When Shen Qianzhan called out to stop Ji Qinghe, she didn’t know what she wanted to say to him.

She remained silent for a moment, remembering that instant of soft-heartedness, pressed her lips together, and said: “Since we happened to meet, I wanted to ask if you’re free on Thursday. The initial draft of the outline is finalized, and if you’re available, you could come to Qiandeng to listen in.”

“Alright.” Ji Qinghe agreed, still looking at her.

Shen Qianzhan also felt that calling him back just to say something so insignificant seemed rather unreasonable. She thought for a moment and said: “Mid-month, I want to go to your studio to take some photos. Teacher Jiang and Lin Qiao don’t know much about clock restoration, so they’ll have technical difficulties writing the series…”

Ji Qinghe interrupted her: “The photos are to help them understand?”

Shen Qianzhan didn’t see any problem: “Yes.”

“The courtyard studio can be open to them long-term. Meng Wanzhou is there—though he’s not proficient in restoration, if it’s just explaining basic theoretical knowledge, he has no problem with that.” Ji Qinghe cleared his throat and said: “I thought you were taking photos to provide to the art department.”

Shen Qianzhan hadn’t expected him to think so far ahead: “We’ll definitely need that later too. I haven’t encountered any court clock restoration masters more professional than you. A large part of the production team’s props and set design will probably be based on your studio for creative inspiration.”

Ji Qinghe nodded, having no objections to her arrangement.

With that topic concluded, the conversation ended.

Shen Qianzhan breathed a sigh of relief and stepped back two paces: “Alright, then… let’s leave it at that for now. We can discuss the details when we meet next time.”

A sharp yet low sound from what might have been an alarm or detector rang out once in the parking garage.

Ji Qinghe looked in the direction of the sound and suddenly asked: “Does the property management arrange for security guards to patrol at night?”

Shen Qianzhan followed his gaze. Where his eyes stopped was a concealed door adjacent to the stairwell and storage room. It used to be used for storing renovation waste—boards, nails, paint buckets were all discarded there uniformly, with the property management arranging cleaning vehicles for disposal.

Later, as more and more residents moved in, complaints and grievances grew. After the property management cleaned up the waste in this area, this concealed door had remained empty.

“You could suggest the property management install surveillance in this area.” He withdrew his hand from resting on the car window and gestured: “You go up first.”

His reminder made the back of Shen Qianzhan’s neck feel cold. Without demurring, she left him with “Drive carefully” and was the first to go through the building entrance into the elevator.

The old Shen couple was waiting for her to have dinner.

Shen Qianzhan served the Buddha Jumps Over the Wall from the thermal container, dividing it into three bowls, one for each person.

Ever since Shen Qianzhan returned to work after New Year, she often brought home side dishes like braised beef and small bamboo shoots for extra meals. So initially, Mother Shen didn’t think of Ji Qinghe until she tasted the shark fin in the Buddha Jumps Over the Wall, when she made a puzzled sound: “This isn’t vermicelli—it’s shark fin, right?”

Old Shen agreed: “It is shark fin. This bowl of Buddha Jumps Over the Wall uses high-grade ingredients, not like something Dengdeng would pack from a roadside stall. It tastes like that bowl we spent over five hundred on at the Guangzhou hotel.”

The word “Guangzhou” touched Mother Shen’s sensitive nerve, and a knowing expression suddenly appeared on her face: “Xiao Ji brought it over, didn’t he?” Without waiting for Shen Qianzhan’s confirmation, Mother Shen continued: “I can see that young man is polite and acts with great generosity. He’s quite good.”

She nudged Shen Qianzhan, who was just eating without speaking, with her elbow: “What’s Xiao Ji’s personality like?”

Hearing this familiar opening, Shen Qianzhan got a headache: “He’s the investor for the project. We’ve barely spoken a few words total. How would I know what his personality is like?”

Originally, Old Shen hadn’t planned to join the mother-daughter conversation, but seeing Shen Qianzhan’s attitude of completely distancing herself, his innate stubbornness rebelled: “I can see that you and Xiao Ji don’t seem like you’ve barely spoken.”

“You should only half-believe what your mother says, but Dad trusts your judgment. However, Xiao Ji knows when to advance and retreat, his behavior is modest and polite, and he knows how to appeal to others’ preferences. Whatever your thoughts are, you should think carefully and not waste each other’s time.”

Old Shen spoke fairly, and Shen Qianzhan took these words to heart, nodding: “I understand. What about Grandpa’s surgery tomorrow?”

Seeing she didn’t want to discuss it further, Old Shen didn’t insist and followed her lead to change the subject.

After dinner, Old Shen used the excuse of taking out trash to walk around the complex and sent Su Zan a message: “Young friend Su, Uncle has something he’d like to ask you about.”

Su Zan was extremely interested in gossip and replied instantly: “Uncle, please ask.”

Old Shen said: “My Dengdeng and Xiao Ji’s relationship seems a bit tense. Did they have a conflict before?”

Su Zan’s mind worked like a highway to heaven. He thought for a moment and replied: “Nothing like that. Uncle, you and Auntie don’t need to worry about those two—it’s just a matter of time.”

Old Shen: “!!!” He hadn’t originally wanted to know this!

Early the next morning, Shen Qianzhan took half a day off to take the old Shen couple to the hospital.

She spent the whole morning running around paying bills and collecting report forms. After lunch, she went back to the company to work.

Around two o’clock in the afternoon, Jiang Juanshan delivered the script outline as promised.

Shen Qianzhan specially reserved a small conference room, calling in Su Zan and Qiao Xin for the three of them to read together.

The commemorative drama’s title was tentatively set by Jiang Juanshan as “Time.” He wrote the main outline while Lin Qiao handled character development and summaries.

Shen Qianzhan was very satisfied with this first draft outline. After annotating a few comments, she provided feedback with revisions that same day. After finishing this, she left work early to check on the situation at the hospital.

Heart bypass surgery takes three to five hours. Logically, the surgery starting in the afternoon should have finished by four o’clock, but throughout the entire afternoon, Shen Qianzhan’s phone remained quiet—no work contacts or any messages from the old Shen couple.

She arrived at the hospital before rush hour, notified the old Shen couple in advance, then went to park first.

The hospital’s underground parking garage was three levels deep with tight parking spaces. The popular spots near the elevator and stairwell entrances were always occupied. Shen Qianzhan circled the vast parking garage round and round before finally finding a spot in a remote corner of the second basement level.

Her sense of direction wasn’t great, and losing her way in large spaces without signs was common. Moreover, with every department’s corridors crisscrossing in the hospital, she wandered the underground maze for nearly half an hour before finally emerging from the ground-level emergency room exit.

Her phone, which had seemed to have vanished into thin air, finally made a sound. Amid the buzzing vibration, she pulled back the curtain while answering the call.

Unexpectedly, it was a deep, familiar male voice: “Lost?”

Her ear was filled with the chaotic background noise of the emergency room that made it impossible to distinguish sound sources. Ji Qinghe’s voice was somewhat muffled, like a framed oil painting coated with a layer of waxy shadow.

She instinctively looked at the caller ID: “Ji Qinghe?”

“It’s me.” Ji Qinghe stood at the window at the end of the corridor, looking down at the square: “Auntie told me you came over half an hour ago.”

“I couldn’t find the exit.” Shen Qianzhan hurried out of the emergency room into the corridor.

The corridor was spacious on both sides, with no signs or passing doctors and nurses. Her voice inevitably carried some urgency: “I don’t know where I am.”

Ji Qinghe recalled the background sounds he’d just heard, turning to go downstairs while asking: “Are you at outpatient or emergency?”

“Emergency.” Shen Qianzhan finally saw the fever clinic and rabies clinic next to the emergency department: “Which direction should I go?”

She heard him seem to chuckle on the other end, with some helplessness: “You went completely in the wrong direction.”

Shen Qianzhan suddenly felt her throat constrict slightly.

Wrong direction…?

“Stay where you are, I’ll come find you.” After Ji Qinghe said this, he hung up.

Shen Qianzhan looked at her phone screen. After the call ended, the screen dimmed from bright to dark, the light gradually sinking.

Her heart suddenly skipped a beat, and all those unasked questions—”how are you here,” “how are you so familiar with the hospital”—scattered into the lightly snowing air.

In Shen Qianzhan’s first two years in Beijing, she always had special feelings about snow. She would go to the Forbidden City to appreciate the first snow. While tourists carried cameras of all sizes taking photos everywhere, she would sit on the bench across from the Clock and Watch Gallery, hunching her shoulders and tucking her hands away, sitting there for half the day.

With strong winds and cold snow, her nose would turn red from the cold, but she didn’t feel cold at all.

Later she met that scumbag who wasn’t even worth calling an ex. He drove her around Beijing’s outskirts. On such a cold day with all the car windows open, she could catch snowflakes just by reaching out her hand—cold yet feeling ridiculously foolish about herself.

Later, life wore away her enthusiasm, and even snow couldn’t stir her emotions.

She would only complain about heavy snow affecting filming schedules, occasionally warming wine on snowy days when life sparked some enthusiasm, sitting in temporary photography tents watching the shoot.

But it had been so very long since she felt, like today, that snow had warmth.

Shen Qianzhan waited for ten minutes.

During those ten minutes, a mother and daughter entered the fever clinic. The girl was still small, her height only reaching her mother’s waist. Her face was flushed red from fever, held tightly by her mother’s hand, walking step by step through the accumulated snow, moving with both unsteady heaviness and serious concentration.

She watched this mother and daughter enter the fever clinic, take their temperature, then exit to pay fees.

The fever clinic was adjacent to the emergency room, with payment at the registration counter in the emergency room.

Shen Qianzhan watched this mother and daughter cross the corridor, turn left and pause for a moment. Her gaze followed them, and only then did she notice a pillar sign in the corner with an aluminum location map on the wall, marking each landmark from emergency and outpatient to inpatient departments with red stars.

All because she had been facing away from the wall while taking the call earlier and had overlooked it.

Shen Qianzhan couldn’t help but feel her face heat up. She looked around, and seeing no one nearby, paced over along the eaves.

The emergency room was located at the northwest corner of the hospital with a separate side entrance to facilitate ambulance access.

When Shen Qianzhan was in the underground garage, she had crossed half the hospital. She had already deviated from the correct exit when parking, which caused her to lose her way and go further and further off course.

She looked up to study it for a while, and just as she figured out she needed to cross the flower bed to find the outpatient department, footsteps approached from far to near, gradually becoming clear.

She turned to look.

Ji Qinghe came carrying an umbrella.

One hand tucked in his coat pocket, the other holding the umbrella, his steps heavy and steady, unhurried.

That umbrella looked familiar. On the afternoon of the third day of the New Year, Ji Qinghe had also held an umbrella like this, escorting her from the teahouse private room to the parking lot.

On the black umbrella surface, a few snowflakes had piled up on top. With his movement, the snow water gradually melted, dripping down along the umbrella ribs drop by drop.

Perhaps sensing her gaze, he slightly lifted the umbrella handle, and those deep black eyes unexpectedly met hers directly.

Whether it was Shen Qianzhan’s imagination or not, she seemed to see the coldness between his brows slightly melt, his eyebrows relaxing, with a warmth different from his usual coolness, carrying the intoxicating touch of pine-scented fragrance diffusing in the air.

Shen Qianzhan quietly swallowed.

Damn, another day of being overwhelmed by good looks!

Without waiting for Ji Qinghe to approach, she took the initiative to meet him partway, taking shelter under his umbrella. The questions she hadn’t had time to ask earlier now perfectly masked her guilty conscience: “How is President Ji here?”

“Accompanying the old master.” Ji Qinghe gestured for her to follow him: “The old master and Ms. Meng arrived in Beijing last night. Hearing that Dr. Fei had surgery today, they came by for a follow-up examination.”

Shen Qianzhan understood and politely inquired about Old Master Ji’s health condition.

“He’s doing well.” Ji Qinghe glanced at her and asked: “Don’t want to meet him in person?”

His tone was serious, asked with genuine feeling. For a moment, Shen Qianzhan couldn’t tell whether he was sincerely trying to fulfill her previously desperate wish or was joking and mocking her past hardships of traveling mountains and crossing waters just to meet Old Master Ji.

While she hesitated, Ji Qinghe seemed completely indifferent to her answer and quickly moved on to the next topic: “I arrived a bit after you. Auntie said you got to the hospital half an hour ago, but you were nowhere to be seen. I guessed you were lost.”

Shen Qianzhan was too embarrassed to admit it and asked: “Dr. Fei hasn’t finished surgery yet?”

“Mm.” He switched the umbrella to his other hand, drawing her to his side: “It should be soon. Don’t worry.”

There was a semi-open passage on the ground level leading directly to the outpatient department. Ji Qinghe stayed half a step behind Shen Qianzhan, waited for her to enter, then stood in the corridor and closed his umbrella to walk alongside her.

The walkway had bulletin boards and expert photos mounted like a wall of honors, lined with various summit exhibition photos and honorary trophies along the way.

Shen Qianzhan was concerned about her grandfather’s condition and didn’t look closely.

Only after entering the elevator, when Ji Qinghe pressed the floor button and the elevator doors closed from left to right, did he say leisurely: “The old master quite wants to meet you. Will you consider it?”