That afternoon, Zhu Yun returned to campus. Stepping out of the taxi, she felt a touch self-conscious — her outfit was far too formal for a leisurely summer campus.

Fortunately it was the break period, and there were hardly any people around. Zhu Yun crept toward the hotel like a thief trying not to be seen. She hadn’t worn heels in a long time, and new ones at that — her feet were miserable, and by the end of the short walk, she’d already rubbed half the skin off her heels.

The building was oddly quiet. Zhu Yun made it back to her room without encountering a single soul.

Her room was empty too — her senior had gone off somewhere. Zhu Yun was just starting to find this strange when she sat on the bed to pull off her shoes and, halfway through the process, suddenly remembered that today was the day of the competition award ceremony.

“…”

She couldn’t help giving herself a silent scolding. Not a single useful thought in her head.

It was already nearly two o’clock. The ceremony was probably wrapping up soon. She had no idea what the final outcome had been for their group.

Zhu Yun noticed she wasn’t the least bit nervous — she didn’t even care about the competition results. Whether they’d won a prize or been handed a penalty was completely irrelevant to her right now. Her head was entirely full of those flighty, rosy schemes of hers.

This is exactly how people go astray in life.

Her phone had died and switched itself off. She set it to charge, turned the air conditioning to its lowest setting, and decided that given the way she was dressed, she had no business showing up at the ceremony hall — besides, the others would be back soon enough.

With that settled, she lay back down to rest.

The room was quiet. Outside the window, sunlight poured down brilliantly.

What a gentle and lovely afternoon.

Zhu Yun gazed at the scene beyond the window. She hadn’t slept properly in several nights. Now, with her mind completely blank, she found herself drifting off as she looked — and simply fell asleep.

She slept so deeply the world ceased to exist. When she finally opened her eyes, the sky had already dimmed.

For a moment Zhu Yun had no idea where she was. Then, as consciousness returned, she was gripped by a sense of impending catastrophe.

What time is it?!

Zhu Yun half-fell out of bed to check the clock. Six-thirty. She scrambled to grab her phone from the nightstand — fully charged now — and switched it on. A text message from her senior popped up first:

“Competition’s over! We went straight to the dinner gathering. Couldn’t reach you, so we headed off on our own. Congratulations — first place!”

What — what — what’s going on…

The message contained far too much information. Zhu Yun stared at it with glazed eyes.

Over. Dinner. First place.

How on earth had she slept like the dead through all of that?

Zhu Yun clawed at her hair in distress — then remembered she’d paid a small fortune for this updo, and jerked her hand back.

She noticed there were over a dozen missed calls as well. She opened the log with some trepidation: two from Gao Jianhong, one from her senior, one from old Lin — and the rest, all from Li Xun.

She was one breath away from the grave.

Zhu Yun pressed her hand over her chest to steady her heartbeat, then called back.

No answer.

Gone to meet his maker, then.

At a restaurant nearby, the students had just finished ordering and were seated around the table, chatting while waiting for the food to arrive.

Old Lin had a teacup in front of him that he hadn’t touched — he was too busy delivering a focused reprimand to the person beside him.

“You got lucky this time — you happened to have Professor Wang on your side! He’s a distinguished professor the school brought in, and he carries enormous weight. It was entirely because he went to bat for you that you escaped any punishment!”

Li Xun sat beside him, leaning back in his chair with a blank expression, staring at the complimentary dish of salted radish with a thoroughly dark look on his face.

He was clearly in a foul mood. Anyone could see it. Everyone assumed it was because of old Lin’s scolding.

Gao Jianhong, sitting next to Li Xun, leaned over and asked old Lin, “Teacher Lin, why was that professor willing to defend us?”

“Why do you think? A man of Professor Wang’s standing — he’s seen every kind of unusual student you could imagine! Do you have any idea that because of what you pulled, the expert panel and the sponsors nearly came to blows last night?!”

Gao Jianhong shrank back into his seat.

Old Lin turned his gaze to the person beside him — the very individual at the center of this whole affair — who had been staring fixedly at the salted radish dish throughout and had shown absolutely no reaction to any of it.

As the supervising teacher, old Lin had been brought in to attend the meeting where the matter was handled. It was entirely thanks to Professor Wang that Li Xun’s group had been spared any penalty and allowed to continue competing. Afterward, old Lin had gone to find Professor Wang to express his gratitude, and the professor had said the following:

“To have pulled this off, the student must be exceptionally sharp. He certainly knew that doing something like this would be thankless work — that he’d make enemies, and that the sponsors might even penalize him. Yet he did it anyway. Why?”

Professor Wang smiled and said, “Because he’s young. Pushing back against injustice is something young people are born knowing how to do. And there’s a boldness in him — let me put it broadly: every emerging field needs people who are willing to step outside established frameworks. They don’t just challenge what’s known — they challenge what’s unknown. What many of our students lack today is not intelligence, but the courage to face the unknown in pursuit of their own goals and convictions.”

“I remember asking him at the time why he did it, and he said it was because of love. I don’t think he was joking.” Professor Wang’s smile grew warmer. “As a teacher myself — how could I possibly stand in the way of a student’s love?”

Even so, Professor Wang had left old Lin with one final caution: “That said, this student is a little too sharp-edged. If he keeps going like this, he’ll come to grief sooner or later. He needs to be tempered.”

Old Lin had sat with that thought ever since.

And at this very moment, the student whom the professor had described as possessing such remarkable “boldness” was busy radiating a low-pressure front from his seat at the table.

Gao Jianhong nudged him with an elbow. “Hey — your phone’s been buzzing non-stop.”

Li Xun said nothing.

“Answer it. It’s probably Zhu Yun waking up.”

Li Xun let out a cold laugh and remained an immovable fixture. Gao Jianhong knew his temperament well enough — he offered a couple of words of persuasion, then gave up.

The phone rang over a dozen times before Li Xun finally rose unhurriedly from his seat and headed outside. Gao Jianhong watched his retreating back with a knowing smile.

Li Xun took his phone out to the corridor beyond the private dining room, where waitstaff came and went with dishes. He paused for a moment, then walked to the far end and pushed open the emergency exit door.

At the turn of the staircase, a cook was crouched against the wall smoking. He looked Li Xun up and down as he came through.

Li Xun ignored him and took out his own cigarette.

The door swung shut. The stairwell fell into darkness.

He finally answered the call, his voice low. “Hello?”

Silence from the other end.

Li Xun made a quiet, amused sound. “What — you’re expecting me to start the conversation?”

A few crackles of static came through the line, followed at last by a stunned voice —

“It connected?!”

Li Xun: “…”

He was speechless. On Zhu Yun’s end, she had fully come back to herself.

“Li Xun, I fell asleep this afternoon!”

“Mm.”

“My phone died and switched itself off.”

“Mm.”

“I didn’t ignore your calls on purpose.”

“Mm.”

“…”

Zhu Yun was scratching at the walls on her end — he was so obviously in a mood.

“Where — where are you all having dinner?”

Li Xun gave her the hotel address. “Coming?”

“Of course.” But she had something more pressing first. “Actually — after dinner, are you free?”

Li Xun leaned against the wall, phone in one hand, cigarette in the other, his long legs crossed at the ankles. At Zhu Yun’s question, he curved the corner of his mouth in the darkness and said, casually, “Busy.”

Zhu Yun immediately asked, “Doing what?”

Li Xun: “Xu Lina wants to see me.”

“…”

All that careful preparation, undone in one ill-timed nap.

Zhu Yun gripped her phone tightly. “Where does she want to meet you?”

Li Xun rested the back of his head against the wall and glanced upward, then named a location.

Zhu Yun said, “Isn’t that the lakeside where she took us all to dinner last time?”

“I suppose.”

Zhu Yun’s voice had taken on a distinct edge of urgency. “Are you going?”

“Of course I’m going — she said she has something to tell me.” He glanced idly at the time. “We arranged to meet early, actually — there won’t even be time to eat here first. I’m heading over now.”

Zhu Yun’s voice shot up. “What?!”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Don’t — Li Xun! Li Xun, I also have something I need to tell you—”

Before Zhu Yun could finish, Li Xun had already hung up. He stood there holding his phone, leaning against the wall with the look of someone who had just done something deeply entertaining, laughing to himself and unable to stop.

“Shameful.” The cook crouched in the corner across from him pointed at him, speaking in a thick regional accent. “Talking to your girlfriend like that.”

Li Xun gave him a sidelong glance. “Not yet.” He tucked the phone back into his pocket and added, more to himself than anyone else, “But I need to shake her up a bit…”

He turned and walked back, rubbing the back of his neck — whether he was speaking to the cook or thinking aloud, it was hard to tell.

“It’s been too long. I’m starting to lose patience…”

When Zhu Yun tried calling Li Xun again, he didn’t answer.

Struck down before the battle had even begun. Zhu Yun put the phone down with no tears left to cry.

But her low spirits lasted approximately three minutes before she was already pulling herself together and getting ready to leave.

Never mind her own feelings for the moment — just based on how much she’d spent today, this business could not be allowed to end like this.

For the sake of speed, Zhu Yun changed into her trainers, packed the heels into her bag, and the moment she was out the door, she hitched up her skirt and sprinted the whole way. She flagged down a car at the school gate and headed for the place where they’d had the gathering that other night.

The sky was darkening. Zhu Yun looked out through the car window.

A dazzling world out there, lights and shadows flickering and interweaving.

At some point during the journey, Zhu Yun had the sudden feeling that she was doing something remarkable — something that surpassed, by quite some measure, every decision she had made in all the years before this.

That thought made the fire in her chest burn even brighter.

They arrived at the destination quickly. Zhu Yun got out of the car and looked around. She remembered clearly — just a short while ago, she had stood by this very lake with a very different feeling in her heart. The lake was the same lake. But the night was no longer the same night.

Zhu Yun followed the stone-paved path in search of Li Xun. Turning her head at one point, she saw the moon hanging in the sky, willow branches swaying gently, and was suddenly reminded of Liu Yong’s verse about a willow-lined shore beneath the dawn wind and a waning moon. She quickly caught herself, though — that poem came from a song of parting, not exactly a good omen — and shook the thought from her head.

She turned back, and there was Li Xun, not far ahead.

In summer he wore short sleeves, and he always liked to push them up to his shoulders, showing the clean lines there.

Zhu Yun had no time to admire this. She immediately looked sharply toward the person beside him.

No one.

Xu Lina hadn’t arrived yet?

Even better. Zhu Yun seized the moment. She drew a deep breath, locked her eyes on her target, and charged forward.

Li Xun was leaning against the stone railing with the willows, letting the breeze wash over him. He had arrived early and been waiting for some time, idly watching the distant scenery. All of a sudden, something caught his attention — he turned his head sideways, and out of nowhere, got the fright of his life.

A figure was barreling toward him at full speed from not far away, surging forward like a soldier charging across a battlefield.

Li Xun’s first reaction was startled confusion. His second was the realization that this particular soldier was quite something to look at.

An exquisite dress — a slender waist giving way to a skirt of billowing tulle — the inner layer encasing the uncommonly graceful figure of a young woman. Her makeup was refined and elegant, her long hair swept up in an updo. The sprint had shaken a few loose strands free at the temples, which only added to the effect.

And her eyes — in them was the particular luminance that belongs to a woman who has been moved, alongside the most restrained and careful longing for what was about to happen.

Alive with vitality.

Li Xun’s expression shifted into something quietly amused. He settled himself comfortably against the stone pillar and waited.

Zhu Yun realized she had overestimated herself.

The moment she caught sight of Li Xun, her eyes had already begun, traitorously and beyond her control, to grow a little warm. Not from excitement — from something more complex than excitement.

She suddenly felt that to have done all of this for him was to have suffered a tremendous, undeserved injustice.

She had lain awake all night because of a single phone call from Xu Lina. She had tried on dresses until her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t do up the zipper. She had sat half-asleep in a salon chair for hours trying to fade the dark circles under her eyes.

Did he have any idea?

He was standing there dressed like an old man heading to the market to buy vegetables.

Zhu Yun seethed inwardly.

But as she drew closer, and little by little the quiet clarity of those eyes came into focus, she found herself thinking —

No injustice in the world is too great to forgive.

The willow branches swayed softly. The surface of the lake rippled in gentle waves.

Li Xun watched her in silence.

On the taxi ride over, Zhu Yun had drafted countless opening lines in her head, approaching from every angle, trying to calculate the strategy with the highest probability of success. But now, standing here, she found that none of it mattered.

There was nothing for it — she surrendered.

And if she was going to surrender, she told herself, then hold nothing back. This was not the time for pretense. She had come this far — she would say what she actually wanted to say to him.

At last she stood before him.

“Li Xun…”

His gaze deepened, and he responded with a quiet, unhurried sound.

Zhu Yun’s voice came out slightly unsteady.

“Choose me.”

She looked directly into his eyes — into his stubbornly, defiantly golden hair — into the slight natural curve of his back from spending too many hours hunched over a computer — and then drew a deep breath, straightened herself up to her full height, and declared with blazing conviction:

“I will never betray you!”

…

A passing auntie cast her a sideways glance.

The willow branches beside them were struck so dumb by this righteous proclamation that they forgot to sway.

Ten seconds of silence passed. Then Li Xun burst out laughing.