Fei Ni wanted to cover Fang Muyang’s mouth to stop him from speaking, but he insisted on continuing.

His voice was so soft that Fei Ni wasn’t sure whether she heard it with her ears or felt it through her fingers and the back of her hand.

The softer a voice becomes, the more one concentrates to hear it; when loud, it becomes mere background noise. All of Fei Ni’s attention was focused on her hand. She could feel her fingertips pulsing, the sensation extending to her wrist. She couldn’t tell whether her hand or Fang Muyang’s lips were warmer.

Her fingers felt Fang Muyang’s voice as he said: he liked her.

She believed that he liked her. But whether she was just one of many he liked was another matter. Someone sensitive to art often had rich emotions and falling for a girl or two wasn’t difficult for them. She almost blurted out asking him how many girlfriends he’d had before, thinking that Ling Yi might not have been the only one, but she held her tongue. What right did she have to ask? Besides, Fang Muyang had never asked about her history of arranged meetings either.

Thinking this, she forcefully withdrew her hand. Fang Muyang didn’t pursue it, just kept smiling at her, repeating his earlier question: was she reluctant to let him go?

Fang Muyang seemed very confident about her reluctance to part with him. Fei Ni knew if she said yes, he would be pleased; if she said no, he would think she was hiding her true feelings, making him even more pleased.

She refused to say either yes or no. The buzzing of mosquitoes filled her ears.

The door wasn’t completely closed, and a mosquito drew closer to Fang Muyang’s arm. Fei Ni reached out to swat it.

She seemed perpetually helpless against these small flying insects. Her slap left Fang Muyang’s forearm red, but the mosquito escaped.

Before Fei Ni could speak, Fang Muyang grabbed her hand, asking if it hurt. She had hit him, yet he worried about her hand hurting. Fei Ni smiled sheepishly. As Fang Muyang rubbed her palm, he said, “Your hand isn’t big, but it’s stronger than I imagined.”

As he spoke, he deliberately lowered himself, bringing his face very close to hers, their noses almost touching, his eyes fixed on her. Fei Ni felt self-conscious under his gaze and, as if possessed, closed her eyes. Fang Muyang tilted his face to brush his nose against her nose tip, her cupid’s bow, the corner of her mouth, very intimately, completely at ease, as if they did this every day.

The corner of Fei Ni’s mouth tickled, and she unconsciously leaned backward, her hand reaching behind to steady herself against the wooden wall. The splinters in the wood brought her back to her senses, and she opened her eyes again. When she did, their lips were barely a millimeter apart. She pushed against Fang Muyang, who showed no intention of forcing anything, immediately putting his hands back in his pockets, and looking at her innocently with a smile. “When you closed your eyes earlier, I thought you were hinting at something… You know, I’ve always followed your lead in these matters.”

He looked at her frankly, his gaze focused on the area between her nose and lips.

It was Fei Ni who felt embarrassed and lowered her head first. The weather was unusually hot, and her entire body felt feverish. According to Fang Muyang’s logic, she had no grounds to blame him since he hadn’t forced her—if anything, she had closed her eyes first, and he, out of politeness, had to kiss her, though he hadn’t quite managed to.

Fei Ni could explain why she closed her eyes, but she couldn’t explain why it took her so long to open them, allowing his intimacy. She attributed this to Fang Muyang’s experience—he had had girlfriends before, and being the kind of person he was, surely wasn’t satisfied with just holding hands. He had probably done everything she could imagine and couldn’t imagine. Against someone like him, she naturally stood no chance.

She rubbed her eyes, saying with embarrassed anger, “Something got in my eye—what did you think was happening?”

Her anger might have been about Fang Muyang having too much experience, or about her having none.

Because it was a lie, to prove she was telling the truth, her tone became firmer than usual.

“Oh, so that’s what it was.” Fang Muyang brought his face close again, peering at her eyes. “Is it better? Let me take a look.”

“No need.”

“Why be so polite? Let me blow it out for you.”

The small wooden shelter was too narrow for Fei Ni to escape Fang Muyang’s breath. She practically fled outside, only to be caught by his hand—she had forgotten the envelope he had given her.

“Let me walk you back.”

Fei Ni pulled her fingers from Fang Muyang’s grasp. “No need, it’s so close, I’ll be there in a moment.”

“I want to spend a little more time with you.”

“You should rest now. When you come back,” Fei Ni paused before continuing, “we’ll have plenty of time to spend together.”

Yet he still walked beside her. On that short path, they walked side by side, Fei Ni’s hands twisted behind her back. She had applied too much essential balm on Fang Muyang yesterday, and the scent hadn’t dissipated, now transferred to her fingers. The envelope probably carried the same smell.

At Fei Ni’s earthquake shelter, Fang Muyang said, “Get some more sleep. I won’t say goodbye when I leave.”

Fang Muyang reached out to touch her head, but Fei Ni instinctively stepped back.

His hand hung in the air before returning to his pocket as he smiled and said, “Don’t worry, if no one contacts you, it means I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Fei Ni made a sound of acknowledgment. She watched his retreating figure, and when he turned back to smile at her, her gaze immediately shifted to the sky. Only after he turned away did her eyes return to the ground.

The weather was too hot for Fei Ni to sleep. She remembered they had some eggs at home.

After boiling the eggs, she went to Fang Muyang’s small wooden shelter. He was lying on the ground with his hands behind his head, eating biscuits.

“Take these eggs with you too.”

“You haven’t cleaned out your family’s entire food supply, have you?”

“It’s convenient for us to buy things here, and if you don’t eat them, you can give them to others.”

“You’re so good to me, how will I ever repay you?”

Fei Ni was about to say it was just some food when Fang Muyang continued: “How about I offer myself in return? Oh wait, we’re already married. Think about it—whatever you want, let me know when I get back.”

Fei Ni found him too glib and wanted to stuff his mouth with food. She handed him an egg to peel himself.

Fang Muyang took the egg, peeled half the shell, and held it to Fei Ni’s lips, the egg white brushing against them. “You eat it, I’ve already eaten.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Fang Muyang didn’t insist, taking a bite from the egg’s tip. “Your eggs are a bit overcooked, you boiled them too long.”

Fei Ni hadn’t expected Fang Muyang to be so picky now—after her effort to boil eggs, this was the evaluation she got. She certainly wasn’t pleased.

“When I come back, I’ll boil all the eggs in our home.”

Fang Muyang spoke of many plans—the cracks in the Fei family’s walls from the earthquake, he would fix when he returned; the furniture, he would make when he returned…

The cracks in Fei Ni’s family walls didn’t wait for Fang Muyang’s return to be fixed. Fei Ni’s brother came back and not only repaired the wall cracks but also fixed the windows and leveled the floor.

When the city organized donations for the earthquake zone, Fei Ni used money and grain coupons to buy ten jin of biscuits and delivered them to the donation point.

Among so many people in the disaster area, Fang Muyang was just one in tens of thousands—the probability of her biscuits reaching his mouth was very remote. But it would be good if they reached someone else’s mouth. Old Mrs. Wang from their building made hot flatbread and immediately wrapped it in plastic bags to donate. Fei Ni gently reminded her to let the bread cool first, or it would grow mold before reaching its destination.

The original earthquake shelter that Fang Muyang built was dismantled, and the wood piled up again.

When the factory’s new housing was completed, those qualified for apartment housing moved out of the old buildings, leaving them for young people like Fei Ni, and she was assigned her own house.

This house wasn’t any newer than where she lived before—the kitchen was still in the corridor, and washing still required going to the water room.

But because it was her own, Fei Ni thought the house was quite nice.

The new house was completely bare and needed everything. Fei Ni’s parents voluntarily offered to pay to make their daughter some furniture using Fang Muyang’s wood.

Fei Ni refused, not because of the money. After all, she had promised Fang Muyang to wait for him to return to make the furniture.