“Oh my god, she really is deaf. Isn’t that the same as being disabled?”

“Ke’er was right — she saw it in the changing room…”

“Compared to how untouchably superior she acted before — ha. Doesn’t it look ridiculous now?”

“So she couldn’t clearly hear what we were saying? That explains why she’s always a half-beat slower than everyone else. Though someone like her should be at a school for the deaf and hearing-impaired. How did she end up at Shengao…”

The voices felt like they were coming from somewhere very far away, wrapped in the wind, difficult to make out. Through her right ear she caught fragmented syllables — disabled, too good for everyone — that came through clearly in her left ear, and their full meaning landed.

Zheng Zhaoxing looked genuinely taken aback for a moment, then let out a cold laugh. The way he looked at Lin Weixia turned speculative — and before he could take his next move, a sudden forceful impact hit him. He hadn’t time to react. Ban Sheng kicked him hard in the back, and Zheng Zhaoxing stumbled and went straight down to his knees.

Zheng Zhaoxing swore out loud in pain and was just about to strike back, when Ban Sheng, his face drawn cold and tight, slammed him to the ground a second time. He straddled Zheng Zhaoxing, looking down at him from above, one hand bunching up his collar — picking him up the way you’d pick up a dead dog — and drove him into the wall. Then again. Then again. Each time harder than the last. The blackboard behind the back wall shuddered.

The two of them quickly broke into a fight, but Ban Sheng gained the upper hand almost immediately.

No one dared step in. The family background and school standing of the one throwing the punches was not something any of them were prepared to take on. Ban Sheng was usually more composed than anyone his age, but when he fought with real intent, he didn’t hold back. Zheng Zhaoxing had blood in his mouth from the blows, his face swelling rapidly in purple and red patches.

Liu Sijia rushed in with the dean of students and Liu Xiping. The dean took one look at the scene and his face changed color. He barked: “Ban Sheng! An honors student, getting into fights — what does this look like! Someone get over there and separate them!”

But Ban Sheng was as if he couldn’t hear — he kept at Zheng Zhaoxing with that cold, ferocious expression, giving absolutely everything. His eyes had gone red. From the side you could see the clean line of his pale neck, tendons rising along the surface, his spine arched taut, a sharp bow of a curve pulled to breaking. Ban Sheng drove a kick straight into Zheng Zhaoxing’s ribs.

After Ban Sheng, the most frantic person was Qiu Minghua. If this kept up, someone would die. Ban Sheng was always composed and calculating — there were a hundred measured ways he could deal with Zheng Zhaoxing. How had he let himself lose control like this?

Ban Sheng’s face was cold and ruthless. He reached for a stool nearby. Without hesitation, he swung it toward Zheng Zhaoxing’s head—

“Ban Sheng—”

A gentle voice reached him. Ban Sheng looked down. Blood welled from a cut on his high, sharp brow and tracked downward. The stool held aloft in mid-air wavered.

“I’m fine. Let it go.”

Lin Weixia’s voice was quiet, without a trace of grievance or resentment — as though she had simply been born to absorb these things.

Her voice was not loud, yet somehow it miraculously made Ban Sheng stand down. The cold fury on his face dissolved with it. Ban Sheng flung the stool aside with a crash, startling a shriek from a nearby girl. The crowd surged forward, and the scene descended into chaos.

Lin Weixia still needed to find her battered old hearing aid — she had been looking for it since the moment it fell. Then, just ahead of her, the small device lay beside the leg of a desk not far away. She was just reaching down to pick it up when a hand with distinct, prominent knuckles moved faster and scooped it up.

Before she could react, Ban Sheng seized her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. His cool, broad palm slid down and gripped Lin Weixia’s wrist. He cut through the crowd and walked out.

As they passed the dean of students, Ban Sheng’s voice was steady, the words utterly unabashed: “I’ll come back and receive my punishment.”

And just like that, in front of all those students and teachers, Ban Sheng walked Lin Weixia out in broad daylight — leaving the teacher hopping with rage behind them.

Students righted the overturned chairs they’d knocked aside. Liu Xiping heaved a sigh and instructed a student to take the barely-conscious Zheng Zhaoxing to the hospital.

In all the confusion, Liu Sijia stood in the middle of the crowd as people came and went. One passing student accidentally bumped her shoulder. The queen still showed no reaction. The color drained completely from her face.

The tall, broad-shouldered young man pulled the girl along and kept walking. Lin Weixia stumbled to keep up behind him — his strides were long and fast, her wrist held in a firm grip. She couldn’t help but lift her eyes to look at his back. His figure was certain and unstoppable, as though he were taking her and running away from all of this — escaping together.

Outside, the rain came down hard and white. It had gathered into a thick, heavy curtain. She lowered her eyes to the hand wrapped around her wrist — tendons taut under the skin, faint blue veins visible across the back of the hand, fresh red blood on his knuckles.

Her feelings were more tangled than the rain.

The downpour came sharp and heavy, hitting the face like ice and stinging. The rain struck the ground and sent up a mist that rolled toward them like a white sea.

Without a second’s hesitation, Ban Sheng shrugged off his jacket and passed it to Lin Weixia to shield her from the rain. He took her hand and ran with her out through the school gates, bringing her under a green bus shelter to wait out the rain.

He went out to hail a cab. Lin Weixia had barely lifted a foot to follow when Ban Sheng pressed her back under the shelter.

In the rain, cabs were hard to come by. After a long wait, one finally stopped — a blue taxi. Click — the car door shut at last. The two of them sat side by side in the back seat, the car windows sealing out the wet, foggy air.

“Where to?”

Ban Sheng said the name of a hotel in a low voice — his tone cool and flat, as though he were in a somewhat poor mood.

The warm heater hummed on in its old-fashioned way. The driver glanced through the rearview mirror at his passengers in the backseat. The boy was handsome, the girl lovely — an eye-catching pair, though they sat with a bit of distance between them.

Still, it was obvious the boy had gotten more drenched — soaked from head to toe, the shoulder of his shirt darkened through, one elbow propped on his knee with rainwater still dripping from the black cuff. The girl was better off — only her back and hair had caught some rain. She had turned and was looking out the window, lost in thought.

The driver had picked them up from in front of Shengao, and his curiosity got the better of him: “You two skipping class?”

Ban Sheng shifted his position, tilting his head to rest lazily against the back seat, and gave a thoroughly perfunctory hum from his throat: “Yeah.”

The driver corrected the wheel as he looked ahead, and then continued: “Miss, how many times have you skipped class?”

Ban Sheng turned his head slightly toward Lin Weixia, leaning just a bit as though afraid she might not hear and intending to relay the question.

“First time.” Lin Weixia turned and answered.

“Ah, so you led her astray,” the driver concluded, looking at Ban Sheng.

The chill in the car slowly began to ease. Lin Weixia turned her head to look at Ban Sheng. From her angle, the white rain scene outside the window receded continuously past, and she could also see the clean, sharp line of his jaw — and the faint motion of his prominent throat as he swallowed.

Seeing that the driver was about to say more to Lin Weixia, Ban Sheng was just about to cut in, when she leaned over slightly herself, pointed to her other ear, and explained quietly: “I’m alright.”

Even without the support of her right ear for the moment.

“Is it uncomfortable — wearing that?” Ban Sheng asked her, thoughtful.

Lin Weixia was taken aback, then replied: “It’s fine — I’m used to it. I just can’t do intense exercise. Sweating can get the hearing aid wet.”

From a very early point in her life, Lin Weixia had lost the hearing in her right ear. The hearing in her left ear was later mildly affected as well. To keep from disrupting normal life, she had begun wearing a hearing aid early on.

The car moved forward steadily. The boy and girl in the backseat still sat with a little space between them. Pulling back to a lower angle: on the cheap carpet with dark patterned fabric, two pairs of shoes — one pair of black sports shoes with a clearly visible logo, caked in mud and steadily dripping water; one pair of white canvas shoes soaked yellow by the rain. Slowly, gradually, the two pairs of shoes drew closer together.

By the time the taxi reached the hotel, the rain had begun to ease. Ban Sheng brought Lin Weixia to the front desk, handed over his ID card, and the staff member processed it.

The front desk attendant took the ID, slid the mouse with her right hand, and looked up at them: “The couples’ suite is no longer available.”

Lin Weixia started, then opened her mouth instinctively: “We’re not a couple.”

“A standard suite will do.” Ban Sheng said.

The front desk nodded and completed the check-in, then looked at the young man once more. He was young, yet he carried himself with a striking air — especially those refined, clean-cut facial features. The kind of person the heavens seemed to have carved out by hand — like a popular young actor at the height of his time.

When handing the key card and ID back to him, the attendant smiled with practiced precision, her tone cordial: “I hope you and your girlfriend enjoy your stay.”

Lin Weixia let out a quiet sigh.

The front desk attendant hadn’t gotten the response she expected — the man across from her hadn’t even reached out to take the key card. She looked up and met a cold, impassive face.

Ban Sheng, who usually had an effortless, easygoing manner, spoke with uncharacteristic seriousness: “She just told you we’re not together. You didn’t hear her?”

The front desk attendant stood there, caught off guard. Ban Sheng took the key card and ID and walked forward. Lin Weixia followed behind, watching that straight, upright back and thinking.

How many sides did Ban Sheng have? He loved to tease her, and yet in public he always respected her wishes completely — never pushing, never taking even the smallest verbal advantage.

His affection was wholehearted and untainted.

Click — the key card unlocked the hotel door. Ban Sheng slid the card into the sensor slot, and warm, amber light suffused the room. Lin Weixia looked around. Ban Sheng walked ahead, reached up to press the switch on the wall, and the air conditioning began to run.

After checking the room and finding no hidden cameras, Ban Sheng let Lin Weixia go in to shower first.

The hot water from the showerhead ran down at full force. Lin Weixia stood barefoot on the floor, face tilted up into the streaming heat, feeling every pore of her body finally ease. Steam rose and curled warmly around her eyes. The events of the morning at school seemed to drift far away — briefly, at least.

Tap tap — a knock came at the bathroom door. Lin Weixia moved her toes toward the edge, crouched slightly, and opened a crack in the door. A hand reached through. She took the paper bag, then shut the door again.

She had nearly finished anyway. Lin Weixia changed into the clothes Ban Sheng had bought her — a red tracksuit set, a size too large but perfectly wearable. Looking at herself in the mirror, she found red suited her — she looked brighter than before, and her complexion had more color.

She was about to pack the paper bag away when she noticed there was also medicine inside. She stopped, turned back to the mirror, and began tending to her wound. Zheng Zhaoxing’s violent removal of her hearing aid, combined with the scratch from his fingernail, had left a laceration at her ear. It added injury to injury — but fortunately she had good clotting ability, as her tests had always shown her coagulation enzyme levels to be solid.

Lin Weixia gathered her changed clothes and came back out of the bathroom. She saw Ban Sheng straight away.

He was standing with his back to her in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, smoking, wearing only a pair of trousers. At his shoulder blades, his back was lean and angular, with the taut energy of youth — the muscle lines pulled clean and tight.

Lin Weixia noticed there was a crooked scar on his back, running straight down the center of his spine. Time had bleached it to a pale white trace, coiling like a dragon at rest across his back — audacious and unrestrained.

Ban Sheng held his cigarette in one hand. Thin wisps of white smoke drifted past the slight curve of his raised elbow. Smoke rings rose and floated upward, carrying a quality as provocative as it was effortless.

She had never imagined that word — provocative — could describe a young man.

Hearing a sound, Ban Sheng turned. Lin Weixia quickly looked away and said, “Go and shower.”

Ban Sheng pressed the cigarette out against the edge of the diamond-shaped ashtray, picked his phone up from the table, and headed toward the bathroom. As he passed her, a wave of warm dampness hit her — it seemed to wash directly over her face.

Lin Weixia averted her eyes without looking at him, forcing herself to keep a calm expression. She sensed Ban Sheng had paused for a moment, then heard a slow, casual laugh.

He had noticed her unease and fluster.

Thud — the bathroom door closed. Lin Weixia let out a breath, pinched herself on the elbow to bring herself back to her senses.

Ban Sheng came out of the shower still wearing only his trousers, hair still dripping. Lin Weixia had been sitting on the sofa and was nearly dozing off. He walked over, bent forward, and was just about to reach for the cigarette box on the table when she caught a glimpse — his whole hand was covered in wounds, blood still crusted on the surface.

“Let me clean that up.”

The sounds of unwrapping a cotton swab and unscrewing a bottle cap were quiet, but in the stillness of the room they came through very clearly. Ban Sheng stood in front of her and asked:

“Did you do something to provoke Zheng Zhaoxing?”

Lin Weixia shook her head. She and Zheng Zhaoxing had barely even exchanged basic words. Ban Sheng’s brow bone was high and prominent; he raised it slightly and offered a name:

“Liu Sijia?”

“No, not her.” Lin Weixia shook her head, firmly.

She knew Liu Sijia. Using someone’s vulnerability as a target for mockery was beneath Liu Sijia’s interest. Lin Weixia’s instinct told her it was someone else — someone hiding in the shadows.

The sofa beside Lin Weixia dipped as weight settled in. A shadow pressed close. Ban Sheng sat down next to her. She turned to face him, holding his hand loosely, working through his wound with care.

But they were sitting far too close — close enough that Lin Weixia could catch the faint scent of shower gel on his skin, and the moment she glanced up she met a pair of pitch-dark eyes.

Fire moved in them.

Lin Weixia looked away.

Unlike before, this time, the closeness left Lin Weixia restless and unsettled. She hurried through cleaning the wound, only to find the gauze was finished. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pink wristband — the shade of rosy pink.

The pink wristband began at the webbing of his thumb and wound around to the other side of the back of his hand. Ban Sheng sat with his head lowered; a water droplet from the tips of his hair fell onto Lin Weixia’s arm — cold, and yet it felt like a small shock. The last step of bandaging the wound was left unfinished — she pulled the distance between them apart, urgent, her palms damp with sweat.

Ban Sheng suddenly called her name: “Lin Weixia.”

“Hmm?” Lin Weixia couldn’t help but look at him.

Ban Sheng looked back. His gaze held hers and he asked: “What are you flustered about?”