Fu Yizhuo sent Zhu Yun an address — a high-end hotel. She looked up the route online and discovered, almost by accident, that there was a Latin dance performance there the following evening.

Wherever he goes, he never strays far from his calling.

Not wanting to embarrass Li Xun by association, Zhu Yun began preparing four hours in advance. She bathed, changed, did her makeup, and selected a set of jewelry to match. Once everything was in order, she set aside the transit directions she had mapped out and simply hailed a cab.

The hotel was far from campus. By the time she arrived, Fu Yizhuo had been waiting for some time.

It was a well-appointed establishment. Fu Yizhuo stood at the entrance in a full suit, and the women passing by found their gazes drawn, with a certain involuntary quality, to the fitted lines of him.

The location was removed from the city’s noise, the land around it open and unhurried. In the distance, a small man-made lake lay perfectly still. Evening had not yet fully settled — the sky above held a pale, washed blue, like a landscape painting on silk.

Fu Yizhuo stood with his hands clasped behind his back on the wide front steps. He was nothing like Li Xun in his bearing — where Li Xun carried himself with a relaxed, almost careless ease, Fu Yizhuo kept his chest lifted and his chin slightly raised at all times, as though perpetually poised to walk onstage.

On an ordinary man, that kind of deliberate posture might have looked affected, even vaguely like a hotel doorman. On Fu Yizhuo, with his particular build and presence, it was actually rather something to see.

When he spotted Zhu Yun, he bowed slightly and extended his arm for her to take.

Zhu Yun registered the gesture with quiet appreciation. “You’re considerably more gentlemanly than he is,” she said.

Fu Yizhuo maintained his characteristic smile.

“Accurate.”

He led her inside to the hotel’s main hall. It was Zhu Yun’s first time attending a Latin dance performance, and it was not arranged as she had expected — no raised stage, no single viewing direction. Instead, the audience was arranged in a circle around a central dance floor, allowing the spectators to observe from every angle.

Zhu Yun didn’t know much about dance, and could only take in the spectacle as it came. She found herself noting the foreign performers — blond, blue-eyed, clearly professional — and realized that even among the men, none of them came close to Fu Yizhuo’s height.

He really should have been a model.

More than the performance itself, she found herself watching the person beside her. Fu Yizhuo was entirely absorbed, his expression transported, his body moving in small, unconscious responses to the music. Zhu Yun sat with a certain internal tension, genuinely concerned that the mood might overtake him and he would simply rise from his seat and join the performers on the floor.

Fortunately, he held himself together for the duration.

“Shall we, sister-in-law?” Fu Yizhuo said with a smile, as the applause faded. “Let’s go get a drink.”

They made their way to the bar on the ground floor. The performance had just ended, and a number of attendees had drifted in to unwind. The bar was tastefully decorated, the room suffused in the quiet amber of champagne tones, populated by women in evening wear and men in suits — an older crowd, mostly, conversing in low voices about the dancing they had just witnessed.

Zhu Yun felt a private surge of relief that she had not shown up in a t-shirt and jeans.

Fu Yizhuo settled onto a barstool and asked: “What would you like?”

Knowing herself, Zhu Yun kept it sensible and asked for a juice.

In the few minutes it took to prepare, the vacant seat beside Fu Yizhuo was claimed by two women — a pair of sisters, by the look of them, whose glances were anything but casual.

“…” Zhu Yun looked Fu Yizhuo over again. He was facing her, one foot hooked up onto the rung of his stool, the other leg extended straight to the floor, a couple of shirt buttons undone, one arm draped loosely on the bar. The overall effect was, in a word, considerable.

“You two are actually quite alike in that regard,” Zhu Yun said, mostly to herself.

“Mm?” Fu Yizhuo hadn’t quite caught it.

“I said you and your brother have a similar talent for making an impression. He must have picked up some bad habits from you.”

“You have it backwards.”

Fu Yizhuo turned his stemmed glass slowly in his fingers, smiling. “It wasn’t him learning from me. It was me learning from him.”

Zhu Yun was skeptical. “Really.”

Fu Yizhuo gave a quiet, private sort of smile.

“Sister-in-law, you should have more faith in Xun.”

I’d rather not have faith in him about this particular thing…

There was one more thing Zhu Yun had been sitting on for some time. She took the opportunity now. “Why do you call him just ‘Xun’? Is that something special between you two?”

“Guess.”

“…”

“A hint: you actually mentioned the answer the last time we met.”

That would have been at the café. Before Zhu Yun could reach back into that memory, Fu Yizhuo asked: “Did Xun tell you about how we know each other?”

“What aspect of it?”

“Sister-in-law. You don’t have to be quite so guarded.”

Zhu Yun looked down and sipped her juice. Fu Yizhuo said: “He helped me get settled last night. We talked for a while — quite a bit about you, actually.”

“What did he say?”

“He said you were the one who pursued him. That it cost you considerable effort. That he had absolutely no interest in that direction to begin with, but you kept throwing yourself at him no matter how many times he tried to send you away, until finally he reluctantly gave in.”

Zhu Yun’s eyes went wide. A mouthful of watermelon juice lodged in her throat. She forced it down like she was swallowing something sharp.

“Excuse me?!”

The pair of sisters nearby glanced over. Fu Yizhuo was grinning. Zhu Yun caught herself immediately.

He’s making it up…

“Not quite as dramatic as I made it sound,” Fu Yizhuo said, spreading his hands, “but roughly in that spirit. So I can probably guess how he introduced me to you.”

Zhu Yun kept her expression neutral, aiming for inscrutability.

“It’s like a plot summary,” Fu Yizhuo said. “He gives you the outline but none of the details — because he never lets himself appear at a disadvantage. Especially in front of someone he cares about.” He leaned in slightly, conspiratorial. “Do you want to know how we actually met? Little Xun was quite endearing as a child.”

Zhu Yun lifted her chin.

“Go ahead.”

“You have to agree to one condition first.”

Of course.

So that’s how it is.

Zhu Yun stirred her straw idly. “Never mind, then.”

Fu Yizhuo: “…”

“Besides,” she added, “there’s no way to tell if it would even be true.”

“It’s definitely true.”

“Who can vouch for that?”

Fu Yizhuo reached over, took her hand, and pressed it against his chest. Zhu Yun had half expected an oath on his conscience — instead, what came out was:

“Sister-in-law. The bigger the chest, the deeper the sincerity.”

The pair of sisters quietly relocated.

Li Xun had been entirely right. This was, genuinely, an idiot.

Zhu Yun retrieved her hand. “Calm down for a moment. I trust you — I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t.”

“Then agree to my condition.”

“Let’s talk about other things first. That one goes last.”

As it turned out, women are simply better at negotiating. Having failed on the chest front, Fu Yizhuo had no choice but to comply.

“How did Xun describe how we met?”

“He said it was a coincidence.”

“A coincidence.” Fu Yizhuo gave a short laugh. “A coincidence. I can’t believe he said that with a straight face. Calculated and deliberate would be closer to the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

Fu Yizhuo explained: “I was attending the best middle school in the city at the time, but I hated going. I skipped class constantly — and I kept seeing him hanging around near the back gate. His hair was impossible to miss, so I recognized him quickly. Then one day, a classmate and I were arguing about whose turn it was to write up an assignment, and he walked over from the side and said he’d do it.”

Fu Yizhuo gestured at roughly waist height.

“He was about that tall then. Very thin. Never smiled. My friends didn’t pay him any attention, but I handed him the assignment. It was only later, once we knew each other a bit, that I found out — after he finished primary school, his family had no intention of letting him continue studying. He was desperate, so he started staking out our school gate.”

“He used to borrow books from me. I offered to just buy him a set and he refused.” Fu Yizhuo smiled at the memory. “He’s always been proud. Not the kind of pride that has any obvious reason behind it — just something built into him. It’s cost him a lot over the years, but he’s never learned his lesson.”

“Then came that important exam. I offered him five hundred to sit it in my place. He went. And we both got caught — because we’d both forgotten about his hair.” Fu Yizhuo looked almost proud. “That was the first time he swore at me to my face. He said idiots are contagious.”

Being called an idiot, Fu Yizhuo somehow wore with complete satisfaction.

“Things between me and my father were bad at the time. My mother died when I was young, and he’d poured everything into me — all of it directed toward the future he had designed. None of it was anything I wanted. I only wanted to dance. Xun stayed with us for a short while — I told him to take the guest room, but he wouldn’t listen. Insisted on staying in the small storage room with our housekeeper. His relationship with me was always somewhere between good and not good — a kind of professional distance he kept. But there was one time…”

At some point, without Zhu Yun quite noticing when, Fu Yizhuo’s voice had dropped to something quieter, steadier, the performance entirely gone from it.

She thought to herself that if he could stay like this, it wouldn’t only be those two women at the bar — it might be every woman in the room.

“I was seventeen. By then I was already 189 centimeters. The partner I’d been dancing with left, and even the teacher who’d been training me told me to quit — or at most keep it as a hobby. My father thought he’d already won. That period was one of the darkest of my life. I felt like my world had simply ended. I smoked, I drank, I found every way I could think of to fall apart. Xun came home during a break and found me drunk in bed, sick with it. He said something to me…”

Zhu Yun realized, gradually, that she was giving him her complete attention.

Fu Yizhuo said, quietly: “He said: idiot.”

Zhu Yun barely stopped herself from making a sound. That required this much buildup?

But Fu Yizhuo wasn’t finished. “He said: idiot. The road to winning or losing is long. We’re both just getting started.”

He smiled at her.

“He’s called me an idiot more times than I can count. But that was the only time I felt he meant it kindly. I’ve never forgotten that day. It was the first time I ever thought — I wish we were real brothers.”

The seriousness lasted a few more seconds before Fu Yizhuo returned to form, tapping the side of his head cheerfully.

“So from then on I just called him by his given name and decided in my own head that we shared a surname. Reasonable, right?”

Zhu Yun nodded. “Reasonable.”

Fu Yizhuo smiled and reached into his jacket, producing an envelope which he set on the bar.

“A favor. Hold onto this for me.”

Zhu Yun touched it — from the thickness and weight, it was clearly a bank card inside.

These two brothers really are, in fact, remarkably alike.

“Nothing to do with my father,” Fu Yizhuo said. “This is my own money. I know he’s resourceful and more than capable of earning, but he also has a lot of expenses.”

Zhu Yun said nothing.

“He’s someone who’s going to do something significant. Don’t let him get bogged down struggling over small amounts of money. I know he’ll never accept my father’s terms — but he genuinely needs startup capital, and with that temper of his, he would never bring himself to ask anyone…”

Fu Yizhuo lifted his glass, thought of something, and smiled. “Besides, the probability that I’ll ever support myself through dancing is essentially zero. Think of it as an early investment — I’m buying in. I won’t interfere in anything you do, and if it makes you feel better, we can draw up a proper contract.”

Zhu Yun drained the last of her watermelon juice and took the envelope.

Fu Yizhuo looked at her. “Sister-in-law.”

“Yes.”

“You need to be his anchor.”

Zhu Yun looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Xun is extremely capable,” Fu Yizhuo said, “but he has his vulnerabilities. Probably connected to everything he went through — his approach to things can be extreme at times. Like someone walking a tightrope.”

Zhu Yun looked down at her hands. “I know.”

“So keep a close eye on him. He used to be deeply resistant to accepting help from anyone. But he has you now. University is the first genuine beginning of his life — he’s treating it as a completely new starting point.”

The image surfaced in Zhu Yun’s mind without her summoning it: the first day of term, and Li Xun at the front of the classroom, introducing himself.

He’d looked slightly tired that day. His smile had been the insufferable kind. He’d faced the entire class and said —

My name is Li Xun. I was this year’s top-scoring student in the university entrance examination.

Zhu Yun pressed her lips together, quietly, and smiled.

She noticed Fu Yizhuo watching her.

“What is it?”

“Do you know how he described your first interaction?”

Zhu Yun shook her head.

“He said the first time you two really spoke was at the school’s athletic field. You went looking for him — you wanted him to come to the study hall. According to Xun, your expression at that moment held two parts fear, two parts hesitation, and ninety-five parts contempt.”

Zhu Yun thought she ought to point out: “That only adds up to ninety-nine.”

Fu Yizhuo smiled. “The last part was anticipation.”

Zhu Yun felt heat rise to her face without quite knowing why. She bit the end of her straw and muttered: “It was dark. I don’t know how he managed to read all of that…”

“Men exaggerate when they haven’t seen each other in a while,” Fu Yizhuo said simply.

They talked a while longer, and eventually the hour grew late. Leaving the hotel, they found their directions diverged and said their goodbyes at the entrance.

Fu Yizhuo turned to her before parting. “Tell him the PIN is the date we first met. If he can’t remember it, he doesn’t have to use it.”

Zhu Yun: “…”

He turned and walked away. Zhu Yun watched his retreating figure and called after him: “Thank you!”

A crisp snap of his fingers, and he disappeared into the night.

It was late by the time Zhu Yun returned to campus. She changed quickly and made her way to the base — where, as expected, Li Xun was still at his station.

She had often thought that being with Li Xun was like assembling a puzzle. Pieces found in scattered corners, gradually fitted together until the whole picture took shape.

She came up behind him and quietly wrapped her arms around him. Li Xun’s attention remained on his screen. “What is it?” he said, without looking up.

Zhu Yun pressed her cheek to his. She liked the way he smelled. She couldn’t help leaning in again.

“Are you a dog?” Li Xun said.

Zhu Yun said, softly: “Tomorrow I’m moving my things from the dorm to your place. Is that alright?”

Li Xun paused. He tilted his head to look at her, and a faintly smug, amused expression crossed his face. “What’s come over you all of a sudden?”

She tightened her arms around him.

And said, quiet and fierce, right into his ear: “…Someone has to keep a close eye on you.”