Yao Qiyun had said he liked the way Situ Jie looked when she was asleep.

After she got home, Situ Jie shut herself in the small bathroom and, facing the mirror, pretended to close her eyes, wanting to know just what she looked like when Yao Qiyun said he liked her that way. Unfortunately, all she ever saw was either a strange grimacing figure squinting its eyes, or pure darkness once her eyes were actually shut. It left her a little dejected — perhaps she would never be able to lay eyes on the sleeping Situ Jie herself, or rather, she could never manage, while conscious, to become the version of herself he was picturing.

She wasn’t unaware of what Yao Qiyun had meant, though. Thinking back to Tan Shaocheng’s tears that day, and the shocked looks on her friends’ faces, Situ Jie had to admit she’d been vicious — baring her claws, throwing her weight around. He’d walked away, then come back — no doubt out of helplessness, because he still cared for her and couldn’t stay away, though there had still been some measure of disappointment in him.

That night, walking home, the two of them had said nothing the whole way, neither wanting to bring up the messy scene from earlier. By the time they got home, Situ Jiu’an and his wife had already gone to bed; only Aunt Yao, hearing the door, had gotten up in her robe to glance out. After washing up, Situ Jie turned off the light and tossed and turned in bed like a fish on a hot pan. She would rather the two of them go back to how they used to be — flaring up over the smallest thing, arguing until their faces went red, even the cold, cutting remarks they traded when they were sulking — anything but this silence while holding hands, which she couldn’t bear, and even less could she bear the thought of that silence lasting until dawn.

The urge to talk to him was so strong there was no suppressing it. His bedroom door was closed but, as usual, unlocked. It was strange, really — the more guarded someone was at heart, the more likely they were to do the opposite. Yao Qiyun himself had once said that people who kept their doors locked tight all the time made it look like they had something shameful to hide inside. Situ Jie used to tease him that it was like the saying about the man who buried silver and then put up a sign saying “no silver buried here” — a truly innocent person wouldn’t fear what others might think. In this house, no one but her would ever barge in without knocking — not even his aunt, these days.

The room was pitch dark; he’d already fallen asleep, and only woke with a start when he felt someone pressing up against him. He said hoarsely, “Situ Jie, have you lost your mind… what’s going on, why are your feet so cold?”

As his own not-particularly-warm hands wrapped around her feet trying to chase away the cold, Situ Jie found she had nothing at all she wanted to say. What words could be more honest than skin pressed close to skin? She wished she could split her heart open and let him feel it with his own hands — see, this part is burning hot.

At first Yao Qiyun tried to dodge her. “Shh! Stop it, it’s almost two, be careful they’ll hear…” These days they rarely did anything reckless while Situ Jiu’an and his wife were home — it was too dangerous, especially at midnight when you could hear a pin drop echo through the house. But Situ Jie paid him no mind this time, and gradually, even Yao Qiyun stopped finishing his own half-spoken worries. They devoured and claimed each other with everything they had, all the words they couldn’t say turning into fierce, wordless language of the body, clinging and interlocking as though that alone could fuse them together down to the bone, like conjoined twins who would die if separated.

Situ Jie had no idea whether any suspicious sound might have woken the others sleeping in the house, and for one wild moment she thought — if her parents found out right now, if they were caught red-handed, it might actually settle everything once and for all, sparing them all the endless deliberations, meaningful and meaningless alike, that lay ahead. Of course they’d have trouble accepting it at first, but sooner or later they would. Their daughter was involved with Yao Qiyun, and would go on being involved with him for a long, long time — she was determined to be with him, and that was simply a fact. The road to some ideal future was too long, and too full of possible disasters; she didn’t think she could wait that long.

For one moment, she felt certain Yao Qiyun’s mind was running along the same lines as hers — there was a kind of reckless resolve in the way he moved. But once they’d come back to themselves, damp with a light sweat, the night still felt as still as a sheet of black silk without a single crease — cool to the touch, draped over them, reminding the two who had just fallen back from the clouds not to be disappointed: what awaited them was still the same stable, orderly reality as before.

“A’Jue, just three more years — once we’ve both graduated, I’ll go tell Uncle Situ and Auntie Xue that I want to marry you. Whatever they think, I’ll make sure they know I won’t let you suffer even a little bit.”

His hand gripped hers, firm and steady; Situ Jie squeezed back gently, though something wistful stirred in her heart.

Three years. To her young self, that felt like an unimaginably distant thing, so long it had gone almost hazy, like an endless mountain range stretched out before her, everything beyond it lost in white mist — she couldn’t even picture it.

After Wu Jiang’s birthday, the first time Situ Jie came face to face with Tan Shaocheng again was at the written exam for the graduate recommendation. As luck would have it, Tan Shaocheng’s exam number fell right before hers, which meant their seats ended up right next to each other. Whenever Situ Jie looked up, she could see Tan Shaocheng’s rigidly straight back, her thin, narrow shoulders, and her tightly-bound ponytail, wrapped in a black wool hair tie with a flesh-colored rubber band peeking out underneath. Situ Jie couldn’t say why she found herself studying her so closely. Tan Shaocheng had been absent from lectures these past few days — apparently she’d fallen ill. From the gossip Situ Jie had overheard among classmates, everyone seemed to be sighing over her misfortune: first some family crisis, then she’d gone home right in time for her father’s funeral, and no sooner had she come back to school than she fell sick again, thin as a rail now. Tan Shaocheng had never been especially popular among the other girls, but people generally only resent those close to their own level — who would begrudge a figure straight out of a tragic melodrama?

When the proctor handed out the exam papers, Tan Shaocheng turned to pass hers along, and Situ Jie awkwardly looked away. She was normally a straightforward, upright person, and having to act the least bit guilty didn’t come naturally — it made her feel furtive and uneasy. Tan Shaocheng, for her part, seemed unbothered, setting the paper down indifferently without so much as another glance at her.

At the sound of the starting bell, Situ Jie took a deep breath, trying to settle her mind and focus on the test. She’d always liked exams, never treated any of them carelessly — to her, each one was simply another chance to prove her ability and effort, and rarely did she come up short. But lately, between the friction with Yao Qiyun and the whole misunderstanding with Tan Shaocheng, she’d found it hard to settle her mind; her head was so full of everything else that the graduate exam had been pushed off into a corner. Still, she wasn’t too worried — solid preparation meant a solid foundation, and that wouldn’t just disappear.

Situ Jie counted from one to seven under her breath and got to work. In front of her, Tan Shaocheng suddenly pressed a hand to her mouth and gave a soft, muffled cough. Was she really sick? Situ Jie found herself puzzled — was there really such a thing as illness brought on by pent-up resentment? Because no matter how furious she herself got, she was always in perfectly good health the next day. Never mind her! Situ Jie went back over the questions she’d just read, but for some reason this exam’s questions felt unusually tricky — everything seemed vaguely familiar yet the answers never quite certain, and she had to reread each small question more than once to fully grasp it, growing harder and harder as she went. She tried to treat the person in front of her as nothing but empty air, and yet the “air” kept intruding on her all the same — the faint catch in Tan Shaocheng’s throat as she suppressed her coughing, the thin back where you could just make out the line of her spine, the rustle of her exam paper turning — was she answering twice as fast as Situ Jie? Flustered and impatient, even her own well-worn gel pen chose that moment to act up, leaving a fat blot of ink the second she paused — Situ Jie wanted to throw it straight out the window. She switched to another pen, but the tip was too thin, and it was maddening to look at…

The moment she left the exam hall, Situ Jie got a call from Yao Qiyun asking how it had gone. Out of sheer frustration she said it had been terrible; he simply took it as one of her little moods and, after a few soothing words, asked whether she wanted to go to San Pi’s dinner that evening.

“No!” Situ Jie refused without a second thought. San Pi had already brought it up with her the day before, through Wu Jiang — the gist being that since the unpleasantness at Wu Jiang’s birthday party had started because of him, he wanted to make amends by treating everyone to dinner, inviting her and Tan Shaocheng along too, so no one would keep feeling awkward and the whole thing could be put behind them.

From Yao Qiyun, Situ Jie confirmed that it had indeed been San Pi who’d told him about her going to see Zou Jin. All San Pi would say was that he’d wanted Yao Qiyun to be careful — he refused to explain how he’d known in the first place. Yao Qiyun, stubborn as he was, had his own principles about such things: whatever he was told by someone else, whether he believed it or not was one matter, but he’d never turn around and repeat it to the person involved — not even to Situ Jie herself. He knew her temper too well, and he hadn’t wanted to put San Pi in an awkward spot either. Who could have guessed it would spiral into something so hard to clean up.

Though she and Yao Qiyun had made up and no longer brought any of this up, Situ Jie couldn’t help keeping half an eye on San Pi now. She’d never treated him badly — whenever his love life went sideways, he’d complain the same stories over and over until even his friends grew tired of it, yet she’d always sat through every last repetition and offered the same comforting words at the end each time. He always wore that same easy grin, and yet whatever thoughts had led him to quietly warn Yao Qiyun to “be careful” were something she found hard to swallow. Beyond that, how exactly he’d come to know about it remained a mystery, and as long as it stayed unsolved, Situ Jie felt as if unseen eyes were watching her from somewhere in the shadows, making her uneasy all over. As for her and Tan Shaocheng — they’d never really been friends to begin with, so there was no question of “patching things up.” One dinner wasn’t going to solve anything, so there was no point in putting on a show for appearances’ sake.

“San Pi means well. Are you really going to throw away a friend over this?” Yao Qiyun sighed.

Situ Jie ground her teeth but couldn’t quite bring herself to say yes, and hurriedly said instead, “Just tell them I’ve got a headache and I’m resting at home. Go if you want.” Then she hung up quickly.

Back home, her father was still out dealing with preparations for Jiu’an Tang’s fifteenth-anniversary celebration; only her mother had time to sit and eat with her. Noticing how little she ate, and remembering she’d had an exam that day, her mother asked how it had gone. Situ Jie shook her head.

“Forewarned is forearmed — no matter how the exam went, you really should go pay your respects to your advisor beforehand, just to be safe. Professor Gao is a good man; he taught me back in the day too. His graduate spots are always in high demand — since you’ve set your heart on studying under him, we ought to show some proper courtesy.” Xue Shaoping said, slipping a card across to her daughter, adding casually, “Find some time to go visit Professor Gao — or should Mom come with you?”

Situ Jie wrinkled her nose and pushed the card back. “Professors don’t go in for that sort of thing — makes it sound like some backroom deal. I don’t want it.”

Xue Shaoping told her flatly that she was still behaving like a child who didn’t understand how the world worked, but there was no arguing with her stubborn, proud daughter, and in the end she could only shake her head.

To Situ Jie’s mind, giving a professor gifts in exchange for a graduate spot wasn’t so different from a professor exploiting his position with a female student. She knew it wasn’t exactly unheard-of — other people could do as they liked, everyone had their own way of getting by — but it simply wasn’t something she was capable of doing herself. Still, as the written exam scores came out, more and more people around her, all competing for the same graduate recommendations, started talking about exactly this. Competition for the recommendation spots at their school had always been fierce, especially within their department. If Zou Jin, who rarely took on graduate students, was out of reach for most people, then Professor Gao Henian’s spots fell into the category of “reachable if you really stretch for it” — a jump most people were still hopeful about, even if it required going above and beyond. And apparently, like Zou Jin, Professor Gao was known to be extremely selective when picking students — anyone whose combined recommendation score fell outside the top three basically had no chance. Situ Jie’s moral-conduct and academic scores, plus her competition bonus points, put her comfortably in the lead, no question there — but that miserable written exam had shaken her confidence. If she’d really bombed it and it dragged her overall score down, falling out of the top three would be enough to end her chances, especially if there turned out to be some exceptionally strong outside candidate that gave Professor Gao pause — a spot could fill up before she knew it.

After deciding to switch her application to Professor Gao, Situ Jie had sent him an email, but never got a reply. As she waited, she began to feel anxious. Both Zou Jin and Professor Gao were from their own department, and both were leading experts in the field — never mind Zou Jin, but if things fell through with Professor Gao too, it would be a real shame even if the recommendation itself went smoothly. Her mother had also told her more than once that she didn’t understand how the world worked — a little extra courtesy never hurt anyone, and she really ought to do things properly. After enough of this, Situ Jie began to feel that a single thin email to the professor was hardly enough of a gesture, and started to worry it even seemed impolite. She still had no intention of sending gifts, but paying Professor Gao a personal visit, to express in person her wish to study under him, seemed like a reasonable enough thing to do. Do what you can and leave the rest to fate — if in the end she truly couldn’t win the professor’s favor, she’d have no complaints.

So she called Professor Gao, and once he agreed, went to knock on his office door. Gao Henian was a well-known senior professor in the department — after retiring from a leadership position within the college, he’d been brought back to continue teaching, with decades of seniority both academically and pedagogically. He had taught Situ Jie too, in her third year — Medicinal Botany and Biology. Everyone knew Professor Gao was highly respected and deeply learned, but his Mandarin carried such a heavy regional accent that, over the course of that whole semester, Situ Jie, like most of her classmates, had genuinely understood only a fraction of what he said. Luckily the exam content stuck closely to the textbook, and Professor Gao never made things difficult for his students, always pointing precisely to the key material, so everyone managed to pass without much trouble. It could fairly be said that both Professor Gao and Zou Jin were towering figures holding up their School of Pharmacy — though Zou Jin, these days, was riding an unmatched wave of prominence, Professor Gao’s diligence and dedication also earned him deep respect from students and faculty alike.

The professor was as amiable as ever, inviting Situ Jie to sit and making some friendly small talk, entirely without airs, like the warm elder he’d always been. Once he understood why she’d come, he thanked her, quite humbly, for her interest in applying under him, and then said, “I’ve looked over your file. You’re an excellent student — someone as strong as you… you could even have a shot at applying under Vice Dean Zou in our department, you know.”

Situ Jie froze for a moment, suppressing a flicker of discomfort on her face, and said with a smile, “Vice Dean Zou is very busy with his work. I feel I could learn more from you.”

Professor Gao ran a hand through his full head of silver hair and said with a laugh, “Well, I do love talented students myself, but I’m getting old, and Vice Dean Zou is in the prime of his career, right at the point of making his name. People naturally want to rise as high as they can — are you sure you want to follow an old man like me?”

“Of course, as long as you’ll have me,” Situ Jie nodded quickly.

“I’d certainly welcome you, and I have faith in your abilities. You have real talent, and with effort your future is limitless — our country’s pharmaceutical industry needs exactly this kind of promising young talent. The younger generation is truly something to be reckoned with. Good, very good.”

From the way the professor spoke, it seemed clear enough that as long as her scores met his standard, there’d be no problem. Situ Jie took her leave and threw herself wholly into waiting for the results.

Once the written exam scores came out, Yao Qiyun couldn’t help laughing that she’d worried for nothing — though she hadn’t topped the list, she’d placed third, and combined with her earlier scores, her lead was still clear. Relieved, she turned her focus to preparing for the final interview. Nearly fifty-some students from their department had made the initial recommendation list, but only ten had earned interview slots for their own major at their own school — Tan Shaocheng was among the ten. The interview process worked on a limited-quota basis, meaning only six of the ten would ultimately be accepted — no small stakes.

The night before the interview, Situ Jie made the excuse of going back to school to study some more, but really she dragged Yao Qiyun off to Time Black Hole instead — she had no interest in touching a single textbook that night, just wanted to let herself unwind completely. Of course Yao Qiyun, being who he was, insisted on making her run through her English self-introduction over and over, playing the part of the examiner, until she started cracking up in the middle of her own lines and the two of them dissolved into a tangled, laughing mess. Her phone suddenly rang; she checked it and, to her shock, saw it was Zou Jin calling. Situ Jie was stunned — she couldn’t imagine what he wanted from her, and in any case had nothing to say to him, so she rejected the call without a second thought.

“Who was that?” Yao Qiyun asked, taking a sip of his drink.

Situ Jie hadn’t deleted the caller record, and simply let him have a look. Just then the phone rang again — Zou Jin, once more — though this time he at least had the decency to hang up quickly on his own.

“What does he want from you? You’re not answering?” Yao Qiyun asked, his tone flat.

“I’m not picking up his calls.”

“So you’re really not applying to be his graduate student anymore?”

“Of course not — you think what I said to Tan Shaocheng that day was just angry talk?” Situ Jie made an odd, exaggerated face. “But just because I’m out doesn’t mean the spot automatically goes to her. If she gets upset about it, she might lose her way home again — don’t forget to go comfort her.”

She’d no sooner said it than she noticed Yao Qiyun’s expression darken, and quickly laughed, “What’s with that face? I was joking.”

Without warning Yao Qiyun reached over and tickled her side, making her yelp and shriek with laughter.

He said with a grin, “Funny, so was I. Watch what you say, Situ Jie.”

The interview the next day went unexpectedly smoothly. The head of the interview panel was Zou Jin himself, with Gao Henian and six other faculty members from the department also seated on the panel. The subject-matter questions to Situ Jie were mostly asked by Zou Jin, who came across entirely businesslike; Situ Jie, fully braced for it, answered fluently and without hesitation.

But once again, reality caught her off guard: despite feeling she’d nailed it and expecting a strong result, her interview score came out to just 13, while Tan Shaocheng — who tended to stammer whenever she got nervous — somehow scored 19.5 on the very same criterion, only half a point off the perfect score. This shocked Situ Jie, and beneath the shock came a wave of genuine bitterness at the sheer gap between them. She racked her brain trying to figure out where she’d gone wrong. Her spoken English? Unlikely. Her subject knowledge? She’d gone back and checked against her textbooks afterward and found no mistakes at all. Her manner and bearing, then? Could that really be it? She couldn’t help but connect this outcome to those two phone calls from Zou Jin the night before.

Infuriating. She let herself simmer with quiet resentment for a little while, but soon enough let it go — she’d come out ahead plenty of times before; it didn’t mean she had to win every single time. Never mind. What mattered most was her cumulative score across every category, and even with a less-than-ideal interview result, her overall ranking among the final ten remained unmatched — with Tan Shaocheng coming in second. It occurred to Situ Jie that, given their respective scores, there was a real chance both of them would end up accepted under Professor Gao — which would mean spending the next two or three years under the same advisor. Honestly, that wasn’t a pleasant thought at all. She began to think that, actually, it might not be so bad if Zou Jin ended up taking Tan Shaocheng on instead — at least, in her opinion, the two of them made a rather fitting pair.

Situ Jie ultimately secured her graduate recommendation with the highest overall score, and spent the next few days basking in it at home. Her mother’s delight went without saying, and even her endlessly busy father, Situ Jiu’an, dropped his usual grumbling about her continuing her studies. Her mother privately let slip that her father had been bragging about his daughter to every client who’d listen, seemingly determined not to stop until he’d extracted a compliment from every last one of them. And yet at home, all he ever told her was not to get too proud of herself, adding that getting recommended to stay at the same school she was already at wasn’t really much of an achievement — which left Situ Jie exasperated, insisting he had no idea how these things worked at school.

To say Situ Jiu’an had no idea how things worked at school wasn’t quite fair, though. He’d never set foot in Situ Jie’s university himself, but as it turned out, Jiu’an Tang was about to enter into a research partnership with her department — something Situ Jie only learned about once she attended her father’s company’s anniversary celebration.

For Situ Jiu’an, Jiu’an Tang’s fifteenth-anniversary celebration was more than just a milestone worth marking — it was a chance to look back on fifteen hard years of building the company from nothing, a reward, in a sense, to himself for finally carving out his own share of the market. The banquet hall was packed with distinguished guests that day — company staff, key clients, and even officials from various important departments — everyone joining in to make the occasion lively and grand. Situ Jiu’an, flushed with pride, moved through the crowd alongside his wife and two children, glass after glass in hand, surrounded by well-wishers.

Situ Jie rarely saw Yao Qiyun dressed so formally, and found it both novel and amusing. Stealing a moment when no one was watching, she leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “Yao Qiyun, you look really good dressed like this. I like it a lot.”

Yao Qiyun flushed, glancing at the V-neck cocktail dress she was wearing, and replied under his breath, “Situ Jie, you’re showing way too much in that thing. I don’t like it one bit.”

Situ Jie burst into giggles, drawing even more eyes their way. Everyone kept telling Situ Jiu’an how fortunate he was — a wife both beautiful and capable, and two children who were paragons among their peers, good-looking on top of being star students from top schools. Tipsy with all the praise, Situ Jiu’an forgot his own rule about “not being boastful” and clapped Yao Qiyun on the shoulder, announcing, “This is my godson — a future great doctor, this one.” Then, pointing to Situ Jie, “And this is my little girl — spoiled rotten at home, but she still manages to make us proud. Just got into grad school — first place, no less!” Everyone showered praise on Chairman Situ for raising such accomplished children, joking that in a few years their threshold would be worn down by all the matchmakers. Situ Jiu’an laughed heartily, his voice booming. “Oh, come now, come now!” Behind him, Xue Shaoping exchanged a look of amused helplessness with Situ Jie and Yao Qiyun.

Following her father around the room, Situ Jie was startled to find herself suddenly face to face with a familiar figure — that neat head of silver hair, that warm, easy smile — who else could it be but Professor Gao? Situ Jie quickly went over with her parents to greet him, and from what she overheard in their exchange, it turned out that Jiu’an Tang’s key new product in development would be a project Professor Gao was about to take on.

Seizing the moment, Xue Shaoping said with a smile to Professor Gao, “What are the odds — Jiu’an Tang partnering happily with you, Professor Gao, and our own Situ Jie becoming your student too. Truly, it must run in the family.”

Professor Gao smiled broadly. “Mrs. Situ, you do have a way with words. I do hope our collaboration goes smoothly — though, honestly, it seems a shame for your daughter to settle for an old man like me, when she has such a better opportunity elsewhere.”

Xue Shaoping looked a little puzzled, glancing over at her daughter, whose face was just as blank with confusion.

“Whatever do you mean, Professor? Surely our Situ Jie isn’t…”

“No, no, Mrs. Situ, don’t worry — I’m simply passing along some good news. As much as I’d love to have her, your daughter’s advisor is going to be Vice Dean Zou Jin, right here in our department. I imagine you’ve heard his name — a rising star among the younger faculty, truly. It’s no small feat to become his graduate student — the last time he took one on was four years ago. Situ Jie has real ability, and she’s quite fortunate indeed!” Professor Gao said cheerfully.

“Vice Dean Zou?” The name clearly wasn’t unfamiliar to Xue Shaoping either. She turned to look at her daughter, who appeared just as baffled. Smiling, she continued chatting with Professor Gao a while longer, then found an excuse to draw Situ Jie off to the side of the hall.

Situ Jie looked at her mother, wondering whether Zou Jin’s reputation had spread far enough that even her mother had heard of him — she was already cursing under her breath, about to explain that this had never been what she wanted, though she herself had no idea what was going on. But just as she opened her mouth, she realized her mother’s expression wasn’t one of anger — only confusion.

“Sweetheart, didn’t you say your advisor contact was Gao Henian? How did it become Zou Jin?”

“I…”

“I really didn’t expect this. Your father and I had already heard of him — quite the talented one, apparently, at the height of his reputation these days. Gao Henian actually wasn’t even the first choice to lead this project — they approached Zou Jin first. But talented people tend to be proud, and he’s used to working with big international firms, so he didn’t think much of us. Gao Henian may not have Zou Jin’s arrogance, but he is getting on in years…”

“Professor Gao was probably just saying it offhand — no telling if it’s even true. Mom, I’m going to the bathroom,” Situ Jie said, thinking that an upset stomach ought to be excuse enough for how pale she must have looked.

She half-ran to the restroom, and the moment the door shut behind her, dialed Zou Jin’s number. He picked up almost immediately.

Situ Jie lowered her voice, trying just as hard to rein in her fury. How could he be so shameless, so completely dismissive of her refusal?

“I told you I don’t want to be your graduate student!”

Zou Jin said from the other end, “I believe I still have some say in how the recommendation process and placements are handled.”

“You will never get from me whatever it is you’re after. You’ve read me completely wrong.”

She had once admired him so much — and it was he who had shattered all of it, until she could no longer summon even the faintest trace of respect for him.

Zou Jin hesitated a moment, a note of muted anger creeping into his voice. “Situ Jie, perhaps you’ve read me wrong too. What makes you think I want something from you? You think I actually want to waste my years under that old man Gao?”

“Professor Gao is, in my opinion, far better than you — at the very least he wouldn’t… at the very least his character is better than yours,” Situ Jie cut in sharply.

Zou Jin gave a cold laugh. “Well, I might as well tell you — Gao Henian’s admission list has already been finalized, and you were never even on it, not even before I got involved. You’re being far too naive. You don’t seem to realize that any student who contacts me while also reaching out to another advisor is someone he refuses to take on principle. Whatever I nod to, he’s bound to reject.”

Situ Jie was stunned. “I don’t care what’s between the two of you — are you saying there are only the two advisors in the whole department to choose from?”

Zou Jin drew out his words slowly. “Situ Jie, Situ Jie. Do you still not understand why your interview score was so low?”

“What does your rivalry with him have to do with me? Why drag me into it?” Every drop of blood in her body seemed to rush to her head.

“Yes, that part was my fault,” Zou Jin said, subdued. “I think we need to talk.”

“Sorry, I don’t want to at all!” Situ Jie snapped the phone shut with a hard click. Pushing back the hair from her forehead, she realized with a start that she was covered in a cold sweat.

She splashed water on her face and walked back out, where Yao Qiyun was waiting for her.

“What on earth is going on?”

Nearby, Situ Jiu’an was drinking with a few industry colleagues; Situ Jie caught someone giving him a thumbs-up, saying, “I hear Zou Jin’s quite the genius — no small thing for your daughter to catch his eye. A few years down the road, once she’s finished her studies, Jiu’an Tang will practically be unstoppable, won’t it?”

Situ Jiu’an let out a hearty laugh.

Situ Jie answered Yao Qiyun, “I’d very much like to know myself.”

Her gaze happened to meet Professor Gao’s across the room; he nodded and smiled at her, as warm and humble as ever.

A chill crept slowly up Situ Jie’s spine.