"Of course," says Liu Mingyan. She shakes her head, a little. "You misunderstand--I don't know what friendship looks like without it." She runs a finger around the top of her wine glass. "What I have always shared with Luo Binghe is--a clarity of purpose. We helped each other take revenge on the man who had destroyed our lives, who had extinguished the flame of happiness within us, and then, once that was done, we helped each other pursue and keep the closest things to happiness we could find. Like magpies collecting stones that glint with reflected light."