They worked until evening.

Chen Xi was tired and hungry, but she was determined to visit Bai Yuning tonight no matter what.

After just a few days apart, Chen Xi felt as if worlds had passed.

She originally planned to ride her motorcycle straight back, but Qin Zhan insisted on dragging her and Liu Boyang to eat ramen together.

When Qin Zhan pulled Chen Xi into the car, she unconsciously felt relieved.

She wanted to see Bai Yuning but didn’t know what to say to him.

Being able to dawdle outside for a while felt somewhat liberating.

Chen Xi sat in the back seat and asked casually, “Where are we going for ramen?”

Qin Zhan gripped the steering wheel, his lips curving slightly, “Yangguan Town.”

Chen Xi and Liu Boyang protested simultaneously, “It’s so late, why go so far?”

Qin Zhan turned the steering wheel and merged onto the main road, smiling, “That place is delicious, I’ll let you try it.”

Despite Chen Xi and Liu Boyang’s objections, Qin Zhan insisted on driving twenty extra minutes to an unremarkable street in Yangguan Town.

The car stopped under a straight poplar tree by the roadside.

Chen Xi got out and looked up to see the small shop’s sign.

Fangfang Ramen.

The early June evening breeze carried the warmth of daylight, rustling through the treetops and brushing against their cheeks.

A small native dog lay at the shop entrance, wagging its tail and coming over to greet them as soon as it saw people, circling Qin Zhan’s feet.

Before she could crouch down to pet the dog, Qin Zhan was already pushing her and Liu Boyang into the shop.

It was past nine at night.

There were no other customers in the shop, and the owner was nowhere to be seen.

Qin Zhan looked around, saying, “Where is everyone?” while happily running to the back kitchen to find someone.

After a while, Qin Zhan came out of the back kitchen, grinning, “It’s being made, just wait to eat.”

Chen Xi looked at the five simple dining tables in the shop, then at the curled plastic-covered menus on the tables.

She couldn’t see anything special about this place.

Qin Zhan couldn’t sit still. After waiting a bit, he ran into the back kitchen, then emerged carrying two bowls of steaming beef ramen.

Chen Xi took a big, hungry bite but didn’t notice anything different about this ramen compared to others.

Liu Boyang was equally puzzled.

He added a spoonful of chili oil to his noodles and muttered, “Came all this way just for this?”

Qin Zhan brought out his bowl and sat down, asking contentedly, “How is it? Delicious, right?”

Chen Xi and Liu Boyang glanced at him speechlessly, too lazy to respond.

After eating a couple of bites, Liu Boyang called toward the back kitchen, “Boss, do you have garlic?”

Qin Zhan hadn’t even settled in his seat before jumping up again, “I’ll get it.”

A gentle female voice came from the back kitchen, “Oh, yes, we have garlic.”

The curtain lifted, and a woman wearing a floral apron emerged from the back, carrying a plate of peeled garlic cloves.

Qin Zhan stopped in his tracks and said to the woman, “I can get it myself, you go keep your child company with homework.”

He brought the garlic back and sat down, glancing back once more, his cheeks slightly red like a high school boy experiencing first love.

Looking at Qin Zhan, Chen Xi seemed to understand something in an instant.

She looked up at the proprietress’s retreating figure.

She could only see her slender waist and long black hair gathered at the back of her head in a thick, low ponytail.

After the three finished eating and came out, the little native dog at the entrance wagged its tail and came over happily again.

Chen Xi suddenly remembered something and said, “This little dog looks somewhat familiar.”

She looked up at Qin Zhan, “Didn’t you bring a little dog to Boyang’s shop a few days ago?”

Liu Boyang also remembered, “Right, I said I could raise it, but you wouldn’t let me, saying it already had an owner.”

He crouched down to scratch the little dog’s chin, “It looks like that little dog.”

Qin Zhan jumped into the car with a guilty expression, stammering, “How, how does it look like that one?”

Chen Xi had Qin Zhan drop her off outside Bai Yuning’s residential complex.

She walked along the familiar path, silently making her way to the building where Bai Yuning lived.

She stopped and looked up at Bai Yuning’s window, seeing that the lights were on.

Chen Xi unconsciously reached for a pack of cigarettes in her bag, paused, then stuffed them back before striding toward the elevator.

As soon as she entered the apartment, Chen Xi smelled cigarette smoke. The TV in the living room was on, but no one was watching.

Chen Xi changed her shoes and followed the smell to the balcony.

Bai Yuning sat in a rattan chair with a cigarette between his fingers, silently puffing away in the darkness.

Chen Xi’s heart felt like it had been stabbed hard, aching sharply.

She reached out to take the cigarette from Bai Yuning’s fingertips, extinguished it in the ashtray full of cigarette butts, then crouched down and silently buried her head in his embrace.

A tear slid down her straight nose.

He never smoked, and he disliked others smoking too.

Bai Yuning raised his hand, hesitated for a moment, then gently placed it on Chen Xi’s head, softly stroking her smooth hair.

Her hair was so soft, yet she was stubborn and hard.

No matter how much he loved her, he couldn’t seem to melt her.

After a while, Bai Yuning asked softly, “Aren’t your legs sore from crouching so long?”

Chen Xi didn’t want to move at all. Bai Yuning patted her back gently, “Get up.”

Chen Xi lingered a bit longer before getting up and sitting in the rattan chair next to him.

The two sat across from each other with a small cherry wood tea table between them, on which sat a set of Flying Apsara painted tea ware that Chen Xi had taken from her mother’s place.

In the past, during leisurely weekends, the two would brew tea and sit on the balcony in the sun.

Outside the window would be clear blue skies, and they would read books and draw, occasionally chatting about this and that.

In that small piece of heaven, time was peaceful and beautiful.

Neither of them had imagined that such a small space would be so difficult to maintain.

Chen Xi looked down and rubbed her aching knees, suddenly asking Bai Yuning, “Want to drink?”

Bai Yuning looked at Chen Xi, was silent for a moment, then gently nodded.

Chen Xi got up to get wine from the dining room.

Passing the study, she saw some torn pieces of paper scattered on the floor under the desk.

Bai Yuning was someone with mild OCD, especially in his study, which was always spotless with never a speck of dust on the floor.

Chen Xi walked into the study, crouched down to pick up the pieces of paper, and was about to throw them in the trash when she saw the writing on them.

Transfer Application.

The paper had been torn to pieces, the tears seeming to reveal traces of unwillingness and helplessness.

She paused, then carefully smoothed out the torn pieces and placed them back on the desk.

Returning to the balcony, Chen Xi poured wine and silently clinked glasses with Bai Yuning.

She sipped her wine, turned to look at Bai Yuning, and asked, “When are you going to Beijing?”

Bai Yuning drank silently without saying a word for a long time.

Chen Xi withdrew her gaze, leaned back in her chair, and looked up at the night sky outside the window.

In the deep quiet of the night, windows in the building across went dark one by one.

In the moment when the lights first came on, the darkness revealed a trace of its original, rich, deep color.

It pressed down heavily on them.

That torn transfer application also pressed down heavily on Chen Xi.

She silently finished a glass of wine and asked, “Yuning, what was your life like before you met me?”

Bai Yuning thought for a moment and said, “Working to treat patients, coming home to read medical books, occasionally going out with friends for dinner, visiting my parents on weekends.”

He smiled, “After meeting you, I still seem to do the same things.”

He paused, looking down at the bit of wine remaining in his glass.

“But it feels completely different.”

Chen Xi asked softly, “How is it different?”

Bai Yuning also looked up at the night sky outside the window and smiled gently.

“Everything became meaningful. Having meals with you, the food tasted better.”

“Taking walks together, even without talking, walking became interesting.”

“At work, thinking about seeing you after work made even the busiest day feel worthwhile. When you walk around the living room, even studying in my study doesn’t feel boring anymore.”

“No matter how busy or tired, just thinking that it’s for our future together, I feel like I have endless energy…”

As he spoke, the smile at the corners of his lips gradually became bitter.

“Chen Xi…”

He suddenly looked at Chen Xi.

Chen Xi responded, “Mm…”

She turned toward him in the darkness, her eyes slightly moist.

Bai Yuning asked, “Am I being presumptuous…”

Chen Xi shook her head and couldn’t help reaching out to touch Bai Yuning’s cheek.

“No, Yuning, what I feel for you is the same as what you feel for me…”

But Bai Yuning still smiled bitterly.

“But you don’t want to go to Beijing with me. Haven’t you… thought about our future?”

Chen Xi was so sad she could barely speak. How could she not have thought about it?

She just hadn’t thought about having to give up everything of her own to have a future with him.

“It’s not like that, Yuning.”

Chen Xi didn’t know where to begin. After a moment of being at a loss for words, she continued, “I know you work very hard. After meeting me, you’ve been trying to push harder, work more, charge forward more, so I can live worry-free in the future.”

“You’ve envisioned many beautiful things – that we’ll have both sons and daughters in the future, live in Beijing, and have a life others can’t have.”

She held Bai Yuning’s hand, cherishing the warmth of his palm.

“I know this is your kindness to me, your wholehearted effort to give me a happy life.”

“Every single word you’ve promised me, you’re working very, very hard to fulfill.”

Chen Xi sighed deeply, “But Yuning, going to Beijing, having sons and daughters – those are all happiness in your ideal.”

“I’ve never thought about leaving Dunhuang, leaving my relatives and friends. I don’t even like children, and I don’t think having sons and daughters is any kind of happiness…”

She lowered her eyes and said quietly, “You know I’m just a rough person with little fortune in life.”

“I just like fixing cars and riding my motorcycle through familiar streets. For me, that’s the most beautiful life.”

She leaned back in her chair again, looking at the vast night outside the window.

Neither of them spoke anymore, quietly holding hands across the small tea table, yet it felt like a vast chasm separated them.

Chen Xi suddenly remembered the first gift Bai Yuning had given her – a Chanel lipstick.

It was Chen Xi’s first lipstick ever.

To avoid disappointing Bai Yuning, she forced herself to use it a few times.

Every time she applied the lipstick, looking in the mirror, she felt she looked strange.

Once memories began, they flooded into her mind like a tide.

She remembered their first trip together was to Chongqing.

Bai Yuning had made a schedule and took Chen Xi to visit all of Chongqing’s famous scenic spots and internet-famous check-in locations.

But Chen Xi just wanted to sleep in naturally, casually wander around old streets, and when hungry, eat at an old hotpot restaurant hidden beneath residential buildings.

When Bai Yuning decorated this apartment a few years ago, he had already considered having children after marriage, painting the second bedroom in warm candy colors and buying bunk beds.

But when Chen Xi saw this children’s room, her first reaction was that it looked like a cage.

It wouldn’t imprison their children, but her future life.

But people in passionate love are often blinded by hormones, like the candied hawthorn Bai Yuning bought her at the temple fair.

She held it in her hand, smiling sweetly, only seeing the crystal-clear sugar coating, not seeing the sour, bitter hawthorn beneath with worm holes.

Chen Xi suddenly realized they had always been trying to enter each other’s worlds but had never truly succeeded.

Because they liked opposite worlds.

Even without the Beijing issue, Chen Xi would have understood the existence of this chasm sooner or later.

Before having all her individuality erased by his love, Chen Xi would eventually have awakened.

Time passed minute by minute in silence.

At one in the morning, Chen Xi finally let go of his hand and slowly stood up.

“Go to Beijing…”

She looked down at Bai Yuning and said, “If you don’t go, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

After speaking, she walked toward the exit.

Reaching the entrance hall, she bent down to change shoes when suddenly, urgent footsteps came from behind.

Bai Yuning rushed over and embraced Chen Xi tightly from behind.

Neither knew how they ended up kissing. Bai Yuning had never been so frantic.

Chen Xi was pressed against the wall by him, her lips cut by his teeth, miscellaneous items and keys from the shoe cabinet scattered on the floor from the impact.

Chen Xi gradually changed from a passive to a passionate response.

Like countless times in her childhood chasing the sunset, in the final moment when sunlight sank into the dunes, she frantically pursued and said goodbye.

She turned around and leaned against the wall, her waist dipping down, hips raised, giving him an incredibly abandoned posture.

She knew Bai Yuning preferred her lying on her back in bed, with a touch of shyness, obediently opening her body.

But she preferred excitement and intensity.

Tonight, she would only cater to herself.

Bai Yuning understood Chen Xi’s body language and roughly responded to her from behind.

The two were as close as possible with no distance between them.

Yet Bai Yuning suddenly felt the woman in his arms was like a proud wild horse that he could never tame no matter how much strength he used.

He suddenly felt so tired.

He frantically thrust into Chen Xi, his voice hoarse and murmuring.

“I won’t go to Beijing, I won’t go anywhere.”

Chen Xi shook her head, and suddenly Qin Lie’s words flashed through her mind.

“There’s no need for anyone to sacrifice their whole life for someone else…”

She understood those words completely now.

If Bai Yuning stayed, he would be sacrificing his whole life for her.

How could she bear such a heavy relationship?

Chen Xi’s tears flowed silently as she responded to his thrusts.

Until both were exhausted.