Jiang Ningchu ducked into the passenger seat almost on instinct.
The moment she fastened her seatbelt, Jiang Heng was already sliding into the driver's seat.
One press of the accelerator, and the black off-road vehicle shot forward.
Zhou Yichi stood frozen in place, unable even to make out the glow of the taillights.
The phone in her bag vibrated again.
Jiang Ningchu held the phone, hesitating for several seconds before gently swiping it open.
"Xiaochu?!"
Zhou Yichi's voice was mixed with the sound of wind, anxious and confused. "Why did you leave… whose car was that just now? Who did you leave with? Where are you right now?"
The background was noisy—wind howling, and an unfamiliar man asking, "Sir, is this the car? Can you tell me exactly what happened?"
Jiang Ningchu opened her mouth, her throat a little dry.
"I…" She pressed her lips together. "I'm heading home first."
"Home? How are you getting home? Whose car was that—"
The tow truck driver's insistent questions cut in, and Zhou Yichi muttered a hasty apology before lowering his voice. "Xiaochu, listen to me. That guy isn't necessarily trustworthy, you…"
"I'm tired." Jiang Ningchu interrupted him softly. "You deal with the car first. I'm fine."
The other end of the line fell silent for a few seconds.
For a moment, there was only the howling wind and indistinct voices.
Zhou Yichi seemed to take several deep breaths, and when he spoke again, his tone had softened. "Fine. But be careful on the way, okay? Text me when you get home. As soon as I'm done here, I'll…"
"Mm." Jiang Ningchu hung up before he could finish.
The car instantly returned to silence.
"Boyfriend?"
Jiang Heng kept his eyes on the road, asking with utter casualness.
Jiang Ningchu clutched the phone whose screen had finally gone dark, and after a long moment, answered very quietly, "…Mm."
"What?"
Jiang Heng glanced at her sideways and scoffed, undisguised disdain in his voice. "If I hadn't come, you were counting on him?"
Jiang Ningchu froze slightly.
She hadn't expected Jiang Heng to be so direct. She opened her mouth, but in the end said nothing.
The car's dashboard screen lit up—a call from Pei Yi.
Jiang Heng pressed answer.
"Where are you, boss?" Pei Yi's energetic voice instantly filled the entire cabin. "The whole team's waiting on you alone. If you don't show up soon, we're leaving without you."
"Something came up." Jiang Heng's tone was flat. "Leave on schedule. Don't worry about me."
"What's that supposed to mean? Are you coming or not?"
Pei Yi showed no sign of hanging up, cupping the receiver to tell the people beside him to go ahead, then continued, "What's going on exactly? Where'd you run off to in the middle of the night?"
Jiang Ningchu instinctively held her breath.
Jiang Heng's gaze swept over her fingers clenched around her phone. "Dropping someone off."
Hearing that Jiang Heng was personally driving someone, Pei Yi got even more excited, shouting into the phone, "Holy crap, who could possibly need CEO Jiang himself to drive them? Don't be ridiculous. You're doing this behind my back? Who is it? Who?"
Jiang Ningchu pressed her lips together.
Jiang Heng didn't answer, only turned his head to look at her, one brow slightly raised.
Jiang Ningchu understood—the choice was hers.
"Big brother Pei Yi…" she said softly. "It's me."
"Little Jiang?" Recognizing Jiang Ningchu's voice, Pei Yi's tone instantly warmed with a smile. "Come along with us! Going home is so boring—come up the mountain with us!"
As if afraid she might refuse, he spoke at breakneck speed, "Trust me, there are going to be so many stars tonight, and the view from the summit is unreal. Plus tomorrow's sunrise will be amazing. You won't regret coming!"
Jiang Ningchu felt a flicker of temptation at his words, and her gaze quietly shifted toward Jiang Heng.
"Can I?" she asked softly.
"Can what 'can I'?" Pei Yi feigned annoyance. "Just come! You think your brother can stop you? See you in a bit!"
With that final line, Pei Yi hung up.
"…"
Jiang Ningchu bit her lip.
…Had she caused him trouble again?
Jiang Heng swung the steering wheel halfway around and glanced sideways at her.
"You really want to go?"
Jiang Ningchu nodded.
She didn't want to go home.
She didn't want to sit with this mess of emotions, thinking about questions that had long been buried at the bottom of her heart.
Jiang Heng asked nothing more and simply entered a new destination into the navigation.
"We're… not hiking up?" she asked, curious as the new route appeared on the screen. "We're driving to the summit? Then what about Pei Yi and the others?"
"They're scouting the trail," Jiang Heng said tersely. "This mountain isn't well developed. The terrain is rough, and you don't have the gear."
Jiang Ningchu nodded obediently and asked nothing more.
The view from the summit was wider than she had imagined.
In the distance, the city's lights rippled into a hazy golden sea of stars, hanging low against the horizon.
Above it, the sky deepened into indigo, finally sinking into the star-strewn expanse overhead, studded like scattered diamonds.
Several dark tents were already pitched, and camp lamps spread a warm yellow glow beneath the canopy at the center.
Folding tables and chairs, stoves, neatly organized equipment—even a portable toilet. Clearly, someone had set everything up in advance.
Jiang Heng had barely parked the car when someone came walking over from not far away.
"Jiang Heng!"
Linda was dressed in professional hiking gear, her high ponytail swinging neatly behind her, a bright smile on her face.
It was for Jiang Heng that she had gritted her teeth and paid the steep annual fee to join this exclusive mountaineering club.
While the other women each picked their favorites from the list of elite members, she had made up her mind the first moment she saw Jiang Heng's profile.
Who knew that Jiang Heng never joined group activities, yet kept breaking climbing records one after another, becoming the club's untouchable golden standard?
She'd just gotten lucky this time on the scouting trip—she'd never expected to actually run into him.
Linda hurried over, a hint of nervousness in her voice. "I thought you wouldn't show up tonight, Captain!"
Jiang Heng didn't respond.
Linda had repeatedly contacted his assistant through the club asking for his personal WeChat—he remembered that.
He circled around to the back of the car, pulled a dark gray windbreaker from the trunk, and returned to open the passenger door.
"Change into this." He handed the jacket over.
Jiang Ningchu got out of the car, looked down at the oversized black windbreaker she was wearing, then looked up at him, puzzled. "What's… the difference?"
Jiang Heng's hand still hung in midair; he lifted it slightly. "This one is a smaller size."
Before he'd even finished speaking, a figure slipped nimbly between the two of them.
"Hello?" Linda looked at Jiang Ningchu with a smile, her eyes appraising. "I don't think I've seen you before? Are you a member of the climbing team too?"
"Hello, I'm not—"
Before Jiang Ningchu could finish, Jiang Heng—as if tired of waiting—reached out and zipped up the zipper she'd only pulled halfway, then with one long sweep of his arm, peeled the black windbreaker off her shoulders.
His movements were brisk—even practiced.
Linda stared, frozen in place, at Jiang Heng's string of smooth, effortless movements.
Wasn't the rumor that…
Jiang Heng was an unmeltable iceberg who never went near women?
So this was her luck?
The first time she'd staked someone out… and it was an instant declaration of mission failure?!
Jiang Ningchu took advantage of the moment when she lowered her head to change jackets and quietly glanced up.
Jiang Heng stood half a step to her side, his face expressionless, showing no intention whatsoever of acknowledging the other woman.
Even though she'd long imagined how coldly he treated people, witnessing such complete and utter disregard firsthand still made her scalp tingle slightly.
Jiang Ningchu handed the oversized black jacket back to Jiang Heng and silently accepted the dark gray one.
The dark gray windbreaker was light in weight, still a size too big, but far less exaggerated by comparison.
Jiang Heng took the black windbreaker, shook it out with one hand, and put it on neatly.
He zipped it up to his chest, collar standing, his jawline strikingly sharp in the shadows.
The smile on Linda's face finally began to falter.
She looked at Jiang Ningchu, bundled up in the dark gray windbreaker with only a small face showing, and forced herself to remain polite. "If you need a jacket, I have women's ones. Would you like—"
"No need." Jiang Heng cut her off, his voice flat. "She's wearing mine."
He still didn't turn his head, didn't even glance in her direction.
Jiang Ningchu quietly shook the goosebumps off her arms and curved her eyes at Linda in a smile. "Thank you, this one's plenty. Don't trouble yourself!"
Linda's smile paused for a beat. She shrugged and turned toward the tent. "Fine then. Help yourself to whatever you need."
Jiang Ningchu tugged at the still-too-long cuffs and breathed a sigh of relief.
She'd never been out with Jiang Heng before, so she really wouldn't have known how to handle such an awkward situation.
An evening breeze swept past, carrying the freshness of grass and the dampness of mountain mist.
She gave a slight shiver and pulled the jacket tighter around herself.
Just then, her stomach growled at the worst possible moment.
Jiang Ningchu's ears went hot.
"Hungry?" Jiang Heng suddenly spoke.
"…A little." She nodded honestly.
Zhou Yichi had originally texted saying he'd come find her for a late-night meal. She'd finished work long past dinnertime and had been waiting on an empty stomach all this while.
"Come here."
Jiang Heng walked straight toward the canopy, picked up a folding chair and gestured for Jiang Ningchu to sit, then bent down and opened a storage box.
Jiang Ningchu's eyes followed his movements back and forth—a portable gas stove, a small pot, bottled water, instant noodles…
?!
Wait!
Jiang Ningchu froze.
Was he… about to cook instant noodles?!
Jiang Ningchu leaned half her body out in surprise. “Brother…"
She rubbed her eyes and confirmed again, "You're going to cook instant noodles?!"
"Or would you rather do it?"
Jiang Heng lifted his eyelids and gave her a cold glance, then sat down in the folding chair and lit the gas stove to boil water.
Jiang Ningchu pressed her lips together and didn't say another word.
She propped her chin in both hands and quietly watched the blue-orange flames.
Jiang Heng, behind the firelight, seemed somehow different from usual.
The warm yellow light traced the lines of his lowered brows and eyes. His features, always carrying a certain coldness, now looked… almost soft.
The water soon came to a boil, fine bubbles surging up, white steam billowing out and blurring his profile.
“Brother," Jiang Ningchu said, watching him tear open the seasoning packet and squeeze the sauce into the rolling boil, unable to hold back her amazement, "you actually… really do know how to cook instant noodles."
Jiang Heng didn't look up, dropping the noodle block into the bubbling broth. "Otherwise what?"
His tone was flat, betraying no emotion. "Like you? Hungry, crouching by the roadside, waiting for someone to pick you up?"
"…"
Jiang Ningchu fell silent and simply waited quietly.
Wind slipped through the gaps in the tent, making the lamplight sway. His shadow on the ground wavered with it, stretching long and short.
The noodles were done.
Jiang Heng turned off the stove, set the small copper pot on the table in front of her, and put down a pair of chopsticks. "Eat."
Jiang Ningchu lowered her head as the steaming aroma hit her face—tomato sauce flavor.
When she was little, she and Lin Wei always bought this flavor of instant noodles, secretly cooking them in the kitchen late at night when everyone was asleep, then hiding in their room slurping them down.
Afterward they'd frantically open the windows to air out the smell, afraid Su Wanqing would find out.
The sweet-and-sour broth slid down her throat, and she felt completely soothed from head to toe.
"So good."
She narrowed her eyes, murmuring as if to herself, then lifted another strand of noodles, blew on it, and kept eating.
Before long, the small copper pot was empty.
Jiang Ningchu drank even the last sip of broth, set the pot back on the table, and looked up contentedly at Jiang Heng, who had been silent the whole time across from her.
"Super delicious!" Her eyes crinkled into crescents. "Thank you, Big brother!"
The mountain wind seemed to stop all at once.
The bottle Jiang Heng had just twisted open wobbled in his hand.
Clack—
The cap fell to the ground.
He set the opened bottle in front of her and bent down to pick it up.
"Little Ginger—!"
Pei Yi came jogging over, thrilled to see Jiang Ningchu sitting under the canopy. "Remember me, Little Ginger?"
Jiang Ningchu looked up.
The smiling face before her instantly overlapped with the noisy boy in her memory. "Big brother Pei Yi!"
"Hey there!"
Pei Yi rushed over in a few quick strides, grabbed a folding chair, and sat down beside her, looking her over left and right. "Must've been years since we last saw each other, huh? Even prettier than when you were little—you're a proper young lady now!"
Jiang Ningchu smiled a little sheepishly.
She remembered Pei Yi.
When they were kids, Jiang Heng occasionally brought friends home, and Pei Yi was always the rowdiest of the bunch.
Because Jiang Ningchu habitually avoided them, Pei Yi assumed she was antisocial and gave her a nickname: "Little Ginger."
As the name implied—looked sweet, but actually spicy. Not to be messed with.
"You bring your little sister up the mountain and all you feed her is instant noodles?"
Pei Yi flashed Jiang Heng an extremely friendly middle finger, then turned to Jiang Ningchu with a heartbroken expression. "Sis, you've suffered. Tomorrow when we go down the mountain, Big brother Pei Yi will take you out for something good!"
Jiang Heng shot him a cold glance, waved his phone, and stood up.
"Busy, busy—being busy is good!"
Pei Yi waved at his retreating back, tsk-tsking. "Go on, go be busy! I'll look after Little Ginger!"
"Hello, Young Master Pei."
Seeing Jiang Heng step aside to take a call, Linda, who had been standing nearby, took the opportunity to sit down, her gaze lingering on Jiang Ningchu. "You two… are you close?"
"Us?"
Pei Yi gestured between himself and Jiang Ningchu. "Of course we're close. Jiang Heng's little sister is my, Pei Yi's, little sister. Practically blood!"
"Oh…"
Linda's face cleared in understanding, and she quietly breathed a sigh of relief. "So she's President Jiang's little sister. No wonder President Jiang… personally cooked instant noodles for her."
Pei Yi, as if he'd just heard some incredible piece of news, suddenly leaned toward Jiang Ningchu and asked in a low voice to confirm, "Your brother really cooked this?"
Young Master Jiang had always been the type to be waited on hand and foot—even Michelin-starred food set before him required coaxing and smiling just to get him to pick up his chopsticks.
In all these years, Pei Yi had never once seen the man set foot in a kitchen.
Truly an eye-opening sight.
Jiang Ningchu, puzzled, blinked and nodded. "Yes."
"Right, right, that makes sense."
Pei Yi stroked his chin, nodding repeatedly as he began rambling to himself, "Your brother's been a sister complex case since childhood. Out here in the middle of nowhere, there's no way he'd let you survive on crackers. Makes sense. Perfectly reasonable."
"Sister complex?"
Jiang Ningchu was halfway through her drink and nearly choked. "My brother?!"
"You can tell."
Linda, sitting across from the two of them, recalled the scene earlier when Jiang Heng had changed Jiang Ningchu's jacket for her, and smiled. "Definitely a sister complex."
Someone called Linda's name from not far away. She waved at Pei Yi and Jiang Ningchu, got up, and left.
Pei Yi seemed to be reminiscing as he scooted his chair closer to Jiang Ningchu. "Speaking of which, your brother was so protective of you when you were kids—how come he stopped taking you out with him when you grew up? What's his deal? Tell your bro here. Did you not want to come along?"
"No, it's not that…"
Jiang Ningchu sensed something was off and tilted her head to look at him. "When we were kids? He… how was he protective of me?"
"That kidnapping thing, of course! Did you forget?"
Pei Yi picked up a bottle of water from the table, twisted off the cap, gulped down two mouthfuls, and launched into a nostalgic monologue:
"When word got out that you'd been kidnapped, he completely lost it. Uncle Jiang refused to meet the kidnappers' demands and wanted to call the police, so he dragged us guys around investigating everywhere. In the end, it was Ji Tingxiu's uncle from the SWAT team who sent people out searching overnight and got you back."
"Later, we found out Old Master Cao was trying to take down the Jiang family, but he'd already lined up a scapegoat, so there was no way to pursue it openly. And that was the end of it between the two families."
Pei Yi pulled out a tissue and sloppily wiped his mouth, his tone growing heavier:
"That rich-kid second generation from the Cao family—he went to our school, remember? Once your brother caught him secretly following you, and we cornered him in an alley and beat him up."
"After that, your brother insisted on transferring you to another school. No one could talk him out of it."
As the fragments of memory pieced themselves together, Jiang Ningchu's breath caught. "I transferred schools… because of that?!"
"Yep!"
Pei Yi slapped his thigh, then shook his head. "We told him it wasn't necessary—with us guys protecting you, what could possibly happen right under our watch? But your brother wouldn't listen. He had a huge fight with your old man over it."
Not noticing Jiang Ningchu's gradually paling face, Pei Yi twisted the bottle cap as he continued on his own, "Actually, even after you transferred, he wasn't at ease. Didn't you still get bullied in the new environment?"
Jiang Ningchu's fingers dug into her palm as she struggled to stay calm. "How… how did you know that?"
"Who knows what methods your brother used."
Pei Yi spread his hands. "Anyway, later he assigned you a dedicated driver to pick you up every day, so things probably settled down."
He lifted his chin at her and smiled. "Well, now you don't have to worry about any of that at all, right?"
So, after that kidnapping, she hadn't been abandoned…
So, that lonely road home from school—she had never been walking it alone…
So, all these years, Jiang Heng had truly been trying his best to be a good "older brother"…
The missing memories slotted perfectly back into place, and Jiang Ningchu didn't know how she should react.
Shock? Gratitude? Relief? A sense of grievance?
It wasn't entirely any of them.
She stared blankly upward, gazing at the figure holding the phone not far away.
In the night, his shoulders were drawn tight, the lines of his profile especially distinct.
As if sensing her gaze, Jiang Heng hung up the phone and turned to walk over.
Jiang Ningchu's eyes were slightly moist. She tilted her face up, her voice very soft. “Brother…"