The end-of-semester examinations arrived quickly.

Every subject proceeded without incident. Except physical education.

The top scholar who had made such a point of telling Zhu Yun to go and partner with Jiang Xingchi for the final practical exam began, as the date approached, to display a growing and quite unmistakable gap between his words and his actual feelings.

He would never admit it aloud, of course. But Zhu Yun knew him too well by now. Over the course of their relationship, her ability to read him had undergone successive upgrades — from nearsighted to microscopic to something approaching surgical precision. A few careful incisions through the top scholar’s composed and businesslike exterior revealed, underneath, an abundance of petty feeling.

Zhu Yun’s strategy was to play oblivious.

Once the initial shared-struggle camaraderie had faded, she had found she still couldn’t let go of her grades. On the day of the exam, under the full weight of a certain someone’s this is your last chance stare, she turned away with serene composure and went to volley with Jiang Xingchi.

It had to be said: Jiang Xingchi was genuinely exceptional at volleyball. Having spent a semester watching Li Xun play alongside him, Zhu Yun now had a much sharper sense of just how good Jiang Xingchi actually was.

Because so many people wanted Jiang Xingchi as their partner, there had been no time for individual practice. When Zhu Yun’s turn came, he simply said “don’t be nervous” and began.

She was slow to find her rhythm. The very first ball sailed wide — she had already resigned herself to failing — but Jiang Xingchi moved and retrieved it cleanly, returning it to exactly the right position with exactly the right force, dropping it straight overhead with nothing wasted. Every subsequent ball was the same. No matter where Zhu Yun sent it, his return came back at the same pace, the same landing point, so perfectly calibrated it felt almost unfair.

Perhaps he already knew about her and Li Xun. For every other classmate, he had kept the count right at the excellence threshold and stopped. But with Zhu Yun, he continued past ninety without any sign of slowing — and only on the hundredth did he finally move: a clean, elegant lift that sent the ball straight up, caught in one hand with unhurried ease.

The day was cold. By the end of the hundred volleys, Zhu Yun had worked up a light sweat. She went to find Li Xun, who was leaning against the high fence at the edge of the volleyball court with his arms folded, greeting her with an expression of pointed coolness.

“What happened to the person who swore we’d face everything together?”

Zhu Yun leaned against the fence beside him and obligingly looked around. “Yes, whatever happened to that person?”

Li Xun watched her with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Under that gaze, Zhu Yun’s resolve crumbled fairly quickly. She nudged his ribs with her elbow — one part wheedling, two parts shameless.

Then it was his turn. He ambled up and, right on schedule, managed eight volleys. Coach Tang offered to let him have another go to improve his score. Li Xun said, with easy indifference, “No need — eight is a lucky number,” and walked away.

There was, one had to admit, something almost impressively unbothered about it.

He was nothing like her in this regard. Grades genuinely meant nothing to him.

Which was fair, she supposed. Grades were probably less useful than the other things he occupied himself with.

That evening, the top scholar — bearing no grudges whatsoever — treated everyone to dinner. He reserved a large private room at the billiards club and brought along Gao Jianhong and Ren Di’s band.

Ren Di’s band was composed entirely of people who had no serious relationship with school attendance — a wild, uncontainable assortment who approached a night out as if survival were not required. Zhu Yun and Ren Di sat together at a remove from the men. Ren Di told her what she was planning.

“I probably won’t be back next semester.” She said it while smoking, still in her signature heavy makeup. More than a year had passed since they’d met, and what had once been bold and unpolished had settled into something colder and more refined.

Zhu Yun stared at her. “Already?”

“I’ve barely attended any classes. My grades aren’t close to what I’d need to graduate.”

That was also true…

“Do your parents agree?”

“Whether they agree or not doesn’t really change anything. We made a deal — I’d get into this school, and after that they’d leave me alone.” Ren Di shrugged. “A person should keep their word.”

Zhu Yun wasn’t sure what to say. Some part of her felt she ought to offer encouragement, but she quickly realized it wasn’t necessary. Ren Di was several steps ahead of her in every direction.

In the spirit of the evening, Zhu Yun helped herself to a few drinks and felt the warmth spread through her.

“What about you?” Ren Di asked. “What are you planning?”

Zhu Yun didn’t answer immediately. She turned and glanced briefly over her shoulder.

Ren Di followed her gaze to where Li Xun was talking with Gao Jianhong. “Not trading up?”

“Not trading up.”

There isn’t anything better.

The gathering stretched deep into the night. When the band members had one by one collapsed, Li Xun helped Zhu Yun into her coat, wrapped her scarf, and steered the somewhat unsteady her out of the room.

Outside, it was dark and bitterly cold. The wind hit her and she jolted alert. Li Xun, feeling it, pulled her coat tighter around her.

“Still cold?”

Zhu Yun shook her head vaguely.

Li Xun simply hoisted her onto his back. She settled her face against his shoulder and enjoyed being ferried along.

After a little while, Li Xun said, in the manner of someone looking for an argument: “Princess, you seem to have gotten a bit heavier.”

She kicked her legs in protest. He laughed. “Not complaining — skin and bones with nothing to show for it isn’t much to look at. A little something is better.”

Zhu Yun held on, warm and drifting. The world felt very small and very close, as if everything there was had been gathered into the space around him. She closed her eyes and let her imagination expand — turning the night into an endless galaxy, the two of them moving through it lightly, weightless.

“Li Xun.”

“Mm?”

“Do you have a dream?”

“No.”

“That can’t be right.”

“I’ve never thought about it that carefully.”

“Think about it now.”

“Then… to keep going like this, I suppose.”

“What does that mean?”

“I made a promise to myself when I was very young — that I would live my whole life in a way I could be at peace with. I would only do what I actually wanted to do. Only say what I actually wanted to say. Whatever the cost, I wouldn’t regret it.”

“You’ve thoroughly lived by that philosophy of doing entirely as you please.”

“Exactly. So I’m saying my dream is to keep doing that.”

“Ha.”

“Does the princess have a dream?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“My dream is to end up with my first love.”

He stopped under a streetlamp and turned his head to look at her — lying against his shoulder with her eyes peacefully closed. “I don’t need to ask who that is.”

Zhu Yun, eyes still shut, bit him.

Li Xun smiled. “That dream of yours seems fairly easy to achieve.”

The next morning, Zhu Yun woke to find Li Xun already at his desk reading. She went out and came back with breakfast, and they ate together without ceremony. Afterward, Li Xun asked: “When did you book your ticket home?”

“I haven’t yet. No rush.”

He glanced at her and said nothing.

The school officially closed for the holiday. The campus emptied. Li Xun stopped going in each day and shifted his work to the apartment, and they sat the same way they always had at the base — side by side, the sound of each other’s typing the background to the hours.

A week later, Li Xun finally asked again: “You’re still not going back?”

“Trying to get rid of me?”

“It’s almost New Year,” he said, mildly.

“Still a few days yet. No rush.”

After a pause, he added: “Have you spoken to your parents?”

He rarely pressed something like this. Zhu Yun knew what he was thinking. “It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

The truth was that her mother had started calling more than two weeks ago. Zhu Yun had deflected four times in a row, and her mother, seeming to understand something, had eventually stopped reaching out.

And so things continued until the work at hand reached a natural stopping point, and Zhu Yun left.

Before she went, Li Xun sat on the edge of the bed and watched her pack. Zhu Yun went over and pressed a hand to the back of his neck. “Take care of yourself for a few days. I’ll be back soon.”

Her parents were both home when she arrived. From the moment she stepped through the door, something in the air felt different. The family ate dinner together in quiet, and when it was done, no one moved from the table — a wordless agreement. Finally, her father, Zhu Guangyi, exhaled softly, stood first, and said: “Zhu Yun, have a talk with your mother.” He picked up his newspaper and went to the living room.

The dining room light was bright — a sharp, flat white that caught the surfaces of the dishes and gave them a clean, blank shine.

“School let out. Why didn’t you come straight home?” her mother asked.

“I had something to take care of.”

“What sort of something?”

“Something important.”

Zhu Yun was anxious. Sitting across from her mother’s composed, grave expression, the longer it went on, the more tightly something inside her wound. She forced herself to think of something else — the way Li Xun had looked at her when she left.

“Zhu Yun.” Her mother cut through. “Let’s speak plainly today. I have some sense of the situation. To put it directly—” her mother said, with clear finality — “I don’t approve.”

She had known this was coming. And yet hearing those words spoken so flatly still made something go cold in her chest.

“Mom. He’s not what you think.”

“What do I think?”

Zhu Yun was quiet. Her mother said: “You can’t even tell me what I think. You can only push back. Do you really believe that’s persuasive?”

“He’s exceptional,” Zhu Yun said quietly.

Her mother was silent for a moment. Then, with a slight smile: “You’re looking at a very small patch of ground and calling it the whole world. Of course he seems exceptional from there. The children of your father’s colleagues who come to visit at New Year — any one of them is perfectly comparable. I don’t need to hear about exceptional. I’ve known a great many good students. And this boy’s background is rather particular, isn’t it.” Her mother’s tone was even. “There’s a saying — ‘it’s rare for poverty to produce greatness.’ Perhaps it doesn’t quite suit me to say it, as a teacher, but the fact is what it is. Some things come from the roots. No amount of effort to appear otherwise changes them.”

“He’s not trying to appear otherwise,” Zhu Yun said, before she could stop herself.

Her mother continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Students from that kind of background often lack a fundamental sense of belonging. They’re impatient, calculating, fixated on getting ahead at all costs—”

“He’s not like that!”

Her mother gave a short, cold laugh. “He’s not? Then why did he single out someone like you to attach himself to? In a certain respect, he is clever, I’ll grant him that.”

“That’s not — Mom, I pursued him. I was the one who went after him!”

Her mother remained unmoved. “You’re my daughter. No one knows you better than I do. I’ve heard something of this boy’s conduct at that competition. You’ve always been too easily taken in by this type of person. You’ve never grown out of it.”

Zhu Yun looked at her. “Taken in? Fang Zhijing was the one who didn’t follow the rules in the first place. It wasn’t fair to the other teams.”

“Fair or not isn’t for you to decide,” her mother said coolly. “And even if it weren’t fair — the proper response was to file a complaint through the school, not to go around the teachers and the institution and disrupt the competition based on your own judgment.”

Zhu Yun pressed her lips together. She didn’t argue further, but her expression made it obvious she was not persuaded.

“You see,” her mother said, without heat. “This is exactly it. People like him seek out exactly this kind — kind-hearted, soft, and easy to pull along. He draws you in first, then sends you out to fight his battles with your own parents. You can’t even see that he’s using you.”

Zhu Yun stood up.

Her mother’s voice sharpened. “I haven’t finished. Where do you think you’re going?”

“There’s nothing more to say,” Zhu Yun said quietly.

Her mother called after her. Zhu Yun went up the stairs quickly.

Anger, fear, hurt — a tangle of feelings too dense and complicated to separate pressed against her from the inside.

She began throwing things into her suitcase without thinking, her mind empty of everything except movement. Whatever her eyes landed on went in. When the case was full she carried it downstairs.

Her father was in the living room with his tea and his newspaper. He looked up, frowning. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Zhu Yun didn’t answer. She went to the door and reached for her coat. Her father set his cup down on the table with a sharp click.

“Enough of this.”

Zhu Guangyi was not a man who raised his voice. In all her years, Zhu Yun could barely remember ever seeing him truly angry. The sound of it hit her like cold water — her hands shook, and she fumbled with her boot laces twice without getting them tied.

She kept her mouth shut and didn’t speak, because she knew: the moment she opened her mouth, she would lose the ground she was standing on. Her parents had spent decades in education. Holding onto her would be nothing for them.

She finally got her boots on. She straightened up — and found her mother standing in front of her.

“What do you think you’re doing? Put those things down!”

Zhu Yun moved around her. Her mother grabbed her arm, her voice rising: “Zhu Yun, have you lost your mind?!”

Yes.

“When did you become so impossible to talk to? New Year is days away — when the relatives come and you’re not here, what do I tell them?”

Tell them the truth.

Her mother blocked the door and did not move an inch. “Zhu Yun. Put your things down right now. Are you telling me he matters more to you than your own parents?”

Zhu Yun looked up. “What if I said yes?”

Her mother blinked.

In that moment of stillness, Zhu Yun slipped past her, opened the door, and ran.

Her mother’s voice followed her into the dark: “Zhu Yun!”

The wind was brutal.

Unbearably cold. Cold enough that it felt like it reached inside and froze everything.

Zhu Yun ran along the empty street for ten minutes before she stopped. When she did, she found her face was a mess — tears, everything, none of it dignified.

What is wrong with me. The thought went around and around, and the harder she thought it the more the tears came.

She was really, truly behaving terribly.

She stood at the side of the road while the winter wind dried the tears on her face until her cheeks ached. She breathed in, slow and deliberate, and felt no calmer.

She went straight to the bus station and took the last coach of the night.

The bus pulled away slowly. The woman seated next to her, somewhere in her forties, leaned over and asked: “Going home for the holiday?”

Zhu Yun looked at her and said nothing.

The woman, entirely untroubled by this, said cheerfully: “I’m going home to see my daughter!”

Zhu Yun said, quietly: “I’m going to see my boyfriend.”

The woman smiled. “That’s a good thing! What are you crying for?”

Zhu Yun turned back to the window.

The streetlamps went by one after another. In her mind she kept returning to the moment she left — Li Xun in his dark sweatshirt and trousers, slightly hunched, sitting on the edge of the bed watching her go.

She wished the hours would pass faster.

It was past three in the morning when she got back. Her eyes felt raw, her whole body heavy with exhaustion. The cab driver helped her carry the suitcase to the building entrance. She thanked him and realized, when she spoke, that her throat had started to ache.

She got out her key, opened the door quietly, and slipped inside. The apartment was dark. Li Xun was asleep.

When she saw the shape of him on the bed, something in her gave way entirely — a warmth too large for the chest to hold.

Her mother had been right after all. She was completely lost to this.

And she felt, with absolute certainty, that every cost was worth it.

She moved further into the room. In the corner of her vision she noticed a takeaway container of rice noodles on the desk — barely touched, most of it still there. The book beside it was still open to the same page she had seen it on when she left. The floor had accumulated its usual drift of things.

The laptop was on the bed. He had probably been working when he simply ran out of energy and gone under mid-task.

When she was gone, he reverted to this. His own quiet disorder.

Zhu Yun eased the laptop away. His fingertips seemed to stir slightly.

She took off her coat and lay down on her side next to him. Li Xun was a light sleeper — he surfaced easily, and with effort opened his eyes. Zhu Yun met his gaze with the softest expression she had. Through the first few seconds of confusion, something seemed to arrive in his understanding. Slowly, without a word, he turned and pressed himself into her arms.

Zhu Yun held him. Against his ear, she whispered: “Did I come back fast?”

He still didn’t speak. He simply let her hold him, quiet, in the dark.