No one dared speak. No one dared look up.

Zhu Yun was struck by a certain admiration — in the midst of all this shouting, the graduate students somehow managed to remain completely absorbed in their work, visibly more focused than on any ordinary day. It had the quality of a certain dignified composure, the kind one reads about in historical accounts of great men reading calmly in the face of chaos.

Zhang Xiaobei pointed at Zhu Yun and tore into her without pause:

“Look what you’ve done to a perfectly functioning piece of work! An absolute disaster! I took it to them and you should have seen the look on their faces — I really ought to have dragged you along to witness it yourself! Why are you staring at the floor? Not a single word? Do you have any idea what shame is? You’re still a young woman, for goodness’ sake!”

“The moment my back is turned you produce something like that! I suppose I was too trusting — you walked in here looking so confident, and what do we have to show for it? You tell me how you have the face to set foot in this laboratory!”

“Come on, say something — don’t just stand there. Is this what Professor Lin produces?”

Zhu Yun stood quietly with her head lowered, not looking at Zhang Xiaobei.

Zhang Xiaobei had been going for some time without any reaction from her, which only sharpened her fury.

“Not a flicker of response — do you all see this? Not a flicker!” She addressed the graduate students in the room. “Thick-skinned as a chopping board!”

In her rage, she shoved Zhu Yun.

Her fingertip was sharper than her voice.

Zhu Yun stepped back twice and said quietly, “I’m sorry…”

“Sorry?!” The moment Zhu Yun made a sound, Zhang Xiaobei came back at her with even greater volume. “Do you know this is a government project? Do you think one sorry covers it if something goes wrong? Do you understand that you’re disgracing this school? Can you bear that responsibility?”

Zhu Yun had believed herself to be perfectly composed. It was only when she stepped out of the laboratory that she realized her heart was pounding.

Whatever she felt inside, Zhang Xiaobei was, at the end of the day, a teacher. Between teacher and student, the balance of power had never been equal — not in any era. Zhang Xiaobei held every structural advantage.

Zhu Yun stood at the corridor entrance and fanned herself down. After enduring all that, she felt a genuine sympathy for Han Jiakang and the others, and found herself wondering — what would a person become after spending years working under a supervisor like this?

She walked back to the dormitory, laptop in arms. Zhang Xiaobei had given her two days to revise the code, which she described generously as one final chance.

She had enunciated those words with slow deliberateness, apparently intent on ensuring Zhu Yun fully appreciated the value and gravity of a final chance.

Back in the dormitory, the perpetually busy Fang Shumiao was, for once, present. The weather was growing colder by the day, and the end-of-term examinations were drawing near. Fang Shumiao, ever ahead of schedule, had already begun preparing her materials for the semester’s Outstanding Student Cadre evaluation — two weeks in advance. She greeted Zhu Yun when she came in, then promptly returned to sorting through the relevant paperwork.

Fang Shumiao no longer came to the base much.

A line that Ren Di had once said drifted through Zhu Yun’s mind.

“She won’t last long. Li Xun is the kind of person… most women can’t keep up with him.”

Zhu Yun didn’t linger over what those words implied. She opened her laptop. She still had to deal with the final chance that Zhang Xiaobei had so graciously bestowed upon her.

……

God, I want a cigarette.

If only Fang Shumiao weren’t here.

Although she had been given two days, by the following noon, Zhang Xiaobei had already summoned her.

This time the meeting was not in the laboratory but in Zhang Xiaobei’s private office. Faculty with their own offices were rare at the school; Zhang Xiaobei was probably the youngest among them.

But Zhang Xiaobei was perpetually busy, always moving between the laboratory and various companies, and the office went mostly unused. On the way over, Zhu Yun puzzled over why Zhang Xiaobei would call her somewhere this secluded to take her to task.

Was there any chance of a sudden attack of conscience — a reluctance to humiliate her publicly again?

Probably not…

She turned this over in her mind as she knocked on the door.

Zhang Xiaobei said calmly: “Come in.”

Zhu Yun entered. The office was cold.

Zhang Xiaobei stood beside the desk, on which sat a freshly brewed cup of tea.

“Students these days really are something.” Zhang Xiaobei had entirely abandoned the shouting of before; she spoke now in a soft, measured voice.

Hearing that tone, Zhu Yun almost preferred the shouting.

Zhang Xiaobei stepped toward her. They were of similar height — Zhang Xiaobei had the edge in her heels. She looked down at Zhu Yun and said quietly, “You think you’re quite clever, don’t you.”

On certain counts — yes, actually.

But Zhu Yun wasn’t yet sure what Zhang Xiaobei was referring to, so she stayed silent.

“I’m asking you a question.”

What was the right answer?

“Nothing to say?”

Zhu Yun genuinely did not know how to respond — yes was clearly wrong, and no didn’t seem right either.

She was still weighing her options when Zhang Xiaobei suddenly picked up the cup of tea from the desk and, with a flick of her wrist, threw it in Zhu Yun’s face.

“In all my years of teaching, you are the most contemptible student I have ever encountered!”

Zhang Xiaobei’s composure broke entirely. She returned to the volume she had used in the laboratory — and then some.

“Think you’re clever, do you? You and only you understand — everyone else is just a fool? I truly had no idea students could harbor such malice! You deliberately wrote it badly to make me look incompetent? And you still have the audacity to call yourself a student! Scheming to humiliate your teacher — if you behave like this while still in school, what will you do once you’re out in the world?!”

Zhu Yun finally understood why Zhang Xiaobei had called her to the office rather than the laboratory.

Because in front of her own students, how could she possibly admit that she had been outmaneuvered by a mere undergraduate?

Zhang Xiaobei pointed at her. “Go back and fix it right now. Let me be clear, Zhu Yun — your conduct has been utterly inexcusable. You go home and think carefully. What about studying abroad? What about graduate school recommendations? What about the school’s nomination quota? That’s your decision to make. But once this matter is settled, you will answer to me.”

Zhang Xiaobei had spent her anger. She swept out with characteristic force.

Zhu Yun wiped the tea from her face.

She left the office building with her clothes still damp, feeling the chill, wanting to get back to the dormitory quickly.

Someone called after her from behind.

“Wait!”

Zhu Yun turned. A young man with a grave expression came jogging toward her — she knew him as Zhou Jinyang, one of Zhang Xiaobei’s graduate students. He was quiet on most days, always bent over his work in a corner of the laboratory, easy to overlook.

He pulled her aside and spoke immediately: “Han Jiakang told her.”

Zhu Yun didn’t follow.

“Han Jiakang told her.” Zhou Jinyang said it again.

Zhu Yun looked at him steadily.

“Han Jiakang’s research has been going poorly — Zhang Xiaobei got on his case about it. To get back in her good graces, he told her you had written the code badly on purpose. You understand, right? Give Zhang Xiaobei something to be angry about, and she forgets all about his problems.”

Zhou Jinyang had clearly slipped out of the laboratory without permission. He spoke with nervous tension, his voice slightly unsteady, his eyes carrying the furtive gleam of someone sharing a secret. When he finished, he darted a glance at Zhu Yun’s face, apparently hoping to catch her reaction.

Before this…

What was it I had been curious about? Zhu Yun thought.

“I need to go back.” Zhou Jinyang saw no strong reaction from Zhu Yun and turned to leave. After a few steps, he looked back. “Don’t tell Han Jiakang I said anything.”

Now she remembered —

Those graduate students. What would a person become after spending years working under a supervisor like that?

Looking at Zhou Jinyang’s slightly hunched retreating figure, she felt she had her answer.

Zhu Yun returned to the dormitory. On her laptop screen, Zhang Xiaobei’s final chance was still waiting. Zhu Yun didn’t look at it. She folded the screen shut.

She went and showered, rinsing away every trace of tea from her skin, changed into her pajamas, made herself a cup of coffee, pulled a programming book from the shelf, and settled in to enjoy a quiet afternoon.

Before long, she received a call from Li Xun.

“Come to the base,” he said quietly.

Zhu Yun was just about to ask why when he changed his mind. “Actually, forget it — let’s go to the sports field. Bring your laptop.”

December had arrived, and the grass on the football pitch had turned the yellow of inevitability.

There were few people on the grounds. Exam week was approaching, and everyone was buried in their books in a last-minute scramble.

Li Xun was sitting in his usual spot — beside the weathered goalpost at the edge of the pitch. The crossbar was rusted; he didn’t mind, and leaned against it as always, eyes cast downward.

Zhu Yun walked over, thinking idly: he’s glued to a computer every single day, works those kinds of hours — how on earth does he not need glasses…

Deeply unfair.

Li Xun was smoking. When he saw her coming, he looked up.

“I believe I told you to bring your laptop.”

Zhu Yun sat down beside him. “Too heavy.”

Li Xun frowned, and flicked his cigarette.

Zhu Yun studied him with an absent, thoughtful look.

Li Xun: “What?”

Zhu Yun said: “You’re being strange today. I didn’t follow your instructions and you haven’t said a word about it.”

Li Xun looked at her coolly. “Haven’t been yelled at enough already?”

“……”

How did he know.

Zhu Yun looked away.

A strong wind moved through the overgrown field; the dry grass swayed in wild, uninhibited sweeps.

She felt cold, but with him here, she had no desire to move at all.

“That was you the other day, wasn’t it.” Li Xun smoked, his voice even. “I was standing right at the classroom door. Whoever it was made too much noise leaving.”

Zhu Yun went rigid.

Compared to Zhang Xiaobei’s interrogation and her tirade, this single quiet sentence from Li Xun sent her heart slamming against her chest.

He leaned against the peeling goalpost and said softly: “I should have guessed as much the moment you agreed to take on Zhang Xiaobei’s project.”

Zhu Yun’s fingers tightened. She waited for what came next without saying a word. The last thing she wanted was for him to know that someone had heard that conversation. Everything that happened in that room — everyone who had witnessed it would be better off simply ceasing to exist.

A long silence.

Then Li Xun gave a quiet laugh. “I have to say, princess…”

She was walking on thin ice.

Li Xun drew his right knee up, rested his arm across it, cigarette in hand, and spoke in the cold wind with something that was almost teasing.

“Do you take me for something made of tofu?”

“……”

She turned and looked at him. The wind had tossed his hair into disarray — like weeds growing wild in an open field, unbothered and unruly.

She knew with absolute certainty she would never forget his expression in that moment.

Then, without warning, Li Xun stretched out his other leg and nudged her with his foot.

“You absolute idiot.”

Zhu Yun: “……”

“What were you wasting your time on her for? Nothing better to do?”

Zhu Yun: “……”

“From now on I should just put a lock on you. Chain you to a post so you stop running around manufacturing trouble in that head of yours.”

Zhu Yun: “……”

He pressed the cigarette out against the ground.

“Tonight — bring your laptop to the base.”

Zhu Yun finally recovered the use of language.

“For what?”

“What do you think.”

Zhu Yun said nothing. Li Xun, with complete disregard for the environment, flicked the cigarette butt into the distance, then pointed at her. “If you don’t bring your laptop to the base, I’ll come to your dormitory and work there.”

“……”

“You don’t have to look at me like that. You’ll find out soon enough whether I’m capable of it, Your Royal Highness.”

You are. You’re capable of absolutely anything. You could probably ascend to the heavens if you felt like it.

He stood, brushed off the back of his trousers in a single careless motion, and turned to leave.

“Hey!” Zhu Yun was slower getting up, and couldn’t let him walk off — she grabbed his arm directly.

He looked back. From this angle, she had to crane her neck nearly all the way back to see his face.

“You don’t need to worry about this. Focus on our software.”

Li Xun said with mild exasperation: “I’m just saying —”

“You don’t need to say anything.”

Zhu Yun stood up as well. She moved to stand beside him and looked directly into his eyes.

“Li Xun. I’m not a princess.”

Li Xun had never had her look at him quite like that before. For a moment he had nothing to say.

“But I’m not an idiot either. So let’s just wait and see.”