They wrapped up evening study early, and Situ Jue and Yao Qiyun headed to “Behind Time” for drinks. The shop wasn’t close to school, and it was some distance from home too, tucked away in an inconspicuous spot — which had made it, to Situ Jue’s delight, their regular date spot.

On the way there, she’d already told Qiyun almost everything that had happened that afternoon, leaving out only the detail about Tan Shaocheng making “stay away from him” a condition of the deal. Once they’d settled in, Situ Jue added her verdict: “Anyway, it was crazy enough. There really is every kind of person in this world.”

Yao Qiyun smiled at the now-familiar long-faced waiter as a kind of greeting, then reached over and touched Situ Jue’s hand on the table, as if to settle her still-simmering agitation.

“That just means the world you’ve lived in has been too simple,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t agree with what Tan Shaocheng did, but I understand her. Poverty is far more terrifying than you can imagine — it can wear away at all sorts of things, the same way barren soil can never sustain a delicate flower. It’s not that she has no sense of dignity or morals, or that she doesn’t want them — it’s just that those things only come after your basic survival is secured. I’ve heard a little about her family situation — her father was doing temp work at a mine and got hurt. It was technically a workplace injury, but the mine owner refused to admit any responsibility, and what could she do about that? She still owes her senior-year tuition — the school can let that slide for a while, but she still has to eat, and there’s no help coming from home; if anything, they’re depending on her to send money back… Sometimes that’s just how it is. When something beautiful is up in the sky, and you know full well that jumping won’t get you there, you give up on it and start searching lower down instead — there’s something buried in the mud below that can keep you alive, and no matter how disgusting it is, you have to dig it out. No one cares whether their hands stay clean at that point. The bottom line just keeps dropping, lower and lower.”

Situ Jue went quiet at this, saying nothing for a long while.

“I… I never thought about any of this. Do you think I was wrong? That I shouldn’t have refused her?” she finally said, confused, after a long pause.

Yao Qiyun shook his head. “You weren’t wrong. But A’Jue, did you really never once consider her proposal? You don’t need that scholarship to prove anything about yourself.”

“I know what you mean. Either way, there’s no getting that application form back now. If she beats me fair and square on the exam, that’s her own ability, and I’ll have nothing to say — but I’m not going to deliberately do badly. This has nothing to do with the scholarship, it’s a matter of principle. If you want to say I have no compassion, fine, I can’t help that.” Situ Jue said, chin raised stubbornly.

Yao Qiyun laughed, perhaps having never really expected he could talk her out of it anyway. She had her own set of standards, and though they could be exasperating at times, that was also exactly what made her endearing. Situ Jue, who charged straight down whatever path she believed was right without ever looking back, who could be maddeningly stubborn once she’d made up her mind — wasn’t that also the Situ Jue he loved?

“You said you ran into Zou Jin afterward — did he say anything?” Yao Qiyun asked.

Situ Jue shrugged. “I expected him to say something too, but he didn’t say a word. Maybe the professor had just accidentally dozed off in his car and we startled him awake.”

“You think everyone wears everything on their face the way you do?” Yao Qiyun said. He drank for a moment before adding, “They say Zou Jin is quite strict, and hard to read too — even his own students are a little afraid of him.”

“Zou Jin, oh, he’s the number-one killer of our whole department, they call him ‘King Zou of the Underworld.’ Scary, sure — but there’s still a mob of people lining up to march into the underworld and beg for an audience with the king. What can you do — his academic credentials speak for themselves, and who wouldn’t want a bright future working under him?” Situ Jue laughed.

“Qu Xiaowan has stayed under him from her master’s all the way through her doctorate — I hear he’s been quite generous to her as a student,” Yao Qiyun said. He wasn’t in the habit of speaking ill of others, but since it concerned Situ Jue, he felt he had to bring it up. Of course, the rumors he’d actually heard were far uglier than this — but that was all secondhand gossip, and knowing how much Situ Jue admired Zou Jin, he chose his words carefully.

Situ Jue immediately caught the implication in his tone and dismissed it. “That gossip’s all from San Pi, isn’t it? That guy tried to get into Zou Jin’s graduate program and failed, so now he goes around badmouthing everyone. Don’t think I don’t know about his gross little thing for Qu Xiaowan — total case of sour grapes. I really can’t stand this kind of talk, Yao Qiyun. If ‘they say’ were reliable, I don’t even know how many boyfriends I’d supposedly have had by now.”

“Fine, fine, it was just an offhand remark. Look at you, getting all worked up.” Yao Qiyun didn’t push the argument further.

Situ Jue hadn’t lied to Yao Qiyun — Zou Jin really hadn’t said anything that day, though given his position, even if he had said something, it might not have been entirely unbiased. Not long after, Situ Jue ran into Zou Jin again at the department office. He’d just finished thoroughly dressing down one of his doctoral students, but turned to Situ Jue with a surprisingly warm smile. “Situ Jue, we meet again.”

Situ Jue watched the dejected senior student walk away from her — if she remembered correctly, this “unlucky doctoral student” happened to share a dorm with San Pi. Feeling a mix of awkwardness and sympathy, she bowed to Zou Jin from a distance, flattered and flustered. “Professor Zou — no, Dean Zou, hello.”

Zou Jin actually laughed at that. “What, you’re not even my graduate student — why so afraid of me?”

Situ Jue scratched her head, unable to hold back her curiosity, and answered boldly, “Can’t help it, the rumors are terrifying. I figure being your student takes not just enough luck, but a certain amount of resilience too.”

“You’re missing one thing — real, solid ability. I can’t stand mediocrity.” Zou Jin didn’t seem to hold her comment against her; after a moment’s thought, he added, “I suppose I’m not great at dealing with people. I’ve always been strict academically, with myself included — I can’t tolerate the slightest carelessness or oversight, so I hope my students hold themselves to a higher standard too. I think of them as my own, so I don’t hold back much around them, and sometimes, out of frustration at wasted potential, I end up coming across as this underworld king. Even a young girl like you has heard about it.”

Situ Jue gave an awkward little laugh.

Zou Jin smiled faintly. “Though I do think I’m quite the gentleman when it comes to how I treat women — you can rest assured of that.”

She’d long heard that Zou Jin had been quite the handsome man in his younger days, and it seemed age hadn’t diminished his charm — if anything, it had added a layer of gravitas and refinement. Facing his smile, Situ Jue had to admit it was rather pleasant to look at. A man who commanded that much admiration from female students across the department and beyond clearly hadn’t earned his reputation for nothing.

“I’m not even your student — how could I not be on guard?” she said with a laugh, a bit of sly humor in her tone.

“Oh? Thinking about applying to be my graduate student?” Zou Jin asked, raising an eyebrow.

Situ Jue wasn’t about to let the opening go to waste. “Who in the whole pharmacy school wouldn’t want to? I just worry Dean Zou wouldn’t take me.”

Zou Jin gave an ambiguous half-smile, saying nothing definite, only repeating her name a few times under his breath.

“Situ Jue… cold, chill, jue, parting — a jade ring broken open is called a jue. Interesting, though I don’t think it quite suits you as a name.”

As he spoke, he’d already walked over to stand beside her. Situ Jue suddenly remembered what Yao Qiyun had said, along with those vague rumors — and although she didn’t believe them, she found herself instinctively stepping back, putting a little distance between them.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“You shouldn’t have that ‘gap’ in you. To me, you’re the finest material there is — not even uncut jade, more like something perfect and complete just as it is, born whole.”

Coming from anyone else, such a blunt compliment might have made Situ Jue shudder with secondhand embarrassment. But Zou Jin wasn’t like that — his eyes matched his words, open and sincere, as if he were simply stating an obvious fact, no more remarkable than saying “one plus one equals two.”

Even so, Situ Jue felt her face flush, stammered out a goodbye, and fled through the door.

She ran into that unlucky senior in the elevator lobby — the bespectacled young man looked her over through his thick lenses and hummed under his breath, half-singing: “And so throughout the land, parents wish now for daughters, not for sons…”

After winter break ended, everyone returned to school, and the previous semester’s grades came out. Situ Jue’s overall score still beat Tan Shaocheng’s by seven points, putting her in second place, while Tan Shaocheng fell to fifth. By the end of March, as the job-hunting rush kicked into high gear, the winner of the “Fu Xuecheng Scholarship” was finally announced, and Situ Jue was, without dispute, the ultimate victor. At first Situ Jue had wondered how Tan Shaocheng would react — but she was nowhere to be seen in several lectures over that stretch, and after a bit of asking around, Situ Jue learned she’d taken a week off, saying she’d gone back to her hometown.

Though Situ Jue certainly didn’t need the money, this was still an honor earned through real effort — to say she wasn’t happy would be a lie. And yet, once the prize money was actually in her hands, it felt unexpectedly heavy. She found herself thinking, unbidden, of an old saying: in this world, few people bring charcoal in the snow, but plenty rush to add flowers to brocade. The saying had nothing directly to do with her situation, not something to force a fit onto — but all the same, it left something nagging at her. Lying in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, she couldn’t help wondering: if Tan Shaocheng hadn’t been burdened by her family’s hardships, hadn’t had to run herself ragged through wind and rain giving tutoring lessons, and had the same educational foundation and environment Situ Jue did — would the outcome of this contest have been any different? And if Tan Shaocheng had had the time and energy to join clubs or take on student leadership roles, even with slightly lower grades, she might well have won the scholarship anyway. The more she thought about it, the less certain she felt of her own absolute superiority. Maybe she wasn’t actually smarter than Tan Shaocheng — maybe all she really had more of was the good fortune of never having to worry about food or clothing.

After turning it over in her mind all night, the next day Situ Jue found Wu Jiang and handed him the prize money, saying, flustered, that she wanted him to pass it along to Tan Shaocheng — just don’t mention where it came from, however he managed it was fine, since Wu Jiang was already used to playing the good guy, one more time wouldn’t hurt. She’d wanted to win, and she had won — so she might as well go all the way and play the villain too.

Wu Jiang was normally a loyal, straightforward friend who wouldn’t have hesitated to help with something like this. But this time, the moment he took the money and heard it was meant for Tan Shaocheng, he shoved it right back at Situ Jue like it was a hot potato.

“Listen, my dear lady, I’m already covered in sparks from one fire — don’t go shoving me into another pit.”

Situ Jue was baffled and naturally pressed him for an explanation. Wu Jiang, finally catching someone to vent to, immediately launched into the whole story.

The whole thing, it turned out, traced back to that jade bracelet Situ Jue never took off.

The person who’d given Situ Jue that raw stone was Wu Jiang — so who had given it to Wu Jiang in the first place? Judging by the way Wu Jiang scratched his head, the answer was obvious: Tan Shaocheng, who was always looking for a chance to give Wu Jiang the best things she had.

Tan Shaocheng had given Wu Jiang two pieces of raw jadeite in total. Wu Jiang had heard all sorts of interesting stories about “betting on stone” before, and the moment he laid eyes on them, he was intrigued — but the value of such things was hard to say, and it might well have been something genuinely valuable, nothing like the local mountain goods she’d given him before, so at first he didn’t dare accept them. Tan Shaocheng hadn’t expected Wu Jiang, who lacked for nothing, to actually light up at the sight of them, and she was overjoyed. When Wu Jiang offered to pay her for the raw stones, she wouldn’t hear of it, insisting that her father, working at a mine near the border, had simply picked them up himself, that she had no use for them, and that she was happy if Wu Jiang liked them — then, before he could refuse, she set them down and dashed off.

And so, “better to comply graciously than decline gracelessly,” Wu Jiang accepted the gift. But he didn’t keep it all to himself — knowing Xiaowan’s tastes, he figured she’d find these interesting too, so he picked the larger piece to give to Qu Xiaowan, and generously passed the other along to Situ Jue, who shared his love of odd little curiosities.

Who could have predicted that his well-meaning gesture would backfire so completely. Qu Xiaowan’s piece, once cut open, turned out to be a decent-grade pale green, glutinous-textured jadeite — with a little processing, it could have made a fine piece. But the moment Qu Xiaowan learned the stone had originally come from Tan Shaocheng to Wu Jiang, and only then to her, her face darkened; she gave a cold laugh and tossed the stone aside. No matter how Wu Jiang tried to explain, she only said she couldn’t accept a favor that had been passed through someone else like that.

Having learned his lesson, Wu Jiang never breathed a word to Situ Jue about where her stone had come from. The two of them excitedly took it to an expert for appraisal, only to learn that this remaining piece was the lowest grade of jade material there was — in other words, what the expert called “brick-grade junk.” They came back thoroughly deflated, and once home, Situ Jue tossed the stone straight into the trash. Wu Jiang, crying foul, later ran into Tan Shaocheng on campus and still had to sincerely thank her for it — truly losing both the wife and the troops, as the saying goes.

That should have been the end of the matter. But Wu Jiang happened to notice that Xiao Gen, for some reason, had been wilting like a thirsty cucumber lately, sighing all day long. Wu Jiang assumed he was stressed about job hunting, so he found time to take him out for drinks at a little place near campus, meaning to fulfill his duty as a friend and cheer him up. He needn’t have bothered drinking at all — three beers in, Xiao Gen poured his heart out to Wu Jiang. It turned out that since freshman year, Xiao Gen had harbored feelings for Tan Shaocheng. In his eyes, she came from a background similar to his own, someone who understood the same kind of hardship — but she was far smarter than him, and lovely too, like a golden phoenix that had flown out of some mountain gully. Xiao Gen felt ashamed of himself in her presence, only daring to like her in secret, running himself ragged for her without a word of complaint, happy just to do it. But this time, knowing her family was in crisis and that she’d just lost out on the scholarship she’d wanted so badly, watching her looking so despondent, all Xiao Gen could do was hate his own uselessness — anxious, but unable to help at all. Worst of all, the person who’d taken the scholarship from Tan Shaocheng’s hands was Situ Jue, Xiao Gen’s own good friend. Xiao Gen wouldn’t speak ill of her, which meant he couldn’t even commiserate with Shaocheng over it.

Wu Jiang was genuinely surprised to learn of Xiao Gen’s long-buried, one-sided love. But that wasn’t even the main point — in the middle of Xiao Gen’s drunken, rambling confession, Wu Jiang suddenly picked up on something: Xiao Gen had once worked up the courage to give Tan Shaocheng the two raw stones he’d brought from his hometown, stones he’d always treasured. Of course, Tan Shaocheng had accepted the stones, but not the feelings behind them. In other words, Tan Shaocheng had lied — the stones hadn’t belonged to her at all; they’d belonged to Xiao Gen, who’d been secretly in love with her all along.

And so those two wild little stones had traveled a long, winding path through the hands of a group of young people with tangled hearts — Xiao Gen gave them to Tan Shaocheng, Tan Shaocheng gave them to Wu Jiang, Wu Jiang gave them to Qu Xiaowan and Situ Jue, Situ Jue threw hers away, Yao Qiyun picked it up, and finally gave it back to Situ Jue.

Once Wu Jiang had pieced the whole story together, he was struck by just how much brainpower the word “feelings” actually demanded. He’d already been feeling somewhat guilty, and on top of that, right before Xiao Gen passed out, he’d patted Wu Jiang on the shoulder and said he’d known all along that the person Shaocheng liked was Wu Jiang — but he also knew full well he couldn’t compare to Wu Jiang in any respect, and he didn’t dare feel even a shred of jealousy. He just knew Wu Jiang would never fall for Shaocheng, and now that she was in such pain, all he hoped was that when she was exhausted, she’d realize there was still someone in this world quietly wishing her well — even if that someone was fairly useless.

Watching Xiao Gen, still visibly heartbroken even through his drunkenness, Wu Jiang’s guilt only deepened. Once Xiao Gen sobered up, Wu Jiang encouraged him to boldly confess his feelings to Tan Shaocheng — now was exactly the time she most needed comfort, and once she came around, she’d realize who truly cared about her; maybe Xiao Gen’s genuine feelings would move her. That way, Wu Jiang figured, his own conscience would finally be clear.

At the time, Xiao Gen had only smiled shyly and said nothing. Not long after, that same day, as Wu Jiang came off his night shift at the hospital where he was doing his clinical rotation, he ran into Tan Shaocheng at the entrance — she’d been waiting for him in the cold night wind for who knew how long.

Wu Jiang had actually had plans with Qu Xiaowan that day. For some reason, Xiaowan’s moods had been strange and volatile lately — whenever they were together, she’d swing unpredictably, flying into temper at the slightest thing, and yet she couldn’t bear to be apart from him either. Wu Jiang wished she’d give herself some space to calm down, but she insisted on seeing him constantly to feel at ease. Torn between frustration and tenderness, all he could do was handle her carefully.

But seeing Tan Shaocheng now, shivering with cold, her eyes red-rimmed, Wu Jiang found he couldn’t bring himself to say he was in a hurry. He suggested finding somewhere out of the wind to talk properly instead.

He took her to a small café near the affiliated hospital. As they neared the entrance, Tan Shaocheng stopped short at the door; when Wu Jiang asked why, she said, with a bitter smile, that the prices inside weren’t cheap, no point wasting the money.

Wu Jiang, without a word, simply pulled her inside. Once seated, Tan Shaocheng sneezed several times in a row.

“Why put yourself through this? If you needed to talk to me, you could’ve just called,” Wu Jiang said, handing her a tissue.

Tan Shaocheng kept her head down, cupping a cup of hot water to warm her hands. “Some things, I think, are better said face to face.”

She said this, but Wu Jiang waited a long while for whatever she was about to say. Somewhat surprised, he glanced at her face and found her eyes locked steadily onto him — full of hope, longing, pleading… and something he couldn’t quite place, enough to genuinely startle Wu Jiang, who usually took everything in stride. In the past, whenever they’d been alone together, her gaze had sometimes lingered on him too, but always skittered away in panic the moment he met it.

“Don’t scare me like this, Shaocheng. We’re friends, whatever it is, just say it,” Wu Jiang said.

Tan Shaocheng’s lips curved into a smile. “Am I really your friend? I thought someone like Situ Jue was more your kind of friend…”

Wu Jiang laughed too. “Of course Situ’s my good friend, my buddy — but there’s no need to compare, there are all kinds of friends.”

“Then what kind am I?” Perhaps realizing her own agitation had come across as somewhat presumptuous, Tan Shaocheng wrung her thin hands so hard it made Wu Jiang wince just watching.

“Xiao Gen came to see me this afternoon…”

Wu Jiang was beginning to understand — he just hadn’t expected Xiao Gen to move quite this fast. He nodded and waited quietly for her to continue.

Her voice grew softer and softer, until Wu Jiang had to strain to catch the words.

“…He said he wants me to be his girlfriend.” Even the pale skin of her neck flushed red.

Wu Jiang signaled the waiter to swap out her now-cold cup of water. “Xiao Gen’s a good person. Isn’t that a good thing?” he said.

“Do you really think it’s a good thing? Is that really what you think?”

The wounded look on Tan Shaocheng’s face was hard for Wu Jiang to bear. He had no wish to hurt this girl, whose circumstances were already pitiable enough — but at this point, he had no choice but to be clear. He felt sympathy for her, but only sympathy, even if her expectations made his honesty feel almost cruel.

“Of course it’s what I think. We’ve all seen how Xiao Gen feels about you — I’m glad he finally said it. I’m happy for both of you.”

“So you’re saying you already knew he was going to come tell me all this?”

Tan Shaocheng’s trembling lips and pale knuckles gave Wu Jiang the unsettling impression that she might simply dissolve into thin air the next moment.

He spread his hands hesitantly. “Is there something wrong with that? You’re both my friends — of course I’d be happy for you.”

“I think I understand what you mean now.” Tan Shaocheng slowly stood up. Tears clearly welled in her eyes, yet she used every ounce of willpower to keep them from falling. “Right, I should have understood long ago. How could I not have understood?” she murmured, over and over.

“Are you okay?” Wu Jiang asked, worried.

“I have a cold. This is just what having a cold looks like.” Tan Shaocheng actually managed a smile, then set down her cup. “Such a shame, wasting your blessing like this. I should let you know I’m leaving, by the way — my father’s condition has gotten worse, I need to take some time off and go home. And, thank you for the water.”

Wu Jiang called after her. “If I’ve upset you, I’m sorry, Shaocheng.” He immediately pulled all the cash from his wallet, keeping only enough to cover the bill, and pressed the rest into her hands.

“Take this for now. If there’s anything I can help with, just tell me.”

His hand hung in the air for a long moment before Tan Shaocheng slowly accepted the money.

As she left, she said, “Thank you. You really are too good a friend. But you can help me once, twice — you can’t help me for the rest of my life, can you?”

Wu Jiang told Situ Jue, “I think she was crying as she walked away.”

Having heard the whole story from start to finish, Situ Jue clicked her tongue. “That’s really messed up.”

“No, that’s not even the worst part.” Wu Jiang sighed and said, slowly, word by word: “I don’t know how Shaocheng ended up turning Xiao Gen down, but I do know Xiao Gen never showed up for the makeup exam the next day. He’d already had to retake two courses before this — now he’s probably going to have to repeat the whole year.”