Wu Letian didn’t want to hand over his passport. With someone else holding it, it felt like his life was being squeezed in someone’s fist.

  But at the moment, there seemed to be no other choice except compliance. He glanced up at the surveillance camera on the ceiling. Even though there were no windows in this room, if anything happened in here, someone would definitely notice right away.

  “Thanks,” Wu Letian smiled and handed the passport to Xiao Chen.

  Strangely, Xiao Chen didn’t pass it to her superior right away. Instead, she tried to open it.

  “Hurry up, Xiao Chen!” Chief Zhang barked.

  Caught halfway through flipping it open, she quickly handed the passport over with an awkward smile. “Sorry, habit—just a reflex.”

  “No problem, let’s not waste time. It’s the middle of the night, and this gentleman has been waiting long enough…” Chief Zhang didn’t seem angry.

  That left a good impression on Wu Letian.

  Chief Zhang took the passport and, with a faint smile, rubbed the cover like a counterfeit detector scanning a bill.

  But when he opened the first page and saw Wu Letian’s personal information, he froze—just for half a second, but it was long enough for Wu Letian to notice.

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, nothing…” Chief Zhang shook his head and forced his expression back into a relaxed smile. “Just your name—it’s the same as a friend of mine.”

  “Is that really all?” Wu Letian had his doubts but didn’t let them show. He laughed, “Yeah, pretty common name. Sounds like ‘Mayday’—a lot of people mix it up with the band, but in aviation, ‘Mayday’ is the last thing anyone wants to hear…”

  From the corner of his eye, he noticed that when Xiao Chen heard his name, she gave a slight shiver.

  “Exactly, exactly. I’m no expert, but I’ve got friends in air traffic control—they say once you hear a ‘Mayday,’ you know you’re in deep trouble.” Chief Zhang nodded in agreement while placing the passport into a device next to his computer.

  The moment it touched the scanner, his previous smile froze into something unreadable.

  Wu Letian saw it all, and his suspicions deepened.

  He kept a close eye on Chief Zhang’s expression, while also glancing over at Xiao Chen. “If either of them shows even a hint of hostility, I’ll strike first!”

  But no hostility came—not even a trace.

  On the contrary, the gaze behind Chief Zhang’s thick black glasses grew softer as he stared at the screen. Then, suddenly, amid that softness, there was a flash of resolve. His right hand slammed the mouse button.

  “All set, Mr. Wu. Your passport’s good to go. Welcome home.” As he spoke, he handed the passport back directly.

  “Thanks. So, I’m cleared for entry now?”

  “Yes, everything’s in order. Do you know the way? Xiao Chen can escort you if needed.”

  “Before I go, can I ask one thing?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “What was wrong with my passport? Why didn’t it work?”

  As if anticipating the question, Chief Zhang replied nonchalantly, “There’s nothing wrong with your passport. Probably just a glitch at the automated gate. Once Xiao Chen sees you out, I’ll go over and check the machine.”

  “Alright… if you say so.” Wu Letian didn’t believe him, but knew there was no point pressing further. “No need to trouble the lady—it’s late. I know the way.”

  Before either of them could respond, he bolted from the room in a flash and disappeared deeper into the airport.

  He didn’t stop for a long while, walking fast as if someone was chasing him, until he finally blended into the crowd and made his way to the last operating baggage carousel in the arrival hall.

  Xiao Chen hadn’t followed. Taking advantage of the crowd, Wu Letian peeked back several times through gaps between people—finally sure.

  “There’s definitely something off about those two.”

  The way Chief Zhang and Xiao Chen behaved felt increasingly suspicious.

  But under the pressure of jet lag, anxiety, and hunger, Wu Letian’s guard began to slip. Exhaustion weighed heavily on him now.

  He found a chair and sat down, watching the conveyor belt with one eye while keeping the other on the customs checkpoint.

  More and more people retrieved their luggage; both the carousel and the crowd were thinning out.

  Eventually, only a few scattered suitcases remained. Just like him, only a handful of passengers were still waiting.

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  “Damn unlucky. Why did I have to use a regular passport for this trip to New York? If I had used our passport, I’d be in bed by now.”

  Wu Letian’s patience was running out. He decided to go to the airline counter to ask about his baggage.

  “Sir, may I help you?” The woman behind the counter asked. She had blunt-cut bangs and sounded like she had repeated this line a hundred times tonight—completely mechanical.

  “I’d like you to check on my luggage. I just arrived on the direct flight from New York. Still haven’t seen my bag.” Wu Letian handed over his passport and baggage claim ticket, trying to be polite.

  “Alright, please hold on.” She took them.

  The two exchanged no eye contact, but Wu Letian felt like someone was watching him.

  He leaned slightly, glancing back—there was no one behind him in line.

  Farther back, all the baggage carousels had stopped. The arrival hall was nearly empty. Time seemed to have frozen. At last, the bustling Dongdu airport had entered a rare moment of stillness in the dead of night.

  “Was it just my imagination? Or just the aftereffect of that long flight?”

  The woman behind the counter interrupted his thoughts. “Mr. Wu, I couldn’t find your record in the system.”

  “You mean… my luggage can’t be found?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How’s that possible? It was a direct flight—I clearly checked in my bag before boarding!”

  “No, you don’t understand. It’s strange. Not only is your luggage missing, but there’s no record of your boarding, either. Are you sure you were on that flight?” The woman finally looked up, puzzled. It was the first time their eyes met.

  “What do you think? I’m here in the middle of the night just for fun? To chat with a bored middle-aged woman?” Wu Letian’s temper was about to explode—but it extinguished the moment their eyes met.

  He had to admit—her eyes were actually quite pretty. Despite having dealt with passengers like him all day, the weariness couldn’t quite dull their charm.

  And once again, she reminded him of Sylvia.

  When Wu Letian flew out of New York, feeling the thrust of the plane climbing into the sky, he still couldn’t be sure—was it over between him and Sylvia, that mysterious Italian woman with sun-kissed skin and a head full of brown curls?

  They never said goodbye. Was it an unspoken understanding, or a lingering connection?

  But then again, when they started, neither of them ever said, "Let's be together."

  “This is your last night in New York.” The night before his departure—just yesterday—they were together, and she said this, placing special emphasis on the word "last."

  “Then, is it our last night?” he emphasized the word “our.”

  She smiled but didn’t answer.

  Before returning to Wu Letian’s hotel room, they spent the evening on a date—candlelit dinner, a walk through the park, hands brushing, stealing kisses when no one was around.

  All of it just foreplay. Once they returned to the hotel, they went straight to the main act.

  She had a unique kind of physicality—her body, fiery and passionate one moment, seemed to cool down in an instant, making him feel as if he had gone from a blazing stadium to a serene forest. He had to keep holding back the urge that surged through him.

  When he finally couldn’t resist anymore, and when she too had no intention of quieting herself, crying out her desire with abandon, they reached their peak together and then collapsed into satisfied stillness.

  That raw, bone-deep connection had him floating, but oddly enough, what lingered most in his mind during the long flight, before they even passed over the Arctic, was something she said in passing.

  "Do you believe me when I say I know Da Vinci?"

  "Pretty much everyone in the world knows Da Vinci."

  “No, I mean I’ve talked with him, had dinner, walked through libraries…”

  “And slept with him too?” he teased.

  “Pfft!”

  “Honestly, I get your Italian romanticism. I always thought I might have been bros with Emperor Qin Shi Huang or Han Wu Di in another life.”

  “Considering your heritage, you probably weren’t mingling with Han emperors, but more like marching west with Genghis Khan and defiling some poor Eastern European girl in Budapest.”

  “Wow, I went from royalty to barbarian real quick.”

  “Aren’t you? You’re so rude.”

  She never backed down.

  In words, they were equals—but physically, not so much.

  Purely in terms of strength, Wu Letian could easily pin her down and end the argument that way.

  Still, her comment—“I know Da Vinci”—stuck in his mind.

  She hadn’t sounded like she was joking. Her tone and expression had a strange, almost otherworldly aura.

  Wu Letian had always attracted the strange and inexplicable. If Sylvia was the same, maybe their meeting proved that like attracts like.

  Unfortunately, they never got the chance to truly dive into the topic—it always ended in his aggressive passion.

  Though she fought back plenty, flipping him under her time and again.

  And when that happened, the pendant around her neck would swing with rhythmic motion, drawing his eyes away from her dangling curls, her flawless face, or her chest.

  That pendant was unique—utterly unlike anything he’d ever seen.

  It seemed to be made of some unknown metal. It looked like a mandala flower, but without the thorny edges on its petals. In fact, it also resembled a drop of water, except the bottom wasn’t sealed.

  Inside the “petals,” there appeared to be tiny etchings or perhaps micro-carvings, likely only visible through a microscope or strong magnifier.

  He couldn’t read them, but was thankful for them.

  —Whenever she was on top and he was close to losing control, he’d focus his eyes on that pendant, trying in vain to decipher its tiny engravings.

  It was only the size of his thumb. The outer layer of the petals was smooth, but faint watermarks could be seen—many of them.

  He could see those marks, but couldn’t identify them.

  They seemed random in both appearance and style. He wasn’t even sure if he’d seen them all in their months together—or just a tiny fraction.

  Even more mystifying, it changed color. Depending on the time, light, and angle, it would shift. Sometimes in the dark, it would go completely dull; other times, it emitted a glow—like the orange-red afterburner of a next-gen fighter jet.

  “This pendant wasn’t a gift from Da Vinci, was it?” One time, while caressing the pendant and her face, he asked, “Feels like it’s from the future. Doesn’t look like something from the Renaissance.”

  She giggled. “Of course not. It’s been passed down from my ancestors.”

  She winked, adding playfully, “But if Da Vinci gave it to them, it’s kind of like he gave it to me, right?”

  “Flawed logic. If Da Vinci gave it to you, why not directly? You claim you knew him!”

  He got excited, thinking he’d caught her in a contradiction.

  “Hypothetical mood,” she shot back. “Oh right, Mandarin doesn’t have that grammatical concept…”

  She was unflappable.

  Still, he pressed on. “Regardless of mood, it couldn’t have come from Da Vinci. One of those watermarks looks like the Eiffel Tower—that’s 19th-century. Da Vinci died centuries before that.”

  “How do you know it was the Eiffel Tower? And even if it was, are you so sure time only flows in one direction?”

  “You’ve got a point… I don’t really know.” He had to admit the mark only looked like the Eiffel Tower, and he gave up the argument. “All I know is, this pendant is one of a kind—just like you.”

  He moved his gaze from the pendant to her eyes, looking at her with deep affection.

  She leaned in close, locking eyes with him. “I always thought your eyes were beautiful. But now I think your mouth’s not bad either.”

  The breath from her words intoxicated him.

  Then she closed her eyes.

  And he knew exactly what to do next.