chapter 13

There was no one behind Zhou Jingxing.

It just happened to go wrong when she was with him.

It just happened that he was alone when he brought her back.

“How did you find this place?” Qiu Rongrong’s vision swam with black spots from low blood sugar.

“I tracked your phone. It showed you were nearby.” Zhou Jingxing didn’t explain further. He helped her up. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”

Qiu Rongrong wanted to squeeze out a couple tears to show how grateful she was.

But she’d cried herself dry a long time ago.

She tossed away the broken toothbrush she’d been clutching. Grabbing the front of his shirt, she wore a face that was half crying, half laughing. “I really didn’t think you’d get here so fast.”

“Don’t smile like that,” he said. “If you’re hurting, just cry.” He reached out and wiped the gray dust off her face with his thumb. “This is on me. I lost you.”

Qiu Rongrong knew she’d survived by sheer luck. She should’ve been more optimistic.

But when she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder, that clean, youthful scent-like that rainy day-hit her all at once. She couldn’t hold it back anymore. Her voice trembled, muffled against him. “Thank you. These past two days, I kept thinking about you… thinking you’d come save me.”

Before she knew it, there was a hint of spoiled, needy softness in the words.

He was more reliable than gods or buddhas. Back then, Qiu Rongrong had prayed for a whole year, and not once did any god open that door.

This time, she’d begged him in her heart-and in only two days, he came.

“Zhou Jingxing, thank you. I’ll repay you someday. I swear I will.”

She said it with such reverence.

As if she wanted to haul down the Virgin Mary statue from Notre-Dame de Paris and put him up there instead, holding the Holy Child.

Of course the toothbrush couldn’t get her out.

Down there, it was like a maze.

With no one coming to save her, she’d clutched that toothbrush like it was a lifeline.

And now Zhou Jingxing was here, holding her.

She felt like duckweed at last drifting into a place where it could put down roots.

After they got out, Qiu Rongrong realized she really had been locked in a basement.

The basement was huge, located out in the suburbs of Guixu City. It was divided into several rooms, and above it was an abandoned high-rise construction site that had been shut down.

“We need to call the police right away. When he left, maybe he didn’t wipe everything clean-fingerprints, footprints… they might still be able to find something…”

Qiu Rongrong had a strong feeling the man who came after her had something to do with the case from back then.

“Okay. Leave all of that to me.” Seeing her legs go weak, Zhou Jingxing simply scooped her up in his arms. “Your only job right now is to go back and rest. Once you’ve recovered, we’ll go to the police station.”

“But it’s a crime scene. We have to protect it-nothing can be disturbed…” Her mind was full of one thing: catch him as soon as possible.

Only when the bad guy was behind bars could she truly sleep in peace.

Zhou Jingxing’s tone was firm. “I’ll handle it.”

Qiu Rongrong looked into his eyes. The concern there didn’t seem fake. His eyes were threaded with red, and his stubble hadn’t been properly shaved-like he hadn’t slept for two nights straight. Her heart softened. “Okay.”

After they got home, the adrenaline that fear had forced her to hold onto finally collapsed.

The moment she walked through the door, she spiked a high fever. After taking fever medicine, she fell into a heavy, foggy sleep.

When she woke again, daylight was blazing.

The fever was gone, though she was still coughing a bit.

Qiu Rongrong went to the bathroom and splashed her face with water.

In the mirror, her complexion was deathly pale-she looked exactly like a drowned ghost. She yanked a towel from the side and covered her face, letting the soft fabric soak up the icy water on her skin.

After she finished washing up, she sat by the bed for a while. The room felt a little too empty, a little too cold, and she wanted to find Zhou Jingxing.

But when she went to his room, she realized he wasn’t home.

Her phone-Zhou Jingxing had already helped recover it-was sitting on the big table in the living room.

There were no fingerprints from the kidnapper on it.

Qiu Rongrong had been missing for two days, then came back and slept for another day. Her phone was full of missed messages from all kinds of people.
There were messages from her counselor, from other classmates in the class, and even from Tan Song.

Tan Song had only sent two:

“Where are you? Why aren’t you coming to school?”

“Xu Zhao didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

Qiu Rongrong was a freshman, Tan Song was a senior. They weren’t even in the same major, so he was worried about her safety.

Qiu Rongrong scrolled through her phone, replying to each message one by one, carefully explaining.

She didn’t say she’d been kidnapped-only that she’d been sick the past couple of days and hadn’t had a chance to check her phone.

It felt good, being worried about.

Each message was like a thread, tying her to other people.

Other people’s eyes were landing on her.

It made her feel like she truly existed in this world.

Zhou Jingxing came back at night. By the time he returned, Qiu Rongrong was already asleep, so the two of them didn’t see each other.

As for Zhou Huaiyuan, Qiu Rongrong really hadn’t had the energy to take care of him these past two days, so she’d hired a home aide, paid by the hour.

Uncle Zhou gave her five thousand yuan a month for living expenses.

Qiu Rongrong didn’t spend much on herself. She ate at the cafeteria at school, cooked for herself at home, and was thrifty and careful. So even counting food for two people at home, she could still have a thousand or so left over at the end of the month.

One nice thing about university was that seats were free; there weren’t fixed classrooms. Under those circumstances, avoiding someone was actually pretty easy.

Qiu Rongrong was avoiding Xu Zhao.

When Jiang Yuwei heard that Qiu Rongrong had been sick, she lugged over a huge fruit basket for her-so big it was hard to find a place for it in the classroom.

“You were sick and didn’t even tell me?” Jiang Yuwei pulled Qiu Rongrong into a hug. The soft flesh on her body pressed against the sharp bones that stuck out from Qiu Rongrong’s thin frame. “The teacher did roll call these three days. I answered for you every time. Loyal enough, right? It’s just a pity you were gone all day, every day. In the end they still found out.”

Qiu Rongrong gave a wry smile.

What she’d actually wanted was for the lecturer to notice sooner that she was missing and then notify the counselor so the counselor would reach out to her.

“Thanks. Next time if I don’t show up for the whole day, you can just tell the teacher I skipped.”

“Huh?” Jiang Yuwei froze, then raised a hand to feel her forehead. “Did you break your brain or something?”

Qiu Rongrong grabbed her hand and pulled it down. “It’s to keep myself in line and study properly.”

“If you say so.” Jiang Yuwei still sounded unsure. She tore a page from her notebook. “But you have to write that down. Otherwise if you go back on your word and say I tattled behind your back, I could jump into the Yellow River and still not clear my name.”

“Okay.” Qiu Rongrong reached into her pencil case for a pen.

She had a Nick Fox collaboration gel pen, a gift from her therapist.

It was her favorite.

But now she couldn’t find it.

Qiu Rongrong dumped out all the pens in her case and rummaged through them.

The more she couldn’t find it, the more on edge she felt.

Jiang Yuwei watched, then smiled and pulled out a pen, handing it over. “Use mine.”

Qiu Rongrong stared for a second when she saw the pen.

It was the exact same Nick Fox collaboration pen.

At the tail end of the pen, the little Nick Fox was holding a Paw-Paw Popsicle that could be clicked up and down.

“Okay.” Qiu Rongrong took the pen and absentmindedly wrote out a statement of guarantee on the paper.

“All done.” Jiang Yuwei immediately snatched the pen back. She carefully folded the guarantee and tucked it into her book, then grinned at her. “Next time you have to come to class on time, or I’m going to have to tell the teacher on you.”

Qiu Rongrong answered distractedly, her mind elsewhere.

That collaboration pen was really popular.

She had lost hers.

Other people could easily have the exact same one.

It was just that on hers, a small patch of paint had chipped off one of the fox’s ears.

The one in Jiang Yuwei’s hand was exactly the same.