It was a very clean smell, clear and cold. For a man to still have an aura that resembled the morning breeze so many years after becoming an adult, he must be someone who neither smoked nor drank, whose life was extremely disciplined, who had even been fortunate enough to maintain his integrity and principles on his own even in the roiling landslide that was the mortal world.

For a moment, it made one feel shame in their heart.

Gan Qing's mind blanked out. When the melted ice-cream dripped on her fingers, she finally twitched like she was waking up from a dream.

In the quiet little alley, the teenager holding the chocolate ice-cream had already run off far into the distance, the off-beat and off-key song coming from his mouth faintly audible. The little hoodlums at the skewer stall had been scared off by the "Three Stabs Six Holes" jiejie. There was only twilight, only the overlapping shadows.

Even the wind had stopped.

Yu Lanchuan was like a traveller finally reaching the destination he dreamed of, a climber planting a flag on the mountaintop. Full of the satisfaction and exhaustion of accomplishment, he took half a step back and watched Gan Qing's eyes.

Gan Qing's central nervous system had shut down temporarily. Her limbs had no instructions to follow and could only rely on "inertia" to finish doing what she hadn't had the time to just now—which was to stuff the dripping ice-cream into her mouth.

The heavy taste of cream immediately flooded the tip of her tongue, blending in with the dual extreme fire-and-ice taste of mint just now. One side richly sweet, the other clear and austere.

The night wind suddenly rose. The smoke from the skewer stall in the dirty alley blew past. Somewhere nearby, a gremlin kid was playing on a bike, the discordant jingling of the bell sounding non-stop. The bottom of Yu Lanchuan's shoe rubbed a couple of times against the road curb. A lock of hair fell against the center of his handsome forehead, blown by the wind. The overwhelming amount of information flooded Gan Qing's senses. By the time she had put her senses in order and deciphered the information, she had already finished half the ice-cream.

Yu Lanchuan grinded his back molars slightly. "If I may trouble you to give me some guidance, how am I supposed to understand your reaction?"

Gan Qing bit down on the cone as though nothing was happening. It was quite crispy.

One of Yu Lanchuan's eyes started to twitch. "Aren't you being a little bit too-"

"I'm comparing," Gan Qing pressed together her lips that were stained with ice-cream at the corners, "between the two of you to see which one's sweeter."

The soul of her five senses was in her eyes while the lower half of her face had a very low-key appearance. The line of her lips were thin and sharp, and frequently appeared bloodless. It was only when her lips touched something very cold or very hot or very spicy that there would be a bit of a red flush spreading from the middle. It was this little bit of red flush that made Yu Lanchuan's eyes have nowhere to land. His throat twitched and he asked in a rather hoarse voice, "And is there a result to your comparison?"

Gan Qing seemed to want to say something but halfway through her thought, she swallowed it back down. She kept it all in and remained quiet, nibbling on the rest of the ice-cream and smiling the whole while. Just like that, she turned and walked back towards the little restaurant. But her eyes turned after her body; they hooked ruthlessly around Yu Lanchuan's neck, pulling him along.

I was just speaking randomly, how could you really believe me? A little silly, aren't you? Gan Qing thought. How can I compare you to it? This thing is only five yuan.

She went back and asked the boss to wrap up the remaining baked pastries. The boss not only did that but also insisted on giving her another dozen.

Gan Qing said, "Don't add more. How can we not finish eating and then even leave with more?"

"Take it. You two coming here is fate," the boss said. "Eat your fill and save yourself the trouble of missing the taste and not having anywhere to go to get it."

Gan Qing didn't manage to refuse. She could only hook the takeaway bag on Yu Lanchuan's hand and stealthily hid the money to pay for the meal under a glass of water. When the two of them exited the shop, they bumped into two workers working overtime. They were carrying a bucket of oil paint and painting the character for "demolition" on the next street. They would reach this street very soon.

Gan Qing stopped walking and watched them for a while. From the takeaway bag, she took out a baked pastry and stretched out a hand to Yu Lanchuan. "Give me that letter."

Yu Lanchuan hesitated a while. "You still want to read it?"

"I haven't finished reading." Gan Qing held the baked pastry in one hand, her palm catching the falling sesame seeds. She walked backwards. "If I don't understand this matter clearly, how can I put a total end to it?"

She wanted to uncover all the debts and enmity in the past, even if she had already tied them into a dead knot and tossed them into a pot of hot oil herself.

The oil was already bubbling but she still had to reach in herself and dredge them up because those people in her past—the one who treated her well and the one who had done wrong by her—were all no longer here. She was the only one from Wan Mu Chun left, so how could she dare to live such a miserable and scattered life?

And there was also Yu Lanchuan, this fool who turned down all the perfect women of the world and insisted on wasting the best years of his life with her. He had done so many years of risk management but he must have just been doing his work blindly without learning anything. How could she let him lose everything he had worked so hard for?

In an instant, Yu Lanchuan suddenly saw the Gan Qing walking backwards against the light now overlapping with the Gan Qing from many years ago.

Treading on wind, like the intense, fiery clouds at the break or close of day.

Yan Hao swept the floor clean of fur, then lifted his head to look at Qiao-Qiao. She was wearing a face mask and her face seemed to only have a pair of eyes. The little dog that had just been groomed lay obediently in front of her, whining for attention. It was the perfect picture of time passing by peacefully.

Yan Hao thought, All the bad guys are dead. Yang Ping is also in prison. The future will be better.

Qiao-Qiao sensed his gaze and lifted her head to look at him. Yan Hao gave her a foolish laugh. He ran over eagerly to a corner, brought a bag of newly-bought canned pet food over and put it down. He wrote in Qiao-Qiao's book: Why don't you continue your studies? Wouldn't it be good to become a vet?

Qiao-Qiao tilted her head and looked at him.

I have money. Yan Hao wrote every word carefully. I can give it to you for school fees.

There was a flicker in Qiao-Qiao's eyes. She seemed to be smiling. She took the pen and wrote: Little gege, don't be such a nice person. Nice guys finish last and are easily bullied.

Yan Hao didn't take it to heart. He patted the little dog's glossy back and laughed gently as he said goodbye to Qiao-Qiao and left.

Qiao-Qiao watched him leave. The smile in her eyes, like sunlight reflected in clear waves, gradually faded. Through the windows of the shop, she cast a dark look at No. 110 Courtyard, both her hands curling into fists.

The little dog that had been wagging its tail just now let out a howl and leaped down from the counter to hide in a corner.

Zhang Meizhen was accompanying Old Sect Leader Yang at the hospital. In Gan Qing's home, there was no one else.

Yu Lanchuan found a piece of blank paper. "The ones who kidnapped the families of the Beggars' Sect sect elders were from Travellers' Sect. However, Wei Huan and Zhu Cong didn't go after them first because Elder Zhu had taken his revenge back then. Those who were arrested and sentenced were all disciples who had only followed instructions and were not the main culprits. Furthermore, they have served their time in prison, so the debts were cleared. At the very start, the people the two of them traced were the ones who set fire on the building and the ones deemed innocent and released. However, during this process, they realised that something was wrong."

Gan Qing spread Wei Huan's letter out page by page. "Mm. At the start, they naturally assumed that the kidnappers and the one who instructed my… the people who started the fire were from the same group. But when one of them was pleading desperately, he said something suspicious. He said, 'Your side wanted to harm your own people, why must you drag me into it? I only owed a bit of money.'"

When Yu Lanchuan heard this, he put down the pen. "Actually, I have always found two things very strange."

Gan Qing glanced at him.

"Firstly, even if those sect elders weren't at home themselves at that time and there were only the elderly, the womenfolk and the children at home; even if, coincidentally, none of these people could fight, they should still have the time to shout for help, shouldn't they? Some of the victims' families have four or five people. What did they do to control so many people in an instant without making any noise?"

Such things did indeed happen in foreign movies but firstly, the villains there at the very least had guns in their hands and secondly, the place where the victims lived had to be remote enough with a great distance separating them from their neighbours. The victims wouldn't have the time to shout for help.

But Yanning in the eighties was not like that. At that time, many people stayed in small single-story houses and numerous households crammed into each small alley. There was no privacy to speak of between the residents. If a quarrelling couple raised their voices just a little, they might just have busybody neighbours advising them from the other side of the wall. If there were villains barging in, as long as a frightened child shouted, the neighbours in all directions would definitely turn on the lights.

"Secondly, Qiao-Qiao said that her uncle who committed suicide was innocent. Yang Ping had tricked him into being the messenger and used him to clear himself of suspicion when the plot was exposed. Don't you think that this reasoning is very strange? Does the fact that the messenger was on good terms with the victims and that he was a good person proved that he was innocent? Furthermore, even if the messengers were innocent, it doesn't mean that Yang Ping is innocent, does it? Beggars' Sect can't refuse logic just because their ancestors had made begging their main business."

Gan Qing said, "But her uncle, the messenger, is already dead. Since her mum was also sent to his hometown in the village, it shows that Elder Zhu had never suspected the messengers."

"I think that the relationship between those two families didn't only extend as far as 'did not suspect,'" Yu Lanchuan said. "Think about it, if you have a friend who was manipulated by someone and caused the deaths of your entire family, even if this person didn't know at all what would happen and had also committed suicide to redeem himself, would you really not hold a grudge in your heart? Even if Elder Zhu was an exceptionally kind and generous person, and couldn't bear to see a pitiful girl all on her own without anyone to look after her, he could have just found someone in Yanning to take her in. Why must he place her together with his only child who was all he had left? Isn't this too strange?"

Gan Qing was first briefly stunned. Then, she looked up abruptly.

"To support each other in this way," Yu Lanchuan said each word clearly, "they must either have gone through a life-or-death situation together or they must be in cahoots."

Both Old Sect Leader Yang and Zhang Meizhen had been overwhelmed by feelings of love and felt that all the weapons of war could be turned into beautiful jade and silk. But what happened was that not only was Travellers' Sect and Yang Ping dissatisfied, Elder Zhu and his peers were also strongly against Beggars' Sect and Travellers' Sect having a marriage union.

But Yang Qing, the old sect leader, was one of the Five Supremes since before the country's liberation. Having been the sect leader for so many years, he was the one whose word was the absolute truth within the sect. If he had made the resolve to be an "incapable ruler," no matter how much the sect elders opposed him, there was no room for them to say anything… In that case, how could they put a stop to this matter?

Gan Qing's fingers tapped on the edge of the table. "Old Sect Leader Yang is still wielding the Dog Beating Staff at the age of over ninety. If he doesn't fall, the people below him dare not take action. More than thirty years ago, he was in his fifties. He was at the peak of his life, like the sun at midday. Elder Zhu publicly causing a ruckus at an occasion like the Martial Arts General Assembly and embarrassing the sect leader doesn't seem like something a sect elder could do in the first place."

"They first started a conflict on purpose. In the evening, they found an excuse to gather everyone to drink and drown their sorrows together. They discussed with a few friends and took their families to stay the night in another place. They directed and acted out the 'kidnapping' themselves to force Elder Yang to abdicate," Yu Lanchuan said. "Elder Zhu and the others, the messengers, the kidnappers, the victims, Yang Ping—they were all accomplices who knew what was going on from the start. This is the only explanation I can think of."

Right at that moment, the landline in the house rang, interrupting their hair-rising deductions.

Gan Qing picked up the receiver without much thought. "Hello?"

"It's me. You aren't sleeping yet, are you?" Zhang Meizhen asked. "I don't know what happened but there was suddenly a large batch of critically ill patients brought to the hospital. There aren't enough beds to go around and even the corridors are full of patients lying down. It's a mess. Old Yang has recovered quite a bit. We discussed with the doctor, he'll first return home today and we'll complete the discharge paperwork tomorrow. We'll be back soon. I didn't bring my keys. Keep the door unlocked for me."