Chapter 11

He looked up, tears streaming.

“Xu Heng…”

“Liu Jin’s a good person. She didn’t hesitate when she jumped in to save you. She doesn’t deserve this.”

He froze.

Then cried harder.

I pressed the money into his hand.

“Go. Come back if you need help.”

After he left, I sat alone in the office.

Winter darkness filled the window, so thick I could scarcely have seen my own hand.

Song Yao had cared for me for seventeen years.

Not willingly. Not one day.

But he hadn’t left.

In that era, he could have.

He hadn’t.

Not for love.

He’d believed he owed me.

I saved his life. He spent his life repaying it.

He’d kept the accounts too precisely.

So precisely that he’d included my life in the final settlement.

Now Liu Jin had saved him.

He was repaying her too.

I hoped he did it willingly this time.

Not because of fate.

Because of love.

I switched off the light and went home.

Lin Shu was awake, waiting.

“So late?”

“Something came up.”

“What?”

I told him about Song Yao.

He listened, then went quiet.

“How much did you give?”

“Ten thousand.”

“Not enough.”

He stood.

“I’ll put together another ten thousand. Have someone take it tomorrow.”

I looked at him.

He glared.

“What? They’re in trouble, and you think ten thousand gets rid of them? Miser.”

I laughed.

This man.

I hadn’t met him before.

Finding him this time was my greatest good fortune.

The rest passed quickly in the telling.

I found Liu Jin the city’s best orthopedic specialist.

I paid, but didn’t let Song Yao know. Fang Zhiguo helped transfer the money under the heading of a workplace-injury compensation settlement.

The doctor’s conclusion: full recovery was impossible, but with sustained physiotherapy, some ability to walk might return.

Better than my own situation had been.

Her injury was two vertebrae lower than mine. The nerve damage wasn’t as severe.

When she learned I’d helped, she sent Song Yao to thank me.

This time, he didn’t cry.

He stood before me and bowed deeply.

“We can never repay you.”

“What debt? We’re from the same village.”

“It isn’t that.”

He shook his head.

“You’re different.”

I didn’t ask how.

It no longer mattered.

Two years later, Liu Jin stood with crutches.

She limped, but she could move.

She made a special trip to town and invited me for a drink.

Halfway through, her eyes reddened.

“There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask.”

“Go on.”

“Did you stay away from the river on purpose that day?”

My hand paused around the glass.

“You’re such a good swimmer, but you happened not to go. I kept thinking afterward. Did you know Yaoyao would fall and deliberately avoid it?”

I was silent for a few seconds.

Then I drank.

“You’re overthinking it, Liu Jin. I was chopping wood. I didn’t have time.”

She stared for a long moment.

Then laughed.

“All right. Whatever you say. There are two people I’m most grateful to: Song Yao, for not despising my bad leg, and you, for never treating me like an outsider.”

We touched glasses.

The liquor stung my eyes.

My heart was warm.

Last time, we’d scarcely spoken in our whole lives.

I’d saved Song Yao before she could. She’d resented it and avoided me whenever we met.

Now she was like a sister.

Fate was peculiar.

Sometimes, stepping back let you stand side by side.

**Part 11**

2000.

A new millennium. The country celebrated.

From the top floor of my newly built office building, I looked down at the brightly lit factory grounds.

Hengda Group.

Repair shop to components factory. Factory to corporate group.

Twenty years.

More than two thousand employees.

Automotive components. Precision machining. A new electronic-components business.

Annual output value exceeded a hundred million yuan.

Lin Shu stood beside me. I linked my arm through his.

“When you were crouching outside that little bicycle shop twenty years ago, did you ever imagine this?”

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

“I did.”

He rolled his eyes.

Fireworks crackled in the distance.

Colored sparks burst across the night.