In the middle of January, Ning Sui finished the last exam of finals season.

Liang Xinyue and Bi Jiaxi had already gone home. Only Yu Qin and Ning Sui were left in the room.

Things had been so hectic lately that Ning Sui hadn’t had a chance to check in properly on Yu Qin and Qu Handong’s situation. Now that there was finally time to sit down and really talk, she asked: “So how are things, Qin babe?”

Yu Qin had been wanting to talk to her for a while. Her expression drooped with defeat. “I’m hopeless, honestly!”

Pursuing someone wasn’t something she was naturally good at — she tended toward introversion and had always found it difficult. The only time she really got to interact with him was during group discussions in class, and every time she worked up the nerve to try to say something to Qu Handong, either the timing was off or someone else jumped in and interrupted. After going back and forth like that for over a month, her progress was essentially zero.

The one saving grace was another classmate in the group — a guy with a lively, outgoing personality, who acted like a little announcement system, repeating every task the teacher assigned in the group chat and reminding everyone not to forget. He was genuinely kind.

Whenever no one else was talking in the chat, it was usually just her and him going back and forth, working through their group project.

Yu Qin pulled up their chat history and spread it out in front of Ning Sui, on the verge of tears: “Sui babe, looking at this — is there any hope?”

Their conversation frequency was, honestly, not very high. They exchanged a few words after class each week, and it was always Yu Qin who started the conversation. Qu Handong’s responses weren’t cold exactly, but they weren’t particularly warm either.

Qin: 【Was the problem the teacher talked about today in the textbook?】

Qu Handong: 【Yes】

Qu Handong: 【Check p27 — there’s a detailed solution there】

Five minutes later, he sent a photo: 【This one】

Qin: 【Oh, great, I’ll take a look!】

Qin: 【Thanks!】

Qu Handong: 【No problem】

Half an hour later, Yu Qin tried again: 【Do you have time this Saturday?】

Qu Handong: 【Not sure yet】

Qu Handong: 【Is something going on?】

Qin: 【Nothing really, I just wanted to ask about when we’re doing our group discussion — Yang Qi was asking in the group chat, and I noticed you hadn’t replied yet 😊】

After a while, he replied: 【Oh】

Qu Handong: 【Sorry, I missed that】

Qu Handong: 【Just replied — Saturday afternoon works for me】

Qin: 【Oh, good, okay!】

Qu Handong: 【Mm 👌】

But even in these simple exchanges, Yu Qin found that she couldn’t seem to stop noticing things she liked about him.

Qu Handong took his responsibilities seriously. When it came to group work, he would take on as much as he could handle on his own — and whenever she talked to him, even in the smallest details, he always followed through. Every message accounted for, nothing left hanging.

Yu Qin twisted her fingers together. “There’s one thing about him that I just…”

Ning Sui: “Mm?”

It was a very small detail, really.

At the end of every conversation, he was always the one to close it out. A sticker, an “mm,” whatever it was — Qu Handong never let her message be the last one left unanswered.

Yu Qin lay back across her bed with a faint flush of embarrassment. Some feeling she couldn’t name was blooming and expanding in her chest — aching and full all at once. She pulled her blanket over her face and gave up completely, laughing at herself under her breath: “Tell me honestly — am I hopeless too?”

Well. The heart wants what the heart wants.

“The problem right now is just that you two don’t have enough time together.”

Ning Sui worked to come up with a plan. “What if we organize something specifically — I’ll ask Xie Yichen to invite Qu Handong, and create a chance for things to happen?”

Yu Qin peeked out from beneath her blanket with both eyes: “You think that would actually work?”

“You won’t know until you try.”

Winter break had just started and no one had left for home yet, so Ning Sui planned a day outing: hiking the Great Wall in the morning, a movie in the evening. To make it less obvious, she deliberately included a few “extra” people for camouflage — Hu Ke’er, Lin Shuyu, Liu Chang, and his girlfriend.

She even set up a group chat in advance. Lin Shuyu, not quite understanding what was going on, immediately started making noise: 【I’m fine with the movie, but what exactly is this Great Wall thing about?】

Kuge Lin: 【This plan is…】

Before he’d even finished typing, a dark profile picture appeared.

Xie Yichen: 【My girlfriend planned it. Do you have a problem with that?】

Lin Shuyu quietly deleted what he’d said and sent a replacement: 【Movie sounds great! Great Wall is incredible exercise, let’s go! 😎】

The remaining members of the group chat went very quiet and minded their own business.

Ning Sui genuinely thought it would be good exercise, and assumed winter break would mean fewer tourists than summer. But when they arrived, she realized she had miscalculated.

The crowd was thinner, sure — but there had been snow the past few days that hadn’t fully melted, and the path was slippery enough that you had to stay extremely careful to avoid falling.

It was Ning Sui’s first time meeting Liu Chang’s girlfriend. She came across as sharp and clearly had an engineering sensibility about her — methodical and precise when she talked. The two of them were carefully picking their way along the path, holding each other for support, already deep in a conversation about something computer science-related. Hu Ke’er caught enough of it to confirm immediately that this was not a world she would be entering, and since she couldn’t very well stay attached to Ning Sui with Xie Yichen right there, she resigned herself to walking alongside Lin Shuyu in mutual suffering.

Yu Qin fell half a step behind, picking her way carefully, keeping close to Ning Sui’s other side.

Her eyes drifted, almost on their own, to the tall figure not far ahead. She was still nervous, if she was honest. When Ning Sui had set up the group chat, she hadn’t specifically mentioned to Qu Handong who would be coming — and yet he had messaged her directly, asking whether she was going too.

Yu Qin had been surprised and pleased at once: 【Yes! I’ll be there!】

She had even pretended she hadn’t known he was coming: 【Are you going too?】

Qu Handong had said: 【Yeah】

Qin: 【Then — see you tomorrow?】

Qu Handong: 【See you tomorrow】

But now that they were actually here, she found that his manner seemed to have slipped back to what it was in class — he hadn’t said a word to her, and just walked ahead with the group, occasionally exchanging a few words with Lin Shuyu and the others.

Her heart, which had been tentatively lifted, came quietly back down. Yu Qin let out a small, soft laugh to herself, and thought: yesterday I was definitely reading into things.

The beginning of the path was relatively flat. Further on, it grew steep — and between the accumulated patches of snow still clinging to the surface, going uphill or downhill both required close attention and careful, careful steps.

After a while, several of the girls were starting to feel the strain in their legs.

Liu Chang and his girlfriend had essentially accepted defeat from the start — they were not the athletic type, and they drifted along at the very back of the group like fish floating on the surface of water, telling everyone to go ahead without waiting.

Ning Sui stayed close beside Xie Yichen, walking together. He kept a careful watch on the path the entire time, holding her hand, his steps steady and grounded.

At one particularly steep incline, Ning Sui felt the path grow even more treacherous. Even on solid ground, her feet seemed to want to slide. Her center of gravity shifted. She watched Xie Yichen navigate the stone steps ahead with calm ease, while her own grip was weakening and she was starting to slip backward, the gap between them growing by the second.

She felt a surge of quiet alarm in her chest, not even having time to cry out, when he simply reached back and, in one motion, lifted her by the backs of both legs and set her up onto the flat surface above.

Ning Sui: “…”

She turned to look back at him below. He was laughing quietly, dark eyes sharp and a little reckless.

The sun was brilliant. The snow on the ground reflected light in soft, shimmering waves of gold. The wind was cool against Ning Sui’s cheek, but something in her chest stayed warm for a long time after.

From here, you could already see the rolling peaks stretching into the distance. The sun hung at the edge of the sky, bold and red. Standing high up, the view spread out endlessly — the ancient wall stretching across the ridgeline, the sky a deep clear blue, the frost-covered trees a deep, somber green. The contrast of warm and cool colors hit something in her chest with a kind of awe.

Xie Yichen climbed up in a few easy strides, came to stand beside her, and the two of them looked out at the distance together.

“It’s so beautiful,” Ning Sui said quietly, unable to stop herself. “Sunrise here must be stunning.”

The thought brought back the time in Yunnan, standing together on the Cang Mountains, looking out at the view below. The resonance she had felt then — that trembling recognition of something vast and true.

The natural world’s beauty. There really were no words that came close.

If she could — she wanted to go with him into a bigger world. To see so much more of what this life had to offer.

“Mm.” Xie Yichen tilted up the corner of his mouth. “Then next time, we’ll come back and do it.”

Light fell, landing inside his eyes. What was usually deep black had become something closer to amber. Ning Sui stole a quiet look at him for a moment, and her own lips curved upward without her meaning them to, and she nodded: “Okay.”

The two of them leaned against the wall, looking at each other, that gaze so thick it could almost be wrung out — Hu Ke’er and the others had just turned around to take a photo and had caught the entire thing from beginning to end. They tilted their faces to the sky and sighed in collective suffering: “Save us —”

Lin Shuyu: “Save us…”

Hu Ke’er: “Why did Zhang Yuge have to go back to Huai’an so early?! Why is it only the two of us who have to suffer through this?!”

Lin Shuyu: “I have absolutely no idea! That chapter fish, he always disappears when you need him most!”

Hu Ke’er climbed and gasped, feeling very much like an animal, sighing between breaths.

Then something occurred to her, and her eyes sharpened. “Kuge Lin — you’ve been single all this time too, haven’t you?”

Lin Shuyu, looking resigned: “Mm.”

Hu Ke’er: “Why?”

Lin Shuyu: “…Good question.”

He genuinely didn’t know. He wanted to be in a relationship too!

He’d heard somewhere that if you turned on Bluetooth on the subway and your phone was the same model as someone else’s, a girl might send you a file via AirDrop as a way of starting a conversation. Lin Shuyu had been truly desperate for a while, and in a moment of equal desperation and curiosity, he had actually tried it. When he got off the train, he was shocked to discover it had actually worked — three AirDrop notifications were waiting for him.

Lin Shuyu opened them with eager hope.

【Looking to get fit, handsome? Special discount, 25% off with me~ 😘】

Followed by a photo of a very muscular man posing in front of a mirror, flexing a bicep and winking.

— What?!

“Honestly, when you watch other people be in a relationship, it looks amazing. But actually living it yourself — might not be as great as you think. It’s like that saying about the grass being greener. The people inside want to get out, the people outside want to get in.” Lin Shuyu tried to talk himself into a better state of mind. “Doesn’t that make you feel a little better?”

Hu Ke’er considered this seriously.

“No, not really. Thank you though.”

Lin Shuyu: “…”

The path was long. The sun was bright overhead, and the snow on the ground caught and scattered the light. The group’s energy was starting to wear thin, and their pace slowed.

Liu Chang and his girlfriend seemed to have made some breakthrough on the problem they’d been discussing, and both of their expressions had brightened considerably — they finally picked up their pace and moved forward, no longer lagging behind at the very back.

Now it was Yu Qin who had fallen behind.

She genuinely could not go on — her legs were aching and soft, her breathing unsteady. Her eyes kept straying ahead to that tall figure.

Qu Handong had been walking beside Lin Shuyu most of the time, hands in his pockets. Every so often he happened to glance back, and their eyes would meet — but she could never tell what that meant. Yu Qin stared at his back and felt, quietly, a small dull ache of disappointment.

Without noticing, she lost her focus.

The steps here were different from the earlier section — narrower and steeper, packed closer together, and still dusted with patches of snow. It was easy to misjudge the depth. Yu Qin, one moment not paying attention, missed a step entirely. Her balance went instantly, and she stumbled forward without any warning.

Her startled sound made everyone turn.

Ning Sui was less than ten meters away and immediately turned back. “Are you okay?!”

That fall had been sharp. Her ankle had twisted hard with the impact, and a wave of intense pain shot through it. Yu Qin’s eyes were stinging with tears she was fighting to keep back, but she still said: “I’m fine, really —”

Ning Sui crouched beside her, looking carefully at the injured spot. “Can you walk?”

Hu Ke’er hurried over: “Try moving your leg — how does it feel?”

Yu Qin tried to shift it, and the pain immediately intensified — she couldn’t help pulling in a sharp, quiet breath.

Ning Sui could see her brow furrowed deeply and thought: this really didn’t look okay. With the path in this condition, if she put weight on it and fell again, it would get much worse.

But they were stuck partway along the route, and getting back down quickly wasn’t going to be easy. The worry was real.

Yu Qin hugged her knees, her face pale, and felt terrible for holding everyone up — she could see Ning Sui’s expression. “It’s alright — you all go ahead. I’ll sit here for a bit and make my way down slowly.”

Xie Yichen said: “That’s not a good idea. Someone should stay with you.”

Ning Sui agreed completely. “He’s right. We can’t leave you here alone.”

Hu Ke’er looked around. “Is there anyone who can help hold her up — steadier that way.”

Of the male members of the group, the only ones without girlfriends were Lin Shuyu and Qu Handong.

Lin Shuyu hesitated a moment and looked at her. “I could help —”

Before he could finish, the person who had been quiet until now suddenly spoke: “I’ll carry her.”

Yu Qin looked up, her lashes giving a small flutter.

Qu Handong had lowered his gaze. His eyes had settled on her.

Everyone exchanged glances. This was probably the most practical solution — and Qu Handong offered nothing further, just turned his back to her and bent down. “Can you get on?”

His shoulders were broad. The back of his head was freshly cut, the black hair cropped short — short and dense, but soft-looking.

Yu Qin’s heart was beating very fast. Slowly, she reached out and placed her fingertips gently on his shoulder.

She couldn’t really move her legs, and was still thinking about how she was going to get onto his back — when Qu Handong turned his head slightly, pulled her arm a little further over, and looped it around his neck. Then, without giving her any time to react, he hooked his arms under her knees and lifted her.

It happened so fast she felt the ground disappear beneath her. Yu Qin instinctively tightened her hold, afraid of falling. Qu Handong stood fully upright and gave a little bounce to adjust her weight, then turned his head slightly and asked quietly: “Is this okay?”

Yu Qin was too nervous to speak. “It — it’s fine.”

Qu Handong: “Mm.”

The others had the presence of mind to walk ahead or fall behind — anywhere that wasn’t directly beside the two of them.

In this position, Yu Qin had no choice but to hold on around his neck. The path was slippery and hard to navigate, so to keep the balance steady, she stayed pressed close to him — but she didn’t dare rest her chin on his shoulder. Her whole body had gone a little stiff.

And the view from this height — the continuous ridges of mountains and the Great Wall winding into the distance rising up from the horizon — the cold air brushing past her cheek, her arm accidentally grazing the side of his hair, softer than she had imagined.

The closeness was overwhelming. Yu Qin held her breath, feeling like she couldn’t quite get enough air.

He spoke without warning: “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

She thought she had misheard. “Sorry?”

Qu Handong paused. His voice was low: “Does it hurt a lot?”

She had stopped thinking about the pain entirely. Yu Qin sat very still for a moment, before the sensation seemed to come back to her, as if she was only now remembering the ankle.

She said quietly: “…No.”

A silence hung between them. Yu Qin bit her lip, searching for something to say. “Am I heavy? This must be — really tiring for you.”

Qu Handong said nothing, pressing steadily upward along the steps, each one slow but firm. His chest rose and fell in a gentle rhythm. “…No.”

Yu Qin held on around his neck, and she could clearly feel his warmth, and the pulse at the back of his neck, faint and rapid from the exertion — and from this distance, she could hear what felt like a shared breath, deep and quick. Something of that heat seemed to seep into her as well, into her arms and hands. She became aware of her own heartbeat: heavy, urgent, muffled.

She kept thinking — it’s too loud. He’s so close. Could he actually hear it?

In her confusion, she thought about putting a little distance between them, but her eyes kept drifting back to the back of his head.

His hair — very dark.

She shifted, just slightly, to the side.

A strip of color, very obvious: red.

Her heartbeat tripped, then surged all at once, louder than before, like it might leap out of her chest. She was flustered and she didn’t know what to do with herself.

He — why were his ears red?

Did that mean —

No. Yu Qin immediately pushed the thought away.

They were this close together. He was carrying her, and it was hard work.

And the weather was cold.

It was completely normal for that to happen. Wasn’t it?

While Yu Qin was still in the middle of these scattered thoughts, the person in front of her spoke again. Through the wind, against the rise and fall of his breathing: “You and Yang Qi — are you close?”

Yang Qi was the talkative, cheerful classmate from the cross-discipline group. Yu Qin stilled for a moment, unsure where that had come from.

She shook her head instinctively. “Not…not especially?”

They were just groupmates.

They only talked about the project.

Not particularly close at all.

Qu Handong’s voice was slightly muffled by the wind: “Mm.”

A moment of quiet passed. Yu Qin curled her fingers around her own arms, pressing them a little tighter.

She racked her mind for something to say. “In your program — do most people who go further have to study abroad?”

He paused slightly. “Not necessarily. Depends.”

“And…you? What are you doing?”

“I’m staying at Qing University for my PhD.”

Yu Qin let out a quiet, internal breath of relief.

Then she heard him ask, in return: “What about you?”

“I’m staying too. I’ll do my master’s at Jing University.”

“Mm.”

He stopped talking again.

The wind swept past her face, and her heart was like something spinning loose in an open field, the heat of it ebbing away from where it had been blazing at first. Yu Qin felt as though she was trying to climb an impossible wall.

She thought about the very beginning — after the amusement park, how he had sent her messages often, sharing things from his day, trying to find things they had in common. His interest had been clear.

And she — she had probably still been stuck in the aftermath of the relationships before, not ready to let someone new in. What she showed him must have come across as cold and indifferent.

Now that the positions had reversed, Yu Qin suddenly understood, for the first time, what he must have felt back then.

She felt a genuine regret for how she had treated him — for making him feel that way.

Something quietly ached in her chest.

Yu Qin stared at the path ahead, thinking: after this, there probably won’t be another chance like this — another reason to be this close to him.

— She didn’t want to let it go.

She drew in a slow, quiet breath. Then, tightening her arms just a little, she gathered her courage. She leaned forward, rested her chin on his shoulder, and pressed herself softly against his back.

She felt Qu Handong’s footsteps stop.

“What happened?” she asked from behind him, voice gone tense.

“Nothing.”

Qu Handong’s voice was low and muffled.

Liu Chang and his girlfriend, who had been quietly watching the two of them from behind, exchanged a glance, nudging each other and whispering.

“What’s going on with Qu Handong?”

“You still haven’t figured it out?” His girlfriend covered her mouth and laughed, keeping her voice down. “After all this time — it seems like there’s finally a girl who can actually get through to him.”