The two of them were strolling along, chatting leisurely, neither paying much attention to where they were going. Just as they reached a fork in the road, an old man on an electric scooter shot past them, kicking up a strong gust of wind that startled Ning Sui.

Xie Yichen reacted quickly and grabbed her arm. But the shawl in Ning Sui’s hands dropped to the ground. She bent down to pick it up, only to find that a patch in the middle had gotten dirty. She patted it gently, her expression showing a touch of distress.

She lifted her lashes, about to say something, and then unexpectedly found herself looking straight into Xie Yichen’s deep, dark eyes.

Ning Sui blinked slowly. His brows were well-defined and arched, hinting at the spirited energy of youth; the contours of his eyes were sharp and handsome too — only when he lowered his lashes did a rare, unselfconscious tenderness slip through.

Ning Sui tilted her head up. “Xie Yichen.”

“Hm?”

She said softly, “Do you feel even the tiniest bit happier right now?”

His gaze stilled for a moment, his eyes taking on a somewhat deep expression.

The two of them stood close, face to face, both momentarily losing the beat of the moment.

The sky over Dali was a clear, vivid blue. A nameless breeze drifted past, and the leaves on the surrounding trees rustled and swayed, as if playing some lovely melody.

Just then, an electric scooter came toward them head-on, charging forward while blaring its horn loudly, cutting through that wordless, tacit stillness.

Xie Yichen moved first, shifting his lashes. “Get in the car.”

His tone was still unhurried. Ning Sui tightened her fingertips. “Okay.”

They were standing on the roadside — a wave of their hand, and the driver pulled over right on cue. The vehicle was nearly full; there happened to be exactly two empty seats in the last row. They scanned the code and paid, and in under ten minutes they were delivered back to the guesthouse’s spot on the main street.

When Ning Sui swiped her card and pushed open the door, Hu Ke’er was not in the room. She did a circuit of the floor and went to knock on the door next door. After a few seconds, sure enough, Hu Ke’er’s voice rang out: “Who is it?”

“It’s me.”

The two of them had been sitting cross-legged on the sofa playing a game. Hu Ke’er hurried over to open the door. “Sweetheart, you’re back? How was the old town?”

“It was nice.” Ning Sui didn’t step inside. She asked, “Where’s Shen Qing?”

“Heard you weren’t around, so I think he went to chat with Zhang Yuge and the others.” Hu Ke’er gave her a full rapid-fire rundown. “Just now Zhang Yuge made a group — looks like about ten people. Four of us, six of them. The plan is to have dinner together tonight.”

“This person in the group called ‘Kuge Lin’ is super active — he’s already arranged a restaurant, right by Erhai Lake. We can head straight there later.”

Ning Sui glanced at the message. The restaurant was actually still near the south entrance, not far from the Sun Palace. Because there were so many people and the electric vehicle couldn’t seat everyone in one trip, Lin Shuyu said they’d split up and go separately — their six would go ahead first to scout the place.

The time was set for six-thirty. Hu Ke’er, a terminal case of chronic procrastination, began putting on makeup with a jolt of startled energy thirty minutes before, as though awakening from a deathbed.

Hu Ke’er knew that Ning Sui generally didn’t bother much with that sort of thing — she was beautiful even without any makeup — so Hu Ke’er just focused on herself, dabbing and blending in front of the mirror, and didn’t concern herself with Ning Sui.

Ning Sui’s complexion was clear and fair, her skin fine and delicate; her most beautiful feature was still those peach-blossom eyes — bright and captivating, naturally curved at the corners, limpid and clean, carrying a soft, sweet quality.

While Hu Ke’er did her makeup, Ning Sui sat on the sofa beside her and scrolled through WeChat.

She tapped open Xie Yichen’s chat window.

Suisui: [Transfer ¥288.00] Suisui: [This is for the scarf and the entrance ticket. Thank you~ [cat-playing-ball.jpg]]

Xie Yichen replied: [It’s fine, no need.]

The cheese roll could be repaid with a drink in return — that was fair reciprocity. But three hundred yuan was a lot. If she just accepted it, it would feel like taking advantage of him. Ning Sui was not quite used to that; she liked to keep accounts clear, otherwise she always felt unsettled inside.

Ning Sui’s lashes dipped: [Just accept it.]

She had been bracing herself for a repeat of the movie ticket incident. But to her surprise, after a brief silence on the other end, he accepted the transfer cleanly and without fuss.

By the time they rushed to the restaurant, they were ten minutes late. Lin Shuyu had reserved a private room with a large round table. Xie Yichen was seated between Zhang Yuge and Lin Shuyu, then Sun Hao, Zou Xiao, and Zhao Yingyao in order around the table.

Shen Qing was the first to walk in and sat down beside Zhang Yuge.

On their side, Ning Sui and Hu Ke’er sat in the middle; Xu Zhou, the last to arrive, ended up with Zhao Yingyao on his left.

The moment Hu Ke’er sat down, she noticed the two girls across the table had both done their makeup in that calculated no-makeup look — appearing unadorned on the surface but meticulously detailed up close.

She gave a silent tsk. As expected.

With a rare, exceptional-looking guy like Xie Yichen around — the kind you couldn’t find even searching with a lantern — who in their right mind would actually go bare-faced? Nobody except oblivious Ning Sui, that was who.

Lin Shuyu was the enthusiastic type who loved warming up a crowd. The moment he spotted the two girls coming over, his eyes lit up. He could basically match them to Zhang Yuge’s descriptions.

He thought Ning Sui was genuinely stunning, and different from Luo Qiongxue — she didn’t carry that air of cool aloofness. Her eyes were beautiful, lively and glistening, as though they could speak.

Lin Shuyu stole a few glances at Ning Sui but didn’t dare be too obvious about it. He opened the beer he’d ordered earlier and poured a round for everyone, playing the gracious host: “Now that everyone’s here, let’s drink to that!”

After the first round, they went around making introductions.

Since Xie Yichen and Zhang Yuge each knew both sides already, the two of them were skipped.

When it was Shen Qing’s turn, the moment he finished, Zhao Yingyao laughed: “So Shen Qing studied abroad — that’s impressive.”

Since Shen Qing was a year older than the rest of them, Hu Ke’er and the others addressed him as older brother, and Zhao Yingyao, having heard them do so a few times, quickly fell into the same habit with the ease of someone who’d known him for years.

Shen Qing was quick on his feet; he bowed his hands in mock deference even as he smiled: “Oh, I wouldn’t dare say that. Everyone here is from Tsinghua or Peking University, and there’s even a top-scorer — I’d hardly dare show my face.”

Ning Sui felt that he and Xie Yichen were probably the best examples of what the most well-bred boys looked like — though the two had very different styles. Words like this, when said by Shen Qing, still came out warm and gracious, even though they were glib.

He had an excellent sense of propriety, and a maturity to him — a maturity so thorough that Ning Sui actually found it a little difficult to imagine him laughing with full abandon.

At that thought she looked toward Xie Yichen. The night air was slightly cool; he had pulled a windbreaker on over his short-sleeved shirt. He was now lounging with careless ease against the chair back, idly listening to the lively chatter around him.

As though sensing her watching him, Xie Yichen looked up, tracked her gaze, and gave a slight lift of his brow.

The meaning was clear: What?

Something gave a quiet, gentle little stir in Ning Sui’s chest.

About two seconds — not enough time for her reaction to actually manifest — and he already looked away.

Once everyone had introduced themselves, Lin Shuyu finally found his opening to talk to her. He said warmly, “I heard from ‘Octopus’ that you and I scored the same on the college entrance exam — both 685.”

Ning Sui was still a little dazed, puzzling over who “Octopus Oar” was supposed to be, before she gave an amused nod: “Really? That’s quite a coincidence.”

Lin Shuyu was visibly delighted; he refilled glasses as he laughed cheerfully, “It is! Fate, really.”

Zhang Yuge sat beside him watching from the sidelines. He could sort of tell what was going on in Lin Shuyu’s head, though it was perfectly understandable. This guy, despite his nickname “Kuge Lin,” had a thing for exactly this type — bright and lively — and the more such a girl kept her distance, the more invested he got. He had something of a taste for the challenge.

His gaze drifted to the side again — the one person whose thoughts he still couldn’t read was, as ever, the same old mystery.

Across the table, Zhao Yingyao jumped in with cheerful familiarity: “Wow, Suisui, if you’re that impressive, which university did you get into? What do you plan to study?”

Ning Sui answered, “Peking University, Mathematics Department.”

The other girl let out a dramatically exaggerated exclamation: “So basically everyone at this table is either from one of China’s top two universities or an Ivy League school in America, right? I wouldn’t even dare sit down without eating at least a couple of peanuts first.”

Zhao Yingyao was also going abroad, but to a fairly average school. Zou Xiao had gotten into an ordinary university in-province as well, and the gap was real. Hearing those words, her expression shifted almost imperceptibly — as though she’d been reminded, in plain light, of just how far she was from Xie Yichen.

So she spoke up: “Mathematics — Xie Yichen must know all about that, right?”

Ning Sui looked up at her. Zou Xiao, assuming Ning Sui didn’t know, tilted her head playfully with the tone of someone in the know: “He studied math competition before, you see — he even won a gold medal at the CMO. Sometimes the teachers even had him cover problem-solving sessions for the class.”

Ning Sui replied, “Wow, that’s impressive.”

Xie Yichen, who had been about to say something, glanced at her again.

Across the distance of two seats, her expression was quite sincere — at least convincing enough to give Zou Xiao face, as she pretended to be hearing this for the first time.

“It really is.” Zou Xiao seemed to grow more energized. She had noticed that Xie Yichen had exchanged glances with this Ning Sui several times, and even with Sun Hao sitting right there beside her, she pressed on: “So the elite class would have all the lights on late into the night. When the teachers had something to take care of at home, they’d ask Xie Yichen to keep an eye on everyone, and during breaks, students from neighbouring classes would come to him with questions too. Sometimes when there were a lot of people, they’d all head off campus together to get a late-night snack.”

Ning Sui asked with curiosity, “Were you allowed to leave campus at night?”

Zou Xiao smiled: “Of course. The rules at Gaohua are pretty relaxed — you can order takeout anytime. Not like your school with its strict closed management where you’d have to sign out to leave.”

That single comment sent undercurrents rippling around the table in all four directions. It showcased her familiarity with Xie Yichen while, without apparently noticing what she was doing, taking a casual swipe at No. 4 High School.

Lin Shuyu and Zhang Yuge thought to themselves: Right, she restrains herself for a couple of days and then slides right back into old habits — truly the wildfire that won’t stay out, the spring breeze that just keeps blowing.

Sun Hao’s eyes dimmed slightly; he looked down and said nothing.

Xu Zhou and Hu Ke’er were both at a total loss — two zhang of cloth and not a clue what it was for — and yet for reasons they couldn’t quite name, something felt off.

Just as the atmosphere in the private room grew a touch awkward, a well-timed knock came at the door as the server arrived to save the scene.

The dishes they’d ordered began coming out one after another. Amid the sound of plates being set down, Xie Yichen spoke up mildly, a teasing nonchalance mixed into his smile: “No. 4 High School sounds perfectly fine to me. We’re just too lax over at Gaohua — let all kinds of people in, so the boys’ dormitory is constantly getting broken into.”

At Gaohua, the girls’ and boys’ dorms were separated by an academic building, the girls’ side against the hill and the boys’ near the main gate — which meant it was actually the latter that kept having incidents.

At those words, Zhang Yuge’s sensitivity was struck instantly, and he said indignantly: “Exactly! Last time, some idiotic lowlife — no idea who — didn’t even bother taking the laptop, and instead went for my—”

He caught himself mid-sentence, forcing out two words: “—clothing. On the balcony.”

Lin Shuyu beside him was working very hard not to burst out laughing. He knew perfectly well what Zhang Yuge was actually talking about.

That time, Zhang Yuge had lost a full five pairs of red underwear. He wasn’t one for washing them often — one pair would do three or four days — so they’d all piled up in the laundry basket. The next morning there was nothing to wear, and he couldn’t stomach putting on the dirty ones either, so he went to class going commando under his outer trousers. Then during the break, a few of the guys hoisted him up in an ambar play, and he went crashing into a tree and then a utility pole.

The godlike wail he let out that day had stayed with Lin Shuyu ever since.

“Are you sure those,” Xie Yichen paused deliberately, dragging it out, “items of clothing, were stolen by a thief?”

Zhang Yuge looked genuinely baffled: “What do you mean?”

“Would a thief really target those things?” Lin Shuyu could no longer hold it in, laughing wildly as he piled on: “Last time Yichen went to the dorm supervisor’s office, he spotted them in a storage box right away.”

He turned to Xie Yichen, playing off him perfectly: “You’re sure you didn’t mistake them for something else?”

Xie Yichen: “That color’s auspicious enough that mistaking them would be the real challenge.”

Zhang Yuge was stunned — too flustered to care that there were girls present — and let out a very colourful expletive: “What? I can’t believe it — does Wang Li have inappropriate feelings for me?! So that’s why she’s always targeting me every time she docks points—”

Lin Shuyu hadn’t expected his mind to go there at all. That dorm-supervisor aunty was admittedly long-winded and a bit of a nuisance, but she was hardly depraved enough to steal underwear from a male high schooler.

He was nearly toppling sideways off his chair, on the verge of choking with laughter: “You absolute — hahahahaha — it’s because a wind blew your stuff off the balcony, and they ended up dangling pathetically in the shrubbery at the foot of your dorm building. Aunty Wang couldn’t stand looking at it, picked them up, and put them in lost-and-found — and then nobody ever came to claim them. Also — the demerit was completely deserved.”

Obviously. Who on earth would file a missing-property report for underwear?

Zhang Yuge coughed dryly twice. Lin Shuyu stared at him the way one might look at a dim-witted child, then folded his hands toward the rest of the table in mock apology: “Do excuse us. Do excuse us.”

The atmosphere was restored. Everyone poured fresh drinks, eating and swapping school stories: late-night dormitory chats, dragging each other out of bed for eight o’clock lectures, hiding from the dorm warden to sneak a look at their phones — the conversation was blazing.

Of everyone there, Shen Qing was probably the one least familiar with this kind of residential school life in China.

He was also sitting beside Ning Sui, and couldn’t really join the general conversation, so he just smiled and listened. Ning Sui, seizing a moment while everyone else was chatting away, asked him: “Is it four people to a room in foreign dorms too?”

Shen Qing looked up, his gaze turning slightly warm beneath his glasses: “Ours are suites — each person has an independent bedroom. Some are three-person, some four-person.”

“That sounds amazing.”

Shen Qing smiled and shook his head: “Honestly, I rather like the things you’re all talking about.”

Ning Sui smiled too: “Finding the joy in the suffering.”

There was a bottle of beer in front of her. Everyone else had given up on glasses and was drinking straight from the bottle, but hers was still nearly full.

Xia Fanghui had always been firmly opposed to Ning Sui drinking. At the graduation ceremony, when Ning Deyan poured wine for her and Hu Ke’er, Xia Fanghui had stopped them with her eyes from across the room.

Ning Sui couldn’t even begin to count how many times Xia Fanghui had lectured her: Alcohol is nothing good, especially in front of men — don’t touch a single drop, just say you’re allergic.

Ning Sui had once asked: What if they’re my classmates? Even friends?

Xia Fanghui had answered without hesitation: No. You can know a face, but not a heart.

Now Ning Sui cradled the beer bottle, looking down into it with lowered lashes. The foam drifted on the surface; a crisp, cool scent wafted faintly toward her.

What she had wanted to say back then, she thought, was this: you measure a person’s heart with another genuine heart. Don’t assume that because we’re eighteen we’re still children who don’t know anything — some things, right from wrong, good from bad, they understood better than anyone.

She pressed her lips together and took a sip. A faint bitterness, and then, after a moment, a lingering sweetness of malt — still not particularly good.

Ning Sui set the bottle back down.

Zhao Yingyao noticed the waterline in her bottle: “Suisui, how come you’re not drinking?”

Lin Shuyu had charged too hard earlier and was feeling a little dizzy; he now enthusiastically chimed in: “Yeah, Ning Sui, how come you’re not drinking? We’ve already had two or three rounds — you really should keep up with the group. Not your preferred brand? I can order a few different kinds, guaranteed to pack a punch!”

At that moment, Xie Yichen suddenly looked up, giving a lazy smile: “Whether she drinks or not — what’s it got to do with you?”

Lin Shuyu startled, then realized Xie Yichen was right — pressuring a girl to drink was indeed poor form.

His brain hadn’t quite caught up yet. He paused, then said weakly in his own defence: “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s okay.” Ning Sui stepped in. “I’m a bit allergic to alcohol — sorry.”

With Luo Qiongxue, something like this would’ve earned a spectacular eye-roll. Lin Shuyu hadn’t expected Ning Sui to be so good-natured about it, even turning around and apologising to him, and could only send her an embarrassed, apologetic look.

But Ning Sui curved her lips warmly, signalling that it was fine.

After sitting quietly for a few minutes, Lin Shuyu took out his phone and added Ning Sui’s WeChat through the group. He’d originally wanted to open Zhang Yuge’s chat window, but thought better of it.

Hu Ke’er, full to the brim with food, leaned over and whispered conspiratorially in Ning Sui’s ear: “That Kuge Lin guy — I think he kind of likes you.”

Ning Sui didn’t respond.

She saw Lin Shuyu’s friend request, accepted it, and while she was at it, glanced sideways.

Zhao Yingyao had somehow struck up a conversation with Xu Zhou — something broadly about studying abroad in America. Whatever he answered, Zhao Yingyao looked amazed and smiled back with a few words.

Hu Ke’er noticed too. Xu Zhou turned back right then and asked her: “The hotel just called asking how many more days we want to stay. Shen Qing said three days — what do you think?”

Hu Ke’er had no particular opinion: “Ask Suisui?”

Ning Sui nodded: “Works for me.”

“Then I’ll book it.” Xu Zhou took out his phone and placed the order in the app.

Since she was sitting close by, Zhao Yingyao had inadvertently witnessed the entire process. Watching him lock the screen without any sign of sending out a shared billing request to the group, she asked with curiosity: “Are you treating everyone?”

“Sometimes.”

“You’re so generous.”

Xu Zhou shrugged, indifferent: “They’re my own people.”

By the time most of the food and drinks had been consumed, the conversation among this group — fellow townspeople far from home — showed no signs of running out. After settling the bill, the previously quiet Sun Hao suggested they head back to the suite at their guesthouse to keep talking — the living room was certainly big enough. Everyone agreed without a second thought.

They gathered their things and headed out. Ning Sui was putting on her jacket while checking her phone.

The family group chat had popped up with a few new messages.

Ning Deyan: [When is Mom coming home? @Fangfang] Xia Fanghui: [In a little while.]

Ning Sui knew Xia Fanghui had been working a lot of overtime recently. She typed a concerned line into the chat: [Have you eaten?]

Xia Fanghui: [Yes, yes.]

Then Ning Deyan, in full drought-and-flood-paradox mode, chimed in: [I’ve been so incredibly tired lately — I haven’t even been staying up late, but I just can’t seem to get up in the morning. So today I went to see a doctor.]

Xia Fanghui: [?] Xia Fanghui: [What did the doctor say?]

Ning Deyan: [He told me to get up at noon.]

Ning Sui: [……]