Wearing jersey number 25 and running across the court meant today was her birthday — Ban Sheng had changed his jersey just to celebrate it for her.

He had never joined any competition before, but he had broken that principle — and it was because of her.

“How did you know my birthday?” Lin Weixia looked up at him.

Ban Sheng gave a low, amused laugh, the picture of someone who had nowhere to channel his mischief: “Nothing simpler — on the very first day of school, I got hold of your enrollment application form.”

Everything about her — he already knew it all.

The noise outside was loud. Light filtered in. Ban Sheng let her go shortly after, and Lin Weixia slipped out. He followed a moment later.

No one knew about the small interlude that had taken place inside the equipment room.

The second half of the match got underway quickly. Lin Weixia settled back into her seat, her heart stirring with emotion. Fang Mo’s eyes went wide as if she had discovered a new continent:

“Weixia, what’s wrong with you? Your face is as red as an apple.”

Lin Weixia paused, then shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

As the basketball match reached its most intense stage, the people watching in the stands couldn’t help but feel their hearts race too. Lin Weixia watched the competition below with focused attention. The young man in his black-and-white basketball uniform, the blazing red number 25 printed on his back, ran back and forth across the court dribbling the ball, crouching low to seize his moment and shoot, agile and quick.

Like a swift flash of lightning.

Ban Sheng’s loose-fitting jersey made him look even taller, with broad shoulders. The black lily tattoo on his ankle was eye-catching, and the roguishly lazy expression that occasionally swept across the stands was magnetic — even the small mole near the bridge of his nose seemed to have character.

In the crowd, he was simply a dazzling presence.

Lin Weixia couldn’t understand why Ban Sheng seemed weary of appearing in public spaces at school, always refusing to integrate with others. She was lost in these thoughts when the girl behind her suddenly let out a sharp scream.

She followed the sound — only to see Ning Chao hurl the ball toward Ban Sheng from far away. Ban Sheng leaped into the air, grabbed the backboard, and with no apparent effort at all, threw a three-point shot straight through the basket.

The referee blew a sharp whistle. The moment the score card was raised, the entire arena rose to its feet in cheers and screams. Shengao won against Sanzhong by a crushing margin.

Ban Sheng stood on the court. Beads of sweat clung to his sharp, high brow bone. His dark eyes swept once over the audience as if searching for someone.

“Ahhhh, is he looking at me?!”

A companion pushed the lovesick girl: “Mystery solved — it looks like Queen Liu really is a one-sided crush on Ban Sheng. The person he’s looking at is probably in the audience.”

Several of them looked over. Liu Sijia’s expression in her cheerleader position near the court didn’t look particularly pleasant.

“Who is he looking for? I’m so curious — I’d like to see what kind of girl has Ban Sheng captivated.”

Those dark eyes swept back and forth across the stands, then paused, seeming to lock onto someone in the crowd. His gaze landed on Lin Weixia — her entire heart went numb. No matter how hard she tried, it felt like she couldn’t breathe. Ban Sheng gave a light laugh and raised one half of an eyebrow, the gesture roguish yet crisp.

The cheers and screams still rang in Lin Weixia’s ears. Her heartbeat kept accelerating. The words Ban Sheng had said to her in the equipment room echoed in her left ear.

“This match — I’m winning it for you to see.”

Class Two of Year Two had been doing well in exams lately, and had now also been flourishing in sports and cultural activities. Old Liu was in high spirits — with a generous wave of his hand, he booked a large private room at a hotel in the city to celebrate this victory.

The moment the students heard the news, the entire room erupted in cheers.

To get Old Liu — that iron rooster — to treat them to a meal was something genuinely worth getting excited about!

The students eventually dispersed to go home, bathe, change clothes, and made their way to Bao Lai Fu. Lin Weixia sat at the dining table chatting with Fang Mo. The girls gossiped, while the boys huddled together talking about nothing but basketball or nonsense.

Ban Sheng arrived fashionably late. The moment he appeared, the whole class started riling him up: “Oh ho, the champion has arrived!”

“Incredible — when Brother Ban doesn’t act, nothing happens, but when he does act, he shakes heaven and earth.” Qiu Minghua, as usual, blew his Ban Sheng trumpet.

The others, seeing that Ban Sheng wasn’t scowling, went all out teasing him — after all, Ban Sheng was normally so cold he barely had any dealings with any of them.

Ban Sheng had put on a black T-shirt. The collarbone peeking out still had droplets of water on it. He happened to sit diagonally across from Lin Weixia, said very little, and spent the whole time playing with his phone. When someone spoke to him, he’d set the phone down and listen to them ramble with careless ease.

After the meal had gone on for a while, the sports committee representative brought a glass over to toast Ban Sheng. He was fairly drunk, his speech slurring slightly: “Brother Ban, you’re incredible — I’m in awe. We owe this match to you.”

Ban Sheng gave a low, amused hum and replied: “Not me — it was the lucky number.”

“The number? You mean your jersey number, 25? What, did you buy a lottery ticket with 25 yesterday and win?” Ning Chao laughed and jumped in.

Lin Weixia was minding her own business, drinking her iced cola with studied composure — when she heard Ban Sheng across from her answer slowly, with a faint self-satisfied laugh:

“Right — running into 25 hit me the jackpot.”

She had just gotten a mouthful of cola to her throat when she choked hard and couldn’t stop coughing, until tears streamed from Lin Weixia’s eyes. Fang Mo immediately poured her a cup of plain water and patted her on the back.

In the gap between bending over to drink water, Lin Weixia looked up through the transparent glass — and met his gaze exactly, catching a flash of a mischievous smile across Ban Sheng’s face.

After the group had eaten and drunk their fill, the class president was coaxed by classmates into using the class fund to move the party to a KTV. Old Liu went along laughing cheerfully as well.

Ban Sheng had already slipped away early — that he had attended the dinner at all was something, and no one dared stop him, though the sparkle in a group of girls’ eyes dimmed accordingly.

The moment they arrived at the KTV, Qiu Minghua snatched up the microphone. Ning Chao sat by the song-request machine. The two ended up dueting a song called “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” gesturing wildly and howling like ghosts crying and wolves wailing. Their singing could only be described as shaking the heavens and moving the spirits.

Others sat eating fruit and snacks and playing dice games.

Liu Sijia had been watching the two of them being dramatic together, and her normally cool, striking expression cracked — she burst out laughing with a “pfft,” collapsing against Lin Weixia’s shoulder, her long curls disheveled, her shoulders shaking.

Lin Weixia’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She fished it out and glanced at it — it was a message from Ban Sheng.

Ban: 【Come out.】

Lin Weixia didn’t reply to the message. She held the phone and waited until Liu Sijia had finished laughing before she rose and stepped outside. The moment she walked out of the private room door, Lin Weixia felt considerably lighter — her right ear would no longer ache the way it had from the thundering speakers inside.

She looked around for a moment and didn’t see anyone. Then, all of a sudden, a voice came from her left and called to her:

“Over here.”

Lin Weixia looked over. Ban Sheng was leaning against the wall. He had on a baseball cap, his lower jaw visible beneath the brim, his head tilted down as he cupped a hand around a flame and lit a cigarette. The orange-red glow of the flame illuminated a face that was both languid and spellbinding.

Ban Sheng led her away, turning left and right, the two of them moving farther and farther from the KTV. In the end, he brought Lin Weixia to a park in the urban area. Stepping inside — the trees were lush and the quiet was extraordinary. Lamp after lamp was set among the flower beds, like stars hidden in the earth.

The two of them came to sit on a bench to one side, facing the edge of the road. A cool breeze blew through — very comfortable. Lin Weixia was still wondering what they had come here to do when Ban Sheng produced a small cream-and-strawberry cake from behind him as if by magic.

Lin Weixia was momentarily stunned. She felt something stir faintly in the depths of her chest — a soft, numbing ache. She feigned ease and said: “Oh — thank you.”

Ban Sheng inserted three candles into the cake and bent his neck to light them one by one with his lighter. The orange candlelight flickered. He tipped his chin up at Lin Weixia:

“Alright — make a wish.”

Lin Weixia clasped her hands together, closed her long lashes, and made her wish with great sincerity. Then she blew out the candles. Ban Sheng cut her a slice of cake, and took a piece for himself as well.

Ban Sheng didn’t much care for sweets, but he still ate two bites out of politeness. Watching Lin Weixia nibble at the cake like a little cat amused him. He idly toyed with the lighter in his hand and asked:

“Hey — what did you wish for? Tell me.”

Seeing that Lin Weixia said nothing, Ban Sheng continued with complete seriousness, trying to coax her: “Maybe I can help you make it come true.”

Lin Weixia set the cake to one side, raised her eyes — her pupils glimmering with skepticism. “If even the heavens can’t make it happen, you can?”

Ban Sheng exhaled a thin stream of white smoke from his lips, the vapour curling slowly upward, his eyes holding a gray, worn-out hue — yet his tone was impossibly arrogant:

“I don’t believe in heaven, or in ghosts and gods — but you can believe in me.”

Lin Weixia said nothing. Under the standoff of each other’s gazes, she conceded, and said: “Alright, I’ll tell you one.”

“I love dogs. My wish is to have a dog of my own, because when I was little I had a puppy but my parents gave it away…”

Lin Weixia was still rambling on when she suddenly sensed a dangerous energy drawing close. Her throat tightened, her voice cut off abruptly —

Ban Sheng lunged close, hand lifting to slowly wipe the cream from the tip of her nose, his eyes swiftly locking onto hers.

Their lips were a hair’s breadth apart. The tension made Lin Weixia clutch the side of her skirt so hard it wrinkled. Ban Sheng looked at the girl in front of him. His voice landed against her ear, tingling all the way to her bones — his tone was smiling but his meaning was completely serious:

“When will you let me be your dog?”

There it was again.

Once Ban Sheng had his teeth in something, he would never easily let go. He had his own rhythm — he knew exactly what to say to make Lin Weixia believe his sincerity.

When it came to pursuing someone, he was simply in his element.

Lin Weixia’s heart was nearly leaping into her throat. She couldn’t draw in enough air. Every one of her senses felt like it no longer belonged to her. She couldn’t smell the wind, couldn’t hear the insects.

All she could hear was the breathing of the person before her. All she could see was this boy.

She swallowed with great difficulty. Just as Lin Weixia had no idea what to say, Ban Sheng produced a blue brocade box tied with a bow from behind him and gestured for her to open it.

Lin Weixia opened the gift box, and the moment she saw what was inside, her eyes stung — a surge of something acid rose up. She was not someone who cried easily.

The gift before her was a beautiful music box. Ban Sheng had her hold it and press the switch. A lovely sound began to tick along. In the very center, a butterfly beat its wings, and great drifting flurries of crystal snowflakes fell. Below was a miniature blue ocean — Shuiwei Lane, Shengao.

Not far away stood an airport signboard. The butterfly flew across the vast sea, heading in the direction of Jingbei.

The snowflakes fell in sweeping cascades, like scattering petals — beautiful enough to dazzle the eyes, as if one had stepped into a white world of snow and ice.

To recreate all these locations, he must have put in an enormous amount of thought. Lin Weixia recalled the words she had once flung at Ban Sheng in rejection — words as unyielding as a cliff face, setting him a near-impossible condition: “If you want me to be with you, it won’t happen unless it snows in Nanjiang.”

Now, in Nanjiang, it was snowing.

Lin Weixia’s mind was in chaos, as though two voices were arguing inside her — one rational voice told her there were things she could not forget, that she had her own path to walk, and that Liu Sijia was her friend, whose feelings she could not disregard.

Another voice asked: don’t you feel even the slightest stirring in your heart?

Ban Sheng spoke with clear logic, his thinking orderly: “You don’t need to rush to refuse me. You can take three days to think it over.”

“You can be willful, lose your temper whenever you like — with me, you can do whatever you want.”

“Lin Weixia — you are my ambition.”

Lin Weixia slowly raised her head to look at him. Ban Sheng had the face of a man capable of leading people astray, the mole near his nose making him all the more striking — yet his gaze was sincere, his heart genuinely open.

Ban Sheng pressed out his cigarette, and watching her, spoke slowly: “Once you’ve thought it through — this is the second time. Miss this village and there’ll be no more inn. I, Ban Sheng, am not going to fall for the same person twice.”

It was not as though he lacked for people who liked him. He only needed to crook his finger the slightest bit, and there would be no shortage of girls lining up, desperate to throw themselves at him.

He had his pride too.