As they entered the bar, a couple happened to push open the door, and the little bell hanging above the doorframe chimed out a clear, bright ring.

Once the two of them had walked out, Yan Sishi held the door open with one hand and let Xia Li go in first.

They settled onto stools at the bar. The owner, who doubled as bartender, slid a drink menu their way.

Xia Li glanced over the menu and turned to him with a smile. “You really do have your ideas — asking someone like me, who’s down after two drinks, to keep you company over a glass.”

Yan Sishi leaned slightly toward her, took the menu from her hand, scanned it, and pointed to the bottom of the list. “Have this one?”

Xia Li didn’t push herself. She ordered a non-alcoholic mojito — a blend of lemon, sparkling water, ice, and mint. The first sip sent a coolness shooting straight to the top of her skull.

Xia Li curled her fingers lightly around the glass, propped her chin in one hand, and used the dim amber light to study the person beside her.

As far back as she could remember, she had never seen him with any great emotional swings. The only times she could recall him seeming even slightly out of control were two.

Once was the school anniversary celebration that year — he had taken a phone call, and whatever it contained turned his expression grave, as if a corner of the sky had collapsed.

The other was that night at the bell tower, when he was on the phone with someone unknown, his tone cold and low, edged with defiance.

Tonight he resembled the latter — icy, displeased, yet not openly written on his face. It was the atmosphere around him, like a winter day under a grey, darkening sky, a cold rain soaking you to the skin.

The bar was playing a very old Cantonese song. She had never studied the language properly, yet she could still hum along with a few lines:

How fortunate I am — no one but you has lingered in my thoughts.

The overhead light looked like moonlight left out to cool overnight, tinting everything with a faint chill, even his voice: “I went to a dinner I wasn’t very fond of.”

Xia Li thought of that night at the bell tower, where his answer had been equally vague.

Her drink was still half full. Xia Li set down her glass. “Drinking only makes you more miserable. Come on — let me take you somewhere.”

Xia Li pulled out her phone to call a car, then thought of something and asked Yan Sishi: “Did you drive here today?”

“Then how do I get home?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll figure it out.”

Xia Li considered for a moment. “I have a license — I just don’t drive much.”

“Confident enough to take the wheel?”

“We can try.”

She had rented a car once before, to take Xu Ning — who would never willingly set foot outside — to a hot spring in the hills on the outskirts of town. Slow going, but they’d arrived without incident.

She would never say “try” unless she was at least eighty percent sure.

They made their way through a stretch of busy street to where Yan Sishi had parked.

Not far off stood a building styled in classical fashion, ablaze with lights from every window. An antique-looking signboard above the entrance bore three large characters: “Green Refreshment Hall.”

In the parking spaces out front, the cars were either luxury models or black four-ringed vehicles — understated, older-generation editions.

Xia Li guessed that Yan Sishi had just escaped from a dinner at this very place.

She noticed she had no idea what was actually going on, yet her instinct had reached for the word “escaped.” Somehow it just felt right — consistent with who Yan Sishi was.

Yan Sishi drew out his car key and tossed it lightly to her.

Xia Li pressed the key to unlock the car, pulled the door open, and settled into the driver’s seat.

Yan Sishi stood outside the open door, one arm braced against the lowered window. He reached back with his other hand to press an “M” button on the door panel, then pointed out the controls she would need to adjust the seat’s position and height.

“Can the steering wheel be adjusted?”

“Yes.”

Just then, a voice called from behind: “Yan Sishi?”

He turned.

Xia Li looked toward the source of the voice as well.

A change of outfit had thrown Xia Li off for a moment, but as the young woman drew closer, she recognized her from the faint air of cold haughtiness. It was the same person from Yan Sishi’s birthday that time at the karaoke bar — the one who had worn the silver skull-head pendant.

Fang Shumu looked mildly surprised. “You haven’t left yet?”

Yan Sishi had only turned his head out of reflex when he heard his name called. He threw a brief glance over his shoulder, then turned back and paid her no further attention.

Xia Li, for her part, gave Fang Shumu a slight nod of acknowledgment.

She didn’t know the woman’s name, and felt it wasn’t her place to greet her by any.

Yan Sishi stretched one arm into the car and pointed toward a button on the steering column, telling her to use that one to adjust.

Xia Li pressed the button and moved the steering wheel to the position most comfortable for her. “Done.”

“The lumbar support and mirrors — do those need adjusting too?”

Xia Li nodded.

Once everything had been set, she said: “All good.”

“Really all good?”

“Yes.”

Yan Sishi held down the button labeled “2” beneath the “M” key for a moment, then said: “There.”

It took Xia Li a beat to understand.

That must have been the seat memory function.

Next time, if she ever drove this car again, pressing “2” would restore all of her settings.

The two of them had been so completely absorbed in each other that Fang Shumu found herself at a loss, hovering in awkward indecision. Yan Sishi turned his head and asked her, with cool indifference, whether there was anything else she needed.

“Nothing. I just came to let you know — the dinner upstairs has ended. Grandfather and the others will be coming down shortly.”

“Ah. Thank you.”

Fang Shumu said nothing more. She clicked her own car key, and a flicker of headlights responded from an SUV not far away.

Yan Sishi walked around to the passenger seat and got in. He continued walking Xia Li through the car — how to start the ignition, where the electronic parking brake was, and how to shift between drive and reverse.

She noted each detail carefully.

Then she noticed his voice go quiet, his gaze drifting toward somewhere up ahead.

Following his line of sight, she looked toward the entrance of the Green Refreshment Hall, where three people were being ushered out in a cluster. The distance made it hard to make out faces, but she could tell it was an elderly man, a middle-aged man, and a woman. The woman’s age was unclear — her style leaned toward the mature — but her posture and bearing were youthful.

Yan Sishi looked only for an instant before pulling his gaze back. That single sweep was saturated with exhaustion.

Xia Li started the car.

She was unused to it at first, inching along so slowly that the cars behind her began leaning on their horns.

Her nerves were steady. No matter how much they beeped at her, she kept to a speed she could manage, and only once she had a feel for the basic controls did she gradually accelerate.

Once they had left the most congested stretch of road behind, Xia Li allowed herself a brief distraction — a glance over at Yan Sishi.

In truth, her handling of the car had been fairly frantic back there, yet Yan Sishi had not once reached over to take control.

He had only offered information about the traffic around them — cars ahead, behind, to the sides — without interfering with her decisions at the wheel.

She thought of her early days at the company, when Song Qiao’an heard she had a license but was too nervous to drive and offered her his car to practice in, volunteering himself as her coach.

He had then proceeded to comment on every lane change, every instance of speeding, every brake she applied — which only made an already-flustered new driver even more rattled.

They hadn’t even covered five kilometers before both of them were seething.

After that, whenever Song Qiao’an proposed another practice session, Xia Li found one excuse or another to politely decline.

By comparison.

It seemed as though the person you had once fallen for could make you fall for them again, over and over.

Even in the smallest things like this.

The car gradually left the city center, the traffic thinning around them, and Xia Li found herself driving with increasing ease.

She drove all the way to the destination without a single mishap.

Yan Sishi hadn’t paid attention to the navigation earlier, and now glancing around, he found himself at what appeared to be the base of some hill.

Looking up, the forested hillside rose silent and dark with trees. The only path up was on foot — a narrow concrete trail so narrow it could barely be called a road. Though it was fully summer, fallen leaves still lay scattered across the ground.

In the quiet of the wooded hillside, birdsong drifted out occasionally, and from the grass along the path came the faint rustling of something moving through dry leaves.

In truth, barely five minutes had passed before a long flight of steps appeared.

At the top of those steps, above the surrounding wall, the upturned eaves of bracket sets became visible — a very small temple.

Yan Sishi asked: “Still open?”

“It closed long ago. We didn’t come to pray, either.”

The steps were steep and not entirely even, with moss pushing up through the cracks between stones.

This was clearly not a place tourists frequented.

They climbed to the very top in one go. Xia Li stopped, hands braced on her knees, catching her breath.

Yan Sishi, by contrast, seemed barely winded — his breathing only very slightly quickened.

Once her panting had eased, Xia Li sat down on the steps and patted the space beside her, inviting Yan Sishi to sit as well.

Before he did, Yan Sishi turned and looked behind them — the round moon gate of the temple stood shut.

Moments later, a breeze came drifting through, carrying with it the deep, green scent of grass and trees.

That stifling, agitated feeling, like a layer of film over the skin, dissolved away in large part.

The stillness of the place made even their voices drop lower.

Yan Sishi asked: “Another secret hideout of yours?”

Xia Li smiled a little. “More or less. The last time I came here with Xu Ning to take photos, we arrived too late and the gate had already closed. I thought sitting just outside the temple doors and watching the sunset wasn’t so bad, so we stayed until dark before coming down. Then one evening when I was in a bad mood, I came back by myself.”

“Not afraid?”

“It’s precisely because there’s a temple here that I’m not afraid.” Xia Li laughed. “Who would dare cause trouble in front of the Buddha?”

“… Fair point.”

As they talked, Xia Li spotted two small stones in the grass alongside the steps in the moonlight. She picked them up and tossed them downward with a flick of her wrist.

The stones skipped and tumbled over the steps, making a crisp rattling sound, then vanished into the darkness.

Everything fell quiet again.

They stopped talking.

Here, language felt unnecessary.

Xia Li wrapped her arms around her knees, rested her head on her arms, and in the night breeze caught the steady, unhurried sound of the person beside her breathing.

She tilted her head toward him and asked softly: “Were you in a bad mood today because something happened at the dinner?”

A moment passed, and then Yan Sishi gave only a quiet sound of acknowledgment.

In the darkness, only the outline of his profile was visible — his head lowered slightly, his eyes and brow swallowed by the night.

Like a silent riddle.

She hadn’t really expected him to answer.

But when that was indeed the result, her heart still sank a little lower.

A vague, directionless sense of loss.

She let it go and didn’t ask again.

A moment later, there was a sudden sharp sound — the crisp slap of a palm against skin.

Yan Sishi turned his head.

“Mosquito.” Xia Li scratched at her arm.

She was wearing a grey camisole layered under a black casual slip dress, the skirt reaching her ankles — her legs completely covered, both arms fully exposed.

Yan Sishi looked at the spot she was scratching. A large welt had risen on her skin, and given how fair she was, the reddening stood out all the more vividly.

“Let’s go down,” Yan Sishi suggested.

He wasn’t wearing a jacket — nothing to drape over her as a shield.

“Don’t you want to sit a little longer?”

“And be a blood buffet?”

Xia Li burst out laughing. “I’m used to it. Type O blood — I attract mosquitoes. Let’s stay a bit longer. I drove us here; it wasn’t easy.”

Yan Sishi said: “All right.”

But a silence settled over them again.

Xia Li found herself thinking back to the night she and Yan Sishi had skipped evening study hall all those years ago — how they had wandered through the pedestrian street, her with a hot red bean milk tea, him with an iced lemon soda.

That music shop had since closed down, years ago now.

Xia Li said suddenly: “Do you remember — we once talked about the end of the world?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember what you were doing on December 21st, 2012?”

Yan Sishi thought for a moment. “I don’t remember anymore.”

Perhaps reading in the library. Perhaps after taking his medication, sleeping through the night. That had been his ordinary state during that period.

“What about you?” he asked.

“I think I was rushing to finish an assignment.” Xia Li smiled.

Though she seemed to recall that quite a few people confessed their feelings that day, and several couples formed in their dormitory building.

Xia Li continued: “I remember asking you back then, and you said your wish was not something that could be shaped by sheer willpower. What about now? If there were another end of the world, would there be anything you absolutely had to do before it came?”

As she spoke, Xia Li turned to look at Yan Sishi.

She hadn’t expected to find that Yan Sishi was already looking at her.

Their eyes met at once.

In the dark, her eyes seemed a deeper color than usual — the warm brown of dark tea, like this quiet, secluded mountain forest. The light in her gaze shifted, like tonight’s moonlight.

Something — like a feather, or a strand of willow — brushed lightly against the inside of his throat.

A barely-perceptible itch.

The eye contact flustered Xia Li, and she was the first to look away.

Then she heard Yan Sishi say, very quietly: “Before the end of the world — no. Right here, right now — yes.”

“What?”

His answer was not given in words —

He reached out, his hand closing around her arm, and with a gentle pull, guided her toward him.

She turned, her body tilting, her knees pressing against the steps, and she fell directly into an embrace.

Warmth against her skin. A faint trace of alcohol. A cool palm pressing against her spine.

All of it — sight, scent, and touch — was filled, completely and thoroughly, by the person named Yan Sishi.

Even her heartbeat was no longer her own.

Yan Sishi lowered his head, resting his chin on the curve of her shoulder and neck, and breathed in deeply.

A person half-drunk always deserves a little of the privilege of crossing a line.

The sweet, clean scent rising from her skin entered his lungs — and he felt as though he had surfaced from the pitch-dark pressure of the ocean floor.

For the first time, he felt it.

That breathing had a point.