After Zheng Xiye finished speaking, Xu Fangfei’s face flushed bright red in an instant. She could not help glaring at him. After stammering for a long while, she finally squeezed out a sentence, “Y-you, what nonsense are you talking about?”
A term like “precious darling” was not something that could just be slapped onto someone casually.
Zheng Xiye casually kept both hands in his trouser pockets. His gaze rested on her as he said evenly, “Didn’t you say it yourself just now?”
Xu Fangfei stared at him in disbelief. “When did I ever say that?”
This man even reminded her with a look of well-intentioned guidance. “That Officer Jiang Xu asked who I was to you, and you said I was a very close older brother. Which younger sister isn’t the treasured apple of her family’s eye?”
Xu Fangfei froze. She remembered.
The problem was that, in that situation, she had only said he was her older brother to dispel the police officers’ suspicions and help him get out of trouble.
Lifting a rock only to smash her own foot, Xu Fangfei’s face grew even hotter, and at the same time, a trace of frustration welled up in her heart. Her lips moved several times as she wanted to retort, but when the words reached her mouth, she could not get a single one out.
In the end, Xu Fangfei could only bite her lip in dejection. She suddenly felt a little annoyed at herself for not having a sharp tongue, neither eloquent nor good at arguing.
She turned her head away and fell silent, sulking.
Zheng Xiye’s gaze never left Xu Fangfei for even a moment. In the night, the girl’s snow-white, delicate profile was dyed with a rosy color, like flowers just beginning to bloom, increasingly charming and impossible to ignore.
After a moment, he looked at her and asked, “Are you unhappy?”
The young girl shook her head to herself and still did not speak.
A typical southern girl, not tall, with a small frame. With her head lowered and refusing to talk, she looked exactly like some kind of fluffy little animal, like a milk kitten.
Something stirred in Zheng Xiye’s heart. Without warning, he reached out his right hand and naturally rubbed the back of the girl’s head, coaxing softly, “Alright. I spoke without thinking. I apologize to you.”
Zheng Xiye had never been a gentle person, nor did he often deal with girls. As Jiang Zhi’ang liked to say, there was simply no such phrase as “cherishing and protecting women” in Zheng Xiye’s dictionary. Even when a top-tier beauty like Xiao Qi admired and pursued him, he could still meet her with a cold face and frosty eyes, utterly unmoved.
However, when he said those words to Xu Fangfei, they carried a trace of patience and gentle coaxing that even he himself did not notice.
Xu Fangfei, standing beside him, was also taken aback.
She had not expected that this man, who dominated the underground world, would actually apologize to her over such a trivial matter.
Xu Fangfei lifted her head to look at him. Her clear eyes were bright and sparkling, her gaze carrying a hint of surprise and a hint of confusion.
Zheng Xiye had already withdrawn his hand. He paused, then decided to explain, “I saw that you looked a bit down earlier, so I wanted to joke around and lighten the mood.”
Xu Fangfei suddenly did not know what to say.
She thought that a ruthless social tough who killed without blinking and a high school student like her, who grew up under the red flag and in the spring breeze, really did live in two completely different worlds. Communication between them was bound to be difficult.
After a few seconds of silence, she could not help retorting softly, her face red, “That’s not how you joke. It’s very easy to make people misunderstand, you know.”
Zheng Xiye asked with faint amusement, “Misunderstand what, exactly?”
The temperature on Xu Fangfei’s cheeks inexplicably grew even hotter. She blinked her large eyes twice, stammering and being evasive. “Nothing. I didn’t misunderstand anything.”
After saying that, the girl almost did not dare look at him. She lowered her head and walked forward a few more steps. A burst of cool wind suddenly blew over, the chill sweeping in and dispersing the redness on Xu Fangfei’s face. She subconsciously lifted her gaze, looked around, then froze, completely stunned.
Yang Lu’s family ran a small building materials business in Lingcheng. Their conditions could be considered “well-off” locally. They lived in a residential complex called Sihe Courtyard, built in a Chinese courtyard style. It was antique and elegant, a standard high-end residence, and fairly well known in the area. Many wealthy people had bought homes there.
This Chinese-style residential complex was built to be both upscale and refined, with green tiles, flying eaves, misty bridges, and picturesque scenery. Yang Lu had once brought Xu Fangfei in through the main gate before. The route was not complicated, and Xu Fangfei had a good memory, so following the original path, she could barely identify where Yang Lu’s home was.
However, after leaving Yang Lu’s place, she had been busy talking with Zheng Xiye and had not paid attention to her surroundings. In a muddled state, she had casually chosen a path and walked forward.
Now that she had come back to her senses, she realized that they were standing near a bamboo grove. The night was deep and quiet. The wind rustled the leaves. Everything within sight looked utterly unfamiliar.
They were lost.
“Oh no.” Xu Fangfei stopped abruptly, looking around as she frowned. “I’ve never walked this road before. I can’t find how to get out.”
Zheng Xiye stopped along with her. After a brief pause, he said, “So we took the wrong path.”
Xu Fangfei looked at him suspiciously: ?
Zheng Xiye lowered his eyelids to look at her, one hand in his pocket and the other flicking his lighter. His stance was casual, his calm tone sounding completely natural. “I thought you were deliberately taking a detour because you wanted to chat with me a bit longer.”
Xu Fangfei: “……”
That was truly a huge misunderstanding.
Xu Fangfei was extremely anxious at this point and had no time to defend herself. She took two more steps forward, looking around, muttering, “What do we do? It’s so late, and there’s no one else around. There’s no one to ask for directions.”
Yet compared to her panic and worry, the man beside her remained extremely calm.
He said, “No need to ask.”
Xu Fangfei turned back, completely confused. “Then how do we get out?”
Zheng Xiye said, “I’ll take you out.”
Xu Fangfei was surprised but also doubtful. She looked at him skeptically and asked, “Have you been here before?”
Zheng Xiye shook his head. “No.”
Xu Fangfei thought for a moment, and two small sparks of hope jumped up in her eyes. “Then do you have friends who live here? We could ask them for help?”
Zheng Xiye said, “No.”
A huge question mark rose over Xu Fangfei’s head. She was truly baffled and asked helplessly, half laughing and half crying, “It’s your first time here, and you don’t even know the roads. How are you supposed to take me out?”
Zheng Xiye said, “When we came in earlier, there was a map of the residential area at the entrance.”
Xu Fangfei thought carefully for a few seconds and had absolutely no memory of it. “A map?”
Zheng Xiye gave a low “Mm” and said, “The second one on the bulletin board to the left of the security office.”
“So?” she asked.
“I glanced at it. I remember it a bit.”
The metal lighter lid opened and closed, producing a crisp, rhythmic ding. Zheng Xiye expressionlessly recalled the map he had seen a few minutes earlier and said lazily, “We’re currently at Bamboo Grove Park. The nearest exit is Gate 4, about forty degrees northwest, with a straight-line distance of roughly seven hundred meters.”
Hearing him reel off a string of precise numbers with confidence, Xu Fangfei looked full of doubt and probed, “Are you sure? What if we walk the wrong way?”
Zheng Xiye said, “It’s just a residential complex, not a battlefield full of landmines. Do we really need certainty?”
…That was true. If they went the wrong way, they could just find another route.
Xu Fangfei was left speechless and realized she had asked another foolish question.
“My sense of direction is decent, though. I shouldn’t get you lost,” Zheng Xiye said gently. After finishing, he spread his hand toward her. “Do you want me to hold your hand?”
The girl was startled. Her face flushed red as she waved her hands frantically, her head shaking like a rattle-drum.
Zheng Xiye’s hand hovered in midair for two seconds, then dropped. He turned and walked toward the exit. “Then stay close.”
*
After that, Xu Fangfei followed behind Zheng Xiye with half-belief and half-doubt, weaving left and right through the maze-like narrow paths.
What shocked Xu Fangfei was that before long, they actually succeeded in leaving through Gate 4 and arrived at the roadside.
Looking at the warm orange glow of the streetlights, Xu Fangfei was still a little dazed.
She stood there foolishly for about ten seconds before she finally could not help asking Zheng Xiye, “You only glanced at that map once, and you remembered it that accurately?”
What kind of heaven-defying memory was that? It was way too impressive.
With that kind of memory, if he used it to memorize vocabulary and formulas, getting six hundred points on an exam would be effortless, right?
She even wondered what his college entrance exam score had been…
Oh, wait. That was not right. He was a seasoned underworld tough. Judging by his status and skills, he had probably gone out to run the streets very early on. There was a high chance he never even took the college entrance exam.
Xu Fangfei’s mind was filled with a mess of random thoughts.
Just then, Zheng Xiye calmly gave her the answer to the question. He said unhurriedly, “Occupational habit.”
Xu Fangfei did not understand. “What do you mean?”
Having gone a whole evening without smoking, Zheng Xiye’s nicotine craving was acting up a little at this point.
He lowered his gaze, shook a cigarette out of the pack, slipped it between his lips, and was just about to light it when he suddenly caught sight of the little girl standing beside him. She stood primly at his side, her eyes shining with clear, watery curiosity.
For some reason, Zheng Xiye’s motion of lighting the cigarette paused.
Xu Fangfei blinked, watching as this underworld big shot held the cigarette in his mouth, then inexplicably took it out again, holding it in his hand and idly playing with it.
After a moment, Zheng Xiye pinched the cigarette between his fingers and spoke again, very casually. “People in our line of work make ill-gotten money. Scamming, cheating, arson, killing, looting. There should be quite a few rich people in this residential area. I was scouting the place and memorizing the map so I could go back and tell my brothers. If we get the chance in the future, we can come back and pull off a big job.”
After hearing Zheng Xiye’s words, Xu Fangfei’s eyes went wide.
She looked at him with an extremely hard-to-describe, complicated expression. After hesitating for a long while, she still decided to make an effort and try to persuade him to reform.
“There are a lot of rich people here, but the security system is also very thorough. If you come here… whether it’s theft or robbery, it should be very hard to succeed, right?” Xu Fangfei said very seriously. “And if you walk the night road too often, you’re bound to run into ghosts sooner or later. Haven’t you ever thought about washing your hands in a golden basin and quitting?”
Zheng Xiye fell silent for a moment, looking at her steadily, then repeated word by word, “Wash my hands in a golden basin?”
Xu Fangfei nodded earnestly. “Yes. The sea of suffering is boundless, but turning back is the shore. Lay down the butcher’s knife and you can become a Buddha on the spot. No matter how many bad things you’ve done before, as long as you make up your mind to turn back from now on, I believe you can become a good person again.”
Zheng Xiye had not expected this little girl to give him such a long, earnest, heartfelt lecture. He was stunned.
Seeing him looking at her, Xu Fangfei hurriedly emphasized with certainty, “Really.”
The street late at night was silent and still. Under the streetlights, the man and the girl stood facing each other in silence, letting the light stretch their shadows into two long lines.
The atmosphere was unusually harmonious and tranquil.
However, this peace did not last long.
One second passed, two seconds passed…
By the third second, Zheng Xiye looked straight at her and suddenly curled his lips, letting out a snort of laughter. At first, he restrained himself, merely laughing low and heavily. As he laughed on, he stopped trying to hide it at all, leaning his tall body against the wall, the hand holding the cigarette pressing to his forehead. His shoulders shook as he laughed with striking intensity and exaggeration.
The bursts of laughter were low and hoarse, as if carrying their own echo, surrounding Xu Fangfei from all directions.
She was completely stunned by it.
Xu Fangfei was utterly confused. She did not know whether she had said something wrong again, or whether some wire in this ruthless villain’s head was not connected properly.
She did not know how long passed, so long that Xu Fangfei had started to wonder whether his face was about to cramp, before the man finally managed, with great effort, to rein in his laughter.
Leaning against the wall, he looked at her. His usually cold, desolate black eyes were tinged with mirth, glowing with a brightness that made it hard to meet his gaze directly.
Zheng Xiye lifted his chin at her. “You really thought I was scouting the place?”
Xu Fangfei stood there blankly, looking at him, her brows unconsciously knitting slightly.
Zheng Xiye took in this small expression of dissatisfaction on the girl’s face.
She was simply too beautiful. Her features were extremely alluring and gorgeous, yet her age was still young. Her slightly baby-fat face gave her a childish, green quality that dulled her vivid beauty, making any expression she wore look pure and innocent, sweetly naive.
For an instant, Zheng Xiye lost focus. His index finger twitched once, then he immediately returned to normal.
He narrowed his eyes slightly, bent down slowly toward her, and tapped her forehead with his fingertip, chuckling lightly. “Little girl, when you’re this pretty, you really can’t afford to be too easy to fool.”
*
Because she had gotten home too late the night before, Xu Fangfei had already finished washing up close to midnight.
She turned off the lights, climbed into bed in her nightdress, and hugged her phone as she thought things over for quite a while. In the end, she decided to send Zheng Xiye another message to thank him.
She opened the message box and typed: [Thank you for what happened tonight.]
After finishing, she thought about it and felt it was not appropriate, so she deleted everything with several rapid taps.
He had already said before that all she ever knew how to say to him was “thank you,” and nothing else. Although he had said it in a joking tone, Xu Fangfei understood that many sincere words in this world are expressed through jokes.
Xu Fangfei pressed her lips together.
If verbal thanks were not enough, then she would show it through action.
Thinking this, she threw back the covers, jumped out of bed, did not even put on shoes, and ran barefoot to her desk. She pulled open a drawer and took out a cartoon coin purse printed with a Strawberry Bear.
This was Xu Fangfei’s little treasury.
Every so often, Qiao Huilan would give her some pocket money as a reward for exams. It was not much, but Xu Fangfei was frugal in everything she did and had hardly spent any of it.
She poured out a handful of change from the wallet and counted it carefully. No more, no less. Exactly two hundred yuan.
Two hundred…
That should be enough to buy him a gift, right?
Xu Fangfei secretly made up her mind, put all her savings back into the wallet, and stored it away.
She slept soundly through the night.
The next morning, after helping her grandfather finish breakfast and washing the dishes, she prepared to go out and buy a gift.
Xu Fangfei was usually quiet by nature and had very few friends. From childhood to now, she had never had any experience giving gifts to the opposite sex.
She stared at her coin purse in a daze. After racking her brains for a long time and still having no idea what gift would be appropriate, she simply called Yang Lu.
She thought that Yang Lu was sunny and lively, knew many boys, and should be able to give good advice.
After a few rings, the call connected.
On the other end, Yang Lu’s voice sounded very sleepy, as if she had not woken up yet. She answered with a muffled “Hello.”
“Are you still sleeping?” Xu Fangfei felt very embarrassed. “Sorry for waking you up.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I’ve basically slept enough anyway.” Yang Lu yawned, then seemed to suddenly remember something and said excitedly, “Oh right, Xu Fangfei, who exactly was that super handsome guy from last night?”
Xu Fangfei hesitated for two seconds, then said softly, “He’s my downstairs neighbor.”
“He’s really good-looking, and super cool!” Yang Lu said with relish, recalling that fleeting glimpse from last night. She chatted casually with Xu Fangfei for a bit, then asked, “By the way, why did you call me?”
Xu Fangfei suddenly felt a little nervous and replied, “Nothing much. I just wanted to ask you, generally speaking, if you’re giving a gift to a guy, what kinds of things are okay to give?”
“How old is the guy?”
“In his twenties?” Xu Fangfei said. “I’m not really sure either.”
“That gives you lots of options,” Yang Lu said. “LEGO, a razor, a signed pair of sneakers or jersey from a star player, or cologne. It mainly depends on what kind of personality the guy has, what his hobbies are, what he likes.”
After hearing this, Xu Fangfei felt a bit troubled. “But I don’t know what he likes.”
Yang Lu was puzzled. “Who are you giving the gift to?”
Xu Fangfei’s face grew slightly warm. She brushed it off and said, “Just… just an older brother.”
Yang Lu was helpless. “Then why don’t you go take a look at the gift shop near the school? There’s a lot of stuff there. You might find something suitable.”
“Mm, okay,” Xu Fangfei replied.
After hanging up, she took her wallet and went out, heading straight for the gift shop near the school.
*
Zheng Xiye came back fairly early today.
Just five minutes past eight, he had already arrived at the gate of the courtyard at No. 9, Xiwang Street.
Early was relative. It was already completely dark overhead, the entire sky like a bolt of silk dyed with black ink. A crescent moon hung on the treetops, its light cool as water.
As he was about to enter the residential compound, Zheng Xiye narrowed his eyes. Out of the corner of his vision, he spotted a gray Santana parked several meters away. The windows were made of privacy glass. From outside, the interior was pitch black.
He stared at the car for a moment, a hint of amusement in his gaze, then casually tapped a slim cigarette out of the pack, held it between his lips, and retrieved his lighter as he withdrew his attention.
He followed the mottled brick path toward Building Three, Unit Two.
Lighting the cigarette, Zheng Xiye stepped into the entrance of the building.
However, just before his foot touched the stairs, he keenly sensed something. His body stopped abruptly. A second later, he backed out at an unhurried pace, tilting his head slightly as his gaze shifted toward the side of the entryway.
Beside a flowerbed with a chipped corner stood a figure, soft and delicate, slender and fragile, like a little snow-white gardenia.
At the same time, Zheng Xiye caught that familiar, fresh, sweet scent in the air.
His surprise lasted only an instant. Zheng Xiye turned his head away, blew the smoke far off, and casually stubbed out the cigarette he had just lit against the wall.
He waved his hand twice to disperse the smell of smoke and asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I saw you go out this afternoon, but I didn’t see you come back for a long time,” Xu Fangfei said.
Zheng Xiye raised an eyebrow. “You were waiting for me?”
Xu Fangfei nodded.
“Why didn’t you wait at my door?” he asked.
“I passed by your place earlier and heard…” Xu Fangfei lowered her head more and more, her voice growing softer and softer. “It sounded like your friend was there.”
Under the clear moonlight, Zheng Xiye saw the girl with her head lowered. Her fair, delicate face, along with her neck and small ears, were all flushed a tomato red, vivid and tender.
Putting together her words and that face red enough to bleed, Zheng Xiye thought it over and came to a realization.
He guessed that Jiang Zhi’ang had brought another woman back again.
Zheng Xiye paused and asked, “You heard something?”
“…Mm.” Xu Fangfei gently bit her lip and nodded again.
After getting the answer, Zheng Xiye moved his lips, instinctively wanting to explain, but before the words came out, he realized something and froze.
No. Why was he nervous?
What the hell was he nervous about?
Was he afraid she would hear those sounds and think he was the same kind of person as Jiang Zhi’ang, fooling around with women all day? Afraid that, in her clean and innocent understanding, his already utterly villainous image would gain another label, “messing around with men and women”?
Zheng Xiye suddenly closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a bit amused and a bit self-mocking.
This was a high school student. Eighteen years old. A little girl who had just reached adulthood.
Was he out of his damn mind?
After a long stretch of silence, Zheng Xiye steadied his emotions. He opened his eyes, looked again at the girl by the flowerbed, and asked expressionlessly, “What do you need me for?”
As the words fell, the girl paused, then finally lifted her head at a turtle’s pace.
Her beautiful eyes looked at him. She secretly took a deep breath and said, “I brought you a gift.”
A trace of surprise surfaced in Zheng Xiye’s deep, unfathomable eyes.
Then he saw the girl extend her fair little hands and, with great solemnity, offer him a beautifully wrapped blue gift box.
Zheng Xiye reached out and took it.
“This is to thank you for protecting me and my classmate that night,” the girl said shyly, her smile blooming. “It’s a very small thing, nothing expensive. I hope it can make you smile a bit more.”
Zheng Xiye raised an eyebrow and teased, “So you think my face is usually too sour?”
He was good-looking. When he raised his brow, there was a roguish, defiant handsomeness to him, flamboyant and unrestrained, full of a wild, hoodlum charm that carried an invisible sense of danger.
Xu Fangfei’s heart raced. She waved her hands in a panic. “No, no, no, that’s not what I mean.”
She said in a small, uneasy voice, “I just feel like you seem to have a lot on your mind, like you’re always in a bad mood.”
A chill rose from the ground as the night wind awakened. Clouds, moon, sky, the whole world seemed to come alive with it.
Zheng Xiye lowered his gaze, looking calmly at the small box in his hand. Then he suddenly curved his lips into a smile. “Actually, if you want to make me happy, you don’t have to go to this much trouble.”
“Huh?” Xu Fangfei murmured.
The man lifted his eyes, his gaze fixed straight on her, and said in a low, even voice, “If I get to see you more often, I’ll probably be in a good mood.”