Zhang Yuge steadied himself before asking: “How about after the scholarship defense—will you be busy next semester?”

“All my classes are done—not that busy anymore,” Xie Yichen answered. “What about you? How are you finding the research group?”

“……”

Zhang Yuge didn’t want to talk about it.

He was suffering right now—no relationship to speak of, and busy beyond all measure.

He had signed up for Chemical Engineering thinking he’d get to play with spectacular colorful crystals. Instead, he was spending every day in the lab helping his senior students culture bacteria. And there was one absolute idiot of a junior who never showed up on time to collect samples, couldn’t bother to seal the culture medium properly with sterile film—and then had the nerve to come in afterward with the most guileless expression and say: “Wow, it grew way beyond expectations!”

Wow yourself, Zhang Yuge thought, furious enough to start screaming.

He felt that their old group of friends had, now that they were all in their fourth year, genuinely begun going their separate ways. He often wanted to meet up, but plans kept getting made and then dissolving.

Nothing like their high school days, when everything had been so simple—a meaningful glance exchanged in the dormitory was enough, and they all knew it was time to pile into someone’s bed together and watch a movie.

Zhang Yuge said: “This semester, once you two have submitted your grad school applications, let’s plan a group trip? A short getaway—Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Japan, something like that. Otherwise I’m going to lose my mind rotting in this lab every day!”

Xie Yichen replied unhurriedly: “Sure, we’ll see what fits when the time comes.”

Having heard him say that, somehow everything felt like it was still the same. Zhang Yuge’s heart steadied, his mood lifting a little: “I’ll start looking at itineraries then!”

They chatted for a bit, and just before hanging up, Xie Yichen said: “Oh, I remember you had someone custom paint a ukulele for your niece a while back?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Where did you get it done? How long did it take?”

Zhang Yuge gave an interested sound: “What are you planning?”

Xie Yichen thought for a moment, then smiled: “Our anniversary is coming up, and I’m thinking about what kind of surprise gift to give my girlfriend.”

And now he didn’t even use her name anymore—just my girlfriend, every time. They were supposed to be mutual friends, weren’t they?!

Zhang Yuge hadn’t even finished his internal commentary when something struck him: “Wait, isn’t your anniversary January 1st? It’s only October??”

Xie Yichen’s tone was entirely matter-of-fact: “Yeah, so?”

Zhang Yuge: “……”

Fine.

There was really nothing to say about someone who spoiled his girlfriend unconditionally.

“I found it on Flashying—clicked the link and ordered it directly. Took about a week,” Zhang Yuge said. “I added the shop on WeChat—I can send it to you.”

Then, as an aside, he added: “Though in my opinion, the finished product looked about the same as something you could buy off the shelf. You might want to look around at other options.”

—

Ning Sui noticed that when it came to the special scholarship defense, Xie Yichen seemed completely unruffled—so much so that she felt like she was more nervous than he was.

With about a week still to go, she was having flashbacks to the gaokao. It felt like a lot of people were quietly paying attention to this event. There would be photography and reporters writing it up on the day—it was all quite grand and ceremonious.

Ning Sui tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. Not wanting to disturb his rest, she tried to inch away from him little by little, as slowly as possible so as not to make too much noise.

But barely a few seconds into her snail-paced retreat, a long, lean arm scooped her back.

Then his leisurely, easy voice drifted down from above her head: “What’s this? Don’t want to sleep again?”

Ning Sui was quiet for a moment. It was getting close to winter, and resting her head against his firm, warm chest was actually quite comfortable. She decided to just stay put: “Just…a little nervous.”

Xie Yichen was caught off guard, then gave a short, amused laugh: “You’re nervous about my defense?”

He pinched her cheek, genuinely and sincerely marveling: “How are you this adorable?”

Ning Sui’s eartips warmed from the teasing—her reflexes were completely beyond her control. She buried her head against him, and after a moment’s reflection, she found it all genuinely perplexing: “So were you really not nervous during the gaokao?”

“A little at first—genuinely not after that.”

Ning Sui remembered that she herself had had a tiny drum beating inside her chest the whole time, lying awake until past two in the morning. She swallowed: “What does not being nervous even feel like?”

Her hair hung loose, soft and silky—it felt very gentle when touched. Xie Yichen curved his lips, running his fingers naturally through the strands, and said: “Just like any other day—write what you know. I wasn’t thinking about anything else.”

Ning Sui said with admiration: “How did you even develop emotional regulation like that?”

Xie Yichen found it genuinely hard to give a precise answer. Maybe growing up under Xie Zhenlin and Qiu Ruoyun’s roof had exposed him to all manner of people and situations from an early age, so very little ever truly caught him off guard.

When he was young, he’d been more introverted than he was now—whatever happened, he pressed it down silently. He came across as cold, which meant he also seemed to have fewer emotional fluctuations.

Later, as he grew up and matured, he gradually learned to show his true feelings with a measure of freedom and restraint.

So now he answered with composed ease: “No idea—maybe I was just born this way?”

Ning Sui immediately thought of learning the piano as a child, reflected for a moment, and said with genuine earnestness: “If I had that ability, I’d probably be a distinguished international concert pianist by now.”

Xie Yichen raised an eyebrow slightly: “How so?”

Ning Sui let out a quiet, nostalgic sigh.

In truth, when she had first started learning the piano—back when her first, more relaxed teacher was instructing her—Ning Sui had been genuinely interested. She found it fascinating to be able to coax all kinds of beautiful melodies from an instrument.

But somehow, things gradually changed.

Why she had given up on the piano wasn’t purely because of the switch to a strict new teacher. There was another reason: every time she had to perform on stage, the fear of making a mistake would make her terribly nervous. Her fingers would stiffen. Her palms would sweat.

And Xia Fanghui had constantly pushed her to enter competitions when she was little—the kind where you played a grand piano in a concert hall. Ning Sui remembered one fairly large regional competition where she had prepared a relatively complex piece. She accidentally played a few wrong notes—then panicked, and everything after that fell apart: the rapid arpeggios blurred into a smear, she even blanked on a section of the score, and the whole performance went completely off the rails.

Xia Fanghui had apparently been quite angry at the time and scolded her right at the entrance of the concert hall, in full view of passersby. Even now, that incident remained one of Ning Sui’s most vivid and deeply imprinted psychological wounds.

——And somehow, no matter how hard she tried afterward, she could never shake that negative feeling before a major performance. She would always get nervous and make mistakes, and with each repeated failure, her confidence took another hit—until eventually she resented and resisted the piano altogether.

“Back then, my mom’s temper was already starting to change for the worse, and after that I just never wanted to play piano again,” Ning Sui said.

The little bedside lamp was on. Xie Yichen’s fingers drifted through her hair, gently stroking and smoothing. He responded softly: “What about now? Does being around a piano still upset you?”

Ning Sui paused, then pressed her lips together: “I don’t know—I haven’t tried since.”

He gave a low hum, his arm wrapping around her back. He patted it once in quiet comfort. After a moment, he tenderly adjusted his position slightly so she could lie more comfortably in his arms.

Ning Sui rested softly against his shoulder. It was all in the past now, so she could speak of it without too much weight. She brought the thread back to where it had started: “So when I first started getting to know you at the beginning of first year, it really did feel quite extraordinary to me.”

Xie Yichen looked down at her and pulled her a little closer: “Mm?”

The person in his arms said it like the most natural thing in the world, nuzzling against him. Her dark eyes glimmered: “You’re the most even-tempered person I’ve ever met.”

Xie Yichen’s throat moved. His dark eyes stayed on her for a long moment, then he dipped his head and pressed a firm kiss to her lips.

His voice came out slow and steady and warm: “Mm,” he said, cupping her face. Then, unable to resist, with a mischievous edge, he squeezed both her cheeks: “Quite the high praise for your boyfriend, hm?”

“Mm……”

——He really did have an extraordinarily even temperament.

There had been several points where she’d pulled back a little, and he’d taken it all in stride.

She had stood him up at the freshmen dance, and he hadn’t been the least bit angry.

Being with him felt special—deeply comfortable and safe. No need to fear his moods swinging unpredictably, no need to worry that one wrong word or action would accidentally hit a nerve.

Xie Yichen was still kneading her cheeks lovingly. Ning Sui’s face was being squished out of shape, her cheeks turning a little pink. She gave him a feeble, not-at-all-threatening glare from under her scrunched expression.

She was just too endearing.

He couldn’t bring himself to do anything mean at all.

Xie Yichen laughed again, feeling something intolerable stir in his chest. He released her face, then pressed his palm over her head and kissed her cheek with a soft, audible smack.

Both of them gazing at each other with burning, unblinking eyes—you kiss me once, I kiss you back—tangled together in playful, lazy tenderness.

The bedside lamp was still on. A warmth neither of them could quite name had long since begun to diffuse through the air. The light pecks gradually became a deep, lingering kiss, low and swaying, filling the room.

In her haze, Ning Sui looked into those dark, striking eyes—black all the way through, and yet blazing with a bright, unguarded light.

If not for the fact that she had an exam tomorrow and it really wouldn’t be convenient to do anything, Ning Sui thought she probably wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight either.

Her heart beat rapidly. Watching his eyes glint with open, unapologetic laughter, she breathed a little unsteadily. With admirable restraint, he helped her fasten the buttons on her nightgown that had come undone. The two of them leaned against the bed, properly tucked under the quilt, and talked just like that.

“A’Chen.”

“Mm?”

Ning Sui turned onto her side. She gazed at him comfortably for a moment, then asked softly: “Your parents’ company is about to go public—are you happy about it?”

Xie Yichen was briefly taken aback, and then looked at her deeply.

When word of this spread, most people probably thought how fortunate he was—born with so much already in hand, a lifetime without worry. These past few days, he had heard comments that ran the gamut from envy to jealousy—understandable, all of it.

But——it seemed that no one, apart from her, actually cared about whether he was happy.

Something shifted hard inside Xie Yichen. The vague restlessness he’d been carrying seemed to smooth over all at once, clearing like clean, still water.

“In the conventional sense—yes, I suppose so.”

He tilted his head back slightly, speaking with calm candor: “But if I had a choice, I’d want them to stop working so hard, to come home when they can—stop being away all the time.”

Every child had perhaps truly, sincerely wanted their parents’ love and presence at some point. He was no different—except that he had gradually, regretfully come to understand that this particular wish had no chance of ever being fulfilled.

But Xie Yichen was pragmatic, and he counted himself fortunate. After all, wanting everything to go exactly as you wished was pretty much impossible in this world. Things being as they were now was already quite good.

……

The next day Ning Sui had two midterm exams. She and Yu Qin had plans to have dinner together that evening, and once they’d both finished their last paper in the afternoon, they packed up and rode their bikes out together, booking a 5:30 spot at a restaurant near the shopping center.

The two streets near Peking University had long since been explored in full. Watching Yu Qin occasionally glance at her phone and reply to messages, Ning Sui asked curiously: “Are you still in contact with Qu Handong?”

Yu Qin paused, expression visibly a little uncomfortable: “Sort of……”

Ning Sui’s eyes sharpened: “Oh? There’s something going on, isn’t there?”

“No……”

Ning Sui’s gaze drifted unhurriedly to her screen: “Then who are you chatting with? You’ve checked your phone several times in the last five minutes.”

Yu Qin had absolutely no talent for concealment. After a brief stiff resistance, she surrendered and ducked her chin in a defeated nod, on the verge of tears: “Okay fine—I’ll admit there is a bit of a situation.”

——Looking back: she had met Qu Handong for the first time during summer break of second year, and he had left a fairly poor impression on her. Although it was clear he’d still been trying to make conversation with her after, she hadn’t given him much to work with, and the two had gradually drifted apart.

But this semester, he had enrolled in an open elective course at Peking University, and the two had inevitably crossed paths in class, randomly assigned to the same group.

Yu Qin had gone in without any expectations—just treating him as a normal teammate. But what stunned her was that her opinion of Qu Handong had done a complete one-eighty this time around.

She discovered he was quite impressive—sharp and intelligent, meticulous and reliable in how he handled things. And once it got around that Qu Handong was a Yao Class prodigy, the entire group basically leaned on him to carry them, and they all looked up to and depended on him enormously.

As a math student herself, Yu Qin had a touch of intellectual attraction to a point.

During group discussions, she found herself sneaking glances at him. She gradually noticed that he was actually quite appealing to her aesthetically—usually wearing glasses, which gave him a scholarly, measured look. When he was being serious, he actually came across as quite impressive.

How to put it—the contrast with their first encounter was stark.

She still didn’t quite understand what had come over her. She’d just quietly developed a slightly different kind of feeling, and then gone back to her dorm and realized, with some alarm, that she was still thinking about him.

But Qu Handong’s attitude seemed to have changed.

He treated her the way he treated any other teammate. Maybe a little more familiar than the other students, but there was still a definite distance. He’d see her and offer a polite greeting. Nothing like the sunshine-bright afternoon at the amusement park when he’d been running back and forth earnestly buying her ice cream.

Yu Qin sighed and twisted her fingers: “Sui-babe, do you know—does Qu Handong have a girlfriend?”

“Probably not.” Otherwise Xie Yichen would have mentioned it to her.

Yu Qin quietly let out a breath of relief: “That’s good then.”

Ning Sui observed her reaction and felt she was genuinely developing feelings: “Are you sure you like him?”

Yu Qin looked down, clearly flustered, and gave an honest “mm”: “I don’t seem to be able to help it.”

Then she laid out her concern: “But with his attitude being like this—I’m not sure what to do. If I don’t make any kind of move, things will just keep drifting along like this forever.”

Ning Sui thought for a moment, then said with a blink: “What if you tried being a little more proactive—showing your interest, making him aware of it?”

Yu Qin: “Are you saying I should pursue him?”

“Sort of.”

“Then how do I judge where the line is?”

“Just, keep dropping hints?” Ning Sui thought it over and said with confidence: “But don’t make it too obvious right from the start.”

Yu Qin said uncertainly: “Okay, I’ll try.”

The two walked along the street side by side, and then Yu Qin thought of something important: “Wait—do you even have experience with this?”

Ning Sui looked over with an innocent expression.

Yu Qin raised a suspicious eyebrow: “In your relationship with your boyfriend—were you the one taking the initiative?”

Ning Sui pursed her lips: “Mm…doesn’t seem like it.”

Yu Qin looked at her, and delivered her conclusion with solemn grief: “So what exactly have the two of us been laboring over here? Isn’t this just the blind leading the blind?”

Ning Sui: “…………”

There was no need to put it quite that bluntly.

—

After dinner the two parted ways. Ning Sui walked slowly along the street, watching the streams of traffic and people rushing past on either side.

Xie Yichen wasn’t on campus right now—he was with Du Junnian over at the 798 Art District, meeting with the person in charge of an arts complex to discuss a collaboration with some good designers on a Flashying co-branding initiative. It was something like a mental break before the scholarship defense, combined with a little sightseeing.

The business talks had gone relatively smoothly. He’d called her a little while ago to update her, saying it might take a bit longer to wrap up, and then they’d probably grab dinner—he estimated he’d be back around nine or later.

Ning Sui had nothing in particular to do anyway. She happened to be passing by Tsinghua’s southeast gate, so she thought she’d wander over and have a look at the venue where his defense would be held.

It was in the back hall of Tsinghua’s Main Building—an imposing space with a tall, upright flagpole out front, a wide expanse of green lawn, and a fountain. She’d only ever seen it from a distance before, so she followed the navigation app, walking and looking.

Xia Fanghui had apparently forwarded something in the family group chat. Ning Sui tapped into it while climbing the stairs—a news story about a bank collapse. She had skimmed through it and was about to exit when a related news alert popped up from the top of the screen.

The lawns in front of the Main Building were full of people coming and going, bicycle bells ringing cheerfully along the wide path. Ning Sui’s footsteps slowed to a halt. She stopped in the middle of the empty, echoing hall.

【Another Unicorn Explodes: Is Internet SaaS Giant Tengyun’s Scandal Exposed? Alleged Pyramid Scheme Virtual Currency Fraud Involving 2.3 Billion!】

Her mind rang with a buzzing sound. Her thoughts went almost blank. Her gaze was fixed, unmoving, on those words.

She read them several times over and somehow still couldn’t quite process their meaning.

By the time she had jumped into a taxi and was racing toward the 798 Art District, the only thought in her head was: she couldn’t let Xie Yichen face something like this alone.

……

Beijing’s elevated highways in the evening were, as always, thoroughly gridlocked—motionless as standing water. But online, it was as if someone had thrown a stone into a pond. She typed “Tengyun” into the search bar and pressed enter—and in that single instant, an endless torrent of stories came flooding in from every direction, crashing over her like a wave, making it faintly difficult to breathe.

Illegal. Explosion of scandal. Absconded with funds. All utterly alien words, each one striking her in the face.

Ning Sui stared at the screen in a daze for a moment, then realized that her phone had been filling up with messages—people she was close to, who had seen the news, sending her careful, tentative questions asking whether she knew what had happened.

She didn’t really understand the full meaning of the article yet—just watched the red notification dots multiply one by one, her mood growing more bewildered and anxious.

Among their group, Lin Shuyu was the only one with a finance background. Ning Sui’s palm—damp with a light cold sweat—gripped her phone tight. Before she could even dial his number, he called her directly.

He had probably also seen the news. Ning Sui grabbed onto him like a lifeline: “So——what exactly happened? Are the consequences going to be really serious? What’s going to happen to Xie Yichen’s parents?”

Lin Shuyu: “Ning Sui, don’t panic—listen to me first.”

Ning Sui squeezed her fingertips together, pressing down on her own emotions: “……Okay, go ahead.”

Lin Shuyu: “Issuing virtual digital currency as a financial product is currently illegal in China. From what I know, this was handled by a subsidiary company under their group. It sounds like something broke down internally in the power structure—the virtual currency products were layered in packaging to look like ordinary investment products and used to attract investors. The relevant department heads have now taken the money and run.”

“2.3 billion isn’t a huge sum—it’s roughly one year’s net profit for the company. What matters more is the reputational crisis,” Lin Shuyu continued, sighing unavoidably. “Apparently an investor who lost several hundred thousand jumped off a building. And at this critical juncture right before their listing, with public sentiment this unfavorable, the shareholders and the public will likely lose confidence—it’ll deal a significant blow to operations and valuation, triggering a whole chain of consequences afterward.”

Ning Sui listened to his careful explanation for some time, and finally pieced together a rough picture.

Tengyun, as an internet company, had many divisions within its group structure. One was a blockchain subsidiary that had previously focused on relevant technical applications. In theory, under the regulations, they weren’t permitted to issue financial products tied to this technology—but apparently they had somehow gotten through the normal review process using certain methods, attracting a large number of investors. In the end, senior management had walked off with the money.

In principle, the parent company should have provided guarantees for the subsidiary. Now that the scandal had broken, while Xie Yichen’s parents hadn’t directly broken the law, they still bore joint liability for the debt—the full sum of tens of billions would need to be repaid in installments. And simultaneously, the listing plan they had been pushing forward with all their strength was almost certainly doomed to be halted midway.

This was somewhat better than the absolute worst case she had been imagining. She’d initially thought the company might collapse entirely.

But Ning Sui pressed her lips together tightly, and still felt as though a heavy stone were pressing down on her chest.

One thing pulls another—Ning Sui didn’t know which link in the chain had snapped, didn’t know what kind of situation Xie Zhenlin and Qiu Ruoyun were now facing. But more than any of that, what she cared about at this moment was that boy who had always pressed forward with such unflinching certainty.

Ning Sui didn’t know whether he had already heard the news, but she couldn’t bear to imagine what he must be feeling right now.

Just yesterday, he had been holding her close and saying he wished his parents could come home.

The thought of him facing something like this all on his own made Ning Sui’s eyes sting.

She was afraid he might still be in the middle of the business talks and hadn’t called. But now she couldn’t hold herself back any longer. With her mind in complete turmoil, she dialed his number.

It rang several times.

“Sorry, the number you have dialed is currently switched off.”

The cold, automated voice played in her ear. Something inside Ning Sui’s chest went hollow in an instant. Even her breathing seemed to freeze.

Xie Yichen never turned his phone off.

He kept it on twenty-four hours a day because he was always afraid she might need to reach him.

A sudden wave of panic swept through her—as if all the strength had been drained from her body in one go. Her limbs went heavy and uncooperative.

Where was he right now?

——Why was his phone off?

Could something have happened……

Everything ahead was a solid black mass of traffic. Horns blared in erratic, noisy surges. Ning Sui struggled to stop her mind from spiraling to other possibilities. Her eyes kept falling back to the screen of her phone—which was now lighting up with an unceasing stream of new notifications. Tsinghua’s campus confessions board had already exploded with posts as well.

【omg, isn’t Tengyun XYC’s family company…………】 【holy crap holy crap holy crap. shocked】 【What’s going to happen? Are Xie Yichen’s parents going to go to jail?】 【Oh wow, is this real……】 【Stop spreading rumors—it’s just debt, not that serious. It’s mainly just terrible timing, everything piling up at once [sigh]】 【Did someone actually jump off a building】 【That’s what people are saying, but it seems like the scholarship defense might be in jeopardy now?】 【Hard to say……the defense is in a few days, right?】 【I bet his qualification gets revoked】 【NOOO how could this happen! Poor thing—that’s A’Chen we’re talking about! Why should the parents’ actions drag him into this】 【Xie Yichen did benefit from the advantages his parents’ resources gave him, didn’t he? So they’re all tied together】 【Agreed +1】 【Why would an internet company get into financial products—were they that desperate to make money? If it blows up, honestly, they had it coming】 【I’d been thinking all along that he’d gotten too much spotlight—at least it’s balanced out now】 【? What kind of mindset is that】 【Normal mindset [smirk]】

In an instant, a tide of voices—sighing, shocked, spectating—crashed over her from every direction. And those voices that had once been full of nothing but praise now stood on the sidelines, cautiously watching to see how things developed.

There has never been such a thing as an unwavering supporter in this world. Today they might say something is white; tomorrow they could say it’s black—and the moment the wind shifts, someone will always kick you when you’re down. Ning Sui had long understood this about the world. And yet seeing these comments now still made her feel as though she had plunged into ice water, with a stabbing, aching pain in her chest.

She still couldn’t get through to Xie Yichen’s phone. Her thoughts were a tangled blur the whole way there, her heart full of anxious dread. Then came a sharp blare of a horn from the front of the vehicle—the driver turned around and called out to her: “Miss, we’re here—are you getting out or not?”

Only then did Ning Sui fully snap out of it. She grabbed her bag and flew out of the car.

Standing on the busy art district boulevard, she had no idea where to begin looking.

The last location Xie Yichen had sent her was where the business talks were being held. Ning Sui opened the navigation app and headed in that direction, her mind running on empty.

The faces on the passersby around her all seemed to carry expressions that clashed entirely with the state she was in. The messages she sent him went unanswered. Ning Sui walked fast, searching frantically through the crowd, her anxiety ratcheting up with every passing second.

Unable to bear it, she tried calling him two more times—both went straight to his switched-off phone.

She clutched her phone until her knuckles went pale, feeling completely at a loss.

She lifted her head in a daze. Without noticing, she had walked to the entrance of a vinyl record shop—retro red and green décor, and from inside came the faint, lingering notes of some half-heard melody. The square directly across from the shop held a large Western-style statue fountain. Night had begun to settle in. Only the soft, murmuring water moved slowly in the dim light, silent and unhurried.

A vague memory surfaced—hadn’t he said something, once, about this being the place where his parents had met?

And then her gaze shifted—and she saw, standing just in front of the fountain, the person she had been desperately searching for. He was looking upward, lost in thought, his eyes fixed on the little angel statue at the very top. Ning Sui’s nose stung sharply, and she sprinted toward him.

He seemed to notice her too. His voice came out low and hushed, calling her name: “Little Coconut?”

Ning Sui didn’t say a word—she barreled headfirst into his arms. Xie Yichen caught the full impact of her, pulled her close for a brief, tight embrace, then urgently drew her back to look at her carefully. He found that her eyes were red, her face wet with salty tears, and one hand was gripping her phone in a white-knuckled hold, still on the dialing screen.

Xie Yichen’s throat clenched. He was suddenly flustered too, raising his hand to wipe her tears: “You called me? I’m sorry—my phone just accidentally got smashed. It wouldn’t turn on——”

Before he could finish, Ning Sui ducked her head, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a green grape-flavored soft candy. With careful, stubborn tenderness, she pressed it into his warm palm, her voice coming out small and hoarse: “……Mm, for you.”