When Zhu Yun first encountered Fu Yizhuo, it was on a day near the end of the semester. The sky was clear and bright, the sunlight warm and generous — a fitting backdrop for Fu Yizhuo’s entrance into her world.

Zhu Yun first spotted him at the school gate. During the midday break, Old Uncle Li had wanted some bread, and Zhu Yun had been sent on the errand. On her way back, she caught sight of a tall, striking silhouette.

Engineering schools were hardly short on male students, and tall ones weren’t uncommon either — but most of them were lean to the point of gauntness, all angles and no curves. A figure like this one, with its long, clean lines and well-proportioned build, was a rarer sight.

It reminded her, almost uncannily, of Li Xun.

Zhu Yun couldn’t help stealing a few extra glances. The young man was facing the campus, one hand resting on his hip, his back to her — and even his posture had that same effortless quality as Li Xun, the top scholar himself. She kept watching, but he never turned around, and she never saw his face.

Back at the base, Li Xun was reclining in his chair with his eyes closed, in that practiced way he had of resting without quite sleeping. Hearing someone enter, he raised his hand without so much as opening an eye. Zhu Yun’s irritation flared. She pressed the bread firmly into his palm. Li Xun opened his eyes, looked at the now-misshapen bread, tossed it aside — and the moment Zhu Yun turned away, swapped it for the new, untouched one still in her bag.

By the time she noticed, he was already eating it.

Zhu Yun took a slow, deep breath.

She was beginning to understand, in a very personal way, why fairy tales were fairy tales — because they never bothered to describe what happened after the princess and the prince got married.

And this wasn’t even marriage. Not even close. They hadn’t finished one semester together, and yet their relationship had already settled into the kind of low-flame, low-drama companionship that belonged to couples who had been together for decades.

As a perfectly normal girl, Zhu Yun had, of course, spent her whole life nurturing various beautiful fantasies about what a first love would feel like. She was, by nature, a cautious person when it came to matters of the heart — deliberate, measured, careful with what she gave. After everything she and Li Xun had been through, after all the chaos and feeling and finally arriving at something she could call a relationship, she had genuinely believed they had reached the level of soulmates.

But reality was merciless. As time went on and the initial rush of feeling faded, Li Xun had poured himself back into the work at the base — more single-minded than ever, busier by the day, so absorbed that sometimes he couldn’t spare the time to exchange even a few words with her.

The one development that could be considered progress was that Li Xun had rented a place off-campus — somewhere they could spend time together privately. But it hadn’t reached the level of actual cohabitation. Zhu Yun wasn’t ready to be so brazen about it; she only slipped away to stay there two or three times a week.

Naturally, sharing a space did mean that when the mood struck, it struck — but for the majority of their time together, Li Xun simply sat at his desk, expression composed and unreadable, reading.

He had the same appetites as any young man, but he was not a man ruled by them.

And truthfully, Zhu Yun herself was not the type to let a relationship derail her studies. But this was her first love, after all — was it so unreasonable to hope for a little more than this?

She was once again confronted with the vast gap between herself and Li Xun when it came to navigating feelings. She was an apprentice dabbling in something he had long since mastered.

Watching him eat the bread he had taken from her, utterly unbothered and entirely at ease, Zhu Yun thought with a pang of rueful recognition that she now understood — at a gut level — how Liu Sisi and Juliet must have felt: carrying on a romance with him while simultaneously wanting to strangle him.

“Take this to Professor Lin for me.” Li Xun spoke without pausing his eating, issuing yet another errand. “Have him look it over — we need it this afternoon.”

Zhu Yun took it without a word.

Li Xun glanced back at her. “What’s wrong?”

She fixed him with a look. “Hmph!”

The little sound made him laugh — and, taking advantage of a moment when no one else was looking, he reached over and gave her a pinch.

Zhu Yun’s face went red. She felt vaguely like they were carrying on some sordid office affair.

“Go on, hurry up,” Li Xun said. “There’s more to do when you get back.”

Zhu Yun pressed her lips together, took the materials, and walked out.

On her way back from the old professor’s office, passing the iron fence that bordered the athletic field, Zhu Yun spotted that same tall figure again.

Is he even a student here? she wondered.

She had been about to walk past him when he suddenly turned around — and their eyes met directly. The awkward jolt of being caught staring left her no time to properly register his face; she ducked her head and kept moving. But before she could get far, he stepped forward and planted himself in her path.

“Hey — do you have a minute?”

“I want to ask you something.”

Zhu Yun looked up. The young man had long, defined brows, narrow eyes, a high, straight nose, and lips that were slightly pale — and perpetually curved into a smile.

Honestly, not bad-looking. Objectively speaking.

But she had rarely seen a man who shaped his eyebrows so deliberately, wore his hair slicked straight back with enough wax to catch the light, topped it all off with clothes that fit just a touch too snugly — a deep V-neck that plunged nearly to the chest, where a faint shadow hinted at what lay beneath. The whole effect gave off a certain energy that was difficult to name precisely, but unmistakably there.

He was definitely not from their school. Zhu Yun was certain of that now — if someone like this had been walking their halls, she would have heard about it long ago.

She smiled pleasantly. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’m looking for someone,” the young man said, still smiling. “Is there a guy here with bleached-blond hair?”

Well, yes. He just stole my bread.

Zhu Yun studied him again. His clothes, his manner, the small details in how he carried himself — he came from money, that much was clear. But there was something about him that was missing a quality she could only describe as the aura of an ordinary person.

She hedged slightly. “Which one, specifically? We have quite a few guys with blond hair here.”

“Oh?”

He smiled. “The most blond one.”

Is this a restaurant order?

He added: “The most handsome. The most impressive.”

“…”

Hearing her own boyfriend described like this, Zhu Yun felt something prickle pleasantly across her skin.

She cracked immediately. “I know who you’re looking for. Is his name Li Xun?”

The young man snapped his fingers. “Exactly right.”

Zhu Yun’s mood lifted. “Come with me, then.”

She led him toward the laboratory building. She had intended to ask along the way what his connection to Li Xun was, but the young man’s mouth barely stopped moving — he was curious about everything, asking questions at every turn. Zhu Yun stared at him. “Didn’t you go to school? How do you not know any of this?”

“Underestimating me?”

He rummaged in his bag, produced a small red booklet, and flipped it open with a deft, practiced motion — and held it out with a little flourish.

Zhu Yun looked. It was a student ID from a well-known overseas university.

Good heavens.

You really cannot judge a book by its cover.

In the photo on the card, he was wearing a deep V-neck black shirt, every strand of hair swept back and lacquered to a high shine, eyes half-narrowed, expression hovering between a smile and not quite. Beside that picture, his name was printed clearly. Zhu Yun sounded it out carefully —

“…Fu Yizhuo.”

“That’s me.”

Zhu Yun looked up to find Fu Yizhuo wearing an expression of undisguised pride. “Impressive, aren’t I?”

Zhu Yun was inwardly reeling. Outwardly, she kept smiling.

What kinds of people does Li Xun even know.

Zhu Yun brought Fu Yizhuo to the base. Li Xun was curled in his chair, writing code. Zhu Yun was about to call out to him when someone moved past her.

Fu Yizhuo stepped forward and snapped his fingers.

Li Xun’s hands paused over the keyboard. His gaze drifted upward slowly. He turned his head.

Fu Yizhuo looked at him, his expression warm and tender.

“Xun. Big brother came to see you.”

Everyone else in the base: “…………………………..”

Li Xun said nothing. He picked up the stainless steel cup on the desk, took a calm sip of water, replaced the lid — and then spun around and hurled it directly at Fu Yizhuo’s head.

Fu Yizhuo’s reflexes were extraordinary. He twisted at the waist, swung his head to the side, and provided his own sound effects.

“Dodge!”

He succeeded. The cup sailed past him on its original trajectory — and straight into what lay beyond.

Zhu Yun had been quietly contemplating the weighty philosophical question of exactly how many older brothers Li Xun seemed to have accumulated across his lifetime, when a sharp pain exploded across her forehead. She let out a cry and went down.

“Oh?” Fu Yizhuo only then remembered there had been someone standing behind him. He rushed over, reaching down to help her up — and was grabbed by a powerful force and yanked backward.

“Get away from her.” Li Xun’s voice was sharp.

He didn’t spare Fu Yizhuo so much as a glance. He went straight to Zhu Yun, cradled the back of her neck, and said quietly: “Are you alright?”

The unexpected blow had left Zhu Yun dizzy and reeling, pain radiating in waves, the room tilting around her. She groped for Li Xun’s arm to steady herself, struggled to find her voice, and as he leaned close to hear her, she managed:

“How come you were never this accurate during volleyball practice…”

Li Xun straightened up.

Zhu Yun said, pained: “Are we in a rut?”

Li Xun replied flatly, “Would you just—” He stopped. A third ear had materialized beside them, craning in.

Fu Yizhuo: “A what? What did you just say? What kind of rut?”

Li Xun’s patience evaporated. He reached out to shove him away.

Fu Yizhuo responded instantly: right leg extended behind him, front leg bent into a deep lunge, center of gravity pitched forward.

“Brace!”

Everyone else in the base: “…………………………..”

Fu Yizhuo was tall and clearly no stranger to the gym. Locked into that position, the curve of him in silhouette was practically atmospheric.

Faced with this, Li Xun found he had no satisfying outlet for his frustration. He let his hand drop and turned his attention back to Zhu Yun, helping her to her feet.

“Still hurting? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

The initial nausea was fading. Zhu Yun shook her head. “I’m fine.” She released her grip on him. A red mark had bloomed across her forehead.

Li Xun frowned. “Go rest for a bit.” He paused, then added: “I’ll come with you.” He went back to close his laptop, and then walked out with Zhu Yun. Fu Yizhuo followed behind, watching their retreating figures with a look of quiet, amused assessment.

Li Xun took her straight off campus, to a café across the street. It was still early enough that the place wasn’t crowded. They found a table for four. Li Xun settled Zhu Yun into a seat and went to order.

Fu Yizhuo sat down across from Zhu Yun and regarded her with his lips pressed together in something that wasn’t quite a smile.

“Sister-in-law.”

Zhu Yun recalled what he had said to Li Xun back at the base. “Are you actually his older brother?”

“I am.”

Zhu Yun quickly ran through what Li Lan had once told her about Li Xun’s background — he had three older brothers back home, but this person was clearly none of them.

She filtered through the details she could remember, and eventually landed on one figure.

He must be the one Li Xun met on his own, after he came to the city.

She drew him out carefully: “If you’re his brother, why don’t you have the same surname? Are you cousins?”

Fu Yizhuo smiled. “Brotherhood isn’t something so easily reduced to a shared surname. If sister-in-law is willing, you’re welcome to call me Li Yizhuo.”

Zhu Yun: “…”

At that moment Li Xun returned, setting down two cups of coffee, and said without inflection: “Don’t talk to him too much. Stupidity is contagious.”

Fu Yizhuo eyed the coffee with exaggerated bewilderment. “Xun — why are there only two cups?”

Li Xun lifted his coffee. He held it at the precise midpoint between pouring and not pouring.

“Say one more word and watch it become one.”

Fu Yizhuo considered this carefully. “Fair enough,” he said at last. “I don’t even like coffee.”

Zhu Yun attempted to smooth things over. “Are you hungry? Is there anything you’d like to eat?”

Fu Yizhuo recoiled immediately: “No. Absolutely not. I cannot just eat whatever I want.”

Zhu Yun blinked. “Why not?”

Fu Yizhuo looked at her — a long, deliberate look, as if making some kind of internal calculation. Zhu Yun was still puzzling over it when his mouth curved slowly upward, and he began to rise from his seat.

“Watch carefully.”

The words had barely left him before he moved. Both arms swept outward from his sides — fast, very fast — and then seemed to shift into slow motion, unfolding with an almost ceremonious grace.

Then the speed returned —

A twist of the waist!

A toss of the head!

Hip. Roll. Hip. Roll. Hip. Roll.

A passing server stopped dead in their tracks, apparently no longer capable of walking.

Fu Yizhuo held his pose and turned to look at Zhu Yun.

“Now do you understand, sister-in-law?”

…

In all her years of living, Zhu Yun had never once found her vocabulary so completely inadequate. She ransacked her mind and could not produce a single word that came close to capturing what she was feeling at this moment.

Beside her, Li Xun was sunk into the sofa, coffee cup in hand, gaze drifting out the window with a short, dismissive exhale of breath.

“Idiot.”