For the next two days, the antique shop was unnaturally peaceful.
Under Pei Yan’s nearly merciless care, Xie Qingqiu’s wounds improved at a visible rate. The injury on her shoulder had begun to scab over and no longer seeped blood. The toxin’s heat, which had once burned so fiercely that she had nearly lost control, was also being suppressed by the silver pheromone suppressor ring to a level that was almost lukewarm.
She was still locked inside the glass room, but Pei Yan had begun allowing her to do some simple activities within the range of the surveillance cameras—look through old books taken from the shelves upstairs or quietly watch Pei Yan sit outside the door and restore one damaged doll after another.
She gradually noticed that the expression Pei Yan wore while restoring dolls bore an oddly striking resemblance to the one she wore while changing Xie Qingqiu’s bandages—the almost devout, endlessly patient focus, as if whether it was a crack in porcelain or a wound on a living person, both deserved to be treated with the same solemn care.
“This doll,” Xie Qingqiu asked despite herself as she watched through the glass while Pei Yan held the porcelain doll with part of a finger missing, “has it been broken for a long time?”
“Seven years.” Pei Yan did not even look up. The carving knife in her hand carefully polished the broken edge of the porcelain. “The original owner dropped it by accident. They couldn’t bear to throw it away, but couldn’t find anyone willing to take on such a difficult restoration job. They finally found their way to me a while ago.”
“You can fix it?”
“I can.” There was an unmistakable confidence in Pei Yan’s voice. “It just takes time. Broken things can’t be rushed if you want them to look almost as they originally did.”
Watching her intent profile, Xie Qingqiu suddenly had an absurd illusion—as if she too were one of the collection pieces in this shop, something damaged that was being carefully restored.
She couldn’t explain whether the feeling was grating or… some hidden sense of security she herself was unwilling to admit to.
That rare peace was abruptly shattered on the evening of the third day.
The bell outside the shop suddenly rang three times in quick succession. It was a signal Pei Yan had set up, meaning a stranger was approaching. The carving knife in Pei Yan’s hand stopped at once. She rose swiftly and put the half-restored doll inside a cabinet, moving so quickly that not a trace of her earlier composure remained.
“Someone’s here,” she said under her breath, walking straight to the glass room’s control panel. After she entered a series of commands, most of the soft lighting abruptly went out, leaving only a single extremely dim floor lamp that barely revealed their outlines.
Xie Qingqiu immediately grew alert, every muscle in her body tensing. “The Joint Defense Bureau?”
“Not sure.” Pei Yan’s voice was very low. “But the cameras show an unlicensed black van parked at the mouth of the alley. It’s been there for ten minutes. This doesn’t look like an ordinary security patrol.”
She turned and hurried toward the back of the shop. Behind a row of seemingly ordinary storage shelves, she pressed a concealed mechanism. An entire wall of shelving slowly slid inward, revealing a narrow secret passage behind it.
“This connects to the underground utility tunnels beneath the abandoned warehouse next door,” Pei Yan explained in a lowered voice. “If something goes wrong, leave through here and keep heading south. You can circle around to the old station three blocks away.”
Xie Qingqiu froze. “You’re not coming with me?”
“This shop represents seventeen years of my work.” There was not a trace of hesitation in Pei Yan’s voice. “If they’re only conducting a routine inspection, it’s safer for me to stay and handle it. With your injuries and pheromone condition, you can’t afford a direct confrontation.”
Xie Qingqiu opened her mouth to argue, but knocking had already sounded from outside the shop—three unhurried knocks, carrying the methodical rhythm of official business.
Pei Yan’s expression instantly returned to its usual gentle composure. She quickly pushed Xie Qingqiu into the secret passage and lowered her voice. “Don’t make a sound, no matter what you hear.”
The door to the passage closed behind her without a sound, leaving Xie Qingqiu in near-total darkness. Through an extremely narrow crack in the door, she could only glimpse the faint light spilling from the shop outside and hear the indistinct murmur of voices.
“Good evening, Boss Pei.” It was an unfamiliar man’s voice, courteous on the surface but concealing an unmistakable scrutiny underneath. “Sorry to disturb you. This is a routine inspection.”
“Come in.” Pei Yan’s voice was as gentle as ever, without the slightest flaw. “May I ask what this is regarding?”
“Three days ago, an attack by a fugitive suspect occurred in the eastern part of the city.” The man’s footsteps sounded inside the shop as he apparently looked around. “According to nearby pheromone monitoring records, the suspect’s possible route passed through this area.”
Xie Qingqiu held her breath. Her heartbeat exploded in her ears like pounding drums. She bit down hard on her lower lip to keep the rough breath she could barely control from making a sound.
“This alley is certainly secluded,” Pei Yan said, still at ease. “But I haven’t noticed anything unusual these past few days. I’ve spent most of my time in the shop organizing my collection pieces. The streetlamp at the mouth of the alley did break a couple of days ago, though, and it gets very dark at night. If someone wanted to hide, it would certainly be convenient.”
“We’ll notify the city about the streetlamp,” the man said. His footsteps stopped somewhere, as if he were examining something. “Your shop, Boss Pei, certainly has… a distinctive atmosphere.”
“They’re just old things.” Pei Yan sounded indifferent. “If you don’t mind, would you like some tea? You can also see if there’s anything you need. I just received a batch of Qing Dynasty pocket watches, and they’re in excellent condition.”
Xie Qingqiu could imagine the unruffled expression on Pei Yan’s face. There was no sign of panic at all. The urgent evacuation and concealment from moments earlier seemed almost like an illusion from her memory.
That almost theatrical calm caused the fear wound tight inside Xie Qingqiu to loosen slightly under the influence of a trust she couldn’t put into words.
The conversation outside continued for several minutes. The topic gradually shifted from the case to the age and care of the pocket watches, and their tones grew more relaxed as well.
Listening to the unfamiliar man’s footsteps move one by one toward the shop’s entrance and finally away, Xie Qingqiu felt the stone suspended over her heart settle slightly.
“Sorry to have troubled you, Boss Pei. If you find any leads, please report them promptly.”
“Of course, of course.” Pei Yan’s voice was warmly dismissive, like someone seeing a guest out. “Be careful on your way.”
The shop door closed again, and the entire shop sank into a long silence.
Xie Qingqiu remained holding her breath until the shelving slowly slid open and Pei Yan’s figure appeared in the doorway. Only then did she release a sharp breath, her legs going weak as she nearly collapsed to the floor.
Pei Yan hurried forward and caught her by the arm. Her voice held unmistakable concern. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Xie Qingqiu panted, leaning against her shoulder, but her voice trembled despite her efforts to control it. “They… they’ve already searched this area.”
“Mm.” Pei Yan’s expression darkened, offering no false reassurance. “That means your trail was exposed earlier than we estimated.”
Xie Qingqiu looked up at her and suddenly realized a cruel fact: no matter how flawless Pei Yan’s antique shop disguise was, no matter how skilled she was at using pheromones to conceal her traces, as long as Xie Qingqiu remained in this city, sooner or later one of these searches would no longer be a ‘routine inspection.’”
“I should leave.” Her voice was low, carrying a fatigue that was almost resolute. “If I stay here, I’ll implicate you sooner or later.”
Pei Yan only looked at her in silence. After a moment, she actually gave a soft laugh. There was no perfunctory comfort in it. Instead, it carried an almost unshakable seriousness.
“Ms. Xie,” she said, “you think those patrol teams are searching so carefully because they’re dedicated? You’re wrong. They can’t get any genuinely valuable leads, so they have no choice but to rely on this kind of blanket search and hope for luck. As long as we’re one step more cautious than they are, there’s still plenty of game left in this cat-and-mouse chase.”
She paused, her gaze falling on Xie Qingqiu’s still-pale face, and her voice suddenly softened.
“And besides,” she added quietly, “I still haven’t figured out who forced you onto this dead-end road. Until I do, I won’t let you walk alone back into that darkness.”
Xie Qingqiu stared at her, unable for a moment to tell whether the sudden surge of sourness in her chest was the lingering fear after surviving a disaster or the warmth of something she had never imagined she might possess again in circumstances like these—the warmth of being cared about.
Outside the window, the broken streetlamp at the mouth of the alley still hadn’t come back on. In the darkness, only the warm yellow light shining through The Curio House’s frosted window stubbornly remained, carving out a small, temporary peace that belonged only to the two of them in this city fraught with danger.
Pei Yan helped her back to the glass room, poured her a cup of warm water, and carefully examined the wound on her shoulder once more. Only after confirming that the tension from earlier had not pulled at the healing flesh did she finally relax a little. She sat on the edge of the bed, her expression revealing an unusual trace of deep thought.
“The person leading them,” she said suddenly, as if speaking to herself or telling Xie Qingqiu, “didn’t sound like someone from the local Joint Defense Bureau. The accent was more like… the Northern District Special Dispatch Unit.”
Xie Qingqiu’s heart clenched. “You know him?”
“Not exactly, but I’ve heard people speak in a similar way.” Pei Yan lowered her eyes, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the rim of the teacup. “The Northern District Special Dispatch Unit was established three years ago. It’s a cross-regional operations unit that rarely appears in public and usually handles… higher-level, confidential assignments.”
“You mean,” Xie Qingqiu said tensely, “they weren’t conducting a routine inspection. They came specifically for me?”
“It’s possible.” Pei Yan did not hide the truth, and her voice held a rare gravity. “If that’s the case, it means your trail has attracted more than the attention of the local Joint Defense Bureau. You’ve alarmed some higher-level system. This may be connected in some way to the ‘special observation group’ you mentioned before.”
Xie Qingqiu was silent for a moment before asking quietly, “If they really come looking for us, what are you going to do?”
Pei Yan raised her eyes to look at her, without the slightest hesitation in her gaze.
“What am I going to do?” She smiled softly, her tone carrying an almost matter-of-fact certainty. “I’m going to hide you somewhere deeper and seal up every weakness more thoroughly. Ms. Xie, once I decided to keep you here, I never planned to hand you over easily. Whether they’re local patrol officers or some special dispatch unit.”
Xie Qingqiu looked at her, unable to say anything for a moment.
She had seen too many people retreat in the face of profit and risk. She had seen too many so-called ‘companions’ choose to protect themselves at critical moments. Yet this woman, faced with a dangerous problem hot enough to drag her into the abyss as well, had not the slightest hesitation in her voice. It was as if the ‘collection piece’ she had spoken of from the beginning had never been a casual expression of a collector’s obsession, but a grave promise.
“Aren’t you afraid?” Xie Qingqiu finally asked, her voice very soft. “What if they trace me here? You’ll be arrested along with me for harboring a wanted criminal.”
Pei Yan pondered for a moment before slowly replying, “I am. But there’s something I understand more clearly than my fear. If I handed you over today because I was afraid, I’d probably spend the rest of my life regretting that I had destroyed something with my own hands that should never have been destroyed. That regret would be harder for me to endure than any risk.”
As she said this, her expression was so calm that it was almost cold. Yet beneath that calm, Xie Qingqiu heard an almost stubborn seriousness. This was not a momentary impulse or a burst of loyalty, but a choice made after careful consideration and still held to without wavering.
“Starting tomorrow,” Pei Yan said as she rose, returning to her usual composed manner, “I’ll rework the shop’s pathways and surveillance blind spots and reinforce a few more safeguards. For the next few days, aside from necessary dressing changes and movement, stay as far inside the glass room as possible. Minimize the risk of your traces being picked up by external pheromone monitoring.”
Xie Qingqiu nodded, then suddenly remembered something. “That Northern District Special Dispatch Unit… what if they come back?”
“Then we’ll deal with whatever comes.” Pei Yan’s voice held a faintly sly smile. “Ms. Xie, don’t forget—I’ve been running this shop for seventeen years. I have far more ways of handling inspections, overt or covert, than you can imagine.”
She turned toward the door, then stopped before leaving and looked back at Xie Qingqiu. A rare, undisguised gentleness showed in those deep eyes.
“Get some rest,” she said. “This cat-and-mouse game has only just begun.”
The door slowly closed behind her. Xie Qingqiu sat alone against the headboard, gazing at the dim floor lamp and listening to her heartbeat gradually settle.
She lowered her head and looked at the shoulder wrapped in gauze. Then she remembered Pei Yan’s astonishingly steady hands supporting her earlier, and her heart suddenly clenched. She hated the momentary lapse that had come over her. She hated that when her legs had gone weak, her first instinct had been to lean toward those hands instead of breaking free.
The glass room that confined her was clearly still a cage, yet she had nearly let herself forget that.
She closed her eyes, but her mind replayed the details of the search again and again—the unfamiliar man’s unhurried footsteps, the speculation about the ‘Northern District Special Dispatch Unit,’ and the vague yet weighty term Pei Yan had used: ‘the people above.’
During three months on the run, she had long since grown accustomed to swallowing all her fear and exhaustion alone, accustomed to relying on her own will to keep moving forward after every narrow escape from death.
Tonight, without realizing it, she had loosened a seam in that habit. The discovery sent a chill through her, colder and sharper than the terror she had felt during the search.
She wasn’t afraid that Pei Yan would trade her for the bounty, nor was she afraid that this basement would truly imprison her body. What she feared was that she had begun, unconsciously, to stop thinking about escape.
She stared at the cool silver pheromone suppressor ring around her wrist and suddenly wondered whether, if the day came when she truly had to leave, she would still be ruthless enough not to look back.
She didn’t dare think too deeply about the question.
The night grew deeper. The broken streetlamp at the mouth of the alley still had not been repaired. In the darkness, only a window on the second floor of The Curio House remained lit through the night. Pei Yan was still reorganizing the shop’s pathways and surveillance blind spots—for tomorrow, and for the many more unknown nights that might descend in the future.
Xie Qingqiu stared at the extremely faint light filtering down through the cracks of the ventilation shaft and told herself that it was nothing more than a temporary respite granted by the enemy. It absolutely could not be anything else.
She repeated the words to herself again and again, but she could never quite make herself believe them.