Bright sunlight lay across the window ledge. Ning Sui blinked awake slowly and shifted — only then did she notice that the back of her head had been cradled in his broad palm the whole time.
The themed room’s décor was truly distinctive. The first thing Ning Sui saw when she opened her eyes was the enormous heart shape made of flower petals on the wall.
She blinked in a daze, and only gradually began to piece things back together. The aching soreness in her limbs crept up, carrying with it fragments of the night before — warm, hazy, and vividly unsettling.
Xie Yichen rubbed the top of her head, then leaned down and pressed a few kisses to her cheek, his expression satisfied and lazy.
How was it already noon? Ning Sui burrowed into his arms like an ostrich, and had absolutely no desire to say a single word.
Her mind was somewhat blank, memories coming and going in fragments. She couldn’t even remember how she had bathed, and even now, looking back, Ning Sui felt that the version of herself from last night couldn’t have been real. Not something that had truly happened.
She hadn’t known until now that a name could be stretched into so many different forms of address — sweetheart, baby, Suisui, Coconut Princess, idiot little coconut, and even…… coconut darling. He had cycled through every endearment he had ever used, and several he had never used before.
The rain outside drizzled on, pitter-pattering at intervals, before falling quiet again. The neon sign was still glowing brilliantly. Looking out from the window, even at this hour the supermarket below was lit up and busy, people coming and going. Because she was sensitive, a single touch would make her cry — she was particularly good at tormenting him. Xie Yichen’s forearm muscles stood out visibly, and he hadn’t dared to use force, only drawing out the time slowly, slowly, holding her and coaxing her with quiet tenderness.
“I can’t, I really can’t……”
Xie Yichen had discovered she was made of water. Even his voice had gone hoarse from sighing.
She truly was the Coconut Princess.
Ning Sui lay on her side, half her flushed and softened face almost entirely buried in the fall of her own hair, curling her fingers tightly while calling his name over and over.
It was incomprehensible why spring would bring such heavy rain. The air was cold and damp.
— “Xie Yichen, Xie Yichen.”
Raindrops clung to the glass in clear, transparent beads, trailing little paths down the outside of the pane, the neon reflections glowing in the wet. Every time she called his name, it was as though she were whispering something tender — her voice soft and warm, leaving his whole body tingling. The sound of the supermarket’s cash register chimed below, people moving through in a steady stream, the water on the pavement rippling outward in rings. Xie Yichen felt as though he were losing his mind. His chest beat with a fierce, relentless heat. And yet he was so afraid of hurting her. Together they had watched pedestrians taking shelter from the rain, umbrellas opening one after another, the cold air shut out on the other side of the glass.
It was already well past midday. Even if it was a weekend, this was rather too late to be getting up.
Ning Sui was afraid of being looked for — Fang-fang especially. She forced herself to roll over and reached for her phone on the bedside table.
As she reached for it, she asked: “What time is it?”
When she heard the sound of her own voice, Ning Sui couldn’t help but close her eyes for a moment. Even though he had gotten up to bring her water afterward, the words coming out of her now were all raspy.
She didn’t even know how she had eventually gotten through it. There had been a break in the middle to rest, and then somehow it had started again. Before she knew what was happening, it had all turned into this. Ning Sui felt as though she might be losing her mind.
Xie Yichen, seeing her struggling to reach, stretched out a forearm and retrieved her phone for her. He glanced at the time: “Just past eleven.”
Ning Sui unlocked the screen and checked her messages.
Better than she had expected. Fang-fang had probably assumed she was sleeping in, and hadn’t posted anything in the family group chat. Ning Sui sent a good morning message into the chat.
Then went through her unread messages one by one.
Xie Yichen had his arms wrapped around her from behind — a rather possessive posture — his distinguished nose gently nuzzling her neck: “Hungry? I can go downstairs and pick up something for you.”
Ning Sui was feeling entirely lazy, didn’t want to move, and didn’t want anything to change: “No.”
Waking up from sleep and speaking like this had a distinctly spoiled quality to it. His voice dropped immediately: “Mm?”
Ning Sui became aware of this herself, and worried that if she didn’t respond quickly enough, she would give him more room to work with — he was truly utterly shameless.
“I mean — we can just order delivery. No need to go to the trouble.”
Xie Yichen replied slowly: “Alright. What do you want?”
She had been away from Huai’an food for a long time. Ning Sui’s appetite surged to life, and her lashes fluttered: “I want soup dumplings. And spare ribs in black bean sauce, and beef and egg rice noodle rolls.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and steamed custard buns — or sesame and cheese rolls.”
“Fine.”
“And I want purple rice soy milk!”
“As you wish.”
Xie Yichen paused, then asked with amusement: “No green things today?”
“……”
When was he ever going to stop bringing that up.
But this comment had landed right on target — Ning Sui really did want some. She moistened her lips: “Then…… add an avocado smoothie too.”
“Mm.”
Xie Yichen tightened his arms around her, a low laugh in his voice: “Any other orders from the princess?”
“……”
Warm breath swept in from the nape of her neck. Ning Sui’s lashes stirred, and she said slowly, rambling: “I think that might be a lot. We could cut one or two. After all,” she added nonsensically, “there still has to be something in your preferred brown liquid category.”
The breathing behind her stopped for a fraction of a second. Then she was flipped over like a crepe being turned in the pan, now facing him directly.
Xie Yichen was laughing as he pressed his nose against hers, rubbing her cheek: “Haven’t I already ordered that from you?”
Hmm?
Oh — soup dumplings, spare ribs in black bean sauce, and beef and egg rice noodle rolls.
Ning Sui was being made a little ticklish by him, and also laughed: “I suppose you have.”
She thought of how Zhang Yuge had mentioned he was a good cook, and realized: “Come to think of it, I’ve never actually tried your cooking.”
Xie Yichen raised a brow: “Want to?”
“Mm.”
He leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose, the corner of his mouth curving: “Alright. We’ll find a chance and I’ll cook for you.”
While waiting for the delivery, the two of them lay wrapped up together, gazes resting steadily on each other — warm and unhurried.
Ning Sui noticed that now that their relationship had deepened, there really was more understanding between them — not just physically, but emotionally. She trusted the person in front of her even more.
She also liked being close to him. A lot.
After a while, Xie Yichen lazily sat up. Ning Sui asked: “What is it?”
“Going to wash some things.”
Ning Sui’s fingers curled: “……Alright.”
She truly was a complete novice. She had never anticipated that the nightgown she had bought just yesterday would end up in such a state — which was why Xie Yichen had gone back downstairs in the middle of the night to the 24-hour supermarket to buy her a new one.
Ning Sui wanted to share some of the work. She quietly sat up too: “Then you go first — I’ll come help in a bit.”
Xie Yichen’s gaze travelled from her collarbone to her face, his expression deep: “No need. You lie down.”
Ning Sui opened her mouth, then thought better of it. She had a feeling his meaningful tone carried some other implication. Her body really was still languid and without much strength. Her ears grew warm, and she gripped the blanket and lay back down.
Soon the sound of rushing water came from the bathroom. Ning Sui let her mind drift idly.
In a vague, distracted moment, she felt something pressing under her leg — something ridged and textured, and rather uncomfortable. She reached down without thinking, and to her surprise pulled out two unused small packets from before.
These things lay there, brazenly conspicuous. Ning Sui almost dropped them.
Honestly, the variety that Hu Ke’er had picked — there were far too many options. Large pack, three-in-one, the features were absurdly elaborate.
And yet she had failed to detect any of these alleged differences. Whichever type it had been, the end result had been exactly the same level of — to put it plainly — utter devastation. After all, this was the provincial academic champion, national mathematics competition team member, and ACM international gold medalist. Ning Sui had never doubted her boyfriend’s capacity for learning, but last night had still thoroughly shattered her understanding of what was possible.
Then she thought of something Liang Xinyue had said back at the Qingda sports field — a rumor that had quietly circulated in some forum for a period of time.
Cold in the bedroom.
“……”
Ning Sui lay looking at the ceiling with absolutely nothing to say. She didn’t know who she could even go to for justice.
Not a single word of that rumor had been anywhere close to accurate.
—
It happened to be a Saturday. With no classes scheduled, when the delivery arrived, the two of them sat at the small table by the window and ate lunch in perfect, unhurried ease.
Ning Sui’s gaze drifted idly to the hotel towel draped over the charging outlet nearby, and thought back to Xie Yichen’s actions the night before when he had been checking the signal. Something flickered in her eyes: “How did you know — that those things would be there?”
He looked up: “What?”
“Hidden cameras.” Ning Sui found it a little hard to bring up, and ventured: “How do you know about all of that.”
“It’s not the first day I——” — know that your boyfriend knows his way around things.
Before he could finish, she posed with great sincerity: “Is this your first time coming to a place like this?”
“……”
That went without saying.
Little expert at turning things around.
Xie Yichen pulled at his lip, reached over and pinched her cheek, his voice rising at the end with a low, ambiguous quality: “——Well, what do you think?”
Ning Sui’s eyes shone, her cheeks flushed soft and pink, and she drew out a long, drawn-out sound of acknowledgment.
Seeing that the man was still watching her with a burning, direct gaze, she feigned composure: “No, it’s just — you seemed quite practiced. I thought you might be experienced.”
Xie Yichen’s jaw flexed, and he regarded her with a measuring look.
Ning Sui had just set down her avocado smoothie when he leaned forward and scooped her entirely into his arms, pulling her onto his lap. She nearly startled at the sudden motion and instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck to keep her balance.
The distance closed instantly. Ning Sui’s back went a little rigid: “What are you doing.”
Xie Yichen settled her legs, adjusting her into a comfortable position. The posture conveniently allowed him to keep one arm around her waist. Xie Yichen’s well-defined forearm rested there without negotiation, and he looked at her with unwavering directness: “It was covered in the hardware engineering curriculum.”
“……”
He lowered his gaze, his tone carrying undisguised implication: “Whether I’m experienced — don’t you already know?”
“……Oh.” Ning Sui immediately stood down, retracted her neck, and looked elsewhere: “Your program has quite a broad scope.”
He had just finished peeling the lychees they’d ordered as an extra item. Xie Yichen gave her a sidelong glance and simply stayed in this position, unhurriedly peeling the skin off each one and feeding them to Ning Sui one by one: “Mm. We have even more interesting things — want to come sit in on a class with me this semester?”
Ning Sui accepted his service with perfect ease: “Like what?”
Xie Yichen: “Building a computer from scratch by hand.”
She had known that the Yao Class was intense — after all, these were the brilliant minds who had replicated a learning platform as a class project. But building an actual computer — that was truly remarkable. This was both a feat of intellect and a physical craft.
Ning Sui couldn’t help laughing: “Can you actually build one?”
“A simple version — yes. But at most up to something that could run a PowerPoint presentation.”
“Then will you give me the one you build? I want to keep it as a collector’s item.”
Xie Yichen was very agreeable: “Sure.”
Ning Sui drew her arms in, pressing her cheek against his neck in unconscious, easy affection. He smelled wonderful — like warmth and sunlight: “I want it in grass green.”
“……”
“And sign your name on it.”
Xie Yichen’s expression carried a half-smile: “Quite a few requirements.”
“Is that not allowed?” Ning Sui looked at him with clear, bright eyes.
Their gazes met directly. Xie Yichen gave a quiet laugh: “It’s allowed. Of course it’s allowed.”
The lychees he fed her were sweetly fragrant. Ning Sui ate several before stopping, cheeks a little full as she asked curiously: “So does the computer science minor cover things like this too?”
“Not quite — the minor is open to the whole university. But there’s still a decent level of difficulty.”
Xie Yichen smoothed the soft hair resting on her shoulder, winding a strand around his fingers: “Why? Are you interested?”
“Mm.” Ning Sui nodded honestly.
Partly because it was his field, and partly because of everything she’d been exposed to through Shanying — she had picked things up along the way.
“I took that introduction to artificial intelligence course at Qingda before, and I found computer science genuinely interesting.”
The girls in her dormitory had once had a late-night discussion about which subfield of mathematics best suited their personalities. Ning Sui had looked at the options, and pure mathematics probably wasn’t for her — never mind whether she could produce cutting-edge theoretical work, academic perseverance was not something just anyone could sustain.
Statistics and data analysis was the path many classmates chose — safe and steady, but also fairly conventional.
But after Ning Sui had gotten exposure to computer science, she found herself genuinely captivated. That interest was like the first time she had heard her high school teacher Yu Zhiguo discuss the mathematics competition — sparks of inspiration bursting outward like a rush of flame, as if something had suddenly clicked open inside her.
“I’m thinking of starting the computer science minor this semester.” Ning Sui said.
If she could combine mathematics with computer programming, it would allow her to leverage the strengths of both simultaneously to a significant degree.
Ning Sui had always felt that choices in life were limited — it was better to do what you loved. That way, even when you met with setbacks, passion would carry you through.
But she pressed her lips together and still felt a little uncertain: “I just don’t know whether I can do well. Starting down a new direction like this would mean going head-to-head with people who already have solid programming skills.”
For Ning Sui, this was a significant decision. She had never attempted it before, and she had no particular confidence in herself on this front.
As soon as she had finished, though, Xie Yichen replied: “You’ll be fine.”
He said it with such certainty that Ning Sui couldn’t help glancing at him, the corner of her mouth lifting: “How can you be so confident in me?”
“I’ve said it before — you’re smart, you pick things up quickly, and you have a natural aptitude for computer science.”
He had said that before.
Back when they had been working through the artificial intelligence assignment together, if she recalled correctly.
“Really?” Ning Sui’s fingers curled slightly. She said slowly, with a trace of self-consciousness: “I thought that was just something you said to encourage me.”
“Who encouraged you?” Xie Yichen reached over and pulled her in, rubbing her head with casual warmth, his voice rising with unquestionable assurance: “If you have talent, you have talent. Your instincts are sharp and your comprehension is strong. I meant every word.”
Ning Sui was momentarily still.
— So different from Xia Fanghui. Even when she was deeply proud of her daughter’s performance, she had always been sparing with praise — worried that too much encouragement would make Ning Sui complacent and careless.
Whereas with Xie Yichen, what she received was always unguarded affirmation, heaped on generously, as though he were afraid she might not receive enough of it.
The small seedling in her heart grew a little more. Ning Sui’s peach-blossom eyes brightened, and she drew out a long, soft sound of acknowledgment.
“Then I——”
She moistened her lips: “I’ll build you a computer too, when the time comes.”
Xie Yichen raised a brow, smiling: “A token of commitment?”
Ning Sui nodded seriously: “Mm.”
He kissed the tip of her nose, the corner of his mouth curving: “Alright. I’ll be waiting.”
They lingered together for a while longer, then finished their meal and took a car back to the university.
Ning Sui got back to the dormitory in the afternoon. She had assumed Liang Xinyue and the others would each be off doing their own thing, but when she opened the door, all three of them were at their desks. Several pairs of sharp-eyed gazes swiveled toward her simultaneously, and she nearly tripped over the doorstep.
Liang Xinyue smiled pleasantly, though her tone was rather pointed: “Breaking records — first time you’ve been out all night.”
“……”
A needle-sharp observation. Ning Sui’s reactions were genuinely slower than usual — she froze for just a beat, and that tiny hesitation was enough to blow right past her best window for deflecting. The other three exchanged looks, and the silence turned into something nearly festive — three people folding their arms and staring at her with lively, expectant eyes that seemed about to leap right off the starting block.
“Excuse me — are you still working on your story or not?!”
Ning Sui’s gaze drifted, and she said with some guilt: “……Not yet.”
Liang Xinyue let out a scream: “I knew it! I just knew it!”
Yu Qin and Bi Jiaxi looked at each other, both of them barely containing the urge to ask questions.
But before they could build up to anything, Liang Xinyue launched a direct frontal assault: “So — how is he? Was he impressive? Was he impressive?!”
Ning Sui had just picked up a cup, intending to drink some water as a diversion. She accidentally choked.
“Cough cough——”
She had actually anticipated something like this question. But she hadn’t expected such bluntness, and when she really heard it, several flashes of last night’s images cut through her mind without warning.
Xie Yichen had been very careful — he hadn’t left any marks on her neck. But Ning Sui had her head buried, coughing for quite a while, and in the end couldn’t manage to get out a single word.
— Sometimes silence says everything.
Liang Xinyue shook her head in appreciation, clapping her hands: “Understood. Brother Chen — respect.”
Ning Sui: “……”
You haven’t understood anything!
Over the next few hours, the other three girls in the dormitory spent the whole time with their brows in a perpetual, suggestive wiggle, as though their facial nerves were having a collective spasm.
Ning Sui had thought she would only have to endure some light teasing within the dormitory for the time being. But that evening, when she met up with Hu Ke’er for dinner, Hu Ke’er looked her over steadily from head to toe with a meaningful expression that made the back of Ning Sui’s scalp prickle: “Female intuition. I have a feeling my gift has already been used.”
“……”
That one came entirely out of nowhere.
Ning Sui had been eating sesame rice balls at the time, and almost choked again.
Could this person smell it? How on earth could she tell?!
The two of them knew each other far too well. Hu Ke’er read the reaction of Ning Sui burying herself in her food, and managed to piece together a pretty thorough picture.
Finally, the other shoe dropped. Hu Ke’er’s emotions surged internally in a raging tide, but since they were in public, she pressed the excitement down and said in a low voice: “Oh my god! Was it good? Was it really as good as the descriptions in books?”
“……”
She didn’t know quite what to say. It felt — a bit too strange to put into words.
A sound like a mosquito hummed from behind the large bowl of rice balls: “Mm.”
Hu Ke’er exhaled in deep admiration: “Brother Chen — respect!”
Ning Sui: “……”
She didn’t want to speak. She just wanted to quietly curl up and hide.
But that very evening, a post resurfaced on the Qingda anonymous forum: [Oh my god oh my god oh my god!! The Yao Class one is absolutely wild [Stunned]]
The latest reply below: [What happened now, fill us in!]
[Hmm? Who’s this about again?]
[The TP-Link couple]
[Ohh!]
The reply that had pushed the post back up: [Front lines gossip incoming everyone — the Coconut Princess has leveled up……]
[?]
[Just saw the incoming call displayed on the male lead’s phone — her contact name has been upgraded to “Coconut Darling”……]
[OMG]
[Ahhhh!!]
[YO~~~~~~~~~~~]
A long string of “yo”s and heart emojis followed below.
Excited fans, teasing commenters. And more than a few who let out a stream of delighted screaming.
In the middle, though, someone couldn’t hold back a question.
[Okay but — who even is this poster? Why do they always manage to see xyc’s phone contact names?]
At that moment, a certain dormitory roommate by the surname Qu was lying on his upper bunk, eyes gleaming as he tucked his phone away, content to let his contributions go unrecognized.