Shen Chi did not return Shen Yi until nine o’clock in the morning.

Father and son sat in the back seat on opposite sides, a wide gap between them. The driver brought the car to a stop in front of Building 17 on Shenglo Street. The moment the car stopped, Shen Yi moved to get out.

At that point, Shen Chi suddenly spoke. “Her name is Rong Qian. Am I right.”

The hand Shen Yi had placed on the car door fell still, then pulled back. Sure enough — he had brought up Rong Qian after all.

“How do you know her name?”

Shen Yi did not deny it. What he wanted to know now was how Shen Chi came to know Rong Qian’s name.

Shen Chi looked at him. “Didn’t she tell you? I’ve already met with her.”

Shen Yi froze, and his expression shifted abruptly. Rong Qian had already met with him? When? What had they said to each other?

“That evening, I was waiting in your place — waiting for you. But in the end, the person who appeared before me was her.” Shen Chi lit a cigarette. Shen Yi frowned and rolled down the car window.

He was trying to think — when had Rong Qian gone back on her own without him?

It didn’t take long for Shen Yi to remember. It was that day!

He had gone back to the restaurant to find Lu Xuan and the others, and Rong Qian had gone upstairs alone. That must have been when Rong Qian encountered him…

“Do you want to know what she said to me?” Shen Chi asked, already knowing the answer, yet making him respond anyway.

Shen Yi closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. “What did she say to you?”

“She said I won’t live past three years.”

Shen Chi said this with something like amusement, and yet his eyes were dim. That woman had been remarkably bold — she had shown not the slightest alarm upon seeing him.

She had even turned around and made demands of him.

“Mr. Shen, trespassing is against the law, you know.”

At the time, that woman had stood in the doorway without a trace of fear for his authority, the corner of her mouth curved in a faint half-smile. She had walked in, dragged a chair over, and sat down directly across from him — the very picture of someone ready to confront him head-on.

“And injuring people isn’t?” Shen Chi’s sharp eyes had locked onto her.

She had simply smiled and brushed back her hair. “Injuring people? Mr. Shen, have I ever harmed you? One ought to have evidence before making such claims.”

“Who exactly are you?” Shen Chi had not bothered with indirect approaches. He went straight to the point.

She had been entirely composed. She smiled and introduced herself. “My surname is Rong, given name Qian — Rong Qian.”

“I’ll ask again. Who exactly are you?” The expression on Shen Chi’s face had gradually turned dangerous.

Rong Qian had remained perfectly at ease. She crossed her legs, folded her arms, and said, “I heard from Shen Yi that you think I’m Yan Qingyao?”

“You are not her.”

She was absolutely not Yan Qingyao. If Yan Qingyao had possessed even half of this woman’s ruthlessness, she would never have ended up the way she did.

Rong Qian had let out a cold laugh. “You speak as though you knew her so well. Never mind — I have no desire to dwell on the past, and I couldn’t care less about what happened between you two.”

“Then what do you care about?”

Rong Qian’s expression had turned grave in an instant. She looked at him and said a single name: “Shen Yi.”

“What is your relationship with him?” Shen Chi had risen and crossed to stand before her, looking down at her from above.

Rong Qian had not been cowed in the least. She stood up, kicked the chair aside, and put some distance between herself and him so she could meet his gaze at eye level.

“All you need to know is that I am protecting him. That is enough. So I would advise you — do not interfere in his life. Be careful not to push him too far. In the end, you will have nothing to show for it.” Her words had been relentless, leaving no room for negotiation.

At the time, Shen Chi had still been probing for her identity, so he had followed her lead. “And if I insist on taking the hard approach? Are you going to beat me again?”

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Shen. Have you ever heard the word ‘retribution’?”

Shen Chi had found that amusing. “Retribution? Ha. Sounds like you’ve run out of things to say.”

“Shen Yi, born July 24, 1956. At the age of six, he emigrated to the United States with his family. His father was a highly prominent and influential figure in the business world.”

Rong Qian had paused deliberately, and upon seeing that Shen Chi was indeed looking at her with a blank expression, she had continued with a cold smile: “What a pity, though — his father died of illness at a relatively young age, and before Shen Yi had even reached twenty, he took over what was then a near-bankrupt family enterprise.”

“In other words, Mr. Shen — you will not live past three years.”

When Rong Qian’s words fell, all the color had drained from Shen Chi’s face. Did she know what she was saying?

At the time, Rong Qian had slowly circled around him, then sniffed quietly and said, “You have been to the hospital, and you have had tests done. So you should already know — something is wrong with your body.”

Rong Qian was not wrong. Shen Chi’s health examinations had indeed revealed problems, and he had made numerous visits to hospitals for treatment.

Regardless of his reaction, Rong Qian had pressed on: “You are singularly focused on grooming Shen Yi to be your successor. As a result, despite outward appearances — despite the freedom you appear to have given him — you are in fact capable of forcibly bringing him back at any time.”

“But you may not fully understand his character. If you push him too hard, he is someone who genuinely does not fear death.”

“If that happens and you die without anyone to take over your enterprises, the result will either be bankruptcy — or someone else will reap the benefit.”

Rong Qian had spoken with the detached calm of an outsider for whom none of this was any concern of hers. The expression on Shen Chi’s face had gone through a series of changes, before finally settling into stillness.

“Say what you want.” Shen Chi was a businessman — in his world, everything came down to interests.

At the time, Rong Qian had been facing away from him. After a long silence, she spoke: “You owe him a great deal. But I will not demand that you do anything for him — because my wishes are not necessarily Shen Yi’s wishes. I will not presume to make decisions on his behalf.”

“I only want you to promise me one thing.”

“That when he does not wish to find you, you do not come looking for him. And once he decides he wants to come to you — then whatever he asks of you, you must agree to.”

“Shen Chi — if you are any kind of man, treat him well. Otherwise, I will never let you off…”

Having heard everything Shen Chi recounted, Shen Yi shoved the car door open and hurried out.

He ran up the stairs. But at the door, rather than rushing inside, he stood there catching his breath, letting his breathing settle before casually pulling out his key and opening the door as though nothing were the matter.

The moment he pushed the door open, Shen Yi suddenly went still.

He seemed to sense something, yet he maintained his composure. He closed the door and called out into the empty living room: “A’Qian?”

No one answered.

Shen Yi pushed open the bedroom door — no one there either. The bathroom. The kitchen. He checked them all. There was no trace of her.

Shen Yi’s breathing began to quicken, yet even now he was still deceiving himself, telling himself that Rong Qian had simply gone out, which was why she wasn’t home.

Yes — she must have gone to work!

Shen Yi ran back downstairs and rode his bicycle straight to the restaurant. At this hour, the restaurant had only just opened. The owner spotted Shen Yi coming and called him over, saying it was time to settle his wages.

Shen Yi had no time for any of that now. After confirming that Rong Qian was not there, he was about to leave to look elsewhere — but the owner grabbed his arm and wouldn’t let him go. “What’s the rush? You’re not even going to take your money?”

He pressed the money into Shen Yi’s hands. “This is what you and your missus worked hard to earn. No matter how urgent things are, you can’t just walk away from your earnings.”

Only then did Shen Yi notice that the wages settled were not short by any amount. He furrowed his brow. “Didn’t I tell you before…”

“You did mention it, yes. But on her very first day I told her, and she turned around and asked me not to say anything to you. She did the same amount of work as you did.”

The owner sighed with feeling: “You’ve got a good eye, that boy. Rong is a woman who can endure hardship. When customers were difficult with her — even when a guest threw a tip in her face — she kept her temper and bore it all without complaint.”

“Later I asked her how she managed to hold back, and she said she hadn’t really wanted to — but then she thought about how you had been through the same things, and she wanted to understand what it felt like for you at the time. So she held herself back.”

By the time Shen Yi heard this, his eyes had already grown red.

The owner went on to lodge a complaint: “Here, see that wall over there? Do you see the cracks? You have no idea how much that wall has endured! Your Rong — whenever she got angry, she would go hit my wall. And throughout the whole thing, she’d be smiling pleasantly. It gave me the chills every time.”

Shen Yi suddenly let out a laugh. He could picture it perfectly — Rong Qian, seething but unable to lash out, clenching her jaw with a cold, eerie smile on her face as she took it out on the wall.

That wall truly had endured a great deal…

After returning home, Shen Yi lay down on the sofa.

The blanket still carried Rong Qian’s scent. He pulled it over his head, as if surrounded by her presence. Only like this could he believe that Rong Qian had truly been there beside him.

The apartment without her was quiet in a way that was almost frightening.

After a long silence, Shen Yi’s hoarse, low voice broke through:

“A’Qian… you’ve left me behind again…”