Tu Nan waited for a car by the roadside, her eyes fixed on the busy street where people flowed past.
It was already dark. Getting back to this city, one she hadn't seen in months, had taken her almost an entire day. Now that she was actually here again, she still felt… out of place.
The street hadn't changed much. High-rises stood all around. Two or three stars hung overhead, distant and cold. Neon lights blinked. The air was thick with exhaust.
This was the city.
Traffic like a river. Everyone rushing. No one had time for anyone else.
But Tu Nan wasn't really watching any of that. She liked watching people.
When she was little and learning figure drawing, her teacher had said: You need to draw movement. Whether it looks identical comes second. The first thing is capturing the spirit, only then can your drawing convey meaning.
She'd never been good at it, so she used to squat on sidewalks with a sketchbook and stare at passersby.
Until a policeman would come over and ask, "Kid, are you lost?"
Then Tu Nan would stare at the policeman too, up and down, carefully, thoroughly, until he got so creeped out he'd stop talking and immediately start contacting her family.
Men, women. Young, worn-out. Bright faces, tired faces…
So Xu Huai's judgment of her temperament wasn't quite right. How was she someone who only had eyes for the city's glitter?
The most beautiful thing in the world was still people.
So what did that make her?
Attached to the mortal world? Or simply… impure of mind and senses?
Well, true enough. If she hadn't been like this, how would she ever have gotten tangled up with Xiao Yun in the first place?
But she was copying murals. She wasn't trying to become a monk. The painters and craftsmen who worked on cave murals in ancient times, were they all detached sages who'd transcended the world?
Her thoughts galloped off into the wild. The idea amused her. She didn't laugh, she only sighed, not noticing that her gaze was still resting on someone.
A young woman beside her had already been watched by her for a long while. Now, hearing that sudden sigh, she muttered something under her breath and hurried away.
Tu Nan snapped back to herself. She stopped looking. She pulled out her phone to check the time, already nine p.m.
The phone buzzed. A call came in at just that moment. On the screen, the name "Tu Gengshan" flashed.
She hesitated before answering, one hand cupping the receiver to block out the noise of passing cars.
"Hello? Dad."
"Hello? Xiao Nan, how's the mural copying going? Everything smooth?"
Her father always opened with that question.
She didn't tell the truth. "Mm. It's going pretty smoothly."
"Then you still won't be back for a while, right?"
"Yeah… still a while." A vague sense of dread rose in her chest.
"Perfect, then. I'm in the city visiting your Aunt Fang. I'll stay at your place for a few days."
Tu Nan's heart dropped. Something about his tone felt wrong.
"Don't tell me you've already arrived?"
"Yeah. Just got here." Through the phone came the clack of keys and a lock turning. Tu Gengshan continued, "Don't worry. I'll sleep in the living room. I won't go into your bedroom. I promise I won't mess anything up. I'll even help you tidy things up a bit."
"…."
"Why aren't you saying anything?"
Tu Nan rubbed her temples. "How long are you staying?"
"A week. Your Aunt Fang just had her appendix removed. There's no one to look after her, so I've got to come help out. I can't exactly move into her place."
"Then… okay…" Tu Nan sighed inwardly.
Ever since she became an adult, she and her father had lived separately. He worked down in a county district as a newspaper reporter, liked quiet, and usually avoided coming into the city. When he did come, it was normally in-and-out the same day.
And of course, of all days, he chose the day she came back.
Still, he was her father. She couldn't exactly throw him out.
"Focus on your copying. Take care of your health," he said at the end, still not forgetting to remind her.
Tu Nan hung up. She stood up from the suitcase she'd been sitting on for ages and shook out her legs, numb and tingling.
If her father found out she'd made that mistake… she didn't even want to imagine the scene.
For the first time in her life, she truly understood what it meant to have a home she couldn't go back to.
At last, an empty cab rolled by.
Tu Nan thought for a moment, then raised her hand and flagged it down, climbed in, and gave an address.
After ten at night, aside from places for food, drinks, and entertainment, almost everything was closed.
Especially outside the city center, one glance down the street showed nothing but darkness. Only the neon sign of an internet café still shone.
Ding-dong. A bell rang as the glass door was pushed open.
A voice behind the counter called out immediately, "Welcome."
You could hear him, but you couldn't see him.
A computer monitor blocked the speaker entirely. Only the top of a black head was visible, along with the constant clack-clack of a keyboard.
"Fang Ruan."
At the sound of her voice, the tapping stopped. The head popped up from behind the screen. Seeing her, he yelped, "Tu Nan?!"
Tu Nan stood outside the counter, dragging her suitcase. "I knew you'd be here."
Fang Ruan looked like he'd seen a ghost. "How are you back?"
"I'm not allowed to come back?"
"You are, you are, of course you are." He stood and pulled out a stool for her. "Wow. You come back and the first thing you do is visit me?"
"Who's visiting you? I'm here to take refuge."
"?" Fang Ruan's face filled with confusion.
Tu Nan said, "Long story short: I quit the copying team. I was supposed to go home, but my dad is here. You know how it is."
Fang Ruan caught the key point. "Quit how?"
"The kind of quitting my dad absolutely can't tolerate."
"And you lied to him and told him you're still working with the team?"
Tu Nan slumped. "Yeah."
"Then I get it."
Tu Gengshan would never allow her to leave the copying team. Which meant she obviously couldn't go home right now.
Fang Ruan turned his head, looking around, then spread his hands. "This is a business. How can you expect me to shelter you here?"
"You have to think of a way. This is basically your fault," Tu Nan said, sitting on the stool and shooting him a sideways look. "My dad said your mom had her appendix out and needs someone to take care of her. You're her son, yet you're here gaming instead of going home. If you weren't like this, would my dad have come?"
Fang Ruan rolled his eyes. "Oh, please. You don't know my mom? She's not even that sick. She just wants to use this chance to lock your dad down. Even if I wanted to take care of her, she probably wouldn't let me."
Tu Nan didn't mind giving two single older people a chance at late-life romance, but she truly needed somewhere to stay.
"If you can't help, I'll have no choice but to stay at a hotel."
Fang Ruan asked, "How many days?"
"A week."
"Tsk. That's expensive."
"Cost isn't even the worst part. What if I run into someone I know? That'd be a disaster. Your place is hidden."
"You mean I'm in the middle of nowhere?"
"Mm."
"…."
Silence.
Then Fang Ruan finally remembered to show concern. "Have you eaten? Are you hungry?"
Tu Nan shook her head. How could she eat?
"Sigh. Wait here, I'll make you a bowl of instant noodles."
Tu Nan had no appetite, but he wouldn't listen, so she let him go.
She sat by the counter and looked into the café. A dense sea of heads. A low, constant hum of voices. The deepest section was a glass room, non-smoking. Outside that area, cigarette smoke hung thick in the air.
Kids these days really had too little homework. When she'd been their age, she'd done nothing but homework and drawing every day. She hadn't even touched a computer.
Tu Nan turned her head and noticed a row of posters on the wall, promotional art for various games.
She didn't understand them and didn't want to. But the poster at the far edge showed a figure in ancient-style clothing, floating and elegant, something about it felt like the characters in a mural. She looked twice.
Fang Ruan came back quickly, pushing a huge bowl of noodles toward her. The smell rose warmly.
She still didn't want to eat. She waved her hand.
Fang Ruan thought she was going on a hunger strike and immediately surrendered. "Fine, fine. I'll help you. When my mom and your dad get together, we'll be family anyway, who would I help if not you?"
"Who's family with you?"
Fang Ruan's eyes crinkled into a smiling line.
Tu Nan gave him some face and took a mouthful of noodles anyway. Through the bite, she asked, muffled, "Where do I sleep?"
"Back there. Tonight probably won't work, I need to clean up first. You sleep during the day."
"Okay."
Back when she'd been copying murals, she'd even lived in makeshift sheds. This was nothing. Honestly, it was better than she'd expected.
After she finished the noodles, Fang Ruan opened a computer for her to pass the time.
Tonight, he was unusually righteous, he cleaned and arranged things himself, refusing to let her help.
Most people who came to an internet café at night were there to pull an all-nighter.
Two boys sat on either side of Tu Nan. On the left screen: explosions and blazing fire. On the right: a character sprinting wildly.
Hour after hour, they never got tired of it.
Tu Nan looked at her own screen, Tetris, and felt a bleak sense of falling behind the times.
The only time she used to sit in one place this long was when she worked on murals. Now she realized that even without painting, sitting like this could be exhausting.
She stretched and stood, walking outside.
It was the darkest hour before dawn. A single streetlamp shone overhead, unable to pierce the long night, only a small circle of ground beneath it was lit.
Tu Nan tugged at her clothes. Summer in inland cities was far harsher than the borderlands. She'd come back wearing a windbreaker; after getting off the plane she'd stripped down to a single shirt and still felt hot.
Without realizing it, she walked far down the street. Everything around her was quiet. On both sides, tree shadows grew thick and tangled.
Only at times like this did the place give you a faint illusion—as if you were still at the frontier, standing before those cold, solitary caves where long winds and moon shadows lingered.
Tu Nan sighed, kicking pebbles as she went.
She'd been sighing a lot today. Not because she was agonizing over leaving the team, she just felt regret.
If only she could copy it again.
She shouldn't have let seven months of hard work end so sloppily.
Looks like her body had come back, but her heart hadn't.
Clang.
She'd kicked something without noticing.
Squinting, she realized it was a glass bottle. Her kick sent it rolling far down the road until it hit a patch of shrubbery and stopped.
Along with the sound, something moved.
Tu Nan turned.
A ragged man was sprawled by the roadside, reeking of alcohol. Startled awake by the noise, he sat up and glared at her, eyes wide and hard, with a feral kind of menace, like he might lunge at her any second.
She took two steps back, inexplicably reminded of the yaksha demons in cave murals.
This area was fairly remote, but the city's public safety was usually good. She didn't know how she'd ended up running into a drunk like this.
Tu Nan didn't panic.
As he kept staring, anger rose in her instead.
An anger she'd carried back from the borderlands, pressed down until now.
She even thought: If he really wants trouble, fine, then I'll fight him. A drunk. Who knows who'd win? Everyone had a temper.
In the heavy night, they faced off in a strange standoff.
Then, suddenly, a voice cut in from the side:
"Coming or not?"
Tu Nan froze and turned her head.
Someone stood near the road.
A man, his shadow long under the streetlamp.
"Are you coming? Hurry." He turned and started walking ahead.
His tone was oddly familiar, like they knew each other.
Tu Nan immediately realized he was helping her. She quickened her steps and followed.
Halfway, she looked back.
The drunk hadn't followed.
She turned her eyes forward again. All she could see was the man's broad shoulders and back outlined under the streetlamp. His stride carried a kind of wind. He stayed several meters ahead the entire time, yet somehow he didn't look hurried.
He walked in front. She followed behind.
Step for step.
No words. No trouble.
It felt… strange.
Tu Nan grumbled internally: Why did I just follow the moment he called? What if he's not a good person either?
Not until they reached the street corner, when the internet café was close, and voices drifted out, as if she'd returned from wilderness to the human world.
The man never slowed, never even looked back. He crossed the street and went straight to the opposite side.
Tu Nan didn't even get the chance to say a single word.
In the shifting cover of streetlights, only his back remained, then it flickered once and vanished.