On Ning Sui’s end, she had absolutely no idea what kind of socially fatal incident her dear best friend had just been through.

Xie Yichen’s efficiency was genuinely remarkable. Once the decision was made, within just a few days he had found a place. The location and price were both suitable, but the one snag was that the landlord, in urgent need of funds, asked for the tenancy to start from May.

Xie Yichen didn’t particularly mind this. He took a look and found the room was missing a desk; he also wanted to replace the mattress and washing machine with better ones. It would take some time to set things up, so moving in early wasn’t a problem.

In matters like this, Ning Sui had always been perfectly content to be the hands-off party. Once the rental paperwork was done, she began slowly moving her things in, bringing them over in bits and pieces.

By the time she’d finally finished tidying up, it was already late—around ten o’clock. Going back to the dorm would just be another hassle, so the two decided to try spending the night here directly.

She’d only planned to bring a few essentials since it was only two or three months, but somehow more and more things kept arriving—the little potted plants from her dorm room, the figurine displays—all migrated over, giving the place an unexpectedly lived-in warmth.

The apartment itself had been decorated in a cozy style to begin with—light, warm tones throughout: wheat-colored curtains, a simple dining table, a glass coffee table. In the bedroom, the TV was large, mounted on the wall—a high-end smart set-top box type. Very impressive.

Final exams were approaching, and these days had been very full. Ning Sui was thoroughly exhausted. After her shower, she lazily propped herself against the headboard to rest, randomly picked a mystery variety show she liked, and started watching.

She watched for a while, then heard movement at the bedroom doorway.

Xie Yichen had also just finished showering. His black hair was dry and softly tousled, a few loose strands falling against his forehead. He was wearing a loose, casual short-sleeve shirt, laptop in hand, and walked in.

They had ultimately chosen the one-bedroom. There was only one bed here, and the mattress was something Xie Yichen had bought new. It was large enough, but the moment their eyes met, the air went momentarily still.

Ning Sui was curled in the blanket and, as naturally as she could manage, scooted a little further to one side.

Xie Yichen sat down beside her.

She watched the show; he sat next to her, occasionally taking care of a few things on his laptop. The atmosphere was warmly domestic in a rare sort of way.

As Ning Sui watched, her gaze couldn’t help drifting his way. She shifted slightly to lean against him, and before she could even speak, Xie Yichen looked sideways at her and raised his arm, pulling her entirely into his embrace.

Ning Sui half-draped herself against his shoulder. The scent of him—clean and fresh—enveloped her senses, and her heart gave a sudden leap.

The variety show was still playing. Her gaze loosely rested on one point on the screen. Then she suddenly noticed that the sponsor logo in the corner was Flashmap, and she remarked with curiosity: “Has Flashmap really gotten this big? It’s actually running TV ads now.”

Xie Yichen’s low voice came from above her head: “It’s been developing quite well.”

Ning Sui blinked, thinking it through, and quickly connected the dots: “So—does that mean the equity you have in Flashmap has grown to be worth quite a lot?”

Xie Yichen had calculated this before, and the answer was indeed considerable.

He had borrowed several million yuan back then. In under two years, it had multiplied by nearly twenty.

Although that number was somewhat theoretical—it couldn’t be cashed out before an IPO, and it was a drop in the bucket compared to his father’s company—it was still the kind of thing that made one’s blood run hot with excitement.

Moreover, Xie Yichen felt that the short-form video track was catching the wind—it would definitely become a mainstream trend.

Qiu Ruoyun had previously told him in no uncertain terms not to touch it, but now the data had proven her wrong. Whenever she saw him dealing with Flashmap-related matters these days, she didn’t say a word—couldn’t have been more agreeable and pleasant, impressively flexible.

Xie Yichen gave a quiet laugh: “Not bad.”

Ning Sui knew this was absolutely an understatement—even a rough calculation using those ratios would yield an astonishing figure.

Xie Yichen could even forgo further academic study and, after graduation, go work there directly doing software development.

Her eyes lit up as she gazed at him for a moment, saying nothing.

Xie Yichen glanced down, with amused interest he gave her cheek a pinch, voice curling up at the end: “What are you looking at?”

Ning Sui said: “Looking at my clever, forward-thinking, very-good-at-making-money boyfriend.”

Xie Yichen raised an eyebrow, closed his laptop and set it aside on the side table, then wrapped an arm around her waist.

“What did you eat tonight?”

Ning Sui: “Huh?”

He pressed a kiss to her lips with a small satisfied sound: “So sweet.”

Their gazes collided in midair with a warmth and intensity that had no patience for waiting, and moments later they were pressed close together again.

Xie Yichen had gone back to Huai’an for a couple of days on family business just before this. He’d only just returned. It had been a period without seeing each other, yet Ning Sui felt as though a very long time had passed—as though every day had dragged.

Now he was right in front of her, and there was nothing to hold back. It was natural to fall into each other’s arms and kiss.

Xie Yichen leaned against the headboard, cradling her, gently kissing her lips—like exchanging breath. Nestled so close together, so settled, so tender. Ning Sui couldn’t help closing her eyes, cupping his face, doing her best to give her own warmth back to him.

Xie Yichen reached over and turned off the variety show. The TV went dark. His tongue touched hers; the warmth of his breath made the heat inside Ning Sui rise. His kisses scattered down, one arm wrapped around her waist, holding her close and refusing to let go.

Outside, cicadas were clamoring loudly in the summer night. They were still in the campus district, and the surroundings were relatively quiet. The distant street lamps glimmered with an orange-yellow glow. The mood was too still and hushed; one couldn’t even sense the passage of time.

Ning Sui’s fingers couldn’t help sinking into his black hair. Her nose pressed against him; her whole being burrowed further into his embrace with a longing for more closeness.

They kissed each other with passionate warmth, as though they could never tire of it.

A good long while passed—the wall clock had turned nearly halfway around—before Xie Yichen drew back, slightly breathless.

Ning Sui had sensed partway through that something was different. By now her cheeks were burning, her pulse hammering urgently. She stayed in the position from before, still pressed against his chest, but clearly something was not the same: “You……”

Xie Yichen also looked down at her, his throat moving involuntarily.

Yet his expression revealed nothing. His eyes were only slightly dark and hazy: “What?”

Ning Sui couldn’t quite say it. She swallowed: “……Nothing.”

She said it, but in truth, certain images unavoidably surfaced in her mind.

It had been just under two weeks since that time.

Living in a shared dormitory was inconvenient, after all. Being away for even a day was conspicuous, practically announcing what one had been doing. Both of them had been busy, and on top of that, the sharp-eyed Liang Xinyue and the others were always watching her. So during that stretch of time Ning Sui simply hadn’t been able to think about any of this.

But now, in this kind of setting, the only thing that came to mind was……

The tips of Ning Sui’s ears burned so red it was as if they might bleed. That one time had left too deep an impression.

“I……” She opened her mouth.

Their eyes locked. For some reason, both of them seemed equally hesitant.

Because they had simultaneously realized—there was none of that item here.

Last time it could be said they’d half-stumbled into it, completely unprepared. But this time, the newly settled room was still bare.

Ning Sui bit her lip and turned her head away. Her voice was small as a mosquito, but resolute: “Last time, there were a few left—you—”

Because the package had been new, and they’d fit well, it seemed a waste to throw them away. She’d discreetly collected them and tucked them into her bag.

Xie Yichen quickly propped himself up and turned to kiss her earlobe, that particular obvious sign involuntarily making itself known. His low voice carried a faint, shallow huskiness: “How many?”

The overhead light had been turned off at some point. Only the bedside lamp remained, dim and full of suggestion, tracing the sharp, clear lines of his profile.

Ning Sui’s restraint was at its limit: “……Two?”

Somehow, she had a feeling two wasn’t going to be enough. A thought surfaced through the haze: “There’s a convenience store downstairs nearby.”

“No.” He didn’t even pause to think.

“Huh?”

Xie Yichen’s breath settled warm against her ear as he continued to devote himself to kissing her—her cheek, her eyes, one after another, absorbed and unrelenting: “At this hour, we’d very likely run into someone we know.”

Xie Yichen had witnessed firsthand the power of rumors.

The time his mother had been photographed—the incident that was the catalyst for the scar on his left forearm—stories had spread through their small circle in grotesque, distorted, completely backwards ways.

After he earned the top score on his college entrance exam, someone even privately spread a rumor that he’d gotten the test questions in advance through family connections. Quite absurd.

At Qing University, he might not be known by everyone, but there were plenty of people who recognized him.

He didn’t want anyone spreading unsavory things about her.

Ning Sui, kissed into a haze, would never have thought he was being this careful about her. Her heart trembled as she gave a startled sound.

“We’ll use those two first.” Xie Yichen’s gaze showed the ink-black depth of night, but Ning Sui could clearly see the pale flush creeping up from his ear. He lowered himself to kiss her forehead gently: “I’ll go out and buy more another time.”

Ning Sui raised her arms around his neck. She heard his low, husky voice ask: “Is that okay?”

She murmured a response out of instinct: “Yeah.”

Their eyes met, both minds wandering and entangled for a moment. Xie Yichen slipped his hands under her legs, gathered her fully into his arms, and stood, carrying her out toward the living room.

Ning Sui’s body was suddenly lifted off the ground; with nothing under her legs to hold onto, she instinctively hooked her legs around his lean waist.

The sound of him searching through something filled the room. After a moment, it seemed he’d found what he needed, and he carried her back and set her down.

“Xie Yichen……”

“Hmm?”

Ning Sui swore she wasn’t trying to provoke anything—she was genuinely curious: “Why did it take so long to put on last time?” She paused, lowering her voice. “Did you not figure out the right method?”

“……”

Those ink-dark eyes snapped toward her, suddenly cool and piercing. Ning Sui pulled her neck in slightly, but still valiantly pressed on: “It doesn’t seem like it should be that hard.”

Xie Yichen’s jaw was tight, his expression a touch severe. He then grabbed her ankle and pulled her down without ceremony.

Before Ning Sui could squeeze her eyes shut, she heard him grind out against her ear, voice laced with menace: “——Then you do it.”

The hours that followed passed quickly. This young man with finely chiseled features—his whole presence burning, restless, urgent—made Ning Sui’s heart flutter wildly. She wanted to cry: “Xie Yichen, I can’t anymore……”

He seemed to give a low, quiet laugh, languid and wicked: “How can you not? I still haven’t found the right method.”

Ning Sui: “……”

At one point they switched positions. Xie Yichen held her around the waist and murmured: “Xiao Ye.”

“Hmm?”

“Have you missed me these past few days?”

“Yes……” What other answer could she give him?

“I missed you too.”

“Yeah.”

Ning Sui couldn’t hold back: “Xie Yichen.”

Against her ear, he gave another low, quiet laugh, but didn’t ease up at all: “How come you always call me by my full name?”

“Don’t you like it?”

Ning Sui liked his name very much: Xie for gratitude; Yi for standing firm; Chen for sincerity. It just sounded warm somehow—like the man himself, blazing and brilliant as the sun.

“I don’t dislike it. Whatever you call me, I like it.” He pressed his forehead to hers, burning gaze fixed on her. “But I’d also like to hear you call me something else.”

“What?”

He was teasing her again: “I don’t know—think of something yourself.”

Ning Sui failed to bite her lip in time: “Boyfriend?”

Xie Yichen lowered his gaze and smiled, tilting his head to kiss her: “Hmm.”

His voice, once it carried that huskiness, became very attractive. The warmth crept up Ning Sui’s ear. But studying his expression, she felt that a label as plain as “boyfriend” probably didn’t particularly stir him.

She ventured: “A’Chen……”

That was what Zhang Yuge and Lin Shuyu called him. Xie Yichen’s brow rose, and the look in his eyes grew more scorching—he fixed her with a gaze that made her head swim.

Ning Sui didn’t know whether he was satisfied or not. While she was still thinking of other things to say, she was suddenly affected, and cried out before she could stop herself.

“What is it?” asked the culprit, with deliberate innocence.

“Jerk……” She genuinely couldn’t hold it back.

Somehow he had the audacity to appear thoughtful: “Well, that’s a name.”

A moment later, he laughed quietly: “Jerk and idiot—doesn’t that make quite a pair?”

“……”

Ning Sui had no mental space to contemplate whether those two were or weren’t a matching pair. In the end, nothing conclusive came of the discussion. She tilted her head and began drifting toward sleep, drowsy and spent.

Xie Yichen pinched her soft cheek: “Go shower.”

Even in this state, she had a bit of spirit left in her, and very competently refused: “No. I’m so sleepy.”

Xie Yichen looked at her for a moment, then simply scooped her up, grabbed a clean towel and a change of clothes, and carried her into the bathroom.

After all that business was done and they emerged again, Ning Sui had a lot of pajamas, neatly arranged in the wardrobe, each one folded. He selected her favorite—a cotton slip dress in avocado green—and put it on her, then tucked her securely into the blanket.

The night was long and quiet. Ning Sui lay on her side, her smooth black hair fanned across the pillow, her breathing steady and slow. She looked serene.

Xie Yichen sat on the edge of the bed, gazing down at her in a trance for a while. His throat shifted in a slow, involuntary movement.

His mind drifted, unbidden, to his trip back to Huai’an a couple of days ago.

Qiu Ruoyun had called and asked him to come home when he had time, without explaining why.

His mother rarely needed him to do things for her, but Xie Yichen had a rough sense of what it was about.

——His maternal grandmother was still living at that care facility, refusing to leave. This time she was quieter than the last visit—lying woodenly in bed, not saying a word. She didn’t look to be in good spirits.

It was only when Xie Yichen arrived that she showed any reaction, parting her lips to ask for water. The wrinkles carved deep into her face, her cloudy eyes holding just the faintest trace of light.

A young nurse nearby told him that the old woman had been in this state for the past two weeks—listless and unresponsive, declining by the day. On her worst day she had tried to find some object to harm herself with. It was only now that he’d come that she was at all improved.

Xie Yichen gave a quiet sound of acknowledgment, poured water for his grandmother, and sat down beside her to watch over her.

When he was small, his grandmother had treated him best of all. He remembered how, when his parents were both away, she would hold him on the balcony and count stars. Now she had become this face with so little life left in it.

Just looking at her, Xie Yichen felt a deep, particular pain.

But then, he thought, there was nothing to be done. Illness—it simply made things harder.

As the sun slid toward the horizon, the two sat together for several hours. The room remained very quiet. Xie Yichen sat patiently to one side reading—a thick English computer science textbook—and eventually his grandmother couldn’t outlast his patience; her head drooped to one side, and she fell asleep.

The setting sun cast its orange light in through the window. Further out, beyond the street, stood all manner of small shops: craft workshops, six-yuan snack stalls, schools. Busy, varied people were going about the lives that belonged to them. Xie Yichen bent down and tucked the corner of her blanket in.

He knew, really, that his mother—though she could handle great affairs of business with deft precision—was completely at a loss when it came to small things like this. The moment his grandmother laid eyes on her, she had all manner of things to say, which inevitably escalated into emotional outbursts, old grievances resurfacing, both of them going at each other. Neither of them had the stabilizing effect on the other that Xie Yichen had.

Xie Yichen had always felt that one’s family of origin leaves a deep imprint on a person. Sometimes when he thought about it, it seemed as though their family had been bound together by exactly these kinds of small moments, one after another.

This past Chinese New Year, Xie Zhenlin and Qiu Ruoyun had invited relatives over to celebrate. Mainly his eldest uncle’s family, and a few of the elders. Qiu Zhao hadn’t come.

Perhaps in a few more years, even a gathering like this would be impossible to assemble. The company was thriving—its valuation already in the low hundreds of billions. He didn’t know whether Xie Zhenlin and Qiu Ruoyun had plans for an IPO, but Xie Yichen had overheard them debating the question before; they still had differing views, and a consensus would probably be some time away.

The penthouse villa district, quiet and isolated. Every household was elaborately decorated, but each was set far apart from the others, divided by iron railings that kept everyone at a formal distance. It made the sky above look pale and remote.

Xie Yichen had always been someone who didn’t place much value on material things. He thought—sometimes, really, a person need not accumulate so much wealth to live well.

Drifting through the world, and in the end—bound by illness, with no place to truly call home.

Better to have a handful of small coins to one’s name, but to find another soul who truly understands you, and to whom you give your sincerity unreservedly.

Ning Sui had probably fallen into a deep sleep. Her curled, long lashes fluttered softly with each breath.

In the dim warmth of the lamplight, her pale, delicate cheeks were tinged with a layer of dark gold, like a gilded border—soft and fine, very lovely.

Xie Yichen touched her hair, then slowly, carefully lowered his head and kissed her, very gently.