Qi Xi woke the next day with a splitting headache, deep in the fog of a hangover, and only when she checked the time did she realize it was already ten in the morning. When she dragged herself up, she found she wasn’t in the apartment she rented with Zhao Yiran at all, but instead…

She was in the guest room at Gu Yan’s sister’s place!

Qi Xi had no time to think about anything else—she practically fell out of bed.

Her memories of the night before were fragmented, and her first instinct was unease and anxiety. She’d been so outrageous last night, surely none of it could actually be true…

Her recollections of the previous night were hazy at best. She remembered Gu Yan showing up, but couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. All she could recall clearly was the overwhelming sense of grievance in her heart, and her tearful accusations at Gu Yan. Beyond that, she couldn’t separate reality from dream, because after getting drunk she’d had an entire night of bizarre dreams—dragging Gu Yan and Zhao Yiran out clubbing, running outside to dig up dirt and plant vegetables, borrowing money from Gu Yan to run a loan-sharking operation, and most absurd of all, dreaming she’d attended Gu Yan’s wedding, followed by his child’s one-month celebration banquet. The most humiliating part was that she’d given eight hundred yuan as a wedding gift, and Gu Yan had complained it wasn’t enough! Even in her dreams, this man wouldn’t let her have a moment’s peace!

Now that she’d woken up in Gu Xuehan’s home, surely she hadn’t caused a scene all the way to Gu Yan’s doorstep… That meant it was probably true that Gu Yan had come to the bar yesterday…

But the rest of it…

The rest surely wasn’t real, because Qi Xi liked to think of herself as an outstanding example of composure and restraint in this city, and the idea that she’d generously give Gu Yan eight hundred yuan despite everything between them was simply too absurd. If Gu Yan married someone else, Qi Xi was absolutely certain she wouldn’t give a single cent! There was no way she’d even attend his wedding!

Thinking this over, Qi Xi consoled herself—so the rest of it, all those shameful things, must definitely have been a dream.

But the moment she thought “dream,” her chest tightened a little. She felt a bit pathetic, having imagined Gu Yan confessing to her and saying he liked her, only in her own head…

Wasn’t that just tragic?

Because these tangled memories were so chaotic and outlandish, Qi Xi simply couldn’t process them all at once.

She had just decided to sort through them one by one once she was fully awake, when she heard Gu Yan’s familiar voice—

“Qi Xi, you’re awake?”

The man seemed to have been in the kitchen and, hearing movement in the guest room, walked over.

Soon Qi Xi saw Gu Yan’s face at the guest room door—clean-cut and sharp, always carrying an air of beauty no matter the moment. Though his expression showed nothing particular, that face alone was already quite something to look at.

It was well past working hours—her sleeping in after a hangover was one thing, but how could Gu Yan possibly still be here?

Or maybe this was still a dream, and she hadn’t fully woken up yet.

With that thought, Qi Xi calmed down again. She glanced at Gu Yan, convinced this was all a dream, pressed her lips together, and ignored the dream-Gu Yan.

Certain that all she had to do was fall back asleep, Qi Xi calmly pulled the blanket back over herself and lay back down, closing her eyes.

Then she felt Gu Yan walk to the side of the bed, and touch her forehead, murmuring as if to himself: “Why is your face so red? Is she running a fever? That shouldn’t be.”

His hand was slightly cool, and the sensation quickly vanished.

Gu Yan withdrew his hand. “Temperature seems normal.”

The temperature might be normal, but Qi Xi felt her brain probably wasn’t.

Because from the undeniably real sensation of Gu Yan’s touch, Qi Xi realized with despair that none of this was a dream after all—last night she’d probably really made a scene, crying and carrying on at the bar, doing something utterly ridiculous to Gu Yan, which was why she’d woken up here in his sister’s home. Gu Yan, bound by their colleague relationship, likely had no choice but to stay and look after her.

Thinking about it this way, the situation suddenly felt suffocating.

So Qi Xi pulled the blanket over her face and kept her eyes shut tight, hoping to block out the entire outside world, and hoping Gu Yan would leave soon.

But he didn’t.

Not only did Gu Yan not leave, he actually sat down on the edge of Qi Xi’s bed. “Do you want to get up? I made you congee and hangover tea.”

At this point Qi Xi couldn’t keep up the act any longer. She threw off the blanket and flew into her slippers. “I’m going to wash my face and brush my teeth!”

She practically fled into the bathroom.

Inside, Qi Xi did a tremendous amount of mental preparation. Though she had some scattered impressions of the night before, she couldn’t recall all the details.

She decided to act calm for now and see how things unfolded.

So once she’d finished washing up, Qi Xi came back out looking like her usual composed self. Seeing nothing unusual about Gu Yan either, she greeted him in their normal manner and sat down at the table to eat, pretending everything was fine.

But though Qi Xi wanted to get through this moment smoothly, the other person in the room clearly had other plans.

“Qi Xi, didn’t you say it was only ever me? Is this really how you wanted me?”

Just as Gu Yan ambushed her with this line, Qi Xi happened to be drinking milk with cereal.

Gu Yan spoke in a perfectly serious tone, without much fluctuation in his emotions at all, not even lifting his eyes to look at her—just staring at her bowl, as casually as if he were discussing which court a case had been filed in and how far along it was.

But the more calmly he spoke, as though this were an entirely ordinary matter, the more horrified it made Qi Xi feel.

In an instant, she lost control and sprayed the milk in her mouth right out, coughing uncontrollably.

The table was inevitably stained by the milk from Qi Xi’s mouth. Though Qi Xi didn’t know anything about furniture brands, the taste in this apartment of Gu Xuehan’s was clearly extremely refined, with a strong sense of design, and every detail was polished to perfection—obviously nothing cheap.

Looking at the solid wood tabletop she’d just stained with milk, Qi Xi felt a flush of embarrassment and guilt, but Gu Yan seemed utterly unbothered.

He simply pulled out a wet wipe as naturally as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, and wiped Qi Xi’s mouth. Then he took her milk-stained hand and carefully, meticulously wiped each finger clean.

This was really…

As Gu Yan carefully wiped her hand, Qi Xi, overwhelmed with embarrassment, thought about pulling her hand away. Gu Yan simply looked up and shot her a half-warning glare, then said in a low voice: “Behave.”

Then he pulled her hand back firmly and continued wiping.

Gu Yan’s movements as he wiped her hand were actually quite gentle and restrained, without any suggestive gestures or hint of anything untoward. But even this simple act of wiping her hand left Qi Xi feeling like her breathing had become ragged. She didn’t quite know what to do with herself—it felt as though the hand Gu Yan held no longer belonged to her.

Gu Yan would treat her like this…

So then… could it be…

So everything from last night was real?!

The moment that possibility crossed her mind, Qi Xi’s whole face turned red. She felt like she could barely breathe, her heart racing at an absurd pace.

Last night she’d simply used alcohol as an excuse to act out. Now, sober, she had no idea how to face what came next.

“Ah, I…” Qi Xi tried to change the subject. “How did I end up here?”

Gu Yan had already let go of her hand. He glanced at her now. “Oh, you were hugging me and wouldn’t let go yesterday. You said you wanted to sleep in my arms.”

Qi Xi felt she might actually faint. Could Gu Yan please stop saying such mortifying things in that solemn negotiation-room tone of his!

“…” Qi Xi wanted nothing more than to flee immediately, but Gu Yan was staring right at her, and this was his sister’s home—she had no idea where she could even run to.

So she tried again to change the subject, hoping for something less awkward and sensitive. Qi Xi smoothed her hair and deflected: “Why didn’t you take me back to Zhao Yiran’s place?”

“Because you said you wanted to come home with me,” Gu Yan said calmly. “And besides, I wasn’t comfortable letting you go home with Zhao Yiran either, because if she were being responsible, she wouldn’t have left you alone drinking at the bar counter. She was the one who brought you out, and then she went off to chat with someone else halfway through.”

“If I hadn’t happened to see her selfie on her social media feed, with you sitting behind her, I wouldn’t have even known she’d taken you to a bar.”

Gu Yan looked at Qi Xi, his tone turning somewhat serious: “If I hadn’t come, and something had happened to you last night, what was I supposed to do afterward?”

Qi Xi looked up at him and mumbled, “What do you mean, do afterward…”

Gu Yan pressed his lips together, refusing to let her change the subject again. He stared at her: “Even if you’re collecting applications for boyfriend, there’s still such a thing as first come, first served. I should at least be number one in line—are you really going to let someone else cut ahead of me?”

Did that mean…

Blushing, Qi Xi protested in a small voice: “How are you number one? Didn’t you like someone else back in college? Weren’t you going to confess to her? Maybe it was only later, working together at the firm, that you got won over by my personal charm and started liking me…”

Once Qi Xi got going on this topic, her logic suddenly became crystal clear: “And you say you don’t have a girlfriend, so what’s going on with your female neighbor? Were you two getting a hotel room to play cards or study? Talking about liking me—could it be you’re just settling for second best? Like, you couldn’t win over your unattainable dream girl, so you found a cheap substitute instead? Did you two break up recently and that’s why you came after me?”

Qi Xi hadn’t thought so at first, but the more she talked it through, the more convinced she became: “You’d better not be the type who eats what’s in the bowl while eyeing what’s in the pot, and don’t tell me there’s nothing going on between you two—if there’s nothing, why is your face turning red right now? You must be feeling guilty!”

Gu Yan looked somewhat at a loss. He called her name quietly.

But Qi Xi wasn’t about to let it go: “Don’t try to interrupt me and change the subject. You say you don’t have a girlfriend, yet you’re all cozy with your female neighbor every day, walking her home multiple times—why don’t you ever walk me home? And after all that, you still have the nerve to claim you can line up for number one? I’m a petty, classless person, and I have zero interest in sharing a boyfriend with anyone.”

Gu Yan’s face flushed slightly, though he looked helpless. “You’re imagining things again. There’s nothing between me and my neighbor.”

He looked at Qi Xi, his tone deeply earnest: “The only person I’ve ever liked is you.”

“It was never a slow-burn thing where I gradually fell for you.” Gu Yan lowered his gaze, as if trying to hide his own reddening face, though it did him no good—even the tips of his ears had turned faintly red. His voice remained composed, but Qi Xi could still catch the faint trace of nervousness in it.

“The person I wanted to confess to has always been you. There was never any unattainable dream girl. It was always you.”

Qi Xi couldn’t process this at all. She stared at him blankly, repeating: “You’ve always liked me? But didn’t you have someone you liked?”

Gu Yan looked helpless. “Idiot. It’s always been you. There’s no one else.”

Faced with this enormous shock, Qi Xi froze for a long moment before finally managing to piece her thoughts back together. In a voice of disbelief, she ventured: “So… back in college, the person you wanted to confess to was me?”

Gu Yan nodded, then added with a touch of self-mockery: “I just never expected that before I even confessed, you’d already rejected me—and in front of the entire graduating class, no less, in quite a dramatic fashion.”

“…” Qi Xi had no idea what to say. Her mind was a chaotic mess, as if she’d wandered into a maze she couldn’t find her way out of.

She stared at Gu Yan, and suddenly a thought struck her: “So that’s why your original career plan of joining a law firm suddenly changed to going to America? Because of me? And you even applied to Columbia University?”

Gu Yan answered without the slightest hesitation. “Yes.”

Qi Xi covered her flushed, burning face and muttered, “But you never actually went… When you decided to go back to working at a law firm, you couldn’t have known yet that I also wasn’t able to go to America.”

“I didn’t have any other thoughts at the time. I just wanted to avoid you.” Gu Yan looked at her. “Because I never imagined I’d left such a bad impression on you—that when you saw that confession letter, your first instinct was to assume I’d written it.”

“Qi Xi, it took a lot of effort to convince myself to give you up, to give up going to America, to give up a pointless pursuit and a hopeless crush, and come work at my sister’s firm instead. But I never expected you’d end up there too.”

Gu Yan looked somewhat resigned to his fate. “I’d already tried so hard, and then you came along to provoke me—wishing me happy birthday and giving me the most idiotic gift, when you clearly know I hate pink, yet you said pink suited me. Then you cooked for me, and it was full of cilantro, which I hate, and you invited me to eat durian, which I also hate, and dragged me to a heavy metal rock concert I had zero interest in, and just assumed on your own that I had a sweet tooth.”

“I knew perfectly well you weren’t putting any real thought into me, giving me things like that, but I still couldn’t bring myself to refuse you, and I didn’t have the courage to set the record straight either. Because the way I like you is like this—without any dignity at all. Even if you don’t care about me at all, even if you give me things I don’t even like, as long as they’re from you, I still want them.”

Gu Yan looked away, his gaze drifting elsewhere. “Compared to receiving things I don’t like, compared to being forced to eat food I hate, it was somehow even harder for me to accept when you gave me nothing at all, made nothing for me at all.”

“In my whole life, I’ve never felt like there was anything too difficult to accomplish. I could easily come in first place at anything, handle any opportunity or job with ease. But you—you’re the single biggest failure of my life.”

With every accusation Gu Yan made, Qi Xi’s mood swung like a rollercoaster.

She’d never known.

Never known that, in places she couldn’t see, Gu Yan had gone through such tangled struggles and emotional back-and-forth.

Gu Yan’s tone was calm and gentle. Even though his account made Qi Xi sound thoroughly detestable, he still recounted it all in such a soft voice—

“Sometimes I think you’re like a little devil, but wrapped up in the exact form I like most, sweet as the best dream. I’ve tried many times to end this one-sided infatuation, but every time I see you, even if you say nothing to me, do nothing, don’t even smile at me, your mere existence is enough to make my head spin, as if I’d do anything for you.”

Hearing such a blunt confession from Gu Yan, Qi Xi felt her heartbeat spike beyond her control.

Gu Yan looked into her eyes: “Every day I pretended not to care while staying near you, but the more I pretended, the more I actually cared. You’d go on blind dates, attend mixers, meet other guys—such ordinary, natural things—but I somehow couldn’t accept any of it. I wanted to wipe out even a male ant if it dared come near you, just so you’d only look at me. Qi Xi, can you understand how that feels?”

Gu Yan didn’t seem to expect Qi Xi to respond, and yet she had something to say.

“I understand it.” She heard herself say. “Because I feel exactly the same way about you.”

That feeling of watching the other person, head spinning like an electric current running through you, that urge to do anything for them, that jealousy-fueled insecurity born from caring too much.

All of it, the same.