Huh, why did the thing in his hand look so familiar?

She checked her pants pocket. Empty.

Oh no.

That looked like her mock exam results slip. Did it accidentally fall out just now?

It was only a few dozen characters, yet he was reading it so intently.

Her embarrassment, which hadn’t yet faded from the lake incident, was now overlaid with mortification. Ruan Mian’s face instantly alternated between red and white. She wished she could dig a hole and crawl into it.

The pitifully low score, and that glaring class rank… they practically stripped away the deep-seated helplessness hidden in her heart and laid it bare before him.

“Your foreign language score is decent.”

Eh?

The man walked over and handed her the refolded slip of paper. Ruan Mian was still stunned and didn’t reach out to take it. He raised an eyebrow slightly.

He stood facing her, his short black hair seeming to be plated with gold light, and his well-defined face appeared somewhat blurred.

Ruan Mian blinked, then quickly snatched the paper back, crumpling it in her hand behind her back.

“Actually, I…”

His phone rang again.

Ruan Mian’s hard-won courage deflated, and she stopped talking.

Actually, I could have scored better.

But no matter how much better, compared to the person in front of her, it was still too far, too far away.

She had just learned a little about him from Grandpa Wang. It turned out that when his peers were still clueless, he had already reached a height they could never attain in their lifetimes. No wonder her father and those people…

“Let’s go.” He had ended the call and glanced back at her.

Ruan Mian nodded and silently followed. She intentionally lagged behind, but he seemed to deliberately slow his pace. As they walked, they were soon practically side-by-side.

“A typhoon is making landfall tonight. Classes will be suspended tomorrow,” he said suddenly.

Ruan Mian’s steps paused. She accidentally stepped on a small pink wild flower and quickly jumped away. “Mm. Huh?”

Perhaps afraid of something like the last incident happening again, the homeroom teacher had specially come to the class before school ended to announce it one more time.

But how did he know so clearly?

The dense trees filtered the wind until it was light and soft, very comfortable on her face. Ruan Mian secretly looked over. Light and shadow flickered over the sharp bridge of the man’s nose. His expression was still tranquil, and the lines of his profile were somewhat cold.

She wanted to talk to him, even just about anything, but what should she say?

“What do you want to say?” He turned his head and asked her, as if he could read minds.

Ruan Mian’s hesitation was struck dead center. She blurted out, “How can one succeed?”

Qi Yan looked at her nervous and cautious expression after she asked the question, silently wondering how a girl her age would define the word “success.”

He couldn’t guess. After all, the age of seventeen or eighteen was too far removed from his own experience.

He lit a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and exhaled a ring of white smoke. Only then did he slowly ask, “What do you consider ‘success’?”

Ruan Mian froze, then spoke after a long moment, “Like you.”

The man suddenly let out a soft laugh. “Like me?”

He flicked the cigarette ash and raised his eyes to look ahead, his voice cool and low. “I only recognize one kind of success…”

She listened intently. Suddenly, her foot slipped, and she fell forward uncontrollably. When her body hit the ground, her palm pressed against something soft and slick.

It turned out that after the continuous rain a while ago, a lot of fungi had grown on the grass. What she had stepped on was a patch of wild mushrooms.

Ruan Mian annoyedly rubbed her hands. Just as she was about to stand up, a hand flashed before her. She was startled, then placed her hand in his.

The moment they touched, Ruan Mian’s heart gently trembled. She had never touched a man’s hand so directly before. His palm was slightly cool, yet so steady and powerful.

Qi Yan only let go after she stood firm. “Are you alright?”

It hurt a little.

But she shook her head and smiled. “I’m fine.”

After the little episode, the two continued walking.

The old house gradually came into view. The old man was standing at the doorway looking out, his empty sleeve flapping continuously in the wind. Against the dark gray sky, his gray temples looked particularly striking.

“Grandpa Wang.”

Qi Yan also gave him a slight nod. “Uncle Wang.”

The old man nodded, looked at Ruan Mian, and smiled. “I’ve cut some watermelon. Stay and eat some before you go back.”

The bright red watermelon was cut into small chunks and placed in a white porcelain dish with blue flowers. Just looking at it made one’s mouth water.

Ruan Mian forked a piece and put it in her mouth, taking a tiny bite. It tasted cool and sweet. She quickly finished the rest of the piece and forked up a second…

The wind, mixed with a pleasant plant scent, poured in through the window, soon filling the entire living room.

She put down her fork and looked at the man sitting opposite her. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

Hearing this, he looked up, subtly glanced at her nearly empty plate, and, with his two long fingers pressing the edge, pushed his portion toward her.

“…”

He retracted his hand and continued to look down at his phone emails. Ruan Mian hesitated for a moment, then began eating chunk after chunk again.

Just like that, she finished both their portions. When she got home, her stomach felt full of water; if she shook slightly, she could hear it sloshing.

She definitely couldn’t eat dinner, so Ruan Mian went straight back to her room.

The little creature was starving. Hearing the noise, it fluttered its wings and hopped down. She hurriedly went into the bathroom first. After washing her hands clean, she picked it up and put it on the table to feed.

Outside the window, the night was deep and dark, like a lurking monster. The air was suppressed; even the treetops were still.

Ruan Mian turned on all the lights, and the room instantly became bright.

A flash of lightning streaked across the sky. The little creature winced, tilted its head, and chirped twice, seeming somewhat agitated.

Ruan Mian was lost in her own thoughts and didn’t notice its abnormality. She held a pen and wrote a line of text on the paper

One kind of success is to live this life in a way you love.

But what does she love?

Her gaze fell on the art books on the table.

Ruan Mian closed her eyes, then opened them, grabbed a different brush, and began to sketch lines on the white paper.

She used her left hand to firmly grip her right.

No, it’s still shaking, constantly shaking.

She loved to draw, but she couldn’t even draw the most basic lines…

Ruan Mian threw the brush down, her fingernails lightly scraping the paper’s surface, back and forth.

After a long time, she stopped, taking a deep breath.

Shallow and deep indentations covered the center of the white paper. She slowly held it up to the light. The faint outline of a pair of eyes emerged on the surface.

Narrow eyes, corners slightly tilted up, with a hazy light in their depths when they were serious.

They were the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.

She looked at them for a long, long time, sighed, and locked the paper in the drawer.

After several trips to the bathroom, her stomach was empty again. Ruan Mian considered going downstairs to find something to eat. She stopped abruptly a few steps from the bottom.

The scene in the living room deeply stung her eyes.

The mute child, Ying Minghui, was sitting in the middle, her father on the left, and her mother on the right. The three of them were nestled together watching TV, laughing happily.

A thought, like a viper’s tongue, licked at Ruan Mian’s heart

They don’t deserve this happiness at all. This is the biggest irony to her mother, who died in bitterness.

She was startled.

This terrifying thought drove her to flee. She couldn’t stay there for another second.

Outside, the wind suddenly whipped up, and soon, rain poured down in torrents. The sounds of hurried footsteps were completely covered up.

Ruan Mian slammed the door shut and lay on the bed, constantly gasping for breath.

In the middle of the night, the rain was still falling. She was woken up by hunger.

Just as she climbed out of bed, a hot rush flowed between her legs. She froze for a long time, finally realizing, her period, which had been absent for more than two months, had finally arrived, but on such an untimely night.

It had been dormant for a long time, and now it came fiercely.

She was cold and in pain. She tossed and turned, sweating all over. After suffering for most of the night, she finally drifted into a faint sleep at dawn.

Vaguely, she heard someone talking, a sharp voice piercing her ears. Ruan Mian’s eyelids were too heavy to open. She managed to force a thin slit open, only to be stung by the bright light.

She strained to listen, catching only fragmented words: “…low fever… will go down on its own…”

“It’s fine,” the nanny repeated, her tone becoming impatient. “It’s just a low fever…”

If she stayed any longer, the lunch on the table would get cold.

Ying Minghui shook his head repeatedly, his face anxious as he looked at the person on the bed.

The nanny saw she couldn’t persuade him and had no choice but to go downstairs to reheat the food.

Ruan Mian felt someone pushing her shoulder, and then a small hand rested on her forehead. It was soft, and warm air blew over it, once and then again.

Why isn’t it working?

Ying Minghui puffed out his cheeks, his small face red with effort, and blew a few more times.

She still didn’t wake up. He was terrified, and large tears splashed onto Ruan Mian’s face.

He patted her face, silently, vigorously calling out to her. “Jiejie!”

He lay on her shoulder, crying heartbrokenly.

When he was little, he had suffered a fever just like this. When he woke up, he couldn’t make a sound anymore. No children wanted to play with him again; they all called him the mute child behind his back.

“Huihui, time to go downstairs and eat.” The nanny pushed the door open and came in again.

The couple had rushed out in the rain early this morning, hearing that something had happened at the company. She thought she would have an easy day, but she didn’t expect the girl hadn’t come down for lunch yet…

She directly picked up the unmoving child, earnestly admonishing him. “You don’t share the same mother… besides, she probably hates you in her heart…”

Ying Minghui twisted constantly in her arms, but ultimately couldn’t overpower her strength and was carried downstairs.

Ruan Mian’s fever finally broke as night approached.

She felt weak and frail all over. She inadvertently glanced at the bowl of noodles placed on the bedside table.

The noodles were slightly mushy and had no oil or salt, tasting utterly bland. She ate it bite by bite, finishing the entire bowl expressionlessly.

After a hot shower, she felt more comfortable. But the sight of the stacked books on her desk brought on another headache.

With the typhoon closing school for a day, the homework was heavier than usual. She had been given four sets of exam papers alone. She had slept groggily for nearly a full day, wasting a lot of time.

Ruan Mian pulled out an English mock exam paper and started working on it.

Deep into the night, the rain stopped. Pushing open the window, the cool breeze was pleasant.

She yawned. The Chinese paper she was currently writing still had an eight-hundred-word essay remaining.

The assigned topic: Returning to the Origin.

She stared at it for a few minutes, drawing a blank. She could only slowly write the title in the middle of the first line of squares. As she finished the last character, the lights abruptly went out with a snap.

Darkness crept in from all sides, instantly enveloping the entire room.

Ruan Mian gripped her pen tightly, comforting herself. It’s fine. It must be a circuit fault caused by the typhoon. It will be back on soon.

After waiting for half an hour, the power hadn’t returned. She found an old candle in the corner and lit it. A faint orange glow spread out.

She continued writing the essay by candlelight. “…Returning to the origin is like dust returning to dust, and earth returning to earth. This is not only the law of nature…”

She was nearly at the conclusion, and the urge to sleep grew heavier.

She finally couldn’t fight it and fell asleep on the desk.

The grandfather clock on the first floor chimed twelve times. The bell echoed faintly in the dark night. The bird, which had been resting with its head tilted, suddenly jumped down from the bookshelf as if startled.

A soft thump. The half-burnt candle was knocked over. The shepherdess with the milk jug on her head in the art book was reflected in a flash of orange firelight…

NOTES

Jiejie: Older sister. Ying Minghui’s term for Ruan Mian.

NOTE

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