But Long Qi couldn’t stay idle. After less than half a minute, she pulled open the door and walked out. Jin Yiken was right there laying down harsh words to the male student. The degree of his intimidating demeanor was crystal clear just from his eyes and stance alone. The male student kept his head lowered, his shoulders trembling and shrinking back. The students in the main hall weren’t paying attention to this corridor, so she quickly walked past him from behind: “I’m leaving first.”

Jin Yiken nodded, his eyes still fixed on the male student. Long Qi walked out of the restaurant from the main hall and went straight across the road into the school gate.

Later that afternoon passed, and there were no rumors spreading around the school.

After school, she ran into that male student again at the station. When Long Qi arrived, the male student was standing among his group of friends waiting for the bus. As soon as he caught sight of her, he looked guilty. It seemed he had really been frightened by Jin Yiken at lunch. Not only did he not dare to look at her, but he immediately boarded a bus that had just arrived.

The foot traffic at the station was quite heavy, with students making up half of it. It was now five or six o’clock, the time when the sun sets in the west. Being early autumn, a bright red evening glow had already appeared on the horizon. Long Qi was drowsy, so she walked alone to the back of the station shelter and leaned against an advertising board to rest. On the other side of the board were four or five freshman girls occupying the rest benches and chatting. Young girls are just so full of energy—their voices clear and bright as they gossiped about grade-level scandals with great enthusiasm.

Before long, several of the senior year honors classes also began dismissing in scattered groups. As the number of male students increased, the laughter of those few freshman girls became increasingly coquettish, like signals that females in nature emit to gain male attention, equivalent to the shouts that male students desperately let out on the basketball court.

Long Qi hadn’t been resting against the advertising board for long when her phone rang. She had just pulled her phone out of her bag when the ringing stopped. Then someone walked over beside her. Her gaze moved from Jin Yiken’s missed call to Jin Yiken himself. He had one hand in his pants pocket, and his other hand had just lowered his phone from his ear. Standing at the boundary between half shadow under the station sign and one meter of slanting sunlight, he glanced at her and asked: “What are you taking to get back?”

“A vehicle.”

“Bus then subway?”

“Obviously.”

He squinted outward for a moment. Seeing that no students were looking over, he walked a few steps closer inside. Both of them entered the back area of the station. Long Qi leaned against the advertising board while he stood in front of her and made a call, helping her order a taxi. After hanging up, he said: “I’ll have the car stop at the school gate. You walk over there, get in, and have the driver go to the school’s back gate to wait for me to come over.”

“Can we not wait for you?”

“No.”

“What if I just don’t wait?”

“Then I won’t help you pay the fare.”

Long Qi flipped him the middle finger before walking away. Jin Yiken stood unmoved in his spot, watching her leave. The girls on the other side of the advertising board giggled and laughed. The male students around the station sign chatted about everything under the sun. She passed through these people one by one.

After getting in the car and circling around to the school’s back gate, Long Qi waited while scrolling through the campus network on her phone. Before long, she saw Dong Xi—a scene captured in the car’s rearview mirror. She was passing by the road across from the alley entrance with several old friends from the honors class. It looked like they weren’t waiting for the bus but walking directly toward the subway station. Long Qi spotted her just as she was on a phone call. Then, with each step Dong Xi walked further away, Long Qi would glance at that road, then glance at the school’s back gate, but still hadn’t seen any sign of Jin Yiken.

Dong Xi walked another four or five steps. Long Qi kept staring at her figure from the back seat of the car. Her hands itched, and her heart itched too. Finally unable to resist, she was about to open the car door when the door on the other side suddenly clicked open. The back seat bounced, then she heard another click as the door closed. Her arm was grabbed by the person who had just gotten in the car. The door she had just opened was also closed by him as he reached his arm across. Long Qi turned her head to see Jin Yiken, who said to the driver with a travel-worn appearance: “Master, please drive.”

The car started moving, heading toward an intersection away from Dong Xi. Both car doors locked. Jin Yiken sat leaning against the seat back, the inside of his collar rising and falling slightly as he caught his breath. Then, as the car gradually picked up speed, his breathing slowly calmed down. When Long Qi had looked at him earlier, he had ignored her. Now as he looked at her, she remained indifferent. The two of them sat stiffly and coldly like this for a while before he slowly uttered four words: “Fickle and unfaithful.”

“Who are you talking about?!” She immediately turned her head toward him.

The driver in the front seat glanced at them through the rearview mirror. Jin Yiken continued: “You have a set of double standards. Do you know that yourself?”

“Speak clearly!”

“Why do people date without the premise of marriage? I can’t marry you, so I can’t date you, but Dong Xi can marry you, is that it?”

“Jin Yiken, you keep bringing up old arguments!”

He laughed coldly.

The two of them had argued many times before. Each time, she attacked with an exclamation-point tone while he countered with rational periods. So each time, his laughter highlighted her failed emotional management. Long Qi threw her phone at him. He caught it smoothly, swiped open the screen, and happened to see the call log page. He asked her: “Did you delete my phone number again?”

That’s why the incoming call display showed only numbers with no saved name.

“Give it back!”

Not only did he not return it, but he also re-saved his phone number and set it to the first position in her contacts. Long Qi’s body was blocked by his single arm. He used his right hand fingers to quickly complete these tasks, then kept holding it up at a relatively high position. Long Qi mocked him for being childish. She backed down before he did. He said: “Not as childish as you.”

She didn’t talk back. After a while, she asked: “Do you know that school has a break tomorrow afternoon?”

“Tomorrow afternoon is the speech.”

“For me it’s a break,” she said while steadying her tone. “Jin Yiken, tomorrow I’m going for an examination. If things go smoothly, I’ll have the surgery done this weekend.”