The sunlight pressed down on Ling Yue’s fair skin, forming a stark contrast with the barren yellow earth beneath her feet.
So scorching.
Unconsciously, Ling Yue raised a hand tipped with red nail polish to shield her forehead. The movement was so graceful it could have belonged to a fashion magazine cover model.
By habit, she reached into her Hermès handbag for sunscreen, only to touch the bottle of mineral water her father had stuffed inside. Standing beside her, her father looked at his daughter with both affection and a trace of helplessness.
“Yueyue, put your hat on. The UV here is strong—it’s not like the city.”
She didn’t respond.
She was sulking.
Her father was running for a provincial-level official position, and in order to leave a good impression on the public, he had deliberately brought his family to the mountains to do charity work.
Ling Yue’s mother was a pampered woman who couldn’t stand the sun. She said she’d rather remarry than follow her husband into the mountains to suffer for nothing. With no other choice, Ling Yue’s father brought along his daughter, who was studying at university overseas.
As for Ling Yue—she was a bit spoiled. After all, she was a rich young lady.
“Yueyue,” her father said, pointing toward the layers of mountains in the distance. “Look at how beautiful these mountains are.”
Ling Yue pressed her lips together. Beneath her feet was cracked yellow soil. A wave of hot wind swept sand into the air, and she hurriedly covered her mouth and nose with a silk scarf. The expensive perfume she wore was instantly overwhelmed by the raw, earthy stench of dirt.
She hated it. She hated it. She really hated it.
But she also couldn’t bear to watch her father suffer alone. She was his only daughter, the one he loved most.
So no matter how unhappy she felt, she still followed him to this godforsaken place.
The place was called Ying’en Mountain. Not long ago, it had suffered a severe landslide. Baked again under the relentless sun, the people here were barely surviving. After arriving, Ling Yue’s father handled everything personally. In just a few days, he had already been badly tanned.
Like her father, Ling Yue put on a straw hat. While he helped the laborers carry supplies, she stood obediently to the side, helping to count the goods.
Her father unloaded heavy boxes one after another from the truck. He had taken off his suit jacket, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his elbows, looking utterly exhausted.
Ling Yue watched as he hoisted a crate of bottled water onto his shoulder. His back bent sharply under the weight, and his steps staggered slightly. Her heart ached for him, but she was afraid of getting in the way and didn’t step forward.
Other officials usually just took a few photos and left. Not him. He truly treated himself like a laborer, dusty and grimy, mixed right in with the workers.
Her mother called, urging him to hurry up and take their precious daughter home. He remained stubborn, insisting on leaving only after everything had been properly arranged.
The sun was vicious. Her exposed arms burned painfully, so she twisted open a bottle of water and took small sips, her gaze casually sweeping toward a half-collapsed mud wall not far away.
There he was again.
That boy.
He wore a faded, washed-out short-sleeved school uniform and silently hid in the shadow of the broken wall. Only half of his face was visible—thin cheeks, messy hair covering part of his brows and eyes—staring straight at her.
Ling Yue calmly shifted her gaze away.
This guy was always sneaking looks at her. She had seen him several times already.
From the moment she stepped onto this land with her father, those eyes had followed her like a shadow—sometimes at the corner of the ruins, sometimes at the edge of the crowd—always silently, stubbornly watching her.
What a disgusting, sticky gaze.
She sat down, and the boy slightly lowered his head. His messy hair completely covered his eyes, revealing only tightly pressed, bloodless lips and a sharply tense jawline.
No matter how she tried to avoid him, his gaze would still, silently and stubbornly, cling back to her.
Yet whenever she lifted her head, the boy would retreat into the shadows again, leaving only a corner of his faded clothing visible. She could tell he was breathing lightly.
“Filthy rat,” she called out, tossing the bottle of mineral water in her hand toward him.
With a “thud “sound, the piece of clothing hiding behind the wall disappeared.
But soon, the boy revealed one eye again—dark and pitch-black—staring at Ling Yue as she helped her father massage his shoulders.