After leaving the hot spring, we returned to the hotel room.
Dianzi's light pink bikini had been soaked loose by the spring water. Her white cover-up clung to her back.
She stood in front of the mirror and tugged at it. The fabric bunched into a wrinkled mess between her shoulder blades.
I changed into a fresh bikini and cover-up, gathered my wet hair to one side, and wrung it out.
Water droplets dripped onto the carpet, seeping into a few dark little circles. The drops sank into the carpet fibers fast, as if something beneath were pulling them under.
The café at the Mistveil Hot Spring Resort sat deep in the bamboo grove.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows was that bamboo path. The streetlamps cast the shadows of bamboo leaves onto the stone slabs.
When the wind blew, the shadows shattered into a shifting dark pattern.
A fallen leaf was being pushed along the bamboo path by the wind, rolling from one circle of lamplight into the shadows, then from the shadows into the next circle of light.
I smoothed my cover-up. Dianzi wore her light pink bikini and white cover-up.
Her peach-pink single-tone long hair was wound into a bun, a few stray strands clinging behind her ears.
Yuan Yewei had asked to meet us here.
When he walked in, he paused. The two girls sitting in the booth were the same faces he had pulled from the hot spring pool just hours ago.
His footsteps halted at the door, the glass door behind him still slowly swinging shut.
I looked up at him, eyes wide, and stood up abruptly. The chair pushed back half an inch. The chair leg scraped a short, sharp screech against the marble floor.
I turned to look at Dianzi. She had recognized him too.
"It's you. You saved us."
"No need to thank me. Anyone would have done the same."
Dianzi stood up, walked around the table, and stopped in front of Yuan Yewei.
The hem of her cover-up brushed past the table corner, kicking up an extremely faint rustle.
"Not everyone would have done the same. Some people would have stood at the side and watched. Some people wouldn't have even looked."
She turned back to look at me. I was already walking over.
The two of us stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Yuan Yewei. Then, at the same moment, we both dropped to our knees.
The café carpet was very thin. Our knees hit the marble floor with a dull thud, like some kind of muted drumbeat.
The impact trembled through the floor for a moment before dissipating. The hem of Dianzi's cover-up spread across the floor, its edge trembling slightly.
"What are you doing? Get up, quickly." Yuan Yewei reached out to help us up, his fingers opening and clenching in the air, not knowing which of us to help first.
His hand moved between the two of us twice. His fingertips brushed the cover-up fabric on Dianzi's shoulder, then pulled back.
I lifted my head and looked at him. My eyes were red-rimmed.
"This life was given by you. From today on, you are our master. A life-saving debt can only be repaid like a gushing spring. We don't know how to repay it. We can only repay it with our whole lives."
Yuan Yewei froze. His hand stopped in midair. His lips moved. No sound came out.
Dianzi tilted her face up at him. Her eyes were bright. Her lashes still held traces of dampness that hadn't dried.
"Take us in. We don't know where to go anyway. If we follow you, we'll know what to do."
——After giving the life back, I realized: what was owed wasn't a life. It was a direction.
Yuan Yewei looked at the two young women kneeling before him. He was silent for a long time.
The only sounds in the café were the hum of the air conditioning and the distant clink of cups and plates from the kitchen.
His fingers rubbed once against the seam of his trousers, then fell still. The coffee behind him had gone cold long ago, the steam above the cup long since vanished.
"Get up first. Then we'll talk."
He reached out and helped Dianzi up first, his palm supporting her elbow. The motion was very light.
Then he helped me up. When his fingers touched my elbow, they paused for a beat, then steadily lifted me.
"Get up. What are you doing? I don't need you to kneel."
I gripped his hand and wouldn't let go. The pad of my finger pressed against his wrist. I could feel the faint pulse under the skin.
"Then you agree."
Yuan Yewei let out a sigh. The breath escaped through his nose. His shoulders sank a little with it. "Sit down first."
The three of us settled back into our seats. Yuan Yewei began talking about the price war.
A competitor had snatched all his orders at thirty percent below cost. He held out for three months. The capital chain snapped.
The day the suppliers blocked his door, he pulled the blinds down in his office, sat in the darkness, and listened to the shouting and cursing outside for an entire afternoon. He only cried after the door had closed.
He spoke flatly—completely different from the force of those chest compressions at the poolside last night.
When he got to the part about the suppliers blocking his door, his right hand spread open on the tabletop and clenched again. Twice.
There was a small ring-shaped coffee stain on the tabletop. Each time his hand spread open, it landed right beside that ring.
"From now on, you won't have to carry these things alone." After listening, I only said this one line.
"Right. We're here now." Dianzi added.
The whole time he spoke, Yuan Yewei's fingers kept rubbing the wedding ring mark on his ring finger.
That circle of skin was a full shade paler than the rest. The edges had been worn smooth.
When he left, he paused at the door, his hand resting on the handle. He didn't look back.
The metal reflection from the door handle shone on the back of his hand, and that pale ring was lit up with unusual clarity.
"What you said just now—did you mean it? About the master thing."
"We meant it. For a lifetime."
He pushed the door open and walked out. When the door closed, it brought in a small draft of cool air, lifting the napkin on the table and setting it back down.
The napkin flipped once in the air before landing back on the table.
Outside the window, the stroller tracks along the bamboo path had already been dampened by the night mist. The edges were blurred a shade.
The tracks stretched from one end of the bamboo path to the other, curving midway and vanishing deep into the bamboo grove.
The café lights felt superfluous in the dim atmosphere. A server walked over and turned off the overhead lamp.
We sat in the booth as the light gradually dimmed. Neither of us moved.