Before the term began, Yan Lie had gotten his hair cut. Whether it was at his own specific request or because the stylist had been heavy-handed, his hair had been cut very short — especially the back of his head, which was shaved down to barely a stubble.
Even so, Yan Lie’s face didn’t look bad with this style. If anything, there was a freshness about it.
When Fang Zhuo arrived, he was standing in the shade of a small grove, running his hand over his short hair — clearly still not quite used to it.
He looked so different that Fang Zhuo’s very first words when she saw him were: “Did you change your barber?”
Yan Lie pulled down his mask. The question made him self-conscious, and he couldn’t help touching his hair again, saying: “The place I usually go to isn’t open yet. The guy who cuts my hair went back to his hometown, so I just picked somewhere random.”
He asked tentatively: “Does it look bad?”
Fang Zhuo glanced at it and said: “No, it looks good.”
There was a small path through the grove that led to a flower bed further inside.
Not far off, a young man stood with a sheaf of printed papers tucked under one arm. He fished a cigarette from his pocket, stuck it between his lips, lit it, then drew a long drag — and with a strangely hollow look in his eyes, stood beneath a tree staring out at the sky.
Fang Zhuo caught the faint drift of cigarette smoke and glanced in his direction, getting momentarily lost in the thin white trail curling up into the air.
Yan Lie followed her gaze and asked: “Do you want to smoke?”
Fang Zhuo looked away and said: “Just curious.” The man had smoked with a kind of world-weary air about him. Though that might have been the thesis doing most of the work.
Yan Lie said: “Wait a moment.”
Before Fang Zhuo could ask what he meant, Yan Lie had already jogged over to the young man, said something to him, took a cigarette from him, lit it with a lighter, and came running back.
Fang Zhuo’s mouth fell slightly open in disbelief. When he got close, she instinctively reached for the cigarette in his hand.
Yan Lie pulled his hand back behind him, keeping it out of her reach, and then — in full view of Fang Zhuo’s complete incomprehension — took a drag himself. He suppressed a cough and lowered his head to kiss her.
His mouth held no real tobacco taste, but the lit cigarette nearby made its presence known with an almost aggressive intensity.
Amid Fang Zhuo’s five senses, one moment there was the pungent and biting smell of smoke, the next there was the faint sweetness from Yan Lie’s lips. A portion of her reason was still tangled in the surprise from a moment ago. It was as if a barrel of water had been tipped inside her head — the liquid was soft, but it kept crashing in violent waves.
Only when even her body temperature had been raised by the breath he exhaled did Yan Lie step back. He used his fingertip to wipe at her damp lips.
He held the cigarette between two fingers, tapped off the ash, tilted his head, and asked: “Do you still want to try?”
Fang Zhuo’s mind had slipped into a lag; it took some time before she could find the right words to respond. She was just parting her lips to speak when she heard the young man nearby let out a loud curse: “What the—!”
He came striding over, held his hand out to Yan Lie, and said: “Forget giving it back. Give it back now!”
Yan Lie smiled and stubbed out the cigarette butt, placing it in his outstretched hand.
The young man’s gaze moved from the cigarette in his palm to Yan Lie’s face, went back and forth twice, his heart in ruins. He let out a huff and turned away in indignation.
Once he was gone, Fang Zhuo was gathering herself to say something to scold Yan Lie, but he showed no sign of awareness — he came forward, leaned into her, buried his head in the crook of her shoulder, drew a long breath, and wrapped his arms around her.
Fang Zhuo waited a few seconds, let him hold her, then patted him on the back and asked: “Had enough yet?”
Yan Lie shifted his gaze sideways, caught a glimpse of Fang Zhuo’s slightly flushed ear in his peripheral vision, pressed a kiss to it, and said with a laugh: “How can you be so heartless?”
Fang Zhuo slanted him a look and said nothing.
This person had spent several months under home quarantine and come out having learned how to be a scoundrel.
After the dinner hour, the foot traffic on the main path thinned, and the small grove also grew still.
The temperature after sunset still carried a slight chill. Yan Lie’s palms were warm as he led her to a nearby wooden bench and sat down beside her.
Fang Zhuo thought at a very inopportune moment about tomorrow’s exam, and felt that spending precious pre-exam time sitting in silence was an almost unbearably extravagant luxury. After struggling for quite some time, she decided to invite Yan Lie to study with her. She was still working out her opening line when she heard him say: “Oh, right — I made a game while I was home. Can you help me test it?”
Fang Zhuo hesitated and said: “Me? I don’t really play games. I don’t know your standards, and I’m not sure I can even finish it.”
“It’s fine — it’s a single-player game, not very hard. Just play around with it.” Yan Lie said, “I’ll send it to your email. Take a look when you get back.”
Fang Zhuo could only say: “All right.”
“Eager to get back, aren’t you?” Yan Lie knew her well, and smiled: “Go on then.”
Yan Lie hugged her one last time and walked her to the entrance of the dormitory building.
Fang Zhuo used her key to open the security door. Yu Qingjiang looked up from her book and was about to ask where she’d been — but one glance at her expression, and she understood completely. She closed her mouth without a word.
The room was quiet. Everyone was rustling through their book pages, with no time for idle chatter.
Yu Qingjiang had originally been sitting at the desk across from Fang Zhuo, copying a roommate’s notes. Now that Fang Zhuo was back, she came to seek her help instead.
Fang Zhuo cleared off her desk, pulled out her subject notes from a row of workbooks, and pointed out the key sections to her.
Yu Qingjiang simply dragged her chair over and took up a small corner beside her, copying furiously.
Fang Zhuo opened her notebook, logged into her email, cleared out the junk mail, and found that Yan Lie’s game was already there.
The game package was indeed not large — the setup clearly wouldn’t be very complicated. Worried she wouldn’t know how to install it, he had also attached a foolproof installation guide.
Fang Zhuo finished downloading and launched the game following Yan Lie’s instructions.
Yu Qingjiang hadn’t meant to peep, but she caught a glimpse and couldn’t help asking curiously: “What’s this?”
Fang Zhuo urged her: “Hurry up and review.”
Yu Qingjiang, powerless in her position, reined in her basic human instincts and bowed her head in suffering.
The plug-in finished loading.
It was a 2D single-player game with graphics that leaned slightly toward a pixel style. The main screen, at full size, showed a plain white room with a small figure in a skirt standing in the middle.
Compared to the rough background, the little character model was clearly far more thoughtfully crafted — so crisp and detailed it seemed to belong to an entirely different dimension. The only downside was that it could barely move.
Fang Zhuo guided the character around the room, and realized it wasn’t her imagination. The map layout was identical to Yan Lie’s home.
Though the art direction was rough, the details were genuinely well done. When Fang Zhuo tested it, even cabinet doors and such could actually be opened.
She was still exploring the finer points when the upper-left corner suddenly flashed with a mission prompt.
[Please help the player safely pass through the quarantine period at home!]
[Today it’s raining outside. You’re sitting in your room watching a horror movie, when suddenly the whole world goes dark and you’re startled. What do you do?]
Fang Zhuo was at a loss for words. What on earth was this?
If the television was still on and the lights went out, it was obviously just the bulb that had burned out — what was there to do except replace it?
She searched the interface for a while and finally found what appeared to be a mobile phone on the bedside table. As soon as she tapped it, a food delivery list appeared, and she smoothly ordered a new light bulb through it.
The game time jumped to the next day. The lighting grew brighter. Fang Zhuo stood in front of the light fixture and tried to replace it — but no matter which dialogue option she chose, she couldn’t make it work.
Just as Fang Zhuo began to wonder if she’d missed a step and was thinking of searching online for a complete light-bulb-replacement tutorial, a gold-rimmed notification box appeared out of nowhere, clearly terrified she might miss it — its thick border practically crowding the entire screen.
[You seem to be struggling a bit. Would you like to call for powerful outside help? Lielie’s assistance? Payment: just one bowl of rice.]
Fang Zhuo: “…”
Call. Call. Call.
Good heavens.
She perfunctorily clicked “confirm,” and a matchstick figure wearing a red cape came leaping down from the sky, blurred through a mosaic effect in front of the light fixture, then announced that the task was complete.
[You see Lielie off, let out a long sigh of relief, and sit down on the sofa for a rest — only to have the coffee table split apart beneath you, giving you another fright. What should you do?]
— Was she a kangaroo? Always jumping in alarm?
— At this point, she should be slamming the mouse.
Fang Zhuo could not shake the suspicion that Yan Lie had made this game to mess with her.
Yu Qingjiang snuck a couple of glances from the side, lost interest, and said with a cold laugh: “This game obviously has a hidden agenda. Bestie — is this really how straight boys try to win girls over these days? This is quite an approach to showing boyfriend material.”
Fang Zhuo found it hard to argue. But she had plenty of patience, and she kept working through her single-player missions.
In the exploration that followed, Fang Zhuo called on the powerful outside help — the Lielie matchstick figure — multiple times. And each time, it appeared with tremendous enthusiasm, and in the time afterward helped her fix the table, fix the computer, handle a surprise visit from a family elder, made an elaborate dinner… like a perfect companion.
Or more precisely: for the in-game character — not for her.
Yan Lie with his cooking, forget “elaborate” — even “safely cooked” might be asking too much. Fang Zhuo wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.
At the end of the game, the system asked her to choose: would she keep this all-capable matchstick figure?
Fang Zhuo deliberately chose “No.” The matchstick figure immediately broke into wailing sobs on the screen, tears soaking his cape until he couldn’t fly away, leaving him with no choice but to stay home.
Fang Zhuo found Yan Lie’s childlike logic genuinely endearing. And with that, the game indicated it was over.
The system produced one final main mission.
[Please tell us — what was the biggest takeaway from completing this game? (Note: results will be fed back to the game’s creator. Please answer earnestly!)]
Fang Zhuo smiled. She typed a line into the input box.
[Yan Lie is an idiot.]
A large red cross immediately flashed up on the screen.
[Incorrect!]
Fang Zhuo typed:
[This game is full of misleading flattery. Yan Lie can’t cook at all.]
The red light grew even brighter.
[Incorrect! You have one final chance to answer!]
Fang Zhuo stopped, propped her chin in her hand, and thought seriously.
Yu Qingjiang had watched every last frame of the ending sequence without meaning to, and by then it was too late to regret it. She felt as though a clot of stagnant blood was lodged in her chest, blocking the air completely. She blurted out: “Are you kidding me?! What did a dog ever do to deserve this?!”
Fang Zhuo raised a hand to cover her face, her heart swaying like a leaf stirred by a night breeze in the treetops.
A moment later, her phone buzzed twice.
Lord Lie Name: Yan Lie can cook now. [Serious]
Lord Lie Name: Yan Lie has also self-taught a variety of life skills and can take good care of his girlfriend.
Little Sun: [Oh]
Little Sun: [Pressing close to your face]