A midsummer night. The evening breeze was, for once, refreshingly cool.
Occasionally a vehicle sped down the road, raising a loud rushing noise against the wind.
At this hour, the police station would usually be at its most chaotic — drunk troublemakers, fighters and brawlers, never a quiet moment.
This time was the rare exception. Both sides reached an amicable settlement with unexpected ease.
Those men must have known who Lu Rangchen was. Moments before, they had been dead-set on making trouble. Now, in an awkward turn, they agreed to let the matter rest.
Even the officer on duty was amused, commenting that they all seemed to know each other.
Lu Rangchen, standing to one side with his hands in his pockets and taking a phone call, didn’t even lift his eyes. His relaxed brow carried a detached, sharp edge.
The man who had been hit laughed it off. “I don’t know him. I just happen to know of him.”
Everyone in Nanchen knew there was someone on Huizhou Road.
He ran a tennis club — last name Lu, with a formidable background. He had been a national-level tennis player in his earlier years, then retired.
His family was wealthy, and he moved in both business and political circles.
It wasn’t just anyone in Nanchen who could afford to cross him — even back in the capital, few had dared.
The man considered himself unlucky to have bumped into this particular person, and especially unlucky for having tried to extort him on top of it. He hadn’t even dared ask for much in the way of compensation.
Still, compared to the cost of having a few stitches put in, he’d come out ahead overall.
After the matter was settled, the man offered Lu Rangchen an explanation: “I really didn’t mean any harm — I just saw the girl was pretty and tried to tease her a bit. I didn’t expect she’d take it so badly.”
Lu Rangchen leaned lazily against the wall, a unit cigarette hanging from his lips. When he looked up again, his eyes were half-narrowed, visibly impatient.
It was the same demeanor as when he used to settle disputes back in school — too disinclined to waste words, yet radiating a dangerous, brooding menace from every pore.
The man was a full head shorter than him, and wilted under that look in an instant.
Just then, an officer called him over to sign something, and he quickly ducked away.
With him gone, the line of sight was clear. Lu Rangchen glanced up, and saw Zhu Yunque sitting on the bench across the room.
On this summer night, she wore a sleeveless, fitted white dress with a fine fringe of bangs brushing her brow, her dark glossy hair falling softly behind her ears.
Slender and willowy, like a white camellia blooming in calm repose.
Thinner than she’d been before. More beautiful. More composed.
But her temperament hadn’t changed one bit.
She sat there with almost no presence, like a still pool of water with no ripples — and yet like a thorn, lodged in your chest, buried in flesh, pricking you at every moment without rest.
Their eyes met for two seconds.
Lu Rangchen’s jaw tightened slightly. He looked away.
He removed the cigarette, holding it pinched between two long fingers, and lowered his gaze to read a message with cold indifference.
A proud, sharp face.
Carved by time into something more distinctly masculine — yet also more unapproachable.
Zhu Yunque watched for a few seconds, then dropped her gaze, lowering her lashes.
Something in her chest seemed to push slowly upward through the soil, itching, trembling, stirring back to life.
Just then, Deng Jiao finished signing the agreement and looked back at her. “Teacher, we still need a witness.”
Hearing that title—
Lu Rangchen’s fingers went still.
In the next instant, he heard the young woman’s voice say quietly, “I’ll do it.”
Her voice was faintly muffled, carrying a trace of tired hoarseness — the kind of fragile, broken quality that made a person want to protect her completely.
Lu Rangchen’s throat moved.
A sardonic smile curved his lips.
Not just her temperament, he thought.
After all these years, her talent for putting on a performance hadn’t changed one bit either.
…
Outside the police station.
Deng Jiao followed Lu Rangchen toward the black SUV parked up ahead.
The car door had just opened when a voice sounded from behind.
Clear and cool as always, yet with a certain delicate, subtle quality — submerged in the night, wavering between darkness and light, softly entangling.
Deng Jiao assumed the words “wait a moment” were directed at her, but when she turned, she found that Zhu Yunque had walked up to face Lu Rangchen.
At a standard height of 167 centimeters, Zhu Yunque was tall and striking among ordinary people — yet in front of Lu Rangchen, who stood at 188, she seemed small and delicate.
The image of the two of them standing together was unexpectedly striking. Deng Jiao stared, momentarily forgetting herself.
Apparently caught off guard by her approach, Lu Rangchen held his hand on the car door and paused for two seconds. His jaw shifted slightly, and he looked at her sideways.