Zhu Yun called emergency services and got Jili’s employees to come look after Gao Jianhong. By the time she went out looking for Li Xun, he had already disappeared without a trace.

Zhu Yun stood at the street corner. The passersby around her were all looking at her with expressions of alarm. A young man came forward and asked, “Are you all right? Do you need help?”

Zhu Yun looked down and realized her hands and clothes were covered in blood. She shook her head and said quietly, “It’s alright, thank you.”

Zhu Yun drove home, changed her clothes, and by the time she arrived back at Feiyang it was noon. Everyone was getting ready for lunch. Zhu Yun scanned the room and didn’t see Li Xun, so she asked Hou Ning, who said Li Xun had never come back.

“Team Leader, are you eating?” Zhao Teng was in the middle of ordering delivery. Zhu Yun felt exhaustion settle over her in an unfamiliar way. “You all go ahead and eat. I’m not hungry.” She went to see Director Dong to request time off. “I’m a bit tired. I’m not coming back this afternoon.”

Director Dong sat back in his large leather swivel chair, looking at her. “Now that’s a rare sight — you’re actually taking time off.”

Zhu Yun said, “Just one afternoon.”

Director Dong said, “You went to Jili? What was the outcome? Why do you look so awful?”

Zhu Yun shook her head. “Nothing came of it. Let Li Xun fill you in.”

Zhu Yun went home and lay down on her small bed. The afternoon sunlight streamed in through the window, bright enough to make her squint. It was her own bed, yet it felt strangely unfamiliar — most likely because she never lay down on it during precious working hours.

She closed her eyes and tried to let herself go still. The sunlight was warm enough, and gradually Zhu Yun drifted off to sleep. When she woke from that deep, unplanned sleep, the sky was already completely dark. She stood at the window looking out — the sky was the same as always, not a single star in sight.

There is a moment right after waking when the body feels lightest, because the mind is still blank. But very soon, everything floods back in to cover every surface of the brain, and the heaviness returns.

Zhu Yun yawned, and on a whim decided to go see a movie to lift her spirits. She washed up and was in the middle of toweling her hair when there was a knock at the door.

Zhu Yun paused, thinking back over whether she had ordered anything online recently.

“Who is it?”

No one answered from outside. Zhu Yun looked through the peephole — a dark figure stood outside with their head bowed.

She recognized the person in an instant and opened the door.

“Li Xun?”

The moment the door opened, Zhu Yun was hit with the heavy smell of alcohol.

“…You’ve been drinking?”

She couldn’t make out Li Xun’s expression clearly, but he appeared to already be drunk.

“Why didn’t he regret it?” he said in a low voice.

Zhu Yun didn’t catch it. “What?”

Li Xun raised his eyes to look at her. “I’m asking you — why didn’t he regret it?”

His gaze startled her. His eyes were bloodshot, both of them a deep red.

Li Xun said, “Does he hate me that much — he’d rather die than let me win?”

Zhu Yun had no words.

Li Xun looked at the silent Zhu Yun, and suddenly cracked a grin. That kind of gaze paired with that kind of smile was genuinely unhinged.

“He’s too foolish. How could he ever beat me? He knows it himself — he knows it completely. He understands my abilities better than you do. All I have to do is apply the slightest pressure and he can’t take it.” Because of the alcohol, Li Xun was rambling somewhat incoherently. As he spoke, he abruptly stopped and looked at Zhu Yun. “If I drove him to his death, what would you think of me?”

Zhu Yun said, “Gao Jianhong’s illness is not your fault.”

Li Xun said, “Isn’t it?”

Again Zhu Yun had nothing to say.

For some reason, she had always felt she understood Gao Jianhong quite well. Perhaps he was like her — he too had lived through a stretch of days in a closed, inescapable loop. All three of them had once been driven to the same wall by the same thing. Li Xun had been separated from the world by iron bars. Of the two left outside, one had chosen to run from it, while the other had chosen to follow that one path all the way to the end, no matter what.

Li Xun said, “What did you want to say?”

Zhu Yun shook her head.

But that small motion was enough to ignite Li Xun’s anger. He said with fierce intensity, “Say what you want to say. Stop making me guess like you used to — I don’t want to guess right now. Are you on his side too? Do you think I did something wrong?!”

Zhu Yun hadn’t expected him to suddenly flare up. The door of the neighbor across the hall opened — a postgraduate student at the same university who knew Zhu Yun well. He looked at Li Xun warily and asked Zhu Yun, “What’s going on?”

Zhu Yun waved him off and pulled Li Xun inside, turning to say to the neighbor, “It’s fine. He’s someone I know.”

Zhu Yun closed the door, went to the refrigerator, and took out a hangover remedy. She tapped out two tablets, then brought them over with a glass of water.

“Take these first. How did you drink so much?”

Li Xun stared at the two tablets and appeared to sink into thought. Zhu Yun directed him like programming a robot — placing the tablets into his hand, then steering his arm so the tablets reached his mouth, then holding the glass to his lips.

“Drink.”

That seemed to bring Li Xun back to himself slightly. He gave Zhu Yun a cool glance, then drank the whole glass in one go.

Zhu Yun took the empty glass from him. Li Xun dropped himself onto the bed and bowed his head to light a cigarette.

Outside the window the night was deep and heavy. Zhu Yun stood beside the bed looking at him.

“Before, after I finished something — whether it succeeded or failed — I would feel energized, ready to channel that into the next thing.” Li Xun had smoked half the cigarette, and his voice was low and hoarse as he spoke. “But this time I can’t bring myself to do anything. Tell me — am I wasting my time?”

Zhu Yun said, “I don’t know.”

Li Xun said, “Do you think I should keep going?”

Zhu Yun said, “That’s yours to decide. Others have no right to weigh in.”

Li Xun looked at her. “I’m asking for your opinion right now.”

Zhu Yun was quiet for a moment, then said, “For small things, I can help you decide. But this isn’t a small thing. In judging how a situation will unfold, you’re far better than I am. I won’t muddy the waters. My only piece of advice is that you make this decision once you’ve had time to clear your head.”

Li Xun looked at her in silence. After a long while he asked, “If we let them off this once, what happens to Fang Zhijing?”

His scales were tipping.

Zhu Yun said, “That’s a separate matter. Before, whenever you led us forward, you always kept your eyes fixed on the widest, most reliable path. But lately you’ve been fixated solely on Fang Zhijing. He’s not worth that kind of focus from you — and that’s exactly why you feel like you’re wasting your time.”

Li Xun lit another cigarette and asked in a low voice, “You don’t want to bring him down?”

Zhu Yun folded her arms. “Before you came out, I thought bringing him down was the most important thing. But after you came out, I think your growth and your future matter more.”

She had seen Li Xun reading VR reports from Oculus after work, had seen him studying new search algorithms — but all of it had been only surface-level engagement, fleeting moments. He simply didn’t have the time.

Zhu Yun despised Fang Zhijing — despised him to her bones — but she feared even more that Li Xun would get mired in a patch of mud. If they didn’t pull back now, and Gao Jianhong truly died in the meantime, Li Xun’s approach to everything in his life going forward would likely become even more consumed by obsession. And besides, given his capabilities, limiting himself to a few small games was a profound waste of his talent.

Zhu Yun said, “The industry isn’t that big. The circle is small. Sooner or later there will be another chance for us to face off.”

What followed was a long stretch of silence as Li Xun sat turning things over in his mind. He sat for a full twenty minutes. Finally he knitted his brow and said quietly, “What did you give me?”

Zhu Yun said, “What?”

Li Xun’s brow furrowed tighter and tighter. He pressed his hand against his stomach. Zhu Yun said in surprise, “What’s wrong? I gave you milk thistle extract tablets — they’re specifically for relieving the effects of alcohol and supporting the liver. They’re imported, actually.”

Li Xun rushed into the bathroom and retched violently. Zhu Yun took out the tablets again to double-check — they were perfectly fine. She went back to stand at the bathroom door and said to the person hunched over inside, “You just drank too much.”

Li Xun finished vomiting and washed his face and rinsed his mouth at the sink. He lifted the hem of his shirt and dried his face with it, then turned and came out, pitching forward face-first onto the bed and burying his face in the soft covers, utterly spent.

The room was silent for a very long time. Then, at last, his muffled voice came through the blankets.

“Let’s settle with them.”

Zhu Yun looked at the long figure lying across the bed. Li Xun said in exhaustion, “You handle the negotiations. I’m not going.”

Zhu Yun said, “Alright.”

Li Xun said, “We’re going to expand the company after this. Squeeze them hard when you negotiate.”

Zhu Yun said, “No problem.”

He stayed buried there, still clearly not fully at peace with the decision. Zhu Yun went to the bathroom to tidy it up, and when she came out Li Xun was still holding the same position — though the rhythm of his breathing had clearly slowed.

Zhu Yun went over and looked carefully. He was asleep.

There was a small bedside lamp. Zhu Yun dimmed it. She sat beside him reading for a while, and as Li Xun’s sleep grew deeper, she tried turning the lamp off entirely — Li Xun didn’t stir.

The movie plans had completely fallen through. Zhu Yun perched on the very edge of the bed, marveling to herself that at least the bed was large enough. Li Xun was sprawled across three-quarters of it — arms and legs everywhere — leaving only a narrow sliver of space.

She didn’t close the curtains. There were no stars in the sky, but the moonlight was bright. Li Xun had made his decision, and everyone could let out a breath. Zhu Yun felt she might actually sleep well tonight.

As it turned out, it was not to be. Zhu Yun had another dream — a dream of mountains pressing down from above and storm clouds massing at the horizon, suffocating and inescapable. In the dream she ran and ran, gasping and struggling for air, the pressure building until she could no longer breathe — and then she opened her eyes.

A dark silhouette was pressed over her, blocking out all the moonlight. The breathing was hurried, carrying the lingering traces of strong liquor.

She wore a white silk nightgown. Li Xun’s large hand slipped in beneath the hem of the skirt and moved upward along her leg. His movements were entirely fluid, aided by the soft, smooth warmth of her freshly washed skin.

Li Xun’s weight was substantial. The night magnified a man’s strength almost infinitely. Before Zhu Yun could think, her body had already ignited — his hands seemed to carry some enchantment, and wherever they touched, her skin contracted. “…Are you sober?” Zhu Yun’s voice trembled. He held her wrists, dragging his face along the curve of her neck, his hair grazing her cheek — the texture considerably coarser than her own hair.

He was entirely lost in the comfort of physical sensation, urgently exploring every inch of her. She instinctively drew herself inward, but his knee was pressed between her legs, and she couldn’t close them. She could feel the change in her own body, and the change in his.

He had drunk a great deal and hadn’t showered. The scent of him was heavy and dense. Zhu Yun didn’t dare breathe too deeply — didn’t dare let that scent settle and take root within her. She still had just enough strength to brace against his shoulder and ask him again, “Are you sober?”

He was moving against the moonlight, his voice rough. “Too late to ask now…” His hand cradled her jaw and tipped it upward. Even through the haze of drink, his grip was firm. His lips pressed to her throat. “I told you — when I’ve had something to drink, you can’t get away from me.” He seemed unable to tolerate hearing Zhu Yun speak and murmured to himself, “You’ve known me long enough. I’m no saint. Before you let me in, you should have thought about what you were doing.”

She had let him in to talk about work. How had talking led to this?

Li Xun had gone far too long without this kind of softness. He was intoxicated by it in a way that had nothing to do with the alcohol in his blood, and he laughed — slow and low.

The accounts were being settled. Cleared the books, gave up the company, let the person go — a year and more of struggle, and he seemed to have ended up with nothing in his hands.

By any measure, had he won or lost?

He couldn’t find the answer, so he buried his face in the hollow of her collarbone instead, breathing her in — that scent was so sweet it sent all the blood in his body rushing downward. So he stopped trying to tally the ledger, and pressed his lips to her skin, murmuring, “Forget it. Getting you back — that means I haven’t entirely lost…”

His breath, still carrying the warmth of liquor, washed across her face. Zhu Yun felt heat rise up her back, as though she were drunk herself.

The haze amplified all the senses. The solid, elastic warmth she felt beneath her palms surpassed any thought. Across the dark stillness of those years, his body carried a charge — something restrained and untouched — that made it impossible to hold on to any caution or care.

No use for reason. No thought of what came next. Just this one stolen hour of spring night.

She remembered that he was once the one who had said: some things can’t be said after drinking, and some things can’t be done after drinking. Apparently that rule didn’t apply to him. Others weren’t allowed to be drunk and reckless. He was.

Zhu Yun raised her hand and struck him hard on the back. The motion made Li Xun pause momentarily.

In the dark, only the sound of two people breathing.

After some unknown stretch of time, he suddenly asked, “Did you miss me?” Then, without waiting for Zhu Yun to answer, immediately added, “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” His hand moved downward, parting Zhu Yun’s legs, pressing his full weight down on her. His lips were against the side of her face — the force of his emotions made each breath large and deliberate, his chest and abdomen rising and falling against her with each exhale, compressing the space around her, making it harder and harder for her to breathe.

“The sheets are soaked. You can’t find me that objectionable.”

That final piece of reasoning left Zhu Yun burning in the dark as though on fire.