Eight words, short and weighty, landing on her heart and shaking Yunque with a sudden, uncontrollable dizziness.

She stared at Lu Rangchen, her heart going numb.

An almost wordless silence stretched between them for several seconds.

Lu Rangchen squeezed the hand that was still holding hers, his gaze unblinking on her face — a touch of playful mischief in his eyes. “That obvious and you still didn’t notice?”

“……”

The night was still and tender.

Moonlight fell softly over him. And at the very tip of Yunque’s heart, something stirred — like a young branch that had just pushed through winter soil in early spring, trembling very lightly.

Lu Rangchen’s eyes grew deeper.

His gaze seared at her until her heartbeat faltered, and she looked away. “Do you want to hear the truth?”

Lu Rangchen raised an eyebrow, his voice easy. “Go ahead.”

She was quiet for two seconds. Yunque dropped her gaze, her long lashes trembling lightly. “I never felt like you were being serious about me.”

Not in the past, and not now either.

She had never had the courage to believe that Lu Rangchen’s feelings toward her were anything purely and simply like love.

She didn’t like that kind of uncertainty.

Sometimes she would rather run away than let herself be held captive by longings that had no ground beneath them.

Yet it was obvious.

She was already captive. Completely.

As if reading something in the surface of her apparently calm eyes, Lu Rangchen let out a low, husky laugh. “So you kept me at arm’s length.”

“Wasn’t it you who kept me at arm’s length?”

Yunque raised her eyes and looked at him — a clear, quiet, steady gaze.

Lu Rangchen narrowed his eyes, seeming quite unconvinced. “When did I ever keep you at arm’s length? Tell me then.”

“……”

Yunque felt disinclined to say a word.

She pressed her lips together and made to leave, only for Lu Rangchen to pull her back with even greater force.

Her back hit the wall again.

Not painful in the least.

The harder she struggled, the stronger his grip.

After two wordless seconds facing each other down, Yunque glared at him with irritation written across her face. “……Sometimes I find you genuinely annoying.”

He had pushed her this far and that’s what came out.

Lu Rangchen genuinely laughed.

He curved his lips in that manner of his — insufferable and yet completely irresistible — and leaned in to murmur: “Being annoyed won’t help.”

“……”

“I just like you. That’s it.”

Yunque was so thoroughly derailed by his shameless words that she went scarlet from ear to face.

She kicked him.

Lu Rangchen didn’t react with even a flicker of irritation. He just leaned there in that blasé, careless way of his, let her do it, and steered the conversation right back. “You haven’t explained yourself yet about today, and here you are throwing a tantrum first.”

He was not wrong.

If not for what had happened, they would have been the ones eating dinner together tonight.

How could Yunque not understand that?

But she still looked away and was stubbornly unyielding. “There’s nothing to explain — just had dinner with a friend.”

The moment he saw that stubborn streak of hers, Lu Rangchen got intrigued.

He let out a mildly jealous sound. “An ordinary friend?”

Yunque said nothing.

Lu Rangchen gave a small, deliberate nod. “No need to explain — I’ll ask myself then.”

Yunque was caught off guard, swallowing a sudden rise of panic.

Lu Rangchen said it with complete seriousness.

He even pulled out his phone right in front of her and went straight to Xu Linda’s contact.

Yunque pressed her hand over his immediately.

Her soft, warm palm rested briefly over his wrist, then withdrew. Lu Rangchen looked up at her with lazy amusement. “What?”

“Ordinary friend.”

Yunque had no interest in dancing around it with him — and she was genuinely a little exasperated. “I went to see him specifically to make things clear.”

Lu Rangchen’s expression turned subdued.

Picturing the defeated look on Zhao Qijia’s face when he had walked out of the restaurant, Lu Rangchen, never one to let a spectacle go to waste, gave a quiet laugh. “Seems like things got made pretty clear indeed.”

Yunque: “……”

She was discovering that this person could be genuinely rotten sometimes.

Her thoughts turned to the woman in the elaborate outfit who had been standing outside the barbecue restaurant with Lu Rangchen.

She hadn’t even managed to ask before Lu Rangchen had already opened his mouth.

His gaze was steady and clear, and every word he said seemed to exert a pull on her without her knowing it. “What about you — don’t you have questions?”

Something in her chest knocked without warning.

The moment she looked up, she walked into Lu Rangchen’s sharp, narrow eyes.

A fairly calm exchange of looks.

The emotions beneath the surface, though, surged like a tide.

Many questions flickered through her mind — and yet she didn’t know why, but in the end Yunque only asked the one.

She said: “Lu Rangchen — will you marry that woman someday?”

What came back was a sudden silence.

Even the cicadas around them seemed to cooperate, their sound tapering off considerably.

As if the question had taken him by surprise, Lu Rangchen’s expression softened just slightly, his emotions unreadable. “Who told you that?”

Yunque looked at him. “I only need you to answer yes or no.”

If the answer was yes — or even a moment’s hesitation — she would extinguish every thought on the spot.

But in the very next second, Lu Rangchen gave her an answer that was so decisive it seemed to require no deliberation whatsoever: “No.”

Hearing those two syllables.

It was as if seawater flooded Yunque’s chest, and she was suddenly, completely overwhelmed by it — and the eyes that had been reddened by the wind began to sting and turn warm.

As if afraid his conviction hadn’t come through clearly enough, Lu Rangchen looked at her with patient, warm steadiness, as though he might burn a hole straight through her face. “In the future, I’ll only marry the woman I love.”

He said marry with great deliberateness.

A stubbornness that was impossible to name.

As Yunque listened, her fingers curled involuntarily tight. Before she could find anything to say, Lu Rangchen leaned in close — a suggestive, pressing feeling sweeping in alongside him.

Breathing in his scent, Yunque’s heartbeat went haywire.

For a split second, she thought Lu Rangchen was going to kiss her again.

But Lu Rangchen only brought his gaze down level with hers, then lifted an eyebrow in that unhurried, deliberate, teasing way. “Reassured now?”

The tone — lightly teasing, lightly intimate — yet the way he looked at her was an indulgent softness that wasn’t quite any single thing.

In the night, Yunque’s face went quietly red.

This time she gave him no room to “pull her back” — she pushed him away and went straight through the restaurant’s back door.

Lu Rangchen straightened up unhurriedly, watched the girl’s slightly hurried retreat, and gave a low, reckless laugh before lifting his feet to follow.

That evening’s meal was ultimately paid for by Lu Rangchen.

While he was at the register, Yunque sat in her seat packing up.

All four dishes had barely been touched. She hated waste, and decided to pack them up and see if she and Liang Tian could share them as a late-night snack.

Before she had finished packing, Lu Rangchen was already done paying.

Yunque was quite resigned to it. “Do you have so much money you don’t know what to do with it?”

“Plenty to do with it.”

Lu Rangchen pocketed his hands, glanced over at her, and said, with an air of double meaning: “Not spending it all on you, am I.”

The server overheard and stifled a laugh.

Teasing Yunque, she said: what a catch, miss — handsome and generous with you.

Yunque’s lips gave a small twitch.

She thought — he really is generous, going out of his way to settle the bill even when she was eating with someone else.

Just had to be involved somehow.

She didn’t know whether to find it funny or embarrassing.

She lowered her gaze and denied it. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

There was a slight self-consciousness in the way she said it.

And the denial wasn’t very loud either.

Lu Rangchen shot her a meaningful sidelong look, suddenly laughed, then turned and took the packed leftovers, carrying them naturally.

Yunque glanced over, decided not to fight him for it, and walked toward the door.

A few steps out, she heard Lu Rangchen’s leisurely, relaxed voice from behind — “Throwing a tantrum, are we — I suppose I’d better coax her.”

The server joined in, “Oh, young couples — the more they bicker the more they’re into each other.”

Lu Rangchen let out a low, wicked laugh.

She didn’t hear what he said quietly after that — she walked out, ears burning red.

The restaurant was two streets from Jingda.

Lu Rangchen’s Land Rover was parked right outside.

The kind of conspicuous model that drew eyes wherever it was left. The moment Yunque came out, her gaze went to it without thinking.

Her steps slowed just slightly.

If she was remembering correctly, the car had moved positions from half an hour ago.

Just as she was working this out, Lu Rangchen came up from behind, pulled out a set of keys, and the car’s lights flashed.

Yunque turned her head and found Lu Rangchen looking back at her sideways. “Don’t recognize it?”

He meant the car.

Yunque shook her head. “I recognize it.”

Lu Rangchen lifted his chin. “Then get in.”

Yunque had no intention of going over. Her clear eyes looked straight at him. “What about your friend?”

Her tone was level, with no identifiable emotion in it.

Lu Rangchen seemed to have only just remembered there was such a person, and raised his brow slightly. “Lin Zhi, you mean?”

This was the first time Yunque had heard that name.

She hadn’t even had time to ask the follow-up question before Lu Rangchen said, offhandedly: “Dropped her off before I came to you.”

Completely unbothered.

He opened the car door and casually tossed the bag of packed leftovers onto the back seat, not the least bit concerned about oil staining the upholstery.

Yunque hesitated for a moment.

Lu Rangchen, however, was entirely unconcerned. He leaned one hand on the car door and looked down at her, patiently and with a small curve at the corner of his mouth. “Anything else you want to ask, you can ask in the car.”

At this point.

There didn’t seem to be much reason to refuse.

Two streets was a half-hour walk, after all.

And there were things that Yunque genuinely needed to understand — only once she understood them could she decide whether she should move forward or pull back.

She yielded and walked over, tried to open the back door to sit behind, and Lu Rangchen reached out and pulled her right back.

Tall people have correspondingly long arms.

Yunque’s jacket-covered arm was caught in his grasp with effortless ease, and half her body lurched into Lu Rangchen — as if he were half-embracing her.

At this distance, he had only to lower his head slightly to catch the fragrance of her hair.

Yunque barely stifled a sound.

Lu Rangchen’s throat moved. He let out a half-exasperated, half-amused sound. “Do I look like a rideshare driver?”

Yunque: “……”

She gently extricated herself from Lu Rangchen’s hold, and with no other option, got into the passenger seat from the other side.

Once Lu Rangchen was in the car, he caught her lips moving.

She was grumbling — looking as though she was about to say something rude.

Lu Rangchen found that stubborn, contrary streak of hers all the more reason to tease. He decided to walk right into trouble — and just like that, with the corner of his mouth curved up, one hand on the steering wheel, the other reaching over to take Yunque’s hand.

October in the capital — the air was beginning to cool.

Her hand was noticeably colder than a moment ago.

Lu Rangchen lowered his gaze and, in the most natural way imaginable, wrapped his hand around hers, rubbing gently with an indulgent warmth.

The moment the heat came through.

Yunque’s heartbeat seemed to skip a step, and her shoulders drew up involuntarily with tension.

She turned to look at Lu Rangchen, lit by the amber of the headlights.

At that moment, Lu Rangchen — somewhere between boyhood and manhood — had eyes that were deep and dense, rich with an allure that seemed born into him. He looked at her without reserve.

As if whatever both of them had been holding back was, in this moment, no longer held back.

Her thoughts drifted, unmoored.

Yunque drew a quiet breath and forced herself to be rational. “Lu Rangchen, you’re not my boyfriend yet.”

A remarkably direct statement.

The kind that, before, would have cut without drawing blood.

But now, Lu Rangchen was not at all unsettled by it.

He gave an almost imperceptible laugh, lowered his eyelids with that characteristic unhurried calm, and murmured quietly: “Think of it as a preview.”

“……”

Lu Rangchen tilted an eyebrow with a teasing ease, his argument sound and unhurried: “You’d have to try it first to know if I’m worth it or not.”