As time drew closer, Qiu Xing became increasingly busy, and Lin Yiran herself had many things to do, unable to get away.

They often couldn’t see each other, and their free time always seemed to be misaligned.

Qiu Xing wasn’t a person content with the status quo. From the age of nineteen when he left university to pay off debts until now at twenty-eight, in less than ten years, he had driven long-distance trucks, opened an auto repair shop, invested in equipment for a wire factory, and even owned a small fleet of vehicles transporting construction materials to work sites.

He was smart and ambitious, with great drive. He learned quickly about anything he could get involved in and always managed to find opportunities within them. Qiu Xing, who had once been nearly a million yuan in debt, now had no liquid cash, but he owned his businesses, all of which continued to generate income for him. He would then consider investing the money he earned in other ventures.

He had resources from his father’s former transportation company, plus the connections he had built over the years with his trucks, as well as the logistics companies he had connected with through his repair shop. Recently, he had been busy collaborating with several short-distance logistics companies from other provinces, aiming to expand his network beyond the fixed provinces he had been operating in, to increase his scale.

Because of this, Qiu Xing had been flying all over the country these past few months, dealing with upstream and downstream partners, integrating resources, negotiating cooperation, and signing contracts.

When Lin Yiran called him, she often couldn’t get through. He was either busy or didn’t hear the phone.

Several times when Lin Yiran called at night, she caught Qiu Xing when he was drunk.

Qiu Xing didn’t particularly enjoy drinking, though he could handle alcohol well. But business dealings seemed to inevitably involve drinking, especially in the social circle Qiu Xing was dealing with—mostly local bosses with few intellectuals—business over drinks was unavoidable.

Qiu Xing wasn’t essentially a local boss, but since he wanted to make money from them, he had to speak their language, adapt to different people, and not set himself apart from the crowd.

He couldn’t set himself apart anyway—he was just a high school graduate. Nowadays, students with good grades have no upper limit, and even those with poor grades can attend technical college. High school graduates were indeed rare.

So Qiu Xing didn’t think he was any different; they were all simply striving people.

When Qiu Xing got drunk, he didn’t cause trouble or talk much. Most of the time, he just went straight to sleep.

Only once did he take the initiative to call Lin Yiran in the middle of the night.

At two in the morning, Lin Yiran drowsily saw Qiu Xing’s call in her dormitory bed and immediately answered.

“Qiu Xing?”

Qiu Xing made an “mm” sound.

Just from his voice, she could tell he was drunk. He sounded nasal and spiritless, as if he had called halfway through his sleep.

“Have you been drinking?” Lin Yiran asked softly.

After several seconds, Qiu Xing made another “mm” sound.

“Where are you? Have you gotten back to where you’re staying?” Lin Yiran asked with concern, furrowing her brow slightly. “Did you drink a lot?”

Qiu Xing went silent. Lin Yiran had asked too many questions, and Qiu Xing didn’t answer.

Lin Yiran waited for a while without hearing Qiu Xing speak, so she asked again: “Are you back?”

Qiu Xing responded with a delayed “mm.”

“Is anyone with you?” Lin Yiran asked again.

Each question took about ten seconds to get an answer. Qiu Xing said: “No.”

“How much did you drink?” Lin Yiran was genuinely worried. “Are you feeling very unwell?”

Qiu Xing made an “umm” sound, his breathing heavy.

Lin Yiran was completely helpless. Qiu Xing was in a city far away from her, with no one she could contact around him.

She wanted to get Qiu Xing to drink some honey water, but he was alone in a hotel. She was afraid he might fall, or burn his hand boiling water, and besides, Qiu Xing had nowhere to find honey.

“Then go to sleep early. Take off your clothes and get under the covers to sleep.” Lin Yiran coaxed him. Seeing he wasn’t responding, she called him again, “Qiu Xing?”

“Lin Xiaozhou.” Qiu Xing called her name, his voice muffled and unclear.

“I’m here.” Her roommates were all sound asleep. Lin Yiran covered herself with her blanket and responded softly.

Qiu Xing was truly drunk, speaking unconsciously. Later, he called her name several more times, and Lin Yiran responded properly each time.

He didn’t seem to have anything to say; he just wanted to call her name.

“Why do you keep calling me?” Lin Yiran asked with a light laugh after responding to him once more.

“Lin Xiaozhou.” Qiu Xing said.

“Yes,” Lin Yiran replied.

“Not many months left.” Qiu Xing’s voice was so muffled that Lin Yiran didn’t catch it at first.

She reflected for a moment before understanding what Qiu Xing had said. The smile on her face slowly faded. After a moment, Lin Yiran slowly began to speak, asking him: “Qiu Xing, can we just stay together like this, okay?”

Qiu Xing didn’t answer for a long time. Lin Yiran thought he had fallen asleep.

Just as she was about to check if he was asleep, Qiu Xing spoke, mumbling: “No.”

Qiu Xing’s stubborn temperament gave Lin Yiran a headache, but even now, she had never thought they would separate. Lin Yiran had never considered letting go of Qiu Xing; like the previous two times, Qiu Xing would always soften toward her.

Qiu Xing had blacked out that time. The next day when he woke up, he didn’t remember calling Lin Yiran in the middle of the night, nor did he remember repeatedly calling her name and hearing her responses.

He was too busy to see Lin Yiran in person, and even phone calls were brief before hanging up. Lin Yiran knew he was busy, so she didn’t often reach out to him.

*

Lin Yiran’s own time was also filled.

Besides school courses and exams, she had gone to Hong Kong with her teacher for a literary discussion, traveled abroad for a literary forum, and flown to several cities within China—sometimes with her teacher, sometimes for her own affairs.

Thanks to the award she had won last year and her growing reputation, her new book had been signed with very high royalties. She had to write the short stories she had promised to magazine editors, finish the manuscript for her new book, and handle various miscellaneous tasks, filling Lin Yiran’s schedule.

The identity of being an author seemed to conflict somewhat with being a student. The two identities split Lin Yiran into two parts, and she could only use more time and energy to ensure that both of these mutually separate parts were done well.

And Qiu Xing didn’t belong to either of these parts.

He was outside of them; the part where Qiu Xing belonged was the once-disheveled and distressed Lin Yiran. For the increasingly brilliant person she was becoming now, Qiu Xing’s existence felt incongruous.

Under their respective busy schedules, their life trajectories no longer had any intersection points. Not only was the distance between them growing, but their life circles also didn’t blend.

It seemed that only that thin relationship between them was maintaining their connection; beyond that, they had no overlap. Under such circumstances, this relationship became forced, even somewhat ridiculous.

But Lin Yiran, being in the midst of it, didn’t feel that way.

In her busyness, she didn’t have much time to think about herself and Qiu Xing. Only occasionally, when she had free time, did she feel a little worried about the approaching deadline.

*

Lin Yiran sat on the high-speed train, with a senior doctoral fellow student from her department reading a book beside her. This senior was five years older than Lin Yiran, quite witty, very gracious, and at the same time well-read and talented. He had also attended a reading lecture with their teacher this time. Afterward, as their teacher had other matters to attend to, he and Lin Yiran traveled back together.

For the first half of the journey, they didn’t disturb each other. The senior was reading his book, and Lin Yiran was sleeping with an eye mask on.

Later, a family of three sat in front of them, including a five or six-year-old boy who, finding the train ride boring, kept making noise.

Lin Yiran hadn’t fallen asleep; she was just resting with her eyes closed. In such public places that couldn’t give her a sense of security, Lin Yiran rarely fell asleep. She was always instinctively wary of her surroundings, unless Qiu Xing was beside her.

She heard her senior say to the passengers in front: “Could you please ask the child to be a bit quieter?”

The couple were very polite people. They first apologized, then softly scolded the child, but the child wouldn’t listen and continued to make noise.

Lin Yiran removed her eye mask and sat up.

“Did the noise wake you?” the senior asked.

Lin Yiran shook her head and smiled, saying: “I wasn’t asleep anyway.”

The senior took a new pair of earplugs from his pocket and handed them over.

Lin Yiran waved her hand, saying: “I’m not going to sleep anymore.”

The seat next to them was empty. When the train stopped at the next station, Lin Yiran got off and stood on the platform for a while. When she got back on, she sat in the seat by the aisle, with an empty seat between her and the senior.

The senior read his book, as if not noticing her.

Lin Yiran looked at her phone for a while. As soon as she opened her Moments feed, she saw several photos.

The screen was filled with roses that almost spilled out—roses of all colors mixed: passionate red, pure blue, gentle yellow.

Li Qianduo: [They’re all, all, all mine!!!]

Lin Yiran looked at this post with surprise, clicked on the photos to take a closer look, and saw in one of them a small hand that indeed belonged to Li Qianduo.

Lin Yiran had been too busy to contact her much lately. Seeing this post reminded her of Li Qianduo calling her late at night in tears, saying she had been deceived.

Looking at these photos and text, she could imagine how happy Li Qianduo was. Lin Yiran smiled, not worried about Li Qianduo being deceived. Firstly, because Li Qianduo, though naive, was a clear-headed girl, not so easily fooled. At the same time, Lin Yiran also felt that regardless of the outcome, as long as one enjoyed love in the moment, it wasn’t a loss.

She liked Li Qianduo’s post and commented with two heart emojis.

During the second half of the train journey, the two chatted for a while.

The senior was someone who never lacked topics of conversation. He could always find suitable subjects to discuss. If the other person didn’t talk much, he would chat away; when the other person spoke, he would listen sincerely. Talking with him was comfortable. Even Lin Yiran, who was introverted and slow to warm up, didn’t mind chatting with him, especially since they were already quite familiar with each other.

Their topics covered many areas: writing, novels, movies, and later, from a certain film, they discussed views on love and marriage.

When the conversation turned to this area, Lin Yiran didn’t want to continue, but a statement from the senior made her instinctively object.

“Spiritual compatibility is very important. Love not based on equality is a product of self-delusion. The essence of any relationship is exchange. Inequality in one aspect must be compensated for by other aspects. When the exchange aspect is no longer needed by the other party, the relationship loses its binding conditions.”

At this point, the senior smiled and didn’t want to continue, or perhaps wanted to change the subject.

The senior continued: “For example, background, social class, depth of thought, economic conditions, education. The starting point of emotion is based on love, but if the various aspects of exchange cannot maintain a basic balance in the long term, then in this relationship, the two people are destined to become increasingly lonely, and naturally, there’s no emotional connection to speak of.”

After hearing his words, Lin Yiran looked at him and said: “I disagree.”

This statement was unlike Lin Yiran’s usual style. The senior was surprised and laughed slightly: “Tell me why?”

Lin Yiran didn’t want to explain, so she just shook her head and said: “I don’t think love is just an exchange.”

Lin Yiran didn’t want to discuss this, and her words carried a childish tone of rebuttal, which was inconsistent with her usual self. Given Lin Yiran’s writing style, she didn’t seem like a girl who yearned for love and romance.

Although the senior found it quite interesting, he didn’t say more and naturally changed the topic.

When discussing such topics, Lin Yiran inevitably thought of Qiu Xing.

She didn’t yearn for love or believe in romance. What Qiu Xing gave her was never romance, but steadiness, safety, and support.

Whenever love was mentioned, Lin Yiran would, at that moment, miss Qiu Xing very much.