The weather was pretty nice today.
Shi Cainran gazed at the twilight sky, bathed in orange sunset hues and brilliant evening clouds. She muttered a complaint as her hat was blown away—the only downside being the strong wind.
Her bangs were tousled by the breeze, brushing across her eyes. Her bare face looked plain and unadorned, lacking the usual aggressive vibrancy. The black baseball cap she’d worn for days was caught up in the gust, vanishing from sight like an insignificant dried leaf.
Shi Cainran sat with her knees hugged to her chest, watching quietly. She had no intention of getting up to retrieve it. She wouldn’t need it anymore anyway.
For several days, she’d been hiding out, dressed like a college student in a rundown, dingy urban district. On the first day, she’d stocked up on bottled water and instant noodles. The rental had basic amenities too. Once she locked the rusty iron door behind her, she hadn’t stepped out again.
~~~
That was until today. She switched on the landlord’s 24-inch color TV and caught the news report about the stage accident. He Lifu had been taken away by the police. The footage cut to a private hospital swarmed by reporters. Zhong Jia’s manager, who reeked of overwork, announced the performer’s condition on camera while thanking the media and fans for their concern.
Shi Cainran paused mid-motion as she opened a cup of instant noodles. As if she hadn’t quite processed it, she grabbed the remote to rewind—but forgot it was an old model, still covered with a dated white anti-dust cloth.
Her neck turned slowly. Her gaze fell on the small, square window right by the bed. Grayish-blue curtains hung in long strips, blocking the view and pooling on the floor with excess fabric.
She turned on the faucet, and it sputtered out filthy yellow water at first before running clear.
She hung her towel on a wire strung between two nails. The showerhead was crusted with yellow scale, and the exhaust fan’s plastic frame dangled two cords—one long, one short.
The landlord had said, “Pull once to turn it on, pull again to turn it off.”
The skinny, pickle-like little man had figured she wouldn’t know how and explained extra. A cigarette dangled from his ear as he hunched over, eyeing his short-term tenant up and down with a sleazy glint. When he spotted the ugly scars covering her legs, goosebumps crawled up behind his ears, and any dirty thoughts evaporated.
Shi Cainran snapped impatiently, “Got it.”
The moment he left, she started her bath. Her hair hadn’t been washed in three days, but being dry-textured, it was just straw-like rather than greasy clumps.
She knew how to use it all.
How could she not?
Every corner felt too familiar. It reminded her of one particular place.
Shi Cainran stepped out from under the eaves of the tube-shaped apartment building. The sunlight overhead dazzled her eyes. She raised a hand to shield them until she adjusted, then lowered it and navigated the tangled, cluttered alleys with ease.
She’d grown up in a place just like this, living there for many years.
The sounds around her were chaotic. On one side of the wall, someone was sawing; on the other, idle family chatter. Ding-a-ling—ding-a-ling—a bicycle bell rang as someone pedaled past her, crushing the roadside trash into mush again.
The rider glanced back, seemingly curious about the scars on the young woman’s legs.
Shi Cainran sensed the stare. Her slumped shoulders, drooping all the way, suddenly straightened. She took a deep breath, lifted her eyes to meet his—and that look made him sheepish. He nodded apologetically, averted his gaze in a hurry, and pedaled toward the alley mouth.
The girl behind him froze for a moment. She realized he was apologizing—for his intrusive gaze that had invaded her space. Interpreting it that way left her feeling at a loss instead.
The midsummer sun shone down, not quite so harsh anymore.
Shi Cainran stared down at the scars on her legs. Freed from the cover of her pants, they seemed to breathe in the fresh air, the vicious marks twisting around her limbs like bizarre tattoos.
Her strides grew bolder, eyes fixed straight ahead. She soon reached the alley’s end.
A crooked utility pole stood nearby, next to a rusted blue sign on the wall. Shi Cainran stopped, staring hard, but the faded characters refused to morph into “San’an Li.” She exhaled a turbid breath, closed her eyes briefly, then opened them and headed toward the hospital.
A warm gust rustled the leaves, sunlight dappling through.
At the bus stop, a girl in her twenties stood beneath the shelter. The wind toyed with her hair and the red skirt around her waist, but it couldn’t budge the yellowed calendar from yesterday.
She could have gone back three days.
As the bus pulled up with a puff of exhaust, the sudden thought in her mind stalled.
Shi Cainran thought bitterly, I don’t regret it. I really wanted her dead. Why didn’t she die? Wasn’t her body already frail?
The bus rocked along lazily, and the thought dragged up older memories.
The first time He Lifu saw her legs, the excitement in his eyes slowly faded. He brushed back his long hair, licked his lips—clearly not satisfied yet—but threw off the covers, rolled over with his back to her, and said, “Forget it. Let’s sleep.”
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a romantic or sexual thing. It was a partnership. He Lifu wanted to secure his position as the conglomerate heir and couldn’t keep this sister around. Shi Cainran helped him in secret, and he helped her rise.
She’d sneered coldly at the pampered young master a few times. She was good at bluffing—the more insecure she felt, the more arrogant she acted.
Lying on her side of the bed, she hadn’t slept a wink all night.
She remembered the teacher who’d molested her.
Do you like these legs or not? What do I have to do to make you see I’m a normal person too?
The rooftop wind was fierce, blurring her vision. Shi Cainran sat on the ground, head resting on her knees, fiddling with the dusty hem of her skirt.
She hated to admit it, but after countless comparisons, she had to face the truth: Xie Yingnian might be the only person in the world who treated her like a normal human being.
She wanted far more than that—boundless indulgence, unconditional obedience. Only she could provide it.
My sister.
Shi Cainran heard familiar footsteps.
The rooftop was broader than Xie Yingnian had imagined. She paused at the doorway, scanning roughly before zeroing in on a direction and walking over.
Her face emerged from the dim stairwell. She looked pale from lack of rest, almost like the withered, curse-bearing version of herself from that final, selfless sacrifice in Shi Cainran’s eyes.
Xie Yingnian approached the water tower in the southeast corner unhurriedly. Sure enough, the person who had texted her was huddled there.
“You’re here,” Shi Cainran said, looking up with a smile.
The smile held too much—Xie Yingnian first picked out the uncomfortable smugness. Smug that she’d found her so quickly and precisely. Smug that, even before they reached their forties or fifties, they were still the closest, most understanding people to each other in the world.
Sisters—more than just words.
Xie Yingnian nodded. “Mm.”
She took a few steps back, leaning against a low wall, deliberately widening the gap from the other’s ironclad intimacy.
As the distance grew, Shi Cainran’s smile faded from her lips.
“Is she awake yet?”
“She will be.”
Shi Cainran said, “I can’t do anything to her now anyway—I’m barely holding on myself. No need to be so guarded.”
“What more do you want to do to her?” Xie Yingnian asked, frowning.
At the edge of her vision, her sister hugged her legs, curling into a tiny ball. The red skirt, backlit by the dying sun, took on the hue of old times—a hint of her former self.
Former self—Xie Yingnian narrowed it to before the incident.
Everyone around San’an Li knew the pretty widow at Shi Ji Restaurant had two daughters. The older one was supposedly for a cousin; the younger was her own.
The sisters looked somewhat alike and were very close.
The little one was shy around strangers, always hiding behind her big sister. It took coaxing—maybe some candy as bait—before she’d peek out cautiously, big eyes fluttering at her sister as if asking permission. Her hair was in neat little braids, she wore a pretty princess dress and black patent shoes, and she flitted in and out of the low building that housed both the restaurant and their home like a princess fallen among commoners.
In Shi Cainran’s memory, Xie Yingnian was even-tempered and reserved, rarely wearing her emotions openly.
Like now—her brow furrowed slightly, a subtle motion, but she was already furious inside.
Shi Cainran rose against the wall, chuckling lowly. “Don’t you know what I want to do to her?”
She walked toward Xie Yingnian, her skirt gray with dust. No one would kneel to brush it off anymore, no one to tap her nose and tease, “Be careful.”
Xie Yingnian watched her silently, not retreating.
Whether it was a festering sore or a nagging thorn, it was time to face it. Instinctive avoidance wouldn’t solve it—it would only make things worse. She’d nearly lost the most important person because of it.
“I want her dead,” Shi Cainran said, head tilted up, staring Xie Yingnian down—forcing a choice between herself and the other.
The words hung, and Xie Yingnian, at the end of her patience, slapped her.
Shi Cainran’s head snapped to the side. Xie Yingnian remained unmoved, saying coldly, “That’s enough. No one but me has wronged you. She’s the most innocent one here.”
A slap mark bloomed across one side of Shi Cainran’s face. She tilted her head and smiled at Xie Yingnian, tears shimmering in her eyes, only for the moment to pass like a fleeting illusion the next second. Xie Yingnian had never seen such a look from her before—as if she truly cared that much.
She was utterly baffled. Why? Didn’t you hate me?
Sunset light flashed across them, but Shi Cainran kept her head held high, her expression declaring she could never be wrong. This brand of stubbornness was nothing like Zhong Jia’s pitiable defiance; it had given Xie Yingnian headaches for half her life, leaving her perpetually at a loss for how to handle her.
Shi Cainran wasn’t particularly tall, but her frame was slender and elongated, with long limbs and a neck like a swan’s—fine and graceful. Her dance instructor had praised her talent countless times. Dressed in her ballet leotard, a red dot painted at the center of her brow, she always commanded the spotlight, no matter the performance or formation.
Countless envious gazes had made her forget her family’s dire poverty. From childhood, she’d believed her life would be extraordinary. She was a flower planted in the wrong soil, greedily climbing over her utterly indulgent older sister to drink in nutrients from the clouds above.
And so she demanded the best food, clothes, and everything in between. Even knowing their family couldn’t afford it, she insisted on the priciest dance classes, forcing Xie Yingnian to juggle school and part-time jobs until she was overwhelmed and ready to drop out of college.
Her competitive streak only grew fiercer, always measuring herself against the person she’d been yesterday.
How much more could Xie Yingnian possibly do for her? Time and again, Shi Cainran tested those limits—and time and again, they were met.
“Innocent? What does she have to be innocent about?” Shi Cainran laughed even louder, only to cut it off and snarl viciously, “She’s not innocent at all!”
“It’s because of her that you don’t want me anymore.” She bit her lip hard, her chin trembling as she fought to look less pitiful.
Xie Yingnian brushed back her hair, a cold laugh twisting her strikingly beautiful face. She simply couldn’t comprehend it. “What does she have to do with any of this?”
Her gaze fell on her unreasonable little sister’s face. Shi Cainran instantly understood. She lowered her head and stared blankly at the ground, murmuring, “Right, it’s me who wants to leave.”
“It’s not that you don’t want me—it’s that I don’t want you.”
Xie Yingnian closed her eyes briefly and said nothing. She wasn’t as unbreakable as she appeared. Everyone had weaknesses, and hers was a possibly incurable illness, coupled with a life marked by one abandonment after another. The closer people wanted to get, the more they feared her—even hurting her to protect themselves.
Her mind was a whirlwind, memories of the past tangling with her present feelings, forming a knot of regrets that never should have been.
She shouldn’t have let her relationship with Shi Cainran fester untreated. She shouldn’t have allowed Shi Cainran to vent her frustrations on Zhong Jia. She shouldn’t have… maybe the first mistake was moving into someone else’s home and becoming their sister.
Someone’s hand slipped into her pants pocket. Xie Yingnian snapped back to reality and seized the cool wrist.
Shi Cainran didn’t resist. She glanced at the fruit knife with its blade retracted, then at Xie Yingnian. No surprise crossed her face—only a cool, mocking smile. “Do you want to kill me?”
“Sis.” The word came out sweetly, laced with certainty. “No one knows what you want better than I do.”
Xie Yingnian released her grip, letting Shi Cainran take the knife. From her other pocket, she pulled out the cigarette Shi Heng had given her that day. It was crumpled and misshapen. She held it between her fingers, arm dangling, and a few strands of tobacco drifted free.
The gesture stunned Shi Cainran. The knife slipped from her grasp and clattered to the ground.
“Didn’t you say you didn’t smoke?”
Xie Yingnian toyed with the cigarette slowly, gazing at the blood-red sunset. “I want to try.”
“Cainran,” she said softly.
Shi Cainran’s lips quivered. She turned her face away. That gentle call threatened to crumble the walls around her heart, but then Xie Yingnian added, “People change.”
The girl in the wind-tossed skirt stood frozen for a long moment. She glanced at the fruit knife by her feet and suddenly realized she’d misread everything.
Xie Yingnian had no intention of killing her. The knife had tricked her into thinking she still knew her sister best. But that cigarette was a bolt from the blue, splitting the past from the present. Caught in the rift, Shi Cainran looked around in bewilderment, unsure where to turn.
Her parents were dead, the home long gone. The sister who’d raised her safely now said people change—and that she’d found her way out, hoping Shi Cainran could too.
Tears streaked her face unnoticed. She sank to the ground, burying her head in her knees, sobbing incoherently.
Gradually, her cries grew louder, laced with anguished sobs. Xie Yingnian made out the stubborn refrain, over and over: “I don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to! I don’t want to move on!” Shi Cainran roared like a madwoman. Through her blurred vision, she saw Xie Yingnian’s figure.
She wore a cropped brown plaid T-shirt that bared her midriff, black straight-leg pants, and a matching wide leather belt that hung loose, accentuating her long, slim legs.
No makeup, no effort put into her appearance, yet she stood there radiant as ever. Liang Sufen had forced her to apply for college, sparking a huge fight—because everyone in the alley believed she was destined for greatness.
But what about me?
Why should a fire dictate my fate? Why trade jealous stares for universal disdain?
I wanted everyone to adore me, so I turned to singing.
Being an online singer couldn’t compare to an award-sweeping actress, so I signed with an agency and debuted.
And now, I’d gotten everything I thought I wanted—yet lost what mattered most.
Shi Cainran staggered to her feet, hair plastered across her face by the wind, uncaring. “Xie Yingnian, I actually admire Zhong Jia.”
“There’s an email sitting in my inbox for ages. I wrote it around the time of the first episode but never sent it. I kept thinking you’d break up, waiting for that day.”
As she spoke, she backed away, her shadow shifting from in front of her to her side. “But instead, I got proof of your intimacy over and over—kissing in the street, sending roses onstage. Things you’d never do with anyone else, you did with her.”
“Finally, I sent it. I told Zhong Jia about your family’s hereditary mental illness. To make sure she’d believe me, I attached the news about Zhao Yangguang’s murder and dismemberment conviction.” Shi Cainran halted, tears carving paths down her face that lent her a fragile beauty, though her words were venomous. “She replied right away: ‘It’s okay. I’ll help her get treatment.'”
Xie Yingnian had no idea about any of this. A sense of absurdity spread through her chest, and she let out a bitter laugh. “How much do you hate me?”
“Hate?” Shi Cainran echoed, then shook her head. “I thought it was hate once, but truth be told, I can’t live without you.”
Twilight was fading fast.
The distance between them stirred unease in Xie Yingnian, and she stepped forward to close it.
Shi Cainran shrugged. “I don’t even know what I want anymore.”
“Those years, I was desperate to get away from you. But once I did, I realized how much more I depend on you than I ever imagined. It’s not just about wanting to sleep with you—it’s that I hate seeing anyone else by your side.”
“I’m jealous of Zhong Jia, but I know I can’t compare. I can’t make you turn back. She’s the one taking you forward.”
Xie Yingnian said, “You can move forward too.”
Shi Cainran scoffed. “I don’t want to. Besides, didn’t you come here to settle the score?”
“I’ve already called the police,” Xie Yingnian said flatly.
Called the police?
Shi Cainran felt the woman before her drifting ever further from the past. She’d once pretended to be a good citizen—now was she the real deal?
Leaning against the railing, she peered down at the streets far below, then turned back with a low chuckle. “So what? A few years in jail? My life’s already ruined—beyond repair. Prison won’t make a difference.”
“You shouldn’t have been so good to me back then. I can’t handle hardship at all, let alone jail.”
“Besides.” Her smile twisted with sorrow and madness. “Even now, I won’t admit fault or repent. If you hadn’t guarded her bedside every day, with bodyguards at the door, I’d have rushed in and killed her with one stab!”
She relished the way Xie Yingnian’s fist clenched in that instant, as if she’d hit her mark. I’m unhappy? Good—now you suffer too. Who says you can’t go back to how things were?
Sirens wailed in the distance. In a flash, Shi Cainran clambered onto the wall and leaped without a second thought—
Her hand was caught in a vise grip. Xie Yingnian’s upper body dangled over the edge, veins bulging on her forehead. Sweat beaded at her temples as seconds ticked by.
“You’re as soft-hearted as ever. Maybe your illness really can be cured.”
Shi Cainran emphasized “ever,” prying loose Xie Yingnian’s straining fingers.
A vivid streak of red shrank to a tiny speck in her vision, then vanished. Shouts erupted from the passersby below.
Xie Yingnian stared at her empty palm, her blood turning to ice in an instant. Shi Cainran’s final words echoed on the wind:
“Don’t do this. You’ve already let go of me long ago.”
