A few days after returning from the team-building event, Zhang Lian held a “reflection meeting” at the company.

This time, he wore a new ring—the Cartier one Zhou Mi had bought for him last year. It was quite a low-key style, yet a high-profile declaration.

His demeanor remained as calm and composed as last year. Even when, in the middle of the meeting, a team representative who was reporting their work progress suddenly remarked with both open admiration and subtle teasing: “Fabian, nice ring.”

He glanced down at his ring finger and curved his lips: “Is it? I think so, too.”

Then he swept his eyes to where Zhou Mi was sitting: “Minnie gave it to me.”

The whole room erupted in laughter, with people pounding tables and stomping feet, like an exploding party popper or the atmosphere of a frenzied concert.

Zhou Mi rested her face in her hands, smiling with a completely flushed face, like a bright kapok flower.

“How can he love you so much?” After returning from the ski trip, Tao Ziyi had instantly transformed from a solo fan to a couple’s fan, always at the frontline of their relationship, and now had tears in her eyes: “You two are so good together—”

Even her former leader Ye Yan had heard the news and messaged her on WeChat with a shocked expression: You and Fabian are together???!!!

Zhou Mi: Yeah.

Ye Yan: Damn, I regret leaving Aoxing so early, I couldn’t witness it firsthand!

Zhou Mi: Then come back quickly, I miss you so much.

Ye Yan: Wait for me, my mother is recovering well, I might return in the second half of this year.

Zhou Mi: I’ll welcome you with banners and flowers lining the road!

Ye Yan: But my feelings are so complicated, the little intern I trained has become my boss’s lady.

Zhou Mi laughed: Not at all, I’m still just a small AE at the company.

Ye Yan: No way, you’re already an SAE who can handle things independently.

That evening on the way home, Zhou Mi complained to Zhang Lian from the passenger seat: “Can you please give me a heads-up next time before making such a big move?”

Zhang Lian glanced at her: “I’m the owner of this ring; deciding when to wear it is my right.”

Zhou Mi turned her head to look at him, raising both her lips and eyes: “So will you take it off tomorrow?”

Zhang Lian said, “No.”

Zhou Mi deliberately acted curious: “Why? Didn’t you take it off the next day last time?”

“I’ve learned from that mistake,” Zhang Lian said calmly. “ID cards should be carried at all times, otherwise, problems can arise.”

Zhou Mi’s face contorted with laughter, and she could only turn to look at the brilliant city lights outside the window. All day, she had been dizzy in a pink bubble bath and smoke bombs, and only now did she notice they weren’t heading toward the rental apartment complex.

“Where are we going?” she asked, turning back.

Zhang Lian said, “Not going home yet.”

Zhou Mi hummed: “Tell me.”

Zhang Lian was always vulnerable to her half-coquettish, half-petulant tone: “To the Cartier store.”

Zhou Mi instantly realized: “Are you going to…”

Before she could finish, Zhang Lian responded: “Yes.”

Tsk. She couldn’t help but let out a clear, melodious laugh.

And she completely failed to hold back her words, with a thousand pastel macaron-colored, balloon-like, plump question marks floating in her heart, filling her head.

So she asked in advance: “Will you have it engraved?”

Zhang Lian replied: “Of course.”

Zhou Mi asked again: “What will it say?”

Zhang Lian frowned: “Can’t there be some mystery?”

Zhou Mi pressed her lips together for three seconds, then declared defeat: “I’m just curious, but I think both hearing and seeing it will be a surprise.”

Zhang Lian said, “Guess.”

Zhou Mi pondered for a moment: “Fabian’s Poem?”

Zhang Lian denied: “No.”

Zhou Mi’s eyes grew even more curious: “Then what is it?”

Zhang Lian chose to maintain the suspense: “Let’s wait until we get there.”

In the end, he revealed the final result in front of the sales assistant—simply “Mi.”

During the half hour waiting for the engraving, Zhou Mi pouted and scoffed: “I thought it would be some sophisticated phrase.”

Zhang Lian lowered his gaze: “Isn’t ‘Mi’ sophisticated enough?”

Zhou Mi: “It doesn’t seem to match yours.”

Zhang Lian said, “It matches perfectly. I am your poet, and you are yourself.”

Zhou Mi’s thoughts made sense, too.

After receiving the ring, Zhou Mi immediately put it on her ring finger without waiting a second, and smiled slightly as she gazed at it for quite a while: “This one is better. The HW one was too extravagant, I couldn’t possibly wear it out.”

On the way back, Zhou Mi asked curiously: “What about my thirty-yuan one?”

Zhang Lian said, “In the safe at home.”

Zhou Mi burst out laughing, incredulous: “In the safe? Do you need to treasure it that much?”

Zhang Lian said, “I like that ring.”

Zhou Mi asked: “Compared to the one on your hand now?”

Zhang Lian said in a deep voice: “Though the meanings are different, they both represent different stages of us, so they’re both priceless. No need to compare them.”

Zhou Mi’s expression became peaceful. After a moment, she looked at the silver ring on her finger: “Before it was thirty yuan and three hundred thousand, now we’re balanced and equal in value.”

“That’s wonderful,” she sincerely reflected.

Hearing this, Zhang Lian looked at Zhou Mi, who was staring at her new ring with eyes full of happiness, and also slightly curved his lips.

Before returning to the rental apartment, the two went to a nearby supermarket, planning to buy some ingredients to cook dinner at home.

The supermarket was a museum themed around the smoke and fire of human life—rice, oil, salt, vegetables, fruits, milk, noodles—displaying and harvesting not just products, but the various states of all beings, men and women, old and young, all key components of the art exhibition of life.

Zhou Mi looked at every person coming toward them, then glanced sideways at Zhang Lian, who was focused on selecting cherry tomatoes, and couldn’t help but smile with audible laughter while leaning on the shopping cart handle.

Zhang Lian glanced at her: “I’ve noticed you’re good at entertaining yourself.”

Zhou Mi responded neutrally with an “oh”: “Mind your own business.”

“Won’t you share?”

Zhou Mi shook her head, then nodded: “Alright, it’s just a feeling of… living a life together, very grounded. Don’t you think that all these people in the supermarket, whether alone, in pairs, or as families, all have their indivisible boundary? And then you and I are within the same one.”

As she spoke, she raised her lips again, unable to contain her joy.

“Don’t you have this feeling?” she asked.

Zhang Lian handed over the bag: “Stop writing reviews, go weigh these.”

Zhou Mi immediately hugged his arm: “No hands,” and glanced at the weighing area with only a few people queuing, making up an excuse: “Too many people, I’m scared.”

Zhang Lian laughed and sighed helplessly, dragging this large, coquettish attachment along with the shopping cart to their destination.

While waiting to weigh the items, a woman who looked like an auntie in front kept turning to look at them.

Zhou Mi’s pupils darted around as she squeezed words through her teeth in a very small voice: “Why does she keep looking at us…”

Zhang Lian remained composed, his tone steady: “Your boyfriend is too handsome, and she’s checking what kind of girl could find such a partner.”

Conceited. Zhou Mi pretended to be angry and punched him lightly.

Back at the rental apartment, this couple, both taller than the average height standards for men and women, insisted on squeezing into an extremely narrow kitchen to prepare and cook together.

What surprised Zhou Mi was that Zhang Lian’s knife skills were impressive, creating a rhythmic percussion on the cutting board, immediately slicing ingredients into nearly identical pieces. He even made a cute little red rabbit out of a cherry tomato for her.

She held it between her fingers, dumbfounded: “When did you learn all this?”

Zhang Lian said, “Did you think I was just drinking dew during those years abroad?”

“You’re so cool—” Apparently, when falling in love, one loses all eloquence. The brain gets filled with a single pink paint, unable to spray out any exquisite rainbow praise, just a cool filter.

Thoroughly, from head to toe, coolness. Moreover, he was originally super cool.

Zhou Mi swallowed the rabbit whole, mumbling: “I want to stick with you.”

“What does ‘stick’ mean?” Zhang Lian frowned, wondering how her little brain always had such strange descriptions.

Zhou Mi revealed a slight blush, giggling as she explained: “It means—hugging, kissing, all kinds of sticking together.”

Zhang Lian turned toward her: “Come here.”

Zhou Mi poked at his apron from a distance: “You’re still wearing this.”

Zhang Lian immediately untied it, placed it on the counter beside him, and pulled her into his arms without hesitation.

Zhou Mi immediately hugged his slender waist, resting her cheek against his chest, contentedly sighing softly, as if whispering to his heart: “Sticking, sticking, finally sticking, I was dying to stick.”

Zhang Lian’s chest vibrated with muffled laughter: “Little thing.”

“What?”

“Do you want to stick lips too?”

Zhou Mi straightened her face, looking up and blinking: “Yes.”

Zhang Lian freed one hand, lifted her chin, and bent down to kiss her.

At first, the kiss was just a kiss.

Later, more expressive actions joined hands, arousing passion.

The sound of the range hood completely failed to cover their increasingly heavy and urgent breathing. Zhou Mi was being caressed until she whimpered, her face flushed with intoxication, like a cooked shrimp in boiling soup.

When they were pulled apart by the kitchen timer’s alert sound, Zhang Lian’s Adam’s apple visibly moved. He turned off the stove and pulled Zhou Mi back into his embrace.

But he just held her.

The man’s hard, warm body and slightly hoarse voice made it hard to concentrate. Zhou Mi instinctively trembled, her tone shy but her thoughts forthright: “I want to stick completely.”

Zhang Lian lowered his head slightly, his nose tip touching the reddened tip of her ear: “I also want to take you.”

Zhou Mi’s teeth flashed when she heard this, regretful: “We should have gone into Watson’s when we passed by it at the supermarket.”

Zhang Lian chuckled: “I was wondering why you suddenly paused at the door.”

Zhou Mi cunningly denied: “Nonsense, mainly because my makeup remover is only half full, I was thinking about buying another bottle.”

Zhang Lian said, “I can accept this excuse.”

Zhou Mi pinched his waist: “So what! Even if I wanted to buy condoms, what’s wrong with that? To truly overthrow the bourgeoisie, the proletariat must be thorough and complete, leaving no room for compromise.”

Zhang Lian caught her mischievous hand, his smile deepening: “Here we go, Zhou Mi’s twisted logic.”

Zhou Mi’s eyes revealed cunning as she deliberately changed her form of address: “Well, boss, do you admit there’s some truth to it?”

Zhang Lian nodded, playing along seriously: “There is some truth to it. After we eat, we’ll go out and see where we can find the tools to help you realize your revolution.”

—

The meal, filled with laughter and feeding each other, took a full hour. After cleaning up the kitchen waste, Zhang Lian neatly tied up the gray garbage bag and turned to ask Zhou Mi, who was organizing her small wallet: “Ready?”

Zhou Mi slung her small bag over her shoulder: “Ready.”

The spring night air was full of flower fragrance, as if the entire neighborhood had been wrapped in a huge, soft magnolia.

Arriving at a nearby convenience store, Zhou Mi bounced with her small shopping basket straight to the main objective.

Zhang Lian followed behind, his lips slightly curved.

Zhou Mi looked left and right, falling into decision paralysis: “Which kind do you like?”

Zhang Lian said, “All are fine.”

Zhou Mi said: “Not all can be fine.” she pointed to one box, her eyes carrying deeper meaning: “Like this one…”

The two of them exchanged knowing smiles.

A moment later, Zhang Lian’s expression became fixed, his tone neither hot nor cold: “You choose.”

Zhou Mi agreed: “Okay.”

After selecting some yogurt and snacks, they returned to the checkout counter. During the scanning, Zhou Mi ran to peer into a nearby freezer.

Seeing this, Zhang Lian asked the cashier to wait and turned to ask Zhou Mi: “Want some ice cream?”

Zhou Mi looked back: “Do you want some?”

Zhang Lian: “Either way is fine.”

Zhou Mi said: “But I think eating a whole one is a bit too cold, and I’m already so full from dinner.”

Zhang Lian raised his eyebrows: “Do they have popsicles? We can split one.”

The salesperson quickly nodded: “Yes, yes.” Then came around to ask what they needed.

Zhou Mi picked out a mango-flavored one, and Zhang Lian completed the purchase.

Stopping outside, Zhang Lian put the shopping bag on a nearby counter and unwrapped the popsicle, breaking it neatly in the middle.

Just as Zhou Mi was about to take it, Zhang Lian stopped her: “Wait.”

He took out a small packet of tissues from his pocket, pulled out two sheets to wrap around the end of one half, casually saying “it’s too cold to hold directly,” before handing it over.

Zhou Mi stared at it without taking it, instead returning to his side, hugging him with her eyes glistening.

Her sudden embrace left Zhang Lian somewhat puzzled, his hands suspended in mid-air: “What’s wrong?”

“Let’s not separate again,” she sniffled with a pitiful expression. “I won’t meet anyone better than you.”

Zhang Lian laughed, only able to comfort his little girlfriend’s unexpected depth of feeling with his wrists.

Zhou Mi’s arms wrapped tighter and tighter: “Promise me.”

Zhang Lian said, “I promise you.”

Zhou Mi mumbled: “Say it three times. Important things must be said three times.”

“Promise, promise, promise,” he coaxed her kindly and patiently, then asked: “Better now?”

Zhou Mi’s lips curled up in delight, still unwilling to let go, as if she wanted to be glued to him.

Suddenly, the back of her neck was touched with something cold. Zhou Mi’s heart jumped, her shoulders and neck jerking, as she turned to face the man’s handsome face, smiling at his successful prank.

Her emotions instantly broke down, and she immediately bared her teeth and threw a flurry of punches at him.