Chapter 4

She'd thought the old method would work again. Instead, Xia Wenzhou had fallen into the pit himself.

“Whether he can give you the life you want after your release depends on him,” I said. “But don't report your relationship to me. I have no interest in reading files already in the trash.”

Her eyes reddened with anger. Suddenly, she lowered her voice.

“You think Cheng Yu's sincere? Men are all the same.”

“That's because you've met too few men, and they're too alike.”

I stood and left.

She called after me as the door closed. I didn't turn.

That evening, Cheng Yu brought project documents to my house.

Mom had made pork-rib and lotus-root soup and insisted he stay for dinner.

He sat a little stiffly, answering Dad's questions with complete honesty.

Afterward, I walked him to the garden gate.

“You saw Su Mian today?”

I drew my windbreaker over my shoulders and murmured assent.

He stopped. No show of wanting to avenge me. He only gently settled the coat over my shoulders.

“Did she say something nasty?”

“She said all men are the same.”

He considered.

“Then I'll try to do fewer things that accidentally prove her right.”

I laughed despite myself.

He turned aside and coughed softly.

The garden's motion-sensor lights came on.

Under them, his ears were a little red.

He wasn't good at flowery words. Yet that very awkwardness put me at ease.

Over two years later, Su Mian completed her sentence.

Xia Wenzhou took leave to collect her.

Knowing she liked roses, he bought a huge bouquet and waited a long time at the gate.

It was windy. In a suit washed slightly faded, clutching flowers, he looked from a distance like a wedding-services salesman drafted to hand out leaflets.

She emerged and looked him up and down.

“Wenzhou, why didn't you drive?”

“I took the subway.”

“Your parents still won't let you return to the company?”

“I'm a manager at the logistics depot now. The income's stable. Once I've saved a little more, we can move somewhere bigger.”

She looked at his worn leather shoes. Her expression deteriorated by degrees.

“I suffered in there for so long, and now I have to squeeze into a rented place with you? This isn't the life you promised.”

He held the bouquet, his expression frozen.

“I've been waiting for you.”

“Waiting outside was your decision. I never forced you.”

That sentence had traveled a long way, only to strike him at last.

She didn't take the flowers or the subway with him.

She wheeled her suitcase away.

A few days later, her feed showed a meal with a property developer.

Only half a man's sleeve and an expensive bottle of wine appeared.

A breezy caption:

Starting over.

Xia Wenzhou liked it. Unliked it.

A while later, liked it again.

Finally, she blocked him.

Ning Bai sent screenshots.

I was trying on wedding dresses.

“Could you send something cheerful while I'm trying on my dress?”

“Isn't this cheerful enough?”

He sent a laughing emoji.

“Look at that like-unlike speed. Perfect for sorting parcels back at the depot.”

I set my phone aside and returned to the mirror.

Cheng Yu waited in the lounge.

He looked up, froze for a moment, then immediately stood. His gaze was very quiet.

Holding the skirt, I turned once.

“Cheng Yu, is this one beautiful?”

He looked for a while and answered earnestly, “Very. It suits you.”

A nearby shop assistant laughed and praised the groom's way with words.

But he seriously added, “The train's a little long. I'll watch it when we walk.”

He studied it intently.

Before the mirror, peace slowly settled in me.

Marrying him, I wouldn't have to guess whether he'd step aside when it mattered.

He'd already thought ahead even to whether I might trip on my skirt.

Our wedding was small. Only relatives and close friends.

Aunt and Uncle Xia came too.

They really had had another child, a girl nicknamed Yuanyuan.

She had just learned to walk. In Uncle Xia's arms, she clutched his tie with both hands and wouldn't let go.

He frowned as he coaxed her. Beside him, Aunt Xia's eyes curved with laughter.

Mom leaned close.

“Yuanyuan will surely give them less to worry about than her brother.”

I followed her gaze, held back a laugh, and nodded.

After the ceremony, Luo Kaiming and his wife came to congratulate us.

Long rehabilitation had allowed him to walk slowly.

He now trained hotline staff for our traffic-relief project.

He didn't walk fast, but his back was straight.

“Miss Ning, may you and Lawyer Cheng always have smooth sailing.”

“Thank you.”

I accepted his flowers.

Beside me, Cheng Yu shook his hand.

The hall's lights fell on everyone, quiet and warm.

The hospital corridor's disinfectant two years earlier, the blood in the garage... all seemed distant.

I'd thought that was a happy enough ending.

But Xia Wenzhou still came looking for me.

One rainy afternoon, Cheng Yu and I left the foundation and saw him on a bench outside the lobby.

Rain had soaked his trouser legs.

He was much thinner, exhaustion deep beneath his eyes.

Cheng Yu instinctively stepped in front of me.

I tugged his sleeve and nodded to security: no need to be tense.

Xia Wenzhou stood, his voice hoarse.

“Zhaozhao, I heard you're married.”

“No invitation, but your news travels fast.”

He smiled bitterly.

“Only now do I understand Su Mian never loved me.”

“Congratulations. You finally took off that filter.”

“I regret it.”

He looked at me with a ridiculous trace of hope.

“If I hadn't done that, would we still have had a chance?”

Rain drummed densely on the glass canopy.

I looked at him.

Remembered the bloody heel, his treating me as a replaceable part, his hand canceling the emergency call.

“No. What you did only illuminated things you'd always kept hidden.”

He lowered his head and didn't move for a long time.

Cheng Yu opened his umbrella to shelter me from the wind.

He neither looked back at Xia Wenzhou nor hurried me. He only tilted the shaft further toward me.

I followed him down the steps.

Rainwater ran in little streams beside our feet.

No more words came from behind.

In our third month of marriage, Luo Kaiming's hotline received a difficult call.

A young woman, trembling, said her boyfriend was forcing her to take the blame for a minor collision.

Crying and gasping, she said he'd promised money. The car's owner was powerful, he said. Even the police wouldn't believe her.

Luo Kaiming calmed her first. He told her not to disturb the scene, sign anything, or hand over her phone. Then he contacted nearby patrol officers.

Afterward, he sent me the recording and asked whether the foundation could turn such cases into legal-awareness videos.

Cheng Yu and I listened and decided to expand the project into a public-interest advice line: “Don't Take the Blame.”

I chose the name.

Cheng Yu didn't laugh. He said, “Easy to remember.”

Beside us, Ning Bai flipped through the proposal and raised an eyebrow.

“Blunt name.”

“If it's too roundabout, people in trouble won't remember it.” I turned to the cover. “Someone persuades you to sign for them, admit fault for them—however nicely they put it, the name on the paper is yours. Show that clearly.”

Cheng Yu added two lines with his pen.

“How do you want to shoot the opening?”

The garage ceiling lights had been painfully bright.

Su Mian was still sobbing when Xia Wenzhou handed over the shoe.

I remembered switching on the recording earring, my palm slick with sweat.

“Show someone handing an object to someone else. The second person shouldn't rush to accept it. Put it on the table first and ask whose it is.”

Cheng Yu nodded.

“Then?”

“Have her call the police, find a lawyer, and keep hold of her phone. As long as she doesn't follow the other person's instructions, they can't dump everything on her.”

Ning Bai coughed.

“You just said ‘first’ three times.”

I snatched the proposal from him.

“You find a director. Stop copyediting.”

After publication, the video received many comments through our account.

We invited traffic police, lawyers, and counselors to film, displaying familiar lines onscreen:

The car's in your name.

It's only a small favor.

My family will handle it.

I'll compensate you later.

One viewer said her boyfriend had once coaxed her the same way. Fortunately, she hadn't signed.

Cheng Yu was run off his feet at the shoot.

He disliked appearing on camera, yielding every opportunity to those who actually needed to explain the law.

Only for the last pickup shot did the crew pull him in. He sat across a consultation table and handed the actor water.

After the video aired, someone commented that this lawyer looked very dependable.

Ning Bai sent me a screenshot, sounding sour.

“Cheng Yu hands over water and gains fans. Why doesn't anyone praise my face?”

“Your face only attracts people who want loans.”

He snorted and turned to build blocks with Yuanyuan.

Aunt and Uncle Xia had brought her to tour the foundation.

Newly able to speak in full sentences, she hugged a toy steering wheel and solemnly announced she'd be a driver.

Uncle Xia visibly tensed.

Aunt Xia laughed until she couldn't stand straight, then crouched to stroke her daughter's head.

“A driver is fine. But first, Mommy's buying you ten books of traffic rules.”

Yuanyuan nodded seriously, then raised the wheel toward me.

“Zhaozhao, can you drink when you drive?”

“No.”

I crouched, took her little hand, and turned the toy wheel the right way.

“Alcohol muddles your head. You mustn't touch a car when you're muddled.”

She remembered that very well.

Before leaving, she repeated it to Uncle Xia.

Holding her, he moved his lips and finally said softly, “Understood.”

He smiled with her in his arms, but weariness still hid in his eyes.

So much time had passed. He hadn't entirely let go of his son's affair.

Later, Aunt Xia privately told me Xia Wenzhou hadn't been home for a long time.

Sometimes, he sent Yuanyuan toys.

She loved them. She only knew they were from her big brother, not why he never came home for dinner.

I listened without interfering.

When he returned, what he said to his parents—he had to work toward those repairs himself.

Seven months into my pregnancy, I met Su Mian again outside the hospital.

She stood by a vending machine in a faded sweater, gripping two coins.

Thinner, with little makeup, she looked like a different person.

She first saw Cheng Yu supporting me. Then her eyes dropped to my belly, and her expression briefly froze.

He asked quietly, “Want to go another way?”