Love on the Turquoise Land

Lü Xian had performed a major surgery the previous day, draining his energy, and had gone to bed late. As a result, he slept straight through until noon the next day—though early in the morning, he had gotten up to use the bathroom. Out of a doctor’s sense of responsibility, he had detoured to the operating room to check on Nie Jiuluo and concluded that she was doing well, having mostly passed the critical stage.

He remembered Yan Tuo smiling at him then.

When he woke again, it was already noon. The sunlight was bright, and Lü Xian yawned as he opened his bedroom door, immediately greeted by the mouthwatering aroma of instant noodles.

Yan Tuo sat at the dining table, slurping down noodles in large bites and gestured toward the kitchen. “Left a portion for you. Hurry up before it gets soggy.”

Lü Xian responded cheerfully, but duty called—before heading to the bathroom, he peeked into the operating room.

One glance later, his face paled in shock. He rushed inside frantically, then dashed back out, searching room by room.

Yan Tuo didn’t even look up, calmly continuing his meal.

After a thorough search, Lü Xian returned to the dining table and barked, “Where is she?”

Yan Tuo leisurely swallowed his last bite of noodles and took a sip of broth. “Who?”

“Stop playing dumb!” Lü Xian stomped. “That woman!”

Yan Tuo wiped his mouth with a tissue. “Which woman?”

“The one you brought back in a suitcase! The one you kept watch over last night!”

Yan Tuo crumpled the tissue and tossed it into the trash. Brushing past Lü Xian, he headed to the bathroom to gargle, his words muffled by the swishing mouthwash. “You must’ve been dreaming.”

Damn it…

Lü Xian shoved open the door to Yan Tuo’s bedroom and pointed at the suitcase lying on the floor. “You used this—”

Mid-sentence, he had to swallow his words. The suitcase was packed full with clothes and toiletries.

Yan Tuo, meanwhile, finished rinsing, grabbed a towel to wipe his face, and didn’t even spare him a glance.

I refuse to believe this!

Lü Xian gritted his teeth and combed through the house again.

Gone. Everything was gone. Yan Tuo must have cleaned up in the morning—the surgical waste he had sealed in plastic bags had vanished. The shopping bags Yan Tuo had carried in last night were nowhere to be seen. The operating table was wiped spotless, not a single mark left. Women were prone to shedding hair, yet when he crouched to inspect the floor, not a single strand remained.

The surveillance! Yes, the surveillance!

Lü Xian’s eyes lit up, only to dim immediately. There were cameras, but they were installed outside the door. And if Yan Tuo had even cleared away every hair, would he have overlooked the surveillance footage?

He turned to Yan Tuo, feeling uneasy. “Was this really necessary?”

Yan Tuo frowned and reached out to press a hand against Lü Xian’s forehead. “No fever. Why are you talking nonsense after waking up?”

Lü Xian angrily swatted his hand away.

Yan Tuo remained expressionless. If Lü Xian could be trusted, that would be ideal. But if not? Better safe than sorry. Caution was the parent of safety—he couldn’t afford to slip up, especially now when he needed to be extra vigilant.

Drying his hands on a towel, he went back to his room, packed the suitcase neatly, and dragged it out. “I’m leaving. I’ve already spoken to A Peng—he’ll lend you an old phone to use for now. Come find me in Xi’an for a new one.”

Lü Xian watched Yan Tuo leave with a deflated expression. Even the joy of getting a new phone soon couldn’t lift his spirits much.

This family…

Yan Tuo’s father, Yan Huanshan, had established a scholarship fund to support his education—a man who had shown him kindness but passed away too soon.The woman he idolized as a goddess, young and beautiful yet navigating the murky gray areas—Lin Xirou, Yan Tuo’s little aunt.

And Yan Tuo himself, who had always seemed the most normal, now suddenly felt distant and secretive.

None of them were people an ordinary guy like him could afford to associate with, he thought.

He shuffled to the kitchen in his slippers, picking up the clumped noodles with his chopsticks one strand at a time.

It was time to start thinking about his own future.

Save up more money, hope to wash his hands clean and get out in time before the company’s shady dealings came to light. Otherwise, if he got dragged down, even clumped instant noodles would be a luxury behind bars.

Yan Tuo took the elevator straight down to the underground garage.

Only a handful of cars were parked there, all belonging to "their people." Lü Xian’s car was tucked away in the farthest corner.

Yan Tuo walked to his car and opened the rear door first.

Wrapped in a blanket, Nie Jiuluo was sleeping soundly on the back seat, her legs slightly bent since the seat wasn’t long enough.

Yan Tuo placed a suitcase upright in the gap between the front and back seats as a makeshift barrier to prevent her from rolling off during sudden braking. Then he tucked the edges of the blanket around her and was about to pull away when he suddenly remembered something. He patted himself down but found nothing useful.

Rifling through the grocery bag he’d left on the passenger seat, he finally picked out a small kumquat and pressed it into her palm—he’d bought it to snack on during the drive to stay alert.

Her fingers curled inward, loosely holding it.

……

Nie Jiuluo slept for a long time, but it wasn’t restful. Occasionally, she was dimly aware of movement around her, but she couldn’t form coherent thoughts—she was too exhausted.

Too exhausted to spare even a sliver of mental energy.

She only remembered feeling cold at first, then warm and fuzzy later, and after that, it was like drifting along a river of cars—countless sounds of vehicles, some urgent, some slow, some light, some heavy, passing by her ears. At one point, it even seemed like they passed under an orange tree, the sweet fragrance tinged with a hint of sourness, teasing her taste buds awake before her body could rouse.

When she hazily opened her eyes, it was already dark outside.

The room was lit, but her eyes hadn’t adjusted yet. Everything was blurry, but she could tell the furnishings were simple, plain, and a little worn.

A man stood by her bed, looking down at her. She couldn’t make out his face, only that he was tall, blocking half her view.

Nie Jiuluo tensed instantly.

Then she heard him say, “It’s me.”

The voice was familiar. She thought hard before it clicked.

It was Yan Tuo.

Yan Tuo…

Her body relaxed again, and her eyelids drooped shut. She didn’t know what had happened after she slipped into the well, but she had a vague intuition: Yan Tuo posed no threat to her.

Good. She could sleep peacefully again.

Yan Tuo said, “Miss Nie, do you know you almost died?”

The noise was so annoying. Nie Jiuluo frowned slightly, nestling her head deeper into the pillow. Soon, the world fell silent again, and her body sank back into the darkness.

Seeing her like this, Yan Tuo knew she wouldn’t wake up anytime soon.

But he could understand—after all, she’d just brushed shoulders with death.

Yan Tuo left the room. In the living room, Liu Changxi was peeling an apple for him. When he saw Yan Tuo come out, he stood up nervously, the half-peeled skin still dangling precariously from the fruit. “So… is the room to your liking?”

Liu Changxi had received Yan Tuo’s call at noon.Yan Tuo didn’t go into specifics, only saying that a friend was injured and he wanted to send them over for Liu Changxi to take care of for a while.

Liu Changxi agreed without hesitation, handed the shop’s business over to his assistant, and rushed home to do a thorough cleaning. At first, he considered giving up the master bedroom but worried it might carry his lingering odor, so he focused on tidying the guest room instead, even digging out fresh bedding to lay out.

Even so, he remained uneasy—Yan Tuo came from a well-off family, raised in comfort all his life. Liu Changxi feared he might find this place too shabby.

Yan Tuo said, “It’s fine.”

A bone injury takes a hundred days to heal, and Nie Jiuluo needed rest. Liu Changxi’s place was the most suitable.

After a pause, Yan Tuo added, “The heating’s too dry. Get her a humidifier. Any expenses for her, just bill me later.”

Liu Changxi: “A… humidifier?”

He wasn’t one to keep up with trends—he’d heard of it but never used one.

Yan Tuo caught on. “I’ll buy it. I’ll order one and have it delivered. Since it might be inconvenient for you to care for her, hire a helper to make her some nourishing soups and help wash her hair or wipe her down. If she wakes up, call me. Also, take her to get her arm checked in a couple of days—she fractured her left arm…”

Liu Changxi couldn’t remember everything and hastily set down the apple to grab pen and paper. “Slow down, list them one by one. First, the humidifier…”

Yan Tuo chuckled. “Don’t bother writing it down. I’ll remind you later. I’ll head out now. I’ll visit her when I have time in a few days.”

The hurried departure wasn’t unusual—Yan Tuo had always been like this, and Liu Changxi was used to it.

He walked Yan Tuo downstairs and watched him get into the car before hesitantly asking, “Xiao Tuo, is she… your girlfriend?”

Yan Tuo froze for a moment, then laughed. “No, not to that extent.”

But Liu Changxi was delighted. After all these years, this was the first time he’d seen Yan Tuo bring a female friend here. “Feelings grow with time. If it’s not there yet, it might come later. She’s quite pretty, too. Time flies—your mother would’ve been so happy if she knew. You have no idea, when you were little, your mom once said…”

Yan Tuo cut him off. “Uncle Changxi, I’m leaving.”

He rolled up the window and started the car. The neighborhood was old, the roads narrow—the vehicle almost scraped the curb as it pulled out.

Liu Changxi stood where he was, watching the car disappear. The complex was aged, but the greenery was lush, filled with evergreens that didn’t shed even in winter. The wind rustled through the leaves overhead, their shadows swaying, the faint rustling sifting down fragments of the past.

Liu Changxi thought of Lin Xirou.

When Yan Tuo was very young, Liu Changxi once visited with some fruit. During the conversation with Lin Xirou, they ended up talking about Yan Tuo’s future marriage.

Lin Xirou had said, “Who knows what kind of girl Xiao Tuo will end up with—whether she’ll be pretty. She’ll definitely… be prettier than me.”

Liu Changxi blurted out, “Not necessarily, Sister Lin. You’re the prettiest.”

The moment the words left his mouth, his face burned, and he didn’t know where to put his hands.

Lin Xirou, however, was too focused on watching Yan Tuo crawl around on the bed to notice Liu Changxi’s fluster. “I hope she’s pretty, but I worry pretty girls might be too flighty… Ah, we’ll see in the future.”

When she spoke of the “future,” she probably never imagined that just a few years later, she would have no future at all.Liu Changxi had been eagerly looking forward to this moment, determined to assess things on her behalf and lend his judgment.

After Lin Xirou's incident, Liu Changxi had completely disappeared from Yan Tuo's surroundings—until the year Yan Tuo turned twenty, when he was to deliver something to him.

This had been the dying wish of Yan Huanshan, who was battling cancer at the time. He had repeatedly emphasized, "Changxi, I’m counting on you for this. Don’t go to him too early—wait until he’s grown up and mentally mature. If he’s too young, he might act impulsively and ruin everything. And make sure you observe him carefully, confirm he’s still a good kid... He was raised by that woman—who knows where his loyalties lie?"

At twenty, Yan Tuo was in college, a prominent figure on campus. Handsome and from a well-off family, he was the object of many girls’ affections. Liu Changxi remembered that he already had a girlfriend back then—fair-skinned, gentle, and said to be the campus belle.

Even prettier than Lin Xirou.

Liu Changxi had thought she might be the one, but they broke up soon after—not long after he handed over the item to Yan Tuo.

Yan Tuo drove through the night, arriving back in Xi’an by midnight at Xiong Hei’s villa.

At first, he assumed Xiong Hei wouldn’t be there—given the circumstances, he’d probably be staying at the farm.

But to his surprise, Xiong Hei’s car was parked in the garage. Yan Tuo’s heart pounded violently: Chen Fu was still in his trunk, and here he was, parked right beside Xiong Hei’s car—how absurdly reckless. Sure, the most dangerous place could also be the safest, but this proximity still made him uneasy. Besides, who knew how sharp Xiong Hei’s sense of smell was?

Yan Tuo backed the car out and parked it in the villa district’s public parking lot, then walked back.

Entering through the rear door, he was about to press the elevator button when the elevator descended from the third floor on its own. Sensing something, Yan Tuo quickly slipped into a dark corner nearby.

Before the doors even opened, Xiong Hei’s loud voice echoed from inside: "Hey, hey! I’m in the elevator."

A second later, he stepped out. "Bad signal earlier—what? Still not there yet? You didn’t call Chen Fu? What about Han Guan? Did you try him?"

Hearing those two names, Yan Tuo’s heart lurched violently. He held his breath and pressed deeper into the shadows.

"Can’t reach either of them?"

In his line of sight, Xiong Hei—facing away—scratched his head. "Probably still on the road. Nanba Monkey Head isn’t a one-day trip. Mountain areas have terrible signal—dropped calls are normal. Just wait it out!"

He hung up, muttering, "Idiot! What’s the point of having a brain if you can’t even reason?"

After waiting for Xiong Hei to leave, Yan Tuo exhaled in relief and took the elevator upstairs.

Xiong Hei’s remark about "can’t even reason" was both irritating and amusing, but it soon gave way to suspicion: Xiong Hei usually stuck close to Lin Xirou. If Xiong Hei was here, Lin Xirou must be too. Why would they be at the villa now?

Soon, the elevator stopped on the third floor. The doors had barely opened when Yan Tuo heard Lin Ling’s tearful voice: "I just don’t want to!"