Extra. Xu Cheng
In those nine-plus years, Xu Cheng often thought back to his childhood. In his teenage years he did not think of it much, but after arriving in Yucheng, he kept recalling it.
He remembered that when he was very small, his father and mother went to watch a movie and took him along. He was still too young and fell asleep halfway through. The cinema rumbled loudly, yet in his mother’s arms he slept soundly and sweetly.
On the way home, his father carried him. His father’s embrace was broad and warm. His mother looped her arm through his father’s, leaned in, and used her finger to scrape his nose, saying, “Little thing, so fond of sleeping.”
His father immediately kissed his mother. His mother laughed and lightly patted him. Then he lowered his head and firmly sucked another mouthful at the cheek of the precious son in his arms.
His father’s chin was slightly prickly, with stubble.
Little Xu Cheng frowned and kicked his legs.
His mother let out a soft exclamation, “Shh, don’t wake him.”
He was actually already a little awake, but he wanted to keep sleeping, because that moment was too warm.
His father loved his mother very much. His mother also loved his father very much. The two of them both loved him very much.
As a child, Xu Cheng had a very large room, with big windows and a floor-to-ceiling door that led to the terrace. The room was filled with Transformers, toy cars, endless illustrated storybooks and comic books. So many things. The other children in kindergarten had not even seen them, let alone owned them.
At that time, his father had a car, and he also had his own little car, gleaming and shiny. He drove it in circles across the yard, charging recklessly back and forth. The children next door watched with longing eyes, offering snacks and toys in exchange, wanting to sit in his little car.
He did not want their snacks or toys. He already had them, and even better ones. But he was very generous and would let everyone take turns playing with the little car.
His father said that they lived better than others and earned more money than others because they worked very hard, but also because they were very lucky. In this world, there were many people who worked as hard as they did, but not everyone was so fortunate.
Little Xu Cheng did not quite understand, nor did he really grasp it. He merely shrugged, doing as he pleased.
Perhaps, precisely because he had a kind heart.
His father had a very large shipping company, and also a dock. At the dock were moored ships large and small, all belonging to his father.
Xu Cheng had run about on ships since he was little.
At that time, in his eyes, cargo ships were so, so big, like a giant football field. His small legs could run for a long time and still not reach the end.
He loved ships so much.
Ships had tall observation towers, from which one could gaze far, far into the horizon;
They had large cabins, where everything that existed in houses on land could be placed aboard;
They also had deep holds, hiding countless machines, gears, and goods.
A great ship was a world unto itself.
Xu Cheng thought that when he grew up, he would become a captain, go to sea, and discover treasures buried in the ocean for a thousand years!
In the early part of his childhood, his days were carefree. They were the blue sky reflected in the ship’s windows, the fragrance of gardenias in the yard, the clean white little shirts hanging on the clothesline, the summer rain falling from the eaves like strings of pearls…
Until he graduated from preparatory class and happily entered primary school. Yet his father was no longer as cheerful and open as before. He had worries and sighed constantly. His mother also seemed somewhat troubled. Xu Cheng faintly heard the name Jiang Chenghui, but he did not know him.
At that time, he made many new friends at school and had no mind to pay attention to the affairs of the adults.
But one day, while he was in class, the homeroom teacher suddenly appeared at the classroom door and called him out. The teacher looked worried and said his aunt had come to pick him up and that he must go home immediately.
The moment Xu Minmin saw him, she hugged him and burst into loud sobs.
Xu Cheng was dazed and did not know what had happened.
His father had died.
His mother cried until she fainted.
The relatives in the family said that it had been a setup by the Jiang Chenghui brothers, who had driven him to his death. His father’s ships and dock were all gone.
Xu Cheng was too young. He did not quite understand, nor did he really comprehend death. He sat in a corner, bewildered, looking at his father inside the transparent coffin. His complexion was strange, like the gray-white sky on an overcast day.
The mourning hall was noisy and chaotic. Some people cursed the Jiang family. Some discussed the distribution of the remaining Xu family property. Some argued and even pushed and shoved. No one paid attention to the young Xu Cheng.
He walked to the glass coffin, raised his small hand, knocked on it, and called out for his father a few times. The person inside kept his eyes shut and did not respond. He then walked out of the mourning hall and saw several small daisies below the steps outside. He thought they were very pretty, picked them, and placed one at the head of the coffin.
He went to find his mother again. She was also in a fainted sleep. He tucked a small daisy into her hand.
Before long, their house was gone. Little Xu Cheng moved with his mother into his eldest uncle’s home.
Xu Cheng did not want to live there, and he did not like his eldest uncle. He told his mother once that he wanted to return to their own home. But his mother held him and cried. He felt a little sad and did not want to make her cry, so he never said it again.
After school, he no longer wanted so much to go home. With his schoolbag on his back, he dawdled along the road, sometimes squatting on the ground to play with pebbles, sometimes lying on the grass to look at the sky.
His eldest uncle’s house was full of noise and quarrels. His mother often argued with his eldest uncle. She had clearly once been a gentle and cheerful person. It must all be the eldest uncle’s fault!
Xu Cheng heard his mother call him a liar, a bastard, a beast. She said he colluded with outsiders to harm his own younger brother. She said he had tried to gain something only to suffer a loss, and that all his efforts had ultimately come to nothing.
Later, his eldest uncle began to beat his mother. Xu Cheng was furious. He rushed forward, biting and tearing, but he was only a child. With a single kick, his uncle knocked him aside.
But once, after his mother was beaten, Xu Cheng got up in the night and took a fruit knife and stabbed his eldest uncle in the leg.
After that, the two of them no longer argued or fought in front of him.
But when he was at school, when he was not at home, the violence still happened, especially when his eldest uncle did not get the money he had expected. After squandering the little that remained, he began to drink heavily.
Yet his mother said nothing. She only smiled, cooked him good meals, washed his school uniform clean, and sent him off to school.
One weekend, his mother took him to the zoo for the whole morning. In the afternoon, she took him to buy many new clothes, watched a movie, and also bought a very beautiful fruit cake.
That day was clearly not his birthday.
After coming out of the cinema, it was near dusk. While waiting for the bus home, his mother said she would go buy him an ice cream.
Later, the streetlights came on, the sky grew dark. The lights of the shops along the street were like glowing little glass houses. Buses stopped one after another and drove away. Later still, there were no more buses, and the lights of the shops went out one by one.
The ice cream shop also turned off its lights.
But his mother never came back.
After that, in the times that followed, when he was beaten by his eldest uncle, when his eldest uncle rolled up all the luggage in the house and left, when he was driven out of that house by creditors, he would buy himself an ice cream, sit at the bus stop in front of that cinema, and silently finish it.
The plane trees by the bus stop shed their leaves, then sprouted new buds. Their branches and leaves grew and fell again, and he slowly grew up.
Many years later, when he saw Cheng Xiang again, Xu Cheng wanted to ask, “Mom, where is the ice cream you bought me?”
But in the end, he did not say it. He knew she had not had it easy either, and he could not bear to hurt her.
Yet Xu Cheng had never thought about whether he himself had had it easy.
After his eldest uncle squandered the last of the family property and slipped away, Xu Cheng had nowhere to go.
Several Xu family relatives who had once been well cared for by his family’s shipping company all turned ungrateful, saying their households were tight and they could not afford to raise him. They drove him from one home to another. He did not understand. He was clearly so small, he ate little, used little, easy to raise.
In the end, his grandmother, whose eyes had long been cried blind after losing her son, took him in. The two of them lived together in a shabby tarpaulin shack, scraping by.
By the time he reached the fifth grade of primary school, his grandmother, who lived on a meager pension, also passed away. Starving to the point he could not bear it, he appeared at his aunt’s door. His aunt dragged him by the hand to several uncles’ houses that were in better condition, saying, “No matter what, he carries the surname Xu, right? Isn’t he one of your Xu family? Shouldn’t you take care of him? I’ve already married into the Liu family. I can’t take care of this child!”
The relatives said, “No one asked you to take care of him.”
His aunt was furious. She threw little Xu Cheng at their doorway and left.
Xu Cheng followed after her. His aunt scolded, “Don’t follow me! Our family is the poorest. I can’t afford you!”
The little boy stood by the roadside, crying so hard his shoulders trembled.
His aunt also cried. Crying, she came back, grabbed his hand, and pulled him home, saying, “Your aunt has no money. I can’t give you good food or good clothes. As long as you don’t blame me in the future.”
From that time on, his aunt, struggling along the poverty line, painstakingly raised him together with his cousin.
After he entered middle school, his uncle-in-law started running a small ferry boat. Xu Cheng helped out on the boat and saw that the couple worked extremely hard, yet could not earn much money.
At that time, he had the thought of dropping out of school to go work. But he was too young, no place wanted him, yet he came to know a group of small-time delinquents. In fact, it was one of them who noticed that his skills were actually quite good and called him along.
A boy, young and alone, naturally longed for older brothers to take him along.
This group was all older than Xu Cheng, either in high school or private schools. The older ones got hold of some scrapped cars and motorcycles and modified them, racing along the riverside road night after night. Racing cars, racing motorcycles, the roar of engines resounding through the sky.
Racing was only a game for a few. The vast majority of these young drifters were spectators, cheering on.
Xu Cheng followed the older boys he had come to know then, mixing with the racing crowd every day. Having grown up on ships, he had an inborn sensitivity to machinery, and unexpectedly quickly got the hang of repairing vehicles.
He stood out. One of the gang’s older brothers even gave him a broken-down motorcycle. Xu Cheng liked that bike very much.
In the deep of night, he rode alone along the riverside embankment, the only sound in his ears the river wind. This was his most free moment.
One day, that older brother unexpectedly discovered that this little brat actually had decent riding skills and made an exception to let him participate in that weekend night’s race.
But it was that very day, when a row of motorcycles sped wildly along the riverside, two bikes in the group fought for position and crashed into each other. One of them slammed straight into an electric pole. The young man was not wearing a helmet, his head split open.
The racers, the hecklers, the onlookers, all the young people screamed in an instant and scattered like startled birds and beasts. Motorcycle tires kicked up waves of dust.
Xu Cheng hurriedly grabbed a friend and shouted, “You have a phone, right? Give it to me. Call the police! Call an ambulance!”
How would that person dare? He shook off Xu Cheng’s hand, his bike speeding away.
Friends who were close to him also shouted for him to run, “Are you stupid? If you don’t leave now, they’ll make you take the blame later!”
Xu Cheng stood frozen. His friend, unable to wait, left him behind and ran, shouting as he went, “Run!”
He turned back to look at the blood-soaked person, and in the end, he did not run.
Moments before, the place had been lively. Now only the river wind howled.
Xu Cheng endured fear and nausea, reached into the mangled person’s bloodied shirt, took out the phone, called emergency services, and also reported it to the police.
When the police siren sounded, he only then belatedly felt a trace of trembling.
The doctor said the person was likely not going to survive.
And that day, the one dispatched from the police station was Fang Xinping.
When Fang Xinping saw the only thin boy left at the scene, he stared at him for a long time.
He only asked one question, “How old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
Fang Xinping did not ask anything more.
The parents of the person whose head had split open were officials from the Jiangzhou Investment Promotion Bureau. When they arrived, they refused to accept reality and rushed forward to hit Xu Cheng, but were stopped by Fang Xinping.
Fang Xinping said, “The organizers should be held responsible for this. He’s so young, what could he have done?!”
On the way to take Xu Cheng back to the police station, the officer driving sighed, “This is a difficult case…”
Some of those leading the street racing came from families with money and connections.
Fang Xinping, however, turned his head and said to Xu Cheng, “Don’t say a single unnecessary word.”
Xu Cheng stayed at the police station for several days. He did not know what had happened in between. But afterward, nothing happened to him. It was Fang Xinping who let him out.
Fang Xinping told him that the person had been rescued after a full day and night of emergency treatment.
Fang Xinping said, “The doctor said if it had been a few minutes later, he would have been completely gone.”
That day, Fang Xinping treated him to a meal at a small eatery outside the police station.
Xu Cheng was very quiet, only burying his head in his food.
Fang Xinping looked at the boy in front of him, thin as a sapling, and asked, “That night, why didn’t you leave? Why did you stay and call the ambulance?”
The boy raised his head, somewhat blank, rice still in his mouth, and said vaguely, “Don’t know.”
A trace of complicated emotion appeared in Fang Xinping’s eyes, as if pity, as if something like a sigh. The child was too young, still did not understand. It was instinct, the sense of right and wrong in his bones.
He said, “Good child, you saved him.”
Xu Cheng did not seem to care much. He lowered his head and continued eating. His hair had been streaked, several strands dyed purple.
Fang Xinping reached out and tugged at those purple strands. The boy hissed, clutching his head, looking at him in surprise and anger.
Fang Xinping smiled, “Sorry, I thought they were clip-on extensions.”
“Tch,” the boy said disdainfully, “Fake ones are ugly, okay?”
“Black looks better.” Fang Xinping paused for a moment, then said, “Haven’t you noticed? Those people are not your friends. Kid, I know you’re lonely, but you’re not one of them. Because they all ran, and only you stayed.”
Xu Cheng swallowed his rice, as if digesting his words. After a while, a trace of sarcasm crossed his youthful face, “And then, the ones who ran are fine, and I was locked up this long?”
“But in the end, you’re fine.” Fang Xinping looked into his eyes and said, “Because I’m on the same side as you. I will firmly stand with you and protect you.”
Xu Cheng froze for a moment. The gaze of the policeman before him was steady and compelling.
“Kid, remember this. If there were more people like us in this world, it would be a better place. So I have to pull you back. I can’t let those people take you away. I can’t let you slip toward them.”
Fang Xinping put a piece of spare rib into his bowl and asked, “Which school do you attend?”
“Experimental Middle School.”
His brows lifted, “Such a good school, what are you doing messing around outside? After you finish eating, go back to class. Don’t let me catch you wandering the streets again.” His last sentence was very stern.
Xu Cheng did not speak.
He added, “Your school happens to be in our station’s jurisdiction. Now all the officers in our station know you. If anyone sees you hanging around with that group on the streets again, I’ll come deal with you. Got it?”
The boy lowered his head and picked at the rice in his bowl, giving a muffled “mm,” his voice buzzing, as if choked.
“I know your family situation is difficult, but no matter how hard it is, finish your studies first. Our station, and your school, will both find ways to help.”
Xu Cheng did not make a sound. After quite a while, he finally raised his head, his eyes a little red, and asked, “You investigated my family?”
Fang Xinping stared at his face for a moment, then smiled faintly, “I’ve seen you before.”
“When?”
He smiled, “Ran into you on the road. Not important.”
Fang Xinping applied to the school to waive Xu Cheng’s tuition and miscellaneous fees, and also took on his living expenses.
At first, Xu Cheng felt embarrassed to take his money. Fang Xinping said, “I’m a policeman. Taking care of a little kid, isn’t that only right?”
And so, under his supervision and care, Xu Cheng smoothly got through middle school and entered high school.
In his second year of high school, he met Li Zhiqu, a newly appointed criminal police officer after graduating from the police academy.
As soon as Li Zhiqu started work, he followed Fang Xinping, and naturally came to know Xu Cheng.
Li Zhiqu was young, with delicate features, kind-looking and fond of smiling, like an older brother. He soon discovered that Xu Cheng was a student in his mother Xiao Wenhui’s class. And Xiao Wenhui was a good teacher who loved her students like her own children. As early as Xu Cheng’s first year of high school, she had understood his situation, applied to the school for reductions in tuition and accommodation fees, and usually took special care of him.
Li Zhiqu had an outgoing personality and spoke with tact. He quickly became good friends with Xu Cheng.
Back in his first year of high school, when Xiao Wenhui invited Xu Cheng to her home for a meal, he had stubbornly refused.
After he became familiar with Li Zhiqu, he often came over, and frequently played basketball together with him.
At school, Xu Cheng laughed and joked, and had many friends. But in private, his thoughts were heavy. His experiences and mindset were more mature than those of his peers. Some things he could not say to classmates, and did not want to say.
An older brother like Li Zhiqu, five or six years older than him, was the best person to confide in.
At that time, he did not have many great worries, only some small troubles.
There were quite a few girls who liked him. But Xu Cheng had no interest. Perhaps because he had matured too early, he felt everyone else was childish.
The class monitor Fang Xiaoshu was open and cheerful, and because of Fang Xinping, they were very good friends.
But Fang Xiaoshu did something very childish, getting close to Jiang Xi. Absurdly, for some reason, he was also inexplicably egged on by her and went to the Jiang family.
Before going, Fang Xiaoshu repeatedly urged him, “You must show your charm and leave a deep impression on Miss Jiang, make her remember you! If it really doesn’t work, just seduce her!” Her last sentence was a joke. She flicked her school uniform jacket over her shoulder, “Seduce her! Got it?”
Xu Cheng said, “Are you sick?”
The moment he stepped into the Jiang family estate, the boy felt not the slightest bit of awe, only disgust. Beneath such a resplendent, palace-like residence lay the piled white bones of countless families. Including his father’s.
Before coming, he had not asked Fang Xiaoshu what Jiang Xi looked like, or what kind of personality she had. He had only heard her say that Jiang Xi did not talk much and was somewhat cold.
Cold? That suited the identity of this young lady of wealth.
When he walked to the art studio door, he had actually wanted to kick it open. He held back, and instead pushed it open with a slap, without courtesy.
A draft swept in from behind him. The papers and sketch sheets in the studio flipped in the summer wind, making a soft rustling sound, pleasant to the ear.
The girl in white sitting in the soft chair looked toward him. Her eyes were so clean, like glass marbles steeped in clear spring water.
Her face was pale and smooth. Her gaze was pure, like that of a sincere child.
Xu Cheng froze for a moment.
She was very different from what he had imagined. She was not cold, but rather curious; not arrogant, but rather nervous.
She, pure? Innocent? Childlike? Xu Cheng could not find the most fitting word. She was too clean.
Too clean to belong here.
When it was almost time to part that day, Xu Cheng made a move that even surprised himself. He dipped his thumb in paint and brushed it across her face. Before that, he had never touched any girl’s face.
Her face was soft, warmed by shyness.
He did not know why he did that. He had actually also wanted to touch her ear…
And when she looked up at him, that gentle, earnest gaze, the way she wanted to keep him yet felt too shy to speak, it made his heart grow quiet, quiet, and quieter still.
Holding that painting, he walked all the way out of the Jiang residence, down the hill, and sat for a while at the bus stop before coming back to himself.
He had no experience. He did not understand why he had lost himself just now. He made himself decisively burn that painting, boarded the bus, and cast everything here to the back of his mind.
Xu Cheng did not want to see Jiang Xi again.
In his heart, in a simple way, he believed she was innocent.
He should not approach her with any purpose, deceive her, even if that purpose was just, even if her identity carried original sin.
But Jiang Xi came to find him again and again. Her voice was always cheerful, her eyes always bright. And many times, he could not bring himself to look at her.
For example, when she sat in the sunlight watching him play basketball, when she sat on the carousel smiling at him like a blossoming flower…
He felt guilty, yet could not think of any other reason why he did not dare look at her.
It was not dislike. He should dislike her, but he knew that, against all expectation, he did not.
He thought it over and over, and felt it was guilt.
Of course, he did indeed feel guilty toward her. A person as simple as she was, he should not have provoked her. Having provoked her into liking him was even more wrong.
So that day at the amusement park, he completely drew a line between them. That was for the best.
From that last glance across the street, Xu Cheng never saw Jiang Xi again. Gradually, schoolwork became heavy. He no longer thought of her, treating it as a small, unnecessary interlude.
After finishing the second year of high school, the school held supplementary classes for the entire summer. Entering the third year, classmates began discussing their ideal universities.
Xu Cheng did not tell anyone. He wanted to go to the police academy, to become a policeman like Fang Xinping and Li Zhiqu. He did not even tell the two of them, so as not to make Fang Xinping sentimental, nor let Li Zhiqu grow proud.
When Fang Xiaoshu said she also wanted to apply to the police academy, Xu Cheng was a little surprised. He said nothing, only raised his brows.
Not long after, the whole class changed seats. Fang Xiaoshu became his deskmate. Every day they went to and from class together, did papers, checked answers, discussed problem types.
Once, during physics class, she pulled out the second-year physics book from the thick stack on the desk. A sheet of paper slipped out and fell onto Xu Cheng’s desk.
Fang Xiaoshu panicked and snatched it away, but Xu Cheng had already seen it. It was filled with the same two characters written over and over: “Xu Cheng.”
He froze for a moment, did not react much, and continued looking at the blackboard. In the corner of his vision, Fang Xiaoshu had her head lowered, her face flushed red.
For the rest of the day, neither of them spoke.
After school, Fang Xiaoshu gathered her courage and blocked his path. “Hey, did you see it?”
Xu Cheng said, “Yeah. I saw it.”
Fang Xiaoshu’s face flushed even redder, “Then what do you think?”
Xu Cheng said, “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know? You, you… do you like me or not? You don’t know?”
He really did not know.
What was liking someone?
“Liking means you treat someone well, you can say anything to them.”
Was that so? He and Fang Xiaoshu did get along very well, easy and comfortable, always having things to talk about. Unlike with other girls, he was unwilling to talk much at all.
He and she were both good to each other.
He also admired Fang Xiaoshu. As expected of Fang Xinping’s daughter, broad-minded, upright, responsible, and dependable.
However, he had indeed never thought about the question of liking before. He had only felt that she was quite a good person.
Fang Xiaoshu said, “I like you. I’ve liked you since the first year of high school. I’ve had a crush on you for two years.”
Xu Cheng was startled. This, he understood even less. He said, “You… had a crush… quite successfully hidden…”
Fang Xiaoshu was taken aback, then burst out laughing. She laughed loudly, bending over.
Xu Cheng also laughed.
Xu Cheng said, let’s talk about it after the college entrance exam. Fang Xiaoshu said okay.
After she confessed, Xu Cheng thought about it in private. In the end, he felt that if they both got into the police academy and both fulfilled their dreams, it would be a very good thing.
What would university life be like? It felt like a new beginning in life, something that would be very beautiful.
But that thought had only just taken root when she died.
In a certain sense, Fang Xiaoshu was a very, very good friend to him, like Du Yukang, a close friend. She was someone very beautiful in his life.
Caught off guard, gone just like that, like all the things that had once been beautiful in his life, staying briefly before leaving him one after another.
What he could never have expected was that the next would be Fang Xinping.
*
Xu Cheng had never thought he would see Jiang Xi again, appearing inexplicably, dirty, hiding beneath the bedboards in the ship cabin, as if playing some game of a rich young lady running away from home.
He was annoyed with her, and even somewhat hated her, yet he kept her.
His mind was in chaos. He did not know what he was doing, what he wanted to do. He wanted to drive her away, out of sight, out of mind. Yet he also did not want her to leave. He both wanted to seize the opportunity to take revenge for everyone, including himself, and worried that if she wandered outside, something might happen to her.
He told himself that the Jiang family were all evil people, and he must not be deceived. This girl was very scheming, pretending to be pitiful, pretending to be innocent, pretending to be clueless, pretending to be cute, most adept at manipulating people’s hearts.
But—
She was not pretending. She really was… very cute.
So cute that Xu Cheng felt as if a caterpillar were crawling over his heart, making it itch. In front of her, his heart was always itching.
How could there be such a girl, so sincere, so direct, so pure, so simple, so frank and yet so brave?
Xu Cheng had never seen a girl like Jiang Xi. Even after he grew up and became a policeman, seeing all kinds of people, he never again encountered anyone like her.
So perhaps, from the very beginning, it was wrong.
He thought he was planning to get close to her, to use her, to bind her to him. In fact, he himself was also falling.
How could he not fall?
In youth, with such close day and night companionship, a person’s nature, their essence, the deepest undertone of their heart, could not be hidden, could not be faked.
He saw her clearly. She loved life so much, her nature pure, natural, and kind. No matter what kind of unhappy childhood she had experienced, she still remained clean and beautiful.
He could no longer deceive himself into saying she was false.
Xu Cheng had never thought deeply about it, nor did he dare to think too carefully, but he very much liked that time on the ship. It was as if he suddenly had a home. So much so that during the summer holidays, when classmates had gatherings large and small, he had no desire to attend. He did not want to leave the ship where she was. Even if he left, he only wanted to hurry back.
He had not consciously thought about how to treat her well, but he naturally, unconsciously, took care of her.
When he was little, his mother would say something was broken or unusable, and his father would immediately go fix it. Now, he did the same.
When he was little, his father would always bring his mother little trinkets or snacks when he came home. Now, he did the same.
He even bought gardenias.
But these echoes of childhood were hidden in his subconscious. He had never thought about them.
Just as he had never thought that the reason the ship gave him the feeling of a home was because, when he was with Jiang Xi, he forgot pressure, forgot vigilance, forgot all the pain of the outside world. All that remained was a paradise apart from the world, with her.
Especially when he realized that she liked him.
She did not know that when she liked someone, it was very obvious, very cute, and very captivating. She would be very shy, yet very direct; very bashful, yet very brave; quietly delighted, yet lively.
From time to time, her unhidden “moves” left him dizzy.
Xu Cheng tried his utmost to restrain himself, telling himself again and again that the Jiang family was filthy, that she and he were destined to walk different paths. Yet no matter how he restrained himself, he could not resist his continued sinking.
Again and again, instinctively, he wanted to protect her, to keep her. When she cried out, “Xu Cheng, don’t leave me alone—,” when she sobbed, “Why won’t you keep me—,”
Many of the things she said, many of the things she did, were beyond his expectations.
She said, “I think you work very hard to earn money. I don’t want it.”
She said, “Then what should I do if I miss you?”
She sprayed Xu Bingbing with a water gun. She jumped into the river to save him…
So many words, so many moments, were already deeply etched in his memory.
Yet, Xu Cheng refused, and absolutely would not admit, this falling. This became the origin of his tragedy.
From time to time, he forced himself to wake from the illusion of “home” and “paradise apart from the world,” to face the pain of the deaths of his loved ones, his mission, his plan.
The days living in the Jiang family were hell.
Every day, he maneuvered within shades of black and gray, treading carefully before Jiang Chenghui, Jiang Huai, and the others, as if walking on thin ice. He faced an unprecedented impact of values, beliefs, and the dark side of society. The mountain-like pressure and fear kept him constantly on guard. His mind was under extreme tension, chaotic, even bordering on madness. And at the same time, he still had to face Jiang Xi.
In that yellowed stretch of past time, Jiang Xi was his only pure land.
His only place where he could lay down his guard.
On many nights before they first became intimate, only by holding her as he slept could his heart find peace.
But such peace did not last long. His thoughts were too many, too tangled. Even facing her, his heart was full of tearing conflict.
Step by step, he planned the fatal end of the Jiang family, feeling guilty toward her. Watching the monstrous crimes of the Jiang family, he also felt he should not be entangled with her. He feared that if he became too deeply involved with her, one day he would be unable to extricate himself.
He did not like her. That was what he told himself. Did not like. Only felt that she was innocent.
Yes. Facing her, he could not say love or liking. Because he could not admit that he would like the daughter raised by evil people, by enemies. More so because he knew clearly that what she gave him was a pure love, like a child’s heart, one hundred percent sincere.
No one had ever loved him like that. No one.
And yet he used her, betrayed her.
How could he be so terrible? How could he use the person he liked?
This pain tormented him beyond what he could bear. He could not possibly like her. He was using someone he did not like.
Yes!
No—
Of course he liked her. But he was deceiving. Facing the love she offered up with both hands, without reservation, he could not lift his head, he had no words to answer, he did not dare look at his own feelings, that liking mixed with impurities…
Not right.
The Jiang family was too evil. He could not bear it.
Not right.
She was very innocent.
Not right.
He did not like her, did not love her. Impossible.
How could love deceive, use?
But it hurt.
Then what was it?
It was—guilt! Yes, he felt too guilty toward her. So heavy, so heavy, it had already crushed his mind.
The more guilty, the more he loved. The more he loved, the more guilty. He could not tell them apart.
Not that either.
Then what was it?!
His mind was torn apart every day along different dimensions, on the verge of splitting and shattering.
At that time, he did not know that he already had severe depression and agitation.
Xu Cheng decided that he could not think about these things anymore. He only needed to complete the plan step by step. He only needed to take Jiang Xi away with him. Whether he liked her or not, he would not think about it for now. Instinctively, he only wanted to take her away.
He had deceived her, so he had to take responsibility for her.
Yes, that was it.
But things did not go according to his plan. Jiang Xi disappeared.
And so, a piece of his heart was forcibly torn out.
That summer, his heart was subjected to repeated lingchi, every day a piece of flesh carved away, blood flowing.
He liked her. He loved her. He could no longer deceive anyone.
But with his own hands, he had hurt the one who loved him most, and the one he loved most.
He could not bear it. His mind collapsed. He could only hide this part of the pain in the deepest layer of his subconscious, lock it into a box, and never touch it again.
Xu Cheng’s university years were calm and smooth. He worked and studied, diligently attending classes, doing part-time jobs and internships, training his physical strength.
He… still went everywhere to look for her. He did not know why he was so persistent. Perhaps he simply did not want to have someone he had wronged.
Until hope shattered bit by bit.
Gradually, he made himself return to the path he should have been on.
After graduation, his aunt sighed, “Xiao Cheng, it wasn’t easy for you to come this far.”
Xu Cheng did not know how to respond, so he said nothing.
He was not used to putting words like “not easy” on his lips, and rarely looked back on the past.
What was there to call not easy? There was nothing not easy.
Was it not easy to lose both parents at a young age, or not easy to be homeless and destitute in childhood? Was it not easy that the important people in his life died or disappeared one by one as he grew up, or not easy to go undercover and grind down his own mind and spirit?
But in living, what is ever easy?
If one spends every day dwelling on what is not easy, a person grows dispirited, strength drains away, and the spirit is worn down and scattered.
He thought of those days on the ship. No matter how heavy the storm the night before, by daytime it would still be bright and sunny.
By noon, the cicadas would still cry themselves hoarse, filling the air.
So Xu Cheng walked forward without turning back.
He rarely looked back at the past, nor did he dwell on so-called life, so-called suffering, so-called original family. Those were things of the past. He only looked at the present and did what was in front of him well.
So much so that outsiders often could not tell, thinking he came from a good family background, thinking he did not look like someone who grew up in hardship.
What should someone who comes out of hardship look like? Is there a standard? Must they be cynical, solitary, resentful of the world, waiting for redemption?
Isn’t that exhausting.
He did not think so much. He just did what needed to be done.
Thinking, talking, none of it had meaning. What one did, that was the only meaning.
After entering the workforce, Xu Cheng never deliberately thought about achieving great accomplishments. He only felt that whatever he did, he should fulfill his duty and his responsibility.
He also never deliberately thought about passing on the kindness of Fang Xinping or Li Zhiqu, though in practice he did exactly that. His starting point was simply to do what he believed was right, and to carry it out steadily, step by step.
Those who came within the scope of his work were all victims with nowhere else to turn. If even public officials did not fulfill their duties, then where would there be any hope left for ordinary people’s lives?
Some things he believed were simply his duty were remembered deeply by others. When he went out on assignments, he often ran into people who expressed their thanks to him. But in his view, it was only what a criminal police officer should do.
He just did a little more. He always helped some people.
Young men who had once been thieves, boys and girls who had strayed onto the wrong path, some who had not committed grave wrongs yet had gone to prison and come out, he helped them start over.
Just as his father had said, some of them were simply not lucky enough.
Of course, once these people steadied themselves, there would be fewer potential victims as well.
His work, his life, seemed as if everything was very good. Only—
He would still think of Jiang Xi.
Once, while browsing an imported supermarket, he unexpectedly saw pomelo-scented body wash. In that instant, caught off guard, his heart seemed to be struck open with a hole, raw and bleeding.
He did not even know why.
He did not change his phone number either. In his subconscious, he feared she would not be able to find him. Yet he told himself it was because he was too lazy to change it.
At that time, he had forgotten his liking for her, leaving only deep guilt to torment him.
But in the unseen subconscious, within a desolate expanse, instinct still seeks warmth, seeks that trace of resemblance. So when he saw a mole at the corner of a strange girl’s eye, he could not help but look for a few more seconds.
When He Ruolin pursued him relentlessly, he grew dazed.
He could not explain why, when someone similar reached out a hand to him, he could not wave it away.
Was it a substitute?
If so, then what had the original feeling been?
Yet—
He could not clearly explain what he felt for Jiang Xi.
He could not say. Like? He did not know. Dislike? Certainly not. He vaguely felt that from the very first glance, he had seemed to have a good impression of her. At least, not a bad one.
He faintly felt that in the period after Officer Fang’s death, when he was lost and in pain, he had, unexpectedly, spent with her one of the most important stretches of time, from youth into adulthood.
It was guilt.
Had there been liking within it? If there had been, after being apart for so long, even the longest feelings would have broken, would they not?
What remained was only a lasting torment, unable to find her, not knowing her whereabouts or her end.
Yet from somewhere came a vague impression that if he married her, lived together every day for the rest of his life, he would not feel repelled. He would even feel a trace of anticipation, a sense of steadiness, as if his heart had settled.
A dream?
For a long period of time, he believed this was the mischief of long-standing guilt. A kind of debt he feared he could never repay in this lifetime.
He could not distinguish it, nor could he explain it.
He only often suffered from insomnia. Clearly, during the day at his post he was full of drive, cutting through obstacles, composed and at ease before colleagues and friends, handling everything with skill, full of decisiveness, with countless honors and awards. To anyone who saw him, he was a brilliant, outstanding young talent, basking in glory.
Only he himself knew that when he returned home, he would sit on the sofa in a daze, his mind empty, his heart empty.
Late at night, he could not fall asleep. Clearly, he was not thinking of anyone. Yet everything around him felt unfamiliar. Lying on his own bed at home, he did not know where he was. It was absurd.
Until that day, when he encountered Jiang Xi in the underground passage, his heart felt as though all the blood in his body had been pumped into it, on the verge of bursting.
Like a drowning man on the brink of death suddenly grasping air, about to come back to life!
But Jiang Xi fled without turning back.
In that instant, the cold wind of the winter night poured over Xu Cheng from head to toe like heavy, icy water.
For many years, Xu Cheng had not experienced that kind of panic. A bone-deep panic. How afraid he was that he would never find her again.
Instinctively, like a traveler in a winter night seeking a source of fire, he drew close to her. After she pushed him away again and again without mercy, he also thought about their current situation.
In these nine years, he had not deeply considered feelings. It was as if something had broken in the past.
Back then, the identity and mission of being undercover had pressed him until he could not breathe. Between him and Jiang Xi, it seemed they had never had an equal relationship. The summer after her disappearance was a blank. After that, he sank into a bewildered search for her unknown whereabouts and into guilt.
More than nine years had passed. By common sense, everything should have faded. So he could not remember clearly, had there been liking back then?
In his blurred memories, what filled that time most was inner panic and torment.
In the years he searched for her, it was fear, it was guilt. It was fear that she would be bullied, fear that she could not support herself, could not eat enough or keep warm, fear that she would be deceived and used, fear that she would meet a miserable end. These were what sustained that search back then.
Later, that faint and powerless search was worn away by the trivialities of life and the heaviness of work, or rather, by the force of time.
He thought, he could no longer immerse himself in someone who existed in the world like Schrödinger’s cat. He had to move forward. Only then did he stop searching across different places. Of course, by that time, the internet and phone communication had also become more developed.
He thought he had forgotten. He kept brainwashing himself, telling himself it was fine.
Even when he went to Jiangzhou and encountered that small incident, he still told himself it was fine. He believed his mindset had not fluctuated much. Everything was under control.
Yes. That was how it was.
But she suddenly appeared, dropping a bombshell.
And from then on, he stood in a field of ruins.
In the early days of reuniting with Jiang Xi, everything Xu Cheng showed in front of her, no matter how calm and composed, how skillfully he changed light bulbs, installed anti-collision chains, delivered clothes, was all an act. Inside, he was in utter chaos.
During that time, he still had not thought about whether he liked her or loved her.
He did not dare.
His guilt was too deep, too deep. The weight of what he owed had already crushed him, depriving him of the right to express his feelings.
In the face of her suffering, so-called confessions of emotion would only seem disrespectful, frivolous, profaning.
Instinctively, he only wanted to compensate first.
But no one had taught him that within this compensation, there was also a love that could not be spoken.
He only wanted to draw close slowly, to rebuild slowly. Yet gradually, he sensed something was wrong.
By all reason, upon seeing her again, he should have felt guilt, sought atonement, made amends, sought release.
But he clearly discovered that he did not want release. He only wanted to draw close. Even if bound by pain, drowning together, he did not want release.
He wanted to protect her, to make it up to her. Yet he was also stirred, also drawn to her. Beyond control.
He wanted to like her, wanted to love her.
It was like an instinct that had been awakened. As if before anything had been sorted out, he had already fallen for her again.
This was not right.
He even suspected that back then he had been too inexperienced, too ignorant. How could he not have liked her? How could he have only used her?
Back then, he must have liked her.
Debt, guilt, affection, how could they still be separated clearly.
The more he thought, the less he understood.
He only felt more and more heartache and tenderness. When he learned everything she had gone through, he felt regret, hatred, and pain.
But at the same time, he admired her.
She had always been an extraordinary girl.
She always accepted everything fate brought her with a kind of tolerance. She did not fiercely resist or struggle, yet she never humbly submitted or yielded either. Like a small blade of grass.
Unable to withstand storms, always battered by wind and rain, leaning this way and that, pressed to the ground. Yet her fine roots clung tightly to the earth, day by day, quietly, inconspicuously, growing lush and green.
She had never needed him. It had always been him who needed her.
Only at this point did Xu Cheng realize that, from a long time ago, his heart had had no place to return to.
What he had never dared admit, never dared recall, was that his home was not in that empty house without the warmth of life, but on that ship from many years ago.
Not the ship where his aunt was, but the one where Jiang Xi had hidden. The ship where he had fixed the bathroom door, set up an electric fan and mosquito coils, decorated with gardenias, bought painting tools, made an easel, hung out her small clothes to dry.
It had always been Jiang Xi who gave him a place to belong.
That was why, back then, he had tried so desperately to hide it from her, fantasizing that she would never discover his deception. Even back then, he had never dared imagine her leaving.
Now that they had met again, how could he let go?
That night on the ship, Xu Cheng felt that perhaps he was shameless, but he could not control it. He feared that if he did not keep her, he would regret it.
That night, they seemed to return to the past, to their youth.
As if everything was the same as before, the two of them, both wounded in body and heart, clung tightly to each other, relying on one another.
He had finally found his place to belong again.
He also gained conviction.
Yes, in his work, Xu Cheng believed he still retained the spirit of his youth, not yet tainted by the ways of the adult world. But Qiu Sicheng and the case behind him were even more severe than the Jiang family back then, giving him a great shock.
Xu Cheng did not tell anyone that the day Lu Siyuan came to find him with Li Zhiqu’s pen holder, when he sat by the river, clutching his head tightly, a thought surfaced in his mind—
He wanted to take Jiang Xi away from here, never to return.
At that time, he felt that everything in this world was no longer important, nothing had meaning, only her.
He should be as Li Zhiqu had hoped, let go of so-called great responsibilities, and simply live a good life with the person he loved.
At that time, he missed Jiang Xi so much. So much.
So he was jealous of Xiao Qian, and hated Qiu Sicheng. But after Jiang Xi explained everything clearly, after his brief deviation in emotion, Xu Cheng still returned to the path he was meant to walk.
Jiang Xi did not know that when Xu Cheng sat by her hospital bed, looking at the letter she had written to him, what kind of strength filled his heart:
The light of human nature is extinguished again and again by reality, yet there are always people who light it again and again.
Fang Xinping, Fang Xiaoshu, Li Zhiqu, Xiao Wenhui, Lu Siyuan, Jiang Xi, Zhu Fei, Yao Yu, even Wang Wanying… each of them, time and again, rekindled that extinguished flame, as if passing it along in the wind.
At that moment, Xu Cheng knew that they would win.
And they did win in the end.
And he also received a gift, the memory he had lost that summer. He remembered. He loved her. He had always loved her.
In his youth, he had once avoided his true feelings, finding all kinds of excuses, yet he could not resist his loss of control and madness after she disappeared.
She was his white moonlight, and also his cinnabar mole.
She was the one he had loved deeply from beginning to end.
When Xu Cheng woke on the hospital bed and saw Jiang Xi, it was as if he had gone through the vicissitudes of life, and also as if he had been reborn.
When everything settled, after Jiang Xi entered university, she would sometimes feel a little sad, regretful that they had missed nearly ten long years.
But Xu Cheng believed that now was already the best time.
Their past had been hurried and rushed, mixed with too many people and events, burdened with too much weight. Now, everything heavy had been cleared away. They were finally truly together.
Every day that remained was the best day.
When Xu Cheng applied to marry Cheng Xijiang, he spoke with Fan Wendong for a long time.
Fan Wendong said he could pretend not to know who Cheng Xijiang was, and only asked whether he had truly thought it through.
Although no one now knew who Jiang Xi was, if something were to happen in the future, his career might be affected.
Xu Cheng said calmly that he had long been prepared to resign at any time.
Fan Wendong was very surprised. Though he knew Xu Cheng’s temperament, this concerned his future, so he asked a few more questions. Did he truly understand what he would be giving up if he let go?
Such great fame, power, influence. Who could bear to relinquish them?
Xu Cheng smiled faintly. “Old Fan, power, money, status, to be honest, they don’t mean a damn thing. Experiencing them might be somewhat interesting, but there’s no need to spend a whole life guarding these things. Instead, I think the most important thing in this world is ultimately the gathering of people with people.”
Fan Wendong was taken aback.
“What meaning do those things really have? Even a house of several thousand square meters, in the end you only sleep in one bed.
A person’s life passes in the flick of a finger. Ten years go by just like that. Take Qiu Sicheng’s case. From investigation to sentencing, three years were gone. In this life, how many three years, how many ten years are there?”
“Every time I solve a case, I’m very happy. When I receive thank-you letters and banners, I feel gratified. When I get rewards and honors, I’m also happy. Effort brings return, and at the end of darkness there is light. But Old Fan, I never told you, in many of those days in the past,
I went home. The home was empty, and I was empty too.
My heart felt like it was floating in the sky, blown around by the wind. There was applause everywhere, but my heart couldn’t land. Just like you said, no place to belong, nothing to hold me up.
Sometimes, when I look back on the moments in life when I felt happy, I find they have nothing to do with power, rewards, or money.
When I was little, I lay on a bamboo bed, blowing an electric fan, eating watermelon. My mom and dad lay beside me chatting. I felt very happy. Before, when I was on the ship with Jiang Xi, it rained heavily. We ate iced porridge with white sugar, lay on bamboo mats watching the rain, and on clear days watched the starry sky. I felt very happy. A few days ago in Yucheng, there was a heavy rainstorm, traffic was paralyzed. I was stuck on the road with her, not anxious at all. On the overpass, we chatted for two hours. Very happy.
It seems that in a person’s life, there are only a few moments that are truly precious.
But what makes those moments precious is the person beside you. It has nothing to do with those things you mentioned.”
Fan Wendong let out a long sigh and finally said, “You see things clearly. I’m not worried anymore.”
He patted Xu Cheng’s shoulder. Sentimental words, he could not say. He only said, “Live well together.”
Child, I know you will live very happily.
When Xu Cheng got married, they took several sets of wedding photos. He liked every set. If he had to pick a favorite, he liked the one where he wore a white shirt and jeans, and Jiang Xi wore a white puffed dress. Jiang Xi, however, liked most the set where he wore his police uniform and she wore a wedding gown, feeling it was the most special.
But if Jiang Tian were to choose, he liked the one where Xu Cheng wore a suit and Jiang Xi wore a grand wedding dress.
The two guessed that in Jiang Tian’s mind, only a suit paired with a wedding dress counted as wedding photos.
After marriage, Xu Cheng’s work remained smooth, and he was promoted quickly. Occasionally, when he looked back, he felt that every step of his life seemed to have shaped the present.
Perhaps it was precisely because he had gone through hardships that he had developed stronger empathy.
Like Fang Xinping and Li Zhiqu: loving what I love, and extending it to others’ love; grieving what I grieve, and extending it to others’ grief.
Now, when facing darkness or suffering, he was no longer as lonely, helpless, and unsupported as before.
Because no matter how dark the night, there was always a light lit for him. Someone held the ground for him. He had a place to belong.
No matter how tired he was, when he returned home and held Jiang Xi, burying himself in her embrace, breathing in her scent, he was alright.
Fortunately, Xu Cheng knew she felt the same. When speaking of the past, he was grateful for those earlier days, and so was Jiang Xi.
In her most fearful and bewildered girlhood, on that road of escape filled with anxiety, hardship, and loneliness, it had been the young Xu Cheng who gave her a roof, gave her shelter. He even cared for her small fondness for snacks and pretty things, cherished her love for painting. Though he was only a boy himself, he sheltered her from wind and rain, holding up a small haven like a peach blossom utopia.
Jiang Xi said, “Xu Cheng, you also gave me a place to belong.”
So, they should never be separated.
They were always close, each other’s closest lover and friend.
After being together for so many years, every day had chat records, every day had laughter, every day had kisses. If there was no business trip, no long-distance separation, or her menstrual period, every day had intimacy.
As a criminal police officer, Xu Cheng had always maintained the habit of physical training.
Jiang Xi liked to touch his abdominal muscles. After touching them often, she would wonder, “Do you keep exercising all the time to maintain this?”
Xu Cheng said lightly, “How could I not? You’re so lustful. If I slack off, you’ll dislike me right away.”
Jiang Xi giggled.
Their bodies were always in harmony, and they both enjoyed it. They enjoyed the teasing beforehand, the closeness during, and the tenderness afterward.
Xu Cheng would always hold her, for a long time, kissing her forehead, her hair. When her breathing steadied, he would carry her to the bathroom to wash. Afterward, he would still keep her in his arms, chatting idly or watching movies on the projector.
When they talked themselves sleepy, they would naturally fall asleep. If they grew sleepy while watching, they would continue next time.
More precious still was their harmony of spirit.
They always had endless things to talk about, the past, the present, the people they had met, the jobs they had worked, the things they had done. In the smallest details, they shared similar values and attitudes.
One Friday, it rained heavily.
Xu Cheng went out on assignment and returned home directly. Before entering the residential compound, he saw an elderly man selling cabbages in the rain, drenched from head to toe, shivering. The old man still did not leave, waiting for possible passersby.
Xu Cheng could not bear it. He bought the last twenty-odd cabbages from the stall and carried them home with effort.
The moment he entered, he discovered that more than twenty wet cabbages were already piled up in the entryway. The two of them looked at each other, then burst out laughing at the same time. “You bought his cabbages too?”
Well then, the couple had bought him out completely.
They bustled about for the whole evening, searching tutorials, watching videos, sorting cabbages, washing cabbages, cutting cabbages… making a heap of pickles, preserved vegetables, spicy cabbage… a whole gathering of cabbages, in all varieties.
That night, while working in the kitchen with the cabbages, Xu Cheng still stole a moment to wrap his arms around Jiang Xi from behind, resting his chin on the top of her head, holding her as they gently swayed left and right.
He liked this very much. She liked it too.
At that moment, standing amid the pile of cabbages, Xu Cheng felt that such an ordinary, somewhat amusing scene was precisely a moment of happiness in his life.
A moment of happiness he would not trade for anything.
Of course, the last jar of spicy cabbage was only finished half a year later.
Not long after finishing it, Jiang Xi completed her art album. After submitting it, Xu Cheng’s travel application was also approved.
For their first trip abroad, they went to the Netherlands.
Xu Cheng and Jiang Xi together saw Van Gogh, saw Caravaggio, saw Rembrandt, saw Vermeer.
They saw Almond Blossom, saw The Night Watch, saw The Milkmaid, and of course, they also saw The Little Street.
Xu Cheng recalled that in his youth, in the computer room of Jiangzhou No. 1 High School, while filling in his college application preferences, he had searched online for The Little Street.
At that time, his heart had been very quiet.
Now, he stood in the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands, holding Jiang Xi, looking at that original painting.
The Little Street was truly beautiful, somewhat smaller than he had imagined. The scene was tranquil, exquisite, like a peaceful home in a quiet memory of one’s hometown.
People came and went around them, yet Xu Cheng’s heart was very still. He could not feel anything around him, only the person in his arms, and the painting before his eyes.
At that moment, he felt as if he had crossed thousands of mountains and rivers.
A Xi, we really walked such a long, long road to arrive here.
At that moment, Xu Cheng did not know what Jiang Xi was thinking, but he seemed to suddenly step into that painting. The house in the painting gradually turned white.
He walked around to the backyard backed by hills and forest, came to the door of the studio on April 11, 2003, and pushed it open.
The early summer mountain wind passed through the hall, stirring the sheets of paper in the room with a soft rustling sound. The young Jiang Xi, dressed in white, sat in a soft chair. She gazed at him, her eyes pure and clear.
—Have you walked a long way?
—Yes.
Fortunately, we finally arrived.