Knocking at Midnight: Commander, What Are You Doing Here?
The Su family had left—but their visit had set the whole village talking.
By nightfall, the story had twisted beyond recognition through endless retellings:
“Did you hear? Comrade Su’s actually the daughter of a wealthy city family, abused by her stepmother for eighteen years—she didn’t leave them a single thing!”
“The commander himself came to stand up for her! That stepmother almost collapsed right there!”
“Mark my words—he’s more than just an acquaintance. The way he bent down… that’s how you treat your own wife, not some stranger.”
Su Qing lay on her bunk, listening to the faint murmur of voices drifting through the dark, and smiled. Public opinion had swung firmly to her side. Zhao Jinhua and her family had not only failed to get what they wanted—they’d also earned Su Qing the village’s sympathy and respect.
She ought to thank them for putting on such a show. She rolled over, closed her eyes, and settled in to sleep.
Around one in the morning, a soft tapping woke her.
Not at the door—at the small window directly above her bunk. Three short raps, then two long ones. A code.
Su Qing’s first instinct was to close her fingers around a silver needle from her space. She sat up soundlessly, listening: the other educated youths were all fast asleep, snoring softly. Bright moonlight spilled through the paper pane, casting a broad silhouette against the glass.
Broad shoulders.
Su Qing’s grip on the needle loosened. She’d recognise that impossible width and narrow waist anywhere. There was no one else like him.
She pushed the window open.
Moonlight flooded in. Lu Zhanye stood outside. He’d changed out of his uniform, wearing a faded dark grey cotton jacket with the collar pulled up to hide half his face, no cap—his cropped hair stood slightly ruffled in the night wind.
He looked exactly like a lovesick boy sneaking over a wall to meet someone. If you ignored the fact that he was six foot three, built like a wardrobe, and sharp enough to cut glass.
Su Qing stared at him for three seconds.
“Commander.”
“…Mhm.”
“It’s one in the morning.”
“Mhm.”
“Did you climb over the wall?”
“…The wall isn’t high.”
Another three seconds of silence.
“Is something the matter?”
Lu Zhanye didn’t answer. He stood in the moonlight, his features sharp and clear—but in his eyes lay something Su Qing had never seen before. Not coldness, not menace. Hesitation.
This man who could make life-or-death decisions in the blink of an eye on a battlefield was hesitating in front of a window.
“Headache?” she ventured.
“No.”
“Old injury acting up?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
A pause between the words.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Su Qing blinked. “So you climbed over a wall at one a.m. just to—”
“I didn’t climb over.”
“What would you call it, then?”
“Passing by.”
Su Qing glanced around. The compound wall stood six feet high; beyond it lay nothing but empty fields and farmland. There was absolutely nothing here to “pass by.”
“Commander,” she said, a smile tugging at her voice, “are you simply here because you wanted—”
She stopped. In the moonlight, the tip of his ear turned bright red—burning all the way down to his jaw.
Su Qing swallowed the rest of her question. It felt cruel to say it out loud. This man had faced armies without flinching, yet he had no idea how to speak his heart. He couldn’t even come up with a halfway decent excuse. “Passing by” was so clumsy it made her chest ache.
“Wait here,” she sighed.
She slipped quietly out of bed, crept to the door, and stepped outside. Lu Zhanye had already circled around to the yard corner. They stood together in the silver light, the ground glowing like frost. He towered over her; she had to crane her neck far back just to meet his eyes.
“Hand,” she said.
Su Qing held out her right hand. Lu Zhanye looked down at it—pale, almost translucent in the moonlight, fingers slender and straight, with faint calluses from practicing acupuncture. He didn’t take it straight away. He just stared, for five long seconds.
Then he reached out—slowly, slower than any soldier should move, as if afraid he’d scare her off. His hand wrapped entirely around hers, warm and large.
And Su Qing felt it: his hand was trembling. So faintly that only her heightened senses would have caught it.
Lu Zhanye was shaking. Not from cold, not from illness. From nerves. This man who’d walked through fire and blood on the front lines was trembling because he was holding a girl’s hand.
Su Qing looked down at their joined hands—her small one resting like a precious stone in his broad palm.
“It’s all right,” she said softly. “The spring water’s energy passes through skin contact. You just need to hold it—you don’t have to—”
He tightened his grip—not squeezing hard, but lacing his fingers slowly, one by one, between hers. Fingers locked perfectly together.
“Commander—”
“Lu Zhanye.”
“Pardon?”
“Call me by my name.”
Su Qing looked up. He was looking down at her, moonlight glinting in his eyes like scattered silver. His face was still stern—but his hand was warm, his voice rough.
“Not Commander. My name.”
Her heart skipped two beats.
“…Lu Zhanye.”
The name came out softer than she’d meant, almost a whisper. His fingers tightened a little more. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Then he looked away, toward the dark fields beyond the village.
“Mhm.”
Just one word—but Su Qing heard everything in it: quiet, clumsy, overwhelming satisfaction.
They stood there for a long time, hands locked, saying nothing. Crickets chirped in the distance; the night wind carried the scent of earth and crops.
Somewhere deep down, Su Qing knew—her little promise to herself, that this was nothing to take seriously… was starting to feel very hard to keep.