"Let me carry the cake for you!" The young man followed Ling Hanlu out of the elevator. "You change your shoes and enter the password."

　　"Well, you've got everything all nicely planned out for me, haven't you, kid?"

　　After ordering a combination of a simple shoe cabinet online, she arranged all of her shoes for every season outside the door. She had always followed the principle of "as long as they can be worn," and had very few shoes. The only exception was three pairs of slippers of the same style but in different colors which she purchased for the purpose of occasionally hosting female guests.

　　After Ling Hanlu changed her shoes, she entered the password and opened the door to welcome her guest.

　　"Do you have any shoes for me..." The young man pointed at the shoe cabinet.

　　"Oh, I forgot about yours!" She glanced at the size of the men's sneakers behind her on the floor and couldn't help but show embarrassment. "I'm sorry, the backup slippers are also women's, and I don't think you can wear them. I can only..."

　　"It's alright." The young man's white cotton socks stepped onto the wooden floor.

　　"Please have a seat in the living room. You can look for the TV remote control and watch whatever you like," Ling Hanlu said before disappearing into the kitchen.

　　The young man responded with a sound and resumed his posture with his hands in his pockets, wandering around the L-shaped area.

　　The interior decor was extremely minimalistic, especially the wall decoration, strictly speaking, there was no decoration. The large white walls did not inspire any desire in the residents to add any personal touch to them. They were left plain, emitting a bleak light.

　　In ordinary households he had seen, regardless of their taste, paintings or photos would always occupy some space on the walls. But here it was very different, there were none.

　　The space was unremarkable, and the young man moved towards the sofa. As he approached the armrest near the balcony, he noticed the shawl again.

　　It was made of cotton and linen, with blue cashew nut patterns. One corner of it had fallen to the floor. The young man picked it up gently.

　　The plain fabric reminded him of the last time he had seen it, by the North Lin River. At that time, it was wrapped around a woman's neck, keeping her warm in the strong river winds.

　　Now the woman is working in the kitchen.

　　That day was Sunday, during the Qingming Festival. The young man decided not to sleep in and be lazy.

　　Before leaving, he looked at a particular page in his blue notebook for a long time. The river he was heading to had at least five significant attractions along its banks, but he arrived precisely at the one he had noted.

　　Two stone tablets stood on the bank, recording the story of a famous literary couple who died young and were buried there. The flowing water seemed endless, like a continuous reading of books.

　　The young man hid among the Yanghua trees, waiting quietly for the woman to arrive and offer flowers and bow in worship. He stood there with his arms crossed, his bouquet damp with sweat, feeling lost in the wind and shivering.

　　Later that night, the young man opened his blue notebook with his colored pens in hand but didn't write anything. It was worth recording, as it marked his courageous step towards wisdom.

　　As it turns out, the encounter at the June 1st display window wasn't their first meeting; it was at the riverbank during the Qingming Festival.

　　After lunch, Gu Pan left the Linghanlu apartment and wandered around in quiet and deserted places. The long and warm breath of early summer was led by the scent of grass, which wiped away much of the heaviness in the young man's steps.

　　Gu Pan really liked the Indonesian fried rice made by Linghanlu. A small bowl was filled with rice and placed upside down on a white porcelain plate. Two cilantro leaves were specially inserted on the top of the hemisphere, and a smiling face was drawn with sweet and spicy sauce on the edge of the plate.

　　He respected Linghanlu's "ingenuity" and ate up all the food, leaving no trace on the plate. Linghanlu looked at him and laughed. But he always felt that if anyone on the opposite side expressed appreciation for the chef, she would laugh. This woman must have not had a meal with someone at home for a long time.

　　"He walked very slowly and took twenty minutes to cross from east to west."

　　Gu Pan arrived at his home downstairs. With half a minute left until two o'clock in the afternoon, he simply stopped and waited for Li Danxia, his mother, to make the weekly phone check that she always conducted on Saturdays.

　　"Li Danxia asked as soon as she started the conversation, "Is the house occupied or not? I spent money renting it, but I haven't seen it yourself. Otherwise, why don't I come and stay for a couple of days?"

　　Gu Pan had to refuse her every week. Renting a room with Yu Yan was kept hidden from the family. In his mind, anything in the world could change, except that the big bedroom belonged to Yan, and that couldn't change. In order to achieve this, the prerequisite was not to be exposed."

　　"Yan said, "Pan is her forever good little brother. He has to keep it that way."

　　"Don't come, Mom," he replied."

　　"Okay, I really don't have time to come. Lately, I have been very lucky playing cards...Son, you have to be careful at school, don't associate with girls who are older than you, do you remember what Mom said? I've been telling you since you were young...what I say is the truth of the world, you must believe it!"

　　“……”

　　The "house rules" with a warning nature that Li Danxia established are indeed based on her own systematic logic. Starting from Gu Pan's eight years old, she firmly believed that her son getting too close to older women would inevitably bring bad luck to her and even the whole family. As for the harm to the whole family, she is temporarily unable to prove it. However, for her, the inner anxiety and fear have been existing for a long time.

　　"Li Danxia always remembers the ambiguous gaze of Yu Yan, the ten-year-old girl, who seemed to understand something but not quite.

　　Despite being caught meeting with the neighbor man that day, her hair was in disarray, but her attire was still neat. However, the girl’s two cold and penetrating eyes were as if she had been stripped bare, revealing everything in her heart.

　　Interrupted mid-tryst, she had barely scratched the surface of her desires before the interruption, leaving her feeling a mix of shame, anger, and frustration. As a result, her pre-existing insomnia worsened after returning home from the disappointing encounter.

　　After a few years, Yu Yan went to pursue higher education in another city, and Li Danxia found that her luck had turned around. She won two lotteries, one a big prize and the other a small one. She stubbornly believed that the girl had taken away her bad luck.

　　However, Gu Pan went to the same city as Yu Yan for his studies, so much so that it provided an opportunity for the jinxed Yu Yan to once again get close to her own son. This made Li Danxia regret deeply, as she was addicted to gambling at the time. She felt remorse that she failed to help her son with his college admissions process which made it so that they would meet again in the same city.

　　"She pondered over it and came up with a way to fix things after the fact. “You are not allowed to date girls who are older than you, even by just two years.”. If I catch you doing anything behind my back, I won’t let her go! Be obedient, and Mommy will give you more pocket money!” Li Danxia tried to imprint these words firmly into her son’s mind, resorting to both intimidation and temptation.

　　Gu Pan once talked about this matter with Yu Yan. Yan said, “Perhaps Auntie is joking”

　　There is no doubt that Li Danxia reiterated this “house rule” again today. Just half an hour ago, Gu Pan had returned from dining at the home of a truly older woman. To forcefully associate these two events is unconvincing and likely unfounded, yet in doing so, Gu can’t help but feel a sense of unease.

　　“Hello?,”“Noting no response from the other end, Li Danxia assumed that her warning message had not been conveyed effectively and repeated her words verbatim again.”

　　“How’s Yan’s grandmother doing recently?” Finally, Gu Pan responded.

　　He heard from Li Danxia a ubiquitous and wide-ranging hostility in her speech, felt helpless and bored, and tried to find a way to break free. Although he came up with a new topic, he did genuinely care about that kind and gentle old man, whom he held dear in his heart.

　　Oh， no! She had eye surgery and cried so much… Alas, the old lady is really pitiful. If this had happened earlier, it wouldn’t be so terrible. Now only she and her old husband are left. The old man’s back is so bad, he can’t stand straight, and she has to take care of him. Son, what did I say about her? Some children are unlucky from an early age, whoever associates with them will be unlucky too! They’re the bringer of disaster!..” Li Danxia stopped abruptly as if her tongue had been scorched. Her curses melted away in the flames and ended in ashes.

　　Gu Pan walked into the room. Passing by the door of Yu Yan’s master bedroom, he pushed open the door. The light leaking through the slit of the curtains was only enough for him to see the dust-covered hardcover books on the shelf, and there was also a poster of a stunning black widow on the wall.”

　　Returning to his own bedroom, Gu Pan took out a blue softcover notebook and flipped through it from the beginning, spanning 10 years of scribbles and drawings.

　　On the first page, the neat handwriting of a child wrote, “Whenever I am scared, I can’t sleep. The more I can’t sleep, the more scared I become. Is there a little angel who can save me?”

　　Although it had been a long time, Gu Pan was able to recall that this plea or wish was related to a pile of small white paper bags. When Li Danxia suffered from insomnia, she asked her friends to purchase psychiatric pills from the hospital for her but had to buy small quantities multiple times to avoid suspicion. Each bag contained either four or two pills. Sometimes Li Danxia would forget to take them. Over time, she had accumulated half a drawer full of these paper bags.

　　This half-drawer of sleeping pills allowed nine-year-old Gu Pan to win a red-bordered sticker from Yu Yan that said "Great!" and he stuck it on the bottom right corner of his blue notebook.

　　As time passed, more fashionable stickers replaced the one that said

　　"Great!" and eventually it was considered too childish and phased out.

　　Gu Pan flipped through the pages and found the one he had marked with a colored pen. It was from Children’s Day at the mall after he had returned from playing the role of a hero. He had chosen an orange pen and made a check mark.