Chapter One: Everyone in the Rain Is Acting

The curly-haired streamer eased backward. A young man in a delivery raincoat pushed between them. “Stop fighting. Give it to me. I'll walk her across.” The moment his hand touched the handle, Wanqing let go. He instinctively tightened his grip. A gust blew the umbrella inside out; with a sharp crack, it snapped back into shape. A dark-red spark moved beneath the silver markings. The first. “Hold this while I fix my hair.” The streamer passed the umbrella to a man in gold-rimmed glasses. Smiling, he accepted and sheltered half of her body. The second and third. The chain looked accidental, but Chenzhou recognized the man. Lu Jingming was his cousin, the “charity lawyer” whose kinship to him the Lu family never publicly acknowledged.