The rickshaw was already gone.
Shen Che stood there without moving.
His hand was buried in his trouser pocket, his fingertips brushing against something small and round—the pearl earring.
He had picked it up earlier and had not yet had the chance to return it to her.
Or perhaps, to be more honest, he had never intended to give it back.
Zhao Jiaming had approached him at some point and cautiously called out, “Young Marshal?”
Shen Che did not answer.
Zhao Jiaming called again, “Young Marshal? The night wind is getting cold. We should head back.”
Only then did Shen Che move. He tore his gaze away and lowered his eyes, most of his expression concealed beneath the shifting light and shadows cast by the streetlamp. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
“Young Marshal,” Zhao Jiaming hesitated, lowering his voice. “You don’t look well. Is something—”
“Go.”
One word, cold as ice.
Zhao Jiaming immediately fell silent.
He had followed Shen Che for years and knew that tone all too well. This wasn’t anger. It was something else occupying the Young Marshal’s mind, something he did not want disturbed.
And that was even more frightening than anger.
When Shen Che was angry, at least you knew what had provoked him. But when he was like this, you had no idea what was going through his mind. You only knew that whatever fire was burning inside him was raging fiercely, and anyone who touched it was bound to get burned.
Shen Che strode toward the black automobile. Old Fang had already opened the rear door. He bent down and got inside, casually tossing his overcoat onto the seat beside him.
He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed once.
The car started.
The low rumble of the engine sounded like the heavy breathing of a caged beast.
The streets outside slowly slipped away behind them. Neon lights filtered through the windows, sweeping across his face in streaks of color—red, green, purple, and then black again.
He opened his eyes and stared out the window.
The rickshaw at the street corner had long since disappeared.
All that remained in that direction was a lone streetlamp. Its shade swayed gently in the wind, its glow flickering in and out like a star on the verge of going dark.
His mind kept returning to the same scene—
The way she had run toward that man.
The way she had called out, “Ziheng.”
The intimacy with which she had slipped her arm through his.
The effortless, completely unguarded trust with which she had rested against his shoulder.
When she smiled at him, her eyes had been bright and clear, as though they held an entire Milky Way.
And him?
When she smiled at him, her eyes were clear, pure, and completely open.
There had been no shyness, no flutter of attraction, not the slightest hint of anything she shouldn’t have felt.
She had simply regarded him as a stranger who had helped her.
A powerful stranger she could not afford to offend.
Shen Che suddenly found it somewhat laughable.
He had never been afraid when facing enemy artillery on the front lines in Beining. He had never panicked at the negotiating table while dealing with the schemes of those old foxes. Even when standing before his father and enduring a furious barrage of reprimands, he had never once so much as furrowed his brow—
Yet now, a single smile from a woman had thrown his heart into turmoil.
Completely and utterly.
The car turned onto a quiet street lined with high walls and deep courtyards. A few withered plum branches poked above the walls.
The residence stood at the end of the street, its two black-lacquered gates guarded by a pair of men beneath a lamp.
Old Fang honked the horn, and the gates slowly swung open.
The car drove inside and came to a stop in the center of the courtyard.
Zhao Jiaming jumped out and opened the door for Shen Che.
Shen Che stepped out and stood there for a moment, tilting his head back to look at the sky.
There were no stars.
Thick clouds hung low overhead, like a gray curtain draped over the entire city of Linjiang.
Far away, lights from boats flickered across the river, little points of brightness swaying back and forth on the water.
They made one’s heart sway along with them.
He stood there for a while before finally heading inside.
After only two steps, he suddenly stopped.
“Jiaming.”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow, look into someone.”
“Who?”
Shen Che was silent for a moment.
“Lin Ziheng,” he said, his voice so low it almost sounded as though he were speaking to himself. “Find out everything.”
Zhao Jiaming froze for a moment.
After following Shen Che for so many years, this was the first time he had ever heard the Young Marshal say someone’s name in such a tone.
It wasn’t an order.
It wasn’t an instruction.
It was as though Shen Che were placing that name on the tip of his tongue and slowly, word by word, rolling it over in his mouth.
“Yes,” Zhao Jiaming replied without asking anything further.
Shen Che continued inside. His leather shoes struck the bluestone path with heavy, muffled sounds.
The light from the veranda stretched his shadow long across the steps, making it look like something bottomless.
He entered the foyer and casually handed his overcoat to the servant who came to greet him before striding upstairs.
The study door closed behind him with a heavy thud.
He did not turn on the light.
Instead, he walked to the window and pushed it open.
The night wind rushed inside, cool and damp with the moisture of the river. Somewhere in the distance, the clock tower struck twelve.
The deep chimes rang out one after another, as though rising from the bottom of some unfathomably deep water.
He leaned against the window frame and took the pearl earring from his pocket.
Small, round, smooth, and warm, it gave off a faint, lustrous glow in his palm.
He raised it before his eyes and studied it in the weak light from outside.
It looked like a drop of moonlight frozen solid.
Suddenly, he remembered the way she had looked when she said those words—
“My family will be worried.”
There had been a smile at the corners of her lips when she said “my family.”
It wasn’t the polite smile she used in social situations.
It was warm and contented, the kind of smile that naturally appeared on one’s face while sitting beside a warm stove on a winter’s day.
So that was it.
He closed his fingers tightly around the earring, then slowly relaxed them.
“Yu Shuang.”
He murmured her name softly.
The wind outside blew into the room again, sending the stack of letter paper on his desk rustling loudly.
He did not close the window.
He simply stood there, framed by the deep night of Linjiang City, the tiny pearl earring clasped in his palm as he stared at the dark river in the distance.
On the river, the last boat light finally went out.
He stood there for a long, long time.
Long enough for the night wind to chill the hem of his clothes.
Long enough for the distant clock tower to strike once more, the deep sound carrying through the darkness like a sigh rising from the bottom of the deepest water.
Then he turned and walked to the desk.
He pulled open a drawer and placed the pearl earring inside.
The drawer closed with a barely audible sound, as soft as a sigh.
He sat alone in the darkness, one hand supporting his forehead, and closed his eyes.
His mind was filled with her.
The glance she had cast over her shoulder on the silver screen.
The calm voice with which she had helped that young boy up.
The flush that had crept onto the tips of her ears when their eyes met in the elevator mirror.
The way she had stood in the doorway in that goose-yellow qipao, leaving him momentarily dazed.
The soft, lingering note in her voice when she called, “Ziheng…”
And the way she had leaned against another man’s shoulder.
Shen Che opened his eyes and stared at his own hand in the darkness.
Earlier, in the corridor, her hand had brushed against the back of his.
A fleeting touch, gone almost as soon as it came.
Cold as ice.
At that moment, how badly he had wanted to take that hand in his and warm it between his palms.
But he had simply stood there.
He had done nothing.
The wind blew in through the open window again, making the curtains billow and snap.
He rose and walked over to close the window.
His reflection appeared in the glass—
Cold and stern, his expression dark and brooding, with a look in his eyes that even he himself barely recognized.
He stared at that reflection for a long time.
Then he reached out and switched off the light.
The entire study fell into complete darkness.
In the darkness, he could hear his own heartbeat.
Steady.
Powerful.
One beat after another, like the pounding of a war drum.
But only he knew that the rhythm had already fallen apart.
From the moment she had turned her head on the silver screen, it had never once found its rhythm again.