“…”

“What cake?”

At first, Xie Yichen genuinely couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. He thought back carefully and then remembered — the thread on the confession board.

He looked down, eyes dropping toward Ning Sui.

In the already dim lighting, those dark, deep eyes appeared even darker than usual. His expression was unreadable — neither exasperated nor resigned, but carrying some indeterminate emotion somewhere in between.

“That day our English teacher had her birthday, and the whole class pooled money to buy her a cake. I happened to be on my way down to the office to deliver it, but someone knocked into me and it went straight to the floor. I had no choice but to sneak out to the shopping mall nearby and buy a new one from a specialty counter — it cost several times more — but at least I made it in time.”

He paused, then tapped the rim of his cup with a sharp, clean clink: “Also, this is a sparkling tea.”

Xie Yichen delivered it all matter-of-factly, his sharp brow and clear eyes making something speed up without reason in Ning Sui’s chest.

The sofa seat wasn’t exactly wide — it was a European-style upholstered armchair — and he had been quietly keeping his thighs in, the whole time, careful not to accidentally brush against her.

Ning Sui had noticed that detail just now, and then thought about the fallen leaf outside earlier, and was a half-beat late in responding: “I see.”

“What did you think?” He hooked the corner of his lip, an expression somewhere between amusement and an actual smile, as he asked.

Ning Sui drew out her “oh” slightly.

At that moment, the resident singer returned to the stage with a ukulele and began to tune the strings. Voice and light were the finest embellishments of the night. Ning Sui tilted her head and watched as he gently plucked the strings: “Then you weren’t afraid to drink tea this late and lose sleep.”

Xie Yichen hadn’t responded yet when he noticed the screen of her phone. He caught a glimpse of a long block of text, though he couldn’t make out its contents.

He paused for a moment, then heard someone nearby call his name.

One person away, Zou Xiao leaned forward enthusiastically, trying to speak across Lin Shuyu: “I’ve been playing League of Legends lately — the LPL Summer Season Finals are coming up soon, right? Do you…”

Xie Yichen looked at her. “Sorry, I haven’t really been following it.”

Zou Xiao’s voice caught in her throat.

Lin Shuyu sat wedged between them like a cream-filled sandwich cookie, privately suppressing laughter.

As if he wasn’t following it. They’d watched a match together just that afternoon before heading out. But then again, this guy could say something like that without so much as a flicker in his expression. Lin Shuyu genuinely admired that.

If he was being honest, he thought Xie Yichen was pretty skilled at handling admirers — always graceful about turning people down, never making anyone feel humiliated, never saying anything cutting or dismissive about someone else either.

The girls who had feelings for him but couldn’t get through to him would try everything to intercept Lin Shuyu or Zhang Yuge instead. The two of them had pretty easygoing attitudes about it and never felt uncomfortable — if anything, they benefited pleasantly. Some of those girls would rather give gifts to the two of them just to have an excuse to come to the elite class and catch one glimpse of Xie Yichen. Lin Shuyu was genuinely in awe. He still had an entire small box of miscellaneous things sitting at home from all of this.

He and Zhang Yuge both had their own distinct qualities — neither of them was anything close to the level of a breathtaking looker. And yet, what Lin Shuyu found genuinely strange and wonderful was that having someone like Xie Yichen in such close proximity had never made him feel inferior.

They were still distinct individuals. Lin Shuyu could still find his own strengths, his own worth. Even — in some ways — through knowing Xie Yichen.

He thought of something he’d once read that was a little sentimental: “A good friend is one who helps you live a broader life.” He couldn’t speak to everything, but he knew this much: being friends with Xie Yichen for all these years had been something he was genuinely grateful for.

…

They didn’t end up staying very long at the bar. For one thing, there wasn’t much to do. For another, the atmosphere had been awkward from the start, and with everything so quiet around them, no one had been talking much.

When they settled the bill on the way out, Xu Zhou paid. Zhao Yingyao said: “Send a payment link to the group so we can all split it.”

Xu Zhou was indifferent: “No need — it wasn’t much.”

It was still a good few hundred, and Zhao Yingyao had caught a glimpse of the receipt. She looked at him for a moment, then smiled sweetly: “Well then, thank you very much for treating us, Zhou-zong.”

“Not at all.”

The group filed out in a loose procession.

Once they were back on the main street of the guesthouse area, Hu Ke’er pulled Ning Sui ahead of the others, saying she wanted to browse a bit more.

The moment they were clear of the group, she pressed close to Ning Sui’s ear, pouting as she whispered: “Zhao Yingyao is so annoying. I don’t like her.”

She knew the person had a boyfriend and was still hovering around making her presence known. Nothing overtly inappropriate had been said, but Hu Ke’er just felt off about it: “I’m telling you — I swear on my 24-carat titanium eyes — she was absolutely making eyes at my boyfriend by the end.”

Ning Sui let her shake her arm vigorously, maintaining her usual patient expression. “Xu Zhou didn’t respond to her, though, did he?”

“But he didn’t keep his distance from her either.”

“…”

In truth, Hu Ke’er suspected that was probably how it was. When she first met Xu Zhou, she’d thought he was quite good at flirting. But after spending more time with him, she’d gradually come to think: it was probably just the glow he carried. Or rather — because of his background, he had more confidence when it came to doing things for others, and that confidence was what came across as attractive.

The guys Hu Ke’er had encountered who could be called players had all dated a string of girls. The majority of the rest were thoroughly oblivious. It seemed like a man’s social awareness really was proportional to how many girlfriends he’d had. Were there really men who were naturally perceptive without needing to learn it?

Hu Ke’er thought about it and concluded she was definitely not going to be someone else’s learning experience.

As they were walking back into the guesthouse courtyard, Ning Sui felt her phone buzzing persistently. Several rooms still had their lights on, but the hallway itself was quiet. Ning Sui stopped and gestured to Hu Ke’er: “Go on ahead. I’ll make a quick call out here.”

“Oh, sure.”

When she looked at her phone, she already knew it was too late — the screen showed more than twenty missed calls from Xia Fanghui. At some point her phone had been switched to vibrate-only, and she hadn’t caught the sound.

Ning Sui hurriedly called back and held the phone to her ear. “Hello, Mom.”

“Where are you? Why weren’t you answering the phone?!”

“We were in the old town just now, and the music was pretty loud—”

She hadn’t even finished when Xia Fanghui cut her off sharply: “You knew perfectly well I could call at any time. Why were you so careless?!”

Her voice pitched upward. “I’ve told you how many times — don’t set it to silent, don’t set it to silent. When I can’t reach you by phone, I have no idea where you are. If this happens again, I will not be letting you go out with your classmates anymore!”

Ning Sui was quiet for a moment. She lowered her eyes. “…I’m sorry, Mom.”

The other end fell suddenly silent.

The summer cicadas were humming, the stuffy air heavy all around her. Ning Sui stood in the shadows, fingertips cold, equally still.

After a long pause, a slow, deep exhale came through the speaker.

“Little Coco, I’m sorry.”

Ning Sui’s lashes moved, and something in her chest loosened slightly. “Mom?”

Xia Fanghui said slowly: “Mom overreacted. That was too emotional of me.”

“…”

Her voice had gone quiet and very low — a little tired. Ning Sui held the phone tightly and said nothing.

Xia Fanghui gradually steadied herself. Her tone became slightly calmer: “…It’s just that I’ve been thinking about your grandmother’s situation for the past few days, and I suppose I got anxious. It’s nothing. Don’t worry.”

Ning Sui was caught off guard. “What’s wrong with Grandma?”

At the mention of it, Xia Fanghui sighed again, helplessly: “She’s been having occasional breathing difficulties for a while. These past few days her blood oxygen levels have been seriously low — she’s been using an oxygen machine around the clock. I took her to the hospital today, and the doctor said all her indicators are off. She really needs to be admitted.”

The doctor had brought this up before, but the old woman was stubborn — refused outright to go into hospital, insisted it wasn’t necessary.

“Your grandmother is just so impossible to reason with. She used to be a nurse herself, and now she won’t follow any doctor’s orders. The saying goes, physicians cannot heal themselves — she’s just too set in her own ways.”

Xia Fanghui went on and on in frustration, and Ning Sui leaned against the wall, her fingers slowly warming in the humid air.

“Can I call her right now?”

“She’s probably already asleep. Try tomorrow.”

“Then… is there anything I can do to help?”

Xia Fanghui said: “It’s all going through the normal channels. Once the bed assignment comes through tomorrow, we’ll pack things up at home and your dad and I will take her in to handle the paperwork.”

She paused and then made her tone brighter: “It’ll be alright. Don’t worry yourself too much — once you’re back, you can come visit her then.”

Ning Sui lowered her eyes and pressed her lips together: “Okay.”

Xia Fanghui’s voice went soft. She called her by her nickname: “Little Coco — get some sleep.”

Ning Sui was quiet for a moment. “You and Dad get some sleep too.”

—

Apparently Ning Sui had spoken too soon, because after drinking that cup of sparkling tea, Xie Yichen genuinely couldn’t sleep.

Zhang Yuge was snoring away beside him. Xie Yichen lay in bed, rolling from one side to the other, unable to drift off. So he got up carefully and quietly, thinking he’d go out to the balcony for some air.

Outside, tree shadows swayed and shifted. Xie Yichen leaned against the railing for a while, and then — improbably — spotted a familiar figure down in the courtyard below.

The sunflower pattern of the Fibonacci sequence was much more visible from overhead. Ning Sui stood outside in a thin jacket, taking one careful step at a time along the garden path that spiraled inward from the outer ring of smooth pebbles, then spiraling back out in a slow, deliberate loop, beginning again with quiet concentration.

Xie Yichen watched for a moment, then looked at his phone again, incredulous.

Two in the morning. She had some nerve.

When Ning Sui needed to think, she liked to repeat some meaningless task over and over. Tonight wasn’t insomnia — it was a head full of loose thoughts, circling without resolution. She couldn’t seem to work them through, so she’d come out here to walk.

She was actually making good progress when, with a soft footfall behind her, a low, dry voice drifted over: “Not sleeping in the middle of the night — training for the Olympic speed-walking finals?”

Though they were a few meters apart, Ning Sui still startled. She turned and found Xie Yichen standing some distance away, arms crossed, looking at her with an amused, dry expression.

Ning Sui’s composure returned. She looked at him, and said slowly: “The Opening Ceremony isn’t for a few more days. You never know — maybe I’ll be selected.”

“…”

Xie Yichen let out a short, low laugh through his nose. Then he picked up his phone and walked over at an unhurried pace. Ning Sui curled her fingertips slightly and looked quietly out at the still, dark silhouette of Erhai Lake in the night.

The sound of its gentle, slow rhythm of rising and receding water drifted over, steady and pleasant. Xie Yichen stopped beside her and, hands tucked in his pockets, followed her gaze toward the lake.

Ning Sui glanced at the long bench beside them: “Want to sit for a bit?”

Xie Yichen looked at her: “Sure.”

The worst of the summer heat had already passed, and the night added its own cool layer. The temperature was comfortable. The distant sound of a lone cicada drifted over now and then. The two of them settled on either side of the bench, leaning back against it, looking out through the artistic glass barrier at the water.

For a while, neither spoke. The night breeze moved through. The surroundings settled into the kind of quiet that makes you feel unexpectedly safe.

Ning Sui stared at some point in the middle distance, thoughts elsewhere. Xie Yichen leaned against the bench for a while, then spoke: “Something on your mind?”

He didn’t look at her. His knees were parted slightly; he’d fished a spare shoelace out of his trouser pocket while they sat down, and was turning it idly between his fingers.

Ning Sui blinked slowly, then nodded. “Mm.”

She looked down, took a moment to find the right words, and then started: “It’s about a friend of mine. She didn’t perform well on the college entrance exam — she made a mistake filling in the answer sheet, and her score came out very poor. Her parents are also upset and have been blaming her. Her mental state hasn’t been great.”

They weren’t especially close — but they had genuinely gotten along well.

That girl was a little shy, but her nature was very good. For a while, Ning Sui walked with her every day when lunch ended.

They’d stop at the comic magazine rack near the school gate and check whether the series they were following had a new issue in. Stopping at the 7-Eleven, one of them would get a bowl of beef noodles, the other a bowl of curry fish balls, both drowning in ketchup and chili oil, sharing from each other’s chopsticks.

Ning Sui had received her message in the bar.

[Suisui, I have some news to share — I think I might be retaking the exam in a different province.

My mom and dad say our No. 4 Middle School wasn’t strict enough. Not like Hengshui Middle School’s military-style management. I wasted too much time on small things. They said people there memorize vocabulary while standing in the lunch line, while I just laughed and chatted with friends.

Honestly, I’ve always envied you — envied your talent, your grades always so strong. I always believed that the math competition was just a temporary setback for you, and that you’d come out on top in the end. And in the end, you did. I’m so happy for you. The applause and recognition are things you truly deserve.

I’m just not as lucky. My state was off. I couldn’t sleep before the exam. My heart would race, and I was anxious all the time. When I walked into the exam hall, I already knew it was going to go badly. And it did — I got three physics questions in a row wrong in science. 18 points. If only I’d been more careful in that moment.

I’ve said a lot, but honestly, I’m going to miss this. I’ve always cherished our friendship, and I’ve always admired you. On the day of the graduation ceremony, I sat in the audience listening to you speak on stage, and I thought to myself — we really are different people.

I could never do what you do. I know that now. And I also know that from here, the paths we walk will be entirely different. We won’t be walking the same road anymore.

So I thought — let’s not keep in touch anymore.

I hope everything goes well for you, and all things go smoothly. And I hope things go well for me too.]

Ning Sui had always been a little slow to feelings. All the farewells of graduation day — the speeches from teachers, the general sense of parting — hadn’t moved her to any particular sadness. But sitting in the bar that night and reading this message, there was something that genuinely ached a little.

And in that moment, it had finally, belatedly occurred to her: they really were graduating.

Leaving Huai’an, each one setting off on their own path.

Six years, three years, four years — life divided into different chapters. And when the time comes, the old chapter closes, and a new one opens.

A beginning and an ending both at once. Those days of being completely absorbed in textbooks and homework, when buying a popsicle at the school store with one or two friends was pure happiness — those days were truly, irretrievably gone.

“I feel genuinely sorry for her. If she hadn’t made that mistake, she could have gone to a very good school.”

Ning Sui looked up. Something bitter and heavy moved in her chest. She let out a quiet breath. “Somehow, looking at her, I feel like I’m seeing an earlier version of myself. There’s something about it that really resonates. The only difference is maybe I was just luckier.”

Xie Yichen had been listening the whole time. Now he spoke, his voice calm and unhurried: “Have you heard the story of the old man at the frontier who lost his horse?”

Ning Sui registered his voice without quite catching the shape of it for a moment, then turned to look at him: “You mean: what seems like misfortune may in fact be good fortune in disguise? Or: after the lowest point, things must eventually turn upward?”

“Mm.” Xie Yichen offered an example. “I had a distant relative — something like a cousin — who also didn’t do well on his college entrance exam. Didn’t hit the undergraduate cut-off line. His parents were very worried. But he himself was quite calm about it.”

The school had no particular reputation, and the curriculum was relaxed. But rather than give up, that cousin used his free time to go online and teach himself various skills and knowledge.

And it was through that, over time, that he observed how much everyone loved short, quick, easy-to-consume video content. So he and a classmate started a company together and built a mobile application based on that concept — and in the past two years it had just taken off.

Xie Yichen said: “His company’s annual revenue is probably in the tens of millions now.”

Ning Sui looked at him: “What do you think — was his success more because of luck, stumbling across that particular opportunity? Or more because of his mindset?”

“I’d say both played a role. But what’s undeniable is that he never gave up.”

His voice was cool and quiet. “There’s a teacher I deeply respect who once said: cherish your lowest points — that’s when you can see the most clearly. Time will carry across those who are willing to carry themselves.”

Ning Sui felt those words land in her, sudden and precise. She looked at him without blinking.

Xie Yichen tilted his head up, gazing out through the clear glass panel at the lake, and he smiled too, lightly.

“Life is still so long ahead. Infinite possibilities — you can’t know who wins or loses until you’ve walked to the very end. You can tell your friend: it’s too early to write conclusions about yourself.”

Then those cool, dark eyes turned toward her: “And as for feeling like you were just lucky — it may be that you’re simply the one who persisted longer than others.”

The quiet rise and fall of Erhai Lake passed softly through the air. Something inside Ning Sui’s chest felt like a small boat — drifting gently through some starlit river between worlds.

That was really all it came down to.

The thing she hadn’t been able to work out — the answer, perhaps, was not so complicated after all.

She couldn’t quite describe this feeling of sudden clarity, but Ning Sui thought: if there were a drink here right now, that would make it even better.

She studied Xie Yichen for a moment, then said with genuine sincerity: “I have an idea.”

He looked at her without much urgency: “What?”

“How about we open a motivational coaching school together in the future? You take the lead instructor role, and we compile each session into textbooks.”

Ning Sui tested the idea on him with a sideways glance, then said earnestly: “I have a feeling — at your level — you’d go nationwide very quickly. Monthly sales of over one hundred thousand copies, easily.”

Xie Yichen raised a brow: “And what would you do?”

“I would—” Ning Sui’s voice shifted into sudden sincerity, “…reap the benefits?”

“…”