In Beijing, December morning light came grudgingly.
It wasn’t yet seven, but the sky was already a weary tile-gray, and the old residential building, wrapped in the chill of winter, had awakened right on schedule. The clatter of pots and pans, voices urging someone along, doors slamming shut—all of it rattled down through the stairwell in a chaotic cascade.
Zhou Xue’s high-heeled boots struck the concrete steps in brisk succession, each sharp tap as fiery and impatient as her temperament.
“Come on, Da Xue!”
She glanced back and called out, her voice bouncing off the empty stairwell.
Zhou Xue was the kind of beautiful that would stand out even in a crowd.
She was tall, with an easy, well-proportioned frame. A pair of long, straight legs disappeared into fitted jeans, their lines clean and fluid.
Her honey-brown hair was casually twisted up at the back of her head, with a few loose strands falling beside her face, setting off features that were bright and vividly expressive. Even without makeup, there was no hiding the boldness in her eyes and brows.
The girl she’d been hurrying along was a few steps behind, still bent over the lock.
The old security door clicked shut. She tugged on the handle to make sure it was locked, then turned and hurried down the stairs.
When she reached the landing on the third floor, a shaft of pale morning light slanted through a dusty window and happened to fall over her.
The light brushed her face, spreading a soft warmth across her fine, cool-white skin.
Her brows were light and delicately fluffy, following the natural line of her brow bone with the youthful prettiness unique to a girl her age.
Her eyes were a clear, pale brown, slightly round in shape, their outer corners gently drooping. When she wasn’t smiling, they held a faint, watery innocence, along with an unguarded attentiveness.
It was a perfectly clean, unthreatening face.
Her bone structure was lovely, too: a full forehead, smooth contours. Within that untouched purity was a spark of youthful vitality, an unmistakable liveliness belonging to her age.
Zhou Xue waited beside the entrance to the building, stamping her feet to keep warm.
A slightly battered electric bicycle was parked against the wall outside.
She unlocked it with practiced efficiency, swung one leg over, and called back to Tang Suixue.
“Helmet’s in the storage box. Grab it for me, will you? I’m freezing to death, and I can’t be bothered.”
Tang Suixue did as she was told, taking out a bright pink helmet and moving to hand it over.
Zhou Xue was already twisting the throttle.
“Just keep it with you. Hurry, get on!”
The electric bike carried them out through the cramped passage between the buildings and into the alley.
This was a quintessential urban village.
Chaotic in its layout, yet alive with a rough, unpolished energy.
The alleys were narrow and cramped, clutter piled along the roadside. Low brick houses and awkwardly built multi-story additions crowded together, while the little shops, their signs stacked one atop another, had yet to open. A web of electrical wires slashed across the sky at haphazard angles.
Winter in Beijing was dry and bitterly cold.
Breakfast stalls sent up great clouds of white steam, mingling with the savory scent of fried food and adding a touch of cozy, everyday warmth to the chilly morning.
As they passed a breakfast cart set up along the roadside, thick condensation clouded its glass display, vaguely revealing the busy figures moving behind it.
Tang Suixue hopped off and ran to the stall.
“Boss, two jianbing, please. One with pork tenderloin, one without. Thank you.”
Her voice was soft, but every word was clear.
She stood there with a supple figure and slender neck, somehow not out of place amid the noisy, greasy surroundings. Instead, she seemed almost startlingly clean, as though she’d been carefully sheltered from the grime of the world.
The pancakes were ready, piping hot and almost too warm to hold.
Tang Suixue took Zhou Xue’s portion, wrapped it up, and tucked it into her friend’s shoulder bag. Only then did she cradle her own in both hands, blowing gently on it.
Zhou Xue caught sight of her through the rearview mirror and snorted.
“Da Xue, you eat this thing every day. Aren’t you sick of it?”
She looked more mature than Tang Suixue, but was actually two years younger.
Since both their names contained the character xue, snow, Zhou Xue had nicknamed Tang Suixue “Da Xue,” or “Big Snow,” while calling herself “Xiao Xue,” “Little Snow.”
Back on the bike, Tang Suixue was nibbling carefully at the edge of her pancake.
“It’s especially crispy when it’s freshly made.”
Zhou Xue turned her head as she started the bike.
“Fine. That’s about all you ask for in life.”
She was actually in a pretty good mood.
This week, she’d finally landed another modeling job. It wasn’t for some major brand—just product photos for a local e-commerce shop’s spring collection—but at least it was legitimate modeling work. Far better than standing outside event venues in cheap dresses, playing decorative eye candy.
She had to seize every opportunity. Who knew? Maybe one of these days, the right person would notice her.
The electric bike rattled over the pitted concrete road out of the urban village and merged onto the broad main road.
In an instant, it was as though they’d fallen from the quiet of an old-fashioned world into the noisy current of modern life.
The morning rush was beginning to show its teeth. Car exhaust condensed in the low temperature into murky clouds of pale blue. Huge buses rumbled to a stop and pulled away again, endlessly swallowing and disgorging dense streams of people.
The subway station was just ahead at the intersection, a huge sign rising beneath the gray-blue winter sky, cold and severe.
Red light.
Zhou Xue squeezed the brakes.
Tang Suixue seized these last few moments to eat her jianbing in small bites from the back seat.
Food wasn’t allowed on the subway, neither technically nor morally, so she had to hurry.
As they neared the intersection, Zhou Xue was mentally calculating where to leave the bike when her eyes swept casually across the road.
She slammed on the brakes.
“Get off!”
The sudden stop and sharp command made Tang Suixue flinch.
Following Zhou Xue’s gesture, she looked across the intersection.
A traffic officer had just pulled over someone riding without a helmet.
They’d been caught red-handed.
Tang Suixue hadn’t managed to swallow her last bite. She choked and coughed, the half-chewed pancake lodging in her throat. A thin sheen of tears instantly gathered at the corners of her eyes.
In her panic, she wiped them away haphazardly with the back of her hand.
Her body was already slipping off the bike before her mind had caught up. Still clutching the pancake, she tried to stuff it into the pocket of her padded coat, but the pocket was too shallow. It wouldn’t fit.
She had no choice but to grip the paper bag tightly in one hand while using the other to steady herself.
A few strands of hair slipped loose from behind her ear with the movement, clinging to her slightly flushed cheek and making her look even more helplessly young.
The traffic officer seemed to notice the commotion and started toward them.
At precisely that moment, a black Bentley that had been moving slowly along the side road suddenly turned toward the left.
Perfectly timed, it stopped directly across the officer’s path.
The window lowered.
A middle-aged driver in an immaculate suit leaned out and asked in an unmistakably Beijing accent,
“Officer, sorry to trouble you, but could I ask—if I’m heading toward Xizhimen, is the turnaround up ahead?”
The question sounded natural. Entirely reasonable.
The officer’s attention was diverted for a moment.
The dark rear windows of the Bentley were heavily tinted, revealing almost nothing beyond faint reflections of bare branches swaying beside the road and pedestrians hurrying past.
Those one or two seconds were all Zhou Xue needed.
“Quick! Get off!”
Tang Suixue slipped from the electric bike.
The moment her feet touched the ground, her eyes fell on the bright pink helmet in her arms.
“Lower your head.”
She snatched up the helmet, turned neatly, caught Zhou Xue beneath the chin, and slipped it over her head.
Click.
The strap fastened.
At the same time she released it, Tang Suixue steadied the wobbling handlebars with one hand.
The entire sequence took no more than two or three seconds, smooth and practiced.
The thin winter sunlight broke through a gap in the clouds and fell across the Bentley’s polished dark body, gleaming like a mirror.
Its flawless curved surface reflected the roadside clearly—
and the blurred outline of a slender figure.
Tang Suixue looked up instinctively.
For a fleeting moment, her eyes met the darkness behind the tinted window.
It seemed as though a gaze was resting quietly upon her.
Heavy. Sharp.
Moving over her inch by inch.
Something in her chest gave an inexplicable jolt, and she hurriedly looked away.
Zhou Xue didn’t dare waste another second. She twisted the throttle and shot forward.
After riding two or three meters, she suddenly turned around and shouted at Tang Suixue, who was still standing there in a daze.
“Da Xue!”
Tang Suixue looked over.
“When we get into the estate, what are you supposed to call yourself?”
Tang Suixue blinked.
Then, as quickly as though reciting some vital law, she answered,
“Zhou Xue.”
“Smoke it into your brain!”
With that parting remark, Zhou Xue twisted the handlebars and disappeared into the flow of traffic.
Tang Suixue stood where she was and drew a deep breath.
She carefully wrapped up the remaining pancake in her hands, then turned and hurried toward the subway entrance, where the station swallowed and disgorged streams of people.
Behind her, the black Bentley politely thanked the officer for the directions.
The window rolled smoothly back up.
The middle-aged driver kept his hands on the steering wheel and flicked a quick glance at the rearview mirror.
In the quiet darkness of the back seat sat a man.
His shoulders were straight, his posture relaxed and detached, one hand resting loosely on his knee.
A section of angular wrist bone showed beneath his cuff, his skin carrying a cool pallor in the dim light.
Even sitting perfectly still, he possessed a steady, almost oppressive presence.
His index finger, which had been resting on his knee, lifted lazily before settling back down.
The engine gave a barely audible low hum.
The car merged smoothly onto the main road.
Soon, it disappeared into the hazy winter mist.
Thirty minutes later, after riding the subway, Tang Suixue emerged from the station, unlocked a shared bicycle, and pedaled in the opposite direction from the bustle around the station.
The wheels whispered softly against the pavement.
The farther she went, the sparser the high-rises became. In their place, the strips of greenery along the road were increasingly manicured.
Bare branches stretched beneath the pale sky, trembling faintly whenever the wind passed through, occasionally sending a curled dead leaf skittering along.
Before long, she stopped beside a broad stretch of landscaped greenery.
From here onward, it was another world entirely.
Long gray-white walls stretched into the distance, massive and imposing, their tops capped with dark-gray roof tiles. Silent and solemn, they divided the world within from the world without.
Beyond those walls lay Puyuan.
The Lin family’s estate in Beijing, currently managed by Madam Lin, Liu Mengyun.
It was the kind of place people would go to extraordinary lengths just to receive an invitation to enter.
Tang Suixue circled around to the eastern staff entrance and stopped before a dark-gray iron gate.
A camera above it blinked red.
The lock clicked, and the gate opened.
She followed the narrow passage straight ahead until she reached the service area.
The dressing room was heated generously, making the outside chill feel like it belonged to another season entirely.
Tang Suixue unwound her scarf and removed her padded coat. From her locker, she took out a deep indigo cotton Chinese-style work shirt and changed into it, then pulled on a windproof padded vest as her outer layer.
As she stood before the mirror tying her hair again, a smiling face suddenly appeared beside her.
“Xiao Zhou, you’re here early today!”
It was Xiaowen, another girl who worked in the service area. She had started a few months before Tang Suixue and was pulling on her own vest.
“Mm. Auntie Fang said there was something scheduled today, so she told me to come early.”
At the sight of a familiar face, Tang Suixue’s eyes curved gently as she answered in a soft voice.
“Exactly.” Xiaowen leaned closer and lowered her voice. “There’s a warm-night reception at Shushi Pavilion tonight. I hear it’s going to be quite a production. All the guests are supposed to be very important. Looks like we’re going to be working late again.”
Tang Suixue paused while tying her shoelaces and looked up.
“Do we have to work overtime?”
“Almost certainly.”
Xiaowen finished putting on her vest and smoothed her hair in the mirror.
“A reception of this scale will take an hour or two just to clean up afterward. But the overtime pay is generous, so it’s worth it.”
Tang Suixue listened and nodded.
There was something about the way she quietly listened and obediently took everything in that always made people want to keep talking to her.
Xiaowen added,
“Don’t worry. You’ve only been here half a month. You haven’t seen anything on this scale yet. Just relax and follow whatever Auntie Fang tells you. We’re basically part of the scenery. People like that don’t even see us.”
This reception at the Lin estate was being held for the person who had just returned from abroad.
The Lin family was already an established, prestigious household in Beijing, with generations of influence behind them.
But the family behind that particular guest was the Si family—the true old-money aristocracy.
Even Liu Mengyun, who had seen every kind of grand occasion imaginable, had been preparing for the reception for half a month. She had repeatedly instructed everyone below her to be exceptionally careful with every detail and not make the slightest mistake.
Tang Suixue lowered her eyes, as though taking in what she’d been told.
Then she looked up and softly answered,
“Okay.”
As she spoke, she unconsciously pinched the cuff of her sleeve, her expression earnest.
Xiaowen laughed at the sight and reached out to tug her along.
“All right. Let’s go.”
The two of them left the room one after the other.
The way this job had fallen into Tang Suixue’s hands was something of a twist of fate.
Half a month earlier, Zhou Xue’s family had called in a distant relative of a distant relative—someone connected through so many branches that the relationship could hardly be traced—and after considerable effort, they had finally secured her this opportunity to work at Puyuan.
Zhou Xue’s parents thought having a job in a household like the Lin family’s would be respectable and stable. At least it sounded good when they told people about it.
Certainly better than letting their daughter spend every day chasing her unrealistic dream of becoming an actress.
But Zhou Xue had quietly asked around and quickly lost most of her enthusiasm.
This was nothing like the job she’d imagined, where she’d have a chance to come into contact with Beijing’s upper circles.
It was just back-of-house work: running errands, serving tea and water at banquets, keeping her head down and her manners impeccable.
And there were enough rules to make your head spin.
She found it stifling and humiliating, but she didn’t dare reject the job outright. Otherwise, she’d never hear the end of it from her parents.
As it happened, Tang Suixue was looking for a stable part-time job at the time.
Zhou Xue clung to the opportunity like a lifeline, pleading and bargaining by turns until she convinced Tang Suixue to take her place.
Tang Suixue needed the income. The pay here was decent, and the environment was quiet.
So she’d agreed.
And thus, at Puyuan, “Zhou Xue” became Tang Suixue’s name.
She was conscientious, quick with her hands, quiet, and well-behaved.
After half a month, several of the supervisors had already formed a favorable impression of this “Zhou Xue.”
The two girls walked along the path.
Their footsteps stirred the fallen leaves, sending them lightly back into the cold wind.
That wind swept over the estate wall and rustled the tangled bare branches of the trees outside.
Beneath those trees, a black Bentley that had paused briefly at a street corner earlier was now gliding steadily through Puyuan’s front gate—the main entrance that was rarely opened.
The car passed silently over the stone-paved drive, moving through one deep courtyard after another before finally coming to a stop in front of Tingyun Hall.
The supervisors who had been waiting nearby lowered their heads in unison, their postures filled with utmost respect.
The car door opened.
A tall, slender figure stepped out.
His dark overcoat emphasized his broad, straight shoulders and long frame. Every movement carried an unmistakable air of dignity and restraint.
He didn’t linger.
The sharp lines of his profile stood out against the thin winter daylight, almost severe in their clarity.
He merely lifted a hand to adjust his cuff, then walked into the hall.
The wind came swirling again, pouring into the passage that connected to the service area.
A figure in indigo work clothes rounded the corner, carrying freshly laundered white tablecloths and heading toward Shushi Pavilion.
Just as she passed beneath an intricately carved lattice window—
Tap.
A single sound.
As though something hard had struck the stone surface on the other side.
Her footsteps stopped instinctively.
Through the elaborate carving, she could see nothing.
Only the faintest trace of bitter tobacco mingled with something cold and austere, drifting through the gaps.
The scent was faint.
Yet for some inexplicable reason, the hairs at the back of her neck rose.
Silence reigned beyond the lattice.
No footsteps.
No voice.
Only that lingering trace of scent, occupying the air with an unmistakable presence.
Tang Suixue felt a gaze pass through the openings in the carved window and settle heavily upon her.
Neither forceful nor light.
Yet somehow, it seemed to slow the very flow of blood through her veins.
She didn’t dare turn around.
She didn’t even dare linger.
She simply tightened her hold on the tablecloths and quickened her pace.
Behind her, the lonely silhouette of a bare plum tree swayed gently in the cold wind.
On the stone ledge beyond the lattice window, a thin wisp of smoke remained, not yet dispersed but already fading.
Farther down the corridor, a tall shadow stretched obliquely across the floor before silently and languidly dissolving into the deeper darkness.