Chapter 1: Prologue

Ruan Zhizhi wore a thick down jacket as she sat inside a popular coffee shop in the heart of City A. She gazed miserably at the scattered stack of newspapers on the table before her, lost in thought.

This year, City A’s winter seemed to be colder than last year’s.

With a sigh she extended her hand. From the pile, she picked up an already shabby copy of the People’s Daily newspaper. The headline that occupied the largest section above was a lead story. It was an article pertaining to a wealthy businessman who had discovered his wife was having an affair. Harbouring resentment, the case of him deliberately murdering his wife had been reported.

As a small journalist who was undergoing a probationary period for a newspaper company, the boss had assigned a task to their group of trainee reporters: They were to find an example case on their own, collect information, and then independently compose a professional news report.

Therefore, Ruan Zhizhi had been flipping through key news from previous years as of late, observing and studying those outstanding writers’ interviews, reports, compositions, and other aspects of experience.

In truth, crimes of passion happened nearly every day, in every corner of every city. Although Ruan Zhizhi was still on her probationary period, she was already no stranger to these types of cases.

And the reason why she had selected this old court case was naturally due to its peculiarities.

What incited this wealthy businessman to murder his wife was not impulsivity. After learning of his wife’s extramarital affair, he had conducted a series of meticulous preparations to kill her.

The witness who reported to the police was a mere seven-year-old boy.

The biological son of that businessman and his wife.

Ruan Zhizhi bowed her head and took a sip of black coffee from her porcelain cup. The bitter, lingering flavour slowly pervaded her tongue. She held a page of the slightly yellowed newspaper between her thumb and finger. Her line of sight subconsciously fixed itself on a dark-hued photograph in the lower right corner of the page.

It was a pale boy with sunken eye sockets and a touch of blue under his eyes. He looked gloomy and indifferent. In the photo, he stood calmly by the door, his back straight. The eyes that gazed into the camera lens were pitch-black and bottomless.

A child who was only seven years old could actually show such deep and heart-wrenching eyes. And after witnessing his own father killing his mother, he could even calmly report to the authorities.

This child’s psychological strength was far superior to an adult’s.

Her train of thought gradually withdrew from the photograph. Ruan Zhizhi shook her head and forced herself to concentrate. She began to earnestly read the interviews and reports on all aspects of the case from her predecessors.

As she had been born prematurely, Ruan Zhizhi’s constitution had always been weaker than a normal person’s. Time elapsed bit by bit. After about an hour, she was already beginning to feel dizzy.

She reached out for the fine porcelain plate on the table, but when she lifted her eyes, she found that the last macaron had already been eaten by her.

Due to her constitution, she had always relied on sweets to replenish her sugar levels and activate her brain.

Stretching her lower back, Ruan Zhizhi got up from her seat and planned to go to the counter to order another macaron.

As she walked over with her wallet in hand, she happened to pass an unfamiliar man wearing a black down jacket. His head was slightly lowered.

The reason why she took note of this man was because he was too tall. If she looked straight up, she couldn’t even reach his chest. From Ruan Zhizhi’s impression, a man who was too tall would more or less be hunching when he walked. But the man in front of her was clearly unlike this.

Because his back was so straight, he seemed a bit oppressive, but he simply walked past her without a sideways glance.

His slender, elegant hand lazily carried a packaged box that was tied with a pink bow.

En…this box seemed a bit familiar.

Perhaps to create a quiet ambience, the hanging lamps on the ceiling of the coffee shop were dim. The refined and dark side profile of the man flitted past her eyes.

Ruan Zhizhi turned her head. In her line of sight was a lonely figure in black. His pace was not hurried nor slow, and his calm composure did not feel dangerous.

This man looked a little gloomy and a little hard to make sense of.

Of course, to put it plainly, men like this were usually very difficult to get along with.

But what did it have to do with her.

She quickly put this episode behind her. In the next second, however, the waiter at the counter regretfully informed her that the last of the macarons had just been bought by another customer. The last bit of Ruan Zhizhi’s good mood vanished into thin air.

Her mind hazily flashed to the man holding the packaged box just now. It took Ruan Zhizhi a second to remember that this was the shop’s standard packaging for macarons.

A mature man who looked so stern and gloomy unexpectedly liked to eat desserts that were so sweet even schoolgirls felt sick?

Curling her lips in disdain, she had no choice but to give up and order a mille-feuille.

With spoonful after spoonful of silky soft cake stuffed in her mouth, Ruan Zhizhi read all the stacks of newspapers she had collected on the table and somewhat relaxed a bit.

Turning her head to gaze outside the window, the sky had already gradually dimmed. It turned out the sun was setting.

Soon it would be the Lunar New Year. However, aside from the discount signs of major shopping malls, the street scenery was still the same as usual. There wasn’t the slightest amount of excitement in the atmosphere to usher in the new year.

In this extremely cold and deep winter, she thought of Li Sichen once more.

You are reading story The Moon Will Always Come to You at novel35.com

After hesitating for a number of seconds, her fingers instinctively opened Sina Weibo.1

It had been five years since Ruan Zhizhi registered for a Weibo account.

At the very beginning, Sina Weibo didn’t have its “quietly follow” function yet. So every night she would take great pains to search for that person’s Weibo username over and over again. 

Fortunately that person’s name had remained constant and unshaken by thunder.

Ruan Zhizhi and Li Sichen were once university classmates. She had stayed by his side as a “brother” for four years, doing the most foolish things in her life for him. But even when it was time to part, she could never get him to like her.

So, feeling as guilty as a thief, she went to his Weibo page. The webpage showed that he had just published a new post one hour ago. It was one line of text, accompanied by a photograph.

At one glance, Ruan Zhizhi recognized the jade sea and blue sky of Santa Monica, California. During spring break in their third year of university, she and Li Sichen, together with Gu Nian and Cheng Fengjin, had travelled there.

That was the time when she felt she was the closest to Li Sichen.

Now it had been three years since she graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles. Gu Nian and Cheng Fengjin had already settled their life-long turning point. And then there was her and Li Sichen, who chose to remain in the United States for work. Yet for a full three years, she’d never once met him.

At Li Sichen’s birthday party in their fourth year, Ruan Zhizhi finished an entire bottle of 60% vodka and got drunk. Finally, she summoned the courage to confess to him.

How had he answered at that time?

Yes, at the time he was clearly at a loss. After being silent for a while, he revealed a smile as brilliant as the sun, just as always. In a tone that carried some coquettishness, he said, Zhizhi, let’s be friends like we are now. Every day we can see each other without pressure, isn’t that great?

After speaking, he still asked with a clear conscience, Later on we will still be best friends, right?

He was like an eternal child who would never grow up. And because she liked him, it consumed her youthful years as a matter of course.

When Ruan Zhizhi looked at that pleading expression in his eyes back then, she could only nod hopelessly.

Everyone who had ever experienced this understood: To always be by the side of an impossible person as a “friend” meant suffering every second of every minute. After graduating from university, Ruan Zhizhi didn’t even take the postgraduate exam. She didn’t dare stay by his side for even a moment and fled back to the country. 

With her naturally good appearance, Ruan Zhizhi had no lack of suitors around her. Coupled with the fact that she had studied at one of the finest universities in the United States, her life was on the right track after returning to China. She was riding with the current.

Gradually, she seemed to have already let go of those memories from that time.

She wasn’t too sad. It’s just that sometimes she would feel a little empty in her heart.

So in the end, she had developed this habit of peeking at Li Sichen’s Weibo.

Reaching out to pull a long strand of hair behind her ears, Ruan Zhizhi’s gaze once again returned to the post Li Sichen had just uploaded. Upon closer inspection, she discovered that the words in his post turned out to be—City A, I’m back.2

He was back in the country?

It was as if a stone was suddenly thrown into a tranquil lake, instantly triggering a ring of ripples.

The phone in her jacket pocket rang urgently while she was in a trance. Ruan Zhizhi brought it out to take a look. The incoming call displayed the name of her close childhood friend, Gu Nian.

“Baby, what are you up to?”

As soon as the call was answered, she heard Gu Nian’s iconically sweet voice. Just by listening to this tone, one could imagine how clingy the woman was.

The atmosphere on the other end was a little noisy. Ruan Zhizhi held her phone a little further away, yawned, and replied lazily: “Nothing, just in a coffee shop trying to find inspiration to write this report.”

Gu Nian listened to Ruan Zhizhi’s classic answer and couldn’t help laughing. “It’s too boring to find inspiration there. By the way, for our school’s end-of-year activities, the president arranged a tour group for this year’s first-level professors. Only one slot per person. This opportunity is rare, but unfortunately I can’t go, I must accompany Fengjin. After thinking about it again, I’m not willing to waste this slot, so—”

“So?” Ruan Zhizhi wrinkled her brows. She didn’t know why, but she suddenly had a feeling that the situation was not so good.

“So, after getting permission from the uppers, I decided to just fill in your personal information on the form.”

Gu Nian’s voice was very sweet. Her manner of speaking was as if she was casually asking her what she should have for lunch that day.

It took a long time to digest the meaning of the other party’s words. Ruan Zhizhi took a deep breath and tried to stay as composed as possible. Just as she was about to say something very calmly, she heard Gu Nian’s words that were like bullets in rapid succession: “My love, lately you haven’t been eating and sleeping well because of work. Seeing this greatly distresses me. So go back and pack your luggage. Tomorrow you can go to Yunnan and relax a bit. Don’t thank me too much, the two of us are the closest. Well then it’s settled, bye-bye!”

After saying these words, Gu Nian hung up the phone at tremendous speed. She probably understood that Ruan Zhizhi would explode in the next second.

Ruan Zhizhi’s fingertips were slightly white as she held her cell phone. She listened to the busy tone on the other end. She was simply baffled, but without any better option, she firmly closed the laptop in front of her.

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Hello! The other day I was looking for new novels to translate since Always By Your Side will be finished this month. I wasn’t planning to post any new translations until then, but this novel caught my interest so I couldn’t wait. It’s a little similar to ABYS in that the female leads are both in the journalism industry, but this novel is definitely a heavier read. Still, I really enjoyed it. For now I’ll try to upload one chapter a week, and after January it’ll replace ABYS’s upload schedule.

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