Li Xun flipped her skirt up, braced her at the waist, and lifted her into position. Everything was ready.

Zhu Yun snapped back to her senses.

“Li — Li Li Li — Li Xun?”

“Mm?”

She tried to roll over. Li Xun pressed her down. “Don’t move.”

“Hold on——”

“No need.”

“No, wait — wait! Stop——!“

Zhu Yun, eyes wide, scrambled across the bed on all fours. Li Xun grabbed for her a few times without success. She had wriggled around so much that he was thoroughly fed up — he simply flopped on top of her and said, flatly: “My dear princess.”

He was heavy!!

Zhu Yun could barely breathe. She craned her neck back with great effort and snapped: “Is this how you talk to a princess?!”

The body on top of her was trembling. Li Xun was laughing — and showed absolutely no intention of getting up. He explained, calmly: “This position is the most primal. From a physiological and anatomical standpoint, it is literally the most optimal configuration. Isn’t the princess a woman of science?”

Zhu Yun’s face was scarlet from being pinned down. “Get off me first!”

Li Xun: “You’re not familiar with any of this. Just follow my lead.”

He moved to prop her up again. Zhu Yun was so nervous she felt like she might be sick — without even thinking, she swatted his hand away with a sharp slap and yelled——

“No!“

“……”

The room went quiet.

In the strange stillness, Zhu Yun stole a glance back — and, as expected, found a face cold as frost.

She was done for.

When a man reasons his way to a commitment, it’s as binding as a signed contract. The ink had barely dried on this one, and she had already reneged before the pen was even set down. Anyone would have trouble with that.

And Li Xun, of all people……

Rejecting him in a moment like this — Zhu Yun could imagine precisely how badly this was going to go for her.

Zhu Yun scratched at the sheets and backpedaled quickly: “About that… it was a misunderstanding. I didn’t mean no, I have absolutely no objections!” She was flushing deeply, stumbling over her words. “It’s just… it is, after all, the first time.”

Li Xun said nothing.

Zhu Yun proposed: “Why don’t we start with something a bit more conventional first — ease into it.”

Li Xun raised one eyebrow.

Zhu Yun reached for an analogy. “Even boxing matches have warm-up bouts, you know.”

He let out a cold laugh.

Zhu Yun softened her voice: “Let’s take a bit of time to… adjust to each other. We have such a long future ahead of us.”

Something shifted in Li Xun’s eyes. Some word in that sentence had, apparently, reached him.

After a moment, Zhu Yun finally felt the weight bearing down on her ease. A hand came to rest on her shoulder and flipped her over — like turning a dead fish — so she was facing up.

Li Xun: “Is this conventional enough for you?”

“……”

To smooth things over, Zhu Yun reached up and wrapped her arms around him. Li Xun’s back was smooth — sleek skin, good elasticity, with clean, flowing muscle lines. She pressed her face against him, taking in a warmth she had never felt before.

Her skirt came off. She had no idea how.

He sat up and undid his belt, and in the middle of it, simply let Zhu Yun look.

Moonlight fell in through the window and settled across his shoulders, giving him the cool, luminous quality of pale celadon porcelain.

Li Xun was a deeply self-assured person — and this wasn’t limited to his intelligence. He had the highest possible acceptance of every part of himself. He had always believed he was the best, and that anyone who chose him had excellent taste.

Zhu Yun thought that a person’s beliefs could really shape a great deal — otherwise she, who had been particular about everything since childhood, would not be looking at a body she had never seen before and finding it, in this moment, without a single flaw.

It might not be quite the right word to use for a man — but she genuinely thought he was beautiful.

Li Xun lowered himself over her.

With his tall, long frame, he wrapped around her entirely, letting her head rest in the cup of his palm.

“Done making a fuss?” he murmured. The heat coming off him was considerably more than before. His large hand gripped her arm, and his voice dropped into a low, dissatisfied register. “Half a year. You’ve kept me waiting far too long.”

Yes, yes, fine — it was all her fault.

Zhu Yun reached her arms out from under his and wrapped them around his waist, then slowly slid her hands up along his back to the nape of his neck.

When her slender fingers threaded through his hair, Li Xun pressed forward into her.

He had already held himself in check for a very long time, and had no patience left for any more gradual buildup. Even with adequate preparation on Zhu Yun’s part, the moment it happened she bit her lip and shuddered.

She forced herself to redirect her attention. Her gaze drifted to his hair.

This was the first time she had ever touched Li Xun’s hair. She had always felt it was his own private territory — bleak in the way the school’s sports field was bleak, but beneath that barrenness, holding something he would never speak aloud to anyone else: a quiet resolve, a private pride.

Zhu Yun knew that in moments like this, one’s impressions were liable to be a little overblown — but she genuinely felt it: that everything she had in her, all her courage and all her wholehearted devotion, would go to this one person for the rest of her life.

A gale swept through her, shot through with thunder, ringing across every chamber of her heart.

Her body ached. But no matter how much it ached, she didn’t make a sound.

As a child, overcome with curiosity, Zhu Yun had read and heard all manner of accounts about this from various sources, and had been frightened half to death by certain very candid firsthand testimonials. Now that the moment had truly arrived, she thought: all of that was nonsense.

This couldn’t make a person feel wretched. What gave it the right to be called “pain”?

Li Xun’s movements were not exactly gentle. His brow was furrowed, his whole self poured into it — and without warning, an image surfaced in Zhu Yun’s mind: Li Xun in his shirt and trousers, folded into a chair at the base, writing code. The man she used to find so intimidating that sitting beside him made her self-conscious — that same man was now above her, damp with sweat, pressed against her, closer than close.

The thought hit her, and somewhere inside the sharp ache, something cleared and softened — like the clean, cool bitterness of good tea.

Zhu Yun held on to him tightly. She was sweating too. The small hotel bed rattled beneath them, and the sheets underneath had gone into a hopeless tangle.

Images flickered through her mind in scattered succession — the air conditioning remote on the table, his shirt crumpled in a heap on the floor, a chair knocked slightly askew, and the windowsill where specks of dust drifted, illuminated by moonlight.

She breathed in the smell of him — his natural warmth mixed with sweat, pressing in from all sides. She felt certain there was no other scent in the world that could fit with her so completely. The friction brought a sharp, stinging ache, with a fine thread of something else beneath it — her body no longer felt entirely her own.

It was a little frightening.

His lower abdomen pressed against hers — softness against hardness — and the contrast gave Zhu Yun the dizzy sense of being submerged. She was soaked in sweat, her gaze unfocused, the sheets a wrinkled mess beneath her. In a daze, she felt as though she were out on that sports field again, looking up past his shoulder at a sky dark and starless.

She could confirm it now, with certainty — love was the one faith that was the same for everyone.

She was sure every person had, at some point, imagined dying for it.

*

She didn’t know how much time had passed. He lifted his head, drenched in sweat, exhaled a long, slow breath, and finally, thoroughly spent, collapsed onto her.

Moonlight spilled across the room. He lay there catching his breath.

After a moment, he raised one arm and pressed his palm to her cheek.

“Princess……” His voice after pleasure was hoarse and low, carrying a quality that sent a slow shiver down Zhu Yun’s spine.

He lay against her chest. She could only see his hair from where she was. She answered softly, and then he continued: “The terms you set yourself — make sure you remember them.”

Mm.

Li Xun lay on top of her, thoroughly satisfied, and fell asleep within minutes. Zhu Yun had slept a lot during the day and was still quite alert. She thought she should get up and shower, but she didn’t want to let go of him.

Caught in the utterly unproductive dilemma of “let go” versus “don’t let go,” Zhu Yun endured deep into the night — until her legs had gone completely numb and she finally, reluctantly, rolled out of bed.

She told herself: don’t rush. He’s yours now.

Zhu Yun walked into the bathroom with the bearing of a victor. Half an hour later, washed and done, she climbed back into bed.

She used to be very particular about cleanliness — especially right after a shower, when she generally wanted to avoid touching anything that wasn’t a towel. But now, the moment she lay down, she pulled Li Xun — who was covered in sweat — straight back into her arms, without a moment’s hesitation.

He slept deeply, his breathing slow and even. Zhu Yun closed her eyes and felt the faint, warm stickiness where their skin met. She found it completely intoxicating.

Her thoughts grew hazy as sleep approached. The last thing Zhu Yun’s mind settled on was this:

Whoever it was that first coined the phrase skin-to-skin closeness — what a perfectly lived life they must have understood.

She fell asleep after him. She woke before him.

She had been the one holding him as they drifted off. By the time she opened her eyes, it was the other way around.

He was curved against her back, one arm looped around her, his palm resting over the back of her hand at her side. She shifted — and found her hair pinned under him.

What time was it?

The sun outside the window hadn’t climbed very high. Zhu Yun made a rough estimate: somewhere between seven thirty and eight thirty.

She was feeling a little warm, and reached out toward the air conditioning remote on the table. Li Xun was a light sleeper — he half-turned, let out a slow, heavy breath, and brought one hand up to rest across his forehead.

“……What time is it?” he asked, his voice rough with sleep.

Zhu Yun: “Not quite nine yet.”

Li Xun frowned. He brought his other hand up to cover his face as well, rubbed with slow, deliberate pressure, then opened his eyes — they were shot through with red.

Zhu Yun looked at him. “Is this what you look like every morning when you wake up?”

Li Xun shifted upward, resting his head against the wall at the head of the bed. He drew one knee up, and even his speech was sluggish.

“No.”

Zhu Yun frowned.

Li Xun looked deeply uncomfortable. He said, knitting his brows: “Get me a cigarette.”

Zhu Yun climbed out of bed and picked his trousers up off the floor. She reached into the pocket — and pulled out the gold lighter first.

Li Xun lay there in bed and smoked.

Zhu Yun: “Don’t you want to put some clothes on before you do that?”

Li Xun glanced at her sideways, and promptly kicked off the last remaining corner of the blanket as well, leaving himself completely bare in full view of her.

Still in his rebellious phase, apparently — what was this about, first thing in the morning.

Li Xun had the kind of physique that looked like it had been drawn into existence — but what was below brought Zhu Yun sharply back to reality.

This was not a drawing. This was a very alive, very real man.

Zhu Yun averted her eyes and attempted to change the subject.

“What do you want to eat? I’ll go get it.”

Li Xun, cigarette in his mouth, said lazily: “Don’t bother.”

“You’re not hungry?” After a whole night like that.

Li Xun shook his head, and patted the space beside him.

“Come here.”

“For what?”

“Come be affectionate with me for a while.”

A faint warmth rose in Zhu Yun’s face. She drifted over slowly. Li Xun draped his arm around her shoulder.

It was only now that it dawned on her — she was his girlfriend.

Zhu Yun glanced around the room. “This room is really small.”

He made a sound of agreement. “I’m used to small rooms. Next time I’ll get a bigger one for you.”

Zhu Yun asked: “Why are you used to small ones?”

Li Xun said: “For a long stretch of time, I lived somewhere about this size — no, actually a little smaller than this.”

He seemed to be remembering something. Zhu Yun didn’t interrupt.

Li Xun came back to himself quickly and looked her over. “You’ve got plenty of energy.”

Well, of course.

“You’re not sore?”

“Last night was really rough, but I’ve recovered this morning.”

Li Xun smiled slightly.

Sunlight cast a languid warmth across his face. Zhu Yun felt their relationship had now reached an intimacy sufficient to share certain other things.

“I have a very strong constitution,” Zhu Yun said quietly. “Do you want to know why?”

“No idea.”

Zhu Yun pressed her lips together. “I’m afraid it’ll frighten you if I say it out loud.”

He smiled with lazy indulgence. “Then go ahead and frighten me.”

Zhu Yun leaned toward his ear and said something. Li Xun’s brow furrowed. He looked at her with skeptical suspicion. “Really?”

Zhu Yun: “Of course it’s real. My second aunt used to work in a women’s health clinic — she handled exactly that department. Regulations were looser back then, so it was easy enough to get hold of. My brothers and I all had it regularly when we were little.”

“Alright, stop.”

Zhu Yun grinned. “See, I told you it’d frighten you. I’ve always had a strong physical foundation — rarely even got headaches or fevers as a kid, and I recover from injuries faster than most people.”

“Mm.” He answered with a lazy vagueness. “Long live the princess, may Her Highness live a thousand years in good health.” As he said it, something seemed to occur to him, and a slow smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Though your strong constitution does seem genuine……” And with that, Li Xun’s hand slipped from Zhu Yun’s shoulder and slid between her thighs.

Zhu Yun clamped them shut on reflex and roared: “What do you think you’re doing?!”

Li Xun had just finished his cigarette. He pressed it out against the bedside, and used the movement to push further into Zhu Yun’s territory — his palm traveled from her chest to her waist, then down to her hip.

“Did you think I could be wrung out like this every morning just by anyone?” He squeezed her, tilting his head. “What are you made of — the moment you’re touched you go soft as tofu.”

What kind of comparison was that!

Zhu Yun’s face was on fire.

Li Xun pressed his advantage: “Your name suits you perfectly, you know — Zhu Yun, Zhu Yun. For this lifetime, you ought to just dedicate yourself to these scandalous indulgences.”

Her name, Yun, meaning rhyme or charm — and he was deliberately twisting it toward something far more unseemly.

Zhu Yun, increasingly unable to endure his hands on her, finally reached her limit — and kicked him away.

“It’s called romantic indulgences! Get lost!”

Li Xun laughed loudly and climbed out of bed, went to the bathroom for a shower, and emerged looking fully restored and ready to take on the world.

He told Zhu Yun to leave first. He would check out afterward.

When Li Xun came out of the hotel, he found Zhu Yun standing outside with her face tilted up to the sky.

He walked over.

“What are you doing — waiting for money to fall from the sky?”

Zhu Yun gave him a sideways look. “If money actually fell, you’d catch it faster than me.”

The two of them gave each other a look, then both glanced away to opposite sides — and smiled.

Green trees, full shade. A clear sky stretching endlessly above.

Each of them privately felt they had come out ahead.

The most perfect understanding in this world was no more complicated than this.

Author’s note: Surfacing briefly to give everyone an update.

Although the tone has been light and comedic, this story is not really a sweet, uncomplicated campus romance. Readers looking for a smooth, painless read might want to consider stopping here.