Over the weekend, Menzi came straight to Lin Weixia’s apartment after a gathering to spend the night. Lin Weixia was very good at taking care of people; by the time Menzi slept until the sun was high in the sky and finally woke up, she discovered that not only had Lin Weixia brewed her a hangover remedy soup, but breakfast was also being kept warm on the stove.
“Sniff sniff, sister, I can never let you go, what am I going to do.” Menzi flung an arm around Lin Weixia’s shoulder.
Lin Weixia patted her shoulder: “Alright, go wash your hands.”
After washing up, Menzi sat down at the dining table, picked up a spoon, then seemed to remember something, and shot Lin Weixia a conspiratorial look. “I’ve heard everything, you know.”
“Heard what?” Lin Weixia poured her a glass of water.
“You and Ban Sheng! Someone saw the two of you coming out of the school’s laboratory building one after the other last Thursday afternoon. The Beijing University message board went absolutely wild — especially your male admirers, wailing and howling, joking that they were going to save up and buy a GTR too. What even is that logic? Shallow!”
“But beyond all that noise, I took a look at the candid photo they took of you two — the pair energy between you is pretty strong, honestly. Super good-looking together. Very well-matched.” Menzi teased.
In the photo Menzi was referring to — posted on the Beijing University message board in a thread about the two of them, tagged with a purple trending marker — the angle had been captured with a clever sense of composition. A young man in a black jacket, head and neck straight and pale, walking outward. A tall girl following just behind, only a sliver of her profile visible, her lips rosy and teeth white, her hand hanging loosely at her side. The tall young man had a cigarette in his hand, that hand resting casually backward.
Under a blue-white sky, the shot had been framed in such a way that they looked, just slightly offset, as though they were holding hands.
After saying all of this, Menzi noticed Lin Weixia’s expression was off. In a flash of sudden clarity, she connected everything Weixia had mentioned before — it all fell into place, and she launched into a string of poetic vocabulary:
“No way? Former lovers? Oh my god. He gave up a prestigious school like Penn for this, which means he came back to China for you, doesn’t it? That’s so devoted!”
Lin Weixia’s heart constricted slightly. She shook her head, and the expression on her face dimmed. “Probably not. He barely pays any attention to me now.”
Very cold, too.
Menzi was about to say more when the phone sitting on the table buzzed with a message notification. Lin Weixia picked it up and glanced at it — it was from Ning Chao:
[Hey, friend. You said before you left you were going to treat me to a meal, and I’ve been waiting ever since, you know.]
Lin Weixia smiled. The police academy Ning Chao attended wasn’t far from Beijing University — about six bus stops — so these old friends got together for meals from time to time.
[Come on over then. I’ll treat you to beef hot pot.] Lin Weixia replied.
After sending the message, Lin Weixia remembered Menzi was still sitting in her apartment and looked up to ask, “I’ve made plans to eat with a high school classmate. Do you want to come along?”
“Sure, I’ve got nothing on anyway.” Menzi answered readily.
Lin Weixia typed on her phone to check with Ning Chao: [Do you mind if I bring a friend?]
Ning Chao replied quickly: [What’s the big deal? The more the merrier.]
Hot pot restaurants in the area were packed as always in winter, with long waiting queues. Lin Weixia and Menzi sat across from each other; Menzi had the tablet in hand and was ordering, asking as she scrolled whether Lin Weixia liked mushrooms.
Lin Weixia said she was fine with everything, no restrictions. A moment later, a tall figure settled into the seat across from them — it was Ning Chao.
He was wearing a black drawstring jacket, clearly having just come from training, with only a deep blue military-style training shirt underneath, the musculature of his chest and torso visible through the fabric.
The five-pointed star emblem on his left breast gleamed.
In the two years Ning Chao had spent at the police academy, his eyes had grown ever more darkly luminous, and the streetwise swagger of his former days had faded away, replaced by a more mature and grounded bearing.
The moment Ning Chao sat down, he picked up the chopsticks and bowl and began scalding them in the hot pot broth for the girls. From the moment he walked in, Menzi’s eyes had barely left him.
“Weixia, aren’t you going to introduce us?” Menzi nudged Lin Weixia’s arm.
Lin Weixia looked up from the menu, a beat behind: “This is Ning Chao, a high school friend of mine. He goes to the police academy next door — second year.”
“And this is Menzi, a friend of mine, same year as me, studying in the Film Directing department.”
Menzi immediately extended her hand with easy confidence, her red lips curling into a smile. “Nice to meet you. So you’re the younger one, hm?”
She deliberately stressed the word “younger,” her bewitching eyes locked directly onto Ning Chao, thinking to herself: well, this trip out was entirely worthwhile — I’ve found myself a lone wolf. This man radiates a restrained, rough-edged energy from head to toe.
The server had just brought the dishes over. Ning Chao immediately took everything and set it on the table. He didn’t take Menzi’s bait at all, simply casting her a single glance:
“I repeated a year.”
The brief interlude passed quickly. Lin Weixia and Ning Chao ate hot pot while catching up on each other’s recent news, and Menzi played the role of the lively entertainer, keeping the atmosphere light.
Partway through, the server brought over a soup. Menzi was seated to the side and reached out without thinking to take it — Lin Weixia saw it happen just in time and gasped in alarm.
Just as Menzi’s pale fingers were about to close around the scalding clay pot, a sturdy arm reached over. Ning Chao intercepted it, taking the pot himself without hesitation:
“Let me get that.”
At a pause in the meal, Menzi stole a glance at Ning Chao’s hand — sinew and veins running across the back, flushed red, fingertips blistered in a few spots. Yet he hadn’t made a sound. Hadn’t mentioned it at all.
Now it was Menzi who felt embarrassed.
As the meal was winding down, Ning Chao put down his chopsticks and went to the restroom. Menzi set down her juice glass and followed. She waited at the restroom exit for a moment, and when a dark figure emerged, she stepped forward. Her tone, stripped of its earlier playfulness, turned serious:
“I just wanted to say — thank you. For earlier.”
The corridor leading to the restrooms was narrow and busy. Ning Chao had barely opened his mouth when he spotted a passerby about to collide with Menzi — he reached out and pulled her aside.
Ning Chao trained at an intense level at the police academy; besides, how was he to know this girl, though she looked quite tall, was actually this light — one pull and she came flying straight into him.
Menzi landed solidly against his chest.
Soft and warm in his arms, Ning Chao’s expression flickered with momentary discomfort before his face darkened. Through clenched teeth, he said:
“Are you going to get up?”
Menzi stepped back slightly and slipped back into her playful demeanor. She casually pulled the bamboo dragonfly hair tie from her wrist and pressed it firmly into the young man’s hand, saying:
“Come find me in Directing Class One with this next time. There’s a reward waiting — consider it my thanks for today.”
In the past, whenever Menzi liked someone, she would lay out bait and wait for them to come to her. This was the first time she’d been the one to take the initiative. She was quietly delighting in herself over this — and before she could register what was happening, a tall shadow pressed down over her.
Ning Chao moved with clean, efficient purpose and used the hair tie as handcuffs, knotting it in a dead knot around her wrists. Both wrists bound together, her fair arms went red from the tightening loops — the more she struggled, the tighter it got.
Menzi was in enough pain that her eyes were nearly watering; she barely held back a profanity.
Ning Chao’s eyes held not a trace of sympathy. The suppressed roughness in him surfaced, and he gave a cold laugh: “Know what police officers are for?”
“For dealing with troublemakers like you.”
And with that, Ning Chao turned and walked away without looking back.
Lin Weixia had just finished the last piece of beef when she saw Menzi return. She wiped her mouth with a tissue. “Xiao Zi, are you still eating? Oh, and Ning Chao said he had to head off.”
“Hmph. I’m done eating.” Menzi answered.
Lin Weixia and Menzi parted ways at the mall entrance. Lin Weixia had eaten quite a lot and decided to walk home to digest. Halfway there, her phone in her coat pocket started vibrating. She pulled it out and looked.
It was an unfamiliar number sending an address — TAK Bar, Private Room 1203.
Lin Weixia turned off the screen. She went home, opened the door to Shengxia wagging its tail in greeting, and crouched down to play with the little dog for a while.
Then she sat at her desk, turned her phone off, and opened her books to review some exam material.
The sky dimmed without a sound. The winter sunset was a blurry wash, like the light filtering through the peel of a tangerine — golden and warm.
Lin Weixia stood up and tidied herself. Standing in front of the wardrobe, she noticed her clothes were nearly all simple, cool-toned pieces. She picked through a few items, changed, then stood in front of the mirror and applied a light layer of makeup.
Eight o’clock. Shi’an Street was alive with flowing traffic and neon lights, and the LED screen hanging high at the center of the road cycled through advertisement after advertisement.
Lin Weixia called a ride and arrived at TAK bar, where a uniformed server with a bow tie led her by elevator to Private Room 1203.
She pushed open the door. A wave of heat hit her. A pair of amber eyes, calm and composed, scanned the environment before her.
The private room was spread across two floors. Inverted oil paintings depicting a medieval Garden of Eden motif lined the ceiling, red and violet lights alternating, the atmosphere dim and disorienting. Girls’ bright laughter and the erupting cheers of young men mid-game drifted through the air at intervals.
It gave one a sense of the world spinning off its axis — reality unmoored.
Lin Weixia stood there, fair-skinned and beautiful, her features cool and clean. She quickly attracted the attention of those seated on the sofas, and one of them asked:
“Hey, who are you looking for?”
“Ban Sheng,” Lin Weixia said.
For some reason it seemed as though she’d said something utterly ridiculous — several of them burst out laughing. Someone extinguished a cigarette and exchanged a look with a companion, as if to say: ah, here comes another moth flying into the flame.
One of the young men flashed a sly grin. “Looking for Young Master Ban? He’s probably too tied up to see you right now.”
Lin Weixia had no interest in continuing the exchange. She pulled out her phone and sent Ban Sheng a message:
[I’m here.]
Shortly after, her phone screen lit up. Ban Sheng replied — short and simple, two words:
[Come up.]
She didn’t reply. She tucked the phone back into her pocket. A moment later, someone came rushing down the spiral staircase. Lin Weixia squinted — it was Qiu Minghua.
“Come on, I’ll take you up,” Qiu Minghua said with a grin.
As they made their way upstairs, Lin Weixia noticed the life in Qiu Minghua’s expression and couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re really this happy just because he’s back?”
“Of course — I’m Ban Ye’s biggest fan.”
Once upstairs, Lin Weixia looked around. The atmosphere here was even more indulgent than the floor below — young men playing billiards, couples tangled together flirting. The coffee table was covered in glasses, the ashtray overflowing with cigarette stubs. Someone was shaking a dice cup amid boisterous calls for a toast. A drift of white smoke rolled over; the cigarette smell caught in her throat and Lin Weixia couldn’t suppress a cough.
The center of it all was the young man sprawled lazily on the sofa. He had a careless, dissolute air; having drunk a little, the cold pallor of his skin was flushed beneath with redness, making him look faintly unwell. And Shi Li — the art department’s goddess, the one said to have never given any man the time of day — was seated right beside him.
Red light played across the young man’s face.
It carved out a Ban Sheng who was utterly careless and utterly unrestrained.
Lin Weixia made her way over from the other side. The aisle between the coffee table and sofa was narrow, and as she passed by Shi Li’s group, the atmosphere shifted at once.
She registered Shi Li’s guarded gaze but didn’t react. Lin Weixia came to a stop in front of Ban Sheng. The aisle was cramped; her long, pale legs, luminously white, brushed against his knees. One misstep and she would topple forward right onto his lap.
Ban Sheng had his head bowed, mixing a drink. He picked up a slice of grapefruit and dropped it in; a square ice cube landed in the glass with a sharp crack, and a single drop of liquid splashed out onto the back of Lin Weixia’s hand.
“I have something to say to you,” Lin Weixia said, looking at him.
Whether the private room noise was too loud for him to hear, or whether Ban Sheng simply had no intention of acknowledging her — either way, he continued languidly mixing his drink, not even sparing her a glance.
Those around them picked up on the tension and began watching Lin Weixia with mockery in their eyes. Shi Li especially watched with a look of cool amusement.
Had Ban Sheng so much as glanced at her?
“I’ll be going then.”
Lin Weixia withdrew her gaze from him and turned to leave. The lights were dim and she could barely see the way. Then — swiftly — a hand shot out and seized her wrist.
Ban Sheng reached up and caught hold of her, right there in front of everyone.
His grip was forceful, his hand burning so that her skin scorched and her blood raced faster. That domineering quality, that manner of simply taking what he wanted — it was exactly like the Ban Sheng of before.
Lin Weixia turned back. Their gazes locked again, as if there were no one else in the world.
“Want a drink?” Ban Sheng held her wrist with one hand; in the other, the V of his thumb and forefinger circled the square-bottomed glass — the drink he had just mixed.
The Ban Sheng of before had never really let her touch alcohol. Even when they lost games and someone had to drink a forfeit, he would take it for her.
Lin Weixia’s eyes ached slightly. She pressed down the emotion rising in her chest, and answered coolly: “I’m allergic to alcohol.”
Actually, Lin Weixia was not allergic to alcohol. Whenever she didn’t want to drink, or felt pressured to drink, this was the excuse she reached for.
Ban Sheng let out a light laugh. He made no move to insist, and was just about to set the glass down when Shi Li leaned over from where she sat. A faint floral fragrance drifted into Lin Weixia’s nose.
Shi Li took the glass from Ban Sheng’s hand. Her little finger grazed lightly over his long, elegant fingers resting on the glass, her tone magnanimous:
“Let me have it then. I haven’t tried a drink you’ve made before.”
At the same time, Shi Li looked at Lin Weixia, her eyes both provocative and mocking. For just a moment, the space around them went very quiet, the atmosphere charged with unspoken currents.
One of the onlooking young men recognized Lin Weixia, and quietly felt a pang for her. Lin Weixia had the look of an innocent girl — cool in temperament, but clearly harmless, a white flower at heart. And here she was, about to be ground down by someone of Shi Li’s caliber.
The standoff hung suspended.
Everyone watched Lin Weixia. Some were uncomfortable and were about to try to smooth things over — but then they saw that there was not a trace of intimidation on Lin Weixia’s face. She made no move to snatch the glass from Shi Li.
Instead, she bent forward, picked up the half-finished glass sitting in front of Ban Sheng, brought it to her lips, and tipped her head back — her snow-white swanlike neck drawing a beautiful arc as she drank it down to the last drop.
The glass was set back on the table. On the transparent, square-bottomed vessel, a clear and distinct wet imprint of lips remained.
Ambiguity, stretched to its breaking point.
With a single effortless gesture, Lin Weixia had ignited the surrounding atmosphere — warm, electric, charged.
“Holy shit, that was badass.”
“Ban Sheng and that girl have had something going on — look at the way he’s looking at her.”
“This is incredible. I’m just here watching and somehow I’m the one whose face is burning.”
Shi Li’s face went white, then red, then white again. Just as she looked about to lose her composure, Qiu Minghua came over and firmly steered Shi Li away, repeating, “I actually need to talk to you about something.”
In the moment between saying it and leaving, Qiu Minghua quickly pushed Lin Weixia down to sit beside Ban Sheng. Shi Li went, not entirely willingly, and as she went she caught a final glimpse —
Under alternating red and blue light, Ban Sheng — who was always indifferent, who never gave anyone his full attention — turned his neck to the side. His profile was all sharp angles. He raised one hand, and his thumb gently brushed away the foam at the corner of the girl’s lips.
The lighting was dim, and it was hard to make anything out clearly. The two were very close; his bony, reddened hand rested against her red, soft lips. The girl tilted her head to look up at him, and from that angle, it looked as though they were about to kiss.