The next day, I woke up on the hotel’s soft and cozy bed, covered with a fluffy blanket . It seemed to already be noon, and bright rays of sunlight filtered through the blinds . I opened a pair of slightly puffy eyes and scratched my hair .

Last night, I’d watched those recordings deep into the night . After sitting there silently for a long while, not knowing what to do, my sluggish mind had finally sobered up .

I needed to leave Yin Li .

Things were now developing at an unimaginable speed . The truth of my messy past was almost out . I’m afraid that what Yin Li gave me was a perfect setup that had been planned long ago . I knew that I could choose to suppress my moody thoughts and, concealing my true knowledge, continue to play the fool and remain by Yin Li’s side to collect more information . This way, I could reverse my own pa.s.siveness . But I was afraid . A person that you not only relied on but also loved, in one night smashed to pieces your perception of everything . I was incapable of behaving so cool-headed in front of him, I was incapable of behaving as he did . Knowing everything between us, he could somehow still wordlessly cover everything behind a false mask and tolerate letting me live so close inside his safe s.p.a.ces . I didn’t know how to face him .

I was both protecting myself and running away .

Therefore, that night I had packed my things, planning to hastily make my escape from Yin Li’s house . In movies in this kind of situation, in order to eliminate all traces of yourself that the other party might be able to find, you would avoid using any credit cards or bank cards . Otherwise, even withdrawing some money might reveal your location . It was a pity that I really didn’t have the foresight . Right now on my person, besides some joint-account cards that Yin Li had given me, I actually didn’t have that much cash .

Luckily, in the end I didn’t leave Yin Li’s house any worse off than I’d entered it . On the contrary, my winnings were quite good and I carried out with me a huge bag . Inside was messily stuffed with several things that could be p.a.w.ned off—jade artifacts, jeweled ornaments, and crystals . There was even a considerably valuable gold-inlaid jade ashtray . If it wasn’t for the fact that they were a bit too suspicious for me to carry around, I would’ve really itched to have even carried away the Qing dynasty flower vase Yin Li placed in the hallway, and then also liberate from his wall all those genuine Zhang Daqian hanging paintings .

He owed me part of a life, so naturally I had the right to take those things .

And the whole time as I’d rushed to the long-distance bus station, I had the vague thought that perhaps, for me, this could be counted as a happy ending . That year, the first time I’d entered Yin Li’s stunningly resplendent home, I’d also really itched to pry the silver frames off the giant mirrors in his house and then run away with them . Now this could be counted as fulfilling a wish of mine .

Yin Li had probably realized what happened . When I got to the bus station, my phone’s screen had already lit up with around ten missed calls and and unread messages, and even then he had still refused to give up, continuing to call . I stared at the flickering light of the display and in the end answered his call .

Amidst the clamor of the crowd around me, the impatient sound of his voice seemed to have a vaguely fake quality . “Yan Xiao, where are you?” he asked .

At that moment I felt battered and beaten down, my face exhausted and dirty . On my back I carried the past Frank had given me along with the loot I’d stolen from Yin Li’s house, in my hand I clutched a few hundred yuan, and I stood in the middle of a flowing river of people . All around me, people with their luggage continuously walked on by, b.u.mping against my shoulder and my body . I stood in the middle of the path and was jostled left and right like a clumsy fish battered silly by the current . With impatient faces, each seemed to be driven by a clear motivation . For what reason did they all rush forwards without stopping? People’s voices bubbled like a cauldron, lively and chaotic . In the window of the store right across the street was only a reflection of me tilting my head up, staring at the bus schedule with a young yet empty face .  

Where was I? For a split second, even I was at a total loss .

“I don’t know either . ”

Yin Li seemed to let out a sigh of relief upon hearing me speak, but right when he was about to say something, I moved the phone away and took out its SIM card .

I didn’t want to let him find me .

But in the end, I didn’t get on the bus and leave that night . I didn’t even have a destination . I only carried that heavy bag, dragged along a suitcase, and walked with my head hanging low for a long time until I had no energy to walk further . Only then did I find a small hotel to stay the night .

Once I woke up the next day, I finally regained some energy . I climbed out of bed and ate lunch, then went out and walked around . The area around the bus station hadn’t been renovated, and most of the residences were old buildings . I walked through a crowded, narrow street . Most of the houses on either side of the street had messily erected awnings to block the rain, and some families had placed pots on their window sills to grow green onions . Laundry lines stretched overhead, and occasionally I’d see a few pairs of big underwear hanging out to dry .

This kind of scenery was like a novelty to me . The life Yin Li gave me was too wealthy and peaceful, so to be honest I had no clue what this city and the lives of its people were like .

The hunched-over old person was.h.i.+ng clothes in front of their door, the middle-aged person whose brows were scrunched up in a frown due to life’s pressures, the young person with perplexed eyes . The houses here were all broken-down, and the faces of the people here had some apathy with a bit of toughness, some poverty and decline, and also an unflinching resolution to surmount life .

I attempted to calm myself . Life has always been unfair, there will always be rich people who from birth can act however fickle they want and common people whose lives are even more misfortunate than mine . But regardless, we all have to do our best to live on .

With that thought in mind, I no longer felt as dejected and helpless . What can you do! You still have to live every day! Right now the person who should be feeling frantic wasn’t me, it clearly was supposed to be Yin Li . Coming back to see a house that looked like it had been ransacked, he probably should have been angered halfway to death .

As I imagined what Yin Li’s distorted expression looked like, I was a little depressed, feeling that my exit was truly not as grand and explosive as it should’ve been . Then, while I was plotting out my future life, I managed to catch a few words coming from behind my back .  

“Have you seen the person in this photo before?”

I turned my head carefully to see, to my surprise, a bunch of uniform-wearing policemen scattered all over the place . They were all holding up some sort of photograph and questioning people . Among them, one policeman lifted his head and scanned his surroundings . Upon seeing me, he suddenly let out a loud yell, shouting, “That’s her right there!”

At this, everyone immediately turned their heads over to stare at me . Yet I could only see Yin Li’s handsome face sticking out among them like a crane in a flock of chickens . The expression on his face was slightly vacant, but it was still very nice to look at . Even if he only lifted his head, in that split second his movement seemed to play back in my eyes in slow motion . It was quite like appreciating a piece of art . In the past, I felt that watching him lift his head was pleasing to the eye . Now things had changed, but I couldn’t change that part of me so fast .

Yin Li’s eyes continued to stare at me, but his head tilted to the side as he said a few words to the person next to him . Then he smiled calmly at me . I abruptly had an anxious sense that something huge was going to happen . During this life-and-death moment, I finally summoned up my own latent abilities and madly scampered off . At this, Yin Li and the group of police officers around him also began to furiously chase after me . Even the group of old ladies who were gossiping at the side, proving to still be alive and kicking despite their age, rushed over to surround me and block off any routes of escape . A few of them were even holding halfway-gnawed-off raw cuc.u.mbers .

Everyone was eager to follow the crowd, and the group of people chasing after me grew larger and larger . This was practically like the war tactic of drowning the enemy in a sea of people, and I felt like the entire world had painted a target on my back . I gasped for breath as I ran in front of the huge crowd of people yelling after me, wondering if Yin Li was planning to exterminate me as an “act of humanitarianism” after he caught me .

Because I was unfamiliar with this area, the further I ran the more desolate my surroundings became . There wasn’t even anything suitable nearby that I could use as cover . Meanwhile, the sounds of the policemen’s motorbikes hadn’t faded at all . Under this sense of urgency I became slightly demented . Seeing a tree nearby, I even wanted to scuttle up it and hide .

What was a shocker was I that when I gave it a try, I unexpectedly managed to scurry up the tree like I was very familiar with this kind of thing . It was almost like I had done it a thousand times before . This tree had a large canopy, the branches covered in lush foliage . Holding my breath, I carefully used the branches and leaves to cover myself and hid in the tree like that .

The people underneath the tree came and went, making two pa.s.ses . Yin Li also came through twice, walking by and then circling back in the opposite direction . I could hear him talking with the people under the tree, his voice calm and his words very rational .

“Search all the surrounding areas, we should do our best to find her before the sky gets dark . She might be hiding in some inconceivable spot, even the men’s restroom, so look closely and don’t leave any stone unturned . ” Then he paused and added, “Don’t hurt her . ”

Up in the tree, I was so p.i.s.sed that I shook with anger . Not only did Yin Li smear my reputation with his slanderous claim that I might be hiding in the men’s restroom, he unexpectedly even wanted to capture me alive . From the start I had an extremely gloomy feeling in my heart . There’s a saying that even since ancient times, evil has not been able to overcome the truth . But on the contrary, on sight of Yin Li my first thought was to run away like it was some kind of conditioned reflex . This had the unintended consequence of rousing his temper, and in the end it really gave off the feeling that I was too ashamed to face him!

And then, not knowing from where I’d summoned up that throwing-the-broken-vase kind of courage, I snapped a twig off a tree branch and threw it at Yin Li’s head . At the same time, I loudly cursed, “You d.a.m.ned swindler!”

 .

The next day, I woke up on the hotel’s soft and cozy bed, covered with a fluffy blanket . It seemed to already be noon, and bright rays of sunlight filtered through the blinds . I opened a pair of slightly puffy eyes and scratched my hair

Last night, I’d watched those recordings deep into the night . After sitting there silently for a long while, not knowing what to do, my sluggish mind had finally sobered up

I needed to leave Yin Li

Things were now developing at an unimaginable speed . The truth of my messy past was almost out . I’m afraid that what Yin Li gave me was a perfect setup that had been planned long ago . I knew that I could choose to suppress my moody thoughts and, concealing my true knowledge, continue to play the fool and remain by Yin Li’s side to collect more information . This way, I could reverse my own pa.s.siveness . But I was afraid . A person that you not only relied on but also loved, in one night smashed to pieces your perception of everything . I was incapable of behaving so cool-headed in front of him, I was incapable of behaving as he did . Knowing everything between us, he could somehow still wordlessly cover everything behind a false mask and tolerate letting me live so close inside his safe s.p.a.ces . I didn’t know how to face him

I was both protecting myself and running away

Therefore, that night I had packed my things, planning to hastily make my escape from Yin Li’s house . In movies in this kind of situation, in order to eliminate all traces of yourself that the other party might be able to find, you would avoid using any credit cards or bank cards . Otherwise, even withdrawing some money might reveal your location . It was a pity that I really didn’t have the foresight . Right now on my person, besides some joint-account cards that Yin Li had given me, I actually didn’t have that much cash

Luckily, in the end I didn’t leave Yin Li’s house any worse off than I’d entered it . On the contrary, my winnings were quite good and I carried out with me a huge bag . Inside was messily stuffed with several things that could be p.a.w.ned off—jade artifacts, jeweled ornaments, and crystals . There was even a considerably valuable gold-inlaid jade ashtray . If it wasn’t for the fact that they were a bit too suspicious for me to carry around, I would’ve really itched to have even carried away the Qing dynasty flower vase Yin Li placed in the hallway, and then also liberate from his wall all those genuine Zhang Daqian hanging paintings

He owed me part of a life, so naturally I had the right to take those things

And the whole time as I’d rushed to the long-distance bus station, I had the vague thought that perhaps, for me, this could be counted as a happy ending . That year, the first time I’d entered Yin Li’s stunningly resplendent home, I’d also really itched to pry the silver frames off the giant mirrors in his house and then run away with them . Now this could be counted as fulfilling a wish of mine

Yin Li had probably realized what happened . When I got to the bus station, my phone’s screen had already lit up with around ten missed calls and and unread messages, and even then he had still refused to give up, continuing to call . I stared at the flickering light of the display and in the end answered his call

Amidst the clamor of the crowd around me, the impatient sound of his voice seemed to have a vaguely fake quality . “Yan Xiao, where are you?” he asked

At that moment I felt battered and beaten down, my face exhausted and dirty . On my back I carried the past Frank had given me along with the loot I’d stolen from Yin Li’s house, in my hand I clutched a few hundred yuan, and I stood in the middle of a flowing river of people . All around me, people with their luggage continuously walked on by, b.u.mping against my shoulder and my body . I stood in the middle of the path and was jostled left and right like a clumsy fish battered silly by the current . With impatient faces, each seemed to be driven by a clear motivation . For what reason did they all rush forwards without stopping? People’s voices bubbled like a cauldron, lively and chaotic . In the window of the store right across the street was only a reflection of me tilting my head up, staring at the bus schedule with a young yet empty face .  .

Where was I? For a split second, even I was at a total loss

“I don’t know either . ”.

Yin Li seemed to let out a sigh of relief upon hearing me speak, but right when he was about to say something, I moved the phone away and took out its SIM card

I didn’t want to let him find me

But in the end, I didn’t get on the bus and leave that night . I didn’t even have a destination . I only carried that heavy bag, dragged along a suitcase, and walked with my head hanging low for a long time until I had no energy to walk further . Only then did I find a small hotel to stay the night

Once I woke up the next day, I finally regained some energy . I climbed out of bed and ate lunch, then went out and walked around . The area around the bus station hadn’t been renovated, and most of the residences were old buildings . I walked through a crowded, narrow street . Most of the houses on either side of the street had messily erected awnings to block the rain, and some families had placed pots on their window sills to grow green onions . Laundry lines stretched overhead, and occasionally I’d see a few pairs of big underwear hanging out to dry

This kind of scenery was like a novelty to me . The life Yin Li gave me was too wealthy and peaceful, so to be honest I had no clue what this city and the lives of its people were like

The hunched-over old person was.h.i.+ng clothes in front of their door, the middle-aged person whose brows were scrunched up in a frown due to life’s pressures, the young person with perplexed eyes . The houses here were all broken-down, and the faces of the people here had some apathy with a bit of toughness, some poverty and decline, and also an unflinching resolution to surmount life

I attempted to calm myself . Life has always been unfair, there will always be rich people who from birth can act however fickle they want and common people whose lives are even more misfortunate than mine . But regardless, we all have to do our best to live on

With that thought in mind, I no longer felt as dejected and helpless . What can you do! You still have to live every day! Right now the person who should be feeling frantic wasn’t me, it clearly was supposed to be Yin Li . Coming back to see a house that looked like it had been ransacked, he probably should have been angered halfway to death

As I imagined what Yin Li’s distorted expression looked like, I was a little depressed, feeling that my exit was truly not as grand and explosive as it should’ve been . Then, while I was plotting out my future life, I managed to catch a few words coming from behind my back .  .

“Have you seen the person in this photo before?”.

I turned my head carefully to see, to my surprise, a bunch of uniform-wearing policemen scattered all over the place . They were all holding up some sort of photograph and questioning people . Among them, one policeman lifted his head and scanned his surroundings . Upon seeing me, he suddenly let out a loud yell, shouting, “That’s her right there!”.

At this, everyone immediately turned their heads over to stare at me . Yet I could only see Yin Li’s handsome face sticking out among them like a crane in a flock of chickens . The expression on his face was slightly vacant, but it was still very nice to look at . Even if he only lifted his head, in that split second his movement seemed to play back in my eyes in slow motion . It was quite like appreciating a piece of art . In the past, I felt that watching him lift his head was pleasing to the eye . Now things had changed, but I couldn’t change that part of me so fast

Yin Li’s eyes continued to stare at me, but his head tilted to the side as he said a few words to the person next to him . Then he smiled calmly at me . I abruptly had an anxious sense that something huge was going to happen . During this life-and-death moment, I finally summoned up my own latent abilities and madly scampered off . At this, Yin Li and the group of police officers around him also began to furiously chase after me . Even the group of old ladies who were gossiping at the side, proving to still be alive and kicking despite their age, rushed over to surround me and block off any routes of escape . A few of them were even holding halfway-gnawed-off raw cuc.u.mbers

Everyone was eager to follow the crowd, and the group of people chasing after me grew larger and larger . This was practically like the war tactic of drowning the enemy in a sea of people, and I felt like the entire world had painted a target on my back . I gasped for breath as I ran in front of the huge crowd of people yelling after me, wondering if Yin Li was planning to exterminate me as an “act of humanitarianism” after he caught me

Because I was unfamiliar with this area, the further I ran the more desolate my surroundings became . There wasn’t even anything suitable nearby that I could use as cover . Meanwhile, the sounds of the policemen’s motorbikes hadn’t faded at all . Under this sense of urgency I became slightly demented . Seeing a tree nearby, I even wanted to scuttle up it and hide

What was a shocker was I that when I gave it a try, I unexpectedly managed to scurry up the tree like I was very familiar with this kind of thing . It was almost like I had done it a thousand times before . This tree had a large canopy, the branches covered in lush foliage . Holding my breath, I carefully used the branches and leaves to cover myself and hid in the tree like that

The people underneath the tree came and went, making two pa.s.ses . Yin Li also came through twice, walking by and then circling back in the opposite direction . I could hear him talking with the people under the tree, his voice calm and his words very rational

“Search all the surrounding areas, we should do our best to find her before the sky gets dark . She might be hiding in some inconceivable spot, even the men’s restroom, so look closely and don’t leave any stone unturned . ” Then he paused and added, “Don’t hurt her . ”.

Up in the tree, I was so p.i.s.sed that I shook with anger . Not only did Yin Li smear my reputation with his slanderous claim that I might be hiding in the men’s restroom, he unexpectedly even wanted to capture me alive . From the start I had an extremely gloomy feeling in my heart . There’s a saying that even since ancient times, evil has not been able to overcome the truth . But on the contrary, on sight of Yin Li my first thought was to run away like it was some kind of conditioned reflex . This had the unintended consequence of rousing his temper, and in the end it really gave off the feeling that I was too ashamed to face him!.

And then, not knowing from where I’d summoned up that throwing-the-broken-vase kind of courage, I snapped a twig off a tree branch and threw it at Yin Li’s head . At the same time, I loudly cursed, “You d.a.m.ned swindler!”.