In the following days, Nie Qingzhou continued to behave as before, living peacefully with his parents, as if the conversation he had overheard that night had vanished without a trace, along with the effects of the alcohol.
On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, Nie Qingzhou's parents were set to return to the provincial capital to resume their heavy workload. On the day they were leaving, they wanted to say goodbye to the Xia family, but they found the Xia family grocery store closed and no one was home. Later, Nie Qingzhou learnt that they had gone to a prison in Yuping City that day to visit Xia Yi and Xia Yan's father.
Just as when he picked up his parents before the New Year, Nie Qingzhou took a bus to the Yuping train station and saw them off as they boarded the train.