The thunderstorm defied Tan Yin’s expectations, showing no sign of letting up at all — thick clouds pressed down over the sky, giving off an almost apocalyptic feeling of darkness closing in on the city. The rainy season in this city really was fickle beyond understanding — just moments ago the sky had been bright and sunny, and now it had gone pitch dark, giving the illusion that night was about to fall.

Just as Tan Yin had witnessed a failed flirtation attempt firsthand and found herself trapped in the little stone pavilion by the storm, elsewhere, unbeknownst to her, Jiang Yilu was also stuck — beneath a mushroom sculpture in the botanical garden.

It was a cluster of mushroom sculptures, one after another. When the thunderstorm hit, Jiang Yilu had only managed to duck under the nearest mushroom cap for shelter. The mushroom design was cute with a touch of exaggeration, its cap enormous and drooping low — once Jiang Yilu stood beneath it, she was completely hidden from view, invisible from behind entirely.

Jiang Yilu hadn’t been under the mushroom long when she heard footsteps behind her — someone else had apparently also run in under this cluster of mushrooms for shelter.

“Ugh, my hair’s all wet, so annoying.”

It was a bright, light female voice.

Jiang Yilu was just about to turn around and greet this fellow sufferer of misfortune when the voice she least wanted to hear rang out right after—

“Stand further inside, I’ll block the wind for you.”

Meeting one’s enemy always stirs up strong feelings — and of all people, it was Xu Yu!

Jiang Yilu thought bitterly to herself — even at a time like this, he still hadn’t forgotten to maintain his gentlemanly airs and flirt. This girl’s voice sounded unfamiliar too — some new girl he’d charmed up from who knows where. Xu Yu really was a shameless flirt of a man!

Hiding behind the mushroom cap, Jiang Yilu listened as Xu Yu and the girl under the neighboring mushroom chatted idly. Though she didn’t want to admit it, this guy’s knowledge really was impressively broad. He went from astronomy and geography to the national economic situation; then switched topics, going from his domestic travels to his overseas backpacking experiences.

“You have to be careful in Egypt — don’t assume that because Egyptians seem especially hospitable and warm, you can just casually accept their service. Even if you take a tissue someone hands you in a bathroom, they might ask for a tip afterward — all that hospitality and service comes with a price tag…”

“You might not believe this, but in Iceland there’s a specialty delicacy — rotten shark meat. You bury the shark in sand, let it rot for about half a year, then dig it up and dry it, and serve it with Icelandic liquor — it’s very popular locally.”

…

Not to mention the girl sharing Xu Yu’s mushroom, even Jiang Yilu had to admit she was listening with genuine interest.

The two chatted about a few other things, and then, somehow, the conversation shifted from athletes’ private lives to their own respective love lives.

Upon learning Xu Yu didn’t have a girlfriend, the girl’s voice turned a bit shy: “Xu Yu, maybe you’ve already sensed it, but actually, my feelings for you…” her voice trailed off. “If you don’t have a girlfriend, could I be your girlfriend?”

How exciting! She’d stumbled right into a live confession! Though her throat itched, Jiang Yilu forced back a cough and perked up her ears to listen.

Faced with the girl’s sudden confession, Xu Yu was clearly caught off guard: “I’m sorry, I…”

Though the girl’s voice was shy, having already worked up the courage to confess, her attitude remained brave: “But you said you don’t have a girlfriend, so why can’t we try? We’ve been classmates since high school, and I even applied to law school because of you. All these years, I’ve been waiting for you, but I don’t want to wait anymore. You’ve always been so popular with girls, and I’m afraid if I keep waiting, I’ll lose my chance…”

The girl had clearly been suppressing these feelings for years, and as she spoke, she started crying.

Xu Yu’s voice grew flustered: “Don’t cry, please don’t cry first.”

“So will you say yes or not?” The girl grew almost forceful. “You just said yourself that a lot of relationships can be cultivated over time, so why not say yes to me? Why not try cultivating something with me?”

Faced with such intense, almost obsessive affection, an outright “I don’t like you so no” would be far too cruel — even Jiang Yilu felt secondhand embarrassment for Xu Yu.

Somehow, Xu Yu came up with something on the spot: “I can’t be with you — I don’t have a girlfriend, that’s true, but I do have someone I like! Unless something goes wrong, she’ll probably become my girlfriend very soon!”

The girl, unwilling to let it go, pressed further: “Then who is it? Tell me who!”

Just as Jiang Yilu was gloating over Xu Yu’s predicament, she got carried away and let her guard down — unable to hold back the itch in her throat, she let out a cough.

“Who?!” The girl was extremely alert. “Who’s there?”

Seeing there was no point hiding any longer, Jiang Yilu poked her head out from under her own mushroom and greeted the pair across the way, explaining: “I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on purpose — I was already hiding here from the rain before you two showed up. Your confession scene just now had such a nice atmosphere, I didn’t want to interrupt…” Jiang Yilu assured them, “Don’t worry, I swear on my honor, this stays between us — I would never tell a soul!”

Having said her piece, Jiang Yilu couldn’t resist shooting a teasing, gloating look at Xu Yu — she was thoroughly enjoying his predicament right now.

Xu Yu glanced at Jiang Yilu, and suddenly smiled — a smile that, no matter how you looked at it, seemed conniving. Just as Jiang Yilu’s instincts screamed that something bad was about to happen and she was about to make her escape, Xu Yu grabbed her and declared—

“To be honest, this is actually the person I like.”

Jiang Yilu: ???

Xu Yu paid no mind to Jiang Yilu’s rigid shock and went on, casually draping an arm around her shoulders: “We’re actually developing quite steadily right now — heading toward marriage, in fact.”

“Me and you? What? I never…”

Before Jiang Yilu could finish, Xu Yu cut her off, seizing the conversation with gentle warmth: “Lulu, don’t be like this — I don’t want to hide our relationship anymore, and you don’t need to feel shy and deny it either…”

Having said this, Xu Yu turned back to the girl across from them: “Chen Han, I’m sorry — it’s true, my heart already belongs to someone. I really appreciate that you like me, but you’re wonderful, and you’ll definitely find someone more suitable.”

The girl named Chen Han’s eyes went wide, clearly unable to accept this turn of events. But the shock hit her so hard that she didn’t even cry — she just bit her lip and, without a word, ran off into the rain alone.

The moment she left, Xu Yu released Jiang Yilu’s shoulders.

Jiang Yilu was furious: “Xu Yu, if you wanted to reject her, just reject her! Why drag me in as your excuse?”

Xu Yu glanced at Jiang Yilu, utterly unrepentant: “Because that way she can truly let go, and won’t waste any more time on me. She can start fresh, find someone new to like. I had no idea she’d been waiting for me for years already — I didn’t want her holding onto false hope any longer.”

“What about my reputation, though! If this gets out, I don’t want this kind of talk about me!”

Xu Yu raised an eyebrow, letting out a scoff: “Weren’t you the one calling me a pervert, a hooligan, taking advantage of you — considering we’ve slept in the same bed, what’s the harm in a little manufactured couple rumor?”

Jiang Yilu shook with anger. She was still in her swimsuit, the cover-up over it thoroughly soaked by the rain, and now with the cold wind whipping the rain against her, she started coughing and sneezing.

“Here, put this on.” Xu Yu took off his own clothes and tossed them to her. “This was originally meant for Chen Han, but you get the benefit now instead.”

“I’m not wearing it!”

Xu Yu ignored her protest and forcefully draped his clothes over her anyway: “All right, I was wrong just now, but in the heat of the moment I really did just blurt out a lame excuse without thinking. Going forward, if any rumors about you come from this, I’ll clear things up properly. If it causes you any damage, I’ll take full, unlimited responsibility for compensating you. Good enough?”

“Then write me a contract!”

Xu Yu’s eyes widened: “Hey, why are you so rigid about this? I’ve already said all that, can’t we just be friends and call it settled? You still want a written contract? Besides, what’s so bad about a rumor with me anyway? I’m quite popular in law school, you know — people even nicknamed me the ‘Wu Yanzu of the law school’!”

“Ha, you and your ‘Wu Yanzu of the law school’ — then I guess I’m the ‘Qiu Shuzhen of the architecture department’!”

“…”

This thunderstorm dragged on for quite a while. Tan Yin waited it out in the little stone pavilion for a long time, but eventually couldn’t take it anymore and dashed back to her room at the guesthouse through the rain, getting soaked to the bone in the process — only to find, upon rushing into her room’s bathroom hoping for a hot shower, that the water in the guesthouse had been shut off!

“Boss, how long is the water going to be out? Can we even take hot showers?!”

“Seriously, I’m all sticky and soaked, this is miserable.”

Sure enough, a chorus of complaints from several girls came from outside the door.

The guesthouse owner kept trying to reassure everyone: “The water outage really couldn’t be helped — the renovation next door accidentally cut through a water pipe, we already have people repairing it. But we do have two shower rooms on the first floor connected to a different pipe than the one that got cut, so they still have hot water — you’re welcome to use those…”

Tan Yin then remembered that the guesthouse did have two shared, unisex bathrooms on the first floor, originally meant for guests coming back from the pool or beach to rinse off. Because of that purpose, they were fairly bare-bones — each shower room had just a single showerhead, no partitions, no curtains, just an exposed showerhead out in the open. Though the shower rooms weren’t too small, only one person could use each at a time.

Tan Yin went downstairs and saw that one of the shower rooms clearly already had someone using it, with several girls waiting outside, already lined up. The other shower room was positioned a bit further off, tucked around the corner of another building — not exactly hard to find, though. So Tan Yin was quite surprised to find it completely empty when she reached the door.

Equally surprised was Duan Yingfei, who had also just arrived at that shower room’s door. She went in with her clothes, but came right back out again before long.

“No wonder nobody’s fighting over this one — the door lock is broken! Who’d dare shower in there!” Duan Yingfei muttered, her face dark as she walked out of the shower room. “What kind of crappy guesthouse only has one public shower and you can only go one at a time.” She slammed the door shut hard, only then noticing the note taped to the door reading “Door broken, temporarily out of use.” Duan Yingfei glared at the note, then looked at the long line outside the other shower room, sighing, “This is going to take forever!”

With that, Duan Yingfei irritably kicked a pebble by her feet and, reluctantly, went to join the long line outside the other shower room.

But while Duan Yingfei had given up on the shower with the broken lock, Tan Yin took an interest. She went over and checked it out — the hot water inside was working fine, it was only the door that wouldn’t close, and there was a chair inside meant for holding clothes.

If she just used the chair to block the door, couldn’t she still take a shower?

Sure, the chair wouldn’t be much use — a strong gust of wind could easily blow the door open — but right now it was still pouring outside with constant thunder, and by the look of it, that wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. And if it wasn’t stopping, she could stay invisible; even if the door accidentally got pushed open or blown open by the wind, no one would be able to see her anyway. Besides, once the door was closed, that “Door broken, temporarily out of use” sign would still be hanging there in plain sight — a normal person probably wouldn’t come check again. Tan Yin was also confident in her showering speed — just ten minutes would do it, and she was sure she could pull it off within that window. In short, she’d just quickly seize this opportunity, take a hot shower, and get rid of the sticky, damp feeling from getting soaked earlier.

Having happily made up her mind, Tan Yin went into the shower room, blocked the door with the chair, and started taking off her clothes to shower…

Except, as it turns out, sometimes you really can’t count on luck — once you decide to take a risky chance and think you’ll get away with it, that’s exactly when trouble strikes…

Tan Yin had only gotten her short-sleeve shirt halfway off when knocking suddenly sounded at the shower room door, followed immediately by Xu Yu’s voice—

“Anyone in there?”

He knocked for a while, and getting no response, muttered to himself: “Guess no one’s here. Let me push it open and check — the lock’s broken on this door, but the hot water should still work, right? As long as there’s hot water I can shower, I’m all sticky and gross, this is unbearable.” As he spoke, he pushed the door fully open. “Yeah, no one’s in here — but wait, why’s there a chair propped against it? How’d that even happen? Feels like a locked-room mystery…”

Right then, appearing in front of Tan Yin, besides Xu Yu, was also Chu Hang, following right behind him.

In that split-second, critical moment, Tan Yin hastily pulled her shirt back on. Though she knew they couldn’t see her, if she’d actually taken her clothes off, she doubted she could have handled the embarrassment and shame herself. All she could do was squeeze herself further into the corner, silently hoping Xu Yu and Chu Hang would hurry up and leave.

Chu Hang and Xu Yu had run into each other at their room’s door. Both had been soaked by the rain, and discovering the water was out in their room, they’d had no choice but to come downstairs, only to be successfully deterred by the long line outside the other shower room, eventually tracking their way to this shower room with the broken door.

But compared to Xu Yu’s delight, Chu Hang’s face carried a look of having seen a ghost, an expression hard to put into words.

That terrifying auditory and visual hallucination was back again!

In the shower room that appeared empty to Xu Yu, things looked completely different to Chu Hang. Wherever Chu Hang looked, he could clearly see Tan Yin huddled in the corner of the shower room, her clothes in disarray. Her body looked like it had gotten soaked by the earlier downpour too — beneath the white short-sleeve shirt, the outline of her body was faintly visible, and the shirt looked as if it had been thrown on carelessly, the collar hanging loose, revealing a fair, rounded shoulder and the collarbone beneath.

Knowing full well this was just a hallucination, Chu Hang still couldn’t help but glance at that shoulder several times.

Chu Hang found himself thinking randomly — people always described collarbones as sexy, and he used to scoff at that, but now he was starting to think, maybe that description wasn’t wrong after all.

Just as he was lost in these stray thoughts, Xu Yu turned on the showerhead to test it, quite thrilled: “Chu Hang, the water’s hot, we can shower!”

Seeing Chu Hang standing in the doorway with an unreadable expression, Xu Yu assumed he was preoccupied with something and naturally patted his shoulder: “Stop overthinking, you go first, I’ll hold the door for you.”

Chu Hang, who just moments ago had been frowning over how uncomfortable he felt from getting soaked, now, without even thinking, declined Xu Yu’s offer, pressing his lips together: “No, I don’t feel like showering right now.”

Xu Yu was puzzled but didn’t think much of it: “Then I’ll go, you hold the door for me.” He grinned. “Girls just don’t like showering with someone watching, feels awkward, invades each other’s privacy, that’s why they can’t take advantage of a shower room with a broken lock like this — but you and me, what’s there between us? Us guys don’t mind seeing each other naked at all, what’s the big deal!”

With that, he started stripping off his clothes to start showering.

Just as Xu Yu’s hand touched his pants, Chu Hang, who had been standing there coldly a moment ago, suddenly moved with startling speed, forcefully stopping him from continuing to undress.

Xu Yu was stunned: ???

Chu Hang, expression stern: “Xu Yu, a man needs to have some self-respect. Put your pants back on.”

“Huh???”

Even knowing Tan Yin’s appearance was just his own hallucination, Chu Hang still instinctively wanted to stop Xu Yu from showering — the scene felt utterly… utterly absurd, and even knowing it wasn’t real, he couldn’t help himself, he just wanted to stop this bizarre scenario from unfolding.

Chu Hang’s mind was in disarray — he didn’t want to think about whether he was trying to prevent Xu Yu from showering while Tan Yin watched, or trying to prevent Tan Yin from watching Xu Yu shower…

Though the word order differed between those two framings, either way, the outcome was the same as long as he stopped Xu Yu.

Xu Yu, understandably, was completely baffled: “I need to shower, what self-respect are you talking about? How am I supposed to shower without taking off my pants? Are you actually like those girls, too shy to even see someone else’s body?” He looked deeply at Chu Hang, then suddenly wore a meaningful, dawning expression. “Oh, I get it — are you feeling insecure?”

Chu Hang frowned: “What?”

Xu Yu shot Chu Hang a pointed look, grinning: “You know, that thing… the size, are you worried about comparing to me and feeling insecure?”

If only he hadn’t said that — the moment he did, in Chu Hang’s hallucination, Tan Yin, who had been curled up in the corner, clapped her hands over her ears and sighed dramatically: “Heavens, what did I do to deserve hearing such a mind-scrambling conversation!”

Chu Hang rubbed his temples, his temples visibly throbbing with frustration: “Xu Yu!”

Xu Yu remained carelessly cheerful, not only planning to shower himself but also eager to have Chu Hang join in: “Don’t be shy, even if you’re smaller than me I won’t laugh, come on, let’s just compare directly…”

While resisting, Chu Hang could hear Tan Yin’s voice nearby, her tone carrying a note of world-view-shattering resignation—

“So it’s actually true that men secretly glance at each other and compare size in the bathroom! Men! How can you be so vulgar!”

“…”

Of all the rotten luck, after Chu Hang had stopped Xu Yu from trying to strip and shower, not only was Tan Yin squatting in the corner watching silently, but her helpless running commentary rang out once more, like a narrator’s voiceover—

“Well, two men sharing one shower room is already quite suggestive as it is — and now there’s all this pushing and pulling and grabbing going on. According to how these novels usually go, next the two of them should get flustered breathing, then suddenly lock eyes deeply, and follow up with some socialist brotherly bonding — after that, the scene can only be left to the imagination… I feel like if I keep watching this I’m going to get a stye in my eye. You two really won’t consider stopping and letting me leave first?”

“…”

Chu Hang shook his head hard, trying to block out these disturbingly realistic hallucinations.

He finally managed to break free from Xu Yu and immediately put as much distance between them as possible to avoid any further impropriety.

Chu Hang pressed his lips together and looked at Xu Yu: “Don’t touch anything, and don’t shower either. Come walk in the rain with me, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

Xu Yu looked entirely innocent: “You can walk in the rain with an umbrella though. Why not shower first?”

Chu Hang hesitated, thought about it for a long while, then finally forced out an answer: “Some things just feel more right to say while getting rained on.”???

Xu Yu, naturally, wasn’t swayed at all, and quickly unzipped his pants again, ready to keep undressing: “If you insist that feels right, then you can go get rained on, and I’ll hold the umbrella and come with you — I still want to shower first…”

“No, you don’t.”

Chu Hang, seeming almost obsessive about it now, forced Xu Yu to zip his pants back up and stop him from showering, then, regardless of consequences, dragged him with a stony expression out of the shower room.

A quarter of an hour later, Xu Yu, still in his damp, steamy clothes, walked miserably alongside Chu Hang through the rain.

Fortunately the thunderstorm had eased up a bit by now, but the drizzle still falling on them was uncomfortable nonetheless.

Xu Yu genuinely couldn’t understand it — why on earth had Chu Hang suddenly wanted to stage this whole rain-walk drama with him? What kind of major life blow had befallen this poor guy? Had his dad not only had an affair but already fathered a secret child? No wonder Chu Hang seemed so shaken!