The third floor of the internet café had been reconfigured after the original purchase. There had originally been six rooms; after Jiang Yan bought the building, he had two of them knocked together and combined to create separate living quarters for himself and Guan Che. The other two rooms Jiang Yan had initially planned to convert into a study and a small private screening room, but the idea fell through due to structural issues with the interior walls.

Buying the three-story building had used up two-thirds of Jiang Yan’s savings at the time. The remaining portion had been largely spent on renovations.

As the only adult figures still in regular contact with Jiang Yan, Guan Che’s parents — Uncle Guan and Auntie Guan — hadn’t tried to talk him out of the purchase. They had even offered considerable input during the renovation process. However, when they found out he was turning the space into an internet café, they did voice some concerns.

In their view — as adults — internet cafés were places that wasted young people’s time and damaged their studies. Jiang Yan understood that their concerns came from a good place, and he patiently laid out the local market situation for the couple.

The building he had bought wasn’t in a particularly prominent location — it sat between two alleyways, the kind of spot people didn’t typically think to venture into. Running a restaurant or any other business that depended on foot traffic would face serious challenges. On top of that, service industries and food businesses demanded too much time and energy — things Jiang Yan didn’t have in abundance. When he’d bought the property, his priority had simply been making practical use of the space rather than letting it go to waste, while also giving himself somewhere convenient to live.

In his mind, an internet café had always been the most sensible option.

After all, the entire surrounding area was made up of schools — primary schools, high schools, vocational colleges, technical institutes, junior colleges, and even adult education centers and senior universities.

More schools meant more students. More students meant a steady stream of customers.

With that reasoning laid out, Uncle Guan and Auntie Guan had nothing more to say — and in fact, they eventually agreed to let Guan Che invest alongside Jiang Yan and co-run the café.

The café opened successfully not long after. Guan Che had a wide social circle and a knack for ideas, and word spread quickly through the surrounding area.

Business had remained steady ever since, with strong daily foot traffic.

Back when they had first opened, Guan Che had once asked Jiang Yan — if things went badly, would he regret it? Jiang Yan couldn’t remember exactly what he’d said at the time. But as far as his present self was concerned, regret was completely out of the question.

After all, his girlfriend was about to move in.

Their sweet life of “living together” was about to begin.

Jiang Yan felt like life couldn’t get much better. Regret was the furthest thing from his mind.

Lin Tao moved in the following afternoon, settling into the empty room directly across from Jiang Yan’s.

That room was the one Jiang Yan had originally planned to convert into a study, but had given up on after the load-bearing wall proved impossible to move. The room had sat untouched ever since.

The furnishings were sparse — a bed, a wardrobe, a desk, and a chair. Compared to Jiang Yan’s room with its television, small sofa, floor lamp, built-in bookshelves, and various other fittings, the two rooms were barely in the same league.

That said, the wallpaper in the room had originally been chosen by Auntie Guan — and as the only person in that household with a functioning sense of aesthetics amid an otherwise uninspiring group, she had made a genuinely lovely choice.

After Lin Tao moved in, Jiang Yan had a cleaning service come and do a thorough sweep of the room, not leaving a single corner unattended.

In one corner of the room, he had also placed a small orchid plant, its slender stems long and trailing, drooping gracefully downward.

The autumn orchid, pale and elegant, its leaves a lush and verdant green.

Lin Tao didn’t bring much with her — some everyday clothes, a few skincare products. Everything else she needed for daily life — toiletries and the like — Jiang Yan had already prepared in advance.

The bedding and pillows were all brand new.

Lin Tao was quite satisfied with the room. She had a look around, then opened her luggage and hung her clothes up in the wardrobe.

Once that was done, she tucked the suitcase into the low cabinet beside the wardrobe, picked out a fresh change of clothes, and headed into the bathroom.

Each of the four rooms on the upper floor had its own private bathroom. They weren’t large — just a simple wet-dry partition had been built in. Lin Tao had no objections. She showered quickly, washing off the dust and the tiredness of the day.

Sunday evening still had a study hall session, and when Lin Tao went to look for a hair dryer in her room, she couldn’t find one anywhere. She eventually gave up and walked across the hall.

Jiang Yan’s door was wide open — no one had thought to close it. A breeze drifted in from the open window. He was sitting on the floor with his back to the door, head lowered, doing something she couldn’t make out.

Lin Tao knocked on the doorframe. “Jiang Yan.”

“Hmm?” Jiang Yan turned his head and saw her. He smiled. “All settled in?”

“More or less.” Lin Tao stepped inside. She had just come out of the bathroom, and water still clung faintly to her sandal soles, leaving a soft, shallow trail on the floor as she walked.

Jiang Yan glanced down at it briefly but didn’t say anything.

“Do you have a hair dryer?” Lin Tao stopped in front of him, carrying the faint, clean scent of a post-shower fragrance.

“Hold on, I’ll get it for you.”

Jiang Yan rose from the floor and went into the bathroom. When he came back out, he was holding a black hair dryer. He walked over to the sofa, crouched down to plug it in, then looked up at her. “Come here.”

“Okay.” Lin Tao walked over. She slipped off her shoes and padded across the soft rug in her bare feet. “What were you doing on the floor just now?”

She had assumed, from the doorway, that he’d been working on something. But now that she was closer, there was nothing to see — he’d apparently just been sitting there for the sake of it.

“Nothing in particular. I just find it comfortable to sit there.” Jiang Yan switched on the hair dryer, checked the temperature, then began directing the airflow over her hair. His voice mingled with the soft hum of the dryer. “Is there anything missing in the room?”

“It seems fine. I can’t think of anything right now.”

Lin Tao was a little drowsy. She stifled a yawn and tried to find a topic that would keep her mind sharp. “What are we eating later?”

“What do you feel like?” The noise of the hair dryer was a bit much, so Jiang Yan adjusted the speed.

Lin Tao thought for a moment, her gaze dropping. “Nothing in particular comes to mind. Maybe we should just go to Uncle Chen’s again — I’ve actually been craving his braised fish.”

Jiang Yan, operating strictly on the principle that whatever his girlfriend said went, replied, “Alright. Whatever you want.”

Lin Tao didn’t like long hair — she found it a nuisance to deal with. When she was in primary school, she had always worn it short, practically boyish. As she got older and started paying more attention to how she looked, she’d let it grow out a little — but only just enough to tie back. Any longer than that and she couldn’t stand it.

Things had been busy lately, and she hadn’t thought much about the length. Now, with her hair freshly dried, Jiang Yan glanced at it and remarked casually, “It’s gotten quite long.”

“Has it?” Lin Tao tilted her head slightly and pulled a small curl of dark hair to measure it against her finger. “I suppose it has. I’ll go get it cut in a few days.”

“Not a fan of long hair?” In Jiang Yan’s memory, she had never really kept her hair long — it was usually around shoulder length.

“Not really. Too much trouble.”

Jiang Yan set the hair dryer aside. “Then no need to wait a few days. I’ll cut it for you now.”

“……” Lin Tao turned to look at him with a skeptical expression. “You know how to cut hair?”

“Of course.” Jiang Yan put the hair dryer down on the table behind him, then turned back to her with an easy counter. “Is there anything I don’t know how to do?”

He sounded so completely sure of himself that Lin Tao didn’t think to question it further. “Fine. But do a proper job.”

“Of course.”

Jiang Yan had Lin Tao move from the sofa to a chair. He pulled a clean towel from the wardrobe and draped it over her shoulders. When he picked up the scissors, the whole thing looked surprisingly professional.

Before he even began, Lin Tao felt a sudden, irrational wave of unease. She twisted around to look at his composed expression and said, “You really do know what you’re doing, right? Maybe we should just go to a salon.”

Jiang Yan looked at her, pinched her cheek lightly. “Trust me. It’ll be fine.”

Lin Tao rolled her shoulders, as though steeling herself for something momentous. She took a long, deliberate breath. “Alright, then. Go ahead.”

The sound of scissors snipping at her hair ends filled the air.

Lin Tao was wrapped up in the towel, fingertips fidgeting beneath it with a loose thread at the hem. “Jiang Yan.”

“Hmm?”

Jiang Yan was facing the window, head angled downward, his expression focused.

Lin Tao held perfectly still, her gaze drifting out the window. The view was all tall buildings, reaching skyward. She let her eyes drop, and noticed a few stray cut hairs falling onto the white towel in her lap. “Yesterday, while I was out getting the gift — what did you and my mom talk about?”

The movement of Jiang Yan’s hands paused for a fraction of a second, then resumed just as smoothly, the snip-snip-snip continuing at a steady pace. His voice was even. “Nothing much. She just asked about my family situation.”

“That’s all?”

“What else would there be — was she actually going to hand me ten million yuan to walk away?”

“……” Lin Tao’s expression relaxed. She decided to play along with the joke. “Well, what if my mom really did offer you ten million yuan to leave me? What would you do?”

Jiang Yan didn’t hesitate. “Refuse.”

Lin Tao’s lips had just begun to curve into a small smile when a cool, unhurried response came from above her.

“Ten million isn’t enough.”

“……”

Oh, get lost.

And so, their life of living together began.

If Lin Tao had started out with some excitement and anticipation about sharing a home with her boyfriend, then one month in, she could say that not a trace of that anticipation remained.

Because this was simply not a livable existence for a human being.

Before, when classes ended for the day, Lin Tao would go straight home. Whatever she did in the evenings and when she went to bed was entirely her own business — Jiang Yan had no say in any of it.

But now that they were living together, Lin Tao felt like a bird whose wings had been clipped. She had no free time to speak of.

By the time November arrived, the school had switched to winter hours. Evening study hall, which used to end at eleven, was now wrapping up at ten-thirty.

Lin Tao was living directly across from the school, and the walk between the school and the internet café took no more than ten or fifteen minutes each way. Including time to wash up and get ready, she could be in bed before eleven-thirty.

It was still early, and this time had always been Lin Tao’s window for personal entertainment. But now, every single minute of it had been converted into study time.

Lin Tao’s physics grades had always been inconsistent — she’d put in genuine effort at times, but the results never seemed to follow. At some point, she’d quietly accepted defeat and decided to focus on pulling up her scores in other subjects instead.

But Jiang Yan didn’t see it that way. He believed she still had more potential to work with. So every day, after evening study hall ended, he would call her into his room to study.

If it had just been studying, Lin Tao could have dealt with that. The part that truly bothered her was what came after: once the tutoring session was over, Jiang Yan would take her phone.

For Lin Tao — a person who could not function without her phone — this was entirely unacceptable.

The first time Jiang Yan brought up confiscating her phone, Lin Tao argued her case vigorously. “You can make me study — fine. But you can’t take my phone. My phone is my lifeline.”

Jiang Yan looked at her calmly. “If I give you your phone, do you honestly think you’ll go to sleep at a decent time?”

“Of course I will. Why wouldn’t I?” Lin Tao said. “Besides, I need my phone to set an alarm. Without an alarm, I can’t wake up in the morning.”

As if he’d anticipated exactly this objection, Jiang Yan bent down and pulled something out of his desk drawer — a brand-new alarm clock, which he held out to her. “Here. High-decibel, long battery life, and drop-proof.”

“……” Seeing that reason wasn’t going to work, Lin Tao switched tactics and tried appealing to his softer side. “I swear, if you let me keep my phone, I genuinely won’t stay up late.”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe that?” Jiang Yan looked down at her phone in his hand, his fingers moving quickly across the screen.

“Jiang Yan……” Lin Tao grabbed hold of his sleeve and put on her most plaintive voice, her bright eyes blinking up at him, a soft sweetness radiating from her. “I promise I’ll go to sleep on time. Absolutely no staying up late.”

“Absolutely no staying up late?” Jiang Yan looked at her.

Lin Tao nodded enthusiastically, her head bobbing up and down. “No staying up late. Whoever stays up late is a dog.”

Jiang Yan tilted his head and studied her for a long moment. At last, he relented. “Alright. You can keep your phone.”

Lin Tao felt a quiet surge of triumph inside, though she kept a perfectly composed face on the outside. She accepted the phone with practiced meekness, her voice soft and light, the final syllable practically floating, “It’s getting late. You should get some rest too. I’m heading back to my room.”

“Alright.” Jiang Yan let out an ambiguous little laugh. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight!”

Lin Tao hopped off the sofa, shoved her feet roughly into a pair of slippers, grabbed her school bag from the table, and disappeared around the doorframe in a flash — followed, a moment later, by the soft sound of a door closing across the hall.

Jiang Yan stayed on the sofa without moving. He sat with his long legs crossed, his slender fingers tapping a slow, unhurried rhythm against his knee.

As if he were counting down. As if he were waiting for something.

One tap, then another.

He began counting in his head, starting from one and working upward. He reached fifty-seven — and then heard a muffled, exasperated shriek from across the hall.

“JIANG YAN!!!!”

Satisfied with this response, Jiang Yan let out a low, quiet laugh. His head dipped forward slightly, and the warm light of the room caught the tips of his lashes, casting fine, curling shadows at the corners of his eyes.

Soft. Indistinct. Almost dreamlike.

He got up and closed his door.

The next second, it was shoved open again with considerable force from the outside.

Lin Tao stormed in clutching her phone, out of breath with indignation. She thrust the screen up directly in front of his face. “What is this?”

On the brightly lit screen, there was nothing at all — just a single line of text:

You’re not allowed to use your phone anymore.

Beside the words was a small illustration of a green sapling.

Jiang Yan’s eyes were full of laughter. His lips curved. “Forest — Focus for Productivity. An app that helps users put down their phones and concentrate on the task at hand.”

“……” Lin Tao could barely believe what she was seeing. She held back the urge to hurl the phone directly at his face and demanded, her voice taut, “Then unlock it. Now.”

“It can’t be unlocked.” Jiang Yan said. “Once the timer is set in this app, it has to run until the time is up. Turning the phone off and back on doesn’t help either.”

“How long did you set it for?”

“Six hours.” Jiang Yan smiled. “Just long enough to run until it’s time to wake up.”

“……” Lin Tao had had enough. She grabbed the nearest throw pillow and started hurling it at him, one word punctuating every throw. “What is wrong with you as a person?!”

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“Is this how someone treats their boyfriend?!”

“……”

When she had exhausted herself, Lin Tao stood there catching her breath, and made one final attempt to salvage the situation. “If I force-unlock it, will anything actually happen?”

“Something very serious.”

“Like what?”

“Well, if you absolutely insist on unlocking it——” Jiang Yan took the phone from her and demonstrated what would happen if the app was force-closed. His tone was entirely solemn. “The tree will die.”

“……”

Author’s note: Jiang Yan always manages to be completely absurd with a completely straight face 🙂

One thing I didn’t explain clearly yesterday — the character “窕” in Lin Tao’s name is a polyphonic character; it can be read as “tiào” or “yǎo.” For Lin Tao’s name, it’s read as “yǎo,” second tone.

Thank you to the reader who left such a generous gift!! Three cheers!!!