Lu Huaiyi had done his research before this trip to Hong Kong.

He enthusiastically recommended a highly acclaimed restaurant to Xu Yang — reportedly seventy years old, a place where countless famous Hong Kong stars had dined, one of those must-visit spots when in Hong Kong.

Xu Yang didn’t have strong feelings either way. Since Lu Huaiyi was recommending it so enthusiastically, they might as well go.

The restaurant was more or less as Lu Huaiyi had described — vintage and traditional. The moment you stepped inside, a rich, dense sense of historical atmosphere swept over you.

This establishment truly was old. And in order to preserve its original character, only a few touches of modern sensibility had been added to the existing foundation.

The moment Lu Huaiyi walked in, he couldn’t stop taking photos with his phone — of the entire group, only he looked like a proper tourist.

The restaurant walls were hung with photographs of celebrities everywhere — famous and less famous alike, including quite a few from abroad.

Rong Qian had originally wandered in with a casual, just-looking mindset, stepping into the corridor the restaurant was most famous for: a passage lined wall-to-wall with photographs, named “Through Time.”

But when she reached the far end of the corridor, she stopped.

There, she saw a black-and-white photograph.

The man in the photograph was dressed in a black suit. Only a side profile was visible — yet that single side profile alone was breathtaking enough to render one speechless.

Those flawless contours, the line of his jaw, the prominence of his throat — every detail was perfected to an absolute extreme. It made you involuntarily hold your breath, as though afraid of startling the figure in the frame. Looking at him even once felt like a kind of transgression.

The man in this photograph was none other than Shen Yi.

Rong Qian hadn’t expected to find a photograph of Shen Yi here — an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

She had only just seen him a couple of days ago, yet now he was hanging on a wall steeped in history, and that gave her a strange, dreamlike sense of disorientation that was difficult to name.

Rong Qian stared at the photograph for a long while. She was about to reach out and touch it without thinking, when a male voice came from behind her — a very authentic Cantonese accent. “Miss, the photographs are not to be touched.”

Rong Qian turned around to find a middle-aged man with a pleasant, amiable face. By his attire, he appeared to be the restaurant’s general manager.

“I’m sorry.” Rong Qian apologized at once.

The middle-aged man waved it off with a smile. “No need to apologize. Many guests look for so long that they reach out instinctively.”

“May I ask who you are?” Rong Qian inquired then.

The man quickly introduced himself. “Oh — I’m the owner of this restaurant. My surname is Chen. You can call me Boss Chen.”

Boss Chen was warm and sociable by nature, and he made a habit of strolling through the restaurant and chatting with guests who had come from all corners of the world.

“Does Boss Chen happen to know who the person in this photo is?” Rong Qian asked, pointing to Shen Yi’s photograph.

Boss Chen smiled and nodded. “Of course I know. Most young people today no longer recognize him. His name was Wei Long — a superstar who swept the entire world in his era. He drew crowds in the tens of thousands, all desperate for just one glimpse of him. He was a marvel of his generation, a figure who defined an entire age.”

Boss Chen was filled with deep, lingering feeling, his thoughts seeming to drift back to the past.

Rong Qian looked at the photograph and asked, “Is this the only photo of him here?”

“Oh no, there are more.”

Hearing that, Rong Qian immediately asked, “Where? Could I take a look?”

Boss Chen was an easy-going man, and besides, there was nothing secretive about it — so he led Rong Qian upstairs to a private dining room at the far end of the third floor.

The room was used for dining, modest in size — just right for a single table and two chairs, as though designed with couples in mind.

One wall facing the exterior was entirely of transparent glass. Guests dining inside could turn their heads and look directly down onto the street below, watching the foot traffic and soaking in the everyday rhythms of city life.

And on the walls of this private room hung photographs of Shen Yi — unlike the modest, palm-sized frame in the corridor downstairs, here Shen Yi’s image dominated an entire wall.

The photographs were still in black and white, suffused with a refined elegance. In one of them, Shen Yi was bending his head to kiss a rose, yet his eyes slid sideways toward the camera with a sidelong glance.

This created the illusion that he was looking directly at you.

Shen Yi’s presence in front of the camera was saturated with narrative — as though that rose were his beloved, and the intrusion of the person behind the lens had violated something precious. The possessiveness in his gaze as he cast that cold, shadowed look at the unseen photographer delivered a wordless warning.

Even Rong Qian, holding that gaze for a few seconds longer than she intended, felt the weight of it. This was Shen Yi — a performer of rare, almost genius-level talent.

“Wei Long was a regular guest at our restaurant.” Boss Chen said to Rong Qian. “As I recall, Wei Long only ever brought one female companion here. After that, he always came alone. And every time he came, he sat in this exact spot.”

Boss Chen pointed to the chair on the left, then turned to look at Rong Qian. “Come to think of it — what a coincidence. The female companion Wei Long brought here looked very much like you.”

“Ah, is that so.” Rong Qian gave a dry, careful laugh, doing her best not to look too strange about it.

Boss Chen also asked, “Would you like to sit for a moment?”

Rong Qian had been about to decline — but somehow, the words died on the way out, and by the time she became aware of herself again, she was already sitting down in the opposite chair.

According to Boss Chen, Shen Yi always came in the evenings, choosing the quietest hours when there were no other guests.

Every time Boss Chen passed by, he would see Shen Yi sitting in that chair, dressed in an all-black suit, legs crossed, gaze fixed on the window outside — only a side profile visible, half-submerged in shadow.

Sometimes he smoked, though his habit was light. Most often, he would light a cigarette and then let it rest between his long, slender fingers, burning away on its own, untouched.

And he would sit there in stillness, gazing at the empty chair across from him, never saying a word.

This private room, it was said, had been reserved exclusively by Shen Yi. No one else was permitted entry. To this day, Boss Chen had never opened it up for general guests, and almost no one came here ordinarily.

This time, the reason Boss Chen had brought Rong Qian here at all was purely because she had asked, and because she truly bore such an uncanny resemblance to the female companion Wei Long had once brought to this very room.

Listening to everything Boss Chen told her, images had already begun forming in Rong Qian’s mind — she could almost see Shen Yi sitting in the chair across from her, gaze turned toward the window, smoking quietly.

Rong Qian propped herself up on the table, her chin resting on the backs of her folded hands, and in a soft, languid murmur, she said to the empty air, “Shen Yi… I think I miss you…”

The chair across from her was plainly empty — yet for one brief instant, Rong Qian seemed to see Shen Yi truly sitting there. He was in a black suit. He reached out and placed his hand gently on the top of her head, and in that deep, resonant voice, he answered her longing. “Aqian, I’ve been waiting for you all along.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll come find you soon.” Rong Qian told him without thinking — and the moment the words left her lips, she snapped back to herself, frozen. Had she just been talking to herself?

Had she truly gone completely unhinged?