The Man They Locked in the Storm

The night before the engagement banquet, my fiancée’s childhood friend said he had prepared a surprise for the groom-to-be.

He tricked me up to the rooftop glass conservatory of the hotel, locked the door from the outside, and turned on every sprinkler.

On a rainy night in December, ice-cold water slammed down from above.

The conservatory was surrounded by transparent glass on all sides, and the guests downstairs held up their phones to watch me shiver miserably inside.

He smiled with vicious delight.

“Isn’t Jiang Yanzhou the best at pretending to be calm?”