Qi Lian remained expressionless, not saying a word. He simply looked her up and down, scanning her face and her surroundings with a gaze that held an unprecedented coldness.
Yu Mo had never seen Qi Lian look disheveled before, but now, his chin was shadowed with stubble; he clearly hadn't shaved.
"Qi Lian," she called out softly.
Qi Lian nodded, asking tonelessly, "Are you alright?"
Seeing her shake her head, he asked again, "Are you on the train? How long until you arrive?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe an hour or two."
Qi Lian nodded again, and before Yu Mo could get a good look at him, he hung up.
It was as if he didn't want to say a single unnecessary word to her. Yu Mo stuffed her phone into her bag. Her head throbbed even harder now, leaving her with no choice but to lean forward and try to sleep.
Far away in Jinning, Qi Lian had been suffering from a headache all day. He hadn't slept a wink all night. Two veins at the back of his head were pulsing violently, like the electric drill in his hand was buzzing right into his skull, leaving him restless and unsettled.
That night, forget sleeping—he had felt like killing someone.
Yu Mo’s pale, exposed chest kept flashing before his eyes. He didn't dare imagine where she was or who she was with, yet he couldn't stop his mind from drifting toward the worst-case scenario.
The mere thought of Yu Mo undressing in front of another man made him feel like he was about to explode. He couldn't sit still; it felt as though someone was carving his flesh and pulling his tendons.
He had paced in circles under the dim light, gritting his teeth. "If you dare mess around, Yu Mo, just you wait." A moment later, another possibility would strike him, nearly giving him a heart attack. "If you're stupid enough to get scammed, you deserve it. But you shouldn't be that dumb; you've got a good head on your shoulders. God, you're going to be the death of me."
He watched the sky turn from the pale white of a fish's belly to a brilliant, radiant gold. With work to do, he had no choice but to drive his pickup truck out to the job site.
***
Yu Mo took a taxi from the high-speed rail station back to Lianhua. The subway would have been more convenient, but her head was splitting.
The car pulled up at the entrance of District One. The driver, speaking in a thick local accent, was still rambling on. Yu Mo already knew exactly how many apartments his family owned and how much his wife earned a month.
Feeling too awkward to just open the door and bolt, she waited for him to finish a sentence before quickly interrupting, "Thank you, Master." Only then did she open the door and step out.
The weather was sweltering. The cicadas in the plane trees lining the road were screaming at the top of their lungs.
That day, she was wearing a pair of shorts and an oversized T-shirt. Her pale, bare legs were more dazzling than the sun. A pair of sunglasses larger than her face rested on her nose, and a massive black leather bag was slung over her shoulder.
She got out of the car and trudged forward, feeling hot, dizzy, and thirsty.
Looking up, she saw someone standing right under the blazing sun. Sweat was pouring down his cheeks, and his expression was as dark as the bottom of a pot. She thought she was seeing things, but as she looked closer, bubbles of joy rose from the depths of her heart.
The corners of her mouth curled up as she called out brightly, "Qi Lian!"
Qi Lian had seen her long ago. In the middle of the day, even dogs knew to find a patch of shade to hide in; there were hardly any people or cars at the gate.
The moment the taxi stopped and those two pale legs stepped out, even a man who had been blind for ten years could have spotted her.
He looked her over thoroughly from head to toe. Aside from her unsteady gait, she seemed cheerful enough to greet him. He licked the roof of his mouth, turned around, and walked away.
Yu Mo froze in place. Seeing him walk off without looking back, she hurriedly cried out, "I'm dizzy, Qi Lian!"
The tall figure ahead paused for a fraction of a second but didn't stop.
Yu Mo quickened her pace to keep up, continuing, "My bag is so heavy, Qi Lian."
This time, Qi Lian turned around. Without a word, he yanked the heavy bag off her shoulder and carried it, still refusing to speak.
"I got drunk last night, and now my head hurts so much," Yu Mo said.
Qi Lian shot her a sharp glance. "You brought it on yourself. Since when is a headache after drinking news to anyone?"
"But I've never been drunk before."
Qi Lian practically ground his teeth. "Well, look at you now, all grown up. Where's the person you were with last night? They just let you come back like this?"
Just then, Yu Mo's phone rang. Qi Lian unzipped her large bag and held it open before her eyes. A single glance at the chaotic mess inside was enough to make his blood pressure spike.
Yu Mo lowered her head to rummage through the bag. It was packed with things, including a set of overnight bedsheets; finding her phone was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
As Qi Lian looked down, he saw her head was almost level with his chest. As she moved, a faint, elusive fragrance drifted into his nose. He noticed she had two hair whorls at the crown of her head.
An old nursery rhyme from his childhood suddenly popped into his mind: *One whorl is stubborn, two whorls are headstrong, three whorls will fight you to the death.* Back then, whenever the village women had free time, they loved to gossip about the whorls on a child's head or the patterns on their fingertips. Every child raised in the countryside had been inspected over and over again, as if their elders were searching for some trace of destiny.
Yu Mo finally fished out her phone. It was Wu Yisheng calling to ask if she had arrived. She let her friend know she was safe and hung up.
"I asked you a question."
"What? Oh, you mean my friend? She went home."
Qi Lian stared at her for two seconds. When she didn't elaborate, he turned his head away.
Then, Yu Mo asked him, "Last night you said you'd come pick me up. Qi Lian, if I weren't in Jinning, would you still have come for me?"
Qi Lian remained silent for a long time. Eventually, a mocking smile touched his lips as he countered, "What do you think?"
He hadn't slept all night and had nearly been driven to murder for her sake, yet her only curiosity was whether he would have found it too much trouble to pick her up. There was no greater blow to the heart. It was as if he had carved out his heart to offer it to her, and her only concern was, "Wow, what kind of knife did you use?"
Qi Lian felt like he had stood in the sun for too long. He might be getting heatstroke; his chest felt tight, and he was struggling to catch his breath.
Yu Mo sensed the sudden distance from the man beside her. "Are you angry? I'm sorry. I was at the hotel with my best friend last night. Nothing happened."
Qi Lian stopped abruptly and stared into Yu Mo's eyes. When he was serious, his eyes were as dark as the ocean floor thousands of kilometers deep, making one's heart skip a beat. "You know, don't you, Yu Mo? You know exactly what's going on. You know exactly how to handle me!"
Yu Mo didn't dare meet his gaze. For some reason, she couldn't even speak clearly. "No... it's not..."
"It's fine. Being smart means you won't get cheated in the future," Qi Lian said flatly.
The sun was making everything hazy. Both of them kept their mouths shut, walking through the midsummer heat with one following half a step behind the other.
When they reached the building, Yu Mo stopped at the entrance to her stairwell. Her face had turned that specific shade of pink common to very fair-skinned people after sun exposure. Her forehead glistened, and her usually pink lips were unusually pale.
She stood there weakly, looking at the man in front of her without a word.
Qi Lian didn't linger. He turned straight into her stairwell. As he brushed past her, he muttered, "Go back and drink plenty of water."
Yu Mo followed listlessly behind him. After half a flight of stairs, she stopped, hands on her hips, panting heavily. She said resentfully, "As soon as my salary goes up again, I'm moving. I'm never living in a walk-up again."
Standing two steps above her, Qi Lian looked down at her. The light in the stairwell was poor, making it impossible to read his expression.
After a moment, he stepped down, reached out, and pulled Yu Mo upward.
Suddenly pulled close to him, Yu Mo was hit by a wave of heat and the distinct scent of Qi Lian. Never had she felt his presence so intensely; it was as if his scent had materialized into a wall—a wall of bronze and iron that made it hard for her to breathe and turned her limbs to jelly.
Qi Lian had come straight from the construction site and had stood in the sun for a long time. His clothes were soaked, and sweat dripped from the tips of his hair. He couldn't help it.
What was the point? He cherished Yu Mo like a precious treasure, and before seeing her, he wished he could have bathed and burned incense. But did that change who he was? It was laughable. People who looked down on him would still look down on him; even if he covered himself in gold leaf, it wouldn't matter.
The stairwell was dim, filled with a lingering, aged scent.
Neither spoke; only the sound of their footsteps echoed.
Yu Mo stole a glance at Qi Lian out of the corner of her eye. It was too dark to see anything clearly, and only then did she realize she was still wearing her sunglasses. But taking them off now felt like she'd be inviting suspicion, so she gritted her teeth and endured it.
Qi Lian helped her open the door. He placed the keys and her large leather bag on a dining chair, his tone level. "Do you have water at home? Go drink some."
Yu Mo took off her oversized sunglasses and tossed them onto the table. She turned toward the bathroom, saying, "I feel terrible. I have to shower right now. I don't know if there's any bottled water left."
She stumbled into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.
Qi Lian stared at the bathroom door for a moment, then picked up the keys from the table and quietly slipped out.
When Yu Mo finished her shower and came out, he was gone. Drying her hair, she went to the kitchen to look for water. She searched every inch of the tiny kitchen but couldn't find so much as an empty bottle.
Just then, Qi Lian opened the door and walked in, carrying a case of Nongfu Spring water in his arms and a red plastic bag filled with fruit hooked around his finger.
He glanced at Yu Mo standing by the kitchen door. She was wearing a white camisole dress, her wet hair draped over her back. She held a pink towel, her expression a bit dazed from the hangover, her eyelids slightly puffy.
Two drops of water hung just above her brow. He stared at them for a few seconds; they looked like the dewdrops he saw on flower petals when he left early in the morning.
He brushed past her into the kitchen, set the water down, and twisted open a bottle, handing it to the still-dazed Yu Mo.
Yu Mo took it, tilted her head back, and gulped down several mouthfuls. As she drank, her slender neck stretched into a straight line, and her pale, delicate lips clamped around the bottle's mouth as she swallowed rapidly.
Qi Lian's eyes contracted imperceptibly, turning darker than the Mariana Trench.
Yu Mo drank nearly half the bottle in one go. Setting it down, she said to Qi Lian, "I'm going to sleep. I feel so bad; I have to lie down right now."
She stumbled toward the bedroom. Qi Lian called out from behind her, "If you sleep now, what about dinner?"
She waved a hand dismissively. "Not eating, not eating. We'll see when I wake up. Help me close the door on your way out."
She dove onto the bed and lost consciousness almost instantly.
She dreamed of Xue Shen. Strangely, she knew perfectly well that she was dreaming. There was no background in the dream, just the two of them. She smiled and waved at Xue Shen, then watched him walk away, like a long cinematic shot.
It was just like the first time she had seen Xue Shen in the classroom. In her memory, it was a slow-motion shot: sunlight spilling across the front of the room, dust motes dancing in the light, and a youth in a shirt and sweater vest laughing wildly as he ran into the room. His hair had almost covered his eyes—those eyes that held the stars and the sea.
*Goodbye, my youth.*
By the time she woke up, moonlight was streaming across the edge of the bed.
She was hungry.
The neighbor upstairs was watching a TV drama; a woman was crying heart-wrenchingly.
The temperature in the room was just right. She hadn't had time to turn on the air conditioner before she fell asleep, so Qi Lian must have come in after she drifted off.
She got up and went to the living room to get her phone to order takeout. She saw her phone sitting on the dining table, and next to it was the box for a new iPhone, the plastic wrap still intact.
She walked over, took a look, then picked up her own phone. Qi Lian had left a message: *Dinner is in the fridge. Heat it up before you eat. Stop using your old phone; switch to the one on the table. I bought the exact same model in case you weren't used to a different one. If you want a different model, the receipt is under the box; you can go exchange it. If you still feel unwell when you wake up, check if it's heatstroke. Drink plenty of water and eat the fruit.*
She unconsciously stroked the white phone box back and forth.
Her phone had fallen when she got off the high-speed train that morning. The bottom right corner was shattered, looking like a spiderweb was clinging to it.
At that moment, she had a sudden impulse. She desperately wanted to ask Wu Yisheng: had she ever wanted to sleep with a man just because he was too pure? The idea of tainting a blank sheet of paper sounded incredibly thrilling. She had probably been corrupted by Wu Yisheng.
***
**Glossary**
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
--- | --- | ---
莲花 | Lianhua | A district or residential area (lit. Lotus).
一旋拧，二旋犟，三旋打架不要命 | One whorl is stubborn, two whorls are headstrong, three whorls will fight you to the death | A traditional Chinese folk rhyme about hair whorls and personality.
农夫山泉 | Nongfu Spring | A popular brand of bottled water in China.
薛慎 | Xue Shen | Yu Mo's first love/ex-boyfriend.
拿捏 | Handle / Manipulate / Have someone where you want them | Modern slang for knowing someone's weakness or how to control/influence them.
