Qian Wei walked back to her office grinning like a fool the whole way.

“Calm down! Qian Wei! Get a grip!”

No matter how much she warned herself to stay composed, happiness wasn’t something she could hide. Even if her mouth said nothing, her eyes would give her away.

“Counselor Qian, what good news do you have? Your mouth hasn’t stopped curling up!”

“Qian Wei, did you land a big client? Look at that little expression on your face!”

Qian Wei couldn’t understand it. She was just sitting quietly at her desk—why did so many colleagues keep coming by one after another to tease her? Was she really that bad at hiding her emotions?

Never mind, never mind, she thought. I’d better go find Qian Chuan and Liu Shiyun to calm down. She’d called them not long ago and arranged to have dinner together that evening.

Today Qian Wei had absolutely no mood for overtime. She’d open a document and think of Lu Xun’s face; she’d turn on her computer and think of him again. In this state of complete distraction, she simply left work early and arrived well ahead of time at the restaurant where she was meeting Qian Chuan and Liu Shiyun.

To her great surprise, the two of them arrived together again.

“How did you two end up coming together?” Qian Wei asked, baffled.

Liu Shiyun cleared her throat. “Oh, my car’s in for maintenance. I got in touch with Qian Chuan and it turned out he was passing by anyway, so he gave me a ride.”

“Wait a minute.” Qian Wei rolled her eyes. “Liu Shiyun, I recall you have seven cars—one for each day of the week. Even if one’s in maintenance, what about the other six?” She glanced at Qian Chuan too. “And aren’t you two on opposite sides of the city—one east, one west? What kind of ‘passing by’ is that?”

Liu Shiyun turned her head aside. “The dealership happened to be running a discount, so I sent all seven in for maintenance at once. As for east side, west side—well, I recently bought a place on the east side too.”

Qian Wei thought to herself, keep bragging, why don’t you. Since when did Liu Shiyun care about saving a bit on discounted maintenance fees? She had a pretty good idea what was going on, but she didn’t call it out. She decided to sit back quietly and watch Liu Shiyun and Qian Chuan perform.

“Speaking of which, you two came together last night too, didn’t you?” Qian Wei took a sip of her drink. “So first, I’d like you to explain why, when I got drunk and did what I did last night, neither of you stopped me. Second, I only texted Qian Chuan—so why did you both end up showing up together? Third, Qian Chuan, weren’t you supposed to protect me and see me home? Instead you ditched me at the Hyatt and left with Liu Shiyun. Aren’t you two supposedly not on good terms? How about the two of you explain yourselves now?”

Qian Chuan paused, then said, stiff-necked, “By the time I got there, you were already shamelessly clinging to Lu Xun! I had no chance to stop anything, okay? I’d originally arranged to watch a game with friends at a bar, and it just so happened Liu Shiyun was at that same bar, getting harassed by a bunch of drunk men. I stepped in to help her out, and right then I got your text, so I brought her along and rushed to the Hyatt with me. As for why I left you behind—my god, I actually meant to bring you with me, but you had your arms locked around Lu Xun’s neck and wouldn’t let go, kissing him one minute and hugging him the next. I couldn’t pull you away even if I tried. And you didn’t even see the look in Lu Xun’s eyes—if I’d actually tried to drag you out of his arms, I bet he’d have knocked me flat on the spot.” Qian Chuan added, aggrieved, “You know good and well what happened when I was nineteen and went to challenge him to a fight—look how badly Lu Xun beat me up. I’m twenty-eight now, I have some pride too, okay? If we’d actually started fighting right there and I’d come out worse for it, that would’ve been humiliating!”

Qian Wei choked, her tone thoroughly exasperated. “Was I really that wild last night? Clinging to Lu Xun and not letting go?”

Qian Chuan rolled his eyes. “Self-control! Composure! Do you even know how to spell those words?! And of all people, why him? Why Lu Xun?” His tone edged toward despair. “Back in school he was always stealing my spotlight. I’ve disliked him for ages, and we had bad blood between us from way back. Later, probably because my personal charm was just too much for him, he tried to patch things up between us and got a lot friendlier toward me—but I have principles! I coldly rejected his overtures!” Qian Chuan glanced at Qian Wei. “But now, given how things stand, am I actually going to have to call him brother-in-law?”

Qian Wei blinked. “He tried to make friends with you before?”

Qian Chuan nodded. “There was a stretch of time, yeah. Once some thugs from another school came to muscle in on our basketball court and even tripped one of our players and hurt him. We were about to lose, and then Lu Xun happened to walk by. He still had that untouchable, holier-than-thou look on his face, but somehow he came over with a stone-cold expression and helped out anyway. The second he stepped onto the court, every girl who’d been cheering for me switched sides completely. Damn it!” Qian Chuan thought for a moment. “Actually, you were there that day too. Didn’t you come to bring me water? Though you probably didn’t pay much attention—you always thought basketball games were boring, and that day was no exception. You were on the phone with someone the whole time, just handed the water to a teammate for me and left right away. And as they were leaving, that gang of thugs threw a ball toward you out of spite. Lucky for you, Lu Xun blocked it. That was clearly him trying to mend fences with me—he even asked me for my phone number afterward!”

Qian Wei’s eyes went wide. She no longer had the presence of mind to correct Qian Chuan’s misuse of “mend fences.” She was too stunned—wasn’t this exactly what had happened in the world of her rebirth at nineteen? Had this really happened in this timeline’s reality too?

“Lu Xun blocked a ball for me?! Why don’t I remember any of this at all!”

Qian Chuan curled his lip. “Of course you don’t remember. You’d already walked far off by then, still glued to your phone, completely oblivious to the danger behind you. If it hadn’t been for Lu Xun, you’d have gotten hit. And didn’t I mention it to you afterward? You were memorizing legal statutes at the time and just brushed me off with a couple of words—probably went in one ear and out the other.”

“…” Qian Wei’s heart was pounding wildly. “In sophomore year, Lu Xun liked a girl and even sent her a love letter, and got rejected? Do you know who that girl was?”

Qian Chuan thought it over, then shook his head. “No idea. I don’t even like the guy—why would I care about his business? Speaking of love letters, though, I got one myself in sophomore year. Left quite an impression, actually. Some obsessive admirer of mine somehow managed to track down my home address and sent the letter straight there. Gives me chills thinking about it even now.”

Qian Wei’s heart truly seized up now. “This crazy admirer of yours—was her name Li Linlin?”

“You actually remember that too!” Qian Chuan nodded. “I complained to you about it back then. You were prepping for finals, I think—you just laughed it off and didn’t think much of it. I figured you’d forgotten!”

Liu Shiyun couldn’t hold back. “So you actually got chased after by a girl in college?”

“What’s that tone supposed to mean? I’m this refined, dashing man—I had a whole company’s worth of admirers in college!”

“But if you were so popular, how come you’re still single at twenty-eight?”

“Like you’re one to talk, Miss Also-Single!”

While Qian Chuan and Liu Shiyun bickered on, Qian Wei sat there completely stunned, her thoughts in chaos. A powerful suspicion suddenly gripped her—maybe there had never been any so-called rebirth at nineteen at all. Maybe everything she remembered from that “rebirth” had actually, truly happened…

She grabbed Qian Chuan’s arm. “That love letter—was it unsigned? Beautifully written, bold and forceful strokes, like a boy’s handwriting?”

Qian Chuan looked baffled but nodded anyway. “Yeah.”

“When was it delivered? Was it on Mom’s birthday?”

“No, it was some weekend. We were both home, I remember that much.”

Not ready to give up, Qian Wei checked a few more fragments of memory from her rebirth at nineteen against Qian Chuan’s account. As expected, though the details varied slightly, the major events lined up—every single one of them had genuinely happened…

This time she was thoroughly rattled. She seriously began to doubt herself—could that fall really have knocked something loose in her brain? Some kind of aftereffect? Some bizarre bout of amnesia or memory confusion at twenty-eight? But her memories of that other life felt so real, so rich in detail…

Had that love letter of Lu Xun’s, at nineteen, really been meant for her? Had she and he truly missed each other by some cruel twist of fate, once before?

Qian Wei’s mind was thick with doubt, but there was no use sitting here turning it over and over—only the other person involved could confirm the truth. She said her goodbyes to Liu Shiyun and Qian Chuan and made her way home in a daze, anxious and unsettled. Lu Xun was away on a two-day business trip; his return flight wasn’t due to land until 8:13 the evening after next. Because the client company for this trip had extremely strict confidentiality requirements, everyone had to surrender their mobile devices before entering the conference room. Qian Wei still hadn’t managed to reach him—all she’d gotten was a short text once his plane landed, letting her know he was safe.

“Landed. Coming back to make things right with you.”

Nine simple words, and yet Qian Wei felt they carried a weight far beyond their brevity.

She never expected, though, that she would see Lu Xun again that very evening.

She had just finished showering and changed into her pajamas when a knock sounded at the door. Just as the doorbell rang, her phone buzzed too.

“Qian Wei, open the door.”

Just a few plain words, and yet her heart hammered like a drum. She didn’t know why, but hearing his voice again made something restless stir inside her, as if a thousand little deer were charging against her ribs.

Standing outside the door, Lu Xun looked travel-worn but immaculate in a sharply tailored suit—handsome, cool, every inch the disciplined elite. His features were so striking they bordered on intimidating, and combined with his naturally aloof presence, he seemed, at first glance, like someone who kept the whole world at arm’s length. But his actions were anything but cold or restrained. The moment he saw Qian Wei, without another word, he simply pulled her into his arms and leaned down to kiss her.

“I’m back.”

When the brief, lingering kiss ended, Lu Xun remained perfectly composed—while Qian Wei’s face had turned a red that nearly rivaled a boiled shrimp.

She showed him into the living room, fanning her own face to cool down as she went to pour him water, and to cover her nervousness and awkwardness, she said, offhandedly, “Did you finish everything already? You’re back so soon?”

Lu Xun pressed his lips together, his eyes fixed on her. “Not finished. I wanted to see you, so I flew back first.”

City A and City B were four hours apart by plane—not a short distance at all. And yet the way Lu Xun brought it up now made it sound as effortless and casual as if he’d flown ten minutes just to see her a little sooner. “I’ll fly back after I see you. There’s still a meeting in the morning.”

This was the first time in Qian Wei’s life she’d ever seen Lu Xun act so recklessly.

She flushed. “You really didn’t need to go through all that trouble, flying back and forth. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

Lu Xun glanced at her, his tone perfectly even. “I couldn’t wait.”

“…”

Qian Wei had never before believed anyone could make such simple words sound so romantic, but now she believed it. A man like Lu Xun—every glance, every smile, every word he spoke, even just a quiet look and two or three short words, could make someone’s heart race and face flush.

“I’ve already waited nine years for you.” Lu Xun’s eyes stayed locked on hers. “Qian Wei, I don’t get another nine years between nineteen and twenty-eight. Right now, I can’t wait even one more minute.”

His words left Qian Wei utterly frozen where she stood. Her emotions surged so fiercely her hands trembled slightly. “The love letter you wrote at nineteen—was it for me?”

Now it was Lu Xun’s turn to look startled. He frowned. “You didn’t know?”

Qian Wei stared at the handsome face before her and wanted nothing more than to scream at the sky. Damn it! After all this back and forth, it turned out Lu Xun had written her a love letter at nineteen! What exactly had she missed out on! Here she’d been, playing matchmaker for her boss like some clueless little errand girl day after day, when all she’d ever needed to do was nod, and she could have been his woman ages ago!

“I never got it. Your letter—it wasn’t signed, and it was delivered to my house. Qian Chuan mistook it for something sent by his own obsessive admirer. I never even laid eyes on it.” Her voice came out slightly hoarse as she held Lu Xun’s gaze, explaining herself to him word by word.

Lu Xun hadn’t expected this outcome either. His eyes widened, just slightly.