Chapter 2: “Aren’t you the one who knows this best?”

It started three months ago, when Qiu Yiran encountered something strange.

Every night, someone threw pebbles up to her floor.

The rental house she lived in was in a half-developed residential area, the outermost building.

The first floor housed shops selling paper money, coffins, and firecrackers, along with a KTV that stayed open twenty-four hours, always blaring different voices singing heart-wrenching love songs. The second, third, and fourth floors were for tenants.

The second floor had the cheapest rent because it was right above the paper money shop.

She lived on the second floor.

At first, she thought it was rebellious kids from the nearby street, and since going up and down stairs wasn’t convenient for her, she ignored it.

But then it continued for several days in a row.

A few pebbles would come flying up sporadically. Some hit right on target, smacking her window frame perfectly; others missed but still clattered noisily below the window.

She propped herself up on her crutches and went downstairs to check.

But she moved slowly, and by the time she reached the bottom, she never caught anyone.

The next day, she finished work late and decided to lie in wait.

Strangely, when she didn’t want to catch the culprit, the prankster came every night.

But when she finally wanted to see who this weirdo was, she waited all night and saw no one.

And right from that day, no more pebbles hit her second-floor broken window that she’d never fixed.

She thought the strange incident was over.

But a month later, it started again.

This time, she pushed open the window and looked down, catching a vague shadow.

It was clearly a woman.

This time, the woman didn’t run or hide. She just stood under the Night Paris hotel across the narrow street, staring straight at her, as if deliberately waiting for her to come out.

But it only lasted a few seconds before she vanished.

Qiu Yiran grabbed her crutches and hurried down as fast as she could—

Across the street was empty, save for the flickering light of the Night Paris sign.

That time, she stood under that light in a daze for a long time, nearly convincing herself it was someone who shouldn’t appear before her again.

It also made her feel ridiculous. How could that woman be here?

This was Mang City, a small town with narrow streets. Even though taxis from Dream Paris ran through it nonstop, and “Water Paris” and “Night Paris” hotels dotted every street and alley—earning it the nickname “Fake Paris”—it was all just cheap knockoffs.

That person only belonged in the real Paris.

But she never imagined it really was the person she thought.

She couldn’t remember from which day, but she began to convince herself deep down that the one throwing pebbles at her broken window from below the rental house… was definitely Li Wuhui.

She couldn’t remember from which day the pebble-thrower stopped hiding and running, even standing closer.

She didn’t know how Li Wuhui had found her, or why she had shown up.

Every time, Qiu Yiran covered her ears and refused to listen or look.

But sometimes she accidentally glimpsed her.

She always saw Li Wuhui’s hair tousled by the wind, her careless gaze, her bloodless thin lips.

Standing downstairs, just watching her like that.

Not saying a word, not doing anything else. Just leisurely tossing pebbles at her window.

Late at night, the Night Paris entrance always had an orange neon light on, saturated with color, bleeding into the air like a whole orange sun.

Sometimes Li Wuhui was entirely bathed in it, like a shadow that would drift away at the slightest touch.

Li Wuhui had prominent browbones and nose, her features intense and sharp. Even a little makeup made her look heavy; light and shadow always found the perfect spots on her face.

Qiu Yiran felt this most deeply.

Before she turned twenty-five, they always spent winters in Paris, with its mild maritime climate.

In her memories, after they finished, they always turned on a light in that same warm yellow tone, pressing chest to back on that narrow sofa bed, embracing while lying on their sides under the same cashmere blanket.

Every time, Qiu Yiran was utterly fascinated, tracing with her fingers the marks left by the yellow-toned light and shadow on the woman’s contours—warm here, cool there, the sensations strangely wondrous.

And every time, though the woman was sleepy, she would half-squint those upturned fox eyes, indulging her pointless antics.

If she got truly annoyed, she would grab her ankle and tickle her until she laughed uncontrollably.

Then the woman would hug her tightly from behind, her long, fluffy curls brushing her face.

Viciously prodding her shoulder hollow with that sharp, thin chin now and then, she drawled lazily,

“Qiu Yiran, the person who accepts punishment calmly is the most admirable.”

Sometimes, when the movie projection hit a funny part, the woman would laugh bewitchingly in that yellow-toned light and shadow, the thin strap on her pale shoulder trembling slightly.

But she always kissed her suddenly before she could react to the joke, only to turn her face toward the projection wall when she tried to continue, blinking innocently and slyly,

“Qiu Yiran, the person who doesn’t get distracted midway through a movie is the most, most admirable.”

The tickling as punishment, the midway distractions from the movie, the embraces so tight their bones seemed to interlock…

In her impressions, that sofa had seen many things, that cashmere blanket always filled with both their scents.

But back then, no matter what happened, good or bad… there was always that yellow-toned light between them.

So later, the first set of photos Qiu Yiran took for that woman was also lit by such a lamp.

“Long, long ago, you possessed me, and I possessed you.”—A tattered female voice drifted faintly from the KTV.

On this rare heavy snow day, the flashing light outside the window was also a warm yellow streetlamp.

The rental room was bitterly cold, the floor cool with a rusty iron smell. Qiu Yiran curled up on the ground, quietly watching the snow outside.

She waited until the sound of pebbles stopped.

She straightened her pant leg, neatly covering her left residual limb, and tried to push herself up from the bed’s edge with her elbow.

But exhausted and stiff, she staggered with the effort—

And fell flat again.

The noise inside the room was loud, startling the motion-sensor light in the hallway to flare on suddenly.

The very next second.

Plink—

The long-paused pebble sounds resumed.

Plink—

Qiu Yiran panted slightly, staring in the dark at her empty pant leg, taking a long time to recover.

Plink—

The hallway light went out, and the pebbles from downstairs came faster and faster.

Plink—

Darkness swallowed her breaths. Qiu Yiran half-knelt by the bed, struggling to stand using the bedframe.

Plink—

Qiu Yiran flicked on the light, breathing raggedly.

The last pebble hit the window frame and quickly fell away, then stopped.

Qiu Yiran stared blankly at the window for a while. After the amputation, her condition wasn’t great; her residual limb often chafed painfully, dulling her thoughts.

After a moment, she recovered.

She grabbed her crutches and went to the bathroom, rinsing with scalding hot water and applying medicine, feeling a bit better.

She turned off the light and huddled under the icy blanket on the bed.

The pebble sound came again.

Just once, tossed lightly—it didn’t even reach inside, falling back by the wall.

Li Wuhui was probably drunk by now.

Qiu Yiran forced herself to ignore it.

She rolled over and saw her breath forming white puffs in the air. It was already such a cold winter.

She rolled again and saw the snow falling heavily outside, fat flakes bigger than when she’d returned.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight.

Suddenly—

A wine bottle smashed on the roadside pavement.

Then came several slurred curses overlapping, indistinct in dialect but clearly from drunkards.

When the second bottle shattered, the voices grew even more heated—

Qiu Yiran suddenly rolled off the bed.

She grabbed the crutches by the bed, stepped out of the rental room into the biting cold wind, the tall stairwell looming terrifyingly.

She propped herself on the crutches, triggering the voice-activated lights with each thud, then descended the stairs step by painful step.

Every time, Qiu Yiran tried not to listen or look.

But every time, Qiu Yiran couldn’t help it, grabbing her old coat, slowly crutched downstairs.

Picked up the woman’s high heels and bag tossed carelessly by the road, put the staggering drunk woman in a taxi.

Until this time—

Mang City’s winter brought heavy snow, temperatures below freezing. Qiu Yiran hobbled downstairs.

What she saw was blinding white snow.

Green wine bottle shards everywhere, blood spilled luridly on the snow, shocking to behold.

And a noisy crowd milling under a tree, men and women arguing and cursing around the person in the middle.

Sweat burst out in an instant, trickling down her back like the most horrifying insect trail.

Snow landed on her nose tip, stinging cold.

Qiu Yiran breathed rapidly.

A urgent rustle came from the snowy ground as she jabbed her crutches forward, but suddenly a voice sounded from behind,

“Ian.”

The volume wasn’t loud, but it pierced all the clamor, flooding her ears.

In that instant, all her sweat reversed course.

It cooled, sticky on her feverish back, freezing her senses solid.

She called her Ian.

A name no one had used in ages, one Qiu Yiran no longer liked after the amputation.

But the moment she appeared, she uttered the name Qiu Yiran had buried here and never spoken again.

Qiu Yiran knew she did it on purpose. But she had no right to blame her.

This woman was always so direct, never indulging anyone’s wish to avoid old wounds.

The distant argument seemed to go silent; police cars arrived, turning it into an absurd pantomime.

Li Wuhui didn’t approach from behind, but her voice was clear,

“Aren’t you going to turn around and look at me?”

These were the first words she said to her after three years.

Qiu Yiran’s hunched residual limb ached stiffly, her fingers numb on the crutches from gripping so hard.

She didn’t turn.

But she smelled Reversed Paris in the air.

Scents always hit memory before the brain. This woman loved that perfume too.

It was a sweet fruity fragrance, but she always sprayed so little—subtle yet refined, faint in the nose but lingering forever, mixed with her natural hair scent.

After all this time, she still hadn’t changed perfumes.

“Qiu Yiran.”

In the snowy night, Li Wuhui called her a second time from behind, switching to her name, drawing closer, her tone unreadable,

“Don’t you want to know if I’m hurt?”

Li Wuhui spoke quickly, cool-toned, emotionless—like Paris snow.

Qiu Yiran finally turned, finally seeing it really was Li Wuhui.

Standing in the snow, gazing at her through the swirling flakes, intact and unharmed, with that face that could stab her bloody, eyes that made her own ache…

“Li Wuhui.”

Qiu Yiran exhaled, unsure of the tone in which she’d said the name.

She had no strength to see Li Wuhui’s reaction.

After a light laugh, Li Wuhui fell silent for two seconds, then spoke extremely slowly and softly,

“Don’t call me that.”

A night bus’s cold white headlights swept by, sliding over the latest down jacket ad on the bus stop sign, like the curtain finally rising on their standoff.

In the sign, Li Wuhui had red lips and black hair, a coldly alluring smile, sexy beyond measure.

Outside, the woman stood in the drifting snow curtain, her face fragmented by the light, staring back from afar,

“I am not Li Wuhui at all.”

Cold intent thickened in the woman’s eyes, reflecting the inescapable fact between them,

“Aren’t you the one who knows this best?”