Chapter 15

Xie Anqing hadn’t slept this deeply in years. It was like being trapped in a ghost’s maze: the harder she tried to wake, the harder it became to pull herself free. Exhaustion swallowed her. She was sunk in the oppressive heat that had lingered for days. Wherever she turned, wherever she looked, people blocked her way. The moment she drew breath, their anxious, timid pleas turned into furious accusations.

“You said you’d found someone to help us sell everything. Why is the produce still rotting in the fields?”

“You said my children could come back and build a life here by the end of the year after next. Why are the roads still so bad?”

“I paid for medical insurance. Why is my heart still rotting away day by day?”

“You put up the river safety net. Why are people still drowning, one after another?”

They shoved and pulled at Xie Anqing. The wind tore the shelters from the ground. The rain snapped the trees. Floodwater roared like a wild beast, surging toward the fields and the village, surging toward her.

She fought back and screamed for help. In the blink of an eye, daylight blazed around her. She was standing at a wedding full of joy and celebration. Huang Huaiyi’s hands were young again. She held a freshly written Cinnabar Marriage Contract and walked over shoulder to shoulder with Xie Anqing’s grandma.

“A-Qing, forget. Grow up. Be happy.”

Xie Anqing stared at her grandmother, alive again, stunned and disbelieving. Her hand rose on its own, reaching for the marriage contract—

Rumble!

Lightning flashed and thunder cracked in a clear sky.

The Cinnabar Marriage Contract, unchanged for a hundred years, turned into a thin sheet of yellow paper in an instant. Huang Huaiyi’s young hands aged before her eyes. The wedding became the village entrance, submerged beneath the rain. Her grandmother lay there, eyes open and unseeing. Then the new grave grew old.

…!

Xie Anqing jolted awake at a thunderclap that seemed to split the sky. Her eardrums throbbed. Her throat felt blocked. Her heart beat so fast it seemed ready to burst through her ribs and flesh, then smash itself to pieces in the storm.

Her empty gaze sank into the darkness. Even when she opened her mouth as wide as she could, she couldn’t draw enough air to keep her body working. She wanted to curl up and groan, but something held her fast. Her left arm was too stiff to move. That whole side of her body felt heavy and numb, crushing the lungs and heart she needed to stay alive…

Xie Anqing froze. Her shaking hands deliberately seized the bedsheets as she struggled to steady her breathing for a few seconds. Then she lowered her eyes.

The first thing she saw was Chen Li’s lips, barely touching her collarbone.

Chen Li slept peacefully. Her breaths were long and quiet, each one falling against Xie Anqing’s skin without restraint, hot as flame, burning through her stiff, tense nerves and the pale, chaotic remnants of her dream.

They quickly faded and shifted. Everything returned to the present.

The moment Chen Li’s warm, delicate skin reached the nerves in Xie Anqing’s neck, her mind went blank. She pulled her arm from beneath Chen Li and scrambled out of bed as if she’d been shocked.

Chen Li stirred, frowning in displeasure as she opened her eyes. Xie Anqing stood beside the dim table, no more than a vague shape in the darkness.

“Sorry, Miss Chen. I mistook you for Xie Huaixia.”

Xie Anqing’s voice was stretched to the limit, low and heavy enough to make the air vibrate. It carried an oppressive force. She’d shifted from addressing Chen Li casually to being formal again, revealing a confusion she hadn’t yet noticed in herself.

It was unlike her.

Chen Li’s eyes moved. She pushed herself upright, piecing together the blank spots in her memory.

The summer heat had been stifling for both of them. Sweat coated Chen Li’s neck, and her damp collar had grown heavy, sliding down to reveal her wet, pale chest. She sat hunched at the edge of the bed. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse, as if desire had burned through it.

“Got it.”

How could someone who was hated be held in an embrace?

If she’d wanted to, she’d have figured that out long ago.

She simply hadn’t.

She’d had no chance.

When the storm broke, her eyes had been closed. It had given reason the perfect opening to fall into sleep.

Xie Anqing’s hand tightened on the chair back until the bones hurt.

The window by the table had been blown open. Cold rain swept through the corridor and into the room, but she couldn’t feel a thing. Only an endless fire burned inside her.

It seemed to have sprung from somewhere deep in her body. She couldn’t find it, so she couldn’t put it out.

All she could do was stand rigidly still and try with all her strength to think about what had happened in the room.

But the fire was too hot. Her body was burning. It felt as though her nerves were melting, one by one.

The only thing Xie Anqing could manage to think of was the most obvious question. “Why were you in my room?”

She’d switched back to calling Chen Li “you” instead of “Miss Chen,” a sign that her reason was returning, even if only a little.

Chen Li had been lying on her side for a long time. Her right arm had gone numb. She lifted it and massaged it while quickly sorting through what she remembered. “I came back and heard your phone going off. No one was answering. I was worried something had happened, so I came in.”

It was a perfectly plausible explanation.

An appropriate one.

Anyone who contradicted her would seem ungrateful. Anyone who questioned her would seem rude. Anyone who pressed for more would seem like a poor sport.

“How thoughtful of you, Miss Chen. Thank you.”

By the time she reached the last two words, Xie Anqing seemed to have become the same sharp, intimidating woman Chen Li had last faced. Chen Li paused. The hazy answer she’d had before falling asleep flashed through her mind again. She looked at the figure across from her, wrapped in darkness.

“Have you been exhausted lately? You slept so deeply you didn’t hear your phone ringing right beside you.”

She sounded familiar and casual, almost concerned.

Xie Anqing didn’t think the two of them were in any position to sit down and discuss personal matters so calmly. Fortunately, her phone rang. She immediately released the chair back and walked around Chen Li to pick it up.

“Xie Yun.”

Xie Yun’s voice came through the storm. “A major rainstorm is here!”

Xie Anqing shuddered and turned quickly toward the window. The sky was pouring down. The wind and rain were running wild. Her hand tightened around her phone. “When did it start? How long has it been going?”

As she asked, she desperately hoped the answer would be: not long, not too long. She’d only been asleep for ten minutes…

“Seven. Almost three hours!” Xie Yun said.

Xie Anqing’s insides roared. Her voice trembled despite her best efforts.

Xie Yun continued, “We called you dozens of times, one after another, but none of them went through. Where are you now?”

“…Home.” Xie Anqing’s throat felt as if the storm had choked it. She could barely get the word out.

Xie Yun immediately sounded relieved. “As long as you’re safe. That’s all that matters. We thought you’d gone up the mountain to help people!”

Xie Yun’s words struck Xie Anqing like a slap. Her mind roared; her ears rang. She pressed the phone harder to her ear, struggling to hear.

“We can’t get through to the County Emergency Management Bureau anymore. Our communications are still working for now. Since you’re home, don’t come out. Be ready to report to the city at any time! We’ve split into four groups. We’re checking every household first, moving as many people as we can—”

Beep.

The call ended.

Xie Anqing froze, then immediately called back.

Beep.

The call cut off by itself.

She tried a second time. The same thing happened.

Xie Anqing quickly checked the top of the screen.

…No signal.

Communications had gone down in their area too.

Rumble! Rumble!

Only the lightning and thunder kept crashing down.

Xie Anqing’s vision flashed white for an instant. She turned and strode toward the door.

Chen Li stood behind her, taller and calmer. She watched Xie Anqing without a trace of panic and said, “Secretary Xie, don’t you want to know what happened between us during those three hours?”

The same phrasing. The same tone.

Xie Anqing focused her gaze on the woman before her, unchanged from before. It felt like walking straight into a bitterly cold blizzard.

Negligence was the knife hidden in the snow.

It struck her, then froze her. Her blood couldn’t flow. It hardened into a silence she couldn’t break.

Xie Anqing hooked her wrist and tossed the useless phone back onto the bed. She relaxed her shoulders and smiled, very slowly.

It was a rare smile, one Chen Li would never have expected to see.

Her voice was even more composed, even more lighthearted than Chen Li’s.

Chen Li’s heart dropped. Only now did she realize what she’d just said. Her answer, the hazy no, had already muddled her judgment when it came to Xie Anqing. As flashes of lightning illuminated Xie Anqing’s skin, still flushed red, Chen Li suddenly knew that Xie Anqing had been flustered.

During the time they’d spent apart just now.

What did that mean?

It meant she wasn’t completely repelled by Chen Li. There was still a tiny opening.

And that opening was no more than the most basic physical response.

Chen Li’s nerves jolted. Something seemed to push her, nudging that hazy no back toward what it had been before:

Keep going. Don’t change your mind.

The words slipped out.

They were more ambiguous than anything she’d said before, and they touched Xie Anqing’s rawest nerve. Maybe they struck harder than ever.

As soon as Chen Li realized, she wanted to take them back. But words, once spoken, were like water thrown away. They vanished in an instant.

Xie Anqing looked at her, speaking in that voice touched with laughter. “What happened?”

Chen Li’s hand clenched at her side. She quickly thought through how to answer and realized she could only remain calm and composed, as she was supposed to.

“Your fingers moved through my hair. After your hands picked up my sweat, they traveled down my neck and spine, settling at my waist.”

“That’s all?” Xie Anqing asked.

She took a step toward Chen Li, moving with the rumble of thunder. Her black, still eyes reflected the dim light of the stormy night, nearly ten o’clock.

“I didn’t lift your clothes or strip you completely, so I could admire you without anything in the way, touch you, spread your legs, and enter you?”

Xie Anqing’s brazen, vulgar words crashed into Chen Li’s already shaky composure. Cracks appeared at once. A chill seemed to pour through her.

“Xie Anqing.”

“Yes, I’m here.” Xie Anqing moved closer. “So did you moan? What did it sound like? Was it loud? Were you crying, or shaking because you liked it?”

“Xie Anqing, mm—!”

Chen Li reached for Xie Anqing’s hand, but Xie Anqing caught her in return. Chen Li’s body suddenly left the ground. Xie Anqing flung her onto the bed.

She moved on top of Chen Li at once, pinning her legs down and trapping both her hands above her head.

It happened so quickly that Chen Li couldn’t react.

Rain hammered its way into the room.

Chen Li quickly shut her eyes, trying to adjust to the sting of raindrops in them, then opened them again.

The woman above her had gone completely expressionless. She looked down at Chen Li, cold and hard.

“Chen Li, does it have to be like this? Do you have to force me to drop the act and go too far?”

Did she have to pull this same stunt at a time like this?

“Fine.”

Xie Anqing roughly gathered Chen Li’s hands together and pinned them back down as they began to wriggle free. Her other hand slid quickly from Chen Li’s waist and hooked beneath her skirt, lifting her right leg.

Chen Li went rigid. Her eyes darkened with the promise of a storm.

Xie Anqing gripped her calf. “Was this injury really from a dog bite?”

Chen Li’s leg was forced against Xie Anqing’s body. The pain in the wound sharpened. She couldn’t tell if Xie Anqing was gripping too hard or if the new skin was too tender to touch. She stared at the woman before her, who seemed like a complete stranger, her gaze cold as frost.

“You knew all along it wasn’t.”

“I’m not blind. I can tell a scrape from a bite. But you said it was, and the injury did have something to do with Guoqing, so I could only bring you back. I did my best to treat you politely, and to separate your work from your character. What about you?”

The storm battered Xie Anqing’s eardrums.

The furious accusations that had surrounded her in her dream.

Huang Huaiyi’s hand suddenly withered. Her grandmother’s eyes, open in death. The grave by the river turning old before her eyes.

Xie Yun’s shout just before the call cut off. The risks that might already have become real—or might soon become irreversible.

One thing after another shattered the doors and windows locking away Xie Anqing’s bad feelings. Fire flared in her chest. Her reason drowned in the flood. Anxiety, uncertainty, helplessness, and the guilt of failing her duty all became a ravenous anger that lunged at Chen Li.

“The road by the level crossing is dirt. There are fields on both sides. Would your camera really break if you dropped it there?”

“Was that red patch on your shoulder really from Guoqing, or did you do it to yourself?”

“The bowl of food that gave me diarrhea—had you just not had time to throw it out, or had you prepared it for me?”

“Was I just a passenger you’d suddenly realized you weren’t used to caring for, or was I the one passenger you didn’t want to look after?”

“I had a fever. There were so many people around. Why were you the one wiping my sweat?”

“I was asleep, and no one had called you. Why were you the one who came to get me?”

“Did Xie Beibei really want you for publicity, or did you just want to use me for your amusement?”

“Was the scenery here really better than anything you’d seen before, or had you already looked me up?”

“Chen Li!”

Xie Anqing stared into Chen Li’s shining eyes, unable to understand why she’d seen nothing beyond Chen Li’s striking looks when they’d first met.

Cleverness was clearly her most defining trait.

Now those eyes reflected a cold, unfamiliar version of Xie Anqing herself.

“Tonight I was only asleep. I wasn’t drunk. If you wanted to, could you really not have escaped from my hands?”

Her anger erupted. Xie Anqing’s grip on Chen Li’s wrists and leg grew so tight her hands shook with the strain.

Chen Li couldn’t break free. Her body and mind were forced to follow the path Xie Anqing’s anger set for her.

Yes, she could have gotten free. Easily.

But Xie Anqing had been asleep.

The decision not to continue had suddenly blurred, so Chen Li had made another plan and fallen asleep beside her.

That…

That answer would only make Xie Anqing angrier.

Chen Li had already opened her mouth. Now she closed it again, leaving only her cool gaze to meet Xie Anqing’s.

Xie Anqing had guessed. Her look turned mocking and cold.

“Chen Li, you wanted me from the very beginning, didn’t you? Haven’t I already made myself into exactly the sort of person you wouldn’t look twice at? What about me is still fun for you?”

The last two words sounded strangely familiar.

Something struck Chen Li’s heart. She realized what Xie Anqing meant. “That afternoon when I was painting the mural, did you hear me talking to my talent manager on the phone?”

“Yes. Isn’t it funny? I went back to get the electric pen, and I just happened to hear you say you wanted to see what it would look like when someone with no desire at all finally started to burn.”

Chen Li’s wrists hurt more under Xie Anqing’s grip. Suddenly, she knew exactly when Xie Anqing’s attitude had changed: after that phone call.

That day, Chen Li had said it clearly.

Chen Li had said, “I want to see what it would look like when someone with no desire at all finally started to burn.”

“Chen Li!” Her talent manager had been furious. “Do you have any idea how many gifts I have to give and how many people I have to smile at to clean up all your dating scandals every year?”

“Isn’t that your job?”

Her manager: “???”

She’d hit a nerve.

Her manager gripped her phone, gritting her teeth. “Did you forget that you broke up with your last girlfriend right before you went to Dongxie Village?”

“Dongxie Village.”

“Don’t change the subject. I’m asking if you remember that you broke up with your last girlfriend just last week.”

“I remember. So what?”

“You’re one of the best young photographers around. You’ve photographed mountains and rivers that bring people joy, natural wonders that take their breath away, the strange and complicated nature of humanity, and wars and poverty that make people think. Your value and your public image shouldn’t be about how many girlfriends you’ve had or how long each relationship lasted.”

Chen Li and her manager had known each other for over a decade. It was the first time she’d heard her speak with such solemnity. She glanced at her phone, and her expression gradually darkened.

After a moment, Chen Li put down her chopsticks. “It’s just a bit of fun. I’ll stop when I get bored.”

“Get bored?”

Chen Li leaned back in her chair, her fingertips resting on the table. “The others either wanted to use my photos to get famous, wanted to use my connections to take shortcuts, or needed something from me—people or money. We hit it off, everything happened naturally. There was nothing new about it. This time is different.”

“How?”

Chen Li’s brow furrowed. Her fingers curled back into her palm. “She hates me.”

Her manager: “…Are you out of your mind?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“I don’t see how.”

“If I fall hard enough here, maybe I’ll keep my distance from women in the future.”

Her manager: “Starting today, I’ll light three sticks of incense every day and pray she’s a bottomless pit, so you fall in and crack your head open.”

Chen Li was caught in the memory, her gaze colder than ever.

Xie Anqing met it without fear. The hand gripping Chen Li’s calf pushed her skirt higher.

“Chen Li, didn’t you want to play? Didn’t you want to see what it would look like when someone with no desire at all started to burn? Fine. I’ll show you.”

As she spoke, Xie Anqing’s fingers pressed hard into Chen Li’s leg.