After the two girls left in disappointment, Zhang Yuge walked up and made a series of disapproving sounds. “That was way too brutal a rejection. Don’t you know anything about cherishing the fairer sex?”

Xie Yichen shot him a look, half-smiling. “What else was I supposed to do—actually give it to them?”

Zhang Yuge shook his head with a sigh. That callous, indifferent manner of his—it was a shame for those girls, who had just been sneaking glances and deliberating for a long time before finally summoning the courage to come over and ask.

The two of them walked side by side for a while.

Zhang Yuge changed the subject. “Hey, I wonder how the others are doing. That idiot Lin Shuyu keeps yelling about turning over a new leaf, saying he wants to come back—without the two of us, it’s just no fun.”

“What’s the point of him coming back?” Xie Yichen had both hands in his pockets, and said indifferently, “Just to make things awkward for Sun Hao?”

The truth was, if Lin Shuyu had only brought a girl he secretly liked, and she ended up falling for someone else, Sun Hao could only swallow his frustration. But later they heard the real story—the girl had been interested in Xie Yichen from the start. She’d only chatted so warmly with Sun Hao because she found out Xie Yichen would be joining the trip.

This made Sun Hao a pure and simple tool. Anyone in his position would have been furious.

“That’s true enough. But from what I could see, Zou Xiao is absolutely smitten with you.” Zhang Yuge let out a couple of heartfelt sighs. “You haven’t been secretly making eyes at pretty girls behind my back, have you?”

Xie Yichen took a long stride up the stone steps toward the cable car entrance, and said lazily, “Stop throwing baseless accusations at me.”

“Hey, I’m just joking, slow down, Your Lordship—has she been bombarding you with texts these past two days?”

Word had it that when Zou Xiao heard Xie Yichen was going off with just Zhang Yuge, she was nearly in tears. But this was one of those things that everyone understood yet couldn’t be openly discussed. If she had truly insisted on making him stay, both Sun Hao and Lin Shuyu would have lost face, so she had no choice but to let it go.

The moment Xie Yichen left the main group, Zou Xiao immediately sent him a message with explanations, but everything she said was aimed at distancing herself from Sun Hao.

She said they were just friends with a good rapport, and she was sorry for causing friction among the group, but it had been entirely unintentional.

The way she put it, it almost sounded like Xie Yichen and Sun Hao had been fighting over her.

Xie Yichen barely responded. Zou Xiao changed tactics and switched to sharing her itinerary as a way of staying in contact.

[I went to Xizhou Ancient Town today. Are you and Zhang Yuge still in the old town? How’s the weather there?]

[There are no butterflies at Butterfly Spring this time of year—just specimens. Why don’t you hurry over and meet up with us!]

[Xie Yichen, I found a really good restaurant today on Yeyu Road. You should try it when you get the chance [location pin]]

[Are you going to hike Cangshan? It was really cold when I climbed it before—remember to bring an extra fleece jacket, don’t catch a cold [hug emoji]]

Zhang Yuge glanced over casually—he swore he hadn’t been trying to look—and was still left slack-jawed. “You replied with one single emoji and she’s still sending this many messages on her own?”

Xie Yichen picked out the last line and sent Zou Xiao a message of concern in return: [Mm, thanks. Are you and Sun Hao and the rest having a good time?]

Zhang Yuge nearly died laughing. His brother was a true master of subtle devastation—roundabout yet full of meaning. Sure enough, the moment that message was sent, total silence fell on the other end.

The laughter aside, Zhang Yuge was genuinely curious. “A’Chen, I’ve never asked—what kind of person do you actually like? Are there any standards?”

Xie Yichen took a long stride forward. “No.”

“That can’t be right. Look at me and Old Lin—our preferences are pretty clearly defined.”

He liked clever girls; Lin Shuyu liked pretty ones. But even the cleverest, most beautiful girls chasing after Xie Yichen never seemed to produce any reaction from him.

“That’s exactly why you two are easy to fool,” Xie Yichen said, raising an eyebrow.

Zhang Yuge was taken aback. “Why?”

“If the person you like can be assembled from some set of so-called obvious criteria, then she isn’t truly the only one. The moment someone similar comes along, you can just as easily be replaced.”

Xie Yichen still had a bit of patience today, and spoke in an unhurried, casual tone. “Liking someone is an instinct, do you understand? You don’t set your standards first and then go looking for someone to like. It works the other way—you fall for someone first, and then you realize: oh, so she was my standard all along.“

Zhang Yuge felt a profound revelation wash over him, and stuck up a thumb. “Brilliant. I think I actually get it now.”

That was such a thoughtful thing to say—and somehow even a little romantic. How strange.

Zhang Yuge had always thought it was no accident that the school called him “Chen-god.” How did a person even turn out like this—exceptional at everything, and on top of that, genuinely mature in his thinking, with a clear-eyed view of the world. That was exactly why all his friends loved hanging around him.

Xie Yichen’s emotional intelligence was also remarkably high. He understood interpersonal dynamics intuitively—he knew how to land on the right words to put people at ease, and how to decline someone with enough grace that they didn’t lose face.

For this, Zhang Yuge’s personal theory pointed to family upbringing.

——Xie Yichen’s parents were both highly educated, had built their wealth from nothing in IT development, and had founded several major internet big-data platforms in succession. Frequently covered by the media, they were considered a model couple in the business world.

Zhang Yuge knew that when Xie Yichen was young, he had often accompanied his parents to interviews with financial journalists, learning from a very early age how to face cameras and media with composure and ease. He was someone who had seen the world.

Yet at school, he kept an extremely low profile. Aside from a handful of close friends, very few people knew that he was the son of Xie Zhenlin and Qiu Ruoyun.

Zhang Yuge joked, “You switched from math to computer science—was that so you could one day take over the family business?”

Xie Yichen had enrolled in the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences at Tsinghua University, commonly known as the “Cross Institute,” and had gotten into the legendary “Yao Class”—whose chief professor was Yao Qizhi, the only Chinese scientist to have won the Turing Award.

To put it plainly: the most prestigious accelerated program in computer science, where the male-to-female ratio was said to be effectively infinite—the male equivalent of a spider’s lair.

There were only two paths into the Yao Class: national olympiad teams, or provincial college entrance examination top scorers.

“No need for that.” The cable car’s glass window framed lush greenery. Xie Yichen glanced out for a moment, then looked away. “The old two are brimming with energy. They won’t retire until they’re well into their seventies or eighties. This is purely a matter of personal interest.”

He’d studied math olympiad because he had spare time. But he actually liked computer science more—not because of a lifetime of exposure through his parents, but because he genuinely loved the subject itself. Binary code, that language of distilling complexity into simplicity—clean and unadorned, without pretense.

Zhang Yuge said, “I heard everything’s taught entirely in English there, and the very first class assumes everyone already has a programming foundation and just blazes through the material. I have a senior from my school who scored incredibly high on his exams and even he found it brutally tough.”

He’d been about to ask after his friend’s wellbeing—but this person made a drawn-out sound and said, “Lucky I started teaching myself from middle school, or I’d have been completely lost.”

Zhang Yuge: “……”

The injustice of it all—how could there be such a chasm between people?

Having eaten an especially filling breakfast that morning, Zhang Yuge channeled his indignation into energy, put his head down, and started climbing hard the moment they got off the cable car. He’d already felt the altitude rising on the way up—at several thousand meters, every single step had to be planted firmly and with care.

“How many days are you planning to stay here before heading to Shuanglong to meet up with the others?”

Xie Yichen still had that same nonchalant, couldn’t-care-less air. “Don’t know. Depends on my mood.”

“Tch.” Zhang Yuge was calculating internally—just the two of them was honestly boring, two grown men with nothing to do together, not nearly as lively as a bigger group. “How about tonight you invite Ning Sui and Hu Ke’er out to hang out?”

“They’re a group of four,” Xie Yichen said, giving him a sidelong glance. “You think that would be appropriate?”

“I don’t see why not—just invite all of them then.” Zhang Yuge said shamelessly, “We’re all friends. Life is lonely; more friends means more paths.”

“……”

Seeing that Xie Yichen wasn’t responding, Zhang Yuge kept muttering behind him. “Then what are you planning to do tonight? Wander around the old town again? Everything there is stuff girls like. What’s the point of going without girls?”

Xie Yichen still said nothing. Zhang Yuge followed along behind him into the Cangshan scenic area entrance and proceeded to report the gossip he’d just gathered. “I heard from Hu Ke’er that Ning Sui also competed in math olympiad, got 685 on her college entrance exam, and enrolled in the Mathematics Department at Jing University.”

He paused. “Lin Shuyu scored the same as her. That coward didn’t even dare to apply.”

Zhang Yuge had gone to the regular class at Gao Hua, and this round of exams counted as a normal performance for him—barely good enough to get into a school in Beijing, which he was actually quite content with. No matter what, at least he’d be in the same city as Xie Yichen.

But he admired high-achievers, especially high-achieving girls, and felt a genuine sense of reverence in his heart—so looking at Ning Sui through that lens gave her a certain elevated, almost mythologized glow.

Xie Yichen gave him an inscrutable look. “You’ve been chatting quite well with Hu Ke’er.”

Zhang Yuge immediately went on alert and rushed to establish his innocence. “Girls who are taken belong to a completely different category for me. I play by the rules, okay?”

It was peak tourist season and there were quite a few people queuing at the ticket gates. There was a family with young children behind them making a lot of noise, so he had to lean in close to talk to Xie Yichen. “Purely a friendship thing.”

The two of them rode the cable car up the mountain—the entire journey took a full forty minutes, and the thinning air became increasingly noticeable.

When they got out, there were people swarming everywhere.

Several thousand steps remained before reaching the summit at Xima Lake. The mountain trail here was steep, the stone steps sharp and difficult to navigate—it demanded full concentration. Even Xie Yichen was breathing slightly hard; the collar of his softshell jacket hung loosely open, and the fine ends of his black hair at his temples were damp with sweat.

Zhang Yuge felt this path was genuinely not fit for human beings. With the large crowds of the tourist season, you couldn’t stop either—otherwise you’d create a jam for the visitors behind you. Had he come here to have fun? No—he had come here, following this person, to experience human suffering firsthand!

On the other end of the mountain, Ning Sui, making her way through the stream of people in ones and twos, felt exactly the same.

She’d never actually liked hiking. This sort of willpower-testing activity was her mother Fang Fang’s cup of tea. Ning Deyan was just like her—both had weak willpower and preferred comfort and lounging. So every time he called her lazy, Ning Sui had a ready and well-reasoned comeback: “You can only learn from who you’re raised by.”

The main problem was that she hadn’t expected such a large temperature difference between the mountain top and the base. Ning Sui had only brought a thin outer layer and hadn’t packed enough clothes, leaving her shivering slightly with cold.

Xu Zhou and Hu Ke’er huddled together for warmth, looking equally regretful. Ning Sui’s gaze drifted to Shen Qing—the one person who’d packed enough clothing—but she felt they weren’t close enough yet to make such a request without feeling awkward.

Hu Ke’er announced she wanted to buy a hot dog from a roadside stall, calling it a way to warm up. Ning Sui didn’t get one.

After another stretch of climbing, she felt thoroughly drained and asked Shen Qing weakly, “How much longer until we get there?”

“Not far now—about a hundred meters. Hang on a little longer.” The bag Ning Sui was carrying held a water bottle, a sun hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, and a whole collection of other things girls tend to need; it looked small but was genuinely heavy. Shen Qing had been leading the way ahead and hadn’t noticed her huffing and puffing.

When they reached the mountain peak, he turned and noticed her condition, asking gently, “Would you like me to carry your bag?”

Ning Sui shook her head and politely declined. “No need, thank you.”

Her gaze was drawn away by the magnificent, radiant scenery stretching across the mountain summit. In spring, the slopes here were blanketed with azaleas in full bloom; winter snow hadn’t arrived yet. The summer Xima Lake was particularly lush and verdant, under a clear, brilliant sky.

Standing at the mountain peak and looking down, you felt the vastness of the world and your own smallness within it. The broad expanse of water reflected the blue sky and white clouds. All around, layered peaks rose one behind another, trees a deep, vivid green, with drifting clouds and mist coiling through them—like something out of an immortal realm.

For reasons she couldn’t quite name, Ning Sui felt something stir and rise in her heart, and she quickly lifted her phone to capture the scene.

The scenery was so beautiful that when she turned her head and spotted Xie Yichen amid the surge of people, she felt momentarily dazed, as if she were seeing a vision.

“Ning Sui.”

Across the sea of people, the young man’s gaze found hers with precise, unhurried accuracy. His brow and eyes were sharp and deep-set.

Ning Sui didn’t notice Shen Qing watching her. She only observed that Xie Yichen was carrying a single shoulder bag, and that he was turning and making his way toward her in a leisurely, unhurried manner—each step bringing him visibly, noticeably closer.

Ning Sui’s fair neck was finely beaded with sweat, and the cold wind swept across it, leaving a faint flush on her face. The bag on her back pulled her downward, visibly packed full and heavy-looking.

The surrounding noise was clamorous. She tilted her face up and spoke to him. “Xie Yichen, you came to hike too.”

Xie Yichen responded with a short, simple “Mm.”

The two of them stood on the side facing downward toward the base of the mountain. The sunlight was bright and dazzling, and from this angle they could also see the vivid blue of Erhai Lake below, and the scattered, tiered townscape spreading beneath them.

Ning Sui, weighted down by her small but heavy bag, instinctively gripped the exposed part of her forearm, and hesitated. “So then…”

“Give me the bag.”

“Ah?”

“Hiking with this much stuff. Is any of it even necessary.” Xie Yichen extended his hand toward her, his knuckles clean and defined. He glanced up at her with an unhurried air. “Hand it over. I’ll carry it for a bit.”

The low temperature was dulling her thinking. Ning Sui dazedly did as he said and slipped off the bag, then stood there blankly as he rummaged inside her bag and pulled out a white windbreaker jacket, tossing it to her.

Xie Yichen lowered his head and fiddled with the zipper for a moment.

From Ning Sui’s angle, his well-defined jaw also had a thin sheen of sweat against it, his sharp, prominent throat bobbing once. His brow lifted slightly. “I packed one extra. Help me share the weight.”