Sinkport Prison.
At 7:32 in the morning, a patrol alert reported that inmate H898, Lu Xun, held on Level 16, had been found unconscious in his cell.
The on duty prison doctor immediately administered RUT emergency treatment. Half an hour later, Lu Xun regained consciousness. His vital signs were normal, however, he had suddenly gone blind.
[Patient H898, Lu Xun, has a congenital gene modified iris disorder. There are no treatment conditions within the prison. Transfer is recommended.] The doctor wrote in the report.
The report reached the warden’s office. Unwilling to approve it independently, the warden escalated it further, until it reached the Alliance Ministry of Justice.
The senior official who received it glanced over the report and immediately understood.
“Lu Xun wants out.”
“Should we deny it?”
The official pondered for a moment. “…We can’t. His condition is real. If we reject it, we won’t be able to withstand the pressure from the military ethics committee.”
That evening, approval was granted. Lu Xun was permitted to transfer for treatment.
A medical transport vehicle slowly departed the Sinkport zone.
Lying with his hands folded over his abdomen, Lu Xun maintained a rigid, almost military posture even in repose. Three escorting prison guards sat upright along the side bench.
One of them said, “Major General, you’re out.”
Lu Xun raised a hand, removed the medical blindfold and opened a pair of cold, emerald green eyes.
He immediately changed clothes with swift, efficient movements. The prison uniform jacket fell to the floor as he put on a dark, high collared coat, its hem hanging ten centimeters above his leather shoes. Then he settled a short brimmed felt hat onto his head.
Throughout the process, the three guards stared straight ahead, as if nothing were happening.
“The Bureau’s inspector is handling clearance procedures. Estimated arrival in three hours and fifteen minutes,” one of the guards said. “Please reach the hospital before then.”
“That’s sufficient.” Lu Xun nodded. “See you in three hours.”
………
The moment Lu Pei saw “Mr. Francis,” he immediately knew who had written the letter.
Counting carefully, he and Lu Xun hadn’t seen each other for half a year. They had only spoken twice by phone during that time. The last thing he had said to him in person was: “Keep a low profile in the correctional facility. Take care of your health.”
Lu Xun would never write anything confidential in a letter and with Yuan Que only half literate, Lu Pei opened it on the spot and began reading.
[The rice pudding you like has recently been found to exceed additive limits and has been forcibly taken off the shelves.]
A devastating opening strike. Catastrophic news. Lu Pei sucked in a sharp breath.
[Eat less sweets. Pay attention to balanced nutrition.
Don’t, for the sake of temporary needs, put yourself at risk of long term health hazards.]
This passage carried a subtle undertone. As Lu Pei read on, combining it with the implications hinted at later in the letter, it became clear that Lu Xun meant exactly what he suspected, he wanted him to pull out of this mess entirely and defect to his side.
It would certainly be the easier path but the situation with Zhou Zu could not yet be considered resolved. Acting rashly might only create greater trouble. For the time being, Lu Pei had no intention of following his brother’s suggestion.
“Hold on to hope. Everything will improve. The day we reunite will not be far. Take good care of yourself.” That line was nothing but a perfunctory pleasantry. Lu Pei had already seen spoilers, this damned prisoner would still be locked up for several more years.
The wording of the letter was very much Lu Xun’s style, cold and restrained, concealing implications beneath what appeared to be concern. There was no need for handwriting verification; it was obvious who had written it.
When Lu Pei read the letter, he did not avoid Yuan Que, so the latter was secretly reading along as well.
The earlier parts, taken together, were difficult to decipher but the signature at the end was unmistakably clear.
“Yours,”
“Mr. Francis.”
Yuan Que immediately recognized it as a love letter.
Even though he could already guess the contents, seeing it confirmed with his own eyes made him involuntarily clench his fists, his knuckles producing faint cracking sounds under pressure.
Starting from his fingers, a chain reaction seemed to ripple through his entire skeleton, spreading from his hands to his back, his spine tightening segment by segment as if being drawn taut.
At the same time, he fell into an abnormally quiet state.
As though he were lying in wait yet ready to erupt at any moment.
Yuan Que continued to stare fixedly at the name in the signature.
Under the dim, cold lighting, his pitch black eyes burned as they locked onto it.
Mr. Francis.
Yuan Que rarely disliked anyone. Most of the targets who had died by his hands had elicited neither hatred nor malice from him, it had simply been work.
This was the first person whom he had begun to despise upon knowing nothing more than a surname.
…
“This was written by my family, just asking if I’m safe,” Lu Pei explained simply, folding the letter and slipping it back into the envelope. “Let’s continue learning to write.”
Yuan Que seemed to wake from a dream.
His mood having suddenly worsened, he refused bluntly, “I don’t want to learn.”
“Why not?” Lu Pei said. “Come on, let’s continue.”
Yuan Que: “No.”
Lu Pei: “How about just another half hour?”
Yuan Que said nothing. He turned and went upstairs.
When he chose not to cooperate, even three oxen wouldn’t be able to drag him along. He threw himself onto his bed, closed his eyes and lay there like a dormant volcano, slipping into a state of hibernation.
Lu Pei was utterly baffled and pressed him repeatedly with questions.
“Why don’t you want to learn anymore?”
“Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”
“Are you upset?”
Yuan Que replied with six points: “……”
After pondering for a moment, Lu Pei suspected that the letter might have triggered some kind of trust issue in Yuan Que. To prove that it was nothing more than an ordinary family letter, with no intention of betraying him, Lu Pei decided to read its contents aloud to him directly.
When Lu Pei reached the line, “The day we reunite will not be far…. ” Yuan Que immediately realized that what followed would inevitably be frivolous flirtation. A surge of inexplicable anger rose within him and he cut him off.
“That’s enough.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he said coldly.
Lu Pei: “……”
What now? There were only a few words left.
“Suit yourself.” Lu Pei refused to indulge him. After tidying up a little, he lay down and went to sleep.
……..
The two of them were not the type to hold grudges overnight. The next day, Lu Pei was awakened by the fragrance of freshly roasted chestnuts and he immediately forgave Yuan Que’s inexplicable behavior from the previous night.
“Today is a rest day. Let’s make good use of the time to learn some characters!” Lu Pei said.
Yuan Que: “……”
Yuan Que did not like studying. After finishing first grade, the school had announced its closure, a heaven sent opportunity. He had seized it without hesitation and dropped out immediately.
The old man had originally intended to send him to another primary school but Yuan Que refused to go. The school was far away and since the old man himself was barely literate, the matter was eventually dropped. In the underground district, even without education, one could still find work that provided enough to eat, at worst, he could always enlist.
Although Yuan Que was illiterate, he had managed well enough with his fists and had never truly suffered.
Until now, when he was being forced by a surface dweller to learn how to read and write.
“Hey, stop spacing out,” Lu Pei poked him.
Yuan Que: “…… ”
Lu Pei: “You’re zoning out again! Focus!”
Yuan Que: “……”
Their shop door stood wide open. Yuan Que sat at the table, surrounded by blue glass fish tanks that cast a dim bluish glow across his face, making his complexion appear pale and faintly green, as though he were furiously writing a suicide note.
In the fish tank closest to him, a red carp floated belly up, dead, adding an eerie touch to the scene.
When Wen Tiannan passed by and saw this, he hesitated for quite a while before speaking.
“You’re studying?”
“I’m teaching him to read,” Lu Pei replied.
Wen Tiannan left thoughtfully. Not long after, he dragged Wei Lang over.
“You can teach him as well while you’re at it.”
Wei Lang: “What?! Why do I have to study again?!”
There were actually several such experts, Lu Pei could not help but feel surprised.
However, Wei Lang’s level was still slightly higher than Yuan Que’s. He could recognize the word “transfer.”
With a study companion, Lu Pei had assumed that Yuan Que would become more motivated. Instead, he found the opposite, this person grew even more unruly.
Before Wei Lang arrived, Yuan Que would merely drift off occasionally and could be pulled back with a single call.
After Wei Lang joined, Lu Pei had to divide his attention between the two of them. Whenever he turned to help Wei Lang, Yuan Que would secretly open a mobile game under the table.
“Yuan Que!” Lu Pei caught him on the spot. “What are you doing?!”
Yuan Que admitted honestly, “Playing Snake.”
Lu Pei: “……”
Lu Pei confiscated his phone and continued teaching them to write.
Lacking textbooks and any relevant experience, he casually turned on a popular melodramatic TV drama, played a short segment and taught them to recognize the subtitles.
The female lead said to the male lead, “He’s the young master of the Zhou family, my arranged marriage partner. My family wants me to marry him but you have to understand, my heart belongs only to you!”
Wei Lang watched with great interest and learned with enthusiasm. Perhaps because he usually watched TV, he was able to connect the characters with their pronunciations much faster than Yuan Que. By the end of the afternoon, his progress was remarkable.
“Aren’t you learning quite fast?” Lu Pei said. “Why were you so resistant at the beginning?”
“I think it’s because you teach well,” Wei Lang replied.
“Really?”
Wei Lang sighed dejectedly. “I’m too stupid. When Zhiruge taught me before, he scolded me for being illiterate every three minutes. Then Qiuge tried to teach me, saying we should start from the most basic, like the periodic table but I still couldn’t understand a single word.”
“…That might not entirely be your fault,” Lu Pei said.
Deeply moved, Wei Lang said, “Thank you, Ruby. You’re such a good person.”
After finishing his lesson, Wei Lang left, leaving Lu Pei and the hopeless illiterate staring at each other.
“I’m not learning,” Yuan Que said.
“I’m not listening to you,” Lu Pei replied.
With only the two of them left at the table, Lu Pei’s attention was focused solely on him. Yuan Que’s level of seriousness improved sharply but not by much.
Just yesterday, at the very beginning, he had not been so resistant. He had smoothly and accurately written two names. Ever since receiving that letter last night, however, Yuan Que seemed to be sulking, unwilling to cooperate with learning any further.
Even Lu Pei could not figure out the reason. Besides, he believed that aversion to studying was simply a human instinct, perfectly normal.
Once again catching Yuan Que doodling beside the characters, Lu Pei said with a sigh, “I understand my high school teachers now. They really had it tough.”
“Back then, I was even more troublesome than you. If I didn’t want to attend class, I’d just sleep at home. I skipped almost every subject… except for the dating class.”
“Dating class?” Yuan Que asked.
“Yeah.”
The dating class was a new addition introduced by the Alliance Ministry of Education’s curriculum reform. It was offered to teenagers aged sixteen and above, teaching romantic skills and the psychology of the opposite sex, encouraging boys and girls to understand each other.
The requirement was to go on at least one date per semester with a member of the opposite sex and write a reflection of no fewer than three hundred words.
“Every time I received invitation letters, they could fill half a desk.” Lu Pei said.
“You dated a lot of people,” Yuan Que said.
Lu Pei thought for a moment. “A few, I guess.”
With those dates, it had felt more like having temporary dining companions. The girls would dress up beautifully for the occasion, while he would smile politely across the table, his mind occupied with the restaurant’s signature dishes.
Yuan Que frowned slightly.
Surface dwellers truly treated such matters casually, spreading their charm everywhere, indulging recklessly.
As for his husband, it was probably the same, an unstable marriage that could not last even three minutes. Perhaps, like in the dramas, it had merely been arranged due to family obligations.
Lu Pei continued reminiscing about his high school dating classes. “Some of them really went all out, practically… well… but after getting engaged, they usually settled down.”
“Are arranged marriages common?” Yuan Que asked casually.
“Pretty much all of them are,” Lu Pei replied.
Yuan Que understood. Just as he had thought. No wonder surface dwellers almost never mentioned his husband. He had even denied the existence of that marriage in front of him before. Clearly, he was dissatisfied with that person and so, Yuan Que secretly felt a trace of satisfaction.
From that point onward, he cooperated slightly more with the lessons.
……..
Throughout the entire day, only three people entered the shop. One of them was Wen Tiannan; the other two customers peeked in, saw them sitting at a table writing and, after looking around curiously, chose not to come in. It was clear how desolate and hopeless the shop must have been when the previous owner had been running it.
At six in the evening, the cook arrived to prepare their meal. He worked efficiently, finished quickly and left with the kitchen waste.
As soon as he left, Lu Pei casually pulled down the rolling shutter. After eating their fill, he went upstairs and lay down, playing on his phone.
Yuan Que remained downstairs. After a full day of literacy lessons, he still had to feed the fish, change the water, replace the fish and build a new swing in the backyard. Clearly, these tasks were far easier than learning to read and write.
Hearing the sound, Lu Pei glanced toward the window and knew that Yuan Que was outside installing the swing.
The underground was warmer than the surface. Though it was now deep winter, the ginkgo tree remained lush and full. The streetlamp spread a soft, warm yellow glow, intertwining with the golden hues of the ginkgo leaves, weaving together a comforting palette even in the night.
Then, framed by the rectangular wooden window, the scene was divided into small squares, like pieces of amber encasing frozen light.
It was a beautiful sight. Resting his chin on his hand, Lu Pei watched quietly for a while.
And in the place he could not see, in the deepest part of the night, someone was approaching, stepping over a thick, soft golden carpet of fallen ginkgo leaves, emerging from the darkness and walking into this pool of light, stopping at the entrance of the backyard.
The rhythmic clanging of the hammer came to an abrupt halt.
Yuan Que stared at the wooden door leading to the backyard.
A few seconds later, there was a knock,
Knock, knock.
Without making a sound, Yuan Que moved and looked through the peephole.
Knock, knock.
After waiting a moment, the person outside knocked twice again.
A visitor? …At this hour, who could it be?
Lu Pei also heard the knocking.
He pushed open the window and looked downstairs.
At the same time, Yuan Que opened the door.
Together, they saw the man standing on the steps.
He wore a felt hat. The light flowed down from the ends of his white hair, spilling over his shoulders before being absorbed into the dark gray overcoat below.
“Hello,” Lu Xun said. “I’m looking for Ruby. May I ask if he’s home?”
Author’s note:
Brother: Went out to take care of something, thought I’d check on how my younger brother is doing.
Yuan Que: (radar going off wildly)