The rain was indeed getting heavier.

The water pooling in the open space submerged Song Ran's shoes. Li Zan held the large black umbrella. The wind was strong, but his hand held the umbrella very steadily.

She kept a polite distance from him. The umbrella was wide, but the rain still pounded on half of Song Ran's shoulder. She didn't mind.

He escorted her to the passenger side of a military SUV, and she got in.

He went around to the driver's seat, got in, closed the large black umbrella, and placed it on the back seat.

A trail of water dripped from the tip of the umbrella.

Only then did Song Ran realize that the left half of his shoulder was also completely soaked. His dark blue police uniform had now truly turned black.

Li Zan started the car and reminded her, "Fasten your seatbelt."

"Okay." Song Ran obediently did as she was told.

The windshield was covered in rainwater, like a row of faucets had been turned on. The wipers swished frantically. A thick curtain of rain hung on the side windows, obscuring the view outside.

Song Ran felt as if the two of them were sitting in a glass box underwater, quiet and still, with only the sound of the endless wind and rain outside the box.

After they drove out of the compound, he remembered to ask, "Where on Beimen Street?"

Song Ran replied, "Qingzhi Lane."

"Okay." He tapped his index finger lightly on the steering wheel. Nothing more was said.

It was midsummer, after all. After driving for a while with the windows closed, the car became slightly stuffy and warm. Song Ran touched the fine beads of sweat on her lip, and Li Zan looked at her through the rearview mirror:

"Do you want the AC on?"

"No, it's fine." She waved her hand. "I get carsick in air-conditioned cars."

"Carsick?" He smiled faintly. "Reporters must go out on assignments often, right? What do you do then?"

"I always try to sleep through it," she blurted out.

He said, "Then close your eyes and rest. I'll wake you when we get there."

Song Ran: "..."

She didn't want to sleep at all. But she couldn't figure out what to say next.

The car fell into silence again.

She looked out the window and bit her lip, faintly vexed.

Li Zan's prediction was correct. If she had driven her small car back, it definitely would have floated away in the water halfway there.

The garrison was on Luoyu Mountain in the southeastern part of Liang City. The drive was smooth at first, but once the terrain dipped slightly, the streets were completely flooded. The sewers were full, and the water had nowhere to go, raging through the urban areas like a beast. In the morning, people were still pushing their cars through the water, but now they had all been abandoned. Even the buses had stopped running.

The city was empty and desolate, with only water.

The military vehicle drove through the flooded streets, splashing water high into the air like a ship cutting through waves. Several times, it seemed as if the entire vehicle would be submerged.

Song Ran had originally intended to give directions, but Li Zan seemed to know the terrain very well. He didn't use navigation; he could clearly distinguish between every major road and small alley.

After a while, she realized he seemed to have a topographical map of Liang City in his head. He avoided low-lying areas the entire way, trying to stick to higher ground as much as possible.

Song Ran asked, "Are you from Liang City?"

Li Zan said, "No. From Jiang City."

"Oh," Song Ran said. "You don't even use navigation when you drive."

"I've been here for a long time."

"How long?"

He thought for a moment. "Three or four years."

Just as he finished speaking, a red light appeared ahead.

He stopped the car.

One minute and thirty seconds. An infinitely long red light.

No vehicles passed through the intersection. No pedestrians either.

It was quiet inside the car. His fingers tapped silently on the steering wheel.

Song Ran tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and turned to look out the window, only to see the curtain of rain right up against the glass.

She looked ahead. The wipers swept by, revealing the flowing red countdown timer.

She suddenly remembered the last countdown and turned her head to see that he was also staring at the red light's counter.

She suddenly said softly, "You saved me. Do you remember?"

The traffic light turned green just then. He turned the steering wheel, glanced at her, and said with a faint smile, "I remember now."

Song Ran said, "I forgot to thank you then. ...So I've been wanting to find you to say thank you."

Li Zan said, "You're welcome. It was my duty."

His tone was casual and ordinary, as if he didn't consider it a great life-saving favor. In his eyes, it was simply his duty and mission, just as it was for a reporter to report the news or a traffic cop to direct traffic—as it should be.

Song Ran originally had more to say, but she didn't know how to begin.

She took a shallow breath. The entire city was damp, and she felt as if she were breathing rainwater into her lungs.

After passing a street, Li Zan turned the steering wheel again. Song Ran came back to her senses. "Hey! ...You can't go that way."

He braked and turned to look at her.

Song Ran met his puzzled gaze and suppressed a smile. "...That's a one-way street."

He shifted gears, reversed the car a meter or two, then shifted again and got back on the road, asking strangely, "When did they change it?"

"A few weeks ago."

"Hah." He let out a soft laugh.

Seeing this, Song Ran also smiled and complained, "Liang City has been building subways and roads everywhere these past few years, turning a perfectly fine city into something like a big rural village or a huge construction site. The traffic signs also change every other day." She said, "My colleagues could write several social news articles a month just by complaining about this."

At first, Li Zan was focused on avoiding the puddles on the road and didn't reply. After a few seconds of silence, perhaps sensing it was inappropriate, he unhurriedly picked up the conversation and asked, "Do you cover international news?"

"Mhm. The distinction isn't that clear; I do domestic news too." Song Ran asked, "Do you watch Liang City TV?"

"I do." He lowered his head slightly, scratching his temple with his index finger. "They seem to be airing that... 'Pre-war? A Record of Dongguo' recently."

Song Ran asked, "Is it good?"

Li Zan asked in return, "Were you involved in it?"

"Oh. ...I planned that program. ...I also recorded most of the material for it."

This time, Li Zan glanced at her and said, "It's quite good."

"Oh." The corners of her lips curved slightly, and her eyes were bright as if they were sparkling.

With such heavy rain outside, she suddenly realized that she had never thought about it before, but she quite liked the plum rain season. She loved it to death.

But familiar street scenes soon appeared outside the window. They had arrived at Beimen Street.

Before they reached Qingzhi Lane, the mouth of the alley narrowed. Several family cars were parked in the alley, blocking the way.

Li Zan tried a few times but couldn't get through.

Song Ran said, "Just stop here."

Li Zan said, "Can you walk back from here?"

"I can make it back."

"Okay." He turned sideways to get the umbrella from the back seat for her. He suddenly moved closer to her, and when he reached out, his dark collar shifted, revealing a small section of his collarbone.

As if electrocuted, Song Ran immediately turned her head away. In that instant, she suddenly remembered that his red string was still with her. He seemed to have forgotten, not remembered it.

She... had also forgotten.

"Here."

She turned back and took the umbrella. "I'll return it to you next time I go get my car."

"Don't be so polite. It's fine if you keep it." He smiled at her excessive politeness.

Her heart was as soft as water. She pushed open the car door and forcefully opened the large umbrella. Rain pounded on its surface, and she heard him say, "Boke Pagoda was damaged in a fire. It was rebuilt later on."

Song Ran was stunned.

An episode of 'Pre-war? A Record of Dongguo' mentioned Boke Pagoda in Ale City, stating that the pagoda had a history of nearly 3,000 years.

After getting home that day, Song Ran had searched for information all night at her damp desk, but there was too little historical information about Dongguo online, and no mention of a fire concerning this pagoda.

She couldn't find enough information in the TV station's internal archives either.

On the morning of the third day, the weather improved, and the airline announced that flights could take off. Song Ran went to Di City.

On her first day there, she went to several libraries and finally found a passage in a yellowed translated work of Dongguo history in the archives of Ran Yuwei's workplace:

"Boke Pagoda, now in the western suburbs of Ale City, was built in the 1st century BC and destroyed during the Ale War in 1197 AD. Over the next few hundred years, it was rebuilt by several generations of historians and archaeologists. It is said that compared to the original, it is not even one ten-thousandth as good."

It was only a short passage with no accompanying pictures. There was no way to verify the true appearance of a pagoda that was destroyed nearly nine hundred years ago.

Song Ran didn't know how Li Zan knew this piece of history. Perhaps she could ask him when she returned to Liang City to pick up her car from the garrison.

She sat in her mother Ran Yuwei's office reading that book, waiting for her to finish her meeting and get off work.

Halfway through, someone knocked on the door. It was Deputy Director Wu, who worked under Ran Yuwei.

"Eh? Ran Ran is here?"

"Auntie Wu." Song Ran smiled and stood up.

"How long are you staying this time?"

"A week."

"Ai, you're already working in the blink of an eye. You can't stay for the whole summer vacation like you used to."

"Yeah."

"I heard from your mother that you went to Dongguo some time ago?"

"Mhm."

"That's amazing," Deputy Director Wu praised.

Song Ran smiled, knowing it was just a polite compliment. There were plenty of young people here who were sent to even more dangerous places around the world right after starting their jobs. Someone like her was not unusual. However, Deputy Director Wu was her mother's old subordinate who had watched her grow up, so her words contained a hint of genuine partiality.

"Have you thought about coming to Di City to develop your career?"

"Not for the time being."

"You don't think Liang City is too small a pond for you?"

Song Ran said with a smile, "I'm just a small fish myself."

Ran Yuwei didn't get off work until after six. On the drive home, she hit the evening rush hour, and the Second Ring Road was completely gridlocked.

In early July, Di City was in the height of summer, with temperatures reaching 41 degrees Celsius. The setting sun baked the metal cars on the concrete road.

The car windows were tightly shut with the AC on, and the air was filled with the smell of scorched leather from the interior.

Song Ran's chest felt terribly tight.

Ran Yuwei sat in the driver's seat, dressed in a white suit skirt, stockings, and high heels, her hair tied up neatly. She wore pearl earrings and a white Bluetooth earpiece, and was on the phone, still making various work arrangements.

The car moved in fits and starts in the long line of traffic. Song Ran felt dizzy from the setting sun, and the smell inside the car, mixed with Ran Yuwei's perfume, was overwhelming. Just as she was about to lower the window, Ran Yuwei muted her phone for a second and said, "The PM2.5 level is 280 today."

Song Ran's finger paused, and the window went back up, sealing itself shut.

Ran Yuwei resumed her phone call.

After about ten minutes, she finished her call. The Second Ring Road was still a parking lot.

Ran Yuwei turned on the radio, intending to listen to the traffic report, but instead heard a news flash: the water level of the Yangtze River's Liang City section had surpassed the historical warning line. Liang City had experienced another torrential downpour yesterday, causing severe urban flooding and reaching a critical state.

Ran Yuwei said flatly, "It's like this every year. The officials in that place are all incompetent, holding positions without doing any real work. It's been over twenty years, and they still haven't managed to improve the city's infrastructure."

In '98, Liang City had a massive flood. It was that very year, in order to protect Liang City by breaking a dyke to release the floodwaters, that Yang Huilun's countryside home was completely submerged. With nowhere else to go, she showed up at their door with the swaddled Song Yang.

When the floodwaters receded that year, Ran Yuwei went to Di City by herself.

Song Ran defended her hometown, saying, "It's not like you say."

Ran Yuwei had long since mastered the art of not wasting time on unimportant topics that went against her views at work. Getting back to the point, she said, "I watched your 'Pre-war? A Record of Dongguo'."

Song Ran turned to look at her, waiting for some positive feedback.

Ran Yuwei said, "It's too crude. The content is scattered, the theme is unclear, and it's pretentiously sentimental. It might be considered novel in Liang City, but on a national level, it's not presentable."

Song Ran said nothing, her face flushed red by the setting sun.

Ran Yuwei said, "Don't be dazzled by a little glory in a small place. If you don't jump out of that circle, I'm afraid you'll never see your true self. Whether you're real gold or scrap iron, come to Di City and find out."

Song Ran felt uncomfortable. Just as she was about to say something, her nose started to itch.

She immediately tilted her head up; she had a nosebleed.

"Di City is too dry. I can't stand it," she said, venting. "The air is bad too!"

In the summer, it was hot and sunny, and there was also smog, making everything look hazy and gray. Just like Ale City in the desert.