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In Classroom 501, everyone was bent over their desks, writing their essays. Li Kuiyi was still sitting in her usual spot by the window, staring at a tall Chinese redwood tree outside. It was deep autumn, and the redwood had already shed its leaves, but because it grew so straight, it still looked vigorous and handsome. Li Kuiyi stared at it for quite a while before drawing her gaze back, letting it settle on the vague, shifting reflections in the window glass — clusters of shadowy figures, light and dark intertwined.
The glass was like a mirror, and it made her think of the film Lust, Caution again. The movie made extensive use of mirrors to symbolize the characters’ dual identities. Li Kuiyi looked at her own dark silhouette in the glass and told herself: You are not Wang Jiazhi.
She had Fang Zhixiao. She had Liu Xinzhao. Both of them were on her side.
“Why haven’t you started your essay yet?” came a quiet voice beside her.
Li Kuiyi snapped out of her daze, turned her head, and flashed Zhou Fanghua a sideways smile. Her eyes drifted to Zhou Fanghua’s essay paper and found that she had already finished a full paragraph. Li Kuiyi grabbed her pen and began writing quickly, without stopping to plan — she hadn’t really been idle while her mind wandered; she’d already mapped out the structure in her head. She wrote what she did best: an argumentative essay. She laid out her thesis, built her argument layer by layer, and finished it in one smooth, unbroken flow.
She and Zhou Fanghua finished at almost the same moment. The two exchanged a smile, set down their pens, stood up, and walked to the podium to hand in their essay notebooks. The other students looked up, letting out a startled, envious “Ah!” — “That fast?”
As the Chinese class representative, Li Kuiyi pressed her lips together in a smile and reminded them: “When you’re done, just bring your essay notebook up to the podium. As for us… we won’t be sticking around to keep you company.” With that, she grabbed Zhou Fanghua’s hand and the two of them ran off, leaving the classroom filled with a long, drawn-out chorus of grievances.
Hand in hand, they ran down the staircase. The entire teaching building was in the middle of parent-teacher conferences, and from the hallways came the energetic, passionate voices of homeroom teachers: Class 8 was reviewing the midterm exam, Class 13 was discussing home-school cooperation, and some other class down the hall was already talking about the upcoming arts-and-sciences split.
Li Kuiyi and Zhou Fanghua were both well-behaved; since Liu Xinzhao had told them to go to the sports field, they went to the sports field. There wasn’t much to do out there, but a walk and a chat were still better than being cooped up in the classroom. Fang Zhixiao’s class had it much worse — during parent-teacher conferences, students had to sit and listen right alongside their parents.
Still, as they turned down the little path leading to the sports field, a cool night breeze swept through, and Li Kuiyi suddenly thought of the chicken soup wontons she’d eaten at Fang Zhixiao’s house that evening not long ago. The cafeteria would be closed by now. She tugged at Zhou Fanghua’s school uniform sleeve and asked, “Want to grab some instant noodles from the school store and eat them at the field?”
Eating steaming hot instant noodles out on the sports field in the deep autumn cold — just thinking about it sounded wonderfully comfortable. Zhou Fanghua nodded enthusiastically: “Sure!”
True to their word, the two went to the school store, bought two cups of instant noodles, had the owner pour boiling water in, and carried them carefully out to the sports field.
The field wasn’t dark — a ring of large floodlights lit up the running track. Supposedly these lights had been installed so teachers could catch couples sneaking around after hours. Whether or not that was true, the lights made it easy for Li Kuiyi and Zhou Fanghua to spot two familiar silhouettes out on the grass in the middle of the field. They looked a bit like Xia Leyi and Zhou Ce, and at their feet sat a pile of colorful, unidentifiable objects.
Hmm… The two girls exchanged a glance. They hadn’t accidentally stumbled onto something they shouldn’t be seeing, had they?
Moving closer, they realized the colorful items were snacks — potato chips, spicy strips, cheese wafers, squeezable jelly packs — piled in heaps, a little bit of everything.
Li Kuiyi couldn’t help but be surprised. “What’s going on here?”
Xia Leyi and Zhou Ce startled, turned around, and when they saw who it was, looked equally caught off guard: “You two finished your essays already?”
Both girls nodded.
Zhou Fanghua took in the whole setup and caught on almost immediately: “So… is tonight actually a class bonding event?”
“Yep.” Xia Leyi winked at her. “This is a special mission that Teacher Liu assigned to me and Zhou Ce. We didn’t go to Classroom 501 to write essays — we went on a raid of the school store just now.”
No wonder Liu Xinzhao had insisted that everyone come to the sports field. So that was the plan.
The space was mostly set up already, so Li Kuiyi and Zhou Fanghua didn’t jump in to help. They sat down and prepared to eat their noodles. Li Kuiyi peeled back the lid of her shrimp and fish cake noodles and asked Xia Leyi: “Want some?”
The noodles smelled wonderful, enough to make anyone’s appetite surge. Xia Leyi didn’t stand on ceremony: “If you don’t mind.”
Li Kuiyi shook her head.
Xia Leyi was also mindful of boundaries — she twirled a clump of noodles around the fork and tilted her head back to eat them, trying to keep her lips from touching the utensil.
“So fragrant,” she said.
She took a bite of Zhou Fanghua’s golden broth beef noodles too, and promptly succeeded in making herself hungry. Zhou Ce stood to one side watching pitifully — he was, after all, a boy, and it wouldn’t do for him to share a fork with a girl. He swallowed a huge gulp of saliva, stood up, and huffed: “Fine, I’ll go buy my own!”
Xia Leyi had been waiting for exactly that. She grinned and handed him the remaining class funds: “In that case, buy a few more cups — we can all eat together.”
Zhou Ce didn’t take the money: “How am I supposed to carry all of that by myself? And don’t instant noodles need boiling water?”
“Put them in a big plastic bag. And if there’s no boiling water, just borrow a thermos from the school store owner — we bought so much stuff there tonight, he’s not going to refuse us that one small favor.”
“Easy for you to say,” Zhou Ce muttered.
“I’m exhausted from lugging all those snacks over here,” Xia Leyi said, settling down onto the grass with a sigh and rubbing her wrists. “I don’t want to go.”
Li Kuiyi set down her noodles and stood up. “I’ll go with you then.”
Zhou Ce brightened immediately and lavished her with compliments: “Class rep, you are such a good person!”
Li Kuiyi walked and ate at the same time, the smell of her noodles tormenting Zhou Ce every step of the way. Instant noodles weren’t anything remarkable on an ordinary day, but at certain specific moments, they were without a doubt world-class cuisine.
Zhou Ce was still daydreaming about noodles when Li Kuiyi spoke, her voice mild: “It was you who told Fang Zhixiao about me and Zhou Fanghua singing ‘One Like Summer, One Like Autumn’ at Qi Yu’s birthday party, wasn’t it?”
“What?” Zhou Ce’s brain hadn’t caught up yet. When it did, he couldn’t help but swallow — judging by Li Kuiyi’s tone, this had a bit of the feel of someone coming to settle a score. He forced a dry laugh and tried to deflect: “Why would I tell Fang Zhixiao about that? It was He Youyuan — he and Fang Zhixiao are in the same class.”
“He Youyuan wouldn’t do something like that,” Li Kuiyi said with certainty.
“How do you know he wouldn’t? You know him that well?” Zhou Ce seemed to be trying to cover something up, frantically pinning the blame on his friend. “He’s such a schemer — what couldn’t he do?”
Li Kuiyi wouldn’t claim to know He Youyuan all that well, and she did think he was something of a schemer, but however you described him, he was at least an open and straightforward one about it. She stopped walking, met Zhou Ce’s eyes, and said calmly: “Don’t try to talk your way out of this. Fang Zhixiao told me herself — otherwise how would I have known?”
Zhou Ce: “…”
Damn. She’d asked the question already knowing the answer.
He spun around on the spot in frustration, gritting his teeth: “Oh, that’s just great — Fang Zhixiao is a traitor!”
He had clearly told her not to let Li Kuiyi know it was him.
“So you admit it?”
Li Kuiyi let out a small, knowing laugh, her tone leisurely: “Actually, Fang Zhixiao didn’t tell me anything. She just got jealous and threw a little tantrum at me.”
Zhou Ce: “…”
He’d been tricked. All’s fair in war — how true.
They passed the cafeteria and Li Kuiyi poured the rest of her noodle broth into the food waste bin, then tossed the cup into the dry trash. Zhou Ce, trying to break the awkward silence, gave an exaggerated thumbs-up: “Wow, class rep! So environmentally conscious!”
“Please.”
The two of them swept the school store clean of every flavor of instant noodles available. Zhou Ce carried two large plastic bags; Li Kuiyi carried two thermoses.
By the time they returned to the field, many of their classmates had already arrived. They sat in a big circle, snacking away. When they saw instant noodles, everyone scrambled to grab a cup; those who didn’t get one shared with whoever was sitting nearest. Hot water gurgled into the noodle cups, and plumes of white steam rose into the night air, like small clouds puffing upward.
Students who had finished their essays kept trickling in, each one delighted and a little regretful: “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have spent so long dawdling in the classroom.”
Li Kuiyi sat down beside Zhou Fanghua. Having already eaten one cup of noodles, she wasn’t interested in any more snacks for the moment. She fished a preserved plum candy from the snack pile, unwrapped it, and popped it in her mouth. She leaned back on her hands and let herself relax.
There were no forced games or required performances. Everyone just sat together, eating, drinking, talking, and laughing. When the noodles were gone and more than half the snacks had been devoured, someone let out a satisfied belch, and a voice piped up: “How about we sing?”
“Sing what?”
The last time the whole class had sung together was during military training, so someone shouted: “Let’s sing ‘Unity Is Strength’!”
Laughter broke out across the group, but this was a night for fun, so they really did sing it — all the way through. When it ended, a brief silence fell, and then a boy in the back started up a Ren Xianqi classic, crooning in a deliberately slippery tone: “Hey girl across the way, look over here, look over here, the show going on right here is something special…”
That kind of little love song carried a hint of flirtation, and the girls responded with shy, protesting “shhhh”s: “Ugh — that song is practically as old as we are!”
But the boys pushed back precisely because the girls did, singing louder and with more gusto: “The sadness of a lonely boy — say it out loud, does anyone understand?”
They were mid-song when a boy who’d gone to use the bathroom came sprinting back, breathless and frantic: “Bad news, bad news — Chen Guoming is coming!”
“Quick, quick — change songs, change songs!”
By the time Chen Guoming stepped onto the sports field, what he saw was the students of Class 1 swaying gently in unison, singing: “That day, I began to gaze up at the stars and discovered — the stars are not far, the dreams are not far, as long as you stand on your tiptoes…”
What a remarkable class.
Chen Guoming smiled with deep satisfaction, took out his phone, and quietly recorded a short video, planning to post it to his social moments.
Xia Leyi put on a convincing show of having only just noticed him — she stood up, walked over to deliver a “report,” showing all eight teeth in a perfectly polished smile: “Mr. Chen, our class is currently holding a class-building activity to strengthen our students’ sense of collective honor and group cohesion. Teacher Liu said that a truly outstanding class must have not only excellent academic performance…”
She delivered the official-sounding speech beautifully, and Chen Guoming nodded along the whole time: “Yes, yes, exactly right.”
Once Chen Guoming was sent on his way, they let themselves laugh freely — sprawling and tilting in all directions, some simply lying back on the grass. The autumn night sky was vast and desolate, scattered with a few faint yellowish stars. The moon was perfectly round but not bright, its surrounding halo blurred and soft. Someone exclaimed that tonight was the fifteenth of the lunar month — someone else immediately argued it was the seventeenth — which drew collective mockery: Are you an idiot? They meant the lunar calendar.
Li Kuiyi bit down on the last bit of the plum candy, and let the corner of her lips curve into a quiet smile. She wasn’t someone who usually enjoyed socializing, but she found herself inexplicably fond of the atmosphere right now. Maybe it was because young people laughing together without a care in the world sounded like a clean wind sweeping through open fields, or like a spring fire racing across the plains.
When there were ten minutes left until dismissal, everyone got up, dusted themselves off, and started picking up the trash. Li Kuiyi and Zhou Fanghua together returned the thermoses to the school store owner.
Back in Classroom 501, Li Kuiyi counted the essay notebooks on the podium — thirty-five, which, minus Xia Leyi’s and Zhou Ce’s, was exactly right. She carried the stack to Liu Xinzhao’s desk. Beside them sat another pile — the weekly journals that had been collected earlier this week.
She found her own journal in the stack, pulled it out, opened it to the most recent page, took out a pen, and wrote:
“A blazing, fierce love — perhaps it applies to every form of affection.”
Done. She capped the pen. The dismissal bell rang.
The classroom door opened. She could see Liu Xinzhao surrounded by a crowd of parents, too busy to break free.
Thank you.
Li Kuiyi stood outside the door. The noise of the crowd swelled around her. She looked at Liu Xinzhao through the press of people and thought this silently.
When Xu Manhua came out, Li Kuiyi walked home with her.
Li Kuiyi said nothing. She had originally planned to ask — to ask Xu Manhua why she had said those things in front of Liu Xinzhao. But she didn’t want to ask anymore. If things couldn’t be made better, she could at least keep from making them worse. Laying everything out in the open might feel satisfying, but it wouldn’t do her any good. She was only fifteen. She still needed this home. Tomorrow the sun would rise as it always did, one day at a time, and three years would pass eventually.
Back home, Li Kuiyi locked her bedroom door, sat at her desk, took her phone from the drawer, and pulled out some scratch paper from her bag. She searched online while carefully calculating the costs of going to university. She had decided she wanted to go to Beijing. Four years of tuition and living expenses in Beijing — and perhaps not just four years; if she wanted to pursue advanced study, ten thousand yuan would certainly not be enough. How could she generate more income? The first thing she thought of was scholarships. At First High, any student who was admitted to Tsinghua or Peking University received a cash prize; if she could achieve scores unprecedented in the city, the city government would reward her as well. As for part-time work — that was out of the question before the college entrance exam, since students at First High, especially those in the advanced class, had virtually no summer or winter breaks. After the exam she could work as a private tutor — as long as her scores were good enough, there would be no shortage of students. She could also sell her notes. Before the midterm, many people had borrowed hers — if she took some time to organize everything neatly from her books…
By the time Liu Xinzhao had finished talking to every last parent, it was nearly eleven. The teaching building was still not quiet — a few parents had cornered Class 3’s homeroom teacher down the hall and were deep in conversation, with the air of people who wanted to lay their whole hearts bare.
Back in the office, Liu Xinzhao saw two neat stacks of notebooks on her desk. She recognized at a glance that the topmost weekly journal belonged to Li Kuiyi.
It could wait until tomorrow to grade, but she was genuinely curious to read what her class representative had been thinking — the anticipation always felt like redeeming a prize ticket. She pulled out the chair, sat down, and opened the journal.
She read it through in one go, then broke into a quiet, helpless smile.
She really hadn’t expected Li Kuiyi to use her journal to explore the topic of love. And she noticed something: when Li Kuiyi wrote about a phenomenon she was analyzing or an idea she was investigating, her prose was clear and precise, well-ordered and purposeful. But when she tried to express her own emotions, her writing became strangely halting — as if inflexible joints grinding together, producing that particular friction.
Ah. A child who doesn’t quite know how to express her feelings.
But Liu Xinzhao still understood what she was really saying. Li Kuiyi had watched a film called Lust, Caution, and had projected herself onto the female lead, Wang Jiazhi.
The reason for this projection was almost certainly the similarity in their family situations.
Liu Xinzhao had read the background forms for every student in the class.
Li Kuiyi had attended elementary school in a county town. She had a younger brother, who attended the city’s best private primary school. Combined with the essay she had written earlier — the one examining the concept of “parents owe their children nothing” — and connected to what her mother had said in the office today, the answer was nearly self-evident.
And precisely because of that, Liu Xinzhao believed Li Kuiyi wasn’t truly trying to explore love at all. She was using love as a lens through which to examine all forms of feeling. She wrote about how, in her imagination, love was still fierce and radiant — every gesture, every encounter, carved bone-deep. In plain terms, Li Kuiyi was a deeply idealistic person. What she admired — or what she longed for — was all forms of love at their most absolute: to be unconditionally protected, trusted, and supported in every relationship, whether family, friendship, or romance. Love like that arising naturally from the heart, and enduring without fail.
She had probably worked that out herself by the end — she realized what she was wrestling with wasn’t love alone, and so just before dismissal, she went back and added that final sentence to her journal.
The root of her pain was this: a thin and threadbare family affection had shattered the illusion of that absolute love. Emotion and reason had gone to war with each other — longing on one side, doubt on the other — until it all collapsed into that single question: Is a person’s entire life simply the task of learning to be loved?
That was a question Liu Xinzhao felt she needed to think through carefully before she could answer. She slipped the journal into her tote bag and took it home.
Li Kuiyi was always one to act on her decisions. Now that she had made a plan to earn money, she began organizing her notes whenever she had time left over after finishing her schoolwork. To make future scanning and printing easier, she chose A4-sized notebooks and wrote in neat, careful characters. She didn’t find it tedious. Watching her own thinking take shape and build into a coherent system beneath her pen gave her a deep sense of accomplishment — and it was, after all, another round of review.
Zhou Fanghua asked with curiosity: “Why did you suddenly start using a new notebook?”
Li Kuiyi didn’t hide it: “I’m going to sell my notes to earn some money.”
Zhou Fanghua was a little taken aback. She didn’t know why Li Kuiyi had suddenly decided she needed to earn money — was she in financial trouble? Of course, that wasn’t a question she could ask out loud; she didn’t want to hurt her.
But quietly, Zhou Fanghua began placing tissues in the space between their two desks. After Li Kuiyi helped explain a problem to her, she would say she wanted to treat Li Kuiyi to a meal. When she went to the stationery shop to buy pens, she always came back with a couple extra, and her excuse for giving them to Li Kuiyi was that she’d bought too many and didn’t want them to go to waste.
Li Kuiyi scratched her head, puzzled. Pens don’t expire — what was there to waste?
Besides Zhou Fanghua’s increasingly mysterious behavior, Li Kuiyi also noticed that He Youyuan’s attitude toward her had changed.
They sometimes crossed paths on the way to or from school, sometimes in the cafeteria, sometimes at the school store. She figured they knew each other well enough by now, so she had been ready to wave hello — but every time, he’d act as if he hadn’t seen her, turn his face away, and walk off.
Li Kuiyi was baffled. What had she done to offend him?
This person was genuinely bewildering. Just a few days ago he had chased her down to give her chocolate.
Not that she particularly cared to wonder about why He Youyuan was ignoring her. If he didn’t want to engage, so be it — it was probably better to have as little to do with him as possible.
What Li Kuiyi didn’t know was that every time He Youyuan successfully managed to ignore her, he gave himself a firm, private pat on the back.
He was a man of his word.
From that night he walked her home, they had nothing more to do with each other.
She was just a sulky-faced little pineapple, after all — not anyone remarkable. He was perfectly capable of letting go when he said he would. He was ruthless about these things. How else could he have walked through a garden of flowers without a single petal sticking to him?
Truly.
On Friday, in the cafeteria, He Youyuan set his tray down across from Zhou Ce — and then, of all people, spotted Li Kuiyi again.
She had her back to him, sitting with Fang Zhixiao beside her and Zhou Fanghua across from her.
With the cold setting in, she’d stopped tying her hair back in a ponytail and let it fall to her shoulders, tucked behind her ears. He Youyuan didn’t know why he could recognize her from behind even when she looked different. What terrible luck.
He turned his head to the other side. Out of sight, out of mind.
Zhou Ce watched him hold that position throughout the entire meal and asked, with genuine concern: “Did you wake up with a stiff neck?”
He Youyuan: “…”
What kind of question was that?
After eating, He Youyuan and Zhou Ce made another trip to the school store, each buying a can of cola.
Coming out the door, He Youyuan was just about to pop the tab when he glanced up — and there were Li Kuiyi and her two friends, arm in arm, walking straight toward them.
What kind of rotten luck was this? He Youyuan thought. This girl haunts me like a ghost.
He swiftly turned his face away again.
But just as he turned his head, Zhou Ce suddenly hooked an arm around his shoulder and stuck out a foot — and He Youyuan stumbled, nearly going down.
The three girls walked by at exactly that moment, looking alarmed, and passed them without a word.
Zhou Ce, shameless as ever, stretched out a hand and waved at them with an air of easy confidence: “Hey.”
“Zhou Ce, what the hell was that?!” He Youyuan straightened himself up, barely believing it.
Zhou Ce shrugged: “Nothing.”
Nothing? He’d nearly faceplanted in front of girls! In front of the sulky-faced little pineapple! His face was a good-looking one, but even a good-looking face could only take so much humiliation!
He Youyuan instantly decided he wasn’t moving. He was going to wait here until those three came back out of the school store, then trip Zhou Ce in front of them. He was absolutely getting that dignity back.
Dignity. A man’s dignity.
As he stood there seething, it suddenly hit him: why had Zhou Ce tripped him? Surely he hadn’t done it just to give those three girls a show?
He himself was a boy — he understood this kind of thinking all too well. Wasn’t it just the old trick of making your friend the butt of the joke to look impressive in front of girls? That kind of behavior, not unlike a peacock fanning its tail, was usually done in order to…
He Youyuan’s heart lurched hard. He yanked the tab off his cola with one hand, took a few long gulps, and then slid a sidelong glance at Zhou Ce with a cold smile: “You like Li Kuiyi?”
Zhou Ce hadn’t expected to be figured out, but this was his closest friend — he could let a little slip. He laughed, slung an arm over He Youyuan’s shoulder, and steered them forward: “Why would it be Li Kuiyi? She looks like way too much trouble. It’s the other one.”
Zhou Ce assumed He Youyuan would ask which one. But the guy said nothing — just gave a brief, uninterested “oh” and resumed drinking his cola.
Good — it’s not Li Kuiyi. He Youyuan felt his heartbeat slow.
His friend had some sense after all. He knew Li Kuiyi was a minefield — best not to step in it. Otherwise He Youyuan would have had to worry about him too.
He Youyuan decided he wasn’t going to hold the stumble against Zhou Ce. For the sake of their friendship, he was willing to sacrifice a little of his pride. See how loyal he was.
Zhou Ce’s naturally darker complexion was, oddly, showing a faint blush. As they walked, he muttered: “Well, maybe it doesn’t even count as liking her. It’s just that lately we’ve been chatting a lot, and I get the feeling she might be a little interested in me too…”
He Youyuan walked alongside him, the cola can swinging in his hand, listening with only half an ear, wearing that loose, self-satisfied expression. Among all his friends, the ones with any real experience in that department were few — except for Zhang Chuang, the rest had even less to show than he did. He’d never been in a relationship himself, but once he was, he was certain he’d be excellent at it — not clueless like Zhou Ce right now. And Qi Yu was a complete bookworm — He Youyuan had never seen him take interest in anything outside of academics. He’d probably end up alone forever…
Heh, alone forever. He Youyuan gloated over the thought.
But just as the grin started to form, it froze on his face.
He’d suddenly remembered something: on the first day of school, hadn’t Qi Yu also tripped him?
Qi Yu. Tripping him. That was genuinely out of character.
He’d been too annoyed at the time to think about it carefully.
Now that he did — had he missed some major development? Was it possible that Qi Yu also had someone he liked, and that girl had been standing nearby, watching?
Xia Leyi?
No — if it had been Xia Leyi, she would have walked over to say hello when she saw them.
Then who else could it have been? It was the first day of school; nobody knew anyone yet.
…It couldn’t be Li Kuiyi, could it?
He Youyuan remembered: during check-in at the gymnasium, Qi Yu had greeted Li Kuiyi with an utterly natural ease — as though he’d already known exactly where she was sitting.
So was there a possibility — that Qi Yu had actually seen Li Kuiyi at the notice board, and that was why he’d tripped him?
He Youyuan’s lips pressed into a thin line.
Memories played through his mind like frames from an old reel of film, fast and flickering. He thought of Qi Yu stepping up without a word to help Li Kuiyi with a problem in her family’s optometry shop. He thought of Qi Yu on the bus, asking Li Kuiyi if she liked Zhou Jielun’s songs.
It was all genuinely out of character.
Qi Yu wasn’t someone who lost his composure like that.
Without realizing it, He Youyuan’s hand tightened around the can. It crumpled inward.
He spoke abruptly, his voice carefully flat, asking Zhou Ce: “At Qi Yu’s birthday party, before I arrived — what were you all playing?”
“Truth or Dare,” Zhou Ce said, confused. “Why do you ask?”
It was the second time someone had asked him to recount Qi Yu’s birthday party — first Li Kuiyi, now He Youyuan.
“Who had to do a dare?” He Youyuan asked, though he already suspected the answer.
“Zhang Chuang.” Zhou Ce launched into a complaint. “I’m telling you, Zhang Chuang is just like you — can’t take a joke. We asked him what his first kiss felt like, and all he said was that it was soft. That’s not an answer — everyone’s lips are soft.”
Li Kuiyi’s aren’t.
The thought surfaced in He Youyuan’s mind unbidden.
Ugh. What was that?
He shoved the thought away and kept his expression neutral: “And then?”
“Then it was Li Kuiyi — she’s way more of a sport than Zhang Chuang. She played along without hesitation.”
“What did she do?” He Youyuan turned the cola can between his fingers, sizing up a nearby trash bin, getting ready to toss it in.
Zhou Ce dragged out his voice with the air of someone about to reveal major gossip: “We asked her which guy she liked most. She didn’t even blink — she picked Qi Yu.”
Clang.
The cola can missed the bin entirely.
It was the first time He Youyuan had ever not made the shot.