Even someone like Lu Yicheng, who had never been in a relationship, could feel that the atmosphere right now was very, very wrong.

He knew something was off, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to step back.

Their eyes met. Jiang Ruoqiao looked into his eyes, and he looked into hers.

Lu Yicheng’s palms were burning, his throat strangely dry. Jiang Ruoqiao appeared relatively composed, but inside she was nervous too — blame it entirely on this sudden, inopportune power cut, which had made the moment unbearably charged. Neither of them spoke. Lu Yicheng, despite being so often teased by Jiang Ruoqiao for being dense, was, in this moment, nothing more than an ordinary young man standing before the person he liked. He had his resolute side too. His throat moved. He had just summoned the nerve to say something when a knock at the door cut through the silence — one knock, then another, then another. Jiang Ruoqiao flinched at the sound. Lu Yicheng startled, a flicker of frustration passing over his face, followed quickly by resignation — and then, quietly, relief.

His voice came out lower than usual, steadying her against the backdrop of those knocks: “I’ll go get the door. Be careful — don’t trip over anything.”

Jiang Ruoqiao’s heart was beating fast too, but nothing showed on her face. She remained as calm and composed as ever. “Mm.”

But the moment Lu Yicheng stepped out of the kitchen, she let out a slow breath and took one step back, until her back met the edge of the kitchen counter.

She raised her hand to steady herself.

A feeling she couldn’t name.

Disappointment — yes, some of that. Because in an atmosphere like that, it only took one of them to move, and their relationship would have shifted immediately.

Couples in that sort of ambiguous in-between couldn’t survive that kind of charged atmosphere unscathed.

She had noticed Lu Yicheng’s focus, clear as anything.

She had even thought — as if sharing some unspoken connection with him — that she could almost guess what he would have said if he’d opened his mouth.

He had been right on the edge of speaking.

The knock at the door had cut him off.

Lu Yicheng also took a moment to settle himself. From the kitchen to the front door was only a few steps, but he walked slowly. In the dark, no one could see his expression or hear his heartbeat. Standing at the door, he drew in a long, steadying breath — then opened it.

It was Grandma Wang from upstairs. She smiled when she saw him. “Little Lu, do you have any candles by any chance?”

Lu Yicheng, still somewhat dazed, hadn’t thought about it at all, and just shook his head. “No.”

Grandma Wang sighed. “Alright then, I’ll go see if the shop outside has any.”

After she left, Lu Yicheng shut the door — and then it occurred to him, belatedly: wait. He did have candles.

He always kept some on hand during winter. This was an older complex — power cuts in winter weren’t unusual. He’d had that habit for a long time.

Lu Yicheng thought about calling out to Grandma Wang, but she’d already disappeared down the hallway.

He pressed a hand to his forehead.

What was wrong with him.

The thought of Jiang Ruoqiao still in the kitchen made him nervous all over again.

From the kitchen, Jiang Ruoqiao was already calling to him: “Lu Yicheng, are you done out there?”

Lu Yicheng quickly called back, “Coming.”

He walked quickly back to the kitchen. Jiang Ruoqiao was standing there with her phone flashlight on, carefully examining the portable gas stove, seemingly back to her usual self. “How do you even have one of these? I’ve only ever seen them in Korean barbecue restaurants.”

Lu Yicheng replied: “An old neighbor gave it to me. They were moving and had too much stuff to bring. This came with it — I used it once before.”

A few minutes later, the two of them were back around the small table again.

The broth was simmering in the pot, thin-sliced mutton and beef balls tumbling about in the rolling heat.

But the atmosphere couldn’t be recovered, not quite the same as before the power cut.

Now they were essentially having hot pot by candlelight — Lu Yicheng had lit a few candles, and their flames swayed gently in the air.

Lu Yicheng was quietly blanching meat for Jiang Ruoqiao.

Then something occurred to him. “Oh — I almost forgot. I also bought lemons and tea bags.”

Jiang Ruoqiao looked up. “What?”

“From when we had hot pot before — I noticed you always ordered lemon black tea.” Lu Yicheng was already standing up. “Let me make you a cup — shouldn’t be hard.”

The words “there’s no need” were still hovering at Jiang Ruoqiao’s lips — she hadn’t even said them — when Lu Yicheng escaped to the kitchen as if making a getaway.

It was a good thing he knew the layout of his own kitchen, or he might have stumbled over something.

Lu Yicheng appeared unhurried.

He set water to boil on the gas burner.

Then he took a lemon, sprinkled some salt on it, and rubbed it down to clean it. By the thin light of the candles from the other room, he began slicing the lemon — and Jiang Ruoqiao, drawn by the sounds, watched with her heart in her throat.

Wasn’t he afraid of cutting himself? She quietly moved the candle closer to the kitchen doorway so he’d have more light to work by.

She watched him through the candlelight.

Even now, she sometimes felt something like disbelief.

If someone half a year ago had told her — you’re going to fall for Lu Yicheng — she would have thought they had lost their mind.

She had always known the difference between being moved by gratitude and having genuine feelings.

She could tell them apart.

And what she felt wasn’t gratitude toward Lu Yicheng. It was something different — he had won her over.

She took out her phone and checked the calendar. She had marked a date some time ago: the day he had folded ninety-nine roses.

About ten days from now.

Wait—

Wasn’t today the eighty-eighth rose? Had he folded today’s?

Jiang Ruoqiao felt as though she had found herself an excuse.

Ninety-nine roses, or eighty-eight — that was the question. Difficult to decide.

Ninety-nine, nine hundred ninety-nine — both were good numbers, evoking enduring love.

But eighty-eight was also wonderful.

Jiang Ruoqiao thought to herself: do I want enduring love, or do I want prosperity?

She’d rather have prosperity and fortune. So eighty-eight it was.

A delightful decision, just like that.

Lu Yicheng was still making her lemon black tea. For him it was simple enough, and it wasn’t long before a cup was ready. Jiang Ruoqiao had mostly finished eating by then — she sat nibbling on the straw, watching Lu Yicheng eat with focused concentration. “You bought too many ingredients today.”

There really was a lot.

The two of them couldn’t possibly finish it all.

Lu Yicheng was, after all, a twenty-year-old man with no small appetite, but earlier he had been tending to Jiang Ruoqiao’s food the whole time. Now that she had set her chopsticks down, it was finally his turn to eat properly. He glanced at the table and said without thinking: “We can finish the rest tomorrow.”

“Who knows when the power will come back on,” Jiang Ruoqiao said, casting about for something to talk about.

Lu Yicheng checked the building management group chat. “Looks like after eleven.”

He assumed she might be afraid of the dark, so he added: “I have candles here, and there’s a proper flashlight in the cabinet too — I’ll dig it out for you in a bit.”

“It’s still early anyway,” Jiang Ruoqiao said.

Lu Yicheng nodded without thinking. “Mm — it’s not even eight.”

He had wanted to spend more time with her.

His original plan had been: after hot pot, if she felt like it, they could find a movie to watch.

But now there was no power.

“How about,” Lu Yicheng ventured, “after dinner we go catch a movie?”

Jiang Ruoqiao shook her head. “It’s not the holiday blockbuster season yet — the selection right now is really awkward. Nothing worth watching.”

Lu Yicheng nodded. He genuinely hadn’t thought that through. “Then… do you want to go for a walk? Maybe browse around?”

She did enjoy shopping.

As for him, it honestly didn’t matter what they did — even going to a library to study together would be perfectly fine.

He just wanted to spend more time with her.

Jiang Ruoqiao thought: shopping… well, it wasn’t out of the question — she hadn’t shopped in a while, and there were a few things she’d been meaning to pick up. She was about to nod — when her eyes landed on the roses sitting on the coffee table, and she came back to herself with a jolt. What was she thinking? How could she go shopping tonight? Was tonight even the right time for that? There was something far more important that needed doing.

Jiang Ruoqiao shook her head decisively. “No, I don’t feel like shopping tonight.”

Lu Yicheng felt a twinge of disappointment, a trace of loss.

Apart from movies and shopping, he genuinely couldn’t think of anything better.

If it was up to him to plan a date, he supposed it would only ever be: eat, movie, walk around.

Would she think he was dull? That he couldn’t come up with a single decent idea for how to spend an evening?

Jiang Ruoqiao had no idea that Lu Yicheng was currently busy internally reflecting on his own lack of imagination. She rested her chin in one hand, fingertip tapping lightly against her cheek. In the candlelight, her eyes seemed to hold tiny stars. She was looking directly at him, a soft smile lurking in her gaze — and in this atmosphere, everything she said seemed to carry some other meaning, coaxing at the man across from her.

“Lu Yicheng,” she said, “how about we play a game? Just the two of us — Truth or Dare. What do you think?”