Spring arrived, and with it the second semester of their final year. The classmates around them were either preparing to enter the workforce or rushing to get graduation sorted; most encounters on campus were brief hellos and hurried goodbyes.

After securing her guaranteed postgraduate spot, Lin Weixia had been focusing on her thesis. Occasionally, she would emerge from the university library and make plans with friends for a meal or a film.

Since getting back together, Lin Weixia had noticed that Ban Sheng’s personality had shifted somewhat. On the surface he was still impossibly cool, but in private his possessiveness had grown considerably stronger — and he had a habit of working himself into quiet, brooding jealousy.

On Friday, Lin Weixia called Ban Sheng after leaving campus. The call connected quickly, and a pleasant, low voice came through:

“Hello.”

“Just letting you know — I’m going out for dinner with a friend in a bit, so I won’t be coming over,” Lin Weixia said, phone pressed to her ear, voice warm.

“Alright,” Ban Sheng said easily — then his tone shifted, one brow arching upward. “Boy or girl?”

Lin Weixia was walking along the sidewalk of Yanxi Road. A delivery moped passed by with a squeal of brakes. Her lips curved without thinking, and a mischievous impulse took over:

“A boy.”

The line went dead silent. A flat, absolute silence — only the faint crackle of the connection carrying the man’s barely-audible breathing. Realizing he had taken it seriously, Lin Weixia quickly said:

“A girl. But I can go out to dinner with ordinary male friends too, right?”

Ban Sheng’s tone was unhurried: “Sure. But you’d have to bring me along.”

“…” Lin Weixia had no response.

“Curfew. Nine o’clock,” Ban Sheng said flatly.

Lin Weixia naturally wasn’t going to agree to that, and started negotiating: “What if my friend wants to go shopping after dinner? Eleven.”

“Ten,” Ban Sheng said, no room left to maneuver, and pivoted directly: “What am I eating tonight?”

Lin Weixia had been about to push back on the curfew, but that last question pulled her attention away. She reminded him to cook some pasta, or go eat at the university cafeteria, and to cut back on takeout orders.

Lin Weixia and her friend went to an Indian restaurant. They ordered several dishes and sampled their way through them. The last thing to arrive was a banana paratha. Lin Weixia picked up her chopsticks, pinched off a piece of the steaming flatbread, and was just about to put it to her lips when her phone on the table buzzed.

The screen lit up, Ban Sheng jumping across it.

Lin Weixia gave a resigned look and answered the call. Ban Sheng started chatting about nothing on the other end — he’d just asked what she was eating, and now here he was calling to ask what she planned to do after dinner.

After she hung up, Lin Weixia took a sip of juice. Her friend laughed: “He really can’t be without you, can he? He’s called how many times already, just while you’re at dinner?”

“Only you, Lin Weixia, could make someone that good-looking this anxious.”

Lin Weixia scrunched her nose, a little embarrassed, and shook her head in denial: “He’s not that bad.”

But whatever Ban Sheng’s level of anxiety was, after dinner, when her friend suggested moving to a bar, Lin Weixia mentioned it to him during their chat.

Ban Sheng didn’t say anything particular about it — just told her to be careful and to send him the address.

Lin Weixia and her friend went to an underground bar, had a couple of drinks, caught an impromptu live performance, and came out in high spirits, feeling pleasantly light-headed.

The night outside was dark, the breeze cool. Lin Weixia grabbed her friend’s hand and said they should get a taxi — then looked up and saw a black GTR parked along the roadside.

It looked like it had been there for quite some time.

Her heart stirred. Lin Weixia pulled her friend up the steps, and she rounded the car to the passenger side, opened the door, and got in. The man in the driver’s seat was wearing a black cap, and in the dim light a smooth line of throat was just visible. He leaned toward her and reached out long fingers to wipe the smear of foam at the corner of her lips, letting out a quiet laugh:

“You’re like a little kid.”

Then he reached to his right and naturally produced a paper bag to hand to her. Lin Weixia took it and looked inside — osmanthus sticky rice cake, her favorite. She turned to him:

“When did you get here?”

From the back seat, her friend supplied: “From the moment you walked into the bar.”

Though he kept a watchful eye on her, Ban Sheng respected Lin Weixia. Drinking was her freedom — he simply couldn’t help worrying that something might happen, so he messaged her friend ahead of time and told her to reach out if anything came up, then waited outside the bar the whole night.

Time moved quickly, and the warmth between them only deepened. They didn’t argue again. In early April, Ban Sheng flew back to America to deal with matters at his university.

His time abroad stretched long, and he was buried in academic affairs as always. By the time Ban Sheng finished working each day, Lin Weixia was usually already asleep. The time they got to spend in contact with each other dwindled.

Even so, when Lin Weixia was out shopping with Menzi and spotted a shaving razor or the brand of cola Ban Sheng liked, she bought it immediately. Menzi raised an eyebrow and said:

“I’ve noticed you like Ban Sheng more and more — and you spoil him more and more too. At this point you like him more, don’t you? I’ll tell you how it goes: at the start the girl isn’t that into it, the boy is absolutely crazy for her, but once he’s got her, it flips. And you were the one who chased him again after your reunion, right? Now he’s flown back to school — has he even called you?”

Lin Weixia instinctively pushed back — but afterward she couldn’t help turning it over in her mind. It was perhaps true. She’d always had a reserved personality back in high school, unwilling to express herself, and when they had reconciled, she had indeed become much more proactive.

Most of all — Ban Sheng had genuinely been harder to reach lately. Every time they did a video call, they’d talked for a little while before his phone rang, and he’d say he had to go to the lab and hurriedly end the call.

Friday was Lin Weixia’s regular day at the welfare center. She stood at the bus stop waiting, and in the gap she took out her phone and called Ban Sheng. The call connected quickly. He sounded like he’d been up all night — a thread of soft hoarseness in his voice: “Hello.”

“Hi. I remember you’re coming back next Thursday? Should we have dinner together when you do?” Lin Weixia asked.

“I already have plans that day,” Ban Sheng said, unhurried.

“With a boy or a girl?” Lin Weixia couldn’t stop herself from asking.

Ban Sheng seemed to actually give it some thought before answering: “A girl who seems cold on the surface but is actually quite endearing.”

So it was true. At this point she really did like him more.

Which was why Ban Sheng could go have dinner with another girl without a second thought — things were growing more unequal. Lin Weixia didn’t want him dictating things to her anymore, and even though she felt wronged and irritated inside, she kept her voice even: “Do as you like.”

She said it, and then for a long moment there was no response. Lin Weixia frowned, brought the phone in front of her eyes to look — the battery was dead.

Useless phone.

She couldn’t be bothered to deal with it. The blue bus was approaching in the distance, and Lin Weixia, cello strapped to her back, tapped her card and boarded. The ride took more than forty minutes, and the bus came to a stop at the welfare center.

Lin Weixia stepped off and had barely lifted her foot through the gate when children came rushing at her from all directions, surrounding her in an instant, chattering and talking over each other, sharing their recent report cards. She smiled, listening to each of them attentively.

After finishing music class and her psychological counseling session with the children, Lin Weixia came out of the classroom and into the courtyard, where she found Sister Wen cutting paper. She walked over and picked up a pair of scissors to help.

The two of them snipped and chatted, analyzing the different psychological states and developmental stages of each child. Before long, a horn sounded from outside. Sister Wen set down her scissors and stepped out; a moment later, she came back, smiling: “Xiao Lin, can you help me move some things?”

“Of course.”

Sister Wen went off to coordinate with the other staff, and Lin Weixia set down her scissors and walked outside. Parked outside the welfare center was a yellow truck, and workers were filing in carrying box after box of items.

Lin Weixia slipped the hair tie from her wrist, tied her long hair up at the back, rolled up the sleeves of her white knit top, and got to work moving boxes.

After about half an hour of carrying, Lin Weixia stood in the storage room and looked over the crates. They seemed to be learning aids and textbooks for children with hearing impairment, along with toys for other children. A logo that looked like a foundation’s emblem was pasted on each box.

Lin Weixia tore off a tissue to wipe the sweat from her forehead and asked casually: “Sister Wen, who was so generous with all this? I feel like I’ve seen this truck several times now.”

From the very first time she’d volunteered at this welfare center as a freshman, the children here had practically run outside every time they saw this truck coming.

It had been the same during her third year.

With this many donations, the activity storage room was nearly full to bursting.

“There’s an investor who set up a foundation — specifically for donating to children with special needs. They’ve been making regular donations for almost four years now. Oh, and actually, the foundation’s name is quite similar to yours — it’s called the Weixia Foundation.”

The Weixia Foundation. The moment Lin Weixia heard those words, something lurched in her chest. A guess formed in her mind. She asked Sister Wen: “Sister Wen, who’s the legal representative behind this foundation?”

“Hold on, let me check the office for the donation contract.” Sister Wen reached for her phone, remembering something. “Actually, I have an electronic version. Let me find it — the donor gave anonymously, but left a phone number.”

“I remember the donor was a young, handsome man — very polite. But the first time he came to the welfare center a few years ago, I noticed he looked quite somber. He usually wore a black windbreaker, and he’d come sit at your desk for half the day without saying a word — looked quite withdrawn.”

The phone was held out in front of her. Lin Weixia saw the familiar number, and something inside her — some wall she hadn’t known was still standing — came down all at once. In a flash of sudden understanding, she remembered something, and broke into a run toward the door.

Sister Wen’s voice was still calling after her: “Hey, Xiao Lin, where are you—”

Lin Weixia ran to the children’s play area. Her amber eyes swept the space until she found the little girl with two pigtails — Yueer — riding the hobby horse. Yueer was a child with hearing impairment.

Lin Weixia walked over, crouched in front of her, and gently touched the top of her head: “Every year on the holidays, the greeting cards and gifts you gave me — did someone teach you to give them to me?”

Yueer hesitated, then nodded. She pointed at her own collarbone, and spoke with effort: “A big brother… with a butterfly here… told me to give them to you. He said… if he gave them to you himself, you might refuse. He said you didn’t want to see him.”

Lin Weixia’s eyes went wet in an instant. She pressed her palms hard against her eyelids, and the harder she rubbed the more the tears wanted to come.

In the welfare center’s office, Lin Weixia had a temporary desk assigned to her. She ran back to it, opened the locked drawer, and found it: Yueer’s greeting cards and gifts from every year, all kept inside.

She sat down and opened them at random, one by one:

Xia, congratulations on your award.

Xia, happy birthday.

Xia, peace this Christmas — it’s snowing outside.

Xia, happy Valentine’s Day.

Every card was addressed simply to xia, and the signature was absent — only a small blue shark hidden in one corner.

Like someone watching over her with careful, quiet love, afraid of being found out.

Each card came with a gift: a bracelet, a scarf, pearl earrings — things like that. The children at the welfare center gave Lin Weixia so many things, and she always collected them hurriedly, never looking closely, only tucking them carefully into the drawer for safekeeping.

So all along, after their separation — in all the time Ban Sheng was absent from her life — he had been quietly, steadily present in the background of it.

When the two of them had parted so badly back then, Ban Sheng had been wounded and discarded and sent abroad. Even after she had hurt him, he had continued to love her without reservation.

The Weixia Foundation. He had been donating all this time in her name, from behind the scenes. Lin Weixia found herself wondering — how deeply does a person have to love someone, to love everything connected to them so wholly and without restraint?

Lin Weixia sat there, and all at once she was pulled back to her second year at university — when she’d been dragged to the department gathering.

They were playing Truth or Dare, and Lin Weixia had lost. The challenge she drew required her to call her first love and say I don’t like you.

Lin Weixia had never handled alcohol well. Her classmates had gotten her drunk on a few cocktails, and she hadn’t known what was up or down. She was quite thoroughly drunk.

Her face burned. Lin Weixia pressed her cheek against the table trying to cool down, eyes hazy. She dialed the number, expecting it to be disconnected — but it rang.

She hadn’t expected it to go through.

Lin Weixia had always assumed the number was out of service. She’d never dared to dial it.

A click, and the call connected. Her heartbeat stopped.

A silence from the other end. Neither of them spoke first.

For reasons she couldn’t name, Lin Weixia felt nervous — her mind went blank, no words would form, her throat tight and dry.

She could picture it: that composed, restrained face on the other end of the line, and the look in Ban Sheng’s eyes the day they had parted in third year — when he had come to find her, his face still marked with injuries, telling her he was going abroad, betting on whether Lin Weixia would ask him to stay. The moment she had said safe travels, the jet-black light in his eyes had dimmed and gone wet — disappointed, too proud to let it show, but clearly crushed.

The screen showed fifty-four seconds elapsed. He had said nothing. He had not hung up.

Her classmates kept mouthing at her to say it already.

Lin Weixia let out a small, alcohol-induced hiccup — and then, with the liquor doing the thinking for her, without stopping to second-guess herself, she pushed the words out:

“I don’t like you.”

From the other end, complete stillness. A dead, expanding silence, as if grief were seeping through it.

Then crash — someone screamed. The girl sitting across from Lin Weixia had startled while pouring and let the bottle slip; it shattered into pieces on the floor. Alcohol soaked her clothes. The room erupted into chaos — people rushing to clean up, people fussing over the girl, voices and noise everywhere. Lin Weixia’s attention was pulled away and she looked over.

Through all the commotion, a sound came through the earpiece — low, and quiet:

“But I love you.”

Lin Weixia had thought at the time that she must have imagined it. By the time she came back to herself, the line was silent and the call had ended.

She had always believed that what Ban Sheng said was a trick of her imagination.

But now she knew that it wasn’t.

Lin Weixia’s eyes were red-rimmed. Tears fell one after another. She found a bag, placed all the thick greeting cards and gifts from the drawer inside, and took them with her.

Night fell, neon lights flickering. Lin Weixia walked home along the road, her phone dead the whole way. She carried her things back to the apartment. The key turned in the lock, the door swung open — she stepped inside and was met with the smell of food drifting through the air.

She looked up and met Ban Sheng’s eyes across the living room.

A month without seeing each other. Ban Sheng’s short hair had grown out slightly. He still had that face — born arrogant. He was wearing a black t-shirt with his collarbone exposed, the swallowtail butterfly resting on him. In one hand he held a screwdriver; a cigarette was between his lips, white smoke curling out. He looked reckless and handsome.

He was putting together her shoe rack.

Last week, Lin Weixia had ordered one online. When it arrived she’d complained to Ban Sheng that she couldn’t read the instructions and didn’t know how to assemble it. Ban Sheng told her to leave it, and said he’d do it when he came back.

Lin Weixia had told him at the time: by the time you get back, the shoe rack will be gathering dust.

“You came back early?” Lin Weixia said, looking at him in a daze.

“Yeah,” Ban Sheng replied, laid-back as ever.

The truth was he’d been working himself to the bone overseas — he’d pushed through everything at a sprint in order to come back and see her earlier.

“What’s cooking in the kitchen?” Lin Weixia asked, standing in the entryway looking at him.

Ban Sheng lowered his head, the lines of his forearm taut with the motion of tightening a screw, and answered without looking up:

“Braised beef with potatoes.”

During one of their chats while he was abroad, Lin Weixia had mentioned she’d tried a really delicious braised beef and potato dish recently — and had sighed to Ban Sheng that she’d only gotten to eat it once before the restaurant shut down.

It hadn’t occurred to her that he had been keeping that in mind ever since.

“Earlier today when you called — when you said you had plans with a girl — that person… was it me?” Lin Weixia said, the realization arriving late.

Ban Sheng raised his eyes to look at her: “Who else would it be?”

Lin Weixia set the paper bag down and crossed the room quickly, throwing herself against Ban Sheng’s back, both arms wrapping around his waist.

Ban Sheng was fully focused on the shoe rack when someone suddenly attached themselves to his back. Caught off guard, he nearly went down entirely. Not wanting to fall on top of Lin Weixia, he shot out a hand and steadied her by the backside, his expression going flat:

“Trying to break my back?”

“Fine, break it,” Ban Sheng added with a short laugh. “Then you can move around on your own.”

This person — he’d just said something completely improper. Lin Weixia’s face went red. Ban Sheng patted her backside to indicate she should stand up.

After she stepped back, Lin Weixia was still processing it when Ban Sheng set down the screwdriver, bent slightly forward, and threaded one arm under hers — lifting her off the ground in a bridal carry in one motion.

Ban Sheng sat on the sofa with her settled on his lap, pinching her cheeks, brow arching as he asked:

“Since when do I get treatment like this.”

It was rare for Lin Weixia to throw herself at him.

“Tonight — tell me where you want me to take you. The bathroom, or in front of the mirror? Your pick,” Ban Sheng said, his tone outrageous.

This person. How could he say something like that without a single hint of shame. The two of them had never gone all the way — sometimes when things would escalate and they were both getting swept away, Lin Weixia would feel frightened and say she wasn’t ready, and it always ended with her using her hands to take care of it for him, or him stopping short, after which Ban Sheng would go take a cold shower.

Lin Weixia’s throat went dry in an instant. She said softly: “I need to tell you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“It’s just — I know. About the cards, and the Weixia Foundation.” Lin Weixia looked at him, clearly moved, and a little embarrassed.

“I thought you didn’t like me that much. I always felt like I liked you more — like I was the one who cared more. Don’t you think—” Lin Weixia said, both hands resting on his neck, fingers brushing the knob of vertebra at the back, her voice low.

Before she could finish, Ban Sheng cut her off. His dark eyes met hers directly, his tone unhesitating:

“Not possible.”

His feelings for her would only ever be more.

They looked at each other, breath mingling. In his pupils, Lin Weixia saw herself — whole and complete.

Her heart moved.

Ban Sheng reached up and caught her chin, then pressed his lips down. The air around him was cool, but where his lips met hers they were warm, and then the kiss deepened — her breath, her thoughts, entirely overtaken.

They kissed until neither wanted to let go. Low, quiet sounds filled the room. Her white knit top, one side pulled open by Ban Sheng, left a white shoulder half-bare, a trace of a dark bra visible. The man’s eyes darkened, his breathing heavier, his mouth moving lower.

Ban Sheng lifted her and carried her toward the bedroom. Lin Weixia’s two long legs instinctively wrapped around his waist; where his mouth moved against her, her shoulder felt both numb and aching, a current running through her.

He dropped her gently onto the soft bed, and in the dim light, Lin Weixia lay there feeling a flutter of nerves — different from the time she’d had a fever. She was completely clear-headed now. Her toes curled involuntarily; a light sweat had broken out on her skin.

Every time he touched her, she trembled uncontrollably, while Ban Sheng’s own restrained sweat dropped into the hollow of her collarbone.

Her white knit top and his black t-shirt fell tangled together on the floor, a suggestion of intimacy traced in cloth.

Lin Weixia turned her back to him, revealing the pale expanse of her spine — a waist so narrow it was barely wider than a page — wrapped in a black bra, her shoulder blades like two butterfly wings. The clasp was an intricate tangle of strings. Ban Sheng leaned over her, hooking a finger around one cord, his voice rough:

“Tear it?”

“Don’t. It’s new,” Lin Weixia said, face buried in the pillow.

Ban Sheng let out a quiet laugh. “Does the gentleman not have the means to compensate you?”

A rip. The black lace was torn open, the shredded fabric draped across Ban Sheng’s forearm, the tendons visibly defined beneath the skin. He turned her back toward him. In the dim light, Lin Weixia now caught something she hadn’t noticed before — an English tattoo near his left pectoral, close to his heart. Too dark to make out the letters.

Lin Weixia, her nerves getting the better of her, tried to look away. Her chin was guided back. His lips found hers again — the taste like mint, sharp and electric. Her toes curled; her heart contracted over and over.

Her long hair against his taut arms. Ban Sheng’s eyes filled with a red heat he could no longer contain. He reached for something, tore it open with practiced ease.

“You…” Lin Weixia’s voice broke into fragments. “How are you so practiced at this.”

Ban Sheng said nothing. He let out a quiet laugh, and when it truly began, Lin Weixia felt the full weight of his presence — how commanding he was, how overwhelming. She felt like she was being broken in two.

He moved against her once and said, voice ragged: “First time I’ve used one.”

He moved against her and murmured things against her ear, reckless words, and Lin Weixia cried from the pain and the strange bewildering pleasure of it — the whole world blurring — while he kept coaxing her further:

“In high school, my first wet dream was because of you. The time you wore that red dress on stage playing erhu.”

“You — stop talking,” Lin Weixia said, giving him a look.

But that look, pinned beneath him, was devastatingly enticing.

Ban Sheng’s throat moved with difficulty. He drew her up from the bed and turned her, her back to him — irredeemably bold:

“When I was overseas, when I closed my eyes and thought of you — do you know how many times I could go?”

Lin Weixia didn’t know how she got through that night. Like a butterfly battered by a storm — struck and scattered in every direction — but finally coming to rest on a single leaf, wings trembling without cease.

But at last, they belonged to each other.