“Chu Hang, are you okay?”

“Why did you brace for that head-on? You should’ve just dodged — it’s fine if the ball got knocked away. Looking at how he charged, he probably wasn’t even going to get the ball anyway, it was more likely just going to hit the corner of the wall. You really didn’t need to go that hard.”

The rest of the university team had already started heading toward the corner. Only then did Chu Hang look away, stand up, and — without looking back — walk off, scoop up the ball, and toss it back onto the court before throwing himself back into the now white-hot game.

In that instant of eye contact, Tan Yin hadn’t been without doubt and fear — could Chu Hang really not see her? Was that eye contact truly only one-sided?

But the composed, unbothered way he’d turned and walked off made her doubt it. If he really could see her, how could he stay so calm in the face of someone suddenly appearing in the corner? Besides, looking up, Tan Yin could clearly see the lightning through the skylight above the stands — the storm hadn’t let up at all, so there was no way she could have been exposed. Still, for a moment, she couldn’t decide whether to feel relieved or disappointed — it was a complicated, hard-to-name feeling.

After Chu Hang endured two rounds of dirty tricks in a row, neither the referee nor the crowd could stay quiet about it any longer. Even a fair number of Polytechnic’s own students turned against their team, criticizing them for playing dirty. Under that pressure, the Polytechnic players were forced to sub out the offenders, and their captain came over to apologize to Chu Hang.

Unfortunately, Chu Hang wasn’t interested in the performance. He simply sidestepped, dodging the man’s attempt to pat his shoulder, pressed his lips shut without a word, and then proceeded to give the man a thoroughly one-sided beatdown with no mercy whatsoever — a perfect demonstration of “walk your own path and leave others with none.”

The game ended with Chu Hang’s overwhelming scoring run sealing the victory.

“Chu Hang, you’re incredible!”

“Bro, seriously, have you thought about joining the team? With you, we could go so much further in the college league!”

“With skills and stamina like yours, it’d be such a waste not to play!”

“Where’s Xu Yu, anyway? What kind of timing is that, disappearing right before the crucial moment — didn’t even get to see us crush Polytechnic.”

“Right? The school clinic isn’t even that far. Even with a twisted ankle, he could’ve crawled back.”

…

As the hero who had single-handedly demolished the Polytechnic team, Chu Hang was immediately surrounded by his teammates in celebration the moment the game ended. Yet his expression stayed subdued, and he glanced once, briefly, toward the corner from earlier — a light, fleeting look, gone almost as soon as it appeared.

Tan Yin’s heart had been racing wildly ever since that moment. Her legs even felt a little weak, though she couldn’t tell if it was from the near-miss with the ball or from the eye contact with Chu Hang. She braced one hand against the corner wall and gazed from a distance at Chu Hang, now the center of everyone’s attention.

Once the game ended, everyone was in high spirits — except Tan Yin, who felt strangely lost. She lingered alone in the empty gymnasium for a while, and only headed back to the dorm once the storm had passed.

Feeling somewhat conflicted, she pushed open the door and found Jiang Yilu looking equally torn and complicated.

Seeing Jiang Yilu reminded Tan Yin that she still hadn’t completed her assignment. She apologized at once. “Sorry, Jiang Yilu — I actually did follow Xu Yu to the game, but I still didn’t manage to dig up anything. He left partway through. Next time it storms, I’ll try again — I’ll get you something good this time, I promise!”

Just as Tan Yin expected Jiang Yilu to cheer her on, she instead saw a complicated, evasive expression cross her friend’s face. “That… Tan Yin, let’s just drop it. Stop tailing Xu Yu to dig up dirt from now on.” Jiang Yilu cleared her throat. “That invisibility power of yours isn’t something you can control — it comes and goes entirely with the storms. If you keep following him around and a storm suddenly stops while you’re mid-tail, you could suddenly become visible right in front of him. I’m worried it could put you in danger — what if you get dragged off to some lab to be studied? It’s not worth risking yourself just for my selfish little gossip project, sis!”

Though this abrupt change of heart from Jiang Yilu was quite the turnaround, Tan Yin didn’t think too much of it at the time. Touched, she patted her friend’s shoulder, thinking — that’s what real friends do, looking out for you like this.

“Oh, right — there’s a structural engineering exam coming up soon. I heard from Chen Ziqiang that Chu Hang put together a summary of exam-critical points for structural engineering before, and Chen Ziqiang was raving about it, saying it’s basically like reading the professor’s mind — if you master everything in Chu Hang’s summary, forget just passing, you could probably score top marks!” Jiang Yilu’s eyes darted around. “If you manage to score well on structural engineering this time, your dad might not just lift the financial sanctions — he might even throw in a ‘scholarship’ on top.”

Hearing this, Tan Yin’s interest was immediately piqued. “Should I…”

Before she could even finish, Jiang Yilu jumped in. “Yes! I already checked — there’s a whole week of storms coming, so you’ll have plenty of chances! Just pick any stormy day, sneak over, take a look at Chu Hang’s exam-point summary, memorize it, and we’ll study off it together when you get back. No one will ever know!”

And so, with Jiang Yilu’s encouragement, Tan Yin embarked on this risky little scheme.

Sure enough, the next day brought another storm.

According to Jiang Yilu’s intel, Chu Hang had recently been carrying that exam-summary notebook of his around, studying in the library.

“Here, here — my source just texted me. Chu Hang’s in the study room on the east side of the library’s second floor right now.” Jiang Yilu, clearly just as eager for those notes herself, held her umbrella and personally walked the already-invisible Tan Yin all the way to the library entrance, giving what amounted to a briefing to thin air before finally, reluctantly, heading off with one last round of encouragement.

Tan Yin had finally managed to get her structural mechanics grades up, but structural engineering was still her weak point. The thought of getting her hands on Chu Hang’s summary of key points was tempting — surely it would make her studying far more targeted.

She scurried up to the second-floor east study room, and sure enough, found Chu Hang tucked away in a quiet, out-of-the-way corner. He sat by the window, quietly reading with his head bowed, dressed in white like a scene of snow, features as fine as a painting, so serene and peaceful that for a moment Tan Yin found herself thinking, unbidden — what a picture of tranquil days.

But tranquility aside, there was work to be done. Tan Yin tiptoed over to Chu Hang’s side. He was reading an English-language architecture journal, and to her delight, she spotted his legendary summary of exam points sitting right at the upper left corner of his desk.

Tan Yin’s eyes practically lit up at the sight. And just then, a cool breeze carrying wisps of rain drifted in through the open window, gently blowing the summary open, page by page, conveniently right for her.

Talk about heaven-sent luck!

Tan Yin nearly laughed out loud. She quickly leaned in and began reading, jotting down the key exam points page by page. To help herself remember, she murmured the highlighted points softly to herself as she read.

Just as she was deep into it, Chu Hang — who had been diligently reading his English journal — suddenly stood up and, with a decisive snap, shut the window.

The library was already stuffy and warm enough! It wasn’t even air-conditioning season yet, and having the window open had been so refreshing, letting the breeze flip through his notes so conveniently for Tan Yin. Why on earth would Chu Hang close it now?

Was he cold or something? So young and yet so delicate? Young people really needed more exercise! What kind of architect-to-be had such poor stamina?

But Tan Yin didn’t think he actually looked cold. Ever since the window closed, his face had visibly started to flush, a faint sheen of sweat forming on the tip of his nose — and yet he stubbornly refused to open the window. Absolutely refused.

Tan Yin deflated. “Chu Hang, come on, open the window, just let me get a few more looks at your exam summary, would you?”

Since Chu Hang couldn’t see or hear her, he naturally kept his expressionless focus on his journal. And yet, despite the heat and the dry academic material, Tan Yin noticed the faintest hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth — faint, but somehow it looked almost sly? The look vanished as quickly as it appeared, and when Tan Yin looked again, Chu Hang had returned to his usual serious expression, reading his journal with total focus.

She must be overheated and seeing things.

With the window shut and no breeze now, Chu Hang sitting up straight and proper, she couldn’t very well just march up while invisible and flip through his notes herself.

With no chance of sneaking another peek at the summary, Tan Yin sighed and started to get up to leave.

But almost the instant she turned, Chu Hang cleared his throat and, unprompted, picked up the exam summary sitting beside him. His journal wasn’t even finished — was he really switching his affections to the review notes halfway through? With grades like his, did he even need to look at exam summaries?

Of course, as far as Tan Yin was concerned, this was exactly what she’d hoped for. She abandoned her plan to leave and hurried back to Chu Hang’s side.

He opened the summary, and Tan Yin immediately started peeking.

Chu Hang usually read fast, but today he was turning the pages unusually slowly — just slow enough that Tan Yin could memorize every key point on each page before he moved on. And whenever she hit a concept she didn’t quite understand, it seemed Chu Hang was a little weak on that point too, because the moment she frowned, he’d linger on that page longer. Once she finally worked it out and her brow relaxed, he’d seem to have grasped the point at exactly the same moment, and only then would he flip to the next page.

Tan Yin felt quite pleased with herself over this. See — Chu Hang wasn’t as invincible as Chen Ziqiang and the others made him out to be. He still had to review the summary just like everyone else, still had points he didn’t fully understand, and it took him roughly as long as her to work through the tricky parts. Her confidence soared — if she just pushed a little harder, maybe she really could beat Chu Hang and take first place in this structural engineering exam.

But studying, it seemed, was never a smooth road. As Tan Yin kept reading, she ran into a particularly complicated point on one page that completely stumped her. Perhaps it was a gap in her thinking, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t wrap her head around it, brow furrowed the whole time.

Fortunately, Chu Hang seemed stuck on the same point too — he never turned that page. Still, no matter how hard Tan Yin racked her brain, she couldn’t figure it out.

“How am I supposed to understand this?” Tan Yin muttered, distressed. “I really don’t get this part…”

As she stared helplessly at the tricky point, Chu Hang clearly had no intention of sitting idle. He suddenly picked up a pen, pressed his lips together, and wrote a note on the page—

“This one’s tricky. Might be worth checking A Practical Guide to Structural Engineering Design for reference.”

Looking at his bold, forceful handwriting, Tan Yin suddenly found the fog lifting. Right! She belatedly remembered that when this point had come up in class, the structural engineering professor had indeed recommended that exact book, saying it would help students fully grasp the concept once they’d read it.

“But does the library even have that book?”

Just as Tan Yin wondered, Chu Hang closed the summary and stood up — clearly heading off to check it out.

Couldn’t have gone better!

Tan Yin followed right along behind him, watching him walk past row after row of bookshelves with that tall, easy confidence.

Chu Hang was obviously familiar with where the architecture books were shelved — he went straight to a particular shelf with barely a pause, glanced over the spines once or twice, and pulled out that exact copy of A Practical Guide to Structural Engineering Design. But once he had it, he didn’t leave — he scanned the shelf again and started pulling out a few more titles.

Tan Yin watched closely, ready to jot down the title of anything Chu Hang picked up, planning to check them out or buy them herself later — wasn’t this exactly what she’d always dreamed of? Sneaking a peek at Chu Hang’s reading list, secretly studying the same material, and one day overtaking him?

But just as she was busy noting down titles, she heard the murmured voices of two girls coming from the other side of the shelf behind her.

That particular row of architecture books was fairly out of the way, tucked behind shelves of literary chronicles and historical scholarship — rarely visited. And behind it, unbeknownst to them, were two literature majors, chatting quietly, completely unaware anyone was nearby.

“Ugh, this term’s thesis topic is way too hard. When I applied to the literature department, I thought the coursework would just be reading classic novels and writing reflections — turns out we actually have to study literary history!”

“Forget it, let’s just find some reference books quickly and knock out a paper, then we can get back to writing our novel.”

“Go for it, I’m waiting for your update! In the last chapter, the male lead pins the female lead against the wall in the library — such a mundane trope, but I read it and my whole face went red, felt so girly and giddy. If I didn’t know you’re single, I’d have thought that scene was based on real-life romance experience — it felt so real!”

The other girl, evidently rather pleased with herself at the mention of her novel, lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I’ll let you in on a secret — when I wrote that scene, I imagined myself as the heroine, and the male lead was based on Chu Hang, you know? The one from architecture, super handsome. Just thinking about him, I felt like I couldn’t breathe writing that scene…”

“Shh, keep your voice down, the architecture shelf is right on the other side.”

“What’s there to worry about, no one’s ever over there…”

This up-and-coming literature-department author went on to fill her friend in on a good deal of Chu Hang trivia, the gist of it circling endlessly around how handsome he was, how smart, how good at basketball — heaping on the praise.

Though their voices were quiet, in the silent library, at that close distance, Tan Yin could hear every word clearly. She glanced at Chu Hang, certain he must have heard it all too.

Even knowing he couldn’t hear her, Tan Yin couldn’t resist teasing. “You really do have fans everywhere, huh? Guess I’m not the only one using you as artistic inspiration — the only difference is my medium’s a comic and hers is words.”

Once she’d said her piece, Tan Yin found herself rather curious what exactly this girl had written, and how heroic a figure Chu Hang cut in it. But her current position was against the wall at the end of the shelf, with tall, long-legged Chu Hang standing right in front of her, blocking any way past him for the moment.

Chu Hang, for his part, showed absolutely no reaction, continuing to search the shelf for architecture books as if nothing on the other side of it existed. His indifference left Tan Yin stunned.

To hear such a passionate confession and remain so completely unmoved — that was cold, all right.

Meanwhile, the two girls on the other side of the shelf had moved on to discussing what to write next, one moment gushing over a scene that made hearts race, the next over one that sparked butterflies — yet listening to it all, Tan Yin found herself feeling strangely unmoved.

She listened to their deliberately hushed voices, glanced at Chu Hang standing in front of her, and thought, somewhat baffled: “Getting pinned to a wall by Chu Hang in a library would really make someone’s heart race that badly, to the point they can’t breathe? Is he really that charming?” She shook her head. “That’s way too exaggerated, way too over the top…”

But so busy was she mocking the scenario that she completely missed the subtle shift in Chu Hang’s expression — his gaze dropped slightly, and the corner of his mouth curved into a brief, fleeting smile, tinged with mischief and a touch of wickedness.

Then Tan Yin found herself utterly speechless, because Chu Hang suddenly took a large step forward. With his height and long legs, that single step completely trapped the invisible Tan Yin between the shelf and the wall. With nowhere left to retreat, she pressed herself flat against the wall, tense.

But as if that weren’t enough, he took another step forward, stopping right in front of her — just an inch more and the two of them would be touching. Tan Yin’s heart pounded like a drum. Just as she began to panic, wondering if Chu Hang had somehow noticed something, he simply braced one hand against the wall, rose slightly on his toes, and pulled a book off the shelf with the other hand — his expression perfectly composed, not a flicker of change even at such close range.

He took the book but didn’t step back. He kept one hand braced against the wall, and casually flipped the book open with the other — utterly unbothered himself, but wreaking havoc on Tan Yin. Chu Hang’s current stance had, in effect, formed a full wall-pin around her, his face impossibly close, his eyes — as if still searching for some reference material — occasionally lifted from the book toward the shelf, and every time, that gaze happened to pass right over Tan Yin’s face, brushing across her eyes. Naturally, after each of these tantalizing glances, he’d look away again as if nothing had happened. But to Tan Yin, it was anything but nothing.

She was well and truly pinned into the corner, trapped within the confines of his body…

The cover of the new book Chu Hang had picked up was right in front of Tan Yin’s face, yet she couldn’t make out a single word of the title — her blood was rushing, her head spinning…

Being wall-pinned by Chu Hang, heart racing, unable to breathe — turns out that was really, genuinely a thing…

Just as Tan Yin’s face flushed so hot she thought she might combust entirely, on the verge of blowing her own cover just to escape his embrace, Chu Hang finally released her — apparently having found the book he was looking for. He glanced once more at the shelf near the corner, wearing an expression of deep satisfaction laced with mischief, gave a soft huff, and turned to walk away.

He walked off calm and unhurried, seemingly not the least bit concerned about the two girls on the other side of the shelf who’d just been discussing him. He simply strolled straight past the row where they stood, eyes forward, though — probably from being complimented — he was clearly in a good mood, the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly with a smile, his lips faintly curved, looking every bit like…

Every bit like a thoroughly satisfied fox spirit of a man…

Once Chu Hang had gone, Tan Yin still couldn’t calm down. Her heart was still racing. Meanwhile, the two girls, having just been caught red-handed gossiping about the very subject himself, were also completely thrown into disarray—

“Oh no, oh no, I can’t show my face anywhere ever again, that was really Chu Hang just now…”

“But he didn’t seem upset, did he? Did you see, he had a smile on his lips — he looked so gentle. He’s really good-looking when he smiles, you know. Even I got nervous just from that one glance…”

Tan Yin had just been mocking these two girls for being so dramatic — as if being wall-pinned by Chu Hang would really do that to someone. But now she realized, with despair, that she was even worse off than they were. She pressed a hand to her still wildly pounding heart, the aftershocks of that near miss still coursing through her.

Chu Hang really was, without a doubt, a genuine fox spirit of a man.