Ruan Yu moved through the whole process in a daze, mechanically following Xu Huaisong’s every arrangement.

It wasn’t until they reached the hotel, bag in hand, and the card reader gave its single beep as the door swung open, that she finally surfaced from the chaos of the evening — and said, in genuine shock: “Why didn’t I just stay at Mingying’s?”

Xu Huaisong’s expression said everything: You’re asking me?

Speak of the devil. Shen Mingying’s call came through.

Ruan Yu answered, and heard her ask: “How is she? Is she alright?”

“She’s fine.”

“Have you gone home?”

“Home might not be safe — I didn’t go back.”

“Then where are you? Come to mine. I’ll kick my boyfriend out.”

“Um…” Ruan Yu hesitated, and watched her bag get plucked from her hand by Xu Huaisong, who carried it inside — leaving her no choice but to follow him in first.

The door clicked shut behind them. Shen Mingying heard it, and with sharp intuition said: “You’ve checked into a room, haven’t you?”

“Mm.” To be precise, she hadn’t been the one to check in.

Ruan Yu struggled internally for a moment, then held the phone at a distance and looked at Xu Huaisong, who had turned to pick up the electric kettle: “Maybe I should go to Mingying’s after all?”

He shot her a glance. “I’ve been driving all evening.”

The implication being: he was too tired to drive anymore.

He said nothing further and went to boil the water — and at the same moment, Shen Mingying’s voice erupted from the phone speaker: “Oh my god — a man — Ruan Yu, look at you go!”

“…”

Ruan Yu quickly pressed her hand over the speaker and lowered her voice: “It’s not what you think.”

“No — I want it to be what I think. Is it the blind date guy? Weren’t you supposed to be having dinner with him?”

She was afraid that saying “Xu Huaisong” right now would cause Shen Mingying to blow her cover entirely, so she said only: “I’ll explain tomorrow.” And hung up.

Silence settled around her. Ruan Yu stood where she was and took a careful look around the room.

It was a high-end suite — the living area and bedroom were separated into two distinct spaces, with a balcony and kitchenette carved out from the eastern side of the living room. There was even a piano on the balcony, making the place feel almost like a self-contained apartment.

It was most likely where Xu Huaisong had been staying for the past stretch of time.

Ruan Yu drifted toward the kitchenette and said: “I should probably just go downstairs and book a standard room…”

Xu Huaisong crouched down and opened the refrigerator door, answering without looking up: “I’ll go.”

She touched her nose, a little embarrassed: “Oh — then let me cover the cost.”

Xu Huaisong glanced up at her briefly and didn’t take the bait, turning it back instead: “Do you want something to eat? There’s only instant food.”

Ruan Yu only then realized she hadn’t had dinner, but she may have been hungry for so long that the feeling had passed — she had no appetite whatsoever. “Anything is fine.”

Xu Huaisong took out a box of instant rice and a packet of instant curry, heated them up for her, then gathered his laptop and a cat carrier and made to leave.

Ruan Yu’s gaze landed on the cat carrier. She leaned in for a look and found a small orange cat sleeping inside. She dropped her voice to barely a whisper: “You brought the cat.”

Xu Huaisong gave a nod, then paused at the doorway and turned back to add: “The sheets and toiletries are all fresh. I won’t be sleeping tonight — if you need anything, just call.”

Right — she remembered now. He had only just returned to the country yesterday and was still adjusting to the time difference.

She gave a quiet “mm.” After he left, she ate a few distracted spoonfuls of the food, then exhaustion overtook her and she washed up and went to bed — only to find that, having pushed herself to the very edge of fatigue, she now lay unable to sleep.

She was actually a little particular about where she slept.

She reached for her phone, steered clear of the Weibo icon, opened WeChat, and scrolled idly — until she found herself, without quite meaning to, on Xu Huaisong’s conversation thread.

The cursor blinked. She typed: Attorney Xu, I forgot to say thank you — tonight would have been so much harder without you.

Xu Huaisong: Don’t mention it.

Soft Jade: I’m going to sleep now. If you need to come in and get something during the night, feel free to wake me.

Xu Huaisong: Good night.

Ruan Yu blinked. Xu Huaisong actually said good night to people?

Out of simple courtesy, she typed back: Good night.

One second later — Xu Huaisong: Go to sleep.

Hm. That was oddly reminiscent of the kind of male lead she used to write — the devoted type who could never quite let the female lead end the conversation first.

What had come over this untouchable figure today?

She turned it over in her mind for a while, then her thoughts began to grow heavy, and she finally drifted off — only to wake again feeling wretched, as though something were pressing down on her chest, making it hard to breathe, her body pinned and unable to move.

The bedroom was still completely dark. She picked up her phone and checked: two in the morning.

The temperature difference between her palm and the phone screen made her realize almost instantly — she had a fever.

A month’s worth of accumulated pressure had chosen tonight’s upheaval as its final trigger, and finally broken through.

She could barely summon the strength to speak. What she felt most acutely was a desperate, consuming thirst.

Ruan Yu pushed off the covers and got out of bed, making the laborious journey to the living room in search of water. She found bottled mineral water but worried that drinking something cold would worsen her condition, and turned to look for the electric kettle instead.

But the kettle was nowhere obvious, and with her head spinning, she searched for what felt like a long time without success.

Remembering what Xu Huaisong had said about not sleeping, she took out her phone and forced herself to type: Attorney Xu, where did you put the kettle?

Xu Huaisong: Should be on the second shelf of the kitchenette. Not there?

She crouched down and rummaged for it — found it just as she did — filled it with water and plugged it in. And then there was a sound at the door: a soft chime, followed immediately by another message: It’s me. Open up.

Ruan Yu’s head was swimming. She dragged herself to the door and pulled it open, her voice rough: “I found it — sorry for the trouble.”

But Xu Huaisong took one look at her face and knew something was wrong. Almost involuntarily, he reached out and pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, then frowned and stepped inside, closing the door behind him: “Why didn’t you say anything about having a fever?”

Her throat felt scorched, and words came with difficulty. She managed: “It’s nothing serious.”

Xu Huaisong told her to sit on the sofa, then turned to his luggage and retrieved an ear thermometer, pressing it gently to her ear. The display read 38.5°C. His frown deepened: “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Ruan Yu shook her head. “Emergency care is too much of an ordeal…”

All she wanted right now was to drink some water and collapse back into sleep.

Xu Huaisong sighed quietly, turned away, and made a phone call — to the front desk by the sound of it, asking them to send something up.

Ruan Yu watched him still talking and got up on her own to get some water. She had barely taken a few steps when his arm came out and stopped her: “Sit back down.”

So she slumped back onto the sofa, and in her current state had absolutely no energy left for social niceties. She watched as he adjusted the water to the right temperature and brought the cup to her lips, and without pausing to worry about anything at all, she leaned forward and drank.

When the cup was empty, she heard Xu Huaisong ask: “More?”

She shook her head and curled herself into a ball on the sofa.

Xu Huaisong went to the bedroom to fetch a blanket for her, then opened the door to collect the fever reducer and cooling patch that had been sent up — but in just that brief time he was gone and back, he came to find her already slumped sideways on the sofa, asleep.

He reached out to help her sit up, intending to get her to take the medication first — but she, following some unconscious habit, toppled as she was guided, and fell directly into his arms.

Her burning cheek pressed against his chest through his shirt, and the heat of her transferred to him in an instant.

Xu Huaisong’s heart was beating far too loudly — so loudly that he was worried it might wake her.

He drew one slow breath, cradling the small measuring cup of medicine in one hand and keeping the other loosely around her, and for the first time in his life called her by her name directly: “Ruan Yu.”

She seemed to hear it. Her brow gave a slight furrow — but her eyes stayed closed, suspended somewhere between sleep and waking.

He had no choice but to bring the cup to her lips and say: “Drink the medicine.”

She did appear to have just enough hazy awareness left — told to drink, she parted her lips and swallowed it down.

Xu Huaisong set down the cup. He meant to lay her back onto the sofa — but as if reluctant to let something go, he stayed as he was, a long moment passing, until finally he lowered his head, resting his chin against the top of hers, and said quietly: “I want to carry you to the bedroom. Is that alright?”

Ruan Yu was asleep. She did not answer.

His throat moved. He slipped one hand beneath her calves and gathered her up into his arms, holding her across his chest.

From the living room to the bedroom was only a short distance. He walked it very, very slowly.

His rational mind told him that taking advantage of someone in this state was not what an honorable man did. But somewhere else in his head, another voice kept urging him toward something less honorable.

It wasn’t until he noticed Ruan Yu curling tighter in his arms, as if she felt cold, that he quickened his pace and laid her back into the bed, tucking the covers carefully around her.

He looked down at himself — at his now-crumpled shirt, the place where her face had pressed against it — and felt something hollow open in his chest.

Xu Huaisong applied the cooling patch to her forehead, then sat down on the edge of the bed.

The feelings he had been holding back all evening breached their walls without warning.

He thought about how he imagined Li Shican must be in his feelings for Ruan Yu.

That person was like an attacking forward — no hesitation, no circling around, launching direct shot after direct shot, tireless and cheerful even when none of them landed.

But he was different.

He had always stood watching from outside the boundary line, planning which moment called for a dribble past the defense, which called for a tight defensive formation, running simulations of which angle offered the most reliable path to goal.

And the result was that after all this time, he was still standing in the same place.

He hadn’t dared make an attempt at goal. Hadn’t dared say what he wanted to say. Because he had only given himself one chance.

If he were turned away, he didn’t think he would have the courage to try a second time.

He wasn’t actually as formidable as he appeared on the surface. His careful, measured approach came from cowardice at his core.

Perhaps Ruan Yu’s readers were all waiting to find out why the male lead had missed that graduation trip — imagining some deeply moving misunderstanding or heartbreaking reason behind it.

But the truth was, there had been no particular reason at all.

In the second half of his first year of high school, his parents’ marriage had collapsed entirely, and in the ugly fallout they had fought over custody of their two children — a son and a daughter — eventually deciding by agreement that each would take one.

His father was going to settle in America. His younger sister had cried quietly and told him she didn’t want to go with their father.

So he had gone instead.

He had known he was the one who was leaving. And so he could never have said to Ruan Yu: “I’m moving to America after graduation, but could we still be together?”

At that age, he had had no ability to shape his own life at all. He couldn’t bring himself to believe it was right — to let a thin, fragile feeling of affection disrupt a girl’s future, all for his own sake.

That graduation trip — he had stepped away from it on purpose.

He didn’t like goodbyes. He didn’t like ceremonial final moments. He didn’t like the idea of tasting something sweet, and then spending all the endless time after — time with no trace of her — slowly learning the full depth of the bitterness.

“If you can’t give me everything, then give me nothing at all” — that was how the song went, and that was how Xu Huaisong was.

In all three years of high school, the only moment he had ever lost his grip on himself was on the night he turned eighteen, when the New Year’s fireworks went up.

Xu Huaisong sat quietly, watching the figure curled in the bed, and found himself reaching out, his hand moving toward her face before he could stop it.

But his hand was too cold. Even in sleep, Ruan Yu seemed to sense the chill, and turned her head away with a small, instinctive retreat.

His hand stilled where it was.

He didn’t know how much time passed. Into the silence of the room, something fell — barely more than a breath, barely more than a murmur:

“Could you… fall for me again?”

Author’s Note: Yes, yes, yes! Don’t cry, Songsong — your author is here to make it better! Don’t worry, everyone — this isn’t the beginning of heartbreak, it’s calm before the breakthrough. Songsong is going to start changing, little by little.