Chapter 7: Old Scars and Charcoal Smoke

The dorm door closed. The light footsteps in the hallway quickly faded.

Lin Ci stood barefoot on the floor and glanced down at the loose pajamas hanging off his body.

The collar had been pulled open a little, showing a wide patch of pale, delicate skin.

This body’s lines were unfairly good, clear collarbones and a narrow waist.

Lin Ci scratched his head at the sight, tugged the collar up, and felt another wave of frustration.

After twenty-two years as a grown man, he’d never had to worry about flashing anyone.

He sighed, walked to the desk, pulled out a chair, and picked up his phone.

Time passed minute by minute.

Outside, the sky went fully dark. Streetlights came on one after another.

At seven sharp, the phone on the desk buzzed.

Lin Ci unlocked the screen. A location screenshot from Gu Mianmian popped up in WeChat.

The location was the night market street by Jiangcheng University’s south gate. The shop was called Old Zhao’s Skewers.

Lin Ci zoomed in on the map and studied the street view.

The place was a row of dirty food stalls, canopies thrown up any which way.

Most of the streetlights were broken. The road was pitted and covered in grease and bottle caps.

Lin Ci typed back: [Got it. Stay safe. Don’t talk to drunk people.]

The reply came instantly: [Mm!!!]

It ended with three exclamation marks.

Lin Ci stared at those three exclamation marks for a while.

Usually, when he talked to this girl in the dorm, she could barely squeeze out a word.

Why was she suddenly so lively over WeChat?

Lin Ci shook his head, tossed the phone aside, and went back to wrestling with his major coursework.

Deep in the night market, cooking smoke rose in the air.

Old Zhao’s Skewers had a small storefront. A dozen greasy folding tables spilled onto the roadside.

Gu Mianmian wore a dark red apron, carrying a large metal tray between the tables.

Her head was down. Heavy bangs covered her eyes, and her steps were soft.

The owner, Zhao Dayong, was a man in his fifties, decent enough as far as bosses went.

He stood behind the charcoal grill, flipping skewers and teaching Gu Mianmian how to tally bills.

“Xiao Gu, move a little faster. This table’s customers have asked twice already.”

Gu Mianmian nodded and reached for the empty bottles on the table.

A figure suddenly swayed over by the charcoal grill.

It was Zhao Dayong’s son, Zhao Peng, twenty-six and idle all day.

Zhao Peng had a cigarette in his mouth, his eyes sliding over Gu Mianmian with a shifty gleam.

The girl dressed poorly, her loose hoodie hiding her figure, but her neck was pale.

The bit of wrist showing was small and thin, easy to grab.

“Dad, take a break. I’ll teach the new girl how to carry trays.”

Zhao Peng spat his cigarette butt on the ground and walked right up behind Gu Mianmian.

Gu Mianmian had just picked up the tray when Zhao Peng’s hand reached for her waist.

A second before he could touch her, Gu Mianmian’s eyes went cold. She shifted slightly, and his hand closed on empty air.

His broad, greasy palm only brushed the cold edge of the iron tray.

“Why’re you dodging, girl? Carrying trays takes finesse. You gotta put strength in your waist. Let your big brother teach you.”

Zhao Peng leaned in with a grin, breathing out cheap cigarette stink.

Gu Mianmian’s back went rigid. She didn’t move.

Her eyes were lowered, but under the heavy bangs, her dark pupils churned with cold violence.

If she weren’t working to earn money and keep her senior hidden, she would have smashed the tray into this piece of trash’s head.

She didn’t shout. She only raised her eyelids and fixed Zhao Peng with a cold stare.

That look held undisguised rejection and disgust, cold enough to make his skin crawl.

Zhao Peng’s back prickled under her stare. He stepped back half a step, his outstretched hand frozen in midair.

“Move.”

Gu Mianmian’s voice was low, but ice cold.

She gripped the iron tray until her knuckles went white and walked past Zhao Peng to another table.

Zhao Peng came back to himself and muttered a curse at her thin back.

The next three days passed quietly.

Every evening Gu Mianmian left at five thirty and returned to the dorm at exactly midnight.

Each time she pushed open the door, she took out her phone and sent Lin Ci a message: [I’m here.]

Lin Ci actually wasn’t asleep.

He watched her slip in quietly every time, then go to the balcony to wash up.

On the morning of the fourth day.

Lin Ci got up to pour water and caught a sharp smell in the air.

It was the smell of barbecue smoke mixed with cumin and chili oil.

The smell lingered in the dorm. Even after a shower, it clung to Gu Mianmian’s long hair.

Gu Mianmian was standing by her bed changing her jacket.

When she pulled off the old hoodie, the sleeve of her cotton undershirt slid far up her arm.

Lin Ci was holding his water cup, and his gaze happened to sweep across her arm.

On the pale, thin inside of her forearm were four or five dark red pinch marks.

The skin around them was bruised purple.

Lin Ci stopped, walked over, and grabbed her wrist.

“Gu Mianmian, what happened to your arm?”

Gu Mianmian jumped and hurriedly pulled her sleeve down.

“N… nothing.”

Lin Ci didn’t let go. His hand stayed clamped on her wrist, firm.

He pushed her sleeve back up.

Not just her forearm. In the center of her palm were deep crescent-shaped wounds.

Dark scabs had formed, clearly from nails digging at the skin again and again.

Lin Ci’s eyes cooled, and his tone sharpened.

“This is nothing? Who hurt you? Someone at the barbecue place?”

Gu Mianmian shook her head quickly, keeping her head down, not daring to meet his eyes.

“It wasn’t anyone else. I did it myself… by accident.”

Lin Ci laughed in anger.

“You think I’m an idiot? What kind of bump leaves a row of fingernail marks?”

Gu Mianmian pressed her lips together, and her eyes slowly reddened.

She wrenched free of Lin Ci’s hand and yanked her sleeve down to cover everything.

“Senior, really, it’s fine. Don’t ask.”

Seeing her refuse to say a word, Lin Ci’s blunt temper flared again.

“Fine. Have it your way. I won’t ask.”

Lin Ci set the cup down on the table and walked back to his desk.

This girl was too stubborn. Asking would get him nowhere.

Lin Ci leaned back in his chair and swiped through his phone, irritated.

He opened Moments. The moment it refreshed, he saw a new post from Chen Jia in the finance department.

The picture was a selfie in a large lecture hall.

Chen Jia posed in front of the camera with a hand sign he thought looked cool.

In the background behind him, Lin Ci sitting in profile was captured clearly.

Sunlight fell across that pale, cold profile. Dark hair spilled down, striking enough to cut.

Chen Jia’s caption read: [Today’s elective was especially nice to look at. Even saw a true untouchable beauty.]

Lin Ci’s eyelid twitched. Disgust rolled through him.

He scrolled down.

Yesterday at noon, Chen Jia had posted a photo in the cafeteria.

The caption said: [Ran into an ice beauty. Even drinking plain water, so elegant.]

This bastard was clearly building a devoted-admirer persona on Moments, using him as a trophy to show off.

Lin Ci rubbed his brow and cursed his bad luck under his breath.

He’d planned to block and delete Chen Jia right away, but on second thought, blocking him would make it look like he was guilty.

Forget it. Just a dog barking at nothing. Not worth the trouble.

Lin Ci locked his phone, not giving it another thought.

What he didn’t know was that Gu Mianmian had already seen both posts clearly.

Ever since moving into Room 302, Gu Mianmian had quietly gone through the class group chat.

Anyone who had spoken to Lin Ci or interacted with him was on her watch list.

Midnight.

The dorm hallway was completely quiet. The whole building’s lights were out.

Gu Mianmian pushed the door open quietly.

Lin Ci was already asleep in bed, breathing slow and even.

Gu Mianmian took off her shoes, heavy with the smell of cooking smoke, and walked barefoot to her bed.

She didn’t turn on the light. She sat on the edge of the metal-frame bed and slowly took out her old phone.

The weak screen light fell on her pale, bloodless face.

Gu Mianmian opened Chen Jia’s Moments.

On the screen, Chen Jia grinned greasily, while Lin Ci in the background was quiet and cold.

Gu Mianmian stared at the photo, her finger swiping back and forth across the screen.

She looked at the line of Lin Ci’s jaw in the photo, then at Chen Jia’s flippant captions.

The room was very quiet.

Gu Mianmian turned off the screen and tossed the phone onto the bedding.

In the dark, her breathing slowly deepened.

She slid her right hand under the blanket and dug her nails into the old wounds on her palm.

The wounds tore open again and sent up a dull ache.

Gu Mianmian didn’t even frown.

That little pain couldn’t suppress the restlessness and darkness churning in her heart.

That senior belonged to her.

Her senior bought her chicken legs. Her senior dried her hair. Her senior carried a scent that made her feel safe.

Why should those eyesores be allowed to take photos of her senior whenever they wanted?

Why should that grease-covered man dare come near her?

Gu Mianmian lifted her head. Her obsidian eyes held no light in the darkness.

She turned her gaze to the bed across the room.

Lin Ci lay on his side, the thin blanket slipped to his waist, exposing the pale, slender nape of his neck.

A faint milky scent filled the dorm, the kind that made her want to drown in it.

Gu Mianmian sat in the dark, motionless, watching Lin Ci’s sleeping face.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

A full fifteen minutes passed, and she kept staring at Lin Ci.

Night wind slipped through the window gap and stirred the curtain.

Gu Mianmian finally lay down slowly and pulled the blanket over herself.

She curled into a small ball under the covers. The pain in her palm kept her wide awake.

Evening of the fourth day.

Heavy dark clouds piled at the horizon. The air was hot and damp, a storm about to break.

At five thirty, Gu Mianmian put on the dark red apron and left with her bag.

Lin Ci sat at his desk, spinning a pen in his hand, looking at the empty room.

The pinch marks on Gu Mianmian’s arm kept flashing through his mind.

And that girl’s stubborn smell of cooking smoke.

The backstreet food stalls had terrible security. With Gu Mianmian’s meek personality, people would eat her alive.

“Seriously, I must have owed you in a past life.”

Lin Ci tossed the pen onto the desk and stood up.

He opened the wardrobe and pulled out a loose black hoodie.

He pulled the hood up. It covered most of his cold, striking face and left only a delicate chin visible.

Lin Ci stuffed his phone into his pocket, opened the dorm door, and walked quickly into the dim hallway.

He wanted to see just what kind of dangerous pit that rundown barbecue shop really was.

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