Cheng Wanyue lifted the quilt and tossed it aside, taking the opportunity to climb over him.

She knew she couldn’t win a direct contest of strength — she’d need a different approach.

Although Qing Hang could be intense in bed, he was always careful with her. If she didn’t want to do something, he’d hold back no matter how frustrating that was for him. He never pushed her toward anything she wasn’t comfortable with.

She’d done a little curious reading before, though the material hadn’t been great — honestly kind of off-putting, mostly because of how it was written. But she got the general idea: that this sort of attention could be just as much about the emotional charge as anything physical.

Qing Hang had brought her to the edge more than once with just his mouth, and she knew exactly how good that felt.

Just wait. I’ll show you not to underestimate me.

“Are you going to behave, or do I have to make you?” Cheng Wanyue was determined to get the upper hand for once. It was still early, and she wasn’t sure she could actually pull this off, but she pressed on anyway. “Your face just changed — looks like you like the sound of that.”

Qing Hang watched her gearing up for battle, clearly amused. “Are you serious right now?”

A moment later, he wasn’t laughing anymore.

Cheng Wanyue wasn’t gentle about it. “Who’s joking? I’m completely serious.”

“Why are you so worked up?” she teased, poking at him lightly. “Qing Hang, don’t tell me you secretly like being on the receiving end of a little payback. That would make this a lot more interesting.”

The tips of Qing Hang’s ears went faintly red. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have some kind of thing for that.”

Cheng Wanyue laughed, cupping his face and pressing a kiss to the tip of his nose, then his chin. “Even if you did, so what? What happens between us stays between us.”

That was a question for another day. She’d figure out the truth of it eventually.

She had no real idea what she was doing but acted like she did anyway. Steeling her nerve, she murmured, “Just — let me know before, okay? Give me some warning.”

Qing Hang reached up to wrap an arm around her waist. “There’s nothing here worth being curious about. It’s not going to be fun for you.”

“Just let me try for a minute,” she insisted. She couldn’t always be the one left weak and breathless.

She leaned in first, just to be close.

The ends of her hair brushed against his skin, sending a shiver through him. Qing Hang reached to pull her back up, but she was already testing the waters, cautious but determined.

In that moment, whatever composure he had left gave way completely. Wanting mixed with restraint made him careful even as his hand came up to rest gently against her cheek, guiding rather than pushing.

She was clumsy and inexperienced but bold about it, and it didn’t take long before his breathing had gone completely uneven — a rare thing for him to let show.

She glanced up at him, and under the weight of his gaze, kept going, hand and attention both fully focused.

For a moment, pleasure completely overtook his self-control, and before either of them fully registered it, he’d pulled her back up and laid her against the pillow instead — needing her closer, needing more than this.

He very nearly forgot themselves entirely in that instant, catching it just in time.

Braced above her, he kissed her deeply, unhurried despite the urgency underneath it, and the two of them lost themselves completely in each other for a while — hands and lips finding warmth and familiar places, the room filling with quiet laughter and soft, breathless sounds.

Even back when they were young and this was all brand new to both of them, he’d been just the same — helplessly undone by her.

Cheng Wanyue was held close afterward, glancing at the clock over his shoulder, a light laugh brushing against his ear like she was teasing him: You’re not as tough as you think — I win.

“Ah!” She yelped as his mouth found her collarbone. “Did you seriously just bite me?”

Qing Hang wasn’t holding back, though nothing about it was actually meant to hurt — she was just being dramatic on purpose.

“That’s what you get for teasing me,” he muttered, only half joking.

Even when they were younger, he’d always had this habit of quietly marking the places only she would notice — a small, private kind of possessiveness tangled up with nerves he never quite admitted to. She was free-spirited, always ready to take off on her own, and some part of him just wanted a way for her to carry a piece of him with her. So even something as simple as a kiss, he wanted to make sure it left an impression.

It was the same now.

Qing Hang looked at the faint marks blooming across her skin and felt his pulse pick up all over again.

He grabbed a T-shirt from beside the bed to help clean up, then dipped down to press a kiss to her ankle. She was ticklish and dissolved into muffled laughter under the blanket, squirming and trying to kick him away — which only gave him the opening to lift her leg over his shoulder instead. Faint marks from earlier that morning were still visible along her thigh.

Her hair spilled across the pillow, and a pair of warm, teasing eyes looked back up at him through the haze of the moment.

He couldn’t resist teasing her right back, but he loved her most like this — bright, alive, unguarded.

Her skin was warm, her whole body soft and at ease against his. He could feel her heartbeat, brush the damp hair back from her neck, and just hold her there for a moment.

“Cheng Wanyue, do you remember the wish you gave me?”

“I’m not a goldfish. Of course I remember.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

She wanted to ask what he’d wished for, but got distracted when he leaned in and kissed her instead, slow and warm, and for a while neither of them said anything else at all.

The morning slipped away in soft, unhurried closeness, neither of them in any rush to move.

Meiqiu had been unusually restless for a few nights, meowing on and off.

Cheng Wanyue had even recorded it once and sent the clip to Qing Hang. She joked her own voice sounded just as hoarse right about now.

She once complained that classmates had nicknamed her “Cheng Little Dog” after school. Qing Hang had always privately thought of her more as a cat — proud, a little aloof, prone to scratching him when provoked, only to turn around and do it again before the marks even healed. Seeing those little marks always made him think of her. So did finding a stray strand of her hair on his clothes.

The moon hung outside, and somewhere in the quiet, water dripped steadily from the eaves.

Cheng Wanyue never wanted to be the one to call it quits first, and by the time they finally settled, she felt completely wrung out, like she’d melted from the warmth of it all.

The sheets were a rumpled mess, still slightly damp, clinging stubbornly to her ankles.

They’d need to shower before heading out. One more quiet moment passed between them in the bathroom.

She was braced gently against the wall, breathless, holding onto him for balance as steam filled the room around them.

Their breathing mixed together in the warm mist. She couldn’t quite steady herself, and started to slide, but—

Qing Hang caught her without hesitation. He pressed a light kiss to her collarbone, then her neck, grounding her, and she held on tightly, completely at ease in his arms.

She nudged him lightly, urging him to hurry along so they could actually get ready.

He took his time anyway, unwilling to rush even a single moment of it — every bit of attention deliberate, like he simply couldn’t get enough of her.

The moon belongs to no one in particular. But when its light touched him, it felt like the closest he’d ever get to her.

Water ran between them as she leaned into him, and when she tipped her head back with a soft laugh, droplets caught at the corner of his mouth before he kissed her again.

In the past, she used to talk endlessly about wanting to lose weight. Whenever she felt lazy, she’d tease him instead — asking if he didn’t work out enough, if he wasn’t strong enough to carry her, daring him to prove otherwise.

Those little jabs and dares had gone on for years, and somehow she always came out on top regardless.

The day she found out he was hiding something, she pestered him relentlessly to find out what.

First she tried reasoning with him: “Who says young love is only for troublemakers?”

When that didn’t get him to admit anything, she switched tactics, putting on an exaggerated pout.

“Coward. You won’t even admit you like someone.”

When that didn’t work either, she started laying little traps in conversation.

“Is she pretty?”

“Very pretty.”

“What’s the prettiest thing about her?”

“Everything.”

After that answer, she stayed annoyed for ages. During class she refused to even walk past his side of the desk, hopping over it instead, and taped a sheet of paper over the little gap between their desks just to make a point.

It wasn’t until their homeroom teacher, after a round of exams, mentioned reassigning seats and possibly moving her deskmate that she finally dragged him straight to the office.

In front of the teacher, she asked, all innocence, “Qing Hang, am I distracting you from your studies?”

Her expression stayed perfectly composed, but behind his back, her hand found his side in a warning pinch — a clear signal that if he agreed, there’d be consequences.

Qing Hang said, “No.”

She smiled sweetly at the teacher and lifted her chin, satisfied.

The teacher checked the grade sheet. “Qing Hang’s overall score dropped by six points compared to last time.”

“He’s still ranked first, though. It’s only six points — he’ll make it up,” she said, tugging lightly at his sleeve. “Right, Qing Hang?”

Qing Hang nodded. “Right.”

He backed it up with a calm, reasonable explanation for the six-point dip. In the end, the teacher left the seating as it was, and the moment they got back to the classroom, Cheng Wanyue ripped the paper barrier off the desk.

That evening during study hall, she slipped him another note, asking if the girl he liked was the one from Class 11.

He crumpled it up without answering and instead circled the mistakes on her test paper, telling her to redo them.

She didn’t get a single one right, and right before class ended, she “accidentally” knocked her chair over.

Cheng Yanqing vanished the moment class let out, so Qing Hang walked her home instead. Right at the entrance to the alley, she suddenly refused to keep walking, first claiming her leg hurt, then that she’d bruised herself falling earlier — and jumped up to throw her arms around his neck for support. He stumbled back half a step, catching her instinctively.

From the very beginning, she’d never been guarded around him — more like she considered him family, no different from her own sister.

…

The bathroom floor was slick, and Cheng Wanyue, worried about losing her footing, let out a soft, laughing complaint that Qing Hang could just barely hear over the water.

He kept a steady, careful hold on her the whole time, and she pressed her face into his shoulder, completely at ease.

“Careful… don’t let me fall… slow down a little…”

He held her closer, adjusting his grip so she felt secure, and for a moment everything else fell away.

Eventually, things settled, and after a long, quiet pause, Qing Hang laughed softly against her skin and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Have I ever once let you fall?”

“What time is it?”

“We can head down in another half hour if we just lie here a bit first.”

While getting dressed, Cheng Wanyue asked if he’d had a good time. He just laughed and draped his jacket playfully over her face instead of answering.

He still hadn’t put his shirt on. His back bore several faint marks from earlier.

Cheng Wanyue propped herself up on the bed, looking up at him, waiting for a real answer. He said nothing, just leaned down and kissed her softly instead.

Before they left, he snapped off a small cluster of blue hydrangeas from the vase and clipped it into her hair.

When Huo Zhi saw it, she complimented it right away.

The two girls walked ahead, with Cheng Yanqing and Qing Hang trailing behind.

Cheng Yanqing carried Huo Zhi’s bag, while Qing Hang held two bottles of water.

The bag looked roomy but was surprisingly light. Noticing that Cheng Wanyue was too excited to pay attention to them, Cheng Yanqing unzipped it to check on the flower tucked inside.

“Still good — didn’t get crushed.”

Just one bloom, petals still intact.

Qing Hang had texted him after ten the night before, asking him to grab the freshest flowers he could find from the shop.

“Thanks,” Qing Hang said, glancing at it briefly before his eyes went right back to searching for Cheng Wanyue.

“No need,” Cheng Yanqing said with a small smile. “Didn’t expect you to pick this particular moment, though.”

“She doesn’t like ordinary gestures,” Qing Hang said. “This needed to mean something. And I wanted you both here to see it too.”

They waited in line for three hours before finally reaching the square. Most of the crowd around them were college students, many holding small red flags.

Huo Zhi had brought her camera and was recording everything.

The crowd grew thicker as the sky slowly lightened. The flag stirred gently in the breeze, and everyone waited together for six o’clock to arrive.

As the sun rose, the flag was raised, and the whole crowd sang the national anthem together. It was the kind of moment that brought tears to people’s eyes without warning.

Watching it on television never came close to the real thing. Every hour spent waiting in line suddenly felt worth it. Cheng Wanyue finally understood why her grandfather had always dreamed of coming to Beijing to see this in person before he passed.

What better way to witness how far her country had come?

Just as the tears gathering in Cheng Wanyue’s eyes were about to fall, Qing Hang pulled a red rose out from behind his back.

He called her name beneath the flag, now fully raised and rippling overhead: “Cheng Wanyue.”

“Eight years ago, I let you leave without saying goodbye. I’ve regretted that every day since. When the train started moving, some part of me wanted to break the window and jump out just to stop you.”

“When you told me over the phone that you were sick, I didn’t believe you. I didn’t come. I regret that more than almost anything. Lately I keep dreaming that you’re gone before I am. I’m glad it’s only a dream — because you’re going to live a long, long life.”

“I regret not coming to find you before you left for Beijing. Even if you hadn’t felt the same way, I still should have tried.”

“I regret getting jealous and picking fights with you over nothing. The moment you cried, I should have wiped your tears away instead of turning my back. I should never have let you feel alone in that.”

“I have a lot of regrets. But I’m also grateful — because you once gave me a wish to make.”

“It’s October 1st, 6:23 in the morning. So here’s my wish, made beneath this flag: Cheng Wanyue — stay with me.”

“I will always be faithful to you.”