Liangou: Tch.

Liangou: What block list, don’t talk nonsense.

Liangou: Isn’t blocking someone over the slightest disagreement just a childish little move?

Qi: ?

Qi: Red exclamation mark warning.

[Liangou recalled a message]

Liangou: Baby, look how properly I’m kneeling. [shy][shy]

The curve of Qiao Qi’s lips deepened, until the screen dimmed and she caught sight of her own expression reflected in it.

“…………”

She flattened her lips in an instant, pretending nothing had happened, then replied with feigned indifference.

Qi: Can’t see it anyway.

The other side went quiet at once, a departure from his usual instant replies.

The label at the top of the chat read “typing…” over and over, again and again.

Qiao Qi’s heart lurched along with it. Just as she pressed her lips together, about to change the subject, a message suddenly came through.

Liangou: Want me to send you a video, then?

Her already unsettled heart stopped for a beat, then pounded even harder.

Qiao Qi’s hands actually trembled a little. She gripped the phone tightly, again and again, without replying.

Speaking of Liangou—oh, right, Li’ang.

Actually, “Li’ang” was a name Qiao Qi had pieced together from his WeChat nickname herself.

This person: male, under thirty, single, currently residing abroad as far as she knew.

As for anything else—income, occupation, voice, appearance—Qiao Qi knew nothing.

They’d known each other two years, all of it through their phones, all of it online.

If either of them ever switched WeChat accounts one day, the past two years might as well cease to exist.

Thinking about this, Qiao Qi couldn’t help biting her lip, her teeth pressing a faint white mark into it. She hesitated, licked it lightly, her gaze on the phone screen growing blurry.

Actually, she had seen Li’ang before—just not clearly.

…

About two years ago.

Qiao Qi wasn’t yet nineteen. She’d grown up at Mingtian Orphanage, and because of the orphanage’s poor finances, she’d started school later than her peers.

So at nineteen, she’d only just graduated high school.

The school she’d tested into wasn’t bad—not a top-tier university, but she’d cleared the undergraduate admission line. Had she chosen a local school, it wouldn’t have been a bad outcome at all.

Qiao Qi had originally planned to take out a loan. She’d studied hard for over a decade, after all—an orphan, and a young girl on top of it, having endured more over those years than could ever be summed up in a sentence or two.

She hadn’t wanted to give up right at the finish line, so she’d planned to ask the director for help.

But that year, the director fell seriously ill.

The director at the time was Director Tang, who had watched Qiao Qi grow up. He himself had come from Mingtian Orphanage, and was the only one who’d ever chosen to return to it.

He never married in his life, pouring his entire life’s effort into the orphanage.

Then, that summer, age finally caught up with him. Illness struck suddenly, and overnight, Mingtian Orphanage became an institution with no one left to run it.

In Director Tang’s diary, Qiao Qi found the name of the person he trusted to take over the orphanage—his daughter, Lu Tongqiu.

The current Director Lu.

It had taken Qiao Qi nearly half a year to track down Lu Tongqiu. It was only then she learned that Director Tang had actually been married, and had a child—only, back then, between the orphanage and his family, he’d chosen the former.

Qiao Qi hadn’t tried to persuade Lu Tongqiu of anything. She’d simply handed over Director Tang’s diary. After reading it, Lu Tongqiu said nothing, and the next day followed Qiao Qi to the orphanage.

Because of Director Tang’s death and the search for Lu Tongqiu, Qiao Qi had already missed her window to enroll in university.

On top of that, with the orphanage newly under Lu Tongqiu’s management and a mountain of tangled affairs to sort through, Qiao Qi saw how overwhelmed she was and simply gave up on university, staying to help manage the orphanage alongside her.

It was during this stretch of managing the orphanage that Qiao Qi found, in the records room, the paperwork from when she herself had first been brought to the orphanage.

By then, Qiao Qi had already spent nineteen years at Mingtian. Her birth family felt like something from another lifetime entirely.

She hadn’t been particularly interested in digging into it—but right around then, the orphanage’s funding dried up, and Qiao Qi, treating it as a last resort, searched for whoever had handled the paperwork.

Turned out to be someone with real standing.

Only, he lived abroad.

So Qiao Qi went abroad alone, without telling Lu Tongqiu.

The result, of course, was that she’d come back empty-handed.

The person she’d tracked down and the person who’d sent her to the orphanage turned out to be two completely different people.

Saying she wasn’t disappointed would be a lie.

Especially since she’d been alone in an unfamiliar foreign country at the time—and, on top of that, she’d missed the cheapest flight back due to travel sickness.

No money to get home, so she’d had to find work to earn her way back.

And on the very first day of job hunting, she’d run into a downpour.

And run into a pack of thugs.

One thing after another had finally worn Qiao Qi down. She still remembered exactly what it felt like, pinned against that cold wall.

Her heart sinking endlessly.

Her body cold as ice.

She could barely breathe, as though she’d glimpsed the end of this life.

Until Li’ang appeared.

Qiao Qi’s eyesight had already been poor back in school, and it only worsened afterward since she couldn’t afford glasses with the right prescription.

On rainy days, she could barely make anything out at all.

But even now, she still remembered the exact image of Li’ang’s arrival.

Rain streaming down a black umbrella, him in all black, standing at the end of the alley, almost blending into the night.

Alone as he was, he’d radiated an overwhelming sense of safety.

As he lifted his chin, the high bridge of his nose beneath the cap’s brim had entered her field of vision.

She was nearsighted by three hundred degrees—yet in that moment, she’d seen Li’ang with perfect clarity.

After the fright, compounded by the drenching rain, Qiao Qi came down with a fever without much surprise.

Her English was decent enough—fine for exams, at least—but she only learned once abroad that daily life demanded actual spoken fluency. She couldn’t get the words out, and between that and her lingering fear from the assault, she’d refused to communicate with Li’ang at all.

But Li’ang had still insisted on keeping a careful distance while walking her to the nearest clinic, then hurried off.

By rights, that should have been the end of it—except Li’ang’s phone had been left behind at the clinic.

It had been late by then, too late for him to go back for it, so he’d told Qiao Qi to leave the phone at the clinic and said he’d pick it up himself the next day.

Qiao Qi answered in halting English that she would—but didn’t hang up.

Li’ang, apparently quite tired by then—and having gotten soaked in the rain himself—had a voice that came through the phone rough and weary, settling over Qiao Qi’s ear like down feathers smoothing away her unease.

He asked her: “Anything else?”

She sat outside the clinic door, fidgeting with her fingers, and after a long moment asked, hoarse: “Could you lend me some money? So I can book a flight back to China. I’ll pay you back once I’m home.”

As she said it, embarrassment flooded her face and neck red.

Even her fingers gripping the phone had flushed.

Then Qiao Qi heard him laugh, sounding genuinely surprised. “So you’re Chinese.”

Qiao Qi was equally startled to learn he was Chinese too.

Fellow countryman—of course he’d help.

Li’ang went all the way, having Qiao Qi hand the phone to the clinic owner. Qiao Qi got the airfare from the clinic owner and made it safely back to China.

Before leaving, Qiao Qi used Li’ang’s phone to call her own, saving his contact information. Once home, she’d paid him back the airfare as soon as possible.

The two of them had stayed in touch ever since.

But they’d also, by unspoken agreement, never once brought up meeting in person.

She never brought it up because she understood the gap between them all too well—he was someone who navigated life abroad with ease and confidence.

While she couldn’t even afford a plane ticket abroad.

Li’ang never brought it up either, probably because he saw no need to.

After all, in his mind, she was just some unpolished, poor little girl.

But now…

Qiao Qi looked at her own reflection on the phone screen—the once plain, unpolished girl had blossomed into an elegant, striking woman, her features sharpened and beautified by careful makeup.

She looked down, gaze sweeping across her chest, then settling on her waist and long legs.

Her figure wasn’t bad either.

Curves where they should be, slender everywhere else, well-proportioned.

If that were the case… would meeting up really be so bad?

Qiao Qi caught herself pressing her lip again.

She had no other nervous habits—only this one, biting her lip when anxious, sometimes badly enough to leave a mark.

And she never even noticed she was doing it.

It was only the sting that made her hiss softly and release her teeth.

That same sting was what finally made up her mind.

Fine, then. Let’s meet.

She couldn’t keep going forever, risking one day losing his WeChat account without ever knowing what he looked like.

Her mind was made up, though her hands still trembled a little.

She took a breath, steadied herself, and deliberately lit up her phone screen.

Fingerprint unlock, and the WeChat chat page reappeared before her.

Qiao Qi glanced over and realized Li’ang had sent several more messages while she’d been lost in memory.

Liangou: ?

Liangou: Why aren’t you talking?

Liangou: Did I scare you???

About two minutes passed before he spoke again.

Liangou: Look how timid you are, bro was just kidding, alright?

Liangou: You think you can just casually see this stunning face of mine?

Another two minutes passed.

Liangou: ……Wait, seriously?

Liangou: I was just joking around, and you’re actually scared now?

Then, a second ago.

Liangou: Hello?

Liangou: Baby?

Qiao Qi felt herself getting a little flustered, tried taking a deep breath.

Qi: ……

Liangou: What’s wrong? [pouting]

Another deep breath.

Qi: …………

Liangou: ?

Still breathing deeply.

Qi: ………………!

Self-regulation had failed.

So Qiao Qi jabbed hard at the keyboard.

Qi: Get lost! [smiling]

Liangou: ?

Liangou: Now what did I do?

Liangou: Weren’t we just joking around? [wronged]

Qi: Shut up!

Qi: Get lost!

Qi: [I’ll stab you to death.jpg]

Liangou: …………?

Author’s Note: Liangou: Woman, I really don’t understand you at all.