Fang Yiming arrived home still feeling unsettled. He pushed open the door, and a strange smell immediately hit him from inside — whatever Ms. Lu was tinkering with this time, he had no idea.

She always liked to experiment with various tricks and tips she’d picked up from hearsay. But she had neither deft hands nor good judgment, approaching things without any thought or discernment, which constantly gave him headaches.

Fang Yiming sat down on the sofa, tossed his keys aside carelessly, and leaned his head back to rest with his eyes closed. Before long, Ms. Lu came out of the other room, looked around the living room, and snapped, “Clothes thrown just anywhere again — can’t you be a little more considerate? Don’t I have enough to do at home? Am I here just to wait on you?”

Fang Yiming pressed a hand over his forehead, his expression making his irritation plain.

Ms. Lu tidied up for a while, then straightened up. “Wait — why are you home so early today? Hasn’t your office just gotten off work?”

Fang Yiming didn’t want to argue with her. He offered some vague excuse and escaped to the study, pretending to work.

That night, he lay in bed, unable to sleep, tossing and turning.

Ms. Lu breathed heavily beside him, and once she fell deeply asleep, she began to snore. The loud, rhythmic sound only made sleep feel more impossible for him.

Middle-aged marriages tend to reach a point like this — not much love left, mostly just responsibility and family feeling.

He thought that even without loving his current wife, he would stay with her for the rest of his life and carefully raise his child. At his age, he had no taste for upheaval. He preferred stability above all else. That was different from the recklessness of his youth.

If Ye Yaoling had met him a little later, perhaps they wouldn’t have divorced. No — or perhaps they wouldn’t have married at all.

They had both been too young then. They had no real understanding of what life meant.

Strange — he hadn’t thought of Ye Yaoling in a very long time.

Fang Yiming told himself that the two of them had shared something genuine and passionate, but that fragile emotion had been worn away entirely by reality before long.

After the divorce, what remained in his memory was all the bickering and disorder of those impoverished years. He had long forgotten the stunned, captivated feeling of first meeting Ye Yaoling, and only knew that she had been a beautiful, simple woman.

Now, that beauty and simplicity — filtered through the haze of years long past — came alive again, bubbling up the way a spring breaks through to the surface after finding an outlet.

Yes. Ye Yaoling had been beautiful, and thoroughly devoted to home life, admiring him in every way imaginable.

She had never once bothered him with household matters. The home was always kept spotlessly clean. At the same time, she had thriftiness carved into her very bones — she stretched every coin as far as it could go. Her tastes were old-fashioned and modest.

She had been too poor, too repressed — like someone without a personality of her own. Insecure and oversensitive, she had left Fang Yiming feeling perpetually exhausted.

In those days, young people tended to prize what they called “personality.” Ye Yaoling had been mocked by his friends as “soulless,” and gradually Fang Yiming had grown distant from her.

When he married Ms. Lu, her family had been quite influential locally — far wealthier than Ye Yaoling’s background. The young woman had worn pretty dresses, spritzed herself with a delicate perfume, and spoken constantly of the lives of overseas Chinese relatives. Fang Yiming had been thoroughly enchanted.

Now Ms. Lu still liked shopping and dressing up, and still presented herself with grace and poise when meeting new people — yet Fang Yiming had long since stopped finding either of those traits appealing, because he had come to see clearly her pettiness and her narrow-mindedness.

Fang Yiming rolled over and stared at the curtain swaying in the air. His thoughts drifted back to Fang Zhuo.

Earlier in the day, he’d still thought Fang Zhuo was nothing like Ye Yaoling. Now he was no longer sure. They were both the same — stubborn, vulnerable, sensitive. Neither knew how to weigh their choices.

Ye Yaoling had died in desolation. Fang Yiming had felt a degree of pity for her then, and now that pity had transferred itself to Fang Zhuo.

For the first time in a long while, something stirred in him — the recognition that she is his daughter.

And besides, Fang Zhuo was already eighteen — an adult, someone capable of caring for herself. She wouldn’t need him to worry much longer. So why had he let things become so strained between them, and in doing so given people more to talk about?

The next day, after work, Fang Yiming brought some money and went to find Fang Zhuo again. They stood near the flower beds by the school entrance, in a spot where few people passed.

Fang Zhuo had removed the gauze from her forehead herself during a spare moment and was now applying the ointment as directed on the prescription. The wound, now beginning to scab over, looked somewhat stark at the corner of her forehead. The area wasn’t large, and the position was not particularly conspicuous, yet it was still worrying — might it leave a scar?

Fang Yiming finally thought to ask about her injury. His first words upon seeing her were: “Is your wound doing alright?”

“It’s almost healed,” Fang Zhuo said. “Did you have something else left to say yesterday?”

Fang Yiming found the phrasing uncomfortable, but he pressed down the urge to take issue with it. He reached into his wallet, pulled out a thick stack of neatly folded bills, and without counting them, folded them in half and handed them over. “Take this for now. Have you already used up the allowance I gave you before? As long as you don’t spend recklessly, you can come to me if you need more.”

A well-worn pop song immediately played itself in Fang Zhuo’s mind. She looked at him with cool indifference, her gaze passing briefly over the money she liked so much before landing on Fang Yiming’s face. She regarded him in wordless silence.

People like him always operated this way. They never went all the way to the bottom, and the moment they sensed you were about to break with them for good, they’d extend just a little goodwill — leaving themselves room to maneuver when it came in handy later.

This was rarely about genuine kindness. It was more likely the smoothness of an adult who had lived long enough. A social reflex.

Fang Zhuo could almost entirely predict what Fang Yiming was thinking — the most absurd form of understanding between a father and daughter.

She held his gaze until he was visibly uncomfortable, then said a single sentence: “No need. I have my uncle.”

“How is your uncle supposed to support you?” Fang Yiming had nearly forgotten that Ye Yaoling had a brother. The words came out before he thought: “Isn’t your uncle a cripple?”

The moment it left his mouth, a flicker of regret crossed his face. He realized that word wasn’t particularly comfortable to anyone’s ears. And Fang Zhuo’s expression darkened instantly. Those black-and-white eyes of hers stared straight at him, and for a brief moment he felt something close to dread.

But the coldness was only there for a flash. She concealed it quickly, and when her eyes opened again, all Fang Yiming could see was a trace of hurt and anger.

Fang Zhuo felt a sudden, sharp impulse: she wanted to know what kind of blade could cut most deeply and devastatingly into this man. A man like him — what was left that could keep him awake through the night, racked with regret?

She kept her expression carefully controlled. The corners of her lips pulled into a faint, bitter smile.

“I remember I once asked you why my mother left,” Fang Zhuo said. “You were very angry then. You didn’t answer.”

Fang Yiming asked, “Did he explain it to you? What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. But I found my mother’s diary.” Fang Zhuo asked him in return, “Do you know how you appear in her diary?”

Fang Yiming assumed it must be nothing flattering — that perhaps she had exhausted herself trying to slander and discredit him. He braced himself to be furious, prepared to argue loudly and forcefully in rebuttal at the first opportunity.

But the person across from him said, “She wrote that you… once illuminated her life. That you burned through her world like a flame.”

Fang Zhuo’s clear, quiet voice overlapped with someone from his past.

Fang Yiming froze.

Fang Zhuo asked, in a tone of genuine, guileless curiosity, “You thought she was a bad person, didn’t you? Why did you think of her that way? Did she ever do anything to hurt you?”

Fang Yiming faltered. For the first time in front of Fang Zhuo, he could not hold his head up. He couldn’t quite bring himself to look her in the eye.

“You could end a relationship so easily…” Fang Zhuo said with perfect composure. “…and there was never anywhere for me to hold your attention either. I didn’t do anything wrong. But I stopped being your daughter a long time ago.”

Fang Yiming knew: if this had been an investment, Fang Zhuo had stopped trading with him as a stock.

To be precise — when he divorced Ye Yaoling, he had sold off his holdings once. After Ye Yaoling died, when he chose not to take Fang Zhuo in, he had sold them off again. When Fang Zhuo came back and looked to him for attention and care, his own selfishness had cost him the very last chance.

He had no more capital left.

His shabbiness seemed to have been fully seen through by the person standing before him. He fled in a more disheveled state than the day before, and only when he was sealed inside the car did he let out a long, relieved breath.

Fang Zhuo’s words lingered in his ears, and as he found himself involuntarily remembering Ye Yaoling, his phone rang. Ms. Lu’s name appeared on the screen.

Fang Yiming drew a deep breath and swiped to answer. A stream of crude shouting immediately poured through the speaker. One could imagine the volume at which the person on the other end was screaming:

“Fang Yiming! Your daughter is out there smearing your name, and you’re just going to sit there and be a coward about it?!”

He wasn’t the least bit surprised. Ms. Lu was sharp-tongued and enjoyed humiliating people. News like this was exactly the kind of thing her “friends” would rush to deliver to her door.

Fang Yiming had no patience for pleasantries. He hung up directly.

He pressed both hands to his head and dragged them roughly through his hair, feeling that nothing in his life had been going right lately — neither work nor home.

He had far more to worry about than Ms. Lu. He still had to go back and face a whole office full of chattering colleagues. And looming just ahead, the year-end performance review — he had no idea how much damage had been done.

That stable, settled life he had always longed for seemed on the verge of collapsing in a single night.

…Because of his wife’s shocking and cold-hearted cruelty at the time.

Fang Yiming brought his fist down hard against the steering wheel.

Fang Zhuo strolled back to the classroom. Evening self-study had already begun. Yan Lie waited for her to sit down, then asked in a low voice, “Where did you disappear to?”

Fang Zhuo said, “Nothing. Just dealing with a nuisance.”

They say anger causes more wrinkles. She wondered whether it might also leave more scars.

Fang Zhuo took out the ointment and applied a thick layer over her wound.

Yan Lie leaned across the desk between them, tapped her arm, and said mysteriously, “I’ve got a secret to show you.”

Fang Zhuo asked, “What?”

Yan Lie lifted his bangs with one hand, revealing his smooth, fair forehead.

Because of the shadows cast by the fluorescent light overhead, Fang Zhuo couldn’t make out what he was pointing to, so she leaned in closer. Looking carefully, she discovered that his temple also bore a small scar — in nearly the same spot as hers. It had been there long enough that it was barely noticeable anymore.

She studied it intently, examining the shape of the mark. The warm air she breathed out nearly drifted against Yan Lie’s face.

Yan Lie felt that Fang Zhuo was too close. At this distance, he wasn’t sure where to look.

The neat bridge of her nose. Her lips, slightly moist. Those black-and-white eyes.

Fang Zhuo’s face was clean and delicate, like a line drawing with every stroke carefully placed. The dark-red mark on her forehead stood out as entirely out of place. He straightened slightly, and almost without thinking his hand rose — then, just before his fingers reached her face, a book was thrust between them, nearly grazing both their noses. They both startled and pulled back.

The homeroom teacher stood there with a sour expression, pulling the reference book back toward herself. She gave them both a look loaded with meaning, then walked past them.

It took Fang Zhuo a long moment to recover. Puzzled, she asked, “Why did she give me that look?”

Yan Lie’s throat worked. He turned away and said, his voice carefully even, “How would I know? Probably because you’re not studying.”

A week after the injury, Fang Zhuo’s scar had still not fully healed. She called Ye Yuncheng to say she wanted to stay at school through the weekend to study for the upcoming monthly exam.

Ye Yuncheng agreed and reminded her that the weather was getting cooler — to dress warmly.

Just before hanging up, Ye Yuncheng hesitated, then asked, “Has anyone come to find you lately?”

Fang Zhuo played dumb. “Who?”

Ye Yuncheng: “Who do you think? Your homeroom teacher already told me everything.”

“Oh,” Fang Zhuo said. “He doesn’t dare come anymore.”

“Why doesn’t he dare?” Ye Yuncheng said. “Don’t let things get too ugly with him — if you make too much of a scene, people will talk about you… Actually, forget it. Just focus on your studies.”

“I know,” Fang Zhuo said. “Please take good care of my chicken.”

“How did you turn into Lielie?” Ye Yuncheng said with a laugh. “Little Baldy is doing just fine, don’t you worry. I’ve set up a separate coop for it — no need to worry about the other roosters pecking at it.”

Fang Zhuo heard about that preferential treatment and felt genuinely indignant on behalf of all the other chickens.

Privilege by parentage. A chicken elevated by its baldness.

Such is the warmth and coldness of this world.

She returned Yan Lie’s phone to him. But this particular doting “father” hadn’t said a single word about his feathered good-luck charm.

Fang Zhuo shook her head inwardly.

The fickleness of human affection.

During this stretch of time, Fang Zhuo had roughly worked through the review booklet the teacher had given her, and was currently doing targeted practice exercises. She also borrowed several past exam papers from Yan Lie to use for reinforcement.

It had to be said that mathematics was a peculiar discipline. Ordinary students could conquer it through sheer volume of repetitive practice. Those with talent, once they found the half-open door, could climb straight to the breakthrough.

Fang Zhuo wasn’t quite at the stage of a breakthrough, but her solving time on familiar question types had genuinely improved. Though “improved” might mean only a few seconds.

As for her weakness in English, Yan Lie was also attempting to help her tackle it head-on. He’d had her read English vocabulary aloud for a long while, correcting her pronunciation. After multiple attempts, he concluded it was a considerably challenging task — and since spoken English wasn’t particularly important for the university entrance exams, he changed strategy.

He isolated individual words and short phrases and had Fang Zhuo compose sentences with them, which he would then annotate and correct.

Whether it was helping, Fang Zhuo wasn’t entirely sure. But she had genuinely absorbed new knowledge.