“Just shut up already,” Qian Wei felt like her entire body was on fire. “How can you have absolutely no filter like this? I’m a girl, how can you say something like that in front of a girl without any shame at all!”
“Oh please. Last time I accidentally flipped through that romance novel of yours, it was way more explicit than this—the male lead did it seven times in one night, and you were still reading it with total enthusiasm.”
If only he hadn’t brought it up—now that Qian Chuan mentioned it, Qian Wei’s mind was flooded with all sorts of inappropriate phrases, and thinking back to Lu Xun’s various reactions just now, she suddenly felt like her whole self was falling apart. She didn’t have the energy to deal with any of this anymore, and before Lu Xun made it back to the room, she fled the scene in a hurry.
Qian Wei scrambled back to her own room, shut the door, and planned to hide out and not come back downstairs. But just as her emotions had barely started to settle, before long she heard Qian Chuan banging on the door.
“Come on out, let’s play cards together!” His booming voice was as loud as ever. “Me, Lu Xun, and Mo Zixin are all set up. Three people’s a bit few—come join us, San Guo Sha is way more fun with four.”
In 2009, mobile games like Honor of Kings or Onmyoji hadn’t come out yet, and card games like San Guo Sha were still what was popular on campus. Qian Wei remembered Qian Chuan had gone through quite a phase of obsession with it a while back, and sure enough, tonight he was determined to play. Since Qian Wei wouldn’t come out, he just kept banging on her door.
Under the assault of his ear-splitting racket, Qian Wei thought it over and finally decided to grit her teeth and face the music head-on. After all, even if she avoided Lu Xun today, they’d inevitably cross paths again eventually, and in the future they’d even be working together as boss and employee. Besides, no matter how awkward things got, couldn’t she just thicken her skin and get through it?
By the time Qian Wei went downstairs, Lu Xun, Qian Chuan, and Mo Zixin were already waiting in the room. Mo Zixin sat by the small tea table, and Qian Chuan was, naturally, attentively pouring her tea, while Lu Xun seemed rather detached from it all. He’d changed out of that sleep shirt from earlier, now dressed casually but not carelessly; even backlit as he was, his skin still looked strikingly pale, and his expression was calm and indifferent, as if the person who’d fiercely pinned Qian Wei down earlier had never existed at all. But whether it was Qian Wei’s imagination or not, whenever she looked at him, she couldn’t help but feel that his eyelashes trembled slightly each time, no longer as perfectly still and composed as before.
“Come on, come on!”
Qian Chuan enthusiastically waved Qian Wei over to sit down, and the four of them started playing San Guo Sha together.
After one round ended, Mo Zixin excused herself to go to the bathroom, and Qian Chuan seized the opportunity to slip outside to buy Mo Zixin a milk tea, leaving only Lu Xun and Qian Wei in the room.
Even though she’d just had some water, Qian Wei suddenly felt her mouth going dry. Never before had being alone with Lu Xun felt so difficult. And Lu Xun, even with only the two of them in the room, kept his head turned to the side the whole time, not looking at Qian Wei at all.
“I really wasn’t doing that on purpose earlier.”
In the midst of this dead-silent awkwardness, Qian Wei spoke up, and the moment the words left her mouth, she wished she could smack herself—of all the topics, why bring that one up. For some reason, whenever she was around Lu Xun, she just couldn’t seem to think straight, couldn’t control her emotions properly. She couldn’t quite understand it herself—she was practically thirty on the inside, yet in front of a Lu Xun who was still in his twenties, she always ended up flustered and clumsy. Was it because she knew he was her future boss, making her nervous around him?
Lu Xun pressed his lips together and said nothing, just glanced at Qian Wei once before picking up a can of beer from the table and cleanly popping the tab open.
He was her future boss after all—she couldn’t just let things stay this awkward forever!
Qian Wei psyched herself up and forced herself to explain: “Really, this isn’t my fault. The blanket you were under was Qian Chuan’s, and the sheet pattern matched mine exactly—it’s the one we always bring with us when we travel together. So I really thought it was Qian Chuan under there, I genuinely had no idea it would be you…”
“So it’s not your fault at all, it’s entirely my own fault?”
After Lu Xun finished speaking, he gave Qian Wei a fleeting glance, sweeping over her almost dismissively before turning his head away again.
“This… that’s not what I meant either, I just don’t understand how you ended up in Qian Chuan’s bed…”
Lu Xun seemed to have decided to ignore Qian Wei entirely. Left with no choice, Qian Wei could only sit there quietly with him, the air thick with awkwardness.
Qian Wei gazed at Lu Xun’s profile, admiring how beautiful his lines and features were, and her thoughts began to wander along with the contours of his face. She ventured, “Could it be… you’re actually into Qian Chuan’s type? Is that why you crawled into his bed?”
This time, Lu Xun finally turned his whole body to face her directly. Qian Wei tried hard to look away, but couldn’t help sneaking a glance downward, and the memory of what happened earlier came flooding back, making her even more embarrassed.
“You saw pretty clearly earlier whether I like women or men, didn’t you?”
Lu Xun’s tone on this was practically seething through gritted teeth, each word in “saw pretty clearly” delivered with deliberate emphasis.
Qian Wei, blushing, played dumb: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but as for liking men or women, it’s actually not always so clear-cut. There are people who can like both women and men, they’re bisexual; and there are people who think of themselves as strictly straight, iron-clad straight men, but really they just haven’t met the right guy yet—once they do, they can turn faster than anyone, especially with someone as good-looking as you. You know, pure gold is actually very soft and bendable, and by the same logic, exceptionally handsome, exceptionally refined men tend to bend easily too—that’s just how it is with things that are excellent or pure to the extreme.” Qian Wei spread her hands. “Otherwise I really can’t understand why you ended up in Qian Chuan’s bed.”
“He spilled cola all over both our sheets, and I wanted to sleep, so he gave me his spare sheet.” Lu Xun stayed silent for a long moment before finally giving this answer. He glanced at Qian Wei. “Why are you so eager for me to like men? What benefit would that even bring you?”
“No, no, no, now that you explain it that way, everything makes sense. Why would I ever want you to like men? If you didn’t like women, that would honestly be a huge loss for all womankind!” Qian Wei flattered him shamelessly. “Now that the truth’s out, this whole thing definitely isn’t my fault, and it’s not yours either—it’s all that little brat Qian Chuan’s fault. I really wasn’t doing it on purpose, it was just an innocent misunderstanding.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Lu Xun frowned, his expression looking somewhat flustered, and as if to cover up that awkwardness, he took a hard swig of his beer. “Let’s just pretend this never happened.”
“Here you go, two hot milk teas for the ladies!”
Just as things were getting awkward again, Qian Chuan came back in, and right on his heels, Mo Zixin returned too. The four of them played a few more rounds of San Guo Sha, and gradually the others who’d gone to see the fireflies started trickling back too. Qian Wei finally used Liu Shiyun as an excuse to slip away.
“That firefly forest was seriously amazing, Qian Wei, you really missed out by not coming. Look at the photos I took, they’re gorgeous.”
“Oh, and get this—once we got to the firefly forest, Li Zhiqiang, from the Truth or Dare game earlier, confessed his feelings, so romantic! But that couple from the literature school got into some kind of fight over something—they went in all lovey-dovey and came back already broken up. Hey, Qian Wei, are you even listening? Give me some kind of reaction!”
“My mosquito bites are itching, it’s distracting me from everything else.”
Liu Shiyun muttered under her breath, “There weren’t even any mosquitoes.”
Qian Wei was distracted and only half-listening to Liu Shiyun’s gossip. Even though Lu Xun had told her to treat that whole incident as if it never happened, for some reason, the harder you tried to forget something, the more impossible it became to actually forget—right up until she fell asleep, her mind was still filled with the image of Lu Xun pinning her hands down with that fierce look in his eyes.
That night, Qian Wei woke up out of a nightmare about Lu Xun threatening to withhold her year-end bonus, combined with an unbearable full-body itch. She had no idea what was going on—maybe the mosquitoes in this forest park were poisonous or something—but Qian Wei had never itched this badly in her life, and worse, there seemed to be no part of her body that wasn’t itchy; scratching only made it itch even more.
Groggily, Qian Wei stumbled to the bathroom, turned on the light, and looked—and that one look was enough to jolt her wide awake instantly.
This was no mosquito bite—this was clearly a skin allergy. Qian Wei’s arms and neck were covered in patches of red rash, and when she couldn’t resist scratching them, the rash only got worse.
“Liu Shiyun! Liu Shiyun!”
Qian Wei rushed back to the room, trying to wake up Liu Shiyun, but her best friend just rolled over and mumbled, “Save me a piece of the soy-braised pork ribs!” before falling right back into a deep, snoring sleep. No matter how much Qian Wei called out, there was no response.
With no other option, Qian Wei went downstairs and started banging on Qian Chuan’s door.
“Qian Chuan, open the door!”
Unfortunately, no one answered from inside. It seemed both occupants of the room were sound asleep. Qian Wei called out a few more times with still no response, and with her whole body unbearably itchy, she scratched at herself while raising her voice louder.
“Open up, open up, police, checking the room, cracking down on illegal activity!”
Still no answer from the door.
Qian Wei took another deep breath and, straining her voice, shouted: “Special massage service, full night package, 888, don’t miss this deal, step right up!”
With a click, the door was finally yanked open forcefully this time.
“Qian Chuan, seriously, all it takes is an offer of a night package for 888 to wake you up, what is going on in that filthy little mind of yours at your age.”
But the moment Qian Wei finished speaking and looked up, she immediately regretted it. Standing before her wasn’t Qian Chuan at all—it was a sleepy-eyed Lu Xun in his pajamas.
“Where’s Qian Chuan?” Facing Lu Xun, Qian Wei instinctively grew a little timid. “I—I’m looking for Qian Chuan…”
Lu Xun, woken up mid-sleep, naturally didn’t look too pleased. He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Qian Wei, you’d better have a good reason for banging on doors in the middle of the night.”
“I’m having an allergic reaction! It’s unbearably itchy!” Qian Wei, eager to prove her innocence, quickly pulled up one pant leg. “Look, it’s covered in red rash. I came to bang on the door to get Qian Chuan to take me to the hospital—Liu Shiyun had a few drinks tonight and I can’t wake her up no matter what, and this forest park is so remote, I figured it’d be safer to have a guy come with me to the hospital in the middle of the night…” She peeked around Lu Xun, trying to look past him. “So, um, could you please go wake up Qian Chuan for me?”
“Wait here.” Lu Xun said, then shut the door with a bang again.
After a moment, the door reopened, and Qian Wei looked up at the person standing there and froze.
“Lu Xun?”
The person standing at the door wasn’t Qian Chuan—it was still Lu Xun. He’d already changed out of his pajamas and was now wearing a simple T-shirt and slim-fit jeans, all traces of sleepiness gone from his eyes. He glanced at Qian Wei. “Aren’t we going? Weren’t you saying you’re too itchy to stand it?”
“It really is itchy, but…”
“So what are you standing around for? Let’s go, I’ll take you to the hospital.”
Qian Wei followed him instinctively but was still a bit confused. “You just needed to wake up Qian Chuan for me, you don’t need to take me yourself.”
“Qian Chuan drank five more beers after you left, then sang and danced by himself for half an hour before finally agreeing to go to sleep. He’s completely out cold now.”
“That’s fine, don’t feel bad for him, just kick him awake.”
“Qian Wei.”
“Hm?”
Lu Xun glanced at her. “One more word and I’m turning back.”
“I’ll be quiet, I’ll be quiet.”
Before she quite realized it, Qian Wei found herself already out of the treehouse, following Lu Xun. She watched as he called a car, then followed him into it. The nearest hospital was about three kilometers away; once they arrived, Lu Xun told Qian Wei to wait in the lobby while he efficiently handled the registration and got her a medical record book himself, then took her to the emergency department. Fortunately, this particular hospital was known for its dermatology and hematology departments, so as part of maintaining that specialty, even the emergency room had a dermatologist on duty.
In the middle of the night, despite the allergic reaction, Qian Wei felt a bit dazed. Especially once they reached the hospital, watching the crowds coming and going through the hospital lobby, their faces marked with illness and fatigue, and then looking at Lu Xun walking ahead of her, in that moment, Qian Wei genuinely felt at ease. Lu Xun was always, unmistakably, Lu Xun—someone you could always trust, as if simply following him meant you never had to think for yourself about anything. This was probably just something inherent to who he was; whether now, or in the distant future, being with him always made Qian Wei want to lean on him.
The dermatology emergency department was on the first floor. Qian Wei followed Lu Xun to the entrance and was startled by the line of people waiting outside the department. As a nighttime emergency service, most departments wouldn’t usually see this many patients, yet the dermatology department was different—there were actually a dozen or so people, mostly young, chattering noisily and jostling each other, with three of them who clearly knew each other seemingly on the verge of some kind of conflict.
“Tell me yourself, just how many times have you cheated on me out there! Why else would I have caught this? Why else would I be here at this hour getting checked at the dermatology emergency room?! Isn’t it because you were messing around with her and caught it from her! Is this woman really worth breaking up with me over?”
“What do you mean ‘caught it from you’! It was your boyfriend who lied to me and said he was single, that’s why I started dating him! I was perfectly fine on my own, and now I’m being called a homewrecker and I got infected with this too—where am I supposed to go to get justice for that? Why don’t you ask your trash of a boyfriend where he actually caught this from?”
“It was obviously you who seduced him first! He was such an honest guy before, there’s no way he’d…”
“Keep your trash boyfriend, I don’t want him—and I’m going to sue him too!”
Qian Wei was still puzzling over this when she noticed an older woman standing behind her in line, sighing heavily: “So many people at the emergency room in the middle of the night, and these young people these days, their relationships are such a mess! At this rate, when will it ever be my turn! These young people, why can’t they just stay decent, getting sick like this at such a young age—society really has lost all its morals these days.” As she finished, she shot a rather meaningful glance at Qian Wei and Lu Xun.
Qian Wei nudged Lu Xun with her elbow. “Why don’t you go downstairs first? I saw a 24-hour convenience store outside the hospital—go grab a hot drink there, don’t stay here.”
Lu Xun looked a bit surprised but declined her suggestion. “It’s fine, I’ll wait here.”
Qian Wei leaned in close to Lu Xun’s ear and lowered her voice. “I really think you’d be better off waiting at the convenience store. This department’s full name is actually Dermatology and Venereology—which means both skin conditions and STDs get treated here together. Those people up front are probably here for the STD side of things, you know what I mean. I’m just here for a skin allergy, but some people might not see it that way, and if you keep standing here, people might assume you’re here for that kind of issue too…”
After Qian Wei’s explanation, Lu Xun’s expression did indeed sour, but he still didn’t leave.
“I don’t care what other people think.” He glanced at Qian Wei. “I’ll wait until you’re done.”
Qian Wei tried persuading him several more times, but Lu Xun remained unmoved. He continued standing there with his usual upright posture, and with his looks and bearing, even in a hospital, he seemed to draw a spotlight all his own—not just the patients waiting outside the dermatology emergency department stealing glances at him, but even the young nurses passing by occasionally couldn’t help but look his way. And though Lu Xun had just claimed he didn’t care what others thought, Qian Wei could clearly tell that every time someone’s gaze landed on him, he grew subtly uncomfortable. Even though he said he didn’t mind, the thought that others might see him as someone with a messy love life who’d caught some disease clearly bothered him—Qian Wei had always known Lu Xun had a prouder sense of dignity than most people, and now she realized: he did care, after all.
Perhaps it was the middle-of-the-night muddle in her head, but Qian Wei found herself blurting out, almost involuntarily: “Lu Xun, do you maybe like me a little?”
Lu Xun’s body went tense for a moment, then he lifted his head—for an instant, Qian Wei couldn’t make out the expression on his face, only heard his voice: “No.”
“Then why did you come with me to the hospital in the middle of the night?”
“Doing a good deed for the day.”
“…”
Fine, Qian Wei thought to herself, she really must not be thinking straight in the middle of the night, asking Lu Xun a question like that. It figured—”he looked at me, he smiled at me, he must like me” was one of life’s three great delusions after all… and of course, Lu Xun still had Mo Zixin, his moonlight in his heart.
But even though he clearly cared a great deal about how others might misunderstand the situation, he’d still, out of that sense of responsibility, stayed to accompany a girl he was merely casual acquaintances with all the way through her hospital visit. Qian Wei thought, that’s probably just who Lu Xun is—stubbornly awkward, always so proud, always putting on that air of not wanting to be bothered with you, cold and distant, occasionally looking at you like you’re an idiot—but he’s not really a bad person.