Well — as it turned out, Rong Qian didn’t have to search for long at all.

She randomly grabbed someone on the side of the road and asked, quickly learning that the year was 1972.

That meant four years had passed since she last saw Shen Yi. And by that count, Shen Yi was now — sixteen years old.

At sixteen, Shen Yi was already in university. And thinking back to that group photograph — and the line of text Shen Yi had written on the back of the frame — Saint Lo Street No. 17, Room 302.

Rong Qian asked someone where that place was. As luck would have it, a warm-hearted Black man actually knew and gave her directions. She was genuinely grateful.

It took Rong Qian quite a while to find it, but she eventually located the place called Saint Lo Street. It was a rental district — stacks of tall buildings rising close together, with narrow gaps between them. The balconies of adjacent buildings faced each other across windows, close enough to step across.

The building she was looking for, No. 17, was a large L-shaped structure, six stories tall. Above the arched entrance, irregularly shaped pieces of colored glass were embedded in the stone façade. In the sunlight, they scattered a patchwork of brilliant colors across the ground.

Outside stood a parasol tree. After a night of wind and rain, its fallen leaves blanketed the ground in green.

Under the guidance of the building’s landlord, Rong Qian found Room 302. The door was locked. Now that she had arrived, she realized a problem had just occurred to her.

Did Shen Yi actually live here?

Rong Qian suddenly found she couldn’t be certain. She knew he was at university by now, which meant he’d almost certainly be living on campus. The likelihood of him renting a place off-campus was extremely low.

And even if he did rent a place, perhaps he hadn’t moved in yet — maybe that was still a year or two away.

While she pondered this, her hands instinctively slipped into her pockets. Her fingers touched something hard.

She pulled it out. A key.

“Right — I can just try it, can’t I?” Rong Qian lined up the key with the lock. If it fit, that would prove Shen Yi truly did live here.

She inserted the key, and to her surprise, it matched perfectly. She turned it — and the door opened.

But just as she was about to push the door open, Rong Qian suddenly stopped. Then, without even glancing inside, she pulled the door shut again.

Even between people who knew each other, walking uninvited into someone’s home was impolite. Rong Qian respected his privacy and wouldn’t intrude without permission.

Confirming that he did indeed live here was enough. She had plenty of time to wait for him to come back. So she sat down at the doorway, back against the door, legs crossed in a decidedly unladylike posture, and took out her phone.

No signal, naturally — but playing offline single-player games to pass the time was perfectly fine.

As it turned out, Rong Qian waited from the afternoon all the way into nightfall, all the way until eleven at night — and a certain someone still had not come home.

Having stifled countless yawns, Rong Qian finally gave up caring about anything and, with her usual breezy lack of ceremony, slumped against the door and drifted off to sleep.

December in America was the start of winter. Though it was only early in the month, once night fell, the cold wind was sharp and lonely. The parasol trees lining both sides of the street rustled in the wind, and the atmosphere had already taken on winter’s character.

Leaves swayed with the wind — some drifting lazily, some spiraling — and settled to the ground one by one until the street was carpeted in fallen leaves.

And then, in the dim amber glow of the streetlights, a bicycle appeared, rolling slowly down the road. Its tires rolled over the carpet of leaves with a faint, quiet sound.

The young man on the bicycle wore a clean white dress shirt, every button fastened all the way to the top, perfectly neat. The hem was tucked into his trousers, and the belt was buckled to its last hole — he had a slender, lean waist.

Below his dark trousers, his two legs were straight and long. From the strength with which he pedaled, it was clear that despite his lean frame, there was nothing weak about him.

The young man steered with one hand and held a kraft paper bag with the other — the bag contained ingredients he’d bought from the supermarket, and sticking out of it was a baguette.

The bicycle turned into the entrance of No. 17. With legs that long, the moment he set his foot down he touched the ground — the bicycle came to a steady stop.

Shen Yi locked his bicycle at the entrance and walked inside carrying his groceries. He was stopped by the landlady, who had been watching television at the front desk — a white woman with curly hair, heavyset, but with a kindly smile.

The landlady told him that a Chinese woman had come looking for him and was waiting at his door. She had arrived at one in the afternoon and hadn’t left since.

Shen Yi’s brow furrowed faintly. Although the sixteen-year-old was still a youth — fresh-faced and young — there was a deep gravity in his expression, especially when he knit his brows. Those cool eyes narrowed, and an air of authority that needed no words to assert itself emanated from him without effort.

The phrase “old soul in a young body” could not have fit him better.

That woman already knew where he lived? And she’d been waiting since noon — was she hoping to go back and report how pitiful she’d been, to win sympathy with that man?

Shen Yi let out a cold, silent laugh. How hypocritical. Warm and pleasant to your face, scheming behind your back — it had only been a little while since she’d moved into the manor with that man’s illegitimate child, and already she was looking for ways to push him out.

Yes. Compared to that warm, harmonious little family unit, Shen Yi was undeniably the surplus one.

And now she’d come to block his door at home — she had no doubt been sent by that man.

The moment he had left the manor, Shen Yi had sworn an oath to himself: he would never set foot inside it again for the rest of his life. Even though, once upon a time, it had given him three brief months of something beautiful.

But Shen Yi had let it all go.

Because none of it mattered anymore. Even those three short months of happiness had later become his most devastating wound.

Shen Yi walked up the stairs with a cold expression, the kraft paper bag in his arms, climbing steadily step by step.

The third floor came quickly — but Shen Yi’s feet came to a halt on the last step. His pupils contracted. He stared in startled disbelief at the woman sitting at his door.

The same familiar outfit he recognized — androgynous and sharp, a high ponytail pulled back to reveal a small, delicate face. No makeup, as natural as could be, but her skin was fair and rosy, her lips a soft, faint pink, her lashes long.

Her features leaned cool and composed. When she wasn’t talking or smiling, she gave off an air of unapproachability — but the moment she smiled, her eyes curved warmly and she became like a gentle older sister from next door, warm and easy.

Right now, though — she was sitting cross-legged on the floor without a care for how she looked, one hand propped under her chin, head tilted to the side, sleeping the sleep of the truly unbothered.

Shen Yi stared for only a few seconds before composing himself. He walked over as though nothing had happened, pulled out his key, and unlocked the door.

The sound of the key turning woke Rong Qian. She opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was two even, well-proportioned legs. Bleary-eyed from sleep, she tilted her head upward to look.

Legs — still legs. Oh, now she was at the waist.

“Shen Yi?”

Rong Qian called out uncertainly, then rubbed her eyes and got to her feet — only to discover that he was now exactly the same height as her.

Rong Qian was one meter seventy-two tall. She still remembered having to crouch down to talk to the twelve-year-old Shen Yi. And yet here he was, only sixteen, already matching her height exactly.

Shen Yi had changed considerably. His features had grown into themselves and grown more defined; the baby fat was gone, replaced by a clean, elegant jaw that curved at just the right angle. No matter which direction you looked at him from, there was nothing lacking — truly, not a single flaw from any angle.

Rong Qian had seen what he looked like in his twenties.

This man would only become more handsome as the years passed. There was no peak to his looks — because he lived at the peak, and from the peak he only climbed higher, never once coming down.

Yet at this moment, the high-looking young man paid her no attention whatsoever.

It was as though Shen Yi hadn’t heard her at all. He opened the door and walked in. Just as he was about to close it, Rong Qian quickly squeezed herself through. She puffed up her cheeks: “What are you doing?!”

Shen Yi still said nothing. He changed his shoes at the entryway, then carried the groceries to the kitchen.

Rong Qian followed behind him. She wanted to change into guest slippers too, but the shoe rack held no extras. She looked at the clean floor, took off her shoes and her socks, and walked in barefoot.

The apartment wasn’t large — around forty square meters, give or take. One bedroom, one living area, plus a bathroom and kitchen. The living space was immaculate, every item in its proper place.

Rong Qian figured Shen Yi wasn’t only a clean freak but also had a compulsion for order — everything had to be arranged with perfect precision.

And though the apartment was clean and tidy, it was cold, with not a hint of warmth or lived-in feeling, and no extra color anywhere. Everything was in cool, muted tones of black, white, and grey.

Somehow, that was entirely his style.