The night was ink-dark.A woman's voice drifted through the spiral staircase,echoing in every corner of the house—a fragile, wandering ghost of sound.
"You dwell quietly in my heart,as the full moon dwells within the night."
Tagore's words.Ying Ying's favorite line.She recited it again and again, as if it were a promise,as if clinging to it could keep her soul from breaking apart.
Her voice was calm, almost serene,yet her heart was already in ruins —a thousand cracks hidden beneath the surface.Her spirit, like her fate, had wandered too farto remember what home ever felt like.
The dinner downstairs had long gone cold.Gu Cheng crushed the last of his cigarette,the ember dying beneath his fingertips,then turned and walked toward the kitchen.
Outside, the night pressed close.The wind slipped through the narrow cracks of the window,thin, trembling —carrying with it a faint trace of dampness,a scent both lonely and alive.
He carried the dinner and a glass of milk upstairs.
From behind the locked attic door came a whisper —fragile, pleading:
"Brother… let me out. I won't make trouble anymore…"
The voice was soft,but each word struck like a trembling note,clear as glass in the darkness.
Gu Cheng's fingers curled around the tray.He stood motionless before the door,the silence heavy, stretching endlessly between them.
It had been weeks since Liu Yang returned to the country.
On the fifth of the month,at noon,he had an appointment —a formal introduction,an arranged meeting,the kind people call a date.
The meeting had been arranged entirely by Liu Yang's mother, Han Shuhui.By the time he tried to decline, it was already too late.The invitation had been sent, the families connected;to refuse now would be a slight to courtesy itself.
The young woman's father was a well-known figure in the business world,someone Liu Yang had once dined with.Out of respect, he could not ignore the arrangement.
When Fang Xin saw him, he was sitting on the sofa,reading a newspaper,a cup of steaming lemon tea before him.From where she stood, she could see his profile—sharp, elegant, almost severe—and in that stillness,there was a quiet magnetism that drew her breath away.
She had been on many arranged meetings before,but this was the first timeshe understood what people meantby a racing heart and nervous trembling.
Her fingers clutched the spine of a newly bought book.When she finally found her voice, it came out soft, breathless.
"I'm sorry. I stopped by a bookstore and lost track of time."
Liu Yang lowered the newspaper."It's quite all right."
His tone was mild, distant.His fingers rested lightly on the rim of his teacup—long, clean, beautifully shaped.Fang Xin dared not meet his eyes.Instead, she found herself staring at his hands,too aware of every small movement.
Then he spoke again, his voice cool, low, and resonant:
"You like Tagore?"
The question startled her.She followed his gaze—to the slim poetry book lying by her elbow.He was looking at it,and for the briefest moment,a soft light stirred in the depths of his eyes,as though a veil had lifted and something gentler had surfaced.
"I do,"she answered simply.
Before coming, she had read that Liu Yang admired women of few words—women whose silence was an art, not a weakness.
His expression shifted—barely, almost imperceptibly—but something tender rippled beneath his composure.
"Do you have a favorite line?"he asked.
"Yes."
Fang Xin's heart fluttered.She wondered what kind of poetry a man like Liu Yang might love—a man whose every word seemed weighed,whose silence was more eloquent than most people's speech.
After a moment's thought, she spoke softly,her voice trembling just slightly:
"Only the fingers that have bledcan play the world's most haunting song."
She watched him carefully, searching his face for a reaction.But Liu Yang's expression didn't change.The faint smile at the corner of his lips remained,his movements unhurried as he lifted his cup of tea.He drank slowly, gaze drifting somewhere far beyond the moment.When he finally set the cup down,his tone was faint, almost weightless.
"Not bad."
Just two simple words—yet they fell like cold water,and Fang Xin instantly knewshe had failed to reach him.
That evening, October 5th, at The Other Shore Bar.
The owner, Shi Tao, thirty-one,was an old classmate and close friend of Liu Yang's.Everyone called him Stone.He was the kind of man who lived as he pleased—carefree, unrestrained,a believer that life was meant for pleasure, not pressure.Among their circle, no one lived as lightly as Stone did.
Since returning home, Liu Yang had been swept into endless dinner engagements.Before arriving at The Other Shore,he had just left another banquet—half a bottle of hard liquor already in his veins.He looked composed as ever,but the faint heaviness in his gaze betrayed him.
In the private room, Shi Tao handed him a glass of warm water,his tone laced with concern.
"If you keep going like this,"he said quietly,"you'll destroy yourself."