Chapter 23

2013. Rongzhou City. A deep-autumn night. In Cuiping District's Urban Village, the sound of shattering glass suddenly rang out.

This was a residential building that had been used as a temporary municipal office back in the eighties. The surrounding infrastructure had aged, the building itself was long past repair, and with the city's rapid development in recent years, this old building—only two units per floor—was barely inhabited anymore. The few people still there were elderly whose children had gone off to work in the cities and left no one to look after them. So even with such a racket coming from the first floor, no one came out to check. Once night fell, the whole building sank into a silence like death.

A thin black shadow nimbly slipped through the broken kitchen window on the first floor. Then the lights inside flicked on—faint, flickering with the buzz of unstable current. A peeling red wooden door opened from the inside. The person who'd just gone in came back out, dragged a beat-up suitcase missing one wheel down the hallway, and pulled it into the room.

After two weeks of casing the place, Wen Fu confirmed nobody lived here. Starting today, he'd make it his seventeenth 'base.'

—And Fei Baolin first laid eyes on Wen Fu three days later, on the road home after evening self-study.

It was around eleven at night. Fei Baolin had just finished evening self-study and, prodded by the security guard, was the last one out of the classroom.

Late October in a southern city—peak rainy season. Fei Baolin walked down five floors, popped open his umbrella before stepping out of the Teaching Building, and made his way toward the School Gate through slanting drizzle and dim campus lamps.

Rongyi High School sat in a pretty remote spot, far from the city center. The new School Gate hadn't been finished yet, and the old one faced a three-way intersection that turned into a traffic jam every weekend.

Past the intersection, a narrow alley ran alongside the bookstore. It was Fei Baolin's daily route to and from school, and on weekends it doubled as the hideout for dozens of food stalls trying to dodge the city inspectors.

Lucky for him, it was a Friday night and he'd left late. Even the food vendors were packing up one by one because of the rain.

He was born tall and long-limbed. A few strides across the road and he stepped easily into the alley.

Both sides of the alley were the backs of old residential buildings. Every few steps there was a drain, and the ground was always slick. The puddles Fei Baolin skirted around always had a greasy, unidentifiable sheen.

Today, with the rain, the already-stuffy alley air carried the smell of rainwater and drain grease. Fei Baolin picked up his pace. Just as he reached the corner, he heard a low voice ahead: 'Hand over the money from earlier.'

The speaker's voice came across soft and unhurried through the pattering rain, but every word was crisp. Not just the two being robbed who stood right across from him—even Fei Baolin, ten steps away, caught it clearly.

A voice born beautiful. When it sounded, it was like a Guitar string being lightly plucked.

Fei Baolin's step faltered. He subtly retreated half a pace, stood behind the corner wall, and looked through the gap between the wall and a utility pole to catch the scene ahead.

Two students in No.1 High School uniforms, single-shoulder empty backpacks, each holding an umbrella, each with a free hand clutching an unlit cigarette and a crumpled roll of bills—ones, tens, a fifty. Under a hundred, all told.

The person facing them wore a simple black windbreaker, a baseball cap, and a mask—drenched from the rain. Only a pair of clear black-and-white eyes showed, slightly lowered, thick lashes wet with water, casting a shadow beneath them.

And that person's left hand was holding a short fruit knife.

The blade tilted slightly, catching cold moonlight.

That was how Fei Baolin and Wen Fu first met.

On a night when every autumn rain brought the cold a step closer, he stumbled on him in the middle of a robbery.

The two high schoolers exchanged a look. By numbers and build, Wen Fu alone had no real advantage—but they clearly feared the blade in his hand. After a quick calculation, they handed over the money and bolted.

Wen Fu vanished into the rainy night just as fast.

The rain quickly washed every trace from the night. The alley fell silent. Fei Baolin walked past the corner under his umbrella, acted like nothing had happened, and kept going home.

Two more roads past the alley and he was at his Residential Complex.

This stretch was old city territory. The Residential Complex buildings were the communal tube-apartment type—each unit door had gotten an anti-theft lock in recent years, but the buildings themselves were still ancient, the residents a mix, and the staircases so narrow that two people passing each other would brush shoulders turning around.

Neighborhood Convenience Store was located on the ground floor of a unit building inside the Residential Complex.

Fei Baolin closed his umbrella and stepped inside. The middle-aged woman behind the register heard his footsteps and looked up, ready to call out a greeting—but seeing it was Fei Baolin, she smiled: 'Baolin, school's out?'

'Aunt Wu,' Fei Baolin's lips lifted slightly. He set down his backpack and gave a polite nod. 'You can head back.'

Aunt Wu gave an 'Eh,' grabbed the lunchbox from under the counter, came around the register, and headed for the door: 'You get some rest early too.'

'Okay.'

The store had been left behind by Fei Baolin's mother before she died. He was swamped with school, and the place was hard to lease out, so instead of letting it sit empty, he paid Aunt Wu—a retiree who lived upstairs—three thousand a month to keep an eye on it. Weekdays Aunt Wu ran the register and handled restocking; Fei Baolin took over after school. During breaks he was usually here too.

The store already did decent business, and Fei Baolin had lived here for years. He was polite and warm to everyone, and everyone knew his situation. The neighbors were happy to throw extra business his way—so his living expenses and tuition were covered each year.

Aunt Wu had barely gone two steps before doubling back. She leaned in from the doorway: 'Baolin?'

Fei Baolin had just sat down and opened his backpack. Hearing the call, he looked up again: 'What is it, Aunt Wu?'

He had delicate features, a high nose bridge with a tiny mole on the side, and the kind of classically handsome proportions parents loved. When he looked up at someone, his gaze was always calm and gentle. Add the fair skin, and every gesture carried a quality untouched by the everyday world—the model good student.

Aunt Wu had a son and daughter who'd been away working for years—she missed them terribly at home. Now, watching Fei Baolin wait patiently for her answer, her heart swelled with affection, and she unconsciously softened her voice: 'Weather's cold now, remember to layer up.'

Fei Baolin nodded again: 'Okay. Thanks, Aunt Wu.'

'Get some rest early, don't push yourself.'

'Mm.'

After Aunt Wu left, Fei Baolin pulled out the practice test he hadn't finished in class and kept his head down, working through the last few physics problems.

Over half an hour later, Fei Baolin had finished checking against the answer key and was about to call it a night when a customer walked in.

It was nearly midnight. The whole Residential Complex was empty except for the security booth. Fei Baolin looked up, mildly puzzled—and his eyes met the stranger's head-on.

What a coincidence. Same one from the robbery outside the School Gate.

Wen Fu was still in the black windbreaker and jeans, cap pulled low, mask on. Coming in, he gave the register a casual glance—those long, thick lashes hid his eyes, not giving Fei Baolin a chance to read them—then walked straight toward the instant-noodle shelf.

Fei Baolin froze for a beat, then dropped his gaze, reopened the test paper he'd already shut, and pretended to check answers again.

Two minutes later, a sausage and a box of instant noodles landed in front of him.

Fei Baolin hesitated, then looked at Wen Fu.

The other still wore that same look. Even with the mask covering most of his face, his eyes came across cold and indifferent. Like in the alley—gaze always lowered, avoiding eye contact, as if nothing stirred inside.

So Fei Baolin's first impression of Wen Fu was just those eyes.

They were beautiful eyes, lashes long and black. Fei Baolin looked through those two dense, feather-like fringes of lashes into Wen Fu's gaze—and felt like he'd walked straight into two cold black glass beads.

The other waited a beat, saw him dragging his feet on the register, and asked: 'How much?'

That voice again—autumn water rippling.

Fei Baolin picked up the scanner, ran it over the barcodes on the noodles and the sausage, then grabbed a plastic bag and packed them up: 'Three yuan.'

Wen Fu pulled a wad of bills from his side pocket.

All crumpled into wads, a mess.

A one-yuan coin clattered onto the counter. Wen Fu glanced at it, fished out two more bills and set them down, then stuffed the rest back in his pocket, picked up the bag, and turned to leave.

His movements were quick—maybe he was in a rush to go—so one of the bills was a ten-yuan note given by mistake, and he didn't notice.

By the time Fei Baolin noticed and tried to call him back, Wen Fu was already gone.

Fei Baolin sat on the stool for a moment—the truth was, his thought just then had been: if the other took the food and walked out without paying, he'd pretend he hadn't seen it.

After all, that person looked young—maybe just hitting puberty, possibly younger than him, maybe a student somewhere too. Choosing to rob high schoolers in the rain outside the School Gate, then showing up at a store past midnight to buy the cheapest instant food—most likely no parents around, hit some rough patch in life.

If that wasn't the case, then a kid that young pulling a knife on peers when it wasn't even about survival was a pretty horrifying kind of behavior.

Either way, this was an aggressive person. Fei Baolin had no business getting involved.

If he played dumb and pocketed the ten yuan, that was the easiest path. Even if the other later realized he'd lost money, it'd be hard to connect it to a mistake at Lin's Convenience Store.

The most troublesome choice was chasing him down to return the money—even finding him was iffy, and he worried the other was on edge, which could lead to more misunderstandings.

A few seconds later, Fei Baolin stood, closed the store door, zipped his School Uniform all the way up against the cold wind, and went after him.