The Shanghai work trip ended quickly. Ban Sheng stayed with Lin Weixia in the city for two more days — but both of their phones were buzzing constantly, because on the day of Lin Weixia’s birthday, Ban Sheng had uploaded the demo of Swallowtail Butterfly to a music streaming platform. Combined with a video of his LED screen confession in Shanghai that a netizen had posted online, the song had been trending consistently high on the platform and caused quite a stir.

Once their friends found out, messages poured in. The bolder ones teased Ban Sheng outright; others sent congratulations to the two of them.

Menzi sent several envious meme reactions: I also need a boyfriend who writes songs for me and only ever sings them to me.

Who wouldn’t want to be loved openly and ardently like that?

Back in Jingbei, Ban Sheng and Lin Weixia each had their own plans for the evening — he went to a drinking gathering with his friends, while Lin Weixia headed out to meet Menzi.

Zero Degrees Bar. The door to Room 2073 swung open, and a wall of smoke hit them. The sound of dice came in waves. A few familiar faces inside looked up to see Ban Sheng and called out: “Ban-ye, you’ve finally graced us with your presence.”

“This place is no fun without you, I tell you. Am I right?” someone else joined in.

“A man in a relationship really is different. Ban-ye, that bottle of Rémy Martin you’ve been storing in this bar is practically aging into vintage by now.” Someone gave a snort.

Faced with all the jibes and teasing, Ban Sheng gave a lazy smile and ignored every one of them, sitting directly down.

Li Yiran had already done two rounds and was half-dead in the sofa, radiating his characteristic air of dissolute indifference. Seeing Ban Sheng arrive, he dragged himself upright with effort, rubbed the back of his neck with difficulty, and pried his eyes open — like a caged animal that had been lying in wait for a long time.

“I heard about your song. That was something else, Ah Sheng.” Only Li Yiran would dare to talk to him like this.

Ban Sheng tipped a handful of ice into a separate glass with a rushing sound, then glanced at him sideways: “Not as something else as you.”

He was referring to certain things Li Yiran had done previously. Li Yiran grinned loosely without offense, lit a cigarette, and started talking with Ban Sheng.

Ban Sheng held a cigarette between his long fingers, smoke drifting slowly in all directions, a curl of white haze blurring around the movement of his throat when he spoke.

Every gesture was genuinely compelling to watch.

But no one dared sit near him. Ban Sheng had a face that said stay away, and before leaving the apartment, he had taken a star-shaped hair tie from Lin Weixia’s vanity table and slipped it onto his own wrist.

Marked as taken.

Who would dare approach?

Ban Sheng was talking with Li Yiran when his gaze drifted idly over the girls sitting on the sofa across the way. One of them bore about a thirty percent resemblance to Lin Weixia — cool brows and eyes, jet-black pupils. As he watched, she reached into a cigarette pack with practiced ease and pulled one out. Click — orange-red flame lit up a face that looked weary of the world.

Li Yiran caught Ban Sheng staring and raised an eyebrow: “Never seen a girl smoke?”

“I have. She once took one right out of my hand,” Ban Sheng said, letting the memory surface.

No need to guess — Li Yiran called out the name directly: “Lin Weixia, right? Your wife’s got spirit.”

Ban Sheng gave an amused huff and knocked his glass against Li Yiran’s square one. The crystal rang clear and sharp. He said quietly that Lin Weixia had been managing his smoking.

Li Yiran let out a cold laugh: “She picked up the habit because of you, I’d bet anything. You think she doesn’t smoke now?”

Ban Sheng gave Li Yiran a look. His expression was unreadable. He said nothing, and the cigarette between his fingers burned on quietly.

“Lin Weixia and Cheng Wusuan are the same type — they learn everything quickly,” Li Yiran said, his tone playful. “Ah Sheng. Want to bet on whether she smokes?”

Ban Sheng’s jaw moved slowly, as if chewing over the phrase learns everything quickly. His lashes shifted. He picked up the cigarette in his hand and pressed it down, gradually and firmly, until the last ember disappeared into ash.

In front of everyone, Ban Sheng picked up his cigarettes and lighter from the table and left.

Down in the garage, he opened the car door, swung one leg in sideways, and got in. The GTR roared and pulled out of the underground garage.

His long, clearly-knuckled hand settled on the steering wheel, the black car accelerating. With the other hand he slipped an AirPod into his ear and dialed Lin Weixia:

“Where are you?”

“The bar,” Lin Weixia said, and gave an address. Her side was noisy, a DJ set bleeding through in bursts — she raised her voice slightly: “Are you coming to take me home? I’m not ready yet. I’ll text you later.”

“Alright.”

After the call ended, Ban Sheng instinctively pressed the accelerator. The car sped forward, and he arrived quickly at the bar Lin Weixia had mentioned.

Thud — he shut the car door and walked through the welcoming calls of the staff at the entrance, pushing his way inside.

Red and purple lights crossed and layered. On the dance floor, bodies pressed together, swaying, releasing whatever had been suppressed inside them. Dry ice smoke billowed on the right side. From the moment Ban Sheng walked in, every gaze — male or female — swung toward him, as if trying to pull his very soul toward them.

Ban Sheng ignored all of it. His dark pupils swept the room and finally, toward the southeast, he found Lin Weixia.

Lin Weixia was wearing a black spaghetti-strap maxi dress, a vast expanse of white back on display, so slender the butterfly bones at her shoulder blades looked as if they were about to take flight.

A server went past with a tray and asked what he’d like. Ban Sheng ordered a gin and tonic, then wove through the crowd, brushing shoulders, and settled into a seat one table behind Lin Weixia.

Lin Weixia was in conversation with Menzi. When she was enjoying herself, her arms would move in small, expressive ways, and her eyes were full of light.

Ban Sheng sat slightly behind and to the side of her, and the corner of his mouth curved faintly. Then he watched Menzi light a cigarette and pass the lighter to Lin Weixia.

Lin Weixia took the small green plastic lighter and pressed it twice — no fuel. She reached into her bag and produced a silver lighter.

Ban Sheng half-raised his heavy lids and looked. That was his lighter.

The curve at the corner of his mouth slowly flattened.

Red lips around a slim white cigarette. Click — orange-red flame. Fingers moving with easy, practiced grace.

White smoke curled from her lips, her pale neck bowed, those half-lidded eyes completing the picture — beautiful as a swan.

Every movement of hers walked the line between alluring and pure, drawing every eye.

One hand slowly turning his drink, Ban Sheng’s jaw muscle barely shifted, irritation edging his quiet laugh. He typed a single-handed message to his girl:

Ban: Question for you.

His dark gaze caught the dip of that pale shoulder — she’d picked up her phone. Lin Weixia was clearly typing a reply.

Xia: What is it?

Ban: Do you smoke?

After sending it, he waited. The reply was slow to come. He wrapped his hand around his square-bottomed glass, and at the top of the chat window it showed: typing.

Before long the screen lit up again. Ban Sheng stared at the reply, chewing his ice very slowly — as if savoring Lin Weixia’s answer — and the phone displayed one perfectly composed response:

Not at all.

Lin Weixia, seeing no further reply from his end, didn’t give it a second thought. As for Menzi tonight — she was noticeably out of character, drinking one glass after another, clearly not in the best of moods.

“What’s wrong with you?” Lin Weixia tucked a cherry tomato into her mouth.

Menzi chewed the tomato mechanically, hesitated for a long time, then looked at Lin Weixia: “I have to tell you something.”

“What?”

“So — I confessed to Ning Chao. And he turned me down for real.”

Recently, there had been a string of end-of-graduation parties. Menzi had happened to run into Ning Chao at the same karaoke place. She had just come out of the bathroom when she spotted him standing at the window smoking, the smoke curling around his solid arms, a layer of red at his neck — clearly he’d been too heavily poured for and had come out to hide.

Menzi walked over, leaned against the wall across from him, lit her own cigarette, and fell into conversation: “How much have you had?”

Ning Chao raised his eyes and showed her a number. Menzi gave a short laugh, flicked the ash from her cigarette, and the two of them chatted idly back and forth. Then she asked, as naturally as breathing:

“Hey — I’ve been chasing you for a while now. Last chance: want to get together?”

The light mood evaporated instantly. Ning Chao lowered his gaze, thought for a long time, then pressed out his cigarette and looked at Menzi:

“You’re a good person. But I’m not in a place to be in a relationship right now — not until I’ve become the police officer I’m supposed to be.”

Menzi stood there in silence. Not a bit of this surprised her, but her mood plummeted all the same — like a balloon that had been popped. She had so many things she wanted to say: how she had been in Nanjiang years ago on business, and had seen him single-handedly subdue a criminal, and had watched him declare on the spot that he was going to become a police officer. That she had been moved for a long time.

She had wanted to say all of it.

But it had come to this.

“Alright. Wishing you a brilliant career,” Menzi said, pulling up a faint, lopsided smile.

She walked away after that, leaving Ning Chao alone.

Menzi got it all out in one go. When she was done, she reached into the fruit bowl — and without looking, grabbed a green lime, dropped it into her mouth, and was hit with a sourness that shot straight to the top of her head. She grimaced and chased it down with several large gulps of beer.

Lin Weixia looked startled. “And then?”

“And then I let it go,” Menzi said, swallowing a small sliver of ice — it left an uncomfortable feeling in her throat. “What else could I do.”

The mood dipped for a moment. Menzi didn’t want to dwell on it, so she changed the subject: “What about you? Didn’t you say you had something bothering you that you wanted to talk about? What is it?”

Lin Weixia poked at the ice floating in her glass with a slender spoon and said gently: “It’s nothing, really. I just noticed there’s another tattoo on Ban Sheng — near his heart. It’s an English phrase. Sin my heart.“

“And you want to know what it means? Then ask him,” Menzi said.

“The letter ‘S’ — I can’t figure out who it stands for. My name doesn’t have that letter. Unless it’s—” Lin Weixia trailed off, thinking to herself.

A tap on her shoulder. Lin Weixia looked up, and standing beside her was a middle-aged man in his thirties, clearly drunk, red under the flashing lights, eyes wandering over her. He raised his glass: “Hey gorgeous, come have a drink with me.”

Lin Weixia frowned and was about to say something when a tall, solid figure loomed over her. The middle-aged man’s face changed color — he’d gone purplish — and the hand he’d been working toward her was grabbed and wrenched backward. The glass in his right hand sloshed and spilled across the floor. He was begging immediately:

“Please, man, mercy! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

People nearby turned to watch. Ban Sheng’s face was cold and sharp. He shoved the middle-aged man’s hand away. The man went stumbling forward by the force of it, crashed into someone else, and there was the sound of breaking glass and a woman’s shriek — the scene dissolved into chaos.

Lin Weixia hadn’t even processed it before Ban Sheng had her by the wrist, pulling her through the press of people. The disorienting lights strobed around them as he led her all the way to the fire exit.

The lighting here was dimmer. Ban Sheng let go of her hand, his eyes scanning over her:

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Lin Weixia shook her head, then asked quietly: “How did you get in?”

Every time Lin Weixia went to a bar, Ban Sheng waited outside.

Lin Weixia hadn’t even finished the sentence before Ban Sheng realized he’d let something slip. He gave an annoyed laugh and stepped forward.

Lin Weixia instinctively stepped back. Ban Sheng pressed her against the cold wall, his knee pushing between her legs, his chest turning toward her so that the warmth of him radiated through the space between them. The fabric brushed and shifted as they pressed together, and with their faces this close, his oud scent wound around her. Lin Weixia’s breath quickened.

The bulb overhead was broken, its filament buzzing and flickering — now light, now dark.

Pulling a thread of charged suggestion through the air.

Lin Weixia swallowed nervously. She could see those thin lips about to come down, the motion almost too fast — her instincts had her turning her face to the side.

A quiet laugh near her ear. Ban Sheng looked entirely at ease. “Want me to kiss you, do you?”

Ah — he was teasing her. Lin Weixia made a move to push him away. Ban Sheng turned his face to the side, still leaning against her, and reached into the pocket of her dress — drawing out a box of menthol burst cigarettes, examining them with a calm, unhurried air.

“How long have you been smoking?” he asked, still looking at her.

“Not very long,” Lin Weixia said, running her tongue briefly over her lips.

He turned the cigarette box in his palm. Ban Sheng glanced at the brand, then spoke, unhurried:

“What have you tried?”

“At first I smoked the Marlboros you didn’t finish. Then I bought myself a pack of IQOS — didn’t like the taste, too mild. Tried Nanjing for a while, then switched to these menthol burst ones…” Lin Weixia’s voice grew smaller and smaller as she spoke.

Ban Sheng gave an irritated laugh, his gaze fixing on her steadily. His verdict:

“Quite adventurous.”

She’d tried quite a lineup. Ban Sheng drew his attention from her and stepped back, turning to leave — clearly working himself into a temper.

Lin Weixia immediately shot out a hand and grabbed his hem: “I was wrong.”

“Wait for me to go back together.”

“It’s really dark here, I can’t see the way.”

Half-wheedling, half-playing helpless, Lin Weixia held onto Ban Sheng’s arm the whole way out, coaxing him at length, until the man’s expression finally eased.

“I respect whatever you want to do — I won’t stop you,” Ban Sheng said, looking down at her, his tone serious. “But don’t smoke too much. Don’t get addicted.”

Don’t become what he used to be.

“Alright, alright — I’m just playing around with it, I don’t do it most of the time. Trust me!” Lin Weixia raised both hands in surrender.

They went home. The two of them ate a bowl of noodles together, then went to shower. Lin Weixia went in first, and when she came out, she had a slide presentation to finish. She gave her half-wet hair a careless towel-dry, sat down at the desk, and started typing.

It was early May, and the air had started to carry warmth. Ban Sheng finished his shower and came out in just a pair of trousers. What he found was Lin Weixia in a white silk spaghetti-strap dress, hair wet and dripping against her back, tiny droplets sliding down the smooth line of her spine and disappearing — inspiring no end of imagination.

Absorbed in her work, one strap had slipped off her shoulder to hang along her slender, pale arm, a flash of peach-tinted skin peeking through — spring glimpsed through a cracked door.

The man’s eyes darkened. The desire in them refused to be suppressed. His throat went dry. He watched that scene for a long time.

Just as the last line was almost done and Lin Weixia exhaled in relief, about to type the final key — a broad chest pressed against her from behind. An ice-cold grip caught her chin, and her face was turned.

Scorching lips came down over hers. Lin Weixia startled, elbows bracing against his chest, pushing back, frowning: “What are you doing?”

“Loving you,” Ban Sheng said, his throat working as he looked at her.

Every time he touched her, he called her name — Weixia — and would describe to her exactly how he had gotten through those years abroad. All of it. Every bit of it relying on his hand and one photograph.

Before he’d finished speaking, his lips were back over hers. Lin Weixia lay on the cool surface of the desk, the tip of his tongue drawing hers forward, tangling, the breath going out of her in pieces.

……

Lin Weixia curled against his chest like a cat, and he carried her from the study back to the bedroom.

The light was dim. The two of them lay side by side on the bed. Lin Weixia was too exhausted to do anything but stare at the ceiling.

She turned her head and looked at the man lying beside her. He had sat up on the edge of the bed, his hair a little disheveled, his lashes damp with sweat. A cigarette between his lips; he cupped a hand around the flame, and the orange-red light lit up his cold, sharp features as white smoke rolled from his thin lips — paired with that reckless, beautiful face, and the defined lines of his stomach beneath.

It looked like the scene of a crime.

“Let me try what a post-cigarette smoke tastes like.”

Lin Weixia leaned over him and took it right from his mouth, then took a small drag. Ban Sheng lay on the bed and raised an eyebrow slightly: “Well?”

“Want to know?” Lin Weixia asked with a lifted brow.

Ban Sheng gave a lazy smile, reaching to take his cigarette back — only for Lin Weixia to lean down as if she were about to kiss him.

The man instinctively responded. His broad hand came up to rest on her pale neck, and then a lungful of acrid smoke was breathed into him.

He looked up to find a pair of sharp, mischievous eyes. Lin Weixia’s expression was one of pure satisfaction — a clear, deliberate provocation.

“Asking for it again, are you?”

Ban Sheng pulled her right over, flipped them both, and pinned her beneath him. No amount of pleading from Lin Weixia made the slightest difference.

Lin Weixia was so thoroughly done that she was half-crying and cursing herself for having provoked him. Breathless, she thought of something, gripped Ban Sheng’s arm — her nails leaving red crescents — and with faint jealousy asked:

“Hold on — this string of English near your heart. What does it mean? Who is the S?”

Ban Sheng smiled, leaned down to brush the loose hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear, and didn’t answer. Sometimes he couldn’t decide whether Lin Weixia was clever or oblivious.

“The S — it’s not Li Shengran, is it?” Lin Weixia asked.

The relaxed, easy expression on Ban Sheng’s face stopped. He went still. At the sound of Li Shengran’s name, something flickered in his eyes — a flash of revulsion:

“She doesn’t deserve to be.”

“Then what is it?” Lin Weixia’s voice was rough.

The rhythm interrupted, Ban Sheng was suppressing himself with some difficulty — but he looked at her anyway, and let out a breath:

“S is for summer. I got it in America during my first year there.”

He had three tattoos in total. The black lily at his ankle was for his mother. The other two were both connected to Lin Weixia — the one at his collarbone, and this English inscription close to his heart.

Her heart was flooded. Lin Weixia felt as if someone had been pouring honey into her chest without stopping — so much it was threatening to spill over entirely.

Ban Sheng was hers.

Lin Weixia looked at the man before her and thought it.

Lin Weixia’s mind was sometimes slow, sometimes startlingly quick. She pointed to the three cartilage piercings at his collarbone and asked:

“You didn’t get those piercings right after the college entrance exam, did you?”

“Yes,” Ban Sheng said, not entirely wanting to admit it.

When they had met in Philadelphia, Ban Sheng had seen Lin Weixia again after so long and at the time he’d had his zipper pulled all the way up to his throat. And when they had met again after that, he had taken the studs out.

“Why?” Lin Weixia asked.

“I was so embarrassed then — abandoned by my first love, and on top of that she probably had someone she liked.” Ban Sheng’s voice carried a faint, plaintive quality.

Lin Weixia raised both hands in apology — but also felt a small, bright happiness rise in her. All the entanglement since their reunion, all the worry and hurt and lingering ache from the past — in that moment, it was all smoothed over. And yet her eyes danced with just a trace of smug delight as she said:

“Oh, Ban Sheng. You love me so much.”

“Yes. Very much.” His eyes met the girl’s, and Ban Sheng gave in to everything — and answered her with complete sincerity.