"Take care of yourself," Ah Yu said.

Lin Wanqing had already reached the door when she heard this, so she turned back and smiled. "Tell Zhong Hua," her voice was interrupted by the prison guard's urging, but it was still clear, "that ginkgo leaf, I prayed for her safety."

The moment the iron gate closed, Ah Yu unfolded the map of Paris. The "Old Place" restaurant in the 17th arrondissement was circled in red, with a line of small print written in pencil next to it: "The owner is my father's old subordinate. Mention 'lavender,' and he'll give you Zhong Hua's toy frog."

On the edge of the map, there was a small doodle—a simple line drawing of a frog with a keyhole on its base. Ah Yu's fingertips traced the line, and she suddenly remembered Zhong Hua saying that there was indeed a strange hole on the base of the tin frog, which she had always thought was a wind-up mechanism when she was a child.

Sunlight streamed through the iron bars of the window, casting dappled patterns of light on the map. Ah Yu folded the map and placed it in his suit's inner pocket, close to his heart. He could feel the warmth of the paper, like the lingering warmth of Lin Wanqing's fingertips on the glass, like the veins of the ginkgo leaf in Zhong Hua's hair, like the unfinished words his father had left unsaid before his death—in the folds of time, finally converging into a clear path.

As he walked out of the prison gates, his phone received a text message from an unknown number: "Zhong Hua's tin frog, the base can be opened with your father's old key. —Lin Wanqing"

Ah Yu looked up at the sky. The spring breeze carried a warmth that made his eyes sting. He touched the map in his inner pocket, then the brass key his father had left him, and suddenly quickened his pace. He was going to Zhong Hua's house to find the tin frog, to Paris to find the ledger, and to tell the girl who always treasured her interview notebook that someone had prayed for her safety in prison, and that someone had secretly tilted their umbrella towards her on a stormy night many years ago.

The road ahead is long, but this time, he knows where he's headed. The overlapping fingertips on the glass, the coordinates circled on the map, the key fitting perfectly into the lock—all the scattered fragments begin to piece together a complete shape at this moment.