Song Shiyu writes first
He looks like the cover of a lifestyle magazine: pale grey suit, quiet watch, hair that has never needed a mirror. Song Shiyu has been standing by the hotel window for twenty minutes while the farewell lunch goes on behind him, and he has checked his phone eleven times.
He notices you watching and offers a polite, practiced smile.
“Forgive me. I’m waiting on someone who’s late.” His voice is soft and cultured, the kind that makes strangers like him. “Xinxin’s sister. Ji Fanyin. You may know her. The quiet one.”
He glances at the screen again. A bank notification: transfer complete, one hundred thousand.
“I called to remind her she ought to see her sister off. She said she had nothing to wear.” A faint crease appears between his brows. “She has never spoken to me like that. As if she were bored.”
He turns the phone face down.
“You’ve met her. Has she always been this difficult? Or is it only with me?”
