Not long after Lin Weixia left, Ban Sheng arrived — he was the last one to show up. The cake had just been cut when Qiu Minghua spotted his older brother and immediately rushed over to greet him. Ban Sheng shoved a dark blue brocade box into his hands.

From the moment Ban Sheng entered, he became the center of everyone’s attention. The group of young people lounging on the sofas automatically made room for him, each eagerly greeting him.

“Ban bro, sit here — are you hungry? Should I have someone bring you a slice of cake?” Qiu Minghua said enthusiastically.

Ban Sheng sank into the sofa, propped his elbows on his thighs, and raised a hand to rub his forehead. His eyes carried a languid, bone-deep weariness — he had clearly just come straight from the lab after working a full day and night.

He waved his hand, indicating it wasn’t necessary.

Qiu Minghua tore open the dark blue box. Inside was a watch. He glanced at the brand, swore under his breath, and was so moved he could barely speak: “Ban bro, a gift this valuable — how could I possibly accept it…”

Ban Sheng cut him off with a single phrase:

“Stop being dramatic.”

Qiu Minghua’s flood of emotion was instantly dammed up by his Ban bro. He happily pocketed the gift and went off to drink with the others. The party was packed — fashionably dressed young university students everywhere, noise filling every corner. Ban Sheng swept a lazy gaze around the room and didn’t find the person he was looking for.

He pulled out his phone, pressed his thumb to the screen, and sent Lin Weixia a message:

Ban: [Where are you?]

Five minutes after the message was sent, an uneasy instinct made Ban Sheng furrow his brow. He called Lin Weixia’s phone. The line rang with a cold, hollow tone.

No answer.

Ban Sheng pocketed his phone. A cup of steaming water appeared in his line of sight — he looked up to find Li Shengran, who said:

“Big brother, have some water.”

Ban Sheng didn’t reach for the cup. He sat there in his characteristic unhurried sprawl — black jacket hanging open, expression cold, the air around him pressing low and heavy — and looked down at Li Shengran from above, his voice slow and measured:

“Where is she?”

The noisy room fell suddenly quiet the moment Ban Sheng spoke. Everyone exchanged glances, not daring to make a sound. Li Shengran didn’t answer. The water cup she had extended froze in midair. Ban Sheng made no move to take it either, which made her expression turn somewhat awkward. The cup in her grip trembled slightly, nearly spilling the water.

Qiu Minghua swallowed nervously beside them and offered an explanation:

“She came. Then she left.”

Ban Sheng didn’t need to ask about what happened in between — he already knew. He bit down on his back molars. The vein along his pale neck pulsed visibly, as though he were forcing down a surge of anger. He let out a cold, irritated laugh and looked down at Li Shengran with a dismissive, superior air, issuing a warning in exactly three words:

“Don’t mess with her.”

With that, Ban Sheng stood, left the entire group behind, grabbed his jacket, and walked straight out. Outside, the GTR let out a roar and disappeared at speed.

After he left, the atmosphere turned somewhat awkward. Fortunately, Qiu Minghua had a talent for smoothing things over and quickly got the party back on its feet.

Ning Chao stood with both hands in his pockets, watching the spectacle. He jutted his chin toward the front door. “My little sister already left. Why didn’t you chase after her just now?”

“Why would I chase after her? Only the right person going after her would do any good,” Menzi said, arms crossed.

Then she caught something, stared straight at him, and smiled: “You don’t even get that — don’t tell me you’ve never been in a relationship before, you blockhead.”

Those words turned Ning Chao’s ears a furious crimson. He raised a hand to scratch the back of his closely cropped head, visibly ill at ease, and managed to squeeze out:

“A real man doesn’t bicker with women.”

The dramatic scene Menzi had been hoping for — the male lead bursting out the door to chase the female lead — never materialized. Five minutes earlier, Ban Sheng had been walking out the villa’s front door while simultaneously calling Lin Weixia. Still no answer.

He called again. Her phone was off.

Ban Sheng threw his phone onto the passenger seat, yanked open the car door, and floored the gas pedal. The tires screeched across a puddle, slicing up a sharp spray of water as if venting the driver’s fury. The car shot away like an arrow loosed from a bow.

Lin Weixia had taken the bus home. When she reached the base of her building, she realized she was a bit hungry, so she stopped at a nearby shop and ate a bowl of wonton soup. It was only when she went to pay that she discovered her phone had died and switched itself off — a flicker of embarrassed awkwardness crossed her face.

The shop owner’s wife smiled. “It’s fine, just bring the same amount tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Lin Weixia said.

She went home. The moment she opened the door, her little dog came bounding over and started pawing frantically at her. Lin Weixia changed out of her shoes. She had been out all day in the wind and snow and was chilled to the bone.

She shuffled into the apartment in her cotton slippers, found her white charging cable, and plugged in her phone. Then she grabbed her pajamas and headed to the bathroom to shower. Over an hour later, Lin Weixia emerged from the bathroom, her head considerably clearer.

She curled up on the sofa, pulled the charging phone toward her, and found a red number 3 on the green icon. She tapped it open — Ban Sheng had called three times.

Her fingertip gave a small, involuntary tremor.

She logged into WeChat. Ban Sheng had sent two messages, in his characteristically forceful and imperious style.

Ban: [Where are you?]

Ban: [Xia Xia, message me back when you see this.]

Lin Weixia sat holding her phone, silently staring at the messages on screen. Her not-quite-dried hair dripped water onto her shoulders. She thought again about everything Li Shengran had said.

It was entirely possible that she had been foolishly reading too much into things.

Lin Weixia’s fingers slid over the black profile icon and selected “Hide Conversation.” Ban Sheng vanished from her chat list.

Her phone was set back on the table to keep charging.

After that night, Ban Sheng reached out to her repeatedly. Lin Weixia focused on her classes and her tutoring jobs. She didn’t answer his calls. She didn’t reply to his messages.

After two or three attempts, the pride in Ban Sheng surfaced, and he stopped sending messages of his own accord.

The two of them were at a standstill, a line drawn between them like the boundary of warring kingdoms. Neither was willing to be the first to cross it.

The day before the weekend, Lin Weixia checked her phone’s notepad and discovered that Saturday was her monthly volunteer shift at the special needs children’s welfare center.

On Saturday, the sky had barely started to lighten when Lin Weixia was already up. She cooked a portion of pasta, ate it, then stuffed her lesson plans and books into her bag, hoisted her cello case onto her back, and headed out the door.

Lin Weixia took the bus all the way to Nanjiang Special Needs Children’s Welfare Center on the south side of the city. After getting off, she walked in with practiced ease — just in time to catch the children during their break.

One hearing-impaired child who had been building with blocks spotted Lin Weixia with sharp eyes and called out laboriously, stumbling over the words:

“Weixia… Teacher Weixia.”

The other children reacted at once. They dropped their toys the moment they saw Lin Weixia and came rushing over like birds released from a cage, all talking over one another: “Teacher Weixia! Teacher Weixia!”

“Teacher Weixia, I missed you so much! Why did it take you so long to come see us!”

“Teacher Weixia, you — you — look at the Lego I built, isn’t it pretty?”

The children swarmed around Lin Weixia, each one firing off questions at once. Lin Weixia was completely overwhelmed and couldn’t decide which one to answer first.

A staff member at the welfare center saw the scene and stepped in: “Alright, go play on your own now — if you make Teacher Weixia dizzy, who’s going to give you your lesson?”

The little ones reluctantly let her go. A staff member poured her a glass of plain water, her tone warm: “You must be very busy yourself — you don’t have to come every month, you know.”

“It’s fine, I’m used to it,” Lin Weixia said with a smile.

Lin Weixia had been volunteering at this special needs children’s welfare center for two years. The children here were exceptional cases — hearing-impaired children, children with albinism, children on the autism spectrum, deaf-mute children. Many of these children, because of their conditions and the environment in which they had grown up, carried varying degrees of psychological difficulties.

What she could do was give them psychological guidance sessions and music therapy classes.

After finishing two sessions with the children, at around three in the afternoon, Lin Weixia planned to stay and help them finish building with blocks before leaving. But near the end of the block-building session, a car drove into the welfare center compound — apparently a regular donor delivering a large batch of daily necessities and stationery. The children instantly swarmed over.

“Wow!”

Lin Weixia sat and watched them with a smile as she placed the last block in its spot. Then she slung her cello onto her back and quietly slipped out of the welfare center.

After leaving, Lin Weixia took a direct route home by bus. She hadn’t expected to run into Qiu Minghua at the base of her building. He was holding a cup of hot milk tea, his cheeks flushed red from the cold — he had clearly been staking out this spot for quite some time.

He shuddered and said, “Weixia, why won’t you pick up when old classmates call?”

“If you’re here to talk about him, save it.” Lin Weixia’s gaze was distant. She stepped around him and tried to head into the entrance of her building.

But Qiu Minghua blocked her and launched into a rambling speech: “I really have no other options. Ban bro has been drinking heavily lately — so much that he’s had a gastric bleed. The night before last, he was rushed to the hospital, but the moment he woke up, he pulled out his IV and refused to stay. He’s lying at home now with half a life left in him and can barely move.”

Lin Weixia, who had been about to walk away, stopped in her tracks, her nerves snapping tight. “Is it serious?”

“Very serious, truly — I wouldn’t have come to find you otherwise. You know what Ban bro is like. His temper is awful. He won’t listen to anyone. Just go see him and talk him into going back to the hospital.” Qiu Minghua’s face was a picture of misery.

The barrage of news left Lin Weixia stunned. Before she could even process it, Qiu Minghua pressed a key card into her hand and bolted, calling back as he fled:

“I’ll text you his address!”

Lin Weixia turned the black card over, looked at it, and slipped it into her pocket. Then she went upstairs.

Back home, Lin Weixia got out the dog food and the water bowl. In her distracted state, she picked up the dog treats by mistake and dumped them all into the blue bowl instead. Shengxia came trotting over, tongue lolling.

Then she went to change the water. Lin Weixia filled the electric kettle, set it under the water dispenser, and pressed the red button without thinking, oblivious — until scalding hot water splashed from the dispenser and spilled across the back of her hand. The burning pain arrived in an instant. She yelped.

The kettle slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor, spilling a puddle of steaming water across the tiles.

Shengxia, alarmed by the cry, started barking fiercely, convinced something terrible had happened. Lin Weixia spoke to her: “I’m fine.”

The dog quieted down.

Lin Weixia went to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and held her hand under the flow. The cool water eased the pain considerably. She then retrieved the household first-aid kit from her room and found a tube of burn cream.

After treating the wound, her gaze drifted without meaning to toward the black key card sitting on the table.

She considered for two seconds. Then Lin Weixia picked up the card, grabbed the coat draped over the back of her chair, and hurried out the door.

The address Qiu Minghua had given her was on Lijiang East Road — one of the most prosperous stretches in the capital’s north, commanding sweeping views of the city’s riverscape and its tallest towers.

She glanced at the address. It read: Fanfu Residences.

On the way to find Ban Sheng, Lin Weixia kept telling herself: just get him to the hospital, nothing more than that.

She took a cab to Fanfu Residences. The towers rose at the heart of the city’s central corridor, yet felt strangely removed from the world — a steady procession of the wealthy and well-connected moved in and out. Lin Weixia registered at the entrance and was waved through by security. She took the elevator up to the 36th floor and stood before the door of unit 3605, drew a long, slow breath, and held the key card to the lock.

The magnetic card beeped. The door clicked open.

Lin Weixia stepped inside. The apartment was plunged in darkness — a thick, hollow dark. The curtains were drawn tight, admitting not a thread of light. The space felt sealed.

For reasons she couldn’t name, the place pressed down on her with a suffocating weight. Lin Weixia thought of a cage. She took two tentative steps forward and was reaching into her pocket for her phone to use as a torch when —

Heat bloomed at the back of her neck. A burning body pressed against her from behind. A tall shadow enveloped her entirely as a pair of arms locked around her from the back, pulling her in completely.

The sensation was dangerous — like prey falling into a predator’s jaws.

Lin Weixia let out a startled scream, her heart hammering wildly. But in the next instant she caught the familiar scent on him — cold, clean dark wood — alongside the sharp bite of cigarette smoke. Ban Sheng’s voice came at once, low and rough with hoarseness:

“Xia Xia, it’s me.”

Lin Weixia understood in an instant. Gastric bleed. Lying in bed with half his life gone. All lies. Every word of it.

All the hurt she had been swallowing for days — the grievance, the sadness, and now the fury at being deceived — came surging up at once. Lin Weixia pried at the hand resting on her waist, struggling relentlessly, and said:

“Let go of me.”

One wanted to flee; the other held the perimeter and refused to let her. Ban Sheng held her from behind as Lin Weixia fought with all her strength — her fingernails raked across the back of his hand, drawing red lines of blood — yet he refused to release her. Even when it hurt, he didn’t make a sound.

After reuniting with him, Lin Weixia found she couldn’t read his intentions at all. Those ambiguous words of his, those parts of him she knew nothing about, the missing two years, Li Shengran’s provocation — every single one of these things left her feeling powerless and hollow.

Lin Weixia lowered her head and bit down hard on his solid forearm — bit with purpose and fury, like a caged animal. A vivid red tooth mark rose immediately on his arm, threaded with fine blood lines. Ban Sheng winced and loosened his grip. She turned to leave.

Ban Sheng’s reflexes were swift. He blocked her. Lin Weixia pushed and struck his chest again and again, her voice breaking:

“Get away from me! You’re a liar too.”

No matter how much Lin Weixia pushed and hit him, Ban Sheng stood like a wall of iron and stone — he took every blow without a word, without flinching, and held her regardless of how much she struck.

Ban Sheng reached up to cup her face, wanting to speak to her properly, when his palm touched Lin Weixia’s cheek — and came away wet.

She was crying.

With that realization, something in Ban Sheng’s chest was branded as though by a hot iron, and the pain in him became impossible to contain.

Lin Weixia was still struggling in his arms and demanding to leave. Ban Sheng’s hand caught her jaw and his lips pressed down to cover hers.

The girl kept striking his chest, making small muffled sounds. Ban Sheng’s hand moved along her neck, down, unhurried but deliberate, carrying the searching weight of desire and a fierce, barely contained longing.

Lin Weixia’s head tipped back. Her entire body gave an involuntary shiver.

Ban Sheng wore that cold, sharply defined expression — yet what he did went against all of it. The tip of his tongue eased her lips open. He tasted her deeply.

He tasted tears. Wet and faintly salty. Ban Sheng’s throat worked in a slow, visible swallow — and he swallowed it without hesitation.

Lin Weixia gradually grew still beneath him. They kissed for a long time, the breathless sounds of it expanding to fill the dark room.

At last Ban Sheng gathered Lin Weixia against him, tilted his head, and pressed his lips to the soft flesh at the curve of her neck.

She was held so tightly she could barely breathe, and still she leveled her accusation:

“You’re a liar too.”

Ban Sheng buried his face in the curve of her neck, warm breath fanning against her skin and sending a flutter through her chest. He let out a quiet, low laugh, his already husky voice now noticeably rougher:

“How did I lie to you?”

The moment Ban Sheng said it, Lin Weixia sensed something was off. From the moment she had walked through the door and he had put his arms around her, she’d noticed that his body ran extraordinarily hot — like a furnace, the heat wrapping around her dense and close.

Lin Weixia reached up and touched his forehead. It was burning.

“You have a fever,” she exclaimed.

“I know,” Ban Sheng said, sounding entirely unconcerned about it.

“Then go lie down immediately.” Lin Weixia pushed him away without ceremony.

Lin Weixia had learned early to take care of herself — back when her drunken father would abandon her at home. Later, when she moved to her aunt’s house as the eldest child, she began learning to take care of others.

Lin Weixia wanted to take his temperature, but she discovered he didn’t even own a thermometer.

She let out a sigh, opened the delivery app on her phone, ordered fever medicine and general cold medication, and added a thermometer to the cart.

After placing the order, Lin Weixia had Ban Sheng lie down and rest. She closed the bedroom door and stood quietly in the living room, taking in the apartment.

Ban Sheng’s unit was large — a duplex, over two hundred square meters combining upper and lower floors. When she pulled back the heavy curtains, light poured in from the CBD office towers across the river.

The interior palette was cold and hard — a uniform scheme of black, white, and grey. Not a single decorative accent. Not a trace of warmth.

Lin Weixia decided to cook him some porridge. She opened the refrigerator — empty, save for row after row of alcohol.

And one wrinkled green apple.

The apple had lost its moisture. It lay there shriveled, skin gone yellow, dark spots beginning to appear, as though someone had simply abandoned it and forgotten it existed.

Lin Weixia placed another order for ingredients. Just then, the medicine arrived. She opened the door, took the yellow kraft paper bag upstairs, and took Ban Sheng’s temperature.

37.5 degrees Celsius. He was feverish, as she had suspected.

Lin Weixia pressed two tablets out of the blister pack and handed them to him, then mixed him a sachet of granulated cold medicine.

She watched Ban Sheng take his medicine before leaving the room.

In the kitchen, Lin Weixia rinsed the rice, turned on the gas burner, and poured the rice into a small pot. She chopped some meat into small cubes and cut up some greens and added them in.

The blue-tinged flame lit beneath the pot. Slowly, the porridge began to bubble and murmur.

The porridge took about forty minutes to cook. Lin Weixia ladled a bowl and went upstairs. She opened the door just as Ban Sheng was stirring awake.

He sat up in bed, dark hair falling across his forehead, a faint flush at the corners of his eyes, his skin an unhealthy white.

Lin Weixia reached over and pressed a hand to his forehead, then to her own. The fever seemed to have come down a little.

She handed him the porridge. Ban Sheng raised an eyebrow and said, in a tone of playful entitlement:

“You’re not going to feed me?”

Lin Weixia shook her head. Her lips parted and she uttered two words: “No.”

Ban Sheng gave a quiet laugh and didn’t argue about it. He took the bowl and drank down more than half.

The light was dim and warm-toned. Lin Weixia sat on the edge of his bed and said nothing for a while.

Ban Sheng passed the bowl back to her and asked, “What did Li Shengran say to you?”

That had worked her up so badly — her, who was always so composed.

Lin Weixia looked toward the elegant butterfly tattoo at his collarbone, hesitated for two seconds:

“She said you got the butterfly at your collarbone because of her.”

Ban Sheng’s expression blanked for a moment, then he understood. His gaze fixed straight on her, and he turned the question back at her:

“Do you think so?”

Lin Weixia felt her chest contract under that look. She didn’t answer. She no longer had the courage to simply ask where she stood with Ban Sheng.

“Stay away from her from now on,” Ban Sheng said.

Ban Sheng sat on the edge of the bed, his dark eyes bright and intent. The gaze he fixed on Lin Weixia carried weight, his voice a low rasp:

“I gave you the ring.”

He reached up and brushed Lin Weixia’s hair from her temples, tucking it behind her ears on both sides. His sharp eyes caught it at once — a very fine red cord at the girl’s pale neck. His fingers hooked it lightly.

Out came a ring threaded on a red cord.

Ban Sheng’s gaze settled on her face — direct and heavy with unspoken emotion. Lin Weixia’s ears, visible beyond the fine hair at her temples, turned red under the weight of it. She wanted to pull her things back.

“I hear you were going to return the ring to me?” Ban Sheng narrowed his eyes at her, his tone unmistakably displeased.

Ban Sheng made a motion to untie the cord. Lin Weixia’s heart lurched in sudden panic. She grabbed the cord immediately to stop him. Ban Sheng, clearly toying with her, leaned forward and brought both hands to work at the knot.

Lin Weixia clutched the silver ring in one hand and batted at his hands with the other, her voice soft but urgent: “Give it back.”

“Move away!”

The two of them pushed and pulled at each other — one genuinely flustered, the other deliberately teasing — until, in the midst of the scuffle, a sharp tug, and with a sound of fabric, a large hand yanked Lin Weixia’s dark green knit sweater out of place. A wide expanse of fair, smooth shoulder was suddenly exposed to the air.

The graceful line of her shoulder and neck was laid bare, and along with it the faintest suggestion of pale white at her chest. A pair of darkened, pitch-black eyes fixed there, breathing growing heavier.

To Ban Sheng, what he saw of her was like a freshly cut square of cream cake — soft and sweet — and his throat worked repeatedly as he stared, the urge to taste her growing harder to resist.

Lin Weixia felt the heat of his gaze. Her pupils contracted in a flash of alarm. She raised a hand to pull her sweater back into place. Ban Sheng lurched close, his lips came down, and he pressed them against her pale white shoulder — licking, then biting.

Lin Weixia gave a muffled cry of pain, her voice trembling: “Why — why do you always like to bite me?”

Ban Sheng drew back slightly. His face, cold yet weighted with desire, was still bent over her shoulder, his breath coming faster. The fever hadn’t fully broken. His color was a sickly pallor, and the short strands of hair at his forehead were damp with sweat. His eyes were fever-glazed and shining with a wild recklessness as he looked at Lin Weixia, his voice dropping low:

“To teach you a lesson.”

She had the audacity to talk about returning what he’d given her.