Chapter 1: “Do You Know Her?”

On a rare snowy day, the roads were slippery like puddles of melted white cheese.

In the Taxi #7516, a certain passenger sat in the back seat. From the moment she got in, her heart had been uneasy—

In this day and age, could a disabled person still drive a taxi?

She hadn’t figured that out yet when she suddenly heard a “click.” The passenger startled awake—oh, the disabled driver had turned on the left turn signal.

She breathed a sigh of relief. The passenger’s gaze fell on the hands resting on the steering wheel—

The disabled driver was a woman.

Her wrists emerged from the cuffs of a dark sweater.

The exposed skin on the back of her hand was very fair, with slender wrist bones and finger bones, and all ten fingers intact.

At least she didn’t look disabled.

The passenger swore she wasn’t trying to discriminate.

But as soon as she got in, she had noticed the disabled driver sticker on the back of the passenger seat.

Her first impression: what a pity.

Before getting in, she had seen the driver’s face head-on. The first impression was a pretty, proper face.

It matched the name in the SMS order info too: Qiu Yiran.

But the problem was, it said the driver of this vehicle had a level-five disability. So, what exactly was disabled?

The passenger instinctively glanced again. From the back seat angle, she could only see the right side of the driver—

At a glance, the other woman was very thin. On this snowy day with flakes flying everywhere, she wore a thick coat and sweater, but still looked skinny, as if those thick clothes were just propped up by her bony frame.

Yet she sat perfectly straight the whole time, back rigid, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, legs naturally positioned under the seat.

Way better than those male drivers who just bragged and bullshitted. The car was spotless too.

Wasn’t this person looking perfectly fine?

The passenger felt more and more sorry for that “level-five disability” label. Her gaze couldn’t help shifting upward, and suddenly, she locked eyes with the disabled driver in the rearview mirror—

Those were a pair of gentle eyes, with faint but very long lashes.

Yet they oddly evoked some kind of plant, radiating a non-aggressive sense of defeat from within.

Qiu Yiran.

The passenger recalled the driver’s name again and suddenly felt it didn’t quite match those eyes.

“The hotel’s just ahead. Should I stop here?” In the rearview mirror, Qiu Yiran’s gaze lingered only a few seconds before politely shifting away.

“Oh, okay.” The passenger snapped back to reality. “A bit further ahead.”

Qiu Yiran acknowledged softly.

She was about to drive forward when she suddenly heard an urgent voice from the back seat—

“Wait! Pull over here first!”

Qiu Yiran had no choice but to pull to the side.

Before the car had even stopped fully, the passenger frantically rolled down the window.

Snowflakes poured in from outside, swirling and plastering their bodies.

The cold wind bit deep.

Qiu Yiran suddenly choked and couldn’t help coughing.

The cough brought out a few sharp bursts of white breath. Her lungs stung, but somewhere else hurt even more. With the car parked, she reached down to rub her aching left lower limb.

Out of nowhere, she heard the passenger blurt from behind,

“Do you know her?”

Qiu Yiran’s hand froze on her limb.

She had to lift her head, peer through the glass, and follow the passenger’s motion as she leaned out to take a photo.

Across from the hotel stood the tallest building in all of Mang City. In this narrow-streeted, backward little town, it stood out like a crane among chickens.

And on that building.

A massive billboard spanning twenty floors was currently playing an ad for some high-end luxury down jacket brand—

The camera zoomed out then in. The woman in the ad had sharp, prominent brows and intense features, naturally ash-blond curly hair, and big, upturned fox eyes.

Her movements were simple and direct, flaunting that cold yet seductive face to the city, as if she could pierce through everyone who passed by with a single glance.

“Li Wuhui, international supermodel.” The passenger finished snapping photos, rolled up the window, and shrank back into the car.

“My friend is a huge fan of hers. This building just went up, right? Didn’t expect her to snag the first billboard spot. I gotta send this pic to my friend.”

The cold wind from outside stopped blowing in.

Qiu Yiran pulled her gaze back from the window. She sluggishly released her leg, and the pain suddenly seeped out like from the bone crevices.

After a long moment, she huffed warm breath onto her palm. Her curled fingers finally loosened, and she restarted the car, shaking her head.

“Not really.”

“Not really… know her?” The passenger didn’t catch on—either you know her or you don’t…

So, did she or didn’t she?

–

After dropping off that fare, the sky had darkened like it was hung with ink sacks. Qiu Yiran hadn’t picked up many passengers.

She called it a day and went to her usual eatery for dinner.

The place was already bustling, scruffy-bearded men crammed together, reeking of smokes and stir-fry.

Twelve yuan per person for an all-you-can-eat boxed meal—good flavor, full of wok hei. All the taxi drivers in Mang City loved coming here.

Qiu Yiran didn’t consider herself delicate, but after sitting inside a bit, she felt dizzy and suffocated.

She simply picked up her tray, dragged her especially swollen and painful leg today, and limped outside.

It was freezing out, the cold wind permeating like rotten frostbite. She leaned against the car door, snapped her chopsticks, but the food had already gone cold and hard in her mouth.

She didn’t get emotional about it, just chewed each bite a few extra times, then rubbed her leg again. Maybe because of the bad weather, her leg hurt fiercely today.

“What’s up?” Someone pushed out from the eatery, voice drifting to her. “Leg hurting again?”

It was Wei Zike. Like her, a taxi driver, and they were fairly close.

“You know, with that leg of yours, wear the wrong shoes and it hurts, too cold in winter and it hurts, rain brings gout-like pain, walk too much and you gotta rub it more, or else… well, it just grinds and hurts…”

Wei Zike sat down beside her as she spoke.

Her gaze lingered on Qiu Yiran’s leg for two seconds before pulling away, as if afraid to look longer.

She handed over a hot water bottle and sighed. “Ever thought of doing something else for a living?”

Qiu Yiran took Wei Zike’s hot water bottle.

She pressed it with some force against her small leg, which was on the verge of going numb from pain, outside her pants. She looked up with a good-natured smile. “I’ve tried other things.”

“Hey, I just filled that with hot water. Don’t press so hard, it’s scalding!” Seeing Qiu Yiran’s knuckles turn white from squeezing, Wei Zike quickly reached to pull her hand away.

“No big deal.” Qiu Yiran dodged, ignoring the advice, and pressed the bottle even tighter against her calf.

The heat instantly penetrated the rubber and fabric, scorching her calf like it was flaying away her worn-down flesh.

“Hotter the better,” she explained with a smile to the stunned Wei Zike. “Then it doesn’t hurt as much.”

Wei Zike was speechless.

She knew she couldn’t win against Qiu Yiran’s stubbornness.

This person might have a bad body that always made her look defeated and tired, with an easygoing expression.

But in reality, she was incredibly stubborn and wouldn’t listen to anyone.

After a silence.

Wei Zike glanced at Qiu Yiran’s calf, tightly wrapped by the hot water bottle and pants, then at her struggling to chew the frozen-hard rice, and the congealed red oil on the tray.

Then at the gleaming skyscraper across the way. After a long quiet moment, she spoke up,

“You think people like that never end up living like us, just muddling through day by day?”

Hearing Wei Zike say that, Qiu Yiran looked up into the wind.

The cold wind hit her face, night lights flickered.

The wind scattered her hair in the snowy night, and she saw again the tallest building in Mang City.

How tall was that building?

She didn’t know the exact number, only that it was a big investment from out-of-town developers, so tall that no matter where you went in little Mang City, you could see it.

Qiu Yiran had driven past it countless times today.

And always seen the woman in the ad, wearing a fancy down jacket, repeatedly looking down on everyone who passed.

Visible from anywhere.

“That female model in the ad, the supermodel—what worries could someone like that have?” Wei Zike stared for a bit, then said, half to herself,

“If that supermodel’s leg hurt, she sure wouldn’t skimp like us with a hot water bottle, right? Even minor aches would have people fussing over her.”

Qiu Yiran didn’t respond, keeping her head down and pressing the hot water bottle. The scalding did overpower the pain somewhat.

“No idea what supermodels even eat,” Wei Zike shoveled a bite of rice, nearly spat it out, wiped her mouth in disgust, and said,

“Definitely not frozen-hard rice in the dead of winter.”

The hot water bottle eventually cooled. The pain released slowly and intensely, making Qiu Yiran’s mind wander.

She chewed the tough rice slowly, rubbed her leg, and said nothing more after that.

She didn’t look up at the supermodel in the ad again.

–

After eating with Wei Zike, Qiu Yiran drove back to her place.

It was still snowing outside. She parked under the street-side building and habitually checked the back seat for any forgotten items.

And sure enough, she fished a magazine out from between the front and back seats.

After struggling to pull it out.

She stared at the cover model for a good while. It was a close-up face shot, classic Rembrandt lighting—even the tiny mole on the woman’s lip was captured crystal clear.

Qiu Yiran gently brushed off the dust and snow slush. With the snow today, plenty of passengers brought flakes in, now melted and dampening parts of the magazine.

Qiu Yiran took out tissues and carefully wiped the water stains from every page. When she reached a certain page, her gaze stopped.

It was the magazine’s feature interview with Li Wuhui.

Seventeen questions total, bilingual in Chinese and English. A top high-end mag with huge sales, and Li Wuhui’s interview took up major space. This page was already question twelve—

【Q12: Do you miss your past self?】

【Li Wuhui: Miss? I think that word is too precious—not everyone qualifies to miss anything. I’m one of those without the right. And in the end, anyone, anything, you just have to move on.】

A very standard yet real answer. It was clear this person was clear-headed, not one to dwell on the past.

Qiu Yiran’s gaze involuntarily slid down to the next question on the bottom of the page—

【Q13: What about that Ian incident then? Have you completely moved on from it now?】

Her fingers froze, trembling faintly.

After question thirteen, there was no answer on this page. At the very bottom, a note said Li Wuhui’s response was on the next page.

Qiu Yiran closed her eyes briefly, didn’t flip ahead, and just placed the magazine on the passenger seat.

She lived in a rental above a street-level shop, deathly cold and eerie in the winter night.

The street was mostly empty now.

Only faintly, a shadow lingered behind the bus stop sign, shrouded in light and shadow, barely noticeable.

Qiu Yiran sat in the car, staring at the shadow in a daze for a bit.

She opened the door and heard voices spilling from the street-side KTV— a woman’s heart-wrenching wail flooding her ears.

—”Long, long ago, you had me, and I had you.”

Qiu Yiran’s left leg braced effortfully on the ground, like stepping on a knife of bone-chilling ice. Drilling pain shot up from her calf again.

She fetched her crutches from the trunk.

Propping them on the wet, slippery road, she didn’t pause or glance sideways, striding straight past the shadow under the bus stop.

—”Long, long ago, you left me to soar in distant skies.”

Qiu Yiran climbed to the second floor, leaned the crutches against the wall, rolled up her left pant leg stiffly to her knee.

Below the knee, a thin metal rod emerged.

It was a prosthetic leg.

She stared at it for a good while.

Numbly, she detached the prosthetic socket from her leg. Her residual limb was fully exposed—

Only two-thirds down the calf.

The entire residual limb’s skin was rough, red and swollen, scraped raw, seemingly inflamed from the cold. The muscles had atrophied into small clumps, wriggling like air-swallowing worms.

Anyone staring at this residual limb day in and day out would find it horrifying.

Even Qiu Yiran herself was no exception.

She stared intently, lips pressed white.

The old rental was always damp and cold.

Like hard grains drilling madly into her bone seams, her uncovered knee prickled with goosebumps.

Qiu Yiran exhaled deeply.

She set down the prosthetic leg to turn on the light, but stumbled—

She couldn’t steady herself. The world spun, and she crashed right by the bed. The prosthetic and crutches clattered down too, scattering across the floor.

When she came to, she was sprawled on the cold, dry floor.

Qiu Yiran took a moment to recover.

She woodenly rolled her stinging eyes and realized her view was aimed at the rental’s battered window.

It was also a coincidence that the next second, she watched with her own eyes as a pebble flew in from downstairs.

With a clatter, it smashed into the window frame and finally rolled down beside her prosthetic leg, viciously striking the metal support rod as if determined to shatter the words engraved above into pieces—

/Ian, You’re here, I’m here/

/Ian, I will always be by your side/

Qiu Yiran stared woodenly at those words.

Downstairs in the KTV, a howling female voice sang that line tirelessly—”Long, long ago, you had me, and I had you.”

Plop.

Another pebble flew in from downstairs.

In the darkness, Qiu Yiran curled up on the ground like some sea creature slapped ashore, watching her own white breaths puff out one after another, watching pebble after pebble smash inside.

Finally, she simply squeezed her eyelids shut, refusing to listen or look.

Even though she knew it was Li Wuhui.

The one who, at their first meeting five years ago, had openly deceived and used her, but three and a half years ago, right after her amputation, had held her tightly in agony, tears streaming down her neck, and carved those heartfelt words onto her prosthetic leg…

And the one who, at this very moment, appeared downstairs from her rental room, hurling pebbles one by one at this broken window…

The person who should never come see her again.