With Situ Jiu’an handling the arrangements, Yao Qiyun’s school transfer went through smoothly enough. He’d already completed his first year of high school back home, and after the summer he should have moved on to second year. But considering the teaching standards at the small-town high school he’d previously attended, and wanting to help him better adjust to the pace of instruction at his new school, Situ Jiu’an took the school’s advice and had him repeat a grade, so that he’d start first year alongside Situ Jue at one of the top-tier high schools in the city.

Much to Situ Jue’s immense relief, Yao Qiyun at least wasn’t placed in her own class, sparing her the visual torment of having him in her classroom.

On Yao Qiyun’s first official day as a transfer student, Situ Jiu’an had some business matter to handle and couldn’t personally take him to check in at the school, so he instructed Situ Jue repeatedly to accompany Yao Qiyun and help him get used to the route to and from school and the school grounds. With no way to get out of it, Situ Jue, however unwillingly, found herself waiting for him after breakfast that morning so they could leave together.

At that point, Jiu’an Tang was gradually growing into a real operation and just starting to build a name for itself in the industry, but Situ Jiu’an never forgot his own humble beginnings, and insisted on raising his children to be independent and frugal, with no special treatment despite the family’s comfortable means. So even though the household was well-off, Situ Jue rarely enjoyed the luxury of being driven anywhere, and instead took the bus to school every day like clockwork.

The two of them walked to school one in front of the other, Situ Jue leading by several paces, making no effort to speak to him—if he hadn’t been utterly unfamiliar with the route from home to school, she would have absolutely bolted ahead and vanished. Yao Qiyun, for his part, seemed to have given up any hope of getting along smoothly with her; if not for the sound of his footsteps following steadily behind her, Situ Jue might have thought she was being trailed by nothing more than her own shadow.

The bus stop was more than half a street away from the Situ home. When they reached an intersection along the way, the pedestrian crossing happened to be at a red light, and Situ Jue crouched down to tie her shoelace. Yao Qiyun, not stopping in time, ended up ahead of her; whether out of embarrassment or reluctance to stand too close, he stood several paces away, waiting for her.

By the time Situ Jue had finished tying her laces and stood up, the first thing she saw was Yao Qiyun standing “fearlessly” right in the middle of the road, cars streaming past in the thick of the morning rush hour, some already blaring their horns sharply.

Situ Jue reacted instantly, yanking him back with a sharp motion, cold sweat breaking out on her forehead for no reason at all. Without thinking, the words tumbled out of her mouth: “What’s wrong with you? Are you trying to direct traffic or trying to get yourself killed? Didn’t you see the red light?”

Yao Qiyun’s face flushed so deeply it looked ready to burst, and it was only then that Situ Jue realized he’d grown up in the countryside, having at most gone as far as the local town for school—he probably had barely any real concept of traffic lights at all. She felt a twinge of regret for speaking so harshly, especially to someone as proud as him. Situ Jiu’an had always despised snobbery of any kind, and Situ Jue, raised on that principle since childhood, found him irritating but knew perfectly well that no one gets to choose where they’re born; even nursing a private grudge, she had no wish to attack him on that front.

Too proud to soften her tone with kind words, she added vaguely, “Watch yourself on the road. If something happens to you today, my dad will never let me hear the end of it.”

A moment ago, worried Yao Qiyun might get clipped by a car, she’d yanked him back with more force than she meant to, and her bag had slipped clean off her shoulder. Her schoolbag was enormous—who knew what all was crammed inside besides textbooks—and because she had gym class that afternoon, she was also carrying a badminton bag, complete with racket, shuttlecocks, a spare set of gym clothes, and sneakers.

As the two of them crossed the street together, Yao Qiyun, without so much as a word of warning, lifted the badminton bag right off her shoulder.

Startled, Situ Jue’s first thought was that someone had swooped in on a bike to snatch her bag; realizing it was him, she pressed a hand to her chest, none too pleased.

“Do you have to be so alarming about everything?”

“I’ll carry this for you,” Yao Qiyun said, taking the bag from her without waiting for a reply and slinging it over his own shoulder.

“No… there’s no need.” Genuinely caught off guard, Situ Jue felt an unusual flicker of embarrassment. She was slim, but not the delicate type at all—she’d carried far heavier loads than this before, and had never been in the habit of relying on anyone else. His gesture, if anything, only left her more flustered.

“I said there’s no need, it’s not heavy at all, really, there’s no need!”

She tried her best to snatch her bag back, but Yao Qiyun dodged out of the way, apparently dead set on carrying it for her regardless. And Situ Jue, utterly unwilling to owe him any favor whatsoever, was just as determined to refuse. The two of them tugged and struggled the whole way, and any passerby who didn’t know better would never have guessed the whole scene was simply the result of one person suddenly wanting to play the good Samaritan while the other flatly refused the help.

In the end, it was Yao Qiyun who couldn’t take it anymore, switching the bag to his other hand. “Watch the traffic… can we please stop fighting about this?”

“My parents can’t see us right now. There’s no need for you to do this.”

To Situ Jue’s mind, helping each other out wasn’t inherently a problem—but that sort of thing was for friends. No, even a stranger’s help would have felt far more natural than his “kindness” did just then. She wasn’t blind—in the days since he’d arrived at their home, Yao Qiyun had thrown himself with almost desperate eagerness into taking on every chore and heavy task in the house, as if he couldn’t wait to prove to the family that had taken him in that he wasn’t entirely useless.

He clung so tightly to the present, terrified of ever going back to the past.

But Situ Jue had no patience for people who acted one way and felt another—especially since their relationship clearly wasn’t anything close to warm; they could each just go their own way, so why bother with this false show of ingratiation? Watching him exhaust himself over it wore her out more than it helped, and she had no interest in treating him like some servant to order around, either.

Her words seemed to hit a nerve. He fell silent for a moment before saying coldly, “Why won’t you just give me a chance to show what I can do?”

It was right then that Situ Jue noticed the hand gripping the strap of the badminton bag—his nails were bitten down almost to the quick, and the stubborn grime that always seemed to cling to them was gone entirely, replaced instead by patches of raw, broken skin, some spots even showing raw pink flesh underneath, as if someone had gone to extreme lengths to scrub the dirt from beneath his fingernails.

They say your fingertips are wired straight to your heart—Situ Jue still remembered, vividly, the time as a child when a compass needle had pricked her under the nail, and the sharp sting of it stayed with her even now. She couldn’t imagine anyone being cruel enough to do that to themselves; it bordered on self-harm. Could it possibly be because of that argument the other day, when she’d furiously shaken off his hand as though it were something filthy?

The thought sent an unexpected chill through her, and she lost any urge to demand her bag back, walking the rest of the way to school in a daze of quiet shock.

After school, Situ Jue lingered at the gymnasium with Wu Jiang for a couple more rounds of badminton, and when they finished, she didn’t bother looking for Yao Qiyun, just headed straight home on her own. On the way, she found herself wondering whether he might have gotten lost on his own way home without knowing the route. But when she rang the doorbell, it was still him who came running to open it.

He hadn’t gotten lost after all.

Watching Yao Qiyun, absorbed in watering the potted plants at home, Situ Jue wasn’t entirely sure whether what she felt was relief, or a faint trace of disappointment.

After that, whenever Situ Jue crossed paths with Yao Qiyun on her way to or from school, she stopped refusing his “kindness.” Whether it was carrying her bag, or quietly washing the dishes her father had ordered her to wash, or making her a late-night snack whenever she got hungry in the evenings, she let him do as he pleased. Just as he’d said—since he wanted to, why shouldn’t she give someone a chance to do something for her? This “good boy,” embodying every traditional virtue of the Chinese people rolled into one, had already won her parents’ full approval, and she no longer had to hear complaints about being at odds with him all the time.

Situ Jue also suspected that a good part of her willingness to give in came from a vague, nagging fear of him—a person capable of being so ruthless even toward himself, what wasn’t he capable of?

She felt as though she’d made a real concession, but in her father’s eyes it looked nothing like that at all. One day, Situ Jiu’an got home from work early, just as Situ Jue and Yao Qiyun happened to be arriving home from school one after the other, with Yao Qiyun carrying Situ Jue’s backpack on his shoulder. Situ Jiu’an flew into a rage over it, hauling his daughter upstairs and lecturing her furiously, accusing her of being lazy and taking advantage of Qiyun’s good nature to bully him.

Situ Jue felt the injustice of it keenly, insisting over and over that Yao Qiyun had absolutely insisted on it himself, leaving her no choice but to give in. She dragged Yao Qiyun in as a witness, and he confirmed, again and again, that this was indeed exactly what had happened. But Situ Jiu’an refused to believe a word of it, convinced instead that Qiyun was simply too kind-hearted, letting her push him around and then covering for her besides—his willful daughter couldn’t hold a candle to him in his eyes. On the spot, he ordered Situ Jue to spend the next week doing household chores every day after finishing her homework, forbidden from going anywhere, with no one allowed to help her—weekends included—so she could reflect properly on where she’d gone wrong.

While her father wasn’t looking, Situ Jue shot the “real culprit” a furious, wordless glare, silently cursing herself for being so foolish as to fall right into his trap without even realizing it, more convinced than ever of his sly, hypocritical, scheming nature.

Situ Jiu’an had no intention of wrapping up his daughter’s “reeducation” so quickly, but it was Xue Shaoping, drawn by the commotion, who came to her rescue. Once she’d pieced together what had actually happened, she said simply, in front of everyone, to Situ Jiu’an, “We’re family now, there’s no need to be so formal about it. Qiyun’s a thoughtful boy—he’s practically our daughter’s older brother, and there’s nothing wrong with a brother helping his little sister out. No need to blow this out of proportion.”

After this whole affair, Yao Qiyun never once brought the matter up with Situ Jue again, but his daily habit of carrying her bag never changed either. Situ Jue responded with cold indifference, stuffing her bag with as many books as it could possibly hold from then on, even hauling home things she’d normally have left in the classroom, as if she were tempted to throw a few bricks in for good measure. Yao Qiyun, for his part, showed remarkable composure, taking her bag every time without so much as a change in expression.

Her mother had saved her from her father’s wrath, but there was no escaping the punishment he’d already decreed. What troubled Situ Jue most, though, wasn’t having to wash the family’s dishes and mop the floors for a week—it was losing her weekend freedom entirely, an unbearable prospect for someone as restless as her.

On Saturday evening, Situ Jiu’an went out, as usual, for some social obligation. Situ Jue scrubbed the last corner of the kitchen clean, then made a show of dragging herself back to her room, exhausted, and once her mother settled in to watch her soap operas, she seized the chance to sneak toward the front door.

Afraid of alerting anyone, she didn’t even dare turn on a light—so the moment the living room lights suddenly flicked on, she nearly let out a groan of despair inside.

Yao Qiyun stood in his doorway, frowning. “Where are you going?”

Desperate to shake him off, Situ Jue snapped, “Taking out the trash. Is that allowed?”

Yao Qiyun stated flatly, “I already took the trash out earlier.”

“You—” Situ Jue swallowed down whatever choice words came next; there was no point wasting time on him. She glanced up at the second floor, where the sound of the television drifted down, and moved straight for the door.

Yao Qiyun stepped over and pressed a hand against it. “You can’t go out. If Uncle Situ comes back later…”

“Wouldn’t that be perfect—just one more thing you can hold over me. Now get out of my way. If you think I won’t—” Situ Jue trailed off, unable to come up with a decent threat on the spot.

“Won’t what?” he asked quietly, deadly serious.

Situ Jue thought fast again, tilting her face up and leaning in close to him.

“Yao Qiyun, you—”

He flinched back in alarm, exactly as she’d expected. “Wh—what?”

By then Situ Jue had already thrown the door bolt and slipped outside.

“Your braces are ugly!”

Situ Jue made her escape successfully, though she didn’t go far—maybe all she’d really wanted was the feeling of breaking free. She snuck over to Wu Jiang’s place, where his parents were both home; the moment they saw her, they beamed, clearly delighted. But Situ Jue didn’t dare linger too long, so she grabbed a few comic books and headed straight back.

Standing outside her own front door, she couldn’t be sure whether her father was already home, and didn’t dare risk letting herself in with her key. Since Yao Qiyun had already caught her once tonight, she figured she might as well go all in, hopping the hedge with practiced ease and heading to the window to work her “secret mechanism.”

Yao Qiyun’s bedroom light was on—he wasn’t asleep after all—and he lunged toward the window the moment he heard the noise, checking to see what it was. Seeing it was her, his expression relaxed with relief.

He watched, dumbstruck, as Situ Jue pulled out one of the security bars right in front of him and slipped inside with practiced ease, then calmly brushed the dust off her clothes—and it was only then that he fully understood why she loved this room so much, and the real reason Wu Jiang had knocked on the window that other night.

“Are you going to tell my dad on me? Oh, right—did you already report on me once before?” Situ Jue said.

Yao Qiyun watched her coldly, his face full of disapproval.

“Your dad just got back—”

But before he could finish, Situ Jue already knew. She’d heard her father’s footsteps coming down the stairs too.

“Qiyun, are you asleep yet?”

Both of them went pale. It wasn’t just Situ Jue who froze in shock—Yao Qiyun looked visibly panicked too. The secret of Situ Jue’s window was a minor issue; the real problem was how on earth they’d explain the two of them—who barely got along at all—alone together in one room, deep into the night. Even if nothing had happened, what would Uncle Situ think of him? What would Auntie Xue make of it, once she found out? He couldn’t bear the thought of even the smallest blemish appearing on his image in their eyes, couldn’t stand the idea of them harboring even the faintest reservation about him.

Situ Jue immediately lunged for the closet, the only place in the room that could conceivably hide a person—but the moment the closet door swung open, she nearly wanted to cry. Now that most of her clothes had been moved upstairs, the closet had emptied out, and since Yao Qiyun had so few belongings, Xue Shaoping had made good use of the extra space by stuffing several quilts into the gaps.

Everyone knew how quick-tempered Situ Jiu’an could be—there was no way they’d have time to clear out and rearrange all those quilts before hiding safely inside.

“Oh, just dozed off for a bit. Coming…”

Yao Qiyun called out in response. If Situ Jue hadn’t been just as frantic herself, she would have thoroughly enjoyed the sight of him this rattled.

She kicked him furiously, putting an end to whatever plan he’d had to shove her bodily under the bed—the gap between the bed frame and the floor was less than twenty centimeters; who in this room knew that better than she did? Even if she could fold herself in half, she’d suffocate down there.

“If you’re not asleep, we can have a chat.” Situ Jiu’an’s voice was already just outside the door, and Situ Jue could picture exactly what was happening—her not-especially-patient father already had one hand on the doorknob.

Out of options, Situ Jue did something so wild it startled even herself: she yanked open Yao Qiyun’s meticulously folded, tofu-block-neat quilt and dove straight underneath it.

She had no idea whether this would actually hide her—it was exactly like an ostrich burying its head in the sand while its rear end stuck out in plain view—but at the very least, it gave her some psychological sense of safety in the face of the impending disaster.

A second later, she felt someone settle in beside her—more accurately, on top of her. And sure enough, right at that moment, the door opened, Situ Jiu’an letting himself in. Like father, like daughter, indeed—Situ Jue felt even more like crying.

“Really asleep already?” Situ Jiu’an’s voice wasn’t angry yet, still fairly gentle.

Just before her brain started running out of oxygen entirely, Situ Jue partly understood why her father hadn’t immediately spotted the extra person hidden under the quilt. She’d buried herself completely beneath it, pinned flat by Yao Qiyun, who was half draped over her—luckily, neither of them was particularly heavy, and with two rather “thin” bodies concealed beneath the rise and fall of the blanket, the extra bulk was only slightly disguised.

Yao Qiyun braced himself up, half-raised. “I think I might be coming down with a cold, so I lay down for a bit. Did you need something, Uncle Situ?”

Even his voice sounded off—Situ Jue, on the verge of suffocating, could still hear the tremor in it—but Situ Jiu’an probably just took it as the ordinary weakness of a “good kid” who’d caught a cold and hid it rather than worry the adults.

“Caught a cold, did you? I’ll have your Auntie Xue bring you some medicine.” Situ Jiu’an’s voice, full of concern, kept drawing closer to the bed.

“No, no, that’s not necessary. I’ll be fine after some sleep!”

“You’re sure you’re all right?”

“I’m sure, I just need to sleep.”

Yao Qiyun’s evident desperation for “some sleep” seemed to put an end to Situ Jiu’an’s plan to chat, and though he wasn’t entirely at ease—something did seem a little off about the boy—he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Yao Qiyun was so thoughtful, so little trouble, that it was something Situ Jiu’an both admired in him and, at the same time, quietly worried about.

“Well, get some good rest then. I don’t have anything urgent, anyway. Oh, and that girl Situ Jue—her aunt and I have spoiled her rotten, so don’t go easy on her just because you’re kind. I’ll head back upstairs. I’ll have your Auntie Xue bring you some medicine tomorrow.”

And with that, Situ Jiu’an left the room. In all honesty, it was hardly his fault that he’d stood so close and still failed to notice what was really going on under the quilt—clever as he was, there was no way his mind would ever have leapt to that particular conclusion about a pair of teenagers.

Just before Situ Jue turned truly “thin” from lack of air, she heard the door click shut behind her father—a sound that felt, to her, like the very music of survival itself. A few seconds more, and she was certain she’d have become a specimen, crushed to death under someone else’s weight.

Though Yao Qiyun had propped himself up with one arm, the greater part of his weight still bore straight down on her, and buried under the quilt as she was, she could barely breathe. She struggled a little, and Yao Qiyun—more venomous than any snake, it seemed, in his fear of being caught—deliberately clamped his thigh down to pin her in place. If she genuinely ran out of air, it could actually kill her. He was being far too ruthless.

Situ Jue bent her legs and, with everything she had, shoved him bodily off of her. Yao Qiyun, still shaken himself, went along with the momentum and toppled to one side. Neither of them could manage a single word, both staring up at the ceiling, drenched in sweat, gasping like dying fish, simply savoring the sensation of having survived.

Many years later, thinking back on this moment in some foreign country, Situ Jue would suddenly find it both foolish and absurd. None of it had really been necessary at all—even if Situ Jiu’an had caught them by surprise, they could have simply opened the door with perfect composure and claimed they’d been discussing homework or something equally innocent. Even if Situ Jiu’an hadn’t believed a word of it, what possible flaw could he have found in the story? He might even have been genuinely delighted to see them getting along better.

The real question was: why, back then, had neither Situ Jue nor Yao Qiyun’s minds gone anywhere near the obvious explanation, instinctively scrambling to hide instead?

She didn’t know.

And back then, the two of them hadn’t had an answer either.

After a long, long while, Yao Qiyun finally found his voice again, turning his face toward the pillow, and asked hoarsely, “Situ Jue, what exactly are you trying to do?”

In that instant, Situ Jue’s feminine instincts miraculously snapped back into focus, and she registered even faster than he did that the two of them were wrapped in the same quilt, lying together on the same bed—and that Yao Qiyun, only just recovering from the fright, was still breathing unevenly, his whole body rigid.

She kicked him straight off the edge of the bed.

“Yao Qiyun, what exactly are you trying to do?”

And really, from the very beginning, neither of them had ever understood what the other one was really after. It had always been this way between them, right from the start—doubt gnawing quietly at their hearts while their mouths stayed stubbornly shut, neither willing to ask, neither willing to say, only guessing, endlessly guessing.

They were a boy and a girl who had once walked through their youth together, side by side.

Romantics would call it childhood sweethearts, innocent and untroubled.