Every detail at this moment tormented Jiang Mu unbearably—the unidentified people around her, the events of the night, and now Jin Chao's warm hand, its every ridge searing into her skin with a clarity she couldn't ignore.
Her heart felt adrift, the surrealness leaving her steps unsteady. Just then, the white car pulled up, and Jiang Mu instantly recognized the driver who'd raced alongside them multiple times on the sandy terrain.
Back then, Jin Chao had deliberately kicked up dust to obstruct their opponents' vision. Only this man hadn't slowed down, even overtaking them by half a car length at one point. But with an extra passenger giving them a slight advantage and neither vehicle able to stop, they'd maintained their edge.
The man with a close-cropped circular haircut stepped out, draped in an opulent mink coat, and leaned against his car with crossed arms. "You Jiu," he said to Jin Chao, "is your navigator for sale?"
His gaze lingered on Jiang Mu with interest as another man chimed in, "What's this, Young Master Feng? Changing your tune? Developing a taste for the fresh ones?"
Liang Yanfeng ignored the remark, instead giving Jiang Mu a meaningful smile.
Jin Chao let out a low laugh. "Sorry," he replied directly, "she's priceless."
Liang raised an eyebrow while his companions joked, "Watch out, You Jiu. No woman caught Young Master Feng's eye ever escaped his charm."
Jin Chao shot back with a careless glance, laced with disdain, "Give it a try then."
Liang's smile widened as he lit a cigarette, leisurely blowing perfect heart-shaped smoke rings toward Jiang Mu. She'd never seen such theatrics and immediately deemed him improper, staring sternly at the playboy.
Never had Liang encountered a girl examining him like some archaeological relic. Her utterly unimpressed expression made him burst into laughter.
Jin Chao frowned and turned a placid gaze toward him. Flustered, Jiang Mu averted her eyes and whispered to Jin Chao, "I'm so cold."
The barren landscape offered no shelter from the biting night wind. Jin Chao slowly withdrew his stare, his eyes settling on Jiang Mu's wind-chapped cheeks. Unzipping his jacket, he flashed an amused grin. "Need a hug?"
Jiang Mu's pupils dilated, her dark eyes quivering slightly. Even now, she couldn't tell whether Jin Chao was acting or being genuine. His gaze held a magnetic pull, radiating a captivating intensity that made her chest flutter. Compared to him, her acting felt clumsy—she didn't dare touch him properly, merely hovering her hands inside his jacket without making contact.
Jin Chao looked down with a soft chuckle, tightening his coat to pull her flush against him. Jiang Mu stumbled into the warmth of his chest, enveloped by his jacket as familiar security washed over her.
What had she felt that first day in Tonggang, seeing Jin Chao standing by the roadside watching her? She'd imagined a long-awaited embrace like this. But she'd already realized then—this Jin Chao was no longer the brother from her memories. He wouldn't pinch her cheeks playfully, warm her cold hands, or spin her around just for fun anymore.This embrace had been delayed for over five months. Jiang Mu gradually raised her hands, wrapped them tightly around his waist, and her eyes grew sore.
Jin Chao said to the people nearby, "My girlfriend is afraid of the cold. I'll take her back first."
The others agreed that it was indeed quite cold and dispersed. Jiang Mu's expression froze. She didn't know if Jin Chao had pulled her over just to use her as an excuse to leave.
She lifted her head from his embrace to look at him. Jin Chao lowered his gaze, a tenderness—indistinguishable from the real thing—shattering in his eyes as he smiled at her. "If you haven't hugged enough, we can continue slowly at home."
A man nearby chimed in, "Alright, you two hurry back and get to business."
Jin Chao raised his head with a roguish expression and exchanged a playful curse with the man. Jiang Mu released her hold, flustered, and turned away. Jin Chao wrapped his arm around her shoulder and led her toward the car. But as soon as they left the crowd, he let go of her. Everyone gradually got into their cars, and in the blink of an eye, all the vehicles drove off. Jin Chao's phone was still in Jiang Mu's pocket; it vibrated as soon as she got in the car. She took it out and saw that the group chat from earlier had been disbanded.
Jiang Mu returned the phone to Jin Chao. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that all traces of tenderness and flirtatiousness had vanished from his face, replaced by his usual indifference and aloofness.
Everyone had been fooled by his act. Only she, who knew it was fake, had still, at one point, lost herself in his scorching gaze. Jiang Mu shifted her gaze to the window, falling into an unusually deep silence.
Jin Chao glanced at her from time to time. Jiang Mu's expression was tense, her hands gripping the seatbelt tightly. Even though the car wasn't moving fast, she remained rigid, her face full of worry.
After driving for about ten minutes, Jin Chao turned onto a desolate, wild hillside and didn't stop until they reached the very end.
Ahead lay a bottomless cliff, above them a sky full of stars, and around them not a single glimmer of light. In the city where Jiang Mu had grown up, it was rare to find a place so quiet it felt like a vacuum.
Jin Chao opened the door and got out, circling around the back of the car to her side. The engine was still running, the heater on. He tapped on the window, and Jiang Mu rolled it down. His body blocked the cold wind from outside as he lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and exhaled the smoke into the night sky. "Open the envelope and take a look," he said to her.
Jiang Mu tore open the envelope she had been clutching tightly. Inside were stacks of hundred-yuan bills. She lowered her gaze, gripping the money firmly.
Jin Chao, cigarette dangling from his lips, stared into the vast darkness. "This is what you wanted to know."
A chill ran through Jiang Mu's body. "For money."
"What else? What other reason could there be?"
Jiang Mu felt a surge of fear. "That person earlier crashed his car."
"He won't die," Jin Chao replied, his tone cold and casual.
Jiang Mu looked up, disbelief in her eyes as she stared at his back. "What do you mean, 'he won't die'? I told you to take a detour into the second lane. I wanted you to shake him off, not make him crash. What if something happens to him? They might trace it back to us."
Jin Chao held the cigarette in his hand, his gaze half-lowered. "There are so many car accidents across the country every day. Do they all blame the nearby cars?"
"But this is... this is illegal street racing. What if someone reports it?"
"What can they do? Who knows we were there?"
"The others—"
Jin Chao let out a derisive laugh. "Would they implicate themselves?"
"What if a passerby saw us?""I don't know those people. Am I not allowed to walk on this road anymore?"
"That location in the group chat, the group..."
The group had been disbanded, all members muted, leaving no chat records behind. The transaction was in cash, untraceable. The area was undeveloped, without even surveillance cameras.
A chill suddenly crept from Jiang Mu's feet up to her chest. She flung the envelope violently onto the seat, threw open the car door, got out, and slammed it shut, glaring at him. "Even if you cover your tracks perfectly, so what? What if something goes wrong? Are you willing to risk your life for money? Today it's him, tomorrow it could be you. Is money that important? Why live a life hanging by a thread?"
Jin Chao's brow cast a shadow, making his eye sockets as deep and unfathomable as a starry sea. His voice seemed to echo from a valley, thick with suppressed emotion as he murmured, "A life hanging by a thread."
A sarcastic smile suddenly flickered at the corner of his lips. "Then what kind of life do you think I should live?"
The cold wind tousled Jiang Mu's short hair. She turned and walked toward the cliff edge, gazing into the boundless darkness, and replied, "I don't know. At least not like this. Can't we live a stable life?"
"Since you don't know, let me tell you." Jin Chao threw his cigarette onto the muddy ground, grinding it under his thick sole until the butt was buried deep, unable to struggle free.
"When Jin Qiang and I first came to Tonggang, we had nowhere to live. We rented a basement—no windows, no light, daytime felt like night. Whenever it rained heavily, the room would flood up to our knees. Homework, schoolbags, mattresses—everything soaked in water, with dead rats floating on the surface. We had to push tables together to sleep on, and the next day, we'd bail out the water bucket by bucket.
He heard someone could introduce him to earthwork jobs, but it required a referral fee. He handed over all the money we had, and the person's phone number immediately became invalid. We couldn't even afford the basement anymore.
We slept under overpasses, on the streets, in bathhouses. And you tell me money isn't important?
Later, he finally found a reliable job and met Zhao Meijuan. He was divorced, and she was marrying for the first time. He had no house and was dragging me along. We barely scraped together a down payment, and after paying the mortgage each month from his meager salary, there was nothing left. Every time the school required fees, I had to stand outside their room with the payment slip, too ashamed to ask for two or three hundred yuan. And you say money isn't important?
Twenty years of mortgage payments, endless medical bills—do you think Jin Qiang could handle it all alone? At his hardest, he didn't abandon me. Do you think I should just walk away from your dad without a second thought?"
The brightest star hung in the northern sky. Countless dark nights, that star had guided Jiang Mu. She had followed its light, groping her way to today. She had thought, after her dad and Jin Chao left her, her life had shattered into pieces. While she envied other children for having fathers and wallowed in self-pity over her emotional needs, on the other side of the earth, Jin Chao was struggling for survival, unable to even secure the most basic necessities.
When Jiang Mu looked up again, the star still hung in the north, but its light had grown piercing, like an ice spike stabbing into her heart, blurring her vision with tears.
She turned to him and asked, "Does my mom know? Does she know about Dad being scammed when he came here? Does she know you had nowhere to live?"The dark shadows outlined Jin Chao's profile. He lowered his head, and when Jiang Mu mentioned Jiang Yinghan, a flicker of emotion finally stirred in his eyes before ultimately settling into complete stillness. He said flatly, "What if I know? What if I don't? They're divorced."
Jiang Mu strode over to Jin Chao, tears welling in her eyes as she stared at him. "Even so, it doesn’t justify... it doesn’t justify doing those reckless things."
Jin Chao lifted his eyelids, his expression cold and mocking. "For me, as long as I can get money, it’s justified. What does it matter if life hangs by a thread? If you’re already dead, why fear hanging on the edge? I didn’t want you to see these things. Yes, you’re right—you’re only here for a year of school. You shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place. Are you scared now?"
Jiang Mu stood on her toes, clutching the front of his shirt tightly as she shouted, "Do you have to be like this? There’s a bright, open road—why insist on walking the dark path?"
Jin Chao merely lowered his gaze and said to her, "Let go."
"I won’t. Why should I let go?"
His jacket was crumpled in her tight grip, and his patience had run out. He issued one last warning: "Let go."
Jiang Mu glared at him, pulling even tighter. "Do you think I’ll let go? Do you think no one can control you anymore?"
Jin Chao tilted his chin slightly, his thin lips pressed into a sinister, cold line. He gripped her shoulders, lifted her off the ground, and pressed her against the car door. Leaning in, he said, "You want to control me, is that it? In what capacity? Do you still think your last name is Jin? You’ve even changed your surname. If you’ve forgotten what it was, let me remind you—Jiang Mu."
She was so small in front of him, trapped against the car door, fragile yet stubbornly staring back at him. The powerful but icy aura emanating from Jin Chao seeped into Jiang Mu’s heart, leaving her trembling with anger.
He had never called her by her full name. Not once since coming to Tonggang. Not even Jin Qiang had. They all cared, didn’t they? That one small surname had driven their relationship and their lives worlds apart.
Her voice choked with emotion, she asked him, "So... is this why you never came back to see me? You blame us? You blame Mom for making Dad leave with nothing? You hate her, don’t you?"
Jin Chao’s grip on her shoulders trembled almost imperceptibly. Gradually, his eyelids drooped, a bitter smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he swallowed the bitterness inside. He pulled open the car door, shoved Jiang Mu back into the car, and slammed it shut.
Jiang Mu sat inside the car while Jin Chao stood outside, smoking one cigarette after another. This wasn’t the first time they had fought. In fact, during their childhood, arguments had filled almost every week—over toys, over meals, over play, even over a piece of chalk. But every time, it was Jin Chao who gave in. He would let her have the toys, give her the delicious fish roe and chicken gizzards, and indulge her by playing the childish, boring games she loved.
But there was one thing he would never yield on: going to the model shop every Saturday afternoon. Even if Jiang Mu cried and threw a tantrum, even if Jin Qiang and Jiang Yinghan forbade him, he would stubbornly stand alone by the door until they had no choice but to relent.Jiang Mu knew he could compromise on everything, but when it came to what he truly wanted to do, no one could stop him. It had been this way since childhood, and precisely because of this, she grew increasingly anxious. She feared he was heading down a path of no return, she feared his future would repeat past mistakes, and she feared that after she left, he would become even more unrestrained.
After an unknown length of time, Jin Chao answered a phone call, then extinguished his cigarette and tapped on the car window to ask her: "Jin Qiang called. Should we head back?"
"I'm not going back." Jiang Mu didn't look at him, didn't roll down the window—only those two words.
Jin Chao circled back to the driver's seat, closed the door, rested one hand on the steering wheel, and turned to glance at her sideways. Whenever she got angry, her face would always puff up as if she had suffered some great injustice. Jin Chao's tone softened slightly: "What will it take for you to go back?"
"You have to promise me first."
Among Jin Chao's circle, the one with the most prolific romantic history was Jin Fengzi. Although he had dated many people, he usually got dumped within three months, perpetually sprinting down the path of being dumped and heartbroken.
Every time he got heartbroken, he would call his brothers out for drinks. Eventually, everyone grew accustomed to it, almost as if he experienced love just to have an excuse for a drinking session.
Jin Fengzi often said: "When women feel wronged, they always make you feel like you've done something terribly unfair to them."
Although Jin Chao had never experienced such troubles himself, looking at Jiang Mu's pouting face now, he inexplicably felt the same way.
Jin Chao chuckled silently, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel, his eyes already regaining their usual casual indifference: "What do you want me to promise you?"
Jiang Mu didn't understand how he could still laugh at a time like this and said irritably: "Promise me you'll do proper work and stop messing around. If you don't agree, none of us are going back tonight."
Jin Chao clenched his jaw, his gaze steady. His dark pupils watched her calmly for a moment before he reclined his seat and lay down directly.
Jiang Mu sat up straight in alarm: "You..."
Jin Chao crossed his arms behind his head, adopting a go-with-the-flow attitude: "Then we won't go."
Jiang Mu was so angry she nearly exploded. Jin Chao simply closed his eyes. If this were their childhood, she would have already climbed over him to start a fight. But now she couldn't beat him, and didn't dare climb over him either. All she could do was recline her own seat with a heavy "hmph!" and turn away from him.
Listening to the sounds she deliberately made, Jin Chao cracked open an eye to look at her. She had her back to him, curled into a ball.
Jin Chao had too many things on his mind. With Jiang Mu's disturbance tonight, he needed to sort them out properly. So though his eyes were closed, he wasn't asleep.
Meanwhile, Jiang Mu's breathing evened out shortly after she lay down. Jin Chao sat up and studied her—her slightly curled lashes rested demurely, and even in sleep she faintly frowned, looking full of worries. He lifted his thumb and gently smoothed her furrowed brow. Jiang Mu turned over, her soft face bathed in moonlight as if draped with a gentle veil that brushed against his heart.
Rootless and adrift, wandering from south to north—she was the only one who would always care about him!
No matter how dark the night or how long the road, on this evening, the perpetually cold corners of Jin Chao's heart let in light because of the person before him.
Author's note: Leave comments to enter the red envelope drawing.
Thanks to the little angels who voted for me or irrigated with nutrient solutions from 2021-09-14 12:01:24 to 2021-09-15 12:56:45~Thank you to the little angel who threw the grenade: 17444142 (1);
Thank you to the little angels who threw the landmines: 41074950, Pau, 《Radiant》, Yuge Zhu, Tiger Tooth Girl Rong Xiaorong, Peach Loves Kiwi (1 each);
Thank you to the little angels who irrigated with nutrient solution: Pau (10 bottles); Chongchong (7 bottles); TsezukiMoi (6 bottles); Green Immortal Monkey, Grace (5 bottles each); Youya (3 bottles); Xiang Wan, Playing Mahjong (1 bottle each);
Thank you all very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!
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