The moonlight was dim, and the streetlamps ahead flickered and sputtered, casting two cramped, elongated shadows on the ground.

“Don’t move.”

A familiar voice came from above. Warm hands wrapped around her back, and this time he truly spoke right next to her ear: “I’m telling you, you can’t be like this.”

The embrace was too forceful. At such close range, Fang Zhuo caught the lingering scent of beer on Yan Lie. She didn’t know if it was her imagination, but there was also a faint sweetness to it.

The scent of alcohol combined with his shallow, rough breathing seemed to have a numbing effect on her nerves. So Fang Zhuo didn’t push him away. Instead, in a way that she herself could barely believe, she drew a deep breath of his scent.

She heard Yan Lie’s mildly accusatory tone and thought this naive man was being completely unreasonable — clearly upset that she had just declined his two-cent phone call.

She was about to bring up old grievances and show Yan Lie just how generous she could be, when she heard him say: “You can’t do favors for someone and just act like Lei Feng, you know? If I do something for you, I’d want to call you thirty times a day and make declarations to you over and over again.”

Fang Zhuo’s ability to grasp the main point was somewhat lacking: “Who’s doing favors for you? And after three calls, I won’t be picking up anymore.”

“Then tell me — why did you come to see me?”

Yan Lie raised his gaze, looking past Fang Zhuo’s shoulder at a straight road stretching ahead. Two parallel lines extended endlessly into the darkness beyond the reach of the streetlamps, the distance between them steadily narrowing until they converged or turned at some unknown point.

He smiled and asked, “Are you tilting toward me?”

Fang Zhuo said skeptically, “Are you the Earth’s gravitational pull?”

She added: “Are you drunk? You’re acting strange tonight.”

What an utterly unromantic person.

“You’re so straightforward.” Yan Lie said loudly, “Fang Zhuo, you’re way too straightforward!”

This was a completely baseless accusation. If she were a boy, she would almost be moved by her own actions.

Fang Zhuo pushed him away. As she turned, she touched her ear — she could feel heat radiating from it.

The two of them wandered down the street in the evening breeze, minds blank, maintaining a distance of a few paces between them. Their long shadows intertwined and joined together.

Yan Lie took out his phone, connected to the internet, and used the last of his battery to read through the Q messages Fang Zhuo had left him.

He asked, “When did you get here?”

Fang Zhuo said vaguely, “Today.”

Yan Lie pressed further, “What time today?”

Fang Zhuo refused to answer and walked ahead with her head down.

Yan Lie scrolled up through their chat history, confirmed that Fang Zhuo had said around nine in the morning that she was about to set off, and asked: “You left home at nine-thirty. Getting to City C shouldn’t take this long. You asked about where we were having dinner and watching a movie — were you originally planning to go there and wait for me?”

This person had actually come to pick a fight. Fang Zhuo found it unbelievable.

She quickened her pace slightly, but Yan Lie seemed completely oblivious and, without a shred of tact, asked: “Did you get lost?”

Everything he said was something she didn’t want to hear.

Yan Lie persisted relentlessly: “You know you have no sense of direction, don’t you? Why didn’t you let me come pick you up when you came to City C? What if you’d gotten lost?”

“Of course I know!” Fang Zhuo said. “It’s precisely because I didn’t want you to call me directionally challenged.” Yan Lie couldn’t understand it: “Did you think I would laugh at you?”

Fang Zhuo stopped, turned around, and looked at him with an aggrieved expression — her face plainly written with the words “that’s exactly what you’re doing right now.”

The light from his phone screen dimmed. Yan Lie moved a finger, and it lit up again.

He looked at the person before him, wondering if someone like Fang Zhuo ever let a spark of romance flare up inside her, even occasionally.

Though the pretext for the surprise was rather childish and the whole process rather absurd, it was a very pure expression of her affection.

Yan Lie scrolled through his phone, then ran over and held out a screenshot of a chat log for her to see.

“I asked you before whether you’d make any special exceptions of generosity for a future boyfriend, and you very coldly said you wouldn’t.”

Fang Zhuo said seriously, “What are you doing right now? Are you trying to discuss the profound mysteries of human behavioral science with me?”

Yan Lie was quite smug, with a hint of showing off: “Spending a whole day and a thousand yuan to see someone you weren’t even sure you’d get to see — wouldn’t that count as a special exception of special exceptions?”

“It wasn’t a thousand.” Fang Zhuo paused, then seemed to relent and said, “I won’t make a special exception for you. You are my special exception. Is that acceptable?”

Yan Lie assumed an attentive, receptive expression and shamelessly demanded: “Leave out the last part and say it again.”

Fang Zhuo’s patience only lasted until the moment he opened his mouth. She turned and walked away again.

“So this is your special exception?” Yan Lie said, following behind her. “Hey? Fang Zhuo, where’s your generosity?”

“I am very generous!” Fang Zhuo said. “No one else would use fifty percent of their remaining assets just to buy a train ticket to come see you once.”

Yan Lie said, “Why not a hundred percent?”

“You want too much!” Fang Zhuo said. “I refuse to become that foolish! And don’t be so willful!”

Yan Lie burst out laughing, jogged to catch up with her, and took her hand from behind.

Where their skin touched felt a little sticky, even though Fang Zhuo’s skin was cool. Yan Lie gripped her tightly and tugged her toward himself, and only then did Fang Zhuo’s pace slow.

Yan Lie said, “Let me take you to eat — the restaurant I mentioned to you this morning. They’re open from the afternoon until midnight, so they should still be open.”

Fang Zhuo suddenly remembered and said, “My cake is still at the reception office. If it stays till tomorrow, it’ll go bad.”

She had been about to suggest letting Wei Xi and the others pick it up and share it, since it was just a small cake, but Yan Lie had already said swiftly: “Wait here, I’ll go get it now!”

A quarter of an hour later, Yan Lie came jogging back carefully with the cake box cradled in his arms. By the time he reached Fang Zhuo’s side, a layer of sweat had already formed on him.

He stopped in front of her, endlessly amused and struggling to hold back a grin — clearly quite childish yet insisting on putting on the air of a responsible adult, pretending to be a sensible household manager as he instructed her: “Don’t buy cakes from this shop next time. Small and expensive — a waste of money.” Fang Zhuo pulled two paper napkins from her bag and handed them to him to wipe his sweat.

Yan Lie lowered his head and didn’t take them. Instead, he freed one hand, held Fang Zhuo’s hand, and directed her to carefully wipe his face for him. When it was done, he said in a particularly ingratiating way: “Thank you, girlfriend.”

Fang Zhuo felt as though her brain at that moment was a shattered computer screen — no matter how she tried to piece it together, she could not recall the moment she had agreed to be his girlfriend.

How could anyone be so shamelessly presumptuous?

“Come on, you must be starving — you haven’t eaten all day.” Yan Lie gave her absolutely no opportunity to argue back. “It’s just ahead. I’m treating you to the seafood that’s been rated the most authentic in the area by local reviewers.”

Both of their phones were almost dead. After entering the restaurant, Yan Lie borrowed two portable chargers and finally managed to get some battery back into their phones.

Fang Zhuo had barely been to the bathroom since getting off the high-speed train, and hadn’t eaten either. Once they found a good seat, she asked a staff member if she could use the restroom.

Even deep in the night, the restaurant was still packed with customers.

The fragrant aroma of stir-fried seafood drifted over from the neighboring table. The sounds of cheerful drinking and lively conversation filled the air. A red sign stood prominently at the entrance, and warm yellow light shone through the glass, illuminating the small path outside.

Yan Lie finished ordering on his phone and took photos of everything around him, then leaned both hands on the table, grinning to himself like a fool.

He opened his social media feed, typed a few lines, decided he wasn’t satisfied with them, and deleted it all. After thinking for a long time without coming up with anything literary-sounding, he temporarily gave up, placed the cake box on the table, and set it right in the center.

Just as the restaurant began serving their dishes, Fang Zhuo’s phone rang. Yan Lie glanced at the screen and saw the caller was Wei Xi. Knowing it was probably a callback on a missed call, he casually answered it and said cheerfully: “Hello?”

Wei Xi on the other end was stunned. After two seconds she asked, “Yan Lie?”

Yan Lie said, “It’s me.”

“Sorry to bother you,” Wei Xi said quickly. “I understand — is she taking a shower right now?”

Yan Lie held back a laugh and said, “She is indeed in the bathroom at the moment. Is there something you’d like to—”

“Stop doing that! You’re laying it on thick, and I’m definitely not your rival in love!” Wei Xi said. “So you two aren’t coming back tonight?”

Yan Lie reined in his playfulness and said, “We’re having dinner out right now and will head back later.”

Wei Xi’s heart could barely contain itself. In an exaggeratedly affected tone she said: “Oh my, what are you eating? It’s fine, you don’t need to rush back — this isn’t school, nobody’s clocking in every day. We’re all adults here…”

Before she could finish, a voice came from Yan Lie’s side: “Fang Zhuo, over here.”

Wei Xi hurriedly fell silent.

Fang Zhuo gave a slight nod, and as she sat down, said quietly: “I knew the way — it’s only one shop in size. It’s not like I would have gotten confused.”

Yan Lie smiled and said, “Oh really?”

His expression was practically written all over with disbelief. Fang Zhuo ignored it and asked, “Whose call was it?”

Yan Lie handed the phone over.

The voice on the other end had already shifted to an entirely different register, sweet and delicate: “Fang Zhuo, you’re in City C! Why didn’t you tell us sooner? The KTV was too loud and I missed your call. Good thing Yan Lie ran into you. Finish your meal and come back early — I’ve got a present ready for you! Kisses!”

After a few affectionate parting words, Wei Xi hung up.

Yan Lie asked eagerly, “Can I eat the cake now?”

Fang Zhuo: “Go ahead.”

Yan Lie had ordered quite a few dishes, more than Fang Zhuo could finish. In the end, along with the remaining half of the cake, everything was packed up and sent home as a late-night snack for everyone else.

By the time they came out of the restaurant, it was almost eleven o’clock.

The smoky bustle had faded from the air, and the moonlight felt clear and clean.

Summer nights are always especially lively — even the passing breeze and the cicadas in the trees seem to want to join in.

Yan Lie walked along the lit stretch of road, his humming drifting between one unidentifiable tune after another, until he landed on the March of the Volunteers, which Fang Zhuo recognized immediately.

Fang Zhuo couldn’t help herself: “What’s gotten into you?”

Yan Lie said, “Be gentler when you speak.”

“Fine.” Fang Zhuo asked, “Are you done laughing yet?”

Yan Lie put on a slightly more serious face, stepped forward, and planted himself squarely in Fang Zhuo’s path. He touched the back of his neck and asked, “Zhuozhuo, when you went to sweep Auntie’s grave today, did you say anything to her?”

“No,” Fang Zhuo said. “There was nothing much to say. I just told her everything was going along fine.”

Yan Lie was standing right in the path of the wind. The loose strands of hair at his forehead were blown back. With an expression of careful, deliberate gravity — the look of someone who had thought this through thoroughly — he slowly began to speak: “There’s something I’ve been thinking about.”

Fang Zhuo thought to herself: you certainly have a lot of thoughts.

Yan Lie said, “You see — Auntie passed away on the very day I was born…”

He took a step forward, just touching the tips of Fang Zhuo’s shoes with his own.

“I’m not talking about fate or anything like that…”

Fang Zhuo’s gaze traveled upward from his shoes until she lifted her head and settled on his face — close, impossibly close, and maddeningly handsome.

“But at the very moment the world lost someone who loved you… I happened to appear…”

Yan Lie lowered his head and pressed his forehead against hers.

“Don’t you see? So it has to be me. It can only be me…”

He had raised the subject, and yet he didn’t spell it out clearly. In the end, he simply gazed at her in silence. As if on purpose, his long, thick lashes were nearly brushing against her face. Perhaps, like Fang Zhuo, he was holding his breath — yet warmth still came in waves.

In her dizzied state, Fang Zhuo thought to herself: this person’s words were always so dangerously persuasive. He had a way of forcibly connecting all manner of unrelated things in order to prove that he was her one and only answer.

Not with grandiose promises about the future, but with a shamelessly twisted chain of reasoning. And somehow it was always beautiful, always something you wanted to hear — something impossible to refuse.

Yan Lie had just about reached the limit of his restraint. He leaned down slightly, kissed her, then raised his hand and drew her into his arms.