Chapter 55
On the way back, Jiang Mu had originally wanted to explain something. She felt that if she didn’t, it might completely shatter Pan Kai’s worldview.
But what she didn’t expect at all was that Pan Kai instead looked at her with a gaze full of admiration and said, “So that means… you’re Seventh Brother’s girl now, right?”
Jiang Mu was stunned. She didn’t understand why that sentence, coming out of Pan Kai’s mouth, made it sound like she belonged to some gang boss. And more importantly, what exactly was he admiring her for?
Before Jiang Mu could say anything, Pan Kai kept promising over and over that he would take this secret to the grave, even if the heavens struck him with lightning. Just before he left, he added a “May the gods protect you,” and then hurried off in a fluster. From that day on, Jiang Mu barely saw Pan Kai again. She had no idea what kind of psychological damage she and Jin Zhao had caused to his innocent young soul.
For Jin Chao, the following days were a final race against time. Jiang Mu had asked him exactly when the race would be, but he never gave her a definite date.
The garage was in a semi-shutdown state now, only Xiao Yang was holding the fort, occasionally serving some regular customers. They hardly took on any complicated work anymore.
And when Jin Chao told her he would pick her up on the 15th, Jiang Mu only realized after getting home that the 15th was her birthday or rather, their birthday. She figured she should probably prepare a birthday present for Jin Chao, so she used the free time over the next few days to stroll around the shopping streets.
But when the 15th finally arrived, Jiang Mu was inexplicably nervous. She couldn’t explain why, but from the moment she woke up, her mood was strangely high. She dug out a brand-new hair clip she had never worn before, and pinned it to one side, a delicate piece with faintly sparkling crystals. She even deliberately put on a pure white dress, a habit she had kept since childhood, though the frilly dresses had since been replaced with form-fitting ones. And then she waited quietly for Jin Chao.
Sitting in front of the dressing table and gazing into the mirror, Jiang Mu looked at the lace trim on her collar and suddenly felt like a bride on her wedding day, dressed in sacred white, waiting for her destined one. The feeling was subtle and hard to describe.
At four o’clock, Jin Chao called her to come downstairs. Carrying an enormous gift box, she stepped into the waiting taxi. Jin Chao had already informed the driver of their destination, and the car navigated its way there. Though the distance wasn’t too far, the location was already quite remote.
After getting out of the car, Jiang Mu stood by the roadside. There were no other cars around, no buildings in sight. Far in the distance stretched endless farmland. The setting sun was slowly descending, painting the edge of the sky in a gradient of orange. Bathed in the golden light, her white silhouette seemed wrapped in a soft, hazy glow.
From the end of the road came the low roar of an engine. Two seconds later, a black car sliced through the sunset like a streak, stopping right in front of her before she even had time to make out its shape.
Staring at the car, Jiang Mu could no longer recognize its original form. Though still understatedly black, its entire structure had been reshaped. The body, now crafted from carbon fiber and aluminum alloy, featured redesigned bumpers, side skirts, and an aggressive aerodynamic kit with a rear wing. It looked like a completely reborn beast, wild, fierce, and utterly transformed.
The sheer, domineering presence of the car left Jiang Mu stunned. Then, Jin Chao pushed open the door and stepped out, dressed in matte-black racing gear. His tall figure stood against the blazing sunset as he flashed her a grin and said, “May I have the honor of inviting you to be the first passenger in this car’s co-pilot seat? My navigator.”
A smile spread across Jiang Mu’s face as she handed him the gift box, so large it dwarfed her upper body. Jin Chao looked at the oversized box and asked, “What is it?”
Jiang Mu replied mysteriously, “You’ll find out when we get back.”
Once she got into the car, the high-tech interior and the roll cage left Jiang Mu utterly dazed. Jin Chao fastened a six-point safety harness for her. Everything in front of her made it feel like she wasn’t sitting in an ordinary car but a full-fledged battle machine.
After completing a series of preparations, Jin Chao turned to her and asked, “Do you know what the destiny of a GTR is?”
Jiang Mu’s heart began to race. Jin Chao stared at her intently. “On the track. My destiny is to conquer the track. Are you ready?”
Jiang Mu swallowed nervously and gave a small nod. As Jin Chao turned his gaze back to the road, his smile had already faded. His eyes burned like stars, like fire The headlights flared to life, and in a blistering 2.5-second sprint to 100 km/h, the sheer G-force pinned Jiang Mu to her seat. It felt like her soul had vaporized in an instant. The vast sunset turned into a blurred filter, and she heard the primal roar of the engine. In Jin Chao’s eyes burned a daredevil recklessness, a refusal to back down from any challenge as he charged forward, taking her farther than she’d ever been.
Sitting beside him, her adrenaline spiked beyond measure. That feeling of skimming the edge of death carved itself permanently into her bones. This was the wildest memory of her youth, imprinted forever on her 19th birthday.
…
As the sun finally dipped below the horizon, Jiang Mu had no idea where Jin Chao had taken her. She asked, “Are we already out of Tonggang?”
To her surprise, Jin Chao replied freely, “Maybe. We’ll just drive wherever the road takes us.”
As the car gradually slowed down, Jiang Mu also relaxed into a smile. Yes, wherever they ended up didn’t really matter. As long as they were together, did it really make a difference where they went?
Jin Chao rolled down the window, and Jiang Mu stretched her arm out into the wind. The breeze brushed past her skin, cool and refreshing. Since they had no set destination anyway, Jiang Mu simply pointed wherever she felt like, and Jin Chao followed.
She relied entirely on instinct, whichever road looked pleasant, she told Jin Chao to turn onto it. The car meandered through unfamiliar paths and along narrow dirt roads between the fields. It felt like an adventure, and every bit of scenery became a one-of-a-kind picture.
Later, under Jiang Mu’s rather unreliable navigation, they ended up on a path with no streetlights and no turns, flanked entirely by woods. Despite the summer heat, there was a chilling breeze that made the place feel a little eerie.
Jiang Mu closed the window, starting to feel scared. Jin Chao chuckled, kept one hand on the steering wheel, and gently took her hand with the other.
After driving for about ten more minutes, they finally saw some lights by the roadside, it was a small rural guesthouse at the edge of a village. Jin Chao glanced at her and asked, “Hungry?”
Jiang Mu nodded, and he pulled the car into the guesthouse courtyard.
It was summer vacation, and the guesthouse had a few tables of guests seated on the first floor. The owner, a woman in her forties, came out warmly to greet them. “There are still some tables out back. If you don’t mind, you can sit there. It’s a bit quieter.”
Jin Chao looked at Jiang Mu, and when she nodded, he drove the car straight to the backyard.
All the other guests were in the main hall at the front, and the backyard was indeed very quiet. A wooden table stood under a single bulb that the owner’s son had strung up for them. The night was cool, with two stray dogs wandering around and the distant chirping of cicadas filling the air. The breeze carried the fresh scent of the countryside.
Jiang Mu propped her chin up with both hands on the table while Jin Chao got up to go order the food.
From the first dish to the last, Jiang Mu kept giving him a thumbs-up. For someone as picky as her to do that was no small feat.
This unexpected find along the way had her buzzing with excitement. She even gloated to Jin Chao, “See? I told you to take this road! If we’d turned back earlier, we’d have missed this place. I’m so clever!”
Jin Chao played along with a smile and teased, “What bad habit did you pick up from San Lai this time?”
Jiang Mu thought about San Lai’s classic self-praising style of conversation and burst out laughing with him.
By the time they finished eating, Jin Chao was holding a handful of corn kernels, tossing them toward a flock of chickens in the distance. Jiang Mu took some from him and went to feed them herself. Even this simple amusement could entertain a city girl like her for ages. When she finally ran out of corn and turned back, the plates on the table had been cleared away and replaced by a cake with a lit candle in the center. And there sat Jin Chao, his gaze deep and steady in the flickering light, watching her.
In this unexpected countryside guesthouse, beside a remote village in the middle of nowhere, where even a convenience store couldn’t be found, the cake before her looked like something Jin Chao had conjured by magic. Jiang Mu covered her face, unable to hide the surprise and joy in her eyes, and asked, “Where did this come from?”
A few mischievous kids were peeking around the wall, grinning at Jiang Mu. The lady owner came over and pulled them away, scolding, “Don’t bother the guests.”
Jin Zhao reminded her, “The candles are almost burnt out. Come, make a wish.”
Jiang Mu quickly returned to her seat. She always treated birthday wishes with great sincerity. Just before closing her eyes, she said to Jin Chao, “You make one too.”
After murmuring her wish under her breath, she fluttered her lashes open. Candlelight danced across Jin Chao’s features. He hadn’t made a wish, instead, he had been watching her the entire time, a soft smile on his face, and in his eyes a gentle, captivating light. The candles went out, but the light in his gaze ignited a fire in Jiang Mu’s heart.
He reached over and removed the candles from the cake. Jiang Mu studied him thoughtfully. She and Jin Chao shared the same birthday. From as far back as she could remember until the day he left, they had celebrated their birthdays together every year.
As a child, she never found anything special. Every year, she looked forward to her birthday just so she could have cake. But now, looking at him, Jiang Mu suddenly realized that back then, their family wasn’t well-off. Her parents would only buy one cake a year, always on her birthday. This meant that every year, Jin Chao’s birthday was simply folded into hers. His real birthday had gone unacknowledged, without even a single word of celebration.
Jin Chao cut the piece with the chocolate and handed it to her, just like when they were kids and she’d always get the piece with extra fruit or the decorative frosting flowers. Jiang Mu looked down at the cake in front of her, a surge of emotions rising in her chest.
Jiang Mu held her little fork and looked up at Jin Zhao, asking, “Aren’t you going to eat?”
Jin Chao wasn’t fond of sweets and only took a symbolic bite.
Jiang Mu kept watching him, her eyes flickering with emotion as she asked, “When’s your real birthday?”
Jin Chao’s hand paused as he held the fork, and then he absently stirred the cream in front of him. In his memory, it seemed no one had ever asked him that before. He had no recollection of whether he’d ever celebrated a birthday before the age of two. After Jiang Mu was born, he celebrated his birthday with her every year. As a child, he had no real concept of birth dates, and always thought his birthday was the same as Jiang Mu’s.
It wasn’t until he transferred to a school in Tonggang that he had to start filling out forms with his own date of birth, and later, when he received his ID card, he came to know the actual date.
But after so many years of celebrating this day, it simply became his birthday too. The day he was actually born had long since become nothing more than a string of numbers on official documents, nothing more.
Jin Chao replied lightly, “It doesn’t matter.”
Jiang Mu, however, said earnestly, “How can it not matter? That was the day you came into this world.”
He replied with calm indifference, “All these years, I’ve never paid attention to it. The only date I remember… is the day you came into this world.”
Jiang Mu lowered her gaze, her chest tight with an unnameable heaviness. She didn’t quite understand why, but she felt a pang of sadness. Every year, she happily celebrated their shared birthday with Jin Chao, yet his real birthday had never been this day at all. Her heart ached for him, so much so that it was hard to breathe.
Seeing her keep her head down as she quietly ate the cake without saying a word, Jin Chao leaned closer to get a better look. When he saw her red-rimmed eyes, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
Jiang Mu lowered her head even further. Seeing her dodge him like that, Jin Chao half-smiled and said, “Don’t tell me… you’re crying?”
When she still didn’t respond, Jin Chao’s smile faded. He stood up and gently scooped her out of her seat, lowering his head and asking in surprise, “Why are you crying like this, huh?”
Jiang Mu looked up at him with tear-filled eyes and choked out, “I just… feel a little sorry for you.”
Jin Chao’s brow softened. He pulled her into his arms, gently pressing her head against his chest, and comforted her in a quiet voice, “Silly girl.”
Jin Chao was someone who almost seemed born without tear ducts, no matter how dire the situation, his eyes rarely reddened. He had always been like that, even as a kid. Even when he got beaten, he’d just grit his teeth and wear that stubborn, unyielding look, never learning how to show weakness.
Back then, he could never quite grasp Jiang Mu’s peculiar triggers for tears. Watching a cartoon where a little piglet lost its mother would make her cry; seeing a little girl drop her lollipop could also leave her eyes brimming with tears. Whenever he caught her weeping over these inexplicable scenes, Jin Chao would find it endlessly amusing, never missing a chance to tease her.
Back in those days, he probably never imagined that this girl’s grown-up tears would one day tighten his own chest. He dipped his finger in some cream and dabbed it on her lips. “Now that’s even sillier. Cry a little harder for me, let’s see.”
Jiang Mu instantly stopped crying and blurted out, “If you keep doing that, I won’t play with you anymore.”
Jin Chao’s smile gradually spread across his face. He lowered his head and kissed her lips, licking away the cream, his voice low and temptingly sensual, “Oh? Do you still want to play with me? What exactly did you have in mind?”
His hands rested on her waist, fingers pressing lightly, then more firmly. The dim lighting set the perfect mood, the starry sky stretching above them. Jiang Mu could only feel the restless tremors Jin Chao ignited deep within her, impossible to ignore. Her legs weakened slightly, and she surrendered. “Fine, no more playing.”
When it came to playing with fire, she was no match for Jin Zhao.
Later, they shared the remaining cake with the owner’s young son and a nephew visiting for summer vacation. When they went back to the front hall, Jiang Mu unexpectedly spotted a guzheng in the corner, covered with a cloth. She lifted one corner of the cloth to take a peek. The owner smiled and asked, “Do you know how to play the guzheng?”
Jiang Mu turned around and replied, “A little bit.”
The owner lady told her that the guzheng had been acquired last year from a teacher in the village. It was very cheap and mostly kept there as decoration. Sometimes visiting children liked to pluck at it for fun, but they had never had a guest who actually knew how to play.
Jiang Mu glanced back at Jin Chao. He was standing outside the hall in the courtyard, lighting a cigarette. She turned her gaze back to the owner and quietly asked, “May I play it?”
The owner smiled. “Of course you can.”
So Jiang Mu lifted the cover and found a pair of finger picks inside the instrument’s case. She carefully repositioned all the bridges and tuned the strings with practiced precision. Hearing the familiar sounds, Jin Chao turned around.
Seated before the aged guzheng, Jiang Mu’s white dress glowed warmly under the light. As her wrist fell gently, a string of beautiful notes poured from her fingertips. Jin Chao’s cigarette burned slowly between his fingers as he stood there, staring at her. Her figure overlapped with the one in his memories.
She started learning the guzheng when she was only six. In the winter, the adhesive tape on her fingers would tear her skin, and she’d cry from the pain as she tried to practice. Back then, she could barely stumble through a children’s song, never managing to finish even one without mistakes.
She had no natural gift for music, it had taken her ages just to learn to read simplified notation. The effortless grace of her playing now spoke of years of unseen effort.
Many of the guests inside came out to watch. Some took out their phones to record, others paused to listen. The piece she was playing was a guzheng rendition of “Blowing Dreams to Xizhou” (吹梦到西洲).
“The southern wind knows my heart, blowing dreams to Xizhou. In youth, you came, in old age, you left. I can’t let go of you, and I never stop searching.”
The guzheng’s melody, tender yet profound, wove a tapestry of longing, pulling listeners into its poetic world. The clumsy little girl of yesteryear had blossomed into someone who could command the room with a single sweep of her fingers. Every glance and every movement was spellbinding.
As the final note faded, the lingering melody echoed in the air, followed by a wave of applause. Jiang Mu turned around in surprise, not realizing when so many people had gathered behind her.
She searched the crowd for Jin Chao and there he was, standing just outside the circle of people, eyes blazing with a deep, unwavering gaze fixed solely on her.