After the dinner ended, Jing Qichi was surrounded by others as he escorted the law school girl back to her dormitory.

“Today,” he told her on the way, “the team misunderstood. They said the one shouting was my friend. Oh, you’ve met her – the one who was standing beside me earlier.”

This was the main reason he agreed to walk her back – Jing Qichi just wanted to clarify the facts.

“Oh.” The girl suddenly seemed disappointed. “Have you known each other long?”

“Yes.”

“But…” The girl stopped walking. “Are you just friends?”

Jing Qichi stopped too, hesitating on how to answer this question.

If he had to define their current relationship, he and Chen Huaner were indeed just friends. Although he had already started considering how to end this kind of relationship.

Because he increasingly and more intensely sensed that only Chen Huaner could break through the deadlocks that trapped him one after another. She was an irreplaceable presence in his life.

Couples walking hand in hand passed by them, even the evening breeze carried a hint of sweetness. The law school girl had some alcohol in her system, and the boy before her stood silently in place. Under the streetlight, their shadows appeared intimately close – everything seemed just right. She suddenly had a bold idea, and in the next second, put that thought into action-

She grabbed Jing Qichi’s arm, using it as leverage to rise on her tiptoes, almost – her nose even brushed against his face.

But Jing Qichi dodged.

Quickly, resolutely, without any room for negotiation, he turned his head away, avoiding the kiss she had actively offered.

Then he stepped half a step to the side to create distance, and said, “I have someone I like.”

Emboldened by alcohol, the girl suddenly became stubborn, “But you don’t have a girlfriend right now.”

Jing Qichi ignored the question, adjusting his bag strap, “I should head back.”

“Hey,” she refused to give up and grabbed him, “Do you even know my name?”

They had only exchanged phone numbers for contact, and every time he called, Jing Qichi would start with the same phrase – “Hello, who is this?”

She just wanted to know the answer.

“Sorry.” Jing Qichi said, then shook his head.

Only Qiu Yang was in the dormitory, turning around with a face mask on when he heard the door open.

He removed the mask and crumpled it into a ball, wiping his neck with the remaining essence while saying, “The others went to the internet cafe for an all-nighter, want to join?”

“No.” Jing Qichi dropped his bag and collapsed spread-eagle on Qiu Yang’s bed, but before the other could complain, he suddenly sat up and frantically went to check his equipment bag. He finally saw what Huaner had given him – a set of protective gear.

“Could you at least wash up before sitting on my bed? Being on the bottom bunk doesn’t mean I owe you guys anything.” Qiu Yang had a speak-your-mind personality – once he said it, he felt better and forgot about it. Just like now, he cheerfully moved his laptop to sit beside Jing Qichi, ignoring what happened seconds ago. “I looked at your little website. My opinion? Sell it.”

The “little website” he referred to was the Notes Alliance that Jing Qichi had established last summer. After the trading boom passed, Jing Qichi revamped the site to add forum functionality, with the primary task being getting Song Cong to write a comprehensive study methodology article. After the article was circulated by academic directors from various Tianhe schools, the click-through rate soared. Song Cong answered questions using a real-name account, and after one round, registered users increased dramatically, directly driving up the entire forum’s activity. They positioned their target users as Tianhe middle school students, still focusing on functionality. During winter break, Jing Qichi studied some similar websites and revamped again to follow trends, adding overseas study sections and introducing information links for large-scale event volunteer recruitment and international organization junior observer positions. The current Notes Alliance has evolved into a comprehensive interactive platform.

Although just taking the first step, Jing Qichi already felt overwhelmed – Song Cong had heavy academic tasks, and no matter how smart he was, it was difficult to spare more energy for another venture. As for himself, things were manageable now, but as they progressed, there would be more professional courses and theoretical concepts requiring in-depth study – this was an unavoidable reality. So when the head of an independent educational institution in Tianhe sent purchase intentions through the backend last month, Jing Qichi considered it.

As for why he listened to Qiu Yang’s opinion – he had only recently learned that Qiu Yang, who looked least like someone from their major in the whole department, came from a computer competition background. Although he had dropped out midway, although the person himself never mentioned this, Qiu Yang indeed wasn’t all style and no substance. Someone who could win scholarships while obsessing over skincare and fashion every day must have some real skills.

“First is energy, which you must have thought about or you wouldn’t ask me,” Qiu Yang turned the screen toward him, “Second is server expansion, it’s doable, but are you going to pay for it yourself in the future? Third is security, this theme and this plugin, I checked, they both have security vulnerabilities, maintenance workload is huge. Finally and most importantly, where’s the main profit point of this website? Just these few pinned ads in the forum? If you don’t want to keep doing charity work, sell it while someone’s willing to buy. Although I completely understand how it feels when something you worked hard to create might become something else in others’ hands, brother, out with the old, in with the new…”

“Alright, I’ll contact them tomorrow to sell it.” Jing Qichi answered quickly.

This response surprised Qiu Yang. He closed his laptop, “Thought you’d be more reluctant to let go, I even prepared a whole speech to convince you.”

“Thanks.” Jing Qichi solemnly patted his roommate’s shoulder. He had taken all of Qiu Yang’s words to heart – they were completely reasonable and aligned with his thoughts. Sometimes asking for opinions was just seeking confirmation.

About that hesitation of handing over something built with such effort – Jing Qichi looked at the items in the paper bag, he had no energy to dwell on it now.

During the match, during an intense match where everyone only cared about the result, Chen Huaner had left alone to buy him a set of protective gear.

She had never asked and didn’t even know if he still needed them now, probably all she remembered was that during the surgery, Song’s father had mentioned he needed to wear protective gear when playing football in the future.

Jing Qichi felt something slowly settling in his heart.

“Stop sitting on my bed, how dirty.” Qiu Yang, seeing the matter resolved, pushed him away. “Go take a shower.”

Jing Qichi stood dazedly for a while, then pulled up a chair to sit in front of him again, “Qiu Yang, there’s another thing I need your opinion on.”

“Oh?”

“You know my friend Chen Huaner, right?”

Two girls from the next dormitory came to report to Huaner right after their dinner, bursting in while shouting, “Huaner, Huaner, breaking news!”

“You guys must be drunk,” Huang Lu peeked down from the upper bunk, “she’s in the bathroom.”

One girl took a deep breath, “Lu’er, we witnessed an iconic moment…”

“Ah,” the other girl urgently cut in, “Little Jing and that law school girl kissed!”

Huang Lu sat up immediately, involuntarily glancing toward the bathroom before climbing down from the upper bunk. She made a “shush” gesture, lowering her voice, “You saw it?”

The girls finally realized there were others in the room wearing headphones and studying, thinking Huang Lu was reminding them of this. They first made an apologetic “sorry” gesture, then told her in very small voices, “Absolutely true. We were the last group leaving and happened to run into it, the law school girl initiated it.”

“Then what?”

“Who’d dare to keep watching? We quickly snuck away.” The speaking girl patted her chest in mock regret, “Just like that, Little Jing’s taken.”

“Alright, stop gossiping about other people’s business.” Huang Lu smiled, changing the subject, “Did you sort out your matters? Don’t go out as four and come back exactly as four.”

The girls giggled and teased, “Lu’er, your business has become an industry chain.”

The sound of flushing came from the bathroom, and Huang Lu pushed them out, “Go, go, go, back to your own nest, don’t come back without results.”

When Huaner came out of the bathroom, the dormitory had returned to quiet. Hui Xin hadn’t returned from her library work, Qiu Li sat cross-legged on her bed like a Buddha statue studying with headphones on, and Huang Lu rushed to the bathroom with her nightgown, “I’m dying to go, you bathroom tyrant.”

She smiled at this and sat down at her desk to continue reading.

After turning a few pages, a message came on her phone, “I’m on the bridge, come down in ten minutes.”

It was from Jing Qichi.

Huaner put her phone face down on the desk, went to the balcony to take down dried clothes, showered and organized her wardrobe and then climbed into bed with her books.

Hui Xin returned just before curfew, immediately tugging at Huaner’s blanket as she entered, “Did Little Jing come looking for you? I think I saw him when I was on the school bus, cycling back at full speed.”

Huaner skipped the question, “Why are you back so late today?”

“A batch of new books came in, just finished organizing them.” Hui Xin patted the bed rail, “In the future, you two shouldn’t forget about time while chatting, who knows if he can make it back at this hour.”

“Mm.” Huaner responded, then said, “Boss, can you hand me my phone?”

Hui Xin passed up the phone, massaging her sore shoulders, “Ah, so tired.”

Lights-out time arrived, and the sounds in the corridor diminished from strong to weak, like the final movement of a piano piece ending in silence.

Hui Xin made light snoring sounds, and Qiu Li first said “I should record this,” then added “Never mind, everyone’s tired. If I snore, you’re not allowed to record me either.”

The notice for her major transfer had already come through, and she was focusing on preparing for the exam at the end of June.

“Won’t record, won’t record,” Huang Lu laughed softly, “Not like we haven’t heard it before.”

Qiu Li didn’t respond, soon breathing evenly in sleep.

Huang Lu then asked Huaner, “Earlier… did you hear it in the bathroom?”

Breathing mixed with occasional snores, they crashed into the night like the tide rising and falling, quick and traceless.

“Yes,” Huaner answered honestly.

Precisely because she heard, she deliberately didn’t reply to Jing Qichi’s message for the first time.

That’s why she didn’t go downstairs, that’s why he came and left.

“Ah,” Huang Lu sighed, “I didn’t want you to know because…”

“I understand.”

Being together every day, countless heart-to-heart night talks, plus Huang Lu being naturally perceptive, of course she understood her feelings – though they had never been acknowledged.

“I’d heard the law school girl was pursuing Little Jing for a while, she’s quite open about it but she is indeed beautiful,” Huang Lu paused, “Well, the student union has all kinds of gossip.”

“Oh.”

“You and Little Jing never thought about it?”

There was one time, a brief and cursory phone call, a probe that almost crossed the line.

If today counted – she didn’t know why he wanted to meet, just heard what the girls from next door said, and instinctively believed Jing Qichi must want to explain something – then that made it twice.

Both ended without development.

Liking someone should be pure. Like purification in chemistry, filtering out all impurities layer by layer until obtaining a completely uncontaminated experimental sample.

But they couldn’t achieve purification. Jing Qichi’s feelings contained too much gratitude and dependence – in his hardest days, she pulled him up, dragging and pulling him forward step by step, because there was no one else besides him, because being needed to be led to being liked. Meanwhile, Huaner’s feelings contained responsibility so heavy it almost crushed her – her heart would race when she couldn’t find him, panic would set in when calls wouldn’t connect, watching him and staying by his side without taking a step away, fearing he would give up or something would happen to him – that was the heavy responsibility that frightened her just thinking about it.

The only blame lay in how complicated these feelings were. Chen Huaner wasn’t clear about herself, wasn’t clear about him, and she thought Jing Qichi wasn’t clear about himself either.

They couldn’t try again.

Emotions grown together were too precious, precious to the point where trying again risked losing everything. Huaner didn’t dare, and their current relationship with Jing Qichi proved he didn’t dare either.

So let them each move forward separately.

Someone admiring him and liking him, Jing Qichi had the right to try; someday in the future, she would also meet her true love, and live happily ever after. And they would still be comrades who walked out of Hospital District Three’s family quarters together, good friends who would do their utmost to help each other in difficulties, mature adults who had once given their true hearts and could look back on the past with calm detachment.

Huaner thought this was the unspoken consensus between her and Jing Qichi.

“Perhaps, we did think about it.”

Huang Lu was already asleep, and no one responded to her answer.

From this day on, Huaner rarely initiated contact with Jing Qichi. Regarding that night’s events, Huaner told him the next day she hadn’t felt well and went to bed early, mentioning nothing else, and Jing Qichi didn’t ask further. It wasn’t exactly deliberate distancing – she would answer calls and reply to messages, but after professional courses began, they rarely went to the main campus, and unless arranged in advance, the chance of running into each other was minimal. She just treated him like Song Cong, having their joys and sorrows in faraway places, and the better the opposite-sex friends were, the more they needed to observe the increasingly clear boundaries that came with age. Occasionally she would hear news – he was selected as the college team’s captain, he was getting close to some girl, and a disheveled life photo posted by his roommate sparked admiration across the campus network. To these, Huaner would usually just laugh a couple of times, saving them as talking points for when the three of them caught up during breaks. Spring went and came again, wild geese flew away and returned, she explored all the old traditional snack shops in the city, finished calculus and started organic chemistry experiments, ranked top in grades and was classified as part of the academic elite, bid farewell to Qiu Li who transferred to finance to pursue her dream and welcomed new roommates, and finally adapted to the city’s ferry transportation and long, cold, snowless winters.

The peaceful daily routine had no major upheavals. As people grow up and mature, their degree of self-reliance far exceeds their reliance on others. Helping became a debt of gratitude, with clear boundaries of give and take, everyone observing the law of conservation in borrowing and returning, not daring to help too much or give too little. The curtain of the adult world slowly rose, people on stage clumsily and anxiously learning their steps, too many rules and too fast progress, sometimes forgetting others and sometimes forgetting themselves.

If there was anything major to mention, it would be that Chen Huaner fell in love.