Dawn and Dusk
Is that how you’re supposed to help me out of an awkward situation? Rong Ci nearly choked on her corn juice.
Fortunately, the last remnants of her table manners kicked in just in time, and she managed to cover her mouth with a napkin.
After composing herself, Rong Ci tried to salvage the situation. “He didn’t mean it that way.”
Her colleagues exchanged knowing looks. “We get it. We all get it.”
Watching them walk away, whispering into one another’s ears and sneaking giggles, Rong Ci felt as though the sky had fallen on her.
Her dignity was completely gone!!
Rong Ci’s bright, captivating peach-blossom eyes turned to glare at Xie Xunzhao, and she was just about to demand an explanation.
Xie Xunzhao thought of the screenshot Rong Qingtiao had sent that morning. “Rong Mumu, do you know what you did wrong?”
His tone was mild, but the intimidation power was off the charts.
???
Wait, what?
Is this an interrogation?
Who’s the judge, and who’s the criminal here?
Rong Ci almost couldn’t keep up. “What did I do wrong?”
Her question sounded a little guilty. After all, she’d been making far too many mistakes lately.
Staying up late, sneaking around on her phone, not eating properly, and before he arrived yesterday, she’d even eaten two popsicles.
Xie Xunzhao laid out her offenses plainly. “From now on, you’re not allowed to call Rong Qingtiao “Big Brother” anymore.”
Thank goodness. He didn’t find out.
Rong Ci’s gaze wavered for a moment before she took a sip of corn juice as though nothing had happened. “You don’t want to be my brother anymore, yet you still want to monopolize the title?”
Xie Xunzhao replied in a mild, even tone, “That’s just how I am.”
Rong Ci felt that Xie Xunzhao was becoming increasingly impossible to reason with, but she didn’t want to go on going through old accounts. Xie Xunzhao was far too sharp—there was a very good chance he was fishing.
To avoid a disastrous slipup, her quick little brain took a turn and changed the subject. “How come Rong Qingtiao tells you everything? You two have been sneaking around behind my back again.”
Is that even what sneaking around meant?
Xie Xunzhao set down his chopsticks and looked up at her. “I’ll hire you a tutor when we get back.”
Rong Ci decided to go on the offensive and held out her palm toward him.
Xie Xunzhao obligingly took her hand.
Rong Ci: “?”
“I meant, give me your phone!”
Xie Xunzhao showed no intention of handing it over, and instead, he changed the way he held her hand, lacing their fingers together.
Their fingers laced, palm against palm, and he even leisurely rubbed his thumb between her fingers.
Rong Ci’s heart gave a little flutter. A moment later, she belatedly realized just how intimate holding hands like this was.
Forcing herself to remain calm, she put on a deliberately probing expression. “You won’t give me your phone. Do you really have a secret?”
Xie Xunzhao looked at her without the slightest change in expression. “It’s in my pocket. Take it yourself.”
His trouser pocket.
Ah, this…
Before, Rong Ci would have reached in without a second thought, but now she was a mature Mumu.
Rong Ci hesitated, reached out, then pulled her hand back. “Wouldn’t that be inappropriate?”
Xie Xunzhao remained perfectly composed. “Then don’t get it.”
The more nonchalant he acted, the more Rong Ci suspected that he was deliberately keeping her from looking at his phone, which only made her more convinced that there had to be a secret on it.
Under the table, Rong Ci thought for a moment before tilting her knee and lightly bumping his long leg. “X-Xunzhao?”
She wasn’t very practiced at this, so she even stammered a little.
A few seconds later, Xie Xunzhao replied with dignified restraint, “Mm.”
If a problem could be solved with two words, there was no need to do anything more.
Rong Ci successfully took the phone from Xie Xunzhao’s hand. Face recognition unlocked it automatically, and she opened WeChat with practiced ease.
The two most recent messages were screenshots of conversations with her.
The two most recent messages: the two of them screenshotting their chat pages with her to each other. Xie Xunzhao had screenshotted the little essay she’d posted in the second-generation group. Rong Qingtiao had screenshotted the string of “Big Brother”s.
Rong Ci stared at the screen in disbelief before waving it at him. “Do I have no privacy at all?!”
What is the point of private chats!
Why don’t the two of them just post it publicly!
Xie Xunzhao had never screenshotted his conversations with Rong Qingtiao and sent them to her, nor had Rong Qingtiao.
Rong Ci narrowed her eyes dangerously. She had decided to sabotage the close, seemingly harmonious relationship between these two black-bellied men.
Rong Ci opened video mode and pointed the camera at Xie Xunzhao. “Say, ‘Rong Qingtiao and I have a plastic friendship, but Rong Mumu and I are the closest people in the whole world.’”
Xie Xunzhao actually played along. “Rong Qingtiao and I have a plastic friendship, but Rong Mumu and I are the closest people in the whole world.”
“Would you like me to post it on Moments as an official announcement?”
Originally, Rong Ci had only intended to send the video privately to Rong Qingtiao to remind him where he stood.
At Xie Xunzhao’s suggestion, she hesitated a little, but Xie Xunzhao had already snatched her phone away.
“Hey! I haven’t decided yet!”
“Already posted.”
His fingers were fast.
Qin Fan: “@Helios Congratulations to my son for unlocking the skill Showing Off His Love! Mommy is so happy I could cry! All these years of raising you haven’t gone to waste. @Xie Yanli, Dad, say something too and give him some encouragement.”
Xie Yanli: “Keep up the good work. @Helios”
Rong Qingtiao: “You two, husband and wife, settle my appearance fee immediately. Right now.”
Jiang Fulan: “Very trendy. Even your Moments posts are a matching couple’s set. [Applause.jpg]”
Seeing Brother Lan’s comment finally reminded Rong Ci of the last time she’d posted on Moments to announce that Xie Xunzhao was her closest and dearest brother.
It had only been a few days, yet she could no longer relate to her former self.
However…
Rong Ci went still, because she’d noticed that the tone her family and friends used treated her and Xie Xunzhao as newlyweds entirely naturally when teasing them. As if everyone had swiftly accepted their transition from siblings to husband and wife.
No transition needed, including Xie Xunzhao.
In the whole world, she was the only exception.
Was there something strange about her, or was everyone else the strange one?
Rong Ci considered it carefully for a moment and reached a conclusion: it must be because they were all too slow on the uptake.
“Researching architecture and busying yourself with restoring painted sculptures are both very dull. Why don’t you go have a look around outside?”
On the bluestone path, Rong Ci turned her head toward the man walking beside her.
Most of the trees in Xuncheng were centuries old, some even a thousand years or more. Their branches blotted out the sky, and when the breeze passed through, the shade was not merely cool but carried a faint, almost shivering chill.
Xie Xunzhao took off his jacket and draped it over Rong Ci’s shoulders. “I came to keep you company, not to go on vacation.”
“As long as you don’t find it boring.”
Because of last night’s “accident” Xie Xunzhao had orchestrated, Rong Ci kept feeling that being around him wasn’t quite natural.
Siblings who weren’t siblings, spouses who weren’t spouses. Very strange.
She didn’t like this awkward atmosphere.
Yet Xie Xunzhao seemed to be enjoying himself. The corners of his lips were even faintly curved upward.
What’s he so happy about?
Is he making fun of her?
Is it that funny?
When they reached a bend in the path, they came upon a well, with an ancient camphor tree standing quietly beside it. The stone tablet next to it read: Hundred-Year Well.
According to legend, countless people in this area had lived to a hundred over the past thousand years, with some even setting Guinness World Records. They all supposedly shared one thing in common: they had been drinking water from this well since childhood.
Over time, a legend had taken hold that anyone who drank its water would live to a hundred.
The water was crystal clear.
Rong Ci suddenly stopped and looked at the reflections on the water’s surface, as if held up by a thin mist, real and unreal at once, impossible to tell apart.
Then she spoke softly. “Brother, do you think if I drink water from this well, I’ll live to a hundred?”
Xie Xunzhao’s eyes were even deeper than the water in the thousand-year-old well. “You don’t need to drink it.”
The cicadas and birds in the trees seemed to fall silent in an instant.
Rong Ci was caught by his gaze. He knew perfectly well that wasn’t what she was asking.
At Hanchan Temple, Rong Ci headed straight for the main hall, but Xie Xunzhao caught her by the fingertips. “No rush.”
“What is it?”
Rong Ci turned her head slightly. Her hair fell well past her waist, its inky blackness standing out against her snow-white cheeks. A breeze carrying the fresh scent of leaves swept past, gently curling the ends of her hair.
“You haven’t tied your hair up.”
Rong Ci instinctively touched her hair. “I forgot.”
All morning, her mind had been filled with Xie Xunzhao. She hadn’t spared a single thought for anything else.
She had promised Chu Chengji yesterday that she would help out for another day. Her hair was too long to be convenient when climbing up and down the scaffolding.
The temple stood halfway up the mountain. Going back to fetch a hair tie would waste too much time. After helping Chu Chengji, she still had to meet up with Teacher Shen to continue the inspection.
The next moment, Xie Xunzhao produced a black hair tie as if by magic, slipping it off his wrist. “Turn around.”
“Huh?” Rong Ci was surprised. The watch had concealed it earlier, and she hadn’t noticed it at all. “When did you start carrying that around?”
Given the difference in their heights, he could tie her hair while they both stood comfortably upright. “I’ve always carried one.”
Xie Xunzhao answered with unruffled composure. For whom he had been carrying it went without saying.
Rong Ci’s hair was silky smooth. He used his fingers as a comb, running them from the crown of her head all the way to the ends. His touch was neither too firm nor too light, just right. It was no different from the way he used to comb her hair when they were children.
And yet this time, when his fingertips brushed over her scalp, Rong Ci felt as though she was being gently undone from within; even her legs went weak.
The next second, his arm tightened around her waist.
Xie Xunzhao steadied her with one arm. “Don’t move.”
Rong Ci used his support to regain her balance. To hide the panic in her eyes, she lowered her lashes and blurted out without thinking, “That’s because you pulled my hair and hurt me!”
The moment she said it, she regretted it a little.
That excuse didn’t hold up at all!
Unexpectedly, Xie Xunzhao simply replied, “I’ll be gentler.”
Without Rong Ci making trouble, he quickly braided her hair into a loose fishtail braid swept to one side.
Rong Ci pressed her lips together and looked down at the braid hanging over her shoulder. It was beautifully loose and relaxed, more intricate and elegant than anything she could manage herself.
Out of habit, she wanted to shower him with praise, but the moment she looked up and met his eyes, the words caught in her throat. Suddenly, she couldn’t think of a single playful remark.
Xie Xunzhao gently rubbed the top of her head. “Go inside.”
“Don’t mess up my braid!”
“If I do, I’ll braid it again.”
“I want to keep this one.”
Rong Ci’s heart was in a mess. It wasn’t until she entered the main hall and the faint scent of sandalwood slowly soothed her restless mind that she finally began to settle down.
She lifted her head slightly and looked at the statue. As her eyes grew accustomed to its features, the wrathful expression that had initially seemed terrifying gradually took on an air of compassion.
Calm down. Calm down!
She couldn’t let her mind wander while restoring a sacred statue. Hadn’t Mom taught her that the first rule of restoration was concentration?
She absolutely could not turn a wrathful deity into Maitreya Buddha. If someone photographed her “masterpiece” and posted it online, it would become a lifelong source of embarrassment. Every family gathering afterward would be another opportunity for relatives and friends to bring it up and have a good laugh.
Knowing Rong Qingtiao, he would probably bring out a projector and display her “masterpiece of the ages” on the big screen for everyone to admire!
Rong Ci had inherited Gu Xingtan’s ability to concentrate. Before long, she had settled her emotions and begun working in earnest.
Meanwhile, Xie Xunzhao watched her hurry off and followed at an unhurried pace.
Rong Ci climbed the ladder and nimbly made her way up the side of the statue, taking care not to show the slightest disrespect to the deity. She had always been like that.
Though deep down she didn’t believe the gods and Buddhas favored her, she still held them, and all life, in reverence. And she had always known what she wanted.
Xie Xunzhao’s gaze shifted to the waist-high incense burner in front of the hall, a bronze dragon’s head, carved along its rim, with layer upon layer of incense ash filling the basin, and scattered sticks of incense still burning. In the shafts of sunlight, tiny particles drifted through the air, as though the wishes of countless worshippers over the past thousand years were still lingering there.
Yet his gaze remained fixed on Rong Ci.
The expression on her face when she had asked that question beside Hundred-Year Well surfaced in his mind, and his eyes grew deeper and quieter.
Chu Chengji, who had gone to fetch some tools, spotted Xie Xunzhao from a distance. Remembering the financial news articles he had looked up the previous day, he recalled that this man was the newly appointed head of the Xie Group.
His gaze swept across the other side halls. He gritted his teeth, steeled himself, and stepped forward. “Mr. Xie.”
The man before him was tall and straight, dressed in a luxurious, lustrous suit that exuded refinement without concealing his natural air of elegance and charm. At first glance, he was unmistakably the sort of powerful figure accustomed to standing above everyone else.
He was nothing like the courteous, gentle man who had been beside Rong Ci the previous day.
Standing face-to-face with him, Chu Chengji experienced a fleeting moment of regret.
What on earth possessed me to be so daring as to stop a big guy like this?
“Is there something?” Xie Xunzhao lowered his gaze slightly, softening the chill in his expression.
He had already stopped him. There was no backing out now. Might as well give it a shot!
Chu Chengji hesitated. “Mr. Xie, could you come with me to one of the side halls? You’ll understand when you see it.”
Truthfully, he didn’t expect much. Yet, to his surprise, Xie Xunzhao actually went with him.
The statue Chu Chengji had been restoring was far from the only one in need of attention. The statues in numerous side halls showed varying degrees of deterioration, and the wooden doors, windows, and eaves had also sustained damage.
Realizing that Mr. Xie might not be as aloof and cold as he appeared, Chu Chengji finally opened up.
“Many of the statues here need restoration, not to mention the doors, windows, eaves, and other structures. Unfortunately, none of them have been repaired. I’ve inspected them. Unless a more experienced and professional restoration team is brought in soon, the painted surfaces on these statues will soon peel off completely. Once that happens, restoring them will be much more difficult. The doors and windows also require precious materials.”
“But the abbot says there’s no money for it, so they only intend to restore the statue that has suffered the most severe damage.”
“Sigh, Hanchan Temple is supposedly a thousand-year-old temple, yet it can’t even afford to hire a few professional restoration specialists.”
“It’s a shame. All those claims of thriving incense offerings, and still…”
That was precisely why there wasn’t a trace of commercialization here.
“I wanted to ask you, Mr. Xie…” It was Chu Chengji’s first time asking someone for financial help, and the words came out awkwardly.
Xie Xunzhao’s gaze rested on the rows of statues, always looking down from on high, surveying the greed, anger, delusion, and hatred of the world, and yet with compassion in their eyes, as though they would take pity on every devout believer.
“I understand,” Xie Xunzhao replied calmly.
Chu Chengji was about to continue persuading him, but he paused.
Forget it.
Restoring a thousand-year-old temple would cost a fortune in both labor and materials. Who would willingly spend that much money repairing a temple for no apparent return?
Especially a temple like this, with no trace of commercialization. It would be money thrown into a bottomless pit.
The man was wealthy, but that didn’t make him a fool.
Watching Chu Chengji walk away, Xie Xunzhao calmly called Secretary Su.
When Su Qingyan heard that his boss was taking annual leave only to start giving money away again, he was already well accustomed to it. “Yes. I’ll contact the person in charge at Hanchan Temple right away.”
Ever since Xie Xunzhao turned eighteen, charitable donations had accounted for more than half the expenditures from his personal account, which was a staggering sum. And every penny had come from his own wealth, not the family fortune.
Besides charity and philanthropy, no one knew how many temples on the verge of closure he had helped rebuild, or how much he had donated toward restoring temples like Hanchan. Funding the restoration of statues and giving Buddhas new gilded bodies was practically routine for him.
Sometimes, Su Qingyan even felt that Xie Xunzhao ought to be the one sitting on the lotus throne.
An hour later, the abbot personally came to invite Xie Xunzhao to offer incense.
Although the temple was not currently receiving ordinary visitors, a benefactor as devout as Mr. Xie surely deserved special consideration. Even the Buddha had to open a back door for his most faithful believer.
By then, Rong Ci had finished helping with the restoration work.
She had just stepped lightly down from the statue when she spotted Xie Xunzhao standing in front of the bronze incense burner, lighting incense by the oil lamp.
Rong Ci came over curiously to ask, “What are you praying for?”
The cool fragrance on him, layered with a light woody scent, drifted unmistakably into her breathing space.
It smelled wonderful.
As though drawn to it, she unconsciously moved a little closer.
Xie Xunzhao glanced at her and answered nonchalantly, “Wealth.”
Hearing this clearly, Rong Ci came back to herself and was thoroughly shocked. “You’re already so rich, and you’re still praying for wealth?”
Xie Xunzhao replied, “Mm. That’s just how black-bellied men like me are.”
Rong Ci: “How did you know I was calling you black-bellied in my head? Can you read minds?!”
“I can read Mumu’s mind.” With that, Xie Xunzhao carried the incense over to the burner.
Rong Ci was about to say something else, but the words died on her lips. She stared at him, no longer sleepy at all.
The morning sunlight streamed beneath the temple’s sweeping eaves, and the curling incense smoke unfurled like strands of golden thread.
The young, handsome man held the incense in both hands. He wore an impeccably elegant suit and had the sort of cool, unsentimental face that seemed incapable of believing in gods or Buddhas. Yet at that moment, his eyes were slightly lowered, his expression utterly focused.
First, may the days be clear and without rain. Second, may the wind pass without stirring up a single drifting wisp.
Third, may Rong Ci live a hundred years, like the waxing moon, like the rising sun.
Author’s Note:
May Rong Ci live to a hundred.
“Like the waxing moon, like the rising sun” is from the Book of Songs (Shijing).