15

Since the psychological shadow was too big, Wen Fu shoved the letter to the very bottom when placing it in the study.

Then went back to the room and crashed out.

Meanwhile, Fei Bolin, temporarily staying at a hotel, received a package from Stella, sent from her home in Beijing — a return gift for the gown he'd generously gifted her at Weibo Night.

This package was completely unlike Stella's usual 'small and expensive, simple and refined' style for everything she did — it was two boxes, each heavy and big, knee-high.

When the server pushed those two packages to the room door, it took quite a bit of effort. Fei Bolin had someone bring a small knife, opened the boxes, sat down on the floor, and discovered that inside were countless envelopes — at least five or six hundred of them, big and small, each carefully sealed with a dust-proof acrylic plate, which was why the package was so heavy.

At first he didn't realize what these letters were sent to him for, until he casually picked up one and saw through the sealing plate the words '644000' postal code and 'To Fei Bolin' written on the envelope — that was Wen Fu's handwriting.

Fei Bolin froze for a moment, then quickly picked up each sealed letter to check, and found they all had the same content written on them — every envelope's cover said 'To Fei Bolin.'

Over five hundred letters, each arranged by date from beginning to end in the package boxes, exactly the two years Wen Fu was abroad.

-

At five in the morning, Wen Fu was woken up by a phone ringing.

He slept deep, always curling up in bed like a shrimp, his head resting on just one corner of the pillow, the top of his head covered in messy bedhead.

The ringtone went on for a long time before Wen Fu, half-asleep, reached for it. His thick eyelashes lifted just a tiny slit. He didn't check the number, just hit answer, put the phone to his ear, didn't even get out a 'hello,' and was about to fall back asleep.

A familiar voice came from the other end: '...Xiaofu.'

Wen Fu's eyes snapped open.

Fei Bolin sat on the floor of the room with one knee bent up against the bed, surrounded by scattered envelopes and papers.

Only one bedside lamp was on. One hand rested on his knee, fingertips still pinching a letter about to slip loose, the other held the phone. He lowered his head slightly, gaze fixed on some letter on the ground, listening to the breathing and rustling sounds from the other end — Wen Fu was sitting up in bed.

'Bo ge?'

Wen Fu was much more awake than before, rubbed his eyes, reached to turn on the bedside lamp, adjusted to the light for a moment, but Fei Bolin still hadn't spoken.

He took the phone away to look, confirmed it was Fei Bolin's old number, put the receiver back to his ear, and waited in silence.

'Xiaofu...'

Fei Bolin called Wen Fu's name again, still no follow-up.

He had so much to say, but felt like saying anything would be useless. Wen Fu had already grown up in the time he couldn't see. All of Wen Fu's joys and sorrows he'd missed had slowly shaped Wen Fu into who he was now over the past thousands of days. Too late to make amends now.

Wen Fu sat cross-legged at the head of the bed. The floor heating kept him warm even in a loose cotton pajama. He heard Fei Bolin's breathing, sometimes light sometimes heavy, on the verge of speaking several times, but didn't know what had happened on the other end tonight.

So he was silent for a moment, then spoke first: 'Are you coming to take me home?'

-

Zhou Ji noticed that today, on the way out, Wen Fu was in an unusually good mood.

Although this person's face always had the same expression whether he was in a good mood or not, today's Wen Fu was clearly different just in spirit — his eyes seemed to have been given an extra coat of lacquer, brighter than before.

When Zhou Ji came to pick him up and got in the car, for a moment he even heard Wen Fu humming to himself quietly through his mask.

He was shocked, whipped his head around to look at Wen Fu, met Wen Fu's gaze — the other looked perfectly calm, not like he was humming.

Wen Fu asked: 'What?'

Zhou Ji shook his head, suspected he'd been hearing things from not sleeping well last night.

The next second, he heard Wen Fu humming again!

Zhou Ji looked over in alarm again, the singing stopped, Wen Fu blinked at him with his usual expression, eyes above the mask unruffled.

Zhou Ji: 'Are you singing?'

Wen Fu shook his head.

Zhou Ji had to keep his head down and grab the suitcase.

After putting the suitcase in the trunk and coming back, Wen Fu was already in his seat, chin propped on his hand, looking out the window, the back of his head facing everyone, spacing out.

Zhou Ji sat down, tipped his head back, was about to close his eyes and catch some sleep, when suddenly he heard a small humming sound from Wen Fu's direction again.

Zhou Ji: !!!

He was practically creeped out: 'Wen Fu?'

Wen Fu turned his head at the sound, his long dark lashes hidden in the shadow of his cap, looking at him quietly: 'What?'

Zhou Ji moved his lips: 'Did you... hear someone singing? Just now?'

Wen Fu said: 'No.'

Zhou Ji froze on the spot.

Ghosts in broad daylight!

And only haunting him!

Wen Fu, seeing him not speak, turned his face back to the window, looking at the scenery as if nothing had happened.

After a while, Wen Fu glanced at Zhou Ji and said: 'Just messing with you.'

Zhou Ji: ?

Wen Fu was still expressionless: 'I was the one singing just now.'

Zhou Ji: '...'

This is just some... childish... prank.

Zhou Ji was caught between laughing and crying: 'Was it fun?'

Wen Fu sat back up, leaned against the seat, dead serious: 'It was alright.'

Zhou Ji: 'You're in a good mood today?'

'Mm.' Wen Fu looked ahead, his eyes seemed to flash with light, 'I'm moving.'

'Moving?' Zhou Ji asked, 'Where to?'

Wen Fu said: 'Home.'

'...'

The plane arrived in Guizhou at noon. Once they landed, they went to the waiting room arranged by the organizers, then spent four hours on hair and makeup.

The venue for this Commercial Performance was a closed studio, holding maybe a thousand or two seats. Since it was a routine small-scale commercial gig, Wen Fu didn't bring his secondhand guitar from home, using a regular performance one instead.

As the most popular singer of the show, he was scheduled to perform in the middle.

The stage was set up simply per his request — just a basic mic stand and a tall stool.

When the host announced Wen Fu's name, the crowd was already roaring. After he came out, the audience lights went dark, the noise died down, and the stage lights focused on Wen Fu's seat — the whole dark venue lit up in just that one spot.

Wen Fu's face was narrow and small, his features striking. The makeup artist didn't apply heavy color on him, usually just a base layer of light makeup. But out of personal preference, Wen Fu's brow bone and the side of his neck always got a generous dusting of clear highlighter, so as he tilted his head you could see the crystalline shimmer around his Adam's apple and in-ear monitor.

He wrote most of his own lyrics, melodies, and arrangements. This time Wen Fu also picked one of his more obscure songs, called 'The Butterfly.'

Besides guitar, the live performance included accompanying drums and bagpipes. The whole tune leaned toward a bright, lilting feel, only in the second half did the style dip, a waking-from-a-dream sense of loss gradually surfacing.

He still had his right foot slightly raised on the tall stool's footrest, guitar on his lap, leaned into the mic, and spoke out the low count at the song's opening: 'One, two, three... four.'

The accompaniment started, and just as Wen Fu was about to sing, the guitar's first string snapped with a crisp crack.

The whole venue went silent for a second. Wen Fu adjusted his in-ear monitor, lowered his head right above the mic: 'Keep going.'

The backstage sound engineer paused for a moment before realizing the words were directed at him, then quickly turned the accompaniment back up.

With the first string gone, Wen Fu down-tuned part of the arrangement, adjusting other parts as he sang — essentially improvising a new version of 'The Butterfly' on the spot:

The old attic beneath the bridge, a paper boat on the pool

Yellowed pages of books, hills that go round and round

Shaking my head, listening to the teacher talk of lush leaves and thin flowers

But watching, which window the butterfly flies to

/

The alley back home, how many years does it take to walk

The guitar plucked a few strings, sang of waiting again

What I couldn't understand as a child, time flows like water

Like a kite we flew together, once the string breaks, no looking back

At dusk, who sits waiting by the door again

Half the ground, autumn wind creases

/

Corn porridge on the stove, afternoon leaves already rotted

A casual glance back, a blink and it's already several autumns

The fairy tale spell that summons a guardian, writes the path of growing up

The empty stairway, how many passed through, green and untroubled by sorrow

A paper butterfly runs away

/

Later I also heard

Longing, like spilled water, never gathered — it's the years rusting

Turns out the butterfly's other name is spring splendor hard to keep

/

I ask if the butterfly will return

She laughs at me for being nostalgic

The guitar's chords flowed like water through the corners of the small performance hall. To match the new arrangement, Wen Fu deliberately pressed his voice down a bit, his singing blending into the melody like the memories the lyrics mourned, murmuring low. When the song ended, the dark audience first scattered some applause here and there, and a few seconds later, applause and cheers belatedly erupted from the crowd.

Wen Fu's live performance from this show quickly made its way online. The first video posted got over a hundred thousand likes in just an hour.

Fortune in misfortune — this unexpected accident would, unsurprisingly, soon bring this obscure rearranged song back into the spotlight.

After the performance ended, Wen Fu returned to the car, where the makeup artist had already tidied up and was waiting.

There was only one flight a day from Guizhou to Jin City, so for the return trip they chose the high-speed rail.

The performance venue was a bit far from the high-speed rail station, and the next day's commercial gig required leaving at six in the morning to catch a flight. To let Wen Fu get a full sleep on the train, Zhou Ji and the makeup artist usually helped him remove his makeup on the way to the station, so he wouldn't have to fuss with it alone back at the hotel — not only would he not get it clean, it'd waste a bunch of time.

The driver was cruising steadily down the highway. Wen Fu was obediently following the makeup artist's instructions, using makeup-soaked cotton pads to wipe his eyes, when suddenly the car lurched and everyone in the vehicle pitched forward. The makeup artist had been leaning from the back seat toward the front — if Wen Fu hadn't been quick, she would've tumbled forward entirely.

The car was forced to stop, but the next moment, the business van took another heavy hit.

Now everyone realized — they'd been rear-ended, and more than once.

They weren't on a highway, so there was no chance of a pile-up. It was nighttime, they were well outside the main city, it was raining, and there were barely any cars around — how could they keep getting hit one after another?

Zhou Ji rolled down the window and leaned out, glanced back — those two private cars that had hit them from either side were all too familiar — clearly those sasaeng fans from before!

This was revenge!

Soon, the driver said from the front: 'Tire's blown!'

Zhou Ji was furious, pulled out his phone trying to contact another driver, then remembered this wasn't Jin City or Beijing. Stella hadn't come on this trip, and the whole team had only booked one car — there was no one else to call on.

In that moment, the two cars behind restarted, reversed some distance, floored it again, and slammed hard into the back of their vehicle!

The car scraped along the ground again, even the tires made a screeching friction sound.

On either side of the road, beneath the concrete barriers, was a slope, neither too high nor too low, and below the slope was a rushing river.

At this rate, two more hits and the car would flip into the river.

Whether those sasaeng fans were genuinely out for revenge or just trying to scare them, the only thing Zhou Ji was sure of was that everyone in those two cars was an old acquaintance — none of them, as far as he knew, was even fifteen yet, so even if they broke the law they wouldn't be held accountable.

'Fuck these little—' Zhou Ji opened the ride-hailing app and kept refreshing, trying to get even one taxi in this godforsaken stretch, 'They don't want their lives, but we do! A bunch of lunatics!'

He tried to book a ride while telling the driver: 'Call the police! Call them now!'

Apparently anticipating their reaction, after crashing into them, the sasaeng fans in the two cars behind leaned out their windows, filming with cameras in one hand while flipping them off with the other, whistled twice casually, then drove off in a flash.

Zhou Ji was used to it, but still furious.

The driver turned around from the driver's seat: 'Still calling the police?'

Calling the police now — by the time they arrived, dragged those people in for statements, processed and verified everything, argued back and forth a few times, it'd probably drag on until midnight. Not only would the whole team not get any rest, Wen Fu would be even more exhausted running commercial gigs tomorrow. And the worst part was, the end result would be the same — those people would get a verbal warning at most and walk free.

Besides, Wen Fu really hated going to the police station.

Zhou Ji sighed, tentatively asked Wen Fu: '...Let it go?'

Everyone was used to this kind of harassment, so in sync they didn't even need to say it.

Wen Fu's eyes were lowered, he nodded once, and didn't react further.

Stuck on the road with no solution, Zhou Ji had a brainwave and called a paparazzi who'd been secretly filming Wen Fu recently.

Artist teams basically had contact info for most paparazzi. For some not-too-big, not-too-small dirt they'd secretly filmed, paparazzi would weigh the value and selectively tip off the team in advance — if the team wanted to handle it, they'd pay to settle it privately.

The call connected quickly, the paparazzi lazily on the other end: 'Yo, Ji-ge?'

Zhou Ji was an old hand in the industry, having worked with Stella for years, half assistant half manager, and was quite familiar with these paparazzi.

He got straight to the point: 'Xiao Nie, you guys in Guiyang?'

'What're you talking about, Ji-ge?' The other clearly wasn't going to admit it, joking around with him, 'Why would we go to Guiyang for no reason?'

'Cut the crap,' Zhou Ji didn't have time to beat around the bush, 'Two days ago you were still selling paparazzi shots of Wen Fu buying milk online. I don't know where you've followed to now, but we're in some trouble, stuck on the road. Wen Fu still has a schedule to catch. You guys got room in your car? If so, squeeze us in.'

In this circle, everything was negotiable. Teams and paparazzi were usually at odds openly and secretly, but at least those guys made money selling artist info, so if you really ran into trouble, calling them for help usually worked.

Zhou Ji briefly explained the situation, and the other side stopped joking: 'We can fit you, but only two people, any more and we're overloaded.'

Zhou Ji said: 'Two is enough.'

Everyone except the makeup artist and stylist were men. They'd been through emergencies before over the years — getting Wen Fu out was the priority. The rest of them could figure something out together.

Seeing the rain had stopped outside, Zhou Ji was worried that staying too long might invite those sasaeng fans to return and cause more trouble, so he planned to take Wen Fu out of the car and find a gas station or restaurant along the road to rest in.

Strangely enough, this area wasn't actually that desolate — it looked like a typical city boundary. But the stretch where Wen Fu got hit was unusually remote. Past that section of road, after walking another twenty minutes or so, shops and residential areas gradually reappeared.

Zhou Ji fitted Wen Fu with a hat and mask, and the two walked to a concrete bridge, entering a restaurant. Zhou Ji first sent the location to Xiao Nie, figured Wen Fu was probably hungry, so ordered a few dishes. While waiting for the food, he asked the owner about nearby public restrooms, told Wen Fu not to wander off, and went to take care of business.

Wen Fu sat on a plastic stool in the restaurant, hat pulled low, not moving.

Outside, light rain started drizzling again. Wen Fu stared at the bridge across the road, spacing out.

Suddenly, at the far end of his vision, two struggling figures appeared in the river beneath the bridge.

He thought he was seeing things, stood up and walked to the eaves of the shop, frowning as he looked carefully — sure enough, two people in the river.

With the rain getting heavier, the water level would rise soon. Those two people were far from the shore, with no way to save themselves.

Wen Fu turned around, scanned to pay, and plunged into the rain without a word.

The shop owner was a woman in her forties. She'd just brought out the first cooked dish when she saw no one left at the table. Wen Fu's back was already cutting through the rain, dashing across the road. She quickly set down the dish and hurried to the door: 'Young man, where are you going! It's raining! Take an umbrella!'

The rain drowned out the owner's shouts. Wen Fu ran down the nearest staircase by the bridge to the riverbank, efficiently shed his thin performance jacket and cap, and at the same time got a clear look at the people in the river — a man at least in his thirties and a child of five or six.

The man held the child and sank beneath the water again and again, the child in his arms still struggling with all four limbs.

Wen Fu's eyes went wide, and in just his thin white hoodie, he dove headfirst into the river, the temperature already near freezing.