Fu Yizhuo settled back into the sofa. “I’m a dancer,” he said. “I can’t just eat whatever I want.”

Zhu Yun nodded.

The image was still too vivid in her mind. She felt as though something were lodged in her throat, and found herself quite unable to speak.

Who could have anticipated that a grown man would, without any warning whatsoever, begin rolling his hips in the middle of a café.

And the more significant issue was that Fu Yizhuo was simply enormous. Li Xun was already tall, but Fu Yizhuo appeared to have a few centimeters on him at least — and where Li Xun was lean, Fu Yizhuo was built, years of training having given him a presence that filled whatever room he occupied. With a figure like that, executing the display he had just executed in front of a roomful of strangers, Zhu Yun genuinely did not know what expression to put on her face.

By the time she came back to herself, she found Fu Yizhuo watching her with an expression of open expectation.

He wants feedback…

Zhu Yun raised her hands and gave a small, polite round of applause. “Very good.”

Fu Yizhuo: “Good how?”

“…”

Zhu Yun glanced at Li Xun. He was reclining in his chair with his coffee, watching proceedings with idle, unhelpful amusement.

She looked back, considered for a moment, and said: “You’re in really good shape. How tall are you?”

“188,” said Fu Yizhuo.

“Stop talking nonsense.” Li Xun’s voice was mild. “188 is me. You’re 194.”

Fu Yizhuo’s expression shifted the instant the number left Li Xun’s mouth — something struck, like a nerve exposed. He drew in a sharp breath. “How many times do I have to tell you,” he said, voice rising with genuine heat, “I am not 194!”

Li Xun made a small, dismissive sound. “You’ve probably added another centimeter or two since then, I’d imagine.”

Fu Yizhuo went red.

Zhu Yun sat to the side, entirely at a loss. From Fu Yizhuo’s reaction it was obvious he was genuinely upset — but about what? She had listened to the exchange and could not locate a single thing that ought to have offended anyone.

Li Xun obligingly explained, unhurried: “He dances Latin. At his height, he can’t find a partner — no one wants to dance with him.” He paused to let that land, and then added with transparent pleasure: “The Latin Giant. Still doing his solo performances, I assume?”

Fu Yizhuo looked as though he wanted to cause harm.

Zhu Yun glanced between the two of them, debating whether to intervene, when Fu Yizhuo’s expression suddenly rearranged itself entirely — the irritation vanished, replaced without transition by his earlier easy warmth.

“Xun. You’re still so funny.”

…This man’s emotional equilibrium is something to behold.

Li Xun said, without particular interest: “Enough small talk. Why are you here?”

“To see you.”

“What for?”

“Guess,” said Fu Yizhuo.

Li Xun stood up. He turned to Zhu Yun. “Let’s go.”

“Xun, don’t be like this.” Fu Yizhuo’s voice stopped him. “It’s the thing I mentioned on the phone. You remember.”

Li Xun answered in three words: “The answer’s no.”

“Think it over.”

“Think it over ten times. Still no.”

“Xun, I’m thinking of you here. I’ve already spoken to my father — all you’d have to do is—”

Li Xun turned to look at him. “Fu Yizhuo. Whatever connection I had with your family ended the day I got you into university. What your father does or doesn’t do is not my concern.”

Fu Yizhuo was quiet.

“Come on.” Li Xun gave Zhu Yun a light tap and turned toward the door.

“Hey — wait for me!” Zhu Yun drained the last of her coffee in several large gulps, set down the cup, and moved to follow — when her wrist was caught. She turned. Fu Yizhuo was already releasing her.

“What is it?”

He shook his head. Said nothing. Zhu Yun gave him a puzzled look and walked out of the café. Li Xun was waiting just outside the door.

“What was that about?” she asked him.

Li Xun bent his head, lit a cigarette. “Nothing.”

“What was he trying to discuss with you? Why did you turn him down?”

Li Xun exhaled. “Not my business.”

“What’s the history between you and his family—”

“That’s over.”

“Then why is he—”

“Come on, back to work.”

“…”

Li Xun rolled out his neck and made to cross the street. He was already on the other side when he registered that something was missing beside him.

He looked back.

Zhu Yun was still standing where he’d left her.

“Come on,” he called.

She didn’t move.

Li Xun scratched the back of his neck. No help for it — he walked back.

By the time he was standing in front of her, a traffic light had cycled through and the cars behind her were beginning to ease forward again.

“Why aren’t you moving?” he said.

Zhu Yun held his gaze, expression composed and unreadable.

“Li Xun.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me honestly. Are we in a rut?”

“…” Being asked the same question twice in one day, he couldn’t help it — he laughed. “What is going on in your head?”

But whatever he did, however he laughed, Zhu Yun remained unmoved.

He studied her for a moment. “Are you angry?”

Silence.

Ten seconds passed. Finally, Li Xun exhaled, reached out, and grasped her wrist with a kind of reluctant resignation.

“Alright. Come with me.” He changed direction, steering them toward the residential block where he rented his room.

The unit was small, but tidy — Zhu Yun’s work, of course.

Inside, Li Xun set a kettle to boil. Watching his back from across the room, Zhu Yun felt something rise in her chest that she couldn’t quite name.

They were so close to each other. And yet he still looked, somehow, like someone who was entirely alone.

She needed to talk to him properly.

“Li Xun.”

He made a sound of acknowledgment.

“You’re not alone anymore.”

He raised an eyebrow, and there was something almost smug in the way he turned — pleased with himself, or pleased with her, she couldn’t quite tell. He didn’t seem to register the seriousness in her face. He came over and put his arms around her.

“No,” he agreed. “I’m not.”

The moment he held her, the edge went out of her voice.

“It’s just that…”

“What?”

“You have to communicate with me.” She looked up at him, reclaiming her serious expression with some effort. “Li Xun. We need to communicate. Do you understand?”

He looked down at her, brow settling. He had grown up entirely on his own, by his own rules — the idea of another person being genuinely woven into his life was still unfamiliar to him, even now. After a moment, he gave a small nod. “Alright. What do you want to know?”

Zhu Yun, relieved that he had agreed so readily, asked: “Who exactly is Fu Yizhuo to you?”

“A business partner.”

The water in the kettle began to murmur. Li Xun didn’t bother with it. He leaned back against the headboard and said: “I’ve known him since we were young. Our lives were completely different — normally we’d never have crossed paths. It was an accident, really, that we did. His family is in business. His father has a large company, and Fu Yizhuo is an only child. The father had his whole future mapped out — inherit the family enterprise.”

Li Xun smiled faintly as he said it. “But you’ve seen the man. He doesn’t have a single gene for it. Eventually his father probably accepted that his son was a lost cause, and stopped insisting on the succession plan.”

Zhu Yun: “…………”

“But the father is a proud man,” Li Xun continued. “He absolutely could not accept a son who didn’t even go to university.” He glanced at her. “You can see a resemblance between us, can’t you.”

Zhu Yun nodded. Li Xun said, with a quiet smile: “We looked even more alike when we were young. I earned my first real money through him — I was fourteen. He had an important exam coming up, and I sat it for him. Full marks across every subject. He paid me five hundred yuan.”

Zhu Yun’s eyes went wide. “Wow.”

“I was inexperienced, though. I got caught.”

“…”

“At the time, Fu Yizhuo and his father were at each other constantly. He wanted nothing but to dance; his father thought it was nonsense. Fu Yizhuo didn’t have many friends — I was one of the few people he got along with. Once, after a particularly bad fight with his father, he gave me money and asked me to help him run away. His father had him back before we’d gotten anywhere.” He paused. “His father looked into my background and asked to meet with me. It was straightforward enough on both sides — we made an arrangement. After that, he sorted Fu Yizhuo’s school transfer.”

“What was the arrangement?”

“His father wanted him to attend a good university. I wanted to keep studying. His family had the right connections, and it wasn’t difficult to manage. I took his place — sat the exams under his name. After the university entrance exam, his father arranged for me to transfer elsewhere, and I sat the exam again the following year under my own records.” He looked at her. “You know the rest.”

He’d been talking long enough that his throat had gone dry. He got up and poured himself a glass of water.

Zhu Yun found herself genuinely curious about Fu Yizhuo. “He really loves dancing that much.”

“He does.” Li Xun gave a short, sardonic laugh. “His father always assumed it was a phase — that he’d give it up eventually. But here we are, all these years later.”

“So why did he come to you today? What was he asking about?”

“What else would it be.” Li Xun set down the glass. “Outside of textbooks, everything comes down to money. His father wants to move into the technology sector. He wants to invest in me — set me up with a studio.”

“That sounds like a good thing,” Zhu Yun said, puzzled. “Why did you say no?”

Li Xun didn’t answer straight away. He moved, unhurried, to the side of the bed, bent forward, and planted both hands on either side of her.

Zhu Yun instinctively shifted back a fraction. Li Xun didn’t press forward — he just stayed there, a faint smile on his face.

“Princess,” he said, “do you know what I like most about you?”

Zhu Yun shook her head.

Li Xun pressed his palm against her chest.

“This.”

Zhu Yun: “…”

Is it completely impossible to have a normal conversation.

“What I love most,” he continued, “is this heart of yours, that always manages to think about things in entirely the wrong direction.”

Zhu Yun: “…………………”

That she could not let pass.

“What do you mean I always think about things in the wrong direction?”

Li Xun just smiled at her, infuriatingly, and said nothing. Zhu Yun felt the irritation build until she raised a foot and went to shove him — he caught it with one hand and used the momentum to press her flat onto the bed.

He was heavy. It was a new, strangely consuming kind of weight. Zhu Yun tested her arms experimentally, and sure enough, he held her in place immediately.

Breathing was suddenly a project.

“You think in straight lines,” Li Xun said, resting his chin against her collarbone. His voice was reflective, almost admiring. “One is one. Two is two. You have a kind of classical, contractual beauty about you.”

Whatever that means…

“It’s rare, these days, to find someone who actually honors an agreement. Or who would face an enemy directly and deal with them head-on.” He absently traced a hand across her, half-joking as he spoke: “People with genuine principles are becoming increasingly scarce. It’s the age of the clever opportunist.”

Zhu Yun thought she was beginning to understand what he was getting at.

She considered for a moment. “What kind of person is Fu Yizhuo’s father?”

“A very good father — but only to his son. To everyone else, he’s a sharp-eyed businessman. His instincts are excellent, which is how he spotted me in the first place.”

“Please,” Zhu Yun said, making no effort to hide her expression. Li Xun received this without any apparent embarrassment.

“He built his fortune in steel. The business is substantial. But he can see that the manufacturing sector is going to become increasingly difficult over the next few years, and he wants to get ahead of it. He’s already been recruiting heavily from the technology industry — but he doesn’t understand it himself. Naturally, he wants someone he can trust, someone who knows the field, sitting inside to keep an eye on things for him.”

Zhu Yun, carefully: “Then we probably shouldn’t get involved.”

Li Xun laughed — a full, genuine laugh. He gathered her in and pressed his lips against the side of her neck.

“Princess. You are so genuinely wonderful.”

“Thank you.”

“That said, he’s not the type to let things go easily. When we’re starting out, he’ll find ways to make it harder for us.”

“Starting what?” Zhu Yun thought it through. “Are you going to start your own company?”

“What did you think I was doing all this work for, otherwise.” He caught a strand of her hair and wound it idly around his fingers. “Once we’ve saved enough, we go and do it ourselves. Besides — a princess with a dress that expensive to maintain. I’ll have to work a little harder than average.”

Zhu Yun, flattered despite herself, asked: “How much do we need?”

Li Xun told her a number. Zhu Yun stared at him. “That much?! What are you planning to do?”

“It’s still just an early idea,” he said. “Once I’ve worked it out more clearly, we’ll talk properly.”

“By the time you’ve worked it out clearly,” Zhu Yun said, “what exactly is there left to talk about.”

Li Xun laughed. Zhu Yun sighed, her mind already turning over the number he’d given her. It was not a small one.

In the middle of her quiet worry, she felt a flicker of something else — a kind of wonder, really. She still remembered the first time she’d learned what the base project was earning, and how her jaw had dropped. And yet not even two years had passed, and the figures they were now discussing had multiplied tenfold. More.

The base income alone wouldn’t be enough. Would they need to ask their families? Seek investors? Zhu Yun turned it over restlessly in her mind.

Li Xun, for his part, seemed unconcerned. He held her and asked: “Still upset?”

Zhu Yun shook her head.

“All that talking,” Li Xun said, “and for what.”

“That wasn’t a waste of time,” Zhu Yun said firmly. That was called communicating.

He gave her cheek a pat, then stood. “Head back to campus. I need to go out tonight.”

“Where?”

“Sort something out for that idiot. He has no practical sense whatsoever — can barely take care of himself.” Li Xun gathered a few things, then glanced back to find Zhu Yun still sitting on the bed, watching him with a quiet smile.

“What?”

She shook her head.

Li Xun gave a short laugh. “Make me pour my heart out, and then you go all tight-lipped yourself.”

“I’ve noticed something,” Zhu Yun said. “You seem to have a soft spot for everyone who calls you ‘little brother.'”

Li Xun’s mouth curved into something slow and unreadable. He drifted over to her, lowered his head, and said quietly in her ear: “Have you noticed that I’m even better to the ones who call me something else?”

Zhu Yun shivered, scrambled up, and bolted. “I’m going back to campus! Call me when you’re done.”

Mission accomplished.

Zhu Yun practically bounced the whole way home. She had come to a deep personal conviction: Li Xun was not a man to be indulged. He needed to be kept in check. That was simply how it had to be.

Back in the dormitory, rummaging through her bag for her books, she found a slip of paper she hadn’t put there — a string of digits that could only be a phone number. Zhu Yun paused, and quickly understood: Fu Yizhuo must have slipped it into her bag as she left the café.

Why would he leave his number with her in secret?

She sent a tentative message.

Hello.

After a short while, Fu Yizhuo replied.

Sister-in-law.

She was still deciding what to say next when another message came through:

Free tomorrow night? Don’t tell Xun. Come out and talk — I need to ask a favor.

Zhu Yun stared at the message and said nothing.

He wanted to meet with her behind Li Xun’s back?

About what?

If she had found the note right as they were leaving the café, before Li Xun had told her everything — she might have agreed without much hesitation. But she had just heard the whole story, and she knew that Fu Yizhuo had come here at his father’s direction to make a pitch to Li Xun. She couldn’t help being wary.

She was afraid this was Fu Yizhuo attempting a flanking maneuver — approaching Li Xun through her instead.

As she was still turning it over, her phone buzzed again. She looked down.

A single, simple line:

I would never do anything to hurt Xun. I want to help you both.