As it turned out, San Pi’s rules for the game hadn’t been thought through quite well enough. By the time the “Pairing Up” game wound down, only four people remained: Yao Qiyun, Situ Jie, Wu Jiang, and Qu Xiaowan. With so few players left, and conveniently an even number, no matter how small the circle shrank, whenever the drumming stopped they always ended up perfectly paired off, with no clear way to determine an ultimate winner. The game dragged on so long the audience grew restless, so San Pi — who’d been eliminated early and was still smarting over it — seized the opportunity as host to simply call the game to an end.

Once the game was over, everyone naturally returned to their own business. Yao Qiyun took a few steps before realizing he was still holding tightly onto Situ Jie’s hand, while nearby, Wu Jiang — whose feelings for Qu Xiaowan were obvious to everyone but Qu Xiaowan herself — had already let go of her hand. Yao Qiyun felt a deep pang of embarrassment at his own “carelessness” and, flustered, quickly released her.

But he let go too abruptly, and with too much force. To Situ Jie, who had no idea what was going through his head, it felt as though he’d flung her hand away in front of everyone, and combined with the way he avoided her eyes, red-faced, she naturally read it as coldness and rejection. There was no way someone as proud as Situ Jie could swallow that. Her expression, which had only just cleared after the earlier storm, clouded right back over. Just then, Wu Jiang came bounding over cheerfully to pull Situ Jie along, saying she wanted to properly introduce her to Qu Xiaowan. Situ Jie happily nodded and went along with her, leaving Yao Qiyun standing there with an unreadable expression on his face and a churning frustration underneath it, watching her back retreat coldly away from him.

From a distance, Yao Qiyun watched Situ Jie fall easily into conversation with the girl standing beside Wu Jiang. Wu Jiang seemed to say something funny, and the three of them burst into laughter together. For some reason, wherever Situ Jie went, the light always seemed to shine that much brighter around her. She’d never lacked for friends, never known loneliness — surrounded by so many admiring eyes, there was nothing to lose by having a falling-out with someone as unremarkable as him.

He lowered his head, pulling absently at the grass by his feet, when he suddenly heard Xiao Gen mutter, puzzled, “Huh? Where’d Shaocheng go?”

By then, the bonfire party, whipped into a frenzy by host San Pi, was cycling through one energetic high point after another. Young people always seemed to have endless energy to burn, throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the laughter and noise. Xiao Gen stood up to scan the crowded circle, while Yao Qiyun instinctively glanced toward the quietest, least noticed corner of it. Sure enough, not far off, a lonely figure was slipping away from the crowd, limping toward the small grove of trees now swallowed in darkness.

The grove had been cool and pleasantly green in daylight, but no one could say what dangers might be lurking there after dark. Yao Qiyun, already in a low mood and preoccupied with his own troubles, had meant to signal Xiao Gen, but the scatterbrained boy had already craned his neck off in some other direction entirely. With no other choice, Yao Qiyun tossed aside the grass in his hand, irritated, and hurried after the retreating figure.

He caught up with Tan Shaocheng at the edge of the woods and stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

“What are you doing? This is the middle of nowhere — don’t you know it’s dangerous to wander off alone at night?”

Tan Shaocheng said nothing, tears falling silently. “Just leave me alone.”

She couldn’t understand why Yao Qiyun, who was normally so polite and courteous, would suddenly speak to her in such a harsh tone. “You think I want to worry about you? I can’t even manage my own problems. But is whatever this is really worth risking your safety over? If something happened to you, plenty of people here would be held responsible.”

Tan Shaocheng’s tears fell harder, and she bent forward slightly as she wept. “Who would even care? What am I, anyway? I know I’m backward and awkward, like some kind of freak — nobody thinks anything of me!”

“If you want other people to think something of you, you have to think something of yourself first!” Yao Qiyun said loudly, then lowered his head, as if repeating the words to himself. “That’s right. You have to respect yourself first. Dignity isn’t something anyone else gives you — it’s like the last piece of clothing on your body. Other people might not even care what’s underneath it, but if you strip it off yourself, there really will be nothing left.”

He gestured toward the noise and light of the crowd. “I’m heading back. Do whatever you want. Xiao Gen’s out there looking for you — he’s worried.”

With that, he really did turn and walk away, leaving the tearful Tan Shaocheng standing there alone. A moment later, he heard footsteps following behind him — heavy and dragging.

“Is it your foot again?” he asked, glancing back at Tan Shaocheng, who was hesitantly following him toward the lights.

Tan Shaocheng shook her head, trying to make each step look normal, though her brow furrowed slightly, unconsciously, from the pain.

Yao Qiyun sighed and stopped. “Lift your foot. Let me see.”

She stood still at first, then, in the silence of his waiting, slowly slipped her foot out of her shoe. Blood had seeped through the bandage wrapped around the sole of her foot at some point.

“Your foot’s in this state, and you still insisted on playing that game earlier?”

Tan Shaocheng gave a bitter smile. “I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but getting invited to this camp felt like falling down a rabbit hole — so many unfamiliar people, so many unfamiliar things, my head was spinning and I had no idea what to do. I was so desperate to fit in with everyone that I forced myself to be braver than I really am, thinking that if I could just meet more people, join in on more things, I could be like everyone else. Instead I ended up making a complete fool of myself. But different is different — while other kids were learning piano, I was out herding cattle and gathering firewood. There’s no point lying to myself about that.” She wiped the tears from her face as she spoke. “You’re right, though. I shouldn’t look down on myself. Even if I’m different from everyone else, I should still try to be better than them.”

Yao Qiyun said nothing in response, simply reaching out to help her up.

Watching Yao Qiyun carefully keep his distance from her even as he helped, Tan Shaocheng suddenly said, with real sincerity, “Thank you. You’re a good person.” She said it with a small smile — not the guarded, humble smile she’d worn before, but one that came from genuine gratitude and warmth.

Yao Qiyun helped Tan Shaocheng back toward the crowd, then had her sit down under a tree while he went to find the upperclassman in charge of the medical kit to help rebandage her wound. Xiao Gen came over too, fussing over her with concerned questions. Once he was sure she’d calmed down and that the wound wasn’t serious, Yao Qiyun made an excuse to slip away, leaving Xiao Gen to keep her company.

After all that, the party was winding down, and most people had broken into small groups of two or three, still chatting and laughing, reluctant for the night to end. He spotted Situ Jie easily among the crowd. Oddly, Wu Jiang was nowhere in sight, and Situ Jie was surrounded instead by a few unfamiliar boys — one of them the tall, sturdy boy who’d refused to let go of her hand during the game.

And yet Situ Jie, the center of everyone’s attention, seemed noticeably off. Whether it was a trick of the lighting or not, her complexion looked poor, and even her usually radiant smile seemed somewhat forced.

Even though he knew perfectly well he’d get nothing but grief for approaching her right now, Yao Qiyun had been watching from a distance for a while and still couldn’t shake his unease. He steeled himself and walked over near the group, and since there were people around who had nothing to do with them, he called out from a distance instead. “Situ Jie, come here. I need to talk to you about something.”

Situ Jie turned toward his voice, pursing her lips. “You call and I’m supposed to come running? Am I a dog? If you’ve got something to say, why can’t you come over here?”

Yao Qiyun swallowed his irritation and walked over as she’d demanded, pulling her up from where she sat on the grass and leading her a few steps away.

Situ Jie shook him off with obvious distaste. “If you’ve got something to say, say it. What’s with all the grabbing?”

Yao Qiyun finally lost his temper. He didn’t even know why he was always so quick to swing between joy and anger around her, so unable to keep himself in check. He brushed off his hands, as if there were dust on them. “Why does your face look so awful? Did you take the wrong medicine or something?”

Situ Jie answered without a moment’s hesitation. “Is that any of your business? Do you actually think you’re some kind of hero, riding in to rescue every damsel in distress? Save that act for someone who’s into it — I’m not interested.”

She showed him no mercy at all, and Yao Qiyun stopped being gentle in turn, his expression turning cold and mocking. “If your mother hadn’t practically begged me before we left to keep an eye on you, I wouldn’t give a damn whether you lived or died!”

“Get lost!” Situ Jie’s face went even paler, and she flailed at him with both hands and feet as if swatting away a fly. “Just get out of here!”

“I’ve got legs, I don’t need to be told to get lost. Besides, don’t worry, I was already leaving. Suit yourself.” Yao Qiyun dropped that line and walked off. He didn’t need to look back to imagine the murderous glare Situ Jie was surely giving him. As he walked, the urge to go back and give her a piece of his mind — and himself a couple more, to knock some sense into them both — grew stronger with every step. What was wrong with them? Why couldn’t they ever just talk to each other normally? He could put up with the most tiresome people without complaint, look on coldly at even the most detestable ones — so why was Situ Jie the one person he couldn’t just let go?

He knew perfectly well something had to be wrong with Situ Jie, so he didn’t go far. And in fact, something really was wrong with her — badly wrong. The problem was her stomach. Growing up, Situ Jie had always had Xue Shaoping, a firm believer in scientific nutrition, managing every detail of her meals; not once in her life had her three meals a day gone off schedule, and she’d never known real hunger. This time, with the picnic thrown into chaos, she’d been too worked up to eat, and had then eaten Wu Jiang’s chocolate on an empty stomach, followed by a cold night breeze — and now her stomach felt like it was being jabbed, again and again, by an awl.

By the time Wu Jiang took her over to meet Qu Xiaowan, she’d already been feeling unwell, but she was afraid that if Wu Jiang noticed and got worried about her, it would ruin things between her and Qu Xiaowan — so she’d forced herself to keep smiling and chatting normally the whole time, even turning down Wu Jiang’s suggestion that the three of them take a walk by the water together. Wu Jiang hadn’t wanted to leave her on her own — that was just what a good friend she was — so Situ Jie knew better than to be the awkward third wheel.

After seeing Wu Jiang off, Situ Jie finally found a spot to catch her breath, only to realize that not a single person she knew was anywhere in sight. A few unfamiliar boys quickly came over to chat her up, but when she caught sight of Yao Qiyun walking slowly back from the direction of the small woods, supporting Tan Shaocheng, it wasn’t just her stomach that ached — even her liver seemed to twist with pain. Well, fine — now the two of them had gone and had another huge fight, which at least bought her some peace and quiet. She hurt too much to even feel like talking anymore, which conveniently left her no energy to dwell on anything else upsetting.

As it turned out, the boys who’d come over to flirt weren’t entirely thoughtless. After chatting with her for a while, the tall, sturdy one was the first to notice that Situ Jie’s listless mood wasn’t a reaction to his jokes falling flat, but a sign she wasn’t feeling well — and noticing the way she kept unconsciously pressing a hand to her stomach, he guessed the rest. He hurried off to ask whether there was anything for stomach pain in the medical kit.

At first, Yao Qiyun barely registered the boy dashing off toward the person in charge of the medical supplies. But when the boy came hurrying back to Situ Jie’s side with the medicine and found her bottled water to help her take it, something in Yao Qiyun’s chest lurched. He rushed over to ask the upperclassman what exactly the boy had just gotten.

Once he learned it had been stomach medicine Situ Jie had just swallowed, an indescribable feeling washed over Yao Qiyun. How could he have been so careless? He’d always assumed that no one understood her better than he did, after all their time together — that no one was better positioned to look after her than he was. He’d known full well she’d gone without eating all night, known full well that unless she truly couldn’t bear it any longer, someone as proud as her would never let her discomfort show in front of others — and yet somehow he hadn’t seen this coming, and worse, he’d spent that time picking a fight with her instead. He wasn’t even as good as a total stranger.

While his thoughts were still in turmoil, Yao Qiyun overheard the upperclassman in charge of the medical kit talking with another boy behind him.

“Look at that, what a wasted chance,” one of them said. “The medicine was in your hands, and someone else got to be the hero.”

“Ah, forget it, both of us. We’re just toads dreaming of swan meat — no chance there.”

“You never know. Besides, even if she is a swan, she’s a ‘black swan.’ If she were just a shade lighter, I’d throw caution to the wind completely, no one could stop me.”

“Quit fooling yourself. Honestly, I think she looks pretty good just as she is — that smile of hers is seriously distracting… not that it matters, guys like us don’t get that kind of luck, wouldn’t even be my turn if it came around…”

Watching the two of them dissolve into laughter, humming some pop tune between themselves, Yao Qiyun realized his hands had somehow curled into tight fists. When other people had carelessly mocked her skin tone, he’d been furious. But hearing them fantasize about her like this, his anger went past fury entirely. What right did he have to stop any of it? If it weren’t for riding on Situ Jie’s father’s goodwill to share a roof with her, how was he any different from these two — except for being even more shameful and unseemly underneath it all?

Once the gathering broke up, it was time to set up camp, and everyone went to collect their assigned single-person tents from the organizers. For beginners, pitching a tent was no small task, especially for the girls. But that wasn’t what Situ Jie had to worry about — instead, several boys had gathered around her tent, arguing heatedly over the best way to set it up. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, she pitched a perfectly proper tent herself, right in front of all of them, successfully driving them off through sheer action.

Once she’d retreated into her tent, the noise around her gradually faded, and she guessed that plenty of others had, like her, withdrawn into their own small private worlds, savoring this rare night out in the countryside. What was he doing right now? Probably going to great lengths to help that pitiful “little wife” of his set up her tent, basking in the pleasure of being adored. He’d never imagine that the formidable “landlady” herself was on the verge of total exhaustion, drained dry over something as small as a tent.

Overcome with fatigue, Situ Jie drifted quickly into a deep, uneasy sleep. In her dream, her mother was tending to her carefully, wiping the cold sweat from her forehead, saying, “It’s all right now, it’s all right, Mommy’s precious girl…” But even that dream wasn’t allowed to last — someone was determined to interrupt it.

“Situ Jie, are you asleep?”

Situ Jie cursed silently to herself — if she were really asleep, how could she possibly answer? She mumbled, muffled, “Situ Jie’s not in this tent.”

He said instead, “If you’re not coming out, then I’m coming in.”

Before she could respond, Yao Qiyun had already bent down and crawled in through the tent’s opening.

Situ Jie had just taken off her jeans to use as a pillow. Seeing him come in, she hurriedly grabbed the thin blanket she’d been issued and pulled it over herself, snapping, “What are you, a burglar?”

Yao Qiyun set down, one by one, everything he’d brought with him — a small blanket that could double as a pillow, mosquito repellent, toiletries, her skincare products, and even some snacks.

“Yao Qiyun, does your family run a convenience store or something?”

“Not my family’s store,” Yao Qiyun said. “It’s Qu Yuan’s wife’s family store.”

Even someone as quick-witted as Situ Jie found herself completely stumped by that bizarre remark. Baffled, she asked, “What does that even mean?”

Yao Qiyun smiled. “Qu Yuan’s wife’s family name was Chen. All this stuff is from the Chen family’s shop.” — a groan-worthy pun on the name of a well-known drugstore chain.

Situ Jie was so horrified by how spectacularly bad the joke was that she actually shivered, reaching out with a trembling hand to check his forehead. Her stomach was the one hurting, not her brain — which meant something must genuinely be wrong with him.

He dodged her hand, resting it instead on his own bent knee, his smile fading as he spoke. “All right, I was wrong this time. Don’t be mad anymore, okay? Feeling any better?”

Situ Jie’s eyes suddenly stung, but she kept up her stubborn front. “What are you talking about, I’m fine. Just get out already, don’t blame me if someone sees you in here!”

“You’ve got no color left in your face and you’re still putting on an act? Do you not realize stomach pain can turn serious? Honestly, you don’t know how to take care of yourself at all.”

That set Situ Jie off again. “My mom’s not here right now, and I’m not going to badmouth you to her once we’re back, so why bother pretending to care now? Besides, I’m not that pathetic — I don’t need anyone fussing over me like I’m made of glass.”

“We’re back to this again. From start to finish, helping her was just basic decency to a stranger — I’d have done the same for anyone in that situation. A’Jue, can you try, just once, not looking at someone through tinted glasses? She’s not the scheming villain you think she is. If it were you, and you ran into some perfectly ordinary person who needed the smallest bit of help, would you really refuse? And besides, if you think I did something wrong, you’re free to just say so — why bottle it all up instead?”

“You don’t need to explain any of this to me. Whatever’s going on between the two of you is none of my business. This is my tent, and it’s a single tent — single, do you understand what that means?” Situ Jie shoved him toward the exit without waiting for a response.

Frustrated, Yao Qiyun blurted out, “Situ Jie, if you’re this worked up over me and her, are you jealous?”

Situ Jie exploded. “As if! Look in a mirror before you say something that ridiculous. Get out of here right now, I don’t want to look at you.”

Yao Qiyun fended off her flailing hands while continuing, “If that’s really what this is about, then what about you cozying up to those boys back there? Did I say anything?”

“You have the nerve to bring that up? Have you cared at all whether I lived or died tonight? I’ve been in agony and you’ve been off having the time of your life!” Situ Jie hurled whatever she could grab at him, but since they were pressed so close together in the cramped tent, most of what she threw at him bounced right back and hit her instead.

Even Yao Qiyun wasn’t entirely sure how he ended up pulling her into his arms. He told himself it was the only way to keep her from thrashing around and hurting herself further.

“Fine, I admit it, it was my fault, all right? Let’s stop fighting, A’Jue. Whatever else there is to sort out, we can deal with it later. You don’t look well, and you’re covered in sweat…”

“You’re not the one in pain.”

“How do you know it doesn’t hurt me too, seeing you like this?”

Situ Jie fell silent. The two of them stayed there, breathing hard, wrapped together in the cramped tent, an odd, charged silence stretching on — neither of them willing to break it, yet neither willing to acknowledge what it meant either.

Finally, Yao Qiyun let out a wry laugh. “Let’s hope no one’s listening outside. With the racket we just made, they’ll think something… improper is going on in here.”

“And you’re saying nothing’s going on right now?” Situ Jie shot back out of habit, then realized how that sounded and, blushing, added hastily, “I mean, you’re holding me against my will. That’s terrible of you.”

Yao Qiyun let go of her, then suddenly went stiff and turned his face sharply away.

“What now?” Situ Jie asked, baffled, staring at the back of his reddening ears. It took her a moment to realize that during their scuffle, the thin blanket covering her had long since slipped away entirely, and looking down, she found her bare legs exposed beneath the hem of her T-shirt.

She let out a yelp and yanked the blanket up over her head entirely. “This is all your fault!”

Yao Qiyun held back a laugh. “Sure, everything’s my fault. But Situ Jie, could you maybe try, every once in a while, not flying off the handle before you even think things through?”

“Oh, so it’s always me who’s wrong, and she’s perfect in every way, is that it?” Situ Jie shot back, sulking.

Yao Qiyun’s tone turned serious. “It’s exactly because it’s you that I bother saying any of this at all. If it were anyone else, why would I care?”

Situ Jie poked her head out from under the blanket. “So you’re saying she’s just anyone else to you?”

“Obviously!”

Situ Jie gave a small “Hmph,” though her mood, miraculously, lifted at once. A breeze stirred the tent, and Yao Qiyun brushed a hand lightly over her bare arm. “Cold?”

She nodded and wrapped the blanket tighter around herself. If only she still had that long-sleeved hoodie — it would have helped at least a little.

“Want me to find you something to wear?” Yao Qiyun said, already moving to get up.

Situ Jie grabbed his arm. “Where would you even find one? I’m not wearing someone else’s clothes.” She looked him over. “And you’ve got no manners at all — why don’t you take off your own shirt and put it over me? That’s how it always goes on TV.”

Yao Qiyun looked half annoyed, half amused. “It’s not that I don’t want to give it to you — this is the only shirt I’ve got on me. Even the leading man on TV isn’t going to strip down completely for the leading lady, you know.”

Situ Jie lay back down, and Yao Qiyun tucked the blanket in around her. The way she curled in on herself told him her stomach still hadn’t fully settled.

“Yao Qiyun, talk to me for a while,” Situ Jie said, her words trailing off, half-formed.

“Just go to sleep.”

She shifted a little and patted the empty space beside her. “Will you lie down here?”

Yao Qiyun froze, hesitating at first — but he couldn’t bring himself to refuse. He carefully lay down on his side next to her. The single-person tent left absolutely no room to spare, and with neither of them particularly slight, they ended up pressed close together, close enough that her hair tickled his face, close enough that he could smell her shampoo and feel, through her back, the steady thud of her heartbeat. There was nothing remotely comfortable about lying like that — asking “cold?” again at this point would have been a genuinely foolish question, because with her this close, he felt like an ant on a hot skillet.

And of course, Situ Jie only made things worse. Fumbling around, she found his hand and pulled it in under the blanket with her. The instant his hand touched her skin, something in Yao Qiyun’s head roared. He forced himself to hold still, terrified his hand might not obey him, nearly biting through his own lip in the effort to stay in control.

He wanted to say, “A’Jue, is this really a good idea?” But another part of him was selfishly indulging his own desire, unwilling to voice words that ran so completely against what he actually felt. No matter where she led his hand, hadn’t this been exactly what he’d longed for, ever since that first day of half-formed awareness, clutching her photo, unable to stop thinking about her?

His hand came to rest at her waist, feeling the soft curve of it, and then she guided it further down. Just as he felt he couldn’t hold back any longer, Situ Jie pressed his hand still, stopping it at a certain spot. The tide of Yao Qiyun’s rising desire finally crashed against a rock of sudden clarity — that spot was where her stomach still ached. He nearly died of shame at his own indecency; all she’d wanted was for him to soothe her pain, and here he’d been letting his mind run somewhere else entirely.

“What are you thinking about?” Situ Jie asked, turning her head slightly, apparently startled by his sudden, inexplicable silence.

Her breath grazed the edge of his cheek. Yao Qiyun closed his eyes. He could hardly say, “I’m thinking about you.”

“I was thinking about the first time I ever saw you,” he said instead, forced to lie.

Situ Jie seemed genuinely interested in the topic. “I know that one — you came to my house in the afternoon, my dad brought you in, and you looked absolutely hideous back then.”

“No, not that time.”

“I don’t think I’d get that wrong,” Situ Jie said, sounding doubtful.

Yao Qiyun smiled. “You wouldn’t remember it. I was still back in my hometown then. You must have just started eighth grade — I remember you were wearing a pink dress, your hair in a bunch of little braids.”

“That was just my mom dressing me up in whatever she liked.” Situ Jie vaguely recalled the time her father had taken her to the countryside for some “life experience,” but no matter how hard she racked her brain, she couldn’t remember ever crossing paths with Yao Qiyun on that particular day.

As if he could hear the confusion in her thoughts, Yao Qiyun went on, “It’s no surprise you don’t remember me — so many people from the village came out to see your family that day, and you were curious about everything around you. I remember you laughing and handing out chocolate you’d brought from the city to everyone you passed.”

“Did I give you some too?” Situ Jie asked, getting caught up in the story, trying to sit up, but Yao Qiyun pressed her back down, and she had no choice but to lie there obediently and listen.

“Mm. One with liqueur filling, even.”

“Is that when you started liking me?” she asked, without a trace of shame.

Yao Qiyun, long since used to her self-assurance, let out a low chuckle from deep in his chest. “If you hadn’t ended up getting chased half to death by my neighbor’s chicken right after, and gotten pecked on the backside for good measure, maybe I really would have fallen for you back then.”

“So you’ve been hiding in the shadows enjoying my embarrassing moments from the very start!” Clearly she remembered that particular incident too, muttering her complaint.

What Yao Qiyun didn’t tell her was that it wasn’t so much that he’d fallen for Situ Jie that day, but that he’d fallen for a rose-tinted dream in the middle of his own gray, difficult life — a kind of existence he could see but never touch, a longing he let grow wild and unchecked precisely because he knew it could never be his. She’d stirred up some hidden, greedy hunger in him, the way moss is drawn to a flower blooming in sunlight, the way clouds are drawn to the moon they can never quite reach.

That day, after she and her father had left, he’d secretly slipped that piece of chocolate into his mouth — and then, for no reason he could explain, he’d broken down and wept, this boy who hadn’t cried once, not when his mother left, not even when his father lay gravely ill. He shouldn’t have let himself taste something like that; it was as cruel as lighting a torch in a world that had never known light, only to snuff it out again — because only then do you truly understand how terrifying the darkness really is. He understood all too well that she was like that liqueur chocolate — no matter how sweet, no matter how carefully he tried to hold it on his tongue, once it melted this time, there would never be another one. Never again.

Not until… not until even fate itself had heard his humble pleading, and granted him the turn of luck he’d never dared to dream of. He didn’t want to go back to how things were before, didn’t want to return to that world filled with misfortune. As long as he could go on living inside this dream, he’d have given anything.

Situ Jie drifted into a hazy, restless sleep, and it was the discomfort of turning over and the stifling heat that finally reminded her she wasn’t waking up in her own small bed at home. She pushed herself up and saw Yao Qiyun beside her, eyes closed, seemingly deep in sleep. The sight struck her as strangely wondrous.

She had never once seen him asleep before.

Situ Jie opened the little skylight at the top of the tent, and by the light spilling in from the lamps that burned all through the night outside, she let her eyes wander freely over his face. His features were lean, his brows finely shaped — they’d have looked even better if he weren’t so often furrowing them. The corners of his eyes still tilted faintly downward, giving him that aloof, melancholy air; his nose was straight, his chin sharply defined. Situ Jie couldn’t quite find the right words to describe him. Years later, abroad, she’d sit through a slow, artsy film with Lin Xi called The Best of Times, and though she couldn’t remember a single detail of the plot afterward, Lin Xi would be utterly smitten with the male lead, while Situ Jie would feel as though she were caught in some half-remembered dream — because the reason that actor felt so strangely familiar to her was, of course, that he resembled Yao Qiyun in more than a few ways.

But right now, at eighteen, in the middle of what would turn out to be the best time of her life, Situ Jie sat studying the very real, living Yao Qiyun in front of her. As she looked and looked, she suddenly clutched at her own chest, as if something inside were stirring restlessly, ready to burst free — as if the moment she let go, a small, glowing red heart would leap straight out and land on him, three embarrassingly sappy words written across it in bold.

It was the most naked, honest version of herself, reflected back at her from his face.

Overcome with this sudden clarity, Situ Jie wanted to laugh out loud in delight, but held it in instead, leaning in stealthily, a mischievous look on her face — since he was asleep, she figured she might as well take advantage while she could.

Yao Qiyun had kept his face turned slightly to one side the whole time. Situ Jie thought about sneaking a kiss on his lips, but the angle was wrong, and forcing it would only risk waking him — not worth the trouble. She settled instead for a light peck on his cheek, and would have been satisfied with just that, but fate, mischievous as ever, had other plans. In his sleep, Yao Qiyun frowned and shifted onto his other side — but didn’t wake.

Now his whole face lay right in front of her, completely at her mercy. Grinning to herself, Situ Jie leaned down and brushed the lightest possible kiss across his lips — and, not content to stop there, gave in to the urge to mischievously lick them as well.

She thought: If Yao Qiyun knew he’d just been taken such shameless advantage of, he’d be absolutely furious. Good. Let him be furious.

Pleased with herself, she pressed her own flushed cheeks between her hands, struck a small victory pose, and settled back down to sleep, thoroughly satisfied. Maybe she’d moved too abruptly settling back down, because this time Yao Qiyun stirred — and woke completely.

“Situ Jie, what are you doing instead of sleeping?”

“Nothing,” Situ Jie answered smoothly. “Just got up to swat some mosquitoes.”

“Is that right?” Yao Qiyun said nothing further.

Situ Jie lay with her back to him, the corner of her mouth curling upward as she listened to the two of them breathing in tandem. Finally, unable to help herself, greedy for just a little more mischief after already getting away with so much, she asked out of nowhere, “Yao Qiyun, do you still have your first kiss?”

Better to make sure, she thought — if the answer really was yes, then she’d truly come out ahead tonight.

Yao Qiyun stayed silent behind her. Knowing his temperament, silence like this usually meant the answer was yes.

Situ Jie was already feeling pleased with herself, but her satisfaction didn’t last long.

“Oh, that? Of course not anymore.”

“What did you just say?” Situ Jie, stunned, gritted her teeth in the dark, thinking it couldn’t possibly be true — and when could it have possibly happened without her knowing anything about it? She rolled over to glare at him, working hard to make her voice sound more curious than furious. “Oh really? And who was it, exactly? Do tell.”

She was genuinely irritated enough that she completely missed the strange look on his face.

Yao Qiyun drew out his words with a half-smile. “Wasn’t it you, Situ Jie?”

For the first time ever, the normally quick-tongued Situ Jie found herself utterly unable to string a sentence together in front of him. She’d set out to outwit him and ended up thoroughly outwitted herself — and if she was going to embarrass herself, she’d apparently gone and done it spectacularly.

Still trying to argue her way out, she stammered, “I— I didn’t— I didn’t do anything!”

“Oh, I see, so that’s what ‘nothing’ means now,” Yao Qiyun said, as if it had all just clicked into place, and promptly, deliberately repeated the very thing she’d done to him. “Then I guess I didn’t do anything either.”

Struggling for a brief gasp of air amid it all, Situ Jie mumbled a complaint. “That’s not what I did to you just now, you’re way more shameless than I am. I — I’m going to report you.”

His voice, warm with amusement, lingered close against her lips. “Go ahead,” he said. “Will you come visit me in prison, then?”

Twisting in his tightening embrace, she looked up and saw the night sky above them — a hazy moon, and stars scattered thick across the darkness.

As it happened, heavy rain fell the very next morning. By every bit of weather sense Situ Jie had, she knew the stars that night shouldn’t have been shining so brilliantly. Years later, trying again and again to confirm — and then disprove — that memory, she looked up the weather records for that night more times than she could count, and every record without exception showed clouds and scattered showers. And yet the night sky she remembered had felt so real, so vivid — every single star smiling down at her, so clearly that she could have named the exact place each one had hung in the sky.

She could forget everything else, could even one day forget Yao Qiyun himself, but that one thing she would remember until the day she died — that was the sky she couldn’t bear to close her eyes on all through the night, and through so many sleepless nights afterward, it was that very sky that had given her the deepest comfort she ever knew.

It was a sky that existed only for Situ Jie’s memory, and for no one else’s.