Yao Qiyun’s face was badly hurt, and that night he went straight to his room, avoiding Xue Shaoping’s eyes for the time being. Mindful that the blow he’d taken was, to some degree, on her account, Situ Jue showered, then crept downstairs to knock on his door, thrusting a bottle of safflower oil into his hands and asking if there was anything else she could do to help.

To her surprise, that foul-tempered Yao Qiyun refused her kindness without a moment’s hesitation, saying he’d be grateful enough if she just didn’t make things worse. His attitude thoroughly crushed the small flicker of goodwill she’d worked up toward him; cursing him inwardly for biting the hand that fed him, she stormed back to her room.

The next morning, getting past Situ Jiu’an wasn’t so easy. Situ Jue had barely stumbled out of her room, still half-asleep, when she heard her early-rising father pressing Yao Qiyun about his injury. Yao Qiyun claimed he’d bumped into the corner of a stool the night before while bending down to pick up a dropped pen — but Situ Jiu’an wasn’t a fool, and didn’t buy it for a second, certain the boy had gotten into a fight somewhere and wouldn’t admit to being bullied.

Situ Jiu’an knew his son wasn’t the type to stir up trouble, so he asked bluntly: “Does this have anything to do with that girl, Situ Jue?”

Listening from upstairs, Situ Jue ground her teeth — what kind of father didn’t trust his own daughter like this? Not once did anyone assume something good might be connected to her.

Fortunately Yao Qiyun had the sense not to drag her into it, and no matter how Situ Jiu’an pressed, he stayed stubbornly tight-lipped. Once Xue Shaoping joined the chorus of “concern,” Situ Jue couldn’t take it anymore and gave them a “truth”: she said she’d run into some thugs on her way home from school and nearly gotten hassled, and it was only thanks to Yao Qiyun stepping in to defend her that she’d gotten away — the hero, naturally, had been gloriously wounded in the process.

To her surprise, Situ Jiu’an and his wife accepted this explanation without much trouble — perhaps it fit best with the picture of Yao Qiyun already fixed in their minds. Situ Jiu’an praised the unreadable Yao Qiyun, then turned right around and scolded his daughter, telling her she was never again to go wandering around in such short skirts.

Situ Jue made a face and muttered, “If I got hit, nobody would worry about me this much.”

Situ Jiu’an snorted. “Be grateful you’re not the one hitting people.”

Watching this scene while trying to smooth things over, Xue Shaoping felt more convinced than ever that keeping Yao Qiyun by her daughter’s side had been an exceptionally wise decision.

As the graduating seniors departed, summer arrived quickly. Lian Quan never called Situ Jue again — not until two weeks later, when Situ Jue and Yao Qiyun, attending the school’s summer English cram class, ran into him after class as he came to collect his acceptance letter.

Situ Jue was no good at the game of pretending not to see someone when their paths crossed, and besides, after so long apart, she genuinely missed him. She went right up to him. “Lian Quan, it’s so good to see you. Did you get your acceptance letter?”

Lian Quan’s gaze landed briefly on the person standing behind Situ Jue and turned cold for an instant, but when he looked back at her bright smile, he couldn’t help returning it. “Yeah.”

The two of them, once so close, so full of whispered secrets, now stood together after days apart as though separated by an invisible veil, with a thousand things to say and no idea where to begin.

It was Situ Jue who decisively took his hand. “Come on, let’s go find somewhere to really talk.”

Lian Quan hesitated for a moment, then quickly nodded. “Let’s go under the trees behind the lab building. Look at you, sweating all over.”

Situ Jue grinned. “Yeah, it’d be a disaster if I got any tanner.”

They walked a few steps side by side, then both seemed to remember something at the same moment, and turned to look back without meaning to.

Yao Qiyun stood there quietly, a few books cradled in his arms.

Lian Quan shook his head with a bitter smile and looked away, toward the empty sports field instead.

Situ Jue said to Yao Qiyun, “Go on home first, I’ll make my own way back later.”

She wasn’t confident he’d actually listen to her — and, she guessed, neither was Lian Quan.

“Forget it, let him do whatever he wants. I’m used to it by now anyway,” Lian Quan said.

Unexpectedly, as they walked off, Yao Qiyun took a few steps forward but didn’t follow further — instead he walked off silently in another direction.

Situ Jue and Lian Quan went straight to the quiet spot beneath the trees. She sat at one end of the stone bench, flipping through his acceptance letter from a prestigious university in Beijing, and said sincerely, “That’s wonderful. Congratulations on getting into that school.”

Lian Quan smiled. “Thanks.”

Beneath this politeness and courtesy, the two of them lapsed into silence again. Strictly speaking, although something unpleasant had happened between them, they hadn’t actually broken up — at least, as of now, they were still officially a couple. Could all those joyful times together really not withstand a single rough patch, falling this quickly into such icy formality?

Situ Jue couldn’t help feeling a pang of sorrow for this first love and the promise still ringing in her ears, and she tried to salvage things. She decided to be direct. “Are you really planning to just ignore me after what happened that night?”

Lian Quan startled, then shook his head.

“I thought you’d call me.” Situ Jue gave a self-deprecating laugh.

Lian Quan said, “I thought about it, but you were so angry that day…”

“I thought about it a lot afterward. I was worked up and said a lot of things out of anger, but you shouldn’t have hit him either. You didn’t call me — I don’t blame you for that, since I didn’t call you either. Let’s just say we both needed to cool off, and call it even. Let’s forget what happened that night.” Situ Jue lifted her face and looked at him earnestly.

“Forget it? Can we really? Yao Qiyun — does forgetting him make him not exist?” Lian Quan’s voice was full of conflict.

Situ Jue let go of his hand, her voice gradually cooling. “Then what exactly do you want? I don’t like this wishy-washy side of you. Lian Quan, let’s just say it plainly — I can’t promise to make Yao Qiyun disappear entirely, but what’s between us is between us. If I can’t do anything about him, then let’s just focus on ourselves. I’ll apologize for losing my temper that night. If you’re willing, we can go back to how things were. If you don’t want to be with me anymore, just say so, and we’ll end it today — I won’t force you into anything.”

Hearing this, Lian Quan slowly reached out and pulled Situ Jue into his arms. “Situ, I really do like you.”

Situ Jue let out a long breath, slowly lifting her head in his embrace to watch the glimmers of gold flickering through the leaves overhead, while cicadas shrieked hysterically in the branches, their cries leaving a hollow feeling in her chest.

Situ Jue and Lian Quan seemed to have patched things up. He would head north for school once summer ended, and over the following month they met up a number of times. On non-school days, finding the chance to actually spend time together wasn’t as easy as it sounded — the “thugs” incident had made her parents even more anxious about her, and they kept a tighter watch on her going out at night. The few times she used buying something or visiting the library as an excuse to see Lian Quan, Yao Qiyun tagged along too.

For some reason, ever since that incident, Yao Qiyun no longer stuck quite so close. Whenever she and Lian Quan met up, he made himself scarce with practiced ease, giving them plenty of space. But there’s truth to the old saying that a shattered mirror is hard to make whole again — and though the mirror between Situ Jue and Lian Quan, once cracked, had been held together with strong glue and looked the same as before, the crack was still there, unavoidably.

They both grew careful, always afraid of brushing against some unspoken taboo without meaning to. After small quarrels, they fell more easily into long silences, and in those quiet moments, neither knew what the other was thinking, nor bothered to break the silence first.

What was more absurd was that in the old days, when Yao Qiyun the diligent guardian of morals stood watch nearby, Situ Jue — operating on the principle of “infuriate him or die trying” — had wanted to make as much noise as possible whenever she and Lian Quan got close. Now, with Yao Qiyun who-knew-where, in a space that belonged entirely and freely to her and Lian Quan, she instead felt something was off — the hugging, the kissing, all of it had lost its spark. In the past, time alone together always seemed to fly by, and they’d have to say a reluctant goodbye before they’d even finished talking. Now, after sitting and talking for what felt like ages, she’d check her watch and find only ten-odd minutes had passed.

Situ Jue and Lian Quan’s “dates” kept ending faster and faster, and even Yao Qiyun, waiting at their usual spot to walk her home, picked up on something being off. Situ Jue was utterly baffled by the gradual souring of this relationship — resentful of that pivotal, sharp downturn on the night at the botanical garden, and secretly hating her own inexplicable perversity: after finally getting free of Yao Qiyun’s interference, why had her enthusiasm evaporated the moment the pest was gone?

Watching her walk away from Lian Quan looking so gloomy, Yao Qiyun grew more and more puzzled, until finally, unable to hold back, he asked with feigned casualness, “Did Lian Quan mistreat you?”

At times like this, Situ Jue would usually leap to contradict him, insisting she had no idea how happy she was with Lian Quan. She’d rather die than admit they were gradually running out of things to say to each other; instead, she’d exaggerate and embellish, painting a picture of sweetness with Lian Quan in front of Yao Qiyun. He’d listen in silence, never offering an opinion, a faint mocking smile on his face.

He said, “Is there any point being together like this?”

Situ Jue answered, “Of course there is — though someone as clueless as you wouldn’t understand even if I explained.”

“Vulgar!” He delivered this one-word verdict.

Situ Jue reached out unexpectedly and touched his face. The instant her hand made contact, he flinched away as if shocked, his whole body flushing red, eyes blazing. “What are you doing, Situ Jue?”

Situ Jue smirked. “If you were really above such petty things, you’d be perfectly calm about it — look how spooked you got. No experience of the world at all — how vulgar!”

Although her relationship with Lian Quan had become a case of tasteless leftovers, Situ Jue hadn’t thought about how to end it — after all, Lian Quan had never brought it up himself, and this was the first relationship of her life; instinctively, she wanted to cherish it.

At the end of August, Lian Quan left G City, boarding a flight to Beijing ahead of schedule. He’d always been going to leave, so Situ Jue didn’t think much of that part. What she couldn’t accept was that he not only hadn’t let her see him off, but that she only found out he’d already left from an offhand remark Meimei made in passing.

Her shock at hearing the news left even Meimei stunned. “Situ Jue, what kind of girlfriend even are you?”

Situ Jue made no further attempt to contact Lian Quan, and that was how things between them came to an awkward close. Lian Quan’s leaving without a word wounded Situ Jue’s pride badly; more than heartbreak, what she felt was frustration — an overwhelming, all-consuming frustration that left her low-spirited for quite a while afterward.

This was the first time Situ Jue had watched, helpless, as a relationship slowly died right in front of her — wanting desperately to save it, yet only able to watch it drift further and further away. That feeling of powerlessness was bitterly chilling.

Only then did she learn that some things in this world simply couldn’t be earned through “effort” alone.

Had she known it would end like this, she’d almost rather it had ended in one final blowup after a fight — at least then there’d be something fierce and vivid worth remembering, better than watching a love slowly burn itself out into a heap of listless, worn-out cotton wadding. Or better yet, if they’d simply never seen each other again after that furious parting at the botanical garden that night — then she could still blame Yao Qiyun, could still tell herself he’d ruined her first love. Unfortunately, she couldn’t fool herself that way anymore. The real culprit wasn’t Yao Qiyun — it was her own failure to understand love.

Wu Jiang got into the best medical university in the region without trouble. His way of comforting Situ Jue was to sling an arm around her shoulders with a grin and say, “Playtime’s over — come back to the squad. Your buddy won’t hold it against you.” Situ Jue kicked him irritably.

At times like this, it was Meimei, a fellow girl, who was truly thoughtful, sitting with Situ Jue and sighing over the whole thing for so long that Situ Jue started to wonder if Meimei was more broken up about it than she was.

“You had the tastiest catch everyone was drooling over, and you went and lost him — what a waste… but the guys lined up behind Lian Quan must be thrilled.” Meimei sat on Situ Jue’s bed, digging through clothes suitable for meeting an internet friend. Seeing Situ Jue sitting there glumly with no reaction, she scooted closer with a mysterious look and whispered in her ear, “Honestly, is it because of Yao Qiyun?”

Situ Jue exploded instantly. “Get lost…”

Meimei flopped backward onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, and said in a dreamy voice, “Actually, if you ask me, your family’s little Yao isn’t bad at all — such a waste, one person parched to death while another drowns, sigh!”

Situ Jue reached out, trembling, to feel her best friend’s forehead. “Chen Jiamei, is that really you, Chen Jiamei? You sure you don’t have a fever?”

No wonder Situ Jue was baffled — Meimei had known her for years, had watched Yao Qiyun arrive at her house, and had teased that unpolished country boy no end. Now she was suddenly calling him “not bad” — unless her brain had fried itself somehow.

Meimei grabbed Situ Jue and pulled her down to lie side by side on the bed, then propped herself up on one elbow. “I’m telling you, Yao Qiyun’s changed a lot these past two years, especially after he got his braces off… We’re too stuck on the image of him back when he was scrawny and malnourished-looking, but the younger girls see it differently — I heard some of them have been quietly asking around about him, and apparently they think that aloof, standoffish air of his is really got something going for it. Situ, is the water at your house just that nourishing? Turning a country bumpkin into someone presentable like that? Maybe I should start mooching meals at your place too.”

Situ Jue made a face like she wanted to gag but couldn’t, and, mimicking Meimei, gazed dreamily at the ceiling too — where, somehow, Yao Qiyun’s face materialized.

Had he changed? They say the people you see every day are the hardest to notice changing. Thinking about it now, his hair wasn’t the messy, dry, yellowish mop it used to be — it was soft now, the opposite of his temperament, but still very black. His skin had gotten a little fairer too, after so long living in the city, with the Situ family’s comfortable circumstances — the country roughness had faded. As for the braces… thinking of the suffering he’d gone through getting his teeth straightened, Situ Jue’s own mouth practically ached in sympathy — but at least the results were good; his whole face had come out looking proper and even.

But still — just proper. That was all.

“I think he’s pretty average,” Situ Jue said seriously.

“Situ, you have to look at things with a developing perspective. Yao Qiyun is the type where you might not even glance at him walking toward you, but once he’s passed by and you look back at him from behind, you could kick yourself for not noticing sooner.”

“I feel like he’s the type you want to kick on sight, and then stomp flat for good measure,” Situ Jue said irritably. “Since you like him so much, I’ll just marry him off to you.”

Meimei and Situ Jue dissolved into giggling chaos.

“I couldn’t handle him. Besides, he’s not yours to give away, is he?”

Right in the middle of their laughter, a knock came at the door. Situ Jue’s face went red; she quickly signaled for Meimei to be quiet, jumped off the bed, and opened it — and sure enough, there stood the very person she’d just “married off.”

Situ Jue stared at him, Meimei’s “kick him” theory replaying in her mind. Under her scrutiny, Yao Qiyun grew visibly uncomfortable, tossing the clothes he’d just retrieved at her and saying, “I re-sewed the buttons on your uniform. Honestly, with sewing like yours, I’m starting to question your gender.”

“Your sewing makes me question your gender too!” Situ Jue tossed the clothes back onto the bed, flustered. Meimei, ever nosy, dug out the uniform and, spotting the neat, tidy buttons, began making scandalized noises.

Only then did Yao Qiyun notice there was someone else there; his face flushed with embarrassment, and he beat a hasty retreat.

After he left, Meimei’s scandalized noises kept coming in waves. “He even collects your underwear off the line for you — oh, my poor heart can’t take this…”

“If you can’t take it, then leave, you filthy-minded girl!” Situ Jue was mortified too, though she forced her face into an expression of perfect normalcy.

Meimei checked the time and suddenly panicked. “I really do need to go meet my internet friend.”

Situ Jue walked Meimei downstairs, then, on impulse, suggested, “I’m bored out of my mind — why don’t you take me with you?”

Meimei refused without even thinking about it. “I don’t want a comparison like you standing next to me.”

After seeing her friend off, Situ Jue turned back, dejected. Her whole summer had been unbearably dull — Wu Jiang had gone off backpacking with a group of friends, but her parents, worried about the danger, hadn’t let her go; Lian Quan was gone; even Meimei wouldn’t take her along. With school about to start again, she felt even more restless and irritable.

Walking with her head down, she didn’t notice the dining table until she slammed into it, wincing in pain.

Yao Qiyun stood in his doorway. “Situ Jue, lost your mind somewhere?”

“None of your business!” Situ Jue shot him a glare.

Surprisingly, Yao Qiyun didn’t fire back. After an awkward pause, he said slowly, “So… you want to go shopping?”

“Shopping? You, coming with me?” It wasn’t that she didn’t understand — it was that the world was changing far too fast.

He made another noncommittal sound, looking like he was about to give up on the idea. “Never mind if you don’t want to.”

Situ Jue grabbed him quickly. “You said it, no taking it back. And it’s not just carrying my bags — if you’re really coming along to ‘shop’ with me, you have to wait outside when I try on clothes, and also…”

“Lend you money, is that it?” Yao Qiyun actually laughed, a rare thing.

“Smart of you to figure that out.”

On the principle of treating both children equally, Situ Jiu’an gave them the exact same allowance. But Situ Jue had lots of friends and more chances to foot the bill when out with them, and being naturally generous, she was always the one classmates and friends turned to when they needed to borrow money — so she never had much left over. Yao Qiyun was the exact opposite; he always had a surplus, the kind of “invisible rich man” who never knew where to spend his money, so naturally he ended up as Situ Jue’s creditor.

Situ Jue dashed upstairs to change. Seeing the two of them heading out together, Xue Shaoping naturally had nothing to say about it.

In truth, accompanying Situ Jue shopping was grueling work — left unchecked, she could shop from sunrise to sunset. This had always been the one thing Yao Qiyun couldn’t stand; he used to say, “You act like you’ll die if you don’t buy one more piece of clothing.”

But this time, he stretched his patience to its absolute limit, staying by her side the entire time except for briefly disappearing on the lingerie floor. She couldn’t exactly expect him to offer eager, enthusiastic opinions while she picked out clothes, but at least every time she asked “How does this look?” he managed a single syllable of acknowledgment. By the time night fell and his face had turned faintly green from exhaustion, carrying bags large and small out of the mall, he still hadn’t uttered a single complaint.

They say shopping can clear all the murky air out of a woman’s chest, and standing at the mall entrance watching the neon lights just switching on, Situ Jue suddenly felt a surge of boldness, a sense of clarity. Maybe what she’d been tangled up over wasn’t Lian Quan leaving without a word, but her own wounded pride — but since it was over anyway, why cling to the manner of its ending? He was gone, and the night was just as lovely as ever; nothing would change, except that she no longer had to force herself to love for love’s sake.

Catching a cab outside the mall entrance was always difficult, so Yao Qiyun and Situ Jue walked together to another intersection. Seeing his hands full of shopping bags, Situ Jue reached out to take some of the weight off him.

“It’s fine, I’ve got it.” Yao Qiyun wouldn’t let her.

Situ Jue looked at him with a half-smile and finally voiced the question that had been on her mind all day. “You can tell me now, right? Why were you so nice to me today?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

“It’s about the Lian Quan thing, isn’t it — your conscience bothering you?” Situ Jue eyed him sideways.

She knew Yao Qiyun well enough.

Watching her mope and sulk for days on end, Yao Qiyun had, for some reason, started to feel a little guilty himself. If he hadn’t lost his temper that day, if she hadn’t unexpectedly taken his side, maybe things wouldn’t have turned out this way.

“I guess so. I really couldn’t stand watching you look so miserable all the time,” Yao Qiyun said.

“I’m not miserable at all. I was already planning to break up with him anyway.” Situ Jue walked with her hands behind her back, wobbling along the paving-stone lines on the sidewalk.

“Why?” Yao Qiyun didn’t believe her.

“Hmm, because he can’t sew buttons,” Situ Jue said with a grin. After a moment, seeming to feel the joke was a bit unkind, she cleared her throat and pulled one of the bags from his hands.

“This one’s for you.”

Yao Qiyun didn’t register it for a second. “For me? You bought me something?”

“Why the face?”

He’d actually meant to look more indifferent, but he hadn’t quite managed it. He stopped and opened the bag.

Inside was nothing extraordinary — just several pairs of socks, some for summer, some for winter.

As a boy, Yao Qiyun had rarely wanted to buy things for himself. Though Uncle Situ gave him an allowance, he never dared spend it carelessly. Fortunately he didn’t have to worry about food or clothing day-to-day — his clothes came either from Xue Shaoping or Situ Jiu’an. Situ Jiu’an especially, having come from a hard background himself, didn’t want Yao Qiyun, raised in the countryside, to be mocked by classmates for looking unpolished, so he liked to buy him rather pricey outfits — T-shirts, jackets, coats, sportswear, even underwear. Yao Qiyun never lacked for any of it; sometimes he even had more than he could wear through. But Situ Jiu’an was, after all, a man, and inevitably overlooked certain details — socks being the one thing he’d never once bought for Yao Qiyun, and Xue Shaoping, who managed the household’s everyday needs, always seemed to overlook it too.

Whatever Situ Jue lacked, she could shamelessly demand from her parents. Yao Qiyun couldn’t do that. Occasionally he’d buy himself a few pairs on his own, but he rarely had the chance to go out shopping, so when his socks got holes in them, he’d carefully mend them himself. He’d never once mentioned this small, awkward hardship, and had never imagined Situ Jue would notice.

“Don’t you dare get all sentimental about it. I can’t stand holey socks — if I ever catch sight of a patch again, I’m done with you.” Situ Jue said it irritably.

Yao Qiyun closed the bag wordlessly, without a word to say. Crossing the street, an impatient Situ Jue charged forward without looking, and he freed a hand to grab hers, pulling her clear of a car running the red light, then held her hand tightly threaded through his fingers, guiding her through the crowd.

“Situ Jue, your eyes aren’t just for reading comics. Watch where you’re going, for heaven’s sake — do you have a death wish?”

Even knowing he meant well, Situ Jue was still irritated by his words. “You’re the one with a death wish. What’s wrong with reading comics? I’ll have you know my period started today, I’m in a foul mood, so don’t push me.”

Yao Qiyun scoffed. “Your period just ended two weeks ago and now it’s back again? Aren’t you worried about hemorrhaging?”

Situ Jue nearly lost it from fury, stomped hard on his foot, and yanked her hand free.