·
Oh thank goodness. Li Kuiyi exhaled with quiet relief: at least he wasn’t confessing.
But even if it wasn’t a confession, the flowers and chocolate in her arms were more than she could handle. If he wanted to apologize, a sincere “I’m sorry” would have been plenty — she wasn’t going to refuse his apology. Why all this fanfare?
The boy in front of her had clear, dark eyes, still fixed directly on her, holding a trace of careful, tentative longing — lovely and fragile all at once. Li Kuiyi felt something soften in her. She quietly sighed to herself, then held the bouquet and chocolate back out to him, intending to explain things properly. Her voice was very gentle: “I can’t accept these. Actually, I wasn’t…”
But at the first few words, his face went cold in an instant. That unreasonable streak of his surged back up, and he shoved the flowers back into her arms: “If I give them to you, you can take them!”
Then he flung his school bag over his shoulder, turned around, and ran.
Li Kuiyi stood rooted to the spot, staring at his retreating figure — not once looking back — and had absolutely no idea what expression to put on her face.
What kind of person was this! Mood swings like a flipped switch. And to think she had just been feeling soft toward him a moment ago.
She was so irritated she wanted to throw everything in her hands away. In fact, she actually did walk over to the trash bin — but hesitated, and in the end couldn’t bring herself to do it. After all, someone had spent money on these things. What a waste.
So what was she supposed to do with them?
Returning them to He Youyuan was going to be tricky. She couldn’t bring any of this into school, and she certainly couldn’t carry them through the hallways to find him in his classroom. The chocolate was manageable, but the flowers were far too conspicuous. Even stuffed inside a bag, they’d be noticed easily.
Even bringing them home was a problem. What if her parents found them? How would she explain where the flowers and chocolate had come from?
This was exactly why she kept telling herself — that person was a nuisance. All he ever did was make trouble for her.
She had no choice. Li Kuiyi resigned herself and stuffed both the flowers and the chocolate back into her bag, deciding to deal with them at home for now. Her bag wasn’t as big as He Youyuan’s, and the bouquet inside looked even more cramped and miserable, some of the petals now pressed into wrinkles. She felt a little sorry for them.
The flowers were innocent. All the blame lay with He Youyuan.
Li Kuiyi crept home carefully. Fortunately it was past eleven, and her parents and little brother were already asleep. She managed to slip everything into her own bedroom without incident.
She locked the door behind her, then took the flowers out of her bag.
She hadn’t been able to get a proper look at them outside in the dark, but now, under the bright bedroom light, she could see that it was a remarkably beautiful bouquet. She didn’t know the names of all the flowers — she could only identify a blue hydrangea at its center, surrounded by clusters of pink and white roses, and pale yellow flowers on long swaying stems whose name she didn’t know, with scattered sprigs of mulberry leaves and tiny berries that resembled little red crab apples. Strangely, none of these blooms shared the same color family, yet together they didn’t look chaotic at all — dense and layered like an oil painting, yet bright and clean and full of movement.
Had he arranged this himself?
Li Kuiyi suspected he had the ability. What she didn’t know was whether he had taken the care. If she said he was a thoughtless person, he had still gone out to buy flowers and chocolate for an apology; if she said he was a considerate one — well, she had just seen that overbearing side of him moments ago.
She pushed the thought aside. She didn’t want to spend energy analyzing what kind of person He Youyuan was — he was like Sun Wukong, capable of turning into seventy-two different things.
Li Kuiyi hid the flowers behind the curtain beside her bed and went to take a shower.
When she came back, Li Kuiyi climbed into bed with her phone. She had the next day off, so she could stay up a little. But the moment she unlocked the screen, she saw a message He Youyuan had sent three minutes ago — just three short characters: “Did you eat it?”
No preamble whatsoever. Li Kuiyi thought for a moment before realizing he was asking about the chocolate.
What to do — she really didn’t feel like talking to him.
So she didn’t. She decided to reply tomorrow and let him stew tonight. It was his own fault for making her so angry.
She set the phone down, reached for an unfinished biography of Su Shi from the head of the bed, and read on. But she had been running on little sleep for a long time now, and after barely ten pages, she yawned, felt her eyelids growing too heavy to keep open, put the book down, turned off the light, and went to sleep.
She woke the next morning to the sun already high in the sky. Li Kuiyi sat halfway up, groggy, and pulled open the curtain — only to have a great burst of flowers spring out from behind it and fill her vision, radiant in the clear autumn light, lively and charming.
Romance felt almost within reach.
Li Kuiyi smiled, without a sound.
She lay back down and gazed at the flowers for a long time. Flowers were a remarkable thing, she thought — just looking at them made something swell gently inside her, as if the space behind her ribs had been filled with spring wind.
She thought of He Youyuan then. Oh — she still hadn’t replied to his message.
Li Kuiyi picked up her phone from the bedside table, opened it, and typed: “Not yet.”
And because those flowers had put her in such a good mood, she added an explanation: “Eating chocolate at night isn’t good — it causes cavities, and chocolate contains caffeine and theobromine, which can keep you awake.”
The reply came quickly: “So did you eat any just now?”
Li Kuiyi: “…”
Being harassed about a piece of chocolate as if her life depended on eating it.
She jumped out of bed, dug the chocolate box out of her bag, and examined it carefully. There was no price on the box, so she opened a shopping app and searched.
What she found genuinely startled her.
The box was barely 150 grams, sixteen pieces, and it cost over five hundred yuan.
Good thing she vaguely remembered this brand was expensive and hadn’t already eaten it.
Li Kuiyi picked up her phone: “Didn’t eat it.”
He Youyuan: Why not?
Li Kuiyi thought about it: if she said it was too expensive and she didn’t want it, he would definitely dig his heels in again just like last night. She needed a better excuse. She turned the box over a few times, and then she noticed an “Allergy Notice” on the back label: this product contains milk and dairy products, soy and soy products, and nuts and nut derivatives…
She had her excuse.
Li Kuiyi: I was about to eat it, but I noticed this chocolate contains nuts. I’m allergic to nuts. I can’t have it.
For some reason, He Youyuan took a very long time to reply.
Fine. No reply meant no reply. Either way, the chocolate needed to go back to him.
Li Kuiyi: So I’d like to return the chocolate. Can we meet at the school gate after the evening study session tonight?
He Youyuan: No.
Li Kuiyi: “…”
This person was genuinely unwell in the head. She had told him she was allergic and couldn’t eat it — what exactly was he still insisting on?
She suppressed her irritation and tried again, patiently: “Then I’ll keep the flowers and return the chocolate. I really can’t eat it.”
He Youyuan: No.
Li Kuiyi had never encountered anyone so unreasonably obstinate in her life. She lost her temper: “Then I’ll throw it away!”
He Youyuan: Go ahead and throw it.
Right. So we’re pretending money is no object now.
Five minutes later, Li Kuiyi typed back: “Threw it away.”
He Youyuan didn’t reply.
Li Kuiyi vented her frustration on her mattress, pounding it with her fists. She felt that ever since she had met He Youyuan, her emotional state had become thoroughly unstable. That was bad — she’d heard that getting angry could cause fibrocystic breast changes. So she sat cross-legged on the bed and quietly recited the “Don’t Get Angry” mantra: “When others are angry, I won’t be; getting angry makes you sick and no one will suffer in your place; if I die angry, who will that please…”
During Sunday’s evening study session, the marked Chinese papers were handed back. Chinese had been the first exam, and No. 1 High School was known for its preference for quick turnaround on grading — so before students had managed to properly relax even for a day, their nerves were strung taut again.
Li Kuiyi’s Chinese score was 136. Teachers at No. 1 High School typically marked on the strict side — as Chen Guoming put it, strict grading now meant students would be happier when the university entrance exam results came out, and this was the school’s way of looking out for them. In any case, 136 was an excellent score, the highest in the grade.
During the self-study period, Li Kuiyi’s answer sheet was passed around the class, traveling from one hand to the next until she had no idea where it ended up and hadn’t had a chance to look at it herself. Liu Xinzhao called her to the office and gave her a large, elegant sheet of A3 paper, asking her to copy out her exam essay by hand so it could be displayed on the bulletin board. Liu Xinzhao also told her that the points deducted from her essay were only symbolic — the writing was genuinely outstanding, and she ought to consider submitting it to the school journal, which paid a small fee, and although it wasn’t much, even a small amount could buy some snacks, and that wasn’t nothing.
No. 1 High School’s journal was called “The Grapevine,” published once a season, and one of its sections was currently soliciting excellent student essays. Li Kuiyi agreed and decided to give it a try.
Liu Xinzhao then added: “Actually, a few of your journal entries were also quite remarkable — pieces like ‘A Developing Critique of the Theory That Parents Owe Their Children Nothing’ and ‘A Brief Examination of Linguistic Hegemony in Political Correctness.’ Both show a great deal of original thought. If you’re interested, you could try submitting those as well.”
“A Brief Examination of Linguistic Hegemony in Political Correctness” was something Li Kuiyi had written after that public speaking competition — and now it had earned Liu Xinzhao’s approval too. She pressed her lips together to hold back her smile and nodded vigorously: “Yes.”
Liu Xinzhao patted her on the head and said to go back — then, just as Li Kuiyi turned to leave, called her back, opened the desk drawer, and produced a box of candy: “One of the math teachers in Class Eight got married recently and brought in some wedding sweets. Take some.”
Li Kuiyi immediately began declining. Liu Xinzhao’s eyes curved slightly at the corners as she asked with a smile: “What exactly does my Chinese class representative think she’s doing, standing here being polite with her own Chinese teacher?”
Well, when she put it like that. Li Kuiyi accepted the candy with a sheepish expression.
The geography teacher was on duty for the evening study session that night, buried in a stack of papers to mark. Li Kuiyi slipped back to her seat, and the moment the teacher wasn’t looking, peeled one and put it in her mouth.
It was an orange-flavored soft candy with a filling — sweet and sour, and it burst with juice.
She wasn’t sure if it was because the candy had come from Liu Xinzhao, or because she was eating it during class when she wasn’t supposed to, but it tasted especially wonderful.
Li Kuiyi shared a few with Zhou Fanghua. The two of them exchanged a glance — like a pair of little mice — peeled the wrappers as stealthily as possible, slipped the candies into their mouths quickly, and then sat with absolute stillness, doing a perfect impression of students engrossed in their homework.
Qi Yu, sitting behind Li Kuiyi, suddenly tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around, and he said: “Can I borrow your Chinese paper?”
Li Kuiyi whispered: “It’s not with me anymore. I don’t know where it ended up.”
As she spoke, he noticed the small green candy turning in her teeth. Qi Yu understood with a quiet smile and shifted his gaze upward to meet her eyes.
Li Kuiyi felt a flicker of guilt under his look, turned back around, and reached into the candy box to retrieve one piece, which she dropped to him. He was welcome to join in her crime.
Qi Yu picked up the candy. The serrated edges of the wrapper pricked at his fingers. That small, sharp sensation reminded him that he still hadn’t apologized to Li Kuiyi — or thanked her. But strangely, whether for apology or thanks, once you missed the natural moment for it, bringing it up afterward always seemed awkward.
And besides, she didn’t seem to be angry with him at all. If he raised it out of the blue, wouldn’t it make things needlessly uncomfortable?
Qi Yu wavered.
The candy in his hand felt much the same — he wasn’t sure whether to pop it into his mouth the way she had done, right here and now.
He had never eaten anything during class. He was the model of a good student, had always been. But now he was beginning to question the values he had been raised on. Li Kuiyi challenged teachers, wrote letters to the principal, ate snacks in class — and still sailed effortlessly to first place. He, on the other hand, never put a foot wrong, followed every rule — and still couldn’t get more than 127 on Chinese.
He didn’t think he was less intelligent than she was. He just couldn’t tell where something had gone wrong.
In one swift motion, Qi Yu tore open the wrapper and put the candy in his mouth. It was sour plum flavored — tart and astringent from the first touch of the tongue, and only after a long time did a faint sweetness slowly follow.
After school, Li Kuiyi waited as usual for Fang Zhixiao to finish her classroom duties.
She normally waited in her own classroom, but today she climbed the stairs to the third floor. She was thinking — if she happened to catch He Youyuan there, she might be able to return the chocolate.
But He Youyuan was long gone; only a few students on duty were left in Class Twelve. Li Kuiyi had no choice and settled into Fang Zhixiao’s seat, watching her sweep the floor with nothing much to do.
Unexpectedly, the moment Fang Zhixiao noticed her, she came marching over with the broom in hand, chin raised: “Why are you sitting in my seat?”
Li Kuiyi: “…”
What was happening today — was everyone losing their minds?
She blinked. “I’m waiting for you.”
“You have your own ‘autumn’ now — why are you still waiting for me?” Fang Zhixiao hugged the broom to her chest and stuck out her lower lip. A boisterous girl nearby came over to watch with great interest, grinning: “A fight! A fight’s breaking out!”
Li Kuiyi had no idea what she was talking about: “What autumn?”
Fang Zhixiao made a sound of disdain, turned away, refused to answer — but continued sweeping while humming pointedly: “One of us is like summer, one of us is like autumn, but together we always turn winter into spring…”
She deliberately put on a flat, reedy voice that made the song sound absurd and passive-aggressive.
Li Kuiyi: “…”
Was this… jealousy?
As the saying goes, the tables turn — and on the way home, Li Kuiyi deployed every trick she had to coax her back.
“We only sang one song together, it didn’t mean anything, and neither of us was thinking about it like that.”
“Yes, I know we’ve always sung that song together, just the two of us — but you weren’t there that night, and I didn’t forget you either. I even sang that song you love most — ‘Mischief.'”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t think of myself as summer or her as autumn. Zhou Fanghua queued the song and asked if I wanted to duet, and I just said yes.”
“I won’t sing it with her next time. I’ll only sing it with you.”
“I’m sorry, I was wrong…”
Fang Zhixiao hugged her own arms, pressed her lips together, and finally gave in: “Buy me Rao Ji’s spicy noodles tomorrow.”
“Deal.” Li Kuiyi agreed without hesitation.
Fang Zhixiao’s moods came and went like weather — once the storm passed, it was over. She shifted gears entirely and leaned close to Li Kuiyi’s ear to whisper: “I’m sleeping at your place tonight. I have something amazing to show you.”
Li Kuiyi was about to agree when she suddenly remembered the flowers He Youyuan had given her, still hidden behind the curtain beside her bed. If Fang Zhixiao found them, there would be no explaining it — in Fang Zhixiao’s eyes, someone giving you flowers was essentially equivalent to a marriage proposal, and there was no way to talk her out of that interpretation.
“My relatives are visiting — it’s not a good time. Shall we go to your place instead?” Li Kuiyi blinked innocently.
Fang Zhixiao suspected nothing and nodded: “Fine with me.”
She loaded Li Kuiyi onto her little electric scooter and they sped off to her home.
Fang Zhixiao had a habit of eating a late-night snack after the evening study period. Fang’s father, seeing Li Kuiyi had come over, cooked two bowls of chicken broth wontons, chatted cheerfully with them for a while about school life, then said goodnight and went to bed.
That bowl of wontons made Li Kuiyi genuinely envious.
Every time she got home, her family was already asleep. And every morning she left before they woke. Just like tonight — she was sleeping at Fang Zhixiao’s, and in all likelihood her own parents wouldn’t even notice she was gone.
After the late-night snack, Li Kuiyi gathered her change of clothes and headed to wash up. Because she and Fang Zhixiao were always at each other’s houses, they each kept a spare set of pajamas and underwear at the other’s place. Fang Zhixiao lounged against the headboard watching her, and suddenly broke into an evil smile: “Li Kui, isn’t that the same bra you were wearing back in middle school? After all this time — haven’t you grown at all?”
Li Kuiyi’s ears went red. She looked down at herself, fought to keep her composure, and said: “I think I’m fine.”
“Fine? You’re as flat as a royal consort.”
“Don’t be insulting.”
“Who’s insulting you? Aesthetics are more inclusive nowadays — being small isn’t a problem.”
Li Kuiyi cleared her throat: “I meant — don’t insult Princess Taiping. I actually like her quite a lot.”
Fang Zhixiao: “…”
After washing up, the two of them climbed under the covers. Fang Zhixiao turned off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. She leaned toward Li Kuiyi’s ear and whispered: “Li Kui, have you ever watched one of those films?”
Li Kuiyi’s ear tickled from her warm breath, and it took her a moment to process the question: “What films?”
Fang Zhixiao let out a low, suggestive laugh: “The yellow kind.”
Li Kuiyi felt her whole body go slightly rigid. She stumbled over her words: “I haven’t — have you?”
“I haven’t either, obviously. I’m a pure and innocent flower of a girl. How would I have watched something like that.” But Fang Zhixiao leaned even closer and asked: “But are you curious?”
Curious about… what?
About that kind of thing?
Li Kuiyi felt the air inside the blanket turn hot and thin. Her rational mind told her she shouldn’t be embarrassed about this, but her face burned intensely all the same — because for a fifteen-year-old girl, it was uncharted territory, something private and murky and undefined.
“You… you’re not asking me to watch something like that, are you?” Li Kuiyi asked in something close to alarm.
“Sort of.” Fang Zhixiao pulled out her phone, unlocked it, and the faint glow lit up both girls’ flushed cheeks. “It’s a film, actually — have you heard of ‘Lust, Caution’? I have the uncut version. I’m too scared to watch it alone, so you have to watch it with me.”
Li Kuiyi exhaled. So it was a movie. She had heard the film contained some scenes that were unsuitable for younger audiences, but it was still a proper film — nothing that couldn’t be watched. Besides, she had read Zhang Ailing’s original novella, which had nothing particularly graphic in it, and she had genuinely liked the story.
Fang Zhixiao found the film and pressed play.
Two heads bent close together, close enough to hear each other breathe, sharing one pair of earphones — one bud each.
The copy was likely pirated; the picture flickered frame by frame in the dark, a little harsh on the eyes. After watching for half an hour or so, Fang Zhixiao couldn’t make sense of what was happening, and her eyes were beginning to ache. She said: “What are all these people doing?”
Li Kuiyi explained: “These students want to assassinate Mr. Yi, so they have Wang Jiazhi pose as Mrs. Mai and get close to him, draw him in…”
Fang Zhixiao said: “I’m getting sleepy. Can we just skip ahead? Go straight to the exciting part.”
Li Kuiyi: “…”
Fang Zhixiao acted immediately, finger scrubbing through the progress bar back and forth — but after several minutes of skipping around, she still hadn’t found what she was looking for. She scratched her head: “Do you think I got a bad copy?”
Li Kuiyi said: “Just check what the full runtime is supposed to be.”
Online, the full version of Lust, Caution was listed as 158 minutes. Their copy was only 140 minutes.
Fang Zhixiao was furious. She immediately opened a shopping app and left a scathing review for the seller who had sold her the file.
After some grumbling and complaining, Fang Zhixiao closed her phone, turned her head, and went straight to sleep. Before long, the sound of her steady breathing drifted across.
Li Kuiyi rubbed her eyes and smiled quietly to herself.
How funny — two girls, venturing for the first time toward curiosity about that unknown thing, and having it end in total failure.
Still, she rather wanted to finish watching the film. The female lead, Wang Jiazhi, had thoroughly captivated her.
Two days later, Li Kuiyi saw her own essay on the school bulletin board.
She stood there and read it through, thought it was genuinely well-written, liked her own handwriting, and felt a quiet little swell of pride. Next to her essay was another student’s exemplary piece, which she also went to read.
What she hadn’t expected was that the name signed at the bottom of that essay read: Year One, Class Twelve — He Youyuan.
The shock of this was on par with finding out Fang Zhixiao had wanted her to watch something inappropriate.
The essay prompt this time was “The Collision of Ideas in the Course of Historical Change,” with no restriction on form. Li Kuiyi had naturally written an argumentative piece — her strongest genre. Her essay was incisive and logically rigorous, with no shortage of literary flair, which was why it had earned a high score. But He Youyuan’s approach was entirely different: he used narrative, drawing on the character of Old Mrs. Nine-Pound from Lu Xun’s short story “The Storm,” and wrote a clever, witty story of his own. Old Mrs. Nine-Pound said her famous line over and over — “Every generation is worse than the last!” — and the effect was both funny and thought-provoking.
That’s actually quite interesting, Li Kuiyi thought.
She had always assumed he was a fairly simple-minded person…
But she still couldn’t understand how someone who could write an essay like that failed to follow what she was saying. She was allergic to nuts and couldn’t eat the chocolate. Was that really so difficult to grasp?
Li Kuiyi was not the sort of person who gave up easily. After failing to track He Youyuan down at school, she went on Wednesday evening, after the study period, directly to the entrance of Champion Residence and waited for him. Or rather — ambushed him.
She didn’t have to wait long before she saw him coming toward her from a distance, alone. The weather had turned cold, but he was dressed lightly, school bag slung carelessly over one shoulder, his silhouette tall and lean.
He came closer. When he spotted her, he stopped for a moment.
Then he quickly looked away, pretending not to know her, and started walking past — but Li Kuiyi stepped directly into his path, arms spread wide to block the way.
He Youyuan finally stopped. His expression was somewhat flat: “Something you need?”
Li Kuiyi felt that communicating with him was a largely futile exercise. So she simply went around behind him and slipped the box of chocolate into a side pocket of his school bag.
He felt her moving behind him and didn’t stop her.
Just as Li Kuiyi finished placing the chocolate and was about to leave with a clear conscience, he suddenly asked: “Why won’t you make up with me?”
It came out very soft and low — almost like he was hurt.
Li Kuiyi didn’t understand why he was asking that. She turned back, walked up to him, looked up at him, and said: “But I do want to make up.”
“Then why won’t you take my chocolate?”
Oh, here we go again.
Li Kuiyi was at a loss: “I told you — I’m allergic to nuts.”
He Youyuan stared at her without a word.
Li Kuiyi looked at him — and then suddenly noticed that his eyes had gone a little red. She was stunned, and flustered, and rushed to explain: “You might be underestimating what allergies can do. They can actually be very serious. In the worst cases, people can die.”
He still said nothing. After a long pause, he gave a faint, quiet laugh and looked at her steadily: “Do you remember what kind of yogurt you bought at the school shop on the first day of exams?”
Li Kuiyi stood very still.
She thought for two seconds — and then it hit her like a thunderclap.
Oh.
Nuts and oat yogurt.