Through the prison window: Lin Wanqing handed over a map of Paris, and Ah Yu's fingertips met hers on the glass.
The air conditioner in the visiting room was broken, and warm air carrying a rusty smell blew in, making the wisps of hair on Ah Yu's forehead tremble. He stared at Lin Wanqing across the glass. Three months had passed, and she had cut her hair short, revealing a smooth forehead. The scar on her wrist that he had caught a glimpse of at the party was now covered by a light gray wristband. Only when she turned her wrist would the edge of the wristband lift up a tiny corner, revealing pale pink new flesh underneath.
“Summer is almost here.” Lin Wanqing spoke first, her voice coming through the receiver with a dullness filtered through glass, like cotton thread soaked in water. On the table in front of her was a folded piece of paper, its edges fuzzy from being rubbed by her fingers. “It’s time to plant the lavender in Paris. Do you remember Zhong Hua always saying he wanted to photograph the sunrise over the lavender fields?”
Ah Yu's fingertips twitched on the outside of the glass, stopping at her wristband. He recalled the anniversary party three years ago, when Lin Wanqing stood on the terrace in a red dress, the evening breeze lifting her sleeves, revealing a scar like a dark red snake, instantly striking a fragment of his childhood memory—the night the fire engulfed the factory, the neighbor's older sister also had a similar winding mark on her arm.
“Gu Yanting’s ledger,” Lin Wanqing suddenly pushed the paper to the glass. It was a yellowed map of Paris. “I hid it in the kitchen of the ‘Old Place’ restaurant in the 17th arrondissement. The third brick under the stove is hollow.” Her fingertip pressed on a point on the map, and Ah Yu’s fingertip immediately covered it. The two dots inside and outside the glass aligned perfectly, as if completing a docking across time and space.
He could feel the coldness of the glass seeping through his fingertips, mixed with the faint warmth she had left on it. These hands had once shielded him from the ashtray Gu Yanting had thrown at him, and had gently wiped his wounds with cotton swabs dipped in iodine when he changed his dressings at the villa. Now, however, they were conveying a secret that could overturn everything, separated by the hard glass.
"Why me?" Ah Yu's voice was a little hoarse. He had never understood why Lin Wanqing, who could have easily taken the account book and run away, insisted on dragging him into this vortex.
Lin Wanqing smiled, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes clearly visible under the pale light. "Before your father died, he asked someone to pass on a message to me." Her fingertips traced the Seine River on the map. "He said, 'If one day the Gu family tries to harm Wanqing, tell Ayu to remember that there is something that can save her hidden in the fire hydrant in the factory warehouse.'"
Ah Yu clenched his fists tightly, his nails digging into his palms. At his father's funeral, the police said the factory fire was caused by aging electrical circuits, but he always remembered that night when his father's voice on the phone was suddenly cut off, and in the background, he could hear Gu Yanting's chilling laughter. So those weren't hallucinations; his father had foreseen the ending all along.
"The dialysis fees for Zhong Hua's mother," Lin Wanqing suddenly changed the subject, pointing her finger at the coffee shop icon on the edge of the map, "I had my lawyer transfer the money to her account, with the note 'Ginkgo Leaf Fund'—the leaf you gave her last year, which she kept in her interview notebook; I've seen it."
Ah Yu recalled the convenience store on that rainy night, when Zhong Hua was shoved by a drunkard, her press pass fell to the ground, revealing half a ginkgo leaf peeking out from the cover. He later learned that it was a gift from an old man during her reporting trip to the mountains, who said it would bring her peace. He thought it absurd at the time, but the next day, he bought a more complete ginkgo leaf and secretly slipped it into her desk.
"Do you know why Gu Yanting insisted on marrying Zhong Hua?" Lin Wanqing's fingertip hovered over the Eiffel Tower on the map. "Because her father was once Gu's accountant, and he had evidence of her second uncle embezzling public funds. Unfortunately, the old man passed away early, and he only hid the evidence in Zhong Hua's old toys."
Ah Yu suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. He remembered Zhong Hua saying that when she was little, she had a tin frog toy that could never be opened. Last week, when she went to the hospital to visit her mother, she kept mentioning that she wanted to go home and look for it. It turned out that there was another truth hidden in that frog.
Across the glass, Lin Wanqing suddenly raised her hand, not to touch the map, but to gently press it against her chest. "I took the blame for Gu Yanting, not for him." Her voice was soft, yet it struck Ah Yu's heart like a hammer blow, "It's so that you and Zhong Hua can go further. Some debts have to be repaid."
Ah Yu's gaze fell on the small scar peeking out from under her wristband, and she suddenly realized it wasn't from a burn. Last year at the villa, when he bandaged her wound, he had asked about the origin of that mark. "I was scratched by a cat when I was little," she had said with a smile then, but her eyes drifted towards the window. Now, thinking back, it was clearly a mark left by long-term handcuff use—Gu Yanting had long considered her a prisoner.
“Zhong Hua’s voice recorder,” Ah Yu suddenly remembered something, “the one she desperately protected in the mudslide, it contained evidence of the Gu family’s embezzlement of disaster relief funds.”
“I know.” Lin Wanqing nodded, drawing a small heart on the glass with her fingertip. “When she was unconscious, I had the nurses secretly put it away. It’s on the counter at the ‘Old Place’ restaurant now, and the owner will give it to you.” She paused, then suddenly smiled. “That girl always said you were cold, but I saw you guarding outside the ICU for seven days and seven nights, your eyes as red as a rabbit’s.”
Visiting time was approaching, and the prison guards began packing. Lin Wanqing folded the map into a small square and slipped it through the crack under the glass, her movements so quick it was as if she were passing on a precious treasure. When Ah Yu caught it, she touched the damp stains on the pages—were they her tears?
“Springtime in Paris is beautiful,” she said as she stood up, her wristband slipping down to reveal the complete scar that meandered like a river. “Zhong Hua looks good in light-colored dresses; remember to have her take a few more photos.”
Ah Yu's fingertips pressed against the glass again, and this time Lin Wanqing didn't pull away. Their fingertips, separated by the transparent barrier, felt each other's warmth, as if across the long river of time, they had finally touched each other's outlines. He suddenly remembered the cocktail party years ago, Lin Wanqing's red dress like flames, the scar on her wrist flashing as she raised her glass. At the time, he only felt it looked familiar, but he didn't know that within that scar lay her father's instructions, the sins of the Gu family, and a woman's last hope for freedom.
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