Few people knew Cheng Chang’s address — aside from Hé Jiǎn and Duan Mingcheng, only a handful of coworkers. If any of them came by, they’d usually call ahead first, never dropping in unannounced.

Cheng Chang already had a good guess who it was.

He sat on the couch for a while, and only after the knock sounded twice more did he get up to open the door.

Standing in the doorway, as expected, was Liao Zhuo.

She’d apparently just returned from her hometown, still carrying a travel bag. Though her makeup had been touched up, she still looked visibly tired.

Seeing Cheng Chang, Liao Zhuo opened her mouth, but no words came out.

This man — no matter how long it had been since she’d last seen him, one glance was always enough to leave her stunned.

Cheng Chang wore a loose, pale gray sweater over dark casual pants, his hair left untended, falling in loose strands over his brow — giving him a somewhat unkempt air, yet his gaze remained perfectly clear, a hint of coolness in his eyes like the crisp chill of early spring, drawn in at the corners of his handsome eyes into an air of pure, cool detachment.

“I… um, I heard you’d been discharged. I was worried, so I came to check on you.”

After a long pause, Liao Zhuo finally spoke.

Cheng Chang nodded. He hadn’t wanted to let her in, but with the typhoon raging outside, wind and rain howling, thunder and lightning crashing, and her already standing right at his door, it seemed wrong to turn her away.

“Come in.”

In just that brief moment, the food on the coffee table had already gone cold. Liao Zhuo changed into slippers at the door, stepped inside, and seeing the dishes laid out, paused and asked, “You haven’t had dinner yet?” She tested the temperature with her hand and added, “Let me heat it up for you.”

Cheng Chang said it wasn’t necessary, but Liao Zhuo had already picked up the plates and headed into the kitchen.

A bachelor’s kitchen was fairly personal territory. Cheng Chang frowned slightly but didn’t follow her in.

Ten-odd minutes later, Liao Zhuo emerged from the kitchen. She’d warmed the food in the microwave and, in the process, cooked up a small pot of congee as well. She sat down on the couch, smiled at Cheng Chang, and asked, “I haven’t eaten dinner either — mind if I join you here?”

Cheng Chang said nothing, went to the kitchen, and brought back an extra set of bowls and chopsticks for her.

As they ate, both of them stayed quiet. The TV was still playing that same period wuxia drama from before. Liao Zhuo tried several times to speak, but each time she noticed Cheng Chang’s gaze fixed on the screen, seemingly absorbed.

Not until the episode ended and Cheng Chang picked up the remote to switch episodes did Liao Zhuo finally find her opening. “What are your… plans going forward?”

The new episode began; the red-clad swordswoman hadn’t yet appeared.

Distracted, Cheng Chang caught Liao Zhuo’s words after a moment’s delay and thought it over. “We’ll see.”

He looked somewhat lost, as if genuinely uncertain about the future. Liao Zhuo had rarely seen this expression on Cheng Chang’s face — even burdened with illness, he had always been diligent and driven.

She didn’t know if he’d been struck hard by this sudden cardiac arrest, but in that instant, she found herself aching for him.

So she stopped hedging and asked directly, “That… you understand why I came here today, don’t you?”

Cheng Chang was silent for a moment, then gave an “Mm.”

“Actually, after we broke up, I’ve never really… been able to let you go. These past two years, I’ve gone on a few dates here and there, but never felt anything, so I’ve stayed single,” Liao Zhuo said. “Your illness — back then, honestly, it was a huge mental hurdle for me. But over the past couple of years, going through some things, I came to understand — who can really say, in this life, when it comes to death or fortune? Duan Mingcheng and your brother told me that after we broke up, you’ve stayed single too. So I thought… if you still have even a little bit of feeling left for me, we could…”

“No need,” Cheng Chang cut in before she could finish. “You don’t need to force yourself. I’m doing fine on my own.”

Liao Zhuo blinked, as if she hadn’t quite understood him. “But you should have someone by your side, shouldn’t you?”

Cheng Chang said, “I’ll hire someone.”

“A hired caretaker — how could that compare to someone who genuinely cares about you?” Liao Zhuo said.

She seemed to struggle with what to say next, lowering her eyes, and only after a long moment managed, with difficulty, “Cheng Chang, do you think… that me wanting to get back together with you is because I’m after your money?”

Cheng Chang said, “No. Don’t misunderstand.”

He’d known roughly what her family situation was like, back when they were together.

The day before his discharge, Duan Mingcheng had called and filled him in on Liao Zhuo’s situation over the past two years, too.

Liao Zhuo’s parents had divorced when she was young, and she’d grown up with her mother, in an ordinary household. That in itself wasn’t a problem — the trouble was her uncle, who had a gambling habit. Liao Zhuo’s grandparents had died young, and this uncle had essentially been raised by Liao Zhuo’s mother, who treated him like half a son of her own, pouring the money she earned into covering his gambling debts.

Ten years ago, the uncle had gone to prison for a fight related to gambling, and the family had enjoyed a few peaceful years after that. But then, last year, once he was released, he hadn’t changed at all — with no money to gamble with, he’d started borrowing, gotten entangled with loan sharks, and the compounding interest had piled up into a massive debt.

The reason Liao Zhuo had rushed home this time was that the loan sharks had come knocking, her uncle had fled, and she was worried they’d corner her mother at home.

“You… heard about my uncle’s situation?” Liao Zhuo asked, eyes lowered, not daring to look at Cheng Chang.

“Yes. My family’s run into some trouble, but it’s not something I can’t handle. I have a job too — I don’t earn as much as you, but if I budget carefully, I can pay it off eventually, and if it comes to it, I can go to the police. The reason I want to get back together with you is because of how long we were together — I can’t let it go. I really… really like you, and I want to take care of you.”

Cheng Chang said nothing.

In truth, Hé Jiǎn and Duan Mingcheng had both already mentioned Liao Zhuo’s situation to him over the past couple of days.

Duan Mingcheng had said, “The way she’s been taking care of you this whole time — it really does seem sincere. As for her family’s mess, your brother and I looked into it — it’s not that big a deal, manageable. I talked to her privately, and she said if it comes to it, she’d be willing to forgo the marriage certificate entirely and sign a document renouncing any claim to your assets — you could just have a lawyer notarize it. I didn’t pressure her into that at all, by the way — she brought it up herself.”

Hé Jiǎn had been more succinct: “You’d feel more at ease with someone hired off the street? At least with Liao Zhuo, you know her background.”

Both Duan Mingcheng and Hé Jiǎn were people who’d spent a long time steeped in the ways of the world, having seen all sorts of faces. If they’d looked into Liao Zhuo’s background and were telling him to set his mind at ease, then he probably should.

Cheng Chang asked, “How much more do you owe?”

Liao Zhuo blinked, then grew flustered. “Cheng Chang, I really don’t mean it like that.”

“I know you don’t mean it like that,” Cheng Chang said. “And I’m not thinking I have to help pay it off for you. I’m just asking, so I have a number in mind.”

“I already paid off some of it, going back this time,” Liao Zhuo said, biting her lip, before finally continuing after a long moment. “I got a respected elder from the area to mediate, and the loan sharks agreed not to add any more interest. What’s left now is… three hundred thousand.”

Three hundred thousand — not a huge sum, manageable.

Cheng Chang nodded. “Alright, I understand.”

He picked up the coat lying on the couch. “Let’s go. I’ll walk you down.”

Liao Zhuo looked up at him. “So we’re… we’re…”

“Those are two separate matters,” Cheng Chang said. “I’ve already told you — you don’t need to force yourself.”

He’d owed her a debt of gratitude for how she’d cared for him during his hospital stay, and wanted to repay it — and now that she’d run into hardship, it was only right to help her out somewhat. What she owed was to loan sharks, and people who lent at usurious rates were notoriously unpredictable — Cheng Chang had no intention of directly covering the whole debt for her. If he simply gave her three hundred thousand outright, it would settle the debt of gratitude and cleanly end the romantic entanglement at the same time — simpler, in a way.

Exactly how to go about it, he still needed to think through.

Only now did Liao Zhuo finally understand what Cheng Chang meant.

Feelings were feelings; debts of gratitude were debts of gratitude.

He’d said, on the surface, that she didn’t need to force herself — but really, it was that he himself didn’t want to force anything.

He truly… felt nothing for her at all anymore.

A wave of sorrow washed over Liao Zhuo, tears welling faintly in her eyes. Such a good man — how had she ever let him slip away?

After a long moment, she raised a hand to wipe at the corners of her eyes, glanced at the uncleared bowls and chopsticks on the coffee table, and said hoarsely, “Let me clear these up before I go.”

Cheng Chang said again that it wasn’t necessary, tapped a few times on his phone. “I’ve got you a car. It’ll take you down. I’ll clean up here when I’m back.”

Liao Zhuo stacked the dishes together and nodded silently. As she turned to leave, her gaze swept across the coffee table and suddenly landed on the safety talisman still weighted down beneath Cheng Chang’s teacup.

She let out an “oh,” moved the cup aside, picked up the talisman, and examined it. “Where did you get this?”

All evening, Cheng Chang had seemed distracted, but the moment Liao Zhuo picked up the talisman, an inexplicable dread sank through him, his reaction lagging even behind his own movement as he snatched the talisman back from her hand.

Liao Zhuo blinked, watching Cheng Chang’s brow furrow slightly, clearly treasuring the talisman deeply, and couldn’t help but explain, “Don’t misunderstand — I just found it a bit strange. Where did you get a talisman like this? Did you have someone bring it from your hometown?”

Both their hometowns were in Hangzhou — Cheng Chang from the city proper, Liao Zhuo from the outskirts.

Cheng Chang hadn’t paid much attention to Liao Zhuo’s words at first, focused only on tucking the talisman away safely, until he caught the second half of what she’d said, and his expression changed. “You’ve seen a talisman like this before?”

“Mm.” Liao Zhuo nodded. “In the mountains near my hometown. There’s a Guanyin shrine up there — that’s the kind of talisman they give out.”

She thought for a moment. “I heard the talisman’s quite effective, but the old monk who tends the shrine is a bit strange, and he charges too much in offerings, plus the roads up there are hard to get to, so it’s not very popular.”

Cheng Chang asked, “Do you know how to get there?”

“I only know roughly where it is.” Liao Zhuo glanced at him. “Let me ask about the exact location.”

She made a phone call, speaking in her hometown dialect. Cheng Chang fetched her paper and a pen, and Liao Zhuo listened and jotted things down as she went — though what she wrote wasn’t an exact address, just a route.

Outside, the wind and rain had grown even fiercer than before, thunder crashing one roll after another, deafeningly loud, repeatedly cutting off Liao Zhuo’s words.

Meanwhile, the rideshare car arrived. Cheng Chang asked the driver to wait a moment, offering to pay the full fare regardless, but the driver said the typhoon was too dangerous and canceled the trip, wanting to call it a night. Cheng Chang had no choice but to order another one.

It took Liao Zhuo nearly twenty minutes to finally confirm the route.

She handed the paper and pen back to Cheng Chang. “You’re going to get a talisman? You never used to believe in this kind of thing.”

Cheng Chang didn’t answer, grabbed his coat, and walked Liao Zhuo downstairs.

The new rideshare had already arrived. Just before getting in, seemingly unable to help herself, Liao Zhuo turned back to Cheng Chang. “The weather’s been terrible lately, and it’s all mountain roads out there, hard to drive. If you’re going, at least wait a few days — at least until the typhoon passes. I’ll go with you then.”

Cheng Chang still didn’t answer.

After seeing Liao Zhuo off, he went back upstairs, stacked the dishes in the sink, took out the safety talisman, and stared at it, lost in thought.

The wuxia drama played on in a loop on the TV. The swordswoman, dressed in crimson, sword in hand, stood alone and forlorn among the crowd, as though she’d suffered some injustice.

Cheng Chang thought of the day Yun Xi’s engagement had been broken off — how she’d stood alone in the hall of the Pei residence, her palm bleeding from injury.

The swordswoman on screen, pressured by others, knelt down before the crowd.

Cheng Chang thought again of that rainy day, Yun Xi kneeling before the palace gates, holding up the memorial tablets of her father and brother, seeking to clear Yun Luo’s name.

The thunder cracked one roll after another, drowning out the television entirely. Cheng Chang couldn’t even tell what scene was playing anymore, but it didn’t matter.

He turned the talisman over and over in his hand.

The whole world felt distant and estranged from him, as though it had cast him out beyond the bounds of the mortal realm — only this one talisman, which had crossed a thousand years of time alongside him, remained his sole tether to this human world.

It was the one true thing he could still hold onto.

Cheng Chang walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, drew back the curtain, and gazed out at the storm-lashed sky. A bolt of lightning tore straight down, nearly splitting the night sky in two.

Liao Zhuo had said the weather was bad these past few days, told him to wait until the typhoon passed before going to that old temple.

But he couldn’t wait.

The feeling of drifting between worlds was terrifying. He didn’t know where he’d come from, or where he was meant to go.

In Great Sui, he’d longed to return to the twenty-first century. Now that he was back, he’d found himself standing at the intersection of two worlds — reached by no one, going nowhere, understood by no one.

Cheng Chang pulled out his suitcase, packed a change of clothes, his post-surgery diuretic, and some routine medications, showered, and slept through the night. The next day, before dawn, he got in his car and drove toward Hangzhou.