After eating and finishing the competition problems, Zhu Shuiwen found herself walking with He Xueqi until they stopped in front of a small shop inside a residential building.
A roughly made wooden sign leaned by the door, with the words—
Unlocking, Key Duplication, Knife Sharpening.
Red background, black text, bold print—carrying the slightly sloppy feel of mass-produced printing from a print shop.
When the boy approached, the thin, middle-aged man placed his hand down, and the rolling shutter clanged twice, barely budging.
“Why are you coming so late? Lucky for you I was still open—if you’d been any later, I would’ve closed shop.”
He spoke in a thick Fuhai dialect, patting He Xueqi on the back, his tone carrying an unspoken implication.
Glancing at the girl standing nearby, he laughed: “No wonder, got a girlfriend, huh?”
He Xueqi replied briefly, “No, just a classmate.”
“All right, classmate.” The uncle clearly didn’t believe him, but said no more, turning on the light inside and gesturing to the boy: “Hand it over.”
So, under Zhu Shuiwen’s eager gaze, the black plastic bag she had been curious about all along was finally opened.
—It was a knife.
Not an ordinary rectangular kitchen knife, but a long, narrow blade designed for piercing. Thankfully, it was sheathed in plastic, somewhat restraining its terrifying aura.
Zhu Shuiwen was thinking, “So this is what he’s been carrying all this way, ” when she suddenly heard a “snap.”
The sheath had fallen to the floor, and the uncle froze for a moment.
“The size doesn’t match. Aren’t you afraid to carry that around?”
He Xueqi’s expression remained unchanged, though his tone was polite. “I couldn’t find the original sheath, so I just used a temporary one.”
The uncle took the bare blade and expertly pressed it against the whetstone.
Clang—
The edge scraped across, producing a teeth-gnashing sound.
Then water flowed over the blade in sheets, washing away metal fragments, receding layer by layer, like waves tirelessly rolling onto a beach.
Zhu Shuiwen watched with interest, but unexpectedly met a pair of eyes.
…Huh?
He Xueqi was looking at her quietly, his eyes dark as an abyss, like two hollow camera lenses.
Is something wrong?
Before she could figure it out, the uncle suddenly called to her: “Come, little girl, over here.”
Still confused, she stepped closer, and then—
The uncle’s eyes softened, but like a sudden storm, he unleashed a flood of dialect she could not understand.
Zhu Shuiwen: smile fading.jpg
She… didn’t… understand a word!
The Fuhai dialect was complex, with variations even between villages just a few kilometers apart.
Her own dialect had some overlap with the Yinji district, but here she was completely lost, instinctively glancing at He Xueqi for help.
Perhaps due to “post-problem-solving aftereffects,” when he met her pleading gaze, the boy reflexively said, “He said…”
After a brief pause, he added simply: “He says you’re pretty.”
“Oh.”
The girl believed him, so she puzzledly touched the strap near her ear to confirm her mask was still on.
The uncle shot him a displeased glance.
He Xueqi turned his head, pretending not to notice.
Who would he translate such a long matchmaking-style speech—something about him being honest, obedient, just not good with words but having a good character, and so on.
In short, it was all exaggeration—and had nothing to do with him.
The uncle went on speaking to the girl as if she were deaf, then turned to He Xueqi in dissatisfaction: “That girl’s so pretty—you don’t have any thoughts about her?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Fragments of something broken drifted through his mind—things not even worthy of being called “memories,” more like atmospheres formed by emotion.
Like the sudden sweetness imagined when a watermelon splits open with a pop.
Even that feeling quickly faded like mist.
His heartbeat remained steady—one beat, two beats.
On the third beat, he spoke.
“No thoughts.”
Firm and decisive.
[Offset value: 52%]
Zhu Shuiwen glanced at her phone; a call had automatically disconnected a minute ago.
She had to admit: the mission was impossible.
Not a single message she left for Zhu Feifei had been replied to.
He Xueqi returned the cleaned knife to the bag and said some words to the uncle.
Zhu Shuiwen was utterly confused.
First, He Xueqi asked a strange question: “They’ve been here, right?”
The uncle replied with a complaining tone: “Yeah… your aunt asked…”
The girl was openly eavesdropping but could only make out fragments: “How could it be,” “Your call didn’t go through,” “Kindergarten,” “I hate kids,” “Go back and apologize.”
…Aunt?
She froze, racking her brain, but couldn’t recall who that was, and sulkily told the system: “I wish I could understand.”
While He Xueqi and the uncle were chatting, the system’s readings had fluctuated wildly several times.
In the end, the values returned to their initial state and stayed there.
But because the system “didn’t have a dialect database,” she couldn’t tell what had caused the changes.
For now, it seemed the only thing that could put the villain in a good mood was—
solving problems.
He Xueqi suddenly said: “I live upstairs.”
He turned and stood at the doorway, his slender body casting a long shadow.
Clearly, a signal to see guests off.
Zhu Shuiwen began to understand. Despite his excellent grades and flawless manners, and presumably good social connections, in the “dream” he always seemed solitary—likely because of his distant, cold demeanor.
It was as if an invisible pressure forced people to keep their mouths shut, to obediently retreat from the “zone” he had drawn around himself.
…How strange.
Even though no one was smiling, facing the current He Xueqi, she probably wouldn’t dare say, “I don’t understand.”
The girl pressed her lips together, her mood sinking. “Okay.”
There was still half of the mission left. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that lingering at the villain’s house would somehow allow her to achieve her goal through sheer wasted time.
Some things simply couldn’t be done.
Just like that question in class she had been called on to answer—without the teacher’s explanation, no matter how much time she spent, she couldn’t figure it out.
She waved listlessly. “Then… see you on Monday.”
She stared blankly as He Xueqi climbed the stairs, a fleeting, dizzying sense of unreality washing over her.
If the mission failed… what would happen?
She didn’t know, and she couldn’t think of a way to fix it.
“How can I make you feel better?”—she almost wanted to ask him that outright.
But in the end, she said nothing.
Suddenly, He Xueqi turned back. “Classmate Zhu, you’ve got a cold and a rash. Have you considered going to a temple to pray?”
In Fuhai, local Buddhist practices were widespread, with incense burning constantly and countless temples of all sizes.
If someone felt they were having a streak of bad luck, many would visit a temple to light incense and pray for a change in fortune.
Thinking about how she had accomplished almost nothing tonight apart from math, the girl, feeling frustrated, muttered, “Have you ever been to one that’s really effective? Could you recommend one to me?”
The cold light shone on his wrist, where cinnabar bled a vivid, blood-like red.
He said, “Sorry, I don’t believe in that.”
The door opened.
The little boy sitting at the table interacting with his tablet turned his head and, seeing him enter, immediately lit up with excitement.
That was his aunt’s child, Xu Jiarui.
Xu Jiarui slid off the chair in a flash, but instead of running to him, he darted to the master bedroom door and shouted loudly:
“Mom! He’s back! Come hit him! Throw him off the windowsill! Make him fall!”
Amid the sharp yelling, the little boy turned to look at him with a triumphant, twisted smile.