Zhu Yun watched television for a while, but found it dull. When she was about to head upstairs, her mother reminded her that they had to stay up to see in the New Year tonight.

“We have to stay up?” Zhu Yun had no heart for any of that. She reached for an excuse. “I’m a little tired.”

“Nonsense.” Her mother shot her a sideways glance. “It’s barely even late. You can stay up all night reading any old book you pick up.”

Zhu Yun sat on the sofa as though on pins and needles.

By half past eleven, her mother was already nodding off.

Her father gave her mother a nudge and told her to get some rest. Her mother shuffled upstairs with a yawn, but not before calling back to remind Zhu Yun: “You absolutely must stay up until midnight — and go to the prayer room to make a wish at twelve.”

Zhu Yun did sit on the sofa until midnight. On television, the hosts stood in a row counting down the final seconds, and Zhu Yun rose to her feet.

The family’s prayer room occupied a storage space on the third floor, the north-facing one. Her grandmother was a devout Buddhist; her mother believed — on occasion.

The moment she stepped inside, the dim room was thick with the scent of sandalwood incense.

Zhu Yun settled onto the kneeling mat and checked the time. Exactly midnight. Following her mother’s long-standing instructions, she pressed her forehead to the floor three times before the Buddhist shrine, then prepared to make her wish.

As she bowed, the cross necklace at her collar slipped free and dangled down.

Zhu Yun stilled for a brief moment.

She had almost forgotten — in truth she did forget quite often — that she still wore this necklace.

It was old, having been around for many years, its style unremarkable, made from the cheapest sort of metal, and now the surface finish was flaking away.

Zhu Yun could no longer recall clearly what the girl who had given it to her looked like. Whenever she tried to remember, all she could summon was a blurry silhouette. That girl had been as proud as a peacock.

She tucked the necklace back inside her collar, and then realized she seemed to have forgotten to make her wish.

Never mind.

Midnight was peak fireworks hour. As Zhu Yun came out of the prayer room she called down toward the floor below, and her father’s voice drifted from the bedroom: “We’ve gone to bed. Get some rest too!”

Zhu Yun called back cheerfully: “Alright!”

The night could finally begin.

Zhu Yun returned to her room, locked the door behind her, and outside the window firecrackers popped and bloomed and the sky blazed with color.

She lay on her bed for a while, mind adrift, then went to the bathroom to shower. By the time she had washed and dried her hair and set everything in order and stepped back out, it was already one in the morning.

She tossed her towel carelessly on the floor. Barefoot, Zhu Yun padded to the wardrobe, rummaged through it, and finally drew out the white dress she had bought new just for this. She put it on, then leaned close to the mirror, dabbed on a light coat of foundation, and touched a little tinted gloss to her lips. She winked at her own reflection, then sat back down on the edge of the bed and waited quietly.

Waiting — the most unbearable thing in the world.

The noise from outside was positively deafening, yet somehow she could almost make out her own heartbeat through it. Her fingers twisted together, tight, and grew damp with sweat.

God, the thrill of it — she pressed her lips together. What an absolutely wicked thrill.

The minutes crept past. The noise outside gradually softened, until only the occasional crisp crack from somewhere in the distance reminded the world that this strange and singular night was not yet over.

Two o’clock.

Zhu Yun stood, picked up her bag, and slipped out of her room with care.

Her feet fell on the floor light as a fairy’s.

The house was perfectly still. Both her parents were sound sleepers and had not been disturbed in the least by all the fireworks. She made her way down to the ground floor and retrieved a pair of heeled boots from the shoe cabinet — but did not put them on yet.

She rose onto her toes, eased the front door open, and crept out along the wall.

Her feet met the icy stone steps and every pore on her body clenched with the cold. She did not dare breathe.

She stood frozen by the door for two full minutes. Only once she was satisfied that neither of her parents had woken did Zhu Yun pull on her boots.

She turned.

Snow and moonlight and blossoms in the night air across the way.

Zhu Yun drew a deep breath, leapt down from the steps, and walked on.

The street was empty now, but littered all over with the spent casings of fireworks. Walking over them felt strangely soft, like stepping through snow.

The white dress was genuinely not suited to deep winter, and Zhu Yun was cold. She had a spare jacket packed in her bag, but she had absolutely no intention of putting it on.

For just a moment, she understood the feeling Li Xun must have had that day he came to the art gallery.

The moment that thought crossed her mind, her pace quickened.

Faster and faster, until she was running.

Her hair and her skirt flew out behind her, swept up and scattered by the impulse surging through her chest.

The midnight bell had already struck. She was the only vessel sailing through this ocean night.

Lihua Street was only two streets from where Zhu Yun lived. It was a stretch of small guesthouses and restaurants, many of them open around the clock.

Zhu Yun knew where the Lihua Inn was. She ran there without stopping. In the lobby, a group of people had gathered to play cards.

She spotted that brilliantly gleaming golden head at once.

The project had reached a pause, and he was finally free of that grim, grudge-bearing air — he was even smiling.

A certain golden-haired figure was rolling up his sleeves, preparing to slap down his trump card with a smooth and practiced flourish, when a shout cut clean through the motion —

“Li Xun!”

He paused for two seconds, then turned. The expression on his face shifted from the absolute confidence of a man about to win to the blank stupor of someone who had been hit over the head.

He stared at her, from head to toe, and then exhaled two quiet words:

“Holy shit…”

Li Xun sat there twisted around with a cigarette in his mouth and his hand still frozen in the middle of playing his card. The effect was genuinely rather comical.

Zhu Yun laughed despite herself.

He laughed too.

“Are you playing or not? What’s the holdup?” The player downstream was growing impatient.

Li Xun dropped his cards. “Sorry, I’m out.”

“What’s going on?”

Li Xun shrugged, resigned. “Someone’s come to collect me.” He pushed all his winnings into the center of the table. “It’s not much — consider it a round of cigarettes, everyone.”

He had won the most at the table, and now that he was redistributing it, good wishes for the New Year came from all around.

As the cards were reshuffled, the others stole glances past him, each wearing an expression that could only be described as conspiratorial. Someone winked at Li Xun. “Stop dragging your feet and get upstairs already.”

Amid a chorus of snickering, Li Xun rose. He swaggered over to Zhu Yun with considerable self-satisfaction.

Zhu Yun felt a mischievous impulse rise in her. She stepped forward half a pace and said quietly: “What if I turned around and walked away right now? Wouldn’t that be awfully embarrassing for you?”

“It would.” He dropped his gaze to meet hers, a smile in his eyes. “Does Her Royal Highness wish to leave?”

Zhu Yun pressed her lips together. “That depends on how you behave.”

“I guarantee your satisfaction.”

Zhu Yun raised an eyebrow.

Li Xun: “Still leaving?”

“…”

She said quietly: “I suppose I won’t, for now.”

Li Xun bent his head and said into her ear, in a tone of spectacular irreverence: “How gracious of the imperial personage.”

Zhu Yun swallowed a laugh and followed Li Xun upstairs. They had barely gone half a flight when a wave of rowdy catcalls rose from below.

Her face grew a little warm.

The New Year really was wonderful.

The Lihua Inn was a modest establishment — narrow corridors, and the rooms were mostly singles. Li Xun fished out his key and worked the lock. Zhu Yun waited quietly behind him.

She snuck a look at him. In the cramped hallway under a dim bulb, he was tall enough that he seemed almost to brush the doorframe.

The door swung open. Li Xun stepped aside and turned to Zhu Yun with a small gesture. “After you, Your Highness.”

Zhu Yun stepped in and swept a look around the room. “It’s a disaster in here.”

He smiled, and tossed his key onto the table.

“I’m going to wash my face.”

Li Xun was in a remarkably accommodating mood tonight.

Zhu Yun attempted to find somewhere to sit.

The room really was a catastrophe. He had only arrived today — it was difficult to imagine anyone capable of reducing a room to this state in the space of a single day. He had no luggage case; stuffed in one corner was a black athletic duffel, unzipped halfway, the clothes inside all balled up in no particular order.

Li Xun came out of the bathroom.

“Why are you just standing there? Sit down.”

“And where exactly would you have me sit?”

Li Xun dried his hands while surveying the room, then tilted his chin in one direction.

“There.”

The bed.

A single bed.

Up against the wall.

Actually, perhaps not. Zhu Yun crossed the room and rescued a chair from beneath the pile of clothing that had buried it.

Li Xun took the bed.

The chair was tall. Zhu Yun was rather pleased with her superior vantage point.

“It’s such a mess in here,” she said again.

“Mm.”

“Like a pigsty.”

“Mm.”

She criticized without mercy. He agreed with languid indifference, one assent after another.

Something was off.

He was being unusually well-behaved tonight.

Whether or not he actually agreed with Zhu Yun’s assessment, Li Xun showed absolutely no inclination to argue back. Whatever she said, he simply listened.

Perhaps he just wasn’t taking any of it to heart?

He yawned and reached for a cigarette.

While Zhu Yun was lost in all manner of speculation, Li Xun tapped the cigarette twice on the back of his hand and looked up.

“Stand up.”

“Hmm?”

“Stand up. Let me get a look at you.”

Zhu Yun had a fairly good idea what he had in mind. She rose slowly to her feet.

This was perhaps the first time she had ever looked down at him so completely.

He lit the cigarette and studied her through the dim, settling light.

Zhu Yun did not dare meet his eyes. She looked instead toward the window, out at the street she had come running down.

She watched the bare winter trees lining the road and let her mind wander.

Did he like this dress?

He must. Otherwise why make a point of having her stand up.

She offered silent thanks to her mother’s refined taste.

Hallelujah.

“You don’t need to suck in so hard. You don’t have much to speak of on your stomach anyway.”

“…” Could he be any less of a mood-setter.

She knew he could not possibly stay this well-behaved for long — he could not keep letting her have the upper hand.

Zhu Yun deflated, and could not help rolling her eyes. And then, in that very instant, she caught Li Xun lowering his head.

He turned his face down to hide his smile, but he did not quite succeed — what remained at the corner of his mouth, that trace of warmth curling up through the crafty smoke, was enough to make her pulse abandon all reason.

Zhu Yun’s heart thudded against her ribs. She turned her head left and right, hoping to find something to redirect the conversation. Suddenly her gaze landed on a plastic takeaway bowl sitting beside the laptop on the table. She blinked. “Is that what you had for dinner?”

“Mm.”

“You ate spicy skewers on New Year’s Eve?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You —”

Before she could finish, her phone buzzed and nearly gave her a heart attack. She pulled it out — it was the alarm she had set before leaving home. Afraid of losing track of time, she had set her phone to alert her every half hour. This was the second time it had gone off.

“When are you heading back?” Li Xun asked, his voice even.

Zhu Yun looked up. “…Before four-thirty is fine.”

It was already past three. Not much time left.

Tonight had gone by so fast.

Zhu Yun was still mid-thought when something flat came sailing through the air toward her. She caught it on instinct and pulled it to her chest.

“What’s this?”

Li Xun kicked off his shoes, settled onto the bed, leaned his back against the wall, and yawned.

“An offering.”

A red envelope?

“It feels awfully thin.” Zhu Yun gave it a pinch, making absolutely no effort to hide her disdain. “Didn’t you say you’d guarantee my satisfaction?”

Li Xun raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

Zhu Yun lifted a fastidious little finger and tore the envelope open, then tipped it upside down.

A card fell out.

Oh.

“That’ll be your salary card from now on.” Li Xun stretched out his arm, and Zhu Yun slid the ashtray across the table toward him. He tapped the ash from his cigarette and added: “I’ve already transferred the money from the Blue Crown project into it.”

“What’s the PIN?” Zhu Yun asked.

“Six eights.”

God, how appallingly tasteless…

Zhu Yun put the card away safely, then pulled her chair closer and said to Li Xun: “Tell me about Blue Crown — how did you pitch them? Did they like what we put together?”

Li Xun gave her a look of pure sufferance. “Since when do people this old need bedtime stories?”

She kicked the side of the bed frame. Li Xun exhaled a long-suffering breath. “This really is not my style, talking about this sort of thing now.”

Zhu Yun stared at him in silence.

They held each other’s gaze for three seconds. Li Xun let out a short sigh. “Fine…”

He began recounting the last few days. Zhu Yun found herself discovering that she enjoyed listening to him talk — not just because his voice was naturally pleasant, but because threaded through everything he said, as casually as breathing, was this quality that felt faint yet completely unshakeable: a sense of direction.

“Were you scared, going in by yourself?” Zhu Yun asked.

“Why would I be scared?”

“You were on your own though…”

Li Xun propped his cheek in his hand. “Let me think about that…”

“It’s been close to ten years since I first saw a programming book at someone’s house. Ten years of grinding away at it.” He said it in that slow, easy drawl of his. “There’s no way on earth I’m going to be intimidated by some small software department in a food factory.” Then he turned a teasing eye on Zhu Yun. “The ones who get scared are the ones with something to feel guilty about — like a certain princess in a certain philosophy exam hall.”

Zhu Yun: “…”

Could we please not bring that up ever again.

Zhu Yun pressed him with all manner of questions about the details. Li Xun entertained her with a comprehensive tour of Blue Crown’s senior management, skewering each one in a different style, until she could not keep a straight face.

He paused for a few seconds. Zhu Yun was still smiling as she looked at him. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

Li Xun tilted his head lazily to the side against the pillow and said, as if in passing: “I broke up with Cui Xiangjun.”

“Who?”

“Cui Xiangjun.”

Zhu Yun still drew a blank. “Who’s that?”

Li Xun’s face darkened. He said flatly: “Juliet.”

“…”

So her name was Cui Xiangjun.

Your girlfriends always seem to come with names straight out of a Qinhuai pleasure quarter.

Zhu Yun nodded.

Li Xun: “Anything to say about that?”

Zhu Yun: “You don’t seem particularly broken up about it. I’ll spare you the condolences.”

Li Xun let out a short, low laugh and ran his tongue over his lips. Exhaustion made his gaze heavier, more charged with something unspoken. Zhu Yun felt the pull of it and looked away.

Looking away did not help — her face was threatening to flush regardless. She said quietly: “I’m going to use the bathroom for a moment.”

In the bathroom, she faced her own reflection in the mirror.

She carefully smoothed away a few stray strands of hair that had fallen across her eyes, then ran her hands under cold water, dried them, and pressed them to her cheeks to cool herself down.

What an intoxicating night.

Zhu Yun had no idea how long she had idled in the bathroom, but when she finally came out, she found Li Xun already asleep.

She crept over to see if he might be pretending, and determined that he was not.

He had made an honest effort of it — washed his face, smoked — but the exhaustion had claimed him anyway.

Zhu Yun crouched in front of him and studied him freely, without reserve.

His face was lean, and his eyelids were slightly hooded in that inner double-fold way of his; when he was awake, the lines of his whole face were clean and sharp, almost cutting. Asleep, he finally looked a little tame.

Li Xun’s hand hung loosely off the edge of the bed, slender and well-shaped. Zhu Yun extended one finger, wanting to thread it through the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. She made several attempts and could not find the right angle. Li Xun stirred slightly, and she snatched her hand back at once.

Her phone buzzed again…

Zhu Yun smiled at the Li Xun who was lost somewhere in his dreams.

Never mind. There was always more time ahead.