A sudden thought tickled his brain.
The Night Market would still be open before curfew. If Yiran skipped dinner, he could make it there in time. He sat up, excitement coursing through his veins, the thought slowly building into something else. It was a wild plan, but he was hanging from a dry branch; all he needed was a spark to burn everything down.
And tonight, he was going to find a flame.
6
Rui
The higher you climb, the harder you fall.
If that were true, then Matthias Lin’s plummet from grace was a meteor that shattered her world, Rui thought, as she stood in front of his apartment.
The loan sharks had done a thorough job this time. Obscenities splashed across the door in angry red paint. Even the grille gate was not spared. At least they hadn’t hung a pig’s head.
Yet.
Rui turned to the middle-aged woman who was standing at the door of the neighboring apartment. “Thanks for calling me, Auntie Chen. I’m so sorry for the trouble. It won’t happen again.”
“Young people shouldn’t make promises they can’t keep,” Auntie Chen said, one hand resting on her generous hip. “I know you’re a good daughter, Rui, but these ah long don’t care about the law, and your father is—”
“I’mreallysorry,” Rui repeated, knowing full well apologies often meant nothing. Just ephemeral words to absolve the offender. “Don’t worry, Auntie Chen, the loan sharks won’t bother you. They know you’re not involved.”
Auntie Chen shook her head, muttering aboutah longandirresponsible fathersas she retreated into her home.
Rui kept a penitent smile on her face until the door was shut. She fished for her keys, hands trembling as she jammed the right one into the padlock. She failed twice before the stubborn thing finally gave and the notches fell in place.
The grille gate opened with a loud creak. Thank gods for this piece of junk. With enough brute force, the loan sharks could have easily busted through the wooden door, but a steel gate was a different matter. The newapartments didn’t have this extra layer of security anymore. Good thing her father lived in one of the older constructions where rent was cheaper.
The shoebox apartment looked like a typhoon had hit it. For a moment, Rui thought the loan sharks had broken in after all. But the mess was familiar. Empty takeout food cartons were strewn over the small dining table, dirty clothing spewed onto the chairs. The cheap window blinds were torn, the couch was askew, and fluff was coming out of some cushions.
Rui wrinkled her nose at the smell coming from the kitchen.
When was the last time she visited or saw her father? Was it late spring? She’d been busy with training, and frankly, it was easier to pretend he didn’t exist. They’d moved here after her mother died. The living room was once partitioned to create enough space to squeeze in a single bed to fit a teenage girl. Not long after she’d enrolled in the Academy, Rui petitioned for a permanent room there all year round. She left this dump, scrubbing all traces of herself from it. She hadn’t planned on returning today, but maybe the universe was warning her not to lie to Ada again.
“Dad?” Her voice sounded small to her ears. The same way she’d sounded when she was a frightened child expecting to find someone passed out on the floor, or worse, lying face down in a pool of their own vomit.
“Dad?” she called out again, maneuvering her way through the clutter to the bedroom. It was messier than the living room. Stacks of medical journals, their pages torn and yellowing, piled up on the floor. Old photographs and half-crumpled papers with her father’s chicken scratch handwriting on them spread across the desk and unmade bed.
Rui stuck her head into the bathroom.
A man was sitting on the floor with his legs sprawled out. His khakis were wrinkled, and there were food stains on the sleeves of his T-shirt. He was staring into space, as if his mind were a million miles away, fixated on something else.
It was unnerving to see herself in his features. Her wide-set brown eyeswere her mother’s, but she shared the same slightly upturned nose as her father and an angular jaw that slanted to a narrow chin. It frightened her sometimes to think they might share more than a physical resemblance.
Once a prominent researcher and doctor at the city’s top hospital, Matthias Lin was now a shadow of himself. He had crumbled after his wife died, and the subsequent accusations of malpractice along with his increasingly erratic behavior did nothing to help his case. He wilted, faded into nothing, his skin stretching too tightly over his bones. It hurt to look at him, and Rui stopped looking a long time ago.
Shewas different. She fed on her grief, thriving, blossoming like a vicious weed nourished by the hope of vengeance.
“Baba,” she said.
Her father looked up with a start, his face lighting up when he recognized her. “What are you doing here, Ru-er?”
Rui startled. Only her mother called her that. “Auntie Chen told me what happened,” she said. “Are you okay?”
Her father sniffed and rubbed his eyes, picking his glasses up from the bathroom rug. The black wire frames sat crookedly on his nose. Rui wondered if he could see through the clouded lenses. She made a mental note to clean them for him.
“Are they gone?” he asked tiredly.
