In the darkness, only the sound of night wind brushing through leaves could be heard.

Their rising and falling breaths were like drifting mist. At such close proximity, Chen Qingwu lost her heartbeat.

Her limbs had long gone stiff, yet instinctively she was unwilling to pull away first.

She could only clearly sense how her heart was sinking bit by bit.

As if it no longer belonged to her.

In the end, it was Meng Fuyuan who withdrew first, eyes lowered, immediately reaching for his glasses on the steps beside him and putting them on.

Thus she was unable to see what his eyes, always hidden behind those lenses, truly looked like.

In her memory, Meng Fuyuan had started wearing glasses in his second year of high school.

One day when the Meng family came to dinner, the last young man to enter the door gave her a sense of unfamiliarity. Looking closer, she discovered he had a pair of thin-framed glasses on the bridge of his nose.

That day she had quietly approached Meng Fuyuan and asked softly, “Yuan-gege, why are you wearing glasses?”

The sixteen-year-old boy had answered coolly: myopia.

It seemed from that day on, Meng Fuyuan had gained a sense of distance. Compared to being an “older brother,” he began to seem more like an adult.

“Qingwu, you go up first,” Meng Fuyuan said in a low voice.

Chen Qingwu came to her senses. “Then you…”

“I’ll go up in a bit too.” Meng Fuyuan’s voice had recovered its usual calm. “If you run into anyone, just say I asked you to come down.”

Fundamentally, his feelings were currently only his unilateral concern—for now, there was no need to drag her into the pressure of public opinion as well.

Chen Qingwu hesitated for a moment before standing up. “Then you must hurry back to your room to rest. I can see from upstairs.”

“Alright.” He laughed softly—at this somewhat childish yet somewhat stubborn way of showing concern.

Chen Qingwu still tiptoed upstairs without causing any disturbance.

She closed her bedroom door and walked to the window, leaning out to look. Meng Fuyuan was getting up.

Watching that figure disappear around the corner of the building, she finally went back to lie on the bed.

A moment later, subtle sounds of a door opening and closing came from upstairs.

Chen Qingwu picked up her phone and sent a message: Sleep early. Good night.

Meng Fuyuan: Good night.

All night she dreamed of flower fragrance.

/

The next day, everything passed peacefully.

Since Meng Fuyuan had to leave for the airport after lunch, everyone stayed at the villa in the morning, whiling away the time.

After noon, Meng Fuyuan came downstairs with his suitcase, ready to leave.

Everyone sent him off together at the door.

Meng Chengyong took his suitcase, preparing to take Meng Fuyuan to the hotel entrance to catch his ride.

Qilin instructed, “Let us know when you take off and land safely.”

Meng Fuyuan nodded.

He turned around, his gaze passing directly over Chen Qingwu without lingering for a moment.

After Meng Fuyuan and Meng Chengyong’s figures left through the front yard gate, everyone returned inside.

Meng Qiran approached Chen Qingwu. “Want to go out and do some water sports?”

“Not really. I want to go back to my room for a nap first.”

Meng Qiran didn’t insist, just said, “When you wake up, call me. I’ll be staying in.”

“It’s fine, you can go have fun yourself.”

But Meng Qiran seemed somewhat insistent on this arrangement.

Chen Qingwu didn’t argue with him and casually agreed before going upstairs to her room.

It seemed that in just an instant, this vacation had begun to feel dull and meaningless.

She lay down on the bed and picked up her phone.

On WeChat was a message Meng Fuyuan had just sent: Have fun. I’ll message you when I take off and land.

As if it were an explanation and supplement for that last deliberately missed glance of farewell.

Chen Qingwu couldn’t help but smile and replied: Safe travels.

For the next two days, Chen Qingwu felt listless about everything.

On the sixth, the vacation ended and everyone set out for the airport.

Chen Qingwu and Meng Qiran returned to Dongcheng together, while the four parents returned to Nancheng.

Once on the plane, during the boring wait for takeoff, Chen Qingwu scrolled through her WeChat Moments for a while.

A sudden impulse struck her.

She paused, returned to the conversation list, clicked on Meng Fuyuan’s profile picture, saved it, imported it into a search engine, and did a reverse image search.

The result that came up was a movie title—she’d heard of it but never watched it.

She typed the movie name into the search box, which jumped to the corresponding entry.

As she was reading with her head down, Meng Qiran suddenly turned to ask if she was cold and whether she needed him to call a flight attendant for a blanket.

Chen Qingwu calmly locked her phone screen and said with a smile, “Sure, that would be nice.”

Today’s takeoff was delayed for quite a while. While still taxiing, Chen Qingwu was already getting sleepy. She yawned, hugged her arms, and closed her eyes.

Meng Qiran was casually flipping through the airline magazine when from the corner of his eye he glimpsed Chen Qingwu’s head tilting and drooping.

He turned to look, shifted his body slightly in her direction, and reached out to gently support her head.

The instant her head was about to rest on his shoulder, Chen Qingwu suddenly woke up and sat up straight. “Sorry, I fell asleep…”

Meng Qiran’s hand was still suspended in mid-air, his expression stunned.

Over all those past years, whenever Chen Qingwu needed to catch some sleep when they were out, hadn’t she always just said “let me borrow your shoulder” and naturally leaned over?

Had they become so distant that she would apologize for this and deliberately avoid such contact?

Arriving in Dongcheng, Chen Qingwu first took a nap, then got up to unpack her suitcase. Using the excuse that she was too tired and wanted to rest early, she declined Meng Qiran’s suggestion to have dinner together.

—Meng Qiran lived nearby. Since moving to Dongcheng, he often came to her place. Sometimes they ate together, sometimes he did nothing but simply kept her company.

As if demonstrating his willingness to enter her world and endure that trivial quietness.

She refused every time, but most of the time it didn’t work—Meng Qiran’s personality included a stubborn element.

After finishing unpacking her suitcase, she threw the dirty clothes into the washing machine.

After showering, Chen Qingwu lay on the sofa and unconsciously picked up her phone.

Her conversation with Meng Fuyuan had stopped this afternoon after arriving at the studio, when Meng Fuyuan told her to rest well.

She slid her body down, her head resting on the sofa armrest.

An unprecedented conflicted mood.

Like someone playing with fire who was about to get burned, only now truly realizing the danger of fire.

She couldn’t imagine whether she truly had the ability to bear the consequences if she allowed this faintly yearning feeling to continue developing.

However, the so-called conflict was this: on one hand erecting a warning line, while on the other hand still involuntarily wanting to see what lay beyond that line.

Her finger lingered on his profile picture. She unconsciously clicked it, wanting to look at his old WeChat Moments.

[You patted Yuan-gege]

Chen Qingwu’s pupils震动.

Meng Fuyuan: ?

Chen Qingwu: …Sorry, I clicked by mistake.

Meng Fuyuan: Quite a coincidence.

Meng Fuyuan: Have you eaten dinner?

Chen Qingwu: Yes.

Meng Fuyuan: Can you still eat dessert?

Chen Qingwu: ?

Meng Fuyuan replied with a photo showing the passenger seat with a paper bag from some pastry shop on it.

Chen Qingwu: Are you coming over?

Meng Fuyuan: Arriving in ten minutes. Is it convenient?

Chen Qingwu: Not convenient.

Meng Fuyuan: Order cancellation invalid.

Chen Qingwu laughed so hard her phone almost fell and hit her face.

The next message, his reply became a voice message: “Green light. If it’s not convenient, I’ll just drop off the stuff and go back.”

Chen Qingwu guessed he had probably just been waiting at a traffic light.

Chen Qingwu immediately put down her phone, went back to her bedroom, took off her pajamas, and changed into a simple outfit of a tank top, jeans, and a thin cardigan.

Returning to the sofa, she unconsciously looked at the wall clock, suspecting it was broken—otherwise why would time pass so slowly?

Realizing that just waiting like this was too long, she got up and went to the display rack to check the drying condition of the batch of clay blanks she’d left before leaving.

Finally, she heard the sound of a car approaching outside the door.

She walked to the sink to wash her hands. No matter how hard she tried to appear nonchalant, she couldn’t deny that excited feeling.

A knock sounded at the door.

She immediately said, “Come in.”

In the pale light ahead, Meng Fuyuan’s figure appeared—his usual outfit of white shirt and black pants, yet pure and refreshing as pine wind.

Suddenly she thought of that evening with dim yellow sunlight when he had appeared holding a bouquet of freesias. At the time she hadn’t thought anything of it, but now with the two scenes overlapping, her heartbeat skipped a beat.

Meng Fuyuan walked straight toward her, placed the bag on the stone countertop, rolled up his sleeves, and turned on the faucet to wash his hands.

Chen Qingwu opened the paper bag—inside was lemon panna cotta.

Halved lemons, with the milk panna cotta topped with lemon zest and a tiny mint leaf, refreshing as summer washing over one’s face.

Chen Qingwu took out a plastic spoon, scooped a spoonful and put it in her mouth.

“Delicious!”

Meng Fuyuan said, “My assistant recommended it, said it’s not too sweet.”

Chen Qingwu paused mid-motion.

She liked desserts that weren’t too sweet.

It seemed he knew everything about her.

Meng Fuyuan turned off the water, took a paper napkin to dry his hands, while saying casually, “I still prefer Dongcheng.”

“Why?”

“Because when I want to see you, I can see you.”

With that spoonful of panna cotta in her mouth, Chen Qingwu paused before swallowing it, the refreshing sweetness spreading. She picked up the other panna cotta and asked, “…Do you want some?”

Meng Fuyuan laughed softly, as if laughing at her—here she went changing the subject again.

She couldn’t finish a whole one and didn’t want to waste it, so he just took a new small spoon and reached over to scoop a spoonful from the one she was eating to taste.

The instant he leaned close, Chen Qingwu involuntarily held her breath.

She saw his gaze lower. Through the lenses, she could vaguely see his lashes were long and dense, casting a row of pale gray shadows on his eyelids.

“I’m a bit curious—what’s your prescription?”

“Guess.”

“Three hundred?”

Meng Fuyuan shook his head.

“Four hundred?”

Meng Fuyuan still shook his head.

Chen Qingwu put down the panna cotta and spoon and suddenly reached out.

Meng Fuyuan reflexively blinked.

Chen Qingwu’s fingers landed on the bridge of his glasses and stopped.

Meng Fuyuan looked at her with no intention of stopping her.

She paused. In a moment of rising and falling breath, she reached out and removed his glasses.

Meng Qiran resembled Qilin, while Meng Fuyuan more closely resembled Meng Chengyong.

Unlike Qiran’s dark color, Meng Fuyuan’s pupils were obviously lighter, close to amber in color.

And because of this, that gaze held a contradictory quality of warmth and indifference mixed together.

But compared to wearing glasses, he seemed much more approachable.

This appearance had another quality of cool refinement, somewhat unfamiliar, making her lose focus for a few seconds.

She came to her senses, holding his glasses, and stepped back three or four meters. “Can you see me clearly like this?”

Meng Fuyuan shook his head.

Chen Qingwu moved half a meter closer. “What about now?”

Meng Fuyuan still shook his head.

Moving another half meter closer, he still shook his head.

Chen Qingwu muttered—can’t even see clearly from this close, must be practically blind.

She walked right up to him until only an arm’s length remained, and asked again, “What about now?”

Meng Fuyuan’s gaze fell on her face, looking very seriously, then as if finding it difficult, said, “Barely.”

Chen Qingwu’s foot moved forward. Now only less than ten centimeters remained. “Now?”

Meng Fuyuan lowered his head slightly, examining carefully. “Might need to be a little closer.”

“Like this?” She leaned in.

Close enough to almost see the pattern of the iris in his eyes, she suddenly realized his slow, gentle breath was falling directly on the tip of her nose.

Warm, carrying a spring water-like cool, subtle fragrance, so gently invading her breathing that she involuntarily stiffened, suddenly somewhat at a loss.

Her eyes trembled slightly, her gaze dropping, but in her panic she saw his neck, skin white as cold jade, and above the collar of his shirt, his Adam’s apple rolling slightly.

Just as she was about to be unable to breathe, Chen Qingwu quickly stepped back half a step and placed his glasses on her own nose. “Let me see how dizzy it makes me…”

She suddenly stopped.

The view looking out was exceptionally clear, without any distortion.

These were plain glass lenses.

Meng Fuyuan’s voice came from above her head, as if carrying two parts innocence and laughter, saying, “You’ve discovered my secret.”