Several people had put together a table full of beautiful, fragrant dishes. Lin Weixia had just sat down when she noticed Menzi wasn’t there. She set down her chopsticks and stood to go call her downstairs, then turned to find Menzi already shuffling down in her cotton slippers, eyes still bleary with sleep.

Menzi draped a jacket over her shoulders and squinted her way into the seat beside Lin Weixia. Lin Weixia passed her the chopsticks and asked gently, “Would you like some juice?”

“Yes, please. Thank you.” Menzi yawned.

Before eating, everyone raised their glasses, and one of the guys called out, “Alright, let’s toast to Weixia and Dingding — you two worked hard. Fair warning, though — cooking rotates. Nobody at this table is getting out of their turn.”

The table erupted in laughter, everyone chiming in with “You worked hard, you worked hard.” Qiu Minghua pointed his chopsticks at the smashed cucumbers and said with a grin, “Give this a taste, everyone — it’s the one and only dish in my entire culinary repertoire.”

The girl sitting beside him swatted his hand. “Back off with those chopsticks! What if your spit gets in there?”

“I—” Qiu Minghua looked the picture of wounded innocence.

Between bites, the group chatted about the plans for tomorrow, and someone brought up the fact that in another year, everyone here would be graduating. The bright laughter held just the faintest trace of uncertainty about what lay ahead.

Jiang Heng sat beside Lin Weixia, and noticed she was eating very little. Something in him stirred. He spotted a plate of typhoon shelter crab sitting far from her reach, picked up a plump, meaty piece, and lowered it into her bowl. “Try this — it’s really good.”

Lin Weixia swallowed her last bite of rice and looked at the crab that had appeared in her bowl with some hesitation. She reached for it with her chopsticks — then a spoon clinked sharply against a bowl, and an unhurried voice cut across:

“Do you know she’s allergic to seafood?”

The lively atmosphere went abruptly quiet. Ban Sheng set his spoon down, perfectly at ease, and slowly raised his eyes to meet Jiang Heng’s gaze.

An undercurrent surged in that split second of eye contact. Shi Li’s expression soured visibly. The people at the table glanced between each other, eyes beginning to travel back and forth among the three of them. Jiang Heng looked awkward, and Lin Weixia turned toward him, saying quietly, “I’m sorry — I should have mentioned it.”

Ban Sheng was the only one who looked entirely unruffled, his expression perfectly composed. A few of the people there had been present when the two of them first met again — they all had the air of someone thinking, He’s finally showing it openly.

“I’ll take it — I want some,” Menzi said, reaching over and lifting the crab from Lin Weixia’s bowl, neatly rescuing the moment.

Fortunately, the small incident was quickly glossed over, and everyone finished eating before long. Once the dishes were cleared, the group moved to the sofas in the living room for drinks and conversation.

Lin Weixia and Menzi sat together. Jiang Heng left one seat between them. Sitting diagonally across from Lin Weixia was Ban Sheng. He was slouched on the couch, turning the Sanskrit ring on his finger. Qiu Minghua was enthusiastically talking at him from beside him, and Ban Sheng listened with only half his attention, his mind clearly elsewhere.

Midway through the drinking, Shi Li intercepted a guy who was about to open another bottle, and spoke with a red-lipped smile: “Just drinking gets boring, doesn’t it? Truth or dare?”

“Again?” Qiu Minghua was practically allergic to this game. The last time he’d played, he’d lost and the group made him go tell a girl at a bar in a yellow jacket that he had a body odor problem. The single greatest humiliation of his life.

“Something different,” one of the guys suggested. “Everyone gets one turn to draw a card — if it’s truth, you answer it; if it’s dare, you do it. But this round, truth answers get written on a slip of paper. If you want to see someone’s answer, you have to drink first. What do you think?”

“Works for me. I love knowing things other people don’t know.” Menzi tapped her glass with a spoon to signal the group to start.

Several of the overhead lights in the hall were switched off, leaving only a small lamp casting warm amber light. The atmosphere shifted instantly — soft and ambiguous.

In the center of the table sat a miniature spinning game ball. The host pressed the switch, and a small white ball lit up and began to rotate. After several turns, it slowed and came to a stop in front of Lin Weixia.

Lin Weixia drew a card. Jiang Heng read it aloud for her, then looked at her as though waiting for her answer.

Lin Weixia tapped the card against her chin, eyes downcast as she wrote her answer. Through the whole thing, Menzi’s hand rested on her shoulder, and when she saw the answer, her eyebrow gave the quickest, most imperceptible flicker.

Lin Weixia folded the paper and dropped it into the glass jar.

Jiang Heng was the first to drink, choosing to see Lin Weixia’s answer. He read it, then smiled.

Shi Li drank as well, and in the moment she saw Lin Weixia’s answer, she let out a sound that was almost a cold laugh, shot her a glance, and tossed the paper back.

Ban Sheng picked up the glass in front of him, drained it, and chose to see Lin Weixia’s answer as well.

He unfolded the slip of paper. Lin Weixia’s fingers curled involuntarily in her lap. The light on his side was dim, half his face sunk in shadow. He stared down at it, reading her answer again and again, the expression on his face unreadable.

The second round of the game began. The white ball lit up and began to spin again, flashing as it turned. After two rotations, it stopped with a beep in front of Menzi.

Menzi drew a card at random and turned it over — Call the last guy you talked to and confess your feelings.

Qiu Minghua let out a whoop, and the rest of the group looked like Christmas had come early, all chiming in with excitement: “Menzi, let us see your recent contacts!”

One of the guys, with a great deal of self-confidence, jumped in: “Hope it’s not me. No need to confess — Menzi, I accept you.”

“Ha.” That was all Menzi gave him.

Menzi picked up her phone, opened WeChat, and went to her recent contacts. The first one happened to be Ning Chao — she’d shared a photo with him earlier when they’d been out.

His profile photo was a polar bear in the snow. Menzi had only given Ning Chao a one-letter nickname: N.

“Menzi, who’s this ‘N’?” the overly confident guy from before asked.

Menzi shot him a dazzling smile and said simply: “No comment.”

With everyone watching expectantly, Menzi called Ning Chao’s number. The speakerphone let out a long ring — once, twice, three times — and for some reason she felt nervous.

She’d played this game countless times and always handled it with total ease. But with Ning Chao on the other end, Menzi found herself on edge, with no idea how it would go. The call rang for fifteen seconds before finally connecting, and a very low voice came through, slightly rough, as though from recent exertion:

“Hello.”

There was a lot of background noise from Ning Chao’s end — faint, powerful chanting in the distance. Menzi asked, “Still training this late?”

“Yeah. Emergency night march. I had a head full of shampoo suds and had to run out the moment I heard the officer’s signal—” Ning Chao paused to exhale. “What do you need?”

Menzi had been laughing at what he said a moment ago, but now that the real question was here, her throat went dry. She ran her tongue across her lips. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Go ahead.”

Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would burst out of her chest. Before she even got the words out, her ears had already started burning red. She pinched herself sharply, cleared her throat:

“So — I like you.”

Once the words were out, Menzi held her breath, waiting for the response from the other end. The earpiece went into a long silence, and everyone else held theirs too.

The tension was excruciating. Menzi knew it was just a game, but there was genuine probing mixed into it, and she couldn’t help but feel something like hope. Her throat felt dry, and she gulped down two more mouthfuls of drink.

Ning Chao cleared his throat, his tone sincere and serious: “I think you’re being reckless. Our approaches to relationships are very different—”

Silence. He kept talking, and Menzi was listening carefully, when one of the guys suddenly let out an uncontrollable snicker.

Ning Chao paused, and then it clicked. His voice came back with a hint of teeth: “You’re playing a game right now, aren’t you?”

Menzi immediately grabbed the phone and switched off the speakerphone, then rounded on the guy who’d laughed: “What is wrong with you?”

The guy stared at her, completely thrown. Menzi’s beautiful face went cold, and she walked away from the group to talk to Ning Chao outside and explain.

The game continued. Third round — the green button was pressed, and the white ball lit up and spun on, rotating through several loops before stopping in front of Ban Sheng.

A chorus of screams and whistles went up almost simultaneously. Shi Li, sitting across from him, pressed her hand over the stack of cards and said to Ban Sheng, “Let me draw for you.”

“Me, me, me!” Qiu Minghua called out eagerly.

He reached toward the cards, but Shi Li kept her hand firmly over them, clearly unhappy. She looked toward Ban Sheng, and he sat where he was, expression tired and flat, and glanced over at her:

“No need.”

Qiu Minghua pulled a card from the middle, turned it face-up on the table, and everyone leaned in to look. When they read the question, the reaction was a collective murmur of hidden, knowing laughter.

“Ban-ge, you pulled a big one.”

“Honestly, I’m very curious about the answer to this one myself.”

Everyone saw Ban Sheng’s question except Lin Weixia. The card was lying right there on the table, partly obscured by a few beer cans — one slight lean forward and she could have read it.

But she didn’t look.

Menzi came back after her phone call, color slightly better than before, and rejoined the group.

Shi Li rested her chin on her hand and watched Ban Sheng, clearly anticipating his answer. He leaned forward, spine straightening, found a black marker, bit off the cap, and wrote something in a sweeping scrawl, then tossed the paper into the glass jar.

Many people at the table drank to see Ban Sheng’s answer. Shi Li was first — she unfolded the slip with some tension, and the moment she read it, her lips managed a strained curve, expression unreadable.

Menzi drained her glass too, read what Ban Sheng had written, and let out a clear, short “Tch.”

Jiang Heng looked as well.

Lin Weixia sat on the couch without moving. She hadn’t made a single gesture toward the jar — but then, without meaning to, she found herself looking up into a pair of dark eyes.

Ban Sheng caught her gaze immediately and held it, ensnaring her completely.

The light was low. In his eyes, Lin Weixia could see too many layered, unspoken things — and then she thought again of the moment she’d watched Ban Sheng and Shi Li descend from upstairs, and the vivid red mark at his collarbone.

She looked away, flustered.

Round after round, the game went on. Lin Weixia had a few more glasses of craft beer and was feeling somewhat drunk. She sat with her head slightly bowed, and when it was her turn again, her hand trembled a little as she drew the card and set it on the table.

Everyone leaned in to look. Then they all went quiet at once, the atmosphere turning strangely charged.

Qiu Minghua sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh damn. This is wilder than Ban-ge’s.”

“Weixia, I’m actually worried for you.”

Lin Weixia rubbed her eyelids tiredly. She hadn’t even looked at it — she guessed it was probably something like getting a guy’s number or confessing to someone. “What is it?”

“Kiss someone from your recent WeChat contacts, using an ice cube, mouth to mouth.” Menzi patted her shoulder.

“The ice! Quick, someone get the ice cube tray from the freezer!” someone shouted eagerly.

“Can we take photos of the kiss? Why am I so nervous right now.”

“No pictures, have some respect for people’s privacy.”

“Wait, first let us see who the first guy in her recent contacts is. What if he’s not even here?”

Lin Weixia felt a jolt of alarm in her chest, and for a moment her mind went completely blank. It took a while for everything to sink in. She wanted to ask if she could skip this one, but someone had already slammed the ice cube tray onto the table with a triumphant clatter, and every pair of eyes in the room fixed on her with eager anticipation.

She was trapped.

With no way out, Lin Weixia handed over her phone. Everyone looked at the screen at once. Her most recent male contact was Gao Hang — Lin Weixia’s younger brother.

But at the very top of Lin Weixia’s pinned chats, there was only one entry. That black profile photo was unmistakable to everyone in the room —

It was Ban Sheng.

A collective “Ohhh” rose from the group. Lin Weixia showed no embarrassment. Her dark lashes dipped low, and whatever she was thinking was impossible to read.

Everyone else was laughing and egging her on. Ban Sheng sat nestled into the couch, his usual sharpness gone from his face. Deep in his eyes, a tide of dark emotion surged and swelled — and then, as the light turned over them, vanished instantly.

Only Shi Li made her displeasure obvious. She looked at Lin Weixia suspiciously and asked, “You didn’t just pin that right now, did you.”

Lin Weixia rarely showed her irritation with people, and in company she was always composed and detached, never fighting for anything. But she leaned forward to take back her phone, and a cool smile ghosted across her lips. She was just about to speak when —

A voice cut through the noise. Ban Sheng lifted his drink and took a slow sip: “I pinned it.”

Back in high school, Ban Sheng had been the one pursuing Lin Weixia, and when it came to her he’d always been patient — the kind of patience that held the long game. He was willing to do anything for her. He walked her home every night, and on the day they decided to apply to the same university together, he snatched her phone and pinned himself as her top contact.

And for those three years, Lin Weixia had never changed that pinned position.

As though the two of them had never been apart at all.

Beside her, the light in Jiang Heng’s eyes dimmed. He hadn’t even made his move, and he’d already lost. Shi Li’s face cycled through shades of green and white, her chest heaving violently, almost trembling with fury.

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

“Ahhh, I want to see this so badly.”

Lin Weixia sat motionless. Ban Sheng settled back into the couch with perfect ease, a detached, watching expression on his face. He was sitting back and observing — like a hunter who’d baited a trap and was now waiting for the animal to walk into it on its own.

The cheers and expectant stares mounted. Menzi tried to give Lin Weixia an out, but whatever she said was immediately swallowed by the frenzied clamor of the audience.

“Can I drink instead? Triple?” Lin Weixia said calmly, cutting through the din.

The noise stopped abruptly. Without looking at anyone in particular, Lin Weixia reached for the glass in front of her and drank, cup after cup, head tilted back, her throat burning fiercely — yet she kept going until every drop was gone.

The group applauded, and naturally let her off the hook.

The next round started. Lin Weixia stayed for about ten more minutes, then felt a wave of nausea roll up in her throat. In the dim light, she slipped away from the table without drawing attention. She crossed the hall to the rear bathroom, where the wind outside was howling. She hunched over the toilet for a while, heaving, the physical wretchedness making her eyes water involuntarily.

She twisted on the faucet and cupped cold water in her hands to rinse her mouth, then turned it off again.

Lin Weixia pushed open the bathroom door. The motion-sensor light clicked on. Ban Sheng was leaning right outside the entrance, the air around him charged with something dangerous. She instinctively tried to shut the door again, but a long arm shot across and held it open with ease. He pushed his way in.

His tall, upright figure bore down on her. The sharp edge of danger he carried was unmistakable. Lin Weixia’s instincts told her to back up and dodge, and then — click — the door locked. The air felt suddenly close. The faucet, not fully shut, dripped on steadily.

“That desperate to avoid me?” Ban Sheng’s eyes were locked on her.

“Yes.” Lin Weixia answered directly.

“Then who do you want to kiss?” Ban Sheng looked at her and spoke slowly.

“Definitely not you—”

Before Lin Weixia could finish, ice-cold fingers closed around her chin. He bent down and pressed his lips over hers, stealing her breath, her eyes going wide — the last syllable was swallowed entirely.

Ban Sheng’s hand moved to the back of her head, pressing her closer. His tongue was a little forceful as it slipped in. His lips, not cold the way they’d been before, had gone scorching hot. He ran his tongue lightly across her lips, then advanced, step by step, turning the tables and taking full command.

His cold, sharp scent of cigarettes clung to him thickly. She could clearly see the small black mole near Ban Sheng’s nose as he came close, and her heart drummed faster and faster, leaping almost to her throat.

Both her hands were pressed flat against his broad chest. The collar of his black hoodie was crumpled in her pale grip. Lin Weixia was a little upset, and she made a small, protesting sound — then their tongues touched, and Ban Sheng passed a nearly melted ice cube into her mouth.

He closed around it gently. Lin Weixia thought she heard the sound of his throat moving — swallowing the cold water that had mingled between them — and a jolt went through her entire body, the tips of her ears blazing hot. She curled her toes. The icy water dripped from the corner of their joined mouths and fell onto Ban Sheng’s collarbone, landing squarely on the swallowtail butterfly tattoo there, carrying with it something forbidden and intoxicating.

His large hand kneaded her neck, slow and unhurried. Lin Weixia trembled, a strange, shivery sensation rising from somewhere deep in her chest. She wanted to push him away, but every bit of her strength had dissolved — her pale hands rested over his broad ones, and her fingernail caught on the ring he wore at his knuckle.

Lin Weixia felt hot all over, a fine layer of sweat breaking out across her skin.

The faucet kept dripping steadily. Ban Sheng breathed against her neck, his voice hoarse:

“I think I’m going insane with jealousy.”

These two days — Jiang Heng looking at Lin Weixia again and again, the two of them talking quietly together, the way he’d reached over to brush snow from her collar. Every single thing had driven Ban Sheng to a jealous fury that stripped him of all reason.

Below them, two shadows still tangled together.

The ice cube kept melting between their lips, trickling down their chins onto their clothes, darkening the fabric. Lin Weixia was kissed until her breathing grew heavier and heavier, the lack of oxygen intensifying, her mind no longer able to think clearly. Just as she was beginning to sink into the illusion this person in front of her was weaving —

Her mind snapped back, sudden and sharp, to everything that had happened between them over these weeks. All the things that still lay unresolved between them. She shoved Ban Sheng away with a jolt of clarity and fled.

As she turned, the sound of his low, uneven breathing still reached her ears — and then the slow, deliberate crunch of the last remaining sliver of ice between his teeth before he swallowed it.

His expression said the moment had ended far too soon.

Lin Weixia hurried upstairs to her room and collapsed face-down on the bed, burying her face in the pillow, waiting for her heartbeat to slow to something resembling normal.

After that closeness came a blurred confusion — what were they even doing?

Earlier, when she’d drawn her card and had to write an answer, everyone had been guessing what she’d been thinking — certain it was either Jiang Heng or Ban Sheng.

What Lin Weixia had written was herself — because in that moment, she’d been thinking about how to find an excuse to get out of the game.

Lin Weixia stayed alone in her room for a long time. An hour later, the door handle turned and the door swung open softly. Menzi padded in.

“Is it over?” Lin Weixia still had her face pressed into the bed, cheeks still burning, and asked in a muffled voice.

“Yeah.”

Menzi set her suitcase flat on the floor and opened it to look for pajamas, then remembered something. She walked over to the bed and passed something over. “Here.”

Menzi went to shower shortly after, and the sound of the water running filled the bathroom. Lin Weixia lifted her face from the pillow and saw what Menzi had brought her — the truth card, and a slip of paper.

The card read — In all the years since, how many girls have you kissed?

Her heart contracted without her permission.

Lin Weixia opened the slip of paper. On it was a line written in a cold, precise hand:

Only Lin Weixia. One.