At first, the kiss was barely there — tentative and uncertain, guided by nothing but the long-suppressed tenderness in their hearts and an instinctive longing, two people finding their way toward each other.

Yan Sishi tasted something — lemon and a cool mint from her toothpaste — and thought without knowing why of that early summer, and the taste of an iced lemon 7UP with ice.

He couldn’t bring himself to pull away. He didn’t, until she seemed to run out of air and pressed lightly against his chest. Only then did he finally stop.

She pressed her forehead to his chest, steadying her breathing. He dipped his head and breathed in the scent along her neck — her hair carrying a light, misty fragrance, like an apple orchard in the rain.

A long kiss. The world in the rain felt ancient and eternal. At last, they separated for a moment.

Xia Li’s fingers were still loosely gripping his lapel. She tilted her head up, eyes still faintly hazy. “…Did you stay up the whole night?”

Yan Sishi held her gaze, restraining the pull to lean in again. “I slept for about an hour when the sky was starting to lighten.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Not anymore, now that you’re here.”

Xia Li felt as though that gentle patter of rain was falling inside her heart — the rain of last night, the night he had spent alone, now soaking quietly into her. “…You need to properly rest.”

She glanced at the time. “Do you have anything planned for today?”

“Dinner with my grandparents tonight.”

“Then go home and sleep for now. Alright?”

Yan Sishi looked at her. His voice was even. “You know I can’t bring myself to sleep through the time away from you.”

But he had been up nearly the whole night. There was a faint bluish shadow beneath his eyes. She would admit that Yan Sishi with this slightly drowsy, languid look had an appeal of an entirely different kind — but she couldn’t just let him do as he pleased.

“Hold on — let me send a message.” She pulled out her phone.

The message was for Lin Qingxiao: asking if there was anything she needed help with during the day.

Lin Qingxiao replied that there wasn’t — she and Nie Chuhang had university friends coming in today and needed to meet them and help arrange their accommodation.

Xia Li put down her phone and looked at Yan Sishi. “Let me walk you back so you can rest?”

Yan Sishi said alright.

Xia Li asked him to wait a moment, went back upstairs to Lin Qingxiao’s to collect her bag, and returned to the car.

“Would you like me to drive?”

“No need,” Yan Sishi said. “It’s not far.”

In the rain, the villa had a particular emptiness to it — a hollow kind of quiet.

Walking in, Xia Li couldn’t help but wonder what state of mind Yan Sishi had been in last night, in this space that felt as silent as a tomb.

She moved naturally toward the bedroom from the previous night.

Yan Sishi reached out and gently caught her wrist, explaining that he had come back at the last moment yesterday, and the party had started right away — the housekeeper hadn’t had time to clean everything.

What she’d been heading toward was actually the guest room. His room was upstairs.

He guided her up by the hand.

On the second floor, they walked along a corridor floored in dark walnut wood, stopping at a room at the far end.

Yan Sishi pushed open the door. A large bedroom came into view.

The first thing she noticed were two tall windows, the wooden frames divided into six panes each. Beyond the glass, the rain was falling on a two-story tree, its leaves so dark green they were almost black.

A vintage style — though given that the design was from over a decade ago, it carried a slightly dated feeling. Still, the wooden furniture was clearly of excellent quality, and the room held a deep, quiet fragrance.

There were two more doors. One, she guessed, led to the bathroom; the other she couldn’t be sure about — perhaps a walk-in wardrobe.

Against the window stood a cherry-wood writing desk. The surface was clear except for a glass-shaded lamp, a pad of letter paper, and a fountain pen.

This was where he sat last night, writing to her.

The thought that the sixteen-year-old Yan Sishi had once lived in this room made Xia Li, without quite knowing why, feel a flutter of nerves.

She made an effort to sound perfectly composed. “You should rest now.”

Yan Sishi nodded, but turned and walked toward the door nearest the foot of the bed.

When it opened, she caught a glimpse inside — confirming it was the bathroom.

She assumed Yan Sishi was going to shower first, and feeling a little self-conscious, she glanced around the room and went over to the writing desk, pulling out the chair and sitting down.

It was indeed Mingzhong letter paper. Running her fingers over the surface, she could feel the impressions left by last night’s words.

After a moment, Yan Sishi’s footsteps drew near. She turned, and a dry towel dropped over her head.

Xia Li laughed and caught it. “My hair is almost dry already.”

Yan Sishi sat down on the edge of the bed. She rubbed her hair a few times, turned to look at him, and nudged him again. “Come on — rest.”

He made a sound of acknowledgment. The moment she draped the towel over the back of the chair, he suddenly reached out and caught her wrist, drawing her up out of the chair and toward him.

Her knees bumped the edge of the bed as he gathered her into a half-embrace, his palm resting lightly at the small of her back.

“Stay with me,” he said quietly.

A rare imperative.

Xia Li, before she knew it: “…Alright.”

They lay down side by side, fully clothed.

Xia Li was held in Yan Sishi’s arms. She breathed in the cool, clean scent of him — like ice and wood and still air — and felt a soundless jolt run through her, as though from silent lightning.

Nothing was happening. And yet her heart was racing.

As if all of this were a dream.

She kept her voice soft, afraid to disturb the quiet. “You said you used to stay here during high school.”

“Sometimes,” Yan Sishi said. “Most of the time I stayed at my grandparents’.”

“When? When you were out past curfew?”

Her tone had a trace of teasing, but she felt the air between them go still for just a moment.

She was about to look up when Yan Sishi said, “When my mother wasn’t well. When she didn’t want to see me.”

The rain pattering against the glass windows gave a quiet, damp quality to his voice.

Xia Li went still.

His voice held no particular emotion. He asked her, did she remember the time he fell asleep at the KTV during high school.

Xia Li nodded. “I remember. That was Nie Chuhang’s birthday.”

“Yes. That was the night.”

Huo Qingyi didn’t want to see him, and he didn’t want to be alone in this empty villa either. He hadn’t originally planned to go to the KTV. He changed his mind at the last moment. He was in a low mood, and when he got there he didn’t feel like joining in — he stayed in a corner listening to music and fell asleep.

As he spoke, Yan Sishi took her hand and lifted it.

She didn’t understand why, but then she watched him lower his gaze and use her fingers to trace the bridge of his nose and his brow bone. “I look very much like my father. She said so — that the older I grew, the more alike we became. Sometimes she would mistake me for him. She wouldn’t let me be in her line of sight…”

Xia Li heard something in the shape of those words — that his mother wasn’t simply “unwell” in the ordinary sense.

Her fingers made contact with the firm, clean lines of bone. Like touching something lit from within.

Yan Sishi’s tone was calm to the point of blankness. It sent a sudden, precise ache through her chest — as swift and thin as a blade. She wanted to withdraw her hand.

But she held still.

“…I don’t know your father,” she said softly, “and I’ve never seen him. From the very first time I saw this face, it has always been Yan Sishi to me.”

Yan Sishi didn’t respond — because she had suddenly tilted her head and pressed a light, barely-there kiss to the corner of his lips. Her voice came out as gently as mist passing through: “That was the day I snuck a look at your iPod playlist. It snowed that day, too. Do you remember? You said the snow in Beicheng was nice. Because of you, I went to Beicheng after graduation. I don’t particularly like Beicheng — but I like you. You are singular too…”

Before the words were finished, her hand at the back of her head was caught. He turned and reclaimed the kiss she had almost let slip away.

Xia Li’s breath caught. She stopped speaking.

What they had only barely suppressed in the car came back, reignited from a single ember that had never been quite put out — and this time the fire burned stronger.

His tongue gently pressed past her teeth. She responded without meaning to, instinctively.

But gradually she found herself struggling to keep up.

They had started from the same point. Why had he already advanced so far? Was a genius truly capable of outpacing everyone in every possible way?

Xia Li’s breath was running thin. Her thoughts and reason were both sinking fast into a deep and welcoming softness, and she let herself fall, willingly.

So this is what it is to be with Yan Sishi.

When the momentum was turning dangerous, Yan Sishi stopped — almost abruptly.

He tilted his head and pressed his chin to her shoulder. His voice came out low and rough: “…I’m sorry. I lost control a little.”

Xia Li opened her eyes. Still a little breathless. She looked at him a moment, then smiled. “If you don’t rest soon, I’m going to be the one losing control — and you’ve seen what that looks like.”

Yan Sishi gave a quiet laugh.

After that, the room fell quiet.

Yan Sishi still had his arms around her. If she were honest, she wasn’t entirely sure the position was comfortable — but Yan Sishi fell asleep quickly, his breathing gradually deepening and steadying.

She didn’t take the chance to slip out while he slept. She had promised to stay.

She simply turned over, reached for her phone, opened a reading app, and returned to a book she had added to her shelf a long time ago but never had the time to read.

When Yan Sishi woke, he was briefly uncertain of the time. Outside the windows, the sky was still dim and overcast. And resting in his arms was the person he had thought of, day and night.

He spent several seconds confirming this was not a dream.

He was about to check whether Xia Li had also fallen asleep when she spoke: “You’re awake.”

She turned to face him.

Yan Sishi made a sound, and asked what time it was.

“Three in the afternoon.”

“Why didn’t you wake me for lunch? Aren’t you hungry?”

“Not really, I think.”

The light was soft and dim at this hour. Even after waking, it felt like still being half-asleep.

Quiet — the kind that made you reluctant to break it.

Yan Sishi felt a stillness in his heart he had never known before. Like something given to him.

He lay there holding her for a quiet moment before they finally got up.

Yan Sishi went to the bathroom to wash his face.

Xia Li wasn’t sure if the rain had stopped. She walked to the window and opened it a crack — a cool, damp breeze drifted in. She reached out and let her palm rest in the open air for a moment. Yes. It had stopped.

The two of them went out for a meal. Then Yan Sishi drove Xia Li home, as he had dinner with Huo Jizhong that evening.

The rain had made the roads slightly worse than usual, and he drove a little slower.

Half an hour later, the car pulled up outside Xia Li’s building.

Her building wasn’t in an enclosed complex — it was one of a row of apartments lining a secondary street.

Xia Li reached for the seatbelt buckle. Yan Sishi’s hand, which had been resting on the steering wheel, dropped — and caught her fingers.

He held them just slightly tighter, his thumb moving slowly across the back of her hand.

His expression was as calm as ever, but in the gesture there was an unspoken, wordless reluctance.

Xia Li felt something go soft inside her.

Yan Sishi looked at her. “I’ll come get you tonight.”

Xia Li had dinner plans, and needed to bring her bridesmaid dress to Lin Qingxiao’s afterward — the bridesmaids were staying over so they’d be ready for the early-morning preparations on the wedding day.

Xia Li smiled. “It’s lucky Chucheng is small — all this ferrying back and forth won’t waste much time.”

Yan Sishi pressed the seatbelt release button for her. “Go on up. I’ll see you tonight.”

Xia Li nodded. A reluctance she couldn’t quite name was spreading through her.

She hadn’t known she could be this sentimental.

In the end, she reached out and opened the car door.

She stepped out, and was just about to gently push the door shut when — the iron gate to the building entrance creaked open, and out stepped Jiang Hong, canvas shopping bag in hand, heading out to buy groceries.

Jiang Hong spotted Xia Li. “Oh, you’re back.”

Then she glanced toward the driver’s seat. A smile came to her lips. “漓漓, a friend of yours?”

Xia Li felt as though everything since this morning had been on fast-forward. She had an overwhelming urge to laugh. She also wanted to say to Yan Sishi: Surprise — you’re already meeting the parents.

She smiled, and said, perfectly calmly:

“Boyfriend.”