[01]

On August 20, 2018, NetEase Blog published an announcement declaring that it would soon cease operations.

By the time Xia Li saw the announcement, it had already been a week.

Her “Sherry’s Laboratory” blog hadn’t been logged into for a long time. Blogs sounded like relics of a previous century.

That night, she logged in one final time — a farewell of sorts.

As she browsed through her posts one by one, Yan Sishi walked over.

She immediately closed her laptop.

Yan Sishi smiled and said that he hadn’t exactly been a stranger to that post, The Ninth Year Past the Dream — someone had once forced him to read it.

“But that’s completely different. Last time was the abridged version. This time it’s the full, detailed version.”

Yan Sishi said: “Alright. Then I won’t look.”

Xia Li called out to him just as he genuinely began to move away: “…So, you’re just not going to look?”

Yan Sishi: “Do you want me to look or not?”

Xia Li: “…You really are too polite.”

Having the person you’d secretly loved for years sit before you and flip through the private record of that very love — the shame of it surpassed even standing bare before them.

Xia Li grabbed a throw pillow and hurled it at him as he propped his head up trying to suppress his laughter. “Be serious. Keep it up and I won’t let you look at all.”

Yan Sishi immediately sat up straight. “Right. Serious.”

Once they had browsed through all the posts, Xia Li closed her laptop with a wistful sense of loss. “I feel like my youth has ended.”

“But our story has only just begun.” Yan Sishi said this with great sincerity.

[02]

In 2020, right around when Animal Crossing: New Horizons first launched, Xia Li’s social circle was all playing it, and she joined in to follow the trend.

She’d been working overtime constantly during that period, so her in-game progress had fallen far behind — she couldn’t pay off her mortgage, and she didn’t have enough bells to buy the cute furniture and little dresses she wanted.

When she finally had some free time and went back to her island, she found bags upon bags of bells stuffed in her pockets, inside her house, and scattered across the ground outside her door — and the ground was blanketed with rotting turnips.

They had a game group chat, and both Wen Shubai and Ying Gan were in it.

Xia Li took a screenshot and posted it in the group: Strange! It seems a mysterious benefactress has been selling turnips for me.

Wen Shubai: The mysterious benefactress @YAN.

Ying Gan: Director Yan is busy right now.

Ying Gan: Is it rude of me to be laughing?

Wen Shubai: Of course you should laugh hard while the man himself isn’t here.

Wen Shubai: @Sherry, you probably didn’t know this — that day, Yan Sishi found someone in our work group who had high turnip prices on their island, and spent the entire day shuttling back and forth between two islands. And you know how awful the online visiting system is in Animal Crossing.

Wen Shubai: Tsk, tsk.

Wen Shubai: Oh, also — are you really not going to change your island’s name? Everyone in the group knows about it now. They’re all laughing at how someone who seems so cool and aloof could have such an adorable nickname.

Xia Li: Hehe, I’m not changing it.

Her island was named “Yan Yan’s Boogey Island.”

[03]

By the end of August, a major project Xia Li had been working on also drew to a close.

Yan Sishi asked her whether she’d like to go somewhere while summer still hadn’t ended.

So that Friday, the moment they got off work, the two of them headed straight to the airport. After landing and taking a transfer, they arrived at the dock, where a yacht they’d reserved in advance was already waiting.

That night, a fog rose over the sea. The yacht cut through the undulating waves toward a small fishing island dozens of nautical miles away.

The portholes were shut. Waves splashed against the glass, and Xia Li felt slightly dizzy from the rocking, her head resting against Yan Sishi’s shoulder.

Yan Sishi told the bridge to slow down, then asked if she was seasick.

Xia Li said “a little.”

Yan Sishi said he would have arranged a helicopter, had he known.

“No, no, no — that’s even more terrifying. When the air turbulence hit, I was sure we were going to crash. Once in a lifetime was enough — speaking of which, what kind of connections do you and Wen Shubai have? You can just arrange a helicopter like it’s nothing.”

Yan Sishi gave a light laugh, and his answer seemed to address something else entirely: “Thank you for trusting me so much.”

Xia Li understood his meaning — she’d agreed to his proposal without really knowing much about what the Yan Family actually did.

Xia Li smiled and said: “We haven’t even registered yet. At worst, I could always back out.”

Yan Sishi glanced down at her.

Then he explained: the one with the private helicopter was a middle school classmate of his and Wen Shubai’s. The man lived like a stereotypical idle rich kid — he had all the flashy, impractical toys that people imagine the wealthy to own.

Acquiring that sort of thing wasn’t difficult; it was simply unnecessary. Wen Shubai, bound by family principles, only ever allowed himself modest indulgences within certain limits. Anything too ostentatious would cause problems for his father.

As for Yan Sishi, Xia Li knew he had almost no material desires — extravagance and excess held absolutely no appeal for him whatsoever.

As for what the Yan Family actually did — Xia Li had had her guesses, and after hearing Yan Sishi explain, her guesses turned out to be roughly eighty or ninety percent accurate. If anything, she’d estimated more conservatively.

When Yan Sishi spoke of the Yan Family, his tone was one of complete detachment, as though his only remaining connection to that family was the surname “Yan.”

Xia Li said: “It helps me understand how difficult things must have been for your mother. An ordinary person in that kind of environment probably had no choice but to yield and endure.”

And Huo Qingyi had already been among the more fortunate of ordinary people — she at least had a family to back her up.

Yan Sishi said: “We won’t repeat their mistakes.”

The words sounded more like a reminder to himself.

The yacht docked. After Xia Li stepped onto the island, she still felt a lingering dizziness.

They were staying at the same resort hotel as last time — a white building nestled among tree shadows, its lights glowing in the night, lovely to behold from a distance.

Their room was on the third floor, the suite with the best view, featuring a large balcony that faced a bay filled with the sound of rolling waves.

Bincheng had ocean views too, but the scenery here far surpassed anything back home.

The two of them set down their luggage, then went out to the balcony to catch the breeze.

Outside was quiet. There was no one on the beach, giving one the feeling that the dark sea beyond belonged to them alone.

Yan Sishi asked Xia Li if she was feeling better.

Xia Li nodded.

Yan Sishi suggested they go down for a walk before coming back to shower.

Xia Li was wearing a black ankle-length halter dress, with flat flip-flop sandals on her feet.

Yan Sishi was dressed in light colors — a loose white short-sleeved shirt in very soft fabric — which made him look slightly more languid than usual, carrying a kind of clean, refined quality that was somewhere between youthful and fully grown.

After the tide had gone out, the sand on the beach was damp, and their flip-flops kept sinking into it.

They simply took their shoes off and left them to the side, planning to pick them up on the way back.

Neither of them had decided on a direction, but they naturally drifted toward where Ah Cui’s convenience store was.

By then, however, it was already late. From a distance they could see the store’s lights were out — it had already closed.

They didn’t feel disappointed. They’d rest tonight, and could come back tomorrow just the same.

Still, with an unspoken understanding, neither of them stopped walking — until the great banyan tree, its canopy casting deep shadows across the ground, came into view. In the moonlight they could see the branches draped with many red cloth strips, swaying gently in the evening breeze.

Xia Li smiled: “It seems this really is a reliable source of income for them.”

As for whether the strip they had hung there was still among them — it was too dark and too late to tell.

The two of them turned and walked back.

Back at the hotel, Xia Li twisted her hair up and went to shower.

The bathroom had a bathtub by the window, with a view out toward the sea.

Struck by the impulse to have a soak, Xia Li turned the tap to fill the tub, then went to shower and wash her hair first.

By the time she finished, the tub was more or less full.

She sank into it, and the fatigue seeped out through her very bones. She folded her arms over the edge and gazed out, listening to the faint sound of waves through the glass, drifting gradually toward drowsiness.

Two knocks on the door startled her awake.

She’d probably been in the bathroom too long — Yan Sishi was worried, and called from outside to ask why there had been no sound from her.

She hurried to say she was fine, just soaking in the tub.

Perhaps still not entirely reassured, Yan Sishi asked: “May I come in?”

“Mm.”

The bathroom door opened. Yan Sishi stood in the doorway, looking in through a room full of white mist, and said that he’d had some chilled coconut water sent up, asking if she’d like some.

Xia Li naturally said yes.

Yan Sishi stepped back out, and returned a moment later holding a glass with a straw.

The glass was placed within her reach. Xia Li had been soaking long enough to work up a fine layer of sweat and was feeling overheated, so the sweet, chilled coconut water going down her throat was an indescribable comfort.

She sipped twice through the straw, then held the glass out to Yan Sishi — who had been standing to one side, waiting to take it back — and invited him to have a taste.

Yan Sishi shook his head and declined.

Very naturally, Xia Li’s instinct was to do what she always did — coax him into having a sip of wine, or a sweet drink he normally resisted. But she had forgotten she was still submerged in the bathtub. The moment she started to sit up, she realized — and let out a startled sound, quickly sinking back down.

The water surface rippled and then spilled over the rim of the tub, splashing down across the tile floor.

Another wave of warm mist rose.

Apart from the arms resting on the outside edge, Xia Li had only her head above the water. She lifted her eyes to look at Yan Sishi.

His expression seemed perfectly calm, so calm that she began to wonder whether he had actually seen anything at all.

His voice was calmer still, as he asked: “All done?”

Xia Li drained the remaining coconut water in two long sips and held the glass out to Yan Sishi.

He took it — but instead of stepping away, he simply set it on the vanity beside him with an outstretched arm, then suddenly leaned forward. His hands closed around her arms, and he drew her up out of the water. He was sitting on the edge of the tub; she, drenched from head to toe, pressed against that soft-fabric shirt of his. It wasn’t cold, yet she couldn’t help but shiver.

Perhaps from having soaked too long in the heat, Xia Li felt her head swim. “I think I’m oxygen-deprived.”

Yan Sishi lowered his head. His fingers gently tilted her chin up, and he breathed his air into her directly.

It didn’t help. If anything, breathing became more difficult still.

Before long, Yan Sishi’s entire set of clothes was soaked through. Water kept washing from the bathtub over the rim in waves; fog permeated the whole space. In a low voice, close to her ear, Yan Sishi asked what she was holding back. She didn’t answer, so he kissed her and said — you don’t need to be quiet for me. Let me hear you.

Xia Li hadn’t known she could unravel this quickly.

Even held firmly in his arms, she felt afraid — and could only wrap her own arms tightly around his neck, like a climbing vine clinging fast to its support. The air carried a moist, fragrant scent — like some tropical flower that had been baked all day in the sun, then caught in a sudden downpour. A little heady. A little ripely sweet.

It was a long time before Xia Li’s breathing settled.

Only afterward did she understand, belatedly, why he had been so unrestrained this time.

It was probably his way of getting back at her for what she’d said earlier: “At worst, I could always back out.”