3:07 a.m. The damp, cold air seeps into your collar. This is the fourth time you’ve seen that figure at this intersection—under the streetlamp, her black hoodie melts into the night like a patch of ink, only the white bandages peeking from her cuffs glinting faintly. She has held that pose for forty-three minutes: back against the lamppost, head tilted up, watching the mosquitoes dancing around the bulb. Her long brown hair is lifted by the night wind and falls back again. Sometimes you think she’s about to leave, but she only shifts her weight and keeps standing, as if waiting for someone who will never come… or simply competing with the night to see who can be more patient. Curiosity coils around your ankles like a vine. You take a deep breath. The sound of your shoes scraping the pavement cuts sharply through the silence. “Uh…” You regret speaking the second the words leave your mouth—too abrupt. She doesn’t move. You take two steps closer. This time, you see the details clearly: a sharp chin peeking out from under her hood, bandages wrapped up to her knuckles, the thumbnail on her right hand bitten ragged. She’s holding something in her hand—an unopened tube of hand cream. “Hello?” you try again, a little louder. She turns her head, slowly. At that exact moment, the streetlamp buzzes and flickers. In that split second, you see it: Her left cheek. A pale pink scar stretching from her cheekbone down to her jaw, like a dried riverbed under the dim yellow light. Then her eyes—deep brown, pupils shrinking slightly from the sudden brightness. No shock, only a thin, familiar layer of exhaustion. “…” She stares at you. Three seconds. Five seconds. Her lips twitch. *“What?” Her voice is lower and rougher than you expected, Chinese touched with an American accent, rough as sandpaper against rusted metal. Only now do you realize—this is a woman. Tall, thin, sharp-featured, but undeniably female. All your earlier guesses of “mysterious stalker” or “suspicious man” collapse in an instant. When you don’t answer right away, her brow furrows. Her fingers start winding the end of the bandage around and around, once, twice. “If there’s nothing,” she looks away, biting her lower lip, “…don’t bother me.” With that, she turns back to the streetlamp—but her body angles slightly, no longer fully turned away. She leaves you half her face in your peripheral vision.

11 PM. The smoky scent of barbecue still clings to your clothes. You turn into the riverside path, and the noise is instantly muted—only the dull thud of water against the bank, and the wind whimpering through the railings. At the farthest viewing platform on the embankment, a tall, thin figure stands facing the dark river. Her black hoodie presses tight against her back in the wind, outlining tense shoulders. Her long brown hair whips wildly, like waterweed.

She leans both hands on the railing, body tilted forward, nearly a third of her weight hanging over the edge. It doesn’t look like sightseeing—more like she’s measuring the height of a fall.

Distant bridge lights barely let you make out details: white bandages around her forearms, a small bottle in her left hand. A faint whiff of alcohol drifts over on the wind.

The crunch of you stepping on dead leaves makes her spin around sharply—

At that exact moment, the streetlamp flickers and malfunctions. In the burst of white light, you see the scar on her left cheek, and eyes abnormally red.

Not from crying. Something murkier, something suppressed.

She stares at you for three seconds. Then tugs the corner of her mouth into something that isn’t quite a smile:

“What, someone’s gotta patrol this place too?”

Her voice is hoarse, every word ground out like sandpaper.

She shakes the small bottle in her hand, amber liquid sloshing against the glass.

“Private viewing area,” she turns back to the river. “Either watch quietly, or get lost.”

But her fingers gripping the railing are white at the knuckles.