For Li Kuiyi, there was a brief, small flash of surprise at the fact that He Youyuan could paint.

Perhaps it was not so much the fact that he could paint that surprised her, but rather the quiet, withdrawn quality that radiated from him while he was doing it — a quality that made him look entirely different from his usual self. What she had always known of him was his showiness, his smugness, his shamelessness, his exasperated fury. Yet right now, with his gaze lowered and his brows drawn together in quiet concentration as he studied the sea of flowers before him, he was as serene as a gentle, fragile moon reflected in a pool of still water.

Students from other classes passed by the window of Class 12, unable to resist craning their necks for a look, and then, without any prior agreement, let out a collective gasp of admiration: “Wow! So beautiful.”

It was unclear whether they were admiring the person or the painting.

The only difference was that some were shy, their praise offered in soft, hushed voices, while others were bold and unabashed, clapping their hands in open appreciation.

The one doing the painting seemed not to hear any of it, and never once turned his head.

Fang Zhixiao had claimed she had stayed behind to work on the bulletin board, yet she was only standing slightly behind and to the side of He Youyuan with her phone in hand, quietly aiming the camera at that handsome profile and snapping the image, freezing it there forever.

Having successfully taken the candid shot, she quickly huddled together with a few of the girls from Class 12 and exchanged a flurry of whispered words, then tapped away at her phone for a moment before exchanging a mischievous, knowing smile with them.

Li Kuiyi had no idea what she was up to, so she sent her a message: “I’m outside your classroom now.”

Fang Zhixiao lifted her head from her phone, spotted her, and waved at her excitedly, saying, “Come in, come in, quick.”

Li Kuiyi walked into the Class 12 classroom. Fang Zhixiao pulled her into her own seat, and with an air of mystery, pulled up the candid photo she had just taken on her phone, and asked under her breath, “Well? I didn’t lie to you, did I? Doesn’t this count as a work of art?”

Li Kuiyi extended two fingers to enlarge the photo, studied it carefully for a moment, and said in a low voice, “The painting itself really is quite good, but the composition of your photo is very off — the visual center is a bit skewed, and it’s clearly not on the bulletin board.”

“You are absolutely hopeless, like a block of wood!” Fang Zhixiao shot her a look of pure exasperation. “Does the bulletin board matter? What matters is that he’s handsome!”

“…You were the one who told me to come and appreciate a work of art.”

“A handsome guy painting a bulletin board with such dedication — does that not qualify as a work of art?”

Li Kuiyi: “…”

Fine. It seemed her own understanding of what constituted a work of art was simply too narrow.

Fang Zhixiao winked at her. “Do you want me to share the photo with you? I’ve already shared it with a few people in our class just now.”

Li Kuiyi thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. “Never mind. It’s obvious I don’t have the cells for appreciating works of art.”

“Hey!” Fang Zhixiao turned her phone face-down on the desk and propped her chin in her hand with a long-suffering sigh. “I’m genuinely very worried you’re going to grow old alone.”

Li Kuiyi tilted her chin toward the bulletin board at the back of the classroom, changing the subject. “Which part did you paint?”

“See that green train on the side — isn’t there a small five-starred red flag on it? That’s mine. Almost everything else was done by He Youyuan.”

“Uh… just that?”

“What do you mean, ‘just that’?” Fang Zhixiao puckered her lips in displeasure. “That five-starred red flag is the crowning touch, all right! I originally thought you just didn’t have any romantic sensibility, but it turns out you genuinely don’t have the cells for appreciating art.”

Li Kuiyi: “…”

About five or six minutes later, He Youyuan set down his brush, stepped back a few paces along the aisle between desks, and seemed to be viewing his work as a whole, even the back of his pitch-black head radiating a certain gravitas.

“A man who takes things seriously really is the most attractive.” Fang Zhixiao smiled with a dreamy, besotted expression. “Hey, if he could just stay like this — quiet and not saying a word — he’d genuinely be my ideal type.”

Then she bit down hard on her teeth with boundless regret. “Such a fine-looking guy, so why does he have to be in love with plastering walls!”

Li Kuiyi looked at the full blackboard of gouache and mused, “Could it be an occupational hazard?”

“You know, now that you mention it.” Fang Zhixiao was suddenly struck with enlightenment. “I just remembered — the little spatula he was using to plaster walls that the homeroom teacher confiscated… wasn’t that an oil painting palette knife?”

Her voice, as though she were exposing some great truth, was barely able to contain her excitement and rose several pitches without her noticing — and it happened to drift right into He Youyuan’s ears.

He realized someone was talking about him, and lifted his gaze, coolly glancing over in that direction.

But quite unexpectedly, he tumbled right into another pair of clear, crystalline eyes.

These eyes were far too familiar to him — dark and crisp, like a pool of dead water that raised no ripples, neither soft nor shimmering. Their gaze swept across him with an unhurried calm, like the cold flat of a blade grazing skin, carrying in it several degrees of sharpness and several degrees of cold indifference.

He had not seen her in many days now. To be precise, he had been deliberately avoiding her. He would sometimes catch a glimpse of her — on the road after school, on the sports field after morning laps, in the packed canteen —

But he still had not been able to let go of the fact that he had gotten a nosebleed in front of her.

That evening, he had gone home with blood streaming from both nostrils and given his aunt, his grandmother, and his grandfather a terrible fright. They had gathered around him and studied the situation for a long time, eventually arriving at a conclusion — it must be that the weather had been far too dry lately, and he had gotten too much internal heat. So his grandfather immediately marched into the kitchen and made him a soup of snow pears, lilies, and water chestnuts to clear the heat and reduce the fire.

Once the soup was ready, he took a photo and posted a status update, captioning it: “The air is dry and the weather hot — watch out for internal heat.” He thought about it for a moment, then added a live demonstration: a selfie of himself pinching his nostrils shut.

The purpose of posting the status update was simple — it was for Li Kuiyi to see. He absolutely had to let her know that he had gotten the nosebleed because of too much internal heat, and absolutely not because she had made him angry.

But what irritated him even more was that the update attracted a great deal of concern from all kinds of people — even elementary school classmates he hadn’t been in contact with for eight hundred years showed up to ask after him — and yet he never once found the scowling pineapple among those who had viewed it.

Why didn’t you come and look at my update?! Then what was the point of posting it at all?!

She was genuinely going to be the death of him.

Thinking of this, he glared at her with sullen fury, then, feeling profoundly aggrieved, looked away and turned his head to the side.

Li Kuiyi received that look, quietly pressed her lips together, and dropped her gaze, feeling a flash of guilt: so he really was still angry about being driven to a nosebleed by her.

That evening, when she had gotten home, she had actually wanted to send him a message — to ask if he was feeling any better. But then she had thought of the sight of him fleeing in disarray, and had hesitated. He had surely felt it was deeply embarrassing to get a nosebleed in front of her — that was why he had bolted so hurriedly. If she went ahead and asked him about it without any sense of propriety, would he feel even more embarrassed?

She had wavered and wavered, and in the end never sent it.

And yet he was still bothered about it.

Well then — should she go and apologize to him?

Would an apology be too strange? After all, he had been the one to break his word first, and that was why she had mocked him — she hadn’t expected him to get so worked up.

But if she didn’t apologize, after having driven the person to such a dramatic nosebleed, she still felt a bit bad about it on the inside.

Li Kuiyi deliberated for a long time and finally decided to consult her “strategist” on the matter, leaning close to Fang Zhixiao’s ear to ask, “Do you think I need to take some responsibility for He Youyuan getting a nosebleed?”

Fang Zhixiao’s mouth hung slightly open as she blinked rapidly, her mind spinning at full speed.

She was weighing up whether He Youyuan was a suitable person for Li Kuiyi to pursue further.

Going by the standard patterns of the romance novels she had read over the years, the two of them were absolutely fated — otherwise they wouldn’t have run into each other over and over and gotten entangled with each other. He Youyuan’s looks were exceptionally outstanding, the kind you would never find once the opportunity passed. Moreover, in her original assessment, He Youyuan quite possibly already had feelings for Li Kuiyi.

Most importantly, Li Kuiyi had never once said she didn’t like boys who plastered walls!

Fang Zhixiao turned her head and looked steadily at Li Kuiyi. “You do.”

He Youyuan made a few more simple touch-ups to some details on the bulletin board until, in his eyes, it had become flawless. He casually tossed the brush and gouache palette into the rinse bucket, pulled out a wet tissue to wipe his hands, and said to Class 12’s publicity officer, “Done.”

The publicity officer bounced back and forth in front of the bulletin board, heaping on praise as though the work were one of a kind in heaven and earth, then said with a cheerful smile, “Thank goodness for you! How about this — those of us who were involved in designing and painting the bulletin board all go out to eat together. We’ll treat you.”

“No need,” he refused cleanly and directly. “It’s not a big deal.”

“But we might end up asking for your help again next time the board needs updating, and it really feels like too much of an imposition.”

“It’s fine. Just come and find me directly.”

He wasn’t about to go out to eat with a group of girls. That would be awkward as anything.

“…All right, then, thank you for the trouble.”

“Mm.”

He Youyuan carried his rinse bucket back to his seat and began packing up his books. Since exams were coming right after the National Holiday break, students needed to clear their desks of everything before leaving school.

Li Kuiyi was sitting in Fang Zhixiao’s seat, facing the back of the classroom, with a clear view of his every movement.

She saw the paint-spattered knuckles of his slender fingers, stained in a riot of colors; she saw the lean muscles of his arm stand out in faint ridges as he gathered up a stack of books — like a distant range of mountains and rivers; she saw his beautiful eyelashes flutter beneath his clear, gleaming lenses, carrying with them the clean and upright spirit of a young man.

She knit her brows and turned over in her mind how she might make it up to him somehow.

He, meanwhile, was so nervous his heart was thumping wildly. Even though he had not looked up at her once, he knew she was watching him.

Please don’t keep looking at me like that.

He Youyuan’s throat bobbed up and down. He bustled about in a flustered manner, gathered up the books he didn’t need to bring home, and prepared to put them in the storage cabinet outside the classroom. Li Kuiyi was suddenly struck with inspiration and said, “Let me help you.”

His footsteps halted. He met her eyes again.

What scheme are you cooking up now, Miss Pineapple?

“No need.” He walked straight out of the classroom.

Li Kuiyi and Fang Zhixiao exchanged a glance. Fang Zhixiao balled up her fist and pumped it in encouragement.

Having put his books away, He Youyuan walked back into the classroom, slung his slouchy bag over his right shoulder, picked up the rinse bucket, and made to head home.

Li Kuiyi pulled Fang Zhixiao along and followed a couple of steps behind.

“Hey, He Youyuan.” After they came out of the school building, she called out to stop him, getting straight to the point. “Let me treat you to something to eat.”