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That gentle squeeze seemed to be nothing more than a reminder that he had hurt her just now. Only a second later, she drew her hand back from his palm. On instinct, he turned his hand over and caught her, but then — as if remembering himself — he loosened his grip, bringing only her wrist to eye level and gently kneading it with his fingertip.

“I’m sorry.”

He paused, then raised his eyes to look at her: “Does it still hurt?”

Li Kuiyi shook her head and said “it doesn’t hurt anymore,” her gaze, filtered through the nightfall and the dim, hazy light of the street lamps, settling on his indistinct face: “And you? Does yours still hurt?”

The heat and sting from that slap had already faded, but when He Youyuan spoke and the movement of his lips engaged the muscles of his face, there was still a faint, tearing sensation of pain. That sensation reminded him of the image of her rushing over, and his nose prickled; he also shook his head and said, “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

He had no idea where she had suddenly appeared from, and he didn’t know how much of his conversation with his father she had heard. Yet the instant he saw her step in front of him, his heart felt as though it had been soaked through — his heartbeat turning thick and heavy. And then at once he became flustered, feeling as though he had exposed an ugly side of himself to her.

Of course he knew he was not a perfect person. But broadly speaking, he was free-spirited and bright. Many people liked him — they liked how good-looking he was, how tall, how clean his presence felt, how well he sang. In short, everything about him, on the surface, appeared likable. And even if you looked deeper, you would be hard-pressed to find any serious flaws.

And yet there were always things he was unwilling to show others — like the fact that his father had had an affair. Perhaps it was childish of him, but he felt ashamed; he felt embarrassed. When Li Kuiyi came to know about it, he had worried even more, afraid that she might form a different impression of him from that point on.

People always want to show the people they love only their finest, most elevated selves — never their ugliness or darkness. That is precisely why it is harder than smiling sincerely at someone to cry sincerely in front of them.

He Youyuan stood motionless, watching the light from the passing traffic make Li Kuiyi’s face flicker and gleam. He wanted to ask her if she had been frightened just now. But before he could, she said a quick “wait a moment” and darted away from his side. She timed it right, crossed the road, and slipped into a convenience store on the opposite side.

After a little while, she ran back, carrying a milk-brick ice cream and a cotton face mask. She wrapped the ice cream in the face mask and reached up to hold it against his cheek: “The convenience store didn’t sell ice packs, so this will have to do. Cold compression can help with the swelling.”

The gesture was almost like a caress against his face. He stared at her fixedly. Her own face warmed, and she quietly reminded him: “You… hold it yourself.”

“Oh.” He still didn’t avert his gaze, only accepted the things from her hands in a blank, dazed way.

Li Kuiyi glanced around at their surroundings. He had been leading her west and they had been walking for a very long time. She was not exactly unfamiliar with this area, but not particularly familiar either. She noticed a few small restaurants not far away, as well as a chess-and-cards room and a massage parlour for the visually impaired. A little further on was an intersection, with an aging residential complex on one side. In front of the complex was a small square, where more than ten elderly men and women were doing square dancing. The music carried very far; she could clearly hear it from where they stood — it was Moon Over the Lotus Pond.

“Do you want to eat? Or find somewhere to sit for a while?” she asked He Youyuan.

“Sit for a while.” He said softly.

“Alright.”

Li Kuiyi led him over to the little square ahead, and found a long bench in one corner where they sat down. The music from the speakers changed, and the elderly men and women in front of them joined hands and began doing a social dance.

One elderly couple — apparently newcomers — were still unfamiliar with the footwork and kept stepping on each other’s feet, trading complaints back and forth. The sight made Li Kuiyi’s lips curl into a smile. She turned to look at He Youyuan, meaning to ask if he had caught that amusing moment, but found him with both elbows on his knees, head lowered, turning the milk-brick ice cream over in his hands. The ice cream had already melted; he was kneading it idly through the packaging.

Li Kuiyi wanted to offer some comfort, yet didn’t know how to begin. She pressed her lips together and looked at him for a while.

Sensing that she was looking at him, He Youyuan lifted his head, and also looked at her for a moment, then said softly: “You’re probably wondering why my dad hit me.”

Can I ask?

Li Kuiyi hesitated for a moment, then said: “I do want to know. But if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. I… I just hope you won’t be sad about it.”

As the words left her mouth, Li Kuiyi was annoyed enough to want to bite her own tongue.

This was the first time she had ever truly felt frustrated with herself for not knowing how to comfort someone. She knew he was hurting, yet all she could manage to say was “don’t be sad.”

He Youyuan lowered his eyes: “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him — the last time was probably a year ago. I told him then not to come looking for me anymore. But he still came, and waited for me directly at the art studio. He said he knew I’d be going away for training soon, that he wanted to bring me something, and that he missed me and just wanted to see me. I asked him: when you were in bed with another woman, how come you didn’t think of me? He got angry, and that’s when he hit me.”

After listening, Li Kuiyi was quiet for a moment. She knew it wasn’t her place to involve herself in someone else’s family affairs, but she still wanted to express her support to He Youyuan, so she said: “If you don’t want to forgive him, that’s fine. It’s entirely your choice.”

He looked toward her again. His gaze seemed to want to waver, and yet seemed determined to hold steady as he said: “You know — when I saw him, what I felt wasn’t only hatred for his betrayal of his family. At the same time I thought, he’d set me a very bad example. It made me start to wonder whether you and I… were actually suited to be together.”

Li Kuiyi rarely heard him speak with such earnestness. He was always breezy and casual, never really serious — she had always referred to his speech as “puppy nonsense.” But she was coming to understand now that he was simply someone who preferred not to dwell on things too deeply. In truth, his inner world was just as sensitive and intricate as anyone else’s.

“How so?” She was genuinely curious about his thinking now and pressed him to go on.

He Youyuan hesitated a little, then asked with a faint nervousness: “Would you… like someone who is more capable than you, someone who gives you a sense of admiration?”

Li Kuiyi rested her chin on her hand and thought about it genuinely for a moment, then gave a nod: “Yes, actually. For example — my previous homeroom teacher; I wonder if you know her, Liu Xinzhao, she taught Chinese. Every time I attended her class, I felt she was so remarkable — as though she had an understanding spanning all of history and the present. And she always had very distinctive answers to many of the strange questions I brought to her. I admired her, and I liked her very much.”

He Youyuan’s throat moved: “…That’s not that kind of liking… I mean the romantic kind.”

“Oh…”

Li Kuiyi’s face turned faintly pink. She thought about it again. “If it were a romantic relationship, I think… I wouldn’t particularly want to feel admiration for him. Don’t you think it’d be strange to admire your own boyfriend?”

Admiration was a kind of upward-looking reverence — she didn’t like the idea of looking up toward the person she loved, with him elevated high above her.

“But an emotional expert online said that for a relationship to be stable, the girl needs to have a sense of admiration for the guy, and the guy needs to have a nurturing tenderness toward the girl.” He Youyuan was repeating what Zhou Ce had told him that day. He wasn’t particularly sold on it, but he had seen the vast majority of male-female relationships around him following exactly this pattern, which had been bewildering him greatly.

“Is that so?” Li Kuiyi frowned, and then, after a brief pause, said clearly and deliberately, word by word: “What absolute rubbish.”

He Youyuan: “…”

Having said it, Li Kuiyi belatedly felt a cringe of embarrassment and twisted her fingers together. How had she ended up accidentally saying something crude again?

She tried to recover: “What I mean is, I think what the expert said makes no sense. I can appreciate your good qualities, but I won’t admire them — because admiration is looking up from below. I can also love you wholeheartedly, but I won’t feel a nurturing tenderness toward you — because nurturing tenderness is looking down from above. Being in a relationship, shouldn’t it be looking at each other eye to eye?”

After hearing her out, He Youyuan suddenly rose from the bench, bent one knee, and half-crouched in front of her, looking directly into her clear, bright eyes: “Then do you think I can look at you eye to eye?”

She watched the light flicker in his gaze and said softly: “You can.”

“If I told you I don’t enjoy studying as much as you do, and I rarely find any joy in it, would you think I was making excuses?”

Li Kuiyi said: “I know. A lot of people study passively. I can understand that. But… if you don’t study, that won’t do.”

“I’ll study. The things I need to do well, I’ll do well.” He Youyuan asked again: “But I’m not as smart as you. Even if I give it my all, there’s a chance I still won’t be able to catch up to you — would you feel that makes it impossible for us to go the distance together?”

“If I’d had that concern, we wouldn’t be here talking right now. And besides, you’re studying fine arts — you have your own path to walk. There’s no need to measure your progress against mine.”

“I just want to walk a little further with you.”

“I know. I want that too.”

He Youyuan leaned forward slightly, bringing his face closer to hers, feeling the warmth of her breath. She said she wanted to walk further with him too — so they wouldn’t end up like his mum and dad, would they? That useless man, his father — unable to keep up with his mother’s pace, had chosen a woman far less accomplished than her to have an affair with, seeking the sense of superiority he had lost in that woman’s company. How truly pitiful.

“Li Kuiyi, you really do like me, right?” he suddenly asked.

Li Kuiyi admitted it — with a face like that so close to hers, her heart did flutter. But hearing him ask this, she still couldn’t help but give an internal eye-roll.

She had already said everything she had to say. How could he still not be certain?

“Why on earth would you doubt that?” she asked.

She had thought this response was adequate, but to her surprise, he began itemizing her offenses: “I asked you to eat lunch and dinner together every day, and you wouldn’t agree. I asked you to come out, and eight out of ten times you turned me down. I got even the tiniest bit close to you, and you told me to keep my distance. I dropped five places, and you said without a moment’s hesitation that you’d break up with me. I’ve been clearly upset for so long, and you never once tried to comfort me…”

Li Kuiyi’s eye gave a quiet twitch.

You really hold grudges, don’t you…

She argued back: “I also need my personal space — I can’t spend all my time with you. I have friends to spend time with too. I can’t possibly agree every time you ask me.”

“I know.” Yet he still persisted: “So I don’t want to keep second-guessing anymore. I want to ask you directly — you really do like me, right?”

With no other option, Li Kuiyi steeled herself, closed her eyes halfway, with the manner of someone resigned to their fate, and gave a stiff nod.

“I want to hear you say it out loud.” He was unrelenting.

What difference does it make?

Li Kuiyi opened her eyes, feeling that he was being thoroughly tiresome, and glared at him.

He reached out, pinched her cheek gently, and made her mouth part slightly: “Say it.”