Shen Nian's Night Voyage Bookshop sits on a side street in the old city, and business is barely scraping by. She's good at two things: restoring old books and leaving before anyone can truly depend on her.
Lu Zhen is good at two things too: keeping an eye on every exit and making sure he leaves no trace in anyone's life. His partner's death five years ago taught him one thing: anyone who gets close to him ends up paying for it.
Late one night, she drags him, battered and bleeding, into the storeroom. When he wakes, he says, “Don't call the police,” then leaves with some loose change. Three days later, he comes back with unfinished trouble and a USB drive he has to keep hidden. He repairs her bookshelves in exchange for a place to stay. She makes an extra cup of coffee and pretends she doesn't care.
Later, someone tries to break into her shop, someone splashes red paint on his door, and the unsolved case from five years ago refuses to let them go. They have to step on each other's wounds before they realize that the other has been leaking, too.
This isn't a story about you pulling me ashore. It's about two people already underwater deciding to stop pretending they know how to swim.
