The journey back had spanned nearly half the globe—travel enough to exhaust anyone—but Situ Jie felt no drowsiness at all. Wu Jiang said it was jet lag that hadn’t caught up with her yet; by his estimate she hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in over twenty hours. But perhaps worried that leaving her alone at the hotel would only make sleeplessness lonelier, they suggested taking her out to reacquaint herself with nightlife back home—find somewhere for a few drinks. After all, old friends reunited had endless things to talk about, and once everyone scattered to their own nests afterward, sleep would come naturally.

Situ Jie agreed readily. She didn’t tell them that “over twenty hours” barely scratched the surface. The night before flying home, she’d lain wide awake watching the sky outside her window fade from ink-black to pale, not shutting her eyes even once, unable to say exactly why—just a heart in complete disarray with nowhere to settle. On the plane she’d been utterly worn out, but the moment her feet touched the ground, Wu Jiang and Lin Jing appearing one after another had been like a shot of adrenaline. Now that the critical point had passed, she found she wasn’t sleepy at all.

They arrived at the place Wu Jiang had booked earlier. When the waiter pushed open the private room’s door, Situ Jie, standing at the front, was genuinely startled—the room was enormous and packed with people. She didn’t doubt for a second that she’d been led to the wrong party by mistake, and was about to back out when Wu Jiang, behind her, had already stepped inside. He glanced back at her, still lost in confusion, and asked with a laugh, “What’s wrong? Did our Situ get spooked by all this?”

Even as he spoke, the people inside—who’d been lounging, singing, drinking—all rose with smiles to greet her. Situ Jie rubbed her eyes. Face after face, some heavier now, some with new laugh lines, some with receding hairlines, some entirely transformed in dress and manner—but looking closely, every single one was someone she’d once known well. Names she thought she’d left behind in another world suddenly surged back, right there on the tip of her tongue.

Wu Jiang was right—she really had been startled, though it was hard to say whether that feeling was surprise or something else entirely. Caught completely off guard, Situ Jie found herself gripped by a strange kind of fear at this sudden flood of warmth and welcome. She couldn’t manage the joyful ease of a homecoming; she could only stand stiffly amid the crowd, her face blank, almost indifferent.

Fortunately, Lin Jing, who’d followed her in, was more perceptive and quick to read a room. He’d come along at Wu Jiang’s invitation to keep Situ company; most of the people here were old friends of Wu Jiang and Situ Jie, not people he knew himself. But he knew Situ Jie well enough—this time, the “shock” had certainly landed, though the “joy” was far from guaranteed. He stood beside her and gently patted her tensed back. Only then did Situ Jie seem to come back to herself, breaking into a smile, calling out names one by one, and soon she was swept up among them—hugs, greetings, a lively bustle in no time. Once she’d made her rounds, Wu Jiang made sure to introduce Lin Jing to everyone as well. With his standing and social ease, Lin Jing slipped naturally into the circle without effort. This was, after all, a gathering thrown for the return of a long-absent friend—excited, warm, noisy, eager—exactly as it should be.

When Situ Jie finally got a moment to sit and have some water, Wu Jiang leaned in beside her and asked quietly, “What’s wrong, Situ? Earlier… my fault too, I didn’t give you a heads-up. They heard you were back and genuinely wanted to see you—I really didn’t expect so many people to show up… I thought you’d be happy.”

Situ Jie knew, of course, that Wu Jiang meant well. How could he have known that after all these years, the very Situ who used to command any room full of people had grown timid in front of them? Facing her friend’s apology, she smiled. “Why wouldn’t I be happy? That’s just the jet-lag insomnia talking—seeing that many people at once threw me for a second.”

Lin Jing, having just extricated himself from an “instant rapport” conversation, came to sit beside them.

“Situ, are all these your old friends? It’s getting late, and this many people still waited around to welcome you back—seems you’re well liked wherever you go,” Lin Jing said.

Wu Jiang laughed. “Why else would they say ‘everyone loves Situ Jie’?”

“Utter nonsense.” Situ Jie shot him a look.

But Lin Jing nodded in earnest agreement. “Dr. Wu has a point.”

Who didn’t love Situ Jie? Even someone like Lin Jing—who seemed sociable and easygoing but was in fact quite proud and rarely let anyone truly close—counted her among his closest friends. She knew she was beautiful, yet never used it as currency; she was clever, yet never overbearing; she was proud, but that pride was reserved solely for the standards she held herself to. And beyond that, she was hardworking, funny, kind, dependable… She was the kind of friend you could confide your deepest secrets to without ever worrying they’d leak out. She was the companion who’d drink with you when life was going well, and who’d stay up drinking with you until deep into the night when you were down, then see you safely home. She was a woman who, when sentimental, was hopelessly romantic, and when rational, was crystal clear-headed. In her good friends’ eyes, Situ was a piece of fine jade shaped by heaven’s own favor—except her name contained the character “jue,” meaning a jade ring with a break in it, an incomplete circle. Perhaps the elder who’d named her had also understood that the fullest moon must wane, that great brilliance invites great sorrow. So it was that Situ—who, in Lin Jing’s view, deserved happiness more than anyone—carried, even at her happiest moments, a flicker of panic and an uncertainty that never quite left her eyes.

“Why are you two tag-teaming me with flattery like that?” Situ Jie clearly wasn’t buying it, waving the compliment off.

Lin Jing gestured subtly at the people around them. “Not at all. You can tell they genuinely wanted to gather and see you—that’s not easy to come by.”

Situ Jie only smiled and said nothing. The people here might not all be childhood-close like Wu Jiang, nor confidants like Lin Jing, but every one of them had, at some point, truly been her friend. It was just that when she’d left, she’d left in disgrace, in the most humiliating way possible—she’d never imagined that seven years later, a scene like this could still exist for her.

Everyone loves Situ Jie. Yes—they all had, once. A’Mei used to raid Situ’s closet for a pretty dress before every date. San Pi, after a breakup, had Situ keep him company for a solid week while he poured out his misery. Minmin always sat behind her during exams and sailed through every one. And then there was Xiao Gen—looking so accomplished now, but back in school, when he’d sometimes had nothing to eat, it was Situ who’d silently handed over her meal card. He’d once borrowed a thousand yuan from her to cover his last year’s tuition, and to this day he’d never once mentioned paying it back.

Situ had never done any of it expecting gratitude—she’d simply done it because they were friends. But when that incident happened and her name was dragged through the mud with no way to defend herself, where had they all been? Situ could understand their silence, their avoidance. But she hadn’t forgotten the scorn, the disdain, the eyes that had kicked her while she was down—theirs included, every one of those looks seeming to say: So, Situ Jie, you’ve finally gotten what’s coming to you?

She’d fled in disgrace. Seven years on, perhaps time had let them forget so much—remembering only that she was back, remembering only that she’d once been kind to them. So today, they’d come. After that brief flicker of discomfort, Situ Jie could only try to set aside the shadows, the betrayals, and drink and laugh with them as if the past were just clouds drifting by, already out of sight.

Perhaps this was exactly why Lin Jing called her easygoing. But she knew she wasn’t, not really—she wasn’t nearly as good as people made her out to be. She could be spoiled, willful, demanding too. It was just that she only ever showed that side to the people closest to her. She forgave these friends, understood them even, but only because—out of her own pride—they simply weren’t people she cared enough about to hold accountable. She couldn’t be bothered to manage “everyone else,” and that was precisely why she could let it all go with a laugh.

After a round of drinks, Meimei, San Pi, and a few others started singing, while the rest, most of whom hadn’t seen each other in a long while, chatted away happily. Situ Jie, meanwhile, enthusiastically dragged Wu Jiang and Lin Jing into a game of mahjong—”reclaiming national heritage,” as she grandly put it.

Wu Jiang played along reluctantly, teasing her as he did. “Since when did you get so sentimental about Chinese culture?”

Lin Jing chimed in with a laugh, “She barely remembers the way home, but she remembers celebrity photo scandals just fine. Commendable dedication.”

Just then, Situ Jie happily drew a winning tile from Xiao Gen, upstream of her, completing a kong.

Xiao Gen, also at the table, remarked, “Situ, your drinking tolerance has really improved too—drank that much and your game’s still sharp. America must’ve—”

“What?” Situ, absorbed in sorting her tiles, looked up in surprise at Xiao Gen trailing off mid-sentence, smiling as she was about to ask why he looked like he’d seen a ghost—only to realize the room had gone eerily quiet. The chatter had stopped, drinks were set down mid-sip, the karaoke singing had died out, leaving only the hollow backing track looping on, oblivious to what was happening. The lively bustle had, in some unnoticed instant, gone cold, silent as a ghost ship adrift at sea. And the source of it all was the person now standing in the doorway, where the waiter had just pushed the door open.

He walked in unhurried, turned to shrug off his coat, and spoke with a smile already on his face.

“Everyone’s here already—am I late?”

He said it so naturally, as if he weren’t an uninvited guest at all, but simply one more ordinary member of this small circle, running late to a friends’ gathering because of overtime at work, nothing more. The frozen atmosphere in the room, the awkward glances people were exchanging—none of it seemed to have anything to do with him.

Actually, “exchanging glances” wasn’t quite accurate, because everyone’s attention was split between only two points: the man who’d just walked in, and Situ Jie at the mahjong table. They looked at him, then at her, as if feeling secondhand mortification on her behalf.

Situ Jie’s seat faced diagonally away from the door. She didn’t even glance in that direction. In the midst of the silence, she suddenly knocked over the tiles in front of her.

“Self-drawn win!”

Then, smiling, she reminded her fellow players, “Everyone pay up. Don’t act like you don’t know the rules—trying to weasel out of it?”

Lin Jing laughed and pulled out his chips; Wu Jiang followed suit.

“Situ, your luck tonight is unbelievable.”

The others recovered quickly too, calling out greetings to the newcomer. Even Xiao Gen turned around to say hello.

“Qiyun, you made it.”

The man addressed as “Qiyun” exchanged a few words with Meimei and the others. In the middle of it, San Pi tossed out, “Showing up late—you owe us three drinks.”

Qiyun smiled as though he hadn’t heard, and no one pressed him on it in jest either. Everyone there knew each other, but precisely because they knew each other, they also knew that a man who never joined this crowd’s gatherings must have some other reason for showing up tonight. And everyone understood exactly what that reason was.

He strolled over at his leisure to where the mahjong game was in full swing, stood behind Xiao Gen, and watched with apparent interest. Situ Jie kept drawing and discarding tiles as if she hadn’t noticed a thing. Wu Jiang, seated across from him, met his eyes; the man smiled, Wu Jiang’s expression stayed flat, and he didn’t seem to mind. Lin Jing, clearly having crossed paths with him before, offered the obligatory greeting.

“Prosecutor Lin’s in high spirits today?”

“Yeah, keeping a friend company. Manager Yao’s got time to spare too?”

“Just haven’t seen some friends in a while—came out to catch up.”

Yao Qiyun crossed one arm over his chest, resting the other fist against his lips, and after saying that, leaned in slightly to look at Xiao Gen’s tiles—as if he’d come today specifically to watch Xiao Gen play.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

Xiao Gen, clearly an honest sort, gave a stiff little laugh and answered truthfully, “Just started. Situ just won a self-drawn hand—she’s on a hot streak.”

Yao Qiyun said with a smile, “Not necessarily. There’s a saying among players—’cut a thousand times, flayed ten thousand, still won’t win the first round.’ Losing at the start was just your luck.”

Wu Jiang gave a faint, cold laugh at that.

Yao Qiyun looked apologetic. “Sorry, no offense meant.”

Situ Jie discarded a tile without even raising an eyebrow.

Lin Jing teased her. “Situ, you’re being ruthless tonight—haven’t given up a single good tile all night.”

Xiao Gen nodded along in agreement.

Yao Qiyun, who’d been watching Xiao Gen’s hand this whole time, spoke up gently. “I think you could call that one. Doesn’t look like you’ve got much chance at a concealed hand this round.”

“Oh, right.” Xiao Gen, following the suggestion, called Situ’s discarded six of characters, and the extra five of characters in his hand was about to go out next.

Once again, Yao Qiyun silently stopped him—pressing down on Xiao Gen’s hand as he reached to discard, and pointing subtly at a different tile instead. Xiao Gen, clearly convinced the other man knew better, followed his guidance without question. Yao Qiyun said nothing further after that. The round ended in a draw—no one won. Before the next shuffle, everyone flipped over their hands, and only then did Xiao Gen see that Situ had been building toward a full flush, and the very tile she’d been desperately waiting for was that five of characters he’d nearly discarded. Even the six she’d thrown out earlier had likely been a calculated guess that he was holding the tile she needed.

“Qiyun, you really are something,” Xiao Gen said, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow.

Yao Qiyun shook his head. “Not really.”

He didn’t offer the real reason, but more than one person at that table understood it perfectly well: he simply knew his opponent better than Xiao Gen did.

Situ Jie shuffled the tiles, saying lazily, “Five people playing a four-person game isn’t much fun.”

Xiao Gen, however, took it the wrong way. Relieved, he stood up. “Qiyun, I need to use the restroom—why don’t you take my seat?”

Yao Qiyun didn’t decline, sitting down without hesitation. The mood at the table shifted instantly. The easy, relaxed atmosphere vanished, and even Lin Jing, who’d been smoothing things over all night, didn’t know what to say. Yao Qiyun’s playing was flawless, watertight. After a few rounds, everyone could see it: he rarely let himself win, except by self-draw or on tiles Situ Jie discarded. And it was as if he had X-ray vision—he seemed to know exactly which tile Situ Jie was waiting for. She sat downstream from him and gained not the slightest advantage.

Situ Jie lost hand after hand without a word of complaint, but Wu Jiang could see her jaw tightening slightly.

Wu Jiang suddenly said, all smiles, “Situ, you’re off your game tonight. I don’t think it’s because of that first win—I think it’s lucky in love, unlucky at cards.”

“Is that so?” Situ Jie smiled noncommittally.

Lin Jing, sorting his tiles, asked idly, “Lucky in love? Say, Situ, are you still with that Franco-German guy?” He laughed at his own question. “You two were so sickeningly sweet back then, you practically drove your poor neighbor—me—out of the building.”

“Please. You’re the one who moved in with Lin Xi and now you’re blaming me.”

Wu Jiang kept digging up her past. “The Franco-German guy is ancient history. Before I flew back, I called her—it was the middle of the night over there, and the guy in the background clearly had an Australian accent, all lovey-dovey. No wonder she can’t bear to come home.”

“An Australian accent? Was that the ‘Eric’ who used to chase after you?” Lin Jing asked, curious.

Situ Jie laughed. “Forget it, not him.”

They kept trading gossip back and forth, and through it all, Yao Qiyun said nothing. At some point his smile had faded entirely, his face settling into a restrained, indifferent expression.

This was Yao Qiyun, back to his true form.

Situ Jie lowered her eyes, and when she looked up again her face was calm and unreadable, though inside a small warmth was fighting to surface into a smile. That warmth, for the moment, was winning out over her earlier unease and bitterness. Wu Jiang and Lin Jing were both shielding her—she knew that. She couldn’t help but feel, in that moment, that she was lucky after all. At least she still had friends. Friends who knew her inside and out, clever and considerate, always unhesitatingly on her side, always knowing exactly when and how to give her just the support she needed.

The night wore on without anyone noticing. Everyone had work the next morning and needed to be up early, so people began drifting off one by one. The mahjong game wound down too; in the end, no one had won by much.

“Situ, I’ll take you home. Look at you, dark circles under your eyes—you need real sleep.”

Wu Jiang picked up her handbag for her.

Yao Qiyun rose to leave as well, unhurried. “Well then, I’ll head off too. Prosecutor Lin, good to see you. Until next time.”

He shook Lin Jing’s hand in farewell, gave a nod and smile toward Wu Jiang and the others, and left just as he’d arrived.

Only once Yao Qiyun was completely out of sight did everyone quietly exhale. Not many people remained by then. Wu Jiang was the first to declare his position to Situ Jie: “Don’t look at me. I swear I had nothing to do with him showing up.”

San Pi and the others hurried to clear their names too—no one was foolish enough to invite Yao Qiyun along, knowing full well Situ would be there, just to stir up trouble.

Situ Jie said nothing. The awkwardness earlier had been so obvious that she didn’t even want to bother performing an unconvincing “it’s fine” in front of everyone.

Finally, Xiao Gen sheepishly raised a hand. “It was me.”

Under everyone’s speechless stares, he stammered, “I didn’t actually invite him, really—he just called me out of nowhere and asked where I was tonight. I… I guess that’s how it happened.”

“Are you brainless? He asks, and you just tell him?” San Pi scolded.

Xiao Gen looked wronged. “He didn’t say much on the phone. He definitely didn’t say he was coming.”

“Enough.” Situ cut in with a smile. “I’m dead tired—you’re all going to talk me to sleep standing up. He came, so what, it’s a small enough world, running into people happens. He’s not my mortal enemy. Let’s break it up, we’ll all go out drinking again another day.”

That put an end to the topic, and everyone said their goodbyes. Situ Jie and Wu Jiang got back into Lin Jing’s car as before, and he dropped them off at their respective places.

In the car, Situ Jie stayed quiet the whole way. As she’d said earlier, perhaps she’d always known that coming back this time meant she’d inevitably run into him—she just hadn’t expected it so soon. Tonight he’d come and gone so abruptly, uninvited by anyone, and no one knew what he’d actually wanted. All Situ Jie knew was that his appearance left her utterly drained, and the look in his eyes as he left had clearly carried the same exhaustion. Everyone chasing after their own exhaustion—what was even the point?

“Don’t be too hard on Xiao Gen. He works under Yao Qiyun now, and eating another man’s rice means there are things beyond his control sometimes,” Wu Jiang said to Situ.

Situ Jie looked faintly startled. “He works under Yao Qiyun?”

At that, Wu Jiang lightly slapped his own cheek. “Listen to me, talking nonsense. I forgot myself for a second. Xiao Gen and Yao Qiyun are both at Jiu’an Tang now—which is, well, your family’s company, technically.”

Jiu’an Tang Pharmaceuticals was a well-known pharmaceutical group in the south, founded by none other than Situ Jie’s father, Situ Jiu’an. Back when she was young, at her father’s insistence, Situ Jie had studied pharmacy at a domestic university, then gone abroad to study biochemistry, and later, to make a living and establish herself, had gritted her teeth and earned her Pharm.D. After graduating, she’d worked in R&D at a long-established pharmaceutical institution in Los Angeles. This trip home was partly for Wu Jiang’s wedding, but also because a major pharmaceutical industry conference happened to be held in City G, and as one of the people leading her company’s drug development, she simply couldn’t get out of attending—an important reason she’d had to return.

Situ Jiu’an was a man of real weight in the domestic pharmaceutical industry, and Situ Jie’s mother had also trained as a pharmacist. Situ Jie had grown up in such a household and worked in the same industry herself, and yet—let alone Wu Jiang, even she herself had never truly, in her heart, thought of Jiu’an Tang as “hers.” She carried the Situ surname, was the only daughter in the family, but to her mind, Jiu’an Tang belonged to her parents—and perhaps, one might even say, to Yao Qiyun. It had nothing to do with Situ Jie at all. She was just an unfilial daughter adrift out there, with no roots left.

So Yao Qiyun had returned to Jiu’an Tang, and from the look of it, was doing quite well for himself. Like Wu Jiang, he’d studied medicine—though that was hardly surprising. Given how much Situ Jie’s father trusted and relied on him, Jiu’an Tang would sooner or later be his. Fine, then—everyone in their proper place, everyone getting their due. But even if her parents’ legacy ultimately became his, that still would never make them family.