A young boy from the 1970s, separated from his family, fled famine and led his younger brother into

Su Nianci pushed the study door shut from the inside, and the latch clicked into place.

The sounds of Banxia chasing Xingye and laughing could be heard from the courtyard, separated by a door and a wall, as distant as the sounds of another world.

Su An stood beside the desk, his long legs slightly together, his left hand behind his back, like a new recruit waiting for instructions.

Su Nianci stood opposite him, her fingers still gripping his right wrist tightly.

"Hand out."

Su An opened his right hand, palm facing up.

Su Nianci flipped through his fingers, pressing on each one. The fingertips were covered in calluses, and there were tiny cuts on the second joint of his index and middle fingers, which were unevenly healed, as if they had been left by long-term friction against metal parts.

She released her right hand.

"Left hand."

Su An's left hand did not move.

"Sis, it's really nothing. I bumped it during training. I'm clumsy, and I didn't hold it properly when I was disassembling and assembling parts, so I bumped it."

Su Nianci did not respond to that.

She reached out and grabbed his left wrist.

Su An took a half step back, and Su Nianci followed suit. The two of them tugged at the desk for a couple of rounds.

Su Nianci stopped.

"Su An, I am your sister, not your military court."

Su An's lips pressed into a straight line.

"Take off your clothes so I can inspect them."

Su An's Adam's apple bobbed.

"sister--"

"Take it off."

One word, spoken softly, but Su An knew that tone all too well; it was exactly the same as when Su Nianci blocked him at the door when he made a mistake as a child, leaving no room for negotiation.

He took a deep breath, slowly raised his hand, and unbuttoned his uniform one button at a time from top to bottom.

The first one.

The second one.

The third one.

The military uniform slipped off his shoulders, revealing an old, gray-white cotton vest underneath, its collar loose and worn from countless washes.

He hesitated for two seconds, then pulled off his vest as well.

Su Nianci's breathing stopped at that moment.

Su An's upper body was exposed to the light in the study.

back.

Two long, completely healed scars extend from the lower edge of the left scapula to the waist, diagonally across the entire back, like two dried-up riverbeds etched on a map.

The scar has white and shiny edges, with dark red proliferative tissue in the middle, indicating that the wound was very deep when it was injured and underwent a long recovery process after being sutured.

There is a circular indentation at the location of the right scapula.

The dent was about the size of a coin, with smooth skin, and the depth of the indentation exceeded the normal muscle layer.

Su Nianci raised her hand and pressed her fingers on the edge of the circular indentation.

Her fingertips were trembling.

She had seen this kind of dent before.

I've seen this too many times in the emergency room in my past life.

After the high-speed bullet penetrates the subcutaneous tissue, it is blocked by the scapula. After the bullet is removed, the muscles cannot completely fill the permanent wound.

She pressed her index and middle fingers against the edge of the indentation, feeling the hardened connective tissue underneath.

The finger moved down half an inch.

It moved down another half inch.

At the deepest part of the depression, she felt an extremely tiny bump—a clump formed under the skin by fragments that had not been completely removed.

Su Nianci's hand froze there, her fingertips pressed against the protrusion, and she couldn't utter a single word.

The study was so quiet that only the rustling of leaves in the wind outside the window could be heard.

Su An lowered his head, his neck slightly bent, and the two scars on his back cast faint shadows under the light.

"Sis, it's all in the past, I'm fine."

His voice was muffled, squeezed out from his chest, with a feigned nonchalance.

Su Nianci did not respond.

She took a white porcelain jar from the medicine cabinet behind her, unscrewed the lid, and inside was her own concoction of scar-removing ointment. The scent of mint and angelica blended together, cool with a hint of bitterness.

She scooped out a dollop of ointment, rubbed it in her palm, and then silently applied it to the scar on Su An's back.

When the palm touched her, Su An's back muscles tensed up and then relaxed.

The ointment was cool, but Su Nianci's palms were warm.

She applied the ointment slowly, following the direction of the scar, pushing it inch by inch, with the same meticulous care she used when stitching up wounds on the operating table.

Starting from the lower edge of the left scapula, follow the curve of the two long scars and apply the product all the way down to the waist.

Then circle back, stop at the circular indentation on the right scapula, and gently make circles with your fingertips.

a circle.

Two laps.

Three laps.

Su An's shoulders began to tremble.

He didn't turn around or make a sound; he just stood there with his head down, his fists clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles turned white.

Silence carries more weight than any question.

Su Nianci didn't ask him where he went, what he had been through, or how he got those scars.

She just kept applying ointment to the scars.

Su An finally couldn't hold back anymore.

His throat sounded like it was being choked, and the voice he managed to squeeze out was hoarse and strained.

"It's a confidentiality agreement, I can't say."

Su Nianci's hands didn't stop.

Su An sniffed.

"But I came back alive, without losing a single finger."

As he said this, he stretched out both hands from his sides, spread his ten fingers, and waved them under the light.

It's like when Su Nianci checked my fingers for snacks when I was a child, except back then my fingers were covered in sugar residue, now they're covered in calluses and scars.

After applying the ointment, Su Nianci closed the lid of the porcelain jar and put it back in the medicine cabinet.

She took a clean towel from the shelf and handed it to him to wipe the remaining ointment off his back.

Su An took the towel, wiped himself haphazardly a couple of times, put his vest back on, and then put on his military uniform.

Su Nianci walked up to him, reached out and fastened the first button of his collar that was askew, and then straightened the collar.

I patted his shoulder twice with my fingers.

Two words.

That's enough.

She said the exact same two words as when he left three years ago.

Su An's eyes were red-rimmed, and her pupils were covered with a layer of tears, but she stubbornly refused to let them fall.

He sniffed hard twice, looked up at the ceiling, and waited for the sour feeling to pass.

After a while, he lowered his head and took something out of the right pocket of his uniform.

The thing wasn't big; it was almost invisible when held in his broad palm.

He spread his hands out and placed them on the desk.

A grasshopper made of straw.

It's a vibrant green, with each of its six legs clearly defined.

The weaving method is the same as the one Su Nianci wove in the dilapidated temple back then, but the technique is more refined than hers. The grass leaves are selected from the tenderest part, and the surface still has the luster of plant juice.

Su Nianci looked down at the grasshopper and touched its antennae with her finger.

Su An put his hands behind his back, and that feigned nonchalance returned to his voice.

"I made this up during the most difficult time there."

He paused for a moment.

"We knitted over a hundred, but only brought this one back."

Su Nianci picked up the grasshopper, held it in her palm, and flipped it over.

She pressed her thumb on the grasshopper's belly and felt a hard little bump.

She pinched the grasshopper's two hind legs and gently pried them open, revealing a crack in its belly made of grass.

A tiny strip of paper, smaller than a fingernail, peeked out from the gap and was tightly packed inside the grasshopper's abdomen.

Su Nianci used two fingers to pick out the paper strip.

She hasn't started yet.

He first looked up and glanced at Su An.

Su An's gaze fell elsewhere, her ears burning red.

Su Nianci unfolded the note.