We had one day off per month. I drove alone for a very long time to reach a construction site.

It was an even more remote place than Wuleji Village, but the scenery was more beautiful—surrounded on three sides by green mountains. At this time, the layered forests were gradually turning golden yellow, the green grass grew abundantly, and cattle and sheep dotted the landscape.

A cluster of concrete villas in Tadao Ando’s style was being built here. Workers moved back and forth in an orderly fashion.

However, several of them immediately lowered their heads and hurried away as soon as they saw me.

This was Chi Na’s family’s old estate. He wanted to completely renovate it according to Yu Shixuan’s blueprints.

So he had poached all our workers.

But he wasn’t here now—I heard he had gone street racing with some newly acquainted friends.

I parked my car in front of one of the villas. On the second floor stood a girl wearing a cream-colored cashmere shawl, holding a cup of hot chocolate and gazing into the distance.

I rolled down my window and shouted, “Hey Princess, are you waiting for me?”

Yu Shixuan gave a cold laugh. “I’m inspecting the construction site. What are you doing here?”

“I already told you on WeChat—New Year’s is coming soon, so I came to see you!”

“We can hardly be considered friends!”

That was true—former romantic rivals, current project competitors.

But I had absolutely no psychological barrier to saying cheesy things. I said, “Of course… in my heart, you’re like my little sister.”

“Stop trying to claim a relationship that doesn’t exist.” Her face flushed red as she spoke irritably.

Once inside, the table was covered with various milk teas and pastries—clearly she had been preparing for a long time.

She continued speaking with a look of impatience:

“You eat this! These egg yolk pastries just arrived yesterday, they’re really delicious.”

“This is my homemade Frappuccino, drink it quickly—doesn’t it taste just like Starbucks!”

I suddenly realized she was actually very happy I had come.

Having broken with her family so severely, she probably had no way to go home for New Year’s.

Here she had no friends and no family, only Chi Na.

When Chi Na wasn’t home, she could only stay indoors.

I thought of her before—she used to love shopping, going to concerts, getting the latest nail designs, checking in at trendy restaurants. Her whole being was like a lively metropolis.

But now, though she was still beautiful, she always carried a melancholy that couldn’t be shaken off.

I ate three egg yolk pastries and nearly choked, my eyes rolling back, before I finally spoke.

I said, “I wanted to tell you… if you want to go back, you can stay at my place.”

“What?”

“And if you want to break up, I can help you with that too.”

Damn my meddlesome, busybody self! I really wanted to slap myself.

Yes, after chatting with Yu Shixuan that night, I don’t know why but I felt very uncomfortable.

I felt… she was very much like me seven years ago.

Always thinking my life needed a man to save it, with an almost sacred fantasy about love.

Back then I placed Cheng Xia on a pedestal, just like she was following Chi Na regardless of everything.

Essentially it was the same.

Except that Cheng Xia was at least a clean-cut good person, while Chi Na was a suspected murderer and a definitively emotionally unstable active volcano.

I wanted to help her, even though I was nothing.

Yu Shixuan froze for a moment, then burst out laughing. In that instant, the somewhat childish Yu Shixuan disappeared.

She once again resembled that lofty female architect who coldly mocked me.

I quickly lowered my head. Damn it, I knew I shouldn’t have come.

“Ren Dongxue, do you know what your biggest problem is?” She finally finished laughing and looked at me with some pity in her eyes.

I hung my head. “Being a busybody.”

“It’s being soft-hearted,” she said. “I’ve even been passive-aggressive toward you, tried to drive a wedge between you and Cheng Xia… Are you stupid? With such a soft heart, how are you going to manage? They’ll all come to bully you.”

Actually, more than one person in the workplace had called me ruthless.

Even my own father had called me selfish and heartless.

But I don’t know why—I couldn’t face the tearful eyes of girls. Ha Rina was like this, Yu Shixuan was like this.

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,” she said. “Thank you.”

I lowered my head. “I’m the one who should thank you…”

She was the one who told me about Chi Na’s family’s true financial situation.

The reason Teng Qishi was so wealthy was because he had been a coal boss in his early years.

However, all that business was gone now. Beicang Transport didn’t make money—it burned through the old fortune every day.

Chi Na was young and hot-blooded, wanting to lead Beicang Transport to haul cargo to Russia. Teng Qishi disagreed. Since Chi Na only had local business, even if he monopolized it, there wasn’t much money to be made. The company was in turmoil.

So for Teng Qishi, Old Feng’s contract wasn’t just about generating revenue for the company—it was also about maintaining his own position in the company and suppressing his son’s excessively inflated ambitions.

And Chi Na obviously couldn’t completely fall out with his father right now.

So he could only swallow his anger and endure Old Feng’s provocations.

But he couldn’t endure it. I had a premonition that something would happen sooner or later—or rather, Chi Na as a person was an active volcano ready to explode at any moment.

That’s why I came to tell Yu Shixuan all this.

I didn’t want the princess who had finally been brave once to be heading toward destruction.

—

Of course, I wasn’t that noble either.

After eating hotpot with Yu Shixuan, I called Old Feng.

“I asked around. It seems Chi Na thought he upset Little Yu, so he wanted to quickly build the house she designed to win back her favor. He’s not deliberately targeting us.”

“It’s fine. Most of the workers should return in a few days,” Old Feng said.

I keenly detected some implication in his words. Old Feng was probably planning to use some methods—and some rather ruthless methods at that.

I mumbled, “Mr. Feng, since he’s not deliberately targeting us, and many herders are actually idle right now, if we hire a lot of workers, we can still catch up on the construction schedule.”

Chi Na was someone who didn’t care about his life.

Thinking about previous incidents, I instinctively didn’t want to fight with him.

“I told you a story before, but you didn’t remember it,” Old Feng said. “A butcher is slaughtering a dog. The dog cries pitifully, so a scholar wants to buy the dog with money. But because they argued over the price, the dog instead attacked the scholar.”

I fell silent.

“The hateful thing about beasts is that they don’t understand anything. You can’t reason with them,” he said very calmly. “You can only beat them to death.”

“You’re right.”

I tilted my head back. In the lead-gray sky, a snowflake was slowly drifting down.

The grassland’s most terrifying blizzard season was about to arrive.

—

Later, some rather strange things happened at Chi Na’s family construction site.

The work consistently failed to meet standards and had to be redone repeatedly. Chi Na furiously scolded each worker and even got physical.

As a result, the next day, several workers disappeared, along with more than ten truckloads of building materials.

Beicang Transport had considerable influence, yet no matter how they investigated, they couldn’t find out where these people had gone.

The case remained unsolved.

Chi Na’s construction site came to a standstill. Many workers came back to me sheepishly. I acted as if nothing had happened and took them all back.

Taking advantage of the time before the cold season arrived, we completed the last quarter’s projects and could finally pay everyone so the workers could have a good New Year.

On New Year’s Eve, everyone ate a meal of pork stewed with vermicelli together, then joyfully embarked on their journey home for the holiday.

The construction site gradually grew quiet. Finally, only I remained.

Grandma still wanted to go back to Dad’s place for New Year this year. I said then go by yourself, I’ll buy your ticket.

I also sent my dad a red envelope on WeChat.

This was how we were—constantly breaking bones, constantly staying connected by tendons.

Old Feng planned to take his wife and children on vacation abroad and left early.

As expected, Yu Shixuan didn’t go home. Chi Na took her to play in Egypt—clearly I had worried for nothing.

Heavy snow covered the entire grassland. As the workers gradually left, the usually noisy construction site slowly fell into complete silence.

On New Year’s Eve, I boiled a pot of big bones. I fed the bones to the large dogs that made their living around the construction site. Oddly enough, even though they ate irregularly, they were still sleek and glossy.

“Happy New Year to you all too.”

They rushed over, licking me with their hot tongues, nearly knocking me over.

Then I used the bone broth to cook a bowl of frozen dumplings and returned to my dorm to eat while organizing construction site documents.

Two small space heaters hummed and rotated, making the areas they heated toasty warm while other places remained quite cold.

Outside the window, fierce winds swept snow powder along, as if ten thousand giants were roaring.

I remembered that a year ago, Cheng Xia and I had also hidden in this small room, shivering and hugging each other for warmth.

It was very cold then, but my heart felt warm and secure.

Just then, the dogs outside suddenly began barking frantically.

Someone had come to the construction site?