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One day, Fang Zhixiao asked Li Kuiyi with an air of mystery: “Do you know what the greatest benefit of being a third-year senior student is?”

Li Kuiyi thought seriously for a moment and said, “It means these days of suffering are almost at an end.”

“No, no, no…” Fang Zhixiao drawled the words, shaking her head with a self-satisfied air. “Being a third-year senior means everyone will accommodate you without limit. I’m telling you — this morning, I was buying breakfast at a stall by the road, and I parked my little electric scooter outside. But somehow it wasn’t balanced properly, or something, and it suddenly fell over and knocked the electric bike next to it down too. I rushed to prop it back up, and before I’d even gotten it steady, the owner came over — a middle-aged woman and an older man, and they did not look pleased. I was terrified. But then the woman got closer, noticed the day-student pass hanging around my neck, and realized I was a third-year senior. She immediately forgave me on the spot, and even said to the man: ‘The kid’s studying hard, it’s not easy — she’s already in her third year, the college entrance exams are right around the corner, the pressure must be enormous. Don’t give her a hard time.'”

Li Kuiyi listened and couldn’t help but smile.

She thought Fang Zhixiao had made a very good point. In a place like Liuyuan City, where the whole culture centered on exam performance, the college entrance examination was everyone’s business, and the status of third-year seniors was visibly, steeply on the rise. Many classmates’ parents had started bringing meals to school every day — meat, eggs, fortifying soups — varying the menu constantly. Whatever else one might say, there was certainly no shortage of nutrition. The school also put special protections in place for third-year students: they were excused from cleaning duties, which fell instead, involuntarily, to younger students. And just the other day, a group of first-years who had been cleaning the courtyard in front of the third-year building — laughing, shouting, chasing one another around — had been publicly criticized over the school’s intercom for disturbing the third-year students’ studies. Senior students could even allow themselves to show anxiety, fear, and overwrought emotions, and be understood for it — a privilege rarely granted at any other stage of life.

The classroom was filled with a mingled scent of black coffee and medicated oil — bitter, rich, sharp. No one spoke. There was only the sound of turning pages, the scratch of pen tips darting across paper, test sheets being passed one by one toward the back, and occasionally a cough — usually accompanied by the friction of fabric from a frantic bouncing leg and the manic sound of someone scratching their head.

Hold steady, Li Kuiyi told herself.

She began to regulate her schedule, requiring herself to be in bed before midnight and to spend half an hour before sleep reviewing material. If homework went unfinished, it would go unfinished; if He Youyuan’s messages went unanswered, she would send him a quick word and leave them unanswered. Every morning at five o’clock, she rose precisely on time, reviewed everything she had memorized the night before, and once that was done she was free to wash up and get ready for school.

She found this method of memorization very effective — as if the brain continued to process and consolidate knowledge even during sleep.

With this schedule in place, she had little time to stay in touch with He Youyuan. Fortunately, He Youyuan was also extremely busy — in fact even busier than she was — and had no grounds whatsoever to sulk about her not responding. The two of them were completely out of sync with each other: He Youyuan would send a few scattered messages during the day; Li Kuiyi would reply to a few after arriving home in the evening; and by the time He Youyuan replied again, it would already be one or two in the morning.

“Why are you up so late every night?” Li Kuiyi couldn’t help asking.

“Can’t finish the drawings,” he said.

On the rare free weekend, he would call her and they would talk for a very long time. She could hear the exhaustion and hoarseness in his voice, and yet he still laughed, saying he looked like someone who had just fled a disaster — not just on his hands and face, but even inside his nose, everything was fine carbon pencil powder. Sometimes she could hear the low points in his voice too — he would say he’d drawn sheet after sheet and still felt like he wasn’t improving. He rarely brought up the pressure with her, and even when he did, he would only touch on it lightly before drifting into playful grumbling about how he hadn’t been neglecting his academic subjects either, that he listened to English listening practice every day and worked through math test papers — hinting, not so subtly, that he wanted to be praised.

Li Kuiyi knew he must have been under tremendous pressure; he simply hadn’t said so. Once he shared a photo in his social media feed — the studio at five in the morning, curtains half-drawn, darkness on all sides, only a blade of pale-white dawn cracked open at the window, cold and desolate and oppressive.

“Are you unhappy?” she asked.

“Yeah. Didn’t do well on the second mock — specifically, it was the color section.”

It was through her conversations with He Youyuan that Li Kuiyi came to learn that art students had their own first, second, and third mock exams; that the studio had a college entrance exam countdown hanging on the wall just like the classrooms did; that the art exams were just like the college entrance exams — a contest of hard work, talent, and luck — and if anything, the art exams demanded even more talent and luck than the standard exams.

She had once asked him whether he thought he had a talent for art. He had answered with insufferable smugness: Of course I do — my teacher always says my color sense is exceptional.

So falling short in the color section must have stung all the more.

He wasn’t the type to hide his wounds, yet he wasn’t willing to say much to her about it. She suspected it was because he didn’t want to disturb her — after all, she was a third-year senior herself, facing the same heavy academic pressure and no shortage of worries of her own.

In November, He Youyuan returned for a visit, to register for the college entrance examination and the art unified examination. When he walked into the classroom of Class Seventeen, Li Kuiyi almost didn’t dare recognize him — even though he had told her in advance he would be coming. He had lost a great deal of weight; for someone so tall, he seemed held together entirely by bone structure. His hair was cut a little shorter. The lines of his face had grown cleaner and sharper — colder than before, somehow.

The moment he stepped through the door, his gaze settled on her. It was a break between classes, and most students were slumped over their desks sleeping. The few who were awake saw him and froze for a few seconds, then let out small exclamations of surprise. Many of the sleepers were roused; the previously quiet classroom erupted with noise at once.

He Youyuan deliberately walked down the aisle of the row where Li Kuiyi sat. Under so many watching eyes, he didn’t dare be too bold, and finally dropped his gaze away from her, only letting the corners of his lips curve faintly upward. Reaching the last row, he reached out and gave the head of a sleeping boy a shove, using a teacher’s tone of voice: “Still sleeping when class is about to start!”

The boy startled awake and immediately shot upright — and He Youyuan, having committed his mischief, sauntered away with great self-satisfaction, returning to his old seat by the back door. The watching classmates burst into laughter. The boy looked around in all directions and only then pieced together what had happened; he charged to the back, locked He Youyuan in a headlock, and dragged him straight off his stool, pinning him to the floor: “You little rat — first thing you do when you’re back is come after me?”

Li Kuiyi watched him quietly, along with the rest of the class.

After getting up off the floor, He Youyuan brushed the dust from his clothes — but didn’t get it all off. Li Kuiyi clearly saw that the seat of his school trousers was still dusty gray.

Perhaps sensing her gaze, he lifted his eyes and looked over at her — but Li Kuiyi immediately looked away, her face flushing with embarrassment.

Look not at what is improper, she thought to herself.

They didn’t manage to speak in school. He Youyuan finished all his registration procedures and left directly. After the evening self-study session was dismissed, Li Kuiyi walked home with her schoolbag on her back, and passing by the Zhuangyuan Fu residential complex, she saw him sitting on the edge of a small flower bed, waiting for her.

After months apart, the person standing before her now carried a strange and unfamiliar quality.

She watched him and walked slowly toward him; he watched her, and for a long moment neither spoke — their gazes drifting across each other’s faces, as if searching for something.

In the end, it was He Youyuan who spoke first: “How come you’re not riding my mountain bike?”

Li Kuiyi answered honestly, “Riding a bike has gotten a bit cold.”

He walked up to her, bent forward, and reached for her left hand, his fingers slipping just an inch up into her sleeve — and there it was, reassuringly, her Apple Watch, still on her wrist.

Li Kuiyi could almost feel the touch of his thinned-down knuckles, and she couldn’t help but furrow her brow and look up at him, her voice tinged with worry that came out sounding almost like reproach: “Why have you lost so much weight?”

He Youyuan also answered honestly, “I haven’t had much appetite.”

“Is the pressure too much?”

He was still candid: “Yeah.”

Watching her brows knit slightly, he paused, then continued, “Don’t worry. I know my own body. Everyone’s under pressure — we just deal with it differently. Like Zhu Xincheng: when he’s stressed, he eats instant noodles like crazy and ends up gaining weight. I’m just the opposite — when I’m stressed, I tend to lose my appetite.”

“Don’t you even want to eat McDonald’s?”

“The studio has a closed management system. Going out requires a formal request, and the studio is very far from the nearest McDonald’s.”

Li Kuiyi said immediately, “Then I’ll take you to McDonald’s right now.”

“Okay——”

He Youyuan drew the word out, long and slow — the languid satisfaction of someone whose body and heart had just been given what they needed. He bent down and rested his chin lightly on her shoulder, his hair grazing past her ear ever so faintly.

He stayed like that, motionless, for a little while.

Li Kuiyi stood rigid, blinking in a flurry of confusion.

The twenty-four-hour McDonald’s was a fair distance away; He Youyuan rode his mountain bike with Li Kuiyi on the back. When they got there, his appetite seemed to open up all at once — he ordered three burgers straight away. Li Kuiyi got a Happy Meal, which came with a small Doraemon toy as a gift.

He Youyuan was genuinely eating with more appetite than he’d had in a long time, eating quickly, in the middle of a big bite of his burger, when Li Kuiyi suddenly handed him something — small, and pink.

He set down the burger, accepted it, and found that she had given him Doraemon’s Anywhere Door.

She reminded him, “When you open the Anywhere Door, you have to think of your destination.”

He Youyuan opened it. A folded slip of paper sprang out from inside. He unfolded it, and on it were written the words: Central Academy of Fine Arts.

He burst out laughing on the spot, and turned to look at Li Kuiyi — only to find her already facing the other direction with studied nonchalance, sitting in her chair with one leg swinging idly, sipping the juice that came with her meal.

He Youyuan returned to Beijing the next day. Soon enough, the third mock exam arrived, followed immediately by the art unified examinations. The testing center was enormous. He shouldered his portfolio bag, picked up his brush-washing bucket, and surged inside along with hundreds and hundreds of other art students. Three subjects, all in one day. When he came out of the exam hall and saw the daylight again, there was none of the excitement or elation he had imagined — only an overwhelming exhaustion. He really just wanted to sleep.

After the exams, he went home and slept for a full day and night in a dead stupor. Before his body had recovered from the fatigue, he was already dragging his luggage back to the studio. The long march had only just passed its first milestone — he still had an exam sprint class to attend, and a great deal of academic coursework left to catch up on.

In those lightless days, the only good news was that his unified exam results were excellent: a total score of 285.8, ranking seventh in the province, and second in the province for the color section alone.

The studio had no winter break; for the Lunar New Year, they were only given three days off. Three days was nowhere near enough for the round trip, so He Youyuan didn’t go home. His mother, his aunt, and his maternal grandparents made a trip to Beijing, picked him up from the studio, and had a simple New Year’s meal together at a restaurant.

He Youyuan’s eighteenth birthday fell on the day of Rain Water — the fourth solar term — the twelfth day of the first lunar month. He couldn’t help feeling a little wistful: he still hadn’t spent a birthday with Li Kuiyi. In the three years they had known each other, their birthdays had always been missed for one reason or another.

Like this year — the twelfth day of the first month. She had already gone back to school.

After all, it was his eighteenth birthday — his coming-of-age — and it mattered. He Youyuan’s studio roommates, after finishing the day’s classes, organized a gathering deep in the night and took a taxi to a restaurant in a nearby shopping mall to celebrate his birthday.

It had been a very long time since anyone had gone out to have fun. Everything felt fresh and novel, and they ended up wandering through the mall for a while. He Youyuan had no interest in any of it, and kept glancing down at his phone from time to time, watching to see if Li Kuiyi had sent him a message.

But as they passed the display window of a clothing boutique, a flash of bright white caught his eye. He looked up, and in the window, a mannequin was dressed in a small white dress. The overall design was simple, yet the details were exquisite — a subtle embossed print covering the entire skirt, the hemline falling with beautiful drape, looking exceptionally refined. In a single instant, he pictured what Li Kuiyi would look like wearing it.

He turned and walked into the shop, and asked the sales assistant to bring out that dress for him to have a closer look.

His roommates, who had followed him inside, were completely baffled. Zhu Xincheng asked tentatively, “Is that for your girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“But isn’t today your birthday?”

“Just because it’s my birthday doesn’t mean she can’t receive a gift?”

The roommates: “……”

After examining the dress up close, He Youyuan decided to buy it. Clothes in Beijing shopping malls weren’t cheap. He Youyuan put on a mature air and asked if there was any discount — though he clearly looked like he had no idea what he was doing. The sales associate shook her head. “The most I can do is take two hundred off.”

Getting a discount even to this extent was He Youyuan’s absolute limit of negotiation skill, and yet he considered himself quite accomplished, and paid with the New Year’s money he had received from relatives, absolutely delighted with himself. Once the dress was boxed and bagged, they walked out of the boutique to universal admiration from his roommates, who gave him enthusiastic thumbs-ups: turns out he actually knew how to negotiate — how impressively capable!

At the restaurant on the fifth floor, everyone ordered a full table of food and toasted with soft drinks, wishing He Youyuan a happy birthday while cheerfully reminding him, with gleeful grins, that now that he was of age, he could be shot if he broke the law!

“Get lost,” He Youyuan said lazily, taking a sip of his drink and delivering the insult with practiced ease — and before he had even finished saying it, he glanced down at his phone again.

Why hadn’t Li Kuiyi sent him birthday wishes yet? It was already this late — was she still not finished with her homework? If she didn’t send something soon, the day would pass.

Halfway through the meal, the cake that had been pre-ordered was brought out. Numbered candles were inserted and lit, and his roommates egged He Youyuan on to make a wish, shouting suggestions over one another — wishing that everyone in their dorm room would receive admission letters from their top-choice art academies, and that their academic scores would clear the required threshold with room to spare.

He Youyuan closed his eyes, tuning out their voices completely, and began his own lengthy, unhurried wish-making. The wish he started with was “may Li Kuiyi’s college exams go smoothly” — but he felt this was not precise enough, and revised it to “may Li Kuiyi get into Peking University as she hopes this year.” After considering for a moment, he changed it one final time: “may Li Kuiyi get into Peking University as she hopes this coming summer.”

Yes. That was perfect.

Then he wished himself into the Central Academy of Fine Arts this coming summer. And Zhang Chuang, Qi Yu, and Zhou Ce — may all of them get their wishes too. Hmm, and if Fang Zhixiao didn’t do well, Li Kuiyi would certainly be upset — so he wished Fang Zhixiao into the university of her choice as well. And that one — right, Zhou Fanghua.

After wishing for all of them in turn, he finally, as an afterthought, threw in a wish for his roommates.

“Your wish list is way too long — anyone who didn’t know better would think you fell asleep!” Zhu Xincheng commented mercilessly, rolling his eyes.

“Hey! Open your eyes already!” another roommate shouted directly at him.

He Youyuan paid no attention.

The roommates exchanged glances and grinned, then all together put on exaggeratedly high-pitched voices and called out in mock-romantic tones: “He Youyuan, I like you.”

Ever since the recorded audio from inside the little cat plushie had been heard by these roommates some time ago, they had taken to shouting this at He Youyuan whenever the mood struck them. Over time, it had practically become an inside joke of their dorm.

“Oh, go to hell……”

He Youyuan couldn’t take it anymore; he finally laughed and cursed them out, and opened his eyes — and in the instant he opened them, he went completely still.

Across the table, in the booth seat directly opposite him, a girl was looking at him with her full and undivided attention, the soft puffiness beneath her eyes curved up in a smile.

She was the girl whose messages he had been waiting for. She was the girl for whom he had bought the little white dress. She was the girl for whom he had just made a birthday wish.

He couldn’t let himself believe this was real.

He Youyuan’s throat clenched with nerves. He stood up, walked to her, and reached out a finger to gently touch her cheek.

Warm. Hot. Alive.

He Youyuan’s eyes lit up in a flash — and then the smile spreading at the corners of his mouth could no longer be contained. He stretched out his arms, overwhelmed with feeling, lifted her right out of her seat, and pulled her into his embrace. One hand cradled the back of her head, pressing her face into the curve of his shoulder, while he instinctively turned his own face to the side and nuzzled again and again against the softness of her hair.

Li Kuiyi’s nose was invaded full-force by his scent — warm, soft, clean.

She stood frozen for a moment before she realized: they were hugging.

He was so thin she could feel the bones beneath his skin through the hand she had placed on his back — and yet his embrace felt broad and encompassing, as if it could wrap around her entirely. The tip of her nose brushed against his collarbone beneath the thin knit of his sweater; his cheek grazed inadvertently past her earlobe; their bodies pressed close together, and gradually, as if by their own accord, even their heartbeats fell into sync.

“Ahem, ahem — can’t look at this.”

Someone let out a sound from somewhere, breaking the fragile warmth of the moment.

Both of them stiffened at once, and embarrassedly released each other at the same time. He Youyuan’s blush had spread all the way to his ears. He picked his down jacket up off the booth seat and put it on, zipping it up while saying: “Right then… I won’t be staying to play with you guys. Eat whatever you like — I already covered the bill, and if you want to go to a karaoke place after, that’s on me too… We’re heading out.”

“Go on, go on — kids grow up so fast, can’t keep them around,” Zhu Xincheng said, waving his hand with the air of someone who had seen it all.

He Youyuan cut two slices of cake and asked the server to pack them up. Before leaving, Li Kuiyi, red-faced, also said “thank you” to his roommates.

Beijing in the first lunar month meant enormous temperature differences between indoors and outside. The moment they stepped out of the mall, both were nearly blown off their feet by the howling night wind, and they immediately retreated back inside. He Youyuan took hold of Li Kuiyi’s hand and asked, “Are you cold?”

“Not cold — I’ve got a lot of layers on underneath.”

Her hand was indeed warm, but He Youyuan still cupped it in both of his and rubbed it back and forth before asking: “How did you manage to come? Don’t you have something on?”

“School has a holiday,” Li Kuiyi said with a smile.

“Didn’t you go back on the fourth day of the New Year? Today isn’t a weekend — how can you have a holiday?”

“It really is a bit of a coincidence. It’s been snowing at home recently, and the roads are very slippery. There was a boy from Yizhong who fell off his electric scooter on the way home from school and dislocated his arm. His parents decided the school’s exam preparation classes were to blame, and went and filed a complaint directly with the Education Bureau. Now all the schools in the city have been ordered to suspend classes.”

He Youyuan laughed. “So you conspired with my roommates?”

“That’s right.”

“Just how long had you been planning this? I remember it was a long time ago that you asked me for Zhu Xincheng’s contact information, and at the time your stated reason was — so that you’d have someone to check in with if you ever couldn’t reach me.”

“At the time, that really was what I had in mind. As for coming to celebrate your birthday — school happened to suspend classes, and it was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

“I thought you’d been scheming for a long time,” He Youyuan said with a theatrically mournful sigh. He reached out, wanting to hold her again, but Li Kuiyi pressed her palm against his body and said quietly, “No.”

“How come it was fine just now?”

“Just now you moved too fast. I didn’t have time to refuse.”

He Youyuan: “……”

He quietly added this to his mental ledger against Li Kuiyi, vowing to “get her back” for it someday — and only with this did he succeed in coaxing himself back into a good mood. He let out a laugh, and in a leisurely, easy-going tone asked: “You booked a hotel, right?”

“Of course — where else would I sleep tonight?”

“Oh… Then I’ll come along and stay too. I’ll take a separate room.”

Li Kuiyi thought about it — she was a little tempted to say yes. She was leaving tomorrow; the only time she and he had was tonight, and only tonight.

“Did you bring your ID card?” she asked, pressing her lips together.

“I did. We were originally planning to go to a karaoke place after dinner, but unlike back home, it’s quite strictly managed around here — minors can’t go in unaccompanied, so I brought my ID card, to prove we’re adults.”

“Oh. All right then.”

Li Kuiyi kept her burning embarrassment to herself and stared resolutely at the tips of her shoes.

He Youyuan took out his phone and called a car, setting the destination to the hotel Li Kuiyi had booked. At the front desk, he produced his ID card and said he’d like a room across from or adjacent to hers.

“I’m sorry, sir — the rooms opposite and adjacent to Room 8555 are all fully occupied.”

“Which is the nearest available room?”

“The closest available would be… a room on the eleventh floor.”

“……Alright.”

Room key in hand, He Youyuan didn’t go up to the eleventh floor at all. Instead, he followed Li Kuiyi to Room 8555. The key card swiped open; the light came on. Inside, a small suitcase stood upright, and in the center of the room was a bed — roughly a meter and a half wide. The room wasn’t large, but wasn’t exactly small either. Yet the moment two people stood in it, the space suddenly felt sealed and close, the very air turning progressively charged and thin. Especially because on the bedside table, several small light-blue boxes were arranged — when Li Kuiyi had come alone, she hadn’t particularly noticed them, but with two people standing here, they were suddenly impossible to ignore.

Both of them were wound up to their absolute limits of awkwardness, yet both were making every effort to appear calm and natural.

But He Youyuan fumbled his very first sentence: “Shall we… shall we eat the cake?”

“Oh… Sure.”

Taking advantage of the momentary cover of eating cake, He Youyuan ordered a delivery for Li Kuiyi — she had traveled all this way; she certainly hadn’t eaten anything tonight.

Cake finished, the two sat on the bay window ledge. They meant to talk, but the atmosphere was so unnervingly strange that however much they racked their brains, they couldn’t come up with a single appropriate thing to say — they didn’t even dare look at each other directly, their gazes drifting aimlessly.

“I’m going to…go shower.” Li Kuiyi broke the silence, ultimately deciding to flee from this atmosphere.

With her back to He Youyuan, she quickly grabbed a few pieces of underclothing from her suitcase, went into the bathroom, and soon the sound of falling water filled the air with a soft, steady pattering. He Youyuan remained where he was, leaning half against the wall, fingers picking at the plush throw on the bay window ledge, feeling keenly that the sound of that running water was unsettling.

He felt an inexplicable heat on his skin — probably the Beijing radiator heating was too strong.

He realized then that he was still wearing his down jacket. He stood, intending to take it off — but his hands paused, and he put it back on. He was afraid she might come out and be alarmed to see him without his jacket.

At that moment the food delivery arrived. He Youyuan brought it inside, set it on the table, then went back to his corner on the bay window ledge, and for good measure pulled the hood of his jacket up over his head — in the hope that ears covered might mean a mind less disturbed.

He was truly overheated. It scorched him.

He Youyuan closed his eyes.

Li Kuiyi, also uncertain how to face him in this shared space, washed slowly and without hurrying. By the time she had finished blow-drying her hair and came out of the bathroom, forty minutes had passed. She was hesitating over whether to ask He Youyuan if he wanted to shower, when she saw him curled over with his back bent, lying on the bay window ledge — apparently unaware that she had finished.

She moved carefully toward him and called out softly: “He Youyuan.”

He didn’t move.

She came a little closer: “He Youyuan.”

Still no response.

She walked right up to him and leaned forward to look at his face, which was mostly hidden under his hood — and discovered that his eyes were closed, his breathing was even and steady, and there was an unnatural flush of pink across both cheeks. He had fallen asleep.

Li Kuiyi: “……”

Well. He had probably been exhausted lately.

The room was warm enough, and he still had his down jacket on — he shouldn’t freeze. Li Kuiyi decided not to wake him, and actually felt a wave of relief: with him asleep, she found it easier to relax. She opened the takeaway bag and sat at the table to eat, scrolling through her phone as she did.

Fang Zhixiao had sent her a message half an hour ago: “How did it go — was he surprised?”

Li Kuiyi thought back to the expression on He Youyuan’s face when he had seen her, and replied: “I think he was.”

Fang Zhixiao immediately shot back a crafty little face, and asked: “So what are you two doing right now?”

Li Kuiyi: I’m eating takeaway. He fell asleep.

Fang Zhixiao: ?

Fang Zhixiao: What do you mean he fell asleep?

Li Kuiyi: Exactly what it sounds like.

Fang Zhixiao: Where are you two right now?

Li Kuiyi: The hotel.

Fang Zhixiao: And he still managed to fall asleep???

Li Kuiyi: What are you imagining?

Fang Zhixiao went quiet for quite a while. Then a very long block of text came flying through at once: “Okay, so I, Fang Zhixiao, genuinely hate talking behind people’s backs — but you are my best friend, and as far as I’m concerned, he is just a familiar stranger, so of course I’m going to take your side. I analyzed this carefully, and his behavior is absolutely not normal. I’m not saying that just because you’re sharing a space something has to happen — but that he had zero reaction? He just fell straight asleep? I think… is he not capable?”