It burned so pleasantly and wantonly, he could even drink leisurely and roast chicken wings over the roaring flames.

When he woke from the dream, he heard rustling sounds downstairs again. He walked to the balcony and saw someone crouching in the courtyard, hair fixed on top of the head with a chopstick. Looking down from above, he could only see this bobbing bun swaying back and forth.

Someone was pulling weeds.

Chen An turned and went to the bathroom, squeezed out some toothpaste, and as he stuck the toothbrush in his mouth, his mouth naturally curved into a smile.

Those weeds had been an eyesore for seven years, almost growing into a death rope that haunted his nightmares. If he didn’t remove them, he’d go mad. Now that Cheng Lele had cleared the weeds, it was as if she had also cleared that mass of frustration stuck in his chest. He felt refreshingly clear-headed and carefree, forgetting all honor and disgrace.

After rinsing his mouth, he casually looked up and saw himself beaming in the mirror. He immediately issued himself a penalty.

A neighbor pulling weeds—what was there to be happy about? At most there’d be fewer mosquitoes next summer.

After pulling the weeds, Cheng Lele plopped down on the small pile of grass, panting.

Now the courtyard was empty, revealing bare soil. She remembered that when Mom was around, this place had grown quite a few roses and crabapple flowers, and Dad had also built a luffa trellis. She had watered the flowers a few times and picked a gourd or two, but back then she was lazy and hadn’t learned any knowledge about planting and growing flowers at all. Now that both Dad and Mom were gone, she had nowhere to ask, and didn’t know what would be good to plant.

The gentle morning light filtered through the branches of the pomegranate tree, falling on her. She sat there in a daze for a while, feeling her heart was as empty and barren as this desolate courtyard, with a kind of bewildered loneliness.

She went inside, fished out the cooled hard-boiled eggs, put them in a large bowl, and carried it upstairs.

Chen An had come back temporarily yesterday and hadn’t had time to buy provisions, so he had just ordered breakfast delivery. He accidentally ordered too much—if one person couldn’t finish it, he could share it with his neighbor.

Hearing the knock on the door, he thought: Perhaps Manager Cheng was bringing gifts to curry favor with her superior.

Opening the door, he was almost hit in the nose by a bowl held high.

“Little brother, want to eat breakfast?” came a very energetic voice from behind the transparent bowl.

Chen An pressed the bowl down and asked casually, “You cooked this?”

Cheng Lele nodded.

“Is it cooked through?”

Cheng Lele showed an air of absolute confidence that wouldn’t tolerate challenge: “Of course, how could I be so dumb that I can’t even make hard-boiled eggs?”

Chen An thought to himself: In the first eighteen years, I never saw you cook them once.

He stepped back a bit to let her in, pulled out his phone, and quickly canceled the order. But the meal had already been sent out. He directly mentioned the delivery person in the contact dialog box, leaving a message that there was no need to deliver—he could handle it himself.

The two sat at the dining table. Chen An peeled the eggshells with tacit understanding, eating the egg whites while Cheng Lele ate the yolks.

Peaceful and beautiful, very much like scenes from many years ago. Chen An was both immersed in it and worried that this silent and gradual infiltration would make him suffer the consequences of his own actions again. After all, having rarely slept for so long, his mind was clearer than last night.

He swallowed a mouthful of egg and asked like a leader inquiring about a subordinate: “What are your work arrangements for today?”

Cheng Lele ate like a chipmunk, both cheeks bulging: “Going to Tianhe.”

Students were the cinema’s key target audience for promotion. Unfortunately, Taixi was too small and had no universities or colleges. Cheng Lele settled for second best, and after thoroughly surveying the area around the cinema, set her sights on Tianhe Vocational Technical School, a medium-sized school four or five kilometers from the cinema. Compared to regular high schools, vocational school students had more free time and a certain level of spending power.

Tianhe was Chen Xiaomu’s alma mater. Under the resistance movements of successive generations of students, its management style had become much more open than before. The revolutionary struggle had a long history, so student cohesion was very strong, like a martial arts faction, with several leaders who could rally supporters with a wave of their arms.

Chen Xiaomu hadn’t been in contact with her alma mater since graduation. She logged into the internal forum with her alumni network account and arranged for Cheng Lele to meet with one of these prominent figures. After waiting several days, the person hadn’t replied. Cheng Lele didn’t want to wait anymore. She knew that person’s name and what they looked like, and decided to go directly to the school to try her luck.

“What are you going there for?” Chen An asked, then tacked on unnecessarily, “Are you taking the day off to go out and have fun?”

Cheng Lele thought to herself: Where do I have time to play now? I wish I had three heads and six arms so I could work 24 hours a day and it still wouldn’t be enough.

But she didn’t dare complain like that. She brushed the crumbs from her hands and said, “Going to talk business.”

Chen An said “oh,” not knowing how to continue the conversation. At Ping’an Xile, he only set goals and wouldn’t interfere with subordinates’ specific operations. Due to lack of experience, when engaging in work discussions with Manager Cheng, he appeared clumsy and perfunctory, making him sound indeed like a kept man with little interest in his patron’s business.

After two seconds of silence, Chen An asked with difficulty but effort: “What kind of business?”

Cheng Lele looked up at Chen An and asked, “Do you want to come along?”

Chen An was very busy today. Yesterday’s regular meeting hadn’t had his full attention, plus his mid-event escape meant projects that should have received his decision yesterday were still waiting for him to make a definitive call. Also, because of accompanying grandmother at the hospital and the Shenzhen business trip, his inbox had accumulated several pages of pending emails, most marked with urgent little flags.

He asked, “Will it take long?”

Cheng Lele looked down: “If you have things to do, don’t go.”

Chen An immediately said, “I have nothing. I was just wondering if we could make it back for a meal.”

Cheng Lele said with a strange expression: “If we can’t make it back, we’ll just eat outside.” She thought again, feeling miserable inside for a moment, “There are cheap restaurants too. It won’t cost more than cooking ourselves.”

Chen An said shamelessly, “Mm, that’s true.”

Cheng Lele took out her phone to check Baidu Maps, looking up bus routes.

Chen An put the last egg yolk into the bowl and said, “I’ll drive us there.” After saying this, he paused, thinking: Should he have a car?

Cheng Lele didn’t think much of it. Chen An had been driving godfather’s car back and forth to Taixi since he was 18. After all, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse, and he had “been wealthy” before—having his own car now wasn’t surprising.

“On the way back, I want to take the bus from Tianhe to Xingchen to see what the route is like for students coming to the cinema. Let’s not drive there.” Cheng Lele said cheerfully again, “Little brother, we haven’t traveled together in so long. Let’s take the bus to Tianhe like we used to when we were little, okay?”

Chen An thought that a boss and subordinate going out to “talk business” was perfectly legitimate, and what kind of transportation they took and what historical background this transportation had didn’t need to be minded.

Chen An was still wearing pajamas. Cheng Lele instructed, “Pay attention to your attire.”

“Should I wear a suit?”

Cheng Lele said, “Absolutely not—we’re not going to sell insurance. I heard the security guards there are very strict. If you dress too formally, you won’t be able to slip in. Wearing a school uniform is a bit much—just dress as young as possible.”

When Chen An heard the three words “slip in,” the corner of his eye clearly twitched.

“Aren’t you going to talk business? Why do you need to slip in?”

Cheng Lele paused: “That’s not important. Go change your clothes.” It was getting late. Cheng Lele went straight into the room and opened the closet door to pick out clothes: “Do you have a hat—what about glasses—”

Chen An followed in and stood behind her, stretching his arm long, reaching past her shoulder: “Not many hats.” He took one and put it on his head. Cheng Lele turned around to scrutinize carefully. The two were very close, and Chen An could smell the pleasant shampoo scent on her.

Cheng Lele turned back, pulled out another one, but put it on her own head: “Let me borrow this one.”

There was no mirror by the closet. Cheng Lele opened her phone to take a selfie to see the effect. The camera captured a very eye-catching pink heart-shaped small box on the bookshelf.

She remembered this seemed to be what Chen An used to store ticket stubs. Back then he said when it was full, she could redeem it from him for a big gift.

The most valuable gift she had ever received was a house key, but little brother had never said that was a big gift.

Now this big gift—well, wasn’t it that six million cinema…

Cheng Lele’s camera turned a bit more. The bookshelf was filled with gifts of all sizes she had given him, even the “Most Loyal Audience” medal awarded by Taixi Cinema back then was mixed in among them.

Cheng Lele lowered her eyes. She felt a bit moved, a bit helpless, a bit guilty, and a lot of pressure from having no way to repay him.

For her, compared to saving a dying cinema, cultivating a romance from scratch seemed even harder.

But she also couldn’t bear to let little brother wait like this any longer. She had to work harder! Although she had absolutely no idea how to go about this effort, her revolutionary will was firm—where there’s a will, there’s a way!

Cheng Lele made a fist and went downstairs.