Gu Yan didn’t choose anywhere fancy or expensive to eat. He simply picked a home-style restaurant near the legal aid center and ordered a few everyday dishes.

On the way there, Gu Yan seemed almost fixated on the burn on Qi Xi’s hand. Even though she repeatedly assured him it was nothing serious, just a splash of hot water, he still couldn’t seem to let it go—

“Should I take you to a hospital instead?”

The way he kept fussing over her injury bordered on obsessive. It was such a minor wound, and yet he kept insisting she should see a doctor.

It wasn’t until Qi Xi finally rolled up her sleeve and let him inspect the burn himself that Gu Yan, seeing it with his own eyes, finally stopped pushing the hospital idea.

It was still a bit red, true, but there wasn’t even a blister. It only stung a little when she touched it herself, now and then.

So before the food arrived, Qi Xi took out the iodine and burn ointment the green-haired boy had given her, intending to treat the wound again. But no sooner had she pulled the bag out than Gu Yan snatched it away.

Qi Xi was baffled. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t use that.”

Before she could ask why, Gu Yan pressed his lips together and tossed another bag into her lap. “Use this instead,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact.

What on earth…

Qi Xi opened the bag in confusion, only to find it contained the exact same thing—iodine and burn ointment.

Gu Yan cleared his throat, as if explaining himself reluctantly. “I happened to pass a pharmacy on the way here. Figured I’d pick some up.”

His manner was so natural and effortless that Qi Xi couldn’t help but think—yes, he really was a genuinely good person.

It was just a bag of iodine and burn ointment, but it still made Qi Xi unreasonably happy. “So you did see my Moments post? Since you didn’t leave a comment, I thought you’d missed it.”

Gu Yan glanced at her, then lowered his eyes. “You’ve got no shortage of people leaving comments for you. Every time you post something, a whole crowd of guys shows up to like it. Why would I bother joining in?”

That much was true, but none of those men were Gu Yan.

Qi Xi felt a twinge of hurt, though she wasn’t sure she had any right to.

Gu Yan’s tone had sounded calm enough—probably just an offhand remark.

Qi Xi didn’t dwell on it, because a new question quickly took its place. “Wasn’t the burn ointment that green-haired boy gave me the exact same brand as yours? Why insist I not use his and use yours instead?”

The brands were identical, down to the packaging.

“He’s the brother of the person who hurt you. You’re just going to trust whatever he says?” Gu Yan’s brow creased slightly, looking a bit displeased. “Who knows if what he bought is even any good. And even if it’s the same product—if you had to choose between using his or mine, which would you pick?”

Qi Xi had noticed that Gu Yan could be a little childish sometimes—stubborn and particular about the strangest things, like a cat that needed to be stroked the right way or else it would bristle.

She surrendered immediately. “Yours. Of course I’d pick yours.”

Sure enough, a look of grudging satisfaction crossed Gu Yan’s face. He cleared his throat. “Want me to help disinfect it?”

“No need.” Qi Xi deftly took out the iodine and dabbed at the wound, wincing at the sting as she explained to Gu Yan, “I was a wild kid growing up, always falling and scraping myself, so I got used to treating my own injuries a long time ago. This is nothing.”

Gu Yan looked away, as if he couldn’t bear to look directly at her wound. “You’re a girl. You really shouldn’t get hurt so much. It might scar.”

Once Qi Xi had finished applying the ointment, she shook her head and said, half in jest, “So if it scars, does that mean I’m not pretty anymore?”

She’d said it with a bit of self-deprecating humor, not really expecting a reply from Gu Yan—so when his voice came, it actually startled her.

“No,” Gu Yan said, his tone a little stiff but certain. He looked directly at her. “Even with a scar, you’d still be beautiful.”

In truth, Qi Xi was used to being complimented on her looks—people said it to her face all the time. She’d practically built up an immunity to such remarks. Plenty of people had described her beauty in elaborate, flowery language, elegant metaphors and poetic comparisons. What Gu Yan had just said was about as plain and unoriginal as it got. And yet, for some reason, that warmth bloomed in her chest again, and she felt like she was walking on marshmallows, each step uneven, her head going foggy—she even forgot what she’d been about to say next.

Her heart was a tangle of flutter, hurt, and reluctance all at once.

If only that white moonlight girl didn’t exist.

If only Gu Yan had never met her.

If only Gu Yan hadn’t so suddenly gotten back together with her.

Qi Xi’s mind was full of if-onlys, full of quiet frustration.

Fortunately, that was when the dishes Gu Yan had ordered began arriving, one by one.

Qi Xi hadn’t had a proper lunch, but strangely, she didn’t feel very hungry now. She’d hoped she could avoid thinking about Gu Yan, but with the man himself sitting right across from her, her mood kept wavering, unsettled, and her appetite suffered for it.

“Why aren’t you eating the fish?” Perhaps her strange behavior was too obvious to miss, because Gu Yan noticed and looked at her. “Don’t you usually love fish?”

He added, looking away, his voice a touch unnatural, “Just a guess—most people like fish.”

Qi Xi did, in fact, love fish. Normally, the sight of a fish dish was enough to make her appetite spike. But today she couldn’t manage it. She forced a smile and gave a vague excuse. “Too many bones. I don’t feel like dealing with them today.”

Gu Yan looked mildly surprised. “Since when are you this lazy?”

Without another word, he picked up the serving chopsticks and began painstakingly picking the bones out of the fish for himself. Qi Xi watched, a little absentminded. The sun had already set, and in the soft golden light, Gu Yan picked through the bones with focused, gentle patience, his fingers slender and pale, his lips finely shaped—more handsome than she’d even imagined.

Just as Qi Xi assumed he’d eat the fish himself once he finished, he slid the plate over to her instead. “Done.”

Qi Xi stared at the deboned fish now sitting in front of her, and felt a sudden, reckless kind of despair well up in her. For the first time, she thought she understood something of what Gu Yan must have once felt—that feeling of having made up your mind to let go, knowing full well that continuing to like someone was pointless, knowing you should stop, and thinking that if you just gritted your teeth and stopped looking, stopped thinking, you’d eventually manage to quit and forget them—only for that person to suddenly appear again, undoing every bit of effort you’d put in.

Qi Xi knew that the mature thing to do now was to stay quiet, not to ask. But she couldn’t help herself. She looked straight at Gu Yan. “Why did you debone the fish for me?”

Gu Yan seemed caught off guard for a moment, but quickly recovered his composure. He looked away calmly and took a sip of water. “You’re a classmate. And now a colleague.”

“You’re really that nice to your colleagues? Are you going to debone fish for all your other colleagues in the future too?”

Qi Xi wasn’t even sure why she’d asked that—she knew it sounded a bit too pointed, not the kind of thing a proper coworker would say. But the mere thought of Gu Yan deboning fish for someone else made her unbearably uncomfortable.

Honestly, as a colleague and classmate, Gu Yan had already been more than kind enough to her. Despite his cool, distant, almost too-handsome exterior, he was, underneath it all, a remarkably gentle person.

He was with the girl he considered his moonlight now—wouldn’t he give her all that tenderness and devotion?

Qi Xi’s thoughts churned. She looked at him across the table with a quiet sadness, thinking that the man sitting so close to her would never know any of this.

Faced with her sudden, pointed question, Gu Yan seemed to freeze for a moment, as if unsure how to respond, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the right way to begin.

That was when his phone rang. He glanced at it and answered almost instantly. Because they were sitting so close, Qi Xi could hear, faintly, through the speaker, the soft, utterly dependent voice of that neighbor girl asking for help—

“Gu Yan, what should I do, I…”

She didn’t catch the rest, because Gu Yan nodded briefly to her and got up, walking further away to take the call, leaving Qi Xi with nothing but the sight of his back.

Qi Xi felt her nose sting unexpectedly, her eyes growing hot.

She could bury her head in the sand like an ostrich all she wanted, but there was no denying the fact.

Gu Yan wasn’t hers. Someone else would have all of his tenderness, occupy all of his time, receive all of his love.

But that someone wasn’t Qi Xi.

**

Though Gu Yan came back soon enough, Qi Xi still felt a hard-to-describe ache in her chest.

In the end, she couldn’t hold it in, and said, in a tone meant to sound casual, “You really shouldn’t do that, you know.”

She pressed her lips together and pushed her hair back, her manner deliberately light. “If you’re like this with everyone, it’s a bit like being a central air conditioning system—cooling everyone equally. Your future girlfriend definitely won’t like that. No one wants their boyfriend to be nice to everybody the same way.”

She glanced at him, then looked away. “What if your future girlfriend didn’t allow you to debone fish for coworkers or friends anymore? What would you do?” she added, with forced lightness, “Say the girl you like agrees to be with you, but she’s the jealous type, doesn’t want you to be even a little friendly to anyone else—what then?”

Gu Yan’s chopsticks paused mid-motion, but his answer came without a moment’s hesitation. “Then I’d stop.”

He glanced at Qi Xi, then lowered his eyes. “If she gets jealous, then I’d only debone fish for her.”

His expression was calm, his voice steady, his tone utterly decisive, as though there wasn’t a hint of internal conflict. “Whatever bothers her, I just won’t do it.”

It was a perfectly reasonable answer. But it left a dull ache in Qi Xi’s chest.

So the moment Gu Yan’s girlfriend said the word, this fleeting closeness Qi Xi enjoyed as a colleague would vanish in an instant—because it had only ever been a kind of unintentional charity on his part to begin with.

Qi Xi felt like a pitiful little beggar, and Gu Yan was the kind stranger who happened to pass by and hand over his spare change without thinking twice—and she’d begun hoping for more, expecting this small, casual act of kindness to become a daily habit.

It hurt.

It made her unhappy.

And it left her with a stubborn refusal to let go.

Qi Xi looked up at Gu Yan, elegant and effortlessly refined even at the dinner table, and felt an unreasonable resentment rise in her—somehow, it all felt like Gu Yan’s fault.

His fault for constantly doing things that made her misunderstand, for making his kindness so easy to fall for, until she’d unconsciously developed too many good feelings, mistaking his consideration for interest, for affection, and building expectations she had no business having.

After all, when she’d been attacked at her rented apartment before, Gu Yan had rushed over with his hair only half cut. Whenever she had too much work to finish, he’d pitch in to help share the load. There were so many “after alls.”

But Qi Xi knew that none of it would happen anymore.

Because Gu Yan had a girlfriend now, and she would take priority over everyone else in his life.

Qi Xi couldn’t keep expecting to be special to him. She shouldn’t even be allowed to enjoy this kind of specialness anymore.

Because it wasn’t right.

And yet, she still couldn’t let it go.

She’d been the one making the effort to learn his preferences, buying him durian, a pink tie, concert tickets. That neighbor girl had done nothing at all—by Gu Yan’s own account, she hadn’t even bothered to understand him—and yet she’d won, effortlessly.

Qi Xi felt a flash of anger.

But she also knew that’s just how it was, liking someone with no logic to it at all.

Feeling low and unsure what to say, she buried her head and focused on her food.

Fortunately, that was when a loud, urgent voice broke through the awkward, delicate silence—

“Lawyers! Both of you! Please, I need your help!”

Qi Xi looked up and, to her surprise, recognized the person right away—it was the green-haired boy from earlier, now out of breath, staring at her and Gu Yan. “The cleaning lady on the street told me you two came this way, so I figured I’d try my luck. Good thing you’re still here!”

Gu Yan frowned. “What happened?”

“My brother—my brother found his old work badge from the factory! And some receipts and documents too.” The boy’s voice was full of excitement. “Before, we couldn’t sue that factory because we had no evidence. But now that we’ve found the work badge, doesn’t that prove my brother actually worked at that shady factory? So his injury has to count as a workplace accident, right? Doesn’t that mean the factory has to pay us?”

His voice grew urgent. “Lawyers—could you two come to my place and take a look? Could you tell my brother we might actually have a chance?”

He hesitated for a moment, clearly torn, but in the end, his worry for his brother won out over his embarrassment. “My brother’s having another episode right now. Instead of the wild, agitated kind like this afternoon, he’s completely sunk into depression now, keeps talking about wanting to die. If I hadn’t stopped him, he almost hanged himself just now.”

“So please, could you come look at the evidence, tell me if my brother has a chance of winning? If he knew we had a real shot at taking down that awful factory, I know he’d start to get better!”

The boy’s manner was frantic and impulsive, his words tumbling out in a rush.

In truth, given how many lawyers they’d already consulted since the accident, and none of them had been willing to take the case, it was clear the odds weren’t good. But…

Still, Qi Xi couldn’t just let it go. She glanced at Gu Yan.

Before she could say anything, Gu Yan spoke first, his expression stern, his lips pressed together. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Huh?

Qi Xi was so caught off guard she forgot what she’d been about to say.

Then she watched as Gu Yan walked straight toward the boy. “Lead the way.”

The boy’s face lit up with wild joy and excitement. He walked ahead, with Gu Yan following behind, while Qi Xi found herself struggling to keep pace. She jogged to catch up with Gu Yan—

“You want to take this case?” she murmured. “Their family’s in a tough spot, they probably can’t afford much of a legal fee. And even if we could win, that would be one thing, but if we can’t—based on how they’ve behaved so far, they might just turn around and blame us for it. It’s hard to say… it’s a case with a lot of risk and not much upside…”

Gu Yan didn’t slow down at all. He only glanced at her sideways. “Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?”

Qi Xi froze.

Gu Yan didn’t look at her again. The evening wind scattered his words, faint and hard to catch. “Looking at me like that—weren’t you hoping I’d take the case with you?”

His eyes stayed forward, his manner composed as ever. “Fine. It’s not like I have anything better to do tonight anyway. Might as well call it charity work.”