but nobody had anticipated that a gun like that could misfire.

The bullet passed through Jessie Ni’s temple. Lin Feng, who was standing closest to him, had his face splattered red by the spray of blood — a face frozen in stunned disbelief.

Jessie Ni died on the spot.

And when Shen Yi arrived — he arrived just in time to watch Lin Feng being arrested by the police on suspicion of armed murder and led away.

Shen Yi stared at his own blood-soaked hands. Suddenly his head filled with a sharp ringing, a wave of nausea surged up from deep in his gut, and a powerful dizziness struck him without warning. His vision went dark. He felt himself swaying.

“Shen Yi? Shen Yi?”

Someone was calling his name. The voice seemed to come from somewhere impossibly far away — ethereal and faint.

In his daze, he instinctively reached out to grasp it, but his hand closed around nothing.

“Shen Yi!”

The voice suddenly rose — clear and bright. Shen Yi jolted back to himself. In that instant, he felt as though his soul had been called back to him by her voice.

“Are you alright?”

Rong Qian was crouching on one knee in front of him, her eyes tight with worry.

She had been calling his name for a while now. He hadn’t responded at all — his face was frighteningly pale, his eyes completely unfocused, as though his spirit had left his body.

“Can you hear me?”

Rong Qian reached out and waved her hand in front of his face — and then he caught it.

Shen Yi closed his hand around hers and slowly drew it toward him, pressing her palm flat against his chest, as though only the warmth of her hand could reach the frozen depths of his heart.

Rong Qian stilled. Beneath her palm she felt his heartbeat, steady and rhythmic, and the cool clarity of his body temperature. Both things told her: Shen Yi was real. He was here.

Lu Xuan stood off to the side, watching, not disturbing them.

He knew that look in Shen Yi’s eyes all too well. It was the same look he himself wore — when he thought Chen Shiyi wasn’t watching and he stole a glance at her.

Shen Yi had once told him that Rong Qian wasn’t his sister. In that moment, Lu Xuan had understood exactly what Shen Yi felt for her.

But Rong Qian’s feelings for Shen Yi — that was another matter entirely.

Her gaze was too clean, too open and candid. To her, Shen Yi was more like a child from a relative’s family who needed looking after. She adored him, but only in the way one adores family.

“Feeling a bit calmer now?”

In the washroom, Rong Qian watched Shen Yi turn on the tap and splash cold water over his face. When she judged that he was more or less alright, she handed him a few sheets of paper towel.

He took them and casually wiped the water from his face. The hair at his forehead was damp with droplets; he couldn’t be bothered to dry it and simply tossed his head.

“I’m going to the police station,” Shen Yi said, his voice low and hoarse.

Rong Qian leaned back against the wall. Her expression was grave — none of her usual ease, none of the casual laughter she normally wore. She was solemn now, and she reminded him: “Even if you go, there might not be a result.”

“The situation right now is clear enough. Thomas’s side is leveraging power and influence to bully the weak, pinning the crime on a victim. With money and connections, once they’ve bought off the right people at the police station, Lin Feng will have no way to defend himself. The only outcome is prison.”

That was the way of the world, more often than not — justice and fairness didn’t always exist. Those with capital held the power to shape the narrative; ordinary people with no power and no influence could only be pushed around.

Especially in times like these, and especially in a foreign country — Lin Feng had no father, no mother, no one to lean on. He was utterly alone.

“You’re saying that with my abilities alone, I can’t protect him. Is that it?” Shen Yi looked into her eyes.

Rong Qian nodded. Right now, he was still too powerless.

Shen Yi clenched his fist. He finally understood, now, what Lin Feng had meant by those things he had said to him back then.

So this was what helplessness felt like. It was a wretched feeling.

“I was too arrogant before. I thought as long as I didn’t provoke anyone, nothing would happen to me. Now I know — the moment you’re weak, anyone can come after you.” Shen Yi’s grip tightened further, his eyes growing sharp and cold. He looked at Rong Qian and said: “So if I don’t want to be pushed around, if I want to protect the people beside me, I have to make myself strong.”

“You still have a long future ahead of you. There’s no rush — take it step by step. At your age, everything you’ve already accomplished puts you ahead of so many others.” Rong Qian didn’t want him to be too hard on himself.

But Shen Yi smiled.

The lips that were usually pressed tight curved upward, and the corners of his eyes curved with them. When he smiled, all his previous coldness dissolved — the warmth in his gaze was the kind that could make a person fall in an instant.

Rong Qian froze, staring at him in astonishment.

It only lasted a moment; the corners of his mouth quickly returned to their firm line. But Rong Qian had seen it. This — this was the Shen Yi of the future.

Gentle and refined on the surface, but with a presence that demanded respect.

Shen Yi would come to understand, in time, that cold aloofness was not the same as steadiness. To be calm and composed, to treat others with warmth and quiet strength — that was true maturity.

Before she had seen him smile, Rong Qian had always thought of him as a boy. But in that moment just now, Rong Qian felt it: he was a man.