Chapter 12

That year, Xie Zailing’s life was anything but peaceful.

Around midyear, the studio encountered a period of financial shortfall. To boost the studio’s reputation and raise the prices of their pottery, Jin Kui sent several of Xie’s vases to an exhibition. This was routine procedure—Xie’s works had always sold well internationally, though experts usually dismissed them as market goods lacking artistic depth. At exhibitions, his pieces were typically placed at the outer edges of the gallery as filler.

So, it was unprecedented that this year, at the midyear exhibition, the organizer submitted Xie’s Yingbai vase into competition. They told him it was just to make up numbers since their district had too few entries.

Jin Kui didn’t think much of it and mentioned it casually over dinner.

Xie himself was indifferent, only asking a few questions about the organizer’s background—foreign entities with no acquaintances—and agreed offhand, thinking it was just a formality.

But just before the New Year, Xie won an award.

Meanwhile, a black pottery vase from the Liu family, submitted alongside his, was relegated to a mere participant.

One of the judges, an old acquaintance of the Liu family, told them—who had assumed they would win and went to dine at a judge’s house—that it was all the same; after all, Xie was considered a direct disciple of the Liu family.

This incident stirred up a hornet’s nest.

The Liu family’s visits to cause trouble were nothing new. They didn’t truly care about the child who had been missing since age ten; their concern was whether the elderly master had passed the exclusive black pottery techniques solely to Xie.

They had made scenes, litigated inheritance disputes, sued over infringement on sold pieces, and with several ongoing lawsuits, if those failed, they would band together to seek justice for the missing child.

They hurled insults ranging from ungrateful traitors to murderers.

Over the years, their curses escalated in severity, recently even peppered with trendy internet slang.

Xie had grown used to it and paid little mind.

He figured as long as he didn’t hear it, being cursed was less exhausting than cursing back—and less taxing on his voice.

Yet, as Jin Kui said, Xie had a knack for provoking others. The Liu family’s repeated visits, met with his indifference, only enraged them further. On New Year’s Eve, they came again, threatening to ruin his holiday.

Many young people returning from work or school elsewhere didn’t distinguish the gravity of the situation and repeated hearsay from years past.

Not a word was true.

Xie ignored it until he walked over and punched the mouthy instigator squarely in the chin. Being skilled in fighting, one blow dislocated the man’s jaw.

Then Jin Kui and Jin Wu arrived.

A brawl ensued.

At the police station, Xie had the worst injury—a bruise on his cheek, inflicted accidentally by Jin Kui amid the chaos.

The opposing side, nearly twenty strong, all sustained injuries.

The incident was complicated. The others outnumbered them several times over and had come to the studio to stir trouble. Under the charge of provoking trouble, they should be at fault.

But Xie threw the first punch, and despite being outnumbered, none of them were hurt.

During the holiday, the police mainly mediated, administering light penalties and fines before letting them go home for the New Year.

Reconciliation was unlikely; the Liu family left threatening they would make their lives miserable.

Jin Wu fell ill immediately after leaving the station, breaking out in rashes. After a hospital visit and medication, he bought a last-minute flight and left overnight.

Jin Kui returned to their ancestral home in the neighboring county to visit their grandparents’ graves, a yearly tradition to honor their elders.

Left alone, Xie was a solitary figure. With someone always guarding the studio, he couldn’t go there. Carrying nothing but his phone and without a coat, he hailed a cab to Happiness Community.

---

During this period, when he had time, he would ask one of the Jin brothers to come light the lamp. Previously, he hadn’t known that only a single young woman lived on the second floor. Near year’s end, worried about thieves scouting the area, he took precautions.

It was New Year’s Eve, snow falling, and the community roads deserted. He did not expect the girl to suddenly appear before him, nor that they would naturally spend the countdown to the New Year together.

Thus, he committed two mistakes.

He introduced himself and asked for her WeChat.

A troublesome entanglement, binding him with inexplicable threads when he was already ensnared.

Perhaps he felt he wasn’t dying fast enough.

***

“Do you think you’re immortal?” Tu Qin frowned as she stretched.

At the airport, Yao Lingling was alone, carrying a huge backpack and two large cases of filming equipment.

In the midst of her passionate affair, she lacked common sense. It was midnight in South Africa; she was shouldering all the gear alone, separated from the film crew, intent on visiting the man’s hometown.

And she hadn’t told the man, only informing the team leader.

“This feels right this time,” Yao Lingling insisted. “I have to investigate first, or I’ll fall too deep without understanding why.”

“What’s your flight?” Tu Qin sat up on her yoga mat. “Give me the flight number, the license plate of the car meeting you, and your itinerary. Message me every hour.”

“I sent it to your WeChat,” Yao Lingling smiled. “I’ll rest a few hours in the capsule hotel at the airport. Our company has an office there; I won’t wander off.”

“Lingling.” Only after seeing Yao Lingling check into the capsule hotel did Tu Qin seriously say before ending the video call, “Don’t do anything you can’t handle.”

Yao Lingling nodded quietly.

After the call, Tu Qin sighed, doing a handstand against the wall.

Yao Lingling’s father was a scoundrel—drinking, gambling, domestic violence, theft, fighting, gang involvement. Fortunately, he died young. When Yao Lingling was seventeen, caught breaking into a house, she fell to her death escaping via an air conditioning unit.

Since then, Yao Lingling had been trapped in a curse. The men she admired bore traits she despised in her father.

For nearly ten years, she had been torn between clarity and despair, afraid of becoming like him, yet drawn to the edge like walking a narrow bridge with a strange urge to fall.

Tu Qin sometimes mused that one’s life path was set the moment of birth.

Parents, upbringing, early wounds or love—all signposts on the road ahead.

Knowing the wrong path, yet unable to resist stepping into it.

Yao Lingling was like that. So was Tu Qin.

It was profoundly unfair. Their dysfunctional families and imperfect parents meant their journey to happiness was longer and fraught.

Many lose their way along the path.

Few reach their destination, and those who do are exhausted, often realizing their so-called happy endings aren’t truly home.

Tu Qin, inverted against the wall, gazed out at the bare ginkgo tree outside the floor-to-ceiling window. At six a.m. on the second day of New Year, the tree was blanketed in thick snow, silently reflecting her.

Suddenly, a door slammed outside, startling Tu Qin and nearly causing her to fall.

Flustered, she stood up and checked the time—just after six-thirty. Only two days into the new year, she was still unaccustomed to sharing the floor, and the timing of the door closing was peculiar.

She exercised at this hour because she had stayed up all night writing. But for the neighbor Xie Dachuan to close his door now? Was he leaving or returning?

Either way, it was odd.

The heavy snowstorm that began on New Year’s Eve lasted until noon on New Year’s Day, paralyzing the city of Mo—a place neither north nor south, without heating, yet prone to snow. On the first and second days, no one could visit relatives, and damaged cars and outdoor units remained unrepaired.

So why was Xie Dachuan going out at this hour?

Tu Qin found an excuse to check the surveillance, opening the door camera.

Surprisingly, he was entering, bundled up, carrying a bag from Yimin Pharmacy.

Tu Qin frowned slightly. Fever again? His frequency of illness suggested immune system issues, though on New Year’s Eve, his complexion and physique didn’t look like a sickly person.

Tu Qin, you’re truly insane—standing at the door at six-thirty a.m., zooming in on the camera to check his expression, making you seem like a stalker.

But as a writer and screenwriter, with such a story-rich character living next door, it was hard to resist curiosity.

Admit it, Tu Qin—you think he’s handsome and his personality suits you.

Of course not.

After some internal struggle and reason prevailing, she closed the app and started to stand, but a pop-up alert showed activity at the door.

Startled, she reopened the feed.

Xie Zailing stepped out again, now less bundled. He’d removed his coat, wearing a coffee-colored turtleneck sweater, dark gray casual pants, and slippers.

He lingered briefly at his door, 201, then went to 202. Opening that door, he glanced inside but did not enter.

Tu Qin couldn’t see clearly but noticed he paused at 202 before returning to 201, took out his phone, looked toward her apartment, then walked a few steps to her door.

He hesitated, glanced at his phone again, and then returned to 201.

Tu Qin opened her door.

If she didn’t ask what he was doing, she wouldn’t write a single word all day—her curiosity would last a year.

Xie Zailing was clearly surprised by her sudden appearance; his pupils contracted in shock.

“You…” His voice was hoarse; he cleared his throat. “Hello.”

Tu Qin: “…”

Thank goodness he didn’t say “Happy New Year.”

“This door has surveillance,” she pointed at the lock. “If someone lingers outside, my phone alerts me.”

Xie Zailing seemed slow to catch her meaning, perhaps still feverish, but nodded in agreement. “Living alone means being careful.”

Tu Qin: “…”

He finally realized and coughed, “Sorry for waking you.”

“No problem.” Tu Qin didn’t explain she hadn’t been asleep. “Are you looking for me?”

“I want to ask if you have ibuprofen,” Xie said. “The pharmacy outside is out of stock.”