The day after Su Qing left, the Su family reported the case to the police.
Two officers from the local police station arrived. They stepped inside, glanced around the empty house, then looked at Zhao Jinhua—her eyes swollen and red from crying—and exchanged a confused glance.
“Ms. Su, you reported that things in your home have been stolen?”
“Not stolen! That heartless little witch moved them all away!” Zhao Jinhua wailed, slapping her thigh. “It must have been her!”
The younger officer flipped open his notebook. “The Su Qing you mentioned has already signed a severance agreement with your family, correct?”
“Yes—but that was—”
“Does the agreement state that ‘all personal belongings of Su Qing shall be disposed of by herself’?”
Zhao Jinhua fell silent.
She was the one who had written that line.
Back then, she had thought to herself—what could that poor, plain girl possibly own? Let her pack up her rags and leave, so she wouldn’t come pestering them again.
Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that those four words—”disposed of by herself”—would become Su Qing’s legal basis for clearing out the entire house.
The officer closed his notebook and said politely, “In this case… this falls under internal family property distribution and gifting, which is outside our jurisdiction.”
“You—you’re just going to ignore this?!”
“We suggest you pursue civil mediation instead.”
The officers left.
Zhao Jinhua fainted on the spot.
Su Jianguo squatted in the empty living room, staring at the pried-up floor tile on the ground, his lips pale.
Two gold bars.
The life savings he had stashed away for twenty years.
Gone, overnight.
At the train station.
Crowds surged everywhere—sent-down youth carrying heavy bundles heading to the countryside, and travelers visiting relatives. Su Qing walked into the ticket hall carrying her old cloth bag, and waited in line at the window for ten minutes.
“Is there a soft sleeper ticket bound for Hongqi Commune?”
The ticket seller glanced up, eyeing her from head to toe—her patched gray tunic, her faded army-green satchel, her gaunt face. She looked nothing like someone who could afford a soft sleeper.
“Four yuan and twenty cents,” the seller said flatly.
Four yuan and twenty cents was enough to feed an average working family for a whole week in those days.
Su Qing reached into her bag, counted out four one-yuan notes and two ten-cent bills unhurriedly, and pushed them through the window.
The seller paused as she took the money—each note was brand new, perfectly flat, without a single crease.
But she quickly ducked her head to tear the ticket. Strange things happened all the time these days; why bother asking questions?
The green train.
The soft sleeper carriage was far quieter. Occasionally, a conductor carrying an enamel teapot would walk down the aisle.
Su Qing pushed open the door to her compartment. All four berths were already occupied.
A middle-aged man wearing glasses sat on the lower berth opposite her, looking like a cadre, buried in a stack of documents.
On the lower berth across from her—
Su Qing paused mid-step.
A man lay there.
Tall. Even lying down, his long legs stretched almost to the very edge of the berth.
His military collar was unbuttoned, revealing his collarbone and a strong, sturdy neck.
His skin was pale, tinged with the bronze hue of someone who spent years under the harsh sun and blowing sand.
His shoulders were so broad they made the berth look cramped.
His face—
Su Qing looked closer.
His features were sharp and chiseled as if carved by a knife, stern, intense, almost menacing. He had a buzz cut, high cheekbones, and a faint old scar running from his temple all the way to his ear.
Logically, such a face should have been frightening. But—
The moment she caught herself thinking “but,” she quickly looked away.
This was no time to be staring at faces. She noticed something far more important.
The man looked terrible. Not just pale—pale with a sickly gray tinge, the kind of pallor that teetered on the edge of losing control. Veins bulged at his temples, his lips pressed into a thin, tight line. He looked like a bow drawn to its breaking point, ready to snap at any second.
A young soldier stood beside him, wearing the same uniform but without insignia, looking frantic. He held a bottle of pills in his hand, unsure what to do.
Su Qing put her things away on the upper berth and climbed up quietly. None of this was her business. Not yet, anyway.
The train pulled away. It swayed gently, the rhythmic rumble of wheels over tracks monotonous and lulling.
Leaning against the blanket on her berth, Su Qing pulled out a tin lunchbox from her bag. She opened it.
Sliced braised beef. Deep red, neatly arranged, glistening with rich, tempting oil. She had picked this prime cut of shank from her personal space before boarding, braised it for three full hours, then soaked it in a secret sauce overnight.
She picked up a slice and took a bite. Tender. Savory. The rich sauce burst with a hint of warm spice, the meat firm yet never tough, juice flooding her mouth with every chew.
At the same time, she unscrewed her canteen and took a sip. Spirit spring water. The canteen was one she had taken from the Su household, but the water came from the ancient well in her space. It tasted crisp and sweet, like mountain spring water melted from snow. As she swallowed, a warm sensation spread from her stomach to her fingertips and toes, so soothing she almost sighed aloud.
The aroma of braised beef mixed with the faint herbal scent of the spring water drifted through the enclosed compartment.
The cadre on the opposite lower berth sniffed the air, glanced at Su Qing’s lunchbox, swallowed hard, then quietly lowered his head back to his documents.
But the strongest reaction came from someone else.
Lu Zhanye felt like he was dying. His head throbbed—like someone was driving steel nails one by one into his temples. This attack had already lasted three days. All the painkillers the military doctor had given him were useless; even the strongest sedatives couldn’t calm it.
His fingers curled tight around the sheet, knuckles white. His teeth ground together audibly. Consciousness was being swallowed bit by bit by darkness and rage—he knew this feeling well. Once he lost control completely, he would smash everything in sight, even hurt people. The last time this happened, he had kicked the door of the military infirmary three meters across the room.
His aide, Xiao Zhao, stood beside him, sweating with worry, too afraid to get close—last time someone had tried, he’d backhanded them hard enough to make their nose bleed.
Just then—he caught a scent. Faint. A mix of bitter herbs, cool spring water, and something warm he couldn’t quite place. It drifted over, faint and tangled with the smell of beef.
The scent curled into his nose, traveling down his throat and straight to the back of his mind—
The pain lessened. Like a ladle of cool water poured over searing magma. It didn’t vanish entirely, but the agony that felt like it would split his skull open dulled to something bearable.
Lu Zhanye’s eyes snapped open. His gaze cut like a blade toward the source—right above him.
A girl. Around seventeen or eighteen, thin, pale—pale enough to glow like polished jade, a stark contrast to the sallow faces everyone wore in these times. She sat cross-legged on the upper berth, holding a slice of beef, chewing happily, her cheeks full.
She seemed to feel his gaze and looked down. Her fox-like eyes curved slightly, the corners flushed pink—probably from the spice. She gave him a polite smile, then went back to eating.
Lu Zhanye stared at her for five full seconds. The scent lingered, steady and soft, like a warm hand smoothing the storm raging in his mind. Slowly, he uncurled his fingers from the sheet, the white fading from his knuckles.
Xiao Zhao stared in stunned silence. Three days. Three days without sleep, three days of swallowing every pill he had, three days of barely holding back a breakdown—and now Chief Lu was calm?
Night fell. Most of the lights in the carriage dimmed, leaving only a faint yellow glow at the far end of the aisle. The cadre was already snoring loudly, and Xiao Zhao had fallen asleep on the fold-down seat in the corridor. Su Qing slept too, her breathing light and even.
Lu Zhanye stayed awake. He lay on his side, eyes glinting like cold stars in the dark, fixed on the berth above. The scent had faded. Now that she was asleep, it receded like a tide, pulling back little by little. The dull ache in his temples returned. It wasn’t close enough.
SCREECH—
The train slammed on its brakes. The whole carriage jolted violently. Su Qing woke with a start, and inertia sent her tumbling from the upper berth. She reached for the railing instinctively, but missed. This was it—she was going to fall. A fall from the upper berth could leave anything from bruises to broken bones.
But the crash never came. An arm—an entire arm—snagged her mid-fall, wrapping tight around her waist with startling force, like a vice. Her face slammed straight into a warm chest that smelled faintly of gunpowder and pine.
She flinched, trying to push away, her palms pressing against hard muscle—only for another hand to press firmly against the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair, pulling her face deeper into the crook of his neck. There was no room for argument.
Su Qing pressed close to his skin, feeling the strong, fast thud of his pulse against her cheek—like a wild beast trapped in a cage.
“Don’t move,” his voice rasped in the dark, low and commanding. But beneath the sharp tone, she heard something fragile, something barely holding together—like a drowning man clinging to his last piece of driftwood.
His arm tightened around her, so tight she felt she might be crushed. Then his lips brushed her ear, his breath hot and ragged:
“Move again… and you’ll take the consequences.”