Maybe it was the rain she’d been caught in, or the fruit wine she’d drunk earlier, but Qi Xi’s head felt hazy, and she couldn’t muster enthusiasm for anything. Yet the thought that Gu Yan was surely with his girlfriend right now, while she was miserably alone in her rented apartment, made for too stark a contrast.

Qi Xi thought it over and changed her mind, calling out to Zhao Yiran, who was about to head out the door—

“Can I come to the bar with you?”

**

Qi Xi had originally hoped for a lively night, but once she actually went to the bar with Zhao Yiran and her colleagues from the enforcement division, she started to regret it. The bar vividly illustrated the saying: “The excitement belongs to them; I have nothing.”

The judge from the enforcement division went off to deal with the seizure of a Rolls-Royce. It was Zhao Yiran’s first time at a bar, and out of curiosity she sat down, ordered a drink, took a pile of photos and selfies for her social media, and then boldly declared she’d order one for Qi Xi too, since it was also her first time here.

“No more drinking for me—I just had some fruit wine tonight.” Qi Xi waved her hands repeatedly. She’d never been to a bar either, and could only stare helplessly at the drinks menu. After a long look, she finally spotted something that seemed to be non-alcoholic, and waved over the server. “I’ll have a bitter orange iced tea.”

The atmosphere in the bar was lively, and before long, someone had sat down beside Zhao Yiran and Qi Xi.

He was a fairly handsome man, clearly well-off from his clothes, holding a Ferrari key in his hand.

He smiled at Qi Xi and Zhao Yiran. “Hi, I noticed you earlier. Mind if I ask what you do? Could we be friends?”

Zhao Yiran, sensing the situation, started to get up to give up her seat, but the man grabbed her instead. “I’m talking to you. Where are you going?”

Zhao Yiran looked surprised and pointed at Qi Xi. “Weren’t you talking to her?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m talking to you.”

“Oh.” Zhao Yiran sat back down, but being someone who’d always loved a moderate, balanced life, she didn’t seem particularly interested in this rather immoderate man in front of her. “Associate judge.”

“Wow, impressive. So what kind of cases do you rule on? Any particularly interesting ones you could tell me about? None of my family works in law, so I’m pretty curious about your profession.”

Zhao Yiran glanced at him. “Sure. I’m in the criminal division—you know what that is, right? Nothing too major, really. Just recently sentenced a few rich second-generation types who drive Ferraris to death.”

“…”

Surprisingly, this Ferrari-driving young heir wasn’t scared off by Zhao Yiran’s cold ruthlessness—if anything, he got more determined. Even though Zhao Yiran kept giving one-word answers, he stayed enthusiastic, and through his persistence, the two actually found some common interests and started chatting.

And just like that, Qi Xi’s only companion, Zhao Yiran, was claimed away by him.

Left alone and bored, Qi Xi started drinking her bitter orange iced tea.

But after the first sip, something felt off. There was no tea flavor at all, and it wasn’t bitter—just plenty of citrus, mixed with the sweetness of lemon juice and cola. And underneath it all, there seemed to be a hint of alcohol.

But it was called bitter orange iced tea, so it should have been a tea drink. Maybe it was made in the style of iced black tea? As for that faint alcoholic taste, Qi Xi had heard that some non-alcoholic cocktails were made to have a texture similar to alcoholic ones. Afraid of embarrassing herself as a bar first-timer, she didn’t dare ask the server, and just took a few more sips.

She hadn’t had a proper drink of water since dinner, and was a bit thirsty. The bitter orange iced tea was quite sweet and tasted good, so without thinking she drank several more mouthfuls.

By the time the strong alcohol hit her, Qi Xi finally, belatedly, realized something was wrong.

But it was already too late.

She felt her whole body grow dizzy. The bar lights turned strange and dazzling, the crowds moving in front of her doubled into blurry afterimages. She felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole—everything around her became illusory and unreal, so much so that she started hallucinating. She saw Gu Yan.

Everything unfolded like a slow-motion scene. Qi Xi propped her chin up with both hands and watched Gu Yan push open the bar’s door, then walk down the long corridor toward her. His expression was grim, and his trench coat bore traces of being soaked by the wind and rain outside—he looked travel-worn, utterly out of place with the bar’s decadent atmosphere. He didn’t look like someone here for a drink; he looked like he’d come to catch someone cheating and make a scene.

On one hand, Qi Xi felt a helpless despair at the state she was in, drunk enough to hallucinate Gu Yan. On the other hand, she found herself almost laughing at the absurdity of it—why would Gu Yan come to catch anyone cheating? He and his girlfriend were probably lost in tender bliss together right now.

The alcohol amplified all the grievance, unease, pain, and struggle she’d been carrying, and Qi Xi suddenly felt a reckless kind of self-abandon.

Zhao Yiran had wandered off from the bar counter with the young heir at some point, unnoticed, leaving Qi Xi alone. A girl who looked like her, with an obvious drunken flush on her cheeks, alone, her eyes hazy and slow—she looked like a foolish rabbit that had wandered into a den of wolves. Before long, a man with bad intentions came over to strike up a conversation—

“Pretty lady, all alone? Want to hang out with me?”

This man didn’t just talk—he started trying to touch her too, reaching out to wrap an arm around Qi Xi’s waist.

“Let go of her.”

Gu Yan’s voice, cold as ice, rang out at that exact moment.

The man beside Qi Xi raised his voice. “Who are you? I’m talking to the lady here, what’s it to you?” He kept trying to grab Qi Xi’s hand. “Pretty lady, tell him—you want to hang out with big brother here, right? I know a lot of things. I guarantee you’ll have a wonderful night.”

Because of the alcohol, Qi Xi’s mind had slowed down, and her thoughts had become blunt and direct—she had no capacity left to handle the situation with tactful, mature social language.

She couldn’t tell if this was a dream or reality.

A floating sensation, as if she were standing on cotton candy, numbed her rational mind. She thought—this must be a hallucination or a dream, which was why her own subconscious, as the sole author of this dream, had conjured up a Gu Yan who would abandon his girlfriend to come worry about her. And if she was the absolute ruler and master of this dream, why not indulge herself and arrange the plot however she wanted?

It was just a dream anyway.

With that thought, Qi Xi stopped restraining her own behavior. She forcefully shoved away the handsy man beside her, her tone like a child tossing aside a toy she no longer wanted: “I don’t want you. Go away.”

Then she stared straight at Gu Yan and pointed at him. “I want you.”

The dream-Gu Yan seemed genuinely stunned for a moment, the cold expression on his face cracking to reveal surprise and bewilderment. He then furrowed his brow slightly, his lips pressed into a displeased line. “How did you get this drunk? Where’s Zhao Yiran?”

Gu Yan clearly wanted to say more.

But Qi Xi didn’t want him to speak again, afraid that even in this dream, this man would say something that would spoil the mood and hurt her.

She stumbled forward and threw herself into Gu Yan’s arms, clutching him tightly, burying her face in his coat like a willful child. “I want this. I want just this.”

Even in the dream, once Qi Xi embraced him, Gu Yan’s body visibly stiffened for a moment, but Qi Xi no longer cared about that.

This dream felt too real. Even the cold, damp touch of the rain on his coat, even the scent of him—all simulated so convincingly.

Though this was a Gu Yan conjured up exactly as she wished, though this should have been a plot that satisfied her, Qi Xi clearly felt an overwhelming grievance and unwillingness, along with a vast sadness and distress.

Was there anyone more pitiful, more laughable than her?

Needing to fantasize just to get what she wanted.

The alcohol easily snapped the taut string in her mind that had been holding everything together. Qi Xi became completely uncomposed, completely irrational, let alone dignified.

She couldn’t control her tear ducts or her emotions—like a child who’d suffered some overwhelming injustice, she began crying in fits and starts.

It was all Gu Yan’s fault.

While clinging to Gu Yan and refusing to let go, Qi Xi began listing his transgressions: “It’s all your fault. You’re so annoying. I really, truly hate you, Gu Yan.”

“Why, when you clearly have someone you like, when you clearly have a girlfriend, are you still so ambiguous with me?”

“I regret it so much. I shouldn’t have thought about repairing things between us. I should have just kept my distance like before, minding my own business. I never should have gotten close to you, gotten to know you, understood you—then I wouldn’t be so sad and hurt.”

“Can you please not be so nice to everyone? Since you already have a girlfriend, you should keep your distance from other women properly—don’t say things that make people imagine things, don’t do things that make people misunderstand.”

“Don’t be so indecisive, don’t act like you want everything. Don’t keep giving me hope, and don’t keep contacting your girlfriend in front of me. I’m already a petty person, and a jealous one too, but I have no right to be jealous, and you keep forcing me into this position—I don’t even know what to do anymore.”

Qi Xi knew she was being unreasonable, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her voice broke, and she sobbed weakly like an abandoned puppy, her feeble but forceful accusations continuing: “I really, really hate you. I’ve clearly been avoiding you, I’ve clearly been keeping away, so why do you keep coming back to me every time? I’ve even thought about leaving Jingge, why are you doing this to me, am I just a kite to you? One that you reel back in with the string whenever it flies too far…”

“You’re really something, aren’t you. Fine, I lost, is that not enough? Back in school it was always you first, me second, and now I’ve lost even more completely. I admit defeat. Just stay away from me, okay?!”

Qi Xi kept crying. Gu Yan looked utterly at a loss, clearly having no idea how to respond, only clumsily explaining and repeating himself: “Qi Xi, I’ve never been ambiguous with you.”

He still dared to argue?!

Qi Xi felt both wronged and furious. “When I was sick, what medicine did you send me? And you even labeled each one clearly with how to use it! When I got dessert on my mouth, you wiped it off for me. You clearly don’t like pink, don’t like durian, but you tolerated it and accepted it anyway—what do you even mean by this, Gu Yan? You trash! You scum! Since you already have a girlfriend, you should treat your girlfriend well, and not have so much interaction and contact with other girls! It’s unfair to your girlfriend, and it’s disrespectful to other girls too!”

“Why should I waste my time on someone like you? If I called out right now, the line of people wanting to date me would stretch from one end of the earth to the other!”

The competitive, unwilling-to-lose streak deep in Qi Xi’s bones was amplified a thousandfold in that moment, and she launched into a passionate tirade: “And where am I lacking? Where am I inferior to your moonlight-in-your-heart girl? She’s not even as pretty as me! Her skin’s not as fair as mine, her eyes aren’t as big as mine, her hair’s not as black as mine, her waist isn’t as slim as mine, and her chest isn’t as big as mine either!”

Qi Xi knew this kind of comparison was wrong—she actually held no hostility toward Gu Yan’s girlfriend, and this outburst was really misdirected anger from her drunken state toward that girl. But she couldn’t control herself, acting like a spoiled child who knew better but simply refused to behave, and after this shameless rant, she still didn’t forget to sum up her conclusion—

“So I’m the best!”

“Whoever becomes my boyfriend in the future will be the happiest, most discerning man in the world!”

“Gu Yan, you’re the most tasteless idiot in the entire universe!”

Even though she was clearly praising herself, Qi Xi still felt sad, because being excellent wasn’t the foundation of love—no matter how outstanding she was, it seemed Gu Yan still wouldn’t like her. So after boasting about herself, she felt even sadder.

She buried her face against the imagined Gu Yan’s chest and sobbed again for a while. A fresh wave of self-loathing and weariness filled Qi Xi’s heart. Perhaps this dream was finally letting her release all the emotions she’d been holding in, and she completely let go, giving in to her feelings, thinking that since things had already come to this, she might as well embarrass herself further in front of Gu Yan.

It was just a dream anyway.

Her tears and snot smeared all over Gu Yan’s coat.

Though she’d just been clutching him tightly, in the next moment, her mood swung again, and she shoved him away. “Go away! Go back to your girlfriend. Get out of my dream.”

She sniffled, her nose red, and said pitifully, “I never, ever want to see you in my dreams again.”

Unfortunately, Gu Yan didn’t leave. Having weathered a massive shock, he had already regained his composure and calm. This man stared into Qi Xi’s eyes, and instead of stepping back, he stepped forward, his voice carrying a slight tremor, as if from excitement, or perhaps nervousness: “Qi Xi, is everything you just said true?”

Qi Xi’s head spun, and she could only repeat her pushing motions. “Go away! Go away!”

But Gu Yan’s body remained utterly still. This wretched man seemed to have made up his mind to linger in Qi Xi’s dream and lord over it, as he caught hold of her hand. “Weren’t you the one who wanted me just a moment ago?”

Qi Xi tried to muster some authority, glaring at Gu Yan with red-rimmed eyes. “Not anymore!”

But Gu Yan still didn’t leave.

The man suddenly broke into a faintly bashful smile, as if it could light up all the ambiguous dim yellow glow of the entire bar. “Qi Xi, I’m really happy.”

“This really does feel like a dream.”

“I’ve never been ambiguous with you.”

“And I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“I don’t know what nonsense you’ve been imagining all this time.”

This man, always so composed and logical, now sounded somewhat incoherent, but one thing remained unchanged—Gu Yan held Qi Xi’s hand tightly, as if afraid she might run away.

“The only person I’ve ever liked is you.”

“I don’t know what you might have misunderstood recently, but I came to find you because I wanted to clear this up with you.”

This man looked straight into Qi Xi’s eyes, forcibly guiding her hand to rest against his own chest. “When you were hugging me just now, I felt like my heart was racing so fast it might give out.”

Qi Xi felt somewhat dazed. Her hand, held in Gu Yan’s grip, now rested against his chest.

Though his face remained composed and calm, Gu Yan’s heartbeat couldn’t lie—it was a chaotic, urgent rhythm, resonating unwittingly with Qi Xi’s own heartbeat at that moment. Both of them were racing, so, so fast.

And amid Qi Xi’s uncontrollable fluttering heart and indescribable emotions, she heard Gu Yan’s voice ring out once more—

“So, Qi Xi, do you still want me?”