Chapter 18

◎ The Mask Slips ◎

Fan Qi entered the room and turned on the window-mounted air conditioner. Lately, she’d come up with a system: run the air conditioner in the first half of the night, and then when the outside temperature dropped in the second half, just open the window. Being on a high floor, the breeze was strong and cool—plus the noise from outside was preferable to the constant hum of the AC. But it was already late tonight, so she opted not to turn it on. After switching off the lights, she opened the window.

Chen Zhiqian came in, flipped on the light, and saw her already lying down, the window wide open. He had wanted to cool off a bit, but what was the point? It felt just like being outside.

“Why didn’t you turn on the AC?”

“You’re in long sleeves and pants—you can’t be that hot. Besides, this AC is way too noisy,” Fan Qi answered with her eyes closed.

“AC?” That was the mainland way of saying it. Chen Zhiqian knew she’d been trying hard to blend in, so she usually used the local term: “cold air unit.”

“Isn’t that what they call it in Shanghai?” Fan Qi played dumb. She’d been using that term for years—changing habits wasn’t easy, and mistakes slipped out now and then.

In the real world, only people from 600 Wanping South Road believed in time travel. As long as she didn’t make any glaring mistakes, little slips like this didn’t matter.

“Right,” Chen Zhiqian said, switching off the light and lying down.

“Good night,” Fan Qi said.

“Good night,” he replied.

Fan Qi had gotten up early that day, spent hours reshooting a commercial with repeated poses, gone to a social dinner, and studied for a while. The moment her head hit the pillow, soft little purring snores like a kitten’s drifted from her side.

Before long, she turned over in her sleep, and an arm draped across Chen Zhiqian’s body.

Dressed in a long-sleeved top and long pants, Chen Zhiqian found the contact uncomfortable. But it didn’t stop there—where the hand went, could the foot be far behind? Sure enough, her leg hooked over his calf.

He moved her arm aside, nudged her leg away with his foot, but ultimately couldn’t bring himself to be that rough. Sitting up, he gently lifted her leg and placed it back on her side of the bed.

Lying back down, he rested his head on his arm. Though he had already brushed his teeth, he could still taste the lingering savory flavor of the salted duck from earlier.

He had spent many years in this city in his past life. At this point in time, getting salt-baked chicken was easy here, but saltwater duck? That wasn’t common at all.

And the torreya seeds? He couldn’t recall her ever eating those before. And what about the way she ate hickory nuts? That definitely wasn’t how she used to do it. Fan Qi had always found shelling them a hassle. During Lunar New Year, her mother would shell them for her, and she’d just eat them.

Her mother probably only thought of how much her daughter liked them and stuffed a bag into her luggage. At first, he had thought Fan Qi would ignore them, but to his surprise, she held the bag, shelled a large handful, and stuffed them into her mouth, her eyes bright with delight. She looked so content, like a squirrel with cheeks puffed full of nuts.

As Chen Zhiqian let out a frustrated sigh, Fan Qi shifted in her sleep, her head rolling off the pillow, her foot kicking toward the edge of the bed.

Then he heard a thud—something had landed on his foot.

Sitting up and switching on the light, he saw Fan Qi’s head no longer on the pillow. One foot was braced against the wall at the foot of the bed, and a canvas bag lay sprawled there, with two books sticking out.

The top one had the English title Study Manual—Paper 1 on the cover.

He picked it up—it was the English edition of a securities licensing exam study guide, Volume 1. In English?

Back in the mainland, English education had only recently started gaining traction. When they entered university, even top students struggled with the language. They studied day and night, yet their level wasn’t that great. His own English only improved after he went abroad in his past life.

He looked at the annotations scribbled in blue ballpoint pen—neat, beautiful handwriting.

“Not yet 1987. The regulatory framework is still very basic.”

To the average person, this note would make no sense. But Chen Zhiqian understood immediately. 1987—the year of the global stock market crash, when fortunes vanished overnight.

He read on. Underlined clauses were marked with characters and little crosses. These were notes about shareholding reduction rules for listed companies—regulations that, at this time, didn’t even exist yet. It wasn’t until after the great crash that such rules were put in place.

There was no way Fan Qi could understand this. Not even after two or three years of study would she know so much.

He turned to look at the peacefully sleeping person next to him.

This wasn’t Fan Qi. Definitely not. So then—who was she?

Chen Zhiqian slipped the study manual back into the canvas bag and leaned it against the wall at the foot of the bed, just as he’d seen it earlier.

He switched off the light, but sleep wouldn’t come.

After returning, he had stopped seeing the old Fan Qi as a “sister.” But the truth remained—they had grown up together. That kind of bond couldn’t be erased. No matter what she’d become, she was still the daughter of the Fan family, still Fan Xun’s younger sister.

In his past life, the entire Fan family had refused his help. They told him never to set foot in their home again, because just seeing him reminded Fan’s mother of her tragically deceased daughter.

He had always felt guilty toward the Fan family. In those hard times, everyone wanted to cut ties with them, yet they had stood by him. He knew just how much they had sacrificed to protect him. It was a debt he could never repay.

In this life, all he wanted was to send Fan Qi back, whole and safe.

But now, things had taken a strange turn.

This Fan Qi wasn’t the Fan family’s Fan Qi.

Chen Zhiqian remembered that, in his previous life, time-travel novels had started becoming popular in Hong Kong. With the rise of the internet, they spread like wildfire. It sounded far-fetched, but he was beginning to feel certain:

He was dealing with a time-traveling woman.

He stared at the dark ceiling. The window was open. It was the middle of the night, but in the distance, the lights in other buildings still flickered here and there. The buildings in this city were so close together, it was easy to see what people across the way were doing.

Chen Zhiqian got up, closed the window, and drew the curtains.

Fan Qi woke from the heat. Her neck was sticky with sweat. Why did it suddenly get so hot in the middle of the night?

She sat up and turned on the light, only to see that the window had been closed and the curtains drawn. What the heck?

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she stared at Chen Zhiqian—still fully dressed from head to toe. Was he seriously not hot? Was he cold? Just how weak was this man’s constitution?

Without thinking, she reached over and touched his forehead. Feeling the sweat, she wiped it off on his sleeve in disgust.

“What are you doing?” Chen Zhiqian asked. He’d never fallen asleep.

“You’re sweating like crazy, dressed head to toe, and you still closed the window? If we were in Shanghai, I’d seriously be considering sending you to No. 600 Wanping South Road for a checkup!” Fan Qi snapped. She was irritated—being woken by heat would do that. So what if she couldn’t stab him twenty-seven times? She could still beat him to death with twenty-seven punches. Psychopath!

“The buildings here are too close together. It’s easy for people to peek in,” Chen Zhiqian replied calmly.

Fan Qi blinked. “But wasn’t the light off? They wouldn’t be able to see anything from across the way. Aren’t you hot?”

“I’m used to opening the window. But if the light gets turned on while it’s open, you can’t guarantee people won’t see.”

…Okay, he had a point.

“Then turn on the AC!” Chen Zhiqian suggested.

Fan Qi ruffled her hair in frustration and got up to switch on the air conditioner. “This thing is louder than Feng Xueming’s Lamb… Lamborghini.”

She flopped back onto the bed, yanked the blanket over herself, and clamped both hands over her ears like a child trying to drown out reality. She hadn’t killed anyone or committed arson in her past life—why did she deserve to be stuck here?

She wanted to go home. She missed her whisper-quiet central air system. She missed her big, spacious bed she could roll around in.

The more she thought about it, the more miserable she felt. She had worked so hard to survive in this world, yet life continued to punish her at every turn…

Chen Zhiqian heard soft sobs. They had only been in contact for two days, and he had just confirmed that she was a transmigrator—an unfamiliar soul occupying Fan Qi’s body.

Hearing her cry made him a little irritable, but years of self-discipline helped him keep it in check. He asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I want to go home.” Fan Qi couldn’t hold it in any longer. Her voice broke as she cried out, “I want to go back to my home. I don’t want to stay in this crappy place. There’s nothing here. It’s so damn hard…”

She wanted to vent, but couldn’t reveal everything on her mind, so she said vague, half-truths to release some of the pressure building inside her.

Calling Hong Kong a “crappy place”? Wait a second—those neat English notes in the study manual, even though brief, were full of substantial content. Clearly, this girl had built up some serious knowledge in the financial field. High earnings are common in finance. And she had written “’87” in her notes—definitely from the future. Considering that, calling this era’s Hong Kong a crappy place kind of made sense. She must’ve lived quite a good life before transmigrating.

He had been caught up earlier in the idea that this stranger’s soul had taken over Fan Qi’s body, but hadn’t stopped to think—was it even voluntary?

Thinking back, that day she had firmly refused to accompany clients for drinks, rejected his money, willingly cleaned the bathroom, and on the phone, asked him to send money home…

Chen Zhiqian got out of bed, stepped out, and came back with a pack of tissues. He pulled one out and handed it to her. “Don’t cry. Weren’t you the one who wanted to be here?”

“It was the—” Fan Qi stopped herself. It was the original host who wanted to be here, not her.

That thought only made her feel more wronged. She took the tissue and wiped her tears, but the tears just wouldn’t stop.

She had worked so hard in her past life to reach a point where she didn’t have to care what others thought, didn’t need to engage in meaningless socializing. And now, she’d been thrown into this mess, pursued by some womanizer she couldn’t even kick to the curb. “My whole life is just one big, miserable tragedy!”

Chen Zhiqian was slightly amused by her outburst. “How are you miserable? Didn’t you just make some money?”

“Not even close! Right now, all I want is a bowl of Shanghai spicy bean paste noodles. I asked you to buy me some Doubanjiang, but I can’t even find the right kind of noodles.” Fan Qi sniffled between words. That dream of owning a big house was still far away. The reality was—she couldn’t even get decent noodles.

“Aren’t noodles everywhere?”

“I don’t want instant noodles, and definitely not those alkaline bamboo-pole noodles. I want thin Shanghai noodles.” Her tone was bratty, but after a beat, she gave in to reality. “Whatever. I’m going to sleep. I can have anything I want in my dreams.”

Chen Zhiqian watched as she cried, ranted, and finally flopped down to sleep. The girls he had known in his previous life—most of them had some kind of ulterior motive and would always present their best side to him. But Fan Qi had shown him the absolute worst of herself. He’d never met anyone like her. She seemed easygoing, but was more like a sudden summer storm—pouring rain one moment, sunshine the next.

He turned off the lights. After her little episode, he was tired too. Closing his eyes, he drifted off. But not before feeling the weight of someone pressing on him again—what kind of sleep posture was that? He pulled her arm away and rolled over to sleep.