Sold into a ghost marriage? Four-year-old and his thuggish father go on a killing spree.

It was an ordinary autumn afternoon.

Song Wanqing was arranging fabrics in the workshop. All the embroiderers had left, leaving her alone in the quiet workshop. Outside the window, the sycamore leaves were falling, one by one, slowly.

She took a piece of cotton and linen cloth off the shelf, unfolded it, and examined its color against the light.

Plain color, off-white, is the most used color in this season's export orders.

She refolded the fabric along the creases, running her fingers along the edge of the fabric. She had been doing this for twenty years, and she could tell the quality of the fabric, the density of the warp and weft, and whether there were any loose threads even with her eyes closed.

She stopped halfway through folding the fold.

She didn't know why she stopped.

It has stopped.

She stood there, her hand resting on the cloth. The light from the window was slanted, the light of autumn, warm but thin.

Then that scene appeared.

This wasn't the first time she'd been struck by this image, but it always came in a different way—sometimes in a dream, sometimes in a specific scent, sometimes in a particular kind of light.

Today, the autumn sunlight is a thin, warm glow.

It was the door of a rented room, made of wood, with a sliver of light shining through the crack. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was that light leaking through the crack, thin and faint, as if it came from a very far place.

She didn't know what would happen next, whether the door would be opened, or whether the child in her arms would survive. She just fainted. The last thought in her mind before she passed out, and now when she thinks about it, was:

Don't let up.

She was holding the child in her arms, and before she fainted, she kept thinking, "Don't let go, don't let go, don't let go."

And then nothing was left.

Song Wanqing didn't know when she started crying.

When she noticed it, tears had already fallen onto the cloth, leaving a small circle that soaked and blurred the fabric.

She didn't wipe it.

She stood there, her hand on the cloth, and wept.

It wasn't the kind of suppressed emotion, nor was it the kind of emotion that was suppressed; it was the kind of emotion that had been crying for many years without an outlet, and then suddenly found a place to come out.

She cried for about ten minutes, or longer. She didn't time it; she didn't know. She just cried until her throat ached, until her eyes burned, until the little circle on the cloth grew bigger and bigger.

Then the door opened.

Niannian came in first. She didn't have class this afternoon and said she was coming to help Song Wanqing check the price list for the next batch of export orders. She was holding the price list in her hand.

She entered the room and saw Song Wanqing standing in the workshop, her hand pressing down on the piece of cloth, crying.

Niannian stood at the door for a second.

Then she placed the quote on the cabinet by the door, walked over, stood next to Song Wanqing, and without saying a word, put her hand on Song Wanqing's shoulder.

Song Wanqing didn't turn around, and her sobs continued unabated.

Niannian just stood there, her hands still, and she didn't say a word.

A few minutes later, Gu Yanqiu also came in—he had finished work early in the afternoon and said he was coming to pick up Song Wanqing, which was a habit they had maintained for many years; he would come to pick her up after finishing work at the factory.

He walked into the workshop and saw the two people, one standing and crying, and the other standing to the side, neither of them saying a word.

He paused for two seconds at the doorway.

Then he walked over, went around to the other side of Song Wanqing, and stood there.

He didn't ask why she was crying, nor did he tell her to stop crying. He just stood there and put his hand on her other shoulder.

The three people, flanking the one in the middle, didn't speak. The only sounds in the workshop were the piece of cloth, the sycamore leaves falling outside the window, and Song Wanqing's sobs, which gradually subsided, then softened, and finally turned into occasional gasps.

It finally stopped.

Song Wanqing wiped the corner of her eye with the back of her hand, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

When she opened her eyes again, she glanced at the cloth that was soaked with tears. The circle had dried halfway, leaving a faint mark.

She folded the cloth again, put it back on the shelf, turned around, and stood facing Gu Yanqiu and Niannian.

His face was red from crying, his eyes were still red, but his expression was steady.

"I remembered something," she said, her voice a little hoarse but steady, "that year I was unconscious and left at the door of my rented apartment. Before I passed out, I thought, hold on to Niannian, don't let go."

She paused for a moment.

"I've always remembered that thought, but I've never said it out loud. Today I just wanted to cry, so I cried."

Gu Yanqiu didn't speak, but his throat moved slightly.

Niannian looked at her.

After saying that, Song Wanqing took a deep breath, and then the corner of her mouth moved slightly. It wasn't forced; it was a genuine upward curve.

"It's all in the past," she said. "It's all in the past."

"Now that Niannian is here, and you're here too," she glanced at Gu Yanqiu, "the person who fainted has gotten what she wanted."

Gu Yanqiu took his hand off her shoulder, withdrew it, pressed it on the hem of her clothes, and said nothing.

He's the kind of person who doesn't say anything when he's happy, and he doesn't say anything when he's sad.

But Niannian saw it; something flashed in the corner of his eye, but he suppressed it, very forcefully.

The workspace was quiet for a while.

The sycamore leaves outside the window are still falling, one by one, silently to the ground.

Song Wanqing was the first to move. She walked to the window and closed it a crack to prevent the night wind from blowing the fabric into disarray.

Then she turned around and looked at Gu Yanqiu and Niannian.

"Let's go eat."

She spoke very calmly, just like any other night.

Gu Yanqiu hummed in agreement and walked out.

Niannian picked up the price list from the cabinet by the door, put it back in her canvas bag, and followed them outside.

As they left the workshop, the lights were turned off one by one. Song Wanqing turned off the last one; she was the last to come out, turned off the light, and closed the door behind her.

Lock it.

The three of them walked out of Wanqing Fabrics' courtyard and into the autumn street. The streetlights were already on, casting their long and deep shadows on the ground.

Song Wanqing walked in the middle, with Gu Yanqiu on her left and Niannian on her right.

After walking for a while, Gu Yanqiu didn't speak, but he slowed his pace a little and walked side by side with Song Wanqing.

Niannian walked on the other side, pulled the strap of her canvas bag up a bit, and her mind was already going over the numbers on the price list.

She was thinking about tomorrow, about cost control for the next batch of export orders, about the course progress of the second batch of CAD training, about the shortfall in the third batch of bookshelves for Lin Xiaobei, and about the production schedule for Yanqiu Agricultural Machinery's next order cycle.

She walked, thinking about all this, walking beside her mother on this street in the provincial capital, lit by streetlights.

An autumn breeze blew, lifting a strand of Song Wanqing's hair. She reached out and pressed the strand back down, continuing to walk forward without stopping.

Three people, three shadows, walking on the same road.

"It's over." Song Wanqing's words just now kept replaying in her mind.

That's in the past.

It's really over now.

Moreover, none of the three of them were crushed by it.

Niannian suppressed the thought, raised her head, and looked at the streetlights in front of her, one by one, stretching forward until the end of the street, and into the distance beyond her sight.

Inside her canvas bag, a tin box contained two brass gears, pressed at the very bottom, next to Cheng Xiaohe's letter; one was cool, the other soft, both securely placed.

She already had a plan in mind for what to do next.

Tomorrow, I'll start by writing a reply to the quotation, then go to Yanqiu Agricultural Machinery, and then—

There was something she had been secretly planning for a while, and hadn't told anyone yet.

It's about Song Wanqing.

She had prepared a surprise.