Coming out of the changing room, a staff member handed Zhu Yun a large towel.

The hot spring area was divided into two sections — indoor and outdoor. Zhu Yun looked around the indoor area and saw no sign of Li Xun. She headed outside, where it grew colder with every step. The sky had already turned completely dark.

Zhu Yun carefully pushed open the glass door. A gust of cold wind made her skin tighten, and she pulled the towel more snugly around herself. But the towel only covered her upper body, leaving her pair of fair, long legs bare and trembling slightly.

She looked down at the path. The ground was paved with pebbles, dusted with snow, making it somewhat slippery. There were no streetlights out here — only the lights from each hot spring pool glowing, turning the steam a deep, ethereal shade of pale green. The water shimmered and swayed, occasionally revealing untrimmed black branches overhead, and the sound of water droplets falling into the pools was soft and clear.

Zhu Yun followed the pebble path forward. Several pools in a row were empty. The colder she grew, the more tempting the steaming water on either side became. Just as she was about to give in and slip into one of them, she finally spotted the silhouette of Li Xun.

He appeared in her line of sight with perfect stillness — arms folded, eyes closed, leaning back against the edge of the hot spring pool. His shoulders above the waterline glistened with droplets, and the light rippling from the pool floor moved across his skin like a living thing.

The steam made it difficult to see his face clearly. She guessed he might have fallen asleep, but in truth he hadn’t — he kept shifting his body almost imperceptibly, as though he couldn’t find a position in which he could fully relax.

Zhu Yun walked over. Li Xun sensed her quickly. He opened his eyes, and Zhu Yun crouched down beside the pool.

Li Xun tilted his head to look at her.

That angle, that expression — it inevitably brought back memories of the past.

The night she had first sought him out on her own initiative, he had been sitting on the school’s sports field. She had called out to him nervously, and he had looked up at her. It was almost exactly the same as now — only the light from a notebook had been replaced by the glow of the hot spring pool, and neither of them was young anymore.

Was this the privilege of old acquaintances — that any random word, any casual glance, could carry infinite meaning?

She remembered it all far too well.

They looked at each other in silence. Zhu Yun asked softly, “Are you feeling unwell?”

Li Xun had stopped moving since she arrived. He shook his head. “No.”

Zhu Yun crouched there without a word. After a moment, Li Xun asked, “Aren’t you cold, squatting there like that?”

Zhu Yun came back to herself.

“…Yes. Cold.”

Li Xun tilted his chin. “Then get in.”

Zhu Yun sat on the edge of the pool, flinching at the cold stone beneath her. She lowered her calves into the hot spring. The contrast with the outdoor air made the water feel scalding, and she immediately pulled her legs back out.

“It’s so hot.”

Li Xun’s slender fingers emerged from the water, pointing in a direction. Zhu Yun looked over — at the edge of the pool was a small electronic display showing the water temperature: forty-one degrees Celsius.

“That’s not that hot,” Li Xun said. “Go in slowly.”

Zhu Yun put her legs back in. Strangely, after hearing his words, she genuinely felt the water wasn’t as scorching as before.

Does alcohol have a numbing effect? Or can it actually work like hypnosis?

Zhu Yun left the towel on the poolside and slowly slipped into the water. As she descended, the chiffon skirt of her swimsuit drifted up, floating gently with the current.

“Still cold?” Li Xun asked. His voice came from about twenty centimeters away — its quality undiminished.

Zhu Yun shook her head. “No.”

Warm now. Not cold anymore. All was right with the world.

“You’ve been drinking — try not to stay in the hot spring too long,” he added.

Zhu Yun’s gaze drifted to her floating skirt. Her mind was still a little foggy, and she hadn’t quite caught what Li Xun had said — she only vaguely made out the word “drink.”

“Why don’t you drink…?” she asked.

Li Xun said nothing.

Zhu Yun turned to look at him and asked again, “Why don’t you drink?”

Li Xun suddenly smiled. He turned his head too, and their eyes met. Beneath the water, his hand hooked the hem of her skirt and gently tugged it down — the skirt flipped under, like smoke dissolving in water, and beneath that smoke lay smooth, full thighs.

His voice was calm, half-joking. “If I were drinking, do you think you’d still be able to leave?”

They were very, very close. The air all around felt overwhelming with heat. Zhu Yun felt her cheeks burning — whether from the hot spring or something else, she couldn’t say.

Zhu Yun had heard him clearly. A sudden surge of impulse rose in her chest. She turned and looked directly into his eyes, and said with complete sincerity, “If I can’t leave, then I won’t.”

The teasing expression on his face gradually faded.

“Did you drink to work up the nerve?”

Zhu Yun’s face grew even hotter. Li Xun leaned back against the edge of the pool. “There are things you can’t say when you’ve been drinking. Your behavior when drunk really is just as bad as it used to be.”

Zhu Yun was left speechless. Instinctively she felt she had been scolded and criticized — and she accepted every reason for it. She suddenly noticed that the two of them were caught in a state of extreme contradiction, much like their surroundings: the body soaking in warm spring water, while the face and mind were lashed by cold wind.

After a long stretch of silence from Zhu Yun, Li Xun glanced over — and saw that her eyes had gone red.

He frowned.

“Why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying.”

“Am I blind?”

Zhu Yun hadn’t actually shed any tears yet — but Li Xun’s harsh tone forced them out on its own. Seeing this, Li Xun’s tone grew even sharper.

“I told you not to cry!”

“Why are you shouting?!” Zhu Yun raised her voice, stung by him.

Li Xun shifted to the other side of the pool, eyes narrowing.

“Who exactly is shouting here?”

Zhu Yun’s mind flared and she simply reached out and pushed his shoulder. Li Xun showed no sign of backing down — he grabbed her wrist in one swift motion. With a firm grip, Zhu Yun’s shoulder suddenly contracted.

“Ow!”

Li Xun immediately let go.

Zhu Yun lowered her head, clutching her own wrist, and said nothing for a long time.

Li Xun furrowed his brow. He was fairly certain he hadn’t used that much force. Zhu Yun kept her head down for what felt like forever. He reached out to take her wrist to check — and just then, Zhu Yun quietly said, “Are the two of us done for?”

Li Xun’s hand froze.

Zhu Yun’s voice grew lighter and lighter, like the steam rising off the hot spring — you had to focus every ounce of your attention to catch even a trace of it.

“Your every thought is consumed by the company. You used to get angry when Tian Xiuzhu painted something for it, and now you’ve gone and sought him out yourself for a project. Do you still remember what we once said to each other? You never bring it up, and I don’t dare to either… Was that time just quietly erased by the two of us, by mutual unspoken agreement?”

Silence spread between them.

After a long time, Li Xun said without any particular emotion, “Aren’t you bringing it up right now?”

Zhu Yun: “I’ve been drinking.”

Li Xun gave a short laugh — and by the end of it, there was a note of helplessness.

“Dutch courage truly does work wonders.”

Zhu Yun went quiet again, her dark hair drifting in the water, swaying with the ripples.

Li Xun rested his arm along the pool’s edge, and in his peripheral vision the woman was damp all over, every inch of her skin a temptation.

His gaze gradually grew heavy as the night.

Every fold of that floating skirt was a restrained expression of her longing. She had no defenses against him at all — if he wanted to, he could do anything.

But now was not the time, he told himself. Every grievance and debt between them remained unresolved. He couldn’t afford to disrupt the rhythm at this stage.

Moreover, he had no way to determine whether her decision was something she had thought through carefully or just a moment of impulse. He could not reach for a woman in this state — drunk — and especially not when that woman was Zhu Yun.

Li Xun said evenly, “You don’t need to feel burdened by it. I told you a long time ago — being too sincere is how you get hurt.”

Zhu Yun looked at him. Li Xun said with a cold smile, “This kind of thing holds no binding power over me. If you can’t let it go, just think of it as me having betrayed you. What’s the point of taking a vow made when you’re young and foolish seriously?” He drew a little closer to her, speaking as if in jest. “Even if I end up in hell for it, so be it — I’ve got plenty of experience. After all, I’ve toured that place many times since I was a child.”

He was right there, close enough to touch. Before she could even begin to parse his words, Zhu Yun noticed the faint lines at the corners of his eyes — and in the dried strands of hair at his temple, blown loose by the wind, there were, incredibly, a few strands of white.

Was it just the reflection off the water?

Before she could look more closely, Li Xun had already stood up and retrieved the towel from the poolside.

“You’ve been drinking — don’t stay in the hot spring too long. If you drown, there’s no one to blame.”

And with that, he left.

Zhu Yun watched those long legs disappear into the darkness.

She buried herself in the hot spring for a good while, then burst up through the surface, steam rising off her entire body. She slapped both her cheeks hard with her palms.

Water dripped off her one drop at a time. The cold wind drew her skin tight. She stared for a long time at the shifting light on the water’s surface, and said under her breath, “…All deflection, not a single honest word.”

By the time she gathered herself and returned to the room, Li Xun had already started writing code.

Zhu Yun stood silently looking at his back, then glanced at the time — it was already past one in the morning.

Watching him push himself like this, after several days of nothing but fun and relaxation, Zhu Yun felt a pang of something she couldn’t quite face. Setting aside matters of the heart entirely — they were both project leads at the same company, and he was making her feel the pressure.

“Don’t you want to take a break?” she asked.

Li Xun: “Go to sleep.”

Zhu Yun burrowed under the covers. She switched off the row of red lanterns, then asked Li Xun, “Should I leave a light on for you?”

“Leave one.”

Zhu Yun had half a mind to get him to bed sooner, so she manufactured a reason. “But if you leave a light on, I can’t sleep.”

Li Xun: “If you can’t sleep, cover your face.”

Zhu Yun: “…”

Fine. Do whatever you want.

Zhu Yun buried her face and tried to sleep. Easier said than done, though — she tossed and turned and ended up more wide awake than before. She sneaked a pair of eyes out from under the covers and peeked furtively at Li Xun.

His back was broad. Because the room had air conditioning, he was only wearing a single layer, and his shoulder blades rose and fell subtly with the movement of his arms.

A man’s frame was so entirely different from a woman’s.

Zhu Yun rolled over. She noticed Li Xun’s bag on his bed — the one she had picked up for him before leaving earlier. The top was still open, and the corner of a plastic-sealed photograph peeked out.

Zhu Yun inexplicably reached out her hand, moved by some compulsion she couldn’t name, wanting to take the photo back.

“Behave yourself.”

Zhu Yun startled, convinced Li Xun had eyes in the back of his head — then she turned and found herself looking directly at him through the mirror by the desk.

Zhu Yun calmly lay back down.

It was her own photograph, and yet she was the one who felt like a thief.

Li Xun’s gaze returned to the screen.

After a little while longer, Zhu Yun still had no trace of sleepiness. She stared at the ceiling and asked, “Where are you going for the New Year?”

Li Xun: “Go to sleep.”

Zhu Yun: “Is Fu Yizhuo going back home for the New Year?”

Li Xun offered a perfunctory reply: “Probably.”

Zhu Yun: “If he goes home, where will you spend the New Year?”

Li Xun was focused entirely on his code, too lazy even to bother with a half-hearted answer.

He didn’t respond. Zhu Yun turned over.

“Forget it.”

This time it was her turn to go quiet. Li Xun’s fingers on the keyboard slowly stilled. After a long pause, he said quietly, “He probably won’t go home.”

Zhu Yun turned back over.

“Are you going to his place?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. Wish him a Happy New Year for me.”

“Sure.”

“Then I’m going to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“You should—”

Li Xun slammed his laptop shut and swung his head around.

Zhu Yun: “Sleeping, sleeping, I’m sleeping.”

Li Xun glared at her. Zhu Yun could tell exactly what his expression looked like without even seeing it. She pulled the covers up over her head and didn’t dare move again.