Ruan Yu woke up in a state of shock.

She had a vague memory of a dream — she had been surrounded by a sea of flames, a fissure splitting the ground beneath her feet, and on the other side of that crack lay a vast, white expanse of ice and snow. Xu Huaisong had been standing there, reaching out to stroke her face, asking her: “Could you fall for me again?”

Her mind went off like a thunderclap. She scrambled out from under the covers.

What kind of a dream was this — stranger even than a ghost story? She — she — she had completely lost her mind!

Ruan Yu sat frozen on the bed for a long time, until the two severed halves of her memory rejoined themselves, and she realized that she, who should have been on the sofa, was here instead — and that outside, the sky had already grown light.

Which raised a question.

She looked around the room. She detected no sign of another person’s presence. She changed her clothes, climbed carefully out of bed, and searched back and forth for her slippers without finding them, so she padded out barefoot on the carpet instead, easing the door open a crack and peering out cautiously.

She was startled by a sudden “mrow.”

She looked down to find Xu Huaisong’s orange cat curled up just beyond the doorway, head tilted back, gazing up at her with plaintive eyes.

Apparently hungry.

Ruan Yu forgot entirely what she had come out for, and crouched down by reflex to give the cat a pat — then stopped herself mid-reach: “I just broke my fever. Better not touch you.” A thought occurred to her almost immediately. “Oh — do you even understand Chinese?” She switched languages: “I mean, that I’m… where your…”

She had barely used English in years, and after several attempts at “your,” she still couldn’t retrieve the word for “owner.” She ventured, with some uncertainty: “…your daddy?”

“Right here.” A pair of shoes suddenly appeared in her line of sight.

Ruan Yu went rigid. She straightened up slowly to find Xu Huaisong standing in front of her, a glass of water in one hand and a small plate in the other, wearing an expression that held just a trace of resignation.

She had the distinct impression that he was restraining himself — holding back some version of: “Did the fever cook your brain?”

His gaze dropped to her bare feet. Xu Huaisong set the water and breakfast down on the coffee table, then went to retrieve her slippers from beside the sofa.

Ruan Yu’s breath caught.

She didn’t need to ask anymore. She didn’t need to ask how she had ended up back in the bedroom.

Her slippers were by the sofa. What other explanation could there be?

Xu Huaisong bent down and placed the slippers in front of her, then turned to get the ear thermometer, saying as he did: “Come have breakfast.”

She stepped into the slippers and said: “Attorney Xu, I’m sorry for all the trouble last night. Thank you for hauling me in there.”

Writers really did have a way with words — the word “hauling” dispatched every last shred of romantic possibility with one clean stroke.

Xu Huaisong was not about to insist the word should be “carrying.” He pressed the thermometer to her ear, glanced at the reading — 37.0°C — then turned and noted it down on a slip of paper with a pen.

Ruan Yu blinked, leaned in for a closer look, and found the paper covered in a neat column of figures: 3:00 — 38.2, 3:30 — 37.8, 4:00 — 37.5, 4:30 — 37.3…

She stumbled over her words: “What… what is all this?”

It wasn’t that she was feigning ignorance — she was simply too stunned to say anything else.

“A research log tracking the efficacy of the fever reducer.” In the face of her wide-eyed expression, Xu Huaisong added a turn: he looked directly at her and said: “Do you believe that?”

Of course she didn’t.

Ruan Yu swallowed dryly, averted her gaze, smoothed her fringe, and settled onto the sofa — then bowed her head, picked up one of the custard buns from the plate, and stuffed it into her mouth to calm herself down.

The atmosphere felt inexplicably strange. A little like the absurd dream she’d had.

In the silence, the little orange cat padded over with a string of plaintive mrows, angling for a share of her breakfast.

She was just about to pinch off a piece when she saw Xu Huaisong crouch down and scoop it up: “Your breakfast isn’t here.” He carried it off toward the kitchenette.

She chewed through one custard bun and cast about for something to say: “What’s its name?”

Xu Huaisong was leaning against the kitchenette counter feeding the cat. He looked back. “Tiffany.”

Was he raising this cat as a girlfriend substitute?

Seeing Ruan Yu’s expression freeze, he added: “I didn’t name it.”

Right. And that reminded her — she still hadn’t figured out the answer to a question she’d had.

She thought about it, then asked: “You brought the cat all the way to China — doesn’t the owner miss it?”

Xu Huaisong’s gaze drifted over to her, the former blankness in his eyes giving way to tiny glimmers of amusement: “She still has Judy and Ani.”

“That many…” Ruan Yu produced a flat laugh, ducked her head, and went back to her bun. After a while, she heard Xu Huaisong’s phone ring.

He picked up — a voice call — and began speaking in English.

Ruan Yu’s English comprehension had severely deteriorated over the years, and for all her concentrated effort, she managed to make out only a handful of scattered words.

Xu Huaisong noticed her look of bewilderment. After he hung up, he explained: “There’s a water leak at home.”

“What will you do?”

“It’s fine — there’s someone there.”

Ruan Yu took a quiet sip of water.

Her suspicion had been confirmed, then — Xu Huaisong really wasn’t single. And there she was, having had that shamefully inappropriate dream about him…

She sped up the rest of her breakfast, wolfed the last of it down, and stood: “Attorney Xu, thank you for breakfast. I’ve disturbed you for a whole night — I’ll be heading out now.”

Xu Huaisong set the cat down: “Give me five minutes. I’ll sort out the situation at home first, then I’ll take you.”

“No, no, really—” She waved her hands. “My fever’s broken, I can just hail a cab.” She turned and went into the bedroom to get her bag, with the air of someone making a strategic retreat.

Xu Huaisong didn’t stop her. He opened his laptop in the outer room and placed a video call.

Ruan Yu came back out to find a face on his screen so dark it practically gleamed — followed by an enthusiastic: “Hey! Hanson!”

A young Black man with very white teeth.

Xu Huaisong glanced back at her, then turned unhurriedly to face the camera and said, one word at a time: “Where is the water leaking from?”

Ruan Yu caught that much. He was asking where the water was coming from.

So when he’d said “there’s someone there” — he meant…

Xu Huaisong turned back to her: “My roommate.”

Ruan Yu gave a small, airy laugh: “Oh…”

Xu Huaisong exchanged only a few words before ending the video call, then picked up a stack of papers from the table. “Let’s go.”

“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Ruan Yu asked, falling into step behind him. “Driving while exhausted is dangerous.”

She really did have an exceptionally civic-minded relationship with traffic regulations.

“I’ve rested.” Xu Huaisong handed the stack of papers over to her. “Have a look through those. If you’re interested, we can go see them on the way.”

Ruan Yu took them in complete confusion: “See what?”

“Apartments.”

He pulled the door open as he said it.

Ruan Yu looked up — and found a tall, slender woman standing just outside, one hand raised mid-air.

She startled.

The woman seemed momentarily caught off guard too, but recovered quickly, lowered her hand, and said to Xu Huaisong with a smile: “What timing — I was just about to knock.”

In almost the same instant, Ruan Yu placed the voice.

The woman now standing at the door in a crisp, professional outfit was the same voice from the recalled voice message — the woman who had spoken to Xu Huaisong.

After saying her piece, the woman’s gaze settled briefly on Ruan Yu.

Xu Huaisong turned slightly to one side and, with a small gesture, made the introduction: “Ruan Yu.” Then to Ruan Yu: “A colleague of mine from the States — Lu Shenglan. Miss Lu.”

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

The two women exchanged nods of acknowledgment, and a peculiar, subtle feeling flickered through Ruan Yu.

By the conventional etiquette of introductions, Xu Huaisong had the order of familiarity completely backwards, hadn’t he?

Xu Huaisong appeared not to notice. His expression remained perfectly composed as he asked Lu Shenglan: “What is it?”

She held up a small paper medical bag and gave it a little shake: “I heard from the front desk that you asked for fever medication in the middle of the night.”

Xu Huaisong neither accepted nor declined it, and turned to ask: “Would you like to take some medicine with you?”

“No need, thank you.” Ruan Yu gave a wave.

He gave Lu Shenglan a small nod.

Lu Shenglan smiled, a warmth curving at the corners of her eyes: “Then I’ll leave you to it — I’ll be in my room working.”

Xu Huaisong nodded again, closed the door, and walked toward the elevator, explaining the papers in Ruan Yu’s hands as they went: “Moving is necessary. I contacted Liu Mao last night and had him recommend a few options. These two are the ones narrowed down for now.”

Ruan Yu was genuinely surprised. She took a moment, then quickly expressed her thanks, and heard him add: “They’re not far from here. If you’re feeling up to it, we can take a look now.”

The apartment really did need to be changed as soon as possible, and her body felt reasonably steady. Besides, she couldn’t very well let two attorneys go to the trouble of selecting apartments for her in the middle of the night without at least having a look — so she agreed.

Xu Huaisong’s standards were exacting. The apartments that had survived his preliminary selection had essentially already been brought to the point where only final confirmation remained.

The first was on the eleventh floor of a low-rise building. The facilities and surroundings were both quite good, and the value for money was remarkably high for this part of Hang Shi. The only thing that gave pause was the male landlord — upon seeing the two of them arrive together, he had been distinctly cool in his manner, as though the world had personally failed to give him his black card.

Ruan Yu didn’t particularly mind that, but Xu Huaisong did one polite loop through the apartment and then ushered her out.

Once they were back downstairs, she asked, puzzled: “I thought it was a good apartment. Isn’t a landlord who isn’t overly friendly actually reassuring?”

Xu Huaisong raised an eyebrow. “Did you not notice — it’s because I’m here?” He unlocked his phone and held it out for her to see. “The landlord was not like this last night.”

Ruan Yu leaned over to read through the exchange, and found that Xu Huaisong had conducted the entire negotiation from the perspective of a prospective tenant — as an “unattached woman” — and the landlord at that stage had even been enthusiastic enough to include emoji in his messages.

She nodded rapidly, with the expression of someone who had no grounds for argument whatsoever — only for a new message from the landlord to pop up on his phone screen in the next second: Miss, I only rent this place to single women. People like you two coming in and doing whatever you like, that’s exactly what I’m worried about. Didn’t you tell me last night you meet the criteria?

It was fairly evident that his concern about a couple causing damage was merely a fig leaf for the real issue.

Xu Huaisong let out a quiet, cold laugh and typed back: My apologies — I got into a relationship at midnight last night.

Landlord: Come back when you’re single again then — I’ll hold it for you.

Xu Huaisong: Thank you. Maybe in the next life.

Ruan Yu: “…”

From last night until now, why had Xu Huaisong been acting so peculiar?

He was suddenly saying far more than usual, and treating her with a warmth that was completely out of character.

She was quiet for a moment, then tilted her head back, looked directly at him, and said with deliberate gravity: “Attorney Xu, may I ask something rather forward?”

“What?”

“You… are you possibly…” She paused, as though the words were a little difficult to say out loud. “What I mean is, could you have possibly been…”

Xu Huaisong’s gaze flickered for just an instant, and his heart lurched into a violent, unsteady beat.

It was only last night that he had made up his mind — to begin, slowly, to learn to be more direct. And now, today, his feelings were about to be laid bare?

Just as his heart reached the very threshold of bursting — Ruan Yu squeezed her eyes shut, steeled herself, and finished the sentence: “…possessed by someone else’s soul?”

Xu Huaisong: “…”

Author’s Note: That’s our author for you — imagination truly knows no bounds.