chapter 19

Guixu City was drenched in endless rain. Qiu Rongrong bolted from the school infirmary like she was fleeing for her life.

From the moment she’d run into that man on the bus, to Xu Zhao targeting her, the repeated kidnappings, and then the trap set by the therapist… Qiu Rongrong could feel it-an invisible hand behind everything, forcing her toward a dead end.

She could barely breathe.

What she’d thought was the end… wasn’t the end at all.

The rain overhead felt like a net, thrown down to cover her from all sides. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. In a haze, she drifted along the path out of campus.

Until Zhou Jingxing held an umbrella over her.

“How did you get hurt again?” Zhou Jingxing wore a black windbreaker and a black mask. In the misty drizzle, he didn’t stand out at all.

Rainwater darkened his shoulder.

He tilted the umbrella toward Qiu Rongrong.

“Someone at school is bullying me.” Qiu Rongrong had thought the wound on her forehead was already numb, but the moment she heard someone care, the sting came rushing back.

Zhou Jingxing reached out and touched near her eye with a fingertip. The pad of his finger brushed her lashes. Qiu Rongrong blinked, and her thick lashes swept over his finger like a tiny brush.

She flinched back and rubbed her eye. “It’s just rainwater.”

Not tears.

“It’s the rainy season in Guixu City. I brought you dry clothes-go change in the car.” Zhou Jingxing held her hand, warming her icy fingertips with his palm.

Qiu Rongrong changed in the back seat.

Zhou Jingxing kept one hand on the steering wheel, staring out the window.

Only after she was done did he start the car.

He asked what had happened at school.

Qiu Rongrong only told him about how Xu Zhao had messed with her in the sports equipment room.

She didn’t tell Zhou Jingxing what Tan Song had said.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. She just couldn’t say it.

That diagnosis certificate-persecutory delusions-was like a shackle clamped tight around her throat.

She had no evidence.

Any accusation that came out of her mouth would only sound like proof of the symptoms written on that paper.

How was a normal person supposed to prove they weren’t sick?

Qiu Rongrong couldn’t.

The psychiatric evaluation had been issued by the therapist who’d treated her for three years. Every procedure had been followed properly; there was nothing to overturn.

Once a report like that was issued, if it was overturned, it would be treated as medical malpractice. The hospital and the doctor would both be held responsible.

Everyone was inclined to believe that a girl who’d watched her whole family die in front of her, who’d endured a full year of abuse, must be mentally ill.

They looked at her with pity.

But they didn’t want to patiently listen to what she said.

Someone was bullying her.

But two words-persecutory delusions-were enough to “prove” she was just having an episode.

The car crossed Nanfei River Bridge, and wind and rain whipped up gray waves.

A massive dredging ship sat on the river, a dull gray shape swallowed by the mist.

Qiu Rongrong watched the crew operate the machinery and drop an enormous anchor. That huge lump of iron sank, the chain clattering as it poured down, and then it vanished into the dark water.

She thought: a person was much lighter than that.

In weather like this, if someone jumped in, there probably wouldn’t even be a splash.

For a moment, she saw herself standing at the edge of the bridge.

Falling like a kite.

Qiu Rongrong quickly tore her gaze away, forcing the stray thought out of her mind.

Life was precious. She would never jump into the Nanfei River!

After she got home, Qiu Rongrong went to the bathroom and soaked in a hot bath to relax.

Steam curled through the air. She tossed her clothes into the laundry basket and slowly sank into the tub. Hot water covered her slender waist, wrapping around the body that the fine rain had chilled stiff.

Warmth seeped into her bones little by little, and her taut nerves finally had room to loosen.

She let out a soft breath, leaned her head back against the edge of the tub, and closed her eyes.

Soaking in hot water felt far better than soaking in an icy river and turning into a floating corpse.
Just as Qiu Rongrong was about to nod off, she heard Zhou Jingxing’s voice from outside:

“You’ve got a letter.”

Her drowsiness vanished. She scooped up some water to wash her face, dried off, put on her pajamas, and walked out of the bathroom.

The drizzle outside still hadn’t let up. A damp chill clung to her pajamas; no matter how she rubbed at them, they wouldn’t feel dry.

The letter was lying on the coffee table in the living room.

In the kitchen, Zhou Jingxing was standing with his back to her, slicing vegetables.

Ever since she’d been brought back from the kidnapping, he had taken on most of the cooking.

His skills were average, but his knife work was exceptionally neat.

In his hands, even tofu could be carved into flowers.

Qiu Rongrong walked to the table and glanced down at the envelope. The sender’s name was just a string of numbers.

“In the age of cell phones, someone still writes letters?” she muttered.

She couldn’t think of a single person who would write to her.

Before coming to Guixu City, all her “friends” had been fellow patients. Their shared topics never went beyond medication and psychotherapy sessions.

Her parents had left no inheritance. They’d once had an apartment with a mortgage, but Qiu Rongrong couldn’t keep up the payments. She sold it and spent the money on treatment.

Poor health, no money, and her whole family dead with only her still alive-she seemed to carry misfortune with her wherever she went.

The community had once tried to contact some distant relatives on her behalf.

The moment those relatives heard it was her, they stayed as far away as they could.

She was alone, abandoned by the entire world.

Coming to Guixu City had been simply because there was at least someone here willing to take her in.

No matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t imagine who would bother to pick up a pen and write her a letter.

She tore open the envelope and pulled out a neatly folded sheet of paper.

Her fingers opened it up.

The contents on the paper made a coldness spread from the top of her head all the way to the soles of her feet.

The message was made of characters cut out from newspapers and magazines, each one snipped separately and glued on.

The fonts were all different, the sizes mismatched.

Crooked and uneven, they pieced together a single line:

“I want to be your guardian.”

She stared blankly, her heartbeat pounding against her eardrums.

The sensation of a gastric tube being forced down her throat and into her stomach was still horribly vivid.

It had to be that man. He’d found her current address.

As soon as she thought of his face, Qiu Rongrong felt her head go light and heavy all at once.

Her body tilted backward. She just managed to grab the back of the chair beside her, clinging to it until a bit of strength returned, then collapsed bonelessly into the seat.

“What’s wrong?” Zhou Jingxing heard the commotion and came over with a plate of stir-fried shredded potatoes.

Qiu Rongrong spread the letter open and showed it to him.

He was wearing an apron, his features calm. He set the porcelain plate down on the wooden table.

After reading the message on the paper, he said, “A boring prank.”

“It’s not a prank. This letter has to be from the one who kidnapped me last time. He’s threatening me. The thing with the psychiatrist was probably him too, messing around behind the scenes…”

She let her suspicions spill out without restraint.

Zhou Jingxing listened patiently.

He didn’t argue, didn’t question her. When she reached the more harrowing parts, he would even frown and reach out to touch the back of her hand.

Through his actions, he showed that he was willing to believe her, willing to stay by her side.

There was a mirror in the living room. In it, Zhou Jingxing’s reflection showed the corners of his mouth tightened with worry, but the way the light cast his eyes made them look disturbingly shadowed.

Inside the mirror and out, it was like he had two different faces.

Qiu Rongrong had reported a murder once before.

In the end, the psychiatrist hadn’t died, the body bag hadn’t turned up, and the supposed “victim” had come back to life-calling the police himself to say she was mentally ill, and getting the case withdrawn.

As for the kidnapping she’d suffered, the final conclusion was that it was a delusion brought on by her persecutory paranoia and that she’d just hidden herself away in an abandoned building.

No suspicious footprints had been found near that building.

No other fingerprints had been found in the basement.

Everyone said she was sick.

They denied everything she’d been through.

And she really didn’t have any evidence to offer.

No matter what she said, she couldn’t clear herself. That was exactly the situation she was in now.