Following Xu Zhou’s bout of gastroenteritis, Hu Ke’er also fell victim to the fried rice, her stomach churning in complete revolt. She’d gone to bed early, washed and done.
Before leaving, Ning Sui had told her she was going out, but Hu Ke’er barely caught a word of it — she’d murmured something vague with her eyes closed and let it go. By the time Ning Sui got back to the room, Hu Ke’er was already dead to the world, snoring impressively.
Ning Sui went to the guesthouse common room to retrieve her charger, which she’d left there earlier. She wasn’t expecting to run into Shen Qing coming down from upstairs in a white bathrobe — both of them blinked at each other. Shen Qing spoke first, apologetically: “I thought everyone was asleep. I heard footsteps and assumed——”
That someone had climbed in over the wall.
Hence the relaxed attire.
It was genuinely a misunderstanding. They’d only known each other two days after all — they weren’t particularly close. Ning Sui smiled politely and nodded, not inclined to linger in conversation: “Right. Get some rest.”
She was about to go back to her room when Shen Qing called after her: “Ning Sui.”
“Mm?”
“Were you just out wandering the old town?”
Ning Sui: “Mm.”
“Alone?”
Ning Sui lifted her gaze slightly, as if considering how to phrase her reply. Before she could speak, Shen Qing filled in the gap himself, evenly: “Never mind, I just wanted to say — a girl should watch out for herself when she’s out.”
“Noted. Thanks for looking out for me.” Ning Sui smiled again.
Back in the room, she posted “goodnight” in the family group chat. Xia Fanghui replied almost instantly — clearly still up, waiting:【You’re coming back this late again?! 😤】
Xia Fanghui:【Come home earlier next time! Check the doors and windows, make sure everything’s locked. Put down your phone, take the blueberry lutein capsules I bought you, protect your eyes, stop staying up late.】
Sui Sui Sui:【I know, Mom】
She paused, then asked:【How’s Grandma been feeling lately?】
Her grandmother had developed kidney disease and now had difficulty walking, as well as some hearing loss. Old age bringing ailment after ailment — it was a lot to bear. Xia Fanghui had arranged for a dedicated caregiver, and her grandmother spent her days at home recuperating: watching TV and doing gentle therapy on good days, though most of the time she lacked the energy, and phone calls barely lasted a few minutes.
Xia Fanghui hadn’t said a word about any of this to Ning Sui:【She’s fine. Just enjoy your trip.】
Sui Sui Sui:【Okay. I’ll go see her when I get back.】
At this same moment, Xie Yichen was being subjected to Zhang Yuge’s relentless interrogation — which gorgeous girl had he gone off with, and for three whole hours — Zhang Yuge’s tone was deeply aggrieved: “Three whole hours! You absolute scumbag!”
Xie Yichen changed out of his jacket and trousers, casually draped a towel over his shoulder, washed up quickly, then put on his pajamas and leaned in the bathroom doorway, unhurried in his reply: “What was your mom calling about? You talked that long?”
Zhang Yuge: “Just about her company — all that startup drama, you know how it is. Being a boss these days means constant psychological warfare with your employees.”
Zhang Yuge’s father had never really amounted to much, content to dabble in small local business back home. His mother had brought him to Huai’an as a young child, before the city’s development had taken off the way it had now — her foresight had been exceptional. Later she’d partnered with a junior associate to build a new energy company, and they’d ground their way to where they stood today through every kind of difficulty.
Xie Yichen said: “With your auntie’s personality, I’d think every single employee would treat her with at least some degree of respect. Are there really people who aren’t afraid of her?”
Zhang Yuge walked right into it without noticing: “In any big enough forest you get every kind of bird — troublemakers crop up——”
Xie Yichen tossed his phone onto the bed and leaned lazily against the headboard.
The screen lit up just then — two new messages.
Sui Sui Sui:【I’m back 🐱】
Sui Sui Sui:【Have you made it back yet?】
Xie Yichen looked down:【Yeah.】
The chat window fell quiet again for a moment. Then the phone buzzed several times in quick succession, a flurry of notifications appearing one after another.
It was Zou Xiao’s daily report, arriving with characteristic persistence:【We’ve been in Shuanglang for one night now — it’s so peaceful here, the scenery is beautiful, the kind of place perfect for everyone to sit together and talk late into the night 🥰】
【Shuyu said the four of us aren’t lively enough and said she missed you all. I agree — card games and Werewolf are always more fun with more people.】
【Xie Yichen, how much longer are you staying in the old town? Honestly there isn’t much to see along Erhai Lake — why not come straight to us tomorrow?～】
Xie Yichen closed out of the chat window and tapped directly on Lin Shuyu’s profile.
He replied with full awareness of the situation, clearly not above a bit of teasing:【A’Chen, Zou Xiao’s after you again, huh?】
Cool Bro Lin:【That kind of persistence — honestly, I’m almost moved. You might as well just give in.】
Cool Bro Lin:【Then come back, let Sun Hao punch you once to get it out of his system — he’s not that petty, he’ll let it go afterward, and everyone can move on happily.】
This guy was thoroughly enjoying the show from a comfortable distance, offering genuinely terrible advice. Xie Yichen pulled the corner of his mouth up with cool amusement:【I have a better solution. Want to hear it?】
Cool Bro Lin, suddenly wary:【What?】
Xie Yichen:【You pursue Sun Hao yourself. Problem solved.】
Cool Bro Lin:【……】
Damn. That’s a whole other level of perspective.
—
Hu Ke’er woke the next morning naturally, rubbed her stomach, and found it was feeling somewhat better.
Despite the physical recovery, she took a clean, efficient moment to silently pay her respects to every generation of Zhang Yuge’s ancestry.
They hadn’t fully explored the old town before, and since they weren’t leaving until the afternoon, Hu Ke’er dragged Ning Sui out shopping that morning.
There were plenty of jewelry stalls — probably all bulk-produced in Yiwu, but dazzling all the same. Ning Sui browsed with no particular aim while Hu Ke’er leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Do you know what the most terrifying thing about shopping in a place like this is?”
“What?”
Hu Ke’er: “When you make your first counter-offer and the vendor immediately agrees.”
“……”
Ning Sui glanced at her: “And do you know what’s even more terrifying?”
“What?”
“After you’ve spent ages bargaining and finally walk away feeling victorious — you suddenly remember you can image-search the item online.” Ning Sui said, with weary wisdom. “Trust me, never do it. No one has ever walked away from a certain shopping app smiling.”
The reason Ning Sui felt this so deeply was that she had Xia Fanghui at home — a woman of pure, earnest innocence, the kind who would make even the most unscrupulous vendors feel a twinge of guilt, who believed wholeheartedly in things like “pure handcraft,” “made by a master artisan,” and “only one of its kind in the world.” Guaranteed to get thoroughly fleeced on every single trip.
Once in Suzhou, a vendor had sold her a perfectly ordinary clay teapot, claiming it had been hand-carved from a single natural stone dredged from the bottom of Lake Tai, capable of emitting beautifying and youth-preserving magnetic radiation.
Xia Fanghui thought it sounded wonderful, and paid six hundred and eighty yuan for it with great satisfaction. When they got home, Ning Deyan did an image search, and found an identical design online for two hundred and forty-nine yuan.
There was something almost poetic about that number. Xia Fanghui, a little sheepish, attempted to defend herself: “But it’s a Lake Tai stone — you can’t see the magnetic field with the naked eye!”
Ning Deyan brewed tea for everyone with the new pot. As he sipped, he said to Ning Sui with great composure: “Your mother’s intelligence tax has quite a pleasant taste.”
Xia Fanghui: “……”
So Ning Sui almost never bought anything from these small stalls. Though she thoroughly enjoyed the process of bargaining.
“How much is this bracelet?”
The vendor was sitting behind the counter stringing pearls, and looked up briefly: “Eighty. Final price.”
Ning Sui leaned in to examine it more closely. He bowed his head again: “Go ask around at other shops — mine is the lowest price on this street. Natural crystal. I don’t cheat children or the elderly.”
Ning Sui: “Can you come down a bit?”
The girl was fresh-faced and pretty, with a sweet smile. The vendor softened slightly: “How much do you want to pay?”
She thought about it: “Five yuan?”
“……”
“Look, I’m just saying.” The drill slipped, making a crooked hole. The vendor’s small eyes were full of sheer disbelief. “Why don’t you just rob the place?”
The haggling had rattled him so badly he’d slipped into a thick Beijing accent. Afraid of getting tangled up in a scene, Hu Ke’er grabbed Ning Sui’s arm and hauled her away at speed. Once the shop was out of sight, she offered a token observation: “That was a bit low, even for bargaining.”
Ning Sui: “Natural crystal, he said. You can see the bubbles from artificial melting right through it.”
Hu Ke’er hadn’t been paying that close attention: “Oh, so it was fake?”
“Obviously.” Ning Sui laughed. “How many things on this street are real?”
She said it lightly, then let her gaze drift briefly to the pendant around Hu Ke’er’s neck.
Hu Ke’er went still for two seconds, then looked down at the pink bodhi seed hanging there — the one reportedly a “once-in-a-century rarity.”
“OH COME ON!!!”
……
After a flurry of research, Hu Ke’er discovered the vendor had charged her roughly ten times what the thing was worth. Back at the guesthouse, she was still mourning her fifty yuan: “Why did I listen to that old man’s nonsense. Fifty yuan could have bought me two cups of milk tea.”
Ning Sui consoled her: “At least it wasn’t worse.”
By her mother’s standards it was a significant improvement. Then she remembered: “Didn’t the doctor say you’re not supposed to drink milk tea?”
Before coming to Yunnan, Hu Ke’er had been having irregular periods, and after a trip to Southeast Asia where she’d slightly overindulged and gained a little weight, her parents had taken her to see a doctor. Western medicine being what it was, he’d taken one look at her symptoms and handed down a diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome — which in plain terms meant she was both carrying a bit of extra weight and had a hormonal imbalance.
The prescribed management included limiting excessive sugar intake — chief among the forbidden items being milk tea.
Both parents had been driving this point home daily ever since. For Hu Ke’er, a devoted milk tea fanatic, this was practically a death sentence. She’d been quietly defying medical advice and sneaking cups of it throughout the trip.
“You want to know how I see it?” Hu Ke’er crossed her legs and reasoned calmly. “I’m just drinking milk and tea — two perfectly healthy beverages together. Milk for sleep and calcium; tea for clearing heat and nourishing the lungs. Is what I’m drinking milk tea? No. It’s a wellness tonic. It builds character and fortifies the spirit.”
Ning Sui: “……”
Hu Ke’er had always been an expert at creative reasoning, and after all this time, Ning Sui had grown fairly accustomed to it.
The two of them packed up their luggage and set out according to plan, heading north along the shore of Erhai Lake. The afternoon sun was brutal, but none of them had a driver’s license, so taxis it was.
North of the old town lay Chongsheng Temple with its Three Pagodas, the dried trees of the western lakeside, and a further fifteen to twenty kilometers beyond that, the S-curve road near Panxi Village — popular with cyclists and travel photographers, always lively.
Right beside it was Erhai Lake — vast and brilliantly blue, the water clear and clean. Shen Qing had looked up accommodations on a ratings app: the guesthouses here had beautiful views, with floor-to-ceiling second-floor windows that looked out over the lake all the way to the ancient towns on the opposite shore.
Peak summer season had driven up room prices considerably. All the rooms with good views had been booked, and the one they managed to snag last-minute was eye-wateringly expensive.
Luckily, a certain Young Master Xu was both flush with cash and somewhat delicate in constitution — the long journey had left him feeling congested and breathless, and all he wanted was to find somewhere to rest immediately. So he generously covered the full cost of accommodation.
Their guesthouse had three rooms: one large room on the ground floor and two single rooms on the second floor, directly facing each other.
When it came time to sort out the room assignments, the couple retreated to a corner for a lengthy whispered consultation. After a few minutes, Hu Ke’er came padding over to Ning Sui with a sheepish expression: “Sweetie, would it be okay if you stayed upstairs with Shen Qing tonight?”
Ning Sui looked at her for a moment without speaking. Hu Ke’er coughed, a little guilty.
——That was just how being in a relationship went. Every chance to be close, you took. For the past few days she and Xu Zhou had been reining themselves in because Shen Qing and Ning Sui were around — barely even a kiss. Now that they finally had the chance for some privacy, there was no way they’d pass it up.
“I’m thinking of you too, you know.”
Hu Ke’er lowered her voice, sneaking a look toward Shen Qing and starting to spin her reasoning: “There’s such a high-quality potential candidate right there — we have to create some opportunities for the two of you to develop things.”
Ning Sui drew out a long sigh: “If you two have already sorted it out between yourselves, what am I going to say. Fine, I’ll stay upstairs.”
Hu Ke’er launched herself forward and planted a big kiss on her cheek, the picture of smug triumph: “Yes! I knew you’d be the best, sweetie!”
The four of them settled in. Hu Ke’er sat in the common room playing games with Xu Zhou. It was still early. Shen Qing picked up his mirrorless camera and asked Ning Sui if she wanted to go for a walk. She thought about it: “Sure.”
Along the S-curve road, Shen Qing offered to take photos and the two traded shots of the scenery.
The roadside shops were busy, the evening breeze gentle, the streets full of people. The rental bicycles here all had floral wreaths on their baskets; there were balloon vendors too, giving everything a quietly whimsical feeling.
Ning Sui noticed that the guesthouses here all had near-identical decor — like carbon copies of each other, easy to mix up if you weren’t paying attention. After about half an hour’s stroll, they ducked into a small bar for a rest.
The server came to take their order. Shen Qing indicated ladies first. Ning Sui ordered a low-alcohol cocktail; Shen Qing followed with a martini.
“Do you drink this kind of thing a lot in America?” Ning Sui asked, curious.
“Mm. The others there are more extreme about it — they like pure vodka. That’s a bit too much for me.” Shen Qing smiled.
With other people in the bar, even silences didn’t feel awkward. Shen Qing was browsing through the photos he’d taken; Ning Sui scrolled through her social media feed.
She noticed someone had posted a photo that looked very similar to the scenery around Panxi Village, and liked it out of habit. She was about to look up who’d posted it when Shen Qing said casually, “You and Ke’er seem really close.”
“Mm. We’ve known each other for years.” Ning Sui smiled. “You and Xu Zhou have stayed in touch since middle school — that’s a long friendship too.”
“It is.”
Ning Sui stirred the ice cubes in her cocktail, biting down on her straw: “Do you know how many girlfriends he’s had?”
The motion of Shen Qing turning his glass slowed very slightly: “Not really. Middle school was early days, and we never really talked about that kind of thing afterward.” After a moment he added, “Ke’er is the first girlfriend he’s ever brought to meet me.”
Ning Sui could tell he was sharp — he understood she was probing, trying to get a sense of what Xu Zhou was like when it came to relationships, whether there was any risk of Hu Ke’er getting hurt.
His answer was airtight without being revealing. Ning Sui thought that a person like him would make for a reassuring friend.
They chatted for a while, and when the time seemed right, headed back. Near one stretch of the shoreline, a few lush green trees stood beside the shimmering surface of Erhai Lake in the moonlight, very picturesque. Shen Qing raised his phone to take a few shots, but no matter how he composed the frame, he felt there was a better angle to find — and wanted to spend a little more time working it out.
But it didn’t seem right to keep a girl waiting, and the guesthouse was nearby anyway. He told Ning Sui, “I might be here a while longer. You could head back first — will you be okay on your own?”
Ning Sui nodded.
The cocktail had been barely stronger than a soft drink — nowhere near enough to make her drunk: “I’ll be fine.”
She remembered passing a flowerbed at a bend in the road, and the entrance would be just beyond that. Ning Sui counted her steps along the stone pavement and arrived at the gate.
It was unlocked. The common room inside was quiet — the television was off. The ground-floor bedroom door was shut. No telling what was happening in there.
Ning Sui thought she should check in with Hu Ke’er, and as she got closer, she thought she could hear something.
Her heart tightened a little, but she told herself Hu Ke’er and Xu Zhou probably hadn’t gotten to anything too serious. She hesitated for a moment, and then still knocked on the door.
—
Xie Yichen was in the shower at that moment, water rushing in a steady roar from above, washing over him without cease.
Earlier, the idiot Zhang Yuge had managed to slosh an entire cup of lemon tea right onto him — and of all the places it could have landed, it had to land precisely there. Xie Yichen could not abide feeling sticky, and had made a beeline straight back to the guesthouse to change.
Two people, two full floors of a guesthouse — admittedly something of a waste. Zhang Yuge had wanted a view of the lake and had claimed one of the second-floor rooms, leaving the double bed to Xie Yichen.
Just then came a knock at the door. Xie Yichen wasn’t particularly inclined to respond, but whoever it was had real staying power — a steady, rhythmic knock, knock, knock. He let out a low sound of irritation. Zhang Yuge was truly a needy creature — couldn’t even let him finish a shower in peace.
“What is it now?”
Xie Yichen dried off with a towel and pulled on a pair of trousers without too much ceremony. His voice carried that particular undercurrent of lazy insolence: “I told you — six hundred and six yuan per second, not a cent less.”
“……”
Ning Sui genuinely had not anticipated what would be behind the door. She stopped breathing on instinct.
——A bare, firm, taut upper body. Dark eyes catching the light. Shoulders and arms lean with muscle, abdominals clearly defined.
A towel was slung carelessly over one shoulder, black hair half-damp, water still trickling down along clean, fluid lines.
It really did not seem like something you could see for free.
Ning Sui held it together for a long moment, then ventured tentatively: “…… I don’t have cash. Do you take transfers?”