Long Qi didn’t guess. Jin Yiken had that infuriating nature—the more you engaged with him, the more energized he became. She just glanced at him, didn’t say another word, didn’t even give him a single scoff, and got in the car.

When leaving the garage, it was exactly two in the afternoon. At this time in midsummer, there would be a brief thunderstorm. The radio was playing a graduation season special. Jin Yiken mentioned something about the college entrance exam, asking about her confidence in her scores. She said, “Before the scores come out, anything you say is nonsense. We’ll see tomorrow when scores are released. Lao Ping wants me to go to drama school.”

“What do you want to attend?”

“I’m flexible. If the score is high enough, anything is fine. Do you have water? I’m thirsty.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Jin Yiken changed direction and stopped the car in front of a convenience store: “Yes.”

Before getting out, he left his phone with her. As soon as it powered on, text message alerts came through again—still Lao Ping. Unable to manage Long Qi’s schedule for tomorrow, he was now trying to manage her account ownership. From her birthday yesterday until now, she hadn’t posted any response on social media platforms. Fans were eagerly waiting. Lao Ping suggested she post a grateful status update.

She ignored it.

Lao Ping asked for her account password.

She didn’t hand it over.

She replied: Don’t want to work today, will post tomorrow.

Lao Ping quickly responded: I only have this one request—let me manage the account, you’ll be more relaxed.

Earlier, Lao Ping had even wanted to deactivate her campus network account. In the end, under cold violence, he could only settle for second best and set permissions to not allow non-friends to browse. Because of this, he often said she was the artist least afraid of offending him that he’d ever handled. Artists with this kind of personality usually had two outcomes: one, hated to death; two, famous to death.

Lao Ping said most artists were the former.

Long Qi still ignored Lao Ping.

After a rumbling thunderclap, the torrential downpour that had been brewing for so long came pouring down. The crackling sound by the car window pulled back her attention. Right now outside, there was misty water vapor. Inside the convenience store, Jin Yiken was paying at the counter.

With this glance over, he really was quite handsome—tall, outstanding temperament. Told not to let puberty ruin his looks, he really hadn’t been ruined. Pretty good.

When he came out of the convenience store, bean-sized raindrops划分出一道水线 created a line of water between him and the car. He braved the rain to get in.

Later, the car circled half the rainy city, taking her to a residential complex adjacent to the city center park. The building was over thirty stories tall, with extremely high-end facilities. Jin Yiken parked in the underground garage and directly used the complex’s owner card to swipe into the elevator. Long Qi walked behind him with her arms crossed. Because she’d gone to bed late yesterday, she yawned at this moment.

The elevator stopped on the twenty-sixth floor.

Here, each floor had only one unit, with a floor space of at least three hundred ping. Jin Yiken had the key to this unit. He opened the door and tilted his head for her to enter.

“What is this?”

“When my dad bought this unit, my mom didn’t know.” After Long Qi entered, he closed the door with his foot. “Later he developed other hobbies, so this place sat vacant. You live here. Have Lao Ping set up the studio here too—he’ll be happy.”

The dust covers on the furniture were pulled off with several swishing sounds. At this moment, the apartment’s motion-sensor lights also lit up successively—living room, bedroom, kitchen, small bar area—each area brightening in turn, layer upon layer, spacious and complex.

“You’ve really made this place look like a nouveau riche.”

Jin Yiken was adjusting the central air conditioning temperature on the control panel on the wall and smiled: “Female celebrities like it.”

Long Qi glanced at him.

After adjusting the air conditioning, he took a candy from the fruit bowl, unwrapped the foil packaging, and tossed it in his mouth: “Has Gu Mingdong been bothering you?”

“It’s alright. Lao Ping keeps an eye on him.”

As she answered, she walked to the balcony area. There was no sunlight here—two sides were covered by heavy curtains, not very bright. After looking for a while, she finally reached out to pull the curtains. With a swish, the sound was piercing. Jin Yiken looked over at the sound. Long Qi coughed in a cloud of dispersing dust, then squinted. A beam of evening light from the fiery clouds after the dusk rain shone on her face, her body, the balcony floor. Small specks of faint dust floated in the light.

The rain had just stopped. Outside the balcony, two rainbows appeared on the distant horizon—one deep, one shallow, overlapping each other and spanning half the city. Against the backdrop of a golden dusk with radiant clouds, it was quite magnificent.

“I can die now,” Jin Yiken said.

Long Qi turned her head.

With one hand in his pants pocket, slowly chewing the candy, looking in her direction, he said, “My life is now complete.”

Rainbow, sunset, her.

Long Qi pulled the curtains closed again. The light in the room was fleeting. She turned back and said, “Don’t use Lao Ping as an excuse. I’m not living here. My place is fine. You’re just like Lao Ping.”

“Just like what?”

At his question, Long Qi really couldn’t say exactly what. On his end, he unwrapped a second candy, looking at her seriously.

“Anyway, I’m not living here.”

“You’re so tough, huh?”

“I’m tough.” Long Qi replied instantly, then continued, “I think the place I’m renting now is pretty good. Don’t want to change. Besides, even if I did change, it would be my own business. Why would I live at your place?”

“Your own business?” Jin Yiken began looking for various remote controls on the sofa, replying to her, “Then who am I, a buddy? The kind you just sleep with when there’s nothing else to do?”

“Don’t nitpick my wording. It’s not interesting.”

He shook his head and smiled. Long Qi continued, “And I have a reason for not changing residences right now. I want to buy a house, Jin Yiken.”

As she finished speaking, Jin Yiken looked at her.

She paced slowly, looking at the bit of sunset light squeezing through the gap in the balcony curtains: “Your family has lots of properties, so naturally you don’t think much of it. But I don’t have any. From childhood until now, I’ve never had a fixed place that completely belongs to me. So I want to buy a house with money I’ve earned.”

Having gathered all the remote controls on the sofa, he sat down and lined them up on the coffee table in a row: “Fine.”

Then he said, “But half the money for your house must come from me.”

“No way. Not negotiable.”

“Let me tell you half a piece of gossip.”

Jin Yiken made a sudden turn. Long Qi didn’t keep up. Before she even turned to look at him, he said, “I said I know Jian Yizhen. You know why? Because once upon a time, she desperately wanted to live here. She wanted to hook my dad.”

“?”

“I’ll tell you the other half after I leave.”

Long Qi mouthed the three words “What the fuck.” Only then did he seem satisfied, giving a roguish smile.

So the matter of residence was temporarily shelved. Jin Yiken said he’d leave it up to her, but he left the key and owner card with her. The meaning was clear.

After that day’s itinerary, they went to the airport. The return flight to England was at eight that evening. Jin Yiken being able to stay here for one day was already quite good. One more day and Bai Aiting might file a complaint back home and make a big fuss about it.

“Is she still the same?” Long Qi brought up.

This time when she asked, Jin Yiken didn’t answer. He lowered his head, winding the black rubber band between his fingers, as if unwilling to dwell too much on Bai Aiting.

Actually, his overall state during this return to the country didn’t look good. His entire being was always faintly shrouded by an inescapable fatigue, as if there was a place in his heart that was knotted up, heavily dragging him down.

He was still a rich young master, but no longer quite like a youth.

Airport announcements continuously broadcast flight information. Long Qi sat with her knees drawn up, holding hot tea, a wide-brimmed hat on her head, quietly looking at him, then silently taking a sip of tea.

The brim of the hat shaded half her face, the shadow covering down to the corner of her mouth.

The two remained wordless until the broadcast finally announced his flight. Only then did he show intention to get up. At this moment, Long Qi took out from her bag one of the candies he’d tossed in earlier and slowly unwrapped it.

Jin Yiken leaned down to hug her shoulders and said, “I’m leaving.”

Long Qi didn’t move. She put the candy in her mouth. Only after he’d walked three steps away did she call out, “Jin Yiken.”

He stopped and looked at her.

“Do you remember the last time you were about to leave, at the farewell banquet, you asked me a question?”

“What question?” He answered verbally like this, but his mind seemed to recall it, and he put his hands in his pants pockets.

“You asked me if I would miss you,” she replied. “Now I also have a question I want to ask you. You only have one choice—do you want to hear my answer from that night again, or do you want to hear my question?”

“The answer.” He didn’t hesitate.

Long Qi silently held the candy in her mouth. After he spoke, she looked up at him.

“Do you want candy?”

“That’s the question?” Jin Yiken asked with a smile.

“That’s the answer.”

As soon as the words fell, the candy in her mouth crunched and broke. She also stood up, and the three steps between her and Jin Yiken became half a step. Jin Yiken still looked at her. She placed her right hand on his neck and, before he could react, pulled him, pulled him to lean over. The two figures overlapped in the bustling crowd, then their lips touched, then turned. Long Qi gave him the warm candy, gave him the sweetness in her mouth, embraced him, kissed him. After being pressed together for a full ten seconds, she gently let go, her eyes looking closely into his at close range.

“I’ll wait for you to come back.”

This was probably the most deeply affectionate answer.

Jin Yiken, someone so good at reading intentions, immediately knew what she was expressing to him. Right away, he wrapped his arm around her waist, letting Long Qi truly embrace him. The airport announcements continued uninterrupted. Her hat and Jin Yiken’s luggage fell to the ground together.

She had thought this through carefully.

A person’s investment couldn’t always be one-way. Since her feelings for Jin Yiken had reached a certain level in her heart, she should be more honest with him. She understood how significant this initiative meant to Jin Yiken. In this relationship, she had always been the irresponsible party—staying when she wanted to stay, leaving when she wanted to leave. Even Jin Yiken continuously accommodating her, giving her current residence, occupying half a seat in her future plans—all because he lacked a sense of security from being affirmed by her. In this emotional relationship, he was almost becoming a character similar to Bai Aiting.

Now Long Qi gave him that sense of security.

Precisely because of this, until the very end, until the flight took off, Long Qi never asked Jin Yiken about that slender bite mark on his waist that looked fairly recent—where it came from.