Wen Tingli set her things down in her room, and came back out to find Lu Shicheng still standing quietly by the door.

She smiled, hurried to pull him over to the table, and immediately unscrewed the cap of the medicine bottle Kuang Zhilin had given her: “Quick, let me see your arm.”

【Didn’t they already apply medicine in the car?】

Even so, Lu Shicheng immediately rolled up his shirt sleeve to show her.

Wen Tingli’s heart ached with concern all the same, carefully applying the medicine: “I heard burns are different from other wounds—the heat seeps deeper into the skin layers little by little. If we don’t reapply the medicine several times tonight, blisters will likely form by tomorrow.”

Zhou Sao came out with tea, saw this scene, and her expression instantly turned knowing, a smile playing on her lips. “What happened to Mr. Lu?”

“He got burned by tea.”

“Oh my, ordinary Western medicine won’t do for burns! You need to run cold water over it—don’t bother with that for now, or it’ll only get worse. Let me go fetch some water from the well out back.”

Wen Tingli didn’t dare continue applying the medicine. Lu Shicheng didn’t think it necessary to make such a fuss, and rose to stop Zhou Sao, but Wen Tingli held him back: “Zhou Sao has a point—well water is colder than tap water, applying that will heal it faster.”

Zhou Sao had already dashed off with a tin bucket like a gust of wind.

This left Wen Tingli and Lu Shicheng alone in the parlor once more.

Wen Tingli looked at Lu Shicheng. Though this wasn’t his first time here, last time he’d been carried in unconscious by her and Li Chengying. Tonight, though, he sat wide awake, face to face with her in her own parlor.

She felt a little at a loss, and was much quieter than usual as a result.

Lu Shicheng waited curiously for a while, and seeing she showed no sign of speaking, casually picked up the teacup at his side and took a sip while looking at her, then turned to survey the parlor.

He looked very carefully, as if wanting to take in every corner of the room anew.

Wen Tingli’s gaze followed his back and forth. To save on electricity, only a single fifty-watt bulb hung above the parlor—unlike the Lu residence, where every hall was hung with enormous crystal chandeliers. Of course, there were also none of the roses, lilies, and tulips found everywhere at the Lu residence here, and in fact hardly a single decent vase to be found in the whole space.

But Lu Shicheng seemed to genuinely like everything here. He noticed a flower vessel on the tea table, clearly made from a milk bottle Xiao Taozi had finished drinking from—unique in style, and practical too.

Not just that vase—every corner of her home was arranged with considerable taste. The sofa was covered in a newly made cardamom-green fabric slipcover, the curtains in the same color, paired with plain, understated furniture—far from tasteless, it instead gave off a fresh, charming atmosphere.

The newspapers were neatly stacked on the bookshelf by the tea table, and even Xiao Taozi’s toys had their own dedicated wooden rack. There was plenty here, yet nothing felt cluttered.

Every corner of this place was so warm and endearing—unlike the Lu residence, cold and lifeless without a trace of human warmth.

He just kept looking, kept thinking, until Wen Tingli started to feel a little self-conscious.

“I’ll go get you something to eat.”

She slipped into the kitchen and soon came back out carrying a small plate of sugar cakes. This time, Lu Shicheng didn’t go back to studying the parlor—instead, he’d started examining the teacup in his hand.

Wen Tingli couldn’t help but smile—how was it that tonight, this man was as curious about everything of hers as Xiao Taozi would be. She stepped forward to explain to him:

“Pretty, isn’t it? I bought this cup years ago from a Russian teacher—he was a specially hired foreign professor at Xiude Girls’ Middle School, originally Russian nobility, forced into exile abroad because he couldn’t get along with the new government. This is all porcelain his family had collected, royal porcelain—normally he’d never sell it off, but seeing how much I loved it, he reluctantly parted with it. This cup only cost me two silver dollars—quite a bargain, don’t you think? Look, there’s even the family title the Tsar bestowed on my teacher written on the bottom.”

She enthusiastically flipped the saucer over to show Lu Shicheng the line of Russian text on the bottom.

The moment Lu Shicheng saw the line of text, he smiled faintly.

Wen Tingli assumed he didn’t read Russian either, just like her, and so proceeded to read it aloud for him.

“Esteemed Duke Ivanov, Tsar Nicholas II bestows upon you the most noble and supreme honor.”

Hearing Wen Tingli’s translation, Lu Shicheng’s faint smile turned into muffled laughter, lowering his head, unable to stop laughing more and more.

Wen Tingli was utterly baffled: “What’s so funny?”

Lu Shicheng held back his laughter, dipped his finger in the tea, and wrote out a line on the table stroke by stroke.

【Josephine Porcelain Workshop, St. Petersburg. Two rubles apiece.】

Wen Tingli froze.

“You’re saying that’s what the text actually says?”

Lu Shicheng nodded.

Wen Tingli was furious.

“That swindler! I’m going to write to Xiude and expose him!”

She angrily moved to toss the cup into the dustpan, but Lu Shicheng quickly stopped her.

【If you throw that away, your two silver dollars will be worth absolutely nothing.】

Wen Tingli reluctantly set the cup back down on the table—she’d been only fifteen that year, young and naive, finding everything new and fascinating.

Looking at Lu Shicheng again, there was still a trace of laughter on his face. She glared at him for a moment, then couldn’t help but start laughing herself too.

Lu Shicheng took out the pen she’d given him from his jacket pocket, wrote a line in the notebook, and handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

【The numbers one through ten in Russian.】

Wen Tingli’s heart gave a sudden thump.

Lu Shicheng wrote it out again, very slowly.

Wen Tingli bit her lip and smiled: “Is that all there is? Doesn’t seem like enough to deal with a swindler. How do you write ‘give me back my money’?”

Lu Shicheng wrote it out for her to see.

“What does ‘old scoundrel’ say?” ‘Old scoundrel, give me back my money!'” Wen Tingli grew more and more excited as she spoke. “And ‘shameless’—how do you say ‘shameless’?”

In truth, Lu Shicheng only knew some basic Russian himself, and as he kept writing, he simply used the Russian words for “fool” or “swindler” over and over to teach her. Wen Tingli laughed the whole time, and with each phrase she learned, it felt as though she’d personally given that swindler a scolding—as satisfying as could be.

Before she knew it, all the anger in her heart had dissipated. She let out a comfortable sigh: “I won’t curse anymore. I want to learn something else. How do you write ‘Miss Wen is the most beautiful, most sincere, most adorable’?”

Lu Shicheng looked up at her, and Wen Tingli’s ears grew a little hot.

Whenever Lu Shicheng looked at people like this, so calmly, his eyes seemed to hold a black magnet that pulled you in irresistibly.

Wen Tingli deliberately turned her face away, but caught from the corner of her eye that he was picking up the pen again, and hastily covered her eyes with her hand. After a moment, she slowly peeked through the gaps between her fingers, and what came into view were three lines of text.

The top line was the Russian phrase she’d asked him to write, the characters remarkably neat and beautiful.

Below it was a line of Chinese characters.

【That night I went to Taotao Ju to find you, but unfortunately I was ambushed halfway there, so I couldn’t make it.】

Wen Tingli slowly lowered her hand from her face. Her expression was completely still, but anyone could see her whole face glowing.

She had been quite stubborn about this matter, and now, seeing the answer with her own eyes, the surprise and joy were nearly beyond words.

He had kept the appointment—before she’d even saved his life, he had already rushed to Taotao Ju to keep her date.

At the very bottom were the simplest four words.

【I like you.】

Her heart went pit-a-pat, and everything around her seemed to vanish in an instant. Her entire field of vision held nothing but this sentence, the characters dancing before her eyes until her vision blurred and her head spun.

She gazed at it for a long moment, then looked back, dazed, at the Russian phrase he’d written—”Miss Wen is the most beautiful, most sincere, most adorable”—and the words “Taotao Ju” in the middle, her eyes sweeping back and forth between them.

Looking at it all one last time, she couldn’t help but cup her flushed cheeks and laugh.

He really was so sweet, so sincere.

The feeling was like a packet of foreign sugar she’d once secretly eaten as a child—no trace of sourness or bitterness, only pure, honest sweetness. Perhaps “sweet” wasn’t quite the right word to describe a man, but right now, she couldn’t think of any other word to describe Lu Shicheng. The Lu Shicheng before her now was like a piece of candy, silently giving off a light, sweet fragrance.

She found she couldn’t sit still any longer, and said to the “candy” in front of her:

“Wait here a moment.”

The “candy” looked at her and nodded.

Wen Tingli’s mood soared like a kite in a spring breeze. She went back to her room and dug a small box out of her wardrobe, opened it, and inside were a stack of snow-white silk handkerchiefs, each embroidered along the bottom with her initials: WTL.

She’d begged her mother to embroider these for her when she first started middle school, so she wouldn’t get her handkerchief mixed up with others’ at school.

She carried the box of handkerchiefs back out, and without a word, took out the topmost one and wrapped it around his wrist, deliberately placing the side embroidered with “WTL” against the inside.

Lu Shicheng’s eyes rippled faintly, saying nothing either. Once she’d finished wrapping it around him, he gently cupped the handkerchief with his other hand, making no effort at all to hide how much he liked it.

Wen Tingli lowered her eyes and smiled—she liked this kind of silent, steadfast expression of feeling. Just then, the sound of a car came from downstairs. She and Lu Shicheng exchanged a glance, and she rose to look out the window—it turned out to be the young couple surnamed Liu from across the way, back from dancing. Mrs. Liu wore a Western dance dress, a knitted cardigan draped over her arms, while Mr. Liu was busy paying the rickshaw driver.

She turned back and said quietly to Lu Shicheng: “It’s the neighbors from across the way, back home.”

They both glanced at the Western clock on the wall—it was nearly midnight without either of them realizing. Her heart felt a pang of reluctance, but staying any longer wouldn’t be proper. Once they heard the sound of the door closing across the way, he rose to his feet too.

Just then Zhou Sao returned as well. Lu Shicheng stepped forward to take the water bucket from her hands, but Zhou Sao hastily said: “Mr. Lu, you’re always so courteous, but don’t forget your arm is still hurt, please don’t move it. Right, right, it is a bit late, but it’s fine, please sit a bit longer—oh, you’re leaving already? Mr. Lu, you really are so—”

So thoughtful of her, Wen Tingli understood perfectly well what she meant. Not wanting to see him downstairs directly, she slipped instead through the parlor and into her bedroom, pushed open the window, and cupped her hands around her mouth to call softly: “Mr. Lu.”

Such a quiet sound shouldn’t have reached him at all, but perhaps there truly was such a thing as a meeting of hearts—Lu Shicheng happened to stop right on the steps and turn back.

He spotted Wen Tingli’s window at a glance, and gave her a knowing smile.

Seeing that Wen Tingli seemed to want to say something to him, he glanced toward the Liu family’s window, and suddenly raised a finger to his lips, signaling her to stay quiet.

Wen Tingli guessed someone must be coming to the Liu family’s window.

She could only silently point at her own arm toward Lu Shicheng.

Lu Shicheng lowered his eyes to look at his own burned arm, then looked up again, nodding at her in tacit understanding.

But he still didn’t leave, only gazing up at her from the steps.

Wen Tingli’s heart stirred; she made a “wait for me” gesture at him, then turned back to her dressing table and gently opened the exquisite pink enamel jewelry box.

In the past, she never would have accepted such an expensive gift from anyone’s hands—but tonight, everything was different. She took the necklace from the jewelry box and carefully put it on in front of the mirror, then walked to the window and leaned her upper body out to show him.

But Lu Shicheng’s gaze didn’t linger on the sparkling, jewel-bright necklace at all—instead, it slowly rose to rest on her face.

Did she even know that no matter how beautiful the jewels, they couldn’t compare to one ten-thousandth of her own radiant beauty? Under the moonlight, she was as beautiful as an immortal fairy.

His heart pounded thunderously as they gazed at each other for a long while.

The whole evening, his heart had been filled with nothing but joy and contentment.

So this was what it felt like to fall—he only wished time could stand still, stay forever in this one wondrous moment.

She didn’t know how much time had passed before Zhou Sao came downstairs carrying a lantern.

“Mr. Lu, it’s very dark here, mind your step.”

He reluctantly pulled his gaze away from her face.

Upstairs, Wen Tingli ducked back inside in a flash, only hearing Zhou Sao chattering away below. Before long, she heard the sound of a car driving off outside the window.

By the time she returned to the window, Lu Shicheng was already gone.

Wen Tingli gazed happily toward the mouth of the lane, unable to calm her heart no matter what. This had been an extraordinarily meaningful night—two hearts had drawn so close together. She gently touched the necklace at her neck, savoring the memory with her head bowed, standing at the window for a long while before slowly returning to her room, falling back onto her bed, and smiling sweetly up at the ceiling.