At exactly five o’clock, Zhaohua Hall began admitting people.

Several cameras were stationed at the entrance to record behind-the-scenes footage. The venue for thirty thousand people was packed to capacity. Light boards glowed throughout the venue, banners fluttered, and fan support stations for various artists were ready and waiting. Sweet high-pitched female voices mingled with thick male voices in the bustling crowd. Those searching for seats jostled shoulder to shoulder, companions whispered to each other, laughing and excited. The autumn breeze mixed with the heat of sweat, and the night sky was tinted red by the venue’s lights.

The backstage area was even busier than the seating area.

Long Qi was the opening model. She had finished dressing two minutes ago and was already on standby backstage with her accompanying team. Staff members rattled off explanations about the temporarily changed stage positioning in rapid succession. A group of makeup and hair stylists surrounded her for final appearance checks. She was listening while also sending messages to Jin Yiken. Lao Ping wanted to confiscate her phone. She said, “In a moment.”

Meanwhile, there was a commotion somewhere backstage. Ban Wei’s band had also arrived to stand by. A group of rookie models scheduled after Long Qi couldn’t hide their excitement and frantically tried to get Ban Wei’s attention. Ban Wei was the opening guest performer. His live performance would accompany Long Qi’s runway walk.

As a veteran who had held several concerts in an eighty-thousand-seat stadium, this guy was much more relaxed. Chomping on an apple, he came over wanting to joke around with Long Qi. She ignored him, focusing on sending messages, only saying one thing: “Listen clearly—when the time comes, you sing your songs and I walk my runway. Keep your hands to yourself. My man is watching from below.”

“Don’t be like that, Qiqi. Kenken won’t misunderstand us.”

Long Qi made a retching gesture at him. Lao Ping covered her mouth: “Act proper, the cameras are recording.”

“Why are you touching my Qiqi?” Ban Wei continued his act.

“Get lost,” Long Qi said.

With ten minutes until showtime, she got onto the lift platform beneath the stage. The venue lights had already dimmed. The stage lighting effects and LED screens were activating one after another. Cheers came in wave after wave. She stole a moment to ask Lao Ping: “Are the VIP seats full?”

“Should be.”

Ban Wei put on his earpiece to test the microphone. Band members took their positions one by one. Long Qi smoothed her hair. Staff members spoke rapidly into walkie-talkies. The countdown began.

She didn’t know at that moment that right now, five hundred meters away from Zhaohua Hall, a hotel room was being registered under the name Zhang Muyi. The ID number was entered into the system key by key. A thin room card was inserted into a paper holder and handed from the receptionist to him. He stood among the coming and going hotel guests, holding the room card, standing still.

At five-thirty, the ceremony opened.

Ban Wei’s song prelude was like gladiators entering the arena, reverberating throughout the circular Zhaohua Hall with magnificent momentum. He went on stage first. Long Qi stood beneath the stage, arranging the layers of bracelets and chains on her wrist, listening to the thunderous drum-like shouting from outside. These sounds rushed toward her like thousands of troops and horses, densely falling into the backstage area, shaking even the soles of her feet with a numbing sensation. Lao Ping was more nervous than she was, standing with his hands on his hips, staring intently at the lift platform, his chest rising and falling as he reminded her: “Be serious.”

Everyone else comforted their artists to relax, but he told her to be serious.

“Are there any messages on my phone?”

“Be serious, ancestor, I’m begging you.”

She turned her head to look at Lao Ping: “Let me ask you something.”

“Can we talk about it afterward?”

“For a third-tier model like me, if I suddenly went public with a relationship, how much impact would it have on my career?” She wouldn’t wait until afterward. She insisted on asking now.

Lao Ping seemed to realize her wild nature was about to cause trouble again. You could almost hear the “thump thump thump” of his heart jumping to his throat. He replied: “Please don’t.”

“Lift platform ready!” a staff member shouted.

Long Qi didn’t give a definite answer. She pouted, seeming both joking and serious. Lao Ping was still staring at her. The lift platform controls were activated on beat, sending her into the view of thirty thousand people at a climactic moment. She turned her head to look forward. Heavy red light enveloped her entire body. The LED screen’s close-up lens shifted from Ban Wei to her. Those thunderous shouts also landed resoundingly on her.

The entire venue erupted.

The whole Zhaohua Hall was like a massive oven, containing the hysteria of thirty thousand people. Young bodies were burning, youth was blazing. They stared at Long Qi. A single beam of light fell exclusively on her shoulder. Those days when she had been so unconventional, so different that she was shunned, excluded, harassed by rumors—in this moment, this very second, all of it was served by this scorching worship and admiration like wildfire, cracking open with bangs and pops, shattering, melting, turning to ash, tossed skyward and scattered on the faces of those mockers.

Serves them right.

These sky-piercing shouts could even be faintly heard from the hotel room five hundred meters away.

A coat and scarf hung on the clothing rack. Between Dong Xi and Zhang Muyi was a distance of 5cm. If their breathing happened to rise and fall simultaneously, the distance shortened by 1cm.

Zhang Muyi’s hand was on her face. She was listening to sounds outside the window. Wind was blowing fiercely, entering the room through the window opening, swirling between the four walls, frequently lifting her collar and long hair, blowing until her nose tip turned red and her skin grew pale.

“I’ll go close the window.”

“Leave it open.”

Zhang Muyi looked at her. Her shoulders trembled slightly, yet her voice was so calm. From looking at the floor to looking into his eyes, the two gazes met, breath in, breath out. If Zhang Muyi moved a bit closer to her, she would lightly press her lips together. The two seemed about to get close but remained distant for a long time. Their silhouettes overlapped. The sweaty heat from their palms transferred to cold skin surfaces. Zhang Muyi’s nose touched her nose tip, lingering at a distance of 1cm without moving. Music and magnificent shouts from Zhaohua Hall transmitted into the room wave after wave. Dong Xi’s fingertips picked at the corner of her clothing. Her chest rose and fell.

“Have you thought it through?”

“If not you, it would be someone else.”

“…”

“Zhang Muyi,” she said again, “I’d rather it be you.”

Control of the venue was split in half between Ban Wei and Long Qi.

When she walked the runway was precisely when Ban Wei sang. The timing was incredibly precise. Fireworks shot out. Lights made her shimmer and shine. Her hair flew in the wind. The fangirls were teased into an even more frenzied state. Several fans in the front row clung to the stage, looking ready to yell their throats raw for the entire evening. She paused at the end of the T-shaped runway, looking toward the VIP section.

She didn’t see Jin Yiken.

Ban Wei hooked his arm around her shoulder. She imperceptibly withdrew her attention. The close-up lens captured her facial expression. Long Qi continued smiling.

At the time, she thought Jin Yiken was just running late and didn’t think much of it. Later, during her second appearance, his seat was still empty. Half an hour had passed since the opening. After she left the stage, she had Lao Ping hand her the phone. The chat record with Jin Yiken still stopped at the message from forty-five minutes ago: “Have you arrived?” There was no response.

She called him. The other party’s phone was turned off.

Calling the apartment phone also got no answer.

By then her heart was already somewhat agitated. Lao Ping urged her to change for the next outfit. She walked while searching for Zhang Muyi’s number on her phone and dialed. It connected, but he didn’t answer.

Without pausing, she called a second time. When it rang for the third time, Zhang Muyi finally answered. Before he could speak, she asked bluntly: “Where’s Jin Yiken?”

“…Who is this?”

“Long Qi.”

It was very quiet on his end, with no noise beyond human voices. He paused for a second or two and asked: “Who did you just say you’re looking for?”

Only now did she remember that Zhang Muyi was an outsider.

Both knew Jin Yiken, she and Dong Xi, but at the same time couldn’t fully understand or penetrate the relationship between the three of them. Long Qi was too lazy to beat around the bush and repeated directly: “Jin. Yi. Ken.”

He didn’t ask more.

Perhaps because his emotional intelligence was online, or perhaps because he was busy with another matter, he bypassed the intriguing relationships involved. It remained quiet on his end with no background noise. He only asked: “Are you urgently looking for him?”

“His phone is off. I’m urgently looking for him.”

“…” After a moment of silence, he replied, “The last time I saw him was at the school library, around five o’clock. I can help you ask others and send you a message if there’s news?”

“Okay, thanks.”

Zhang Muyi’s message arrived ten minutes later, but Long Qi only saw it after the entire gala event ended. Lao Ping had confiscated her phone to prevent her from getting distracted. Zhang Muyi’s message took the heart she had been holding up for Jin Yiken and violently slapped it to the ground, then stepped on it a few times.

—He’s in the school dormitory. According to his roommates, he’s busy with a project.

What the hell.

The gala ended at nine o’clock. Long Qi skipped the celebratory banquet afterward. At nine-thirty, she arrived at the north gate of Zhongyu University. The car passed through the school gate and stopped directly below the men’s dormitory building. She pushed open the door and got out.

At that time, this campus had not yet awakened from the frenzy of half an hour ago. The dormitory building lights hadn’t been turned off either. Half of the male students coming and going were the same group from Zhaohua Hall. As she went up the stairs, some people hadn’t reacted yet, only reflexively shoving the people beside them. Later, when they caught sight of her face, they were stunned one by one, their mouths either forming an “o” or gaping open. The dormitory matron stuck her head out and asked who she was looking for. Long Qi acted as if she saw nothing.

The matron got angry, shouting as Long Qi passed her: “Miss, where are you going! Can anyone just enter this place? Huh? This is a male dormitory!”

She continued walking straight ahead. There were successive “holy shit” sounds from male students in the hallway, and people opening their doors to look because of the commotion, followed by another round of intensified “holy shits.” Half-naked men stuck their heads out one by one. This disturbance spread from the first floor to the second floor, from the second floor to the third floor. Everywhere Long Qi passed was not spared, until she reached the fourth floor and stopped at a dormitory room door.

The door was ajar. Someone inside was about to open it because of the commotion outside, but she swung her bag at the door. The door slammed against the wall with a bang, and the male student directly opposite stumbled backward in shock!

Behind the male student, at a desk by the window in the center of the dormitory, Jin Yiken sat there unmoved by any wind, his back to the door, legs crossed. Several cigarette butts stood in the ashtray at the corner of the desk, emitting wisps of white smoke.

Long Qi’s chain bag swayed in her hand. The door creaked. Outside came a small climax of shouting, then some dense fragments of conversation floated out, but inside was dead silent. The two roommates present stood dumbfounded by their bed edges, looking at her.

“I’d really like to see what amazing project you’re so busy with.”

From the moment she spoke these words, the voices outside grew much louder. Everyone had her and Jin Yiken’s names on their lips, then were covered layer upon layer by “holy shits,” as if unexpected yet somehow reasonable. Pairs of eyes all stared this way. The two roommates’ eyes also drifted toward Jin Yiken.

But Jin Yiken didn’t respond.

He was like he’d become a Buddha, his ears pure and clean, completely ignoring whether she came to smash the door or to smash him. The pen in his hand turned a circle and continued writing on the book pages.

“Should we… step out first?” a roommate suggested, looking at him and also carefully at Long Qi.

He continued writing.

His right hand remained undisturbed. His left hand rested on the armrest, turning the dark-screened phone in his palm, turning it again.

“Jin Yiken.”

Long Qi pronounced these three words neither loudly nor softly, in a low tone, with an air that a storm was coming.

“What’s the situation… what exactly is the situation?”

“Can’t you tell? These two have something going on!”

“Really? Holy shit, killing it right to the dorm, Jin Yiken is amazing.”

“His level was always high, holy shit.”

The clamoring outside was reaching the sky. When Long Qi was about to explode, he finally stopped his pen.

The pen fell on the book page with a thud. The two roommates’ shoulders tensed. The hallway outside also lowered voices from near to far, as if everyone was fully prepared for collective eavesdropping on this drama. But his tone was very bland and ordinary, without any emotional fluctuation, only replying: “That works too.”

The two roommates rushed out the door. He stood up.

The chair slid half a meter to his side. Long Qi watched him take a booklet from the stacked books. He walked toward the door. As he passed her, he slapped the booklet into her arms. Long Qi caught it, and Jin Yiken continued pacing to the doorway. Dozens of eyes were staring at him at this moment. These people’s thirst for gossip had long exceeded propriety and humanity. They stared at him unabashedly, stared at Long Qi inside the room, even hoping the situation could become more dramatic, more explosive. He wordlessly grasped the door, paused for about two seconds, then slammed it shut with a bang. These eyes and ears were isolated outside the wall. The door frame shook.

Long Qi sensed something had happened.

Once the door closed, only he and she remained in the cramped dormitory. The sound of breathing became increasingly clear. She held this booklet, not moving for a long time. Jin Yiken returned to the desk, leaning against the desk edge, saying leisurely: “Have you seen this before?”

The booklet cover had the words “Zhongyu University Art Appreciation.” Long Qi looked at him.

He said: “Take a look.”

“What do you want me to look at? Just say it directly.”

“Then let’s just stay like this forever. We don’t need to communicate either. Wait until the dorm matron asks you to leave.”

“Rebelling, huh.”

Long Qi said.

Jin Yiken didn’t smile this time.

His expression remained the cold indifference of the previous second, serious. He raised his chin toward her, telling her to look.

Long Qi felt anger rising in her heart.

So when flipping through the booklet, the sound was very loud. Page after page was crumpled, until she turned to the art appreciation section for freshman art majors, saw photos of the Hundred Words Wall, saw the promotional photos she had taken for the Hundred Words Wall at that time. The sound of turning pages came to an abrupt halt. Her finger stopped on the paper surface, her chest rising and falling as she looked. Then she looked at the lower right corner of the page. Zhang Muyi’s name appeared in the photography credit, and in the author column, Dong Xi’s name was printed in the first row, first column.

Right then, she held this page of the booklet toward him: “Is this it?!”

Jin Yiken had been looking down, but now he raised his eyes. Long Qi said to him: “It’s just one photo, Jin Yiken.”

“…”

“Over one photo you can break appointments, turn off your phone, disappear, and act like I owe you money. By this logic, I can’t have even the slightest contact with Dong Xi, right?!”

He said nothing.

And Long Qi said: “Say something!”

The agitation of emotion affected the force in her wrist. The booklet shook, and something floated down from the pages. She looked down, and Jin Yiken turned his head, moving the ashtray from the desk corner to the desk edge.

He lit a cigarette but didn’t smoke it, leaving it in the ashtray.

The real confrontation seemed to begin only at this moment. Long Qi picked up the paper that had fallen to the floor. Jin Yiken’s fingers tapped at the desk edge, once, then again. She unfolded the paper, then saw a sketch.

Her wrist trembled.

Her fingertips also produced fine sweat. Jin Yiken’s cigarette didn’t go out, burning silently, plundering her oxygen in the stuffy and cramped space, rising in wisps of blue smoke.

“Planning to explain?” he said.

In this unfamiliar sketch, there was a back silhouette resembling her, the head cut off at the chin, the chin also resembling hers. Near the side waist of the back, there was half a snake-shaped tattoo.

The similarity to the tattoo on her waist approached ninety percent.

In the lower right corner of the drawing paper, the signature was written in sketch pencil: the two characters “Dong Xi.” The thin paper became damp between her fingers. Long Qi looked at him.

At that moment, it felt as if a layer of sweat had formed on her eyelashes, very heavy. Her mind was in chaos, buzzing. She asked: “Where did this come from?”

“Planning to explain or not?”

Jin Yiken, in a posture that stripped away the right to speak, repeated his question to her.

“What should I explain?”

After asking, in less than five seconds, she understood herself: “You met Dong Xi?”

Jin Yiken had no plans to answer any of her questions today. She could tell. From his current tone, he looked like a judge, listening to her words, distinguishing her good from bad, then preparing to determine her life or death.

“Why does Dong Xi know about the tattoo on that part of your body?”

“I have no explanation. I don’t know anything.”

Jin Yiken smiled.

Unlike before, without sound, eyes staring at her. The cigarette was still burning.

“The afternoon I returned to the country, you said you were in my residential complex.”

Long Qi’s throat felt a bit dry.

He added fuel to the fire: “Did you think I didn’t see it because you retracted it?”

Her five fingers unconsciously clenched the drawing paper. She couldn’t think of any words to respond with right away. She could only look at Jin Yiken, look at a Jin Yiken who seemed to have entered a state of “disowning all relatives.” She had never encountered this situation before. Even when things were most tense between them, she had never felt daunted by a single sentence from him. But now it was different.

Jin Yiken had truly entered an emotional state she had never seen before.

She couldn’t be as reckless and resigned as before, couldn’t control the situation, couldn’t control him. She could only listen to him say: “I’ve always wanted to do a test question.”

“…”

“If there were two people, me and Dong Xi, and you chose one, you’d never see the other again. At that moment, who would you choose?”

“Don’t play games with human nature.”

“Human nature,” he repeated, “meaning your choice would go against your nature.”

Every sentence carried barbs.

A layer of gloomy atmosphere covered him. His eyes were completely different from the him before, like a different person. Long Qi’s chest rose and fell with her breathing, watching him, her knuckles slightly whitening.

“Though not particularly moral, at least don’t be someone who straddles two boats. If you have feelings for someone else, mentally or physically, cut through the chaos with one stroke. Never maintain ambiguity or lingering attachments…” he said slowly, “That’s what you had me watch and learn from back then, right?”

The tone was truly like a thorn, harshly stabbing into the palm. Only then did a flash of fragmentary images from that day at Dong Xi’s house cross her mind, but she still couldn’t recall what happened after entering the bedroom. She only remembered the light was warm, the bed was soft, Dong Xi’s hair was fragrant. These impressions played on a loop in her head, colliding and crashing.

The more Long Qi thought about it, the harder it became to breathe. Her knuckles grew whiter.

“If you were destined to do this kind of thing today, you shouldn’t have gotten together with me in the first place. No matter how desperate I was, it wouldn’t be your turn to give me charity.”

“I was drunk that day,” she finally began to speak, explaining word by word, “Lao Ping didn’t come over… Ban Wei didn’t know the address. She could only take me back to her place and help me wash up, so she saw my tattoo.”

“The point isn’t how she saw your tattoo.”

“Then what exactly is it?” She jumped in, “What exactly do you want to hear?!”

Jin Yiken’s face still showed no expression change: “It’s why she would draw you.”

Right.

Why would Dong Xi draw her?

Jin Yiken’s question, said neither lightly nor heavily, hit the core in one stroke. Long Qi reflexively thought of other reasons. Her brow immediately furrowed, her eyes somewhat stinging. She looked at the drawing again, and this unconscious action was seen by Jin Yiken.

Long Qi raised her eyes again, looking at him.

Enough. That’s enough.

Jin Yiken’s eyes held the meaning of these four words.

“Do you actually like Dong Xi, or do you want me?”

He didn’t even add the premise of “like” to his option. Long Qi’s eyes grew more and more stinging. She blurted out: “Don’t ask.”

That cigarette went out.

The last bit of ash fell into the ashtray, burying the previous cigarette butt. Jin Yiken turned his head aside, smiling silently.

“Then let’s break up.”

He turned his head to take the ashtray.

When Long Qi was about to speak again, the ashtray smashed with a bang on the floor one meter in front of her! The sound was huge, glass shattered and scattered. Her shoulders jerked.

Veins suddenly bulged on his hand from the force. His voice was low: “Consider these three years as me feeding a dog.”

“I told you not to ask—it’s not that I can’t answer, it’s that your premise isn’t equal.”

“This is the current situation.”

“This is not!”

“Fine, this is not,” his pivot came so quickly, not caring at all about the final right or wrong, “We’re done with this topic.”

Meaning “We’re already done.”

He tilted his forehead: “Want me to open the door for you?”

Jin Yiken’s eyes were clearly red too, with an appearance of occupying the upper hand even if destined to fail. Then he kicked away the chair by the desk and stood up, really preparing to open the door for her. Long Qi grabbed his hand as he passed, her palm pressed against his wrist, gripping tightly, holding firmly: “We’re not done talking yet.”

Jin Yiken pulled his hand away.

Her palm instantly became empty. In that moment, she fully understood the severity of the situation. An unprecedented sense of helplessness spread from her scalp throughout her entire body. Long Qi looked at him. Jin Yiken also looked down at her eyes.

Between the two was a distance of three steps. He reached out, his palm slowly covering her cheek.

“You can make whatever scene you want, play with whoever, but not Dong Xi.”

When he said this, you could hear the finality in his heart. Long Qi’s eyes were very red, biting the inside of her lip, her fingertips trembling finely.

“She is a line, Long Qi, a line that determines whether my investment has any value,” saying this while approaching her, his palm moving down from her cheek, approaching her neck, “Spending a lifetime teaching someone to be devoted, I can’t do this bullshit. I don’t require you to reciprocate my feelings, but at least I need you to keep your original promise.”

The original promise.

She would be with him, let him use her as a reason to do what he wanted to do, love the person he loved.

And he would help her forget Dong Xi.

“For the promise you personally spoke, worked very hard to teach you, but I didn’t expect,” the two were now only 5cm apart, Jin Yiken’s palm covering her neck, two pairs of red eyes looking at each other, “didn’t expect you couldn’t even keep a fucking lie.”

As the words fell, her lips were pressed tight by Jin Yiken’s lips. At the same time his hand applied force. Long Qi suddenly couldn’t breathe, her brow furrowing tightly, and her lower lip also felt a heart-piercing pain, as he bit open a wound. They pressed together for no more than five seconds before Long Qi forcefully pushed him away. She held onto the dormitory bed railing, coughing and gasping for breath, the taste of blood on her lips. She pressed the back of her hand against it, while Jin Yiken stood in place.

He treated it as if he’d strangled her once.

“We’re even.”

The second he spoke these three words, that backbone was also completely crushed by him. Long Qi’s tears fell on the back of her hand, but Jin Yiken was done dealing with her. He opened the door. The door panel slammed against the wall with a bang. Idle gossip and burning gazes from outside squeezed into the dormitory again, watching this drama.

He wanted her to leave.

Later, Long Qi left.

The hallway was noisy and clamorous, while she was like an abandoned piece, walking slowly, as if drained of blood, no color in her face, no light in her eyes. The dorm matron made a fuss beside her. She didn’t listen to a single word, her head feeling empty.

The wind in the hallway was so cold, pouring straight in from the main entrance, blowing into her sleeves, blowing the drawing paper in her hand. A pile of male students crowded at the main entrance, blocking her way. The dorm matron passed her, shouting in that direction, while Long Qi slowly raised her eyes.

The drawing paper in her hand rustled.

Outside the main door, down the steps, Dong Xi stood in the night wind, wearing a coat and wrapped in a scarf, covered in night dew, slightly out of breath.

She didn’t know when Dong Xi had arrived or how long she’d been standing there. When she saw her, it was also when she saw her. The two gazed at each other. Dong Xi’s chest rose and fell. Her gaze moved from Long Qi’s face to the drawing paper clutched in her hand.

Male students’ shoulders brushed against Long Qi’s shoulders, while Dong Xi stood alone in the wind’s opening. At that moment, it seemed everything was understood. Looking at Long Qi again, looking at such a Long Qi who was defeated to the dust, her eyes were also red.

The love triangle that had been entangled for so long finally silently showed its cards at this moment. Two people stood face to face but couldn’t say any words. Though the corners of their eyes were clearly dry, there was still dampness.

Behind her, the pile of male students couldn’t be dispersed no matter what. The dorm matron angrily scolded them. Long Qi slowly descended the steps, stopping five steps before Dong Xi.

“That night, I still caused trouble in the end, didn’t I?”

She looked into Dong Xi’s eyes.

Dong Xi also looked at her. There was a bone-chilling coolness in the air, blowing into hair strands, blowing into skin pores, but Dong Xi gave her no answer. A scarf covered half her face. The breath she exhaled dissipated instantly.

The drawing paper in Long Qi’s hand rustled. Her nose tip reddened in the cold air. Even though Dong Xi didn’t say a word, she understood. Her voice slightly choked as she said: “I’m sorry.”

Hot tears turned cold as soon as they touched her cheek. She continued: “I’ll receive the retribution I deserve. This mistake, I’ll acknowledge for a lifetime.”

“Where did you go wrong?”

Not a question, but a declarative sentence ending with a period. Though Dong Xi was still out of breath, her tone was bland: “If I had the slightest resistance, how could you have forced me?”

“…”

“I was just with Zhang Muyi,” she continued, “Because I wanted to figure something out, I got a room with him.”

As soon as these words came out, the pile of male students behind erupted in an uproar. Long Qi looked at her, but Dong Xi didn’t stop: “When he kissed me, I thought I would prefer Jin Yiken to come find me, but in the end it wasn’t him.”

“It was you.”

“…”

“I hoped you would come find me.”

As the words fell, Long Qi’s throat was dry. She frowned, standing five steps away from Dong Xi. Though there were thousands of words, she couldn’t pick out any appropriate sentences. But Dong Xi called to her: “Long Qi.”

“If I walk toward you now, is there still time?”